From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 1 01:59:20 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 02:59:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: russian PDP-11 like K1801BM2 CPU Startup reading w/o address? In-Reply-To: <201112160012.TAA23067@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201112160012.TAA23067@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <201201010759.CAA21019@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Back on 2011-12-15, I (quoted and) wrote >> The name of this student was William Hewlett. The product was the >> model 200A audio oscillator. > Hm, I have some very old (steel case with, I think, brown speckle > finish, all-valve construction, land-anchor weight) HP electronics. > I should check model numbers; I might even have a 200A. The item I had in mind turns out to be a 202A. I can see corners of similar gear on a closet shelf, though; it's possible there's a 200A lurking there. I'll probably be reporting details here some one of these months - I want to get that stuff cleared out and either stashed or handed off to a good home. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From gerhard.kreuzer at liftoff.at Sun Jan 1 10:38:40 2012 From: gerhard.kreuzer at liftoff.at (Gerhard Kreuzer) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 17:38:40 +0100 Subject: Nice starting price, isn't it? ((Remember its not the whole machine its only the front panel)) Message-ID: <6C906A05A09644CB877DE3795E8C088E@mars> Hi, is anybody out there, who have enough money for burning it? ebay Nr. 250964436666 could be a nice buy ..... With best whishes to all for 2012 Gerhard From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 1 12:03:30 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:03:30 -0700 Subject: russian PDP-11 like K1801BM2 CPU Startup reading w/o address? In-Reply-To: <201201010759.CAA21019@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201112160012.TAA23067@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <201201010759.CAA21019@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F009FF2.4000000@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/1/2012 12:59 AM, Mouse wrote: > Back on 2011-12-15, I (quoted and) wrote > >>> The name of this student was William Hewlett. The product was the >>> model 200A audio oscillator. >> Hm, I have some very old (steel case with, I think, brown speckle >> finish, all-valve construction, land-anchor weight) HP electronics. >> I should check model numbers; I might even have a 200A. > > The item I had in mind turns out to be a 202A. > > I can see corners of similar gear on a closet shelf, though; it's > possible there's a 200A lurking there. I'll probably be reporting > details here some one of these months - I want to get that stuff > cleared out and either stashed or handed off to a good home. > "Go west young man." Out here looking for a audio osc and other older test equipment. Coil winder would be handy too. > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > Ben. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 1 12:49:24 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 18:49:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: (OT) New Years greetings In-Reply-To: <4EFF7DD8.3030307@mail.msu.edu> from "Josh Dersch" at Dec 31, 11 01:25:44 pm Message-ID: > > On 12/31/2011 12:25 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > >> > >> For those of you with HP59309 clocks, don't forget to flip the little > >> swithc to '366' for next year :-) > > Thanks for the reminder :). I have one on my desk at work... Now why am I not suprised that people here have these fine devices.... I noticesd that somebody made much the same ocmment on the MoHPC forum. I can assure you that I hadn't seen that before I posted... As an aside, has anyone ever seen the battery box for this clock? I think it was much te same size (a quarter-width module) and held a number of D cells (in series/parellel?) I am just curious as to what it looekd like, how many cells, how they were connected, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 1 12:53:47 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 18:53:47 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Dec 31, 11 11:04:14 pm Message-ID: [BASIC-09] > Never even heard of that one, but then, I've never seen or used OS/9 I'm my I am not suprised, It wasn't that common. > life. Never owned a Dragon or any other 6809 box. I ran it on my CoCos. In generla, the OS-9 languages were very nice for an 8-bit machine. FWIW, I will happily agree that BCC BASIC is a very nice langauge too, and certainly one of the better BASICS. But if you claim it's 'the best' you have to expect somebvody to challenge you ;-) [...] > to play with something unusual... And OS/9 is just too rare. Never come > across it. > Hey, this is classiccmp, right? We do 'rare' here :-) -tony From glen.slick at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 13:49:46 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun, 1 Jan 2012 11:49:46 -0800 Subject: SCSI replacements (was Re: Data General computer) In-Reply-To: References: <4ed6d0c4.a222320a.6b52.ffffccd7@mx.google.com> <4ED6D9CE.7070806@gmail.com> <4ed6fd4c.e36a320a.20c5.1a9e@mx.google.com> <4ED7DBAF.5000306@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: I bought a SCM PCD-50B SCSI Card Reader from http://a4000t.com for $62 plus shipping. So far I have been unable to get it to work with either a DEC VS3100 M76 or an InfoServer 1000. I was able to get it to work with a CMD CQD-220/TM in a PDP-11/73 system with RT-11 and XXDP 2.5. Haven't tried RSTS/E or 2.11BSD yet. I have EPROM firmware versions F220Y1A8 / F220Y2A8 on my CMD CQD-220/TM. The device configuration menu allows you to specify the SCSI ID and LUN for each logical drive. For example you can specify LUN 1 for the Compact Flash slot of the SCM PCD-50B. With the CMD CQD-220/TM I found that I had to disable Synchronous mode for the SCM PCD-50B or I would get errors. The first example output below shows the CMD CQD-220/TM configuration with Synchronous mode enabled and an error that occurs when booting XXDP from RD45 configured as DU1: and attempting to copy files to the SCM PCD-50B Compact Flash slot configured as DU0: The second example output below shows the CMD CQD-220/TM configuration with Synchronous mode disabled. In this configuration no errors occur when booting XXDP from RD45 configured as DU1: and copying files to the SCM PCD-50B Compact Flash slot configured as DU0: I was then able to successfully boot from the Compact Flash slot of the SCM PCD-50B and successfully run XXDP 2.5 diagnostics. FAILURE: -------- SCANNING SCSI DEVICES ATTACHED ... DEV0: DU0 SCSI ID 0 LUN 1 SCSI Compact Flash 1.28 Disconnect ON,Sync Mode ON,Prevent Medium Removal ON,Write W/Verify OFF, DEV1: DU1 SCSI ID 1 LUN 0 DEC RRD45 (C) DEC 0436 Disconnect ON,Sync Mode ON,Prevent Medium Removal ON,Write W/Verify OFF, DEV2 NOT AVAILABLE DEV3 NOT AVAILABLE DEV4 NOT AVAILABLE DEV5 NOT AVAILABLE DEV6 NOT AVAILABLE DEV7 SCSI ID 7 HOST ADAPTER, SCSI Reset ON,Density Mode ON, CHANGE CONFIGURATION ? (Y/N) N BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5 REVISION: F0 BOOTED FROM DU1 124KW OF MEMORY NON-UNIBUS SYSTEM RESTART ADDRESS: 152000 TYPE "H" FOR HELP ! .INITIALIZE DU0: USER DATA ON DU0 WILL BE DESTROYED ! PROCEED?(Y/N/CR=N)Y .COPY DU1:*.* DU0: XXDPXM.SYS XXDPSM.SYS DRSXM .SYS ?WT ERR SUCCESS: -------- SCANNING SCSI DEVICES ATTACHED ... DEV0: DU0 SCSI ID 0 LUN 1 SCSI Compact Flash 1.28 Disconnect ON,Sync Mode OFF,Prevent Medium Removal ON,Write W/Verify OFF, DEV1: DU1 SCSI ID 1 LUN 0 DEC RRD45 (C) DEC 0436 Disconnect ON,Sync Mode ON,Prevent Medium Removal ON,Write W/Verify OFF, DEV2 NOT AVAILABLE DEV3 NOT AVAILABLE DEV4 NOT AVAILABLE DEV5 NOT AVAILABLE DEV6 NOT AVAILABLE DEV7 SCSI ID 7 HOST ADAPTER, SCSI Reset ON,Density Mode ON, CHANGE CONFIGURATION ? (Y/N) N From ajp166 at verizon.net Sun Jan 1 14:06:05 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:06:05 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F00BCAD.2070401@verizon.net> On 01/01/2012 01:53 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > [BASIC-09] > >> Never even heard of that one, but then, I've never seen or used OS/9 I'm my > I am not suprised, It wasn't that common. > >> life. Never owned a Dragon or any other 6809 box. > I ran it on my CoCos. In generla, the OS-9 languages were very nice for > an 8-bit machine. > The COCO was an oddity as the 6809 was a machine that was closest to PDP11 and maybe second to the 68000. With that kind of design in the hardware I was not surprised then and now with the performance of the software. My pence on BASIC. I hate it. With that said I also use it. If there is a favorite it would be QB45/dos (yes it's for PC). Wrote a lot of process control software using it and it was nicely structured. However, the PX8 basic runs an amazing close second. It's the extended M$ basic common to CP/M running boxes. the upside is there is both interpreted and compiled versions. Test with interpreter, run as compiled. The next used is Cbasic. I found some aspects slow and awkward but useful. I've run all the versions of basic from MITS (M$) 4K, 8k and extended (12k) and have ROM 8K for the Netronics box. The last one I played with as it took a while to get it into a machine is LLL 8K. That Lawernce Livermore labs 8K basic and the code is public then and still. It was published in Interface Age I believe and also in their compendium of The Best of Interface Age (basic for just about every machine both tine and LLL). The only reason I can imagine the thread starting with a hunt for 8080/z80 basic is to have a language, any and that was one of the first and favorite. To that I suggest looking up TINY BASIC, there were several and they are not big. The advantage is most the source your could see and the IO interface to use it was often in the clear. A good place to start. If you want a non BASIC language find a copy of TinyC. NO it's not real C but good enough for small system stuff. My pence again.. Get a rom based machine level monitor and get away from the front panel toggles as that is slow and painful. If you are going to launch CP/M on the system you'll need it anyway. Oh, and once you have CP/M the available software list expands considerably and takes on all the great published and free foundation software. Foundation software in my mind are the tools like editors, assemblers, spreadsheets, Database, communications, and the all important games. Allison From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jan 1 18:12:13 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 00:12:13 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 1 January 2012 18:53, Tony Duell wrote: > [BASIC-09] > >> Never even heard of that one, but then, I've never seen or used OS/9 I'm my > > I am not suprised, It wasn't that common. > >> life. Never owned a Dragon or any other 6809 box. > > I ran it on my CoCos. In generla, the OS-9 languages were very nice for > an 8-bit machine. > > FWIW, I will happily agree that BCC BASIC is a very nice langauge too, > and certainly one of the better BASICS. But if you claim it's 'the best' > you have to expect somebvody to challenge you ;-) Oh, no, that's entirely fair! I have been slightly curious about OS-9 for years. I wonder if I can get an emulator running it? >> to play with something unusual... And OS/9 is just too rare. Never come >> across it. >> > > Hey, this is classiccmp, right? We do 'rare' here :-) Absolutely! I've been Googling and reading up on BASIC09. It certainly does sound impressive, although a bit more primitive than BBC BASIC. Did it have any graphics or sound facilities? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 1 18:39:16 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:39:16 -0700 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F00FCB4.2060107@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/1/2012 5:12 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > I've been Googling and reading up on BASIC09. It certainly does sound > impressive, although a bit more primitive than BBC BASIC. > > Did it have any graphics or sound facilities? > I am not sure that it did. What I do remember is that Basic and Pascal both could be compiled threaded or direct asm code. Ben. From IanK at vulcan.com Sun Jan 1 19:43:11 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 01:43:11 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/1/12 4:12 PM, "Liam Proven" wrote: [snip] >I have been slightly curious about OS-9 for years. I wonder if I can >get an emulator running it? I recall finding a 6809 emulator a couple of years ago that included runnable OS/9 images - but rather than Googling it, I'll leave that as an exercise for the student. :-) -- Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 1 21:22:07 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 22:22:07 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4EFEF596.2070109@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <4EFEAF09.8040604@mail.msu.edu> <4EFEF596.2070109@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: <4F0122DF.3040002@neurotica.com> On 12/31/2011 06:44 AM, Holger Veit wrote: > You might look at TDL 12K Zapple Basic, which has a small jump table at > the beginning to call the standard CON/RDR/PUN-Routines of CP/M. > Originally this talked to the Z80 Zapple monitor, but it can be easily > adapted to anything. There is IIRC no I/O handling scattered through the > code. Where might one find a copy of this BASIC? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sun Jan 1 23:31:24 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:31:24 -0800 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F00BCAD.2070401@verizon.net> References: <4F00BCAD.2070401@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F01412C.2020507@mail.msu.edu> On 1/1/2012 12:06 PM, allison wrote: > > > The only reason I can imagine the thread starting with a hunt for > 8080/z80 basic > is to have a language, any and that was one of the first and favorite. Yeah, that's pretty much why I asked. I'm just getting the IMSAI going and I'm not to the point where I can get CP/M running (still working out the logistics for the floppy drive, but that shouldn't take long). I just thought it'd be a fun, short, weekend project to get a BASIC running on it just to see it work. (And now the weekend's gone, so I guess it'll have to wait :) ). > To that > I suggest looking up TINY BASIC, there were several and they are not big. > The advantage is most the source your could see and the IO interface > to use > it was often in the clear. A good place to start. If you want a non > BASIC language > find a copy of TinyC. NO it's not real C but good enough for small > system stuff. > > My pence again.. Get a rom based machine level monitor and get away from > the front panel toggles as that is slow and painful. If you are going > to launch > CP/M on the system you'll need it anyway. The Cromemco 64FDC I have has a ROM monitor and that's what I've (mostly) been playing with. It's looking like CP/M for the 16FDC should be compatible as well, something I'll be trying out in the near future. > > Oh, and once you have CP/M the available software list expands > considerably > and takes on all the great published and free foundation software. > > Foundation software in my mind are the tools like editors, assemblers, > spreadsheets, Database, communications, and the all important games. Understood. Thanks for the suggestions! - Josh > > > Allison > From james at attfield.co.uk Mon Jan 2 06:55:37 2012 From: james at attfield.co.uk (James Attfield) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 12:55:37 -0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC (allison) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003001ccc94d$d2db3d70$7891b850$@co.uk> On 12/31/2011 01:43 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > Anyone have any recommendations for a reasonably featured 8080 or Z80 > BASIC? > > What I've got running at the moment is a mongrel IMSAI 8080 with a > Z80, 48K of working memory and a serial port. My eventual goal is to > get CP/M running on it (I have a Cromemco 64FDC -- anyone know of > either an official CP/M for this or know of a BIOS that supports this > controller before I start writing my own?) but for the time being I > thought it would be fun to get a BASIC running on it. > If you have drives hooked up you will be able to run Cromemco CDOS with a 64-FDC and the obvious choices would be either Cromemco 16K Basic or 32K Structured Basic (although 64K might be a better bet for that one). You don't say what CPU board you have but I have run CDOS in an IMSAI with a ZPU, 16-FDC and 64K and it runs nicely - lovely blinkenlights! Moving to CP/M shouldn't be too hard but you will have to either find a pre-patched one or integrate the IO and disk routines yourself and, catch 22, that needs a working system to start with (chicken and egg of course). If you do move to CP/M expect that the Cromemco Basic's won't work without some patching as they typically use some CDOS calls not present in CP/M. James From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Mon Jan 2 08:50:17 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 09:50:17 -0500 Subject: SCSI-1 to IDE/SD bridge project Message-ID: <000d01ccc95d$e62a5fe0$b27f1fa0$@YAHOO.COM> Hi I will be getting additional SCSI to IDE/SD PCBs in mid-January 2012 in case anyone would like some Douglas's working SCSI to IDE/SD board with a firmware release is here http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem/browse_thread/thread/5d5fb5bf2f197082# The KiCAD EDA files are also posted on the N8VEM wiki http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=MINI%20SCSI%20t o%20IDE%20prototypes It is not complete yet but a working Zapple debug monitor is *major progress* towards a working bridge converter. Am looking for additional development team members to finish out the firmware on this project. We are very close and just need some additional effort to complete the project. Serious responses only please. Andrew Lynch From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 2 10:55:01 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 08:55:01 -0800 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: Hi While BASIC is good for a starting language it is not the first language I'd bring up on a machine unless it had already been setup on that machine. I'd bring up Forth. One can get the console in and out running first. One can then easily experiment with the disk IO until it is working right. The source is available and easy to understand. Once one has a good understanding, bringing up other languages is trivial. Dwight > From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu > > > > On 12/31/2011 12:15 PM, MikeS wrote: > > > > ----- Reply: > > > > Just curious: > > Does your memory configuration support swapping out the RDOS > > boot/monitor ROM? > > Not at the moment, I haven't quite worked out if this can be made to > work properly with non-Cromemco memory boards. The 64FDC manual > suggests "Set[ting] the switches on the RAM board(s) so that memory from > 8000h to FFFFh is disabled..." which implies that the boards must > support some way of re-enabling the memory via software (for when the > FDC's ROM is disabled via a write to port 40h). > > I'm wondering if this board isn't really optimal for this setup -- it > seems very geared toward having a complete Cromemco setup, which I do > not have. > > I do have an IMSAI MIO and a Tarbell 1011D, which seem more > period-appropriate for the era. The MIO has got to be the most > difficult to configure board I have ever seen. I've modified wire-wrap > backplanes with less hassle than this thing. There must be 50 or more > (poorly labeled) jumpers on this board and the manual is not the most > friendly I've ever seen (it doesn't help that the PDF I have has the > pages in the wrong order). (Anyone out there have experience with this > board? I don't really care much about getting the Cassette I/O or > parallel I/O working, I just want a serial port for the time being...) > I just need to spend more time studying the manual, I'm sure :). > > > > And what drive(s) do you have connected? As you probably know, the FDC > > supports 5.25"DD as well as 8" and the 3.5 and 5.25" HD equivalents. > > None at the moment, but I'm planning on connecting a 5.25" drive in the > near future. > > > > > > I haven't seen any standalone BASIC versions for the FDC; there are at > > least two versions of BASIC for the Cromemco, but AFAIK they both > > require a bootable CDOS disk. However, unless they use any of the > > extra calls in CDOS I wouldn't be surprised if they worked just as > > well with CP/M. > > For right now, I was just planning on assembling a raw binary image and > using a PC (with a bit of hacked together software) to push the image > into the IMSAI's memory via the 64FDC's serial port, using the onboard > monitor commands. Just for fun :). > > > > > > In addition to Cromemco's CDOS CP/M equivalent AFAIK there were also > > at least two official third-party CP/M implementations for the FDC and > > one or two hacked BIOSes, but there may be compatibility issues among > > the three different versions of the FDC. > > If you know of a source for images of these third-party CP/Ms, let me > know. Dave Dunfield's site has a CP/M for the 16FDC, which as far as I > can tell (from a cursory glance at the manuals) has identical I/O port > behavior to the 64FDC so I may just be able to use that, assuming I can > write the 8" image to a 5.25" floppy. > > > > > Interesting though; I'll have to look around... > > > > > > Thanks! > Josh From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jan 2 11:04:57 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:04:57 -0700 Subject: SCSI-1 to IDE/SD bridge project In-Reply-To: <000d01ccc95d$e62a5fe0$b27f1fa0$@YAHOO.COM> References: <000d01ccc95d$e62a5fe0$b27f1fa0$@YAHOO.COM> Message-ID: <4F01E3B9.5050606@e-bbes.com> On 2012-01-02 07:50, Andrew Lynch wrote: > Hi > > I will be getting additional SCSI to IDE/SD PCBs in mid-January 2012 in case > > The KiCAD EDA files are also posted on the N8VEM wiki > > http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=MINI%20SCSI%20t > o%20IDE%20prototypes SCSI termination is left out intentionally? