How I coded in 1985 • Hacker News Board

Re: How I coded in 1985

#81

Post by reeses » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:19 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #32

jgrahamc wrote: post #28

Earlier 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…

Arduino kits are great hits with the 8-15 year olds in the family. They can play with the sample code and tweak it and see something happen "in the real world", whether it's a flashing LED or "upgrading" their Lego to torment the cat.

It's similar to those Radio Shack "3000 electronic experiments" boards that were sold in the 80s(?) and yet can scale with the kids' understanding.

Sure, it's not self-hosting, but I've noticed the physical connection to caps, resistors, diodes, etc. in a "safe" environment makes them more proud of their accomplishments than their html/css projects.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#82

Post by cwbrandsma » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:23 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #5

That headline got me to thinking... Date: Monday, April 29, 1985 Age: 29 Location: Santa Ana, California. Company: electronics manufacturer setup: dumb black & green 24x80 14" CRT terminal Hardware: Honeywell mini OS: Honeywell proprietary DBMS: Pick (Ultimate Flavor) Language: BASIC App: Work Order Processing (I wrote from scratch.) Date: Monday, April 29, 2013 Age: 57 Location: Miami, Florida Company: aerospace man…

I last played with pick and pick-basic back in 1999 (and I used the UniData flavor). Here is what I remember of PickBasic: an overly simplistic version of BASIC without the advancements of scoped variables and methods, you still had to use GOTO .

I don't miss that language one bit.

Now PICK as a data storage. Not bad, but did nothing well either. Could be I have the reverse of positive nostalgia on this one.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#83

Post by ianmcgowan » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:28 PM UTC

joe_bleau wrote: post #36

seanwoods wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for Pick. I've met several people who were/are Pick devotees. Also heard stories about how Dick Pick was kind of crazy.

My mentor knew Dick, and I also heard stories!

A shameless plug for people wondering "what is this PICK thing?" I host http://www.pickwiki.com, in an effort to capture some of those fascinating (to me) stories. The guy that created it really was called Dick Pick.

I wouldn't choose PICK for a brand new project today, but as Ed says, there's life in the old dog yet...

Re: How I coded in 1985

#84

Post by edran » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:31 PM UTC

gmrple wrote: post #51

sramsay wrote: post #41

Dude wrote in pen . We are not worthy, brothers and sisters. We are not worthy.

As did most of my EE brethren in school in 2009. Trust me, writing code in pen does not a master programmer necessarily make.

Jokes aside, writing down something like OP's software in pen from scratch would require some degree of proficiency and confidence. I can still see some pencil around the paper, in any case :) (Not to diminish the achievement - As a young programmer, I'm always impressed when I see these things and I'd love to see more and more of them!)

Re: How I coded in 1985

#85

Post by reeses » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #79

tomjen3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had to make adders, flip-flops, etc (on paper, not physically) and those were used to build an ALU and (I think) a memory-switch bank. It was very cool to know that when the world ends I can build a new computer, from scratch.

What are you going to make the logic devices from? I've speculated about this extensively in http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2010-June/00... but I still don't have a working scratch-built computer.

You can make transistors with some...hazardous components, but you may want to start with relays or tubes and resistors (which could, theoretically, just be varying lengths/guages of wire) and build NAND gates. It would be big, hot, noisy, slow, and a huge waste of your time, but there were computers before semiconductors.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#86

Post by DanBC » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 7:54 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #32

jgrahamc wrote: post #28

Earlier 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…

There are a few machines designed be similar experiences:

There's something called the Maximite, which is a single IC computer running BASIC with output to VGA and SD storage (http://geoffg.net/maximite.html)

There's something called 'petite computer' for Nintendo DS (http://www.petitcomputer.com/)

But it'd be great if someone started a hub for this kind of thing.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#87

Post by DanBC » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #79

tomjen3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had to make adders, flip-flops, etc (on paper, not physically) and those were used to build an ALU and (I think) a memory-switch bank. It was very cool to know that when the world ends I can build a new computer, from scratch.

What are you going to make the logic devices from? I've speculated about this extensively in http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2010-June/00... but I still don't have a working scratch-built computer.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_znRopGtbE) for transistors, but it feels like cheating.

Relays are doable from scratch (mining and refining copper; winding coils, etc etc) but it's going to be pretty hard work and you're going to have a very slow computer at the end of it.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#88

Post by segmondy » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

I wrote code like this in 1997. First year in college, micro processing course. So I wrote a simulator for the 6800 chip, and an assembler. So I didn't have to wait every Saturday at 8:30am to run my code. The professor wasn't impressed at all when I showed him my program.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#89

Post by kps » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 8:12 PM UTC

jekub wrote: post #68

kps wrote: post #65

Not to go all Yorkshire, but I used to dream of having a KIM-1. My first computer — the best thing I could afford — was a Quest Super Elf [ http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/super_elf.html ] with 256 bytes of RAM, and a processor on which a recursive subroutine call took 16 instructions. On the other hand, by 1985 I was doing QA for a 64-bit Unix environment.

You're joking, this was a wonderful machine. Especially the CDP1802 processor with its ability to use any register as a PC. I've very nice memory with this chip.

In some ways it was nice. For those unfamiliar:

The 1802 had sixteen general purpose 16-bit registers. Any one of these could be selected as the program counter. In a tiny embedded system (which is what the part was meant for), you might choose to designate one as the ‘normal’ PC and reserve a few others for important subroutines, which could then be invoked with a one-byte ‘SEP n’ instruction. Similarly you could implement coroutines or simple task switching by switching the selected PC between a pair of registers.

On the other hand, there was no conventional call instruction. The SCRT (“Standard Call and Return Technique”) for recursive or reentrant subroutines essentially involved defining (non-reentrant) coroutines to perform the ‘recursive call’ and ‘recursive return’ operations.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#90

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Apr 29, 2013, 8:17 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #79

tomjen3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had to make adders, flip-flops, etc (on paper, not physically) and those were used to build an ALU and (I think) a memory-switch bank. It was very cool to know that when the world ends I can build a new computer, from scratch.

What are you going to make the logic devices from? I've speculated about this extensively in http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2010-June/00... but I still don't have a working scratch-built computer.

I was planing on going the relay/vaccume tube route.