Did anyone ever use the Radio Shack microprocessor kit. It was pretty cool. It had the springs to wire stuff up, just like there xxx-in-one kits.
It has a hex keyboard to program it. I had one (gave it away), was just wondering it anyone else had seen or used one.
·· I lived in Schenectady for 10 years.· My business started there, and I was a member of the local Commodore User Group (TCCUG) as well as the local Amiga User Group (CDAUG).· I don't remember you from either group, but there were alot of people I don't remember.· Don't suppose you knew John Rafalak?· Or Lou Matrozzo, or anyone else I knew?· Darrin Wensley?
·· Sorry, it's just rare to see anyone from my old stomping grounds...Especially someone that was into the very computers I was into.· Speaking of Graphics, we used Imagine to render ALOT of 3D Ray Trace images...In HAM mode.· Took my A3000 quite some time, but the results were well worth it.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage
Knight Designs 324 West Main Street P.O. Box 97 Montour Falls, NY 14865 (607) 535-6777
·· I lived in Schenectady for 10 years.· My business started there, and I was a member of the local Commodore User Group (TCCUG) as well as the local Amiga User Group (CDAUG).· I don't remember you from either group, but there were alot of people I don't remember.· Don't suppose you knew John Rafalak?· Or Lou Matrozzo, or anyone else I knew?· Darrin Wensley?
·· Sorry, it's just rare to see anyone from my old stomping grounds...Especially someone that was into the very computers I was into.· Speaking of Graphics, we used Imagine to render ALOT of 3D Ray Trace images...In HAM mode.· Took my A3000 quite some time, but the results were well worth it.
Chris -
I was in Schenectady from 1955 - 1967, probably before your time...
Moved to New Hampshire in '67 and got involved in computers there.
Played around with CB radio back in Schenectady though in the mid sixties - think I was KKD 6742· can't even remember now...was in a band called "The Vibratos" - played the drums - our group played the Tri-City area - 1963-67...
That was a Loooooong time ago, eh?
3D Ray Tracing... ah... the good old days, heh heh...
Guess Schenectady has gone waaaaaay down hill from back in the day.· It used to be the real deal once upon a time...
GE was King of the Hill.· Niskayuna was a great High School - NY's model school at the time.
But now in Florida, don't miss the winters and the snow at all.· Sure liked Rugby Road pizza though...and Mike's Submarines...
Proctor's Theatre, The Plaza... I digress...oh yeah a little joint out in Scotia, just over the bridge,·called "Jumpin' Jacks" where we all used to hang out with our Hot Rods by the river -·it rocked, big time... LMAO!!!
/\rt
Post Edited (Art Isador) : 12/22/2004 3:02:27 PM GMT
·· Yep, a little before my time!··· And yes, it has gone down hill...But some things were still there when I left back in 1997...Proctor's, although not nearly the broadway theater it once was...GE is barely existant, mostly empty buildings.· Jumpin' Jacks is/was still a Hot Rod hangout in the summer...
·· But yeah, I saw you mention Schenectady and Commodores, and thought maybe you were part of our HUGE Commodore family in that area.· I didn't even move up there until around 1986 or 87...At the time there were alot of people with VIC-20s and C64's and 300 bps modems!· That's what really got me going up there.· Where I am now, it's relatively small, and the user base is split up between PC users (Who mostly own Dell computers around here) and the Mac users proliferating the Ithaca area (Cornell University).
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Knight Designs 324 West Main Street P.O. Box 97 Montour Falls, NY 14865 (607) 535-6777
After reading Jons message, I had to reply. My very first computer was also a Cosmac Elf KIT. This was in 77 or 78 and by kit I mean you had to actully solder the chips in the beast! And if my memory serves me correctly, there were 4 or 5 DOZEN! When finished the thing had a whopping 256 bytes of RAM. Input was via a hex keypad and output was 2 hexadecimal LEDs. My main entertainment was assembling the thing. I sold it to a guy that actually turned it into a rudimentary autopilot on a small airplane. Until now I've never ran in to anyone that even knew what an Elf was. Thanks Jon!