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 2 13:44:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 19:44:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 2, 12 00:12:13 am Message-ID: > I have been slightly curious about OS-9 for years. I wonder if I can It's a very nice OS given the sort of machines it ran on. It'smultitalksing and even multiuser, it's device-independant (like unix, oyu can direct progam output to any device or to a file), it has a directory tree structure (a lot of the OSes for 8 bit micros didn't have subdirectories at all), and it's very modular (you can load new modules, decvice drivers, etc even when the system is running). And that would run on a 1MHz 680 with 64K RAM. [..] > I've been Googling and reading up on BASIC09. It certainly does sound > impressive, although a bit more primitive than BBC BASIC. > > Did it have any graphics or sound facilities? THe simple answer is 'no', but there's rather more to it that that. Does C have grapgics or sound facilites? The only mentions of graphics I can find in K&R is defining structs for points, rectangles, etc. The only mention of sound I can fidn is that \a produces a bell character. But of course we all know you can write graphics and sound programs in C. There will generally be libraries of functions to perform particular operations (plot a point, draw a line, fill an area, etc). You call those from your C program. One advantage of languages like C is thst there are extendable. You can have libraries of extra functuions that cna be used like hte built-in functions of the language. The same applies to to many other languages (forth being an obvious example). In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not often docuemnted. Suppose you took a typicval 8 bit micro (say a C64 or a Spectrum) and interfaced it to a high-resuloution grapgics unit. There's no easy way to add or rewrite commands line LINE or SET. BBC BASIC is a better. You can write soem PROGs to call machine language routines (if necessary) to talk to your hardware. Even so, you have to write some part of it in BASIC (the definitions of the PROCs), and the names of the added commadns all start with PROC. But it's certianly a lot nicer than most other BASICs. But BASIC-09 lets you call add-on routines. They're essentially OS-9 modules. You could write hte graphics routines in any language you like and call them from a BASIC-09 program. Adding graphics and sound routines is entirely possible, just as it is in C. -tony From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 14:04:09 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:04:09 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 19:44, Tony Duell wrote: >> I have been slightly curious about OS-9 for years. I wonder if I can > > It's a very nice OS given the sort of machines it ran on. > It'smultitalksing and even multiuser, it's device-independant (like unix, > oyu can direct progam output to any device or to a file), it has a > directory tree structure (a lot of the OSes for 8 bit micros didn't have > subdirectories at all), and it's very modular (you can load new modules, > decvice drivers, etc even when the system is running). And that would run > on a 1MHz 680 with 64K RAM. > > [..] > >> I've been Googling and reading up on BASIC09. It certainly does sound >> impressive, although a bit more primitive than BBC BASIC. >> >> Did it have any graphics or sound facilities? > > THe simple answer is 'no', but there's rather more to it that that. > > Does C have grapgics or sound facilites? The only mentions of graphics I > can find in K&R is defining structs for points, rectangles, etc. The only > mention of sound I can fidn is that \a produces a bell character. > > But of course we all know you can write graphics and sound programs in C. > There will generally be libraries of functions to perform particular > operations (plot a point, draw a line, fill an area, etc). You call those > from your C program. > > One advantage of languages like C is thst there are extendable. You can > have libraries of extra functuions that cna be used like hte built-in > functions of the language. The same applies to to many other languages > (forth being an obvious example). > > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not > often docuemnted. Suppose you took a typicval 8 bit micro (say a C64 or a > Spectrum) and interfaced it to a high-resuloution grapgics unit. There's > no easy way to add or rewrite commands line LINE or SET. > > BBC BASIC is a better. You can write soem PROGs to call machine language > routines (if necessary) to talk to your hardware. Even so, you have to > write some part of it in BASIC (the definitions of the PROCs), and the > names of the added commadns all start with PROC. But it's certianly a lot > nicer than most other BASICs. > > But BASIC-09 lets you call add-on routines. They're essentially OS-9 > modules. You could write hte graphics routines in any language you like > and call them from a BASIC-09 program. Adding graphics and sound routines > is entirely possible, just as it is in C. Fair enough. That aligns BASIC09 and perhaps all of OS-9 firmly with the minicomputer and multiuser end of the OS spectrum. BASIC's stronghold - at least in my lifetime - was on home micros and graphics and sound facilities were part of that remit. It was, for me, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities of the underlying hardware. I don't know much about the Dragon and CoCo, but they certainly had competent graphics and sound, and as they were the first platforms I ever read of for OS-9, I thought that maybe the CoCo/Dragon versions of OS-9 and BASIC09 had media facilities. For myself, TBH, I was always mainly interested in graphics, and that is what I mostly did in BASIC. Trivial and childish it might be, but then, I /was/ a child at the time! Back then, a BASIC with no *built-in* graphics facilities would not have interested me at all. Now, well, yes, a little different, but it's mainly what I used to play with. One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. And yes, in programming terms, I am very much an amateur! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 2 14:35:31 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:35:31 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 2, 12 08:04:09 pm Message-ID: > Fair enough. That aligns BASIC09 and perhaps all of OS-9 firmly with > the minicomputer and multiuser end of the OS spectrum. BASIC's I thin kthat's right. The other languages yo ucould easily get for OS-9 (read : Radio SHack sold them on CoCO-format disks) included PASCAL-09 (which was full ISO Pascal) and C (which iIRC followed the origial K&R). > > I don't know much about the Dragon and CoCo, but they certainly had > competent graphics and sound, and as they were the first platforms I No brillieant on either front! The Text mode was 32*16 characters, upper case only (porgamming C was 'entertaining, sicne lower-case was displayed as inverse video), The highest resolution graphics mode was 256*192 dots in 2 colours. Sounds was a 6 bit DAC, entirely software driven I seem to remember the OS-9 console driver accepted certain contrl sequecnests to sset graphics mode, plot a point, on the CoCo. You could certianyl do that from BASIC-09 (and fro many other language, I remember wriing programs in Pascal to plot various fucntions). With the CoCo3 (there was no Drago nequivalent), you had the same sound facility, but mcu better grpahgics (80*24 text, upper and lower case, 640*192 graphics, selectable colours, etc). I am pretty sure, again, you could access this from OS-9 probably by sendign the right control sequences ot the console driver. Of course, you could write routines to send said contor lsequenes (or get osmeboy else to write them) and then call them from your program. > ever read of for OS-9, I thought that maybe the CoCo/Dragon versions > of OS-9 and BASIC09 had media facilities. > > For myself, TBH, I was always mainly interested in graphics, and that > is what I mostly did in BASIC. Trivial and childish it might be, but > then, I /was/ a child at the time! Back then, a BASIC with no > *built-in* graphics facilities would not have interested me at all. > Now, well, yes, a little different, but it's mainly what I used to > play with. Yes, I understnad. Of course The COOC had a ROM BASIC too, which had grpahicvs and sound commands. But that wasn't multi-tasking, it didn't let you access an OS-9 filesystem, etc. > > One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is > that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the > high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers > - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. Oh,I amsolutely agree. It seems that modern PCs are not intended to be programmed by the user (look at the adverts, they talk of storing music, photos, etc, nothing about programming). For all my comments about BASIC-09, I do thin the BBC Micro is oen of the all-time great machines, and that it was probably the best educational computer ever made. The BASIC was good, it was easy to get 'something to happen' but you could go further if you wanted to. The idea of the user prot got a lot of people trying simple interface that is now much arder to do. (Yes, I do know there are USB-parallel ICs available. It's a lot harder to wire one of those up, get the driver to behavem etc than to simply wire a pin o nthe user prot connector to a transistor and then to a relay and enter a simple memory-reference commant to turn on a light or something). > > And yes, in programming terms, I am very much an amateur! An amateur is somebody who does something because they love it (think Latin), it has nothing to do with ability. -tony From huw.davies at mail.vsm.com.au Sun Jan 1 00:33:24 2012 From: huw.davies at mail.vsm.com.au (Huw Davies) Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2012 17:33:24 +1100 Subject: Visiting Bristol UK Message-ID: I'm yet again visiting Bristol UK for most of January 2012. I guess during the week I'll have to attend the training course that work is sending me to, but I wondered if anyone had any classic computer recommendations for the weekend? Assuming the weather is OK, I'm happy to drive a reasonable distance but local stuff is easier. I did Bletchley Park last time I was in the UK (November 2010) and I've already promised myself that I'll visit the SS Great Britain and the Newport cable bridge, but wondered if there were other CC related things in the area. If anyone in the area wants to catch up for a beer, I'd happily shout a pint of the local bitter. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" From et at arpanet.com Mon Jan 2 12:38:10 2012 From: et at arpanet.com (Ed Taussig) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 13:38:10 -0500 Subject: Wanted - Boards for KS-10 (PDP-20 / DECSYSTEM 20) Message-ID: Wanted - Boards for KS-10: (PDP-20/DECSYSTEM-20) 40722 64K memory M8629 64k memory M8616 Console+Clock M8618 memory controller M8619 unibus adapter M8621 Data path memory M8620 Data path execute M8622 Control Ram Address M8623 Control Ram I have a KS-10 with a few boards, but hopeful I'll be able to complete it someday - getting it running after that is another story :-) (Any leads on where to find those boards would be greatly appreciated). Thanks, Ed Taussig From jonas at otter.se Mon Jan 2 13:30:06 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:30:06 +0100 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0205BE.5040901@otter.se> > [BASIC-09] > >> > Never even heard of that one, but then, I've never seen or used OS/9 I'm my > I am not suprised, It wasn't that common. > >> > life. Never owned a Dragon or any other 6809 box. > I ran it on my CoCos. In generla, the OS-9 languages were very nice for > an 8-bit machine. In the early 1980s I worked for a fork lift manufacturer, and we were two persons who wrote a simple ISAM file database and a warehouse stock control system for a Swedish 6809 machine from a company called Primal Data. I have no idea why they chose that name, but their machines were well made. They had MMUs so I think we had 1 MB of memory in them. We wrote the software in Pascal under OS-9, some of it in Microware Pascal, later we discovered another Pascal, the name of which escapes me at the moment. I remember it compiled to machine code instead of p-code, and had a lot of bells and whistles which we found useful, although slightly buggy as opposed to Microware's Pascal which was quite solid IIRC. We managed to work two or three people at the same time on one machine. Compiling was dreadfully slow with only 5 1/4" diskettes and the machines were much nicer when we had 10 MB hard disks (Rodime) put in them. /Jonas From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 14:57:42 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:57:42 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 20:35, Tony Duell wrote: >> Fair enough. That aligns BASIC09 and perhaps all of OS-9 firmly with >> the minicomputer and multiuser end of the OS spectrum. BASIC's > > I thin kthat's right. The other languages yo ucould easily get for OS-9 > (read : Radio SHack sold them on CoCO-format disks) included PASCAL-09 > (which was full ISO Pascal) and C (which iIRC followed the origial K&R). > >> >> I don't know much about the Dragon and CoCo, but they certainly had >> competent graphics and sound, and as they were the first platforms I > > No brillieant on either front! The Text mode was 32*16 characters, upper > case only (porgamming C was 'entertaining, sicne lower-case was displayed > as inverse video), The highest resolution graphics mode was 256*192 dots > in 2 colours. Sounds was a 6 bit DAC, entirely software driven Wow. Worse than a Spectrum! Impressive, and not in a good way. > I seem to remember the OS-9 console driver accepted certain contrl > sequecnests to sset graphics mode, plot a point, on the CoCo. You could > certianyl do that from BASIC-09 (and fro many other language, I remember > wriing programs in Pascal to plot various fucntions). Way over my head, I suspect, then or now. > With the CoCo3 (there was no Drago nequivalent), you had the same sound > facility, but mcu better grpahgics (80*24 text, upper and lower case, > 640*192 graphics, selectable colours, etc). I am pretty sure, again, you > could access this from OS-9 probably by sendign the right control > sequences ot the console driver. > > Of course, you could write routines to send said contor lsequenes (or get > osmeboy else to write them) and then call them from your program. > >> ever read of for OS-9, I thought that maybe the CoCo/Dragon versions >> of OS-9 and BASIC09 had media facilities. >> >> For myself, TBH, I was always mainly interested in graphics, and that >> is what I mostly did in BASIC. Trivial and childish it might be, but >> then, I /was/ a child at the time! Back then, a BASIC with no >> *built-in* graphics facilities ?would not have interested me at all. >> Now, well, yes, a little different, but it's mainly what I used to >> play with. > > Yes, I understnad. Of course The COOC had a ROM BASIC too, which had > grpahicvs and sound commands. But that wasn't multi-tasking, it didn't > let you access an OS-9 filesystem, etc. [Nod] >> One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is >> that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the >> high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers >> - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. > > Oh,I amsolutely agree. It seems that modern PCs are not intended to be > programmed by the user (look at the adverts, they talk of storing music, > photos, etc, nothing about programming). Indeed. That is what the Raspberry Pi is designed to rectify. Whether it succeeds remains to be seen. > For all my comments about BASIC-09, I do thin the BBC Micro is oen of the > all-time great machines, and that it was probably the best educational > computer ever made. The BASIC was good, it was easy to get 'something to > happen' but you could go further if you wanted to. The idea of the user > prot got a lot of people trying simple interface that is now much arder > to do. (Yes, I do know there are USB-parallel ICs available. It's a lot > harder to wire one of those up, get the driver to behavem etc than to > simply wire a pin o nthe user prot connector to a transistor and then to > a relay and enter a simple memory-reference commant to turn on a light or > something). :?) I never had a BBC. Only used them at University. I came into the Acorn fold with my Archimedes A305 - when I bought it, 2nd hand, for ?800, it was considerably faster than the quickest machine my employers sold: an IBM PS/2 Model 70-A21, a 25MHz 80386DX with SRAM cache, which came in at about ?10,500 minus monitor, keyboard or DOS - quite a lot over 10? the price. No user port or anything on an Archie, but I wasn't and am not really interested in stuff like that. I fitted an external floppy interface and used its serial and parallel ports, though. The combination of raw CPU horsepower, accessible from an excellent BASIC, and good graphics facilities - vastly better than an Atari ST or a PC with the affordable contemporary standards of CGA or EGA - swung it for me, and I was very happy with my choice for quite a few years. I moved from that to OS/2 on a Librex 386SX notebook (a freebie from work), followed by a 486DX/50 (not a DX2!) that I bought 2nd hand online - in about 1992! :?) >> And yes, in programming terms, I am very much an amateur! > > An amateur is somebody who does something because they love it (think > Latin), it has nothing to do with ability. True, and have a bonus point for pedantry. ;?) I did love it then, but when I started working in IT, I discovered that I had no professional aptitude for it whatsoever. I was quite dismal at it. So I left it behind and have never returned. 25y of support work and building and running networks has left me very jaded with IT, though. I want out. Playing with older kit is still fun, and occasionally using it to write on, but that's about it. Modern games are mostly boring, with intensely difficult but very derivative gameplay, stunning graphics but no originality. The OSs are so complex that dabblers can't get involved, the hardware is vastly powerful but locked away behind elaborate drivers and professionals-only-need-apply languages. It's all rather dull. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 15:00:10 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 16:00:10 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > It was, for me, one of > the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the > VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very > primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, > no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities > of the underlying hardware. Yep. It was pretty much 1970s Microsoft BASIC all the way through, starting with the PETs in 1977. > One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is > that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the > high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers > - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. That's not a C21 issue... look back 20+ years and build something graphical on Amiga's Intuition API or for X... I never very far into the graphic aspects of either platform, and I'm way beyond the amateur developer stage. I dug in the other direction - systems programming and embedded programming - I haven't done much with graphics since I moved up from the Commodore 64 (where I did a _lot_ of it, but did all the graphics and sound stuff myself, at first in BASIC, then in assembler). -ethan From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 15:05:46 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:05:46 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <8677c5fa22b346887d331f25085774c3@mdfs.net> References: <4EFEAF09.8040604@mail.msu.edu> <8677c5fa22b346887d331f25085774c3@mdfs.net> Message-ID: On 31 December 2011 19:25, J.G.Harston wrote: > Liam Proven wrote: > >> J.G.Harston wrote: >>> >>> BBC BASIC: http://mdfs.net/Software/BBCBasic/Z80/ >> >> >> Certainly that's what *I* was going to recommend, but I didn't >> know if source was available. > > > Why do you need the source? It does everything by calling the > standard CPM entry point at &0005. > > If you want a more fully-featured version, there's the BBC Tube > version that calls a jump block at &FFxx for the non-filing > functions, you just need to implement the code that jump block > jumps to. A fair question, which is indirectly answered by my comments to Tony. Personally, my interest was always mainly in graphics and to a much lesser extent sound (for their uses in games, mainly!) If the CP/M version of BBC BASIC is a "legal" CP/M app and only uses CP/M facilities, then AIUI that means that it more or less by definition has no graphics or sound support. In which case, there's nothing to port and you don't need the source! The only CP/M machine I ever owned have been a few Amstrad PCW 9512s. On them, I ran LEB - Lightning Extended BASIC. It was a toolkit that extended Locomotive's Mallard BASIC to give it graphics facilities, amongst other things. Sadly it seems completely forgotten by the Internet today. :?