MY LIFE'S WORK - GONE!

THEY DISCONTINUED ALL THE WORK I DID.

Over my academic and professional career, I worked with many different computers and wrote programs for them.

Work done for employment is in this color.

Here are the computers, some programs I wrote for them, and what happened to those programs:

  1. CDC-3600

    This was the Control Data mainframe that IU was using in 1969-71.

    I mainly used this computer to learn FORTRAN.

    Most of the programs I wrote for it were mathematical in nature, including a prime factors finder and the n-th prime finder.

    I learned FORTRAN and BASIC on it.

    GONE - about 20 programs

  2. Minivac 601 Minivac 601

    This was an electrical design board for computer circuits using relays. It belonged to a friend.

    We built many circuits that did many things, including:

    My friend moved away and I lost the use of the computer.

    GONE - about 30 programs

  3. DIGI-COMP-II

    A mechanical simulator using marbles to show how a computer works

    STILL HAVE

  4. IBM 1130

    This was a 4K 16 bit computer that I wrote many FORTRAN programs for.

    This minicomputer would fill a living room.

    I lost the use of this computer in 1970 when IU moved it for another use.

    Since the programs used special hardware on the 1130, these programs could not run on other computers.

    GONE - about 200 programs

  5. SDS Sigma 2

    A minicomputer similar to IBM 1130, but with a totally different CPU

    Used briefly to try to run some 1130 programs. The music program ran, but the music pitch and timing were not consistent.

    GONE - about 6 programs

  6. CDC 6600 / Cyber 172

    This was the first Control Data supercomputer set that IU was using in 1972-1980.

    I used this computer set for my entire undergraduate degree.

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 500 programs

  7. TI sr56 TI-SR56 programmable calculator.

    This was a pocket calculator I wrote many programs for in its own programming language.

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 300 programs

  8. TI-980

    This was a compact rack-mount minicomputer used for teaching assembly language.

    I used this computer to learn assembly language and machine code.

    I wrote an unloader and a disassembler for it

    9. GONE - about 40 programs

  9. Heath 6800 M6800 in Heathkit demonstrator

    This was an early microprocessor trainer used for computer hardware classes.

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 12 programs

  10. Replica of DEC PDP-8

    We built these replicas in a class, and then programmed them.

    A few years later, I used my knowledge of this to repair the CPU of a real PDP-8.

    GONE - about 8 programs

  11. SWTPC 6809 & FLEX

    The IU Computer Science Department was using these for hardware and program development.

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 40 programs

  12. CoCo 1

    CoCo 1
     

    My Copyright - GONE!

    When I developed the CLRDMP color screen dump with artifact colors* for any CoCo computer and the Tandy CGP-220 color ink jet printer, I thought I might be able to market it. So I registered a copyright for it. Unfortunately, three things kept me from marketing the program:

    1. Nintendo sued Tandy because CoCo computers play Nintendo game cartridges with a homemade adapter cable. The computer-illiterate judge didn't see that ANYONE with a 6809 CPU could do this. He wrongly ordered Tandy to block Nintendo cartridges (impossible).
    2. Tandy discontinued the CoCo computer line (The only way to obey the erroneous court order).
    3. Tandy discontinued the CGP-220 printer.

    These combined to remove any market for my program.

    Now the content of the copyright filing itself may be gone:

    • The listing of the computer program is sent was made on the CGP-220. I have since found that the ink fades. Unless they photographed it, it may be a blank listing.

    • The disks I sent are 5.25-inch floppy disks in CoCoDos format. The Copyright office probably no longer has anything that can read them or run the program.
    • A Tandy Color Computer and a Tandy CGP-220 are needed to run the program. They probably don't have those either.
    • I can't read the disks or the text file either.
    • Now that the NTSC color TV system is gone, there are no computers or displays that can produce artifact colors. The purpose of making my program is gone.

    So the copyright, supposedly good until 120 years after my death, is already useless.

     
    * Artifact colors are colors the NTSC color TV system makes when presented with square-wave monochrome signals of white and black dots that fool the NTSC color decoder in a TV or monitor into producing predictable colors on the screen. Turning down the color control on the TV or monitor shows the black and white dot pattern.

    Tandy Color Computer (6809) - also known as CoCo

    I probably wrote more programs for this computer than for any other. It had few utilities.

    I wrote many tiny programs because there was no spreadsheet for it until much later.

    Major programs I wrote for this computer:

    • Evolution simulator with random mutations
    • Make a tree - random vs intelligent growth
    • Many artwork programs using Extended Color Basic graphics commands
    • Weather humidity calculator
    • Quadraphonic sound image simulator
    • Quadraphonic psi-phasor calculations
    • Calculations for tonearm geometry
    • Neoclassical Economics calculator and forecasts
    • Traffic signal simulator
    • Traffic signal progression calculator (#1)
    • Calculations for Finite Mathematics
    • Several maze games
    • 3D view art reproducer from object description formulas
    • Extended character set generator
    • EDTBAS combination text editor and database
    • A system to make room-to-room adventure games
    • Mandelbrot Set displayer (6809 assembly)
    • Conway's Game of Life (#3)
    • A Madlib player (#3)
    • Many artworks using CoCoMax
    • F115 fighter game (Color Logo)
    • Messy Play game
    • Galaxy art simulator (won a Rainbow Magazine art contest)
    • Disk Manager
    • Fast Disk Backup
    • File and disk compare
    • Disk Defragmenter
    • Physical world data collection
    • Real world power switching.

    • Prototype for a Proportional, Integrating, and Differentiating temperature control at IU
    • Measure the instantaneous and cumulative power consumption at IU (6809 assembly)
    • CLRDMP color screen dump showing artifact colors (6809 assembly)

      I have a registered copyright of this program (right).

    • Christian music tape using Orchestra 90 (still have tape)
    • Diagrams of quadraphonic matrix encoding

    FAILED - over 1000 programs

  13. Z-80 Turbodos

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 20 programs

  14. Leading Edge Model D MS-DOS

    Programs included:

    GONE - about 50 programs

  15. IBM PC & PC/AT

    Programs included:

    GONE- about 150 programs

  16. Tandy Color Computer III (6809) also CoCo3

    Programs included:

    FAILED - about 200 programs

  17. Toshiba T1200 8086 MS DOS & Windows 3.1

    Programs included:

    Programs using Lotus 123:

    GONE - about 120 programs

  18. Tandy Sensation MS DOS and Windows 3.1

    Programs included:

    Programs using Excel:

    FAILED - over 400 programs

  19. Dell Optiplex, HP compaq, and Nixsys NX61-G60 - all Windows XP

    Programs included:

    Programs using Excel:

    Programs using PowerPoint:

    IN USE - about 500 programs

  20. HTML,XHTML, and JavaScript (Made on Windows XP and 10)

    Programs included:

    Programs using JavaScript

    IN USE - about 400 programs and 1900 images

  21. Dell Latitude Windows 10

    Programs included:

    IN USE

The total is about 4000 programs I wrote over my lifetime.
About 900 of these are still in use, including about 400 webpages.
I have created over 2500 images, of which about 1900 still exist.