Picoalt.
I remember optimizing code for the Xerox 820 (170k 8-1/2" floppy IIRC) So I could get DOS/// CP/M, Wordstar, and my own BASIC database on it to print labels and form letters to form the prehistoric versions of HPR.
Not quite as extreme as 4k, but with 64k memory, one needed to at least have the same principals mastered.
I'm looking at some old code (as I write this) for the HP-41C calculator. This was the forerunner of today's PDAs, and was a HUGE technological achievement of its time. The entire operating system is less than 12K, including some very sophisticated math routines.
David Erbas-White
Ahh. Finally, I can one-up Jerry.
I remember optimizing THE BIOS for the Xerox 820... (well, I worked for Xerox at the time, but this was a side project to use the 820 as an industrial controller for the parts and production departments).
David Erbas-White
That's only part of the Easter Egg...
1) First you have to get the bridge and take it to the room that makes the screen flicker. 2) Use the bridge to get to the chamber in the middle of that room. Inside the chamber you will see a dot. 3) Take the dot back to the main room. This makes one of the walls disappear. In the new room you can see the game's credits.That's the first part. To get to the rest of it...
1) Bring the enchanted chalice into the secret room. This is a gift to Mr. Robinett to show that you like his work. 2) Proceed to the entrance to the White Castle where you find the second part of the easter egg.sigh... I miss my days of programming for Atari...
Mario Perdue NAR #22012
Emulators still exist. Keep programming !
You win.
Right before the Xerox 820 (dual floppy) which frankly was THE workhorse that I formed CRm and USR and LMR and HPR on, I used an Altos (forget the number) with MP/M (multi-user gents) and a HUGE 10mb "hard disc". By huge I of course refer to its massive storage capacity.
Its physical size was diminuitive. About the size of an XL pizza box about 10 inches tall.
I don't like to brag about the punch card work I did to learn programming because frankly the productivity of the Xerox 820 on character based data was really about as good as any modern PC or Mac I have right now. The newer computers can do imagry and advanced internet however. But those older machines did modem work just fine. If you had anything to connect to besides "chat boards" (remote PDP-11/70 in my case). You could waste your time just as effectively then as now on chat boards.
I'd forgotten about that!
I can believe that. Although I wonder if YOU would have believed it back then....
Zooty
Uh, you mean they're not in common use any more?
Ok, ok. I've got the 41CV sitting here on my desk. Even though I've got the time module, I don't use it as a PDA any more. Never did get one of the CXes, though.
Zooty
Who remembers torturing the dickens out of a TI-SR52 to increase program size.
Of course, I also remember playing a game in chemistry class: We'd punch random numbers into our calculator and then guess the results of some function. It was fun until one guy memorized a bunch of function tables and started going for 4 sig fig accuracy.
It's amazing how productive one could be back then, albeit in different ways. Back at that time, of course, laser printers were very rare, but the 'state-of-the-art' for a business was the daisy-wheel printer. Although pricey, simply having a daisy wheel printer made a small business look much more professional than a larger business that was still using the Epson dot-matrix printing. I was even able to produce a very high-quality mathematics Masters thesis (my wife's, not mine) on the daisy-wheel, by using three different wheels for each page (one for text, one for Greek characters, and one for mathematical symbols).
I've made comments at times that I think I was more productive (as far as writing ) with WordStar in CP/M than I am today on a multi-GHz machine running Word for Windows. The only 'real' difference was when running on machines that were floppy disk only, as the floppy disk access time was 'relatively' slow. But, one learns to cope - when one has a program that may take some time to run, or is space limited, you tend to use better programming practices. With today's systems, people have so many resources that they don't BOTHER with coding things well. This is fine if you are 'aware' of the better ways, and are trying to do something 'quick and dirty', but for folks coming up on the machines today, they're not learning the techniques that they'll need for more difficult projects.
David Erbas-White
Don't get me started down memory lane . I used to make my living off of doing hardware and software for the HP-41s. If you ever had a 'combined' module for the HP-41 calculator, or a 'speeded-up' calculator, odds are that I'm the one who did the work.
David Erbas-White
Then might I offer a belated and long overdue thanks?
Zooty
170K FLoppy? Bah!
First OS I installed was on a 4K core memory PDP-8 with a 32K hard drive. In
32K we had the OS, an editor, assembler, linker, PIP (copy, dir, etc), and more. Plus room for YOUR programs!No VGA console here, we had a good old ASR-33 teletype at 110 baud! Loaded that hard drive off the paper tape reader after toggling in the bootstrap.
THe PDP-8 itself had 4K or core, but programs could only directly access 128 words on the current page. You got VERY good at cramming 129 instructions into 128. And did all sorts of things to save a bit here and a bit there.
Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!
Fuhgeddaboodit!
David Erbas-White
zoot wrote:
HP stopped making calulators. I don't think anyone makes RPN calculators anymore.
I still use my 41CX. I've never heard of it used as a PDA. The display is awfully small, and the keyboard is not designied for that activiiity. I even have the card reader, because I remembered the limitation of my old TI-58. However, even though I did get the printer for the TI-58, I did not get the printer for my 41CX.
Alan
That reminds me of the great Soviet rocket Designer, Korolev.
The tightest thing I ever coded for was a TI-58.
Alan
Oh my gosh, yes. Bear in mind that it was first introduced 24 years ago, and with the advent of the Time Module (later built into the HP-41CX) and the Extended Functions/Memory (also built into the CX), it had time/scheduling built in, and many folks wrote programs to use the Extended Memory as a 'phonebook'. Back then having a calculator that ALSO served as a scheduler and phonebook (and had plug-in modules for finance, etc.) was definitely the PDA (of its day).
David Erbas-White
Oh, yeah? Well, when I was a kid, we had to walk 5 miles to school, in 2 feet of snow and it was up hill both ways. And we didn't have shoes!
;-)
-- Drake "Doc" Damerau
My dad used to tell me that and he had to fight the Germans going and the Japanese on the way back. Actually he did fight the Germans coming and going. ; )
Randy
You had a school? We just had a large cardboard box...
Mario Perdue NAR #22012 Sr. L2 for email drop the planet
There was another easter egg in Missile Command. Rob Fulop put his initials on place of one of the cuty locations. Don't recall how to get it to appear, though.
-Chr$ NAR 79536 L1
2600 Heavy Sixerkudos to anyone who *gets* that!
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