[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk
On Sat, 27 Apr 2024, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: I had checked it on an NEC V20, but not on MANY other CPUs. at least, I think that it was a V20. The code that I had written to try to identify which processor was running thought that it was. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk
How many know that AAM is a two byte instruction, with the second byte being 0Ah? Changing the second byte to 8 gave division by 8, etc. On Sat, 27 Apr 2024, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Only for sure on Intel x86 processors. I believe that the NEC V20 assumes that the second byte is 0x0a

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 4/27/24 19:09, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > How many know that AAM is a two byte instruction, with te second byte > beint 0Ah? > Changing the second byte to 8 gave division by 8, etc. Argh! I said earlier that the NEC V20 assumed that the value of the second byte of AAM was always 0x0a.

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 4/27/24 19:09, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > How many know that AAM is a two byte instruction, with the second byte > being 0Ah? > Changing the second byte to 8 gave division by 8, etc. Only for sure on Intel x86 processors. I believe that the NEC V20 assumes that the second byte is 0x0a

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 4/27/24 18:46, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > On 4/27/24 17:02, ben via cctalk wrote: >> Did any one need REAL BCD math like the Big Boys had? >> >> > No, this is a fallacy.  Binary arithmetic is as "accurate" as decimal.  > Handling VERY large numbers in floating point loses some precision, but

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk
Did any one need REAL BCD math like the Big Boys had? On Sat, 27 Apr 2024, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: No, this is a fallacy.  Binary arithmetic is as "accurate" as decimal.  Handling VERY large numbers in floating point loses some precision, but any computer can do multiple word binary quite

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk
On 4/27/24 17:02, ben via cctalk wrote: Did any one need REAL BCD math like the Big Boys had? No, this is a fallacy.  Binary arithmetic is as "accurate" as decimal.  Handling VERY large numbers in floating point loses some precision, but any computer can do multiple word binary quite well. 

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Gavin Scott via cctalk
On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 6:34 PM Chris Zach wrote: > Seems the USPS was trial building a system where you could bring a > letter into a Post Office, they would scan it, then send it to another > post office in MINUTES using a big packet switched network based on > PDP11/23's connected to RM02's

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Chris Zach via cctalk
Fortunately, in the US the net wasn't run by the Post Office so the mammals were out of the bag and fruitfully multiplying long before the rest of the world caught on and started forming committees to create camel-shaped dinosaurs to perform the same functions. As a result most of those things

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Gavin Scott via cctalk
On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 10:57 AM Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > It is funny, but truth be told we dodged a massive bullet by going with > the "Internet" and TCP/IP as opposed to the nightmare of AT Connect, > IPX, and the blazing speeds of TWO! ISDN B channels. > > I was there. I remember X.400,

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk
On Sat, 27 Apr 2024, Gary Grebus via cctalk wrote: By the time frame mentioned in the article (1981) there were many commercially available applications. There was also hardware (e.g. from DEC, DG, HP) that was of a scale where it would be dedicated to one application. At that time I worked

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Gavin Scott via cctalk
On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 12:23 PM Tarek Hoteit via cctalk wrote: > Do you guys* think that software drove hardware sales rather than the other > way around for businesses in the early days? For medium and large multi-user systems absolutely. At least once we got out of the era where there

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread ben via cctalk
On 2024-04-27 2:29 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Apr 27, 2024, at 1:15 PM, Tarek Hoteit via cctalk wrote: I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine edition in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit prices.” “

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Gary Grebus via cctalk
By the time frame mentioned in the article (1981) there were many commercially available applications. There was also hardware (e.g. from DEC, DG, HP) that was of a scale where it would be dedicated to one application. At that time I worked for a company that developed a database system. I

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Paul Koning via cctalk
> On Apr 27, 2024, at 1:15 PM, Tarek Hoteit via cctalk > wrote: > > I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine > edition in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit > prices.” > > “ ‘Personal-computer buffs may buy a machine, bring

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Paul Berger via cctalk
On 2024-04-27 2:39 p.m., Wayne S via cctalk wrote: When you say “software drove hardware sales” do you mean complete software application systems or do you mean compilers available for the hardware so the software teams had variety in what they could program? Up to the ‘90’s, companies had

[cctalk] Re: Z80 vs other microprocessors of the time.

