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I got a VIC-20 when I was about 12? Jim Butterfield loomed impossibly large over all things Commodore at that time. One of the first things I typed in on it w

I got a VIC-20 when I was about 12? Jim Butterfield loomed impossibly large over all things Commodore at that time. One of the first things I typed in on it was his TINYMON, a <1kbyte “monitor” (for some reason resident debuggers were frequently called monitors in early microcomputing) before I had any idea what it was.

reaperducer 4mo ago
for some reason resident debuggers were frequently called monitors in early microcomputing I think it's more like "for some reason, monitors are called debuggers in later microcomputing."
- irishcoffee 4mo ago
  Debuggers were people pulling bugs out of walls of vacuum tubes. They monitored and literally debugged a computer. Monitor made more sense at first, they monitored for bugs. At least, this is my understanding.
bch 4mo ago
I didn't realize he was Canadian - as a child I got so much mileage out of Machine Language for the Commodore 64[0]. I used to think of my program, get out sheets of graph paper and flip through a table of opcodes I wanted to use, get their decimal rep, and write out the list of numbers in a long column, then go to my computer and POKE them into place and watch a spite come to life, or the screen change colour. So much fun had with that book. [0] https://archive.org/details/Machine_Language_for_the_Commodore_Revised_and_Expanded_Edition https://archive.org/details/Machine_Language_for_the_Commodo...
kazinator 4mo ago
The "monitor" term is not from early microcomputing but from early computing. I believe that "monitor" referring to a display monitor, and referring to a machine language debugger all have the same origin: they date back to directly monitoring the electrical signals from equipment to observe its workings. The use of "monitoring" in profiling (e.g. gprof and its gmon.out file, etc) is also the same.
- BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
  Similarly to 'monitor' speakers I would guess. Something designed to keep track of a something-else that is running.
  - kazinator 4mo ago
    Yes; mixing consoles have monitor buses. One way to use monitor speakers is to put them on the monitor bus output. Then any mixer channel that is bridged to the monitor bus (with a dedicated switch, like a push button toggle) is then monitored.

reaperducer 4mo ago

for some reason resident debuggers were frequently called monitors in early microcomputing I think it's more like "for some reason, monitors are called debuggers in later microcomputing."

irishcoffee 4mo ago
Debuggers were people pulling bugs out of walls of vacuum tubes. They monitored and literally debugged a computer. Monitor made more sense at first, they monitored for bugs. At least, this is my understanding.

bch 4mo ago

I didn't realize he was Canadian - as a child I got so much mileage out of Machine Language for the Commodore 64[0]. I used to think of my program, get out sheets of graph paper and flip through a table of opcodes I wanted to use, get their decimal rep, and write out the list of numbers in a long column, then go to my computer and POKE them into place and watch a spite come to life, or the screen change colour. So much fun had with that book. [0] https://archive.org/details/Machine_Language_for_the_Commodore_Revised_and_Expanded_Edition https://archive.org/details/Machine_Language_for_the_Commodo...

kazinator 4mo ago

The "monitor" term is not from early microcomputing but from early computing. I believe that "monitor" referring to a display monitor, and referring to a machine language debugger all have the same origin: they date back to directly monitoring the electrical signals from equipment to observe its workings. The use of "monitoring" in profiling (e.g. gprof and its gmon.out file, etc) is also the same.

BLKNSLVR 4mo ago
Similarly to 'monitor' speakers I would guess. Something designed to keep track of a something-else that is running.
- kazinator 4mo ago
  Yes; mixing consoles have monitor buses. One way to use monitor speakers is to put them on the monitor bus output. Then any mixer channel that is bridged to the monitor bus (with a dedicated switch, like a push button toggle) is then monitored.