12 Dec
2016
12 Dec
'16
2:51 p.m.
Hi
There has been so much PDP and other stuff lately I kind of feel out of place
asking about 6502 stuff.
Anyway, I've mentioned on the 6502.org that QuickSort is not always the fastest
sort. So I wrote a 6502 assembly sort but don't have a machine big enough to test it
on. I've only got my KIM-1 just working.
I was hoping someone would like to help me out, possible a Commodore64,
maybe even a PET or Apple II.
It needs about 24 page zero bytes and about 5K of RAM.
It sorts 1K of 16bit integers.
Anyway, if someone would like to help, let me know. I've made several passes
through the code and believe it to be close to bug free but know I'm bound
to have a couple left.
See it as a challenge!
Thanks
Dwight
13 Dec
13 Dec
2:20 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great dwight once stated:
Hi
There has been so much PDP and other stuff lately I kind of feel out of place
asking about 6502 stuff.
Anyway, I've mentioned on the 6502.org that QuickSort is not always the fastest
sort. So I wrote a 6502 assembly sort but don't have a machine big enough to test it
on. I've only got my KIM-1 just working.
I was hoping someone would like to help me out, possible a Commodore64,
maybe even a PET or Apple II.
It needs about 24 page zero bytes and about 5K of RAM.
It sorts 1K of 16bit integers.
Anyway, if someone would like to help, let me know. I've made several passes
through the code and believe it to be close to bug free but know I'm bound
to have a couple left.
See it as a challenge!
If you have a modern system, you could always download a 6502 emulator and
test it on that. Such a tactic wasn't even unheard of in the day---if I
recall correctly, that's how Gates & Co. tested their first BASIC---on an
emulated 8080.
-spc
2:27 a.m.
@Sean
I was wondering the same, but perhaps he needs physical hardware for some
specific purposes, like timing and so forth?
The emus (VICE) are quite good these days, though. I can hardly find
anything that VICE x64 won't run.
On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 1:20 AM, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote:
It was thus said that the Great dwight once stated:
Hi
There has been so much PDP and other stuff lately I kind of feel out of
place
asking about 6502 stuff.
Anyway, I've mentioned on the 6502.org that QuickSort is not always the
fastest
sort. So I wrote a 6502 assembly sort but
don't have a machine big
enough to test it
on. I've only got my KIM-1 just working.
I was hoping someone would like to help me out, possible a Commodore64,
maybe even a PET or Apple II.
It needs about 24 page zero bytes and about 5K of RAM.
It sorts 1K of 16bit integers.
Anyway, if someone would like to help, let me know. I've made several
passes
through the code and believe it to be close to
bug free but know I'm
bound
to have a couple left.
See it as a challenge!
If you have a modern system, you could always download a 6502 emulator
and
test it on that. Such a tactic wasn't even unheard of in the day---if I
recall correctly, that's how Gates & Co. tested their first BASIC---on an
emulated 8080.
-spc
3:56 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great drlegendre . once stated:
@Sean
I was wondering the same, but perhaps he needs physical hardware for some
specific purposes, like timing and so forth?
The 6502 (as well as many of the other 8-bit CPUs of that era) are
deterministic to the point where published cycles counts for instructions
are an accurate measure of speed. All you need is a cycle count to know how
fast a sequence of code is running.
-spc
12:21 p.m.
> If you have a modern system, you could always
download a 6502
> emulator and test it on that. Such a tactic wasn't even unheard of in
> the day---if I recall correctly, that's how Gates & Co. tested their
> first BASIC---on an emulated 8080.
On Tue, 13 Dec 2016, drlegendre . wrote:
I was wondering the same, but perhaps he needs
physical hardware for some
specific purposes, like timing and so forth?
Creating the code, certainly.
But TESTING must be done on the real thing!
Even bug for bug emulation is never certain.
In XenoSoft, I often used faster clones for writing code, but always
tested on REAL IBM hardware.
One of the problems with Microsoft software has traditionally been that
they developed their exception handlers by simulating the conditions, but
did NOT test on actual flaky hardware. Such as the 64K DMA boundary
isssue that caused FORMAT to fail with certain combinations of device
drivers loaded. (FORMAT would consistently fail in track 0, but removing
or adding ANY device driver would fix it!)
Or the gross mismanagement of testing that created the SMARTDRV debacle!
A disk write error in Windoze 3.10 installation crashed the
installation and the machine. And any disk write error was unrecoverable
data loss with write cacheing! They had to do FREE "stepup"/"update"
from DOS 6.00 to DOS 6.2x because of it, and
irreparably damaged their
reputation. It only needed ONE encounter with a disk
write error during
the windoze 3.10 installation to find and recognize the problem!
Telephone support of their Beta testers blew it off whenever it was
reported as being "your hardware, not OUR problem", ignoring protestations
that the OS should gracefully report the problem, not lock up.
MOST of Microsoft's faults would have been fixed if they were to have done
their testing with the same level of hardware as what their users had!
"software that is too slow is YOUR fault for not upgrading your hardware
in the last six months!"
Cross development is wonderful. But testing MUST be done on exactly the
same hardware and software environment as the users!
Having software work on the real thing but fail on clones (XenoCopy
1.000 aka "XenoPhobe : The Acid Test"), is embarrassing. But working on
clones but failing on the real thing is inexcusable!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1:53 p.m.
I'm not that much into learning how to use an emulator.
I'll admit for something like this it might be fine but I find
that most are not well written for things like I/O connections,
timed events or random events.
Sometimes that is needed.