·I myself, preferred the Z80, but the Commodore computers had such good grfx & sound for the time, that they quickly caught my attention.
Excuse me....
C64 good sound?
What I remember is that the C64 guys back home were envious of the adaptability of the ZX Spectrum's(Timex Sinclair in the US)·simple speaker system(a small speaker connected to a pin on an IO port)
It was no problem doing sines, harmonics, zaps or whatever as long as you could add the pulse trains together.
Sure, the AY-3910 (or whatever) chip the C64 used was good at music, but making a decent zap sound for the laser guns?
As for the calendar...
It missed several important machines...
Osborne 1: The first 'portable' computer(it fitted under an airplane seat, and you could carry it for short stretches as it 'only' weighed in at 25pounds) Not only was it the first portable, but it also introduced the concept of software Bundling as it included WordStar, IBM's DB II and Supercalc(I think it· was) and finally, the concept of 'doing an Osborne' (Blabbing about an upcoming product so that the sales of the current product plummets and the business goes into receivership...)
Epson HX-20: The World's first laptop... ·· No, the Tandy TRS-80 model 100 was not first. The Epson came in 1982. It had 16KB RAM, a small LCD screen, full keyboard a micro-printer(like those in cash-registers) and optionally a micro-cassette recorder to store your programs and data on.
Digital PDP-11 because so much fun came off it...
(Didn't Colossal Cave start on this computer?)
Gadgetman said... Excuse me....
C64 good sound?
What I remember is that the C64 guys back home were envious of the adaptability of the ZX Spectrum's(Timex Sinclair in the US)·simple speaker system(a small speaker connected to a pin on an IO port)
It was no problem doing sines, harmonics, zaps or whatever as long as you could add the pulse trains together.
Sure, the AY-3910 (or whatever) chip the C64 used was good at music, but making a decent zap sound for the laser guns?
Gadgetman,
·· I think maybe you're thinking of another computer...The C64 had some of the best computer generated sound at the time.· In fact, the sound chip (SID), which was designed by Commodore, became so popular that there were thousands and thousands of songs converted to SID format.· Later a Stereo mod was adapted by piggy-backing another SID chip onto the first and addressing it from an I/O port (From the cartridge port expansion).
You could download these "Stereo SIDs" from Q-Link and many other online sites, and they even embedded animated C= ASCII art into them.· Many were quite good, and I even wrote a few myself back in the day.· The AY-xxxx series chips were cheesy at best.· If you look up the specs to the MOS SID Chip, you will find it was more capable than you remember.· The part # was·6581, manufactered by MOS Tech.
Way ahead of it's time...Commodore, in many ways...Same with the Amiga...Their problem was poor marketing, and lack of educational discounts...
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage
Knight Designs 324 West Main Street P.O. Box 97 Montour Falls, NY 14865 (607) 535-6777
The 64 produces sound using the 6581 Sound Interface Device (SID). This special chip is a music synthesizer and sound effects generator. It provides three voices that can be controlled by the user.
For each voice, you can control pitch over a nine-octave range. The waveform can be a triangle wave, sawtooth, variable pulse, or noise. (You can create great sound effects for games with the noise waveform. For example, it is easy to produce explosions, shuffling feet, or ocean waves.) For each voice, you can also control volume, and there is a master volume control.
For each of the three voices, you can control what are called envelope generators. The way a note or sound effect sounds when it is produced is the result of many different things. Naming the envelope of a given sound is a shorthand way of describing four of the important parameters that control how it sounds.
There are four parameters that describe an envelope: attack, decay, sustain, and release, or ADSR for short. With the 64, the attack rate can be varied from two milliseconds to eight seconds. Both the decay and release rate can range from six milliseconds to 24 seconds, and the sustain level can range from zero to peak volume.
After spending quite a bit of time using a sound editor that makes it easy to build new sounds and then experiment with changing them, I am very impressed woth what the SID can do. Frankly, I can't remember the last time that I have had this much fun (at least with a computer). When I start playing with 64 sound generation there just doesn't seem to be a good place to stop. May 64s will be purchased solely because of the SID synthesizer.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage
Knight Designs 324 West Main Street P.O. Box 97 Montour Falls, NY 14865 (607) 535-6777
I've never owned a C64 myself, but I know that those of my buddies that had one were jealous of the sounds we made on the ZX Speccy. Of course we had to write it in assembler(don't ask how many times the machine hung or restarted because of a trivial error...)
