Any of our *cough*older*cough* members ever use the MCM/70? Programmable in only APL, very nerdy indeed. :) http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/04/15/toronto-invented-pc-forgot/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCM/70 -- Tom Low-Shang 416 857 7013 GTalk/Jabber tomlowshang@gmail.com
If it had a BASIC interpreter, it might have done better. And a power supply that didn't catch fire ;). Peter
Any of our *cough*older*cough* members ever use the MCM/70? Programmable in only APL, very nerdy indeed. :)
http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/04/15/toronto-invented-pc-forgot/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCM/70
-- Tom Low-Shang 416 857 7013 GTalk/Jabber tomlowshang@gmail.com --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325
On 04/15/2015 04:28 PM, phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca wrote:
If it had a BASIC interpreter, it might have done better. And a power supply that didn't catch fire ;).
The Datapoint 2200, which was originally intended to use the 8008, had a BASIC interpreter. I worked on those back in the mid '70s. Also, there was SCELBAL BASIC, from Scelbi Computing, for the 8008 (and later for the 8080), which might have run on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCELBI
| From: phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca | If it had a BASIC interpreter, it might have done better. It had a one-line (plasma) display. APL is definitely the right choice if you can only see one line of a program at once. | And a power | supply that didn't catch fire ;). Fairly crucial. The article doesn't mention minicomputers. They were in their hayday when the MCM/70 came out. Comparing it to mainframes is really unfortunate. The MCM/70 was an unbelievable proof-of-concept. The 8008 was such a miserable processor that it is astonishing that APL would fit. The box was not Good Enough for me at the time. But that doesn't veto success: neither were the Altair 8080 nor the Apple II were good enough, but the hunger was great enough that a market was created and the products quickly evolved. Too bad the MCM/70 didn't catch such a wave. (Altair power supplies were horrible too. My Altair works because I stuck an pop-can-sized capacitor from Active Surplus on it with alligator clips (you can tell that I'm a software guy).) No copies of York APL are known to exist. I once had a listing that I was using as scrap paper. I couldn't find it by the time I found out about this problem. York's Zbigniew Stachniak (mentioned in the article) has a museum at York and hosted several interesting talks. I haven't heard of any recently -- I've probably fallen off the mailing list.
On 04/16/2015 02:46 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
(Altair power supplies were horrible too. My Altair works because I stuck an pop-can-sized capacitor from Active Surplus on it with alligator clips (you can tell that I'm a software guy).)
I've often said the IMSAI 8080 was a better quality clone of the Altari. My IMSAI had a power supply that was almost powerful enough to use for arc welding. ;-)
On 2015-04-15 15:37, Tom Low-Shang wrote:
Any of our *cough*older*cough* members ever use the MCM/70? Programmable in only APL, very nerdy indeed. :)
Interesting machine. The choice of APL limited their audience and with only a single line display you wouldn't have been able to use it for (m)any of the other languages of the day. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ |"Nerds make the shiny things that distract Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | the mouth-breathers, and that's why we're | powerful!" #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
participants (6)
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D. Hugh Redelmeier -
James Knott -
Kevin -
Lance F. Squire -
phiscock＠ee.ryerson.ca -
Tom Low-Shang