> I suspect ELecraft do actually support modified hardware, which most
people wouldn't.
Yes, I believe that is true. Wayne and Eric are long-time supporters of
homebrewing.
> Incidentally a lot of the original developers of the internet (before
commercialisation) were radio amateurs.
My favorite example of early free software contributors was Irv Hoff
W6FFC (SK). He was big in RTTY (radioteletype) in the early days. Among
other things, he designed the "Mainline" series of FSK demodulators and
the AK1 frequency-shift keyer. He wrote a couple of dozen articles
about RTTY in QST and elsewhere back in the 1960s and early 70s.
Later he got into computers. Somewhere he acquired a surplus DEC
computer and had fun programming it to run his RTTY station. When
personal computers came out in the 1970s, Irv jumped right in. His
contributions to free software included IMP (Irv's Modem Program, later
"Improved" Modem Program), which became the standard for CP/M and other
early home computers.
He also wrote many other utilities that he shared freely. Just a few I
happen to know about: LHA (file compression and archive program), XIZ
and XZI to translate machine code from Intel 8080 to Zilog Z-80 and
vice-versa, BD (find bad disk sectors and lock them out), CHEK (CRC file
integrity checker), MDM (another modem program), M7LIB (manage telephone
numbers in MDM library), file13 (file search utility), filt (text
filters), find (find ASCII string in a file), form (source code
formatter), formatin (format text files), justify (right margin
justification), kmd (RCMP utility), listt (list text files to printer
with nice formatting), mcatxcat (disk catalog system), neat (source code
reformatter), osmdm (modem program for Osborne 1 computer), oxmdm (modem
program for Osborne Executive computer), FOR (search RCMP list), DIRR
(directory listing program), etc. etc.
Alan N1AL
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