On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Jason Willgruber wrote:
> I've been growing up in the age of "IBM era" of computers. The only non-IBM
> (compatible) computers that I've worked on was an apple //c and a TRS-80
> model III that nearly caught my basement on fire. I'm 16 years old, so I
> haven't had any experience with any pre 1980's stuff (other than the //c).
The //c is hardly pre-80s. It was born almost the same year you were!
> What I'm wondering, is what exactly is a PDP, or a VAX, or an Altair, or any
> of the other things that come up frequently on the list. Also - how is one
> of the computers (such as the Altair) operated, with all the switches and
> indicators? Is there a keyboard or a monitor with it?
You could add a keyboard and monitor to it. Or a dumb terminal over a
serial port. Older computers like the PDPs and Vaxen normally had dumb
terminals as their standard form of input/output.
The switches are there for actually programming the machines in binary or
octal. You flip the switches in the binary pattern of ones and zeroes,
and then uie another switch to "deposit" the value on the switches into a
memory address. The LEDs output a binary pattern. You must know how to
read binary (and convert it to decimal perhaps, or something more
symbolic) to understand what the meaning is. The numbers displayed on the
LEDs in binary are the machine's actual code. The ones and zeroes make
up numbers that represent operations in the processor, or values contained
inside accumulators and registers.
You need to start looking for older computer texts from the 60s and 70s to
better understand what computers were like before you came along.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Fri Mar 12 1999 - 20:08:27 GMT