It is also quite possible that none of them really knew how to use their computers...
(None of them became computer techs)
It is also possible that they judged the C64 at it's infancy...After it had been out for some time, hackers started doing things with it that were unheard of a few years earlier...I have to admit, until the SID Editor became popular, I myself was a little disappointed with the sound...Like an old Nintendo...But as I said, later people started really working on it, and many of us had Stereo Sound.
Hey, it could happen with the BS2!··· Maybe someone will connect one to a MIDI keyboard and have it play a symphony or something!·
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage
Knight Designs 324 West Main Street P.O. Box 97 Montour Falls, NY 14865 (607) 535-6777
Moving a bit forward, my first PC was a 'Megaboard' that I found in the back of BYTE magazine. I bought the bare board for $75 and proceeded to hand solder some 1100 solder points. I had about $1800 in the machine by the time I had a nice 2-floppy disc, 4.77 mhz copy of an IBM PC. A similar IBM was at least $5000 at the time.
The Megaboard was impressive, 4 layer MIL-SPEC quality green board construction. This must have been about 1985.
·· Now that's dedication!· I have been receiving a lot of e-mail recently about some web articles I published some time ago.· A few people tracking down former Commodore User Group members found me.· The thing is that this time around it's highly unlikely that I will dig out any old Commodore equipment in the name of nostalgia, since I am really looking to broaden my horizons with some of the newer stuff (Well, newer to me).
·· I think the thread may have reached critical mass!· All the Old-School hackers seem to have visited and posted their early experiences with micros.· I have to admit, I am quite surprised at how many people go way back.· Like as in paper-punch stuff.· You represent a generation that may have excluded someone like me at the time from micros.· I was trying to remember what exactly drew me in, and I believe it was the Apple II and VIC-20 that started it, since nothing earlier seemed to grab my attention.
·· Anyway, it's amazing how my first programming experience started with BASIC and after years of playing around with other languages right back to BASICs, so to speak.· Once I get some code updated I will post a few projects in the PROJECTS forums to share with everyone who's interested.
I have been laughing terribly reliving my past in this thread. As for being Elite, we didn't want anyone to know what we were doing on the VAX back in '82...yea I know I am a relative baby in this stuff. We had the comp/sci department on definite man-hunt for us. As I recall a couple of the more interesting things we did were to back load files into others accounts. A great way to keep a couple code files as well as exe's around. Problem was they could not access their account when we took them over. Once your allocation was used the login/out script was disabled until you cleared some space. Seems we had a neat little hack that emulated the terminal login program so that people would come in sit down and type their user name and password. The thing would then display an "error" message, save their info to a file and logoff without echo. The un-suspecting user would log back in and be none the wiser. Until his allotment disappeared.
As for bulletin boards, I never had much luck writing my own. If anything Abended I had a terrible time trying to get the thing to reinitialize.
Thanks Jon & Hudton,
(I realize this thread ended a few months ago but I couldn't help myself)
I too had an Elf back in 1979-1980 (Netronics Elf II) and I just picked up a Quest Super Elf to restore. It actually arrived yesterday. It's mising some bits; The 1861, a few diodes leds and FND500s but it still works! I still have bits of 1802 assembler scribbled here and there and last night after a brief inspection I fired up the Quest Elf and ran some 1977 assembler code. Worked like a charm.
Up here on the west coast of Canada not too many folks know what an 1802 Elf is but every now and then I'll run into someone who had a kit or built one from the 1976 Popular Electronics article. In fact about 10-15 years ago I ran into a fellow from Texas on one of our ski hills and during one of the long chair lift rides we got to talking bits & bytes... Sure enough he had an Elf at one point and knew a heck of a lot about 1802s and how that little 8 bit microcomputer was the brains behind the Voyager spacecraft and a number of lesser know craft NASA launched.
