Of course, this is a bit of a problem for people like me, who are too
young for an IMSAI, never mind a PDP8
>I've used - and repaired - a lot of embedded control systems using
>machines like the PDP11, PDP8, Data General Nova, etc. These machines
>work as well today as they did 25 years ago when they were made, they
>still do the same job running the same software. There is simply no
>reason to replace a reliable, documented solution with a modern
>undocumented one.
>
It's not quite the same. All PC components are third-party and thus
there is no guarantee it will work quite right. Are the
well-documented IBM PC, XT, and AT machines better in this sense?
Since you have the manuals, you could probably build your own MDA
card!
>Contrast that to the modern PC. If it fails, you swap boards until it
>works again, never really knowing that you've found the fault. And you
>don't know that the new video card (say) won't behave slightly
>differently to the old one. Seen it happen far to often to want to
depend
>on such a machine.
>
>Problem is, I'm an electronic engineer. So I tend to use computers -
>including old ones - to help with that work. And I'm not afraid of
taking
>a soldering iron to them.
>
>Case in point. 10 minutes ago I needed to examine the contents of a ROM
>chip - an obscure old ROM chip - from a word processing system I'm
>repairing. I've got a special card in an old IBM XT that'll do that.
Not
>hardware hacking per se, though - just a homemade tool to help with my
work.
>
>> >>I'd like to hear stories about how this technology can be applied
to a
>> >>job and does it well. The general slant of the article is to be
>> >>positive, but if anyone has any good stories about failures which
>> >>occurred because you can't do EVERYTHING with older technology.
>
>That is _very_ uncommon. A lot of old machines are in embedded control
>systems, which have been running the same program since they were made.
>They don't stop running it properly just because a new machine has come
>on the market...
>
>And anyway, CPU speed is often needed (for mainstream applications)
only
>to support the user interface. I personally have formatted and printed
a
>200 page manual using TeX/LaTeX on a 386 PC. A 286 would probably have
>done it just as well. TeX may not be user friendly for the new user,
but
>it certainly is friendly to the experienced user who wants a text
>formatter that doesn't get in the way.
>
>
>> >>
>> >>mailto:billakent_at_hotmail.com
>
>-tony
>
>
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Received on Fri Jul 24 1998 - 18:01:40 BST