The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘History’ Category

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Borland’s legendary development tools…

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/12/12

From [WayBack] Borland’s legendary development tools Do you remember Turbo Languages from Borland? There are Pascal, C, Assembler, Basic, Prolog and many other produc… – Jaroslav Beran – Google+:

Borland’s legendary development tools

Do you remember Turbo Languages from Borland? There are Pascal, C, Assembler, Basic, Prolog and many other products. Here there is link to directory containing original documentation of many these products:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/borland/

Did you work with some of them? Which one was your favorite?

[WayBack] Bitsavers Index of /pdf/borland:

[ICO] Name Last modified Size Description
[DIR] Ads/ 2011-09-01 20:47 –
[ ] BRIEF_for_DOS_and_OS2_Version_3.1_Users_Guide_1992.pdf 2009-06-30 22:57 8.9M
[ ] Borland_Brochure_1987.pdf 2009-11-05 02:18 2.1M
[ ] Borland_Turbo_BASIC_Owners_Handbook_1987.pdf 2009-07-30 05:33 15M
[ ] Eureka_The_Solver_Owners_Handbook_1987.pdf 2011-03-20 23:56 8.5M
[ ] Superkey_Owners_Handbook_1986.pdf 2011-02-04 02:01 7.1M
[ ] Turbo_Languages_Brochure_1988.pdf 2011-01-25 04:26 4.0M
[ ] Turbo_Vision_Version_2.0_Programming_Guide_1992.pdf 2010-06-18 19:07 25M
[ ] Windows_API_Guide_Reference_Volume_1_1991.pdf 2009-07-01 03:16 28M
[ ] Windows_API_Guide_Reference_Volume_2_1991.pdf 2009-07-01 03:16 8.7M
[ ] Windows_API_Guide_Reference_Volume_3_1992.pdf 2009-07-01 03:17 24M
[DIR] borland_C++/ 2013-01-17 00:07 –
[DIR] objectvision/ 2011-06-06 23:47 –
[DIR] paradox/ 2011-06-06 23:43 –
[DIR] quatro/ 2014-12-11 03:04 –
[DIR] quatro_pro/ 2011-06-06 23:47 –
[DIR] reflex/ 2011-06-06 23:37 –
[DIR] sidekick/ 2011-06-06 23:38 –
[DIR] sprint/ 2011-06-06 23:42 –
[DIR] turbo_assembler/ 2013-01-17 00:07 –
[DIR] turbo_c/ 2011-06-06 23:37 –
[DIR] turbo_pascal/ 2011-09-01 19:23 –
[DIR] turbo_prolog/ 2011-06-06 23:43 –

Via: [WayBack] Borland’s legendary development tools Do you remember Turbo Languages from Borland? There are Pascal, C, Assembler, Basic, Prolog and many other produc… – Adrian Marius Popa – Google+

–jeroen

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Posted in Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Leave a Comment »

Delphi ^A syntax: Documented, implied, or undocumented? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/12/12

The syntax is documented. In the Turbo Pasal 3 documentation, i.e. the Z80 era.

Source my answer to [WayBack] Delphi ^A syntax: Documented, implied, or undocumented? – Stack Overflow (I have added some WayBack Internet Archive links below) as it is from the Turbo Pascal era where the caret was introduced to support control characters:

This is from long ago as an escape character to enable you to have consts for control characters in a more readable way.
const
  CtrlC = ^C;
begin
  Write(Ord(CtrlC));
end.

This defines a Char constant with value #3, then writes 3 in Borland Pascal 7, and I remember seeing it years before that too.

I just checked the Turbo Pascal 5.0 and Borland Pascal 7.0 languages guides, but could not find it, so it seems undocumented.

Edit: I do remember this was a Borland thing, and just [WayBack] checked: it is not part of the ISO Pascal standard (formerly this was ANSI Pascal Standard, thanks Sertac for noticing this).

It [WayBack] is documented in the Free Pascal documentation [WayBack].

SGI uses the backslash as escape character, as per their docs [WayBack].

More Edit: I found it [WayBack] documented in Delphi in a Nutshell and the [WayBack] Delphi Basics site.

Found it: Just found it on page 37 of the Turbo Pascal 3 Reference Manual [WayBack].

(Marco van de Voort found the Free Pascal documentation)

It in fact originates in the 1984 Turbo Pascal 1 edition, as per the [WayBack] Turbo_Pascal_Reference_Manual_Feb84.pdf:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Development, FreePascal, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, Z80 | 1 Comment »

Blast from the past: dial-up modem sounds

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/12/02

Because fewer and fewer people have used them in real life: this is how geeks communicated even before the internet era.

