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Home > Archive > alt.certification.a-plus > February 2004 > 6502?
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| David Hough 2004-02-20, 7:24 am |
| Back in the days of the 6502, I subscribed to Byte magazine which came
in a plain brown wrapper, which the post office,would open to check for
porn. Us old timers need to go, for these certs, for two reasons.
First, to upgrade your skills. second, on applying for employment, I
figure each cert shaves five years off your age, when competing against
someone younger, without the certs.
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| Tom MacIntyre 2004-02-20, 8:24 am |
| On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 06:25:54 -0500, David Hough <huffy1@metrocast.net>
wrote:
>Back in the days of the 6502, I subscribed to Byte magazine which came
>in a plain brown wrapper, which the post office,would open to check for
>porn. Us old timers need to go, for these certs, for two reasons.
>First, to upgrade your skills. second, on applying for employment, I
>figure each cert shaves five years off your age, when competing against
>someone younger, without the certs.
6502? That's what I did machine code on in my electronics course.
Memory lane here lately, guys! :-)
Tom
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| Let me see that's a Motorola processor that was used in Apple's at the
time.We used to use them were I used to work.
On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:14:04 GMT, Tom MacIntyre
<tom__macintyre@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 06:25:54 -0500, David Hough <huffy1@metrocast.net>
>wrote:
>
>
>6502? That's what I did machine code on in my electronics course.
>Memory lane here lately, guys! :-)
>
>Tom
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| Tom MacIntyre 2004-02-20, 4:24 pm |
| On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:29:25 GMT, Gary <havinfun69nospam@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>Let me see that's a Motorola processor that was used in Apple's at the
>time.We used to use them were I used to work.
>
Apparently it was a group of ex-Motorola engineers who founded a
company called MOS Technologies...
http://www.arcula.demon.co.uk/65021.htm
As you mention ,they were used in Apples, and also Commodores. We did
most of our machine programming on what was called a KIM unit. It was
all in an attache case, featuring the 6502 and a numeric keypad, plus
support circuitry.
http://oldcomputers.net/kim1.html
We did some programming on the unit stand-alone, and also interfaced
some external circuitry, including fiber optic kits (this was in
1981-82). pRETTY INTERESTING STUFF FOR THAT ERA.
tOM
[color=blue]
>
>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:14:04 GMT, Tom MacIntyre
><tom__macintyre@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
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| Doug Scott 2004-02-20, 5:24 pm |
| Gary,
> Let me see that's a Motorola processor that was used in Apple's at the
> time.We used to use them were I used to work.
Signetics, I thought. Anyway, it resembled the 68xx very closely.
---
Doug
dwscott@ieee.org
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| somebody@erols.com 2004-02-20, 7:24 pm |
| I know commodore well, it was in the next town. FWIW the building now
houses a compnay called QVC you may have heard if them .........
Tom MacIntyre wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:29:25 GMT, Gary <havinfun69nospam@yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>Apparently it was a group of ex-Motorola engineers who founded a
>company called MOS Technologies...
>
>http://www.arcula.demon.co.uk/65021.htm
>
>As you mention ,they were used in Apples, and also Commodores. We did
>most of our machine programming on what was called a KIM unit. It was
>all in an attache case, featuring the 6502 and a numeric keypad, plus
>support circuitry.
>
>http://oldcomputers.net/kim1.html
>
>We did some programming on the unit stand-alone, and also interfaced
>some external circuitry, including fiber optic kits (this was in
>1981-82). pRETTY INTERESTING STUFF FOR THAT ERA.
>
>tOM
>
>
>
>
>
>
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| Tony Sivori 2004-02-21, 12:24 am |
| Tom MacIntyre wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 06:25:54 -0500, David Hough wrote:
>
>
> 6502? That's what I did machine code on in my electronics course. Memory
> lane here lately, guys! :-)
This evening I was paging through the April 1989 issue of Nibble (an Apple
oriented magazine). Interesting stuff from the olden days, and even the
advertisements are entertaining.
1200 baud modem for $99, 2400 baud for $239. 1 MB of Ram, $495. 40 MB
(Mega, not Giga) hard drive, $855.
But my favorite was the "TransWarp GS Accelerator" for "Computing at warp
speed!". For only $399, you could increase your Apple IIe processor speed
from 2.6 MHz to "TransWarp mode" which was a blistering 7 MHz.
--
Tony Sivori
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| On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:57:57 GMT, Tom MacIntyre
<tom__macintyre@hotmail.com> wrote:
>company called MOS Technologies...
>
>http://www.arcula.demon.co.uk/65021.htm
>
>As you mention ,they were used in Apples, and also Commodores. We did
>most of our machine programming on what was called a KIM unit. It was
>all in an attache case, featuring the 6502 and a numeric keypad, plus
>support circuitry.
>
That sounds like the same set up we had in Electronics school back
1979 and we did some assembly language programming to.
Gary
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| Tom MacIntyre 2004-02-21, 1:24 pm |
| On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 12:39:33 GMT, Gary <havinfun69nospam@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:57:57 GMT, Tom MacIntyre
><tom__macintyre@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>That sounds like the same set up we had in Electronics school back
>1979 and we did some assembly language programming to.
