[Xastir] The ultimate editor...

[Curt, WE7U]

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009, Richard Polivka, N6NKO wrote:

> Altair 8080. Having to write the bootstrap loader in 32 bytes (may be wrong 
> on that length) to set the serial port, initialize the disk controller and 
> where to start loading the bios, that had to be hacked on for your system. Of 
> course both had to fit in one track on a 8" floppy.

I started out w/o hard drives, w/o floppies, w/o tape drives.
Programs disappeared if you shut off the computer.  Input was 8
toggle switches (one byte wide) and a pushbutton, plus a few mode
switches.  Put it in load mode, start flipping toggles in binary and
then push the pushbutton.  Make a mistake, start over.

The entire memory was 256 bytes.

Output was two LED hexadecimal displays.

I still have it somewhere.  I should frame it.  Or let my kids try
it.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo dot com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
   Lotto:  A tax on people who are bad at math. - unknown
Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates. - WE7U.
The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"