[Discuss] What was once old is new again...

[Bill Horne]

On 2/18/2016 11:03 AM, Bill Ricker wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 12:27 AM, Bill Horne <bill at horne.net 
> <mailto:bill at horne.net>> wrote:
>
>     Bill, who thinks that loading FOCAL from paper tape is the true
>     test of computer wizardry!
>
>
> ​ I guess i was pampered, the EDUSYS on which i ran FOCAL had a tiny 
> boot drive (and DECtape). It also had FORTRAN II, the one with the 
> ternary-branch IF.
>
> (Rumor was this higher-end EDUSYS was actually a PDP-11 under the 
> hood, unlike the lower end EDUSYS educational-discount PDP-8's. One 
> had 3 ASR-33 s attached, and the 32k memorey was in two banks, so it 
> was assigned 6k ROM, 10K tty0, 8K+8K tty1+2; except the day i got in 
> first and booted it so TTY0 got all the high bank 16k and the other 
> tty's got 5k each. The T.A. was bemused and noted which projects had 
> so few comments they still fit in 5k.)​

I did my first Assembler course on a PDP-8 Edusystem at UMass-Boston in 
1977. Those were the days!

I was offered a job on the west coast, and I gave away my 8" floppy to a 
friend. Wish I'd kept it. Come to think of it, I have a case of 5.25" 
floppies somewhere - amazing what you find when you're moving. Anyone 
interested?

Bill, who had to shovel snow last month.

-- 
Bill Horne
828-678-1548