( I know there was GSX, but I found the documentation of the API completely impenetrable. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 15:59:06 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:59:06 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2 January 2012 21:00, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 3:04 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> It was, for me, one of >> the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the >> VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very >> primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, >> no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities >> of the underlying hardware. > > Yep. ?It was pretty much 1970s Microsoft BASIC all the way through, > starting with the PETs in 1977. Yes indeed. The company spent lots of effort on improving its hardware and almost none on improving its software, which seemed foolish - but on the other hand, didn't do it any harm in the 8-bit days. (Although many of the toys in the Secret Weapons of Commodore* would have been /much/ better options than the C128 or indeed SX64!) >> One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is >> that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the >> high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers >> - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. > > That's not a C21 issue... look back 20+ years and build something > graphical on Amiga's Intuition API or for X. True! Mind you, there were platforms that were more accessible than the Miggy. E.g. the Archimedes. :?) ----- * Another Cameron Kaiser production, I think... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ajp166 at verizon.net Mon Jan 2 15:59:33 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:59:33 -0500 Subject: CP/M disk format: need help In-Reply-To: <4EFFA3D4.8030903@compsys.to> References: <009401ccc4c7$0e5095c0$2af1c140$@lazzerini@tiscali.it> <20111228113143.W16996@shell.lmi.net> <4EFFA3D4.8030903@compsys.to> Message-ID: <4F0228C5.6010100@verizon.net> On 12/31/2011 07:07 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > >Fred Cisin wrote: > >> WHAT brand and model computer are you talking about? >> >> >> On Tue, 27 Dec 2011, Enrico Lazzerini wrote: >> >> >>> Well this is all i know: >>> 8" >>> STAT d:DSK: >>> 9600 r: 128 Byte Record Capacity >>> 1200 k: Kilobyte Drive Capacity >>> 128 d: 32 Byte Directory Entries >>> 128 c: Checked Directory Entries >>> 128 e: Records/ Extent >>> 16 b: Records/ Block >>> 64 s: Sectors/ Track >>> 2 t: Reserved Tracks >>> 2 SIDES >>> >> >> >> >>> This is that I calculate: >>> BEGIN SCO2 (1024 bytes/sector) - DSDD 8" >>> DENSITY MFM ,HIGH >>> >> >> 1200K disk capacity is close to maximum for an 8" diskette. >> It is what you expect from 8" DSDD. "High" would be incorrect usage, >> but >> from a 5.25" perspective, it fits. >> >> > The DEC RX02 8" SSDD floppy held 988 data blocks of 512 bytes or > 505,856 bytes. While DEC never supported the RX03, the extra code > was included in V04.00 of RT-11, but was removed in V05.00 of RT-11. > SSSD 8" was RX01, RX02 Drives could read and write it b ut RX02 format was M2FM and not compatable with anything else save for DSD and some Plessy cards. RX03 was Two sided RX01 but by time DEC arrived there they decide on the 5.25 80 track single sided (RX50) and later RX33(two sides 800kb and 1.2mb) and the RQDX controller. There was also RX05 (basically the PDT11 RX01 format but different logic based on FDC chip) and there was RX06 a single drive RX01 for VAX780. > The DSD 880/30 had a single functional RX03 floppy drive which could > be used as equivalent to the RX02 drive under RT-11. The RX03 drive > supported the use of a DSDD 8" floppy with 1976 data blocks of > 512 bytes or 1,011,712 bytes. > > Under DSDD, I believe that each sector was 256 bytes and that > 2 sectors were required for each block. The interleave was every > other sector to allow the silo in the controller to be unloaded into > the user buffer. Unfortunately, the DEC RX02 Qbus controller > never supported 22 bit user buffer addresses. However, it was > possible to have a bounce buffer available to the device driver > which could hold the contents of the silo after which the bounce > buffer could be transferred to the user buffer while the silo was > being filled again - during read operations of course. > The DSD880 did have a Q22 controller as did the DEC RX02(RXV21). They came later. > I presume that larger sectors with fewer inter sector gaps would > have allowed higher capacity. However, the DEC RX02 controllers > had silos of 256 bytes which required the sectors to be the same size. > Yep. It was designed far enough back that the 2900 based but slice CPU didn't have enough bits for addressing more and the rice of static ram was still a factor. I have a few Qbus DEC systems both PDP11 and VAX. Allison >> >> >>> CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 1 SECTORS 8,1024 >>> >> NO. >> You can not get 1200K disk capacity from single sided. >> >> >> >>> SIDE1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 >>> SIDE2 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 >>> >> Those are 10 sectors per side. You said 8 >> Are you sure that that is the sector sequence? >> >> >> >>> Here what 22disk tell me: >>> http://elazzerini.interfree.it/Foto2982.jpg >>> Where I'm wrong? >>> >> >> 1) Instead of transcribing some text, you sent a URL to a picture >> that is >> more than 2 MEGAbytes. (a photograph of your screen?) >> THANK YOU for sending the URL instead of attaching it! >> A) Not everybody reads their mail in a web browser. Sending a URL >> requires cut and paste to get it TO the web browser. >> B) Believe it or not, some of us use dial-up! 2M takes too long. >> C) Surely that file could be MUCH smaller. Thats a kilobyte for >> each character on the screen. >> Was it an error message? That would only call for a few lines of text. >> Was it a scrambled display, such as non-ASCII characters in filenames? >> >> >> 2) You are posting asking for technical support for an unregistered copy >> of a program on a forum where the author is an active participant! >> If you >> REGISTER the program, then he will provide support, maybe even an >> updated >> copy of the program, etc. (It may have additional formats now!) >> >> >> You didn't tell us the name of the format. >> You didn't tell us the form of your calculations. Were they a wild >> guess? or did you look at sectors on the disk to determine them? >> What "side-pattern" is it? Does it alternate sides before incrementing >> cylinder, or does it increment cylinder first, and use the first side >> before starting on the second? Does it then go UP the second side, or >> DOWN? >> You didn't provide us with hex dumps of the directory sectors. NO, >> DO NOT >> SEND US MORE PHOTOGRAPHS! If the problem is in the directory, then >> let's see THAT! It's 32 bytes per directory entry/extent - >> depending on >> what the problem is, it might not take more than a few. >> > > From tingox at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 16:03:29 2012 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 23:03:29 +0100 Subject: DiscFerret: It just keeps getting better...! In-Reply-To: <4EFF8348.8050101@philpem.me.uk> References: <4EFF8348.8050101@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 10:48 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Hello, folks! > > Hope you all had a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, or whatever you > celebrated! Also, best wishes for the New Year, which will be... in > around two and a quarter hours in my neck of the woods :) > > It's been a while since I posted anything related to DiscFerret. Rest > assured, I have not been resting on my laurels (Balrog and Lord > Nightmare have made certain of that!). In fact, I've just released a > shiny new toy for all you DiscFerret owners... Well, two actually! Nice progress! A question: The Discferret store seems to be down for maintenance. Is this intentional? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 2 16:57:48 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:57:48 -0500 Subject: Wanted - Boards for KS-10 (PDP-20 / DECSYSTEM 20) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F02366C.3070207@neurotica.com> On 01/02/2012 01:38 PM, Ed Taussig wrote: > Wanted - Boards for KS-10: (PDP-20/DECSYSTEM-20) > 40722 64K memory > M8629 64k memory > M8616 Console+Clock > M8618 memory controller > M8619 unibus adapter > M8621 Data path memory > M8620 Data path execute > M8622 Control Ram Address > M8623 Control Ram > I have a KS-10 with a few boards, but hopeful I'll be > able to complete it someday - getting it running after > that is another story :-) (Any leads on where to find > those boards would be greatly appreciated). Hello Ed! I have a number of spare KS-10 boards here, as well as a whole KS-10. The KS-10 itself is definitely not available, but I may be able to help you out with some boards. Where are you located, and which (by s/n) KS-10 do you have, if you don't mind my asking? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 16:59:58 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:59:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> > Does C have grapgics or sound facilites? The only mentions of graphics I > can find in K&R is defining structs for points, rectangles, etc. The only > mention of sound I can fidn is that \a produces a bell character. > But of course we all know you can write graphics and sound programs in C. > There will generally be libraries of functions to perform particular > operations (plot a point, draw a line, fill an area, etc). You call those > from your C program. > One advantage of languages like C is thst there are extendable. You can > have libraries of extra functuions that cna be used like hte built-in > functions of the language. The same applies to to many other languages > (forth being an obvious example). C itself has NO I/O. That is corect. I/O is "ADDED" external functions, NOT part of the language. The compiler author will normally include some useful functions along with the compiler. Those are called the "Standard Library". Typically, those will include ones such as printf() to enable console output. Most of the ones described in K&R will be included. They are NOT part of the language, they are added functions. Market forces and competition have forced compiler authors to all include all of the functions described in K&R, and often many more, and besides the battles over interpretation of the holy scriptures (remember when not everybody included a newline in puts()?), they all end up with almost the same Standard Library functions. BUT, "Standard Library" means the same as "Standard Equipment" when you are buying a car. It means what is generally supplied. "Standard", inspite of it ending up that way, does NOT MEAN "standardized"! Floor-mats, spare tire, etc. are always included in the "Standard Equipment" when you buy a car, but that does NOT mean "standardized"! Remember, that a "standard" is just a ten foot pole with a flag on top. This is EXACTLY the situation where that matters. Graphics functions may often be included in the "Standard Library" for a given compiler, or included in one of the "standard" additional libraries of functions, that are supplied. The functions supplied with Microsoft and Borland ended up being virtually identical, but other compilers didn't feel that intensity of competition. DO NOT assume nor expect any standardization of graphics functions between different platforms. In many cases, such as PC, the supplied graphics functions are merely one-to-one mappings of direct calls to the BIOS functions, but they MAY supply very sophisticated APIs. > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not > often docuemnted. MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the language to let you create and call machine language code. If you can find them, there are commercial packages of machine language functions for common tasks. Such as Brett Salter's "Peeks and Pokes". On platforms with appropriate hardware (such as Coco, and even 5150), MICROS~1 BASIC usually provided a usable set of graphics primitives, built into their BASIC!, consisting of set-a-pixel and read-a-pixel, with some minimal extensions, such as line draw. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ajp166 at verizon.net Mon Jan 2 17:02:54 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:02:54 -0500 Subject: CP/M FCB structure (was 22disk & CP/M's diskettes ) In-Reply-To: <00b501ccc80c$c11fef00$435fcd00$@it> References: <00b501ccc80c$c11fef00$435fcd00$@it> Message-ID: <4F02379E.3050408@verizon.net> On 12/31/2011 05:37 PM, Enrico Lazzerini wrote: > Hi all, > > Some days ago I posted a request to identify the FCB parameters to read > correctly a 8" disk CP/M. > I know that i was wrong in the subject so I would like to summarize and i > thank you for the suggestions and criticisms. > > > > The data obtained directly with the STAT command DSK: are the following: > > > > 9600: 128 Byte Record Capacity > > 1200: Kilobyte Drive Capacity > > 128: 32 Byte Directory Entries > > 128: Checked Directory Entries > > 128: Records / Extent > > 16: Records / Block > > 64: Sectors / Track Thats logical sectors per track, physical sector size is likely 1024 bytes. > 2: Reserved tracks > > 2 SIDES > > > > After further investigation the parameters for the correct reading would > appear as follows: > > BEGIN SCO2 (1024 bytes/sector) - 8 DSDD " > > MFM DENSITY, HIGH > > CYLINDERS 77 SIDES 2 SECTORS 8,1024 > > Side1 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 > > Side2 0 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 > from 0 to 8 is NINE sectors. Save for a few oddbals and some hard sector drives floppies do not have a sector zero(0). The standard is the first sector after the index home is sector 1 and is numbered 1. So for eight 1k sectors they would be 1 through 8. > ORDER CYLINDERS > > BSH 4 BLM 15 EXM 0 DSM 300 DRM 127 AL0 SFO 00H 11110000B AL1 2 > > END > > > > The following additional information which I hope can clarify or help: > > > > The inclusion of incorrect data was due to a misreading of my screen on the > console CP/M in the data down the email. The calculations were performed by > acquiring more information from the operating system CP/M manuals which > shows how to derive the parameters needed to compose and then subsequently > identified by extrapolating the FCB. The stat command dsk: when possible on > a working machine that is able to read the disk whose parameters are to be > identified can be useful, but if you can not read the disc seems to have > realized that the only way is to use anadisk and 22disk. > IN CP/M language the FCB is how you talk to the CP/M OS and has no direct connection to the on disk organization of data. FCB = File Control Block and is parameter passed to the BDOS (reference by pointer). and the BDOS grinds that in to a logical reference to the physical structure using tables and data blocks in the BIOS for that machine. > > > Anadisk reports: > > Tracks 0 and 1 = single density 26x128byte with OS CP/M that points to a > resident BIOS involved in F800H entry points; > > Tracks 2-76 = 8x1024byte double density with directory consists of 2 blocks > 2048Byte for a total of 128 entries and the remaining space for data > > > > SCO2 means disk2 SCOMAR machine (in Italy there was a PCB derived from the > Ferguson Bigboard I with a different 1797 FDC controller and BIOS and it has > been used to drive a knitting machine now discontinued and no longer > supported) > > > > The diskette was created from a friend using software IMD of Dave Dunfield > and myself played on floppy 3.5 "1.44MB respecting the original features (or > almost I hope) > > Logically it would seem you can substitute a HD 5.25 floppy for a 8" but in practice I've not seen it work yet. > With these parameters i was able to read and write to the disk even it > remains some doubt as for example by adding the file to disk MBASIC.COM this > does not seem to properly turn on the machine that uses this disk format > The system needs the reserved tracks filled with the right stuff to boot and run. CP/M does nto boot from the directory as it needs CP/M running to even read the directory. > > > Infact the main problem was that probabily the EXM value not make me able to > write files greater than 16KB and the picture visualized the 3 times the > same filename. > The way CP/M works is the EXM is the limit to the size of an individual entry and files larger use multiple directory entries to capture the whole file. That means a 56K file needs 4 directory entries and shows up in the directory 4 times and part of the physical directory entry tells the OS there are multiple and how they are used in sequence. > > > So any kind of suggestion to understand betfer the FCB structure and > parameters of CP/M will be welcome. > Please read the Digital Research CP/M Alteration Guide. The problem is if your trying to replicate the on disk format for a old machine you need the BIOS documentation for that machine or lacking that some serious code disassembly if you have a disk that works. If neither exists then your designing your own BIOS from the ground up and that may be more than most can take on. I've designed machines and the BIOS to match and it's a straight forward task. But doing it for a machine by someone else without documentation of what they did is far harder as that if forensic reconstruction. Allison > I would like to thank: > > > > - For suggestions > > > > allison for the valuable explanations and clarifications which go beyond the > simple description inherent in any textbook > > > Cisin Fred for the tip to detect the possible size of the FCB parameter BLS > analyzing the disk > > > > About received criticism may i ask for: > > - Could anybody give me the name of sw to reduce the size of a photo? > > - And what used to convert it into text easily? (I have not had a chance to > do a dump from the screen) > > - Where can I buy the registered version of 22disk or is no longer available > or supported? > > > > I apologize again for my poor English that puts me in trouble to fully > understand the criticism received. > > > > Have an happy new year 2012 to all. > > > > Enrico - Pisa - ITaly > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 17:33:52 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 15:33:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, dwight elvey wrote: > While BASIC is good for a starting language it is not the first > language I'd bring up on a machine unless it had already been > setup on that machine. > I'd bring up Forth. One can get the console in and out running > first. One can then easily experiment with the disk IO until > it is working right. > The source is available and easy to understand. > Once one has a good understanding, bringing up other > languages is trivial. Damn good points. I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. C, for wxample, is the Systems Programming "language of choice", but as somebody's very first exposure to programming, it will teach them more about what their frustration tolerance level is than about programming. Once PAST that initial exposure stage, C is excellent. Although I don't speak a word of Forth, other than once having read Brodie's book ("Starting Forth"), it seems ideal for working with mastering the issues of getting a software structure to connect with the hardware. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 17:51:22 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 18:51:22 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2012, at 6:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Although I don't speak a word of Forth, other than once having > read Brodie's book ("Starting Forth"), it seems ideal for working > with mastering the issues of getting a software structure to connect > with the hardware. Forth is great. I'm writing a small Forth engine right now to bring up an AVR board I designed; it only takes a day or so to dream up the inner workings of the kernel for a particular architecture, and then another few to code up the words necessary to do any real work. Of course, it's probably useless for the OP, who was looking for a premade solution to boot his machine. :-) - Dave From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Mon Jan 2 18:32:24 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:32:24 +0000 Subject: DiscFerret: It just keeps getting better...! In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF8348.8050101@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <4F024C98.502@philpem.me.uk> On 02/01/12 22:03, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: > A question: > The Discferret store seems to be down for maintenance. Is this intentional? It is, for two reasons: 1) I don't have any DiscFerrets in stock to sell 2) Zen Cart and I don't get along. I need to replace it with something more... usable. Thanks. