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Old farts reminiscing about computers
- Thread starter HankLloydRight
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CuriousG
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SpiceWare
Member
Yes, thats why I had "Under development I have Draconian (Bosconian)" in my original post.
I learned about that after we'd decided on the name(see AtariLeaf's comment in my blog). I was originally planning to buy a CoCo as my first computer, but as I mentioned in that post:
Don't need a PC speaker... Just put an AM radio close to your TRS-80 tuned to the right frequency !
TIL that the Tandy TRS-80 Model I radiated so much interference that many games were designed so that an AM radio next to the computer could be used to provide sounds. • r/todayilearned
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I started my career writing Z-80 assembly on an embedded system. I later wrote some other assembly, but I haven't written any in over 25 years. C and C++ are efficient enough they are better options for writing embedded code these days. It's a lot easier to maintain the code down the line.
To bring this back to Tesla, I did haul an entire car load of old computers and parts to Free Geek a few weeks ago. I think all my old Sound Blasters were in there. I think there were a few ISA Sound Blasters in there.
GlmnAlyAirCar
Active Member
Wow that was a difficult piece of hardware to configure. IO ports, IRQs, DMA ranges, and if anything conflicted, nothing worked. Pull everything out, check all the jumpers, and try again.
Xenius
Active Member
I did some assembly in a "computer languages" class, as well as in a computer engineering class where we literally were writing assembly for one of those logic boards that you'd carry around, while I was in college at VA Tech (go hokies!).
I haven't used anything that basic since entering the "real world" in 2006.
To be honest, the machines of those days were more robust since they were hard configured. Jumpers required patience, but they don't ever screw up. Once you set them, you are good for life. I know since I just swapped out a jumper-era computer for a DOS specific CMM last week.
The ISA machine had an unknown failure. You could not even get BIOS screen. Took the HDD (IDE) out and the 2 controller cards, then stuffed them into another ~20-25 year old machine that would boot successfully.
BINGO! No other changes, the computer booted, and I got the automated machine back in operation generating >$100/hr in 30 minutes. So I lost 30 minutes of my time, and $50. You can't do that with Windows if the hardware is even a little different.
However...
Last year or so, a Win8.1-64Pro? computer running another CMM failed to fully boot after an update. Windows was reporting it as hardware. I ended up swapping out everything, from the SSD, to RAM, to CPU, to PSU (even though it tested OK), finally to motherboard. Nope.
Not hardware. Everything was now brand new and matched P/N's. Had to burn it to the ground. Reformat, reinstall Windows, reinstall CMM Manager software, printer drivers, card drivers, motherboard drivers, Office, Adobe, CAD, etc, etc, etc. The whole process had the machine down 3 days by shipping everything needed Overnight. Parts cost was about $1500, another Win seat was another $150. But the big loss was losing $2400 of gross profit, and about 8 hrs of my labor I could have used elsewhere.
What was really wrong? I'll never be 100% sure, but it appeared that Windows corrupted it's loader but could not see anything wrong so it reported it was a hardware problem without actually having any evidence of it. If it doesn't wake up in Safe Mode, with 100% new hardware, but would boot and run from a DVD or USB stick but won't recover from backup or repair, you are sort of screwed.
After that, I mirrored every CMM computer drive in the building and stored them on a shelf.
Having read "Racing the Beam", and watched a couple of documentaries about the Nolan and the Atari boys during Stella/The 2600 lifetime, as well as the guys who peeled off to do Activision, I have to say that's an amazing piece of work...
Bravo sir.
Ahh assembly language.
Cut my teeth on that a bit when I was introduced to the 6502 with my first computer, an Apple ][+ in 4th grade. Shape tables FTW!
Hacked around some more on my C64, and got a chance to play with my first "development environment" with GeoProgrammer under GEOS.
Took a digital architecture class in college... this was late 80's... I indeed suspect it's a dying art.
Cut my teeth on that a bit when I was introduced to the 6502 with my first computer, an Apple ][+ in 4th grade. Shape tables FTW!
Hacked around some more on my C64, and got a chance to play with my first "development environment" with GeoProgrammer under GEOS.
Took a digital architecture class in college... this was late 80's... I indeed suspect it's a dying art.
Same here. Spent sophomore and junior year in HS doing Applesoft Basic. By senior year ('82) got bored, and taught myself some basic 6502 assembler. I think I was doing low level disk drive IO for fun. Things were so simple back then.
Back in the day, I wrote a whole bunch of games in 6502 / 6510 (VIC-20) machine code. Also, for C-64, Atari 520-ST, etc.
It really was machine code. I remembered hex opcodes, not the assembly mnemonics.
Just poke a bunch of values into memory and jump to it.
Most were destined for ROM cartridges with something like 5K memory, so it had to be "tight code" to get decent game play with limited resources.
It really was machine code. I remembered hex opcodes, not the assembly mnemonics.
Just poke a bunch of values into memory and jump to it.
Most were destined for ROM cartridges with something like 5K memory, so it had to be "tight code" to get decent game play with limited resources.
CuriousG
Active Member
While you were doing low level I/O programming, I was doing low level arson. I literally smoked one of our school floppy drives by moving it to another computer to copy ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ educational programs but failed to align the pins correctly to the header. The billow of smoke left behind was mesmerizing. Good times.
thecloud
As rhythm raced inside, the ship came alive
Free time, no money, and a clear need to defeat those annoying bad-sector CP schemes? What better motivator for learning!
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