Slashdot Mirror

Ah, the days. My friend had a Video Genie (compatible with the TRS-80, but cheaper), and had Asylum, which he couldn't solve in time to claim the prize. Still, there was always Olympic Decathlon*, from a small company called MicroSoft, which later evolved in to the arcade Track and Field


*sorry about the link - it was the best I could find with pictures, even if it doesn't mention the TRS-80

Assuming that the Honeywell-based IMP was a using a 7-bit ASCII-like encoding without checksum bit and transferred bit sequentially from most to least significant bit, then the first sequence was 1001100. But I guess it was perhaps rather based on a five-bit teletype scheme.

There wasn't much info on the DDP-516's homepage about that. But I like this quote: "The Honeywell DDP-516 was chosen for its high clock speed (aprox. 1.1 MHz) and expandability"

Birth of the Internet

Honeywell Series 16

--
Try Nuggets , the mobile search engine. We answer your questions via SMS, across the UK.

See: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/doc.asp?c=572 http://www.x10pro.com/daverye.html/

OK, all but the monitor and storage.

I sure miss the "keyboard with a Computer in them" computers of yore.

Oh well, mabye Santa Clause will get me one that runs Linux.

Look's like Moore's law's at work here:
The first link is to the Sinclair ZX80, a 1980 Z80 box with 4KB ROM and 1KB RAM. It sold for about $99.

5KB total memory 24 years ago compared to about 256MB on a stripped down "$99 Walmart Special Linux Box," more if you count video and other RAM. Hmm, that's 16 iterations of Moore's law, which would put us at 327680KB, which is pretty darned close. If only portables and slimline PCs were this cheap.

Although 9600 could never handle today's internet and web activities, it is amazingly fast for TTY and CLI type applications. Having started with 110 baud mechanical TTY and 300 baud acoustical coupler modem on a green screen, I well remember my first experience with a 9600 baud hardwired Lear Siegler terminals -- WOW very fast.

9600 baud is good enough for modem-to-modem chat, e-mail via pine, text processing with vi or emacs, or almost any *nix command. Thinking about this reminds me of how terribly bloated everything has become with verbose formatting and styling of pages. Pictures may be worth a 1000 words, but they require 10 to 100 times the bandwidth of those words.

I was reading about the Apple IIGS, and a lawsuite that even affects modern day MAC's. It has to do with the inclusion of synthesizer chip, and quoting this article:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?s t=1&c=71

"The Ensoniq chip in the Apple IIGS was a brilliant move by Apple, but it drew a lawsuit by Apple Records, the Beatles' record label. Apple never again put a synthesizer chip in any computer. Even today, Macintosh does not have hardware synthesizers. Macintosh needs to go around this with software based synthesis. "

I found this to be quite interesting.

The Atari Portfolio, circa 1989, is still the easiest-to-type-on handheld "PDA/computer" that's ever been made...including that Apple Newton thingy, by the way. The Zaurus comes in a distant third...and nothing I've used recently comes close to the Zaurus.

Without decent input capability, most of my remaining "desired PDA functionality" can be handled by a programmable wristwatch.

don't forget about this one.

Not quite! I'm a big fan of PDAs and portable computing. I've owned many PDAs, including Newton Messagepad 110 (which Apple gave me when I was working at Adobe), but before that I had a Tandy 100 and an HP 100 both of which pre-dated the Newton by quite a bit.

Now if you don't mind "3D Ant Attack" has just loaded ...

Hey, leave my Osborne 1 out of this.

A long time ago, I was working at R2E of Micral fame (they were one of the several contenders for the invention of the microcomputer). Thit was my first ever summer job, I was debugging their spreadsheet application (and learning Pascal in the process).

Anyway there was some kind of commotion in the corridor so when I went to see, lots of people were angrily shouting in one of the engineering rooms. It seems that the engineers were out of fuses so they used a paper clip in a powersupply instead while putting a machine together.

The resulting spark left a neat scorch mark on the wall that must have been about 20cm long but also cut the power in half of the building (hence the angry people, most of them secretaries who had lost their work, then saved to 8" floppies).

I remember that my first machine there didn't have a case, the motherboard, power supply, floppy, cable, and various bits and pieces were just laid on the table. A monitor was on the side of the mess. My keyboard kad some kind of northern european key layout, swedish maybe, but the mapping was more or less qwerty. Later I was upgraded to a machine with an actual hard disc. 5 megs all to myself. Not that I had anything to fill it with. I also had an Apple II though which made my office a very popular place during the lunch break when everybody came to play choplifter. :)

It was the 2001 PET. Funky rubbery keys that the letters (and cool old PET graphics symbols) would wear off of.

