OT: For those who cannot get that f*cking computah to do what they want

You don't like Python?

Colt Python?

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Les Cargill

On a sunny day (Tue, 28 Apr 2015 11:23:35 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Simon S Aysdie wrote in :

I don't. Nothing it can do I cannot do in asm.

;-)

That's true. But I would hate to have to do what some of our engineers do in Python, in assembly. Especially on a PC !

I DO love assembly language though.

boB

Hi Jan,

why did you write your newreader in C instead of assembly?

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John Devereux

On a sunny day (Wed, 29 Apr 2015 10:49:51 -0700) it happened boB wrote in :

Yes, but on a PC like platform I would use C. There are ton of libraries if you need those too. At least for Linux / Unix. C is a very clean language, extensible as you want.

Not C++, that is a crime against humanity. :-)

On a sunny day (Wed, 29 Apr 2015 20:00:17 +0100) it happened John Devereux wrote in :

Well, the original was actually in binary, you know entered with dip switches, but few could copy it.

;-)

BTW that is actually how I started programming EPROMS, work out the instructions on paper in 1010 1010 format, enter those with switches one byte at the time (you know the sequence), and then get a processor to run it.

I seem to recall doing that, but just when trying to get a home-made computer-driven EPROM programmer to work. I think I just programmed in some pin-toggling loop, a few bytes.

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John Devereux

Despite the smiley, I very much doubt that DIP (Dual In line Plastic) switches have actually be used for program entry, These are far too flimsy for any general usage. Of course, real computer front panel flip or push button switches survive much better the program entry.

One of the final tests for new computer operators was to enter some addresses, such as 136932 into the front panel. This caused some amassment until the trainee realized that you can't enter the digit 9 into a group of 3 switches :-)

On a sunny day (Thu, 30 Apr 2015 08:11:46 +0100) it happened John Devereux wrote in :

Yes very similar here.

And it is a good learning experience, also to learn the instruction set.

These days people start from the top, with python or something on a quad core. They have no clue what a flipflop is, how a dynamic RAM works, what a processor is, what asm or binary is, nothing about I/O, logic levels,. Like an architect that does not know about bricks. And the systems collapse.

Sure, how to drive a car you do not have to be able to design a combustion engine, or even be able to repair it. But to DESIGN a car you should. After this generation ... dark ages, people die because their app does not come up.

And I always had a great time coding and building that stuff. Hours and hours after work until midnight.. And then used what I learned.

The development in the early 1970's was quite rapid. At school we had a computer class working with logical AND, OR and NOT gates, but also access to a BASIC interpreter via a (20 mA/modem) TeleType connection.

Of course, these two disciplines were not very well integrated.

However, based on that experience I still claim that it would have been quite easy to design a tube only (or tube+semiconductor diode) computer.

When I was a boy, we used to defrag discs by editing the inodes by hand, with magnets.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

Hey, my masterpiece was making a "high resolution graphics" thing by piggy-backing a tower of 16 2114 RAM chips.

It worked but the middle ones overheated, giving some nice speckles.

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John Devereux

You had magnets?

We made them by banging on pieces of bog iron with rocks.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

On a sunny day (Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:29:07 +0100) it happened John Devereux wrote in :

Did it with dynamic RAM

Na, this worked OK,

I released a lot of stuff here:

That is actually more of a 80 columns text card, with light pen interface.

I kept the pictures, threw the hardware away years ago.

haha yes that is the sort of thing. I didn't know anything about dynamic RAM then.

I threw it all away, pity.

I had one of these

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John Devereux

On a sunny day (Fri, 01 May 2015 08:34:20 +0100) it happened John Devereux wrote in :

That is a very nice board. And that looks like an Aztec modulator to me?

Where I worked there was at some time a Commodore PET 2000 well there was more, like a PDP10 or was it 11? My first encounter with Unix. Anyways I did play moon landing game on that Commodore.

Of course I did not have one myself... There was all sorts of stuff at that place, Motorola what no, lots of people building stuff.

The first computer I actually bought was a Sinclair ZX80:

and then the fun really started.

That BASIC interpreter was very very good BTW. Then I got an assembler on tape for it, and started writing my own OS that had to be CP/M compatible, and floppy interface that had to be Kaypro 2 compatible,

so it could read CP/M software from the CP/M computer club. And when that worked had a C compiler run on it (C80 from Software Toolworks).

I did buy a ZX81, but never went into that ZXspectrum stuff. Mine was already many times more powerful by then...

That RAM disk, the system at power up would load the whole Kaypro 2 floppy into that RAM disk. then all the seek times where the IBM PC was rattling on those 5 1/2 and 3 inch floppies was eliminated, making my system faster than an early 386. Fix the bottle neck. First lesson.

Strange they did not see that at IBM.

I never bought an IBM like PC until the AMD 486 DX2 66 came out. That lasted a while with DRDOS (Digital Research DOS), and MS win 3.1 running on DRDOS, then I found Linux and it has been Linux ever since. MS Win98 did not run my games... I still have it on some PC as it has drivers for my flat bed scanner that dropped on the floor and makes funny noises, no Linux driver.

Computahs :-)

I haven't seen a capacitor like that since cannibalizing TVs for parts in the mid 70's!