I lost my original Elf II/4K RAM board along with a homebrew 1802 robot controller and a bunch of related items sometime between 1986 and 1987 when I moved. I've regretted not being more carefull ever since. I still have quite a bit of material from those days. I have a spare 1802 chip, D2101AL-4 ram chips, countless 8080A/85/85/86/88s + Motorolla CPUs and Z80s and other odds and ends.
The first time I fired up a BS2 it floored me that I could do so much with the little bugger. The 1802 running at about 1.5Mhz was neat but it took me ages to do things that I could do with the BS2 in a matter of moments. If I only had stamps and SX chips back in high school...
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Andrew
1980 - Netronics Elf II 4k Ram
1982 - Homebrew 1802 1k RAM
1983 - Sharp PC1251
1984 - TI99/4A
1987 - IBM PC Junior
2005 - Quest Super Elf 256 Bytes RAM
·· I'm amazed at the number of people who started out with Z80s and moved to BASIC Stamp Modules and SX Chips.· Many still use the Z80 too.· I had to admit to not having heard of the Elf II, or I've since forgotten about it (Happens when you get older).
·· It goes to show...With everything out there, I kinda grabbed a specific market and ran with it for a long time.· I didn't have the need to play a little with everything.· Instead I wanted to play a lot with what I knew.·
True, you have to go with what you know, or can get support for.
I was looking at building an 8080 based machine but my high school shop teacher suggested the Elf because there were about a half dozen Elf owners at our school and zero 8080 owners at the time. We eventually created a small users group that included another high school. You'd think that would have helped with my coding skills but no. I could build and troubleshoot with the best of them but it wasn't until a few (many) years later that I even began to understand the power of code
My memory still works most of the time though. I've attached a pic of the Super Elf.
·· Don't feel bad that it took you awhile to grasp the programming end.· I was building Z80-based projects and having a friend write code while I learned...It didn't really click until I had a mentor.· It's nice to have someone you can ask questions to who knows the language, as well as different ways to look at things so you can learn.
·· Same thing happened earlier when I tried to learn assembly on the 6502...Until I had someone to help me, I was having a really hard time with the books available.· BASIC was so much easier.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage Parallax Tech Support csavage@parallax.com
Post Edited (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 3/29/2005 8:22:55 PM GMT
Forrest said...
What happened to the rest of the letters on the keyboard?
Are you sure you want to know?
The Elf II had a smaller keypad and the original was a row of 8 switches for binary input.
On that one, The keypad (0-9 + A-F) allows you to code assembler in hex. The other 8 buttons are for controlling the state and/or rom functions:
L: Put the processor in Load mode
R: Resets to Address 0000 and resets any other functions that may be on.
G: Run... Stands for GO!
W: Wait controls the Wait state of the processor and also resets memory protect.
M: Monitor is used to load the first 32 bytes with the monitor program from ROM
S: Single-step for executing a program one word at a time
P: Protect puts the machine in memory protect to step throught he addresses without overwriting
I: Input. Used for inputting code. You enter a 2 digit hex code and then click the input key. Then keep going til you're done.
Chris Savage said...
... I was building Z80-based projects and having a friend write code while I learned...It didn't really click until I had a mentor.
...Same thing happened earlier when I tried to learn assembly on the 6502...Until I had someone to help me, I was having a really hard time with the books available. BASIC was so much easier.
I think that's pretty much summarizes my experience as well. Before Basic, there really wasn't anyone available in my sphere of influence who could even begin to explain the software side of things. This was illustrated by my Grade 12 Comp/Sci grades. I did my term project as well as my best friends. He got a B and I got a C. I did much better in Electronics class.
Things changed a bit after high school. My Sharp PC1251, which I still have, is programmed in Basic and that was a breeze compared to the Elf. I still have the micro-cassette tapes of some of my best code for building bass reflex speaker enclosures. When I started coding stuff like that I was the man because anyone who wanted to build a large stereo system for the home or car could come to me and within a matter of minutes I could give them Box dimensions, the 3db downpoint and an approximate frequency of the tuning as well as vent diameter and length.