> eVic [what kind of name is that, anyway?
A take on the old VIC 20.

Have you not heard of the Commodore VIC-20 ?

That's sensible. Wait til the technology market stabilizes. Always something better coming down the pike, and cheaper, too. I'm still getting by with my Compaq portable, because the laptop sector of the market is nowhere near enough mature. I mean, they don't really have biometrics down yet.

I thought they looked like this:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?s t=1&c=180

Steve :)

because it had just one Vacuum Tube

The beast was really imposing, It weighted more than 13 tons, held 5200 vacuum tubes.

from the venerable old-computers.com

The '186 was a 16bit CPU which ran at 6MHz (versus 4.77MHz for the 8/16bit hybrid 8088 in the IBM PC), and, among other improvements, had a number of VLSI support chips integrated, which kept the system cost down.

Well, I actively avoided MS software and IBM PC-compatible hardware from 1981 until 1997, using RISC OS on Acorn Archimedes among others. I even wrote my own small multitasking OS in 8-bit assembly (which fitted in 1 kilobyte after some trickery). In 1997, I bought an IBM-compatible PC with MS Windows NT4 because I had to professionally: that's the result of a monopoly!
OK, I also use Linux on my PCs, but Linux (as oposed to _Linux distributions_ like Red Hat or Mandrake) is not a commercial product, and that's exactly why it (or other open/free software) has a chance to break the MS monopoly. I once even bought a boxed version of BeOS, but we know what happened to BeOS.
Microsoft is a monopolist, they did abuse their monopoly (the list is endless, but the bogus "error messages" that early Windows generated when it was running on DR/DOS is a good example) and almost everybody uses their software.

I cannot believe it has not been brought up, but actually, I think, the Amiga had double-clicking before Microsoft. Sure, the Apple GUI and the Amiga GUI were very close in releases (Apple was a bit earlier), but the Apple was only single-click at that time. The Amiga was always double click from the get-go.

Not sure when the Atari 800 came out, but if memory serves me correct, the same guy (Jay Minor) who built the Amiga designed the Atari 800 as well. Amiga History

Windows was definitly not a generic term in 1985.

Of course it was.

Otherwise, why would HP have called the proprietary windowing system for their 1985 portable Unix workstation "HP Windows" ?

The GRID community is long dead. Deal with it.

Time to move on.

OK, check this out: Ampere WS1.

An APL laptop from the bizarro world. I have just spent as many as several minutes on Google trying to find some evidence that this weird thing I vaguely remembered from the distant past actually exists. I've seen one, even tried to use it. Didn't get anywhere. I'm gonna chase that puppy up and learn me some APL. Oh yeah. Welcome to so many wasted weekends and sleepless nights. Happy days.

imagine if we'd been saddled with page-delimited, stack-based code in all our micros. It's a lot harder to learn, but would have helped modularity and library development.

Like this you mean?

It was pretty confusing for me as a 12 year old starting out with FORTH, but it steered me into Z80 ASM rather than BASIC, which has to be a better choice!

Regarding Space Invaders... This game is very talkative example of East/West success contrast. Excerpt from an excellent article:

[In June, 1978], Taito, a company that sold video games since 1971, launched the first Space Invaders coin operated cabinet. The game became immediately a national passion. It was so popular in Japan that it caused a severe shortage of the 100-Yen coins needed to play the game, until the coins production was quadrupled. Beside arcades shops which featured nothing but Space Invader machines, one found Space Invaders cabinets everywhere in Japan: restaurants, ice cream and pizza shops, laundries...

In 1980, the game was licensed from Taito by Midway for production and use in the United States. The mania wasn't quite as intense - no quarter shortage - but Space Invaders was still a phenomenal success. The same year, it was released on the Atari 2600, making it the first ever home conversion of an arcade game. Several dozen thousands 2600 consoles were then sold only for playing Space Invaders.

The Space Invaders phenomenon stunned conservative adults who were certain the games soured the minds of their youngsters. In Texas, some of them asked the Supreme Court to ban the illicit machines from their Bible-belt community.

this is exactly how Compaq made a name for themselves by reverse engineering the IBM PC, thus creating the Wintel based PC industry.

Uuuh...

Ever heard about Amstrad ? They created the MS-Intel industry by producing the first cheap IBM PC clone - and using MSDos on it.

Of course, most /.ers are too young to have ever played with a PC1512... (aaah, nostalgia :-)

Thomas Miconi

Speaking of beige, I just yesterday visited a pottery store that was using an old Apple ][gs for their bookkeeping. And they had an Apple Image Writer!

