15 Nov
2007
15 Nov
'07
4:29 a.m.
On Tuesday 13 November 2007 18:17, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
This reminds me of one particular disk-copying program, which would have the
lights on both drives on solid. You could, once you'd kicked off a copying
process, have unplugged the computer and it would just keep on going.
An even better
example is the C-64. The disk drives on that are
netoriously slow, but were computers in their own right, having a CPU as
part of the drive electronics. One trick (assuming you have at least two
disk drives) was to program the disk drives to copy a disk,
The 64 was emblematic of the best and worst features of this. The
intelligent serial peripherals could talk amongst each other, such as
the disk drive becoming commanded to TALK and the printer to LISTEN,
which is essentially a print spooler. On the other hand, there was the 6551 ACIA emulation
in software for
the user port, which was buggy to boot. People may make fun of the Plus/4
but at least it had a real ACIA.
They did? (Looking in handy box of manuals, but plus 4 isn't in there...)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin