17 Feb
2013
17 Feb
'13
11:15 a.m.
On 02/15/2013 11:35 AM, Claunch,Carl wrote:
I don't personally know of any fpga emulations of
1620 machines, but
there are excellent simulators available.
Yes, my "99bottles" program was done using SIMH. To me, the 1620 was
the perfect machine for teaching students about computers. Very
accessible--you could hit the LOAD key and enter your machine-language
program directly on the IBM Model B typewriter. One of the last
machines to my knowledge for which IBM provided machine-language (not
assembly) coding forms for (the so-called "absolute" coding system).
Besides, how many machines required the user to first load tables
telling it how to add and multiply, yet could handle 20,000 digit
numeric quantities (slowly!)?
I've had a couple of co-workers who had a soft spot for the LGP30, but I
could never warm to it much. Same for the PB250--there was just
something that turned me off about one-plus-one addressing.
--Chuck