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Old August 29th 04, 02:00 AM
jim
 
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Frank Gilliland wrote:

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:30:50 GMT, jim wrote
in :


Leland C. Scott wrote:

"Twistedhed" wrote in message
...


Do or can you write and design software programs?


I did for class projects when I was working on my computer science degree.
The biggest program was an integrated DOS utility for reading disk
parameters, viewing the raw sector data, showing what disk clusters were
used by any file on the disk, and finally a disk defragmentation function.
The program featured pop-up overlapping menus, hot keys, and mouse control.
It was written in C++ and took me about 2-1/2 months to write working on it
around 15 to 20 hours per week, design - test - debugging. And after all
that it was specifically written for a 720K floppy disk so the professor
could test it without killing his hard drive in case of bugs. All that was
for a project for a class I took in operating systems. I think mine was the
only one that worked and also handled subdirectories too. Even the 20+
something year old class computer geek wiz, and the professor's pet student
no less, couldn't do it. I got the "look" from him in the hallway one day at
the start of the next semester.

I haven't really gotten in to doing Windows programming, it's event driven
verses procedural coded. That's a totally different animal. Windows
programming is a real pain, and complex if you really want to take full
advantage of the system. For simple programs that don't need a lot of fancy
wiz-bang features Visual Basic is a good choice to use. The other choices
are Visual C++, C#, or Java. The last three are object orientated languages.
That could be a big chuck to bite off and learn for somebody who hasn't done
any programming at all.

I've also done some Intel assembly language programming - 8080 and X86, and
VAX-11 assembly too. Assembly language programming is to computers like
Morse Code is to Ham Radio. Now that I think about it the first computer I
had was a Radio Shack TRS-80 with16K of memory. The first assembly language
program I wrote, in Z80 assembly, was to translate text on the screen into
Morse Code by keying the relay contact used to control the record/play-back
function of the cassette recorder used for program storage.


jeez leland you are showing your age i fixed the hardware problems
associated with the 8080 processor on several military related programs.
hell we used uv ovens to clear the memories of chips.
the simulators the air force used drum drive technology and if the sims
were having a problem we took out an alan key and physically moved the
read/write heads until it worked. the damn drum drives were used in
grumman a6 aircraft also. hehehe looking back its a wonder that stuff
actually worked.




Do you remember "bubble memory"?



vaguely. never dealt with it professionally.

  #16   Report Post  
Old August 29th 04, 05:52 AM
Leland C. Scott
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"jim" wrote in message
t...
Leland C. Scott wrote:
"Twistedhed" wrote in message
...

Do or can you write and design software programs?



I did for class projects when I was working on my computer science

degree.
The biggest program was an integrated DOS utility for reading disk
parameters, viewing the raw sector data, showing what disk clusters were
used by any file on the disk, and finally a disk defragmentation

function.
The program featured pop-up overlapping menus, hot keys, and mouse

control.
It was written in C++ and took me about 2-1/2 months to write working on

it
around 15 to 20 hours per week, design - test - debugging. And after all
that it was specifically written for a 720K floppy disk so the professor
could test it without killing his hard drive in case of bugs. All that

was
for a project for a class I took in operating systems. I think mine was

the
only one that worked and also handled subdirectories too. Even the 20+
something year old class computer geek wiz, and the professor's pet

student
no less, couldn't do it. I got the "look" from him in the hallway one

day at
the start of the next semester.

I haven't really gotten in to doing Windows programming, it's event

driven
verses procedural coded. That's a totally different animal. Windows
programming is a real pain, and complex if you really want to take full
advantage of the system. For simple programs that don't need a lot of

fancy
wiz-bang features Visual Basic is a good choice to use. The other

choices
are Visual C++, C#, or Java. The last three are object orientated

languages.
That could be a big chuck to bite off and learn for somebody who hasn't

done
any programming at all.

