From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Q6gC5-0007CI-Hj for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:35:33 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 399DB1C026; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 09:34:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtpq1.tb.mail.iss.as9143.net (smtpq1.tb.mail.iss.as9143.net [212.54.42.164]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DAEA81C026 for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 09:34:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [212.54.42.136] (helo=smtp5.tb.mail.iss.as9143.net) by smtpq1.tb.mail.iss.as9143.net with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q6gAh-0001QQ-Bj for gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org; Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:34:07 +0200 Received: from 5353c7ed.cm-6-4d.dynamic.ziggo.nl ([83.83.199.237] helo=data.antarean.org) by smtp5.tb.mail.iss.as9143.net with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q6gAg-0001p4-FY for gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org; Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:34:06 +0200 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by data.antarean.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 17197241E for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:35:42 +0200 (CEST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at antarean.org Received: from data.antarean.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (data.antarean.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id zXLyUpEXdq3W for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:35:40 +0200 (CEST) Received: from shell.localnet (shell.antarean.org [10.20.13.8]) by data.antarean.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0F1F1085 for ; Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:35:40 +0200 (CEST) From: Joost Roeleveld To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: OT: Computers-memory-lane.... [Was: [gentoo-user] Re: How low can you go?] Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:35:40 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.34-xen-r4_shell; KDE/4.4.5; x86_64; ; ) References: <201104041104.09393.joost@antarean.org> In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201104041135.40126.joost@antarean.org> X-ZiggoSMTP-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-ZiggoSMTP-MailScanner-ID: 1Q6gAg-0001p4-FY X-ZiggoSMTP-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-ZiggoSMTP-MailScanner-SpamCheck: geen spam, SpamAssassin (niet cached, score=0.472, vereist 5, BAYES_05 -0.50, RDNS_DYNAMIC 0.98, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD -0.01) X-ZiggoSMTP-MailScanner-From: joost@antarean.org X-Spam-Status: No X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: 136db75f3067616abf139d4b91a5b293 On Monday 04 April 2011 11:13:58 Pandu Poluan wrote: > On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 16:04, Joost Roeleveld wrote: > > On Sunday 03 April 2011 15:13:09 luis jure wrote: > >> on 2011-04-03 at 10:47 Neil Bothwick wrote: > >> >It's been done on a C-64, but I think a 3.5KB box with no mass storage > >> >might be a little too challenging. > >> > >> 3.5? wow, i always thought that the name meant it had 20K... like the > >> C64 and C128. but no. now, almost 30 years later, i learn that it had > >> 5K, 1.5 of them used by the system (you wouldn't want to leave the > >> system without ram, would you?) > >> > >> i never had a vic-20 (my first computer was the atari st-1040 in 1988), > >> but a friend of mine had one in the early 80's and i always wondered at > >> all the things you could do with the thing. i couldn't program, so i > >> used to sit next by him telling him my ideas for a program for > >> algorithmic composition, that he tried to code. > > > > Nice, a walk down memory lane :) > > The first computer we had at home (apart from an IBM my dad borrowed a > > few times) was an Atari 1040 ST. > > We got it in 1986 and I can't even remember all the things I did with it. > > It came with a copy of GFA Basic. This was a bit like C or Pascal, but > > then with Basic commands. > > No line numbers, a decent editor and a compiler and linker. I could mix > > machine-code, basic-code and C-code into a final program to get a faster > > result. > > > > The machine still worked last time I tried it and is currently still > > stored at my parents with strict instructions not to throw it away :) > > Oh, the nostalgy... :-) > > My first computer I believe was an Apple ][, a hand-down from an > uncle. It ran only for 1-2 weeks before it went to the Bit Bucket in > the Sky. That's sad, only 2 weeks... A friend of my dad got us an apple-emulator, had a game I played a lot untill I found out that the game was incomplete and would always crash at the same point. It was a point-click adventure... > Then my parents got me an Atari 800XL. That's where I cut my > programming teeth with its built-in BASIC. Yes, the old days with Basic. I wonder if I still have the old programs... The 3.5" floppy-disks are still around somewhere.. > When its floppy drive (5.25") gave up the ghost, I got another > hand-down; a PC-XT compatible no-name with a huge (at that time) 20 MB > hard disk. 2nd one we had was a 386sx-16mhz with 2 mb ram and 40mb harddrive. I did try to install linux on that once, but the network-install took forever. The NIC could do 10mbit half-duples (coax), but effective speed was less. Symptoms: download 1KB at full speed card crashed driver resets after 5 minutes ... repeat... That was in 2.0.x kernels and I think I saw a change-log where that driver finally got fixed in 2.6.0 (could be mistaken on that. It was an Intel Etherlink-16) I don't have that card anymore. > Again, it died after serving me & my brother for a couple of years, > and we got a "PC Brand 486 SLC" desktop. And there I dabbled in Pascal > and ASM, making replacement drivers for MS-DOS :-P ... I still > remember tuning QEMM386.sys trying to eke the last bytes of Low > Memory... What's the most low-memory you could get it and still use it? I managed to get low memory to around 634KB (If I remember correctly) using the memory-tools that came with Norton Utilities at the time. > Afterwards, I started university, and its a blur of PC clones (and > Windows 9x)... and I shifted mental-gears to become a network engineer When did you switch to Linux? I switched when MS Windows 95 crashed once too many and decided to delete some files along with it. I didn't bother fixing that installation and eventually reclaimed the diskspace and removed it from /etc/lilo.conf. -- Joost