[author : Jim C. Warren, Jr.] #Edito

My gawd! Not another computer hobbyist magazine! That was my first reaction when People’s Computer Company approached me about becoming Editor of their one-issue-old infant, DR DOBB'S JOURNAL OF TINY BASIC CALISTHENICS & ORTHODONTIA.

PCC had originally planned on publishing three issues of the JOURNAL. The response to the first, patchquilt issue, however, convinced them (and me) that an area of badly-needed information is not being covered by the presently existing publications. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the other publishers will choose to cover that area; they have their hands (and pages) full just covering hardware and small bits of software.

What is this area; this information vacuum? It’s free and very inexpensive software.

One of the primary thrusts of DR DOBB'S JOURNAL will be to present detailed information concerning low-cost systems software; interpreters, compilers, structured assemblers, graphics languages, floppy disc file systems, etc. This will include user documentation and examples, documentation on implementation including complete source code listings, updates giving errors and their fixes, explicit and detailed notes on the design and implementation of such systems software, and so on. This JOURNAL is explicitly available to serve as a communication medium concerning the design, development, and distribution of free and low-cost software for the home computer.

We encourage you to send in documented software, as you develop it. We hope that you will use the software that we publish in this JOURNAL; that you will study it and modify it to expand its capabilities, and that you will report any bugs you may note to us and to the authors.

We are also quite interested in publishing evaluations of any software and hardware that is being sold to the home computer user. We are supported by readers’ subscriptions rather than advertising. We will not hesitate to publish positive and negative evaluations. We adamantly hold the position that, if a manufacturer of some hardware or software is going to peddle it to unsuspecting consumers for a healthy profit, their product damn well ought to perform as well as their advertisements and profit imply it will!

There are some other areas of information that we expect to cover, not seen in most of the other major computer hobbyist publications. These include complete indices to all of those publications, directories of computer stores and distributors, listings of computer clubs and organizations, listings of users and their equipment, etc. Another tidbit: as long as we can afford to, we will carry classified ads.

We also plan to begin reprinting articles and schematics from the club newsletters.

We have heard the comment, over and over, "I wish I could see the stuff that's being printed by all the homebrew groups, but I just can't afford to subscribe to all of them." We expect to help with this desire.

Finally, we will be doing some fairly detailed "blue skying." Everyone is wondering where home computers are going, and what the potentials are. We have a number of ideas (with more rolling in, every day) about what can be done in the immediately foreseeable future. We will be presenting them and encouraging their realization. The Votrax articles on page 32 of this issue are one small example of this.

Thank you for reading. We want your suggestions. We want your contributions of software, hardware designs, evaluations, and anything else you’re willing to share with other home computer enthusiasts. And, of course, we want your subscriptions. The more subscriptions we have; the more pages we can print; the more information we can pass along to you and your friends. If you like what you see here, we hope you will spread the word.

Nuf sed, for now. More in a coupla weeks.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[author : Dennis Allison] #BASIC #Book

Extract : «  [This article appeared in Timesharing: Past, Present, Future. Proceedings of the Second Annual Computer Communications Conference, San Jose, January 1973.]

0. INTRODUCTION

BASIC is the dominate interactive programming language. It has been widely implemented since its introduction in 1965 as a component of the Dartmouth timesharing system. BASIC is presently widely used as an instructional language at both the high school and college level. Standardization efforts are now in progress, but are hampered by the proliferation of dialects and incompatible extensions.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the BASIC language as a problem solving tool. BASIC is not the language of choice for problem solving given our present understanding of the programming process. That is not to say that programs, even good programs, cannot be written in BASIC. There is overwhelming evidence which indicates they can be. Rather, it says that the language structure makes it difficult to write a clear, concise, well structured program.

The emerging discipline of software engineering has provided us with a pair of complementary methodologies which, when properly applied, help minimize the difficulty of developing error-free software systems both large and small.

One might say that BASIC is too simple, too easy to use. It is possible for a novice user to learn to program in a single day. It is also almost axiomatic that large programs written by BASIC programmers will be ridden with bugs. The language lacks the mechanisms to structure the problem's algorithm and data well. It breeds bad habits, habits which are difficult to unlearn. [...]

5. REFERENCES

BASIC

Anon. (1970) BASIC, Fifth Edition, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

Lee, J.A.N., The Formal Definition of the BASIC Language, The Computer Journal, Volume 15 Number 1 (February 1972), pages 37-41.

Ogdin, J., The Case Against BASIC, Datamation (September 1, 1971), pages 34-41.

Sammet, Jean E., Programming Languages, Prentice-Hal1 (1969).

Modular and Structured Programming

Baker, F. T., System Quality Through Structured Programming, Proc. FJCC (1972), pages 339-343.

Buxton, J. N. and B. Randell (eds.). Software Engineering Techniques, Report on a Conference Sponsored by NATO Science Committee, Rome Italy (1969).

Dijkstra, E. W., Notes on Structured Programming, Report 241, Technische Hogeschool Eindhoven (1969).

Levenworth, B. M., Programming With(out) the GOTO, Proc. ACM Nat. Conf. (1972), pages 782-786.

Liskov, B. H., A Design Methodology for Reliable Software Systems, Proc. FJCC (1972), pages 191-199.

Mills, H. D., Mathematical Foundations for Structured Programming, IBM FSD Report FSC72-6012, Gaithersburg Maryland (February 1972).

Naur, P. and B. Randell (eds.). Software Engineering, Report on a Conference Sponsored by the NATO Science Committee, Garmisch Germany (1968).

