notANON

When I first booted the TinyELF before I had ANY clue how to use it, I did what most people would do.  I started punching hex keys in and staring dumbly at the 2 digit display wondering why it didn’t do anything.  Finally, today, I know why.  It’s because it didn’t have this program I wrote up:

0001   6400   OUT4    Clear display

0003   90       GHI        Zero the accumulator

0004   B6       PHI       Set R6 hi to 00

0005   F820   LDI       set accumulator to 20

0007   A6       PLO       Set R6 lo to 20

0008   E6       SEX 6   Point input and output at location 0020

0009   6C      INP C     Read keypad and store at 0020

000A   64      OUT 4    Read 0020 print to display

000B   3002  BR          Loop back

Simple program but it proves a point.  All these years you have expected to push a key, button, knob, whatever and get some sort of feedback, right?  Well that only happens because someone along the way made it so.  In fact Apple has teams of engineers that specialize in nothing but that sort of thing.

Take another look at the computer you are using right now and consider how many lines of code are running behind the scenes that represent seemingly tiny and minute details of how your system behaves.  It’s mind boggling and testament to team work at it’s finest.