[vcf-midatlantic] Intro

[william degnan]

Welcome to the group!  I take it you live in NJ?
b

On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 2:51 PM, Michael Kato via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

> My name is Maki and I've been on the list for a little while now, I've also
> had the chance to meet a number of members two weekends ago at TCF.  Since
> I'm going to be at VCF-E on Friday and Sunday I thought I'd write a bit
> about myself so that maybe I can connect with those sharing similar
> interests.
>
> I grew up in Japan in the 80's; got my amateur radio license and then
> almost immediately got caught in the "paso-kon"(personal computer)
> excitement.  Read lots of magazines and spent countless hours typing in hex
> code to run a game or to try a new programming language.  My favorite was
> the Sharp MZ-80 machines with Z-80s.  At school we had access to Hitachi
> Basic Master Level 3 machines with 6809 still with cassette tapes.  I also
> had access to SORD M-100 and M-23 machines where I learned Z80, I also had
> a hand me down CP/M crate with 8" floppies.(Probably S-100, but don't know
> the make or model for that matter I don't even know who gave me the box -
> probably my dad's colleague)
>
> Eventually I went off to boarding school in Singapore, and took with me a
> Epson Geneva PX-8(z80 cp/m laptop).  I have again my dad to thank for this
> nice gift.  I did a little programming on that and remember writing a
> compiler that would take tiny pascal looking code and output z80
> assembly.(in Lisp-80)
>
> From college I remember TOPS-20 and Motorola 68HC11 intro to digital
> class.  I also remember spending lots of time on a Mac IIci with Pascal and
> C, oh and of course Sun-2 and then Sparc.  After graduating I entered the
> workforce as a programmer, worked for a number of companies including a
> trip back to Singapore to work for IBM Global Services.(I learned a bit of
> mainframe and a bit of AS/400 and did quite a bit of C++ on AIX and OS/2)
>  Since returning to the states I've been almost exclusively in the Web
> space.(and of course the Arduino and Raspberry pi stuff for fun)
>
> During the 80's 90's and into the 00's I collected unix workstations mostly
> around the MIPS architecture, and enjoyed getting NetBSD to boot on each.
> Recently I've decided to focus on a few things I really want to spend my
> time on.  I've kept my Z80s(~10 machines including a Sharp MZ-700 and
> Nascom-2)  Motorola 88k (NCD X-terminals, VME machines, DG AViiONs and
> Omron 88k) and some Sharp PC-1500 calculators with 8bit LH5801.
>
> I feel like there are still more creating to be done on all the older
> platforms, but in particular I'm thinking along the lines of z80 as target
> for embedded application like motor control for a drawbot.  I have done
> some Forth but feel like I haven't experienced enough of that so thinking
> about Forth on Z80 and 88k to programming these projects.  On the NCD 88ks
> I'm thinking maybe someday of bringing up an Oberon system.
>
> Being a web guy I fancy building a collaborative disassembler where people
> can annotate and share annotations for reverse engineered binaries.
>
> That's sort of where my mind's at; looking forward to meeting more z80 fans
> and 88k fans.  And looking forward to seeing cool old hardware.
>
> ....maki....
>
> PS. I also kept my sparetime gizmo 6120 - looking forward to learning more
> about pdp8
>