Comments on: Geek Fight!

By: sad lonely man

sad lonely man — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:14:01 +0000

I can’t believe I actually read the entire page including comments. o.0
I took away less from this than I would have trying to fly using only my left ear.

I would ask, but I assure you, I will NEVER be back to read the reply, what the hell is this whole web-page about?
I was searching for how to fix the “No Room” error given by BBC BASIC for Windows and this unearthly site came up.

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 17:02:56 +0000

0: I was talking about firmware that’s supplied with the machine

1: So? You can take the BIOS out of a PC and replace it with something that does something different

2: Irrelevant.

By: Roddy

Roddy — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:00:39 +0000

I’d say several things.

0: You are not comparing like with like. The BIOS initialisation routines are best compared with initialisation routines in the Acorn MOS ROM.

1: You could take the BBC BASIC ROM out of a beeb and fit a BCPL ROM, or a FORTH ROM, or a Wordwise ROM, and expect useful things to happen, but not necessarily 32 bit integer arithmetic.

2: PCs are the work of the devil. And also messed up silicon poop toasters.

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:40:43 +0000

So you’d say that a PC doesn’t initialise its hardware and try to boot from a variety of devices when you switch it on because actually it’s the BIOS that does that - and the BIOS is firmware?

By: Roddy

Roddy — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:27:34 +0000

>The OS starts up the lowest numbered language ROM on startup. If there is none
> it displays the message â€˜Language?â€™ and hangs. No * prompt.

Of course. Curse my crappy memory. But there was a hardware/software combination that did what I described. Perhaps an M128 runnning MOS 3.2? Anyone got such a set up?

That aside, Andy, the BASIC ROM chip is software. ROM: Read only Memory. The differences between code stored on a ROM chip vs disc vs cassette are much less than the similarities.

> And no, Iâ€™m not your brother pedant because I actually know what Iâ€™m talking
> about.

Dear brother pedant, here is my free gift to you. Use it wisely:

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 12:12:19 +0000

> And no, Iâ€™m not your brother pedant because I actually know what Iâ€™m talking about

Splendid :)

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:53:53 +0000

The OS starts up the lowest numbered language ROM on startup. If there is none it displays the message ‘Language?’ and hangs. No * prompt.

Clearly the Basic ROM - if fitted - is part of the hardware - it’s a little 28 PIN chip.

And no, I’m not your brother pedant because I actually know what I’m talking about.

By: Roddy

Roddy — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:46:35 +0000

Andy

‘firmware’. Excellent. Truly you are my brother-pedant. The question is, who is gonna crack first and stop commenting on the comments.

If you pulled the BASIC ROM, the Beeb would still boot up, but you would get the OSCLI star prompt. Ergo, the BASIC ROM ain’t part of the hardware.

Is anybody else somehow reminded of the “I’d like to have an argument” sketch?

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:31:37 +0000

It was ‘firmware’ and it was part of a BBC Micro. We’re not talking about just the processor remember :)

By: Roddy

Roddy — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 02:51:58 +0000

Andy

It’s geekery vs pedantry. Pretty much anywhere on the net, geeks rule, but in the pages of the LRB my 1337 p3d4nt sk1llz win.

Yes, Beeb BASIC was always there (unless you had so many ROM chips you wanted to play with that you pulled it, as I did once or twice), but it’s software, not microcode. I think the distinction is worth making.

I like the idea of the short obfuscated program. Reminds me of the One-Line Program section that Acorn User had.