On Wed, 28 Nov 2001 07:52:08 -0800, Dick Applebaum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Altair? Northstar? Trash-80? Almost an altair, but fortunately a TRS Color Computer. I say fortunately because even though it had an 8-bit cpu (like everything of the day) it was an odd beast that several 16-bit index registers. A 6809 as I recall. (Same cpu as in my Vectrex except for the external timing crystal.) The funny thing is my TI-86 sci-graphing calculator not only has more ram than the first computer I had, it's got about the same speed and graphics resolution. /-) >My first computer, an Apple ][, had 2 built-in BASIC Interpreters and >A mini-assembler. Yea, had those in school. I vaugely remember. Prolog and all that. :) Started the first computer club there come to think of it. Those 8-bit cpu's with their 256 byte index/address limits were funky to code with. Urg. (Makes you really appreciate the 4gb addresses of all modern cpu's.) >Mainframes had an even lower level of programming (called >microprogramming) that was used... it dealt with only a few >instructions such as: Open/Close gate, BitFlip, And, Or, etc.) My dad used to do some computer programming in ancient days when they had analog computers. I've still got some of his old electronics books. The classes I had in transister-to-transister logics seemed very similiar. Everything a logic gate. :) >>(And one of the first things I did was write my own dot-matrix graphics >>printer driver (in machine) so I could print the pictures I made with the >>graphics editor I wrote. Hee.) > >Complicated, no doubt, by the fact that: > > a character or image was made up of vertical rows and horizontal columns of > dots > > the printer could print only 1 row at a time Oh yea, fun. 7 pins running top to bottom on the printer. And computer graphics hi-res was a pseudo 4-color running in little-endian (left to right) in the memory buffer. A whole lot of bit twiddling going on there to get it to work. I think it took me 4 or 5 days to code. > to increase speed, you had to print each row, bostrophedonically*, >on the fly. > >* That's the way they talked in those days. Bostrophedonic, is a >2-bit word for row-by-row, bi-directional, start-to-end, >end-to-start... similar to the way an ox plows a field. Is that what's that's called? A new word for me. :) BI-Directional. Darn. You know, that old printer was bi-directional... it *would* have been a nice speed optimization to write out the graphics while swinging back left. Now you mention it. /-) >I agree with this... > >You gain appreciation for the power of CF and, especially, the ease >of writing and maintaining a program with CF. > >My original post to this thread was an attempt to illustrate >(humorously?) how ridiculous it is to evaluate a tool (CF, FP, etc.) >*only* by its number of users... we'd all be driving Toyotas! > >Dick I have no idea what any of this has to do with CF anymore either. So I'll stop talking now before someone drags me off the stage. /-) pax, --min ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your ad could be here. Monies from ads go to support these lists and provide more resources for the community. http://www.fusionauthority.com/ads.cfm FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
