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    Bits and Bytes (1983)

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    nostalgia
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    • C
      CharlesHTN @scottalanmiller
      last edited by CharlesHTN

      @scottalanmiller said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

      @Scott said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

      Had a TI 99/4A and an IBM PCjr.

      Ha! "Had", past tense. Lame. 😉

      Ha! "a", singlular. Lame. 😉

      I have three. 🙂

      Really need to pull them out and try connecting to my 49" LCD TV in the living room. My 13 year old son has never seen what these look like.

      I have one of the expansion boxes, complete with the MASSIVE 32k Memory upgrade! Plus dual 5.25" single sided floppies. Not sure if we still have the original TI cassette recorder or not, but hopefully, we at least have the cable.

      LOL...weird first post, eh? I've come across this site from time to time, but mostly hang out on that other spicy site. Don't know why I never came here, given my pedigree. These are my Great-Grandparents: http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html (John and Pearl, the ones in front of the first Hatcher Mango tree).

      scottalanmillerS JaredBuschJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • scottalanmillerS
        scottalanmiller @mary
        last edited by

        @mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

        @scottalanmiller so is there any kind of movement toward standardization oris this just the way it is?

        Not really, never has been. There is a tiny movement towards it, always, as good products and approaches get identified. When MacOS 9 was replaced with MacOSX in 2000, Mac moved heavily from "totally custom" to "half custom" and half matched to Linux and the rest of the UNIX ecosystem. Windows offers some "UNIX-like" options, that you can add on, Linux can install PowerShell from Windows.

        But the underlying tools are different, because the underlying systems work differently.

        Think of it like video games. You have different controllers (steering wheel, flight stick, joypad, keyboard/mouse) for different types of games because the games work differently and have different control needs. OSes are the same. What's a really obvious and useful tool on a text based system line Linux is very cumbersome on an API one like Windows and vice versa. The tools actually need to do different tasks, so having a standard tool that does two different things would be potentially more confusing, rather than less.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @mary
          last edited by

          @mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

          We don't have a stop button to end a loop program so how do we stop it now?

          In most OSes... Control-C is the universal "Stop" standard.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller @mary
            last edited by

            @mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

            Do people still leave gaps in numbers for programs or can we insert now since we have mouse w cursor ?

            Yes, but only if using those ancient languages. No modern language has numbers of that nature, that went away in serious programming around the time of that program and in the PC world by the late 1980s.

            BASIC on those cheap 8bit computers had it, but even by the 16bit era with the Commodore Amiga 1000 in 1985, AmigaBASIC had dropped the need for numbers.

            I had to still use them when teaching Fortran 77 in 1994, but that was because we used a 1977 version of Fortran instead of the 1992 version that had removed the numbering.

            Today, the need for numbers is just a historic novelty and it's pretty hard to even find a way to experience them. Easiest is to fire up a Commodore 64 emulator.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller @mary
              last edited by

              @mary said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

              Curse keys using shift-I wonder why they didnt use what we have today?

              Each key cost a bit of money to manufacture back then.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @CharlesHTN
                last edited by

                @CharlesHTN said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                These are my Great-Grandparents: http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html (John and Pearl, the ones in front of the first Hatcher Mango tree).

                That's awesome!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • JaredBuschJ
                  JaredBusch @CharlesHTN
                  last edited by

                  @CharlesHTN said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                  These are my Great-Grandparents: http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html (John and Pearl, the ones in front of the first Hatcher Mango tree).

                  FFS a space in a URL?

                  Was it made in Front Page?

                  JaredBuschJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • JaredBuschJ
                    JaredBusch @JaredBusch
                    last edited by

                    @JaredBusch said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                    @CharlesHTN said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                    These are my Great-Grandparents: http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html (John and Pearl, the ones in front of the first Hatcher Mango tree).

                    FFS a space in a URL?

                    Was it made in Front Page?

                    Fuck, it was...
                    867b6412-223a-4bea-af39-d24b8e27373f-image.png

                    travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller
                      last edited by

                      OMG, Front Page!

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • JaredBuschJ
                        JaredBusch
                        last edited by

                        Clickable URL for everyone..
                        http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html

                        C 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • travisdh1T
                          travisdh1 @JaredBusch
                          last edited by

                          @JaredBusch said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                          @JaredBusch said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                          @CharlesHTN said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                          These are my Great-Grandparents: http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html (John and Pearl, the ones in front of the first Hatcher Mango tree).

                          FFS a space in a URL?

                          Was it made in Front Page?

                          Fuck, it was...
                          867b6412-223a-4bea-af39-d24b8e27373f-image.png

                          😆

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • connorsoliverC
                            connorsoliver
                            last edited by

                            Just finished episode 4, and I was wondering who exactly creates the language that the computer can read?

