Anyone else miss 8-bit computing? - OR - Jason's got a "new" laptop!
- By Jason Donahue
- Published 05/12/2009
So, lately, I've been in a real "I hate modern computing. Computers suck." kind of mood. For those who don't know, my day job is as a network admin for a law firm, so, needless to say, that's had an impact on my job satisfaction.
But, let's face it, computers do suck these days. Allow me to expand on that thought: Windows sucks. Mac OS sucks. Linux sucks. Don't even try to deny it. I don't want to hear about what the latest version of OS X, "Liger", can do, or how the latest build of Ubuntu, "Ignoramus Iguana", adds all these new features, like actual hardware support, or how Windows 7 Uber-Massive-Supreme-Ulitmate Edition will even do your laundry and wash your dishes.
Stop. All modern operating systems suck. Except maybe FreeDOS, and the jury's still out on that one. Oh, and maybe Splashtop OS. More on that in a bit, though.
Not that long ago, I might have joined you. You might have read me on the forums extolling the virtues of Windows Vista Busines, or talking about the new features in Windows Server 2008, or even defending the design decisions in Xandros Desktop. I'd talk about the functionality of Windows Mobile 6.1, and how a decent smartphone could replace a laptop.
No more! No more, I say. I've realized that all operating systems suck, and that, years ago, computer designers had the right idea. We've been led astray, I say!
For those among you who are old enough to remember the glory days of the computer, the 8-bit era of the 1980s, I want you to think back to that old 8-bit machine you once owned. Most likely, you had a Commodore 64, though you might have been the trendy hipster with an Apple II. Yes, folks, even then, the Apple crowd were trendy hipsters. Perhaps you were like me, and had a TRS-80 computer from Radio Shack - my own was a Color Computer 2 (the 64KB model), with the most uber 6809 CPU, a CPU so incredibly powerful, and so incredibly expensive, that Tandy had to skimp on the other aspects of the computer (like, y'now, the C64's fancy graphics and sound chips) to keep the cost down.
But, think back to that antiquated relic from a bygone era, when computers were more elegant weapons for a more civilized age. You took your computer, quite possibly plugged it into your TV, since monitors were an added expense, turned it on and, less than a second later, it was ready to work. It was ready! The simple, essentially-no-overhead operating system was embedded in ROM. Data storage? Cassettes, which everyone had back then, or optional disk drives. Couldn't afford a floppy drive? Use a cassette recorder. The computer itself was a barebones package that you plugged in hardware through accessory ports or slots as needed. If you didn't need to use a particular piece of hardware, such as your modem or floppy drive or whatever, you didn't have to have it plugged in.
Your "operating system" back then was basically BASIC, embedded in the ROM as I said, with a few I/O functions added on, so you could load and save files to external storage. Programs were short enough and simple enough that they could publish one or two on a page or two of a magazine which, when you got it home, you could sit in front of your PC and type it in, then save it to cassette or floppy, depending on whether you were broke or had the benjamins for the floppy drive. Nearly everyone pretty much learned a little coding along the way, through BASIC, which is still the simplest programming language I've ever seen and worked with, and I've worked with BASIC, Pascal, C and assembly language, and poked my head in to look at Visual Basic and Java a bit.
What ever happened to that? Whatever happened to the instant-on barebones PC that had what they needed to have and not much more?
"What about netbooks?" you ask? They're a step in the right direction, especially early on, when they used solid state storage, instead of disk drives. But, like everything else in computing, people couldn't leave well enough alone, and started cramming more crap under the hood. Actual hard drives, for rexample, and there's still the issue of care and feeding of your complicated operating systems, which require proper startups and shutdowns for the most part. The advent of USB has been a major step in the right direction, IMO, in terms of bringing back these bygone days, since now everything, such as storage, printers, sound, even video, can be plugged into a USB port.
Splashtop is a step in the right direction. It's stored in the BIOS on supported motherboards, boots pretty much instantly (based on my hands-on evaluation of it on my friend Rob's Lenovo S10 netbook). It supports external USB storage with no problem, and is updatable, since it's in the BIOS, so updates aren't an issue. If you could download and save extra apps on, say, a USB drive or something, and had access to the Linux console (it's basically Linux under the hood), I daresay I would consider this the perfect modern OS. But, it shows promise.
Speaking of showing promise, so does FreeDOS - you'd be surprised what DOS can do these days, including support for 2 TB hard drives. Dell and HP, as I recall, were actually shipping some modern PCs with FreeDOS installed as the OS fairly recently, and, as the FreeDOS links page shows, there's a lot of DOS software out there, and development still being done for the OS. So, there's promise here, too.
But, while I watch Splashtop and FreeDOS, and consider building a box to run either one or both, I've gone a slightly different route at the moment, to indulge my nostalgia. I bought a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer - mine's the 8KB mode. But, funny thing, the Model 100 has an active support community, such as Club100 and Bitchin100, and, as both pages show, continuing hardware and software development for the "ModelT" - right now, I'm debating between adding 24KB of RAM and a software option ROM, or waiting until the commercial release of the REX option ROM (it's in beta right now), which adds 1 MB of flash storage, for use for ROM images, RAM dumps, etc.
In the meantime, I've got file transfer with my PCs through hyperterminal, a handful of apps I've typed in (a "piano" app, a calculator, a util to make setting the date and time easier, and a Frogger clone), and even keep a short "Twitter" style journal for myself on the device. Combine in BASIC in the ROM, along with other "ROMware", like a text editor, terminal program, and simple address book and scheduler (more like a task list), and I'm finding the Model 100 to be a usable computer, and I've got Bill Gates, who did much of coding on the Model 100, his last major software project. Hell, if I don't mind breaking out the soldering iron, I could even add bluetooth.
