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.
Archive of posts filed under the Programming category.
HackFest 2011
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, [...]
68000 Book Review (Part 2)
Continuing from Part 1 of my book review, here’s Part 2. 68000 Assembly Language: Techniques for Building Programs (Donald Krantz & James Stanley) 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 [...]
68000 Book Review (Part 1)
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 [...]
Macrosoft at KansasFest 2010
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 [...]
KansasFest 2010 HackFest
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 [...]
Hackfest Day 2
There are just so many fabulous things to see and do at KansasFest that Hackfest has not gotten much attention! Where else do you get to see the worst Apple product and a disk operating system almost twice as fast as ProDOS? I want to include full-screen bitmapped images in my entry, and I’m figuring out [...]
Hackfest Day 1
The annual KansasFest HackFest is on! I’ve heard rumors of Wizardy cracking and a Rockhurst text adventure. I’m learning Complete Pascal, learning IIGS toolbox programming, and, just in case I run out of things to do, using those skills to write a graphical Apple II/KFest trivia adventure. I have Complete Pascal running and am ready [...]
Saying “Hello” with Macrosoft
Following the model of Eric Shepherd’s “Some Assembly Required: Hello World” article on A2Central and my last post on the Mindcraft Assembler, I’d like to present the traditional “Hello World” program for 8-bit Apple II using Macrosoft. Macrosoft allows the programmer to achieve machine language speed with a familiar BASIC-like syntax. Technically, Macrosoft is a macro [...]
Saying “Hello” with the Mindcraft Assembler
Following the model of Eric Shepherd’s “Some Assembly Required: Hello World” article on A2Central, I’d like to present the traditional “Hello World” program for 8-bit Apple II using the Mindcraft Assembler. Slide the Assembler disk into your drive or run the BOOT.SYSTEM program. Press “E” to enter the editor. Press “enter” once to get a “!” [...]