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 8-Bit Computer wars. Pick your favourtie or add... 
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:11 am
Posts: 114
Location: Norway/Japan
For me it must be the Apple II (+/e), because that's by far the computer I got the most out of. I used them at work, for various projects. From satellite tracking antenna control to monitoring of ptarmigans.. and lots more. The slots were essential for this. Without them the computer would be useless to me. Good thing that Woz insisisted on the slots. Other 8-bit micros I could play around with, but the workhorse for actually getting things done was the Apple.

I never programmed the Apple II computers in BASIC. It was always 6502 code or UCSD Pascal, or a mix. I got enough already of BASIC even back in school. There was also a German Apple II clone which incorporated a Z80 as well and came with 128KB of RAM, it could run CP/M Plus and that was also something I got a lot out of.

As for other computers, I was at one point interested in the BBC B privately, one reason was its BASIC which was structured and thus nothing like BASIC. It looked very desirable. Still does, actually. But I couldn't afford bying one back then. Never got to actually see one for real. I subscribed to PCW (Personal Computer World) immediately, after I found issue 1 in a shop (1977), but most of what PCW wrote about I didn't have the money for.. except a Nascom 1. Anyway, as I got to use the Apple at work (and tons of other types of computers) after I got my first job I was fine. Actually I have the same job still, kind of.. all that programming was what made it possible for me to travel to nearly everywhere in the world, and now I write this from Japan. All hail the Apple II and Woz! :)

-Tor


Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:45 am
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Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:38 pm
Posts: 53
You have to admire the Apple II for its ability to cut down on logic (and releasing more timing slots too) by swizzling the screen memory addressing.
I guess it was not-so-admired for those who programmed it? Anyone who has experience with how much harder it made a programmers life?

I totally see how slots made a difference. An Apple (or any clone) was really never an option for me as it was in a totally different league pricewise (though it was typically fitted out with much more items). One guy in my class had an older brother who had a clone. IIRC there was even a Norwegian company called "West Computers" who made their own clone (or re-badged somebody else?).


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:14 am
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:11 am
Posts: 114
Location: Norway/Japan
Maybe they imported and sold Apple II clones from Taiwan? I know that a lot of Taiwanese clones from various makers were imported and sold in Norway. I actually got my hands on one a while ago, a Base 64a - I also used them back in the eighties for some projects, so it has nostalgic value.


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:26 am
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Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2013 2:01 am
Posts: 116
Location: Sacramento, CA, United States
NorthWay wrote:
... I guess it was not-so-admired for those who programmed it? Anyone who has experience with how much harder it made a programmers life? ...

Screen addressing was eccentric, but not too difficult once it was fully grokked. Scrolling was a bit more expensive, not just for non-contiguous addressing in the vertical directions, but for bit-7 and odd-even x-ordinate coloring issues in the horizontal directions (at least in the case of hi-res). Page-flipping helped some, as long as the RAM was available. Arcade-style programmers had to expend a bit more effort to attractively mix animation, sound, and user input, due to the very primitive support for all three on the early machines, but many were up to the challenge.

I think I read somewhere that Woz was proudest of his Disk ][ 5.25" floppy design, but evidence of his "more from less" hardware philosophy is seen throughout the ][ series components and peripherals ... even the awesomely tasty spaghetti-coded firmware that he wrote.

Mike


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:59 am
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Joined: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:03 am
Posts: 285
Location: California
Those slots were definitely valuable for certain uses. Early PCs had slots for boards about 13" long. Gradually more and more of the standard stuff was integrated on the motherboard; but my (E)EPROM programmer goes in one of those slots to cut the price down, not having to have its own power supply and case. A ribbon cable comes out for the ZIF socket. One of the automated test equipment setups I did in the late 1980's used a 68000-based Hewlett-Packard "Viper" board that went in a PC. IIRC, it was 13" long also. It ran HP BASIC 5.1 which took half a megabyte. The board may have had a megabyte total memory. I don't remember for sure. Although the C64 didn't have room for plug-in boards, its ports seemed to be well thought out for what it was.

