27 Jun
1997
27 Jun
'97
2:44 p.m.
At 08:59 AM 6/27/97 BST, you wrote:
What I mean is that we must realize that there is only so much you can do
with classic computers. after all, if they were the best than why we have
faster and better?
I do use my
old machines now and then, but if anyone here has never ran a
modern MAC or PC, they have NO idea what is bieng missed. web pages in full
photo quality color, realistic games, PPP connections, Realaudio etc. I am
I have used 'modern' PC's (well, at least pentiums with 16 MBytes RAM,
SVGA card, etc), and I know I'm not missing _anything_ by sticking to
classic computers. Let's go through your points.
'Web pages in full photo quality colour'. Well,
I access the web to get
information, not look at pretty pictures. Most of the information I want
is _text_, or at least monochrome graphics (things like IC data sheets).
So I don't need 'photo quality colour'. And if I did, I could easily find
well at the moment you dont need it, but its nice to know that you can see
it when you need it.
a classic system that could display them. Evans and
Sutherland, Grinnell,
Ramtek, I2S, PPL, etc all made high-res colour displays that make most
PC's look like toys. And you can pick one up second-hand for less than an
SVGA card + monitor.
SVGA a toy? I used many an apple ][ + and C=64 with 80 col RGB monitors, and
I can take only so much eyestrain. sharp graphics make your eyes feel good...
also I would like to clarify somthing. I am not a billy gates follower. I
despise his efforts and his software. and winsucks 95 is a laugh!!<G> but
the issue is machines, and if you run Linux, as I do, that pentium will
spring to life! so the PC is not the greatest machine, but if you run
software that was properly written, (i.e. not from microsuck) you get
fantastic results, that is why I like my commodore 64, it can do alot on 1 MHZ.
'Realistic games'. I don't play many games,
but I'll agree that modern
games running on modern hardware do _look_ a lot more realistic than the
text+block graphics we had on home computers 15 years ago. The problem is
that IMHO (and YMMV) the old games are just more fun to play. That's a
personal judgement, though.
I have an Atari 2600, and the best racing game is from Acivision called Enduro.
'PPP connections' Oh come on. I've run a
PPP client on an _XT_. No problem
at all. I'll happily believe they're available for other old machines as
well.
well we all believe, but sadly, this does not always work that way. I have
an XT too, and yes you can load a packet driver, but then 640K is not big
enough except to run telnet or ftp from. I use my XT as a file server...
'Realaudio' I assume that's some audio
standard for modern machines. But
Realaudio is a standard, but it is an INTERNET standard for sending LIVE
SOUND from any web server. it has many uses, and the fun part of it is that
I live in Indiana, and when I lived in St Petersburg FL, there was a good
radio station there that I loved, and through Realaudio I can now listen to
it here. and this is not just for PC's, it runs on MACs, UNIX Linux, and
most Sun machines.
we had good quality audio on PDP11's (thanks to a
little board from 3RCC)
in 1976. It's not exactly hard to add a DAC and a DMA engine or even a DSP
to a lot of classic computers (and classic computer != cheap home micro so
there's easily enough RAM space for a reasonable length sample).
to me, a PDP11 is WORLDS apart from classic HOME computers, If I had the
fortune of actually owing a PDP11, I would use it extensively..... :)
also about enough ram space...NOT!
I have some software for the C=64 that plays back digital sound files. with
the stock 64K of ram, I can hold a 6 second clip. with the 1764 ram
expansion with 512K of ram, I can hold a 60 second clip, but no longer than
that.
What I'd be missing by going to a modern machine
would be :
Documentation. Since I don't just run prepackaged software and plug in
prebuilt hardware, I need good technical manuals. They just don't exist
I
programmed in BASIC, and that is fun, and I tried 6502 assembler, and
almost had a working interrupt handler going, but my brain fried, the
opcodes are easy, but remembering memory addresses when deprived of caffeine
is hard! the interrupt handler was for a terminal program that I was writing
that utilized a 6551 UART in a commodore 64. I love hacking old hardware!
and it also had interupt driven multitasking, as in this terminal, you can
use the modem and play .sid music files at the same time!
that was fun!! now I program in C, and if you do it right, you can make any
machine dance to your beat.
for most modern machines
Repairability. I can fix classic computers with no problem at all. Just
I have never
had any hardware failures in ANY of my machines so far (knock
on silicon), with the exception that I accidentally cooked a 6526.
try getting a custom chip for a PC motherboard. And
don't tell me to
replace the motherboard - if the PC is a few years old I'd probably have
to replace the CPU and memory as well.
that is just the ticket. A brand new 486 motherboard cost $90. with it you
get real functionality.
