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Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

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Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#131

Post by calvinmorrison »

drewzero1 wrote: post #85
bigiain wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does anyone know of a tool to generate the very nice wiring diagrams you'll see in bently and other automotive manuals? Does Fritzing get close to what you're after? It can create stuff like this: http://troybaverstock.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/arduino...

I've played around with it a bit in the past for Arduino stuff, and it could be promising for this application. Do you get to pick the colors of each wire? (Bonus: are striped wires supported?) Ideally you'd be able to mark each wire with an indication of color(s) and diameter so the diagram could be printed in black and white (example[0]). I assume that could be done with labels, but on the scale of a vehicle that c…

Drew, why do you have a fuel diagram of a Saab 900? are you another saab guy?

The wiring diagram I am working on is actually for my 900, for which the original fans are bulks, tend to break, and are a NLA. I've exhausted my spares and so now I am going a different route.

But yes, these are exactly the diagrams I am talking about.

Having a computerized version of this would be awesome, actual colors, inlining some information or having 'hyperlinking' around. A lot of the density in these diagrams is to simply fit them on two pages. But, at the same time, it'd be cool to have a picture of say, the solenoid with arrows pointing to the particular pins or replacing the numbers with labels, or say, selecting a relay and having an 'active' path so you could easily see how things flow around without finger tracing it over 3 pages.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#132

Post by simne »

It may surprise, but ALL Cray-1 machines, does not have MICROprocessors at all - just digital logic low scale integration.

And nearly all "Big" computers before era of mini-computers, also does not have MICROprocessors, their CPU consists of whole board of chips or even more than one board.

Imagine, one of the first commercial computers with MICROprocessor chip, was microVAX II, appears nearly decade later than 8086.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#133

Post by simne »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #107
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems are power consumption, speed, cost, size, development time, and the difficulty of updates and bug fixes. A modern embedded processor handily solves all of those. Boards full of TTL are a fascinating engineering exercise, but there aren't many applications where they're a better solution. It's also tempting to cheat and solve some of the sub-problems with monostables and analog timers. As soon as you do t…

> power consumption That's the only one I don't quite understand. All your other points are definitely great objections. Are you saying that a clocked system consistently uses less power than a stateful but quiescently 'static' circuit? I can imagine there's a reason, but it goes counter to my experience that the faster you clock a microprocessor the more power it consumes; therefore at zero clock rate a purely data-…

Simplest explanation, that universal logic chips MUST have very wide tolerances, to be really universal.

- They have to use significantly higher voltages and consider higher currents, than really need to work.

For example, typical logic output of universal TTL logic, considers connect to it more than 10 inputs, each of them drain some current.

And also, universal logic i/o MUST tolerate some differences in power supply voltages and interference on real circuits.

But if you don't need to communicate to outside of chip, you could make things much more optimized, make customized outputs, considering for only as much drain as really exists in scheme; make internal highly stabilized power supply and very powerful power distribution network.

For first CPUs this was not talked, they just considered as very expensive logic chip, but ~ from 80186, hard to say exactly date, appears division: some outputs become high power, others stay "normal", low power.

And in commodity cpus, in Pentium appear two voltages - one for core and other for interface circuits.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#134

Post by masswerk »

Cadwhisker wrote: post #87
masswerk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, there was Computer Space, by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney (1971, Nutting Associates/Syzygy Engineering), the first coin-op arcade video game, also made from TTL logic. This one actually pioneered the approach. For a description see https://www.masswerk.at/rc2017/04/02.html Syzygy Engineering (Bushnell and Dabney) soon became Atari, but still entertained links to Nutting Associates with Atari titles appearin…

That's quite impressive; I wonder why it's not mentioned more often. The gameplay looks like Asteroids with just the saucers (not the rocks).

This may be due to the machine not being a great success and becoming somewhat obscure by this. Also, restoration may be not that easy for those more accustomed to later arcade machines.

Most of the early arcade games, like Space Race (much like its later, better remembered revival Chicken Run), Gotcha, etc., are seriously overshadowed by Pong.

