British computing

[Peter Flass]

Does anyone have any folklore about the (apparent) decline of the British
computer industry. Browsing Wikipedia it appears that Britain was on par
with, or slightly ahead of, the US in the 1950s, but by the ‘60s the US
seems to have pulled ahead, and now we don’t hear much about Britain.

I recall at one point, maybe in the ‘60s there was a lot of noise about
“Silicon Glen”, and the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing, but, after
that, nothing.

I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Peter Flass
the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing

When I was deciding my final year project, distributed processing using
transputers was one suggestion, which looked interesting to me, however
after investigation there was only one development board available,
which rather defeated the object ...

[J. Clarke]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Peter Flass
the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing

When I was deciding my final year project, distributed processing using
transputers was one suggestion, which looked interesting to me, however
after investigation there was only one development board available,
which rather defeated the object ...

I remember coveting a Meiko for a project I was working on at the
time. Management wouldn't go for it though and honestly it would have
cost more than the mainframe time.

Transputer was a good idea that priced itself out of the market.
Didn't some one of Britain's flirtations with socialism or desocialism
have something to do with its demise as well?

[gareth evans]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Peter Flass
the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing

When I was deciding my final year project, distributed processing using
transputers was one suggestion, which looked interesting to me, however
after investigation there was only one development board available,
which rather defeated the object ...

I remember coveting a Meiko for a project I was working on at the
time. Management wouldn't go for it though and honestly it would have
cost more than the mainframe time.
Transputer was a good idea that priced itself out of the market.
Didn't some one of Britain's flirtations with socialism or desocialism
have something to do with its demise as well?

Surely today, Brit computing is leading the World with various
implementations of the ARM series?

Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with
any real work.

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with
any real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high
for a RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction
from a first register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

[gareth evans]

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with
any real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high
for a RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction
from a first register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

I'd be interested to dabble with the ARM v8 64 bit ISA, were there
to be a 64 bit OS for the RPi!

Well, not really a 64 bit OS, but 64 bit access to all the I/O
including video.

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by gareth evans

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with
any real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high
for a RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction
from a first register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

I'd be interested to dabble with the ARM v8 64 bit ISA, were there
to be a 64 bit OS for the RPi!

I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the
recent use an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.

I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

[Bob Eager]

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with any
real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high for a
RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction from a first
register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

I'd be interested to dabble with the ARM v8 64 bit ISA, were there to
be a 64 bit OS for the RPi!

I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the recent use
an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.
I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64

[J. Clarke]

Post by Bob Eager

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with any
real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high for a
RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction from a first
register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

I'd be interested to dabble with the ARM v8 64 bit ISA, were there to
be a 64 bit OS for the RPi!

I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the recent use
an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.
I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

https://wiki.freebsd.org/arm64

There is a Raspbian 64-bit in beta.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=275370

[j***@sdf.org]

Post by Thomas Koenig
I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the
recent use an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.
I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

I'm literally writing this on a RPI4 running openSUSE Tumbleweed for ARM64

$ uname -a
Linux 5.12.3-1-default SMP Wed May 12 09:01:49 UTC 2021aarch64 GNU/Linux

[Kristof Korwisi]

Post by j***@sdf.org

Post by Thomas Koenig
I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the
recent use an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.
I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

I'm literally writing this on a RPI4 running openSUSE Tumbleweed for ARM64

Even the predecessor (3B+) is already capable of running 64 bit systems
as well. Running NetBSD on mine.

[gareth evans]

Post by j***@sdf.org

Post by Thomas Koenig
I'm not a Pi expert, but if Wikipedia is to be trusted, the
recent use an Armv8 processor with 64 bit capability, at least.
I don't see why 64-bit Linux would not run on that machine.

I'm literally writing this on a RPI4 running openSUSE Tumbleweed for ARM64

... and does that give you full access to all the I/O that you
get with the 32-bit Raspbian, especially all the video capability?

