Once upon a time, not long after 48k RAM meant a heck of lot of livestock, there was a golden age in which ordinary folk could wire their own peripheral devices, write their own printer drivers, and know a handshake from hardware was its bond....
Suppose you've got a machine with 100k RAM, a 1 MHz 6502 processor, and a toggle speaker. (A toggle speaker has two positions, on and off, and the possible instruction is "FLIP".)
Here's the challenge. Reproduce Bach's 15 Two Part Inventions. (Yes, both parts simultaneously) Load up the memory however you want, but no disk or tape access once it gets started!
Extra credit. Include dynamics; that is, make the loudness of each voice variable.
Eventually, I may include a recording.
To e-mail me:
lawren@math.cornell.edu.