In about 1986, the little (12-person) company I was working for got its first IBM PC (clone), a "portable," with a 7" (or so) monochrome monitor, two floppy-disc drives in the front beside the CRT, and a keyboard that went in the removable cover that went over the monitor and disc drives when you carry it by the suitcase-like handle on the side. I put "portable" in quotes though because we sure wouldn't call it portable today. Sure, it was self-contained; but that was back when you could put a handle on a refrigerator and call it "portable." The thing was big and very heavy. Soon after, someone brought in a Compaq packaged in the same idea but I remember the monitor was bigger. The closest thing to a laptop that I remember back then was the TRS-80 model 100, pictured here:

Image

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources


Thu Jan 08, 2015 6:43 am
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Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:38 pm
Posts: 53
I found the name of the clone: "West PC-800". At least one person still has one http://jmp.no/blog/west-pc-800-emulator


Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:27 am
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Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1780
Nice - some pictures can be found here. Seems to be aimed at home automation (built in burglar alarm and modem) but also notable for being equipped with both 6502 and Z80.


Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:24 am
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Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:11 am
Posts: 114
Location: Norway/Japan
Thanks for the links both of you - so the West PC was really produced in Norway and not a Taiwan import as so many others. There are some faint bells ringing about the name, but not enough that I clearly remember it. I would have thought the cost for producing it in Norway would be prohibitive, and the original price listed in skurk's post on 6502.org is indeed way higher than what I believe the Taiwan clones went for. (BTW NorthWay's link is to the same machine (serial 426) as skurk talked about on 6502.org back in 2004, so I believe you have found the nearest replacement for that old dead link in the 6502.org post).

-Tor


Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:42 am
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Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:38 pm
Posts: 53
There used to be some kind of "faire" on board a repurposed ferry that travelled up and down along the coast, selling all kinds of stuff you never knew you needed. As was a sign of the times in the 80s there was always some computer stall peddling their wares to the man in the street (ok, so find me a nautical equivalent) when there was a "messe" of some kind.
I remember this machine from one of those. It had Night Mission Pinball loaded up. After you had checked out all the stalls the hunt for the arcade machines started (usually at the 3rd or 4th floor where you would would be walking around when it was working as a ferry).


Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:50 pm
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Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 2:33 am
Posts: 165
barrym95838 wrote:
@ChuckT: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware of a PRINT USING statement in ROM Applesoft BASIC on the //e, which wasn't changed from the ][+ much at all. The memory map of the //e was a bit more sophisticated, and lower-case was fully supported on the base model for the first time in that series. The auto-start monitor ROM would try to boot from disk if a drive was present, but I believe that it could be aborted into ROM BASIC without too much fuss. The TRS-80's Level II Microsoft BASIC had far more features, but was noticeably slower than the Apples and Commodores, if memory serves me. I also liked the 40-bit floats over the choice between 32 and 64-bit floats on the Tandy (slower or much slower).


Barry,

It was 29+ years ago. That is the best I remember. Documentation on the internet is scarce because it doesn't have that much importance to people anymore so it is hard to prove or disprove.

Chuck


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:12 pm
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Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 2:33 am
Posts: 165
BigEd wrote:
It has to be Acorn's BBC micro for me. The OS offers a very clean interface, seamlessly supports a second processor and neatly integrates facilities offered by ROMs (four ROM sockets in the base machine, two typically populated with BASIC and Disk Filing System.) The BASIC is fast, has some features for structured programming, offers good graphics and sound and, best of all, has an integrated assembler. The machine also has useful I/O ports: two parallel ports, a bus expansion, disk interface, analogue inputs and serial i/o. Widely used for industrial control as well as the original educational intent. Oh, and there was a networking option, generally used in education to allow for a central fileserver.

Against this, the machine wasn't cheap, and only had 32k of RAM of which from 1k to 20k serviced the screen, depending on selected resolution, and up to 6k used by BASIC and the OS. Later models had up to 128k of RAM in various nooks and crannies, easing the pressure a bit and offering 28k to BASIC programs.


You turned me on to the BBC micro. Unfortunately, I live in a different part of the world.

It would have been interesting if the BBC Micro could have contracted with Commodore to use the SID chip and or other graphical displays as well as other devices. That would have been something I would have liked to have seen.


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:14 pm
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Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1780
There was a US-specific model, but it didn't sell very well, so many of them were shipped back and converted. See for example
http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... BCBUS.html
(Apparently Acorn did secure $21 million of orders: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/07/busin ... debut.html)

I'm presently reading "Alan Sugar: the Amstrad story" and it's saying that the UK home computer market collapsed just in time for a disastrous Christmas period of 1984. In early 85 Chris Curry of Acorn is quoted as saying "The popular games-playing market has become a very uncomfortable place to be. Price competition will be horrific. It is not a market we want to be in for very long." So, cheap computers are good for you and me but bad business for the manufacturers, and you weren't destined to get your SID in an Acorn machine!

