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The first user guide Turing's manual for the manchester Mk1 computer
The first user guide Whilst idly surfing I stumbled across the first programmers handbook, written by Alan Turing for the Manchester Ferranti Mk1 and Mk2 computers. It's interesting to read about these early digital computers and how things have evolved over the decades since. It seems that the manchester Mk1 had 80Kb of "magnetic" storage and an astonishing 2.5Kb of "electronic" capacity (presumably comparable to RAM). The manchester computer also had a "hooter" used to alert the user when some part of it had broken down. Seasoned hackers may also wish to consult the "programming principles" and hints sections. - Bob http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/rst/turing/turing/turing.html | motters 136 posts. Monday 29 July, 15:02 Reply
Great find! I've just finished Andrew Hodges' excellent biography of Turing so this might make for an interesting appendix. | Rob Saunders 47 posts. Tuesday 30 July, 05:05 Reply
i got a BBC Those must have been real cool comps at those days. Btw, I have an antique too...but better than ur Mks. Its a BBC...32Kb Ram, no HDD! Had Basic, Logo, and some word processor in it....I heard that the comp can be loaded with other programs too...some chip has to be fitted in. | Rinku Dewri 17 posts. Wednesday 31 July, 08:28 Reply
BBC micros Oh yes, I learned most of my programming skills on a BBC micro model B in the 1980s. In the early 1980s the number of games you could buy for such a computer you could count on one hand, so I would often type in games from magazines. Computer games are now massive projects, and the idea of someone being able to type in the code for a game in half an hour seems absurd. On the BBC micro programs were usually loaded from magnetic audio tape, which was very slow and frequently unreliable. If you were lucky you could afford to buy a 5.25" floppy disk drive which had about a 360Kb capacity (which was massive compared to the computer's 32Kb memory). There were also sockets inside the computer for EPROM expansions of various sorts. Even the humble mouse which we all now take for granted was a major novelty on a BBC computer. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Wednesday 31 July, 13:27 Reply
days of old I remember spending hours typing in some game from a magazine into my Sharp MZ-80k (remember them?). Just as I got to the last few lines or so, there was a powercut... argh! My first taste of computers was a Research Machines 380Z. Here's a link: http://www.zoo.co.uk/~z0001275/rm380z.htm Check out the specs on that baby! | fup 51 posts. Wednesday 31 July, 20:50 Reply
Alas poor Oric... Seeing as we're reminiscing... My first computer was an Oric-1 - it had a great Yamaha sound chip for its day (the same one used in the Atari ST) that made them a great way for a 9 year old to annoy clueless computer sales staff with a little surreptitious hacking. ;-) Soon after I upgraded to the Oric Atmos that came with a massive 48k memory and the truly wonderful innovation of a compact mechanical keyboard. The Oric computers also had the most amazing little plotter that I've ever used - it was fantastic! Although I didn't have the same amount of choice in games of my friends with Sinclair Spectrums I wouldn't have swapped my Oric for one of those more popular computers because I had so much fun learning to program the graphics, sound and plotter. (OK... maybe I'd have swapped it for a BBC Model B - Bob you were a lucky young hacker! :-) | Rob Saunders 47 posts. Wednesday 31 July, 21:25 Reply
Great Link Rob Ah sweet nostalgia. Remember this? http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=181 I can remember going down the local electrical dept every saturday morning so I (along wih a pile of other geeky kids) could annoy the hell out of the sales assistants by playing with all these really expensive computers. The Osborne1 looked like something out of a Bond movie. | fup 51 posts. Thursday 01 August, 01:36 Reply
Z80 programming Preceding probably all of those the first computer I ever had was a Sinclair ZX80. It was little more than a slab of plastic with a microchip embedded into it. My dad actually bought it thinking that he might be able to do his company accounts on it, but quickly found it to be totally useless. I used it a little, and managed to type in a few BASIC programs from the user manual, including one called "nibble the cheese". I eventually sold it to an electronics enthusiast friend in the late 1980s, but I wish I'd hung onto it now because I'm sure it would be a collectors item. Plenty of ZX81s were made, but hardly any ZX80s. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Thursday 01 August, 02:38 Reply
Window for BBC Programming on BBC reminds me of one the greatest efforts I put into it...guess for what? I tried to write Window 1.0 (mind you there's no 's') for the BBC. It was during my early days when I was learning Windows, but was quite unhappy with the fact that there's no such GUI for the BBC. So,why not write it urself. Well, what I ended up with is not a GUI, but more of a collection of programs operable from a master program. I used PRINT TAB a lot. And it even had a clock...it works, but u need to insert the time while starting it. Those were such nice days!!! Will share more of my BBC escapades someday. | Rinku Dewri 17 posts. Friday 02 August, 07:38 Reply
Pre-windoze I wrote a similar graphical interface, based on the GEM desktop, using the AMX mouse. I did a little wordprocessor, database and graph plotting program, and would use it for writing school essays. - Bob | motters 136 posts. Saturday 03 August, 04:04 Reply