Where things appear to be going....
Wild Bill
comment re: Knopix ......
Since this freely downloadable operating system is
positively loaded with drivers, it can load and run on
quite a few of today's PCs with no further operator
intervention than to stuff in a CD.
Since ms' fortune seems to be built on putting out
an operating system so crappy that you simply
throw it away about the same time frame as you
junk your supposedly 'obsolete' hardware......
Why doesn't Intel (or better yet, AMD) produce
a CPU/chipset combination that INCLUDES
the operating system, no need for anything ms?
Can't be all that hard to anticipate the next couple
or three years' worth of peripherals and code it
to include them, too. Would be viable for at least
as long as today's stuff, and kill ms at it's root.
Or, there's always the possiblity for building the
hardware to always grab the balance, beyond a
simple loader, of an operating system off the net.
And BTW, do they even sell OS upgrades for
game boxes? I never touched one so don't know.
I think we gotta admit, Linux IS a viable desktop
system, at least with the kind of front end Apple
is now putting on it......
Somehow, I think Dr Kildall would really have
enjoyed Mr Torvolds. Too bad the one left us
just as the other was getting going......
Bill
primo
wrote:
>This occured to me while re-reading my previous
>comment re: Knopix ......
>
>Since this freely downloadable operating system is
>positively loaded with drivers, it can load and run on
>quite a few of today's PCs with no further operator
>intervention than to stuff in a CD.
>
>Since ms' fortune seems to be built on putting out
>an operating system so crappy that you simply
>throw it away about the same time frame as you
>junk your supposedly 'obsolete' hardware......
>
>Why doesn't Intel (or better yet, AMD) produce
>a CPU/chipset combination that INCLUDES
>the operating system, no need for anything ms?
>
>Can't be all that hard to anticipate the next couple
>or three years' worth of peripherals and code it
>to include them, too. Would be viable for at least
>as long as today's stuff, and kill ms at it's root.
Its not the operating system that they are selling, they are selling
backward compatibility with all the software that runs under it.
Any new operating system has to offer the same sort of software
library that Windows has built up over the last 10-25 years.
As long as my vidcap card works under win98se and my video editing
software does the same, I won't be changing op systems.
Until I need to edit video files over 4 gig in size I won't even
change to to ntfs.
Not to mention all the games that only run under windows.
Back in the early days of cp/m vs appledos vs trsdos a wise computer
guru gave me the advice:
"Pick what programs you want to run then buy the hardware and opsystem
that run them."
People that can't seem to learn that lesson spend the rest of their
life trying to force software run on the wrong hardware or opsystem.
Wordstar moved me from trsdos to cp/m. Warcraft2 moved me from cp/m to
msdos. Age of empires moved me from msdos to win9x. I am still wating
for the software that will change me from using what I have now (and I
still do use wordstar 4 on my cp/m systems, it is still faster to use
than anything under win9x).
Wild Bill
....not to nit-pick, but have you tried Knopix?
The 'standard' distribution cd image (free download
ISO image off the 'net) includes not only games, if
that's what ''computing'' means these days, but most
every type application most folks ever bother with.
I really like the browser they used, Konqueror.......
My point is, unlike ms products, which ALL are
simply DOS products, meaning disk operating
system, meaning open/close a zillion disk files
every time you try to do *ANYTHING* .....
Knopix runs off a CD, and doesn't even need a
hard drive. So, no matter WHAT you've got
installed YOU CAN SAFELY TRY IT OUT.
Now, obviously, hard drives are nice to have
to STORE things on, BUT NOT AS THE HEART
OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM. (Something ms
has yet to realize, apparently).
And, yes, a CD IS a drive, but you needn't write to it.
Sort of, like, if there was an ms CAR, and you were
at work, and wanted to go someplace for lunch, first
you'd have to go home, put your car in the garage,
shut the door, then open the door,get in, and then go....
With Gary gone and his disk operating system
terribly long in the tooth, all gates & co can do
is try to integrate ideas they steal from Torvolds
to try to get into the 21st century, computer-wise.
Apple seems to have done something big this time.
Watch for ms to try to buy them out. While they still can.
Time, of course, will tell.......
Bill
elaich
news:sioa619lbk45mk9va...@4ax.com:
> Knopix runs off a CD, and doesn't even need a
> hard drive. So, no matter WHAT you've got
> installed YOU CAN SAFELY TRY IT OUT.
I ordered a Knoppix CD and was very impressed. A really feature rich
environment that even includes a desktop planetarium. It detected and
installed all my hardware (except the Winmodem) and even allows you to
mount drives by clicking them on the desktop.
As soon as I get around to buying a real modem, I will probably begin
running Linux. STILL, I will need a Windows install, because I do enjoy
playing a lot of games that only run on Windows.
--
"No sports writers were harmed during the making of this post. And what I
want to know is - why not?"
Anonymous Guy
On 2005-04-19 "Wild Bill" <bi...@sunsouthwest.com> said:
> With Gary gone and his disk operating system
> terribly long in the tooth, all gates & co can do
> is try to integrate ideas they steal from Torvolds
> to try to get into the 21st century, computer-wise.
>
> Apple seems to have done something big this time.
>
> Watch for ms to try to buy them out. While they still can.
>
> Time, of course, will tell.......
>
> Bill
Ummm...M$ already owns a slice of Apple, Wild Bill.
Perhaps you missed it a few years back, but it was the
infusion of Mikro$loth money into Apple that kept the
company afloat when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Again.
As a condition of the buy-in, Apple had to agree to
cease all development and distribution of its own
Internet-related applications.
This is why all Apple computers now come with M$
Internet Exploiter and M$ Outhouse Excess pre-
installed.
No, Mikro$loth will never "buy out" Apple. It suits
M$'s purposes to have Apple remain independent, and
marginally viable in the marketplace.
If the Federal Trade Commission ever tries to make a
case that Mikro$loth has a de facto marketplace 'monopoly,'
the M$ lawyers can point to Apple as 'proof' that M$
COULDN'T POSSIBLY be a 'monopoly.'
Jay Maynard
> As a condition of the buy-in, Apple had to agree to
> cease all development and distribution of its own
> Internet-related applications.
>
> This is why all Apple computers now come with M$
> Internet Exploiter and M$ Outhouse Excess pre-
> installed.
Boy, are YOU behind the times. M$ stopped all development on IE for Mac a
couple of years ago, after Apple introduced Safari, their own Web browser
(which beats IE all hollow). I don't know that OS X *ever* came with Outlook
Express installed; I do know that 10.1 came with Apple's Mail application.
Kelly Hall
> Since this freely downloadable operating system is
> positively loaded with drivers, it can load and run on
> quite a few of today's PCs with no further operator
> intervention than to stuff in a CD.
Pretty handy if you have hardware that is supported. Sucks if you
don't. Bummer that when new hardware comes out, the first driver that
gets written is for Windows. If the vendor doesn't want to support
Linux, then I guess you either code it yourself or wait for some other
developer to do it for you.
> Since ms' fortune seems to be built on putting out
> an operating system so crappy that you simply
> throw it away about the same time frame as you
> junk your supposedly 'obsolete' hardware......
You can shit talk Microsoft products all day long, but there have been a
whole lot fewer kernel changes to XP, say, than the Linux kernel. NT
was based on VMS, and in general the system is quite solid. Apparantly
you never dealt with the abortion that was 2.2 kernel memory management.
- the box demanded swap space or the page replacement algorithm had
gas; we ended up making a ram disk and swapping to that... lose lose lose.
> Why doesn't Intel (or better yet, AMD) produce
> a CPU/chipset combination that INCLUDES
> the operating system, no need for anything ms?
Bwahahahahaha. Like Intel and AMD want to write and support drivers for
every brand of cheapo hardware that comes out of Taiwan, China, or
India. Or maybe they'll only support their own hardware - I'm sure that
will let them sell a ton of proprietary CPU/motherboard combos. Or not.
> Can't be all that hard to anticipate the next couple
> or three years' worth of peripherals and code it
> to include them, too. Would be viable for at least
> as long as today's stuff, and kill ms at it's root.
With your blinding insight, I'm amazed that venture capitalists aren't
breaking down your door this very minute with hundreds of millions of
dollars.
I don't understand this "kill ms" thing at all. Clearly, you don't make
a living writing software. Have you forgotten the bad old days when
developers had to pick one or two platforms out of the dozens on the
market and hope and pray that they didn't back a loser? I had a surplus
AT&T Unix PC that ran WordPerfect. It ran pretty well considering the
hardware. I'm not surprised WordPerfect ending up being bought out
several times over the years - what a waste of engineering resources
porting their code to a pig like that.
> Or, there's always the possiblity for building the
> hardware to always grab the balance, beyond a
> simple loader, of an operating system off the net.
So the net goes down and now you can't edit your novel or play tetris?
Sounds like those piece of crap X-Terminals that people were so hot for
in the early 90s. They call these "thin clients" now and they still
largely suck although with a fast network and big disk farms they aren't
totally useless for dedicated purposes like a call center.
> And BTW, do they even sell OS upgrades for
> game boxes? I never touched one so don't know.
Sell an OS upgrade for a console? Surely you jest - the user of a game
console largely doesn't give a crap about the OS. They just want to
play games. Frankly, I don't think most PC users give a crap either -
they just want to crank out documents, surf the web, and play games.
The reason any of us even notice the OS anymore is because the OS sucks
and draws attention to itself - and all desktop OSes suck, to varying
degrees. I am blissfully unaware of the details of the OSes in my
digital camera and control system for my car - and if the designers did
their jobs competently, I'll never have to know about those OSes.
> I think we gotta admit, Linux IS a viable desktop
> system, at least with the kind of front end Apple
> is now putting on it......
Linux is great unless you need to operate software that doesn't run on
Linux. Good luck getting a decent PCB layout program running, or a
decent music typesetting program, or Disney-software for your kids to
play/learn. If you only need software that's available for Linux, have
a great time. If you do need software unavailable for Linux, then it
doesn't matter how gee-whiz Knopix is.
I ran BeOS for a couple of years - I loved it, and still think it was a
better desktop OS than *BSD or Linux have yet produced. Both the
filesystem and API rocked the house. But once a week I had to reboot
into NT just to do my online banking. And I couldn't play the fancy new
games that I enjoy. So after a while I reformatted and installed XP pro
- now I can buy whatever hardware is on sale and be confident that it'll
work fine.
> Somehow, I think Dr Kildall would really have
> enjoyed Mr Torvolds. Too bad the one left us
> just as the other was getting going......
Hmm - when did Kildall pass away? I was running the Linux 0.14 kernel
in early '92, until the advantages of gcc but no games was nullified by
the DJGPP stuff so I could do 32-bit coding and games under DOS.
Kelly
nos...@nouce.bellatlantic.net
>You can shit talk Microsoft products all day long, but there have been a
>whole lot fewer kernel changes to XP, say, than the Linux kernel. NT
>was based on VMS, and in general the system is quite solid. Apparantly
NT is not based on VMS not even close. Cutler left before VMS
progressed far though his claim to fame was RMS.
I run both here.
Allison
Axel Berger
>Now, obviously, hard drives are nice to have to STORE things on, BUT NOT
>AS THE HEART OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM. (Something ms has yet to realize,
>apparently).
You might be careful to state this here. It is not MS but CP/M. One
thing that bothered me a bit is, that the CP/M equivalent of
AUTOEXEC.BAT (sorry, I can't remember the name right now) will not even
run from a write protected disk, making the use of a boot floppy that
much more unreliable.
I consider it a very good idea to always write protect master and
system disks.
--
Tschö wa
Axel
Jack Peacock
news:cqjc611li4fjr0lfk...@4ax.com...
