9 Apr
2013
9 Apr
'13
2:40 p.m.
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
Any such list is necessarily very subjective, but I can think of lots of
machines that were worse than the ones indicated here. And not all of
them would be consumer computers either - just because you paid a lot
for something didn't mean it would be good.
Still, I liked the presentation.
-- Jecel
9 Apr
9 Apr
5 p.m.
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST
computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
Any such list is necessarily very subjective, but I can think of lots of
machines that were worse than the ones indicated here. And not all of
them would be consumer computers either - just because you paid a lot
for something didn't mean it would be good.
Still, I liked the presentation.
-- Jecel
Worse is subjective as you say, but here is my example.
TI 99/4a. Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said.
Kelly
5:41 p.m.
On 10 April 2013 01:00, Kelly Fergason <kfergason at gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr.
<jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:
You do have a point. Interesting architecture & so on, but...
registers in external DRAM? Really?
They were appallingly slow. My experience of them is from school;
bucking the British nationwide trend to buy the excellent but
expensive BBC Micro (usually with Microvitec CUB monitors and possibly
some Econet-networked floppy drives, if you were lucky), my school
"upgraded" from 4 Commodore PET 4032s with a single shared IEEE-bus
dual-5?" floppy drive to a room full of TI99/4as with black & white
portable TVs and cassette recorders.
It was right at the end of the 99/4a's life and I suspect that they
were /really/ cheap.
If they'd invested in the Extended BASIC cartridge for them all, they
might not have been quite so bad. Monitors would have been nice, too.
But as it is - gods, they were awful. Slow, terribly slow, a pretty
poor BASIC, sluggish storage. Nice keyboards, though.
They weren't bad /looking/ but they were not fun to use.
I did my 'O'-level Computer Studies homework on my Spectrum at home. :?)
IIRC, looking back 30 years, I think I wrote a text-mode orrery
program, followed by a text-adventure game, complete with save-game
functionality, movable objects and a basic two-word-command parser. I
was quite proud of that.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST
computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
Any such list is necessarily very subjective, but I can think of lots of
machines that were worse than the ones indicated here. And not all of
them would be consumer computers either - just because you paid a lot
for something didn't mean it would be good.
Still, I liked the presentation.
-- Jecel
Worse is subjective as you say, but here is my example.
TI 99/4a. Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said. 
7:20 p.m.
On 2013 Apr 9, at 5:41 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 10 April 2013 01:00, Kelly Fergason <kfergason
at gmail.com> wrote:
The "registers in external (D)RAM" was not a problem, that was a
characteristic (and feature) of the predecessor TI 990 minicomputer
architecture. It meant the instruction set had the efficiency of a
very orthogonal set of 16 registers to work with, but didn't have to
save & restore those registers across function call & return, you
just changed the workspace pointer and had a whole new set of
registers. This was great for modern stack-based languages and for
process context-switching (if you were doing that). It was far nicer
than a two-accumulator architecture such as the 6502 or the mish-mash
register set of the 8080/Z80. I worked with the 990 mini and 9900
microprocs at the instruction level and, in that regard (and as much
as I remember), I liked the arch. more than the PDP-11.
I didn't directly work with the TI-99/4 but from what I read the
problem with it was it took what was a lovely 16-bit microprocessor
and embedded it in a crippled memory/support environment. Apparently
only a few hundred words of RAM were directly on the processor bus -
that mem being intended for the workspace/registers (and presumably
this actually was static ram, not DRAM) - while the majority of RAM
was accessed through a slower, secondary, 8-bit bus.
TI 99/4a. Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said.
You do have a point. Interesting architecture & so on, but...
registers in external DRAM? Really? They were appallingly slow. ...
10 Apr
10 Apr
3:58 a.m.
I didn't directly work with the TI-99/4 but from what I read the problem
with it was it took what was a lovely 16-bit microprocessor and embedded it
in a crippled memory/support environment. Apparently only a few hundred
words of RAM were directly on the processor bus - that mem being intended
for the workspace/registers (and presumably this actually was static ram,
not DRAM) - while the majority of RAM was accessed through a slower,
secondary, 8-bit bus.