See
https://archive.org/stream/Alan_Sugar_T ... 9/mode/1up
It's a great read!


Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:38 pm
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Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1780
Here's a nice spot check of UK prices from October 1984, collated by Anders Carlsson:
Quote:
A few years ago I grabbed a UK computer magazine and random and wrote down
list prices for various computers. Here is what money bought you in October
1984, prices mentioned inclusive VAT:

    £55.95 - Oric 1
    £99.99 - Atari 600XL
    £129.95 - ZX Spectrum 48K incl. a six pack of software
    £139.99 - Commodore 16 incl. tape recorder
    £199.95 - Spectravideo SVL-328
    £199.95 - Acorn Electron
    £199.99 - Atari 800XL
    £204.95 - Commodore 64
    £275.00 - Memotech MTX512
    £279.95 - Toshiba HX-10 64K MSX
    £299.95 - Sony Hit-Bit 64K MSX
    £299.95 - Sanyo MPC-100 64K MSX
    £299.99 - Commodore Plus/4
    £399.00 - BBC B incl. tape recorder and 5 games
    £399.00 - Sinclair QL
    £799.00 - Commodore SX-64 incl. MPS-801 printer and 3 business programs

(See
http://lists.cloud9.co.uk/pipermail/bbc ... 11952.html)


Thu Jan 08, 2015 8:47 pm
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Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 2:33 am
Posts: 165
BigEd wrote:
There was a US-specific model, but it didn't sell very well, so many of them were shipped back and converted. See for example
http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org ... BCBUS.html
(Apparently Acorn did secure $21 million of orders: http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/07/busin ... debut.html)

I'm presently reading "Alan Sugar: the Amstrad story" and it's saying that the UK home computer market collapsed just in time for a disastrous Christmas period of 1984. In early 85 Chris Curry of Acorn is quoted as saying "The popular games-playing market has become a very uncomfortable place to be. Price competition will be horrific. It is not a market we want to be in for very long." So, cheap computers are good for you and me but bad business for the manufacturers, and you weren't destined to get your SID in an Acorn machine!

See
https://archive.org/stream/Alan_Sugar_T ... 9/mode/1up
It's a great read!


Wow. Look at all of those chips in there. No way would Commodore have any of that. They had to be the low price leader.


Fri Jan 09, 2015 1:23 am
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Joined: Wed Jan 09, 2013 6:54 pm
Posts: 1780
I think it's fair to say that the history of computer hardware is the history of integration. It used to take several components to make one logic gate. The Cray-1 used chips each of which implemented two logic gates. In the Cray-2, each chip held 16 logic gates. For the Y-MP, 2500, and for the SS-1, 30,000.

The Beeb was a bit of a rush job and Acorn (a very small company) adapted a design already in progress. Even so, it uses two semi-custom chips (ULAs, using Ferranti technology) which probably contain some thousands of logic gates each. But those chips - like the one in Sinclair's ZX81 and the more complex one in their Spectrum - are still placed in 40-pin through-hole packages which limits the amount of functionality they can soak up.

While the UK manufacturers were using semi-custom technology, Commodore had the unique advantage of its own fab line, having acquired MOS. It could make its own chips, and choose whether or not to sell them to others.

Even so, comparing an early C64 board with a late one, you'll see that the later one has a high pin-count package, and a lower chip count as a consequence:
http://www.commodore.ca/products/c64/co ... 2_1992.jpg

Likewise, Acorn used a much more complex ULA for the Electron, with a very high pin count, and a consequent reduction in parts count and cost. When they made the Master Compact, again you see a reduced chip count compared to the Master, but no high-density packaging:
http://www.8bs.com/incomp.htm

One sometimes sees complaints that the Electron was too compromised by having only nibble-wide RAM, but those commenters don't account for the lower parts cost or the saving of four pins. It's quite possible Acorn had no room to manoeuvre against the pin count of the device they used. (Strictly, the lead count - 68 leads.)

Worth a look: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013 ... ory_at_30/
http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/201 ... epair.html


Fri Jan 09, 2015 10:08 am
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