I've also done some Intel assembly language programming - 8080 and X86,

and
VAX-11 assembly too. Assembly language programming is to computers like
Morse Code is to Ham Radio. Now that I think about it the first computer

I
had was a Radio Shack TRS-80 with16K of memory. The first assembly

language
program I wrote, in Z80 assembly, was to translate text on the screen

into
Morse Code by keying the relay contact used to control the

record/play-back
function of the cassette recorder used for program storage.

jeez leland you are showing your age i fixed the hardware problems
associated with the 8080 processor on several military related programs.
hell we used uv ovens to clear the memories of chips.
the simulators the air force used drum drive technology and if the sims
were having a problem we took out an alan key and physically moved the
read/write heads until it worked. the damn drum drives were used in
grumman a6 aircraft also. hehehe looking back its a wonder that stuff
actually worked.


Yeah, it does show my age all right. I remember doing my FORTRAN programs on
IBM key-punch machines when I was going to school for my EE degree in the
mid to late 70's. Those were the "good old days" not.


--
Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

Wireless Network
Mobile computing
on the go brought
to you by Micro$oft


  #17   Report Post  
Old August 29th 04, 06:06 AM
Leland C. Scott
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Frank Gilliland" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 20:30:50 GMT, jim wrote
in :

Leland C. Scott wrote:
"Twistedhed" wrote in message
...

Do or can you write and design software programs?


I did for class projects when I was working on my computer science

degree.
The biggest program was an integrated DOS utility for reading disk
parameters, viewing the raw sector data, showing what disk clusters

were
used by any file on the disk, and finally a disk defragmentation

function.
The program featured pop-up overlapping menus, hot keys, and mouse

control.
It was written in C++ and took me about 2-1/2 months to write working

on it
around 15 to 20 hours per week, design - test - debugging. And after

all
that it was specifically written for a 720K floppy disk so the

professor
could test it without killing his hard drive in case of bugs. All that

was
for a project for a class I took in operating systems. I think mine was

the
only one that worked and also handled subdirectories too. Even the 20+
something year old class computer geek wiz, and the professor's pet

student
no less, couldn't do it. I got the "look" from him in the hallway one

day at
the start of the next semester.

I haven't really gotten in to doing Windows programming, it's event

driven
verses procedural coded. That's a totally different animal. Windows
programming is a real pain, and complex if you really want to take full
advantage of the system. For simple programs that don't need a lot of

fancy
wiz-bang features Visual Basic is a good choice to use. The other

choices
are Visual C++, C#, or Java. The last three are object orientated

languages.
That could be a big chuck to bite off and learn for somebody who hasn't

done
any programming at all.

I've also done some Intel assembly language programming - 8080 and X86,

and
VAX-11 assembly too. Assembly language programming is to computers like
Morse Code is to Ham Radio. Now that I think about it the first

computer I
had was a Radio Shack TRS-80 with16K of memory. The first assembly

language
program I wrote, in Z80 assembly, was to translate text on the screen

into
Morse Code by keying the relay contact used to control the

record/play-back
function of the cassette recorder used for program storage.

jeez leland you are showing your age i fixed the hardware problems
associated with the 8080 processor on several military related programs.
hell we used uv ovens to clear the memories of chips.
the simulators the air force used drum drive technology and if the sims
were having a problem we took out an alan key and physically moved the
read/write heads until it worked. the damn drum drives were used in
grumman a6 aircraft also. hehehe looking back its a wonder that stuff
actually worked.



Do you remember "bubble memory"?