Regarding Computer Space, I once made a simulator for the PDP-1 (the machines that ran Spacewar), so it can be played in a browser (emulating a PDP-1). I have never seen the original in person, so there's no guarantee for this being faithful down to the tinier details. Anyways: https://www.masswerk.at/icss/

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#135

Post by aidenn0 »

Someone wrote: post #114
nonrandomstring wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> power consumption That's the only one I don't quite understand. All your other points are definitely great objections. Are you saying that a clocked system consistently uses less power than a stateful but quiescently 'static' circuit? I can imagine there's a reason, but it goes counter to my experience that the faster you clock a microprocessor the more power it consumes; therefore at zero clock rate a purely data-…

I don’t understand speed, either. Once you have the desired circuit, you don’t have to build it out of discrete components, you also can send it to a fab (I think that already happened with 7400-style ICs, too. The 74248 BCD to seven segment decoder doesn’t contain lots of individual NAND gates) That will introduce practical problems, though. If you want your design on the best tech possible, that costs serious money…

Cost of fabbing an ASIC is 7 figures. Cost of compiling software is approximately zero. This is assuming that the development costs are similar.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#136

Post by [deleted] »

masswerk wrote: post #59
Cadwhisker wrote: post #27

Excluding "Spacewar", Pong is the first "classic" arcade game that has reached the milestone of being 50 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_arcade_video_game_...

Notably, there was Computer Space, by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney (1971, Nutting Associates/Syzygy Engineering), the first coin-op arcade video game, also made from TTL logic. This one actually pioneered the approach. For a description see https://www.masswerk.at/rc2017/04/02.html Syzygy Engineering (Bushnell and Dabney) soon became Atari, but still entertained links to Nutting Associates with Atari titles appearin…

[deleted]

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#137

Post by srvmshr »

I can't remember which game it was, but one of the arcade games used a set of basic chips to create a detailed vertical half of a spacecraft & the other half was mirrored over from the centerline due to space/current & chip cost constraints. When I had read about it, I marveled how absolutely ingenious early game developers were.

Since I grew up in post-golden age of arcade, I don't really know which game that was - but I presume it was one of the Nolan Bushnell creations from vague recollection.

Edit: It was Spacerace. From Wikipedia:

>The engineering and prototyping for Asteroid was done by Alcorn. The game is encoded entirely in discrete electronic components, like Atari's earlier games, and unlike later computer-based arcade games; the graphics are all simple line elements with the exception of the spacecraft, which are generated based on diodes on the circuit board arranged in the shape of half of a ship to represent the shape they create [..] That half ship is mirrored on the screen, similar to the diode array in Computer Space, which generated eight directions of a rotating ship with a mirrored four images.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#138

Post by dmd »

bluGill wrote: post #123
okeuro49 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not need 'firmware' updates Well, you might still need flaws to be fixed in the device, but now flaws in the device can never be corrected.

true, but most people doing hardware are doing formal designs and prove their work correct. While the proofs are not perfect, there are a lot less bugs. The cost of fixing bugs in hardware is a lot more than software, so it is seen as worth it. Of course the cost of doing the above is one reason we don't do everything in hardware. If you have the money you could implement everything people do with computers in hardwa…

> most people doing hardware are doing formal designs and prove their work correct.

My god how I wish that were true.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#139

Post by sixothree »

aswanson wrote: post #52
ajp11 wrote: post #19

In the year 1974, Practical Wireless, a UK magazine, published a design for a pong game that connects to a television, called PW Tele Tennis. It uses sixty four NAND gates, twelve NE555 timers, two dozen diodes and some analog parts. It's about the most basic version of the game. They later published a sound effects board and an on-screen scoring board that uses a couple of dozen more chips. http://searle.x10host.com…

The 70s were everything.

The 70's were when it started. You can see it in the Sears catalogs (which are available online). For most of the early 70's there's nothing interesting. Then there's Pong. Then there's an absolutely explosion.

Re: Original Pong did not have any code or even a microprocessor

#140

Post by leetbulb »

simne wrote: post #132

It may surprise, but ALL Cray-1 machines, does not have MICROprocessors at all - just digital logic low scale integration. And nearly all "Big" computers before era of mini-computers, also does not have MICROprocessors, their CPU consists of whole board of chips or even more than one board. Imagine, one of the first commercial computers with MICROprocessor chip, was microVAX II, appears nearly decade later than 8086.

A CPU, whether its implementation is a microprocessor or a board of chips, is very different from a game implemented only using discrete components.

It is crazy though to imagine supercomputers implemented without microchips, not to mention vacuum tubes, hell, wood and brass.

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