Tabs -vs- Spaces: Tabs should have won.

[gene heskett]

On Monday, July 18, 2011 09:32:19 AM Tim Chase did opine:

> On 07/17/2011 08:01 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > Roy Smith wrote:
> >> We don't have that problem any more.  It truly boggles my
> >> mind that we're still churning out people with 80 column
> >> minds.  I'm willing to entertain arguments about readability
> >> of long lines, but the idea that there's something magic
> >> about 80 columns is hogwash.
> > 
> > I agree! Which is why I set my line width to 78 columns.
> 
> Bah, when I started programming
> on the Apple ][+, we had no
> lower-case and a 40-column limit
> on the TV display.
> But you try and tell the young
> people today that...
> and they won't believe ya'.
> 
> -tkc
> 
> (expecting somebody to come back with a bit more retro-computing
> Four Yorkshiremen bit..."spinning 360k 5.25" floppy drives? We
> should be so lucky. I had to hand jump 2000-amp bits with only my
> tongue, for a CPU architecture invented by Navajo code-talkers...")

No, but my first computer was an RCA Cosmac Super Elf, with a 6 digit led 
display.  I added another 4k of static ram ($400 for the s100 board kit, 
and about $100 for the S-100 4 slot backplane, and about $125 for a cash 
register style cabinet that I hid the rest of the hardware, including a 6 
volt gell cell for backup battery in)  This had an RCA 1802 CPU which had a 
very interesting architecture.

Writing, in machine code entered through its monitor, a program that drove 
the rest of the hardware and connected to the remote controls of the U-
Matic tape machines of the day, including the display hardware I built from 
scratch with mostly TTL parts, it was replacing the most labor intensive 
step in preparing a commercial for use with an Automatic station break 
machine by applying a new frame accurate academy leader and the tones to 
control it directly to the finished commercial tape.  That automated a very 
timing critical step, and removed a dub cycle from commercial production at 
KRCR in 1979, and was still in use in 1994 the last time I checked.  How 
many of our code projects can make that claim?

I still have a paper copy of the code in a bag on the top shelf.

Interesting sidelight here.  In 1980, Microtime brought a much more 
primative device to do that to the NAB show, which I stopped and looked at, 
and when I could control my laughing, said I had already done that, 
functionally far better than this attempt.  Since they are as lawyer top 
loaded as Apple, I guess they assumed I had also copyrighted and patented 
it, so it was gone the next day & they wouldn't even admit they had had it 
the day before.

In 1987 I made a better version of the EDISK that Grass Valley sold as an 
accessory for the 300 series video production switchers, for $20,000.  
Theirs had a 2 digit display for file names & ran at 1200 baud.
Mine had a whopping 32 column display and english filenames and ran at 4800 
baud, running on a TRS-80 Color Computer, I had $245 in the hardware.  It 
was still in use when I retired in 2002, but when that forced a replacement 
of the 300 because of custom parts availability, the new CE gave me back 
the old machine.  I still have it, and several more of them.  The 6809 was 
not the crippled, drain bamaged processor the 6502 was.

OS-9, the color computers multiuser/multitasking OS, has now grown to also 
execute on the hitachi 6309 cpu chip, and is about 2x faster now than then, 
and we now call it Nitros9.  That is essentially todays linux, running on 
an 8 bit bus, and was my teacher, causing me to only have one legal winderz 
install in the house ever as it was on the laptop (XP) I bought quite a few 
years back now.  Long since history, that machine has had linux on it for 
about 6 years now.

FWIW, I met one of the code talkers when I was the CE at KIVA-TV in the 
late 70's.  That was another example of how we have screwed the "First 
Americans' and I had better not get started.

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)
Beneath this stone lies Murphy,
They buried him today,
He lived the life of Riley,
While Riley was away.