[ale] OT: Woah, retro!

[Pete Hardie]

Joe wrote:
> "James P. Kinney III" <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>I could probably put my hands on a PDP-10 if I really wanted to play
>>with antiques.
>>
>>In the event of planet-wide disaster (asteroid impact) does the
>>knowledge still exist to recreate the computer revolution or would it
>>really be back to the dark ages? Could we actually hand code a
>>rudimentary compiler than feed it the parts to build a better one until
>>we recover back to this point (minus M$, of course :)
> 
> 
> An absolutely minimal Forth interpreter, in 8086 machine code, is
> under ten instructions long. Forth is just barely high-level enough to
> do useful work in, IMO, but it'd be a great bootstrap language. (I've
> never managed to do any useful work in Forth, but I can appreciate the
> possibility.) But I think we'd be OK software-wise. I'd be worried if
> there were no working hardware, though. I'm not quite sure about the
> exact effects of EMP - it screws up magnetic domains, right?  Which
> probably means that boot ROMs, for example, would be history, and we'd
> have to get things rolling from the bare metal. But would EMP hose
> stuff other than persistent memory?  Would the CPUs be OK? Or would we
> end up looking for the long-lost plans for Babbage's Analytical
> Engine?

IMNSHO, the biggest problem would be manufacturing.  I'm certain enough know-how 
  would exist to rebuild computers from transistors, and the language wars would 
not be a problem, but it would be awfully hard to get those chip fabs from scratch

-- 
Pete Hardie                   |   Goalie, DVSG Dart Team
     posting from, but not     |
	speaking for:             |
Scientific Atlanta, Digital Video Services Group



     - - - - - - -  Appended by Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.  - - - - - - -  
This e-mail and any attachments may contain information which is confidential, proprietary, privileged or otherwise protected by law. The information is solely intended for the named addressee (or a person responsible for delivering it to the addressee). If you are not the intended recipient of this message, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy or disseminate this message or any part of it. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete it from your computer. 

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale