Charles Lasner [Was: Re: LINC-8]

[Lyle Bickley]

On Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:58:59 -0400
Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

> 	NL7776			/SETUP -2
> 	TAD	(-7776)		/COMPARE TO EXPECTED VALUE
> 	SZA CLA			/SKIP IF OK
> 	JMP	IMA8S		/JUMP IF RETARDED BROTHER
> 
> /	IF WE GET HERE, WE'RE NOT A PDP-8/S.
> 
> Ok, that made me laugh.....

Charles and I have many emails over the years going back and forth regarding
OS/8 vs. P?S/8.

He was one of those folks that when you sent him a five line email, you would
often get a five page response. Charles was definitely opinionated - but often
proven to be right.

Both Charles and Merrill (author of FOCAL) teased me when I got my PDP-8/S
running. It was definitely SLOW (8/S where S=Slow). Merrill told me that DEC
management was furious when FOCAL displayed which kind of 8 it was running on.
Management wanted folks to think all 8's were totally compatible.

Charles designed P?S/8 to run in a 4K PDP-8 - making it feasible to run on a
basic 8/S (OS/8 requires a minimum of 8K). I hope it gets "released" someday :)

I'll miss Charles and his passion for P?S/8.

Lyle

--
> On 4/27/2020 10:40 AM, Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 09:08:24AM -0500, John H. Reinhardt via cctalk
> > wrote:  
> >> Charles Lasner.  He passed the weekend of April 3rd due to
> >> complications from the COVID-19 virus.  I'm fuzzy on his exact
> >> biography, but he was big in the development of OS/8 for the PDP-8 at
> >> DEC.  His current project was an update of OS/8 which he called
> >> P?S/8.  Apparently he owned multiple LINC-8's according to comments on
> >> the Facebook group.  
> > 
> > He also worked onKermit-12, for instance the code that identifies which
> > PDP-8 machine it is running on. It is quite fun to follow that code. It
> > can, impressively, separate between a PDP-5, LINC-8, PDP-12, Straight-8,
> > 8/S, 8/I, 8/L, 8/E, 8/A, 6100 and 6120.
> > 
> > Here, search for "MACHINE,.-."
> > http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/ftp/d/k12mit.pal
> > 
> > A lot of PDP-8 know-how and trivia went with him, sorry to see him go.
> > 
> > /P
> >   



-- 
73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"