

From the ground up (or how to encourage a school boy) - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2013/05/from-ground-up.html

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greenyoda
An amazing story! However, it's a good thing you did this in the 1980s. Today,
instead of a friendly letter of encouragement, you'd probably get a "cease and
desist" letter from a lawyer saying that reverse-engineering their client's
proprietary network code was a criminal act.

~~~
jgrahamc
How sadly true that is.

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willvarfar
By the time I got to school RM machines were called the Nimbus and were 86s
(or possible 186).

The apps were very very good; I particularly remember Newspa and wish there
was something similar for my kids to use today.

I learnt to program BBC Basic on it. Very fond memories.

I think in my final year we got a single RM Nimbus 286 and by then all
pretense at custom software stack was gone; it was a windows 3 machine.

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Renaud
ahh, the joy of Z80 assembly. Such fond memories I had of hacking at my Laser
200[1], bought with my own money (I didn't have enough to buy a Thompson
MO5[2], I was only 13 at the time).

You had to plug it into the TV, there was no way to record your programs
although I got a tape recorder later. I later completely mapped the circuit
board to understand how it was working and built a 16K static memory expansion
(the original was too expensive).

I started bypassing basic and hacking away using PEEK and POKE commands, then
hand-compiled small assembly programs (had to find out the OP-codes to
directly store them in memory).

I later got an Amstrad 6128 that I bought from a friend. It had CP/M and a
proper assembler, and a floppy drive, and a lot more fun was to be had with
this one.

I still got my Laser 200. It probably still works, I hope.

These early computer were great: with a bit of perseverance, you could
understand everything about them. The electronics, how the ROM was working, it
was such fun to discover all these undocumented capabilities, to try to lift
the hood and make sense of it all.

I don't know if this is a lost art today. The success of the Arduino and
Raspberry Pi platforms give me hope that there is still an interest in low-
level hacking.

As a young boy, it was so extremely formative to live during that era. Even
though we didn't have the Internet, I still feel very fortunate for having
access to these eminently hackable early personal computers.

[1]:[http://www.old-
computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=155&s...](http://www.old-
computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=155&st=1) [2]:[http://www.old-
computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=...](http://www.old-
computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=12)

~~~
nikster
Low level hacking is alive and well; not just with Arduino and Raspberry Pi
but also with the jailbreak community - I was fascinated at the speed with
which a bunch of kids built an entire iOS tool chain from scratch, with no
documentation and against the wishes of the owner.

There are now more hackers and makers than ever before. Good things will come
from it.

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chewxy
I wonder how many breach-of-trust lawsuits Graham Martin would face if he did
that today.

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sanoli
Did you keep in touch with Mr. Martin, or with anyone else at the company,
after this?