These days I code in Assembler (learning SX) for fun and variations of C and Basic for profit (and fun).
Yeah, 6502 code shuld be easy, as it's a simple processor, but...
There's that 'Page 0' mode and a few other oddities.
(Always trying to fit the most critical parts of your program into the paltry first 256Bytes)
Now, programming in assembly on a PDP-11/750, THAT is weird...
Well, not really, all you had to do was swap the operands around and write everything in Octal...
I've been told that they picked Octal because it was so close to Decimal..
(Did the same people later work for NASA, programming space-probes?)
Loved programming in Z80. Fastest interrupt in the west!
(No need to PUSH and POP, just EXX)
Even if you discounted that, thanks to separate Address and Data busses, it was at least 20% faster than a 8085.
And more interrupts than you could shake a cat at.
Won't this thread die!! haha the longest one in all the forums! lol
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Steve http://ca.geocities.com/steve.brady@rogers.com/index.html "Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
·· I LOVED that feature too...The ability to swap alternate registers saved on stack space and time, especially in the interrupt routine.· I never did use more than a handful of interrupts using a 74139 8 to 3 line decoder, plus I used the NMI for another little background task.· Of course, the problem was that to do anything you had to hand hardware off the Z80, which could get expensive, not to mention coding for all the hardware.· Which is why I eventually went to the BASIC Stamp Modules.
Steve_b,
·· This thread may NEVER die!·· There are just sooo many of us out there who have programmed on many different platforms, and it's great to share past experiences, since those are the steps each have taken to end up where we are today.· Not to mention, it should also help others to see who are the experienced programmers and hardware hackers.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage Parallax Tech Support csavage@parallax.com
That may not be too far fetched.· USA Network and NBC just finished auditioning for a reality show featuring inventors.· My wife and I auditioned in Los Angeles.· However, the winner doesn't get a cash prize but a one year contract with the Home Shopping Network.
·· LOL!· I still hold the Z80 near & dear, but I have to admit, the BASIC Stamp is having the very same, if not a more profound effect on me, just because of it's versatility.· And what it lacks (Which isn't much in my world), the SX can make up for.
·· It's just all this talk makes me nastalgic...And instead of trying to get my current projects finished, I end up dragging out old Z80 projects and trying to retro-fit them with BASIC Stamps!· LOL
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage Parallax Tech Support csavage@parallax.com
Chris Savage said...
It's just all this talk makes me nastalgic...And instead of trying to get my current projects finished, I end up dragging out old Z80 projects and trying to retro-fit them with BASIC Stamps! LOL
I know what you mean...
Last night I pulled out my old 1970's solderless BB (I need a new one badly), a handfull of components and an old 1802 chip (of unknown condition) and within an hour or 2 or 3 I had a handfull of LED flashing on and off all the while thinking that maybe I could use the SX Video module www.sxvm.com/ to hook it up to my TV. Just what we need around the house; another gizmo
Comments
It has a hex keyboard to program it. I had one (gave it away), was just wondering it anyone else had seen or used one.
Bean.
·· I lived in Schenectady for 10 years.· My business started there, and I was a member of the local Commodore User Group (TCCUG) as well as the local Amiga User Group (CDAUG).· I don't remember you from either group, but there were alot of people I don't remember.· Don't suppose you knew John Rafalak?· Or Lou Matrozzo, or anyone else I knew?· Darrin Wensley?
·· Sorry, it's just rare to see anyone from my old stomping grounds...Especially someone that was into the very computers I was into.· Speaking of Graphics, we used Imagine to render ALOT of 3D Ray Trace images...In HAM mode.· Took my A3000 quite some time, but the results were well worth it.
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Chris Savage
Knight Designs
324 West Main Street
P.O. Box 97
Montour Falls, NY 14865
(607) 535-6777
Business Page:·· http://www.knightdesigns.com
Personal Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/chris
Designs Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/designs
·
·· Yep, a little before my time!·
·· But yeah, I saw you mention Schenectady and Commodores, and thought maybe you were part of our HUGE Commodore family in that area.· I didn't even move up there until around 1986 or 87...At the time there were alot of people with VIC-20s and C64's and 300 bps modems!· That's what really got me going up there.· Where I am now, it's relatively small, and the user base is split up between PC users (Who mostly own Dell computers around here) and the Mac users proliferating the Ithaca area (Cornell University).
