Flowcode Support Board

Hi

OK so I program a bit.... However if you compare the examples you post to mine, you are Rembrandt versus my crayon scriblings. I do learn from looking at how you professionals do things (then wondering how on earth my creations ever work)

Following on from RGV250, I built a Science of Cambridge Mk14 back in the late 70's. I was about fourteen then and got it as a Christmas present, although true to SoC form it arrived months late That was all machine code and of course the add on's such as a cassette adapter to store programs on was way out of reach for me. I suppose this was a precursor to their next computer offerings of ZX-80 / ZX-81 / ZX-Spectrum and the ill fated Sinclair QL.

Then came the TRS-80 with 16K of RAM (circa late 1980). Loved that machine and still have it in the loft somewhere. After that came an Amstrad CPC with inbuilt cassette deck for storage, which was a great idea as it meant consistent storage and retrieval. I ended up using that to control a bank of lights in a nightclub. I had to decode the address bus as well as the data bus with all code written in BASIC (poke is a great instruction). Numerous audio filters were built which an output of the desks fed, providing a way to sequence light patterns to the beat etc. All designed by me and hand built on Vero. I was pretty chuffed when it worked but realised that despite my self proclaimed brilliance, girls still preferred the DJ's

A few years later I obtained some Commodore PC1's which had 512K of RAM, and a 5.25" Floppy. Again I had plans for these very cost effective offerings. A couple were connected to telephone lines via 2w/4w adapters, relays and other discretes that allowed the machines to interact using DTMF and a Text-to-Speech module probably sourced from the pages of EE/ETI/Micro-Mart. I remember I had to create a RAMDISK (pretend Hard Drive) as well as have the Floppy in use but can't remember exactly why. As with the CPC address decoding was required. These machines came with GW-BASIC.

It took ages to figure out how to do what I wanted, mainly through trial and error. Very educational and my logic probe was worn down debugging those lines

Today of course even a cheap PIC could do much of the above with ease.

Regards

Rembrandt - I wish - more like Hancock in The Rebel ?

A friend had a TRS-80 (well outside my budget) and we spent many happy hours playing Mike Chalk's Galaxians. It was a steep learning curve and I'm not sure we ever mastered it.

Then a Spectrum, followed by a QL - not a great machine but the Motorola 68000 (68008 in the QL) has the best assembly language instruction set... Metacomco assembler - ah happy days

Martin

Hi

I think I need to dig out that "Trash 80" as some called them through jealousy, as at that time Tandy Radio Shack could claim to be the world's best/biggest selling computer/brand. It was a "PC" before PC's were invented with proper keyboard, dedicated displays, floppy drives, printers etc and had software available for most applications. You could easily use it for business, engineering or just as a hobby. You couldn't really say that about the competition despite Sir Clive stating his ZX-80 was equally at home running a nuclear power station as it was playing games. I remember a lecturer at college (Dept. Head or something) coming in to talk to our lecturer about something trivial, holding, sorry displaying a ZX-80 for all to see. How proud he was with his new machine. I was always curious as to how a complicated a nuclear reactor could really be if the entire operation could be controlled with 4K of ROM and 1K of RAM

The case designs of computers in those days had to be admired though. Some were very futuristic. When I first drooled over a picture of a Commodore PET circa 77' I wanted one (I think it inspired the creator of Dr. Who's dog, K9). Never did get around to it..... Do you remember the Orac? Named after the arrogant computer in Blake's 7 ?

From memory, I think in the late 70's your commercial options were kind of limited to Commodore, Apple and TRS with Apple pricing themselves sky high compared to competition with no real obvious advantage to justify the price that I could see (nothing changed there then ). I think the Commodore's and TRS's were not too dissimilar in cost but of course Tandy (Radio Shack) had a marketing advantage in having high street stores. I think that really was why they were so popular. You could walk in, get a demonstration of whatever software you wanted and walk out with a complete system with support just a walk down the high street away. Bigger stores had whole sections dedicated to their computers and software well before high street chains started selling home computers such as the ZX etc. I remember doing some work in a rather upmarket house and noticed a TRS-80 in the corner of the home office. Naturally I asked about it. The owner had a business selling system/software/support to double glazing companies that did all the engineering calculations for construction as well as payroll etc. He wrote most of the software himself despite knowing nothing about computers until he went into a Tandy one day.