> NT is not based on VMS not even close. Cutler left before VMS
> progressed far though his claim to fame was RMS.
>
support for NT) to avoid lawsuits. There are quite a few similarities, and
not just in the early version Cutler worked on. The VMS system did not
spring into being fully formed overnight; it came from long experience on
both the RSX side and TOPS (primarily TOPS-20 virtual memory) in DEC's large
systems group. Anyone looking at NT can see the derivative work in the
ACLs, memory management, and async I/O concepts. There is ample evidence
both VMS and RSX manuals were close at hand for the NT designers.
Same influence can be seen in CP/M, when you look at RT-11 and OS/8
operating systems from DEC.
Jack Peacock
Randy McLaughlin
news:200504200...@b.maus.de...
There are several ways to get CP/M to execute commands.
The easiest is $$$.SUB, this is the name of the temporary file submit
creates and executes for each line in the original *.SUB file contained.
After each line is executed the $$$.file must be re-written or deleted to
specify what is left to do.
This is NOT the same as an AUTOEXEC.BAT file, the above technique was often
used to send commands over a modem program like MOVE-IT to go do something
and usually return control back to the modem program.
The normal method of an "AUTOEXEC.BAT" type of control was to fill the
command line in the CP/M boot image. This command could be anything
including a *.SUB command, if so then the disk must not be write protected
to be able to create the $$$.SUB file. If it was not a *.SUB file then the
disk could be write protected.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
s_dub...@yahoo.com
Axel Berger wrote:
> *Wild Bill* wrote on Tue, 05-04-19 22:22:
> >Now, obviously, hard drives are nice to have to STORE things on, BUT
NOT
> >AS THE HEART OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM. (Something ms has yet to
realize,
> >apparently).
>
> You might be careful to state this here. It is not MS but CP/M. One
> thing that bothered me a bit is, that the CP/M equivalent of
> AUTOEXEC.BAT (sorry, I can't remember the name right now) will not
even
> run from a write protected disk, making the use of a boot floppy that
> much more unreliable.
Submit
-There is also a subtle snafu..if there is not enough space on the
diskette for submit to create a temporary file.
This is more evident under cp/m-86 v1.1 for the ibm pc since you can
setup an 'auto-run at boot' transient, i.e. submit.cmd, which will hang
if it doesn't find enough space on the boot drive for its temporary
file.
> I consider it a very good idea to always write protect master and
> system disks.
>
> --
> Tschö wa
> Axel
-msDos has its own subtle snafu related to defining search paths longer
that the path buffer, such as when setting up a compiler.
Steve
elaich
news:SLn9e.3509$J12...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com:
>
> Hmm - when did Kildall pass away?
I'm amazed that someone who seems to be as knowledgeable as you seem to be
doesn't know this.
Randy McLaughlin
I had to look it up - July 11,1994.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Kelly Hall
> I'm amazed that someone who seems to be as knowledgeable as you seem to be
> doesn't know this.
Kildall passed out of relevance long before he passed out of this life.
I vaguely remember when he died, but it didn't make a huge impact on
me. And I wasn't interested enough when I posted to fire up google
and find out. Thanks to Randy, now I know it was 1994.
Kelly
Randy McLaughlin
news:1FJ9e.1580$zX7....@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
Sounds like trolling but here is a bite (or might be called a byte).
He developed the first computer language for micro-processors.
He developed the first OS for micro-processors that 90% of PC's are still
based on. It was also the first "generic" OS allowing people with different
computer hardware to use the same software, this is the one and only reason
for an explosion of computer use everywhere.
The software his company sold worked and did not require hundreds of MB of
patches after you bought it.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
nos...@nouce.bellatlantic.net
<pea...@simconv.com> wrote:
>NT was close enough that Microsoft had to cut some deals with DEC (Alpha
>support for NT) to avoid lawsuits. There are quite a few similarities, and
Partly because Cutler bailed from DEC and had signed a nondisclosure
that was to keep him from OS involvement for I believe at least 2 or
more years. I also had signed one with DEC because of my
involvement with network based printing and it was similar but less
restrictive.
There were other technology questions that DEC sought answers to,
this was just protecting patents, copyrights and other intellectual
property. It's part of being in technology when key people develope
any part of the system including processes.
>not just in the early version Cutler worked on. The VMS system did not
>spring into being fully formed overnight; it came from long experience on
>both the RSX side and TOPS (primarily TOPS-20 virtual memory) in DEC's large
>systems group. Anyone looking at NT can see the derivative work in the
>ACLs, memory management, and async I/O concepts. There is ample evidence
>both VMS and RSX manuals were close at hand for the NT designers.
When Cutler left the DEC development world RMS-11 was his child and
that looks like VMS but predates it and the VAX. Those are some of
the NT constructs you are seeing. VMS carried them but when Cutler
bailed V3.x was still current and 4.0 was in development.
>Same influence can be seen in CP/M, when you look at RT-11 and OS/8
>operating systems from DEC.
No question there, and of the DCL interface OSs (RT-11, RSX-11 and
VMS) all look similar and that dates way back to OS/8 and even Tops.
However there are also big differences, the biggest and most obvious
is command line parsing: source>dest VS Dest<source. Its no harder
to do either but one is distintly different.
Allison
inv...@example.com
Randy McLaughlin wrote:
[Gary Kildall]
>He developed the first computer language for micro-processors.
What language might that be?
Randy McLaughlin
Kelly Hall
> Sounds like trolling but here is a bite (or might be called a byte).
I didn't mean it that way, honest ;) But now that there's something to
talk about...
> He developed the first computer language for micro-processors.
I can't tell you how many lines of PL/M I've cranked out over the years
for all of the micros I've owned. Oh, wait - yes I can: none. I've
written more Fortran for micros than PL/M. I've written a ton more Lisp
for micros than PL/M. Both languages predate PL/M by a decade and a half.
> He developed the first OS for micro-processors that 90% of PC's are still
> based on. It was also the first "generic" OS allowing people with different
> computer hardware to use the same software, this is the one and only reason
> for an explosion of computer use everywhere.
Unix was written before CP/M, designed for porting to new hardware using
a high level (heh) language. And CP/M machines are generally more alike
than the various Unix platforms.
> The software his company sold worked and did not require hundreds of MB of
> patches after you bought it.
Yeah, but it didn't do all that much. It had a file system. It had a
loader. There was some attempt at device management. Face it - it was
limited by its crap hardware target.
But even if all you say is true, Kildall did all of that before 1980.
For the last 14 years of his life, nothing significant came out of his
company. Which is why it got bought by Noorda and Novell, and then died
a miserable whimpering death - it was simply irrelevant.
Technically, Kildall and DRI were competent. Business-wise, DRI had a
decent run but wasn't stellar, and when the times got tough they died.
Kelly
Randy McLaughlin
> Randy McLaughlin wrote:
>> Sounds like trolling but here is a bite (or might be called a byte).
>
> I didn't mean it that way, honest ;) But now that there's something to
> talk about...
>
>> He developed the first computer language for micro-processors.
>
> I can't tell you how many lines of PL/M I've cranked out over the years
> for all of the micros I've owned. Oh, wait - yes I can: none. I've
> written more Fortran for micros than PL/M. I've written a ton more Lisp
> for micros than PL/M. Both languages predate PL/M by a decade and a half.
PL/M was the first language for micro-processors. I did not say it was the
first computer language. Many languages have been ported to
micro-processors since then.
>> He developed the first OS for micro-processors that 90% of PC's are still
>> based on. It was also the first "generic" OS allowing people with
>> different computer hardware to use the same software, this is the one and
>> only reason for an explosion of computer use everywhere.
>
> Unix was written before CP/M, designed for porting to new hardware using a
> high level (heh) language. And CP/M machines are generally more alike
> than the various Unix platforms.
CP/M was the first OS designed to run on a varity of hardware from different
manufacturers, later UNIX was modified to port to non-DEC systems.
>> The software his company sold worked and did not require hundreds of MB
>> of patches after you bought it.
>
> Yeah, but it didn't do all that much. It had a file system. It had a
> loader. There was some attempt at device management. Face it - it was
> limited by its crap hardware target.
>
> But even if all you say is true, Kildall did all of that before 1980. For
> the last 14 years of his life, nothing significant came out of his
> company. Which is why it got bought by Noorda and Novell, and then died a
> miserable whimpering death - it was simply irrelevant.
>
> Technically, Kildall and DRI were competent. Business-wise, DRI had a
> decent run but wasn't stellar, and when the times got tough they died.
>
> Kelly
By 1980 Willy-boy was by defacto in charge of all things related to
micro-processing. Gary had an open theme Willy-boy didn't.
To do any real numeric work with mbasic it's terrible accuracy had to be
dealt with while Gary's languages gave extremely precise and accurate
results.
For whatever reasons Gary got out of the rat race a very rich man but his
true legacy was stolen by a smarter business man.
If you ever find anyone that believes Willy knows more than what Gary knew
about computers you know you have a sucker ready to buy an expensive windoze
server from you.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Barry Watzman
Gary was the better computer scientist, a term that I don't even know
that I'd apply to Bill Gates.
But Bill was a "visionary". Bill could see the future, and the future
implications of events. Gary didn't, in fact I'd say that Gary was
"aloof" to real-world and business implications of events.
Both deserve a place in computer history. But it takes more than that
to become the richest man in the entire world. And while luck played a
big part in that, it wasn't ALL luck.
Just my opinion.
primo
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>Gary was the better computer scientist, a term that I don't even know
>that I'd apply to Bill Gates.
I recall watching one of the early Computer Chronicles on PBS years
ago (it was on right after Dr Who) and in one of their computer bowl
shows Gates was on one of the contestant teams. He seemed to know his
way around the questions they asked. I might even have that episode on
tape stored away, in my collection of Dr Who recordings. It also might
be available in the CC section of archive.org. It convinced me that
Gates was a computer geek not a meglomaniac captain of industry.
Randy McLaughlin
news:426820FD...@neo.rr.com...
I for one am a Micr0$loth basher. That said I've always said Willy-boy is a
great business man but as you said not a computer scientist.
Good business sense, luck, BS, and a lot of self-confidence are among
Willy's repertoire that has served him well.
Had Gary used enough BS then DRI might be at the top and Micro$loth would be
a memory. That said if wishes were money we would all be rich. The fact is
Willy is the king by his own efforts.
I'm just not a great supporter of the king ;-)
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
elaich
news:oWQ9e.89819$f%4.3...@bignews1.bellsouth.net:
> Sounds like trolling but here is a bite (or might be called a byte).
Which is what I was thinking when I posted my comment.
elaich
> But even if all you say is true, Kildall did all of that before 1980.
> For the last 14 years of his life, nothing significant came out of his
> company.
Sure. GEM and DR-DOS are not at all significant.
John Elliott
: You might be careful to state this here. It is not MS but CP/M. One
: AUTOEXEC.BAT (sorry, I can't remember the name right now) will not even
: run from a write protected disk, making the use of a boot floppy that
: much more unreliable.
Under CP/M Plus, this is PROFILE.SUB. SUBMIT.COM writes a temporary file
(SYSINxx.$$$, where xx is the size of the TPA) to the CP/M temporary drive.
So if your system has a RAMdisc, the BIOS should set the temporary drive to
be the RAMdisc before first launching the CCP. Later versions of CP/M for
the Amstrad PCW and Spectrum +3 did this.
Alternatively, if you don't have access to the BIOS source, patch
SUBMIT.COM so that instead of asking for a temporary drive, it hardcodes
the one you're interested in -- replace the instructions
02A4 MVI C,50
02A6 CALL 03E4
with MVI A,drive and three NOPs.
