Subj : Re: A Modern Day PDP-11 Front End
To   : Richard Menedetter
From : Miken
Date : Mon May 01 2017 05:35:00

Hello Richard,

 RM> You know that you can boot CP/M on the Altair and use a serial console to
 RM> interact with it, and high level languages to program it?

I guess... that's just my prejudice with the Altair. It could have been quite
an interesting machine. Somehow what I knew about it... was the simple fact
it does not have a keyboard. And that's where my bias started. I will give a
bit more unbiased visit to the machine in the future.

 RM> I found it really interesting to dive into the details of the computer.
 RM> And it was cool how well the hex keyboard and 6 7-segment display work to
 RM> control the minimal computer.

.... Even the Hex keyboard itself feels very interesting... respect to the
sleeping branches of computers evolution. I guess it doesn't really mean the
branches were unusable or somehow else bad. Just we're in branches that I
guess had more marketing etc. Just because there was more software for given
system and it spread to more people is in my hones opinion enough to keep it
alive.

Somehow I wonder whether I could ever comprehend the punch cards. Someone
once explained to me the whole process. And the possibility of errors and
need to rewrite the whole program in one mistake... But what interest me most
in connection to current systems... was the resources sharing thing. I
somehow feel that current BBSes have something from it. Just one of it is
like Mainframe decades ago (in the terms of computing resources). I mean... I
really like the Universities approach when You have one supercomputer divided
between several different scientists and they have to agree on when it's
their part in the machine time.

Without doubt it makes them better people... at least.

Best regards

Miken

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