Mail Archives: opendos/2000/11/07/01:41:48
BOB,
You did get the right computer. It came standard with 256 bytes of
memory
in the kit. Not to many people were able to build the computers and get
them running, or get memory boards that worked or to get any useful
work out of them, unless you were a programmer and a electronics
technical wizard. The programmers were happy to get any output, and
were happy to watch the lights dance. The same thing happened in the
college computer labs around the country where they were able to hook
up digital LED displays or even graphic crt displays. At one time they
got a color display going and somone programmed a game called
Life or something like that. the game started with a single cell, like an
aeomeoba, and divided or replicated itself, going through many different
patterns while the programmers sat around and stared at it. They were
just happy that they had been able to create a program that could
controll
the computer and just keep on going, and going, and going.........
I was always happy to get any of my programs to work. My instructor in
the
first class I ever took said I had the most cluttered mind he had ever
seen.
Then I had to go back and make my program make change from the top
down instead of from the bottom up.
BOB 'DOMAN' MOSS "Chocolate is a vitamin"
On Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:32:46 -0500 "Bob Jonkman" <bjonkman AT sobac DOT com>
writes:
>
> > We were talking about the MITS Altair 8800, I8080 based
> > microcomputer. It was sold in kit form, (a case, some led's, some
> > resistors, some switches, some chips, some boards and a
> schematic).
>
> Yup, same box I was talking about. A friend had ordered the kit
> parts from MITS, and could run things like Kill The Bit only by
> keying in the code on the switches. And, since the LEDs were the
> only output device (aside from a radio), Kill The Bit was one of a
> very few number of applications that were useful.
>
> His box had 256 bytes of memory (not a typo, it's not Kbytes or
> Mbytes, but "bytes"). One day he travelled across the border to buy
>
> some upgrades. On the way over he declared "one computer", bought
> about a thousand dollars worth of memory (so now the box had 4
> Kbytes, I think), and on the way back he declared "one computer".
> Life was good before computers hit the mainstream and customs
> figured
> out about stuff like that...
>
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
- Raw text -