[GreenKeys] OT: old computers 'n stuff

[tony.podrasky]

GM OMs;

Here's a picture of one of my last "shacks" while I
lived at home (my parent's house). Circa 1976

 From left-to-right:

o 28-KSR
o TV used as a video display / R-388 / Data General Nova 1200 
mini-computer / ST-6 / SELCALS
o Drake MN-4 / T-4XB / Galaxy R-530 G.C. rcvr / ASCII keyboard

Other than Irv Hoff, I don't recall anyone else having a computer.
The Nova 1200 cost me $5,000.oo - which today would be around $50K,
or my salary for a year back then.  :-)

The Nova 1200 was a 16-bit machine with 4K of core memory. Yes,
4,000 double bytes - but writing in machine code, I was EASILY
able to fit the whole program in memory.

The clock was running at 10MHz. So much for listening to WWV... :-)

It had 2 I/O boards (16" X 16"): one for ASCII (to talk to it) and
one I modified for ITA#2 (Amateur Radio). To save/load programs, I
had to write my own handler that would send the ASCII data to a
cassette tape drive that I connected to the ST-6 AFSK output. Then,
when I wanted to load a program, I'd put the cassette on the ST-6's
audio input and play the program into the computer.

Sure had a lot of fun on the autostart channel on 14.075MHz.

UE,
K2EAA - TONY
NNNN
ZCZC

On 04/23/2017 10:47 PM, Gil Smith wrote:
> Hey Josh:
>
> I'm going to copy greenkeys on this, as there may be old-computer fans
> out there who find it interesting.
>

-- 
REAL PROGRAMMERS don't draw flowcharts.
Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's
form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts.
Look how much good it did them.
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