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terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
swanny said:
The world has moved on from the early 80's. Can't imagine why anyone
would bother. Nostalgic dust collectors?

Is there anything else around that the average joe blow could get their
hands on and program? Has some interesting I/O option for projects.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
Joey.G said:
If they opensourced the hardware then it might be a good learning
tool.

That would be a question to ask.
Also about software compatibility. No sense shelling out for a project
kit and not being able to do anything on it,
 
S

swanny

Jan 1, 1970
0
Is there anything else around that the average joe blow could get their
hands on and program? Has some interesting I/O option for projects.

Average Joe Blow's do not program. They have difficulty getting their
minds around the TV remote control.

Since the OS is uCLinux, you could use any old PC and load up a flavour
of Linux and start programming straight away.

As for hardware there are plenty of ARM, PIC, Atmel, Coldfire etc
embedded dev boards around and dev tools to match.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
swanny said:
Average Joe Blow's do not program. They have difficulty getting their
minds around the TV remote control.

soz, wasn't talking about the couch spuddies, but the bit more active.
In the days of basic, plenty did.
Since the OS is uCLinux, you could use any old PC and load up a flavour
of Linux and start programming straight away.

You must be jesting. In C, absolute pox of a programming langage.
Linux is not an easy language to learn yourself. It has two major camps
of programmers, the elite(if you can not read my code, then you are not
good enough) and the ones who want to sell you their pathetic program.

As for hardware there are plenty of ARM, PIC, Atmel, Coldfire etc
embedded dev boards around and dev tools to match.

And the average bloke could use these?
 
D

Don McKenzie

Jan 1, 1970
0
Is there anything else around that the average joe blow could get their hands on and program? Has some interesting I/O
option for projects.

Sure, MaxiMite & DuinoMite:

DuinoMite is a Maximite Compatible Basic computer, originally designed by Geoff Graham, with additional features and
Arduino like layout. DuinoMite allows you to program in the BASIC language and have VGA and Keyboard interface, so you
can develop and write your code in Basic without need of any computer. You can store your code on the SD-CARD and to
execute it on power up through autoexec.bas main code.

Prices start at $33
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/the-maximite-computer.html

Cheers Don...

=================================




--
Don McKenzie

Dontronics Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.dontronics.com/email
Web Camera Page: http://www.dontronics.com/webcam
No More Damn Spam: http://www.dontronics.com/spam

New MMBasic Computer http://www.TheMaximiteComputer.com

These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/minus-5-every-month.html
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/ics.html

Bare Proto PCB for PIC or AVR projects?
"I'd buy that for a Dollar!".
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/simmstick-fifteen-years-on.html
 
S

swanny

Jan 1, 1970
0
soz, wasn't talking about the couch spuddies, but the bit more active.
In the days of basic, plenty did.

You must be jesting. In C, absolute pox of a programming langage.
Linux is not an easy language to learn yourself. It has two major camps
of programmers, the elite(if you can not read my code, then you are not
good enough) and the ones who want to sell you their pathetic program.

Rubbish. C is an excellent language to program in. If the best you can
do is Basic then you probably need to learn how to program properly.

Linus is an OS, not a language. It's a simple to use and easy to program
under. The toolsets are there as well as debuggers. It is also very robust.

And the average bloke could use these?

Of course, why not? Most kiddies canuse a dev kit these days.
 
K

Krypsis

Jan 1, 1970
0
Rubbish. C is an excellent language to program in. If the best you can
do is Basic then you probably need to learn how to program properly.

Linus is an OS, not a language. It's a simple to use and easy to program
under. The toolsets are there as well as debuggers. It is also very robust.
Err, Linus is a programmer, Linux is an OS<snip>
 
K

Krypsis

Jan 1, 1970
0
The problem with this system is that if they are only making 100 of
them, there isn't going to be much of a community to support and
innovate with them, especially with the newer side of it (coldfire
processor and its linux system)
That is where I see the major limitation. 100 is a miniscule number but
that may be just a number dragged out of thin air in order to test the
water. If the unit is successful, they may continue with other
production runs though there is no mention of that on the website.
There is the Maximite that is the same sort of thing, but does not
have the coldfire processor (or similar) so is not Linux compatible or
colour display.

Not Z80 though, but not much is these days.

The good thing with this is that it is fully open source, a shitload
of them have been sold, built, and there is a solid community
developing with them. Also VERY cheap, especially if you use an old
keyboard/monitor with it.


Finally, if you come up with a project that you like and want to use
full time, you only have to buy another kit for about $70 and use it
for that dedicated purpose. If it only needs to be simple, you can
just buy the chip and make up the hardware for a lot less.

