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> and then abruptly stop These were first computers I was exposed to. As students and later young engineers working with them, we were taught an important prin
by minipci1321 10y ago
> and then abruptly stop
These were first computers I was exposed to. As students and later young engineers working with them, we were taught an important principle: "nothing you can do in software can break the hardware". Imagine then my bewilderment when, working with a tape and having some strange-looking "Attention required", I went down to the ceiling only to see the tape still on reels but cut in two pieces.
- dzdt 10y agoIts funny. In the early days of consumer PC's the feeling was very much the opposite. There were persistent rumors of "killer poke" commands (some of which were at least partially true) where an incorrect software command could destroy the hardware.
- minipci1321 10y agoI am not sure whether that principle they taught us was holding 100% of the time, but it for sure helped -- we were fearless ;-). I must say I am glad that I started my developer career by doing systems programming in IBM OSes. It felt like officiating in a temple at the time and age. Compared to channel programming and starting I/O asynchronously, twiddling bits in some register on a PC in a loop on main (and only) CPU felt just wrong to me ;-). Who knew...
- bitwize 10y agoCommodore computers were particularly susceptible to these. There was a famous one for the PET which could blow out the CRT. I'm also pretty sure I accidentally killed at least one VIC-20 with another, more different poke...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- colejohnson66 10y agoFor an explanation on why that would kill your CRT: http://www.6502.org/users/andre/petindex/poke/index.html http://www.6502.org/users/andre/petindex/poke/index.html