On Sun, 23 Nov 2025, ben via cctalk wrote:
Who has strange or one of a kind computers out there?
I have a 18 bit homebrew (cpld) with 256Kb ram and just a bootstrap loader.
This is an interesting thread in the whole "who owns what" category. Also,
"Who understands what".
I feel we've lost the ability for a single person to now fully understand
an entire system. Maybe the Apple II or BBC Micro was possibly the last
system that was possible - and by understand it all, I mean hardware and
software....
I have designed and built my own systems - mostly 6502 and 65816 based,
but that's it. One piece of the jigsaw puzzle missing there is the
assembler. (and PCB layout package?). I didn't write them, but maybe that
no different from a carpenter buying tools to use to make bespoke
furniture. (Alt least a carpenters tools are maintainable for the most
part)
I even wrote a filing system for these systems - although it was based on
ProDOS8. And a multi-tasking OS - written in BCPL... And there is a minor
issue of what tht OS might look like...
Unix
Having been using Unix now since 1980 (I know, a latecomer!) it's hard to
think of something that might be different - for better or worse. I have
used other "micro" systems from CP/M to Flex and the briefest exposure to
VAX VM/S and a few years of Primos as well as a nice little, of somewhat
unique OS called Mouses (a sort of cut-down EMAS for those who may know)
but ... Unix keeps coming back to haunt me. At least at the command line,
and some of it's ideas, anyway.
Do we own our modern computers? Maybe the hardware, maybe not. When "big
corp" can remotely brick then, then very likely not. Then there's the
subscription model... Almost everything now is moving to that. Fridges
with advertising panels? Where will that end...
Slaves to the system now and we walked right into it.
(Sir) Alan Sugar once said; Engineers don't make good businessmen and
having run my own companies in the past, I fear he's right. We're
engineers (like Woz) but the Businessmen (like Jobs) will always win-out
in the end.
Share and enjoy.
Gordon