A third option, for those without any form of RAMdisc, is to replace
SUBMIT.COM by something which doesn't write a temporary file. All the CCP
does is execute the command SUBMIT PROFILE; you could, for example, use CHN
(on the CP/M CDROM in /cpm/cpm3/chn31.lbr) to create a SUBMIT.COM that
executes one or more commands automatically.
--
------------- http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html --------------------
John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
|SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------)
Kelly Hall
> Sure. GEM and DR-DOS are not at all significant.
I totally agree - I had those examples firmly in mind :)
Kelly
Kelly Hall
> PL/M was the first language for micro-processors. I did not say it was the
> first computer language. Many languages have been ported to
> micro-processors since then.
I agree. What I was leading to was that while PL/M might have been the
first language just for micros, older programming languages soon
displaced it for common usage.
> To do any real numeric work with mbasic it's terrible accuracy had to be
> dealt with while Gary's languages gave extremely precise and accurate
> results.
I used muMath - seemed pretty decent to me.
> For whatever reasons Gary got out of the rat race a very rich man but his
> true legacy was stolen by a smarter business man.
I sense that you rate technical accomplishments higher than business
accomplishments. That's your prerogative, of course. But not everyone
shares your priorities.
> If you ever find anyone that believes Willy knows more than what Gary knew
> about computers you know you have a sucker ready to buy an expensive windoze
> server from you.
I'm a big fan of suckers buying windows servers - it pushes the price
down for the rest of us. I just built a new PC to replace my 6 year old
beast. I splurged and dropped $800 in components. I mention this
because I spent a lot more than that (even ignoring inflation) for my
first CP/M machine way back when.
When I think of what my current machine can do compared to that Kaypro
4, well, I think old Willy has done OK (with a little help from 20 years
of process engineers at Intel).
Kelly
Randy McLaughlin
> Randy McLaughlin wrote:
<snip>
> I'm a big fan of suckers buying windows servers - it pushes the price down
> for the rest of us. I just built a new PC to replace my 6 year old beast.
> I splurged and dropped $800 in components. I mention this because I spent
> a lot more than that (even ignoring inflation) for my first CP/M machine
> way back when.
>
> When I think of what my current machine can do compared to that Kaypro 4,
> well, I think old Willy has done OK (with a little help from 20 years of
> process engineers at Intel).
>
> Kelly
Just out of curiosity what do you believe Willy did to speed computers up
from a 2.5mhz (or 4mhz depending on which K4) Z80 to whatever you just
bought?
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Barry Watzman
the "visionary" thing, and it was a very, very real component of both
his personality and his success. Don't underestimate it. He was able
to clearly see 2 to 5 years into the future.
Randy McLaughlin
> Bill Gates was all that we agree that he was, but you really left out the
> "visionary" thing, and it was a very, very real component of both his
> personality and his success. Don't underestimate it. He was able to
> clearly see 2 to 5 years into the future.
By visionary do you mean his last great idea of multiple low orbit
satellites for internet access in the third world with no phone service (or
electricity).
A few billion dollars worth of technology to bring internet access to people
that can't afford to go to school.
Personally I would think the money would go better toward helping with
education.
I don't believe that Willy is "visionary", he reminds me more of P.T.
Barnum. Willy is a salesman to beat all salesmen, he sells crap and tells
everyone to enjoy the caviar.
I give him credit he sells a lot of crap, billions of dollars of crap but
crap none the less.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Kelly Hall
> Just out of curiosity what do you believe Willy did to speed computers up
> from a 2.5mhz (or 4mhz depending on which K4) Z80 to whatever you just
> bought?
In short, he cornered the desktop PC OS market (and application market,
but that's less important to me). That allows software writers to focus
on applications for one target (windows). It's not a great target, but
it's standard enough. Standardize the software, and it sells the
hardware. Big market for hardware means the hardware gets cheaper.
Next thing you know, I've got a 1.6GHz Pentium M with a gig of ram and a
sierra hotel video card for the price of 16 barrels of oil. A Kaypro 2
cost about 50 barrels of oil back then ($1800 with $35/barrel) and the
graphics sucked ('ladder' was fun, but get real).
In the 80s, if I wanted to play the latest cool game when it came out I
would need a PC, an Apple, an Atari, and a C64, let alone one of several
flavors of consoles. Now I can own a PC and a PS2 and pretty much have
my pick aside from those few XBox games that haven't been ported.
By your question I take it you believe that Microsoft hasn't done
anything to push the desktop PC business forward?
The funny thing is, I can't think of a time when Microsoft actually had
the best product in a given niche*, yet time after time they have
survived and prospered when technologically advanced competitors fell on
their face. The conclusion I take from this is that business acumen is
worth a lot more than technology in the long haul. Benevolent
dictatorships don't always hurt the consumer.
*The only exception might by PC development tools. If you haven't used
a recent version of Visual Studio, give it a shot. It's a trip to be
able to attach to a running process, debug it, rebuild a module, and
patch the running process with the new code.
Kelly
elaich
> Bill Gates was all that we agree that he was, but you really left out
> the "visionary" thing, and it was a very, very real component of both
> his personality and his success. Don't underestimate it. He was able
> to clearly see 2 to 5 years into the future.
Really?
"Why would anybody ever need more than 640K of RAM?" - Bill Gates.
Bill saw GEM running at a convention, and rushed back to Microsoft
proclaiming "we HAVE to get a GUI program going!"
The early versions of Windows were a joke. Windows became the force it is
because of Microsoft's bullying and illegal business practices.
I'm not making it up. Read about it all right here:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
From what I see, Bill was always BEHIND the times, starting with his pirate
copy of CP/M rewritten as MS-DOS. He employed Mafia-like practices to
become what he is today.
Some visionary.
elaich
> By visionary do you mean his last great idea of multiple low orbit
> satellites for internet access in the third world with no phone
> service (or electricity).
He never gave up on his "vision" of the cute little pooch from Microsoft
BOB which showed up in Windows XP (a great example of Gates' "vision") or
the idea that computers should turn on your coffee pot and air conditioner.
The original idea behind X-Box 2 was that it would be a "home control
center."
It would, of course, demand to be hooked up to the Internet and phone home
to Microsoft.
elaich
>> Sure. GEM and DR-DOS are not at all significant.
>
> I totally agree - I had those examples firmly in mind :)
If you had them firmly in mind, why did you make the statement that Gary
produced nothing useful during the last 14 years of his life?
Randy McLaughlin
It's a long statement that never gives the answer of your statement that
Willy boy with the help of Intel sped up computers.
Before Windows was a standard Gary developed a graphics standard still used
today by the likes of AOL. AOL provides a DOS version of their software
they developed before they supported windows, it runs under Gary's GEM.
Willy basically cornered the entire software world by combining the
abilities of P.T. Barnum and John D. Rockefeller. He is great at delivering
poor quality material while at the same time crushing any competition.
To answer your question no I don't believe Micro$loth has done anything to
push forward anything. They were not the first OS with a GUI, they are not
the best OS with or without a GUI. I am unaware of anything they were the
first at, I am unaware of anything they are the best at other than making
money. They are great at making money and I do respect that.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Kelly Hall
> It's a long statement that never gives the answer of your statement that
> Willy boy with the help of Intel sped up computers.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
In a short sentence, Gates moved computers forward in the world by
making the PC OS into a commodity. It may not be the commodity that
techies want. It may have succeeded by dint of illegal business
practices. But the OS is a commodity now - that's been reality since
the mid 90s. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
> Before Windows was a standard Gary developed a graphics standard still used
> today by the likes of AOL. AOL provides a DOS version of their software
> they developed before they supported windows, it runs under Gary's GEM.
Well, if AOL uses it, then it must be some pretty hot technology. :)
You make the point for me - the world largely ditched GEM and DESQview
for a product (Windows) that came out later and didn't run much better.
Subsequent better products haven't done much to displace windows from
the market.
> Willy basically cornered the entire software world by combining the
> abilities of P.T. Barnum and John D. Rockefeller. He is great at delivering
> poor quality material while at the same time crushing any competition.
You say that like it's *easy* to be either Barnum or Rockefeller, let
alone *both*. Gates succeeded where most everyone failed. Give the man
some credit. His products aren't generally better, and aren't generally
cheaper, and yet he's taken over the market - that's remarkable, IMHO.
> I am unaware of anything they were the
> first at, I am unaware of anything they are the best at other than making
> money. They are great at making money and I do respect that.
Weren't they the first to sell a standardized multi-platform BASIC
interpreter for microcomputers? :)
Kelly
Andreas Eder
> *The only exception might by PC development tools. If you haven't
> used a recent version of Visual Studio, give it a shot. It's a trip
> to be able to attach to a running process, debug it, rebuild a module,
> and patch the running process with the new code.
Well, that#s pretty old hat! Have you ever seen a Lisp Machine of the
80s in action? You could even change the source of the OS while
running.
And nowadays you can do all of this with emacs and gdb (for C, C++
etc.) or emacs and slime for Common Lisp etc.
No need for Visual Studio!
'Andreas
--
Wherever I lay my .emacs, there's my $HOME.
Axel Berger
>Later versions of CP/M for the Amstrad PCW and Spectrum +3 did this.
Are you sure? I seem to remember that setting up the RAMdisk was the
main task task of my PROFILE.SUB.
Axel Berger
>And while luck played a big part in that, it wasn't ALL luck.
Decidedly no. But it wasn't good computing either.
N.B: Apple was founded by two men: A genius computer wizard alone
responsible for all the relavant bits and a hippy dropout. One of them
is completely forgotten now and the other still very much around. which
is which (and who even knows the name of the forgotten one)?
Andreas Eder
> N.B: Apple was founded by two men: A genius computer wizard alone
> responsible for all the relavant bits and a hippy dropout. One of them
> is completely forgotten now and the other still very much around. which
> is which (and who even knows the name of the forgotten one)?
Well, that's easy. His name is Steve :-)
It is Wozniak, you're after isn't it?
Moll
Me? lol
Steve Wozniak was the wizard and the forgotten one... Steve Jobs is the
one who is still around...
Moll.
Jim Attfield
>Randy McLaughlin wrote:
>> It's a long statement that never gives the answer of your statement that
>> Willy boy with the help of Intel sped up computers.
>
>http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
>
>In a short sentence, Gates moved computers forward in the world by
>making the PC OS into a commodity. It may not be the commodity that
>techies want. It may have succeeded by dint of illegal business
>practices. But the OS is a commodity now - that's been reality since
>the mid 90s. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
Hopefully, some almore alternatives to M$
>You say that like it's *easy* to be either Barnum or Rockefeller, let
>alone *both*. Gates succeeded where most everyone failed. Give the man
>some credit. His products aren't generally better, and aren't generally
>cheaper, and yet he's taken over the market - that's remarkable, IMHO.
He didn't _succeed_ at anything much. He was in the right place at the
right time and like any other carpetbagger saw a way to benefit from
the the position others were in. It wasn't so much his success as
other's failure. I don't discredit him for that especially, but far
more for holding back the real development of the microprocessor in
general by between 7 to 10 years (aided unwittingly by IBM).
>Weren't they the first to sell a standardized multi-platform BASIC
>interpreter for microcomputers? :)
Well, if you think that, try converting a QuickBasic program to Visual
Basic.
>Kelly
John Elliott
: *John Elliott* wrote on Fri, 05-04-22 00:39:
:>Later versions of CP/M for the Amstrad PCW and Spectrum +3 did this.
: Are you sure? I seem to remember that setting up the RAMdisk was the
: main task task of my PROFILE.SUB.
