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Computer Folklore, Circa 1984

Posted by timothy on from the and-counting dept.

savetz writes "The full text of the classic 1984 computer book Digital Deli, The Comprehensive, User-Lovable Menu of Computer Lore, Culture, Lifestyles and Fancy, is now on the Web. (Autstralian mirror) A wonderful look at technology culture in the golden age of the microcomputer. 20 other old computer books are at the site, too."

12 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Correction. by saintlupus · · Score: 2, Informative

    By the time I was done figuring out what all that crap in the back of Compute's Gazette was doing

    I meant Analog and Antic of course, not Compute's Gazette. Sorry, I had a C64 before I got my Atari 400 at a garage sale.

    Not that it matters, but I figured I'd try to head off the hordes of whiny nitpickers pointing out that Gazette was all Commodore code.

    --saint

    1. Re:Correction. by ksp · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sinclair Research first created the ZX80, then the ZX81 and then the ZX Spectrum. I believe they were all created around the Zilog Z80 processor (as were other home computers such as the Jupiter Ace which used Forth instead of BASIC !).

      The ZX80 used a Z80 CPU clone running at 3.5 MHz and was delivered with 1KB or RAM, expandable up to 16KB.
      ZX Spectrum featured 16KB of RAM (upgradable to 48K) and color display.

      See http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Systems/ Sinclair

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    2. Re:Correction. by EricTheRed · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, they were all Z80 based (the first processor I wrote Assembly for).

      The Jupiter Ace was a Sinclair ZX81 clone (the major difference was a white not black case), and having Forth instead of Basic as interesting. It's still a machine I'm trying to get my hands on for the collection I have of 80's computer history.

      As for the Spectrum, there was a very good book called "The Complete Spectrum Dissassembly" where someone dissassembled the entire rom. Priceless when programming on that machine as you could use all sorts of useful features from within the rom - including it's RPN based calculator (as you can tell I'm a Forth fan ;-) )

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  2. Another website is here... by dagg · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Digital Deli Online

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  3. Oh, so that's what happened by ch-chuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    one mystery cleared up: I had always wondered how Byte Magazine, started by Wayne Green, ended up as his (ex) wife's property:

    Because he was in the middle of an IRS audit and did not wish to have his new venture involved, Wayne registered the magazine in his wife's name. As it turned out, this was a serious error. No one except those involved will ever know just what happened, but when the smoke cleared Wayne still had 73 magazine and his ex-wife, now married to a German gentleman, had Byte, with Carl Helmers as the editor.

    doh!

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    1. Re:Oh, so that's what happened by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Informative
      It got stranger than that. Wayne Green was then going to start a magazine called Kilobyte. Byte, to block him, ran a really bad comic called Kilobyte and trademarked it.

      So Wayne Green started Kilobaud instead, and Byte dropped the comic right afterwards.

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  4. Old Computer Books by Usquebaugh · · Score: 3, Informative

    Jesus, I stated on a ZX-81 and went to work in '85.

    I still have the first computer book I ever bought. Electronic Data Processing by Glyn Emery Pitman. Published in 1968.

    Anybody who thinks computers are cool technology should dig up this book or one like it. They had everything back then, we've been treading water for 30+ years.

  5. Re:This reminded me of Marble Madness! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Trackballs and perhaps Neverball (though that's slightly different) might interest marble madness fans presently using Linux.

  6. spock cover by kalinh · · Score: 3, Informative

    This image alone is worth the visit to the site. Interesting background too:

    In any event, the original Best of CC had Mr. Spock on the cover. However, a few years later when we needed more books, Paramount was getting nasty about the use of Star Trek characters without a proper license. Initially we were under their radar screen, but we would have had to pay them mucho $$$ for the larger press run of the reprint book, so we needed another cover. The cover illustration I used had been used on an issue of the magazine (can't remember which issue) but the printer had mixed up two of the color negatives (cyan and magenta), so it looked a bit strange. Needless to say, the artist was rather unhappy with the outcome as was I, so I decided to use the same illustration, this time with the correct colors, on the cover of the book.

    It's been a long time since computer books were so underground that they could publish with copyrighted images on the front covers. Actually, it's been a long time since underground publications period could get away with this.

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  7. Re:Great quotes from the past about the future by no_such_user · · Score: 2, Informative

    I should have also posted that these exerpts are in Digital Deli, from the contribution "The Telephone System of the Future" by Lamont Wood.

  8. Re:"Net Speak" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The page he is referring to is located here

  9. Re:Full Book Text Online by Lord+Ender · · Score: 4, Informative

    Damnit, for the last time, theft and copyright infringement are COMPLETELY different things!

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