Glenville T. Sawyer
Outback Communications.   South Australia
Theatre & Concert Lighting, Special Effects & Props. + more !
Also - Embedded Control systems.  http://www.gsawyer.mtx.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Handley <thandley@TELEPORT.COM>
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Monday, January 25, 1999 03:56
Subject: Re: Slightly OT - I ain't buyin' it...(long)


>   Today, I'm 49 and I'm looking back over a lot of years in the field
>from the first microprocessors and before. I'll spare all the early
>uP stories with the 4004, 8008, 1802, 68xx, 65xx, 8/Z8x, etc. But those
>were exciting times. There use to be such a free and open exchange of
>ideas, code, and tools. The Amiga was like that. Then everything seemed
>too commercial. Tools were too expensive for those `closet genius'. I'm
>very impressed with the PIC community, from the beginner to the experts.
>I've quietly read many of your messages and remember many of you when
>your first post was something like; "Help!" or "I'm a newbie". Now many
>of you are teaching `old dogs' like me new tricks. Thankyou!
>
>   - Tom


 Hey, and I thought that Don Mackenzie and I were the only ones that
remember
the "golden era"  !!!!   :-)  -  Yes, been there, Done that too, and of
course there was always
the mighty S-100 buss !,  around the time a small group of us here in South
Australia
were writing BIOS code ( usually in an hour or 2 ) along with a primitive
BDOS , just to
start up an 8080 etc etc, and try to access our 5.25 inch disk drives (we
got a good deal,
bulk bought 7 of them and only paid 760 bucks - EACH , for around 60 Kb of
storage),
then we read about this young dude in the U.S of A, that has developed an
actual operating
system with all of the command codes etc etc available - this was MAJOR
LEAGUE stuff
back then - Yes it IS  O.T, but nice to remember back to the 70's sometimes.

 All the best for now,
                                      Glenville.


... Oh and by the way, the young dudes name was William Gates !