I know some who will pay twice that for a doorstop...
actually, you can get a decent modern PC together just by scrounging
computer shows and bargaining for parts. assembling a system from scratch
with old parts is very fun and rewarding. and the reliablity rate for modern
chips is very high. in fact the monitor or hard disk probably will die
before the motherboard will.
also I am speaking of those who NEVER touched anything new, and passing
judgment. if you tried the
new stuff, and hate it, that is fine, but I can't stand those who never
tried it then saying it sux.
28 Jun
28 Jun
5:24 a.m.
[followup text throughout document]
On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, tiborj wrote:
Yes yes yes yes. SVGA is a *TOY* compared to what was available
to those with million dollar budgets 20 years ago. The old hardware ran
slower in clock speed but was most certainly capable of *extream* high
resolution. I don't expect 2048 x 2048 displays for a few years yet on
PC's, but if you were the military with a money is no object budget in
1975, you better believe such hardware was available.
I like my PC just fine as well, and won't argue about processor
capability, RAM requirements, and the like in comparison to a TRS-80 MOdel
1 for instance. However, the majority of software titiles around today are
offshoots of software commonly available back then.... Visicalc and
Wordstar are but two examples. And yes, freeware UNIX implmentations are
about the most exciting thing happening on the PC today from a hobbyist
hacker standpoint. The wonderful thing about Linux and NetBSD is the wide
architecture support, not just the fact that serious development tools are
now available for free on the PC. They are *also* availble to Atari ST
fans, Amiga fans, old Macintosh hardware, Sun3 hardware, cheap Sparc and
Alpha platforms... and like I suggested before, I wouldn't doubt for a
minute the possibility of newer ports to classic PDP, VAX, Apollo, PRIME,
and 8 bit machines. There is just so much usable hardware out there
waiting for a modern OS....
[snip - re: games]
Game designers have strongly benefitted from higher processor
speeds and cheap RAM. Look at game consols like Nintendo 64 and Sega...
they display about the same 320x200 pixel resolution, but have a much
larger color pallete and much faster display hardware. The games look
great! It's not surprising that newer PC and Mac hardware would also
benefit from their advances.
[snip]
At 08:59 AM 6/27/97 BST, you wrote:
What I mean is that we must realize that there is only so much you can do
with classic computers. after all, if they were the best than why we have
faster and better?
I don't think there's a single person on this list who hasn't used
a modern PC, with or without Microsoft Software. As for UNIX
implemetations on the PC, I certainly remember XENIX running on a 286 many
years back. Mini Linux currently runs at about .02 bogomips on an XT.
The biggest advance in PC architecture isn't the cheap Memory, cheap high
res cards, and cheap VLSI specialty chips... it was the 386 with
functional memory protection. Big deal. That said, a 386 these days is
usually about as cheap as a 'classic' 8 bit machine - mostly because at a
certain point a computer just can't *get* any cheaper - and will run Linux
or *BSD wonderfully. Big advantage here over Atari and Amiga 68000 based
hardware is the high availability of dirt cheap networking and disk
hardware... other than that, I'll take the 68000 based stuff any day as a
personal preferance.
Here's an interesting idea, now that mini Linux seems to be up and
running, there appears to be a good code base for porting it over to other
old 8 bit and 16 bit chips. The TI-99/4a, RS COCO, PDP-11, and old S-100
based z80 (with MMU) boxes appear to be good candidates. Yes... there is
*lots* of machine specific code in the mini Linux implementation. It
would be a good deal more than just getting the boot loader up and running
then tweaking and compiling the kernel. Still it might be a fun hack! I
have a friend who's attempting a 3b2 Linux port single handedly... why not
the Color Computer with it's fairly powerful 6809?