I have three volunteers so far. That should be fine.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Fred Cisin <cisin at
xenosoft.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2016 9:21:04 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: 6502 code
> If you have a modern system, you could always
download a 6502
> emulator and test it on that. Such a tactic wasn't even unheard of in
> the day---if I recall correctly, that's how Gates & Co. tested their
> first BASIC---on an emulated 8080.
On Tue, 13 Dec 2016, drlegendre . wrote:
I was wondering the same, but perhaps he needs
physical hardware for some
specific purposes, like timing and so forth?
Creating the code, certainly.
But TESTING must be done on the real thing!
Even bug for bug emulation is never certain.
In XenoSoft, I often used faster clones for writing code, but always
tested on REAL IBM hardware.
One of the problems with Microsoft software has traditionally been that
they developed their exception handlers by simulating the conditions, but
did NOT test on actual flaky hardware. Such as the 64K DMA boundary
isssue that caused FORMAT to fail with certain combinations of device
drivers loaded. (FORMAT would consistently fail in track 0, but removing
or adding ANY device driver would fix it!)
Or the gross mismanagement of testing that created the SMARTDRV debacle!
A disk write error in Windoze 3.10 installation crashed the
installation and the machine. And any disk write error was unrecoverable
data loss with write cacheing! They had to do FREE
"stepup"/"update"
from DOS 6.00 to DOS 6.2x because of it, and
irreparably damaged their
reputation. It only needed ONE encounter with a disk
write error during
the windoze 3.10 installation to find and recognize the problem!
Telephone support of their Beta testers blew it off whenever it was
reported as being "your hardware, not OUR problem", ignoring protestations
that the OS should gracefully report the problem, not lock up.
MOST of Microsoft's faults would have been fixed if they were to have done
their testing with the same level of hardware as what their users had!
"software that is too slow is YOUR fault for not upgrading your hardware
in the last six months!"
Cross development is wonderful. But testing MUST be done on exactly the
same hardware and software environment as the users!
Having software work on the real thing but fail on clones (XenoCopy
1.000 aka "XenoPhobe : The Acid Test"), is embarrassing. But working on
clones but failing on the real thing is inexcusable!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
15 Dec
15 Dec
5:38 a.m.
On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 01:27:54AM -0600, drlegendre . wrote:
@Sean
I was wondering the same, but perhaps he needs physical hardware for some
specific purposes, like timing and so forth?
The emus (VICE) are quite good these days, though. I can hardly find
anything that VICE x64 won't run.
Indeed, it's a very nice emulator, something I'd never thought I'd say
about any emulator. Sound is quite far from original hardware for
instance on Musik Run/Stop by Mahoney
(http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62583)
though, at least on 2.4 which I use currently.
8:46 a.m.
New subject: PDP-6s at MIT
I always thought there was one and only one PDP-6 at MIT. The one
running ITS at the AI Lab. But then I found a post to alt.sys.pdp10 by
Marc Crispin:
I did meet the MIT AI and DM PDP-6s
Digging further, I found Project MAC progress reports mentioning this
Dynamic Modeling PDP-6.
Page 59 in http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/732767.pdf
at Project MAC, both the Multics GE 645 system and the
Dynamic
Modeling and Computer Graphics Groups' PDP-6/10 system are network
hosts.
Page 60 in http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/756689.pdf
Work on the Dynamic Modeling System began,
effectively, in October,
1969, when a used PDP-6 computer with 32K words of memory was
delivered to Project MAC.
Does anyone know more about this PDP-6? Did it ever run ITS, like its
PDP-10 successor?
13 Dec
13 Dec
10:19 a.m.
On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:20 PM, Sean Conner <spc at conman.org> wrote:
If you have a modern system, you could always download a 6502 emulator
and
test it on that. Such a tactic wasn't even unheard of in the day---if I
recall correctly, that's how Gates & Co. tested their first BASIC---on an
emulated 8080.
Circa 1982, I was developing Atari 800 software on a on emulator I wrote
in FORTRAN
on a VAX.
-- Charles
2:22 a.m.
Howdy,
More than happy to help you, I have native C64 and C128 available.
Check your personal email for my address.. just send the code along.
On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 1:51 PM, dwight <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi
There has been so much PDP and other stuff lately I kind of feel out of
place
asking about 6502 stuff.
Anyway, I've mentioned on the 6502.org that QuickSort is not always the
fastest
sort. So I wrote a 6502 assembly sort but don't have a machine big enough
to test it
on. I've only got my KIM-1 just working.
I was hoping someone would like to help me out, possible a Commodore64,
maybe even a PET or Apple II.
It needs about 24 page zero bytes and about 5K of RAM.
It sorts 1K of 16bit integers.
Anyway, if someone would like to help, let me know. I've made several
passes
through the code and believe it to be close to bug free but know I'm bound
to have a couple left.
See it as a challenge!
Thanks
Dwight
6:44 a.m.
Hi
There has been so much PDP and other stuff lately I kind of feel out of place
asking about 6502 stuff.
Anyway, I've mentioned on the 6502.org that QuickSort is not always the
fastest sort. So I wrote a 6502 assembly sort but don't have a machine big
enough to test it
on. I've only got my KIM-1 just working.
I was hoping someone would like to help me out, possible a Commodore64,
maybe even a PET or Apple II.
It needs about 24 page zero bytes and about 5K of RAM.
It sorts 1K of 16bit integers.
Anyway, if someone would like to help, let me know. I've made several passes
through the code and believe it to be close to bug free but know I'm bound
to have a couple left.
See it as a challenge!
Thanks
Dwight
I can try it on a BBC Micro if you'd like.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.
2776
days inactive
2779
days old
10 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
cctalk＠beyondthepale.ie -
charles.unix.pro＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
drlegendre＠gmail.com -
eivinde＠terraplane.org -
lars＠nocrew.org -
spc＠conman.org