TV Typewriter Cookbook

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_freegate.com>
Date: Sun Dec 20 22:14:42 1998

(I wrote)
>> A "bare bones" VGA card costs $9.95, If you can find a CGA card they are
>less.

At 03:21 AM 12/21/98 +0000, Tony wrote:
>Yes, but you have to add in the cost of the monitor. Remember a TVT used
>a TV set (which you probably already owned).

Attach said RF modulator to the CGA output and you've got your $11.00 TVT.

>Later used by Sinclair on the ZX80, I believe (using a Z80)

Yes, best example to date. Gotta love that "too speed up operation of your
program turn off the video" note.

>> Yes, witness the BASIC Stamp, the Phoenix, etc.
>
>I thought the Stamp executed some kind of pseudocode, and that there was
>a PC-based compiler that translated your BASIC program into this
>pseudocode and downloaded it to the Stamp.

True, the 8052's tokenizer would probably be the best bet here.

>> Olivetti did it in 1988, there may have been others.
>
>To make a word processor without a CPU in 1988 is downright perverse.
>With chips like the Z80 costing a couple of dollars, even then, it would
>have cost a lot more to use random logic. Why on earth did they do that?

At the time Xerox's MemoryWriter was the machine to own. The Ollivetti
stored basically key strokes in pre-assigned buffers (address, user1,
user2, etc) and then you could put "key codes" in your document as it was
entered. When you hit "replay" the key codes basically injected the
keycodes from the apropriate buffer. I think it had 4K of RAM for storing
your document.

--Chuck
Received on Sun Dec 20 1998 - 22:14:42 GMT