NEWSLETTER Homebrew Computer Volume 3 — Issue 4 June-July 1978 Forth Interest Group The first formal meeting of the Forth Interestlanguage which is readily extendable by the user. It Group was held May 27 in Hayward. The meetingis multi-level in that it includes a compiler, mnemon­ started at 10:00 a.m. and continued until 5:00 p.m. ic assembler, interpreter, and operating system. A group of about 45 people turned out for the day­ long meeting. Basic concepts of Forth were discussed Announcements of future activities are made at by the group under the leadership of Bill Ragsdale.the Homebrew Computer Club meetings. To be placed on the mailing list for future mailings write Preliminary plans were made for future meetings and to: Forth Interest Group, 787 Old County Road, the publication of a quarterly newsletter. San Carlos, CA 94070. □ Forth is a high level stack oriented computer PCNET NewsDave Caulkins The Bay Area Community Bulletin Board System (CBBS) is now operating. A complete discussion of CBBS's is in the April-May 1978 issue of the Home­ brew Computer Club Newsletter. Homebrew Computer Club To use the Bay Area CBBS, telephone (408) 246-2805 (Sunnyvale, California number) with any 1978 Meeting Schedule 110 or 300 baud Bell 013A type modem equipped 7:00 pm - 10:30 pm terminal or computer. As soon as the connection is Date Location made send several carriage returns; after this the system is self teaching. July 12 Fairchild Auditorium August 9 SLAC Auditorium The system has been operating since June 15 in August 30 Fairchild Auditorium the evenings and since July 4 twenty-four hours a September 13 SLAC Auditorium day, seven days a week. The CBBS still needs some October 11 SLAC Auditorium modem level tweaking. Some people using acousti­ cally coupled modems may find it does not respond November 8 SLAC Auditorium to user transmitted characters as well as it should. The PCNET group hopes to resolve these minor Additional meetings at other locations may be problems in the near future. held. Watch the NEWSLETTER for announce­ ments. A ll dates are subject to change or cancel­ Use of the CBBS is open to anyone with the lation. If a change does occur, advance notice proper equipment. You are invited to use the system will be published in the NEWSLETTER if time and review the message file. You may leave messages permits. if you desire. Messages have already been logged from as far away as Boston. □ 1 Letters To The Editor Dear HCC, 1802. I have worked at the Computer Store of San I desire to implement a BASIC on my machine. Francisco and am really into computers. I should like $100 U.S. (+ duty) is a b it steep. In addition I would to join the club. However I live in San Francisco and modify it to fit my configuration. I was wondering ifdo not have any transportation. I was thinking, you or someone else has a listing from U.S. that thereI must be other club members in S. F. Would can copy or borrow at a more reasonable price. anyone want to give me a ride? It would be nice to be a part of the club. I have a trade perhaps for it: I have written a conversational assembler/editor for the PACE (I am Karl Mosgofian a programmer by profession so it is of good quality). 1362 16th Avenue It exists on 2Vi K wds. It has a cassette (or paper San Francisco, CA 94122 tape) mass storage & auxiliary printer (driven by (415) 824-1866 1 CRT). It is modeled after IBM/MTS editor in its ease of use and clarity. The commands are: Insert,Is there a newsletter reader who is able to help Delete, Replace, Move, Copy, Renumber (fractionalKarl? - EDITOR line numbers with spaces in), Tab set, Alter (strings all or one & range), and Assemble, as well as Read and Write. Dear HCC, The system uses packing so deletions and inser­ I receive your newsletter on a regular basis, and tions are speedy. It uses line ranges or single lineit is always a pleasure to read it. It reminds me of the or present line. It uses parameters (i.e., verify, all,good times when I was at Stanford. Then, when I needed some info, it was easy to call for help or to lower case, no line space, no source, no object, etc.). It uses both bytes in a word and drives UARTSattend one of your meetings. connected to an address. It includes error checking Here, of course, things are not as easy. I am and comments and does not crash so long as inputtherefore is pleased to inform your European