<Kip Crosby wrote:
<>Huh? You mean 1995 was the last year a Lisa's sysclock could register?
<>How, i. e. from when and with what ticks, was the clock set up?
<
<Yeah, pretty amazing isn't it. Now that's what I call planned obsolecenc
<My Lisa 2/5 works great once I figured out in what order to turn everythi
<on. One slight problem the date will be wrong, the whole time I own it.
The most common cause its that the date(year) is only stored as a single
digit and it's added to the date of creation of the system. This is very
common! For some systems this is a two digit number but at 2000 it rolls
around to 1900. FYI the common PDP-8 OS OS/8 happens to also have this
problem every 7 years for using only three bits for the year portion of
the date.
Allison
> On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, Joe wrote:
>
>> Phillip said:
>> >
>> >Um. What date was the Casio AL1000? For that matter, what date was the
>> >AL2000? OK, the AL1000 had nixie tubes in the display, so was not all
>> >solid state, but it comes close, I'm sure. (Other people have commented
>> >on the HP 9100 and the earlier Busicoms)
>>
>> Ahhh, a Casio expert! When was the Casio AS-8D made? I just picked one
>> up. I had never seen one before and I thought it looked interesting.
Alas, I am not a Casio expert. I merely happen to have an AL1000, an FX-502P
and an FX-601P, FWIW. What is the AS-8D? Can you describe it to us?
>> I was just reading an old (ca 1977) Byte magazine this morning and it
>> had a article about the Tek 4051. I think they said it had just been
>> discontinued. E-mail me if you're interested.
>>
>> Joe
>
> More likely superceded by the 4052, which used a bit-slice processor
> rather than the MC6800 that the 4051 used. There were some other minor
> improvements also, as I recall.
I cannot remember the exact date the 4051 was discontinued, although I
have it somewhere at home, but it was a couple of years after the
introduction of the 4052. 1982? 1977 does sound more like the
announcement of the 4052 and 4054, I must admit.
Yes please, Joe, I am indeed interested in the Byte article.
> The 4051 might also qualify for the race of an early personal computer if
> its $10,000 cost doesn't put it out. It was programmed in the nicest BASIC
> that I have ever run across! Marvellous vector graphics. But SLOOOOOW!
> The real queen, though, was the 4053 with its 19" (17"?) screen!
I think I'd disagree with you here, Don. The 4051 was announced with a
price tag of (I think) $6999 for the base spec. (Might have been
$7999). It went down in price very rapidly - the top spec machine was
only $5250 or something when it was eventually discontinued. But I
meant "personal" not in the sense of "personally owned" but in the sense
of "intended to go on/at someone's desk for their personal use" - and I
was commenting on the "all in one box" definition someone had proposed
earlier.
The 4051 BASIC is AWFUL. Example: the syntax of the IF statement is IF
condition THEN line number. Similarly the 4052 and 4054. The really
nice version came with the 4052A and 4054A in (?) 1982. This was
achieved AFAICT by freeing up ROM space from GPIB handling routines -
the upgrade was new ROMS plus a new I/O board that had a proper GPIB
controller chip on it.
I've never heard of the 4053. Are you sure you don't mean the 4054?
This did have a 19 inch screen.
Yes, I too would love a 4054A. But I have to be content with my 4052,
which is also a nice machine. But as you say, the graphics are SLOW.
(Faster on the 4054 which had constant rate vector drawing rather than
constant time. But that's another story). I shall look up some of the
above details when I get home - I did a talk on the 4050 series recently
and the notes are still on my Microscribe - and post corrections if I
made any glaring errors...
Philip.
> <The 4051 BASIC is AWFUL. Example: the syntax of the IF statement is IF
> <condition THEN line number. Similarly the 4052 and 4054. The really
>
>
> 20 IF A=5 THEN 100
>
> That is standard Dartmouth BASIC! at least it has been since 1969 when I
> started programming with it.
I see. I can never remember which features were original, which later.