Below a series of videos with modem sounds. One as recent?! as 2008 when dial-up was still possible in many places. Now it’s a not just a thing from the past, but an area where mankind learned a lot about signal processing, for which the knowledge is still in use today.

  1. [Wayback/Archive] The Sound of dial-up Internet with dial tones and initial training sequences
  2. [Wayback/Archive] ALL Old Modem Sounds (300 baud to 56K) demonstrating how a Conexant V.92 based soft-modem could create most modem standard used in North America (Bell 103, V.22(bis), V.32(bis), V.34, V.90, and V.92), corresponding to 300 bps, 2400 bps, 14.4K, 33.6K, and 56K.
  3. [Wayback/Archive] Dial Up Modem Handshake Sound – Spectrogram which is a preamble to [Wayback/Archive] absorptions: The sound of the dialup, pictured.
  4. [Wayback/Archive] Sound of the dialup modem explained

Related blog posts:

Edit 20250318 added [Wayback/Archive] Dial Up Modem Sounds: Telebit Trailblazer Packetized Ensemble Protocol (PEP) – YouTube plus Wayback/Archive links where appropriate.

--jeroen

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Posted in dial-up modems, History, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Sony STR-DE205 Receiver – storing FM stations into memory

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/09/27

Somehow I misplaced the manuals of my Sony STR-DE205 receiver, including the Operating Instructions.

Sony still makes receivers

I did find [WayBack] Sony STR-DE205 – Manual – AM/FM Stereo Receiver – HiFi Engine which has a Service Manual. It has no operating instructions though.

Luckily, the STR-DE205 is very similar to the Sony STR-DE305, which I found using sony str de205 filetype:pdf operating instructions and having an Operating Instructions copy at [WayBack] pdf.crse.com/manuals/3810995221.pdf.

In fact, all the pictures in that manual look remarkably similar to the STR-DE205, except for one: the remote control:

It has one extra button POWER, which the STR-DE205 lacks, which likely means the STR-DE305 can be powered on remotely (like my trusty Sony MHC-3000 mini set that is slightly older).

Anyway, programming is easy as long as you know you need to press one of the NUMERIC BUTTONS in step 5:

  1. Press TUNER.
    The last received station is tuned in.
  2. Tune in the station you want.
    If you are not familiar with how to tune in a station, see “Receiving Broadcasts” on the previous page.
  3. Press MEMORY.
    “MEMORY” appears for a few seconds.
    Do steps 4 and 5 before “MEMORY” goes out.
  4. Press SHIFT to select a character (A, B or C).
    Each time you press SHIFT, the letter “A”, “B” or “C” appears in the display.
    If “MEMORY” disappears, start again from step 3.
  5. While MEMORY is displayed, press the number you want to use (0 to 9).
  6. Repeat Steps 2 to 5 to preset other stations.

Getting the text out of the PDF was a bit of a pain, as even though it renders, DRM tried to prohibit copying.

Luckily there is a pdftohtml with a -nodrm feature in Poppler (software) – Wikipedia (unlike the Xpdf – Wikipedia it forked from that does not have this switch) which I got based on these links:

Some more images are below after some Sony STR-DE205 videos.

–jeroen

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Posted in Hardware, History, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Kornelia Esser : Traueranzeige

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/09/24

For my memory; I hope to contemplate more about this later. But right now, with 10 medically related appointments in 2 weeks time, my head is too full.

Today I found out that earlier this year, one of my parents really good friends has passed away earlier this year: [WayBack/Archive.is] Kornelia Esser : Traueranzeige : Super Sonntag / Super Mittwoch.

Kornelia Esser

Text:

Der Tod kann auch freundlich kommen zu Menschen, die alt sind,
deren Hände nicht mehr festhalten wollen,
deren Augen müde wurden,
deren Stimme nur noch sagt:
„Es ist genug. nas Leben war schön.”

Kornelia Esser
* 28. August 1930    † 30. Juni 2019

Wenn ihr an mich denkt, seid nicht traurig, erzählt lieber von mir und traut euch ruhig
zu lachen.
Lasst einen Platz zwischen euch, in eurer Mitte, so, wie ich ihn im Leben hatte.

