Backup: The Other OS-9, an Alternate Reality

Current working version: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-other-os-9-alternate-reality.html.

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Prologue, part I: 

God has told me not to look back at the things I have done wrong. He has not told me not to look back at things I haven't done wrong.

This story is something in the vein of the 33209 story, but with a simpler technology timeline than that. More like the one I laid out in this blogpost about the first OS-9: https://defining-computers.blogspot.com/2021/10/alternate-reality-early-microcomputer.html. 

I  think I'll use a simpler story and plot, as well, as well as the simpler technology roadmap. 

I'll go back to Japan almost immediately after my mission to chase Satomi, and end up meeting Chika while she is still in high school. And she will make herself obnoxious so that I have to invite her for a year of home-stay high school studies with my parents. And she will be one of the women who push me to develop my interest in the nascent microcomputer industry. 

And I'll have to push Jeff Raskin ahead on that text-based Apple IX in 1980 somehow. That's a tough one, but not nearly as tough as inventing reasons for Motorola to keep a double flagship market profile with the 68000 and 6809, and to evolve both more rapidly. 

In order to do that, and to clear up how the whole mess started, I guess I'll have to back up to my senior year in high school.

 

The Other OS-9
an Alternate Reality

by Joel Matthew Rees
Copyright 2022, Joel Matthew Rees

Prologue, part II:

Beryl looked over at me with puzzlement in her blue eyes. "The lights flash. 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. "Mary, buddy, you're wasting Beryl's time looking at this Altair here."

"Shoosh!" Trina let out in exasperation. "No, he's not. Beryl's being patient, everyone just shut up and let Joe show Beryl what we're doing. Go ahead, Joe."

"Who's Merry?" Beryl asked me. "Oh. Wait. Marion. You."

I glanced 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 sat back down as Beryl turned back to query me silently, those blue eyes confusing me, as usual. I shrugged. She wrinkled her nose and her puzzled expression turned into a wry grin.

"Anyway, we start out putting forty-nine in the accumulator." I pointed at the hand written program listing again,

 3E 31    MVI A, 49 ; 00110001

and then used the microcomputer's front panel switches to set the starting address back to zero. "The shining LEDs are ones and 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 into the first instruction and the lights that showed the accumulator value lit up again with the 00 110 001 pattern.

"You showed me how forty-nine decimal is that long string of ones and zeroes in base two. And for some reason," she pointed at the listing, "you write forty-nine after A, instead of before where it ought to be if it's going to be put in." 

"Intel's backwards assembler grammar," I shrugged apologetically.

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

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

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

She 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 raised her elbow towards Trina, and they bumped elbows.

"And you move nineteen into the accumulator so I can see the pretty lights change," she continued.

She pointed at the listing,

 3E 13    MVI A, 19

And I stepped the instruction. "Yeah. Binary 00 011 001." The front panel showed the value in the accumulator output array.

"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

"Pretty much exactly. I thought it would make it easier to watch."

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

 78    MOV A, B

"Right." 

"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."

Chuck showed her the conversion on his HP calculator again.

"Thanks, Chuck."

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

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

I gave Todd 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 at me. "Thanks for the offer, anyway, Chuck." She didn't turn to look at him.

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 couple of 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 and raised my hands to the sky in mock resignation as the guys in the class broke out in laughter again.

Beryl looked over and 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."

The show over, the other students started to pack up, amid a buzz of conversation.

"Wait a minute, Joe. I have another announcement." Mr. Forrest stopped me.

We all quieted down.

"I have an opportunity to go to a microcomputer show in San Francisco, April 16th and 17th, and I can take a couple or three students with me. If more than three 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!"

Amid other excited responses there were a few less enthusiastic responses such as

"Count me out," 

as well.

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 sample program listing, slipping it back into my notebook, before picking up my own 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. "You need to go where you need to go."

She never let me bring the subject back up again.

Chapters:

1. Calculations and Revelations
   To be written (tentative list):
2. TV or Not TV (Typewriter)
   
3. Faire Enough
   
4. BASICally Proceed Forth
   
5. Surveying the Field
   
6. Sacrifice and Service
7. Picking up Threads
8. Rotating Media and Braun's Tube
   
9. Unique OSses
10. Splitting Their Stacks 
11. Ken Thompson's Trusting Trust vs. Bootstrapping Your Own
    
12. FM and Other Oriental Interests
13. I Been Moved to PCs -- Microware, not MicroSoft
    
14. A Piece of the Orient in Texas
    
15. 2809 and 68010
16. 68451 -- and Motorola Eats Their Own Dogfood
17. Simulating Circuits and Automatic Layout
18. Bounding Stacks and Other Segments
19. 68RISC 
    
20. Segments and Bounds -- 3XX09
    
21. ... 
22. Chikako on Her Mission, Marion in post-grad
    
23. ...
24. No Phishing
25. ...
26. Social Engineering
27. Straits
    

Calculations and Revelations