Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[comox]

[Edit by JimH -- This was split from the I am getting old thread.]

I purchased reverse engineered source code for CP/M, read and understood every line of it, and built an S100 system assembled from components ordered from ads in the back of magazines to run it.

[JimH]

I purchased reverse engineered source code for CP/M, read and understood every line of it, and built an S100 system assembled from components ordered from ads in the back of magazines to run it.

Byte Magazine.

[jmone]

Luxury!  I could only afford Bit Magazine. 

[JimH]

Luxury!  I could only afford Bit Magazine.

b00!

[comox]

Byte Magazine.

Yes, and there was another really good magazine that I can't remember the name. Was it Dr. Dobbs?

Those were the good old days when you could understand everything in your PC. Now every subsystem is a lifetime career. 

My 1983 masters thesis was I think the first at my university to be written with a PC based word processor (WordStar). I had to sneak into the nuclear research facility in the evening with my 8" floppy disks because they had the only decent printer on campus.

I remember several colleague EE grad students were doing their theses on data compression. I didn't see the significance at the time. About ten years later the light bulb turned on when I found Napster and started to learn the mysterious world of DivX settings.

[Wheaten]

Speaking on programming,
Just found my 2 IBM manuals from 1984 and 1985, BASIC V3.0. with revisions Cassette, Disk, Advanced or Compiler
life was simple either Bright or no green, and the lucky ones had a whopping 16 color screen.

already bit-perfect in the old days, but you needed Advanced or Compiler version.

Code: [Select]

10 'Little lamb
20 MARY$="GFE-FGGG"
30 PLAY "MB T100 03 L8;XMARY$;P8 FFF4"
40 PLAY "GB-B-4; XMARY$; GFFGFE-...."

[dtc]

Yes, and there was another really good magazine that I can't remember the name. Was it Dr. Dobbs?

Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia

It was aimed much more at software than Byte. They stopped publication in 2014 but the website is still up.

https://www.drdobbs.com/

[JimH]

I purchased reverse engineered source code for CP/M, read and understood every line of it, and built an S100 system assembled from components ordered from ads in the back of magazines to run it.

I wanted an S100 system but couldn't afford it.  I started with an Apple II but moved to CP/M a year later with an Osborne, then a Morrow.

CP/M could have been the first DOS for IBM.  Read the "IBM Dealings" section here for the story.  It's one of my favorite business stories.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall

[infomas]

I purchased reverse engineered source code for CP/M, read and understood every line of it, and built an S100 system assembled from components ordered from ads in the back of magazines to run it.

My first business computer was a Imsai 8080 with an s100 bus. My friend wrote the OS (on his own, no help from CP/M). It had a Teletype band printer and a CDC Hawk hard drive (5 megs fixed 5 meg cartridge) attached. At one point we had about 10 people hooked up to it running the accounting program I had written. Each user had 32k of memory allocated to them. That was a dozen lifetimes ago.

[infomas]

I wanted an S100 system but couldn't afford it.  I started with an Apple II but moved to CP/M a year later with an Osborne, then a Morrow.

CP/M could have been the first DOS for IBM.  Read the "IBM Dealings" section here for the story.  It's one of my favorite business stories.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall

Better yet, read "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date". One of my all time favorite computer based books. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wish you were old enough to have been there.

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554/ref=asc_df_0887308554/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312143020546&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16508769763096189691&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031564&hvtargid=pla-467769956045&psc=1

[dtc]

Better yet, read "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date". One of my all time favorite computer based books. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wish you were old enough to have been there.

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Empires-Silicon-Millions-Competition/dp/0887308554/ref=asc_df_0887308554/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312143020546&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16508769763096189691&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031564&hvtargid=pla-467769956045&psc=1

Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer

https://www.amazon.com/Fumbling-Future-Invented-Personal-Computer-dp-1583482660/dp/1583482660/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1648845095

[infomas]

Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer

https://www.amazon.com/Fumbling-Future-Invented-Personal-Computer-dp-1583482660/dp/1583482660/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1648845095

Yeah. I believe that story is a chapter in the book. I haven't read it in years and can't remember. "I am getting old". :-)

[JimH]

Steve Jobs first saw the mouse and a graphical user interface at Parc Labs, a Xerox research lab in (I think) Menlo Park.  Parc had a computer called (I think) the Star.

You know, collectively, the 70 somethings here probably have a complete memory.

[Wheaten]

https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY

The version from Xerox wasn't well received, while Steve took it to a whole new level. Introduced a graphic environment with Apple Lisa, that proved the added value of the mouse. Apple did stick with the one button approach for a long time.

[infomas]

Steve Jobs first saw the mouse and a graphical user interface at Parc Labs, a Xerox research lab in (I think) Menlo Park.  Parc had a computer called (I think) the Star.

You know, collectively, the 70 somethings here probably have a complete memory.

Ethernet and the laser printer came from there as well. Us 60 somethings know a bit about that time too. :-)

[Wheaten]

I wasn't aware how much Xerox contributed in this field. All I knew is "Yeah they copy stuff" the list is big:
https://www.xerox.com/en-us/about/history-timeline

[comox]

Does anyone remember how you felt the first time you experienced "multi-media" aka software playing video and audio coming from a cd?

I think my first experience was something like Encarta.

I remember feeling a tingle up my spine knowing this was going to be big.

[dtc]

The original Xerox computer was the Alto which was replaced by the Star. Xerox showed Jobs the Star and he said Thank You and immediately built the Lisa, which became the development platform for the Macintosh.

PARC (Bob Metcalfe) also developed Ethernet, based on ALOHAnet, which was developed for communications among Hawaii's various telescopes and networked computing so that Star computers could share printers. They also developed WYSIWYG word processing and other innovations.

Bob Taylor was the manager at PARC, having previously been at ARPA, where he provided funding to Douglas Engelbart at SRI to develop the computer mouse. Taylor eventually left Xerox and went to head up Digital Equipment Corporation's research efforts in Palo Alto. Some of the other PARC principles ended up at Microsoft, including Scot Macgregor who was the lead on Windows Version 1. He went on to be CEO of Broadcom.  Metcalfe founded 3COM which became an important networking company.

Xerox was not making money on the Star, so they started shopping the technology. One of the people they showed it to was Steve Jobs. He elected not to invest but rather took the ideas and development Lisa and eventually the Macintosh.

Hence, Fumbling the Future.

PARC = Palo Alto Research Center

[comox]

The R&D company I worked for bought a Lisa so we could steal ideas from it.

[Bro]

Does anyone remember how you felt the first time you experienced "multi-media" aka software playing video and audio coming from a cd?

I think my first experience was something like Encarta.

I remember feeling a tingle up my spine knowing this was going to be big.

  Exactly that one!!!!!
I still remember just like today a link to some kind of lizard that runs on water surface and the moment I clicked it and actual video was on the screen
And some astronauts as well if I recall correctly...

Bro