15 Apr
2013
15 Apr
'13
1:08 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Excellent!
But I would also argue that nobody (or at least
very few people) wil
leb
equally interested in hardware and software. If you are a hardware
person, you will want to ru nthe real hardawre, you will want to laod
the
alignment pack and connect the 'scope to the read preamplifer. You
will
want to have a logic analyser conencted ot the CPU microcode address
bus
and wacch how it executes machine instructions.
Then I would be one of those very few. I find hardware and system software (operating systems, database managers etc)
equally interesting.
Actually, my view is that they are to a great extent two different
incarnations of the same thing: The hardware is a physical machine that
executes programs, the operating system is a kind of virtual machine
Ah, but to me the hardare is just an interestign electronic circuit that
happens to execute programs. In otehr words I think of the gates and
flip-flops, not the program instrucions.
I think this is why I find the peripehrals to be as interesting as the
CPU in a lot of caes. Ubnderstnading the cotnrol state machine of the
HP9866 printer was as interestign to me as understandignthe microcode
(and sequencer) of the HP9830 that drives it.
which executes user programs. Then there is virtual
machine software,
that is also very interesting.
I wrote a very simple operating system once in my career, now I am
playing with writing another one in my spare time. Some day I will most
When i have some spare time I really must try to write an OS. I've never
done it, and I really shouldn't 'knock it' before I try it.
likely also design and built my own processor, whether
with discrete
logic or an FPGA I am not sure, perhaps both.
And then the physical experience of an actual old machine running is
something special, quite like driving an old car or riding on a steam
train.
Agreed...
-tony