I do use
my old machines now and then, but if anyone here has never ran a
modern MAC or PC, they have NO idea what is bieng missed. web pages in full
photo quality color, realistic games, PPP connections, Realaudio etc. I am
I have used 'modern' PC's (well, at least pentiums with 16 MBytes RAM,
SVGA card, etc), and I know I'm not missing _anything_ by sticking to
classic computers. Let's go through your points.
'Web pages
in full photo quality colour'. Well, I access the web to get
information, not look at pretty pictures. Most of the information I want
is _text_, or at least monochrome graphics (things like IC data sheets).
So I don't need 'photo quality colour'. And if I did, I could easily find
well at the moment you dont need it, but its nice to know that you can see
it when you need it.
a classic system that could display them. Evans
and Sutherland, Grinnell,
Ramtek, I2S, PPL, etc all made high-res colour displays that make most
PC's look like toys. And you can pick one up second-hand for less than an
SVGA card + monitor.
SVGA a toy? I used many an apple ][ + and C=64 with 80 col RGB monitors, and
I can take only so much eyestrain. sharp graphics make your eyes feel good...
also I would like to clarify somthing. I am not a billy gates follower. I
despise his efforts and his software. and winsucks 95 is a laugh!!<G> but
the issue is machines, and if you run Linux, as I do, that pentium will
spring to life! so the PC is not the greatest machine, but if you run
software that was properly written, (i.e. not from microsuck) you get
fantastic results, that is why I like my commodore 64, it can do alot on 1 MHZ. 'PPP connections' Oh come on. I've run
a PPP client on an _XT_. No problem
at all. I'll happily believe they're available for other old machines as
well.
well we all believe, but sadly, this does not always work that way. I have
an XT too, and yes you can load a packet driver, but then 640K is not big
enough except to run telnet or ftp from. I use my XT as a file server...
to me, a PDP11 is WORLDS apart from classic HOME
computers, If I had the
fortune of actually owing a PDP11, I would use it extensively..... :)
PDP-11 hardware is still widely available. You could build
youself a functinal Qbus LSI-11/73 or 83 for less than $500 easy. Most of
this hardware is sitting in old factories and still in production. There
are many hardware outlets out there such as ELI in cambridge MA, which
support and provide access to this old stuff... I would attempt to buy a
non functional machine (or functional if possible) from some company about
to toss it, and then upgrade from some used MINI supplier. Expect a lower
heating bill and a *MUCH* higher electric bill if this is in the plans...
;-) You might also want to think of a decent used microVAX.... wonderful
machine based on the same Qbus.
[snip - 486's are cheap]
Yup, can't argue with that.
J. Maynard Gelinas
6:10 a.m.
Here's an interesting idea, now that mini Linux
seems to be up and
running, there appears to be a good code base for porting it over to other
old 8 bit and 16 bit chips. The TI-99/4a, RS COCO, PDP-11, and old S-100
based z80 (with MMU) boxes appear to be good candidates. Yes... there is
*lots* of machine specific code in the mini Linux implementation. It
would be a good deal more than just getting the boot loader up and running
then tweaking and compiling the kernel. Still it might be a fun hack! I
have a friend who's attempting a 3b2 Linux port single handedly... why not
I think I have met this fellow somewhere. Is his name Dave or something
like that? If I remember rightly, he just did a Linux port for some other
machine (forget) and gave a speech about it at the Linux Convention in
North Carolina a few months back.
As for the 3B2 port, what kind of 3B2 are we talking about? 300/400
series or more closer to a 1000?
Les
more(a)crazy.rutgers.edu
29 Jun
29 Jun
2:30 a.m.
On Sat, 28 Jun 1997, Mr. Self Destruct wrote:
<snip> If I remember rightly, he just did a
Linux port for some other
machine (forget) and gave a speech about it at the Linux Convention in
North Carolina a few months back.
What Linux Convention? Could you pass on a little more details about who,
what and where, in private e-mail, if no one else is interested. Thanks.
Kirk Scott
dynasoar(a)mindspring.com
9821
days inactive
9823
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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