Peter A. Stark and R. K. Richards
Charles Shannon Hendrix
I collect old computer books (among other things my pack-rat disorder
causes), and like to keep notes about them when I can.
I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
know anything about them.
Digital Computer Programming
by Pete A. Stark
The MacMillan Company
First Printing
1967
LOC# 67-16057
Digital Computer Components and Circuits
by R. K. Richards
D. Van Nostrand Company
Third Printing
January 1959
LOC# 57-13454
The last guy worked for IBM at some point, but that's all I've gotten so
far. I know I can Google and otherwise search, but I wanted to check
here.
Anyone know either of these guys, meet them, or know anything about
them?
Drifting, WRT "junk shops":
I got both of these books just before a local electronics surplus dealer
disappeared, Grande Junquetion in Virginia Beach, Virginia. They had
tons of old computer books, and I went through them gradually, getting
them as I had the money.
They went under with hundreds I hadn't been through yet, and about a
dozen I had ID'd to pick up two weeks previous.
I've been going in there for almost 20 years, since early in high
school.
Some of the highlights of things I've found in there:
* some of the first computer magazines (printed in 50s)
* parts of a naval missile fire control system
* guts of mainframes and minicomputers
* the history of CP/M and other microcomputers in hardware form
* vacuum tubes galore
* computer software and hardware manuals from varies periods
...and stuff like that. It was the only place like it in the eastern
Virginia area that I knew of, except for DRMO at Norfolk Naval Base.
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Frank McConnell
> I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
> know anything about them.
> by Pete A. Stark
Maybe the same Peter A. Stark who used to write for Kilobaud in the
late 1970s?
-Frank McConnell
William Hamblen
>
> I collect old computer books (among other things my pack-rat disorder
> causes), and like to keep notes about them when I can.
>
> I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
> know anything about them.
>
> Digital Computer Programming
> by Pete A. Stark
> The MacMillan Company
> First Printing
> 1967
> LOC# 67-16057
The Peter Stark I know about teaches at a college in New York and has
a small software company (although he could be retired now). If you
do a google on his name you ought to turn up his web site.
Tom Van Vleck
> I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
> know anything about them.
>
...>
>
> Digital Computer Components and Circuits
> by R. K. Richards
> D. Van Nostrand Company
> Third Printing
> January 1959
> LOC# 57-13454
>
>
> The last guy worked for IBM at some point, but that's all I've gotten so
> far.
Richards wrote several books in the 50s
about digital computing. I learned a lot from
his
Arithmetic Operations in Digital Computers,
Van Nostrand, Princeton, 1955.
as well as the components and circuits book.
Michael Black
> I collect old computer books (among other things my pack-rat disorder
> causes), and like to keep notes about them when I can.
>
> I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
> know anything about them.
>
> Digital Computer Programming
> by Pete A. Stark
> The MacMillan Company
> First Printing
> 1967
> LOC# 67-16057
>
>
to think this is some other Pete Stark than the one who wrote an awful lot
for hobby magazines thirty years ago. The blurbs back then said something
about him teaching, at a community college I think, and that title would
fit that situation.
If it's the same Pete Stark, then the first I read of his was a 3 part
frequency counter construction article in "73 Magazine" back in 1972.
It was a very popular counter, with many building it and others building
variations, and was even directly copied in another amateur radio magazine.
Others had written about building frequency counters in the hobby magazines
before, but this was the most advanced at the time.
A few months later, he had another multi-part construction article about
a frequency synthesizer, being amongst the first described in hobby
magazines. That too seemed popular, though not as popular as the counter.
He wrote plenty of other things.
And when the home computers came along, he started writing about them.
He had a long "series" (it might also be called a column) on the
SWTP computers, iet 6800-based, in Kilobaud, a year or two after that
magazine started, and running for a few years.
He had various bits of software for sale, with time. Some of it's
still available from his website, http://www.users.cloud9.net/~stark
and as I noticed about a month ago when his software came up elsewhere,
some of it is now "free" to some extent.
Another important series was one about building a 68000 computer
in Radio Electronics, in the late eighties or was it early nineties?
It was a tutorial, but the computer was a big system for the time
and had things like an ISA bus and an interface for an IBM type
keyboard. Since it went on for most of a year, it was far more detailed
than anything Steve Ciarcia wrote, and offered up a lot of information,
about the 68000, and interfacing.
Michael
Charles Shannon Hendrix
>> I have two whose authors I'd like to know more about, if anyone should
>> know anything about them.
