9 Apr
1997
9 Apr
'97
11:31 p.m.
On 11-Apr-97, classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
When I look at the software (and hardware) of 10-15
years ago, I realise
how far _down_ we've gone since then.
Very well put Jim! I know my Amiga 3000, which is my everyday system,
doesn't fit into the realm of this group (being roughly 6 years old), but it
is far superior to modern systems when it comes to usability and efficiency.
That is one of the reasons I appreciate the early micros so much....it's
amazing what was done by programmers and such in such tight constraints. Take
for example the Atari 800...this is a 2mhz 6502 cpu with 48k RAM and a full
Basic, with full-screen editing, in an 8k ROM. This system amazes me at the
animations and such I've seen on it at times. It's version of Frogger is
great, and I typed in a Basic program from 'Compute!' that displayed the Atari
logo with 128 colors onscreen at once. I think modern day systems could still
learn quite a few things from the earlier ones.
Jeff jeffh(a)eleventh.com
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
// Amiga: Today's Technology Ten Years Ago
// -------------------------------------------------------
\// True 32bit pre-emptive multitasking GUI, plug&play hardware,
\/ stereo sound, and 4096 color video modes since day #1
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Collector of classic home computers:
Amiga 1000, Atari 800, Atari 800XL, Atari Mega-ST/2, Commodore
C-128 & C128D, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore VIC-20, Kaypro 2X,
Mattel Aquarius, Osbourne Executive, Sinclair ZX-81, TI-99/4A,
Timex-Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 Color Computer-3, and a TRS-80 Model 4.
Plus Atari SuperPong and Atari 2600VCS game consoles.
10 Apr
10 Apr
9:09 a.m.
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, hellige said:
On 11-Apr-97, classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
>When I look at the software (and hardware) of 10-15 years ago, I realise
>how far _down_ we've gone since then.
Here, Here!
Take
for example the Atari 800...this is a 2mhz 6502 cpu with 48k RAM and a full
Basic, with full-screen editing, in an 8k ROM.
Ummm... just a nitpicker's note:
The Full-screen editor & other stuff were in 10K Rom, with the Basic in
another 8K Rom, totalling 18K.
Of course, there were 3rd party upgrade boards that would up the memory to
256K to be used as a Ram drive or as a printer buffer... How many people
you know nowadays who are hacking their 486/Pentium machines to be able to
use over 5x more memory than it's supposed to???
I love geezers!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | Everyone complained to me to change my .sig,
Programmer, NorthernWay | but no-one could recommend something better.
zmerch(a)northernway.net | So you'll have to put up with this *junk*
| until I find some new wisdom to share.
2:56 p.m.
On 11-Apr-97, classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
Err, didn't I say that (or at least something very like it)?
When I look at the software (and hardware) of
10-15 years ago, I realise
how far _down_ we've gone since then.
Very well put Jim! I know my Amiga 3000, which is my everyday system, doesn't fit into the realm of this group (being
roughly 6 years old), but it
is far superior to modern systems when it comes to usability and efficiency.
Look at the PERQ (OK, so it's my favourite machine, but for a good reason
- it's darn well designed). In 1979 it had a bit-blitter that was capable
of doing 10 full-screen updates every second. The PC didn't get something
like that for a good few years.
Or look at the PDP11's Unibus (or Q-bus). It's elegant. It works. And
there are no IRQ or DMA conflicts. The PC bus is a kludge from start to
finish. If you read the PC/AT TechRef (I have), you'll find there is an
official way to share IRQ lines in a PC/AT - which IBM then ignored when
writing the BIOS. And that's what became the standard.
I remember demonstrating my Tandy CoCo-3 in 1988 to some PC-goon or
other. He had a 386 PC running MS-DOS. I had a 2 mHz 6809 running OS-9. He
was totally amazed that 'that little video game' could have several
programs running at once, displaying their output in different windows
(something his PC didn't do at that time), and that I could even log on to
my machine from a remote terminal.
That is one of the reasons I appreciate the early
micros so much....it's
amazing what was done by programmers and such in such tight constraints. Take
for example the Atari 800...this is a 2mhz 6502 cpu with 48k RAM and a full
Basic, with full-screen editing, in an 8k ROM. This system amazes me at the
animations and such I've seen on it at times. It's version of Frogger is
great, and I typed in a Basic program from 'Compute!' that displayed the Atari
logo with 128 colors onscreen at once. I think modern day systems could still
learn quite a few things from the earlier ones.
I don't play computer games that much, but IMHO the games from 10-15 years
ago are much more fun than the modern ones. OK, so now we have 3D rendered
graphics, real sound effects, but no 'plot' - nothing to do except blast
everything in sight. I personally prefer a good text-only adventure with
some logic behind it, and no sound.
Maybe I'm just totally unusual...
Jeff jeffh(a)eleventh.com
--
-tony
ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk
The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill
9:18 a.m.
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, A.R. Duell said:
--
Roger Merchberger | Everyone complained to me to change my .sig,
Programmer, NorthernWay | but no-one could recommend something better.
zmerch(a)northernway.net | So you'll have to put up with this *junk*
| until I find some new wisdom to share.
