To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 21:32:58 -0800
Subject: Re: Early gaming [was: FDISK]
Message-ID: <20001106.224433.-3945551.1.domanspc@juno.com>
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From: Robert W Moss <domanspc AT juno DOT com>
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

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...
> 

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