[vcf-midatlantic] A good class for the Altair 8800 50th birthday...

[Neil Cherry]

On 4/26/24 14:33, Jonathan Chapman via vcf-midatlantic wrote:

> Starting from "I bought this Altair on eBay!" would be a week-long course, assuming the individual(s) taking it had enough
> background for the material in the first place! There's a lot involved in getting them fully operational and *stable* and having
> an unstable machine is a nightmare for someone who's just getting started on S-100.
>
>> and S50s

I'd say it somewhat depends on your background. I started in the industry as an
EET. Worked in a small company and learn every step of embedded systems.

With the exception of things like the 4004/4040 I can look at a computer and
figure it out. The 4004/4040 is strange software. The rest of various processors
don't look that different to me. TTL or transistor computers are a bit harder
to follow. :-)

Now someone who started in software but wants to play with hardware is going to
have a different view of the world. I know I've seen a lot of software folks
struggle with the hardware. I'm not always good at explaining the hardware to help
them understand.

 > Assuming you mean SS-50, these things aren't really related, the (usually) completely different processor architecture changes a
 > lot of things.

Start with the basics, Serial (RS232, current loop, TTL 5v0/3v3) and parallel.
Then work in to the logic.

I will agree starting with an unstable system is not a great place to start but
it will teach you how the systems work. And that's where the repair workshops
come into play.

--
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       kd2zrq at linuxha.com
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