>>
>> Digital Computer Programming
>> by Pete A. Stark
>> The MacMillan Company
>> First Printing
>> 1967
>> LOC# 67-16057
>>
>>
> I can't be certain, but I think it's too much a coincidence of name
> to think this is some other Pete Stark than the one who wrote an awful lot
> for hobby magazines thirty years ago. The blurbs back then said something
> about him teaching, at a community college I think, and that title would
> fit that situation.
The book has this in an inside page:
Queensborough Community College of The City of New York
...so that sounds like him. I bleeped over that thinking it was another
publisher's note.
> He wrote plenty of other things.
I remember picking this book up because the name triggered a vague
memory, but I just packed it in a storage box and forgot about it until
last night.
> keyboard. Since it went on for most of a year, it was far more detailed
> than anything Steve Ciarcia wrote, and offered up a lot of information,
> about the 68000, and interfacing.
I still lament the loss of 68K systems.
I remember one time I saw a VMEbus system with 14 68040 CPUs. I needed
it really bad.
I always waited for stuff like this to show up at auctions, but have
never managed to find one.
Michael Black
>
>
> The book has this in an inside page:
>
> Queensborough Community College of The City of New York
>
> ...so that sounds like him. I bleeped over that thinking it was another
> publisher's note.
>
that is specific about that, but don't count on it.
>> keyboard. Since it went on for most of a year, it was far more detailed
>> than anything Steve Ciarcia wrote, and offered up a lot of information,
>> about the 68000, and interfacing.
>
> I still lament the loss of 68K systems.
>
> I remember one time I saw a VMEbus system with 14 68040 CPUs. I needed
> it really bad.
>
> I always waited for stuff like this to show up at auctions, but have
> never managed to find one.
>
I remember looking at some of those early 68000 systems, and thinking
wow. You could run Unix, and they had all of 512K RAM. I was still
drooling when there was an article in Microcornucopia by someone (I forget
his name, but he wrote plenty of articles for the mag), about his
finding a 68010 single board computer at the local surplus outlet
and his efforts to figure out what it was, by disassemblying the ROM
and running software to find I/O addresses.
At the same time, it's now so dated. I was given a couple of 68020
Suns a few years back, and I never got around to doing more than turning
them on, because I had no scsi hard drives for them. As wonderful as
they were when they came out 20 or so years ago, there is ample more
available now. I was tempted to buy a Powermac 7100/66 yesterday
at a Rotary Club sale, for $45 (I was going to haggle), but I have
absolutely no use for it. Not only do I have a faster system running
Linux, but I'm finding better systems in the garbage. Two years ago,
I would have drooled over that PowerMac, now it's only appealing if
it's real cheap. For that matter, I decided a $5 Mac II I saw at
a garage sale two weeks ago was not worth the effort to get home.
I think I wasted too much time bringing home incomplete junk,
at a time when there wasn't much neat stuff available, and now
that some neat stuff is shaking out cheap, I'm thinking twice about
bringing it home. I probably should have bought the PowerMac, and
used it as a bedside computer; the fact that it had a CDROM drive
would provide CD player function at low cost.
Michael
Michael Nadeau
news:baphi1$17ta$1...@daemonweed.reanimators.org...
It's the same Pete Stark. He wrote a regular column for Kilobaud on 680x
systems. and had a company called Star-Kits that sold, as I recall,
programming tools and hardware enhancements to the TRS-80 Color Computer and
other 6809/680x0 systems. Star-Kits was still in business as of a few years
ago, but I could not find the web site just now.
Peter also wrote for two of Kilobaud's sister publications for which I used
to work, 80 Micro and HOT CoCo.
Michael Nadeau
Editor/Publisher
Classic Tech, the Vintage Computing Resource
www.classictechpub.com
pastark
: It's the same Pete Stark. He wrote a regular column for Kilobaud on 680x
: systems. and had a company called Star-Kits that sold, as I recall,
: programming tools and hardware enhancements to the TRS-80 Color Computer and
: other 6809/680x0 systems. Star-Kits was still in business as of a few years
: ago, but I could not find the web site just now.
Yup - I'm the same Pete Stark. Still around, still teaching, still writing,
though not much for magazines. I had to move the web site when the former
ISP went under - it's now at www.cloud9.net/~stark
Pete Stark
pastark[at]cloud9[dot]net
Charles Shannon Hendrix
> Yup - I'm the same Pete Stark. Still around, still teaching, still writing,
> though not much for magazines. I had to move the web site when the former
> ISP went under - it's now at www.cloud9.net/~stark
Nice book BTW (Digital Computer Programming).
A lot of books I've picked up I don't read, but I spent some time with
this one.
It's rare now to see this kind of thing being taught at this low a
level, but its obvious that its possible to do it like that.