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by gareth evans
Although having myself had a 10-year apprenticeship on PDP11
assembler, I cannot come to terms with a load-store architecture
where the number of instructions has to be increased to cope with
any real work.

As far as instruction density goes, ARM is actually pretty high
for a RISC design; for example, it has a load/store instruction
from a first register plus a second register shifted by a constant.

ARMv8/ARMv9 have several dozen different load/store instructions. And thousands
of other instructions. I wouldn't classify it as having a
reduced instruction set. The architecture spec is approaching
9000 pages. It supports three different instruction sets (A32, T32,
A64), each of which have integer, floating point, Advanced SIMD,
and Scalable Vector (A64 only, up to 2048 bits wide) instructions.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 11:50:07 +0100

Post by gareth evans
Surely today, Brit computing is leading the World with various
implementations of the ARM series?

ARM is a true British triumph, they do what British engineers do
best (design things) and avoid doing what British companies are crap at
(marketing and production) by licensing the design and doing nothing else.

[Andy Leighton]

Post by J. Clarke
Transputer was a good idea that priced itself out of the market.
Didn't some one of Britain's flirtations with socialism or desocialism
have something to do with its demise as well?

Transputers were purely in the time of Thatcher so no socialism. Whilst
Inmos had government backing at origin by 1984 it was entirely privately
owned. By 1989 Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson and work on the transputer
was virtually at an end.

I guess they just could not match the performance increases of the
standard processors at that time. Plus of course the problems of using
occam rather than one of the more common languages of the time.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 05:07:41 -0500

Post by Andy Leighton

Post by J. Clarke
Transputer was a good idea that priced itself out of the market.
Didn't some one of Britain's flirtations with socialism or desocialism
have something to do with its demise as well?

Transputers were purely in the time of Thatcher so no socialism. Whilst
Inmos had government backing at origin by 1984 it was entirely privately
owned. By 1989 Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson and work on the transputer
was virtually at an end.

I'd like to think that the presence of Fat Freddie's cat on the
original Transputer silicon had nothing to do with it, but having seen a
very successful project canned because "It's all in the hands of men with
pony-tails" I'd not be too confident about that.

[Gordon Henderson]

Post by J. Clarke
I remember coveting a Meiko for a project I was working on at the
time. Management wouldn't go for it though and honestly it would have
cost more than the mainframe time.

Now there's a name from the past.. I worked for Meiko once upon a time..

Fun times.

But Meiko relied on Inmos for Transputers and the customers wanted more
and more - faster and bigger and Inmos didn't deliver the goods, so Meiko
changed processors and network but the systems were expensive and not
as competitive as this new fangled x86 thing...

Gordon

[gareth evans]

Post by Peter Flass
I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

... and so Yankland is Wrongpondia?

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by gareth evans

Post by Peter Flass
I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

... and so Yankland is Wrongpondia?

Like they drive on the right side of the road, so clearly the British
drive on the wrong side?

Niklas

[gareth evans]

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by gareth evans

Post by Peter Flass
I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

... and so Yankland is Wrongpondia?

Like they drive on the right side of the road, so clearly the British
drive on the wrong side?
Niklas

<TOM AND JERRY QUOTE>

Touche Monsieur Pussy Cat!

</TOM AND JERRY QUOTE>

[JimP]

On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 11:46:46 +0100, gareth evans

Post by gareth evans

Post by Peter Flass
I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

... and so Yankland is Wrongpondia?

Leftpondia, but you likely know that.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 17 Apr 2021 18:24:23 -0700

Post by Peter Flass
I recall at one point, maybe in the ‘60s there was a lot of noise about
“Silicon Glen”, and the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing, but, after
that, nothing.

It was a bit later than that, back end of the 70s and early 80s we
had Silicon Glen (Edinburgh) and Silicon Fen (Cambridge) - there was a
great deal of activity resulting in a lot of forgotten 8 bit micros
(steamrollered by the IBM PC), the Transputer (promising but dead ended,
nobody really liked Occam) and of course the great survivor ARM - once
Acorn Risc Machine and heart of the Archimedes (perhaps the most impressive
of that era's home computers) and now the heart of all things mobile.

