[Coco] dumb profs wasRe: trig.h

[gene heskett]

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011 06:16:17 pm Aaron Wolfe did opine:

> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 7:07 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> > On Tue, 11 Jan 2011, Willard Goosey wrote:
> >> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 06:34:42PM -0500, Steven Hirsch wrote:
> >>> University of Vermont (my alma-mater) dropped Assembly Language and
> >>> Machine Organization as a required course in the CS curriculum.
> >>> �Just incredible.
> >> 
> >> Yeah, that's pretty mind-blowing. �It's all object-this and abstract
> >> that. �But eventually, at the bottom of all those layers of code, the
> >> machine is still "load a register." �"add 1." �"store register."
> > 
> > As I said, it has begotten 50MB binaries that require 1GB of memory to
> > run and execute like a snail even at that. �Before being turned loose
> > on the world to code The Next Big App, all new CS grads should be
> > exposed to something like, e.g. WordStar running on a 48k Z80 machine
> > and asked to think about it for a moment.
> > 
> > Steve
> 
> I've said before and still believe that a study of OS9 or even FLEX or
> CPM, some OS designed for the 8 bit machines would be eye opening and
> very beneficial to new CS students.  You can fit these systems in your
> head, something basically impossible with modern operating systems.
> Without ever understanding any computer system from the bottom up, I
> don't think a new programmer has a foundation for making good choices
> at the upper layers of abstraction where we play today.
> 
A very basic truth Aaron.  Students today may think they do not need to 
know about such a 'primitive' system as our beloved coco, but it they have 
not ever walked around in the machine code monitor of one of its 
predecessors, they have no chance of understanding the register operations 
of the cpu's we deal with daily today.

There has to be a foundation solidly laid at the hardware level or they 
will never understand what goes on in the 'high level' languages in common 
use today. Even CS people like Paul Jerkatis in 1992 or so failed to get 
it.

I started out with the RCA 1802 on a Quest Elf board with 256 bytes of ram, 
and explored that by way of its machine code monitor and 6 digit led 
display before I ever picked up the soldering iron to build a 4k static ram 
board, a very simple video card that displayed two digits in an 8.8 format 
103 lines tall on an ntsc monitor so it could be read from across a 20 foot 
wide control room on a 4" B&W monitor, and the rest of the hardware to 
control all the editing functions of the editor kits one could install in 
the Sony 2800 family of 3/4 u-matic vcr's.  Then I carved up some code to 
make the machine lay down a new academy countdown on the leader of a 
commercial, along with the properly timed audio cue tones so that an 
automatic station break machine could play all the commercials in a timed 
break with perfect timing with one button push by the board operator.

That saved KRCR from having to make yet another quality killing dub of a 
finished commercial, saving also the time to make that dub, while improving 
our on-air appearance by quite a bit.  That little Cosmac Elf computer, and 
that code, which I still have a paper copy of on the shelf above me, was 
put into use in 1978, and was, with its timing settings updated for newer 
machines, still in use at KRCR in 1996, 18 years later.  So it was 'time 
tested'.  And long after I'd gotten itchy feet looking for another door 
that said Chief Engineer on it since that wasn't my title at KRCR.

Then I tried to use a couple of similar boards but with Z-80's on them, 
supposedly more 'modern'.  Most broken architecture I ever tried to code 
for.  Next I got a TI-99/4a but that was a rich mans game, so when the coco 
arrived, I looked, but wasn't convinced until os9 came out.  Then I started 
learning for real, it was the first time I'd ever had an assembler and I 
was in hog heaven learning how a real cpu worked.  And I haven't strayed 
too far from there since.

I went after it again with a coco in 1986, substituting it for a 
contraption that Grass Valley Group wanted $20,000 for, and that also was 
in constant, many times a day use at WDTV until we bought a new production 
switcher in 2001.  Again, 15 years time tested, stuff that Just Works(TM).

Chuckle, I should put that code up on my web page, but I doubt if any 
GVG300 switchers have missed the recycling bin in 2011.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
A vivid and creative mind characterizes you.