I had a 99/4 (not an A) when I was a kid, and it was best used as a doorstop.
You were completely locked out of the innards of the machine, unless
you wanted to spend a couple of grand on disk drives, a massive
expansion box, and the assembeller. For some reason, my parents
didn't want to do that -- they bought an Apple // instead.
The other problem, besides it being unsuitably slow for any sort of
programming, was that it would overheat after a few hours, and start
generating random characters. I probably could have solved that by
getting rid of the case, or cutting some more holes in it, but my
parents wouldn't go for that either.
Parents! Oh, wait...
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to discover that he had been
transformed into a giant cockroach." Nah, it's too good.
--Max Bialystock
11 Apr
11 Apr
7:10 a.m.
On 10 April 2013 03:20, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
On 2013 Apr 9, at 5:41 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Interesting - thanks for that (and for Tony's additional info, too).
At least now I know that there was a reason.
But crippled by a very inefficient design and implementation - is that
fair? A bit like several 1990s Macs, with 32-bit processors on
multiplexed 16-bit buses, yielding cheap logic boards but dire
performance.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
On 10 April 2013 01:00, Kelly Fergason <kfergason at gmail.com> wrote:
The "registers in external (D)RAM" was not a problem, that was a
characteristic (and feature) of the predecessor TI 990 minicomputer
architecture. It meant the instruction set had the efficiency of a very
orthogonal set of 16 registers to work with, but didn't have to save &
restore those registers across function call & return, you just changed the
workspace pointer and had a whole new set of registers. This was great for
modern stack-based languages and for process context-switching (if you were
doing that). It was far nicer than a two-accumulator architecture such as
the 6502 or the mish-mash register set of the 8080/Z80. I worked with the
990 mini and 9900 microprocs at the instruction level and, in that regard
(and as much as I remember), I liked the arch. more than the PDP-11.
I didn't directly work with the TI-99/4 but from what I read the problem
with it was it took what was a lovely 16-bit microprocessor and embedded it
in a crippled memory/support environment. Apparently only a few hundred
words of RAM were directly on the processor bus - that mem being intended
for the workspace/registers (and presumably this actually was static ram,
not DRAM) - while the majority of RAM was accessed through a slower,
secondary, 8-bit bus.
TI 99/4a. Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said.
You do have a point. Interesting architecture & so on, but...
registers in external DRAM? Really? 
7:49 a.m.
The memory system implementation on the 99/4A really hampered it until you
added stuff on, even then, the processor had a 16-bit data bus that they
multiplexed down to 8-bits. It did have a good collection of software for
the basic console though.
I'd argue the absolute worst feature of the system was the high prices for
the upgrades. For quite a while you could buy a reasonably complete
computer system for the price of just the upgrades on the 99/4A.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 10 April 2013 03:20, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at
cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
On 2013 Apr 9, at 5:41 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
the
On 10 April 2013 01:00, Kelly Fergason <kfergason at gmail.com> wrote:
The "registers in external (D)RAM" was not a problem, that was a
characteristic (and feature) of the predecessor TI 990 minicomputer
architecture. It meant the instruction set had the efficiency of a very
orthogonal set of 16 registers to work with, but didn't have to save &
restore those registers across function call & return, you just changed
TI 99/4a. Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said.
You do have a point. Interesting architecture & so on, but...
registers in external DRAM? Really? workspace pointer and had a whole new set of
registers. This was great
for
modern stack-based languages and for process
context-switching (if you
were
doing that). It was far nicer than a
two-accumulator architecture such as
the 6502 or the mish-mash register set of the 8080/Z80. I worked with the
990 mini and 9900 microprocs at the instruction level and, in that regard
(and as much as I remember), I liked the arch. more than the PDP-11.
I didn't directly work with the TI-99/4 but from what I read the problem
with it was it took what was a lovely 16-bit microprocessor and embedded
it
in a crippled memory/support environment.
Apparently only a few hundred
words of RAM were directly on the processor bus - that mem being intended
for the workspace/registers (and presumably this actually was static ram,
not DRAM) - while the majority of RAM was accessed through a slower,
secondary, 8-bit bus.