So, anyone else kind of feel the same way as me? Hell, does anyone actually read this blog? ;)
But, let's face it, computers do suck these days. Allow me to expand on that thought: Windows sucks. Mac OS sucks. Linux sucks. Don't even try to deny it. I don't want to hear about what the latest version of OS X, "Liger", can do, or how the latest build of Ubuntu, "Ignoramus Iguana", adds all these new features, like actual hardware support, or how Windows 7 Uber-Massive-Supreme-Ulitmate Edition will even do your laundry and wash your dishes.
Stop. All modern operating systems suck. Except maybe FreeDOS, and the jury's still out on that one. Oh, and maybe Splashtop OS. More on that in a bit, though.
Not that long ago, I might have joined you. You might have read me on the forums extolling the virtues of Windows Vista Busines, or talking about the new features in Windows Server 2008, or even defending the design decisions in Xandros Desktop. I'd talk about the functionality of Windows Mobile 6.1, and how a decent smartphone could replace a laptop.
No more! No more, I say. I've realized that all operating systems suck, and that, years ago, computer designers had the right idea. We've been led astray, I say!
For those among you who are old enough to remember the glory days of the computer, the 8-bit era of the 1980s, I want you to think back to that old 8-bit machine you once owned. Most likely, you had a Commodore 64, though you might have been the trendy hipster with an Apple II. Yes, folks, even then, the Apple crowd were trendy hipsters. Perhaps you were like me, and had a TRS-80 computer from Radio Shack - my own was a Color Computer 2 (the 64KB model), with the most uber 6809 CPU, a CPU so incredibly powerful, and so incredibly expensive, that Tandy had to skimp on the other aspects of the computer (like, y'now, the C64's fancy graphics and sound chips) to keep the cost down.
But, think back to that antiquated relic from a bygone era, when computers were more elegant weapons for a more civilized age. You took your computer, quite possibly plugged it into your TV, since monitors were an added expense, turned it on and, less than a second later, it was ready to work. It was ready! The simple, essentially-no-overhead operating system was embedded in ROM. Data storage? Cassettes, which everyone had back then, or optional disk drives. Couldn't afford a floppy drive? Use a cassette recorder. The computer itself was a barebones package that you plugged in hardware through accessory ports or slots as needed. If you didn't need to use a particular piece of hardware, such as your modem or floppy drive or whatever, you didn't have to have it plugged in.
Your "operating system" back then was basically BASIC, embedded in the ROM as I said, with a few I/O functions added on, so you could load and save files to external storage. Programs were short enough and simple enough that they could publish one or two on a page or two of a magazine which, when you got it home, you could sit in front of your PC and type it in, then save it to cassette or floppy, depending on whether you were broke or had the benjamins for the floppy drive. Nearly everyone pretty much learned a little coding along the way, through BASIC, which is still the simplest programming language I've ever seen and worked with, and I've worked with BASIC, Pascal, C and assembly language, and poked my head in to look at Visual Basic and Java a bit.
What ever happened to that? Whatever happened to the instant-on barebones PC that had what they needed to have and not much more?
"What about netbooks?" you ask? They're a step in the right direction, especially early on, when they used solid state storage, instead of disk drives. But, like everything else in computing, people couldn't leave well enough alone, and started cramming more crap under the hood. Actual hard drives, for rexample, and there's still the issue of care and feeding of your complicated operating systems, which require proper startups and shutdowns for the most part. The advent of USB has been a major step in the right direction, IMO, in terms of bringing back these bygone days, since now everything, such as storage, printers, sound, even video, can be plugged into a USB port.
Splashtop is a step in the right direction. It's stored in the BIOS on supported motherboards, boots pretty much instantly (based on my hands-on evaluation of it on my friend Rob's Lenovo S10 netbook). It supports external USB storage with no problem, and is updatable, since it's in the BIOS, so updates aren't an issue. If you could download and save extra apps on, say, a USB drive or something, and had access to the Linux console (it's basically Linux under the hood), I daresay I would consider this the perfect modern OS. But, it shows promise.
Speaking of showing promise, so does FreeDOS - you'd be surprised what DOS can do these days, including support for 2 TB hard drives. Dell and HP, as I recall, were actually shipping some modern PCs with FreeDOS installed as the OS fairly recently, and, as the FreeDOS links page shows, there's a lot of DOS software out there, and development still being done for the OS. So, there's promise here, too.
But, while I watch Splashtop and FreeDOS, and consider building a box to run either one or both, I've gone a slightly different route at the moment, to indulge my nostalgia. I bought a TRS-80 Model 100 laptop computer - mine's the 8KB mode. But, funny thing, the Model 100 has an active support community, such as Club100 and Bitchin100, and, as both pages show, continuing hardware and software development for the "ModelT" - right now, I'm debating between adding 24KB of RAM and a software option ROM, or waiting until the commercial release of the REX option ROM (it's in beta right now), which adds 1 MB of flash storage, for use for ROM images, RAM dumps, etc.
In the meantime, I've got file transfer with my PCs through hyperterminal, a handful of apps I've typed in (a "piano" app, a calculator, a util to make setting the date and time easier, and a Frogger clone), and even keep a short "Twitter" style journal for myself on the device. Combine in BASIC in the ROM, along with other "ROMware", like a text editor, terminal program, and simple address book and scheduler (more like a task list), and I'm finding the Model 100 to be a usable computer, and I've got Bill Gates, who did much of coding on the Model 100, his last major software project. Hell, if I don't mind breaking out the soldering iron, I could even add bluetooth.
So, anyone else kind of feel the same way as me? Hell, does anyone actually read this blog? ;)