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 2 19:06:49 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 17:06:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the > VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very > primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, > no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities > of the underlying hardware. > BASIC 7 in the C128 corrected many of those issues. There were add-on tools and carts that would add graphics & sound commands to the C-64 - the most common was Simons Basic. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 19:17:51 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 01:17:51 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 01:06, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > >> the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the >> VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very >> primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, >> no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities >> of the underlying hardware. >> > BASIC 7 in the C128 corrected many of those issues. ?There were add-on tools > and carts that would add graphics & sound commands to the C-64 - the most > common was Simons Basic. Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I think I once knew that, 20+y ago, and had forgotten. It was a very odd machine, though. I think the unreleased C65 would have been a much better upgrade. The 80col mode was good, but WTF was the Z80 and CP/M doing in there? It was completely inappropriate to the VIC/C64 market segment, added unnecessary cost and did not enhance the functionality of the CBM side of things at all. A truly bizarre addition. Mind you, the C16 and +4 were pretty bizarre aberrations, too. I really don't know what Commodore management was smoking, but it made for some epically bad decision-making. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 2 19:35:43 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 17:35:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >> BASIC 7 in the C128 corrected many of those issues. ?There were add-on tools >> and carts that would add graphics & sound commands to the C-64 - the most >> common was Simons Basic. > > Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I think I once knew that, 20+y ago, > and had forgotten. > > It was a very odd machine, though. I think the unreleased C65 would > have been a much better upgrade. The 80col mode was good, but WTF was > the Z80 and CP/M doing in there? It was completely inappropriate to > the VIC/C64 market segment, added unnecessary cost and did not enhance > the functionality of the CBM side of things at all. A truly bizarre > addition. > If you head over to http://www.c128.com you can email Bil Herd, the guy that designed the machine. I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you how the Z-80 managed to wedge its way into the design. > Mind you, the C16 and +4 were pretty bizarre aberrations, too. I > really don't know what Commodore management was smoking, but it made > for some epically bad decision-making. > Agreed. Bil posted a neat video about the C-116 last week that you might enjoy. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 2 20:07:14 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:07:14 -0500 Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> On 02/01/12 8:17 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 3 January 2012 01:06, Gene Buckle wrote: >> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: >> >>> the greatest weaknesses of the Commodore line of home computers - the >>> VIC-20, Commodore 64, C128 and so forth - that their BASIC was very >>> primitive, had no commands for structured programming and, crucially, >>> no commands for sound, graphics, colour or any of the media facilities >>> of the underlying hardware. >>> >> BASIC 7 in the C128 corrected many of those issues. There were add-on tools >> and carts that would add graphics& sound commands to the C-64 - the most >> common was Simons Basic. > > Ahh, thanks for the clarification. I think I once knew that, 20+y ago, > and had forgotten. > > It was a very odd machine, though. I think the unreleased C65 would > have been a much better upgrade. The 80col mode was good, but WTF was > the Z80 and CP/M doing in there? Well, you might ask the same of the BBC Micro Tube (which hooked up a coprocessor of various families including Z80, 68000, etc). One assumes it was a "crossover" attempt to appeal to small business (given that many small businesses used affordable home computers at the time): A way to get much more capability but relatively low cost compared to the dedicated business brands. In the case of the BBC Micro, the educational computer during the middle years of my high schooling, it meant that schools could have installations of CP/M business software to familiarise students with WordStar, Turbo Pascal, and other tools that they'd soon encounter after finishing high school. --Toby > It was completely inappropriate to > the VIC/C64 market segment, added unnecessary cost and did not enhance > the functionality of the CBM side of things at all. A truly bizarre > addition. > > Mind you, the C16 and +4 were pretty bizarre aberrations, too. I > really don't know what Commodore management was smoking, but it made > for some epically bad decision-making. > > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 20:11:14 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:11:14 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 4:59 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > Yes indeed. The company spent lots of effort on improving its hardware > and almost none on improving its software, which seemed foolish - but > on the other hand, didn't do it any harm in the 8-bit days. I'm sure it was a cost-based decision, and since they sold over 17 million C-64s, from a business standpoint, not a terrible one. Sure, it wasn't easy to program sound and graphics from BASIC, but I think if you analyze the customer base, far more purchasers were more interested in purchasing high-quality games written by professionals than writing their own code. Commodore owned their own fab line, so they leveraged that which they were good at - selling large quantities of hardware with a high profit margin (when the C-64 was retailing for $99 USD, manufacturing costs were running around $14 per unit). >> That's not a C21 issue... look back 20+ years and build something >> graphical on Amiga's Intuition API or for X. > > True! Mind you, there were platforms that were more accessible than > the Miggy. E.g. the Archimedes. :?) While I'd heard of the Archimedes in the mid-1980s, I didn't know a place to see one, but there were a couple of places close to home that sold Amigas. I didn't know a single Archimedes owner on this side of the pond. The Archimedes didn't sound like a terrible platform, but it just didn't have that much presence here (less than the BBC Micro, which I _did_ see here, including working at a place that wrote software for it). -ethan From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Mon Jan 2 20:11:04 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:11:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201030211.VAA25318@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > "Standard", inspite of it ending up that way, does NOT MEAN > "standardized"! Actually, in the case of C, much of the standard library _is_ standardized - and more is standardized if you include POSIX, which, while not properly part of C, is closely related. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 2 20:11:50 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:11:50 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> On 02/01/12 6:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, dwight elvey wrote: >> While BASIC is good for a starting language it is not the first >> language I'd bring up on a machine unless it had already been >> setup on that machine. >> I'd bring up Forth. One can get the console in and out running >> first. One can then easily experiment with the disk IO until >> it is working right. >> The source is available and easy to understand. >> Once one has a good understanding, bringing up other >> languages is trivial. > > Damn good points. > > I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to > "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other > languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran and BASIC! What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? At least the kids learning today might learn something that still serves them in 10, 20 years. It's not like the world is moving back towards BASIC... > C, > for wxample, is the Systems Programming "language of choice", > but as somebody's very first exposure to programming, it will > teach them more about what their frustration tolerance level is > than about programming. Once PAST that initial exposure stage, > C is excellent. As long as they drop it like a hot potato when they realise they're not doing "systems programming". --Toby > > Although I don't speak a word of Forth, other than once having > read Brodie's book ("Starting Forth"), it seems ideal for working > with mastering the issues of getting a software structure to connect > with the hardware. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 20:12:24 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 18:12:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > It was a very odd machine, though. I think the unreleased C65 would > have been a much better upgrade. The 80col mode was good, but WTF was > the Z80 and CP/M doing in there? It was completely inappropriate to > the VIC/C64 market segment, added unnecessary cost and did not enhance > the functionality of the CBM side of things at all. A truly bizarre > addition. I always assumed that the 128 was a [futile] attempt to make a 64 that could also run some "office" software, thus giving people an excuse to buy a 64. "I can run Wordstar and Supercalc on it!" From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 2 20:13:47 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:13:47 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F02645B.40907@telegraphics.com.au> On 02/01/12 5:59 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >... > MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the > language to let you create and call machine language code. If you can > find them, there are commercial packages of machine language functions > for common tasks. Such as Brett Salter's "Peeks and Pokes". > BBC BASIC has a powerful built-in assembler - with macro-ish facilities if you use its structured constructs. In general it makes MS BASIC look pretty mediocre. :) --Toby > On platforms with appropriate hardware (such as Coco, and even 5150), > MICROS~1 BASIC usually provided a usable set of graphics primitives, built > into their BASIC!, consisting of set-a-pixel and read-a-pixel, with some > minimal extensions, such as line draw. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 20:17:59 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:17:59 -0500 Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 9:07 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >>> There were add-on tools >>> and carts that would add graphics & sound commands to the C-64 - the most >>> common was Simons Basic. There was Simon's BASIC, but I only knew a few people who used it - in part because when you used the graphics/sound extensions, you couldn't share the results with a non-owner. You could make fun stuff for yourself, but unlike "plain" programs one could get through BBSes and User Groups, your efforts couldn't be universally enjoyed. I understand the sort of learning-curve frustration that line after line of PEEKs and POKEs can cause, but cartridge-enhanced BASICs were, IMO, an evolutionary dead-end for a platform. -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 20:33:02 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 18:33:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201030211.VAA25318@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030211.VAA25318@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120102182709.D61599@shell.lmi.net> > > "Standard", inspite of it ending up that way, does NOT MEAN > > "standardized"! On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Mouse wrote: > Actually, in the case of C, much of the standard library _is_ > standardized - and more is standardized if you include POSIX, which, > while not properly part of C, is closely related. I should retract my statement. It was based entirely on K&R days, where any "standardization" was based on a mix of "we are more accurately K&R than they are" and competing for market share. "Standard Library" was derived from "standard equipment" (as opposed to "optional"), not "standardized library", even though there was a tendency towards that. If we include ANSI C, in addition to C, then there actually are standards, even in the standard library. From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 2 20:55:51 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 18:55:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 9:07 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> There were add-on tools >>>> and carts that would add graphics & sound commands to the C-64 - the most >>>> common was Simons Basic. > > There was Simon's BASIC, but I only knew a few people who used it - in > part because when you used the graphics/sound extensions, you couldn't > share the results with a non-owner. You could make fun stuff for > yourself, but unlike "plain" programs one could get through BBSes and > User Groups, your efforts couldn't be universally enjoyed. > Right. The mind blower is that David(?) Simons was 13 or 14 when he sold the software to Commodore. :) > I understand the sort of learning-curve frustration that line after > line of PEEKs and POKEs can cause, but cartridge-enhanced BASICs were, > IMO, an evolutionary dead-end for a platform. I suspect there were other non-cart BASIC enhancement packages. Adding new keywords to CBM BASIC was pretty well understood. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Mon Jan 2 21:00:02 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:00:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >> immediately after grasping the basic principles. > Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and > control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to > powerful abstractions. I'm not convinced that's a problem. > What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to get the hell out of the way). Just as it takes a certain amount of mathematical sophistication to grasp, say, the difference between base ten and other bases, or the difference between a number and its representation in some base, it takes a certain amount of programming sophistication to grasp what, say, lexical scoping is and why it's important - and it helps to have some experience with non-lexically-scoped languages. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 21:02:06 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 19:02:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120102185422.U61599@shell.lmi.net> > > Damn good points. > > I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to > > "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other > > languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and > control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to > powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran > and BASIC! Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." > What's wrong with Scheme? Pretty good. IFF they[1] would stop claiming that it is the ONLY language in which it is possible to solve the problem(s) (traversing a multi-dimensional array) [1] Clancy and Harvey, who were in charge of lower division undergrad CS at UC Berkeley, when they switched over; They also said, "NOBODY progams in assembly any more, nor ever will again." > > C, > > for example, is the Systems Programming "language of choice", > > but as somebody's very first exposure to programming, it will > > teach them more about what their frustration tolerance level is > > than about programming. Once PAST that initial exposure stage, > > C is excellent. > > As long as they drop it like a hot potato when they realise they're not > doing "systems programming". such heresy! "Use a language that is appropriate for they type of programming"?? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 21:19:05 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 22:19:05 -0500 Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > Right. ?The mind blower is that David(?) Simons was 13 or 14 when he sold > the software to Commodore. :) I do remember he was quite young - a proud achievement, to be sure. Those people that I knew who had it, loved it, but they were the sort to take BASIC to the limit and not explore any further (other languages, assembler, etc). They knew BASIC and wanted to write stuff on a shallower learning curve. It was perfect for them. > I suspect there were other non-cart BASIC enhancement packages. ?Adding new > keywords to CBM BASIC was pretty well understood. It certainly was well understood - I even wrote my own hacks, based on examples from some of my ROM expansions from my PET days. Much like the DOS Wedge, though, I didn't do it to extend BASIC programs as much as to extend command-line functionality. I can't remember adding anything that didn't make sense embedded in a running program. -ethan From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 2 22:14:30 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:14:30 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102185422.U61599@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <20120102185422.U61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0280A6.5050706@telegraphics.com.au> On 02/01/12 10:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Damn good points. >>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>> "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>> languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. > > On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >> powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran >> and BASIC! > > Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming > prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally > mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. > >> What's wrong with Scheme? > > Pretty good. > IFF they[1] would stop claiming that it is the ONLY language in which it > is possible to solve the problem(s) (traversing a multi-dimensional array) > > > [1] Clancy and Harvey, who were in charge of lower division undergrad CS > at UC Berkeley, when they switched over; They also said, "NOBODY progams > in assembly any more, nor ever will again." With only a minor qualification, they were 100% correct. The necessary qualification is: "general and business applications programming". > > > >> > C, >>> for example, is the Systems Programming "language of choice", >>> but as somebody's very first exposure to programming, it will >>> teach them more about what their frustration tolerance level is >>> than about programming. Once PAST that initial exposure stage, >>> C is excellent. >> >> As long as they drop it like a hot potato when they realise they're not >> doing "systems programming". > > such heresy! > "Use a language that is appropriate for they type of programming"?? Looking around, it seems that yes, this principle hasn't quite penetrated sufficiently :) For completeness, there is another use for C/C++. "Maintaining programs written a decade ago when it seemed like a reasonable idea to use this language." But students don't need to be burdened with that. --Toby > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 2 22:16:11 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:16:11 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >> powerful abstractions. > > I'm not convinced that's a problem. > >> What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? > > The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the > full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused > beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth > as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to > get the hell out of the way). Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. --Toby > > Just as it takes a certain amount of mathematical sophistication to > grasp, say, the difference between base ten and other bases, or the > difference between a number and its representation in some base, it > takes a certain amount of programming sophistication to grasp what, > say, lexical scoping is and why it's important - and it helps to have > some experience with non-lexically-scoped languages. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Mon Jan 2 22:22:55 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:22:55 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0280A6.5050706@telegraphics.com.au> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <20120102185422.U61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0280A6.5050706@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F02829F.4090706@mail.msu.edu> On 1/2/2012 8:14 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 02/01/12 10:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> Damn good points. >>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>>> "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>>> languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. >> >> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>> powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran >>> and BASIC! >> >> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally >> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." > > He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. If only that particular expression of his was even remotely true :). - Josh From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 2 22:52:44 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:52:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 2, 12 09:17:59 pm" Message-ID: <201201030452.q034qipE013426@floodgap.com> > There was Simon's BASIC, but I only knew a few people who used it - in > part because when you used the graphics/sound extensions, you couldn't > share the results with a non-owner. You could make fun stuff for > yourself, but unlike "plain" programs one could get through BBSes and > User Groups, your efforts couldn't be universally enjoyed. Epyx tried to get around this with Programmer's BASIC Toolkit where you could include a runtime. Unfortunately, PBT also really dorked around with the OS, so you were very much limited to the language and couldn't really expand from there. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Ah, the insight of hindsight. -- Thurston N. Davis ------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 2 22:54:14 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:54:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> from Fred Cisin at "Jan 2, 12 06:12:24 pm" Message-ID: <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> > I always assumed that the 128 was a [futile] attempt to make a 64 > that could also run some "office" software, thus giving people an excuse > to buy a 64. "I can run Wordstar and Supercalc on it!" I'm pretty sure that was the intention, though Bil Herd "accidentally" designed the Z80 into the motherboard as a way of getting around having to make the 128 compatible with the CP/M 2.2 cartridge. That said, the C128 implementation of CP/M Plus was designed early in the 128's lifecycle. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Everything! Is my! Delusion! -- "Dead or Alive 2" -------------------------- From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jan 2 23:02:43 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 05:02:43 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F02829F.4090706@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On 1/2/12 8:22 PM, "Josh Dersch" wrote: >On 1/2/2012 8:14 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 02/01/12 10:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>>> Damn good points. >>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>>>> "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>>>> languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>> >>> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>> powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between >>>>Fortran >>>> and BASIC! >>> >>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally >>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." >> >> He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. > >If only that particular expression of his was even remotely true :). > >- Josh Quotation from "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", Edsger W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975, as retrieved from http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html on 2-JAN-2012: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just say lambda!) My favorite has always been (ibid): "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." -- Ian From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 23:08:47 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 00:08:47 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I'm pretty sure that was the intention, though Bil Herd "accidentally" > designed the Z80 into the motherboard as a way of getting around having > to make the 128 compatible with the CP/M 2.2 cartridge. I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local Commodore user group. In general, though, how common was CP/M usage among the C128 crowd? Was it too little, too late by then? I remember watching my boss in 1984 use a CP/M card in his Apple II for business apps (mostly spreadsheets), but I don't remember personally seeing anyone running CP/M after that summer - it was all DOS for business and random brands of native 8-bit machines for fun. One Mac - owned by our senior programmer at that same company - the first Mac I ever saw, and probably the only 128K Mac I ever saw in the wild because everyone gobbled up the 512K model when it came out. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 23:12:40 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 00:12:40 -0500 Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 10:19 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > ... I even wrote my own hacks, based on > examples from some of my ROM expansions from my PET days. ... > ?I can't remember adding > anything that didn't make sense embedded in a running program. That should be "did make sense". I didn't add new keywords or bizarre parsing except perhaps an experiment or two following instructions on calling machine code directly with SYS and grabbing a few bytes after the fact (like making "SYS 40960:1 2 3 4" do something useful); certainly nothing that I ever depended on in any "useful" program. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 2 23:22:00 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:22:00 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2012 at 21:11, Toby Thain wrote: > Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and > control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to > powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between > Fortran and BASIC! Oh? Well, it depends what version of FORTRAN (but not Fortran, if you see where I'm going). Start with USA BASIC FORTRAN subset of FORTRAN 66 (X3-10.1966). It was standard (FORTRAN was one of the only ANSI-standard languages before about 1974). Stripped down FORTRAN to the bare metal. Fewer statment bytes than BASIC. A good start; it's where many engineers learned to program. Before that, starting with machine language was a good place to start. Not assembly--machine language. Easy enough on decimal machines--there were quite a few books on this for the IBM 1620. If you've been exposed to machine langauge before an HLL, I suspect that you gain a deeper understanding of how langauges work. On the other hand, there was the B5500... You could always start kids out on a Turing machine. Can you teach calculus before arithmetic? (HLL = calculus; Turing machine = arithmetic). I'm not sure. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 23:26:29 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:26:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> > >>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming > >>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally > >>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ian King wrote: > Quotation from "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", Edsger > W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975, as retrieved from > http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html on > 2-JAN-2012: > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that > have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are > mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." I got it pretty close. Also, I was thinking of what he wrote in "Unpleasant Truths : GOTO considered Haemful", so, I'll know how far off I really was when I can find my source document. > "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be > regarded as a criminal offense." -- Ian ONE semester, I had to teach COBOL! Somebody put that on the board before class. They can't prove it; lots of people had chalk. Can you find the time that he compared FORTRAN to Syphylis? From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 2 23:43:36 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:43:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120102212957.V61599@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Before that, starting with machine language was a good place to > start. Not assembly--machine language. Easy enough on decimal > machines--there were quite a few books on this for the IBM 1620. In the 1960s, the college system that I'm now faculty in, did a sequence of EAM, machine language (1401, emulated on a 1620), assembly (141 SPS), HLL (PDQ FORTRAN on 1620). We had unfettered access to the 1620, and a tiny window into the room with the 1401. But, I had already been doing FORTRAN (360), and then that sequence, and then work using FORTRAN and APL (360s), before ever doing BASIC (TRS80) and then C (5150), and THEN 8086 assembly. > If you've been exposed to machine langauge before an HLL, I suspect > that you gain a deeper understanding of how langauges work. MAYBE. There are certainly some exceptions; different people learn differently. Certainly many people learned much more effectively than I did. (I don't remember ANYTHING about the 141 SPS class, but that could have been due to the LSD to get the epiphanies to get through the calculus classes) > Can you teach calculus before arithmetic? (HLL = calculus; Turing > machine = arithmetic). "New Math" was an attempt to deal with theoretical math, WITHOUT it only being as a followup to massive amounts of arithmentic. I wonder how well it would have done with teachers who understood it? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 2 23:58:24 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:58:24 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F029900.70301@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/2/2012 10:26 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > Can you find the time that he compared FORTRAN to Syphylis? > I'am glad I've learned programing from old Star Trek re-runs. " Kill the mains for 30 seconds and then wait till the lights start blinking. " Ben. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 00:23:35 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2012 22:23:35 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102212957.V61599@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120102212957.V61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F022E67.2097.2A5CFD6@cclist.sydex.com> On 2 Jan 2012 at 21:43, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Before that, starting with machine language was a good place to > > start. Not assembly--machine language. Easy enough on decimal > > machines--there were quite a few books on this for the IBM 1620. > > In the 1960s, the college system that I'm now faculty in, did a > sequence of EAM, machine language (1401, emulated on a 1620), assembly > (141 SPS), HLL (PDQ FORTRAN on 1620). We had unfettered access to the > 1620, and a tiny window into the room with the 1401. I taught myself S/360 machine language by sitting with dumps decoding instructions by hand and then figuring out what the code did. I learned about a few "undocumented" SVCs in DOS/360 that way. But, there's no one way to learn anything. Do you teach Smalltak or Logo first? Do you give someone a bag of marbles and three bowls and tell them to write program for that? Would a born-in-Montgomery Alabama native pass a bonehead English- language class in Bonn? (When I was a freshman in high school, we had what we thought was a "ringer" in Spanish class--a girl from Mexico who had little command of English. Since our class was taught entirely in Spanish, we figured her for an automatic "A". She flunked--she couldn't get her head around the structure of the language, such as case and verb tenses). So, could a whizbang script kiddie write a FORTRAN program to find square roots using Newton-Raphson? I don't know. I think the choice of programming language is largely irrelevant. You could probably use RPG as an effective teaching tool. I once tried to help a kindergarten teacher with her computer course-- programming in BASIC. I wound up with a bad headache for not being able to couch my teaching in her skillset. I've since left teaching to the professionals. --Chuck From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Mon Jan 2 20:56:10 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 21:56:10 -0500 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! Message-ID: After seven months of Saturdays the PDP-8/L at the Rhode Island Computer Museum is finally running. It had 22 broken flip-chips, almost 20% of the modules in the system. Without lots of help from Warren Stearns, suggestions from Vincent Slyngstad, and donated spare modules from Vince Pavlicek we never would gotten it running. See: https://sites.google.com/a/ricomputermuseum.org/home/Home/equipment/pdp-8-l for details on the system and the debug process. Does anyone know of a source for peripherals that we use with the 8/L? -- Michael Thompson From tdk.knight at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 01:08:21 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 01:08:21 -0600 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: congratz On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Michael Thompson < michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote: > After seven months of Saturdays the PDP-8/L at the Rhode Island > Computer Museum is finally running. It had 22 broken flip-chips, > almost 20% of the modules in the system. > Without lots of help from Warren Stearns, suggestions from Vincent > Slyngstad, and donated spare modules from Vince Pavlicek we never > would gotten it running. > See: > https://sites.google.com/a/ricomputermuseum.org/home/Home/equipment/pdp-8-l > for details on the system and the debug process. > Does anyone know of a source for peripherals that we use with the 8/L? > -- > Michael Thompson > From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 01:29:12 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 07:29:12 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/2/12 9:26 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: >> >>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >> >>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are >>mentally >> >>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." > >On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ian King wrote: >> Quotation from "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", Edsger >> W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975, as retrieved from >> http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html on >> 2-JAN-2012: >> "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that >> have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are >> mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > >I got it pretty close. Also, I was thinking of what he wrote in >"Unpleasant Truths : GOTO considered Haemful", so, I'll know how far off >I really was when I can find my source document. > > >> "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be >> regarded as a criminal offense." -- Ian > >ONE semester, I had to teach COBOL! Somebody put that on the board before >class. They can't prove it; lots of people had chalk. I worked in a COBOL shop for a time as an analyst, and found spurious bugs based on a lack of understanding of the idioms of COBOL. When I found a *real* bug, one that had tortured the cost accountants for a couple of years, it was a challenge to get them to admit it was legitimate, until our budget finally balanced. > > >Can you find the time that he compared FORTRAN to Syphylis? > The comment I seem to remember but can't find right now claimed that Forth requires the human programmer to serve as a preprocessor. Clever, and painfully true, but I still really like Forth-like languages. :-) My OS professor in my Masters program said he worked with Dijkstra for a time, and claimed that he really was a curmudgeon. Well, that wasn't the exact word my instructor used?. -- Ian From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 02:06:40 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:06:40 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Ian King writes: > Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it > ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just > say lambda!) C++11 has lambda expressions. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 02:11:50 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:11:50 -0700 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Michael Thompson writes: > After seven months of Saturdays the PDP-8/L at the Rhode Island > Computer Museum is finally running. Great news! I like the restoration blog you kept of your work. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 3 02:13:20 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 03:13:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201030813.DAA00481@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > The comment I seem to remember but can't find right now claimed that > Forth requires the human programmer to serve as a preprocessor. > Clever, and painfully true, [...] Indeed...but true of all other lanugages too (though I'm not convinced "_pre_processor" is actually accurate, even in FORTH's case). Converting a problem into a program to solve it is, after all, what programming _is_. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 03:18:42 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:18:42 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, Message-ID: <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 7:29, Ian King wrote: > I worked in a COBOL shop for a time as an analyst, and found spurious > bugs based on a lack of understanding of the idioms of COBOL. When I > found a *real* bug, one that had tortured the cost accountants for a > couple of years, it was a challenge to get them to admit it was > legitimate, until our budget finally balanced. My exposure to COBOL was from the inside-out. I worked on a translator between dialects. Knowing the spec of the source and then the CODASYL definition (the target) was essential. I probably didn't write my first test COBOL program for several months. It was surprising how many trouble reports were answered by a quote (chapter and verse) from the CODASYL standard. The rules of the MOVE verb were in particular not well understood. "I know how you expect this to work, but it doesn't work that way." COBOL is a very difficult language to *master*. Perhaps not as much as PL/I or Ada, but close. I can't imagine starting someone out with COBOL as a first programming language--unless the student was a lawyer specializing in contract law. By comparison, the ANSI standard for FORTRAN 66 was 39 pages; for the USA BASIC FORTRAN derived from that, perhaps 20--of big print. Can you even imagine an ANSI standard description of a "modern" language in 20 pages? --Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 03:28:38 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:28:38 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4F025772.20312.3462474 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > By comparison, the ANSI standard for FORTRAN 66 was 39 pages; for the > USA BASIC FORTRAN derived from that, perhaps 20--of big print. > > Can you even imagine an ANSI standard description of a "modern" > language in 20 pages? It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to do much more than FORTRAN 66. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From vintagecoder at aol.com Tue Jan 3 03:49:39 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:49:39 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <218421666-1325584172-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1238625546-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> More amazing than the size of the spec is how much got done with that language. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:28:38 To: cctalk Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In article <4F025772.20312.3462474 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > By comparison, the ANSI standard for FORTRAN 66 was 39 pages; for the > USA BASIC FORTRAN derived from that, perhaps 20--of big print. > > Can you even imagine an ANSI standard description of a "modern" > language in 20 pages? It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to do much more than FORTRAN 66. