Enterprise Forever
:UK => Hall of Fame => Topic started by: BruceTanner on 2013.February.15. 11:24:04
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In various posts I have mentioned the names of most of the Intelligent Software people who appeared in the developers photo in Your Computer Jan 1984. In summary, here is the photo again with names added. If there is no name I can't remember! They did not all work on the Enterprise - some worked on chess programs and computers.
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Thanks, great idea!
Also you can write a list who worked on what part of Enterprise (and TVC)?
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At this page lot of (http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/chess_computers_-_the_uk_story.html) informations about the Intelligent Chess Software Ltd. With few other photos and names, someone of them also worked on the Enterprise?
(http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/chess_computers_-_the_uk_story.html)
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At this page lot of (http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/chess_computers_-_the_uk_story.html) informations about the Intelligent Chess Software Ltd. With few other photos and names, someone of them also worked on the Enterprise?
(http://www.chesscomputeruk.com/html/chess_computers_-_the_uk_story.html)
Thanks for posting that - lots of pictures of faces I once knew!
David Levy and Kevin O'Connell you of course know of. David Levy had a big input to the "expertise" of the chess programs but was not actually a programmer. Kevin O'Connell was also a chess expert but was more the businessman of IS I think.
Mark Taylor and Richard Lang appear in the Your Computer photo but didn't actually contribute to the Enterprise - I think they just came along to the pre-launch event for the free food! They kept the chess side of things going. The article suggests that resources were diverted from chess development to the Enterprise but that is not true - they employed more people to do the Enterprise work (eg me!)
But Mike Johnson who is mentioned a lot in that article is the same "Mike" who started writing BASIC in C - I couldn't remember his last name in my other post. I did not know him well and have only just learnt from reading that article that he was quite deeply connected with the computer chess world!
For the techies, one interesting item mentioned that I remember was Mark Taylor's chess program that ran on a 4-bit processor running at 400kHz, with only 2k x 10bits ROM and 160 nibbles (80 bytes) RAM. A truly impressive feat!
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I've just realised the third initial on the status line after SET STATUS 42 is there - Nick Vincent.
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I've just realised the third initial on the status line after SET STATUS 42 is there - Nick Vincent.
Does he have a middle name for the letter M?
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Does he have a middle name for the letter M?
Sorry I don't know any of the middle names. Except my own of course, but my middle initial doesn't appear for some unknown reason!
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I'm collecting the mentioned names from your posts and found one contradiction:
GNH is probably Gavin who wrote the graphics routines in his summer holidays from university. Sorry I can't remember the others! In the "Your Computer" photo Martin is on the bottom row 4th from the left, and Gavin with long hair is next to him.
But at here you named he Gary.
Which is the right?
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I'm collecting the mentioned names from your posts and found one contradiction:But at here you named he Gary.
Which is the right?
Oops well spotted - I couldn't quite remember but I'm about 80% sure it is Gary!
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Oops well spotted - I couldn't quite remember but I'm about 80% sure it is Gary!
I'm now 100% sure - I have just found a comment in an old video-related source file. His full name is Gary Hood, GNH on the SET STATUS 42 status line.
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The person between Bruce and Nick Vincent i sme, Andy Straw. I worked on a very basic shoot em up space game during my university holidays back in 1983. Amazing to see there is still interest in the Elan/Flan/Enterprise after all these years - it was great fun back in the day deciphering the specs of the Nick and Dave chips and writing Z80 assembly language code that was compiled on an Apple II and then downloaded to an emulator board over a ribbon cable poking through the top of the Apple machine. Somewhere I think I have an original of this picture and will try and scan a better image if and when I dig it out.
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Welcome here Andy!
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Hi Andy! Amazing after all these years... but I am most embarrassed that I didn't remember you when I wrote the names on tbe photo! But if you were around just for the holidays perhaps I can be excused... it was 39 years ago after all!
Do you remember that day? We had all been up all night and ambled down from Bedford Square to the Hippodrome at Leicester Square - a shambolic group as everyone can now see at this quite posh event. I recall having quite a job persuading the doorman to let us in!
Anyway hope you enjoy looking around the site - there have been some amazing and astonishing developments to the Enterprise!
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...writing Z80 assembly language code that was compiled on an Apple II and then downloaded to an emulator board over a ribbon cable poking through the top of the Apple machine.
Just for curiosity which Apple II did you used back than?
According to Wiki:
"The Apple II is the first model in the Apple II series, followed by Apple II+, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, and the 16-bit Apple IIgs—all of which remained compatible. "
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Yes you can certainly be excused for that Bruce - I think I came back in the december holiday after doing the summer of 83 on the space game (it was kind of Galaxians themed and even had a mocked up cartridge package for the launch).
I didn't even remember we had gone to the Hippodrome - I just assumed when I looked back on that photo that it was in the Bedford Square basement. But I do remember it was after an incredibly long night (again I can't remember what we were doing unless it was last minute testing).
I do remember Nick Vincent quite well - I think he was doing some final testing on that Bond movie game for the Atari and developing another Atari game of his own. I always remember that when he worked late he'd have a box of red wine that he'd sip away at. I also remember one night that Robert Madge came in and was quite disapproving of drinking on duty :).
Great to see there is still so much enthusiasm.
To answer the question on the Apple II - I'd like to say it was the IIe but I really don't remember - I do remember that the top was off most of the time to allow the ribbon cable out and probably to cool it down a bit.
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I found that picture about the Apple IIe without the cover:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_IIe_Inside.JPG
According to the wikipedia Apple II had the same CPU as the Commodore 64. So from the Z80 totally different instruction set. Was it necessary to develop tools for apple II at all?
When the cover was removed you probably placed the monitor behind the computer. Which is good, to hold distance from the eyes. :D
Why did the company choose the Apple II for development? I saw that it was shipped with diskette drive, which is probably important to delvelope software fast.
Who wrote the Apple software to connect to the Z80 via parallel port? Was that an inside tool, or did you get it from some other company?
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I used a similar Apple setup before we got original IBM PCs. The z80 was on an expansion card inside the Apple, which allowed it to run CP/M. I remember using Wordstar a lot to create documents. Mine had the lid on with a monitor and disk drive on top. Using CP/M you could run Microsoft M80/L80 assembler/linker and so produce a z80 program that could be transfered to a "different" z80 system.
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The Z-80 SoftCard is a plug-in Apple II processor card developed by Microsoft to turn the computer into a CP/M system based upon the Zilog Z80
This gives Apple II users access to many more business applications, including compilers and interpreters for several high-level languages.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
According to the schematic there was no RAM on the Z80 expansion card, it took the memory from the Apple II. So practically the computer was converted to a Z80 based computer, because of the available software.
Schematic:
https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Interface%20Cards/Z80%20Cards/Microsoft%20SoftCard/Schematics/
So this Apple system was connected to the real EP via Parrallel port.
Do you still remember how the EP received the data from the Apple? I mean the Z80 was stopped and the memory was overwritten, or the Z80 of the EP has done the byte receive and memory filling? Was this connection also a debbuger where you could set breakponts and load the memory of the EP back to the Apple to review it?
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I remember lots and lots of EPROM blowing and erasing! :lol:
We worked in a large room with the EP prototype in the middle of the room and our desks around the edge. We had to share the EP prototype. So there was no connection between our editing/assembling computers and the EP.
But in the early stages of development we also had a hacked version of ZSID the Z80 CP/M debugger working on the EP prototype. It did character I/O through an extra hardware add-on to a terminal, either a parallel port or a serial UART I can't remember. But sorry I can't remember how we got the code into the EP memory. :(