I first programmed computers in 1973 as a
summer job while studying undergraduate
Honors Physics and Russian at UVIC.
I programmed in Machine and Assembly
language for two Digital Equipment
computers (PDP-11/05 and PDP-11/40) in the
Basement of the Physics building, running
RSTS-11 (Resource Sharing/Time Sharing)
and subsequently the (inferior) RT-11
To interface more serial terminals to
the PDP-11s, a South-West Technical
Products 6800 microcomputer was inserted
as a serial port exchange. I wrote a
cross-assembler for the 6800 CPU
(similar instruction set to PDP-11)
in BASIC in order to write the software
for this project. At the time, serial
ports for the SWTPC were approximately
Ten Dollars, whereas serial ports for
the PDP-11s cost several Hundred Dollars.
To add more serial ports, it was necessary
to strap two of these SWTPC microcomputers
back-to-back - one machine had no CPU - it
was only used because more serial ports
could be added.
At the time, I had my own personal PDP-8/m
minicomputer, which I programmed in Assembler
running Disk Monitor System and OS/8, which
were loaded from paper tape on ASR-33 teletype
I then obtained the source code for TSS/8
(
Time_
Sharing/Resource_
Sharing for PDP-
8),
manually typed the WHOLE thing in on a noisy
ASR-33 teletype from this Listing using TeCo
editor, compiled it on a University PDP-8/e,
wrote the binary out on paper tape, which I
proceeded to load into my personal PDP-8/m.
***
In those days, computers had keys - I still
carry the key to my PDP-8/m on my keyring !
***
After moving to Vancouver in 1979, I programmed
at UBC/Triumf for PDP-11s in Machine and Assembler
and then VAX-11s in Assembler for the Nuclear
Physics community. I acquired some IBM-PCs
(all Clones, actually) and ran MS-DOS and then
Software Landing Systems (SLS) Linux. SLS Linux
was authored on Lodge Street, which was about
half way from where I lived on Saanich Road
on my trip to my Piano Teacher on Quadra Street
in Victoria, B.C.
I since moved to Slackware (forget the exact date)
and have continued with it ever since, even though
I have tried (and abandoned) distributions such as
Red Hat, SuSE, etc.
I am now using Slackware 13.37 (why drop Hebrew?)
is it anything to do with
www.arabeyes.org see
/usr/share/X11/xkb/keymap/xfree86
-
Яаков
***
My latest project involves adding multiple keyboards
so that toggling
left [Alt]+[Shift] causes sequences such as
English->עברית->Русский->العربية
***
As a suggestion, please remove the
Linux 4 keyboard layout limit (google)
which was fascistly imposed in recent
updates to the following xfree86 file
/usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base
in Slackware 13.37
so I don't have to drop these, my favorite
languages so I can sprinkle symbols such
as λ or θ useful for Science + Engineering.
***
I am concerned about apparent attempts from
somewhere to sabotage Linux in favor of
Microsoft Windows. These include...
o Future computers with UEFI bios may require Microsoft
authorization to boot non-Windows.
o Certain routers, such as DLink DIR-601,
won't work with Linux when setup as per manual...
o Adobe Acrobat module for Linux
suddenly quit working - I found an
accidental bug...
o Adobe FlashPlayer 11.2 module is the
last Linux version to be supported...
etc.