                            scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • scottalanmillerS
                              scottalanmiller @connorsoliver
                              last edited by

                              @connorsoliver said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                              Just finished episode 4, and I was wondering who exactly creates the language that the computer can read?

                              Anyone, really. You could, if you were bored. The hardware itself has a binary language for the CPU. That's part of the CPU itself. That's "machine language". There is a special language for each CPU called Assembly that's like a "semi-human readable binary equivalent."

                              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language

                              No one writes in Assembly, because it takes forever to do anything and is super error prone. But the first language for any computer has to be written this way.

                              Once you have a CPU, then you start by making a compiler. The first compiler has to be written in Assembly OR written on another computer where there are already languages to work with.

                              Pretty typically, the first language prepared for any computer is going to be C. Just because it is the universal language that everyone uses for everything basic and the moment that you have C working, a million things can be ported in no time to your new computer.

                              After that, people just make languages as they want.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • scottalanmillerS
                                scottalanmiller
                                last edited by

                                In the old days, like in the Commodore 64 days, this was made very confusing because a normal programming language, called BASIC, was often baked into the hardware ROM on the computer so that you could use it even if you had no cassette or floppy containing a new language. So people associate that version of BASIC with that computer, because it is a language that literally everyone with that machine had access to.

                                BUt that was just one of numerous languages available for it. C, Pascal, Assembly, etc. were all available, just not baked in to the ROM.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • connorsoliverC
                                  connorsoliver
                                  last edited by

                                  Episode 5 down. The relationship between computers and telephones, and the technology of the modem is fascinating to me. Was this the basis of the internet?

                                  scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • scottalanmillerS
                                    scottalanmiller @connorsoliver
                                    last edited by

                                    @connorsoliver said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                                    Episode 5 down. The relationship between computers and telephones, and the technology of the modem is fascinating to me. Was this the basis of the internet?

                                    No, the Internet went back to 1969 and predated modems. The Internet was built on T1 leased lines that connected universities together digitally. The modem does predate that, but was used by companies to connect branch offices together in a non-Internet system. For a very long time, modem connections were only for remote teletype or teletype simulation, so no networking, just a remote display. Kind of like a long distance "keyboard and monitor", which is quite different from a network.

                                    The original modems were literally connected to typewriter keyboards and typewriter keys and weren't used with computers at all. They were literally a "typewriter" interface so that you could hit the keys in one place and have it print out in another (upgraded telegrams.) Very low level tech.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • C
                                      CharlesHTN @JaredBusch
                                      last edited by

                                      @JaredBusch said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                                      Clickable URL for everyone..
                                      http://hatchermangohill.com/About Us.html

                                      Sorry, didn't notice the URL broke. I did notice the space, but I thought the %20 copied over when I pasted it. LOL

                                      Don't be too hard on that FrontPage web site, I think my great-aunt maintains it (Marilyn in the lower picture on that page), and she's in her 80's. I'm just happy that she was able to put it together. She still runs the place, so if any of you are ever down that way, drop in and see her. The Hatcher mango is SOOO good! OK, I'll admit some bias.

                                      I've been really wanting to get down to south Florida to visit family. Haven't been there in 20 years. Really want my son to see the Mango Hill.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • scottalanmillerS
                                        scottalanmiller
                                        last edited by

                                        The use of modems for networking was super rare even in the 1980s when the Internet was pretty heavily used. If you hear people talk about BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), that they show in Bits and Bytes I think, that's not networking, that's still just a remote keyboard and display on a single computer. No network.

                                        The use of modems for networking was pretty much a product of the 1990s and not common until the late 1990s.

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                                        • connorsoliverC
                                          connorsoliver
                                          last edited by

                                          Just finished watching Episode 6 on computer languages. Made me wonder about when operating systems come into the picture.

                                          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • scottalanmillerS
                                            scottalanmiller @connorsoliver
                                            last edited by

                                            @connorsoliver said in Bits and Bytes (1983):

                                            Just finished watching Episode 6 on computer languages. Made me wonder about when operating systems come into the picture.

                                            They don't necessarily. In 1983 they were relatively uncommon. The early really popular OSes were CP/M which was the granddaddy of DOS, and AmigaOS in the home computing world. In the Commodore 64 and Apple ][ era, people didn't run operating systems. They treated computers way more like an old video gaming console - you had to turn on the machine and boot into the application (often a game) that you wanted to use and turn it off when you were done.

                                            Operating systems weren't popular until computers were powerful enough to switch between tasks and storage was permanent (hard drives) or people had large floppies. The utility of CP/M or DOS was super low unless you had crazy powerful machines.

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