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How I coded in 1985

blog.jgc.org

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Re: How I coded in 1985

#2

Post by brudgers »

I spent several weeks during the Summer of '82 living in dorms and taking college courses at UCF. My suitemate, John, was writing Petman in machine code, on and for his PET 16. An enduring memory for me and one which reminds me that there are programmers who are 100 more productive than others - I was at the stage of typing in code from magazines.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#3

Post by italophil »

I used an East German version of the KIM (LC80) for lab experiments. In 1999! Tying in code was slow and debugging even slower, but the hardware I/O was easy, no fuzzing around with RS232. Ahhh, good times.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#5

Post by edw519 »

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 manufacturer
  setup:    Windows PC, 19" & 32" flat screens monitors
  Hardware: who knows
  OS:       Unix
  DBMS:     Pick (Unidata flavor)
  Language: BASIC
  App:      Work Order Processing (I'm writing from scratch.)
That's right, everything I wrote in 1985 would compile and run perfectly in the environment I'm connected to in my other session right now. And everything I'm writing today would have also worked on that mini-computer back then. I wonder how many other programmers could make the same claim.

I have learned and continue to use many other client/server and web-based technologies since then but somehow, I always come back to "old faithful".

Re: How I coded in 1985

#6

Post by smoyer »

This brings back a lot of memories ... Hand-compiling code for a COSMAC ELF (http://www.cosmacelf.com/docs.htm) and punching it into memory on a hex keyboard (the original had a switch for each bit and 4 push-buttons for load, run, etc).

By the time I was coding for 6502 and 8088 processors (still in assembly language - I was after all an embedded engineer), I had assemblers and an 80-column by 43-line text editor.

Aren't we spoiled today? I wouldn't want to go back, but I've also found that the low-level experience with machine code is something many "newer engineers" are missing ... it's an appreciation of the hardware that you can't get any other way.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#7

Post by andrewcooke »

heh. i also programmed a stepper motor in ~1985 (after building the driver board). but it was z80-based (and it never ran smoothly - when i left i think they were going to try adding some noise to the timing, but that didn't sound likely to me - more likely i had a crossed wire in the hardware...). anyway, i am pretty sure i had an assembler (and this was working for a one-man company in the backwoods of n yorkshire). why were you hand assembling?

Re: How I coded in 1985

#8

Post by pinaceae »

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…

but isn't it questionable that you're (seemingly) writing the same stuff, from scratch, for 28 years now? shouldn't there be a work order processing standard solution for aerospace by now?

like an engineer re-inventing the process to build bricks anytime a new building is requested.

industry observation, not personal.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#9

Post by treerex »

I was in high school in 1985 and our computer club built a Heathkit HERO-1, which had a 6808 processor and also had to be programmed through the hex keypad. After a few months of hand writing machine code and typing the opcodes into machine, I wrote a simple assembler on the Apple //e that would then download the assembled programs to the robot through the RS-232 interface. So much fun.

Re: How I coded in 1985

#10

Post by edw519 »

pinaceae wrote: post #8
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…

but isn't it questionable that you're (seemingly) writing the same stuff, from scratch, for 28 years now? shouldn't there be a work order processing standard solution for aerospace by now? like an engineer re-inventing the process to build bricks anytime a new building is requested. industry observation, not personal.

I'm not writing the same stuff. I've written over a thousand different custom applications using the same technology. That was my point. This environment is so tried and true and so effective, it still kicks ass after 28 years. Pretty amazing when you think about how much has changed.

shouldn't there be a work order processing standard solution for aerospace by now?

I'm sure there is. Just like there are blog, website, & CMS standard solutions. And plenty of people using them. I never see them because those people would never call me. Like many other programmers here, I imagine, we only see the customers who need something custom, almost always for good reason.

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