Pretty sure. Look at this code snippet from 9512 CP/M (BDOS 2.12):
A>sid j22cpm3.ems
CP/M 3 SID - Version 3.0
NEXT MSZE PC END
AA80 AA80 0100 D4FF
#l7c4e
7C4E MVI A,0D
7C50 STA FBEC
7C53 DI
7C54 JMP FC7D
That's setting the temporary drive to M:. And I just booted a 9512 from a
read-only floppy, so it seems to work.
Randy McLaughlin
news:hsoi61ljv9h4s51gs...@4ax.com...
Try converting any MS basic dialect to any other and you'll find out.
Micro$loth did get versions of their basic running on a variety of
environments and they were all extremely similar but that's all.
I have not seen anything other than the simplest "Hello world" type of
program that could be taken from one machine and run in another.
If you wish to do complicated things like use random files or printing on a
printer you could have problems.
Randy
www.s100-manuals.com
Kelly Hall
> Well, that's pretty old hat! Have you ever seen a Lisp Machine of the
> 80s in action? You could even change the source of the OS while
> running.
You make my point for me - Gates sells old technology from companies
that crashed and burned, and Gates makes tons of money at it. I'm more
impressed by this than by just about any technology I've ever seen.
To answer your question, no, I never got to play on one of the Lisp
machines those before the companies that made them all died. Bummer -
I'd love to have a Symbolics box for my collection.
> And nowadays you can do all of this with emacs and gdb (for C, C++
> etc.) or emacs and slime for Common Lisp etc.
I'm not able to recompile modules and modify *running* processes with
gdb on FreeBSD - maybe your OS is trickier?
> No need for Visual Studio!
I don't use Visual Studio professionally - I do too much embedded and
Unix stuff. But for the toy projects I've used it for I was pleasantly
surprised, and I was expecting to hate it like I hate most IDEs.
Kelly
Kelly Hall
> Hopefully, some almore alternatives to M$
How many more OSes does the world need? You can already run a zillion
Linux distros, a handful of BSD variants, Solaris, Java Desktop, and a
variety of embedded, proprietary offerings. And that's just on
commodity Intel hardware.
> I don't discredit him for that especially, but far
> more for holding back the real development of the microprocessor in
> general by between 7 to 10 years (aided unwittingly by IBM).
So your beef with Gates is that he didn't succeed enough? I've seen
refrigerators with LCD panels running Windows. You want, what, coffee
pots and ovens too? I shudder to imagine how much more ubiquitous
Windows could possibly become.
> Well, if you think that, try converting a QuickBasic program to Visual
> Basic.
I was referring to the plague of Basics that inhabited the micros of the
late 70s and early 80s. :)
Kelly
Kelly Hall
> If you wish to do complicated things like use random files or printing on a
> printer you could have problems.
Only in a CP/M newsgroup would random access files and printing be
considered "complicated tasks". :)
Kelly
wild bill
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>Well, I knew Bill and Gary both, personally, at the time.
Bullshit. You knew who they were. You have demonstrated
you are still totally clueless about what they were doing.
>Gary was the better computer scientist, a term that I don't even know
>that I'd apply to Bill Gates.
>
>But Bill was a "visionary". Bill could see the future, and the future
>implications of events. Gary didn't, in fact I'd say that Gary was
>"aloof" to real-world and business implications of events.
Kildall ''saw'' the utility of CD-ROMs, mentioned he was planning
THE FIRST conference to discuss them, and GATES stole the ideas
for uses, and marketing, and set up his own conference instead.
Even AFTER the pc business, IBM came to Kildall to buy FLEX OS
for their serious, business oriented cash registers. Why didn't they
buy THAT from ms? Cash registers are as real-world as you can get.
Finally,.....
It's not possible to sustain a claim of visionary when you look
at gates vs THE INTERNET. He blew it. Period.
Gates has an ability to make money off ideas and work of other
people; he also takes credit for the work of others. He has never,
not once, come up with anything on his own. Only seen the way to
monopolize and exploit the potential in the IP of others.
He has broken anti-trust law with impunity - what CAN the courts
do to rein him in? He buys his way out of the many jams he gets
his ass into with tiny pieces of his obscenely high profits. Since
he is on record lying under oath, his credibility in a court of law
is virtually nil. He uses an economic club to get what he wants.
>Both deserve a place in computer history. But it takes more than that
>to become the richest man in the entire world. And while luck played a
>big part in that, it wasn't ALL luck.
>
>Just my opinion.
Since gates never CONTRIBUTED anything to personal computing
he will fade in significance. The names that will be around for a long
time will be those who made some actual contribution to the business,
not just TOOK from it.
Bill
wild bill
<Molly...@Spam.GMAIL.Spam.Spam.Spam.Com> wrote:
>Axel Berger wrote:
>> N.B: Apple was founded by two men: A genius computer wizard alone
>> responsible for all the relavant bits and a hippy dropout. One of them
>> is completely forgotten now and the other still very much around. which
>> is which (and who even knows the name of the forgotten one)?
>Steve Wozniak was the wizard and the forgotten one... Steve Jobs is the
>one who is still around...
>
>Moll.
Beep! WRONG!
Apple was founded by THREE. And the truely forgotten one
was also the only one WITH A REAL JOB. So when Jobs
started ordering parts on credit, he was afraid his WAGES
would be garnished if anything went wrong and Apple couldn't
pay their suppliers. So, he asked Jobs and the Woz to buy
him out. I've spoken with him about this several times.
He continued to work FOR them, but no longer as part owner.
BTW, he designed those first ads for Apple, the ones showing
mr newton sitting under an apple tree......
Bill
Guy Macon
Randy McLaughlin wrote:
>PL/M was the first language for micro-processors.
Gary Kildall PL/M for the Intel 8008 in 1973, but that wasn't the
first language for micro-processors. Gary had already written
PL/I for the Intel 4004 in 1972.
I was under the impression that Gordon Eubanks's e-basic for the
4004 came out a short time before PL/I, but I can't find a
reference giving me the exact date.
PL/I and PL/M owe much to Niklaus Wirth's PL/360.
See:
http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/HLA/HLADoc/HLARef/HLARef3.html
http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/00-08-083
http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/PL/I#History_of_PL.2FI
http://www.heuse.com/p.htm
http://www.uni-muenster.de/ZIV/Mitarbeiter/EberhardSturm/PL1andC.html/
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=807090
Jim Attfield
>Jim Attfield wrote:
>> Hopefully, some almore alternatives to M$
>
>How many more OSes does the world need? You can already run a zillion
>Linux distros, a handful of BSD variants, Solaris, Java Desktop, and a
>variety of embedded, proprietary offerings. And that's just on
>commodity Intel hardware.
Well, that all boils down to one word - Unix. I discount embedded as
not widely useful enough. Some of the better Linux distros are nearly
there but perhaps what is really needed is to Open Source Windows and
let someone do it properly.
>> I don't discredit him for that especially, but far
>> more for holding back the real development of the microprocessor in
>> general by between 7 to 10 years (aided unwittingly by IBM).
>
>So your beef with Gates is that he didn't succeed enough? I've seen
>refrigerators with LCD panels running Windows. You want, what, coffee
>pots and ovens too? I shudder to imagine how much more ubiquitous
>Windows could possibly become.
So it's taken us 35 years to come to an intelligent refrigerator? When
you do get the order delivered it isn't right :-) I don't want Windows
more ubiquitous and I can't think of _any_ OS _less_ suitable for
embedding in _anything_ than Windows.
>> Well, if you think that, try converting a QuickBasic program to Visual
>> Basic.
>I was referring to the plague of Basics that inhabited the micros of the
>late 70s and early 80s. :)
OK - try converting a North Star basic prog to Microsoft basic then!
>Kelly
Tom Lake
news:116jspv...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>
>
> Randy McLaughlin wrote:
>
>>PL/M was the first language for micro-processors.
How about Assembly language? 8-)
Tom Lake
Jim Attfield
>Andreas Eder wrote:
>> Well, that's pretty old hat! Have you ever seen a Lisp Machine of the
>> 80s in action? You could even change the source of the OS while
>> running.
>
>You make my point for me - Gates sells old technology from companies
>that crashed and burned, and Gates makes tons of money at it. I'm more
>impressed by this than by just about any technology I've ever seen.
You seem easily impressed. I just feel that we're all paying the price
and we are left with little choice but to use what seems to be
deliberately stunted yet still extremely bloated software.
>To answer your question, no, I never got to play on one of the Lisp
>machines those before the companies that made them all died. Bummer -
>I'd love to have a Symbolics box for my collection.
>
>> And nowadays you can do all of this with emacs and gdb (for C, C++
>> etc.) or emacs and slime for Common Lisp etc.
>
>I'm not able to recompile modules and modify *running* processes with
>gdb on FreeBSD - maybe your OS is trickier?
Not the same thing clobbering an OS with a debugger as one designed
for it, as I'm sure you are _well_ aware.
>> No need for Visual Studio!
>
>I don't use Visual Studio professionally - I do too much embedded and
>Unix stuff. But for the toy projects I've used it for I was pleasantly
>surprised, and I was expecting to hate it like I hate most IDEs.
Who needs anything more than vi, a compiler, a linker and a debugger
anyway - wimps! You'll be suggesting actually testing software next...
>Kelly
French Luser
I was away one week. I have 76 messages to read.
I spotted your message becauses it start with "First
Programmning Language"... So, I will be brief, but you
can be sure that I am correct. In short, you are mixing
several things.
Niklaus Wirth wrote PL/360 for the IBM Mainframes.
Gary Kildall was using one at the Naval Postgraduate
School of Monterey, California. One of his students
(when he was still a professor of Computer Science
specialized in compilers) wrote a PhD Thesis where
PL/360 is mentioned. PL/360 is a "system language".
Gary wrote his own "system language" first for the
Intel 8008 CPU (see the PL/M manual that Herb Johnson
is selling as photocopy). They are totally different.
In fact, a "system language" is designed to REFLECT
the hardware of the processor used!!! So, unless you
think that S/360 and 8008 processors are similar(!),
it is impossible to write a program portable between
them. E-BASIC was the PhD Thesis project of Gordon
Eubanks, heavily based on the compiler used by Gary
kildall on his classes (re-read the PhD Thesis of Gordon
-- by the way, 2 other students helped him). Gary Kildall
ported it under CP/M (at the NPS school, it was running
under a simulator under the name NBASIC). When (later)
Digital Research needed a BASIC, DRI bought the 3rd
revision: CBASIC. Several years later, after 2 years of
work, Gary Kildall released (in 1980) the only optimising
compiler ever written for CP/M: PL/I(-80). It was using the
optimising idea that got Gary his Phd Thesis (re-read it).
PL/I is a general purpose high-level programming language.
It has absolutely no connection with a system language.
If those terms were clear in your head, you would not
mix them. (Not to mention Intel 8008/8080 assembly
language, copied from the DECsystem-10 used at Intel.)
Still 40 messages to read.
Yours Sincerely,
"French Luser"
Guy Macon
French Luser wrote:
>Gary wrote his own "system language" first for the
>Intel 8008 CPU
Care to explain why it is that multiple cmputer history
websites say that he wrote PL/I for the 4004 first?
>E-BASIC was the PhD Thesis project of Gordon
>Eubanks, heavily based on the compiler used by Gary
>kildall on his classes
In other words, you don't know when e=basic was created
either. Like I said, I was under the impression that
e-basic for the 4004 was a bit earlier than PL/I for the
4004. but I couldn't find the dates.
Moll
> Well, that all boils down to one word - Unix. I discount embedded as
> not widely useful enough. Some of the better Linux distros are nearly
> there but perhaps what is really needed is to Open Source Windows and
> let someone do it properly.
>>I was referring to the plague of Basics that inhabited the micros of the
>>late 70s and early 80s. :)
>
> OK - try converting a North Star basic prog to Microsoft basic then!