Or look at the PDP11's Unibus (or Q-bus). It's
elegant. It works. And
there are no IRQ or DMA conflicts. The PC bus is a kludge from start to
finish. If you read the PC/AT TechRef (I have), you'll find there is an
official way to share IRQ lines in a PC/AT - which IBM then ignored when
writing the BIOS. And that's what became the standard.
I can expect a kludge from a hacker... because even if it's weird, it works
when it's not supposed to. That takes a lot of imagination.
A kludge of this magnitude from the number of people assigned to design the
expensive IBM machines of that day is a crime!
I remember demonstrating my Tandy CoCo-3 in 1988 to
some PC-goon or
other. He had a 386 PC running MS-DOS. I had a 2 mHz 6809 running OS-9. He
was totally amazed that 'that little video game' could have several
programs running at once, displaying their output in different windows
(something his PC didn't do at that time), and that I could even log on to
my machine from a remote terminal.
Thumbs up everywhere! I have one (and still use it at least weekly) and
despite it's (now I'm getting technical for the sake of conversation) 1.78
Mhz clock speed, I pitted it against a True-blue IBM 286-10 AT machine in
several benchmarks (which I wrote) which included number & string sorting,
prime number creation and getting the factors of a number and..... WON!
People don't realize that the Intel x86 chips are *highly* inefficient,
especially in their addressing and branching instructions, which gave my
CoCo3 a speed advantage not equaled until I bought my 386SX16... even then
it was a close race, but I couldn't get good games for my CoCo anymore...
So whenever I wanted to play, I had VGA. When I wanted to work, gimme OS-9
any day!
Keep on CoCoing!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
> That is one of the reasons I appreciate the early micros so much....it's
> amazing what was done by programmers and such in such tight constraints.
Take
> for example the Atari 800...this is a 2mhz 6502
cpu with 48k RAM and a full
> Basic, with full-screen editing, in an 8k ROM. This system amazes me at
the
> animations and such I've seen on it at times.
It's version of Frogger is
> great, and I typed in a Basic program from 'Compute!' that displayed the
Atari
> logo with 128 colors onscreen at once. I think
modern day systems could
still
learn quite a
few things from the earlier ones.
I don't play computer games that much, but IMHO the games from 10-15 years
ago are much more fun than the modern ones. OK, so now we have 3D rendered
graphics, real sound effects, but no 'plot' - nothing to do except blast
everything in sight. I personally prefer a good text-only adventure with
some logic behind it, and no sound.
Maybe I'm just totally unusual...
Jeff jeffh(a)eleventh.com
--
-tony
ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk
The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill
11 Apr
11 Apr
2:43 a.m.
Or look at the
PDP11's Unibus (or Q-bus). It's elegant. It works. And
there are no IRQ or DMA conflicts. The PC bus is a kludge from start to
finish. If you read the PC/AT TechRef (I have), you'll find there is an
official way to share IRQ lines in a PC/AT - which IBM then ignored when
writing the BIOS. And that's what became the standard.
I can expect a kludge from a hacker... because even if it's weird, it works
when it's not supposed to. That takes a lot of imagination.
A kludge of this magnitude from the number of people assigned to design the
expensive IBM machines of that day is a crime!
The point is that the IBM ISA bus doesn't _ever_ do the right thing. If
there were 2 ways to do something, then they picked the wrong one. It's
amazingly bad.
[CoCo3]
Thumbs up everywhere! I have one (and still use it at
least weekly) and
despite it's (now I'm getting technical for the sake of conversation) 1.78
I liked the design so much that I shipped one over here from the States. I
ordered the service manual first (One nice thing about Tandy machines was
that the service manuals were always available), read it, and ordered the
machine.
Tandy never sold the CoCo 3 in the UK, for all they'd designed a PAL video
version, according to the manual
Mhz clock speed, I pitted it against a True-blue IBM
286-10 AT machine in
Which true-blue machine was a 10MHz 80286?
several benchmarks (which I wrote) which included
number & string sorting,
prime number creation and getting the factors of a number and..... WON!
People don't realize that the Intel x86 chips are *highly* inefficient,
especially in their addressing and branching instructions, which gave my
Indeed. I once read the data sheets on (I think) the 80486, and was amazed
by the fact that some quite simple instructions took 60+ clock cycles. It
appeared that either Intel couldn't design a CPU, or were shoving the
clock rate up (marketing?) but taking so many cycles to do anything that
the real speed was very low.
Roger Merchberger | Everyone complained to me to
change my .sig,
--
-tony
ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk
The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill
10 Apr
10 Apr
2:13 a.m.
Mhz clock
speed, I pitted it against a True-blue IBM 286-10 AT machine in
Which true-blue machine was a 10MHz 80286?
10118
days inactive
10118
days old
5 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
ard12＠eng.cam.ac.uk -
chris＠thanatos.yawc.net -
jeffh＠eleventh.com -
zmerch＠northernway.net