>Actually, it's about time for someone to talk about entering programs using a >bank of switches and blinking lights... > >"Terminal? Heck, kid, we didn't even know what a teletype was! Punch cards >were too expensive for us back then. We switched the switches, and hope we >didn't enter into an infinite loop, thats whut we did!" > >-Adam Are you joking? Maybe not. This is how my 1st microcomputer worked (of course). Didn't even need a program running to do it :-) The processor provided the infinite loop :-) - all 65536 locations of it. The NatSemi SC/MP processor had a mode where it would cycle up memory addresses like a counter starting at $0000 and could single clock (it was static) so you trapped it at 0000, keyed 8 data switches to whatever, hit the RAM write button and then let it step on to $0001 etc. After a while when you had (hopefully) loaded your program you hit reset and away it went (sometimes). Debugging was "easy" as you could step it one instruction at a time and look at the data output to see what it was doing :-). Data output was (of course) 8 LEDs on the data bus plus LEDs on the address bus :-). Having (optional) address switches as well would give you the luxury of examining RAM locations for contents - if you had RAM. Many systems had none and just used the SC/MP internal registers. Now let me tell you about the cardboard box (you had a box?!!), snow, no shoes, no feet, uphill to scho0l both ways <>, slept at the bottom of a frozen lake, ... (what have I missed?). Next step was the luxurious 6800 and D2 kit. I could probably just about write 6800 machine code out of my head still but it's been rather a long time (and I can't do that for ANY other processor I have ever used). On a D2 I could once-upon-a-time key in a full alphanumeric moving message program in hex from cold start complete with 7-segment alphamuneric message. No practical use to anyone but a superb way of showing off to the uninitiated :-). Somewhere along the way we built an optical paper tape reader [[hi Ken]] using phototransistors - hiiigh speed input! - yee ha. Surprisingly accurate. Read as fast as you could hand pull the tape through. Faster than cassette tape. harder to write to :-(. Got an old Burroughs mainframe paper tape punch from the dump (cheating!). Those were the days. Glad they are gone (but good to have had them). Nobody of course wants to hear that our first floppy disk drive was single sided with a massive 160 kB capacity (and cost over $1000 equivalent in todays money) and that .... What's this got to do with editors??? :-) Russell McMahon > >James Newton wrote: >> >> Years ago, I saw a program (a .com) that could be entered by >> COPY CON HEX2BIN.COM >> >> Some guy had figured out how to write the program by mapping instruction >> opcodes to ASCII keystrokes! So after you typed that in, you could, in fact >> >> COPY CON BINARY.HEX >> HEX2BIN < BINARY.HEX > BINARY.COM >> >> Yeah! That's a real programmer! >> >> Is this where I brag about writing Win32 app's in MASM? >> >> --- >> James Newton (PICList Admin #3) >> mailto:jamesnewton@piclist.com 1-619-652-0593 >> PIC/PICList FAQ: http://www.piclist.com or .org >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: pic microcontroller discussion list >> [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of andy howard >> Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2000 11:18 >> To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU >> Subject: Re: [OT] "Best" Editor (was: "Syntax Highlighting in MPLAB") >> >> > From: "M. Adam Davis" >> > Every real programer uses EDLIN under DOS 3.1. >> > -Adam >> >> Nah, COPY CON PROGRAM.HEX >