Episode: 687
Title: HPR0687: pre-IBM PC computer history 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0687/hpr0687.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:50:46

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Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. This is Mr. Gadget. Once again, calling in to talk
about a little bit more of the history of computing here, and this is kind of a combo, a transitional
phase, if you will, between the history of computing BPC before PCs, as well as how did
I get to Linux. And so I've been using all of these things. I've been talking to them
some previous episodes that didn't really have operating systems. I didn't really use
anything that was CPM based to any great extent or do any kind of programming because of
where I was working at the time and it didn't use CPM. A lot of people were, but not me.
And there were some things that were related to this that are kind of transitional here.
I mentioned earlier that being a poor student and then a single guy out here, you know,
giving along with music degree and the technical skills that I had been teaching myself, I really
didn't have the money to purchase Apple 2, but I didn't have the money to get together
for a color computer from Radio Shatch. Now this is different than all the TRS-80s because
it had a lot more things built into it and it had the cassette input output as well as the
ability to, you know, hook it up to have it on a screen with a video monitor, but it
would actually go to a television and could do color graphics. And it also had some joystick
input. It was really rather clever machine. The joysticks were basically based on voltage
with pots, right, with variable resistors. So the different axes of the joysticks would
allow you to have fine graduation. It wasn't like the joysticks that you'd find for instance
on a Atari 2600, but it's just really a switch that you're pushing. This was actually
you were running through some gears and moving the X and Y axis was turning a resistor and
that resistor, that variable resistor then was providing a voltage, you know, difference
based on the resistance and it had them voltage to digital converters, right, to actually
have the position of those machines. As with all of these machines, this particular
time it was kind of arcade device and you can load in this whole command, you know, style
game and you know, space invader style game and things like that. You can also program
it in color basic, which was another variation once again of the Microsoft basic that everything
ran. And the whole thing basically just came up in wrong in that color basic. Well, after
a while they had various cartridges. So some of these games weren't even things that you
had to put a tape, because that tape into the tape recorder to load in the game. Oh
no, they had cartridges. So it really was across over. It was like kind of half video game,
half computer and you would put a cartridge in the side for some of these games and they
came up with a cartridge that was a disc controller. So you could put five or two quarters
disc drives and have real, you know, floppy discs for data entry and data storage. And this
was so pricey of things like that, but I managed to get a hold of one of those controllers
without the drives of the body used from somebody, I guess the drives had gone south and
they still had the controller and got a hold of that. Maybe it's through the color computer
club here in town. I don't know. And I found some drives cheap used. In fact, my mother-in-law
for years, ever since I first got married, has had this thing that they've only done in
their families since before I got married and married into this family, where she gives
you money at Christmas time. And instead of her buying you something that you don't like
that you have to take back, she gives you money around Thanksgiving. You go out, you buy
something, you wrap it up, you don't tell anybody about it. And on Christmas, you know,
Eve, when we would open up gifts, you open up your gift, you know where you're getting
it, everybody else is surprised. You're guaranteed to get something you want. And you can add
money to the Christmas money to buy something that's a little bit more than what the Christmas
money would normally buy. And so that year, I bought myself drives that were floppy drives
that I could use with this. The soft sector drives would work and put together my own
little drives system with that cartridge that was the disk controller. Now, about this
time, there was a company called Real Time Operating Systems, I think it was, out of
Des Moines of all places. And I actually do somebody later on who quit the company we were
working for, he was a marketing guy and went out to do the head of the marketing department
for that group up there in Des Moines. Anyway, they had operating systems, and I had been
hearing about Unix, like I mentioned in that last show about Gates talking about having
a Unix compatible system on the model 100, which would have been cool, if they could have
pulled it off. But basically, I've been hearing a lot about Unix. I taught myself basic and
taught myself a few other rudimentary skills and a few other languages and things. I'd
heard about C, and I'd heard about Unix, the two are totally interrelated, of course.
And this company had a bootable disk that would put you into a Linux compatible operating
system using the color computer. It was called OS 9, because it used a 6809 chip, right?
So, OS 9. They also had another version of this that ran on a larger scale radio check
computer that had 8-inch drives. It was kind of like a Model 3 on steroids, if you will.
I can't remember what that one was called. It might have been a Model 2000 or something
like that. Anyway, they had an OS 2000 or whatever that model of computer it was. That was
a 16-bit computer chip in that one. So, it had more addressable space and had 8-inch
floppy disks. So, it was a more capable machine. But the OS 9 was my first hands-on with
being able to use a Unix compatible as far as the commands are concerned and all that
kind of stuff operating system. I can't remember which shell it had. This is back. This
was the best shell, right? The Born Again shell. It was either a Born Shell or a C-shell.
And I can't remember which one it was that it had. There was also the Born Shell with a
K back in them. And usually, at this particular point, you were either a C-shell person or
you were a Born Shell person, because they had differences of how you had to write the
shell scripting and all that kind of stuff. It had a C compiler, I could compile C programs
and all that kind of stuff. So, that was actually my first Unix compatible operating system
that I could own in my own little hand. And that will do it for this particular segment.
Next segment along the way, I'll discuss my next for a into, you know, Star X, right?
This is a Linux operating system and a little bit about computing in the Middle East.
But until then, if it's Mr. Gadgett out here on the technical frontier, you be careful on
the technological frontier. Send me some email at, you know, HPR at Mr. Gadgett.com, Mr. Gadgett.com.
And I'm Mr. Gadgett on Twitter and I identify. And until next time, be careful out here.
And I'll be blazing material ahead of you on the electronics frontier by now.
Thank you.