And don't forget that he modified the Baudot code (he called it upper
and lower sets, not case) so that we could transfer binary (actual
programs) via RTTY, all on the 146.10/70 repeater.
Those were fun days.
Rick nhc
On 7/2/2019 11:34 AM, Alan wrote:
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 a6...@gmail.com
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