29 Nov
2000
29 Nov
'00
11:21 p.m.
On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Tony Duell wrote:
In addition to which are Altos 8000-n, Heath/Zenith-89, NEC APC, and
Osborne Ececutive.
- don
One of these days I'd really like to play with a UCSD PASCAL system, largely
to get a feel of how well it worked. From what I've heard getting any kind
I suspect that by far the most common P-system-capable machine is the
Apple ][ with a language card. Finding one of those is not going to be hard.
There's also a thing called a Sage II. It's a 68000-based single-board
computer + 2 disk drives + PSU in a small-ish metal case. I seem to
remember the standard OS for that is the P-system (although the machine
would also run CP/M-68K). I don't know how common the machine is, though.
And of course there's the PERQ. It's not strictly a UCSD p-machine -- the
instruction set is called 'Q-codes' and is an enhanced version of the
P-code (with graphics operations, etc). It's a very similar instruction
set, though. However the user interface to the OS is totally different
(the P-system has a menu displayed across the top of the CRT and you
type the first letter of a command to select it; the PERQ has a proper
command line and/or pop-up menus with a mouse). of Java
running on a 68k based system is a problem (have we got anyone still
active with Amiga's around, they'd have a better idea). That tells me that
a 486 or lower won't really be able to cut it when it comes to JAVA.
I'd like to see PERQ microcode to turn a PERQ into a Java machine. I
think it's technically possible, but it's not going to be trivial to
write it either. Not trivial at all, which is why I've not attempted it yet.
-tony