Interesting - thanks for that (and for Tony's additional info, too).
At least now I know that there was a reason.
But crippled by a very inefficient design and implementation - is that
fair? A bit like several 1990s Macs, with 32-bit processors on
multiplexed 16-bit buses, yielding cheap logic boards but dire
performance.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
9:07 a.m.
On 04/11/2013 07:10 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
But crippled by a very inefficient design and
implementation - is that
fair? A bit like several 1990s Macs, with 32-bit processors on
multiplexed 16-bit buses, yielding cheap logic boards but dire
performance.
I'd say that implementing the program store for cartridges, on a serial
CRU device, rather than in the main memory space, qualified as a
crippled design.
--Chuck
1:28 p.m.
[TI99/4A]
But crippled by a very inefficient design and
implementation - is that
Yes, I think that's a resaonable way of putting it.
fair? A bit like several 1990s Macs, with 32-bit
processors on
multiplexed 16-bit buses, yielding cheap logic boards but dire
performance.
I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s (8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
-tony
5:55 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
To be fair, using the paged mode in DRAMs you got two bits out nearly as
fast as one. I imagine this project was related to the SEQ pin in a
certain processor, though I have no idea if one inspired the other or if
they both came out of the same set of "underground" experiments.
The Macintosh SE used the same trick to fetch 32 bits at a time for the
video, half as many times as older models. This more complicated change
only resulted in half the improvement they could have gotten from a
trivial redesign to make use of 1987 DRAM chips:
http://www.merlintec.com/lsi/mac512.html
-- Jecel
[TI99/4A]
I have one, and can imagine how nice it would have been with 16KW of
internal RAM.
Back in 1980 I got to use a TMS9900 based computer from Fluke for a few
months. I have never found any information at all about this machine on
the web, but it really showed off the performance that you could get
But crippled by a very inefficient design and
implementation - is that
Yes, I think that's a resaonable way of putting it. from this processor. It had a built-in wide screen CRT
with a touch
screen and besides the floppy drive it had a 128KB bubble memory
"disk"
and a nice GPIB interface. It was in the "sewing machine" form factor
and might have come out before the Osborn-1.
Ah, searching for "Fluke instrument TMS9900 GPIB" instead of "Fluke
computer" got me several manuals for the Fluke 1722A at archive.org,
which is the computer I remembered. The manuals are from 1983 and 1984,
but I am 100% sure I used it in early 1981.
fair? A bit
like several 1990s Macs, with 32-bit processors on
multiplexed 16-bit buses, yielding cheap logic boards but dire
performance.
I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s (8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor). 
10:36 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>wrote:
I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s (8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
Acorn Electron?
12 Apr
12 Apr
5:47 a.m.
On 12 April 2013 06:36, Raymond Wiker <rwiker at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Tony Duell <ard
at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>wrote:
Not that I am aware of... I thought that apart from external
interfaces of various forms (including sideways RAM and so on), the
principle hardware difference of the Electron from the Beeb was that
it didn't have the Mullard teletext chip & so couldn't do Mode 7 -
which sadly was a very popular screen mode, as it took very little
RAM, something the Model B was notoriously short of.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s
(8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
Acorn Electron? 
6:58 a.m.
On 12/04/2013 13:47, Liam Proven wrote:
On 12 April 2013 06:36, Raymond Wiker <rwiker at
gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk>wrote:
>
>> I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s (8 bit) microcomptuer had
>> 4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
>> to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
The only odd machine I
can think of was the Sinclair QL and ICL OPD
which were 68008 CPUs, so 16 bit CPUs and 8-Bit busses....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Per_Desk
Acorn
Electron?
Not that I am aware of... I thought that apart from external
interfaces of various forms (including sideways RAM and so on), the
principle hardware difference of the Electron from the Beeb was that
it didn't have the Mullard teletext chip & so couldn't do Mode 7 -
which sadly was a very popular screen mode, as it took very little
RAM, something the Model B was notoriously short of.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
2:20 p.m.
