Whereas on a machine which uses six bit and nine bit bytes octal representation is more convenient. And 1332 to anyone who disagrees with that.

In reply to a post by TrevorSP:

Interesting, been in the game since 76 and learn something every day

Heh true - although sometimes I question whether it's worth the bother. Some changes appear to be change for change's sake or just fixes to things that weren't thought out properly in the first place. Right now it seems to be going through a period where everything is being made complicated and inter-dependant on other things. It's all very well building on previous technology but it helps if the previous technology is working properly and stable :-/

Edited by Andrue (Wed 30-Sep-09 17:13:24)

Oh yes, and we all remember those famous words years later, that "64kb of Ram should be more than enough for any application" ! ! ! !

Ahhh the days of the 8080............... That's when I thought these things might actually take off big time and decided to stay in IT !

In reply to a post by TrevorSP:

Oh yes, and we all remember those famous words years later, that "64kb of Ram should be more than enough for any application" ! ! ! !

Ahhh the days of the 8080............... That's when I thought these things might actually take off big time and decided to stay in IT !

Ooh, slightly before my time - but only just. I 'grew up' on the Z80. First a Spectrum then an Amstrad CPC. I remember reading gory details about how the programmers squeezed their games into the memory and wrung the bits out of the CPU to get them to run at a half way decent speed.

Now you can do a Google search and find half a dozen Java based emulators most of which are probably having to be slowed down in order to be useable.

..I mean, tell me, is this wrong or what:

http://www.twinbee.org/hob/play.php?snap=elite

Then again the modern equivalent:

http://www.eveonline.com/

Tempus fugit indeed

Edited by Andrue (Wed 30-Sep-09 20:39:03)

I still remember writing a mainframe IPL routine on 5 punched cards - the beastie had to be loaded via cards. Those were the days

Programming the Jacquard loom on punch cards. *Those* were the days!

Jacquard looms are still in use. Saw one in a factory in the US that was producing thosuands of American Flags. A sight to stir a patriotic soul.

My first week's training in the computer industry at ICT was on plug-board tabulators, sorters and suchlike. I then went on to real computers, which were in principle no different from modern ones only bigger in physical size, smaller in capacity and less powerful, and never used this knowledge of plug-board kit. .