8-bitters and multi-whatever

[M H Stein]

From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever


On 9/11/07, Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> There were a few simple schemes but excluding myself how many hobbiests
> back then had two or more systems?

>In 1982, the year you quoted for those Arcnet networks, at age 16, I
>had 4 systems, a PET, a C-64, a Cosmac Elf, and a PDP-8/L 
<snip>
>Of those, due to minimal I/O and/or functionality,
>only the PET and the C-64 were "real" systems.

>Since I couldn't afford an IEEE-488 disk drive, rather than just move
>files back and forth on tape, basing it upon the cable and software
>from a contemporary "Byte" magazine, I fabricated my own
>nybble-with-handshake cable between the user ports of the PET and the
>C-64, and moved stuff from one to the other over that.  I might have
>used serial, if I'd had an ACIA-based port for my PET (there were a
>couple that sat in an expansion ROM socket), or if I'd understood more
>about the nature of serial comms and crufted up my own bit-banging
>routines for the PET (the C-64 had that in ROM already).  I understood
>parallel communications, so a nybble at a time it was.
--------

You mean you didn't just make a simple cassette "null modem" cable?
I still have the 30 footer that connected my upstairs "play" PET to the
downstairs "work" one. Lots of people (especially schools) "networked"
them that way in those distant days.

mike