8086 Is 40 Years Old

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yogi
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8086 Is 40 Years Old

Post by yogi »

I remember using those first 8086's. It's hard for me to believe it's been 40 years already.

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Kellemora
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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Hmm, I remember the 8080A in PCs, and the 6502 in Apple's. I preferred the 6502 over the 8080A!
8086 must have been the first of the x86 chips?
I don't remember what was in my 286 or 386 machines. But don't recall them having more than 32 bit boards.
At least I knew how to program in Basic back then and put computers to good use to do a lot of my work for me.
Then technology moved ahead faster than I could grasp it, hi hi.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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I loved the 6502's as well because the company I worked for made them. LOL

I learned assembly language on those 6500 series chips and knew even at that time a higher level language had to be invented if the masses were to embrace these microprocessor gizmos. BASIC was popular, but I don't recall if I learned that or C first.

You would think the 8080 would be the precursor of an 8086, but I believe the Z80 came from a company called Zilog while the 8086 was Intel's baby. If memory serves me correctly, Intel came out first.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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I became quite adept at programming the 6502 in Basic.
So much so, Beagle Bros. Software offered me a job, because of some of the tricks I could do.
Of course, as soon as they learned I knew nothing else other than what I was doing with Basic, well that ended that.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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Your story brings back memories. I'd never make a living developing software alone regardless of the language. I'm simply not that clever. However, I worked in a test lab where we made equipment to test the radios built in the factory. The combination of skills is what made me successful. However, it was highly specialized for Motorola products and manufacturing. Only a small part of what I knew would transfer over to somebody else's factory and software development kits. It's a good situation only for the amount of time your work is relevant. Once technology changes, obsolescence sets in quickly. That's why I could not get a job as a programmer when I was forced to leave Motorola after 36 years of experience. All that time meant nothing to most other companies.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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I understand. I was sorta in the same boat myself. I was a draftsman for several years, and touched on some major projects in a small way. When I first started, about the only tools we had were a Slide Rule and a Friden Machine. The advent of a calculator retired the slide rule, and a scientific calculator retired the Friden machine. Then of course CAD wiped out the lowly draftsman in short order.

Speaking of Motorola. I used to have a Motorola Radio Telephone in my car, provided by the company I worked for. That thing took up half of my trunk, a huge box about 3 feet wide 2 feet deep and a foot or more high. I had to connect with a Radio Phone Operator to place calls. The amazing thing is, we had solid contact all the way from Saint Louis to the Bootheel, and everywhere between the Landa gas fields in Texas and Louisiana. Great Service, better coverage than we get with today's cell phones. I know it cost the company a fortune to have this installed and provide the service, but I sorta had an important job at the time, even if it didn't pay a lot, hi hi.

With the 6502, it was possible to get up to four things running all at the same time, without a noticeable lag.
The most I could get running on an 8080A was three things.
Think of PONG, two paddles, one ball. That was the limit of the 8080A.
On the 6502, you could get two paddles, one or two balls, and or one ball and another object dropping.
Other games may make it appear there were more things happening, but they were not really.
Like the missile game. All the bombs dropping was just one event, repeated in succession, the tank moving a second event, and the missile firing the third event.
I think I bought every book on Basic game programming at the time, and used the information I learned from that to make the computer do things it was not intended to do. This is how I got it to do my early inventory and pricing of items, and several of things POS software does today, on a much smaller and slower scale of course.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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My very first job (before Motorola) was as an "office boy" in an envelope manufacturing company. One of my duties was to calculate the weekly commission totals for each of the sales people. I did that on a Friden. :mrgreen: There were a dozen or so people in that office, not counting the sales force. Now that I look back, all of those people could be replaced by one office boy and maybe two computers. OK, maybe one desktop and a smartphone.

The radio telephones made by Motorola were powered by vacuum tubes. They operated somewhere in the 150MHz band. Later generations moved up to 450MHz. Those later models were about the size of three shoe boxes placed side by side. Those early days of radio telephone were indeed handled by a special operator. Also, an amazing fact, the entire city of Chicago had only eleven (11) channels. Many people had to wait as long as an hour to place a call via radio telephone. By the time the UHF radios came into being there were still only 11 channels inside the mobile unit, but the network had many more to choose from. There seldom was a wait time at that point.

I don't know why your coverage was so good. Most of the telephone repeaters were attached to existing microwave towers. I guess those repeaters were strategically placed along highways for use by the state police. You may not have been so well covered if you strayed off into some rural area.
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Re: 8086 Is 40 Years Old

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I do know it wasn't just the big cities that had Mobile Operators, because of the locations I was sent to work.
I can't honestly say I had coverage between my assigned points. But I did break down a couple of times in what I would consider remote areas and the phone worked, although it had a lot of static.
I worked for a natural gas pipeline company and was often sent to their pumping stations, and from there to a site where they shut down a pipe for repairs. I had to design the repair and order the necessary repair components. Some of this was done on the radiotelephone, but the bulk was done on a landline at the pumping station if I was near one.
I was also a Ham Radio Operator back then too, and always had 2-meter handi-talkie, and a 6-meter Benton Harbor Lunchbox in the car. No HF gear though. If you have a problem, Hams will often get you the help you need fast, or come get you if they are nearby and have time.
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