Back in the days before boot ROMs were standard computer hardware, you had to use the toggle switches on the front of a computer to enter programs and data, even if you had a tape or disk drive.
Usually, this involved reading a page containing the bootstrap program, and toggling it into the computer. This process was repetitive, and error prone, because you're moving your attention back and forth, and can easily lose your place.
Ward solved this problem by recording himself reading the the boot loader to audio cassette tape. He could then hit play, and enter the data given to him by his recorded self, and focus only on the switches. ;-)
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The origin of ReSource
Once upon a time, Ward had written a program, and some time later, needed to modify it, but found he had lost the source. He wrote a new program called resource, one of the first reverse assemblers.
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Ward once entered a "shortest useful program" contest in the days of CP/M. Here is his entire entry, in Octal, as listed on page 6 in [1]
Back in the days before boot ROMs were standard computer hardware, you had to use the toggle switches on the front of a computer to enter programs and data, even if you had a tape or disk drive.
Usually, this involved reading a page containing the bootstrap program, and toggling it into the computer. This process was repetitive, and error prone, because you're moving your attention back and forth, and can easily lose your place.
Ward solved this problem by recording himself reading the the boot loader to audio cassette tape. He could then hit play, and enter the data given to him by his recorded self, and focus only on the switches. ;-)
--
The origin of ReSource
Once upon a time, Ward had written a program, and some time later, needed to modify it, but found he had lost the source. He wrote a new program called resource, one of the first reverse assemblers.
--
Ward once entered a "shortest useful program" contest in the days of CP/M. Here is his entire entry, in Octal, as listed on page 6 in [1]
[1] http://vtda.org/docs/computing/AltairUserGroup/AltairUserGro...