Or even FPBASIC to QBASIC, both Microsoft dialects.
Moll.
Tom Lake
>>Intel 8008 CPU
>
> Care to explain why it is that multiple cmputer history
> websites say that he wrote PL/I for the 4004 first?
Multiple websites are wrong. They probably quote from the same
incorrect source that can't tell the difference between PL/I and PL/M.
There was NO PL/I for the 4004.
Tom Lake
Barry Watzman
Line Director for both Heathkit and Zenith Data Systems, a well known
and easily verified fact, and before that I was a software engineer with
Heathkit (before Heathkit was bought from Schlumberger by Zenith), and
my specific area of responsibility was the acquisition of all
outside-licensed software.
I had extesnive dealings with both Gary and Bill, from 1979 onward (in
1979, Microsoft was still in Albuquerque). I visited both of them, was
in their offices and houses on a number of occasions (and they in mine,
when they visited Benton Harbor), and probably met with each of them 50
to 100 times between 1979 and 1983. I also had dealings with Gary and
DR after I left Zenith, as I was the individual who ported CP/M-86,
CP/M-Plus and MP/M-86 to the Zenith Z-100.
And I have a copy of 86-DOS here that I personally bought directly from
SCP with my own money, and not as an employee of Heathkit or Zenith.
Version 0.33 (I also have 1.0, 1.25 (I think) and 2.0), and I have the
entire SCP 3-card hardware set (CPU, CPU-support and 4-port serial card)
that it runs on (although I don't currently have a running system, and I
don't know if these 25 year-old cards still work, but they are certainly
repairable).
Kelly Hall
> You seem easily impressed. I just feel that we're all paying the price
> and we are left with little choice but to use what seems to be
> deliberately stunted yet still extremely bloated software.
You can, of course, not use Microsoft software. Several of my friends
choose to avoid it. I can't think of a product they offer that doesn't
have several competitors, so by all means choose one.
But then stop whining about not having a choice, because you clearly do.
> Not the same thing clobbering an OS with a debugger as one designed
> for it, as I'm sure you are _well_ aware.
You seem focused on the technological details. Certainly, the elegance
of Lisp Machines far surpasses Windows XP, .NET, and Visual Studio.
But technological elegance is meaningless when it tanks in the
marketplace. Trust me - I've got a closet full of elegant machines that
I picked up for the price of a modest meal. There's a NeXTstation at my
elbow that gave developers 12 years ago the same or better features that
the Max OSX boys rave about today.
> Who needs anything more than vi, a compiler, a linker and a debugger
> anyway - wimps! You'll be suggesting actually testing software next...
I like Makefiles, too. Testing is for the customers ;) If it was hard
to write then it should damn well be hard to use, too ;)
Kelly
Scott Moore
> This occured to me while re-reading my previous
> comment re: Knopix ......
>
> Since this freely downloadable operating system is
> positively loaded with drivers, it can load and run on
> quite a few of today's PCs with no further operator
> intervention than to stuff in a CD.
>
> Since ms' fortune seems to be built on putting out
> an operating system so crappy that you simply
> throw it away about the same time frame as you
> junk your supposedly 'obsolete' hardware......
>
> Why doesn't Intel (or better yet, AMD) produce
> a CPU/chipset combination that INCLUDES
> the operating system, no need for anything ms?
Knoppix is a build of Linux, and Linux has not yet
knocked of Windows. So we have Linux builds installed
already. Did you just wake up from a coma or something ?
:-)
--
Samiam is Scott A. Moore
Personal web site: http:/www.moorecad.com/scott
My electronics engineering consulting site: http://www.moorecad.com
ISO 7185 Standard Pascal web site: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal
Classic Basic Games web site: http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic
The IP Pascal web site, a high performance, highly portable ISO 7185 Pascal
compiler system: http://www.moorecad.com/ippas
Good does not always win. But good is more patient.
Jim Attfield
>You can, of course, not use Microsoft software. Several of my friends
>choose to avoid it. I can't think of a product they offer that doesn't
>have several competitors, so by all means choose one.
My product mix requirements preclude that as does the need to be
compatible with those whose software I support. They are unfortunately
as locked in as I am currently due to a large degree to the stagnant
nature of the computer industry since M$ achieved a stranglehold.
>But then stop whining about not having a choice, because you clearly do.
A big statement based on little evidence. In any event, it was an
observation, not a whine. You'll know when I am whining :-)
>You seem focused on the technological details. Certainly, the elegance
>of Lisp Machines far surpasses Windows XP, .NET, and Visual Studio.
Not an language I have great knowledge of so I must defer to your
experience. Didn't they also say that about Pick? Where is that now?
>But technological elegance is meaningless when it tanks in the
>marketplace. Trust me - I've got a closet full of elegant machines that
>I picked up for the price of a modest meal. There's a NeXTstation at my
>elbow that gave developers 12 years ago the same or better features that
>the Max OSX boys rave about today.
As is anything if it founders due to lack of demand, misreading the
market or inept management. I rather think though that what we are
talking about here is predatory practices in software unfortunately
right at a cusp in the industry.
>I like Makefiles, too. Testing is for the customers ;) If it was hard
>to write then it should damn well be hard to use, too ;)
Sure. I like Makefiles as much as having my eyeballs scraped with the
fine side of a cheese grater. Whoever thought of that technology
deserves to be sent to work for M$ as a punishment.
>Kelly
Kelly Hall
> They are unfortunately
> as locked in as I am currently due to a large degree to the stagnant
> nature of the computer industry since M$ achieved a stranglehold.
Stagnant? Maybe it doesn't change as fast as it did 30 years ago, but
it still changes fast enough for me.
> Not an language I have great knowledge of so I must defer to your
> experience. Didn't they also say that about Pick? Where is that now?
Maybe Pick is the core of Longhorn? :)
> As is anything if it founders due to lack of demand, misreading the
> market or inept management. I rather think though that what we are
> talking about here is predatory practices in software unfortunately
> right at a cusp in the industry.
My first job after grad school was in an internet startup in '96. The
founders were later fined by the SEC. Since then I've worked in oil and
defense, among others. In my experience, "predatory business
practices" is a redundent statement. Every exec I've worked for will
happily bone customers, suppliers, and employees for competitive advantage.
However much I dispise the details, I have to respect Microsoft for
being so much better at it than their competitors.
> Sure. I like Makefiles as much as having my eyeballs scraped with the
> fine side of a cheese grater. Whoever thought of that technology
> deserves to be sent to work for M$ as a punishment.
Ah the irony: http://research.microsoft.com/~daniel/unix-haters.html has
a page or two regarding the special joy that is Make.
Kelly
Thrashbarg
> "Why would anybody ever need more than 640K of RAM?" - Bill Gates.
according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates (bottom of the
page) it's wrongly attributed. There's some external links there too.
> Bill saw GEM running at a convention, and rushed back to Microsoft
> proclaiming "we HAVE to get a GUI program going!"
From folklore.org "A Rich Neighbor Named Xerox"
http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt
In essence Bill knew of the GUI from Xerox along with Steve Jobs. This
is in the 70's.
> The early versions of Windows were a joke. Windows became the force it is
> because of Microsoft's bullying and illegal business practices.
I agree, they didn't come close to 'getting it right' until Windows 3,
and they're still struggling. Look at Longhorn vs OS X Tiger (which is
still ironically the MS vs Apple war, history will repeat itself).
I've been saying for years now computers should never have been given to
the masses (not that I'm trying to be an elitist). When Gates and Jobs
thought of "a computer on everyone's desk" they were probably thinking
about a few billion in their pockets too.
After all, look at http://rinkworks.com/stupid/ . Why would anyone spend
thousands on something they don't need and can't use?
My rant.
Julián Albo
> > "Why would anybody ever need more than 640K of RAM?" - Bill Gates.
>
> according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates (bottom of the
> page) it's wrongly attributed. There's some external links there too.
I read the original quote in a magazine, but don't remember if it was Gates
or some other Microsoft person. But the versions usually quoted are
incorrect or incomplete. They say 640 KB will be enough for ms-dos, and
that people that needs more memory must consider switch to OS/2. Don't know
the exact words because I read a spanish translation. I can search the
magazine in my old papers and post more concrete data if someone is
interested.
--
Salu2
Bill Leary
> > "Why would anybody ever need more than 640K of RAM?" - Bill Gates.
>
> according to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates (bottom of the
> page) it's wrongly attributed. There's some external links there too.
Gates own (long) comments on this:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15180
Scroll down for "An E-mail from Bill Gates", about 3/4 down the page.
- Bill
Jim Attfield
>Stagnant? Maybe it doesn't change as fast as it did 30 years ago, but
>it still changes fast enough for me.
In details perhaps, but the broad picture, e.g. the type and nature of
CPU's, the ancient architecture of languages, the rich and varied
tapestry which used to abound is all gone. For goodness sake, we are
even regressing - DOT NET and CIL takes us right back to the old days
of P-Code Interpreters ('cept they call it CIL and Framework and use
grandiose terms like JIT these days to pretty it up) we all used to
look down our noses at.
>Maybe Pick is the core of Longhorn? :)
Might even be an improvement :-)
>My first job after grad school was in an internet startup in '96. The
>founders were later fined by the SEC. Since then I've worked in oil and
> defense, among others. In my experience, "predatory business
>practices" is a redundent statement. Every exec I've worked for will
>happily bone customers, suppliers, and employees for competitive advantage.
Well, I'm saddened by your experiences which have clearly jaded you
but I have had other experiences with people who are able to balance
longer term and more philosophical views with current corporate
reality. Not _everyone_ is as you describe, thankfully.
>However much I dispise the details, I have to respect Microsoft for
>being so much better at it than their competitors.
I admire fire for being efficient at the destruction it wreaks but I
do not respect it for what it does. My only feeling where M$ is
concerned is one of sadness for what we might have had.
>Ah the irony: http://research.microsoft.com/~daniel/unix-haters.html has
>a page or two regarding the special joy that is Make.
Thanks for the link, I'll read it a bit later. Based on a quick scan
of a few pages I think I already have the authors characterised as
big-time lusers but I'll give them the benefit until I read it
properly. I will likley agree with them on the 'make' section.
Jim
>Kelly
wild bill
<http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:
>
>French Luser wrote:
>
>>E-BASIC was the PhD Thesis project of Gordon
>>Eubanks, heavily based on the compiler used by Gary
>>kildall on his classes
>
>In other words, you don't know when e=basic was created
>either. Like I said, I was under the impression that
>e-basic for the 4004 was a bit earlier than PL/I for the
>4004. but I couldn't find the dates.
He just told you. Kildall gave Eubanks his CBasic work
to be evolved and 'finished' into a commercial product,
and also to serve as Eubanks' PhD work.(Dissertation?)
EBasic was 'created' by Kildall and Eubanks. As CBasic it
was basically Kildall's; changed to 'E' for Eubanks, maybe?
Bill
Guy Macon
wild bill wrote:
Check your dates. I believe that you will find that CBASIC
was written in 1977 - long after e-basic was written.
"Assembly language (one step up from Hex Codes) was employed
to write the CP/M utilities. Gordon Eubanks used this code
to write E-BASIC. an early version of a 'high' language.
E-BASIC was the forerunner of the 1977 CBASIC. In 1978,
CBASIC version 2, a pseudo compiled BASIC, with extensive
file" handling capability was released. This provided the
foundation to permit application programs, such as the
General Ledger family (including Accounts Payable &
Receivable, etc.) to be written."
Source: _The Microprocessor - An Introduction_ by A.J. Dubre
Also. you have an interesting understanding of the phrase
"He just told you." Neither your post or the post you quoted
has anything remotely resembling a date for e-basic for the
4004 or any evidence shedding light on the question of whether
e-basic for the 4004 or PL/I for the 4004 came first.