Well, installing virtual PC doesn't add 10 pounds to the weight of a machine

That's one more complication to deal with if software isn't behaving right.. if you are buying one yourself i'd definetly go with a powerbook, but for deploment in a business these make sense. The power of a desktop yet you can drag it to another lab or office or presentation a lot easier. Especially compared to one of these (look it even has a plasma monitor!).

For use in a lan party this laptop makes even more sense to me than a powerbook (don't try to tell me all good games run on osx or well enough under virtual PC). Of course there is the sexiness factor.. chicks can't say no to a guy with a 17" powerbook i hear.....

It's about time I found a decent replacement for my old Zorba.

I wonder where I put that thing anyway...it was so easy to misplace with it's small size.

ST-PAD ROXOR !!

I think that's much more true in Europe, perhaps.

Most Americans I know, had their first experience on Apple II machines, and later, Macintosh.

My first experience of any computer at all, was a Tatung Einstein, which belonged to a neighbour of mine. About a year later, I began tinkering with a BBC Master at school. In 1990, I got an Amstrad CPC 464 and my school got a couple Acorn Archimedes A3000s. I still have my CPC (heavily upgraded) and a few others I've bought over the years.

It was amazing some of the stuff I created back then, as a child of about 10. I had the beginnings of my own assembler, some really cool GUI tools and even a platform game I started writing.

Now I work doing web R&D, accessibility and usability stuff, and I've just realised how much I miss the old days.

I think that's much more true in Europe, perhaps.

Most Americans I know, had their first experience on Apple II machines, and later, Macintosh.

My first experience of any computer at all, was a Tatung Einstein, which belonged to a neighbour of mine. About a year later, I began tinkering with a BBC Master at school. In 1990, I got an Amstrad CPC 464 and my school got a couple Acorn Archimedes A3000s. I still have my CPC (heavily upgraded) and a few others I've bought over the years.

It was amazing some of the stuff I created back then, as a child of about 10. I had the beginnings of my own assembler, some really cool GUI tools and even a platform game I started writing.

Now I work doing web R&D, accessibility and usability stuff, and I've just realised how much I miss the old days.

I think that's much more true in Europe, perhaps.

Most Americans I know, had their first experience on Apple II machines, and later, Macintosh.

My first experience of any computer at all, was a Tatung Einstein, which belonged to a neighbour of mine. About a year later, I began tinkering with a BBC Master at school. In 1990, I got an Amstrad CPC 464 and my school got a couple Acorn Archimedes A3000s. I still have my CPC (heavily upgraded) and a few others I've bought over the years.

It was amazing some of the stuff I created back then, as a child of about 10. I had the beginnings of my own assembler, some really cool GUI tools and even a platform game I started writing.

Now I work doing web R&D, accessibility and usability stuff, and I've just realised how much I miss the old days.

I think that's much more true in Europe, perhaps.

Most Americans I know, had their first experience on Apple II machines, and later, Macintosh.

My first experience of any computer at all, was a Tatung Einstein, which belonged to a neighbour of mine. About a year later, I began tinkering with a BBC Master at school. In 1990, I got an Amstrad CPC 464 and my school got a couple Acorn Archimedes A3000s. I still have my CPC (heavily upgraded) and a few others I've bought over the years.

It was amazing some of the stuff I created back then, as a child of about 10. I had the beginnings of my own assembler, some really cool GUI tools and even a platform game I started writing.

Now I work doing web R&D, accessibility and usability stuff, and I've just realised how much I miss the old days.

Home game consoles have never really be backward compatible. PS2 is the first real back-ward compatible that I know of (though someone will end up telling me differently).

Home game consoles have never really be backward compatible. PS2 is the first real back-ward compatible that I know of (though someone will end up telling me differently).

Ahh, but in MY day, we used a 1-bit MC-14500 processor, *and* had to feed the damn DEER for the privelige of EATING them!

Then the PC and AT came along, defining the commodity computer we use to this day. The concept of "IBM compatible" has gotten more flexible over the years, but we're still stuck with some of the design decisions Big Blue made a generation ago -- including that damned power supply!

Then the PC and AT came along, defining the commodity computer we use to this day. The concept of "IBM compatible" has gotten more flexible over the years, but we're still stuck with some of the design decisions Big Blue made a generation ago -- including that damned power supply!

Bzzt. Incorrect!

The ZX-80 suffered from that, but the ZX-81 could display and execute.

It also had a fast mode, so you could ignore the display and use the whole 3.5MHz for your app.
As described here

I've been seeing this same "Nintendo is dead" article over and over again, wondering exactly what people are trying to prove. Why do we continually see this over and over?

Let me stop for a moment and state that I consider myself to be a hardcore video game fanatic. I've been a gamer since my aunt handed me a Bally Arcade controller when I was 5 in the late 70s. My collection includes every mainstream console as well as many others. Heck, I've been with the industry longer than some of these pundits who write about where the market is going. I guess I just feel I know a little about gaming.

