On 2010 Aug 23, at 11:10 AM, Tony Duell wrote:
Looks like a
quite fascinating machine! I'd love to try lunar
lander on
one.
I don't rememebr a lunar lander for it (there's a very famous one
for the
DEC GT40 terminal...), but anyway.
The only reason I think there is one is that the web site page at
Oh, there quite probably was. The HP9830 is not a 'natural' for this
sort
of thing because there was no graphical output as standard. I suppose
you
could link up an HP1350 graphics translator (HPIB was available for the
9830 -- in fact I think it was the first desktop machine to have that
interface), but it wasn't a commonly-done thing.
The thermal line printer was a pretty standard piece of equipment with
the 9830, and it was a quick printer. One could do character-based
graphics with it.
In 1976 my high school had a 9830, it was the first machine I
programmed (still have the exercise program listings). At the same time
I was soldering up boards for a friend assembling an IMSAI. I recall
Lunar Lander from the day, and playing it on one or the other, but
couldn't say for sure which.
On the otehr hand there were lunar lander games for
many of the HP
handheld calcualtors with 1-line numeric displays. Something like that
could certainly run on a 9830.
http://hp9830.com/hp9830-lander.html is supposed
to be a listing of
the
program. I know you don't do a lot of web stuff, so if it would be of
I will take a look. I assume it's in BASIC, and given that the
programming manuals and the manuals for the optional ROMs are available
it shouldn't be too hard to translate it to a more modern BASIC.