The question at hand is "First programming language for
microcomputers." That's why that phrase is in the title
of these posts. The 4004 was the first microcomputer, and
had several programming languages written for it. Comments
about earlier programming languages that ran on minicomputers
or mainframes are interesting, but tell us nothing about what
the first programming language for microcomputers was.
Comments about later programming languages that ran on later
microcomputers such as the 8008 are interesting, but tell us
nothing about what the first programming language for
microcomputers was. I think it was e-basic, not PL/I, but
I can't find the exact dates for each. Neither, it seems,
can you. I know for a fact that it wasn't PL/M or Bill
Gate's BASIC, both of which have been falsely touted as
being the first programming language for microcomputers.
Barry Watzman
domain as it had been developed at NPS, where Gary and Gordon both were
instructors (NPS = Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, CA).
Originally, C-Basic (the C stood for "commercial") was Basic-E with the
floating point arithmetic replaced by BCD decimal arithmetic so that
monetary calculations that multiplied a price by an amount would come
out to $125.00 rather than $124.9999. Later, more extensions and better
random access file processing were added.
Barry Watzman
domain as it had been developed at NPS, where Gary and Gordon both were
instructors (NPS = Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, CA).
Originally, C-Basic (the C stood for "commercial") was Basic-E with the
floating point arithmetic replaced by BCD decimal arithmetic so that
monetary calculations that multiplied a price by an amount would come
out to $125.00 rather than $124.9999. Later, more extensions and better
random access file processing were added.
CBFalconer
> wild bill wrote:
>> <Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, I knew Bill and Gary both, personally, at the time.
>>
>> Bullshit. You knew who they were. You have demonstrated
>> you are still totally clueless about what they were doing.
>>
> Product Line Director for both Heathkit and Zenith Data Systems,
> a well known and easily verified fact, and before that I was a
> software engineer with Heathkit (before Heathkit was bought from
> Schlumberger by Zenith), and my specific area of responsibility
> was the acquisition of all outside-licensed software.
>
> I had extesnive dealings with both Gary and Bill, from 1979 onward
> (in 1979, Microsoft was still in Albuquerque). I visited both of
> them, was in their offices and houses on a number of occasions
> (and they in mine, when they visited Benton Harbor), and probably
> met with each of them 50 to 100 times between 1979 and 1983. I
> also had dealings with Gary and DR after I left Zenith, as I was
> the individual who ported CP/M-86, CP/M-Plus and MP/M-86 to the
> Zenith Z-100.
>
> And I have a copy of 86-DOS here that I personally bought directly
> from SCP with my own money, and not as an employee of Heathkit or
> Zenith. Version 0.33 (I also have 1.0, 1.25 (I think) and 2.0), and
> I have the entire SCP 3-card hardware set (CPU, CPU-support and
> 4-port serial card) that it runs on (although I don't currently
> have a running system, and I don't know if these 25 year-old cards
> still work, but they are certainly repairable).
Please don't toppost. I fixed this one.
I never met either of them, but I have looked at the code they both
generated, including some of the infamous early 4/8k Basics, CP/M
itself, and MsDos through 3.3. There is no comparison. Kildalls
work handles dark corners and is well thought out. The less said
of Gates code the better.
However, considered as a dog bred purely for vicious money making,
Gates is far ahead.
--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
Guy Macon
Barry Watzman wrote:
>I believe that it was more commonly called "Basic-E", which was public
>domain as it had been developed at NPS, where Gary and Gordon both were
>instructors (NPS = Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, CA).
I did a web search, and it appears that "Basic-E" was the official
name for a BASIC written by Gordon Eubanks for the 8080 in 1976.
I wasn't finding the right info because I was searching for
"E-Basic", which is a name that those familiar with CBASIC seem
to have used by mistake - lots and lots of times.
The _Basic-E Reference Manual_ was published by the Micro-Computer
Laboratory of the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
(Author: Gordon E. Eubanks, Jr.) was published on 15 December 1976.
See http://www.znode51.de/pcwworld/l105/user_0/basicman.txt
http://www.microprocessor.sscc.ru/comphist/comp1971.htm says that
"Gary Kildall implements PL/I on the Intel 4004 processor" in 1972.
(Both languages are far older, of course, the _IBM System 360
PL/I (F) Language Reference Manual_ was published in 1966 and
Dartmouth BASIC was written in 1964.
So unless I find documentation for basic-e or e-basic on the 4004,
I am going to assume that I misremembered, and that PL/I was indeed
the first programming language for microcomputers.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Robert J. Stevens
I worked on one of the first DATA POINTS a Cassette Driven Machine. It
had a programming language called DATABUS [I tink]. It also ran in
assembly. I dumped the 8K code to the printer in HEX then decoded it and
reassembled my own version that would input three separate screens of
data including interrupts etc. One has to know the Underlying Machince
Code to be able to succesfully convert from one "Language" to another.
The early Pioneers were MASTERS of "Machine Code"
"Programming Languages" were invented to make it easier for more people
to be able to "Program".
I've worked on various levels of PUTERS from Mini's down thru Micros and
still if you get to know what OP Codes the CPU Supports you can just
about make a PUTER do anything you want. I decoded UNIVAC's RPG * COBOL
back in the 60's.
I was working on the APPLE YARS ago but know I can't remember where I
even put my Pencil.
Bob in Wisconsin
French Luser
Remember that I just "browsed" the entire thread.
In particular, I was thinking that you had made a
typographical error when you wrote "4004".
Everything I wrote (you can re-read it) deals
with the Intel 8008 and 8080.
Now, for the 4004.
As far as I know, Gary Kildall got in touch with
Intel when he sent them some mathematical
functions (since, cosine, etc) that he had wrote
for the i8008 CPU, as an exercise. Intel was
sponsoring the NPS, where Gary was teaching.
When Intel learned that he was specialized in
compiler optimization, Gary managed to sell
them the idea of using a compiler to write
serious programs for embedded systems.
Then, Intel experienced growing pains, and
jettisoned everything software-related, even
giving CP/M to Gary!!! Incredible. During more
than a year (in 1975), Intel did absolutely nothing.
Then, after everybody build some computers
using first the 8008 then the 8080, Intel was
deluged with demands for a language and OS.
Gary was busy, so they hired a bunch of
Newbies from Stanford, where they had
some lessons about Unix. Since they knew
nothing else, they made ISIS.
So, in short, I am afraid that it is pure fantasy
to think that any high-level programming
language could have existed for the 4004
(maybe a Tiny BASIC, but most probably
AFTER 1976, when DDJ published listings
after listings of implementations of Tiny
BASIC for "esoteric" CPUs.)
Every references I have deal only with
8008 and 8080 PL/M. (That's the title
of the oldest copy of PL/M that I have.)
There never was any PL/I for 4004:
it is impossible. It took 2 years for Gary,
with several years of experience in
compilers, to port PL/I to the 8080.
Who else would have ported PL/I (or PL/M)
to the 4004? Total nonsense!
The source of 8080 PL/M is available.
Why don't you try to port it to the 4004?
(Finally, I remember that one "box shoe"
with 128 or 256 bytes and some switches
and LEDs was built around the 4004.
Maybe the "Mark-8"? Can you EVEN
think about writing a PL/I compiler
(needing about 512 KILOBYTES
on an IBM Mainframe!) for such a thing?
Dumb, dum, dumb...)
(I have published Palo Alto Tiny BASIC
Version 3.0 in the comp.os.cpm Newsgroup.
It is 3 KB. Try to fit it into 256 bytes of
4004 code!)
(The smallest interpreter is know is
256 bytes long. See WADUZIDO
in old BYTE magazines. Do you
call it a high-level programming
language? It is one-letter long
commands only.)
Yours Sincerely,
"French Luser"
wild bill
<http://www.guymacon.com/> wrote:
>wild bill wrote:
>>EBasic was 'created' by Kildall and Eubanks. As CBasic it
>>was basically Kildall's; changed to 'E' for Eubanks, maybe?
>
>Check your dates. I believe that you will find that CBASIC
>was written in 1977 - long after e-basic was written.
re: Basics and Basics...... you are right; I got that wrong.
Kildall did have a basic, and he did give it, such as it was
(unfinished, unpolished, uncommercial?) to Eubanks to use
in Eubanks' Master's Thesis work, sometime in 1974. Eubanks
had entered NPS as a graduate student, and Kildall was his
faculty advisor. Kildall didn't like any versions of Basic.
Kildall wrote (started on?) his version of Basic in PL/M, the
high level language he'd developed for the Intel 8008.
Eubanks finished the derivative work, Basic-E, and graduated,
going back into the submarine service.
About this time, Imsai wanted a Basic, and since Basic-E was
first, based on Kildall's work, and secondly, in the public domain
(having been developed on tax payer supported computers)
Eubanks had to 'develop' another version. That was C-Basic.
Compiler Basic, later just C-Basic, was developed for Imsai.
Imsai wanted to sell computers for 'real world' use; gates'
MsBasic was useless for accurate financial calculations
due to inherent rounding errors.
I've never gotten over my confusion about Basic dialects,
and version names. I started using BBN's Basic around
1969, timesharing on teletype terminals and TI Silent
(thermal) briefcase terminals, with accoustic modems.
Bill
Barry Watzman
"compiler". Also, the big change from Basic-E to CBasic was the
replacement of floating point arithmetic in Basic-E with BCD decimal
arithmetic in CBasic.
I wonder if the "E" in Basic-E was for "Eubanks"??
Imsai included Basic-E with their early disk systems, but also came out
with their own pure interpretive basic interpreter similar to Microsoft
Basic, and they gave out the source code to it, which I still have
(printed listing, about 100 pages long).
wild bill
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>I am certain that the "C" in CBasic stands for "commercial", not
>"compiler".
C-Basic = Commercial Basic
Sold by Compiler systems.
Still more confusion.
Bill
Guy Macon
French Luser wrote:
(I have published Palo Alto Tiny BASIC
Version 3.0 in the comp.os.cpm Newsgroup.
It is 3 KB. Try to fit it into 256 bytes of
4004 code!)
Why limit yourself to 256 bytes? The 4004 program memory
size is 4 KB and the data memory size is 640 bytes.
See http://www.cpu-world.com/Arch/4004.html
Also, just because you can't fit an iterpeter into a
machine, that doesn't mean that you can't write a
compiler for it. There are many programs written
in C or FORTH that run in memory spaces well under 1K.
>So, in short, I am afraid that it is pure fantasy
>to think that any high-level programming
>language could have existed for the 4004
>There never was any PL/I for 4004: it is impossible.
"Kildall ... created implementations of the PL/I programming
language for the Intel 4004 and 8008 CPUs."
-http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall
"In 1972 Gary Kildall started writing PL/I the first programming
language for the 4004"
-http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/howto5.htm
"1972: Intel contracts with Gary Kildall, a professor at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Pacific Grove, California, to write a
computer language that would run on the Intel 4004 processor.
Kildall choses to create PL/M, a version of a mainframe computer
language called PL/I. In the process of writing this language,
Kildall develops a simple operating system as a background for
the interpreter and to control a paper-tape reader and writer.
This operating system was the basis for what he later called
CP/M ("Control Program/Monitor")
-http://apple2history.org/history/appy/ahb.html
"1972 Gary Kildall implements PL/I on the Intel 4004 processor"
-http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/comphis2.html
-http://security-protocols.com/library/phreaking/ComputerHistory.txt
"1972: Gary Kildall writes PL/I, the first programming language
for the 4004"
-http://kerlins.net/bobbi/research/myresearch/timeline.html
--
Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/>
Moll
> I am certain that the "C" in CBasic stands for "commercial", not
> "compiler". Also, the big change from Basic-E to CBasic was the
> replacement of floating point arithmetic in Basic-E with BCD decimal
> arithmetic in CBasic.