>Gary
That was when my first year was also, 1979/80. :-)
Tom
PS - I had 5 years of university under my belt by then also. :-)
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| David Hough 2004-02-21, 6:24 pm |
|
Hey Tom, I'll bet that machine code that you wrote for that, one
megahtz 6502, would benchmark faster, than visual basic today, running
on a pentium4.
| |
| Jonathan Miles 2004-02-22, 12:24 am |
| Hey, this is nice!!
I'm 30, and I normally feel like the 'old' guy.
I'm going to have to hang out around here more often...... )
JM
--
JonathanMiles at uk2 dot net
PS, zx81, commodore vic20 and (Acorn) BBC model A were my introduction to
computing, anyone remember them?? *tear forms in corner of eye as memories
of "Elite" come flooding back.....*
"David Hough" <huffy1@metrocast.net> wrote in message
news:2cednVveufJTf6rdRVn-tA@metrocast.net...
>
>
> Hey Tom, I'll bet that machine code that you wrote for that, one
> megahtz 6502, would benchmark faster, than visual basic today, running
> on a pentium4.
>
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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| |
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| I had one of those Commodore Vic 20 things that came with Qbasic and
you had to buy the external floppy if you wanted save anything.
Gary
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 04:48:58 -0000, "Jonathan Miles"
<jonathanmilesnospam@uk2dotnet> wrote:
>Hey, this is nice!!
>
>I'm 30, and I normally feel like the 'old' guy.
>
>I'm going to have to hang out around here more often......)
>
>JM
| |
| Bedraggled 2004-02-23, 12:24 pm |
| ......the dirt crawling Mars probe Sojourner had a 6502 on board....
I smiled when I read that...wondering which grey haired engineer
was falling back to the simple device he learned on ..long ago.
But, hey, why not?...the system demands are limited..and the 6502 is
a well known beastie..
| |
| Doug Scott 2004-02-23, 1:24 pm |
| Bedraggled,
> ......the dirt crawling Mars probe Sojourner had a 6502 on board....
> I smiled when I read that...wondering which grey haired engineer
> was falling back to the simple device he learned on ..long ago.
It's not just that. These things take years to develop because
reliability has to be so high. It was probably state of the art when
the thing was designed, but then with all the reliability checking and
lead time of other hardware, they had to stay with it. Imagine having
to reprogram and retest something like that, halfway through its
development! The Apollo series had platinum wire memories, as I recall,
because of that single factor - and memory was so restricted that they
had to load different programs from 5.25" floppies for different stages
of the moon journey - four stages, I think.
> But, hey, why not?...the system demands are limited..and the 6502 is
> a well known beastie..
That's the other side. The last thing a complex development needs is
unknown hardware. It's full of unknowns anyway, so a single certainty
is a blessing.
---
Doug
dwscott@ieee.org
| |
| Tom MacIntyre 2004-02-23, 4:24 pm |
| On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 13:58:19 GMT, Gary <havinfun69nospam@yahoo.com>
wrote:
>I had one of those Commodore Vic 20 things that came with Qbasic and
>you had to buy the external floppy if you wanted save anything.
>
>Gary
I can remember using a mainframe in tech school where we used audio
cassette tapes to save programs. :-)
Tom
[color=blue]
>
>On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 04:48:58 -0000, "Jonathan Miles"
><jonathanmilesnospam@uk2dotnet> wrote:
>
| |
| Doug Scott 2004-02-23, 6:24 pm |
| Tom,
> I can remember using a mainframe in tech school where we used audio
> cassette tapes to save programs. :-)
Oxymoron. What do you call a "mainframe"?
---
Doug
dwscott@ieee.org
| |
| Tom MacIntyre 2004-02-23, 6:24 pm |
| On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:04:20 GMT, Doug Scott <dwscott@ieee.org> wrote:
>Tom,
>
>
>Oxymoron. What do you call a "mainframe"?
>
>---
>
>Doug
>
>dwscott@ieee.org
>
>
Not an oxymoron to these guys...
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/m/mainframe.html
It was a Hewlett Packard, not sure of the model. This was back in the
mid-late 70's, so it wouldn't match up to the current definition
power-wise.
Tom
| |
| Doug Scott 2004-02-23, 7:24 pm |
| Tom,
> This was back in the
> mid-late 70's, so it wouldn't match up to the current definition
> power-wise.
Ah well. I worked on HP 3000's in the early eighties. We called them
minicomputers - they only supported maybe up to a couple of hundred
users. But I do know that the term was applied usually to the biggest
machine on a site (and the HP was an excellent machine), so that would
fit.
But I don't recall the cassette tapes. We used small cartridges, but
because we were also running IBM kit, for compatibility we had the
large 9-track tape drives as our main backup. IBM now use cartridges
nowadays anyway - it's all merging.
---
Doug
dwscott@ieee.org
| |
|
|
>
>I can remember using a mainframe in tech school where we used audio
>cassette tapes to save programs. :-)
>
>Tom
It's vague in my memory but I seem to remember that to.
Gary
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