test-drb June 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

160 participants
580 discussions

Mark your calendars for VCF 4.0: September 30 - October 1

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Bob Brown <bbrown(a)harper.cc.il.us> wrote: > Will this ever be held in a more easterly location (say the midwest)? > > -Bob Being in Ohio, I'd second that. I could even help host one, if it's close enough to travel to (the midwest being such a vague and nebulous space). -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/

24 years, 7 months

Programming on Paper (was Re: Apple III motherboard)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > > From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com> > > > Since I compose > > > to paper (and still do and cannot understand why some > > > programmers compose directly into thr machine), > > You do that too? I always got more code written in a shorter period > of time that way. When modifying code, paper is all the more useful, > particularly wide greenbar with the code to be modified or added to > printed out on it. My former employer had no printer with greenbar, > which really came as a shock to me, as every place else I'd ever > worked had at least one high-speed line printer. It's too annoying to > make changes to long programs on the screen; much easier to leaf > through pages of code and pencil in changes, draw lines here and > there, circle things, etc. than to go from screen to screen with an > editor, as that can become confusing with large programs. No wonder > modern code has become so bloated and full of bugs; the programmers > have less of an idea what they're working on. I'm bidding on a DECwriter III so that I can have something I can load greenbar into on the Prime; I also bought a wide-carriage Imagewriter for the same reason. That gives me a backup, I guess. Greenbar's going for about $30 per box these days. > Even stranger was the fact that most of the people I worked with, who > were programmers, had no idea what greenbar was, even when it was > described to them! Yeah, the phrase "line printer" will probably elicit as much of a furrowed brow from these newbies as would "unit record". > Hopefully line printers and wide dot-matrix printers aren't on their > way to becoming obsolete. Well, both printers alluded to above were found on E-Bay, so they must be rare.... :-) -dq

24 years, 7 months

OT: 911 (was Re: A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 19, Chris Kennedy wrote: > > When I say "changed very little" I meant compared to certain other > > models of car we see on the roads these days. Certainly there are > > dozens to hundreds of changes every year or couple of years...I have > > an '83 and a '95, and they're very different cars. But, to the > > non-911-geek, to see them sitting next to each other in a parking > > lot, they're damn near identical. > > Without a doubt. That the stylistic lines are essentially the same > as they were in 1966 is nothing short of amazing. I suppose some > Mercedes come close to the same phenomina, but I can't think of > a single care from a US, Italian, French, British or Japanese > manufacturer that's been that timeless. Well, okay, the 2CV, but > I did say *car*... :-) Yup...look at the Firebird or the Camaro. How many completly different body styles from the late 60's til now? Five? Six? And we don't even want to talk about what happened to the Chevelle and the Nova. The only similarities between the old & new of those models are in the names. -Dave McGuire

24 years, 7 months

Programming on Paper

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 17, Mike Ford wrote: > >Having a machine to interact with allows you to test your code on the spot > >and if you are writing in an interpreted language the error-checking the > >interpreter provides is a godsend for the coder. Why anyone would code > >without the interaction of the target machine is beyond me. > > I write perfect code, like Mozart it flows out in its final form to the > paper, and then to the system. Time for the hip waders, folks...it's getting deep in here. ;) -Dave McGuire

24 years, 7 months

Programming on Paper

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> In the past I have tried to write code to paper and failed to do much with > it. Outlines are about as far as I can go. I did this because I wanted to > continue work or pass the time when I didn't have a machine in front of me > (in high-school or waiting in the Doctor's office). I guess it's what you become used to. Timesharing used to cost beaucoups bucks, so you worked offline as much as possible. That economic reality did engender a generation of higher-quality software than we've seen since, though... I blame a lot of the low-quality of current software on the program-by-the-seat-of- your-pants method. -dq

24 years, 7 months

A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 16, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: > Not to mention, only so many people who would know what to *do* with > an old Commodore, VAX, TI 99, etc. As far as the rest of the world is > concerned, it's "trash".... Only our broken, brain-damaged society can take a thing that does it's job just as well as when it was new, and call it "trash" simply because something newer (not necessarily "better") has been announced by the vendors. Fascinating...and disturbing. My primary car is a '95. It continued to run just fine when the '96 came out. There's a clue in there somewhere. > Well, not nearly as much as they used to, but one can always hold out > hope. Know of any new people entering this hobby? Not just squirrelling > away stuff, or churning it on the auction sites, but actually buying old > computers, plugging them in, and actually working/playing with them? I've turned a few younger people on to it...they seem to get a kick out of computers whose internals they can really understand. One can find databooks for 7400-series TTL logic anywhere, and figure out exactly how a pdp8/e works. Pop open a current PeeCee and what do you find? Five or six two-zillion-pin chips with names like "Win-<whatever>" on them that you'll never find so much as a pinout for in any printed or .pdf literature. -Dave McGuire

24 years, 7 months

MELLOW OUT! Re: A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > > Does anyone around here know what SEX is? > > Aargh! If we knew about that do you think we'd be living alone with > 20 old computers and nothing else? :-) > > Some times I think we're the male, technological version of the "Cat > Lady"....:-) I recently broke up with my girlfriend, and her possesion of seven cats in a tiny apartment was one of the reasons... ...now, realizing I've got _way_ more than seven computers makes me question my own sanity. oh well. -dq

24 years, 7 months

Programming on Paper (was Re: Apple III motherboard)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

Cool... that way, you can make mistakes faster! Here's a pointer to a short story on a programmer whom I've never met, but whom I am certain is a soul brother... http://www.multicians.org/thvv/andre.html > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul R. Santa-Maria [mailto:paulrsm@ameritech.net] > Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 5:22 PM > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Programming on Paper (was Re: Apple III motherboard) > > > ---------- > > From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com> > > To: 'classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org' > > Subject: RE: Apple III motherboard > > Date: Friday, June 16, 2000 01:39 PM > > > > Since I compose > > to paper (and still do and cannot understand why some > > programmers compose directly into thr machine), > > Because I can type much faster than I can write. > > Paul R. Santa-Maria > Ann Arbor, Michigan USA > paulrsm(a)ameritech.net >

24 years, 7 months

MELLOW OUT! Re: A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> ...and way too much time on their hands with few (if any) outlets for > their frustrations. > > Does anyone around here know what SEX is? Sure... Sign EXtension.... in x86-speak, it's cbw ; sign-extend byte to word or cwd ; sign-extend word to doubleword How does that help with frustration? ;-) -dq

24 years, 7 months

Old laptops as cheap terminals (was Re: Old Macs = cheap terminals)

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote: > Another good solution for the terminally challenged is > *old* laptops, also a good solution when space is a big problem. The only > real use I keep my ancient Twinhead 386sx laptop around for is to use as a > terminal when nothing else is handy... I bought an ancient Zenith XT laptop (dual 720K floppies) for $10 at a local box shop explicity for a terminal. I have a DOS 3.3 boot disk in it with Kermit, and away I go. If I could lay my hands on a cheap Xircom PE3 (no flames, please), I'd use the laptop as an IP "terminal", too (for the Kermit-ly challenged, modern versions contain an IP stack; just add packet driver; that's how my Commodore Colt is on my network). -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com

24 years, 7 months

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test-drb June 2000