Most modern basics allow IF condition THEN line number, but also allow
IF condition THEN statement, which is usually more useful, and forbidden
on the Tek (which is what I was getting at).
The original BASIC, IIRC (correct me if I'm wrong!) had a lot of useful
array-handling commands, most of which remain on the IBM System/23
(Datamaster), and a few of which remain on the Tek, but which all
disappeared in the home computer BASICs (mostly Microsoft, of course).
But I digress.
The reason I found 4051/4052 BASIC awful was because that IF statement,
coupled with an absence of multistatement lines, takes away half the fun
things I used to do on the PET (wherewith I grew up). On the 4052A and
4054A, BASIC really was nice. I think this is the dialect that Transera
Corp. ported to PCs and some of their embedded processors. They call it
TBasic, and I think this stands for Tektronix Basic. Certainly it has a
lot of the graphics commands in common with the 4051/4052.
But perhaps I was a bit harsh - Tek BASIC does have very powerful
graphics and quite powerful GPIB handling. I still use it, after all
:-)
Philip.
Hello this is my first post to the list hopefully it's ok:-)
I have a ti99/4a if anyone wants it, for the cost of shipping.
I live in British Columbia Canada. If anyone is interested please let me know
Chris Halarewich
(chrish(a)knet.kootenay.net)
The CPC's were the first Amstrads that I know of, they were commercialized
in Europe.
They are basically just a Keyboar type computer that plugs into a monitor
they also had an integrated tape player for the earlier models and a 3 1/2"
drive for the later models (before the PC compatibles). I don't remember the
exact number but I think that the CPC6128 was the last of the series.
> I don't what a CPC series is but the PC-1386s were sold here. I bought
>one new. I have also seen a lot of Amstrad notebook type machines, non-DOS
>I believe.
>
> Joe
>
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Francois Auradon.
>>Visit the SANCTUARY at http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
>>
>>
>
<What I meant by personal computer was computers mass produced for the hom
<market. But the rest is still good. What was the first computer to enter
<home (coming from the industry)?
That would be:
First to the home market Altair 8800
first to be a complete system Sphere-1
first successful market venture Apple-II june-77
first marketed through a common outlet TRS-80 aug-77
Allison
Here's a questionthat is probably going to generate some passionate debates:
What are the firsts?
first video game
first TV video game
first personal computer (I think I know that one)
first portable computer
first laptop
first GUI
first OS
etc...
It would be interesting to compile a list of first with their date of appearance.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Francois Auradon.
Visit the SANCTUARY at http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
At 09:31 AM 1/11/98 -0800, you wrote:
>> first personal computer (I think I know that one)
>own research you will tend to agree. Some will argue that the Apple ][
I think you mean the Apple 1.
>> first portable computer
>
>Again, same problem. Define "portable". Allison carted, what was it, a
>PDP-8 across a bridge some years ago. She got funny looks, but she
>"ported" her computer elsewhere. However, I believe this one goes to the
>IBM 5100. However, did I hear grumblings of something portable pre-dating
>even the 5100? Like something from HP in the early 70s?
I think if you consider the 5100 a portable, then so should you consider the
PDP-8. The 5100, while more *convenient* to move, perhaps, than, say, an
Altair, is hardly all that portable. It's listed as 50lbs (a stretch even
for me) and has no handle. You tell me how that's a portable? (It's much
like a TRS-80 Model III, only flatter. I think the III is lighter though.)
I vote for the STM Baby.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 01:39 PM 1/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>When did the Sphere-1s start shipping? My boards have 1975 dates on them.
>The Sphere-1s were also integrated systems, with a standard setup having
>the 6800 CPU board, a video board, 16K RAM, and a serial interface board.
Haddock says 1975, no month.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
>>> first personal computer (I think I know that one)
>>
>>output" then that would be the Sol-20 from 1976. This was first proposed
>
> I think the credit on this one has to go to the IBM 5100 again. It was
>released in 1975.
Sol-20 -- introduced April, 1975
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
