"Ahem A Rivet's Shot"  wrote in message
news:20201025210955.7d73536af893a6cbdba964d8@eircom.net...
> On Sun, 25 Oct 2020 20:23:17 -0000
> "NY"  wrote:
>
>> "Ahem A Rivet's Shot"  wrote in message
>> news:20201024121940.637fbc604370d7cfa1860012@eircom.net...
>> > On Sat, 24 Oct 2020 10:39:35 -0000 (UTC)
>> > Markus Robert Kessler  wrote:
>> >
>> >> We are talking about a "Raspberry A" with 256 MB (MegaByte). Under
>> >> load
>> >> this amount will be eaten up soon. That was one of the reasons for
>> >> inventing repeated reboots.
>> >
>> > Reboots to cure memory leaks ? IOW reboots as a workaround for bad
>> > programming! That has never been acceptable in my book since times when
>> > 256Mb was a dream as disc capacity.
>>
>> 256 Mb. So 64 MB? That's luxury!
>
> 
>
>> I can remember when I bought my first computer, in 1981, a CPM/3-based
>> "Wren" (*). I decided that I could just about afford the RAM upgrade from
>
> A bit later than 1981 I think - CP/M 3 didn't come out until 1983
> CPN for the Torch (1982) was based on CP/M 2.2, I'd have just ported CP/M
> 3
> if it had been available.

You could well be right. I thought at first I already had the computer when
I started at university in 1982, but I may have got it a year later. In
which case it wasn't just after I'd passed my driving test (in 1981) but a
while later. Probably still the first time I drove in central London *on my
own* as opposed to having my dad for moral support and to navigate.

Anyway, CP/M3, BBC Basic (which had been ported from 6502 on BBC Micro to
Z80), Perfect Office (Writer, Calc, Exec) office suite, Prestel display and
modem. All in a very heavy case that was "luggable" (though it left you
walking lopsided!) because the unit with the motherboard, PSU, screen and
floppies could be slid back to expose the keyboard or slid forward to a lid
could be clipped over to make a self-contained unit with a (strong) carrying
handle.

I was quite proud when I managed to write a Z80 routine (embedded in and
called from a BASIC program) for bubble-sorting an array - which it did
*many* times quicker than the same algorithm in BASIC. I found a listing of
it the other day and was quite impressed with what my younger self had
managed ;-)  I also made little circuit boards which plugged into the
parallel port and interfaced with a) a digital-to-analogue chip and b) an
analogue-to-digital chip. Not long ago I came across a sound recording I'd
made this way from a CD player - Dire Straits' "Why Worry" - and it was a
perfectly good 8-bit WAV file once I'd added the necessary file header. I
also made an RGB-to-PAL converter (again, using an IC which did the job,
with a suitable 4.33 MHz crystal) so I could display colour on a TV from the
RGB port, since the Wren only had a monochrome amber screen.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05