As for the decline - I'd say it was mostly typical of British
industry long on ideas and quality (at least until the reality of
production costs hits[1]) short on execution and marketing nounce. Notable
exception being Sinclair who triumphed by reversing those typical aspects.

[1] Great example, on PPOE had a chess machine on the market around 1980
with real pieces on a real board that moved on their own with no visible
mechanism and responded to you making moves in pretty much normal fashion.
There was an X-Y mechanism and electromagnet under the board and a tuned
circuit in each piece for identification.

We had the prototype in the window playing itself continuously - the
wooden pieces slid across the board in eery silence pulled by the hidden
brass geared mechanism.

Pity about the production model with the plastic pieces, nylon gears and
the irritating squeak - for some reason it didn't sell.

[Vir Campestris]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
It was a bit later than that, back end of the 70s and early 80s we
had Silicon Glen (Edinburgh) and Silicon Fen (Cambridge) - there was a
great deal of activity resulting in a lot of forgotten 8 bit micros
(steamrollered by the IBM PC), the Transputer (promising but dead ended,
nobody really liked Occam) and of course the great survivor ARM - once
Acorn Risc Machine and heart of the Archimedes (perhaps the most impressive
of that era's home computers) and now the heart of all things mobile.

What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

Andy

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

[Charles Richmond]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might
have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856

A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(

Well... onward and upward!!! :-)

[JimP]

On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might
have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856
A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(
Well... onward and upward!!! :-)
--
Charles Richmond

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

[Peter Flass]

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop, There's
the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might
have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856
A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(
Well... onward and upward!!! :-)
--
Charles Richmond

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

I had to trash my collection covering most of the good years. I ran out of
room and discovered no one wanted them. IIRC, the Internet Archive has some
online.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :-(

Post by Peter Flass

Post by JimP

Post by Charles Richmond

nostalgic.

A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

I had to trash my collection covering most of the good years. I ran out of
room and discovered no one wanted them. IIRC, the Internet Archive has some
online.

I was building a fair-sized collection of Byte until I realized that it
had turned into Yet Another Wintel Rag. I've gotten rid of most of them
now, although I've so far hung on to the older issues. If they're not
archived anywhere, maybe I'll scan them. I just got a Brother ADS-2700W
and am on a scanning binge, getting rid of the mainframe manuals which
have been occupying a wall. Watch for several gigabytes of PDFs to
appear on Bitsavers sometime in the near future, especially if you're
interested in Univac OS/3...

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I was building a fair-sized collection of Byte until I realized that it
had turned into Yet Another Wintel Rag. I've gotten rid of most of them
now, although I've so far hung on to the older issues. If they're not
archived anywhere, maybe I'll scan them.

Yes please. Check bitsavers and/or archive.org for missing issues and add
them please. But *do* include the advertisements too. Prices were insane
high back in the 70s and 80s.

I seem to recall you could order a UNIX machine for $10,000 (might be
some 30,000 today) back in the 1980s and get a version of Emacs with it
for "only" $1,500 on top of that. What a bargain! ;-)

[Bob Eager]

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I was building a fair-sized collection of Byte until I realized that it
had turned into Yet Another Wintel Rag. I've gotten rid of most of them
now, although I've so far hung on to the older issues. If they're not
archived anywhere, maybe I'll scan them

https://worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Peter Flass

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :-(

Post by Peter Flass

Post by JimP

Post by Charles Richmond

nostalgic.

A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

I had to trash my collection covering most of the good years. I ran out of
room and discovered no one wanted them. IIRC, the Internet Archive has some
online.

I was building a fair-sized collection of Byte until I realized that it
had turned into Yet Another Wintel Rag. I've gotten rid of most of them
now, although I've so far hung on to the older issues. If they're not
archived anywhere, maybe I'll scan them. I just got a Brother ADS-2700W
and am on a scanning binge, getting rid of the mainframe manuals which
have been occupying a wall. Watch for several gigabytes of PDFs to
appear on Bitsavers sometime in the near future, especially if you're
interested in Univac OS/3...