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 03:53:22 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:53:22 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to > do much more than FORTRAN 66. Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" what more complicated ones do? Does the simplest---machine code, do less than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than Python? --Chuck From vintagecoder at aol.com Tue Jan 3 03:59:15 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:59:15 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Message-ID: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) Anyway this ought to be an interesting subthread. I'll make the popcorn! ------Original Message------ From: Chuck Guzis Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Sent: 3 Jan 2012 09:53 On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to > do much more than FORTRAN 66. Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" what more complicated ones do? Does the simplest---machine code, do less than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than Python? --Chuck From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 04:12:25 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:12:25 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) > For fun show him the book title Object oriented assembly language L. Dirfman Windcrest 1990 and define powerful :) you can do anything in assembler that the processor allows ask him if he can write a hardware driver in a couple of k memory on a 6502 in Java. Dave Caroline From vintagecoder at aol.com Tue Jan 3 04:16:47 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:16:47 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> No argument from me. I've coded assembler for most of my life. This young guy just didn't get it. I couldn't even get him to understand the examples of things Java couldn't do on the platform we were talking about. My coworker turned to him and said "you do realize Java eventually gets translated to assembler in order for it to actually do anything, don't you?" Even that didn't work! "We give up." -----Original Message----- From: Dave Caroline Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:12:25 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) > For fun show him the book title Object oriented assembly language L. Dirfman Windcrest 1990 and define powerful :) you can do anything in assembler that the processor allows ask him if he can write a hardware driver in a couple of k memory on a 6502 in Java. Dave Caroline From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 06:05:00 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:05:00 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 05:08, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 11:54 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> I'm pretty sure that was the intention, though Bil Herd "accidentally" >> designed the Z80 into the motherboard as a way of getting around having >> to make the 128 compatible with the CP/M 2.2 cartridge. Blimey. That seems like a lot of work! > I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local > Commodore user group. ?In general, though, how common was CP/M usage > among the C128 crowd? Not high, AIUI, from a little Googling. > Was it too little, too late by then? Yup! But also, I th ?I > remember watching my boss in 1984 use a CP/M card in his Apple II for > business apps (mostly spreadsheets), but I don't remember personally > seeing anyone running CP/M after that summer - it was all DOS for > business and random brands of native 8-bit machines for fun. ?One Mac > - owned by our senior programmer at that same company - the first Mac > I ever saw, and probably the only 128K Mac I ever saw in the wild > because everyone gobbled up the 512K model when it came out. > > -ethan -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 06:07:25 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:07:25 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 12:05, Liam Proven wrote: > But also, I th ... I think my damned laptop is malfunctioning! I was going to say, I think that CBM owners were keen on native CBM software. I have gauged much more interest in proper native software, such as GEOS, than non-native stuff such as CP/M. > ??I >> remember watching my boss in 1984 use a CP/M card in his Apple II for >> business apps (mostly spreadsheets), Huh? Wasn't Visicalc a native Apple II app? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 06:14:32 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:14:32 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain wrote: > On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>> >>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>> >>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>> powerful abstractions. >> >> >> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >> >>> What's wrong with Scheme? ?Or at worst, Python? >> >> >> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >> get the hell out of the way). > > > Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, natural programmer. I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, albeit poor quality programming, and have been competent in 4 or 5 languages: umpteen BASICs, Pascal, Fortran, C shell, and arguably rudimentary C. I have yet to find an explanation of the lambda calculus that is remotely comprehensible to me, as a smart, educated man with extremely rich and deep IT experience. Seriously, most people are not very smart. BASIC has a fairly low entry level - the learning curve is modest. The reason that most of the other "teaching languages" designed to replace it haven't worked out on anything like the same scale. (E.g. Logo, Scheme) Concepts such as local versus global variables, scope, recursion and so on are complex, difficult stuff unless someone is both very very smart and deeply embedded in computational and mathematical "culture". Any language which puts these front and centre is quite simply /too hard/ for mere mortals to learn. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 07:33:02 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:33:02 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 12:02 AM, Ian King wrote: > On 1/2/12 8:22 PM, "Josh Dersch" wrote: > >> On 1/2/2012 8:14 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >>> On 02/01/12 10:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>>>> Damn good points. >>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>>>>> "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>>>>> languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>> >>>> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>>> powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between >>>>> Fortran >>>>> and BASIC! >>>> >>>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >>>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally >>>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." >>> >>> He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. >> >> If only that particular expression of his was even remotely true :). >> >> - Josh > > Quotation from "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", Edsger > W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975, as retrieved from > http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html on > 2-JAN-2012: > > "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that > have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are > mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." > > > Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it > ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just > say lambda!) Most long-time imperative programmers who seriously studies The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs will come face to face with the essential truth of Dijkstra's remark. The consequent un-learning is just as valuable as the learning... --T > > My favorite has always been (ibid): > > "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be > regarded as a criminal offense." -- Ian > > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 07:38:45 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:38:45 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0304E5.3010500@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 3:06 AM, Richard wrote: > In article, > Ian King writes: > >> Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it >> ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just >> say lambda!) > > C++11 has lambda expressions. Well that's nice. I guess they can avoid learning Lisp for another few years then. Maybe. --Toby From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 07:57:24 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:57:24 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>> >>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>> >>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>> powerful abstractions. >>> >>> >>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>> >>>> What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? >>> >>> >>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >>> get the hell out of the way). >> >> >> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. > > O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, > natural programmer. Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the point here. Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: - full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? what good is this to a beginner?); - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? How do I build anything else? Oh right. I can't. - most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); - lacks named functions & procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a crippled hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) - a fundamental abstracting/factoring tool. - etc, etc. Now with Scheme, - you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; - you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; - there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which is good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. > I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually > impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. But in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going on when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at the absolute bottom-most level. We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion and higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper tools, mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can be argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer programmer. I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I had picked up Scheme when I picked up C. > albeit poor quality programming, and have been competent in 4 or 5 > languages: umpteen BASICs, Pascal, Fortran, C shell, and arguably > rudimentary C. I have yet to find an explanation of the lambda > calculus that is remotely comprehensible to me, as a smart, educated > man with extremely rich and deep IT experience. > > Seriously, most people are not very smart. BASIC has a fairly low > entry level - the learning curve is modest. The reason that most of > the other "teaching languages" designed to replace it haven't worked > out on anything like the same scale. (E.g. Logo, Scheme) > > Concepts such as local versus global variables, scope, recursion and > so on are complex, difficult stuff unless someone is both very very Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles BASIC puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed "imperative place". Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion was hard? How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with higher order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it today, for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. --Toby > smart and deeply embedded in computational and mathematical "culture". > Any language which puts these front and centre is quite simply /too > hard/ for mere mortals to learn. > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 07:59:49 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:59:49 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 5:16 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > No argument from me. I've coded assembler for most of my life. This young guy just didn't get it. I couldn't even get him to understand the examples of things Java couldn't do on the platform we were talking about. My coworker turned to him and said "you do realize Java eventually gets translated to assembler in order for it to actually do anything, don't you?" Even that didn't work! > > "We give up." > > Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: Maybe 80% of the current industry. Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. --Toby > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Caroline > Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:12:25 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > > On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: >> Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) >> > > For fun show him the book title > Object oriented assembly language > L. Dirfman Windcrest 1990 > > and define powerful :) > you can do anything in assembler that the processor allows > ask him if he can write a hardware driver in a couple of k memory on a > 6502 in Java. > > Dave Caroline > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 08:00:44 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:44 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F030A0C.6090603@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 4:59 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) > From the point of view of "abstraction", he is right. The abstractions in Java *are* much more powerful. --Toby > Anyway this ought to be an interesting subthread. I'll make the popcorn! > > ------Original Message------ > From: Chuck Guzis > Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > Sent: 3 Jan 2012 09:53 > > On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > >> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to >> do much more than FORTRAN 66. > > Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" > what more complicated ones do? Does the simplest---machine code, do > less than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than > Python? > > --Chuck > > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 08:02:37 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:02:37 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F030A7D.1030808@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 4:53 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > >> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to >> do much more than FORTRAN 66. > > Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" > what more complicated ones do? Does the simplest---machine code, do > less than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than > Python? Yes, in one sense (the important one: how we get stuff done, in sensible and maintainable ways). Of course one can go far beyond Python in this direction as well. No, in another sense (theoretical Turing equivalence yadda yadda which isn't the topic here). --Toby > > --Chuck > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 08:03:20 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:03:20 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F030AA8.8010906@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 4:28 AM, Richard wrote: > In article<4F025772.20312.3462474 at cclist.sydex.com>, > "Chuck Guzis" writes: > >> By comparison, the ANSI standard for FORTRAN 66 was 39 pages; for the >> USA BASIC FORTRAN derived from that, perhaps 20--of big print. >> >> Can you even imagine an ANSI standard description of a "modern" >> language in 20 pages? Yeah? Scheme has come in at around forty. And you don't get much more modern than that. --Toby > > It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to > do much more than FORTRAN 66. From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 3 08:14:34 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 06:14:34 -0800 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> On 1/3/2012 5:33 AM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 03/01/12 12:02 AM, Ian King wrote: >> >> Quotation from "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", Edsger >> W.Dijkstra, 18 June 1975, as retrieved from >> http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html on >> 2-JAN-2012: >> >> "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that >> have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are >> mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." >> >> >> Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it >> ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just >> say lambda!) > > Most long-time imperative programmers who seriously studies The > Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs will come face to > face with the essential truth of Dijkstra's remark. The consequent > un-learning is just as valuable as the learning... I know how to program in BASIC (and many other imperative programming languages). I also know how to program in Lisp. The learning of the latter did not require me to "un-learn" anything I had previously come across. Dijkstra's statement is snarky and amusing. It is not, however, an essential truism. - Josh From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 08:14:45 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 06:14:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> from Toby Thain at "Jan 3, 12 08:59:49 am" Message-ID: <201201031414.q03EEjji011698@floodgap.com> > > No argument from me. I've coded assembler for most of my life. [...]My > > coworker turned to him and said "you do realize Java eventually gets > > translated to assembler in order for it to actually do anything, don't > > you?" Even that didn't work! > > Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: > Maybe 80% of the current industry. > > Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a debugger single stepping through PowerPC assembly language and I don't even work in the industry anymore. I'm toying with writing an SECD VM in 6502 assembly language, though. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Whatever it is, I'm against it. -- Groucho Marx ---------------------------- From vintagecoder at aol.com Tue Jan 3 08:17:19 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:17:19 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F030A0C.6090603@telegraphics.com.au> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <4F030A0C.6090603@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <1344850034-1325600232-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-132678525-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> I think this is the bone of contention. Some people view the power of a language based on expressiveness, conciseness (is that a word) etc. and others look at power from a standpoint of what can be accomplished with it. Both views have their place, depending on your orientation. -----Original Message----- From: Toby Thain Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:00:44 To: General Discussion On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On 03/01/12 4:59 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) > From the point of view of "abstraction", he is right. The abstractions in Java *are* much more powerful. --Toby > Anyway this ought to be an interesting subthread. I'll make the popcorn! > > ------Original Message------ > From: Chuck Guzis > Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > Sent: 3 Jan 2012 09:53 > > On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > >> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to >> do much more than FORTRAN 66. > > Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" > what more complicated ones do? Does the simplest---machine code, do > less than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than > Python? > > --Chuck > > > From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 3 08:12:21 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:12:21 -0600 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <201201031418.q03EIp1S014022@billy.ezwind.net> At 11:08 PM 1/2/2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: >I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local >Commodore user group. In general, though, how common was CP/M usage >among the C128 crowd? Was it too little, too late by then? Certainly CBM was pretty good at "too little, too late." When I acquired my C-64 in 1984 or so, I spent too much for the CP/M cartridge, and I rarely used it. I, like CBM, thought it would widely expand what software I might run. Didn't turn out that way. - John From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 08:28:39 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 06:28:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 3, 12 00:08:47 am" Message-ID: <201201031428.q03ESd8s011652@floodgap.com> > > I'm pretty sure that was the intention, though Bil Herd "accidentally" > > designed the Z80 into the motherboard as a way of getting around having > > to make the 128 compatible with the CP/M 2.2 cartridge. > > I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local > Commodore user group. In general, though, how common was CP/M usage > among the C128 crowd? Was it too little, too late by then? Not very common. The local Commodore user group I was a member of had a CP/M section in their newsletter, but it was never demoed much at meetings, and I think I used it a grand total of twice. It was fun to explore, though. C128 native mode, on the other hand, was awesome. Too bad not much exploited that either. