Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!nic!vinsci From: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: Z machine et al Message-ID: Date: 3 Jan 91 01:29:11 GMT References: <1029.2772FECD@weyr.FIDONET.ORG> <1990Dec23.084244.17796@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> <1990Dec28.001940.25138@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Sender: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Organization: Soft Service, Inc. Lines: 43 In-Reply-To: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG's message of 28 Dec 90 00:19:40 GMT In article <1990Dec28.001940.25138@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) writes: >>kevin (guest account) writes: >>I'm not sure when the port was done tho, but it might actually have >>been the first CBM multitasking computer available :-). >I seem to remember there was an old hack to run multiple basic >programs simultaneously on the PET. It wasn't really useful due to the >slowness, but still ;-). Anyone have a better moemory of this? Not too sure it is fair to characterize the Pet as slow; I saw several collecting seven to nine simultaneous reasonably high speed channels of meteorological data each during a big weather project I was part of in 1981 (computer operator and ship jockey). IEEE-488 wonders, I guess. Of course, the PET also had what now are the Amiga I/O chips (8520), only a little earlier model (6520). :-) confirmed that they were doing the collecting using BASIC, though I wasn't sophisticated enough about BASIC in those days to ask if they were running an assembly kernel in there somewhere. The Pets had replaced multimillion dollar special hardware used for the same purpose in 1974. On the other hand, dumping text to the screen from BASIC was painfully slow, even for those days. Perhaps that is where the perception of a slow BASIC arose. Well, you could flip a bit and get a sudden speed increase, an order of magnitude or so. Too bad they didn't flip that bit at the factory. If you followed the output vector ($ffe4?) you could notice how it busywaited for the CRT to finnish drawing the current frame before updating screen RAM, just to avoid some very minor flicker near the screen position updated. It was not the only Microsoft mis-feature in those ROMs, I can assure you! I was always wondering why someone at CBM didn't optimize things. Any CBM people from that time still around? Now is your chance to explain yourself! ;-) Kent, the man from xanth. -- Leonard