17 Apr
2006
17 Apr
'06
9:52 a.m.
My quip about "rephrasing" was of the statement:
">It was so primitive that instructions longer than 1 byte, had to be
assembled as 2 and 3 byte instructions."
I think that the OP meant "2 or 3 1-byte instructions". I'm not doubting
the primitiveness of the assembler being spoken about.
Does anyone remember the conflict between the MITS and IMSAI (actually, the
rest of the world) about using octal vs. hex representations of data? It's
very obvious just by looking at the two systems--the Altair 8800 spaces the
front panel toggles in groups of 3, whereas the IMSAI 8080 color-codes the
switches in groups of 4. I think that the early MITS assembler used octal,
although it's very hard to remember.
Cheers,
Chuck