33209: Discovering the 6800 -- A Look at the 8080

Preface: 

This is not a memoir. God has told me not to look back at the things I have done wrong in my life. But I'm not really looking back, if it's something I never did, right? 

;-)

My apologies to the real-life Roderick, Beryl, Trina, Todd, Mr. Forrest, Merry, and others that I drag into my alternate reality retro fantasy where I fix a few things that went south in our reality.

I still find myself daydreaming about a fictional world in which I got more actively involved in the microcomputer revolution. More than one fictional world, in fact. I keep trying to write stories that are too big. That bad habit is probably inherent in trying to revise history. 

(Cough.) (I know, God, I'm looking back. But real life ain't very fun any more.)

This time I'm going to try turning my senior year into a story of its own (instead of the start of a reboot). Except, it isn't my senior year, it's Merry's. And, instead of buying a cheap programmable TI calculator, he saves his money and buys something more useful to his future.

(33209 Book 0:)

Discovering the 6800

by Joel Matthew Rees
Copyright 2022, Joel Matthew Rees

Prologue, a Look at the 8080

Beryl looked over at me with puzzlement in her blue eyes. "The lights flash."

I nodded. 

She shook her head. "I don't get it."

Jim snickered. 

I sighed and looked aside, searching the wall of the electronics lab for clues.

"Your eyes just turned green." Beryl smiled at me with a quiet laugh.

Roderick laughed out loud. "Merry, buddy, you're wasting Beryl's time making her look at this Altair here."

"Shooash!" Trina let out in exasperation. "No, he's not. Beryl's trying to understand. Everyone just shut up and let Joe show her what we're doing."

"Who's Mary?" Beryl asked. "Oh." She looked back at me.

I looked at the ceiling and nodded. 

She frowned and turned to Roderick.

He backed off his stool, raising his hands in defense. "It's a nickname."

"Yeah," I laughed. "Only my best friends get to call me that." 

Roderick grinned and sat back down as Beryl turned back to query me silently, those blue eyes confusing me, as usual. 

I shrugged, and gave her a lopsided grin. She wrinkled her nose and her puzzled expression turned into a wry smile.

"Anyway, we start out putting forty-nine in the accumulator." I picked up the hand-written program listing again and indicated the line that did that.

 3E 31    MVI A, 49 ; 00110001

Then I used the microcomputer's front panel switches to set the starting address back to zero. "The LEDs that are lit are ones and the dark LEDs are zeroes, and that was binary 0-0 1-1-0 0-0-1 on these lights here after it did the first instruction." I stepped the processor through the first instruction and the lights that showed the accumulator value lit up again with the 00 110 001 pattern.

"You showed me how you convert forty-nine into base two and it turns into that long string of ones and zeroes." She pursed her lips and wrinkled her chin. "A is another name for the variable you call the accumulator."

"Yeah."

"Move to A, forty-nine. Deliberately backwards grammar."

"I guess some engineer at Intel thought it would make more sense to engineers or something." I shrugged apologetically.

Beryl shook her head. "I still don't get it, but I'll play along."

"Yeah," Chuck complained. "Play along. That's what we all do."

The students around us broke out in laughter, and Mr. Forrest, our teacher, chuckled. 

Beryl tilted her head. "And then you move the number from accumulator A to register B, right?" She put her finger on the next line.

 47    MOV B, A

I hit the step switch on the front panel. "Right. You're getting it."

"No I'm not." She pouted, then giggled.

Trina laughed. "That's the way, Beryl. Keep these guys in their place."

Beryl grinned and leaned over and bumped elbows with Trina.

Turning back to the listing, she continued. "And you move nineteen into the accumulator so I can see the pretty lights change." She pointed at the listing.

 3E 13    MVI A, 19

And I stepped the instruction. "Yeah. Binary 00 011 001." And that was what the accumulator output LED array showed.

"I guess I see that. Maybe. And you move it to register C to get it out of the way for some reason?" She pointed at the next line.

 4F    MOV C, A

I stepped it. "Pretty much exactly. I thought it would make it easier for us all to watch."

"And then you move the forty-nine in B back to the accumulator for the same reason."

 78    MOV A, B

"Right," I nodded, stepping again.

"And add the two numbers."

 81    ADD C

"Uh, huh."

"And stop so we can think about what the pretty lights say." She pointed to the last instruction.

 76    HLT

"And the result is binary," she read from the front panel, "01 000 100." She took a deep breath. "Which you showed me is sixty-eight."

 Todd showed her the conversion on his HP calculator again.

"Thanks, Todd."

"Any time you want to look at my calculator, just ask."

"Careful, Todd!" Chuck warned him. "Merry, I mean, Joe, might have something to say about that."

I gave Chuck a look. "Last I checked I don't give orders to anyone in this room." I looked back at Beryl apologetically.

She wrinkled her forehead and nose at me. "Thanks for the offer, Todd."

Some of the guys in the room started to give wolf whistles, but Mr. Forrest cleared his throat and they stopped.

"But I still don't see the point."

Mr. Forrest stood up. "Well, I think I've arranged for the university to loan us a teletype, and I got a package with the free software Tiny BASIC language interpreter on tape, so we might have something more interesting to look at in a few days."

"Thank you, Mr. Forrest. And thanks, everyone, for showing me what Joey gets all excited about."

"Whoa." Jack pulled his head back in mock horror. "Nobody gets to call him Joey."

I rolled my eyes again and raised my hands to the sky in mock resignation as the guys in the class broke out in laughter again.

Beryl gave me a wry smile and a wrinkle of the nose. "Now are you going to help me with the political science homework?"

"Sure. Let's go."

"Wooped. Just wooped," Frank commented, earning a dirty look from Trina while most of the guys in the class erupted in laughter.

I chuckled and shook my head as I put the listing away.

"Wait a minute, Joe." Mr. Forrest stood up. "The rest of you guys, too. I need to tell you all something."

We all quieted down.

"I have an opportunity to go to a microcomputer show in San Francisco, April 16th and 17th, and there's room in the car for a couple or three students to go with me. I've got permission from the school, but you'll need parental or guardian permission."

He looked around at us while we digested the information.

"If more than three of you want to go, we'll have to figure out a way to choose who goes. Maybe a programming or electronics problem to solve. We can talk about that tomorrow, but anyone who's interested, please check with your parents tonight."

"Whoa, yeah."

"Alright!"

"Cool!"

"I'm in!"

"Count me out."

I didn't say anything. 

Beryl looked at me with a question in her eyes as she picked up her books.

"Shoot yeah, I'm interested." 

I switched the power off on the microcomputer and picked up my books. Then I stopped. 

"Oh. Wait."

She looked down quickly as she stood up. "Well, let's go study poli-sci," she said, disappointment tinging her voice.

I followed her out of the electronics lab into the hall. "That's when the cheering squad's year-end competition is, isn't it?"

"Never mind." She didn't turn back to look at me. "If you need to go, you need to go."

She walked ahead as we headed to the library.

Chapters (tentative list):

1. Parents and Polygamy
   
2. Calculations and Revelations
   
3. TV or Not TV (Typewriter)
   
4. Faire Enough
   
5. BASICally Proceed Forth
   
6. Surveying the Field
   
7. Sacrifice and Service

Parents and Polygamy

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(This is a minor rewrite of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-other-os-9-alternate-reality.html.)