On 12 April 2013 06:36, Raymond Wiker <rwiker at gmail.com> wrote:
There were a few other differences that appeared to the programmer/user
IIRC. I will have to dig out my Electron Advanced User Guide to check,
though (yes, that book does exist, but it is a lot harder to find than
the oen for the Beeb).
The user/programemr would not notice the memroy arrnagement, though.
Logic in the ULA does make the 64K*4 DRAM appear as a 32K*8 area of RAM
to the processor. But the hardware is a either a 64K*4 DRAM chip (41464
or similar) or a little PCB with 4 off 64K*1 chips on it.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Tony Duell
<ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>wrote:
Not that I am aware of... I thought that apart from external
interfaces of various forms (including sideways RAM and so on), the
principle hardware difference of the Electron from the Beeb was that I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s
(8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
Acorn Electron? it didn't have the Mullard teletext chip & so
couldn't do Mode 7 -
which sadly was a very popular screen mode, as it took very little
RAM, something the Model B was notoriously short of.
-tony
2:13 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>wrote:
Correct. Or, for the pedants, that was the one I was thinking of (the RAM
on that machine was as 64K*4 DRAM chip or module, it appeared ot the CPU
as 32K*8). There may be other machiens that did a simialr thing, of course.
-tony
I suspect you'll know this, but which 1980s (8 bit) microcomptuer had
4-bit wide RAM at the hardware level? (The hardware did 2 memory cycles
to make up an 8 bit byte ot give to the processor).
Acorn Electron?
10 Apr
10 Apr
2:15 p.m.
TI 99/4a.
Cliff Click gave up in disgust trying to program this
thing. nuf said.
You do have a point. Interesting architecture & so on, but...
registers in external DRAM? Really? 
9 Apr
9 Apr
5:05 p.m.
Yes, as you say these lists are pretty shallow and highly subjective. The
problem when people talk about "worst" what does that actually mean? Worst
keyboard, worst computer to repair, worst reliability, worst supported,
worst value for money...the list goes on.
Terry (Tez)
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <jecel at merlintec.com>wrote:
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST
computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
http://www.chassis-plans.com/blog/2013/04/04/the-worst-computers-of-all-tim…
Any such list is necessarily very subjective, but I can think of lots of
machines that were worse than the ones indicated here. And not all of
them would be consumer computers either - just because you paid a lot
for something didn't mean it would be good.
Still, I liked the presentation.
-- Jecel
10 Apr
10 Apr
7:07 a.m.
On 04/09/2013 08:05 PM, Terry Stewart wrote:
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. <jecel at
merlintec.com>wrote:
But at least this page justifies a little why they are listed...
--
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes
--- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/
--- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/
Registered Linux user number 464583
"Computers have lots of memory but no imagination."
"The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back."
- from some guy on the internet.
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST
computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
http://www.chassis-plans.com/blog/2013/04/04/the-worst-computers-of-all-tim…
Any such list is necessarily very subjective, but I can think of lots of
machines that were worse than the ones indicated here. And not all of
them would be consumer computers either - just because you paid a lot
for something didn't mean it would be good.
Still, I liked the presentation.
-- Jecel
Yes, as you say these lists are pretty shallow and highly subjective. The
problem when people talk about "worst" what does that actually mean? Worst
keyboard, worst computer to repair, worst reliability, worst supported,
worst value for money...the list goes on.
Terry (Tez)
9 Apr
9 Apr
5:53 p.m.
On 04/09/2013 04:40 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote:
To complement the thread "The ten SEXIEST
computers of ALL TIME * The
Register", we have
> http://www.chassis-plans.com/blog/2013/04/04/the-worst-computers-of-all-tim…
Interesting list. I really liked my Apple ///, but I can confirm "circuit
boards warped":
http://www.patooie.com/temp/aiii.jpg
:-) (it ran quite happily like that)
cheers
Jules
4276
days inactive
4279
days old
18 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
jecel＠merlintec.com -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
kfergason＠gmail.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
oltmansg＠gmail.com -
rwiker＠gmail.com -
terry＠webweavers.co.nz -
woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net