I would also like to state that my Gamecube gets more play than my PS2 and Xbox combined, and when there are some great games on these systems, that's saying quite a bit. I am pleased that Gamespot, a reasonable mainstream VG news source, gave "Metroid Prime" the Game of the Year award in 2002 and "Wind Waker" in 2003. For a system that's only 3 years old, it has quite a legacy. So why is it that we continue to profess that it's dead?

The wonderful fun part about making a prediction that "Nintendo is dead" is if you say it enough, it will come true. The recent Dreamcast market struggle ended with Sega leaving the hardware business behind simply because of this type of self-fulfilling prophecy. Will this happen to Nintendo with their Gamecube? Possibly. Probably. What will happen to them? They will go on or they won't. Do we (Slashdot) have to participate in this problem with the furthering of FUD? No.

We here at Slashdot, which is a community news source, hate all three current gaming console companies. Sony and Microsoft stomp on our rights at every possible turn, from anti-trusts to Aibos, broadcast flags, worms, DeCSS, proprietary file formats, or P2P shutdowns, these corporate behemoths are always up to the task of taking up the DMCA sword and smiting our fellow hackers.

Nintendo isn't exactly a saint, I'll agree. There's proof of them engaging in price fixing and they've taken a stance against emulation. They aren't as evil as the other two but they aren't as big either.

Here's the issue though: We can only hurt Nintendo in the video game arena. This is why we see so much anti-Nintendo FUD on games.slashdot.org. Slashdot isn't anti-Nintendo, it's just anti-corporation. Nintendo just gets it's fair slaps here because we've already complained about the other guys elsewhere.

Meh. Nintendo will live or die. It's beginning to not matter much to me anymore. When all that's left in the video gaming area is companies like Microsoft and Electronic Arts who care more about exploting money from gamers than making good entertainment, the industry will stagnate. The mainstream will dismiss video games as a fad yet again and we'll have another crash. Video games will be a small hobby once again.

Minor correction to my post above:

...CP/M was later ripped off...

It had, of course, been ripped off some 4 years before the advent of the PCW 8256. I wonder, was it the last mass market computer with a Z80 (not counting its sibling, the 9512.)

I also had an SDK-85, the Intel single board computer which showcased the 8085 chip. This was about like the Sym-1, but less neat-o hobby-oriented stuff in the rom. It actually had a proper area to which I could attach a breadboard, so projects on this looked a little less kludgy. Since I never really took a shine to the Intel chips, this collected more dust than the Sym.

Then, there were my portables: First an HP-41c, then a Sharp PC-1500 (also known as the TRS-80 PC2). The Sharp was a hand held, calculator sized (like a 10 inch long chunk of 2x4), basic programmable calculator. Its basic was almost entirely comaptible with the MS GWBasic which was shipping with PC-DOS at that time (1982 or so), so I could develope programs on it, then retype them on the PC. The little CMOS CPU on the Sharp ran at a slower clock speed than did the IBM PC's CPU, but the programs were still nearly as fast. I had the plotter/cassette interface, which let me print out circuit diagrams and so on in class, for tests. Since there weren't enough PCs in the classroom for everyone to use at once on tests, I got a big advantage out of this.

Of course, before I owned any of these, there was the Honeywell mainframe (lousy link, that'll give you an idea of how obscure Honeybucket computers were and are) I used at UAF.

Then, there were some that I worked on, but never owned:

The Otrona Attache. These were wonderful little CPM machines, with a Z80 CPU and a TI screen controller chip which I was never able to find a source for (Not sure about the TI part, but definitely sure about the hard-to-get part.). I never owned one, unfortunately, because none of the people who owned them would ever part with them, including the owner of the one with the chip I couldn't replace.

Then there were the various models of Altos and Vector Graphics machines. Both of these were multi-user, multi-CPU CPM machines.

So do I, and I applaud them cause it sure is one uglay ass machine

Your link was to a Model I, not a CoCo...you can see what a CoCo looked like here. The chiclet keyboard wasn't all that great, but that was fixed in the later models.

So do I, and I applaud them cause it sure is one uglay ass machine

Your link was to a Model I, not a CoCo...you can see what a CoCo looked like here. The chiclet keyboard wasn't all that great, but that was fixed in the later models.

So do I, and I applaud them cause it sure is one uglay ass machine

Your link was to a Model I, not a CoCo...you can see what a CoCo looked like here. The chiclet keyboard wasn't all that great, but that was fixed in the later models.

That 30 lbs. US "portable" was quite a burden for my scrawny preteen self.

It doesn't have my first computer either, the Oric