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The screenshot of the source code at the end of the article is a ton of printed code. How was it then entered into the Altair? Did someone have to retype it?
by starik36 2y ago
The screenshot of the source code at the end of the article is a ton of printed code.
How was it then entered into the Altair? Did someone have to retype it? Or was there media that predated floppies that was used?
- richardwhiuk 2y agoPaul Allen entered it in front of the customer for the first run https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx https://paulallen.com/Futurist/Microsoft.aspx I expect it was distributed on tape as well.
- schlauerfox 2y ago"he’d forgotten to write the bootstrap loader" He didn't load the whole program from the switches on the face, just the bootstrap that would let them feed the paper tape through the teletype/paper tape reader that was common at the time. It would take a very very long time to load the whole program by hand. See this video of a demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxU_3dEJ2nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxU_3dEJ2nM
- drcode 2y agodamn, that's a crazy process- thanks for the video link
- ttkari 2y agoIt was stored on a punched paper tape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC#Origin_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_BASIC#Origin_and_develo...
- ndiddy 2y agoIt was distributed on paper tape. You needed a teletype with a paper tape reader to run it. Basically you would manually enter a bootloader using the switches on the Altair's front panel, and the bootloader would read BASIC off the tape and into RAM. If the checksum passed, it would then jump into BASIC. Here's a video of the process if you're interested: https://youtu.be/TxU_3dEJ2nM?t=1013 https://youtu.be/TxU_3dEJ2nM?t=1013