On Friday 15 November 2013 13:52:40 Mark Lawrence did opine:
> On 15/11/2013 16:36, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Friday 15 November 2013 11:28:19 Joel Goldstick did opine:
> >> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Robin Becker <ro...@reportlab.com>
> >
> > wrote:
> >>> ...........
> >>>
> >>>>> became popular.
> >>>>
> >>>> Really? you cried and laughed over 7 vs. 8 bits? That's lovely
> >>>> (?). ;). That eighth bit sure was less confusing than codepoint
> >>>> translations
> >>>
> >>> no we had 6 bits in 60 bit words as I recall; extracting the nth
> >>> character involved division by 6; smart people did tricks with
> >>> inverted multiplications etc etc :(
> >>> --
> >>
> >> Cool, someone here is older than me! I came in with the 8080, and I
> >> remember split octal, but sixes are something I missed out on.
> >
> > Ok, if you are feeling old & decrepit, hows this for a birthday:
> > 10/04/34, I came into micro computers about RCA 1802 time. Wrote a
> > program for the 1802 without an assembler, for tape editing in '78 at
> > KRCR-TV in Redding CA, that was still in use in '94, but never really
> > wrote assembly code until the 6809 was out in the Radio Shack Color
> > Computers. os9 on the coco's was the best teacher about the unix way
> > of doing things there ever was. So I tell folks these days that I am
> > 39, with 40 years experience at being 39. ;-)
> >
> >>> Robin Becker
> >
> > Cheers, Gene
>
> I also used the RCA 1802, but did you use the Ferranti F100L? Rationale
> for the use of both, mid/late 70s they were the only processors of their
> respective type with military approvals.
>
> Can't remember how we coded on the F100L, but the 1802 work was done on
> the Texas Instruments Silent 700, copying from one cassette tape to
> another. Set the controls wrong when copying and whoops, you've just
> overwritten the work you've just done. We could have had a decent
> development environment but it was on a UK MOD cost plus project, so the
> more inefficiently you worked, the more profit your employer made.
BTDT but in 1959-60 era. Testing the ullage pressure regulators for the
early birds, including some that gave John Glenn his first ride or 2. I
don't recall the brand of paper tape recorders, but they used 12at7's &
12au7's by the grocery sack full. One or more got noisy & me being the
budding C.E.T. that I now am, of course ran down the bad ones and requested
new ones. But you had to turn in the old ones, which Stellardyne Labs
simply recycled back to you the next time you needed a few. Hopeless
management IMO, but thats cost plus for you.
At 10k$ a truckload for helium back then, each test lost about $3k worth of
helium because the recycle catcher tank was so thin walled. And the 6
stage cardox re-compressor was so leaky, occasionally blowing up a pipe out
of the last stage that put about 7800 lbs back in the monel tanks.
I considered that a huge waste compared to the cost of a 12au7, then about
$1.35, and raised hell, so I got fired. They simply did not care that a
perfectly good regulator was being abused to death when it took 10 or more
test runs to get one good recording for the certification. At those
operating pressures, the valve faces erode just like the seats in your
shower faucets do in 20 years. Ten such runs and you may as well bin it,
but they didn't.
I am amazed that as many of those birds worked as did. Of course if it
wasn't manned, they didn't talk about the roman candles on the launch pads.
I heard one story that they had to regrade one pads real estate at
Vandenburg & start all over, seems some ID10T had left the cable to the
explosive bolts hanging on the cable tower. Ooops, and theres no off
switch in many of those once the umbilical has been dropped.
Cheers, Gene
--
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Tehee quod she, and clapte the wyndow to.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer
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