Missing Magazine?

"JG" wrote in message
news:3130303033313930430A14AA11@crescentcomputing. co.uk...
"Roger Hamlett" said

"Ronald Alpiar" wrote in message

Hi Andy Clews,

Yes it is indeed I - and thanks for your gracious compliment.

Goodness me - how home computers have transmogrified since
those heady days of Acorn's BBC, Commodore and Sinclair!
Don't forget the TRS-80!... :-)

Better yet - The NASCOM !
I remember helping someone build one of those. God you are straining the
'grey matter' back in time here!. You are of course talking about the
'Nascom-1', since there have been latter versions of this. :-)
What is worrying though is that we have processors now that would 'run
rings' round this kit, memory sizes that would make you cry in those days,
yet many things still seem to take just as long to do, and often seem to
be a lot harder to do!...
People wrote programs then to perform tasks, and not show off how many
more bits of MS automation they could include...
Some of the graphic stuff now is superb, but for general 'utility', much
of this stuff was suprisingly good. The modern PC has a lot in common with
many of the modern mobile phones, where it takes a manual the size of a
telephone directory to tell you how to do things, and so many keypresses,
that it'd actually be easier and quicker, just to remember the numbers and
type them in.

Best Wishes

"Roger Hamlett" said
"JG" wrote in message
Better yet - The NASCOM !
I remember helping someone build one of those. God you are straining the
'grey matter' back in time here!. You are of course talking about the
'Nascom-1', since there have been latter versions of this. :-)

Actually I bought my Nascom 2 on June 1st 1980. I bought the manual to
look at and see whether I could manage a self-build in early May and
after about an hour decided that "not in a month of Sundays"! So I got
the retailer to provide me with a ready built unit.

What is worrying though is that we have processors now that would 'run
rings' round this kit, memory sizes that would make you cry in those days,
yet many things still seem to take just as long to do, and often seem to
be a lot harder to do!...

The Z80 (4Mhz) processor was £9.95 and, as the fellow who built it told
me, it had more power than the Computer he started on in 1970 where the
building to house it cost a quarter of a million.

People wrote programs then to perform tasks, and not show off how many
more bits of MS automation they could include...

I bought mine to run the stock control in my D.I.Y. shop where I had
some 12,000 items. I wrote the programs myself (having no previous
knowledge of BASIC) using a tape recorder as the storage. It wasn't
until Christmas 1980 that I could get a disc drive. This was a twin
floppy unit with 160k per disc, costing £750, and no operating system -
I had to program access by reference to the track and sector to go to.
My then Bank Manager was so impressed with what I could tell him about
the state of my little business that he became a good friend and
customer and remains to this day.

Some of the graphic stuff now is superb, but for general 'utility', much
of this stuff was suprisingly good.

Bringing us back to Astronomy - it was impossible to think then that one
day we would have programs like 'Stary Night' or 'Celestia'.

JG

JG wrote:
"Roger Hamlett" said


"Ronald Alpiar" wrote in message


Hi Andy Clews,

Yes it is indeed I - and thanks for your gracious compliment.

Goodness me - how home computers have transmogrified since
those heady days of Acorn's BBC, Commodore and Sinclair!

Don't forget the TRS-80!... :-)


Better yet - The NASCOM !

JG
I built myself a NASCOM 1, all those components in little bags!

After I'd built the NASCOM a friend and me designed and built one of
our own also Z80 based, ours was just as elegant as the NASCOM in that
it didn't have a case just a couple of circuit boards and a keyboard
connected with a ribbon cable. :O)

Back then I understood exactly how these computers worked and was
fluent in machine language for Z80 and 6502 processors. These days
they're just tools, like a pen or a calculator and I do all my coding
in C, C# & VB.net.

--
Regards

Nick

This thread seems to have gone off message!

"Ronald Alpiar" wrote in message
.. .
This thread seems to have gone off message!
Actually I think is as gone into a 'time warp', which is probably what has
happened to the magazine as well!...

Best Wishes

I subscribed too. I paid for a monthly magazine and have not had it.
No one has contacted me to tell me that anything has happened to
prevent publication. The website is still soliciting subscription
payments. I don't much care what it has 'evolved' into. I have copied
this to them and will tell you the result (IF ANY!)

What is going on?

Roger

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 07:49:18 +0000 (UTC), Andy Clews
wrote:

Thus spake Ronald Alpiar unto the assembled multitudes:
Hi Andy Clews,

Yes it is indeed I - and thanks for your gracious compliment.

Goodness me - how home computers have transmogrified since
those heady days of Acorn's BBC, Commodore and Sinclair!

I thought the BBC Model B was a brilliant machine in its day. Had some
great fun programming with that. Happy days... :-)

Nice keys.

Personally, I was in the elite NewBrain club. The AD model I'll have
you know...

http://www.hobby.nl/~newbrain-gg/


--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk
Recent images http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/recent/recent_images.html
** Last update June 24 2005 **

In article , Pete Lawrence wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 07:49:18 +0000 (UTC), Andy Clews
wrote:

Thus spake Ronald Alpiar unto the assembled multitudes:
Hi Andy Clews,

Yes it is indeed I - and thanks for your gracious compliment.

Goodness me - how home computers have transmogrified since
those heady days of Acorn's BBC, Commodore and Sinclair!

I thought the BBC Model B was a brilliant machine in its day. Had some
great fun programming with that. Happy days... :-)

Nice keys.

Personally, I was in the elite NewBrain club. The AD model I'll have
you know...

smug look Got one of those as well :-)

Jim
--
Find me at http://www.ursaMinorBeta.co.uk
"There's no 'I' in team, but there is a 'me' if you jumble
the letters up a bit." - Dr. House.

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:13:58 +0100, Jim
wrote:

In article , Pete Lawrence wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 07:49:18 +0000 (UTC), Andy Clews
wrote:

Thus spake Ronald Alpiar unto the assembled multitudes:
Hi Andy Clews,

Yes it is indeed I - and thanks for your gracious compliment.

Goodness me - how home computers have transmogrified since
those heady days of Acorn's BBC, Commodore and Sinclair!

I thought the BBC Model B was a brilliant machine in its day. Had some
great fun programming with that. Happy days... :-)

Nice keys.

Personally, I was in the elite NewBrain club. The AD model I'll have
you know...

smug look Got one of those as well :-)

Does yours still work? I've just read about the start up problems of
old NewBrains and see that there's now a fix available.

I bought mine with most of one terms grant money at university. I
lived off Double-Deckers for most of the term Wow - remember
Double-Deckers ;-)

--
Pete
http://www.digitalsky.org.uk
Recent images http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/recent/recent_images.html
** Last update June 24 2005 **

In article , Pete Lawrence wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:13:58 +0100, Jim
wrote:

Personally, I was in the elite NewBrain club. The AD model I'll have
you know...

smug look Got one of those as well :-)

Does yours still work? I've just read about the start up problems of
old NewBrains and see that there's now a fix available.


It's a bit iffy, at least it was the last time I tried it. Seemed to
need about 10 mins to warm up, then it was ok.

I bought mine with most of one terms grant money at university. I
lived off Double-Deckers for most of the term Wow - remember
Double-Deckers ;-)


grinDo they still exist? I loved them.

Jim
--
Find me at http://www.ursaMinorBeta.co.uk
"There's no 'I' in team, but there is a 'me' if you jumble
the letters up a bit." - Dr. House.