Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/20
1983 Apple IIe ad (thanks Apple2History.org) click to enlarge
Some of you might remember that Apple ][ plus and Apple IIe was part of my early programming days.
I vividly remember the Vlasveld Computers shop in Leiden (back then at Morsweg 21 in Leiden), then ran by Aad Vlasveld as one of the first Apple dealers in The Netherlands. Back then I barely could afford floppy disks, but a few months ago I was able to buy the hardware we used at high school.
Well, I bought an Apple IIe from (from a private person as ClassicComputerShop.eu failed to react in time), so here are some links to stuff I’ve used: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in //e, About, Apple, Apple ][, BitSavers.org, History, Personal, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/19
Almost a year ago, a thread on “premature Delphi optimization” came by on G+ about this code:
procedure ExchangeInteger(var AValue1, AValue2: Integer);
begin
AValue1 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
AValue2 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
AValue1 := AValue1 xor AValue2;
end;
I don’t think that was premature optimization, just some code from an old fart that had already been programming in the era where processors had reasons to use it:
Back then, the only efficient way to exchange two variables of the same data type was using the XOR swap algorithm.
Nowadays you have more options, and this is where the fun in that thread began, which I will show in a minute.
First a bit of history
The XOR swap algorithm was widely known in the 80s of last century and before, especially because the 6502 processor (oh the days of LISA Assembler) was vastly popular, as was the Z80. Together, they powered the majority of the home computers in the 70s and 80s.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 7 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/20
Bitsavers published 2 new Logitech PDFs:
Who didn’t have a Logitech mouse back then?
I had the C7, various MouseMans, and a few more modern mice. Why not all mice? I developed RSI in the DOS era, ending up with TrackPoints and more recently Apple touchpads)
I remember the Logimouse C7, not because it was from Logitech, but because it was available from so may OEMs. Long before Logitech built OEM mice for Apple, they were founded in Apples, Swizerland.
The cool thing: the Programmers Toolkit had examples in Modula-2. I used that as a base to write quite some Turbo Pascal code for mouse handing.
Oh: Bitsavers does have a Logitech Modula-2 PDF online too for quite some time. I mentioned that in More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988.
–jeroen
via: Bitsavers’ Index of /pdf/logitech.
Posted in BitSavers.org, Development, History, Pascal, Power User, RSI, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Tagged: c7, cornucopia, logitech mouse, modula 2 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/17
2 more issues got on-line both close to a 100 pages each:
So the only issues missing are #28, #30 and #31.
–jeroen
via: More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988 « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.
Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, Turbo Prolog, x86 | Tagged: Media, technology | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/10
Just found out that the kind people at BitSavers added some scanned USCD Pascal documentation in PDF format:
It reminds me of my early Pascal days on Apple ][. UCSD Pascal was so slow that I was glad to discover Turbo Pascal 1.0, which lacked some of the UCSD Pascal features (for instance cross platform – including Mac, almost 30 years ago! – and Turtle graphics), but was blazingly fast.
Trade offs indeed (:
–jeroen
Posted in BitSavers.org, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, UCSD Pascal | 10 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/16
Nobody but very wealthy research institutions could afford CRAY machines.
They were the computing workhorse of their time. Now your smartphone is faster (:
BitSavers just added a bunch of CRAY documentation of the 1980s and early 1990s.
–jeroen
Posted in BitSavers.org, History, Power User | Tagged: cray documentation, cray machines, technology | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/04/08
Last quarter, 11 issues of Micro Cornucopia appeared on BitSavers including the final May 1990 issue.
This month, another 7 issues appeared, most of which cover a form of Pascal in one or more of the articles and advertisements:
A fun thing to notice are the advertisements for Modula-2. Logitech Modula-2. Yes though the Logitech Wikipedia page does not mention it at all, Logitech didn’t only sell mice, keyboards and web-cams. They had more products. Being Swiss, they were big in Modula-2. And Bitsavers has a PDF of that too: Logitech_Modula-2_86_1.0_Feb84.pdf
The only issues still to be scanned are #28 till #32.
–jeroen
via: New Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers including the Final May 1990 issue « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.
Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Pascal, x86 | Tagged: computer, Media, research, science, technology | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/02/20
Right now, documentation on Delphi Conditional Defines is on pages like Conditional compilation (Delphi) – RAD Studio XE2, but it is limited as it is for one specific version of Delphi only.
However, over the course of Delphi versions, compiler platforms and bitness, and not forget Free Pascal and Turbo Pascal/Borland Pascal, the matrix has become huge.
There is no complete documentation on that in one place. Right now include files like Defines.inc, the DSPack.inc, the JCL include directory the JVCL common include directory and the Jedi.inc documentation contain the collective knowledge about this.
Someone should condense that in a table and – more important – keep it up to date.
At least now there is a post collecting some of the links that contain the knowledge (:
Found one that contains these columns
- Product & Version
- VERxxx defines
- __BORLANDC__ value
- RTLVersion
- CompilerVersion
- Package Version
via Compiler/RTL version overview « Muetze1 wich is now available on the wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20131229055045/http://www.muetze1.de/?page_id=547
–jeroen
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Development, FreePascal, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 14 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/26
Back in the days I started programming, Micro Cornucopia was a wonderful magazine, so I’m glad that BitSavers scanned a few more issues and put them online today, a week after some great PDF scans: Turbo Assembler/Debugger (1993/1994), Borland C++/Object Windows Library (1993):
They covered a lot of languages (x86 and 68k assembly, C, C++, Turbo Pascal and many more), and very interesting hardware designs.
–jeroen
via: Index of /pdf/microCornucopia.
Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Pascal, x86 | Tagged: computer, software, technology, wonderful magazine | 2 Comments »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 