>
> I wonder if the "E" in Basic-E was for "Eubanks"??
>
> Imsai included Basic-E with their early disk systems, but also came out
> with their own pure interpretive basic interpreter similar to Microsoft
> Basic, and they gave out the source code to it, which I still have
> (printed listing, about 100 pages long).
@.@
I actually liked MS BASIC, especially MBASIC 5 and GW-BASIC. When I
started using the Apple ][ again after several years on the PC, I really
missed some of the features that FPBASIC (which was older than MBASIC 5
and less powerful) lacked. The CP/M version of MS BASIC did have these
features, but, CP/M and MBASIC don't run the way I would have liked on
my Apple (which does have a Z80 card), mainly since my monitor isn't
good at displaying 80-column text.
Moll.
Randy McLaughlin
news:GQtbe.8380$O2.2728@trndny04...
<snip>
> I actually liked MS BASIC, especially MBASIC 5 and GW-BASIC. When I
> started using the Apple ][ again after several years on the PC, I really
> missed some of the features that FPBASIC (which was older than MBASIC 5
> and less powerful) lacked. The CP/M version of MS BASIC did have these
> features, but, CP/M and MBASIC don't run the way I would have liked on my
> Apple (which does have a Z80 card), mainly since my monitor isn't good at
> displaying 80-column text.
>
> Moll.
Micro$loth basic is/was the most popular dialect of basic. It could not
reliably add 1+2 and come up with 3 (the rounding errors are atrocious) but
it was available everywhere you looked.
I used MS-Basic for things that did not require numerical accuracy, I used
CBasic then CB80/CB86 when I needed accuracy.
MS-basic is very handy to do something quickly. An unseen (by most) but
great CP/M basic is Bazic, a NorthStar compatible basic for CP/M.
Randy
Barry Watzman
formed by Gordon Eubanks. My recollection is that it's name was later
changed to Symantec. Not a competitor, but the same company with a name
change, at least that is my 30-year later recollection.
Barry Watzman
the owner of "C-Basic" (or CBasic, there seems to be some question about
the hyphen, but it's the same product), and it was Gordon Eubanks
company, he was the founder and owner. But it did not become Symantec.
Rather, Compiler systems was acquired by DR, and Eubanks became a VP
of "the language division" of DR.
But Eubanks left DR in September, 1983, and in 1984, he bought Symantec
from founder Gary Hendrix. Symantec went public in 1989, and began it's
string of major acquisitions a year later, merging with Peter Norton
Computing, then buying Delrina (Winfax) and, later, many other software
products, a trend which continues to this day (buying, for example,
PowerQuest (Partition Magic and Drive Image) just within the past 2 years.
Scott Moore
a listing of Li Chen Wang's Tiny Basic ? I spent a lot of hours
modifying that, I would be interested in finding an online copy.
Charles Richmond
>
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> Please don't toppost. I fixed this one.
>
> I never met either of them, but I have looked at the code they both
> generated, including some of the infamous early 4/8k Basics, CP/M
> itself, and MsDos through 3.3. There is no comparison. Kildalls
> work handles dark corners and is well thought out. The less said
> of Gates code the better.
>
> However, considered as a dog bred purely for vicious money making,
> Gates is far ahead.
>
somewhere in some comments of one of the listings of BASIC.
--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond It is moral cowardice to leave |
| undone what one perceives right |
| richmond at plano dot net to do. -- Confucius |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Lee Hart
At least one for every new computer that gets invented. New CPUs are
invented whenever technology advances to make them possible, or an
application comes along that isn't served well by existing ones.
It's an evolutionary process. We will keep inventing new computers, so
we will keep writing new operating systems. Sometimes they will be
adaptations of old ones; other times they will be a fresh new start.
Once CP/M was king... now it's obsolete. Today Windows is king... soon
it will be obsolete, too. Something new will always come along. The
defects in the old always provide the insights for what will be
developed next.
> I discredit [Bill Gates]... for holding back the real development
> of the microprocessor in general by between 7 to 10 years
Progress requires movement and change. Gates has been exceptionally good
at figuring out which way the industry is moving, and rushing to the
forefront to become its "leader". But the industry has no real leaders;
people with vision or guiding principles. The only principle today is
"make as much money as fast as you can". The computer industry has
become a "greedocracy" -- rule by the greedy.
Greed can be good; it can make people work very hard and very fast. But
it also make them do many harmful, irresponsible things. It can easily
be an enemy of innovation and progress. Greed pushes you towards
monopoly, and monopoly depends on controlling and limiting choices. The
marketplace doesn't decide what is best; the monopoly does. And it
chooses what is best for the monopoly, not what is best for customers.
This is actually quite a turnaround from the early days of the
microcomputer industry. Back then, people had a vision of the future,
and were working very hard and long hours with little pay to make it
happen. Certainly they wanted to make a good living, too -- but money
wasn't the only goal. Computers were looked upon as a way to change the
world for the better of everyone.
So if I were to fault Bill Gates, it would be for promoting greed
instead of progress or social change. We're just lucky he decided to
sell computers instead of drugs.
--
Ring the bells that you can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
-- Leonard Cohen, from "Anthem"
--
Lee A. Hart 814 8th Ave N Sartell MN 56377 leeahart_at_earthlink.net
Danilo Coccia
> Not to interrupt your interesting argument, but has anyone seem
> a listing of Li Chen Wang's Tiny Basic ? I spent a lot of hours
> modifying that, I would be interested in finding an online copy.
You can find a modified copy here:
http://www.nicholson.com/rhn/files/tinybasic.tar.Z
The archive also contains a doc file thata starts:
SHERRY BROTHERS TINY BASIC VERSION 3.1
THIS IS A COPY OF LICHEN WANG'S 'PALO ALTO TINY BASIC' WHICH HAS BEEN
MODIFIED TO INCLUUDE MORE FUNCTIONS, AND DISK SAVE AND LOAD.
....
I'm sorry this isn't the original one, but I hope yu'll like it
anyway :)
--
____________________________________________________________________________
Danilo Coccia email: daniloco 'at' acm 'dot' org
Via Cherubini 1 daniloco 'at' mclink 'dot' it
20090 Buccinasco Phone: +39-0245712469
Italy
____________________________________________________________________________
Herb Johnson
> French Luser sure got quiet all of a sudden when i wrote the post
> below. One can only hope that he learned a valuable lesson about
> doing a bit of research before proclaiming that someone is wrong.
Early DRI and Intel products are of incremental interest to me. I
checked: the research Macon cited is less overwhelming than it would
appear:
> >>[Luser:] There never was any PL/I for 4004: it is impossible.
> >
> >[Macon:]
> >
> >"Kildall ... created implementations of the PL/I programming
> >language for the Intel 4004 and 8008 CPUs."
> > -http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Kildall
Wikipedia is user-editable, so it's not a great reference. Worse,
people copy Wikipedia content in large chunks and put it on their sites
whole, so any Web search on almost anything will also find their site.
> >"In 1972 Gary Kildall started writing PL/I the first programming
> >language for the 4004"
> > -http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/howto5.htm
Apparently a private collector's page. No reference for the above.
> >"1972: Intel contracts with Gary Kildall, a professor at the Naval
> >Postgraduate School in Pacific Grove, California, to write a
> >computer language that would run on the Intel 4004 processor.
> > -http://apple2history.org/history/appy/ahb.html
This is actually a reference to "Fire in The Valley" by Swane &
Freiberger. A number of sites which mention Kildall's earliest work
reference this book.
> >"1972 Gary Kildall implements PL/I on the Intel 4004 processor"
> > -http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/comphis2.html
> >
-http://security-protocols.com/library/phreaking/ComputerHistory.txt
> >
> >"1972: Gary Kildall writes PL/I, the first programming language
> >for the 4004"
> >
-http://kerlins.net/bobbi/research/myresearch/timeline.html
All three of these are source from the same timeline of personal
computer history (some without credit). The author of the timeline
(apparently) posts at: http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/
The author's reference: "Fire in the Valley"!
...so Macon's research found only one point of reference!
I found with effort one *primary* reference, but for all I know this
source was also quoted in "Fire in the Valley":
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/DR/Gary/newsx011.html
"The Gary Kildall Legacy" by Sol Libes
Copyright © 1995, Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey (ACGNJ)
--quote--
"Intel introduced [the 4004] in November 1971. Gary was hired [by
Intel] as a consultant to create a programming language for the [4004]
device. Gary created PL/M (Programming Language/Microprocessor) to run
on an IBM 360 computer and generate executable binary code that was
then burned into the ROM memory of the 4004 system. Marcian "Ted" Hoff
designer of the 4004, quickly followed with the 8008, the first 8-bit
microprocessor. It was introduced in March 1972. Gary was again hired
to develop PL/M for the device." -end quote--.
Read the referenced article to get more background. INtel's Web site
confirms the two introduction dates above for the two processors. Oh,
and note that the product is PL/M, not PL/I.
However, I was not able to find any references to a PRODUCT FROM INTEL
which was a PL/M 4004 cross compiler. All references I could find,
including original PL/M manuals and Intel databooks with product
descriptions, all referred only to 8008 or 8080 cross-compilers, in
Fortran, for PL/M. But note from the above Libes quote that only months
seperated the introduction of the 4004 and 8008. (The 8080 and 4040
came much later.) But Kildall apparently had the 4004 before the 8008
was announced, so he could have developed a 4004 product while Intel
only *sold* the 8008 product.
Kildall himself, in an article he wrote years later apparently for Byte
Magazine, refers to PL/M's use on the 8008 but does not mention the
4004. For a posted copy of the article (but with no date or issue
number) see:
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/GARY&CPM.HTM
So my impression is that PL/M is certainly the first commercial "high
level" programming language for the Intel processor line - excluding
assembler and macro assemblers. Whether it was available for the 4004
or the 8008 doesn't matter much chronologically, as those processors
were generally available at about the same time and the 8008 was upward
compatible. While it's possible other people wrote other language
products - including Kildall - at some earlier point for local use, I
would suggest that "first" credit is best given to whatever product was
first *commercially offered and widely available*.
Herb Johnson
P.S. to "French Luser": could you send me your postal address or a
private email address? I have some information for you. - Herb
Herbert R. Johnson, voice 609-771-1503, New Jersey USA
<a href="http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff"> web site</a>
<a href="http://retrotechnology.net/herbs_stuff"> domain mirror</a>
** hjoh...@njcc.com and njcc.com/~hjohnson are EXPIRED **
my email address: herbjohnson ATT comcast DOTT net
if no reply, wait & try: hjohnson AAT retrotechnology DOTT com
"Herb's Stuff": old Mac, SGI, 8-inch floppy drives
S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100"
S-100 IMSAI Altair computers, docs, by "Dr. S-100"
wild bill
<http://www.guymacon.com> wrote:
>French Luser sure got quiet all of a sudden when i wrote the post
>below. One can only hope that he learned a valuable lesson about
>doing a bit of research before proclaiming that someone is wrong.
Maybe it isn't worth his time to correct a post that is almost
100% wrong. Maybe by posting so much trash, you've proven
yourself unworthy of the time and effort it would take to even
attempt to enlighten you.
Bill
nos...@nouce.bellatlantic.net
<no...@retrotechnology.com> wrote:
>However, I was not able to find any references to a PRODUCT FROM INTEL
>which was a PL/M 4004 cross compiler. All references I could find,
>including original PL/M manuals and Intel databooks with product
>descriptions, all referred only to 8008 or 8080 cross-compilers, in
Herb,
Likely reason is, it may not have been offered directly from intel.