I’m interested in most of the old stuff - that’s why I hang out here.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 22:00:42 +0100 Vir Campestris

Post by Vir Campestris
What do you mean _had_ Silicon Fen?

OK so it's still there, sort of, but ...

Post by Vir Campestris
ARM are still here, Amazon have quite a big development shop,
There's the Pi foundation... and literally hundreds more.

... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought
of. There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little
companies that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool
of engineers drifted around among them having fun building stuff
usually on a shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a
little strange, talent made up for pretty much any personality
quirks in those days.

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly
went bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too.
Every once in a while I think about all the companies that advertised
in Byte, until it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a
trace, and I get nostalgic.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It
might have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856
A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(
Well... onward and upward!!! :-)
--
Charles Richmond

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't eaten
them.

I had to trash my collection covering most of the good years. I ran out
of room and discovered no one wanted them. IIRC, the Internet Archive
has some online.

Try here:

https://worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

Post by Peter Flass
“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

There was a quite scammy retailer advertising on BYTE. He mentioned the
Commodore 64 has 84KB of memory. He might even got away with it, adding
the ROMS to the existing 64K of RAM. Unfortunately I forgot the name of
that company. But when I did a web search some years ago the company
(thankfully) is no longer in business.

Post by JimP

Post by Charles Richmond
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might
have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856
A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(
Well... onward and upward!!! :-)

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

Thankfully they are all scanned and archived by now.

Never read a real BYTE magazine or even knew about it until about a
decade ago. Was a pleasure to discover scan online and reading it. Jerry
Pournelle stood out from its writers for me.

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by JimP
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 01:34:51 -0500, Charles Richmond

Post by Charles Richmond

“a whole load of little companies that wanted to be big and mostly went
bust” This describes a whole lot of companies in the US, too. Every once
in a while I think about all the companies that advertised in Byte, until
it joined the dark side, who disappeared without a trace, and I get
nostalgic.

There was a quite scammy retailer advertising on BYTE. He mentioned the
Commodore 64 has 84KB of memory. He might even got away with it, adding
the ROMS to the existing 64K of RAM. Unfortunately I forgot the name of
that company. But when I did a web search some years ago the company
(thankfully) is no longer in business.

Post by JimP

Post by Charles Richmond
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might
have been!' "
-- John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856
A lot of promising products in the old Byte magazine... and I find it
sad that so few people remember or care. :-(
Well... onward and upward!!! :-)

I remember. I think I even have some of them, if the mice haven't
eaten them.

Thankfully they are all scanned and archived by now.
Never read a real BYTE magazine or even knew about it until about a
decade ago. Was a pleasure to discover scan online and reading it. Jerry
Pournelle stood out from its writers for me.
--
Andreas
https://news-commentaries.blogspot.com/

"Computer Shopper" was *the* place for computer-ad-porn. It was like 500
pages of ads. Then the internet hit and it dropped to a pamphlet and then
went under.

[John Levine]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
"Computer Shopper" was *the* place for computer-ad-porn. It was like 500
pages of ads. Then the internet hit and it dropped to a pamphlet and then
went under.

It was so big and there were so many people who subscribed to it in Cambridge MA
where I lived that rather than giving them to the regular mail carriers they
sent out a guy in a truck with just the Computer Shoppers.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
There was a quite scammy retailer advertising on BYTE. He mentioned the
Commodore 64 has 84KB of memory. He might even got away with it, adding
the ROMS to the existing 64K of RAM. Unfortunately I forgot the name of
that company. But when I did a web search some years ago the company
(thankfully) is no longer in business.

"Computer Shopper" was *the* place for computer-ad-porn. It was like 500
pages of ads. Then the internet hit and it dropped to a pamphlet and then
went under.

I seem to recall now the name was "Protector", but I cannot verify
this. May be the name was similar.

