Re: [Hampshire] Whatever happened to programming? (O.T?)

[Roger Munford]

Ian Park wrote:
> Lisi wrote:
>   
>> On Sunday 21 March 2010 21:16:30 Chris. Aubrey-Smith wrote:
>> 
>>>  Rather making a
>>> plea for a return to the principle of simplicity, which I was taught was
>>> the essence of good programming.
>>>   
>> We had to keep it taut and simple - we had so little memory available.   
>> Elegance wasn't purely for elegance's sake: it was a necessity!!
>>
>> Lisi
>>
>> 
> 
> How about a telephone switching system (PABX) supporting 120 extensions
> + 24 exchange lines, with the complete control program consisting of
> 128KB of code running on an 8085 - the OS (which I looked after) was 6KB
> of hand-crafted assembly language code...
> 
>
> Ian
>   
128KB! You were lucky

When I was a lad we were so poor we couldn't afford them fancy UARTs to 
go with our 2 Mhz Z80s so we had to make our own using a spare bit on a 
LS378 latch for output and a spare LS244 driver bit for input. Course we 
couldn't afford fancy things like counters and interrupt controllers 
either so we had to make do with counting machine cycles and adding NOPs 
so that every possible execution path was exactly the length of one 
serial bit.

And you try and tell the young people of today that . they won't 
believe you.

This was immensely satisfying to get going especially because it meant 
that I was able to remove huge chips from the PCB layout which meant 
pulling off yards of blue and red sticky tape from the photo mask and 
reduce the size of the power supply. Each subsequent Z80 card that we 
produced had a connector for a terminal which we used for testing the 
hardware. It would have been nice to say that the company saved millions 
but, sadly, it was a micro company and the savings were in the order of 
a few thousand but appreciated all the same.

However it does illustrate a certain sadness of a life in technology. 
Any really good idea that you have will always be eventually binned and 
no trace will be left. I have a friend who is a 3rd generation builder 
in a small Dorset town. He designs and builds really attractive 
buildings and walking through town you can see examples of his, his 
father's and his grandfather's work all still much admired and enjoyed. 
However elegant a piece of code you may write it will one day be deleted.

These days, more often than not, a programmer spends his/her time 
pulling together various modules to achieve something and when there is 
an obscure problem with one of these modules - generally , instead of 
looking through the code you have to search the net or spend time on the 
telephone trying to get technical help to take you seriously because you 
are the first person in the world to have this bug and it is hard to 
recreate. You spend your time figuring out how the modules are likely to 
work to try and come up with a work around to avoid the circumstances 
that cause the problem.

It is not as much as fun as it used to be.

Roger









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Re: [Hampshire] Whatever happened to programming? (O.T?)

[robert.beattie]

Amiga 2000 with 1MB ram, connected to a Maspro satellite receiver - which was 
connected to a Maspro dish positioner.

Code written to control the channel on the receiver, and thus the satellite the 
dish was pointing at.
You stacked up the date and time and which channel you wanted the receiver to 
switch to; plus lots of other goodies.
Written in 68000 assembler using Devpac and assembled to 5KB. 
Done because the language dept at the college suddenly wanted German news at 
6pm on a Sunday, meaning we couldn't tape (Yep I'm that old!) Star Trek from 
Sky One.  :)



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Camera Development Systems, Series 30/40,
Nokia Southwood, UK
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Re: [Hampshire] Whatever happened to programming? (O.T?)

[Ian Park]

Lisi wrote:
> On Sunday 21 March 2010 21:16:30 Chris. Aubrey-Smith wrote:
>>  Rather making a
>> plea for a return to the principle of simplicity, which I was taught was
>> the essence of good programming.
> 
> We had to keep it taut and simple - we had so little memory available.   
> Elegance wasn't purely for elegance's sake: it was a necessity!!
> 
> Lisi
> 

How about a telephone switching system (PABX) supporting 120 extensions
+ 24 exchange lines, with the complete control program consisting of
128KB of code running on an 8085 - the OS (which I looked after) was 6KB
of hand-crafted assembly language code...


Ian
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17 Pyle Hill
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 7JJ
Tel: +44 (0)1635 821420
email: i.d.c.p...@ntlworld.com
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Re: [Hampshire] Whatever happened to programming? (O.T?)

[Lisi]

On Sunday 21 March 2010 21:16:30 Chris. Aubrey-Smith wrote:
>  Rather making a
> plea for a return to the principle of simplicity, which I was taught was
> the essence of good programming.

We had to keep it taut and simple - we had so little memory available.   
Elegance wasn't purely for elegance's sake: it was a necessity!!

Lisi

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Re: [Hampshire] Whatever happened to programming? (O.T?)

[Chris. Aubrey-Smith]

  Developers:  Simpler "Hello
World" Demonstrated In
C
on
Tuesday March 16, @10:03PM
Posted by kdawson  on Tuesday March 16, @10:03PM
from the non-obfuscated dept.
  programming 
 An anonymous reader writes *"Wondering where all that bloat comes from,
causing even the classic 'Hello
world'
to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so
simple , she could explain
every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when
you don't ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler 'Hello
world,' using no libraries at
all.
This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!"*

Not wishing to be controversial (he lied) my recent tinkering with Version 7
have led me back to K&R C (which Hugo once informed me should be a capital
offence.) Worse, I've been playing with M$ C for DOS, which will surely
ensure that I am destined for the fires of hell for all eternity. (Possibly
mitigated by the fact that M$ bought it in from elsewhere)

I was also taught that long-lived code tends to become encrusted with
barnacles, which have to be scraped off from time to time.

My point? Is there anyone else out there who yearns for the simplicity of
those days? Or am I alone in wallowing in nostalgNo! Rather making a
plea for a return to the principle of simplicity, which I was taught was the
essence of good programming.


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