Linux is KING - Couldn't be hacked - Mac, Vista went down in flames

[Ric Moore]

On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 07:45 -0700, Craig White wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 09:31 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> > Les wrote:
> > > Actually, Microsoft was a late comer to personal computers.  I own
> > > (still) an Altair 8800B, and owned a
> > > Morrow Microdecision before that, both on CP/M.  And prior to that I had
> > > systems that ran various other OS's 
> > > that were a bit more limited, and one straight bootstrap system for
> > > which you had to furnish an OS of your favorite
> > > flavor.  Microsoft did not create, or really enable personal computers,
> > > they just got the contract to write the OS for IBM, and were able to
> > > bootstrap that into the corporation you see today.
> > > 
> > Microsoft's entry into the personal computer market was by supplying 
> > a version of BASIC that for several operating systems. I can 
> > remember loading it from tape, and later burning it to EPROM with a 
> > small relocation program to move it into RAM at the address it 
> > expected to run. (It was not relocatable...)
> ----
> I have that tape still...
> 
> Microsoft's version for Apple...called 'Floating Point Basic Language'
> for Apple ][ because my original Apple ][ had integer basic in ROM and
> Floating Point Basic had to be loaded from a cassette.  I do sort of
> wonder if it has any value.

THAT's the one I had, what a pirating tool it was, too!! Heheheh, just
note the starting address of a binary program loaded into memory, note
the length, and save it to tape after hitting the reset button. Then
we'd load up a real system disk, reload the program back from tape and
"bsave" it to a floppy, noting the start and length parameters, and you
had that sucker. God only knows how many space games we liberated from
copy-protected disks. Then, Jobs decided to make the Apple][+, so there
would be no more pirating shenanigans. Right. We made eprom copies of
the original integer basic roms to load into the plus machines. Those
were the good-ole days, for sure. I still have a cassette copy of the
Apple floating point basic, too. I wish I had kept the Red and Blue
Books. Woz was/is a Saint. I wish he'd come out on the Linux side. Ric





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My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
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