Human folly for 02020-06-20

older newer index

• C8Tech10 (devernay.free.fr):

  Chip-8 was a simple hexadecimal programming language or #virtual-machine for 1970s home computers, with 36 instructions, with sprites and beeps. #retrocomputing

• DECUS (so-much-stuff.com):

  DECUS #software files, including things like POLY BASIC for the #PDP-8, and a SIMH script to load it. I think the Subversion repository is cloneable. #retrocomputing

• Pdp8 (highgate.comm.sfu.ca):

  Highgate's #PDP-8 page, last updated 2003, including selected #software. #retrocomputing

• DECUS catalog PDP 8 aug78 (bitsavers.org):

  #PDF catalog of DECUS #software, mostly for the #PDP-8. #retrocomputing

• Query all (pdp8online.com):

  A list of #PDP-8 #software and documents. #retrocomputing

• Functional restore (pdp8.net):

  David Gesswein restored a “straight 8” DTL #PDP-8, serial number 184, to working order, sometime before 2012. #retrocomputing

• PDP 8 transistor count (retrocomputing.stackexchange.com):

  The “straight 8” DTL #PDP-8 only contained 1409 transistors, but 10148 diodes, 5615 resistors, and 1674 capacitors. Warren Young describes the PDP-8's memory model as “complicated”; Douglas Jones explains the “diode-capacitor-diode” gates used. #retrocomputing

• CARDIAC (cs.drexel.edu):

  "CARDIAC" is a simple decimal von Neumann #virtual-machine, designed in 1969 for teaching about computers, with 100 memory locations. Unfortunately, indexing requires self-modifying code.

• VM instructions (github.com):

  Jeremiah Orians’s "Knight" #virtual-machine (really a forgotten minicomputer design from the 01970s) is a couple of orders more complex than simple virtual machines like Chifir, the Cult of the Bound Variable, or Wirth’s RISC. #bootstrapping

• Wiki (tangentsoft.com):

  Warren Young, who I guess wrote the PiDP-8/I emulator, documents the somewhat hairy #PDP-8 memory model. #retrocomputing #emulation

• Forth (lennartb.home.xs4all.nl):

  Lennart Benschop defined, implemented, and GPLed the "SOD32" two-stack machine, similar to #MISC processors like the MuP21, and wrote a #Forth for it, in 1994.

• Opcodes (github.com):

  "Idel" is Darius Bacon’s secure #Forth #virtual-machine from 1997–2003; “a RISC approach to memory protection”. No native-code JIT (yet!).

• RISC arch (people.inf.ethz.ch):

  #Wirth designed a very simple CPU for #Oberon (etc.) he calls just “RISC”, though it's not the Berkeley RISC. So I keep calling it the #Wirth-RISC. #hardware #PDF #smallisbeautiful

• RISC (people.inf.ethz.ch):

  #Wirth’s CPU #hardware "Wirth RISC" explained at some more length. #PDF #smallisbeautiful

• Common (csun.edu):

  Common sources for exotic #materials supplies in the USA.