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Chris Savage
Knight Designs
324 West Main Street
P.O. Box 97
Montour Falls, NY 14865
(607) 535-6777
Business Page:·· http://www.knightdesigns.com
Personal Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/chris
Designs Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/designs
·
C64 good sound?
What I remember is that the C64 guys back home were envious of the adaptability of the ZX Spectrum's(Timex Sinclair in the US)·simple speaker system(a small speaker connected to a pin on an IO port)
It was no problem doing sines, harmonics, zaps or whatever as long as you could add the pulse trains together.
Sure, the AY-3910 (or whatever) chip the C64 used was good at music, but making a decent zap sound for the laser guns?
As for the calendar...
It missed several important machines...
Osborne 1: The first 'portable' computer(it fitted under an airplane seat, and you could carry it for short stretches as it 'only' weighed in at 25pounds) Not only was it the first portable, but it also introduced the concept of software Bundling as it included WordStar, IBM's DB II and Supercalc(I think it· was) and finally, the concept of 'doing an Osborne' (Blabbing about an upcoming product so that the sales of the current product plummets and the business goes into receivership...)
Epson HX-20: The World's first laptop...
·· No, the Tandy TRS-80 model 100 was not first. The Epson came in 1982. It had 16KB RAM, a small LCD screen, full keyboard a micro-printer(like those in cash-registers) and optionally a micro-cassette recorder to store your programs and data on.
Digital PDP-11 because so much fun came off it...
(Didn't Colossal Cave start on this computer?)
·· I think maybe you're thinking of another computer...The C64 had some of the best computer generated sound at the time.· In fact, the sound chip (SID), which was designed by Commodore, became so popular that there were thousands and thousands of songs converted to SID format.· Later a Stereo mod was adapted by piggy-backing another SID chip onto the first and addressing it from an I/O port (From the cartridge port expansion).
You could download these "Stereo SIDs" from Q-Link and many other online sites, and they even embedded animated C= ASCII art into them.· Many were quite good, and I even wrote a few myself back in the day.· The AY-xxxx series chips were cheesy at best.· If you look up the specs to the MOS SID Chip, you will find it was more capable than you remember.· The part # was·6581, manufactered by MOS Tech.
Way ahead of it's time...Commodore, in many ways...Same with the Amiga...Their problem was poor marketing, and lack of educational discounts...
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Chris Savage
Knight Designs
324 West Main Street
P.O. Box 97
Montour Falls, NY 14865
(607) 535-6777
Business Page:·· http://www.knightdesigns.com
Personal Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/chris
Designs Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/designs
·
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Chris Savage
Knight Designs
324 West Main Street
P.O. Box 97
Montour Falls, NY 14865
(607) 535-6777
Business Page:·· http://www.knightdesigns.com
Personal Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/chris
Designs Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/designs
·
It is also quite possible that none of them really knew how to use their computers...
(None of them became computer techs)
Hey, it could happen with the BS2!·
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Chris Savage
Knight Designs
324 West Main Street
P.O. Box 97
Montour Falls, NY 14865
(607) 535-6777
Business Page:·· http://www.knightdesigns.com
Personal Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/chris
Designs Page:··· http://www.lightlink.com/dream/designs
·
The Megaboard was impressive, 4 layer MIL-SPEC quality green board construction. This must have been about 1985.
·· Now that's dedication!· I have been receiving a lot of e-mail recently about some web articles I published some time ago.· A few people tracking down former Commodore User Group members found me.· The thing is that this time around it's highly unlikely that I will dig out any old Commodore equipment in the name of nostalgia, since I am really looking to broaden my horizons with some of the newer stuff (Well, newer to me).
·· I think the thread may have reached critical mass!· All the Old-School hackers seem to have visited and posted their early experiences with micros.· I have to admit, I am quite surprised at how many people go way back.· Like as in paper-punch stuff.· You represent a generation that may have excluded someone like me at the time from micros.· I was trying to remember what exactly drew me in, and I believe it was the Apple II and VIC-20 that started it, since nothing earlier seemed to grab my attention.