Two games I remember playing a lot were a space shoot-em-up and a dungeons & dragons variant. The D&G was based around exploring a pyramid by typing in commands such as N (for go North) or "pick up axe". Don't think I ever got around to finishing it and remember using a roll of wallpaper to draw a map. Never even heard about "chiggers" prior to that game but now know to avoid if I ever come across any in real life...

The space game was quite complicated, you had to navigate around the galaxy, hiding behind planets, destroying enemy craft before descending into a trench, much like in Star Wars, and fighting off craft before launching your missiles. Chunky monochrome graphics (in my case green) too. Happy days indeed... It also came with detailed manuals and the BASIC manual gave details of every command and examples of usage. I spent ages working my way through and consider it time well spent.

Years later before it ended up in the loft it had an issue. I had a "system" in that I had the computer, display and cassette. The display connected via a DIN-plug which provided 5v and composite video. The display stopped working one time upon boot and I never did get around to finding out why. Might be a problem with the computer or the display. There are quite a few sites dedicated to these machines and I obtained copies of most manuals a while back. I particularly liked a description of the Expansion Module where it stated a benefit of two cassettes. You could read a payroll from one, modify it and store on another thereby saving time.... Kids of today don't know they are born...

I did get my hands on a QL once. It was given to me as it didn't work too well. Despite Sir Clive marketing it for business (with two teeny-weeny "8-track style" inbuilt cassette ports) it never really took off. The one I was given had keyboard issues. Certain keys would not work as the PCB was flexing too much thereby moving away from the key being pressed. Solution was to jam wads of photocopy paper behind the PCB to provide support. I did like it though but by then liked beer better, so swapped it for a case of something.

Regards

I wonder if ChatGPT will be like ORAC. It cannot be that intelligent or it would say to kids, thats your homework, do it yourself.

I was always curious as to how a complicated a nuclear reactor could really be if the entire operation could be controlled with 4K of ROM and 1K of RAM

This was the spec of the AGC which was used for the moon landing so it just shows what can be done when Microsoft are nowhere near it

16-bit word (15 data bits and one parity bit)
1.024 MHz clock
16 I/O channels
36k x 16-bit words (ROM) magnetic core rope memory
2k x 16-bit words (RAM) magnetic core memory

Going off topic now.
I love watching the re-runs of Blakes 7, the special effects were crap but I remember as a kid it was really worth waiting for. Like you say, kids today dont know they are born.

Hi

It cannot be that intelligent or it would say to kids, thats your homework, do it yourself.

I would hope teachers would ask the AI sites themselves, to see results that they can compare work to, but probably not. Sounds like too much work....

Regarding the lunar missions, people forget that most calculations were done on slide rules and two decimal places was considered accurate enough. I still have a pocket rule from my schooldays. Can't remember all the scales on it offhand, but it was and still is very capable. I used it a few months back to check values obtained by a load cell. I could have calculated each result to see if it fitted a straight line, or I could have created an Excel chart but why bother when I could just set up my rule and instantly read off readings to any multiple with a glance. I think I bought it from Boots the Chemist and serves to show that you don't need a sledgehammer to crack an egg (unless I've boiled it). Too easy to throw computing power at a problem rather than be efficient.

Blake's 7 was repeated on one of the Freeview channels a couple of years back. Couldn't wait for Series 4 and Soolin...... It really did have terrible scenery and effects but as a kid it made it easy to create your own "authentic" props. An Antex/Weller iron and an old cowboy holster made an excellent gun and the Liberator could be made from a few kitchen roll tubes and ping-pong balls. Being close to an abandoned brickworks with the odd mine shaft meant realistic alien landscapes too for any BBC Sci-Fi. Daleks could always be defeated by either running up a hill or jumping over rocks. Cybermen were a bit more difficult to defeat though, but if you lured them into a scrapyard the electromagnet usually rounded them up (old abandoned crane on broken cat tracks). Can't really see kids of today running around such landscapes with nothing but imagination.

