computoman

Thinking back oh so many years ago when the internet was not universal yet and everyone used dial-up bulletin board systems to communicate with. There was a lot of messaging as there is today. When it came to file transfer, that was another story. At that time, the only way to download a binary file was to download a file full of hex data. The hex data ascii file was then converted to the binary file. There was no error checking so that if you have line noise and extraneous data  was captured, you usually had to recapture the file. Not fun especially with large files and slow download speeds. Eventually. There was a file transfer technique known as xmodem that would allow portions (known as packets) of the file to be downloaded and checked for integrity till the full file was downloaded.   But there laid a small problem, My commercial terminal program for the commodore 64 did not support xmodem.  Knew how to program the hardware to get get and send data, so then ...

Computers are getting smaller and smaller. We use them to solve problems, but you still have to give them instructions to do what you want. Computer languages are a way to give the computer the instructions you want it to use.  The first computer I ever used was at college. Then they did not even have a computer major. Mostly you majored in math. The first computer was large and bulky. We used punch cards to get computer code into the machine. In fact, we used a language call Fortran (Formula translation) which was the forerunner of a more recent language called Basic (Beginner’s all purpose instruction code).  Fortran is still actually around and you can still use it. On Linux it is sometimes called gfortran. Basic has evolved into so many variations that are too many to mention though you may have heard of VB.net. Personally I prefer Quickbasic variations for my non-gui systems. The next computer I used in the professional world was the Datapoint Terminal i...

Like to thank the late great Jim Butterfield for getting me into assembly language programming for the 6502/6510 so many years ago. So lucky to be able to have taken a class in person with him and others who wanted to learn. Most of which I have forgotten, except for the techniques. That was a time when Commodore gave out information about their machines. They were open source before open source was ever coined as a term. You could get documentation about the c=64 by the truckload.  Think I had most of the Compute books and many of the magazines available at the time. My brother first had me interested in the Vic 20 and eventually the Commodore 64. To be able to use a monitor and a keyboard was awesome compared to the punch cards we had to use on an old IBM 360 model 40 to learn Fortran in college. Anyway, some things have never changed. Companies want to prevent you from using your equipment to the fullest. A company that is no longer around made a third party modem that exceede...

  Years ago, back in the late 1980′s I taught two short stints in the state prison system for a nearby college. One summer I was to teach basic computer programming on the Commodore 64 computer for a summer semester. By today’s standards, the C=64 as it is commonly known as is an obsolete relic. Actually back then, they were on the way out also. The semester went along fairly smoothly and I was beginning to enjoy the semester. The inmates were fairly sociable and behaved well. That probably would not be so true now. As you could not get me back in there for any amount of money. Anyway, one day a student accidentally locked up the computer because the program he wrote when he ran it failed in some way. The student/inmate became very agitated and upset because he declared he had lost all his work. Of course fear tends to multiply and the whole class started in the same mode of hysteria. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable and nervous. I went over to the students...

Computers are getting smaller and smaller. We use them to solve problems, but you still have to give them instructions to do what you want. Computer languages are a way to give the computer the instructions you want it to use.  The first computer I ever used was at college. Then they did not even have a computer major. Mostly you majored in math. The first computer was large and bulky. We used punch cards to get computer code into the machine. In fact, we used a language call Fortran (Formula translation) which was the forerunner of a more recent language called Basic (Beginner's all purpose instruction code).  Fortran is still actually around and you can still use it. On Linux it is sometimes called gfortran. Basic has evolved into so many variations that are too many to mention though you may have heard of VB.net. Personally I prefer Quickbasic variations for my non-gui systems. The next computer I used in the Professional world was the Datapoint Terminal in the days o...