readers through editor. (It includes editing of line (i.e.,that my company, PULSION, is available for any backspace to correct line entered) while beinghelp they might request about S-100 systems. entered. Basically, we will offer to the European market T. Balabanov a complete system based on the Equinox mainframe 3065 West 13th Avenue and Thinker Toys products. But we will offer all the Vancouver B. C. help we can for other equipment. V6K 2V1 Canada We have decided to offer a complete system be­ cause most of the potential for sales is in the small business area, but we want to help the hobbyists too, and our system w ill also be available in k it form. Dear HCC, Louis Lempereur I called and talked to you on May 4th. Maybe PULSION S.P.R.L. you remember me. My name is Karl Mosgofian. I am 13 Avenue Mahiels 15 years old and own a small computer based on the B-4020 LIEGE (Belgium) Robert Reiling Editor-in-Chief The NEWSLETTER is published regularly by the B rent S a c k.............................................................................................Graphics Homebrew Computer Club. P.O. Box 626, Mountain View, CA 94042 2 S100 To Pet Board-New Product HUH Electronics has announced the S-100 MPA— The Stand-Alone Processor option is an additional an S-100 Bus adapter for the Commodore PET com­$49.95. The S-100 MPA is available at computer puter. This S-100 sized card plugs into the user'sdealers or direct from HUH Electronics. Delivery is mainframe and a cable connects to the PET allowingfrom stock to three weeks. the use of the wide range of peripheral and memory cards available for the S-100 Bus. The S-100 MPA For more detailed specifications, ordering infor­ (Memory and Peripherals Adapter) is unique in thatmation or dealer inquiries, contact: HUH Electronics, it emulates the true S-100 Bus including full DMA, 1429 Maple St., San Mateo, CA 94402, (415) 573- true PSYNC generation, I/O address mirroring, read7359. □ w ait states and much more. In fact, the S-100 MPA meets most of the proposed IEEE Standard for the S-100 Bus. An important feature of this versatile board is that it can also act as a stand-alone 6502 CPU board for the S-100 Bus. It is the only 6502-based processor board to be tru ly S-100 Bus compatible. A simple option kit is all that is required. The S-100 MPA is available in k it form for $199.95 or fu lly assembled and tested for $279.95. 3 Benchmark CampaignGreg Dolkas Here are the results of my benchmark campaign. The Second West Coast Computer Faire was the perfect testing ground for a benchmark. No where else can you find so many different computers assem­ bled and running (and mobbed by people). I decided to try a simple benchmark; one that could by typed in quickly, but still do a bit of crunching. The follow­ ing six line program was chosen because of its length, the relative time it took to run, and the fact that I had used it as a benchmark before on various other machines. Their times are included here to the accu­ racy of my memory. Some of the times were sub­ mitted by other Homebrew members. I] WM 10 FOR 1=1000001 TO 1000003 STEP 2 Several interesting observations can be made from 20 FOR D=3 TO SQR(I) STEP 2 some of the timings. The Northstar system was tested 30 IF l/D=lNT(I/D) THEN 60 with and without the hardware floating point proces­ 40 NEXT D sor, and w ith both single and double precision float­ 50 PRINT I ing point software. The added hardware makes a 60 NEXT I significant (factor of 3) difference in performance, and would probably be worth the extra cost if a lot of crunching is to be done with the machine. Those who like the accuracy of double precision arithmetic should notice also the price paid for it (factor of 2 The program finds the first prime number over over1 single). It seems what we need is a double preci­ sion F.P. board. million by trial and error. A test number is divided by all o f the odd numbers up to the square root of the number. If none of them divides evenly, the num­ ber is a prime. This requires a BASIC with 6-7 digit It should be noted that Big Brother (IBM) has a accuracy and enough smarts to do FOR-NEXT loops,bit of catching up to do. Their fastest model 5100 take square roots, etc. Some machines tested did not(the 5110) can barely keep up w ith the Radio Shack meet these requirements. The answer, by the way, TRS-80,is which sells for quite a bit less.