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2019-06-23 5:29 pm
Hi everyone! I've been programming since 1970, and am retired from a large software company in Redmond, WA. My father was an electrical engineer and a ham radio operator, so electronics has been an on-again-off-again hobby since I was a kid. I've always been fascinated by interfacing computers to the real world. I'm having fun combining that with my personal/professional background in graphics by building large displays from 8x8 LED matrices and Arduinos, including a new library to support the MAX7219 with large arrays of the LED matrices (which I will release someday) for making hanging wall art. I also want to build a large-format pen plotter with stepper motors, which is how I discovered Bill and the DroneBot Workshop. I appreciate the clear explanations, and careful presentations. Like many of you, I'm sure, I buy peripherals/sensors that Bill works with so I can follow along at home. DBW has been a great resource!
jscottbee reacted
2019-06-23 5:38 pm
Hi Don,
I would love the hear some of your computer stories! I started in the field in the mid-'80s on mini and microcomputers and doing CP/M in high school for side money and experience of course.
Scott
Topic starter
2019-06-23 6:11 pm
Well, I started in the days of punched cards while in high school, thanks to a university internship. I got my first personal computer in 1981, a Timex ZX81 kit that I soldered together (I was already 28). That was followed by a C-64 two years later. I made my first PCB for the C-64, an RS-232 interface between the C-64's TTL voltage levels, and true RS-232 levels, so it could communicate with other computers. My first foray into microcontrollers was the TI MSP430 Launchpad several years ago.
I've learned a lot of programming languages over the years, including assemblers, and it astounds me that we have reached the point where we program microcontrollers in C++. I've recently moved from the Arduino IDE to platformio using Visual Studio Code, so now even my development process feels just like Visual Studio. It almost seems too easy 🙂
But one thing that the Arduino (well, the Uno anyway) reminds me of from the old days is limited memory and relatively slow speed, so the habits I learned then still pay off.
2019-06-23 6:31 pm
Thanks Don! I started when punchcards and paper tape were still somewhat used, but not by me much. I have used paper tape on an old AT&T Unix system, just to get data loaded from another system. I have worked with a good many folks with stacks of punch cards and wire boards that they had from years before. I did a lot of ASM and C back then for crossover systems in manufacturing. This was to get data from shop floor computers like PLC's and PC's to Vax's and mainframes. This was back before you had things like Mod bus or the like. In the '90s I did a fair amount of Z80 and 8051 embedded stuff and some 68HC11 stuff on my own. The fun times back when you had to write everything!
I try and use VS code as well, after a very long time using emacs. I still use emacs some, as my fingers still know it (not my brain)
Topic starter
2019-06-23 7:01 pm
It sounds like you have far more experience with low-level stuff than me. I've always envied people who were comfortable around industrial hardware, the folks who kept the machines running.
I knew emacs 25 years ago, and I even have emacs for Windows installed, but I've been using VS since then, through all its versions, and it's an old friend.
2019-06-23 7:37 pm
VS is what I use at work now, It's gotten better over the years. I only dip back to emacs for super macro use when doing massive changes to files 🙂