·· Anyway, it's amazing how my first programming experience started with BASIC and after years of playing around with other languages right back to BASICs, so to speak.· Once I get some code updated I will post a few projects in the PROJECTS forums to share with everyone who's interested.
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--==<{Chris}>==--
I have been laughing terribly reliving my past in this thread. As for being Elite, we didn't want anyone to know what we were doing on the VAX back in '82...yea I know I am a relative baby in this stuff. We had the comp/sci department on definite man-hunt for us. As I recall a couple of the more interesting things we did were to back load files into others accounts. A great way to keep a couple code files as well as exe's around. Problem was they could not access their account when we took them over. Once your allocation was used the login/out script was disabled until you cleared some space. Seems we had a neat little hack that emulated the terminal login program so that people would come in sit down and type their user name and password. The thing would then display an "error" message, save their info to a file and logoff without echo. The un-suspecting user would log back in and be none the wiser. Until his allotment disappeared.
As for bulletin boards, I never had much luck writing my own. If anything Abended I had a terrible time trying to get the thing to reinitialize.
Jeff
(I realize this thread ended a few months ago but I couldn't help myself)
I too had an Elf back in 1979-1980 (Netronics Elf II) and I just picked up a Quest Super Elf to restore. It actually arrived yesterday. It's mising some bits; The 1861, a few diodes leds and FND500s but it still works! I still have bits of 1802 assembler scribbled here and there and last night after a brief inspection I fired up the Quest Elf and ran some 1977 assembler code. Worked like a charm.
Up here on the west coast of Canada not too many folks know what an 1802 Elf is but every now and then I'll run into someone who had a kit or built one from the 1976 Popular Electronics article. In fact about 10-15 years ago I ran into a fellow from Texas on one of our ski hills and during one of the long chair lift rides we got to talking bits & bytes... Sure enough he had an Elf at one point and knew a heck of a lot about 1802s and how that little 8 bit microcomputer was the brains behind the Voyager spacecraft and a number of lesser know craft NASA launched.
I lost my original Elf II/4K RAM board along with a homebrew 1802 robot controller and a bunch of related items sometime between 1986 and 1987 when I moved. I've regretted not being more carefull ever since. I still have quite a bit of material from those days. I have a spare 1802 chip, D2101AL-4 ram chips, countless 8080A/85/85/86/88s + Motorolla CPUs and Z80s and other odds and ends.
The first time I fired up a BS2 it floored me that I could do so much with the little bugger. The 1802 running at about 1.5Mhz was neat but it took me ages to do things that I could do with the BS2 in a matter of moments. If I only had stamps and SX chips back in high school...
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Andrew
1980 - Netronics Elf II 4k Ram
1982 - Homebrew 1802 1k RAM
1983 - Sharp PC1251
1984 - TI99/4A
1987 - IBM PC Junior
2005 - Quest Super Elf 256 Bytes RAM
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
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Truly Understand the Fundamentals and the Path will be so much easier...
·· It goes to show...With everything out there, I kinda grabbed a specific market and ran with it for a long time.· I didn't have the need to play a little with everything.· Instead I wanted to play a lot with what I knew.·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
I was looking at building an 8080 based machine but my high school shop teacher suggested the Elf because there were about a half dozen Elf owners at our school and zero 8080 owners at the time. We eventually created a small users group that included another high school. You'd think that would have helped with my coding skills but no. I could build and troubleshoot with the best of them but it wasn't until a few (many) years later that I even began to understand the power of code
My memory still works most of the time though. I've attached a pic of the Super Elf.
·· Don't feel bad that it took you awhile to grasp the programming end.· I was building Z80-based projects and having a friend write code while I learned...It didn't really click until I had a mentor.· It's nice to have someone you can ask questions to who knows the language, as well as different ways to look at things so you can learn.
·· Same thing happened earlier when I tried to learn assembly on the 6502...Until I had someone to help me, I was having a really hard time with the books available.· BASIC was so much easier.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Post Edited (Chris Savage (Parallax)) : 3/29/2005 8:22:55 PM GMT
The Elf II had a smaller keypad and the original was a row of 8 switches for binary input.