Wirth, N., Program Development by Stepwise Refinement, CACM 14 (April 1971).

Wulf, W. A., A Case Against the GOTO, Proc. ACM Nat. Conf. (1972), pages 791-797.  »

[author : Steve Dompier] #Audio #Listing #Assembly

Extract : «  [Reprinted from May 1975 PCC, Vol. 3, No. 5.]

IT WORKS!

I received my ALTAIR 8800 in the mail at 10 a.m., and 30 hours later it was up and running with only one bug in the memory! That turned out to be a scratch in a printed circuit that took 6 more hours to find. After that was fixed, everything worked!!

Now, what do you do with a machine that so far has no I/O boards or peripherals? Well, there’s always the front panel switches and machine language, so I was soon busy making up programs to test all of the 8080’s functions; and getting a good set of calluses on my ten input devices. There’s a lot of 8080 instructions! [...]  »

[author : Mark Arnold, Nat Wadsworth] #BASIC

Extract : «  [The publication described in the following article will be sold for around $50, and will contain over 300 pages of information. -JCW, Jr]

The goal of about ninety percent of small systems owners appears to be to get their systems up and running with some kind of I/O and then procure enough memory to support a higher level language.

Unfortunately in the past when a system owner reached the stage of having enough memory a major problem arose. Unless the individual had purchased an entire system from one or two select suppliers, the cost of a copy of a higher level language was likely to be out of reach!

Even if one was financially able to purchase a higher level language from an equipment manufacturer one was likely to find that such programs were designed to operate with specific I/O devices which the prospective language user might not have access to or desire to obtain. If one did not have those specific devices for which the progrnm was designed, one was usually in a tough spot. Despite advertisements that such programs came "fully documented," the "full documentation" was not likely to include a source listing of the program. Hence, attempting to modify such a complex program was a risky, frustrating, and often downright impossible task. And, without doing so, one was hard put to make the language work with unique types of I/O devices. Furthermore, such programs could not practically be modified to serve the particular wishes of individual users. If you were not satisfied with the program and what the program author’s had decided to emphasize or leave out, that was simply too bad!

Few "canned" programs can be tailored to have all the features desired by all the possible potential users. To attempt to do so would result in programs requiring more memory than users could afford. The answer to this problem is, of course, to supply the programs in such a manner that they can be readily modified and altered by the users. This means, simply, that the detailed source listing for the program must be made available to the purchaser. Assisting the program owner by also providing "detailed comments with the listing, a general overview of the program’s organization and operation, and general flow charts can further enhance the value of the program to the owner. With this information available, the program user can safely proceed to tailor the capabilities of the program to serve the user’s particular interests and requirements.

This is the approach SCELBI COMPUTER CONSULTING, INC., has taken in presenting its new higher level language for 8008/8080 machines. The language has been given the name SCELBAL for Scientific ELementary BAsic Language. As the reader can easily surmise from the title it is similar in capabilities to the highly popular language referred to as BASIC. This language was specifically developed to be able to run on 8008 based microcomputers. It is believed to be the first such higher level language to be made generally available that is capable of running in a system equipped with the ubiquitous 8008 CPU. The program can of course also be run on systems using the more powerful 8080 CPU though it is not as memory efficient as it could have been if the program had forsaken 8008 capability. [...]  »

[author : Dick Whipple, John Arnold] #BASIC #Listing #Assembly

complete implementation documentation, source listing, error corrections, notes on two relocated versions

Extract : «  In the preceeding article on TINY BASIC, EXTENDED (TBX), notes concerning the loading and use of TBX were presented, along with an octal listing of the entire interpreter [Dr Dobb’s Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia Vol. 1, No. 1]. This article presents source code matching that octal code, documentation of the implementation, some modifications and error corrections, notes on the addition of the DTA statement, and an announcement of two relocated versions of TBX requested by some of our readers.

TBX is not meant to be the last word in Tiny BASIC interpreters. Almost certainly, its users will find ways to improve it. Please keep its creators, and our readers, informed of those improvements. [...]  »

[author : Jim Day, Jim C. Warren, Jr.] #Audio

unlimited English language voice synthesis equipment, available in kit form for $1000

Extract : «  [reprinted from PCC Vol. 4, No. 5]

COMPUTERS THAT TALK

Wouldn’t it he nice if your computer could speak to you in English, French, German, or Esperanto like the computer on the starship Enterprise? Then it could say things like, "Wake up, sir" or "Get with it, turkey" (depending on what kind of mood it was in) or mayhe, "The time is six o’clock, the temperature is 46 degrees, and tomorrow is your wife’s birthday." Most people have probably assumed that some day, perhaps by the year 2000, talking computers will he a reality instead of simply science fiction. Well, hang onto your prognostications, people, because that day is today!

In recent years many people have been working on voice output devices for computers. Some of these devices have been electro-mechanical analogs of the human vocal tract, similar in principle to the Voder exhibited at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. Others have used electronic waveform generators to synthesize human speech sounds. Of these, the Votrax synthesizer can truly be said to represent a significant breakthrough with respect to voice quality, ease of programming, and cost.

Smaller than a breadbox and priced at about S3500 for the basic unit, Votrax is produced by the Vocal Interface Division of the Federal Screw Works [...]  »

[author : Adolph Stumpf, Tom Pittman]

TBX Mods for a SWTP TVT-2

Tiny BASIC Available for the 6800

Byte Swap (classified ads) (not in reprint volume 1)