Does anyone remember these
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... or even have one? Exatron Stringy Floppy - Wikipedia[^] Back in 1978 a floppy controller plus drive was far beyond my budget. Stuck with a ordinary tape recorder (I still have it and use it to load the old tapes), this appeared to be a compromise, but turned out to be a dead end.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.I started with C64 and a 1530 (upgraded version), later got an 1451 - that was a big deal!!! All used the counter (mechanical) to find files faster... Otherwise you had to wait for a full search at an average speed 50 bytes/sec...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I started with C64 and a 1530 (upgraded version), later got an 1451 - that was a big deal!!! All used the counter (mechanical) to find files faster... Otherwise you had to wait for a full search at an average speed 50 bytes/sec...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Come right over. I have two C64 with 1541 floppies in my shelf, ready to go.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
Come right over. I have two C64 with 1541 floppies in my shelf, ready to go.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.I always play with the thought to buy one, but afraid I will play with it all day long... Just loved it...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I always play with the thought to buy one, but afraid I will play with it all day long... Just loved it...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
I also have several Atari ST, an Atari 400, two Atari 600XL, an Atari 800XL....
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
Quote:
Known data capacities/tape length are: 4 kB/5 feet, 16 kB/20 feet, 48 kB/50 feet, and 64 Kk/75 feet. One complete cycle through a 20-foot tape takes 55 to 65 seconds, depending on the number of files on it.
So seek time of a minute, for a total capacity of 16kB ... I'm really, really, glad I never had one! :laugh: Thinking about it, if you stored one 16kB file on it, you'd be looking at a fetch time of between one and two minutes depending on where the "string" was ... that's horrible!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
The 1530 for C64 was 4-5 times slower than that!!! And for time it was all the external storage we had... I remember to record programs from the radio on a normal tape, than load it to the computer... If there was some disturbance in the receiving we got a faulty software...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I also have several Atari ST, an Atari 400, two Atari 600XL, an Atari 800XL....
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.Never had Atari. I moved to Amiga (500 and 3000) and PC next...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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The 1530 for C64 was 4-5 times slower than that!!! And for time it was all the external storage we had... I remember to record programs from the radio on a normal tape, than load it to the computer... If there was some disturbance in the receiving we got a faulty software...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Probably still faster and more reliable than typing it in from those magazines!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I stumbled over those long forgotten drives while getting together my plans for the 40 year anniversary version of my old computer. I am going to try to build an IDE interface for a hard disk or perhaps an SD card as 'SSD'. Let's just pretend an 8 bit computer could access the drives as fast as RAM (which it definitely could not), how long would it take to write a sector? We would be spared most of the seeking time, but loading a few kilobytes would still take a noticable amount of time.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
Never had Atari. I moved to Amiga (500 and 3000) and PC next...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
Never had Atari. I moved to Amiga (500 and 3000)
That, sir, is a contradiction. The Amiga was based more on the 8 bit Ataris than anything else, while the Atari ST was designed by the guys who also designed the C64.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
Good question. It could take a while. I think back then RAM access times were measured in milliseconds, not nanoseconds.
God, no! Nobody used ferrite core memories anymore even then. Typical were around 300 to 400 ns for SRAMs, like the Intel 2102 (1 kilobit!)
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
... or even have one? Exatron Stringy Floppy - Wikipedia[^] Back in 1978 a floppy controller plus drive was far beyond my budget. Stuck with a ordinary tape recorder (I still have it and use it to load the old tapes), this appeared to be a compromise, but turned out to be a dead end.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.All you young whipper-snappers have life easy. When I started out on a DEC PDP-11, I had to store my files on paper tape, and feed then in through a teletype which printed them out as it loaded, one character at a time.
Cheers, Mick ------------------------------------------------ It doesn't matter how often or hard you fall on your arse, eventually you'll roll over and land on your feet.