Sure do Frank, and all the hoopla about it becoming the next best thing in
memory storage. I've even run across some magnetic core memory cards. A
customer I visited, of the company I work for, had some they needed to get
repaired because they used it in an old minicomputer controlling some of the
equipment in the plant. I saw them in their electronics shop waiting to get
sent out to the computer manufacturer. The cores where about the sign of a
pin head, and the core select, and sense wires, had to be 40 gage, like hair
thin size. I think the core planes had to be hand built because of the tiny
size of the cores and the wire used. The memory cycle times from what one of
my books say was around 1 microsecond. And these were used in the mainframes
of the day. Compare that to present day memory chips!
--
Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

Wireless Network
Mobile computing
on the go brought
to you by Micro$oft


  #18   Report Post  
Old August 29th 04, 06:20 AM
Leland C. Scott
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"Frank Gilliland" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 14:16:56 -0400, "Leland C. Scott"
wrote in :


"Twistedhed" wrote in message
...
Do or can you write and design software programs?


I did for class projects when I was working on my computer science

degree.
The biggest program was an integrated DOS utility for reading disk
parameters, viewing the raw sector data, showing what disk clusters were
used by any file on the disk, and finally a disk defragmentation

function.
The program featured pop-up overlapping menus, hot keys, and mouse

control.
It was written in C++ and took me about 2-1/2 months to write working on

it
around 15 to 20 hours per week, design - test - debugging. And after all
that it was specifically written for a 720K floppy disk so the professor
could test it without killing his hard drive in case of bugs. All that

was
for a project for a class I took in operating systems. I think mine was

the
only one that worked and also handled subdirectories too. Even the 20+
something year old class computer geek wiz, and the professor's pet

student
no less, couldn't do it. I got the "look" from him in the hallway one day

at
the start of the next semester.



2-1/2 months? You should have learned disk access functions on a
COCO-II -- your program would have been up and running in about three
days. IOW, it's much easier if you bypass the BIOS calls and access
the disk directly.


I didn't use any OS calls at all. The only BIOS functions I used were direct
calls to read/write absolute disk sectors. Everything else I had to write
from scratch. As simple as the DOS file system was there was still a lot to
handle. What made thing more interesting was all I had to work with was a
Windows 98 machine. That made thing more complicated because Windows always
wanted to create long file names which messed things up a bit when you
format a disk. I had to put extra routines in to the code to filter that
crap out so when the disk was defragmented I had wiped all the Windows file
system extensions out, thus generating a valid DOS disk.



I haven't really gotten in to doing Windows programming, it's event

driven
verses procedural coded. That's a totally different animal. Windows
programming is a real pain, and complex if you really want to take full
advantage of the system. For simple programs that don't need a lot of

fancy
wiz-bang features Visual Basic is a good choice to use. The other choices
are Visual C++, C#, or Java. The last three are object orientated

languages.
That could be a big chuck to bite off and learn for somebody who hasn't

done
any programming at all.



I'll agree, Windoze sucks for programming. The libraries required for
even simple programs, while easier to understand than DOS, are far
more extensive than the DOS interrupt list, direct hardware control is
almost impossible, and the OS overhead sucks up most of the processing
power.


No kidding!

I've also done some Intel assembly language programming - 8080 and X86,

and
VAX-11 assembly too. Assembly language programming is to computers like
Morse Code is to Ham Radio. Now that I think about it the first computer

I
had was a Radio Shack TRS-80 with16K of memory. The first assembly

language
program I wrote, in Z80 assembly, was to translate text on the screen

into
Morse Code by keying the relay contact used to control the

record/play-back
function of the cassette recorder used for program storage.



You might have enjoyed playing with a TI-990 I scrapped a couple
months ago.


Those were rather unique if I remember right they used a 16 bit micro at the
time. They even had an expansion box for add ons too.

--
Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

Wireless Network
Mobile computing
on the go brought
to you by Micro$oft


  #19   Report Post  
Old August 29th 04, 06:22 AM
Leland C. Scott
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"WA3MOJ" wrote in message
...
In article , I Am Not

George
says...

(Twistedhed) wrote in message
...
Do or can you write and design software programs?


have him fix your webtv so it quotes correctly LOL

can he fix my satellite tv i don't want to miss anymore liza minelli


Get cable TV. 8-)) And a cable modem too.


--
Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

Wireless Network
Mobile computing
on the go brought
to you by Micro$oft


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