2024-04-27 Thread Alexander Schreiber via cctalk
On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 02:45:50PM -0500, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote: > Cycle accurate emulation becomes impossible in the following circumstances: > > * Branch prediction and pipelining can cause out of order execution >and the execution path become data dependent. > * Cache memory.  It

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Joshua Rice via cctalk
I'm a youngster when it comes to this hobby, being manufactured myself in the early years of the 90's. As such i cannot really quote from my experiences "at the time", but i have spent many an hour tinkering with old machines and researching for this vintage (and modern) computing hobby of

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Wayne S via cctalk
IMHO, having started programming in 1977, the thing that drove sales was the promise of reduced costs just by having a computer that could be programmed to do accounting type work that would eliminate jobs and thus costs. Mainframes were very expensive back then so there weren’t many companies

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Tarek Hoteit via cctalk
Hi. Meant complete software application systems, but, of course, it is eventually powered by language compilers Regards, Tarek Hoteit AI Consultant, PhD +1 360-838-3675 > On Apr 27, 2024, at 10:39, Wayne S wrote: > > When you say “software drove hardware sales” do you mean complete

[cctalk] Re: PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Wayne S via cctalk
When you say “software drove hardware sales” do you mean complete software application systems or do you mean compilers available for the hardware so the software teams had variety in what they could program? Up to the ‘90’s, companies had big, expensive hardware and little to no canned

[cctalk] PCs in home vs businesses (70s/80s)

2024-04-27 Thread Tarek Hoteit via cctalk
I came across this paragraph from the July 1981 Popular Science magazine edition in the article titled “Compute power - pro models at almost home-unit prices.” “ ‘Personal-computer buffs may buy a machine, bring it home, and then spend the rest of their time looking for things it can do’,

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread Murray McCullough via cctalk
The Altair 8800 used a microprocessor, the 8080, and came to public prominence in Jan. 1975 in Popular Electronics magazine: "World's First Minicomptuer Kit to Rival Commercial Models." I have the original magazine from that era and I remember this quite well as it brought attention to a

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Chris Zach via cctalk
It is funny, but truth be told we dodged a massive bullet by going with the "Internet" and TCP/IP as opposed to the nightmare of AT Connect, IPX, and the blazing speeds of TWO! ISDN B channels. I was there. I remember X.400, and how NDS was going to be the directory system that bound us all

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread Tarek Hoteit via cctalk
I managed to find and buy a fair copy of the magazine on eBay for $150 two weeks ago. Regards, Tarek Hoteit, PhD Principal AI Consultant https://tarek.computer INFOCOM AI https://infocom.ai > On Apr 27, 2024, at 07:42, wh.sudbrink--- via cctalk > wrote: > >  I'm sorry to hear that. Some

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread wh.sudbrink--- via cctalk
I'm sorry to hear that. Some of the best parts of my S100 collection came to me by way of either "please take care of this for me" or "come get this or it goes to the dump".  Remember the old "classic computer rescue list"?  I suppose I've been fortunate that I have had storage space and a

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
On 4/27/2024 7:43 AM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: Magazine cover january, and into 1975 the revolution. So I'd say all year. Not one specific date I had that magazine. Wish I hadn't thrown it away oh so many years ago. But even at that, nothing for me to celebrate. I couldn't afford

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Liam Proven via cctalk
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 21:52, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > Seems like a hormonal problem. No, there is a problem, but it's your knee-jerk reactions. Sorry, man, but it is. Charlie's bang on. Also, he's very British and very sarcastic, in that British way many Americans of my personal

[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp

2024-04-27 Thread Liam Proven via cctalk
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 03:25, Tomasz Rola via cctalk wrote: > > Well, if you are into this kind of stuff (I am)... Stross is an s-f > author, formerly a programmer (ages ago but I think it still shows - > perhaps he secretly writes his own tools in Perl) He wrote the Linux column in the UK

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread Bill Degnan via cctalk
Magazine cover january, and into 1975 the revolution. So I'd say all year. Not one specific date Bill On Sat, Apr 27, 2024, 12:05 AM Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, 26 Apr 2024, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > It really is a momentous event, and should be properly honored and > >

[cctalk] Re: Altair 8800 50th birthday...

2024-04-27 Thread wh.sudbrink--- via cctalk
Mr. Solomon started talking to Mr. Roberts and Mr. Yates about the Altair project. What could and could not be done given budget, availability of parts, complexity of construction, etc. What the potential market would look like. And, maybe most importantly, the promotion of the project in