Project Oberon is just what you are looking for
The other windows opertating system
I am not sure of the state of the hardware, but $100
for a basic CPU feels right.
As for PCB design I think a text cell based setup is the way to go, even for analog. A 14 pin dip can fit 1 or 2 traces between pins, so why have floating point data for stuff when a smple grid will work, for most things. I remember seeing a text display showing how it could do
all sorts of symbols and PCB text characters ( traces and pads) was shown. I have allways liked the idea text display with overlapping transparent text windows. Layer
1 window text. layer 2 text layer 3 graphics.
Ben.
PS: If this was a email not a pop up box, I could check my spelling and line endings. If I want portable calling, Iâll just
aquire a Shoe Phone, ( âGet Smartâ 1965-1970 )
This is actually, why Iâm interested in Spacewar (the first known digital video game). Until then, there had been a certain tradition of visual computing at MIT, which was also diffusing to Bell Labs (not the least for the use of DEC equipment), which centred on an intimate dialog between the user and the machine. Watching any of the demo films of the era (e.g., the demo of Sketchpad or âThe Incredible Machineâ), thereâs inevitably a comment like, âThe operator is talking to the computerâ along with visuals of highly concentrated, focused users. Spacewar! was somewhat heretical in this tradition, as it moved the focus from the human machine interaction to a human to human interaction in realtime on a virtual meeting ground provided by the machine. The machine was now transparent (just implementing the mechanics of a fictional world and facilitating human interaction) and opaque (by the physics of gravity, visually represented by a flickering sun in the center) at the same time. Which was only possible, as the gameâs parameters were fine tuned to both âquick motor reactionsâ and âtacticalâ considerations, as pointed out by Steve Russell (the main contributor of Spacewar!, also known for the first implementation of Lisp) in Stewart Brandâs âII Electronic Frontiersâ (the slightly extended book version of his âComputer Bumsâ Rolling Stone piece). I think, itâs not just a coincidence that Stewart Brand paralleled Spacewar! and the development of the GUI and Smalltalk at PARC in this narrative. Rather, while not explicitly mentioned in the article or book, it suggests a common strain. Which may be found in this peculiar combination of habitilual, âquick motor reactionsâ and the more broader, goal oriented âtactical thinkingâ, as a provision for the apparently stateless GUI, which must allow for flow of work and interruptions (dialogs for choice and confirmation, etc) at the same time.
From this perspective, the problem is rooted in the very âDNAâ of visual, interactive computing, as it embraces interruptions and allows them to integrate with what would be else a continuous, focused flow. This could be called âthe principle of loose focusâ. If this isnât what we want or deem healthy, we may have to revisit this other tradition of visual computing (which was eventually out-phased by timesharing), as demonstrated by MIT and Bell Labs in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s.
Watching a demo film on computers, I found the early GUI was better than today, the input and and display were two different items. Input was written rather typed,a novel thing.
I suspect the line drawing hardware was better too, in the
sense a better display gave better detail but the screen size was the same. With bit mapped graphics, more detail changes the screen size, a real pain.
To me, the PDP-8 doesnât feel like a great fit for Forth since the machine has no good support for stacks. I tried to use the auto increment addressing mode for popping, but that still leaves awkward push operations.
I implemented a subroutine threaded Forth using JMS. Wait, what? That doesnât support reentrant words, does it? No it doesnât, but surprisingly most Forth code does very well without it.
There is a Forth for the PDP8:
Very nice! I love to see modern development for these old systems!