On that one, The keypad (0-9 + A-F) allows you to code assembler in hex. The other 8 buttons are for controlling the state and/or rom functions:
L: Put the processor in Load mode
R: Resets to Address 0000 and resets any other functions that may be on.
G: Run... Stands for GO!
W: Wait controls the Wait state of the processor and also resets memory protect.
M: Monitor is used to load the first 32 bytes with the monitor program from ROM
S: Single-step for executing a program one word at a time
P: Protect puts the machine in memory protect to step throught he addresses without overwriting
I: Input. Used for inputting code. You enter a 2 digit hex code and then click the input key. Then keep going til you're done.
I think that's pretty much summarizes my experience as well. Before Basic, there really wasn't anyone available in my sphere of influence who could even begin to explain the software side of things. This was illustrated by my Grade 12 Comp/Sci grades. I did my term project as well as my best friends. He got a B and I got a C. I did much better in Electronics class.
Things changed a bit after high school. My Sharp PC1251, which I still have, is programmed in Basic and that was a breeze compared to the Elf. I still have the micro-cassette tapes of some of my best code for building bass reflex speaker enclosures. When I started coding stuff like that I was the man because anyone who wanted to build a large stereo system for the home or car could come to me and within a matter of minutes I could give them Box dimensions, the 3db downpoint and an approximate frequency of the tuning as well as vent diameter and length.
These days I code in Assembler (learning SX) for fun and variations of C and Basic for profit (and fun).
There's that 'Page 0' mode and a few other oddities.
(Always trying to fit the most critical parts of your program into the paltry first 256Bytes)
Now, programming in assembly on a PDP-11/750, THAT is weird...
Well, not really, all you had to do was swap the operands around and write everything in Octal...
I've been told that they picked Octal because it was so close to Decimal..
(Did the same people later work for NASA, programming space-probes?)
Loved programming in Z80. Fastest interrupt in the west!
(No need to PUSH and POP, just EXX)
Even if you discounted that, thanks to separate Address and Data busses, it was at least 20% faster than a 8085.
And more interrupts than you could shake a cat at.
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·
Steve
http://ca.geocities.com/steve.brady@rogers.com/index.html
"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
·· I LOVED that feature too...The ability to swap alternate registers saved on stack space and time, especially in the interrupt routine.· I never did use more than a handful of interrupts using a 74139 8 to 3 line decoder, plus I used the NMI for another little background task.· Of course, the problem was that to do anything you had to hand hardware off the Z80, which could get expensive, not to mention coding for all the hardware.· Which is why I eventually went to the BASIC Stamp Modules.
Steve_b,
·· This thread may NEVER die!·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Their should be a reality show on tv about hacking, the bigest hack could win a bunch of money.
That may not be too far fetched.· USA Network and NBC just finished auditioning for a reality show featuring inventors.· My wife and I auditioned in Los Angeles.· However, the winner doesn't get a cash prize but a one year contract with the Home Shopping Network.
Man I loved that thing [noparse][[/noparse]wipes tear from cheek, lip quivering].
Bean.
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"SX-Video Display Module" Available Now.
www.sxvm.com
"A problem well defined, is a problem·half solved."
·
Bob N9LVU
·· LOL!· I still hold the Z80 near & dear, but I have to admit, the BASIC Stamp is having the very same, if not a more profound effect on me, just because of it's versatility.· And what it lacks (Which isn't much in my world), the SX can make up for.
·· It's just all this talk makes me nastalgic...And instead of trying to get my current projects finished, I end up dragging out old Z80 projects and trying to retro-fit them with BASIC Stamps!· LOL
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
I know what you mean...
Last night I pulled out my old 1970's solderless BB (I need a new one badly), a handfull of components and an old 1802 chip (of unknown condition) and within an hour or 2 or 3 I had a handfull of LED flashing on and off all the while thinking that maybe I could use the SX Video module www.sxvm.com/ to hook it up to my TV. Just what we need around the house; another gizmo