25 Mar
2002
25 Mar
'02
2:46 p.m.
From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de>
Well, this would be a neat professional ZX81 setup -
just you miss the
whole fun of getting the real minimalistic ZX81. One _can_ do usefull
stuff with just one or two KBytes of RAM. one has a real lot of fun
by just playing around with this little plasic box in front of an old
TV set.
Hans, I agree with you 100 percent. This is the purpose the ZX81 was
designed for: teaching people how to have fun getting the most out of the
least!
I'd suggest an out of the box ZX81 (or Timex 1000)
to start with, and
realy trying to play with only one K ... next step could be the internal
expansion to whooping TWO K - and oh boy, programmers dreams will come
thru.
Yeah, I remember the first time I could write a BASIC program with more
than 40 lines of code -- wow!
I still think tha'ts the most fun, haggling with
tight resources).
Also true for me. It's still a thrill to go over a machine code or
assembly language program and be able to trim out 20 bytes!
A professional system, like Glen tells is quite nice,
but you need
also some more knowledge about the pitfalls of a ZX. Start of with
the fun of a simple system, and if you're a late victim of the ZX
infection, then you'll soon expand into the ZX96 dimension.
I think this is very good advice.
(Not a ZX fan, but I realy like to dig out a ZX80 or
81 from time to
time just to play around with the most minimalistic _full_ system ever)
This is the best description of the ZX81 I've ever encountered!
Keep on ZXin'!
Glen
0/0
25 Mar
25 Mar
3:15 p.m.
Glen Goodwin wrote:
While the ZX-81 was not my favorite machine it has advantage of users
understanding hardware and software more so than today. I still think
computer designers need to program in assembly every so often. The
BloatMaster 3000 super chip is not what people need but rather what
marketing is trying to brainwash you with.
I think the best for hardware use ( but not cost ) was a 4k PDP8 and
TTY.
That machine has some very tight code at the cost of not being able to
expand
over 4 of memory with out bank switching of code/data.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
I still think
tha'ts the most fun, haggling with tight resources).
Also true for me. It's still a thrill to go over a machine code or
assembly language program and be able to trim out 20 bytes!
(Not a ZX fan,
but I realy like to dig out a ZX80 or 81 from time to
time just to play around with the most minimalistic _full_ system ever)
This is the best description of the ZX81 I've ever encountered! 
9:55 p.m.
I still think tha'ts the most fun, haggling with
tight resources).
Also true for me. It's still a thrill to go over a machine
code or
assembly language program and be able to trim out 20 bytes! 
26 Mar
26 Mar
2:58 a.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes...
Hmmm. I think I should take this thing to the VCFE along with my
VAXen...
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
4:56 a.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
Hi,
Jochen Kunz <jkunz(a)unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> said:
On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
On this subject of odd monitors, who used to make a monitor which drew
the characters on the screen by scanning 25 lines and wobbling the spot?
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes... 
9:16 a.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
At 05:58 PM 3/26/02 +0100, you wrote:
On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
If you think that's strange you should have seen the Tektronix 8051 computer. It
also used a storage tube for a CRT! You had to periodicly press an Erase button to clear
the screen!!
Joe
This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes... 
11:07 a.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Joe wrote:
At 05:58 PM 3/26/02 +0100, you wrote:
Do you mean 4051?
- don
On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
If you think that's strange you should have seen the Tektronix 8051 This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes... computer. It also used a storage tube for a CRT! You
had to
periodicly press an Erase button to clear the screen!!
Joe
11:43 a.m.
New subject: HP 9114B drive question (Hey Joe!)
What size floppy disks does the HP 9114B drive use? Is it 720k or 1.44 meg?
Thanks.
Ernest
27 Mar
27 Mar
7:10 a.m.
New subject: HP 9114B drive question (Hey Joe!)
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26 Mar
26 Mar
11:48 a.m.
New subject: Tek 4051 (was ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question)
We used to have one of these down at Georgia Tech, in the computing center.
The nice thing about was that most people didn't understand the use of the
'Clear' key to clear the screen. As a result, people would logon, discover
that after a page full the characters start overwriting each other (the
terminal doesn't support scrolling), get disgusted, log off, and never it
again.
As a result, it meant that for those of us in the know, we always had a
terminal availabel in the cluster. Same was true of the teletypes, until
they were replaced.
I wrote a Pascal based turtle graphics program for the 4051, running on the
Cyber. That was fun.
--John
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Don Maslin
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 20:07 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Joe wrote:
At 05:58 PM 3/26/02 +0100, you wrote:
Do you mean 4051?
- don
On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
If you think that's strange you should have seen the Tektronix 8051 This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes... computer. It also used a storage tube for a CRT!
You had to
periodicly press an Erase button to clear the screen!!
Joe
11:52 p.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
At 05:07 PM 3/26/02 -0800, you wrote:
On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Joe wrote:
Yes. Sorry.
Joe
At 05:58 PM 3/26/02 +0100, you wrote:
Do you mean 4051? On 2002.03.26 12:55 Hans Franke wrote:
If you think that's strange you should have seen the Tektronix 8051 This construction reminded me of
1970 style 'inteligent' terminals where screen buffer was more like a
code of some sort to be executed by the diplay processor which was a
micro code engine itself.
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Terminals where you can see that Tektronix is well known for
oscilloscopes... 
27 Mar
27 Mar
9:08 a.m.
New subject: ancient terminals, was: Re: ZX-81 Question
Re:
And that reminds me of the Tektronix ASCII Terminal I
rescued lately.
Characters are drawn only once and the analog "memory" display tube
keeps the dots fluoresceing. No screen refresh! This is one of the
Nearly 30 years after last using a Tek 4013, I *still*
hit <home><clear> much too often :)
Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler
8258
days inactive
8260
days old
11 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
acme_ent＠bellsouth.net -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
donm＠cts.com -
ernestls＠attbi.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
jcwren＠jcwren.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
sieler＠allegro.com -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com