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Heh. When I was 12, I had a Romanian Z80 based computer, that would run BASIC. Because I didn’t have a tape drive for it, I was writing entire programs and then
by drclau 6y ago
Heh. When I was 12, I had a Romanian Z80 based computer, that would run BASIC. Because I didn’t have a tape drive for it, I was writing entire programs and then write them down on paper, and “reload” them after the computer would reset, or if I were lucky, just the next day.
At one point I figured out the opcodes for Z80 were at the end of the somewhat thin manual, and that I can read/write straight into memory. That was so much fun.
This was a lifetime ago, I hope what I remember is correct.
Later on, I got a second hand 8086 based PC, which came with a full setup: central unit, display (monochrome), keyboard and mouse, and 5.25” floppy disk drive. Oh, right, and it had a big, loud, slow 20MiB HDD. It came with some early DOS and GEM desktop environment.
On this machine I encountered the first computer virus, named Romania.856. By that time I had access to BBS through some friends, and I got to download various docs about assembler and so on. I had and loved F-Prot antivirus for its database of virus descriptions.
So I set myself to reverse engineer this virus (I had no idea it’s called reverse engineering), by using the old debug.com (or was it exe?) that came with DOS. I wish I still had my notes from back then. At some point I got Turbo Debugger too, that made things so much easier.
I was merely 14 years old, and spent a whole summer doing things like that, while other kids were doing whatever other kids normally do. I learned everything about that virus, and later about others.
- enneff 6y agoIt was DEBUG.COM until MS-DOS 5.0, then it became an EXE. I remember finding it a very mysterious program as a young child, and it was only after I'd learned some programming that I started to realize what it was for. Computing was so much easier to understand back then!
- worstenbrood 6y agoBack in the day we had to use debug.com at school to program small assembler apps. Most frustrating experience ever :) The things you had to do to fix a typo...
- 7thaccount 6y agoThere are a couple of recent (either recently released or will be released in the future) 8-bit computers that retain the fun of those old computers while giving them some modern conveniences like an SD card and some even have ethernet. The ZX spectrum Next looks amazing. Then there is the 8-bit guy's Commander X-16 which is being built by him and many other volunteers and should be ready for Kickstarter soon. Also there is the Mega65 project which is a very similar project to the Commander X16. Also there is the Color Maximite 2, which seems to be a screaming fast BASIC computer not meant to be fully compatible with any machine that I'm aware of. Some of these are implemented on FPGA and others on actual chips and some have the keyboard/computer integrated, while others do not. Either way, I'm really excited to finally be able to buy one of these fun old machines where you can fully understand the full system and easily make simple games.