Regards

I was involved in automating the calculations of intercept points, kill probablilities and launch windows for the HAWK anti-aircraft missile system. Data came from multiple radars and the missile/luancher. The Data Take Off as we called it (discrete A/D and D/A converters) filled a whole 19 inch rack. The ADP (the actual processor) another rack with plug-in cards. Initially, the memory was 8k of 24 bit + a parity bit on ring core mats.
A few years later the memory was doubled to 16k and we were in heaven! All assembly of course, and I remember counting memory locations on different versions of routines to make sure we kept to the absolute minimum to make best use of what we had.
This must have been early 80-ies.

Jan

Hi

By chance I picked up the current edition of Hackspace magazine and in it there is an advert for a book entitled "The Computers that made Britain - The home computer revolution of the 1980's". Sounds an interesting read.

Also in the issue was an article on interfacing the Amstrad CPC, something I have reasonable experience in doing. I think the author omitted a LOT of necessary information or perhaps he knows far more than I ever did in getting these machines to interface. He states that he had no need for actual address decoding as he only needed one address therefore has his device straight on the data bus, but I don't read anything about tri-state buffers or the like or any way to signal when the data bus would contain his expected data

Getting back to my TRS-80, I figured that an easy way to identify my monitor problem would be to take the computer video out and connect to a TV via whatever. I could have and should have just bought a Composite to HDMI adapter, but instead chose to make up connections using an existing DIN - Phono connector. Eventually I know have a 5-pin DIN to Phono connector carrying the composite video signal. It will go into a SCART socket (remember them?) on the back of a DVD player linked to a TV via a HDMI lead. Not over complicated at all........ Next is to get the machine out of the loft.

Regards

PS
I'm going to try and use AI to write a program for the TRS-80 if I get it working

To some comments made re: Codey is too primitive to be taken seriously:
I am reminded of the comment made by someone important after he witnessed an early telegraph demo in NY city somewhere around the 1900's.
Said he: 'nice trick, but it'll never replace messenger boys'. Yeah.

I agree with Martin that the gist of 'programming' is to be able to clearly define the problem and logically define processes that solve it. The actual language is secondary, although often important for the most efficient implementation.

My programming experience has a 30 year layer of dust on it. I have worked on automating air defence missile systems (assembly), written device drivers for SideWinder mass storage casette tape drives (remember those?) in assembly and Pascal, and simulating military hardware on Data General 20 inch x 20 inch single board computers (remember those, too?) in a language called CMS-2. I must have punched millions of holes on IBM card punchers. Because of my situation FC is perfect, lets me do my thing without worrying about all the bits and pieces, literally. It's when I have to go under the hood as with the ESP32 toolchain, that I get frustrated.

Jan

Hi Jan

What a very interesting career. I'd love to hear more but you

a) probably aren't allowed to tell us
or
b) need to kill me afterwards

I'm reminded of the movie "Space Cowboys" and hope that you don't get called out of retirement too with a need for an urgent fix

Last night I entered the dreaded loft..... Bravely fighting off the spiders etc I returned with the original boxes the machine came in. Excitement wasn't so much building but ready to explode. It felt like when I originally took delivery way back in 1980.

TRS-80 plus PSU and leads - check
Green Screen Monitor - check
Cassette deck - aargh
Software - bigger aargh

I can't as yet find the deck nor any software. There is still a chance that it is somewhere but my excitement was somewhat tempered. I can easily connect any cassette deck to include the auto start/stop of the motor, but having no original software to hand is disappointing.

I'm still looking forward to getting it working as I am so looking forward to again writing some BASIC code on it.

10 Print "<insert name of disliked person> is an idiot"
20 Goto 10

I wholeheartedly agree with everything said in the previous posts about programming.

Regards

Hi Chipfryer,

I can't as yet find the deck nor any software.

Might be worth a look here https://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/archive-search/

Bob