Dude wrote in pen. We are not worthy, brothers and sisters. We are not worthy.
How I coded in 1985
41–50 of 120 posts
Re: How I coded in 1985
#42And this was just a small utility. Then think about things like the Apollo program being coded the same way (or more obliquely on punch cards).
There is a finite and limited amount of complexity this allows for. We've been given quite the catch-22: the ability to build increasingly complex system while needing to maintain those increasingly complex systems.
On whatever project you are currently working on, how much less code do you think you'd be writing if you had to hand write it? Where would the project be better for it and where would it be worse?
Re: How I coded in 1985
#43Finally, some programming this old fart recognises. Why did it all get so complicated?
Yeah, I know. Rose tinted and all that.
Re: How I coded in 1985
#44The comments made me go look for Compute! 168 issues available on archive.org: http://archive.org/details/compute-magazine
Re: How I coded in 1985
#45Finally, some programming this old fart recognises. Why did it all get so complicated? Yeah, I know. Rose tinted and all that.
> Why did it all get so complicated?
Two words: 'the web'.
Slightly longer: we're re-inventing the wheel through a very roundabout path, I think right now we've gone back in time to roughly the mainframe area, it won't be long before someone will invent the mini computer all over again only this time it will be a local cluster in a box. Next after that the PC, a 'personal cluster' with a few 100 nodes the size of the desktop machine you had last year.
Re: How I coded in 1985
#46I had a KIM-1 in the late seventies and for several years I would run into other people who used one, but 1985 seems really late for programming on one of these. For me, the KIM-1 was my first experience with programming and a computer of any sort. It influenced my taste for low-level concepts, not only through x86 assembly programming for graphics in the 90s but much later in the lambda calculus and combinatory logi…
It was late to be programming one but it was (a) what was available where I was and (b) it had good I/O for the interfacing.
But that FSK demodulator was incredibly finicky. More than one tape I recall I had to try to read a lot of times while tweaking the playback speed on the recorder!
Re: How I coded in 1985
#47I remember playing around with machine instructions on the 6502. I wouldn't call it hand assembly; it was more like copying and groping around. I probably wrote less than 200 lines in my life. But what a neat feeling! There's something about putting in these numerical codes and seeing a graphical result that I haven't experienced since then. Yes, higher-level languages rock, but dang, this is coding next to the metal…
I know that feeling. My undergrad CS course had a rigorous electronics component where we coded in ASM for the 8086. One of my fondest moments of that time was when I wrote a program that would split the terminal screen into two halves of different color, and display what you typed on one side and the inverse case on the other.
This could probably be done with less than 50 lines in python, but doing it in assembly, calling all those interrupt routines, making sure your registers contained all the right values, man, when it finally worked, it was the greatest feeling in the world!
Re: How I coded in 1985
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saved a lot of stuff: http://blog.jgc.org/2009/08/in-which-i-switch-on-30-year-old...
I am just beginning to worry about this sort of thing (#) but what age were you in 1979/82 with your sharp computer, and I have assumed I will be trying to guide my son / daughter onto emulators (nand2tetris etc) rather than real physical machines - or are there real physical machines which are simple enough and have root on to be early hacking machines? (#) https://github.com/lifeisstillgood/importantexperiments4kid…
"are there real physical machines which are simple enough and have root on to be early hacking machines?"
If you really want to re-enact the OP article, visit Briel Computers and get a Micro-KIM. Mine works perfectly. At the 2013 Midwest Gaming Classic someone (not me) was exhibiting an original KIM (as seen in the post) and a microKIM side by side in the retrocomputing room, which my family found entertaining because I also have one mounted on a wood plaque in my "office" area. How else are you going to display one?
I was always more of a Z80 guy... speaking of Z80 computers, one currently shipping project is the N8VEM CP/M SBC project which I found pretty trivial to assemble and use, not to forget the P112 SBC as recently seen on kickstarter.
Then there's my stack of FPGA devices ranging from the micronova mercury to my boring typical Spartan boards, which twists the borders of "real hardware" and emulation.
A link to the MicroKIM1
Re: How I coded in 1985
#49Let's put the code to text and test if it runs? I've made a start, but it takes a little longer than I'd thought (handwriting is often hard to read). Let's do some crowdsourcing? https://docs.google.com/document/d/192TW6ghnmMFnVaNvIe98aqTG... Edit (+12mins): I see lots of people viewing, but not a single edit over the past 10 minutes. Edit (+60mins): One other anonymous user helped at last and the document is complet…
There are manuals and an emulator here: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/kim-1/
Re: How I coded in 1985
#50Best coding I do is with a pen and paper.