🚀 go-pugleaf

"George R. Gonzalez" <gr...@attbi.com> wrote:

>Waay back around 1982, I had the rare privilidge to buy one of the
>pre-peroduction prototypes of the not too famous Convergent Technology
>workstation.  It was a OEM product, resold under various brands, maybe
>Burroughs, NCR, and Univac?  Not sure.

     I worked with one.

[snip]

>It had a very advanced operating system for the age.  While PC's barely had
>PCDOS, this OS had a non-modal screen editor, long file names, a form-based
>command processor, a fuss-free local area network and file-sharing,
>spreadsheet, good word processor, FORTRAN, BASIC and Pascal compilers
>(shoddy Msoft ones). Text windows.,
>an awesome assembler, system source code, custom build system options, and
>more that I've forgotten.

     The BASIC was interpreted.  It was a Q&D port.

>In My Humble Opinion, a HECK of a lot better computer than the IBM PC.

     Quite.

>But as we know the PC won out.

>And oh yes, an addictive and fun "rats maze" game that I played for hours
>and hours.  Pretty good graphics considering it was all character-font
>based.
>
>Anybody remember that game?  Anybody have the source code to it?

     I remember it.  It got official blessing when CTOS version 4.0
was released.  There was Rats 4.0.  I have no source from that system.

    Novell had (has?) a version of Rats.  It was not nearly as good.

>Drool....  drool...

     I was late for a bookkeeping class once because I kept playing.
That was the evening that I finally won.

>( Eventually after a few years the custom hard disk controller died and I
>tossed the whole shebang in the dumpster.  Sad, but that seemed like the
>only option at the time.)

     CTOS still has the record for my favourite documentation.  It was
logical and easy to read.  Among OS routines that could be called was
Crash, which would crash the system.  The document included a note
that Crash did not return.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.