On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Jos Dreesen wrote:
I am currenly contemplating what kind of IO to put on
my coming i8008
system : what is it that makes blinkenlights (i.e. leds and switches )
seem so attractive ?
It must be about the worst possible way to interact with a computer...
compared to Windoze?
So why is it then that almost all early micros had
them ?
It gave the capability to get a look below the OS and other software.
a 7segment display with keyboard ( as in a H8) is
clearly more usable,
and would have cost nothing more. Or were early eproms (for the monitor
program) that expensive ?
until recently, keyboards were not cheap. 25 years ago, the PC keyboards
were about $300
It was generally assumed that anybody doing machine language (note: I did
NOT say assembly language) would be comfortable and profficient in binary.