Research Machines Link 480Z

From: Paul Williams <flo_at_rdel.co.uk>
Date: Sun Mar 19 04:35:23 2000

Peter Pachla wrote:
>
> We had a 380Z at school too. We got it around 1977/78 and it was a
> cassette based system running an early version of COS (Cassette
> Operating System) - the floppy disc and CP/M options weren't quite
> available then.

I don't believe my school was that early, though COS rings a bell, so
presumably that entire bootrom including Front Panel was called COS,
even though we actually justed booted 31K (and later, 56K!) builds of
CP/M. Our machines had twin disks. Later on, we bought two 480Zs (in
black, to match) and a Memotech MTX512.

At first, two maths teachers were conscripted into teaching 'O' level
Computer Studies, which involved talking about core memory and learning
BASIC. I first saw some core memory about three weeks ago when a
colleague pulled some out of a cupboard, 20 years after I first heard
about it. Perhaps it's time for another trip to the Science Museum.

My school only taught Computer Studies for four years, because teaching
about computers was quickly displaced by learning about computers in
other subjects. Oddly enough, they were most enthusiastically employed
by the History department, because one of the teachers was involved in
the development of an archaeology program called DIG.

> Hours of fun programming in BASIC and CECIL

CESIL, Computer Education in Schools Instructional Language. CESIL was
hilarious. We had an interpreter for it, written in BASIC so that it ran
many times more slowly than BASIC, despite looking like assembler, with
instructions like JIZERO. I was straight back to BASIC or machine code
(entered in the Front Panel) at lunchtimes.

> ....best of all was the front
> panel, we had no assembler until the CP/M systems (finally) arrived
> in 1981 so it was the only way we had of playing with machine code
> (amazing how quickly you learn those hex codes when you have to).

Absolutely. Our assembler only took 8080 mnemonics, so I continued using
the Front Panel and DATA statements in BASIC.
Received on Sun Mar 19 2000 - 04:35:23 GMT