Du bleibst immer in unseren Herzen
Ernst und Sibille Esser
Anita und Achim Halkour
mit Arne und Pia
Uschi und Jürgen Ulrichs
mit Lisa und Lars
Norbert und Beate Esser
mit Lukas und Jana
sowie alle Verwandten

Kondolenzanschrift:
Kornelia Esser c/o Markus Forg Bestattungen, Roermonder Straße 24, 41812 Erkelenz

Die Exequien finden am Montag, dem 8. Juli 2019, um 14.30 Uhr in der Kirche St. Stephanus zu
Golkrath statt. Anschließend erfolgt die Beerdigung von der Kirche aus.
Von Kranz- und Blumenspenden sowie Trauerkleidung bitten wir abzusehen
Sollte jemand aus Versehen keine persönliche Anzeige erhalten haben, so diene diese als solche.

She was leading the household (kitchen, cleaning and medical departments) of the [WayBack] Collegium Josephinum – Konvikt Bad Münstereifel and a special person to us: see my below German Twitter thread.

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Posted in About, History, Personal | Leave a Comment »

Turbo Pascal 7 compatible compiler for 8051 microcontrollers…

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/08/21

I had seen this before, but was glad about the reminder to put it in my blog: [WayBack] OMG, there is Turbo Pascal 7 compatible compiler for 8051 microcontrollers! http://turbo51.com – Primož Gabrijelčič – Google+:

[WayBack] turbo51.com: Full-featured free Pascal compiler for 8051 microcontrollers, Borland Turbo Pascal 7 syntax, multi-pass optimizer, generates bin, hex, OMF-51 and asm source.

Program Turbo51;
 
Uses FastCompiler, AdvancedOptimizations, SmartLinker, AseemblerFileGenerator;
 
//  Turbo51 is released as freeware. You can download it and use it for FREE.
//  However, if you like Turbo51 you can donate some small amount via PayPal.
//  Donations are a great way to show your appreciation for my software.
 
begin
  DownloadFrom ('http://turbo51.com/download-free-pascal-compiler-8051');
  InstallAndConfigure;
  Repeat
    CreateProject;
    CompileProject;
    TestProject;
    While ThereIsAProblem do
    begin
      CheckCode;
      CheckDocumentation;
      TryAgain;
      Case ProblemSolved of
        True: Break;
        else  AskForHelp;
      end;
    end;
    If InstalledVersion < '0.1.3.17' then Update;
    If Satisfied then Donate ($20);
  until NoMoreProjects;
end.
a

–jeroen

Posted in Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Leave a Comment »

Applesauce – Make exact images of copy-protected Apple II floppy disks | Hacker News

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/07/08

I might want to try and buy one of these: [WayBack] Applesauce – Make exact images of copy-protected Apple II floppy disks | Hacker News.

A truckload of information is at [WayBack] Applesauce – The ReActiveMicro Apple II Wiki

It is still being updated: [WayBack] applesauce – Apple II Floppy Drive Controller

Via [WayBack] This week, in 6502-related hardware, the Applesauce: a Disk II imaging kit for your Apple II disks. Thanks to the minimal nature of Woz’ disk interface,… – mos6502 – Google+

Related: [WayBack] Confessions of a Disk Cracker: The Secrets of 4am | Hacker News

Videos below the fold…

–jeroen

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Posted in //e, 6502, Apple, History, Power User | Leave a Comment »

As true today as it was when the book was written. “The psychology of computer programming” by @JerryWeinberg, 1971.

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/07/02

@ingorammer on Twitter [WayBack] a while back:

As true today as it was when the book was written. “The psychology of computer programming” by @JerryWeinberg, 1971:

Specifications evolve together with programs and programmers. Writing a programis a process of learning – both for the programmer and the person who commissions the program. Morover, this learning takes place in the context of a particular machine, a particular programming language, a particular programmer or programming team in a particular working environment, and a particular set of historical events that determine not just the form of the code but also what the code does!

Links:

–jeroen

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Posted in Development, Fun, History, Quotes, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Grandparents on my mothers side

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/06/29

This is so long ago, at an age so young, I barely had a recollection:

Of the names below, a few passed away too: Sander died when he was very young, Mats 20 years ago, and Frits 15 years ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in History, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Insentricity :: Kermit on the JAIR 8080 ::

Posted by jpluimers on 2019/05/22

Cool: [WayBack] Insentricity :: Kermit on the JAIR 8080 ::

Repository: [WayBack] FozzTexx/Kermit-CPM: Columbia University’s Kermit for CP/M

–jeroen

Posted in Assembly Language, Development, History, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

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