Can I get some Arcane Points for writing my first _program_ in ISO coded
Atlas Autocode on an EELM KDF9?
Robert C
On 2/5/13 12:16 PM, Douglas Roberts wrote:
No, I actually meant it, Steve. Careful or I'll start waxing
nostalgic for my old NorthStar Horizon CP/M machine. Or the Amdahl
470 that replaced the IBM 360 that ran my first APL programs.
--Doug
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:13 PM, Steve Smith <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Roger/Sarbajit-
Doug's comment that "this" is what keeps him on the FRIAM ist was
probably only partially "tongue-in-cheek".
This level of geekery is surely near and dear to half of our
hearts if the other half naturally sit and puzzle at our arcane
mumblings... but in defense of the other forms of geekery
(including philosophical maunderings), it's all good. I really
appreciate the level of engagement and interest across a broad
range of topics that can be found here.
I *do* have at least 3 of these devices (or nearly) in my
collection of "stuff", the more obvious being the digital readouts
on my Sony Amp and my Sony CD changer as well as a (longer
version?) on a rack-mount USB keyboard/trackball system designed
for use with rackmount clusters.
I was expecting Sarbajit to remind me about some really obvious
digital readout that is *even* more ubiquitous that I hadn't
thought of. Like the car odometer or radio tuner... but they all
seem to be of a species of semi-special displays.. probably not
custom per model or even manufacturer, but clearly evolving and
changing often. On the other hand, their interface might very
well *BE* a superset or variant of what you describe here!
- Steve
Another mystery of these displays was solved for me the other day
when Bunnie took his Media Lab visitors to a direct chip bonding
shop in Shenzhen. On the back of the bog standard LCD display
there will often be a dome of black epoxy in place of a chip. I
thought they were hiding the chip, but in fact the dome covers a
piece of raw silicon integrated circuit glued to the board and
wired to the board with tiny wires.
-- rec --
http://learn.adafruit.com/character-lcds/overview
http://www.freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/MIT-Media-Lab-Shenzhen-2013/MIT-Media-Lab-Shenzhen-2013-01-22-Chip-on-Board-Bare-Die-Attachment.html
freaklabs.org <http://freaklabs.org> is off-line at the moment,
but that looks like the right posting. Lady Ada's tutorial gets
to the 8/4 bit bus after several pages of prelims.
Steve
Being a devotee of ancient computing devices myself, I was
responding to Doug's TRS-80 ascii comment
here's what a 16x2 LCD module looks like
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hN2n9HggfCw/T2TOHEMIAsI/AAAAAAAAAAc/LrJ6uy2cNrs/s1600/lcd162b-yhy.jpg
These critters are so ubiquitous that you fail to see them. These
modules have an 8 bit data bus to communicate with Z-80s, 8085 etc
(nowadays though PICS, AVRs and ATMELs). They also have a facility
to split the 8 bit data into 2 successive nibbles of 4 bits (ie 4
pins + 2 control pins= 6 pins). This allows for instance a 12 or
14 PIC (with 8 - 10 I/O lines) to be used to implement very small
devices. The design advantage ot using these standard displays
versus dedicated/custom displays is that they have no end-of-life
problems. They were available 20 years ago and still seem to be
going very strong with prices falling to @ US$1 per unit
Sarbajit
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Douglas Roberts
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
You see, this is the kind of material that keeps me on FRIAM.
--Doug
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:29 AM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The interface to the bog standard LCD display can use
either 8 or 4 bits parallel, which only changes the
number of outs you need to do to fill the line buffer,
which has an 8 bit byte for each character The 8 bit
character ROM often has fascinating character sets in the
high half depending on where the surplus came from.
-- rec --
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:16 AM, Steve Smith
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Sarbajit -
Can you elaborate? I think this one just flew past
me... 2 lines of 16 characters with only 4 bit
indexing (alphabet of 16 characters?)... This sounds
like (much) more than a digital watch (do those even
exist anymore?) or even a calculator (only 1 line?).
I feel like you handed us a riddle like the sphynx!
I tried a massive, brooding, indifferent posture to
Dougs posts on this one, but I could only hold the
pose for a few seconds before breaking into a belly
laugh appropriate only for the Buddha or Santa Claus.
- Steve
Just to update fellow FRIAMers.
The most common standard display device in the world
today is the 16x2 character LCD display. The vast
majority of installations use it in 4 bit mode.
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:08 AM, Douglas Roberts
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
As a courtesy to our old-fashioned (to put it
politely) FRIAM list members who are still
reading email on their TRS-80 ascii terminals, I
will supply a synopses of the material contained
in that new-fangled url thingie below: the
article discusses a massive, indifferent,
brooding silence.
You're welcome.
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--
/Doug Roberts
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>/
/http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins/
/
505-455-7333 <tel:505-455-7333> - Office
505-672-8213 <tel:505-672-8213> - Mobile/
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribehttp://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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--
/Doug Roberts
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>/
/http://parrot-farm.net/Second-Cousins/
/
505-455-7333 - Office
505-672-8213 - Mobile/
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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