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The world is not enough. --------------------------------------------------- From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 08:50:13 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:50:13 +0000 Subject: An interesting job for someone in the UK? Message-ID: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/30/hawking_job/ Maintain & support the undocumented tech of Prof Stephen Hawking's wheelchair. Wow. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 09:09:37 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:09:37 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 13:57, Toby Thain wrote: > On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain ?wrote: >>> >>> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>>> powerful abstractions. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>>> >>>>> What's wrong with Scheme? ?Or at worst, Python? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >>>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >>>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >>>> get the hell out of the way). >>> >>> >>> >>> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. >> >> >> O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, >> natural programmer. > > > Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the point > here. Even worse. There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit that they are barely related. If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn right, in the same way that I learned swordfighting with a foil, the feeblest weapon but the one controlled by the strictest rules. If you can fight foil, then you can move to the less-demanding sabre easily, and the relatively undemanding ep?e is straightforward; but start with ep?e and learning the formalities of foil will be much harder. > Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of > "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: > ?- full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? what > good is this to a beginner?); Oh come off it! Line numbers went out in 1985, man! Don't judge BASIC by the crappy implementations of the early 1980s when 8K of RAM was a lot! > ?- numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? No, not at all. I would expect at least integers, floats, variable length strings, multidimensional arrays of any other type, and quite possibly different lengths of integer and possibly signed and unsigned forms. Possibly booleans and things as well; maybe a complex type. But to be a programmer does not mandate being a mathematician. I have taught programming to people who did not know what a percentage was, who did not know how to multiply or divide by fractions and so on. Many people do not need fancy types. > How do I build anything > else? Oh right. I can't. Again, a limitation only of very primitive, early BASICs, although I have to say, I never found it a limitation. Have user-defined structured data types if you want, though. > ?- most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an > IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s > (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); Again, a limitation of the early 1980s. Not true of any decent BASIC from about 1983 onwards. > ?- lacks named functions & procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a crippled > hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) See above. Have you actually *seen* /any/ even 1990s BASIC, FFS? > - a fundamental > abstracting/factoring tool. You'll have to explain what that means. > Now with Scheme, > ?- you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; But is incomprehensible and uses bizarre postfix notation. > ?- you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures > without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; Straw man. > ?- there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which is > good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. If you can grasp the basics, pardon the pun, which I doubt most could. > There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. You have no real experience of actual high-school students, then, I can see that. >> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, > > And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. Oh bollocks! Q.v. Dylan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_%28programming_language%29#Syntax Q.v. Lisp 2 and Elephant, discussed here /passim./ Even John McCarthy himself later conceded that Lisp's syntax was a major hindrance in teaching it. > The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. That is not even remotely /like/ the conclusion that I came to. You are putting words in my mouth and I *object*, strenuously. I did not say it was not relevant. I did not say it was a bad thing to start with. I said it was /too hard/ for the average person, and I stand by that. > But > in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been > indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going on > when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at the > absolute bottom-most level. You have no idea of what any BASIC from even 20y ago is like, as you have demonstrated, and you also seem to be very unfamiliar with the limitations of actual ordinary people. For nonspecialists, concepts such as loops are quite hard at first. Iterative thinking has to be learned. Starting off utter newbies with prefix notation, CAR and CADR, lists versus atoms, quoting and lambda calculus is like taking the play-blocks off a kindergarten class and asking them to build the cathedral of Notre Dame instead. > We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion and > higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper tools, > mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can be > argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer programmer. Actually, I am sure you're right. But this misses the strength of the old BASICs of the late 1980s and 1990s: that they brought programming to the common man. Sure, we need better developers, but we /also/ need easy, friendly, fun tools to reintroduce the ordinary Joe to writing programs at all. Python and so on are far too big and complex for this. > I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't > really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I had > picked up Scheme when I picked up C. So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? > Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles BASIC > puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed "imperative > place". You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. > Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion was > hard? It isn't. I've written recursive programs. In BASIC. In a good BASIC: in BBC BASIC V, a very fast, 32-bit BASIC with full support for named procedures, local variables, passing by reference and value and so on. > How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with higher > order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it today, > for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) I don't, because I am not a programmer and I don't aim to be. > Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve > something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, which are too big, too complex and too abstract. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 3 09:26:34 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:26:34 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F030AA8.8010906@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> <4F030AA8.8010906@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F031E2A.2020103@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/3/2012 7:03 AM, Toby Thain wrote: > Yeah? Scheme has come in at around forty. And you don't get much more > modern than that. > I thought scheme was written in C. > --Toby > >> >> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to >> do much more than FORTRAN 66. > Well I can not think of anything major it is missing other than lower case letters. As for recursion simulated stacks and looping is much safer than doing it directly. Ben. From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 3 09:23:17 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:23:17 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: ----- Original Message: Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:33:02 -0500 From: Toby Thain Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > On 1/2/12 8:22 PM, "Josh Dersch" wrote: >>>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >>>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally >>>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." >>> >>> He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. >> >> If only that particular expression of his was even remotely true :). >> >> - Josh > Most long-time imperative programmers who seriously studies The Structure > and Interpretation of Computer Programs will come face to face with the > essential truth of Dijkstra's remark. The consequent un-learning is just > as valuable as the learning... --T ----- Reply: I don't think Josh was questioning whether Dijkstra said it, but whether it's actually *true*; since you (Toby) say elsewhere that "I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on", then you must also be "mentally mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration". That would of course explain a lot... ;-) I think many if not most of the people on here discovered that they enjoyed and had a gift for programming by playing with BASIC on their C64 or equivalent and, far from being "mentally mutilated", have gone on to be quite competent programmers and/or analysts; I also suspect that had that C64 been equipped with a language that discouraged 'playing' and enforced rigid rules of structure etc., many of those folks would today be in a different and perhaps less satisfying career. m From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 09:29:03 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 07:29:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore and CP/m was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201031418.q03EIp1S014022@billy.ezwind.net> from John Foust at "Jan 3, 12 08:12:21 am" Message-ID: <201201031529.q03FT3ZE010486@floodgap.com> > > I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local > > Commodore user group. In general, though, how common was CP/M usage > > among the C128 crowd? Was it too little, too late by then? > > Certainly CBM was pretty good at "too little, too late." When I acquired > my C-64 in 1984 or so, I spent too much for the CP/M cartridge, and I rarely > used it. I, like CBM, thought it would widely expand what software > I might run. Didn't turn out that way. The CP/M 2.2 cartridge was sort of a microcosm of pointless, though. Paired with the GCR-only 1541 it was a wonderful CP/M machine that could run exactly zero existing software packages (without conversion), and the 2.2 cartridge was notably fussy about which hardware revisions it would work with (hence Bil's unconventional solution in the 128's design). At least the 128 had the 1571 that could read various MFM format disks directly, but as you say, too little, too late. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Never trust a computer you can't lift. ------------------------------------- From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 3 09:45:48 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:45:48 -0600 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201031546.q03FjtKo016555@billy.ezwind.net> At 09:23 AM 1/3/2012, MikeS wrote: >I don't think Josh was questioning whether Dijkstra said it, but whether >it's actually *true*; since you (Toby) say elsewhere that "I too learned >with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on", then you must also be >"mentally mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration". You could always become a Perl programmer. http://www.perl.com/pub/2007/12/06/soto-11.html My college buddy Tom Christiansen, co-author of the "camel" book, and I certainly ingested a lot of BASIC-Plus, too. - John From julianskidmore at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 07:55:22 2012 From: julianskidmore at yahoo.com (Julian Skidmore) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 05:55:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Message-ID: <1325598922.34350.YahooMailNeo@web120206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Hi folks, > I'm writing a small Forth engine right now >>While BASIC is good for a starting language it is not the first >>>language I'd bring up on a machine unless it had already been >>>setup on that machine. >>>I'd bring up Forth. One can get the console in and out running >>>first. One can then easily experiment with the disk IO until >>>it is working right. >>>The source is available and easy to understand. >>>Once one has a good understanding, bringing up other >>>languages is trivial. When it comes to teaching programming to kids, simple computers like those in the 8-bit era surely have to be the best. You might want to check out FIGnition, my DIY educational computer, which although based on a modern AVR MCU, is designed to work like a retro 8-bit computer; is simple enough to be built by novices and small enough to be fairly easily understood. https://sites.google.com/site/libby8dev/fignition It works with PAL and NTSC video and around 80 have been sold to Universities, Colleges and Schools in the past 8 months since its release. -cheers from julz From jgh at mdfs.net Tue Jan 3 09:01:21 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:01:21 +0000 Subject: Z80/6502 mashups, home computer coprocessors - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0262D2.6000401@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <6c824527390fdcafbfd3cc95ee6949bd@mdfs.net> Toby Thain wrote: > In the case of the BBC Micro ... it meant that schools could have > installations of CP/M business software to familiarise students with > WordStar, Turbo Pascal, and other tools that they'd soon encounter And, the whole core principle of the Tube, you could use the BBC computer as a simple I/O system for non-6502 development. The initial development for the Archimedes line was done with an ARM coprocessor on a BBC. I did a lot of ZX Spectrum Z80 coding with my BBC Z80 CoPro. JGH From jgh at mdfs.net Tue Jan 3 09:17:56 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:17:56 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFEAF09.8040604@mail.msu.edu> <8677c5fa22b346887d331f25085774c3@mdfs.net> Message-ID: <147765d82dbb19a8489abfe5a93040b9@mdfs.net> Liam Proven wrote: > Personally, my interest was always mainly in graphics and to a much > lesser extent sound (for their uses in games, mainly!) If the CP/M > version of BBC BASIC is a "legal" CP/M app and only uses CP/M > facilities, then AIUI that means that it more or less by definition > has no graphics or sound support. In which case, there's nothing to > port and you don't need the source! If you want sound and graphics, firstly, the *machine* you are running on must have sound and graphics. A language having sound and graphics won't magically create the hardware for it to function. Secondly, just use the BBC CPM version of Z80 BBC BASIC[1], which passes all non-filing calls to a jump block at &FFxx[2], and write the relevant code at the destination of the jump block. Just as CPM doesn't "know" what a 10*1024-sector disk is, it just passes calls on to the BIOS jump block, and it's the BIOS that understands what a 10*1024-sector disk is. [1]http://mdfs.net/Software/BBCBasic/CPMTube.zip [2]I have a patch program that lets you move the jumpblock as well. -- J.G.Harston - jgh at mdfs.net - mdfs.net/jgh From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 10:01:53 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 08:01:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from MikeS at "Jan 3, 12 10:23:17 am" Message-ID: <201201031601.q03G1rmM012144@floodgap.com> > I think many if not most of the people on here discovered that they enjoyed > and had a gift for programming by playing with BASIC on their C64 I learned BASIC originally on the Tomy Tutor, which has a rather wacky BASIC that started with TI Extended BASIC and then modified it further (see http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/tomy/prog.html ). From there I jumped to C64 BASIC and 6502 assembly, then Turbo Pascal, and now C/C++, Perl, and occasional PPC assembly and Modula-2 work. I don't think it's the programming language but rather the aptitude for tools and procedural design. If people can't conceive of an algorithm in one language, they probably can't conceive of it in any language (differences in relative expressivity notwithstanding). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- yankee hotel foxtrot. yankee hotel foxtrot. yankee hotel foxtrot. konec. --- From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 10:04:07 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 08:04:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Forth as language bootstrap was Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <1325598922.34350.YahooMailNeo@web120206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> from Julian Skidmore at "Jan 3, 12 05:55:22 am" Message-ID: <201201031604.q03G47bK012226@floodgap.com> The discussion of Forth makes me ask: what other interpreters or languages have been written in Forth? Is there, say, a Lisp or Prolog written in Forth? Forth is easy to bootstrap on pretty much any machine, but its utility is enhanced if it can be a runtime for bigger things. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence. -- George Bernard Shaw ---- From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 10:44:48 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 16:44:48 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/3/12 12:06 AM, "Richard" wrote: > >In article , > Ian King writes: > >> Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it >> ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just >> say lambda!) > >C++11 has lambda expressions. ISTR another 'stupid programming language tricks' page that opined there are almost always several ways to solve any given problem - and you'll find ALL of them in C++! I toyed with Lisp a number of years ago but, at the time, couldn't think of anything I wanted to do with it. Recently (the past year or two) I decided it was time to tackle it again. This time it made sense, I think in part because I was exposed to functional programming, which broke the hold of C/C++ on my thinking. (Don't underestimate how solidly one can become 'stuck' in a particular paradigm.) I find myself drawn to the Scheme dialect: IMHO (pull the pin and throw) 'Common Lisp' is bloated and bogged down with syntactic sugar-treats for those who fear recursion. Not only do I like Scheme/Lisp, but I don?t think it's that hard to teach it to beginners. For instance, recursion: to do something to a group of things, take one thing and apply the action, then do the same thing to the rest of the group until you run out of things. Easy! If you need to accumulate a solution from the multiple operations, just combine the return value of the first action with the return value of the action on the remainder. Turtles all the way down?. Looping constructs are syntactic wrapping for this idea. Further, I agree that they would begin their journey into computational thinking with a solid foundation on which to build an understanding of whatever other languages they might find that map well between a particular problem domain and the computing environment (which is one legitimate reason we have so many programming languages!). And as some have touched on within this thread, the greater good is to create computational literacy, not to just teach people how to write programs. -- Ian From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 3 11:12:29 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:12:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <201201031712.MAA08066@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >>> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language >>> to do much more than FORTRAN 66. >> Do what, exactly? [...] Does the simplest---machine code, do less >> than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than Python? > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java > programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than > assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) Unless he also knew a half-dozen other languages and had at least a decade of programming experience (the ten-thousand-hour rule), I doubt he was competent to comment on the question. There are two meanings in which it makes sense to talk about the power of a programming language. One is what can be accomplished with it in theory. In this sense, practically all languages are equivalent; you'll have to look rather hard to find a language that's not Turing-complete. (The first example in serious use that comes to mind is the p-code used by BPF: it (deliberately) does not support any form of looping.) The other is how easy the language makes it for the programmer to express an algorithm, or a class of algorithms, of interest. In this sense languages vary widely, and have specializations. If I get to pick the language, then if I'm writing numerical code, it's FORTRAN. Matrix processing? APL. Device driver? C. Expert system? Lisp. Et cetera. