I’d like to share this thought-provoking interview from The Daily Papert with Dr. Cynthia Solomon and Dr. Wally Feurzeig, two of the creators of the Logo programming language. I appreciate how this interview describes the educational and technological environment in which Logo developed.
Logo history Interview from Gary Stager on Vimeo.
I gave two presentations at KansasFest 2011, the first an introduction to the Logo programming language and the second a survey of small turtle robots contemporary with the Apple II. Ken Gagne recorded the presentations and has kindly made the videos available.
KansasFest 2011 is over, and it was awesome. My HackFest theme this year was “learn new stuff.” I used an enhanced Apple IIe that I didn’t own until the first day of KansasFest. I used an RC System’s DoubleTalk speech synthesizer for the first time. I used and learned Terrapin Logo 1.0 for the first time, and I booted Logo from original disks that I’d never before used. My entry won second place.
My HackFest entry is a simple demonstration program written with Terrapin Logo and using the DoubleTalk card. Slide your DoubleTalk into slot 4 and boot your copy of Terrapin Logo (older DOS 3.3 version required). Make sure your caps-lock is on if your computer has one, insert my disk (download it here), and then type:
READ "HACK2011
HACK2011
Here’s what you’ll see. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to capture the speech, so you ought to plug in your real IIe for the original experience.
Mike Willegal recently announced the new Brain Board with Wozanium Pack, and I bought one even though I don’t yet own a compatible Apple II, II+, or IIe. It’s always exciting to see new products, whether hardware, software, podcasts, websites, or projects, for the Apple II. The Brain Board allows you to replace the firmware, normally found in ROM chips on the motherboard, with different firmware. Early Apple II and II+ computers used functionality like this to switch between Integer and Applesoft BASIC. Mike has cleverly coupled the “swap out the firmware brains of my Apple II” function with his custom “Wozanium Pack” firmware that replicates the functions of an Apple I!
I haven’t built the board yet, but I’m initially impressed with the quality of the kit and detailed manual.
I’m “Internet famous” on episode 3 of the Open Apple podcast, the premier Apple II podcast. Thanks to Ken Gagne and Mike Maginnis for the invitation. This month features KansasFest, edutainment software, and much more!
I already look forward to the next episode.
April is a good month for the Apple II. KansasFest registration opens. Juiced.GS ships a new issue in beautiful color. Open-Apple ought to release a new podcast soon. Brain Boards ship. Briel’s MP3 player for the Apple II is coming soon. What’s next?
How about an NDA, or New Desk Accessory, for GS/OS that counts the days remaining until KansasFest 2011?
Download your NDA now with Orca/C source code in either a disk image (PO) or ShrinkIt archive (SHK).
Continuing from Part 1 of my book review, here’s Part 2.
This is a software book with about half of the book dedicated to describing the 68000 instruction set architecture and the other half describing a text editor project. If you already have the manuals for the 68000, the architecture content is redundant. The text editor, YASE, however, is more interesting. It’s a sizable project with good documentation on both design decisions and 68000-specific implementation. YASE should be a great example for learning 68000 programming and organizing mid-sized code bases. Also, YASE is modular, and you could reuse some components, such as the printf routines.
This a good book, but I don’t find it as timeless as the Wilcox text. If you’re learning 68000 assembly language programming, this is an excellent resource. Otherwise, it’s an interesting piece of history that I wouldn’t mind on my shelf.
The Motorola 68000 family of processors entered the market in 1979. With a 32-bit CISC instruction set and 24-bit address bus, the 68000 was a powerful processor that spawned a long, successful line of microprocessors and microcontrollers. The Freescale Coldfire line is the modern descendent.
My interest in the 68000 family started in college, and I’m still fond of it. Good documentation and an orthogonal instruction set make the processor pleasant to program. My robot, Bluebot, uses the 68332 descendant.
I’ve seen several references and positive reviews online about two books on the 68000, one by Wilcox and the other by Krantz & Stanley, but there are few online details about the contents. I borrowed copies from the library and want to share my thoughts. This book review comes in two parts with the second coming soon.
This is a hardware book detailing engineering design process, digital logic, and 68000 hardware with the S-100 bus. The discussion of often overlooked digital design topics, such as loading, fanout, timing, propagation delay, and logic levels, is excellent. The author presents several complete, well-documented 68000-based designs. The N8VEM project is currently recreating a design from this book.
This book is excellent if you’re building or repairing 68000 systems. It’s also a good general resource for digital logic with discrete gates. The design process material is pretty good, too, although you’re probably better off with a more modern text if that’s your only interest. I recommend this book and want to add it to my shelf.
I presented a tutorial introduction at KansasFest 2010 on the Mindcraft Macrosoft programming language, a macro assembler package that allows the programmer to achieve machine language speed with a high-level Applesoft BASIC-like syntax. Macrosoft and its companion Assembler run on you favorite 8-bit Apple II. The presentation was well received, and several people left motivated to try Macrosoft for themselves. Don’t miss the history of Macrosoft from the author, Alan Floeter, that’s part of the presentation slides (page 11).
Ken Gagne has kindly shared a recording of my presentation and posted the slides. Watch the presentation, buy a copy of the Mindcraft Assembler & Macrosoft, and write the next blockbuster Apple II software.
USE MACROSOFT.3.1
UEN
MUL
BEGIN
PRINT "Macrosoft Rocks."
CLEANUP
END
There’s a working Macrosoft example in the presentation slides. Also, check out my “hello world” program in Macrosoft and with the Assembler. Finally, don’t forget my winning KansasFest 2009 HackFest entry written with Macrosoft.
My KansasFest 2010 HackFest entry with source code is now available for your enjoyment. This entry took second place behind Martin’s Wizardy crack. I used Complete Pascal 2.0 with Pegasoft Draw Tools 3.1, both of which are freely available, to create my first 16-bit Apple II program. The program displays pictures from KansasFest and asks related trivia questions.
The photographs are used with permission from Henry Courbis of Reactive Micro. I converted the original JPEG images to GIF files on a modern Macbook then used Super Convert on a IIgs to produce packed SHR image files.
I hope some budding programmer will find the software to be a useful starting place for the next brilliant Apple II software!