Does anyone remember these
-
... 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
-
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.
-
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. -
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.
From about 1984 on, both Atari and Commodore fell behind. The 16 bit computers kept both going for a few years, but they failed to come up with new concepts and the PCs took over. Their last models like the Atari Falcon or the Amiga 3000 were too little innovation and came too late.
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.Commodore had a similar tape drive, it was pretty cheap but a POS. I think it used regular cassette tape though, if I remember right.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta
I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist! -
... 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.No, I don't remember these and that's a good thing!
-
... 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. -
Probably still faster and more reliable than typing it in from those magazines!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Oh God yes! And typing most of it in in 2 digit hex values. X|
Follow my adventures with .NET Core at my new blog, Erisia Information Services.
-
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...
Compared to paper tape 16KB was impressive and 1 minute extremely fast. Paper tape readers were manually seek (find label written on tape) and pull it through as fast as you can. If you were rich and had an ASR33 teletype with mechanical paper tape the transfer rate was a breathtaking 10 bytes per second.
-
... 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.The stringy tape concept had been around for a long time by then, and survived in QIC format for quite a while longer. Old time PDP programmers will remember the LINCtape and later DECtape drives on PDP-8s that go back to the 60s. They were bi-directional block replaceable tape drives, sort of a linear disk drive. DECtape was a vast imnprovement over paper tape. There were some QIC tape cartridge drives that used a floppy interface to implement a stringy floppy. QIC-40 was a common backup medium on early PCs. Just start the backup when you finished for the day to save an overnight copy of that huge 20MB disk drive.
-
... 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 had (still have actually) a Sinclair QL, 2 MicroDrives no less!
-
Probably still faster and more reliable than typing it in from those magazines!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Especially when print magazines used the same character for lower case "L" "l" and number One "1". C64 had a total melt down if you typed
FOR 1=1to100
... instead of ...
For l=1to100Yes. They are different lines: One versus L. This taught me to "Save the program before trying to run it!". Confession: It took two times of typing in a 6 page program ("Castle Dungeon") and having it freeze (core dump with loss) on execution. After the second occurrence, my sister and I realized that we should save it BEFORE running it. That was our favorite game for a while. Probably, it was because of the sweat equity due to typing it three times. Historical aside: Many old typewriters did not even have a "1" key because you could use lower case "L".
-
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.The Amiga 500 was 32 bit based on the Motorola 68000 chipset. The same chipset as the original MACs, but Amiga supported a true, pre-emptive OS with "virtual" desktops and color. The original MAC was black and white. It was used a lot in broadcast TV for generating graphics. (pre-HD)
-
The Amiga 500 was 32 bit based on the Motorola 68000 chipset. The same chipset as the original MACs, but Amiga supported a true, pre-emptive OS with "virtual" desktops and color. The original MAC was black and white. It was used a lot in broadcast TV for generating graphics. (pre-HD)
The CPU was from Motorola all along, as well as for the Macs and the Atari ST/TT/Falcon. The chipsets (graphics, sound, IO, 'Blitters') were made by the companies,
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. -
... 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 had the Atari 410 tape drive. Boy I wish I had my old programs from back then - all lost in the black hole where stray cassette tapes got sucked into :( I remember rendering images by changing formulas in a loop to generate colored pixels... basically was experimenting with fractals in the early 80's as a kid. Had no idea what they were nor their potential. I just liked the beautiful patterns. Looking back I was more nerdy than I would have thought at the time. :) Atari 8-bit computer peripherals - Wikipedia[^]
-
I had the Atari 410 tape drive. Boy I wish I had my old programs from back then - all lost in the black hole where stray cassette tapes got sucked into :( I remember rendering images by changing formulas in a loop to generate colored pixels... basically was experimenting with fractals in the early 80's as a kid. Had no idea what they were nor their potential. I just liked the beautiful patterns. Looking back I was more nerdy than I would have thought at the time. :) Atari 8-bit computer peripherals - Wikipedia[^]
Did you have an Atari 400 or an 800?
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. -
Did you have an Atari 400 or an 800?
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.Actually I started with the 400 then got the 800 and finally the 1200XL (and also the 2600 gaming console). I was such an Atari-stack guy!
-
Actually I started with the 400 then got the 800 and finally the 1200XL (and also the 2600 gaming console). I was such an Atari-stack guy!
I still have a 400, two 600XL and a 800XL plus 1050 disk drive and boxes full of disks in the shelf.
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 still have a 400, two 600XL and a 800XL plus 1050 disk drive and boxes full of disks in the shelf.
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.Then by any measure in my book you are a wealthy man my friend! :-D Those were good days for me. These days its hard to recapture the *actual* thrill felt back then of exploring algorithms for the first time. It probably has something to do with the utter lack of worldly responsibilities I enjoyed as a kid. Everything comes with such weight attached to it now in middle age... deadlines, boss or peer review, balancing home and family life, managing debt, mortgages, etc. I should probably add staving off alcoholism to that list cuz I feel the strong need for a drink right now. :sigh:
