On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 05:59:42PM -0400, Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote: > Brings back memories! My first 6800 cross assembler came to me as 2000 > Fortran source code punch cards. We had an F4R4 compiler on the PDP11 but > the card reader was on the PDP-8.
Funny how the kids don't realise Fortran was the 'C' language at one time. Editors, linker, macro preprocessors a lot of it was done in Fortran. ;) > > The only common peripheral was paper tape. One night, the Chief Engineer > and I fed the cards into the PDP8 card reader, punched tape, and fed it > directly into the PDP11 tape reader. X-on X-off was handled by hitting the > stop and continue buttons on the PDP8 as the punch was faster than the > reader. The buffer was a pile of paper tape in the floor, which we > carefully prevented from tangling. Somehow OS/8 managed to not crash with > the constant start/stop. heh I can only imagine. > > Nobody was more surprised than we were when the output compiled perfectly on > the PDP11 and we made our first 6800 program - a ham repeater controller! Cool! > > The Chief Engineer is still alive - I was at his 95th birthday last year and > we often have fun talking about the good old days! Nice! > > cheers, > > Nigel Johnson > > > On 29/03/2020 16:59, Diane Bruce via cctalk wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 09:47:51AM +1300, Brendan McNeill via cctech wrote: > > > Here in NZ and around the world many of us are in lockdown and spending > > > more time on our computers, if that were possible. I have just completed > > > the restoration of a PDP-8 Straight 8 which I believe is the only one in > > > New Zealand. You can view the restoration story and find appropriate > > > resources here: https://pdp-8.nz <https://pdp-8.nz/> > > > > > > While it plays Chess, it would be great if someone wanted to write (say) > > > a Prime Number Generator, or some other application and email it to me > > > off list. I have Focal-69 and can probably source other languages for > > > this wonderful old machine with 4K of memory. > > I have memories of keying in RIM and BIN. Long long time ago. I also learned > > how to talk to the OS/8 file system so we could play morse code from a file > > instead of a paper tape for our University club station. ;) > > > > > --------------//---------------- > > > bren...@mcneill.co.nz > > > +64 21 881 883 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 73 de VA3DB for those that care ;) > > > -- > Nigel Johnson > MSc., MIEEE > VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU > > Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! > > > You can reach me by voice on Skype: TILBURY2591 > > If time travel ever will be possible, it already is. Ask me again yesterday > > This e-mail is not and cannot, by its nature, be confidential. En route from > me to you, it will pass across the public Internet, easily readable by any > number of system administrators along the way. > Nigel Johnson <nw.john...@ieee.org> > > Please consider the environment when deciding if you really need to print > this message > > -- - d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db