I'd be more inclined to the Maximite to tinker with.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
swanny said:
Rubbish. C is an excellent language to program in. If the best you can
do is Basic then you probably need to learn how to program properly.

Typical comment I've come to expect. How did you learn it?

If C is so great, how come there was that security bug in randomisation
for so many months. It was a basic mistake and in any other language it
could have been picked up by a beginner reading te source code.
 
K

keithr

Jan 1, 1970
0
Typical comment I've come to expect. How did you learn it?

If C is so great, how come there was that security bug in randomisation
for so many months. It was a basic mistake and in any other language it
could have been picked up by a beginner reading te source code.

What a load of crap, that would be a problem with a particular
implementation not the language itself.

C is not an ideal beginners language as it leaves so much to the
programmer, there are no safety fences there, nothing stops you from
reading a string as a long int for instance, and you can do a lot of
"Interesting" things with pointers. However it, and its later derivative
C++ are the basis of most large projects, virtually every operating
system is written in one or the other.

Beginners are better off with strongly typed languages like pascal, C#
or (yuk) java.
 
S

swanny

Jan 1, 1970
0
Typical comment I've come to expect. How did you learn it?

In 1983, at Sydney Uni.
If C is so great, how come there was that security bug in randomisation
for so many months. It was a basic mistake and in any other language it
could have been picked up by a beginner reading te source code.

A random function has nothing to do with the language, it would have
been in someone's library. Unlikely that this library was widely used
either, or it would have been found during testing.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
swanny said:
In 1983, at Sydney Uni.


A random function has nothing to do with the language, it would have
been in someone's library. Unlikely that this library was widely used
either, or it would have been found during testing.

It was actually a change made that wasn't picked up. My 2c is that in
other languages the particular mistake would have been obvious, but in
C, because you "can do interestig things" and its general obscurity, it
wasn't.

Hence my argument that it isn't sutable for teach yourself.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
keithr said:
What a load of crap, that would be a problem with a particular
implementation not the language itself.

The problem is that the language is so cryptic, you have to be well
versed to spot a simple mstake. similarly, it makes it very difficult
for people to teach themselves by reading the code.


My 2c is that if the language lends itself to faulty implementations,
then it isn't such a great language.
 
T

T.T.

Jan 1, 1970
0
terryc said:
It was actually a change made that wasn't picked up. My 2c is that in
other languages the particular mistake would have been obvious, but in C,
because you "can do interestig things" and its general obscurity, it
wasn't.

Hence my argument that it isn't sutable for teach yourself.
Bring back COBOL.
 
S

swanny

Jan 1, 1970
0
The problem is that the language is so cryptic, you have to be well
versed to spot a simple mstake. similarly, it makes it very difficult
for people to teach themselves by reading the code.


My 2c is that if the language lends itself to faulty implementations,
then it isn't such a great language.

The language is not cryptic, it is succinct. It removes a lot of the
extra typing required in languages such as Pascal, and is certainly
easier to work through the coding flow than something as horrible as Basic.

I learnt a great deal by reading the Unix SysV source code and using the
K&R C book.

Poor programmers lead to faulty implementations, not the language.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
swanny said:
The language is not cryptic,

So non-cryptic that no one spotted a simple sign problem in 18 months.
easier to work through the coding flow than something as horrible as Basic.

Shrug, your last comment is what matters "coding flow", not the language.
I learnt a great deal by reading the Unix SysV source code and using the
K&R C book.

You learnt programmng or C? In any case, you and I are not the target
audience I was asking about. I've worked with the Joe blow who walks in
off the street to the local computer club and wants to learn
programming. with old PCs, it was an easy matter of popping a prompt and
editing a simple basic program that gave them a clue and they were
off. No such ability these days.

Poor programmers lead to faulty implementations, not the language.

That applies to any language.

Lol, reminded me of a Phd candidate(middile aged), with a successful
commercial program under their belt, who said he had spent all weekend
changing A CONSTANT. BLINK!

I learnt about global declarations the first week of uni by reading
comments in discarded programmes in the terminal room (early Dec stuff)
or the good old finger crunching ICL(?) teletype.
 
T

terryc

Jan 1, 1970
0
T.T. said:
Bring back COBOL.

Is this a horses for course comment?
Do you have any figures on the current percentage implementation of Cobol?
 
T

T.T.

Jan 1, 1970
0
terryc said:
Is this a horses for course comment?
Do you have any figures on the current percentage implementation of Cobol?
If it is above zero, it wouldn't be by much.
COBOL was such a forgiving language that, in its day, thousands of
programmers who should have starved to death paid off mortgages and raised
families.
 
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