[Roger Blake]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
I seem to recall now the name was "Protector", but I cannot verify
this. May be the name was similar.

Are you thinking of Protecto Enterprizes? As I recall when they ran out
of "Interact" computers to sell they turned to selling Commodore computers.
(I still have my Interact computer though it stopped working years ago.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interact_Home_Computer

--

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Roger Blake

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
I seem to recall now the name was "Protector", but I cannot verify
this. May be the name was similar.

Are you thinking of Protecto Enterprizes? As I recall when they ran out
of "Interact" computers to sell they turned to selling Commodore computers.
(I still have my Interact computer though it stopped working years ago.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interact_Home_Computer

Yessir! That's the one.

Your link mentions:

| Most were sold by the liquidator Protecto Enterprizes of Barrington,
| Illinois through mail order sale.

84 KB RAM. Tss tss tss...

[greymaus]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
There was a quite scammy retailer advertising on BYTE. He mentioned the
Commodore 64 has 84KB of memory. He might even got away with it, adding
the ROMS to the existing 64K of RAM. Unfortunately I forgot the name of
that company. But when I did a web search some years ago the company
(thankfully) is no longer in business.

"Computer Shopper" was *the* place for computer-ad-porn. It was like 500
pages of ads. Then the internet hit and it dropped to a pamphlet and then
went under.

I seem to recall now the name was "Protector", but I cannot verify
this. May be the name was similar.

AFFAIRemember, Compuuter started as a bogpaperlike small magazine, the
UK one anyway, with good artickles about the early micros, then
balooned into adverts. Managed, I think, by a man called dennis, who had
a colourful history, and who was quoted in later years about what had
happened to his considerable fortune.

``Women and drugs. I wasted the rest.''

seems sensible now

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On 24 Apr 2021 07:21:19 GMT
greymaus <***@dmaus.org> wrote:

[]

Post by greymaus
AFFAIRemember, Compuuter started as a bogpaperlike small magazine, the
UK one anyway, with good artickles about the early micros, then
balooned into adverts. Managed, I think, by a man called dennis, who had
a colourful history, and who was quoted in later years about what had
happened to his considerable fortune.
``Women and drugs. I wasted the rest.''
seems sensible now

I've heard that attributed to George Best, BICBW.

[Lawrence Statton (NK1G)]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>
"Computer Shopper" was *the* place for computer-ad-porn. It was like 500
pages of ads. Then the internet hit and it dropped to a pamphlet and then
went under.

I remember my first Computer Shopper was a yellow-papered broadsheet of
... maybe 20 or 30 pages.

A decade later, it was bigger than most magazines.

There was a similar contemporaneous periodical called "Inputer" for
minicomputer gear that I drooled over.

73, NK1G
echo '***@abaluon.abaom' | sed s/aba/c/g

[Theo]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
... yep it's not the crazy mix of entrepreneurs and quirky engineers
that made it happen. It was Silicon Fen before ARM was ever thought of.
There were no big companies, there were a whole load of little companies
that wanted to be big and mostly went bust while the pool of engineers
drifted around among them having fun building stuff usually on a
shoestring. Some of those engineers were more than a little strange, talent
made up for pretty much any personality quirks in those days.

It's bigger, but still there.

https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/
is a slightly more corporatised view of the community. The people are still
as you describe, although the shoestrings are a bit longer these days.

Theo

[Gordon Henderson]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 17 Apr 2021 18:24:23 -0700

I recall at one point, maybe in the ‘60s there was a lot of noise about
“Silicon Glen”, and the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing, but, after
that, nothing.

It was a bit later than that, back end of the 70s and early 80s we
had Silicon Glen (Edinburgh) and Silicon Fen (Cambridge) - there was a
great deal of activity resulting in a lot of forgotten 8 bit micros
(steamrollered by the IBM PC), the Transputer (promising but dead ended,
nobody really liked Occam) ...

The transputer was a general purpose (although somewhat special) 32-bit
microprocessor. There were C and FORTRAN compilers for it as well as a
good assembler.

(From 'Silicon Gorge" - ie. Bristol & the Avon Gorge)

Gordon

[Andy Leighton]

Post by Gordon Henderson

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 17 Apr 2021 18:24:23 -0700

Post by Peter Flass
I recall at one point, maybe in the ‘60s there was a lot of noise about
“Silicon Glen”, and the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing, but, after
that, nothing.

It was a bit later than that, back end of the 70s and early 80s we
had Silicon Glen (Edinburgh) and Silicon Fen (Cambridge) - there was a
great deal of activity resulting in a lot of forgotten 8 bit micros
(steamrollered by the IBM PC), the Transputer (promising but dead ended,
nobody really liked Occam) ...

The transputer was a general purpose (although somewhat special) 32-bit
microprocessor. There were C and FORTRAN compilers for it as well as a
good assembler.

I am not sure there were C and FORTRAN compilers when I knew people
messing around with them in, which was in the early days admittedly.

[Gordon Henderson]

Post by Andy Leighton

Post by Gordon Henderson
The transputer was a general purpose (although somewhat special) 32-bit
microprocessor. There were C and FORTRAN compilers for it as well as a
good assembler.

I am not sure there were C and FORTRAN compilers when I knew people
messing around with them in, which was in the early days admittedly.

I think about 1987/88 or thereabouts was when I first used C on a
Transputer. I then subsequently worked with the guy who wrote the C
compiler. I've no idea who did the FORTRAN compiler but it was used
at Meiko.

Gordon

[Andy Leighton]

Post by Gordon Henderson

Post by Andy Leighton

Post by Gordon Henderson
The transputer was a general purpose (although somewhat special) 32-bit
microprocessor. There were C and FORTRAN compilers for it as well as a
good assembler.

I am not sure there were C and FORTRAN compilers when I knew people
messing around with them in, which was in the early days admittedly.

I think about 1987/88 or thereabouts was when I first used C on a
Transputer. I then subsequently worked with the guy who wrote the C
compiler. I've no idea who did the FORTRAN compiler but it was used
at Meiko.

Yep that was a year or two after I knew people messing around with them

[Andreas Eder]

Post by Andy Leighton
I am not sure there were C and FORTRAN compilers when I knew people
messing around with them in, which was in the early days admittedly.

Oh, yes. There were both C and Fortran. But I also liked Occam :-)

'Andreas

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Peter Flass
Does anyone have any folklore about the (apparent) decline of the British
computer industry. Browsing Wikipedia it appears that Britain was on par
with, or slightly ahead of, the US in the 1950s, but by the ‘60s the US
seems to have pulled ahead, and now we don’t hear much about Britain.

Don't forget about ARM, which pretty much owns the small microprocessor
world. And every cell phone.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Peter Flass
Does anyone have any folklore about the (apparent) decline of the British
computer industry. Browsing Wikipedia it appears that Britain was on par
with, or slightly ahead of, the US in the 1950s, but by the ‘60s the US
seems to have pulled ahead, and now we don’t hear much about Britain.

Don't forget about ARM, which pretty much owns the small microprocessor
world. And every cell phone.

Anybody mentioned Sinclair Research yet?

May without the BBC Computer Literacy Project Sinclair might not have
broken into the home computer market and the BBC Micro had never existed
and Acorn soon fading into history, thus the ARM processor was never born.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 15:28:41 -0400

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
Anybody mentioned Sinclair Research yet?
May without the BBC Computer Literacy Project Sinclair might not have
broken into the home computer market and the BBC Micro had never existed
and Acorn soon fading into history, thus the ARM processor was never born.

Yep that project was a major source of activity in Cambridge, from
Sinclair to Newbury Labs and then to Acorn with spinoffs going to Grundy
and Torch. The only thing was that pile of money and market presence was
going to go *somewhere* and dusting of the Proton was the one that finally
got the job done, but not quite as intended. Had Ferranti been able to
deliver working ULAs before Newbury ran out of cash the BBC Micro would
have been the Newbrain (I delivered two prototypes to the BBC Enterprises
offices for filming). Had Sinclair been a little less obviously what he was
it would have had a Sinclair badge and run CP/M. Had Acorn dropped the ball
then there were plenty of others around.

