I miss "the front panel" where I could single-step my program and read the octal / hex off the front panel lights.
I miss debugging my program with a plastic block and a wire to hand-punch patches into the binary paper tape.
I miss the "user manual" that had circuit diagrams as part of the documentation.
I miss doing "machine vision" on boxes of punched-card images.
I miss sitting "at the console" of an auditorium-sized "machine room" with a sea of DASD, watching the PSW flicker as the program counter changed.
I miss analog computers.
I miss coordinating 24 IBM Selectric consoles all "typing out" classical music (each one tapped out an orchestra instrument). Beethoven's fifth on selectrics....
I miss playing music by holding my radio next to the mainframe while my program was running, adjusting the program so it played a song.
I miss hand-designing a 16x16 multiply chip in MOS.
I miss programming plated-wire memory in binary switches to drive a Unimate robot.
I miss "scoring a complete copy" of the listing of Lisp 1.5 and reading the source code.
I miss running "the Hadoop algorithm" on a room full of punched card equipment (Google didn't invent it).
I miss "real programmers" who could solder. And could replace a failing memory address chip on your core memory board.
Good times.
But now I'm proving a computer algebra system correct. So it's all still good.
The TTL chip computer was fun. The hardest part was fixing bugs in the wire-wrapping. You could have a wire buried 3 wraps deep that needed to be changed... oh, wait. You probably don't know about wire-wrapping. The memory wire-wrap was symmetric and pretty but the CPU/ALU was a nightmare.
> I miss building my own computer out of TTL chips.
That sounds like an interesting project! Can you expand on it? When was this? How many TTL chips did it take? What other components did you use? What did you do with the end result?
I miss "the front panel" where I could single-step my program and read the octal / hex off the front panel lights.
I miss debugging my program with a plastic block and a wire to hand-punch patches into the binary paper tape.
I miss the "user manual" that had circuit diagrams as part of the documentation.
I miss doing "machine vision" on boxes of punched-card images.
I miss sitting "at the console" of an auditorium-sized "machine room" with a sea of DASD, watching the PSW flicker as the program counter changed.
I miss analog computers.
I miss coordinating 24 IBM Selectric consoles all "typing out" classical music (each one tapped out an orchestra instrument). Beethoven's fifth on selectrics....
I miss playing music by holding my radio next to the mainframe while my program was running, adjusting the program so it played a song.
I miss hand-designing a 16x16 multiply chip in MOS.
I miss programming plated-wire memory in binary switches to drive a Unimate robot.
I miss "scoring a complete copy" of the listing of Lisp 1.5 and reading the source code.
I miss running "the Hadoop algorithm" on a room full of punched card equipment (Google didn't invent it).
I miss "real programmers" who could solder. And could replace a failing memory address chip on your core memory board.
Good times.
But now I'm proving a computer algebra system correct. So it's all still good.
Rock on....