Richard Engebretson wrote:
> On Nov 30, 1:41 am, scott moore <nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Richard Engebretson wrote:
>>> On Nov 28, 3:07 am, scott moore <nos...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>>
{***********************************************************************
>>>> *
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>>>> * THE STANDARD PASCAL WEB PAGE
*
>>>> *
*
>>>> * http://www.standardpascal.org
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>>>> *
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>>>>
{**********************************************************************}
>>> Excellent. Thank you, Scott.
>>> I don't have anything to add, but your CDC info rings bells. CDC was
>>> based here in Minnesota. I remember Otto Schmitt giving a lecture
>>> pu****ng "microcomputers" and how people at home could use one for
>>> varied tasks. He got no thanks from the "big iron" guys.
>>> Thanks,
>>> Rick.
>> Yea, those things are toys. It's just a passing fad....
>>
>> Actually my favorite "what if" would have been if DEC had woken up and
>> and put the PDP-11 forward as the first 16 bit single chip processor
>> in the late 70s (yes, there was a chip LSI-11, but that was three
chips,
>> complex and microprogrammed), and really pu****ng it as an embedded
>> processor with good software sup****t. They would have laid waste to the
>> market and changed history utterly, instead of taking a 10 year ride to
>> oblivion.
>>
>> Scott Moore
>
> As a Biophysics student I got around. The Chemistry lab where I worked
> had a PDP-11 and I tried hard to learn to use it. Chem students were
> building 8080 controls. Otto's EE lab had computers going back to tube
> days (talk about refrigeration) and a PDP-4 and 8. Otto also had the
> Altair.
>
> Every system had it's good side and bad. The PDP systems were starting
> Unix and data processing. The PDP key, IMHO, was the card bus. The
> Altair was a pre-built 8080 with a pretty video. The genius of the PC
> blended these experiments.
>
> I'm now learning AVR microcontrollers. Funny how little has changed.
> Vastly improved electronics, but the same concepts are still there.
> There is still a need for readable, maintainable programming. Thanks
> for helping anchor Pascal.
> Rick.
Thanks. You might also check out my soft core 8080 on opencores.org.
This is the future for microcontrollers, with FPGAs so big and cheap,
you just park a soft core microprocessor in the corner and Voila, a
microcontroller with 200-400 I/O pins and all the onboard peripherals
you care to download.
Scott Moore
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