Somebody would have got something into production for the BBC, and
probably around Cambridge. Whoever did would have reaped the bounty of the
BBC involvement would would have gone looking for things to do with all the
cash and might have found Sophie Wilson looking for backing just as Acorn
did.

[Adrian Caspersz]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
May without the BBC Computer Literacy Project Sinclair might not have
broken into the home computer market and the BBC Micro had never existed

In an alternative universe, I think the Commodore 64 would have won out
- we would have followed the US, and waited for the intel Atom for our
phones.

*shudder*

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Adrian Caspersz

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
May without the BBC Computer Literacy Project Sinclair might not have
broken into the home computer market and the BBC Micro had never existed

In an alternative universe, I think the Commodore 64 would have won
out - we would have followed the US, and waited for the intel Atom for
our phones.

My tablet from 2015 runs an Intel CPU.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Adrian Caspersz
In an alternative universe, I think the Commodore 64 would have won
out - we would have followed the US, and waited for the intel Atom for
our phones.

My tablet from 2015 runs an Intel CPU.

My Nokia N1 tablet too ... battery now dead unfortunately.

[Robin Vowels]

Post by Peter Flass
Does anyone have any folklore about the (apparent) decline of the British
computer industry. Browsing Wikipedia it appears that Britain was on par
with, or slightly ahead of, the US in the 1950s, but by the ‘60s the US
seems to have pulled ahead, and now we don’t hear much about Britain.
I recall at one point, maybe in the ‘60s there was a lot of noise about
“Silicon Glen”, and the Transputer seemed to be a coming thing, but, after
that, nothing.
I know this NG has a lot of people from Rightpondia who have first-hand
knowledge of this period.

By the early 1960s the British computer industry was fragmented.
The market was not large.
The English Electric Company had decided to build copies of
several American machines, all incompatible with each other --
the KDP10, KDN2 -- including (by the middle 60s) the RCA Spectra
(a S/360 look-alike).
By the early 1960s, there had been several disasters, including
the English Electric KDF9, the Ferranti Atlas, and at least one of Elliott's
machines. The government was not amused.
Only ~30 KDF9's were sold -- a small offering, compared to thousands
sold of IBM's machines.
Marketing was another problem, soft-selling compared to the American
method.
The government forced the merger of the British computer industry,
so that only a few manufacturers survived beyond 1965; ICL becoming
dominant.

[Bob Eager]

Post by Robin Vowels
By the early 1960s the British computer industry was fragmented.
The market was not large.
The English Electric Company had decided to build copies of several
American machines, all incompatible with each other --
the KDP10, KDN2 -- including (by the middle 60s) the RCA Spectra (a
S/360 look-alike).

I have a KDP10 programming manual (original) right here!

[Bob Eager]

Post by Robin Vowels
By the early 1960s the British computer industry was fragmented.
The market was not large.
The English Electric Company had decided to build copies of several
American machines, all incompatible with each other --
the KDP10, KDN2 -- including (by the middle 60s) the RCA Spectra (a
S/360 look-alike).
By the early 1960s, there had been several disasters, including the
English Electric KDF9, the Ferranti Atlas, and at least one of Elliott's
machines. The government was not amused.

Reminds me of a story about Ferranti, probably about ten years earlier.

One of the de Ferranti brothers was called into an office nearby to
assist with something. He ended up borrowing his colleague's phone to
make an outgoing call. In those days you had to go through the company
operator. Hearing a voice that clearly wasn't the one associated with the
line, the operator asked who it was. De Ferranti told her, and she wasn't
apologetic; rather, she just said "This wouldn't have happened if you'd
used your own phone, Mr de Ferranti".

His reply" "My dear, they are ALL my own phones".