Back then (1973 for me) I'd use GE Tymeshare service and run
8008 corss assembly that way. The ouput was BNPF format we could
punch to tape for buying roms or load directly into out product.
The cross assembler we used was supposededly a fortran program.
Memory fades but I believe there were and assortment of cross
platform assemblers on the GE service. I would not be surprized
if even intel bought time from them(GE tymeshare).
Allison
Guy Macon
Herb Johnson wrote:
>However, I was not able to find any references to a PRODUCT FROM INTEL
>which was a PL/M 4004 cross compiler.
I agree.
>While it's possible other people wrote other language
>products - including Kildall - at some earlier point for local use, I
>would suggest that "first" credit is best given to whatever product was
>first *commercially offered and widely available*.
I would tend to give first credit to whoever was first. Giving
first credit to whatever product was first commercially offered
and widely available would give credit for the first GUI to Apple
instead of Xerox.
Herb Johnson
Funny, many of your posts suggested that there were not one but "many"
languages written for the 4004. Have you changed your mind, or are you
thinking that none of those were commercial products, or what?
I checked all your previously posted Web links on this subject, which
you started. Many of them don't mention the 4004. Those which do, all
are copies
of one site's information, which references "Fire in the Valley". How
about looking that book up, see what it says?
As for your "first is first" comment, I qualified my definition of
first, to a set of criteria, and to something I or anyone else could
verify online. More to the point I used first-person references and
primary documents.
BTW, one of my references - the Libes account - says that Kildall first
developed PL/M for the 4004. I just could not find that Intel did
anything with it at the time. And I could not find, again with short
time, some collaborating
evidence that even Kildall used it, say, in his classes. But in a way,
it's moot, because Kildall not much later (months) produced PL/M for
the 8008 and THAT can be verified as an Intel product. So now this
"first" argument is down to what software others developed in the first
SEVERAL MONTHS as the 4004 and 8008 were made known to the engineers of
the time.
If you want to argue that some engineer or instructor wrote an Algol or
Fortran cross compliler, for the 4004 or 8008, and before Kildall; but
he or she only used it to teach electrical engineers or for a master's
thesis; then *show the primary references*! I've already wasted an hour
in following all your previous links, and writing a reasonable reply,
to your few words of "first is first"; and a few hours researching my
previous reply. It's your turn now.
Herb Johnson
Guy Macon
Herb Johnson wrote:
>one of my references - the Libes account - says that Kildall first
>developed PL/M for the 4004.
Reference much appreciated.
>Funny, many of your posts suggested that there were not one but "many"
>languages written for the 4004. Have you changed your mind, or are you
>thinking that none of those were commercial products, or what?
I have never held the opinion that there were many languages written
for the 4004 in my mind, and can only conclude from your comment
above that either I was unclear or that you formed a conclusion
based upon something other than what I wrote. Perhaps you were
confused by my mention that I have worked with forth-like and
basic-like languages for the sort of low-cost Asian microcontrollers
favored by Mattel and Hasbro. If so, I apologize for not being clear.
As far as I know, I only claimed that PL/I (or possibly it was called
PL/M - the references are not clear) was written for the 4004, and
that my recollection that I could not confirm was that e-basic was
written for the 4004 around that time.
>How about looking that book up, see what it says?
Why? You already agreed that Kildall wrote PL/M (or possibly a
variant that he called PL/I - the references are not clear) for
the Intel 4004. This refutes French Luser's claim that "it is
pure fantasy to think that any high-level programming language
could have existed for the 4004" It also refutes wild bill's
claim that by disagreeing with French Luser on this I am (in
his words) "almost 100% wrong", "posting so much trash", and have
"proven [myself] yourself unworthy of the time and effort it would
take to even attempt to enlighten [me]." I see no reason to
dignify a flamer with a reply, but it's nice to have a primary
reference for a programming language written for the 4004.
>BTW, one of my references - the Libes account - says that
>Kildall first developed PL/M for the 4004. I just could not
>find that Intel did anything with it at the time.
I agree. Again.
>If you want to argue that some engineer or instructor wrote an Algol or
>Fortran cross compliler, for the 4004 or 8008, and before Kildall;
I never argued any such thing. Perhaps you are confusing me with
someone else?
>but he or she only used it to teach electrical engineers or
>for a master's thesis; then *show the primary references*!
I find it difficult to find primary references for a strawman.
>I've already wasted an hour in following all your previous links,
>and writing a reasonable reply, to your few words of "first is
>first"; and a few hours researching my previous reply. It's
>your turn now.
My turn to do what? You said "I would suggest that 'first'
credit is best given to whatever product was first *commercially
offered and widely available*." I replied saying "I would tend
to give first credit to whoever was first." (I still hold that
opinion, and would give credit for the first GUI to Apple instead
of Xerox.) What, exactly, are you asking for? A reference
showing that the above opinion concerning who to give first
credit to is indeed my opinion?
Guy Macon
Guy Macon wrote:
>I would tend to give first credit to whoever was first.
(I still hold that opinion, and would give credit for the
>first GUI to Apple instead of Xerox.)
Oops. Error. I would give credit for the first GUI to Xerox
instead of Apple. Apple's GUI was indeed that first one that
was first commercially offered and widely available, and that
was and is a notable *business* accomplishment, but in my opinion
actually inventing the GUI was the real *technical* accomplishment.
I wouldn't deny the engineers at Xeros credit just because they
worked for management that couldn't see the potential of their
invention. Likewise I personally would give credit to whoever
wrote the first programming language for microcomputers, not to
whoever was first to commercially offer a programming language
for microcomputers. I believe that the United States Patent
and Trademark Office would agree with my method of assigning
credit, but the New York Stock Exchange would prefer the "first
commercial offering" method. :)
French Luser
I am back after 3 days of hard physical work,
and I have 60 messages to read, so this
will be very quick.
> "In 1972 Gary Kildall started writing PL/I the first programming
> language for the 4004"
> -http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/howto5.htm
> "1972 Gary Kildall implements PL/I on the Intel 4004 processor"
> -http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/comphis2.html
> -http://security-protocols.com/library/phreaking/ComputerHistory.txt
> "1972: Gary Kildall writes PL/I, the first programming language
> for the 4004"
> -http://kerlins.net/bobbi/research/myresearch/timeline.html
The above 3 excerpts says the same thing.
In France, we have a saying: "Repeating 3 times
a wrong thing does not make it right."
Of course, I don't have the time to check when
Gary Kildall was hired by the NPS, or when Intel
introduced the 4004. What is 100% sure is that
it was not PL/I, but PL/M and that Gary Kildall
could only have implemented it AFTER writing
his demo compiler for his course on compiler...
(This demo compiler was mentioned in several
ACM journals, back then...)
> "1972: Intel contracts with Gary Kildall, a professor at the Naval
> Postgraduate School in Pacific Grove, California, to write a
> computer language that would run on the Intel 4004 processor.
> Kildall choses to create PL/M, a version of a mainframe computer
> language called PL/I. In the process of writing this language,
> Kildall develops a simple operating system as a background for
> the interpreter and to control a paper-tape reader and writer.
> This operating system was the basis for what he later called
> CP/M ("Control Program/Monitor")
> -http://apple2history.org/history/appy/ahb.html
Another flagrant error: PL/M is absolutely not
"a version of a mainframe computer language
called PL/I"!!! (PL/M is a "system language"
designed to reflect the hardware of the CPU used,
not a "general purpose high-level PL" like PL/I.
At random, I would say that PL/I is 4 times (at
least) bigger than PL/M.)
(Another typo: CP/M stands for "Control Program
FOR Microcomputers", the way PL/M stands for
"Programming Language FOR Microcomputers".)
Ok. I consider this thread closed.
I have NEVER seen any written or published
matter BY Gary Kildall about the 4004. The
earlier mention of a CPU is the 8008.
Imagine: if it had existed, back then,
every advertisements made by Intel
would have mentioned it... (Open
any old "literature" by Intel, and you
will ALWAYS find a doc about PL/M.
Can you imagine that Intel would not
boast about a compiler for the 4004?
In 1972??? And under which OS
would it have run? OS/360? On a 4004?
Hahaha!!!)
(Still 59 messages to read.)
Yours Sincerely,
"French Luser"
Guy Macon
French Luser wrote:
>I have NEVER seen any written or published
>matter BY Gary Kildall about the 4004. The
>earlier mention of a CPU is the 8008.
"one of my references - the Libes account - says
that Kildall first developed PL/M for the 4004"
-Herb Johnson, post to comp.os.cpm
>Imagine: if it had existed, back then,
>every advertisements made by Intel
>would have mentioned it... (Open
>any old "literature" by Intel, and you
>will ALWAYS find a doc about PL/M.
>Can you imagine that Intel would not
>boast about a compiler for the 4004?
>In 1972??? And under which OS
>would it have run? OS/360? On a 4004?
>Hahaha!!!)
You are arguing that if something isn't sold
by Intel that it doesn't exist.
Guy Macon
French Luser wrote:
>Ok. I consider this thread closed.
The best way to not participate in a thread is
to not participate in the thread.
Herb Johnson
his replies are either misquotes or misreadings of my posts,
or poor recollections of his own. His replies to others are not
much better. I have a final suggestion....Herb
Guy Macon wrote:
> Herb Johnson wrote:
>
> >one of my references - the Libes account - says that Kildall first
> >developed PL/M for the 4004.
>
> Reference much appreciated.
Except I said I could not confirm that with any of Intel's 4004
products.
Gary was in hire to Intel, they used his 8008 products. Go read the
primary
reference, don't just use my mention of that source as ADDITIONAL
evidence.
> >Funny, many of your posts suggested that there were not one but
"many"
> >languages written for the 4004. Have you changed your mind, or are
you
> >thinking that none of those were commercial products, or what?
>
> I have never held the opinion that there were many languages written
> for the 4004 in my mind.....
[Macon, April 25 post:]"The question at hand is "First programming
language for microcomputers." That's why that phrase is in the title
of these posts. The 4004 was the first microcomputer, and
had several programming languages written for it."
> >[Herb said:] How about looking that book up, see what it says?
>
> Why? You already agreed that Kildall wrote PL/M (or possibly a
> variant that he called PL/I - the references are not clear) for
> the Intel 4004. This refutes [other claims to the contrary]...
> it's nice to have a primary
> reference for a programming language written for the 4004.
But I said in effect it's NOT "nice"! It's just one guy's recollection!
At least he was around at the time, that beats your other "references".
But it's not enough. Go read "Fire in the Valley", which is referenced
by several of the links you posted (which in fact are copies of
one reference, which referenced that book, LIKE I ALREADY SAID.)
But this is just annoying. It's clear to me that Guy Macon is just
looking for arguments. If some point he has made is corrected, he
changes the argument a bit and continues on. If he wanted some clarity
about this "first programmming language" business, he'd be chasing down
all these references that I, "French Luser", etc. have given him.
But he says instead to my suggestion to do that research:
> My turn to do what? You said "I would suggest that 'first'
> credit is best given to whatever product was first *commercially
> offered and widely available*." I replied saying "I would tend
> to give first credit to whoever was first." (I still hold that
> opinion, and would give credit for the first GUI to Apple instead
> of Xerox.) What, exactly, are you asking for? A reference
> showing that the above opinion concerning who to give first
> credit to is indeed my opinion?
Now Macon is arguing what "first" means - I said "I can show a first
as a commercial product, the 8008 PL/M", he said "first is first" and
then tries to argue about how he defines "first", how a Patent office
or the Stock Exchange would define "first", and so on.
So here's one more reference link. It's not "primary", but it's
germaine:
http://retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/offtopic.html
Others can read that document as well, some find it amusing.