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All you young whipper-snappers have life easy. When I started out on a DEC PDP-11, I had to store my files on paper tape, and feed then in through a teletype which printed them out as it loaded, one character at a time.
Cheers, Mick ------------------------------------------------ It doesn't matter how often or hard you fall on your arse, eventually you'll roll over and land on your feet.
Did you ever endeavour to construct a mnemonic device using stone knives and bears kins? :-)
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
When it worked it worked well, the tapes wore out quickly though. I think I remember the tapes were quite expensive too.
They were quite expensive to begin with, but after a year or so Sinclair dropped the price by about 75% They were quite reliable if you formatted them several times before you started to use them for data storage - this stretched the tape to the maximum, preventing data corruption between writing and reading
========================================================= I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka. =========================================================
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:
Never had Atari. I moved to Amiga (500 and 3000)
That, sir, is a contradiction. The Amiga was based more on the 8 bit Ataris than anything else, while the Atari ST was designed by the guys who also designed the C64.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.Not the 3000 - it was a 32 bit machine with extreme abilities...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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They were quite expensive to begin with, but after a year or so Sinclair dropped the price by about 75% They were quite reliable if you formatted them several times before you started to use them for data storage - this stretched the tape to the maximum, preventing data corruption between writing and reading
========================================================= I'm an optoholic - my glass is always half full of vodka. =========================================================
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Did you ever endeavour to construct a mnemonic device using stone knives and bears kins? :-)
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.No, but I did almost manage to discover fire from the heat generated by the valves in the PDP-11.
Cheers, Mick ------------------------------------------------ It doesn't matter how often or hard you fall on your arse, eventually you'll roll over and land on your feet.
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Not the 3000 - it was a 32 bit machine with extreme abilities...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
Still, its chipset was an enhanced version of the older Amiga chipset and many of those extreme abilities came from that chipset. The 8 bit Ataris were years ahead of their time in 1979 because of their custom chipset and the engineers who designed it wanted to design their own game console. Their company, named Amiga, was later bought by Commodore and the console was expanded to a full computer and the chipset was constantly improved until Commodore kicked the can.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns. -
... or even have one? Exatron Stringy Floppy - Wikipedia[^] Back in 1978 a floppy controller plus drive was far beyond my budget. Stuck with a ordinary tape recorder (I still have it and use it to load the old tapes), this appeared to be a compromise, but turned out to be a dead end.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.I remember reading about them in Byte. My first computer was a Commodore PET 2001[^] (the original model, with 4KB of memory). I later upgraded it to 8KB (!) of memory. From there I upgraded to an IBM portable PC[^] (portable if you were a gorilla - it weighed about 14 Kg!). I could never persuade my parents to upgrade the PET with a floppy, and at the time my allowance would never have stretched that far. :(
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
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Still, its chipset was an enhanced version of the older Amiga chipset and many of those extreme abilities came from that chipset. The 8 bit Ataris were years ahead of their time in 1979 because of their custom chipset and the engineers who designed it wanted to design their own game console. Their company, named Amiga, was later bought by Commodore and the console was expanded to a full computer and the chipset was constantly improved until Commodore kicked the can.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.CDP1802 wrote:
until Commodore kicked the can
Amiga was a sad case of incompetent marketing dumping the excellent work of engineers - originated from Atari or Commodore...
Skipper: We'll fix it. Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this? Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I remember reading about them in Byte. My first computer was a Commodore PET 2001[^] (the original model, with 4KB of memory). I later upgraded it to 8KB (!) of memory. From there I upgraded to an IBM portable PC[^] (portable if you were a gorilla - it weighed about 14 Kg!). I could never persuade my parents to upgrade the PET with a floppy, and at the time my allowance would never have stretched that far. :(
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack. --Winston Churchill
The portable PC is not much more than a standard XT with a CRT squeezed into the case and a keyboard in the front cover. They did not even try to save some weight, no wonder that thing was so heavy.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