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 3 11:12:58 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:12:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F02829F.4090706@mail.msu.edu> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <20120102185422.U61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0280A6.5050706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F02829F.4090706@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Josh Dersch wrote: > On 1/2/2012 8:14 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 02/01/12 10:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>>> Damn good points. >>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>>>> "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>>>> languages immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>> >>> On Mon, 2 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>> powerful abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran >>>> and BASIC! >>> >>> Djikstra said, "It is virtually impossible to teach good programming >>> prctices to students with a prior exposure to BASIC; they are mentally >>> mutilated beyond any hope of regeneration." >> >> He had that lovely combination of clear sight and fearless expression. > > If only that particular expression of his was even remotely true :). > Well if the students in question were also MBA holders, then it IS true, but it's not the fault of BASIC, but the fault of the guy wielding the melon baller that was used to scoop out their frontal lobes when they got their MBA diplomas. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 3 11:27:00 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:27:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201201031727.MAA08287@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of > "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: > [...] > - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? How do I build > anything else? Oh right. I can't. If you think you can't, you need to learn to program. Just because the language doesn't help you do something doesn't mean it can't be done. >> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, > And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. > The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to > programming. [...] I didn't write the double-quoted text above. But the conclusion _I_ come to is that Scheme is not suitable for a beginner. (Well, most beginners.) > But in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been > indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really > going on when you program. Sounds as though you've been so indoctrinated that you think it can't be programming if it isn't...I don't know, written in a Lisp dialect? Functional? Full of parentheses? Nobody really knows what is going on when someone programs; the process of converting a problem to a program to solve it is a very difficult one to understand, like most creative processes. To presume that _you_ know better than _someone else_ what is going on when that someone else programs is...ludicrous. Not to mention jaw-droppingly arrogant. > Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at the absolute > bottom-most level. I've got news for you: programs in most language inherently are sequences of instructions at more than just the machine-code level. > We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion > and higher-order functions are alien concepts. You appear to think recursion and higher-order functions are somehow not sequences of instructions. If so, I think you're wrong. "(apply fn args)" is just as much an "instruction" as "a[i] = 0;" is. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From brain at jbrain.com Tue Jan 3 11:29:33 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:29:33 -0600 Subject: Commodore and CP/m was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201031529.q03FT3ZE010486@floodgap.com> References: <201201031529.q03FT3ZE010486@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F033AFD.2050702@jbrain.com> On 1/3/2012 9:29 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> I was never a C128 user, nor were there a lot of them in our local >>> Commodore user group. In general, though, how common was CP/M usage >>> among the C128 crowd? Was it too little, too late by then? >> Certainly CBM was pretty good at "too little, too late." When I acquired >> my C-64 in 1984 or so, I spent too much for the CP/M cartridge, and I rarely >> used it. I, like CBM, thought it would widely expand what software >> I might run. Didn't turn out that way. > The CP/M 2.2 cartridge was sort of a microcosm of pointless, though. Paired > with the GCR-only 1541 it was a wonderful CP/M machine that could run exactly > zero existing software packages (without conversion), and the 2.2 cartridge > was notably fussy about which hardware revisions it would work with (hence > Bil's unconventional solution in the 128's design). At least the 128 had the > 1571 that could read various MFM format disks directly, but as you say, too > little, too late. > And it was a copy: http://www.softwolves.com/arkiv/cbm-hackers/2/2711.html My theory is that CBM Marketing wanted to tout business capabilities, and so the edict went out to design a CP/M cart. Given that the issue is somewhat esoteric, I won't fault the designer, but I suspect he/she did not think this was a useful product. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 11:51:04 2012 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 09:51:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: What happened to your site? In-Reply-To: <201201031604.q03G47bK012226@floodgap.com> References: <1325598922.34350.YahooMailNeo@web120206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> from Julian Skidmore at "Jan 3, 12 05:55:22 am" <201201031604.q03G47bK012226@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <1325613064.31907.YahooMailNeo@web113508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> What happened to your blog? From shadoooo at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 11:51:12 2012 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:51:12 +0100 Subject: Connect Shugart SA850 to PC Message-ID: <4F034010.5040805@gmail.com> Hello. I have a Shugart SA850 I would connect to a PC, to read/write old diskettes using linux. I would need a suggestion on how to do connections and specially how to set the jumpers on the driver. Any advice? Andrea From vintagecoder at aol.com Tue Jan 3 11:58:48 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:58:48 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201031712.MAA08066@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <201201031712.MAA08066@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <1035422392-1325613521-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-660138505-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Yeah, yeah, I know. ;-) -----Original Message----- From: Mouse Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:12:29 To: Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC >>> It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language >>> to do much more than FORTRAN 66. >> Do what, exactly? [...] Does the simplest---machine code, do less >> than, any HLL, modern or ancient? Is C less capable than Python? > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java > programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than > assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) Unless he also knew a half-dozen other languages and had at least a decade of programming experience (the ten-thousand-hour rule), I doubt he was competent to comment on the question. There are two meanings in which it makes sense to talk about the power of a programming language. One is what can be accomplished with it in theory. In this sense, practically all languages are equivalent; you'll have to look rather hard to find a language that's not Turing-complete. (The first example in serious use that comes to mind is the p-code used by BPF: it (deliberately) does not support any form of looping.) The other is how easy the language makes it for the programmer to express an algorithm, or a class of algorithms, of interest. In this sense languages vary widely, and have specializations. If I get to pick the language, then if I'm writing numerical code, it's FORTRAN. Matrix processing? APL. Device driver? C. Expert system? Lisp. Et cetera. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 12:21:07 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:21:07 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F02D693.2076.1EA083@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 9:59, Vintage Coder wrote: > Depends who you ask. I was told by a guy with 3 years of Java > programming under his belt that Java is much more powerful than > assembler, after all, Java is object oriented! ;-) > > Anyway this ought to be an interesting subthread. I'll make the > popcorn! All computer languages, including assembly, are merely lexical conveniences for working with the machine language of any given computer. They serve two purposes: 1. They provide portability between architectures, to some extent, but very few languages actually reflect the architecture of the hardware they run on. Someone, at some time, has to make a decision as to what machine code a statement will generate. 2. They are inventions to relieve the human mind cope with the fragilities of its memory and the inability to keep track of many things, as well as the human inability to do accurate arithmetic. So go out and invent your own language! They're all just mind games-- .and it's pointless to argue about them. Institutions would like to standardize on one, but like all human language, that's not likely to happen. As far as teaching, no language that I'm aware of teaches the fundamentals of how a computer operates. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 12:27:47 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:27:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120103100817.Y719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do > you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer > perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software > engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit > that they are barely related. I want to teach them enough about what programming IS, that THEY can select what language they want to use. > If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something > clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn > right, Therefore, the very first time that they drive a car, it should be manual transmission, manual choke, manual spark advance?, hand crank? Sure, they should learn the hard stuff; but howzbout let them learn enough in the auto-everything car to drive around the block first, THEN get into it. > So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? did for me I may NEVER be able to become a decent programmer. > You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved > on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. That's about when MBASIC 5.1 replace 4.51. CBASIC (Gordon Eubanks) was going fast. By then almost everything had 64K of RAM. > > Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve > > something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. > They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a > late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, > which are too big, too complex and too abstract. A real programmer cana write a FORTRAN program in any language. I bet that, with only a few dozen lines of machine code (to call INT13h), that I could even write a disk format conversion program in 1981 BASICA! Without ANYthing outside the BASIC, thanks to the built-in sector I/O, I could write a program to read model 3 diskettes on a Coco. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 12:33:47 2012 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:33:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: What happened to your site? In-Reply-To: <1325613064.31907.YahooMailNeo@web113508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325598922.34350.YahooMailNeo@web120206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> from Julian Skidmore at "Jan 3, 12 05:55:22 am" <201201031604.q03G47bK012226@floodgap.com> <1325613064.31907.YahooMailNeo@web113508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1325615627.96928.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> please disregard.... I tried to send to someone else.. ----- Original Message ----- From: Christian Liendo To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: Sent: Tuesday, January 3, 2012 12:51 PM Subject: What happened to your site? What happened to your blog? From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 12:41:15 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:41:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: What happened to your site? In-Reply-To: <1325613064.31907.YahooMailNeo@web113508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325598922.34350.YahooMailNeo@web120206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> from Julian Skidmore at "Jan 3, 12 05:55:22 am" <201201031604.q03G47bK012226@floodgap.com> <1325613064.31907.YahooMailNeo@web113508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120103104038.D719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Christian Liendo wrote: > What happened to your blog? My [cob]web-site is just fine. How's yours? From quad at symbo1ics.com Tue Jan 3 12:44:13 2012 From: quad at symbo1ics.com (quad) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:44:13 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120103100817.Y719@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <20120103100817.Y719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Fred Cisin wrote: > I want to teach them enough about what programming IS, that THEY can > select what language they want to use. Interestingly, the book "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson and Sussman is often cited as a book that actually conveys precisely what programming IS, and even more interestingly, how programs WORK. After writing a good number of programs, you begin to write programs to manipulate programs (Chapter 4), and programs to transform and execute programs (Chapter 5). And the book uses Scheme, a dialect of Lisp of course. And I can't think of a better choice for the task at hand. No syntactic baggage. Exceptionally clean semantics, even to the starter. The Scheme standard (dubbed "R5RS") is short enough to be read in an afternoon. Around 50-80 pages. See here: http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/HTML/r5rs-Z-H-2.html#%_toc_start The book, SICP, is even free! See here: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 12:50:16 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:50:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Connect Shugart SA850 to PC In-Reply-To: <4F034010.5040805@gmail.com> References: <4F034010.5040805@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120103104412.Y719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, shadoooo wrote: > Hello. > I have a Shugart SA850 I would connect to a PC, to read/write old > diskettes using linux. > I would need a suggestion on how to do connections and specially how to > set the > jumpers on the driver. > Any advice? Biggest problem is the cable. There are commercial ones available! Otherwise, start out with both pinouts, . . . Don't tell Tony, but for my first one, I used a "solderless bread-board". I was plaeasntly surprised to find that it was almost all 1-to-1. Once you've got it cabled, lie to the PC, and tell it that it's a 5.25" 1.2M drive; see if it will format, read, and write. One more gotcha: some FDCs will do single density, some won't. Some will do 128 byte double density, some won't. Dave Dunfield has done a great job of documenting which will work, and testing such. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 12:52:55 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:52:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> > > Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it > > ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just > > say lambda!) On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > C++11 has lambda expressions. Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 12:57:36 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 10:57:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120103105550.B719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to > do much more than FORTRAN 66. Surely, even FORTRAN 66 could be coerced into making the API calls for the dancing kangaroos and yodelling jellyfish that are required for current commercial software. Or did you mean do much more USEFUL stuff? From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 13:07:02 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:07:02 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE60B@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Liam Proven Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 4:07 AM On 3 January 2012 12:05, Liam Proven wrote: >> I >>> remember watching my boss in 1984 use a CP/M card in his Apple II for >>> business apps (mostly spreadsheets), > Huh? Wasn't Visicalc a native Apple II app? Indeed it was, and the first ever "killer app" in the microcomputer world. The market pressure of Fortune 500 employees purchasing Apple II systems to run Visicalc was what led to the creation of the IBM Personal Computer. There was far more business software written for CP/M at the time, and the creation of the Z-80 Softcard ("the CP/M card" in an Apple II) let the typical business user run both Visicalc and CP/M word processors, accounting packages, etc. I actually doubt that they were used to run many CP/M-based spreadsheet programs, but I'm prepared to be wrong on that. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 13:17:44 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:17:44 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 10:52, Fred Cisin wrote: > Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? Neil Lincoln once told me that he thought that APL was the perfect language to introduce one to programming. He said his kids took to it like ducks to water. One can readily see the popularity of this idea by the vast amount of APL code to be seen on the Web... --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 13:20:48 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:20:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - baby duck syndrome (why everybody thinks that everybody else needs to learn it their way) In-Reply-To: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120103111159.E719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the > point here. It is, indeed. > Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of > "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: > - full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? > what good is this to a beginner?); > - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? How do I build > anything else? Oh right. I can't. > - most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an > IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s > (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); > - lacks named functions & procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a > crippled hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) - a fundamental > abstracting/factoring tool. > - etc, etc. > > Now with Scheme, > - you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; > - you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures > without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; > - there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which > is good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. > > There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. Just wait until you try teaching the same things to ADULTS! You need to get some of them to the point of understanding that they need to set the values of the variavbles BEFORE they do calculations based on them. Yes, I am talking about otherwise fully functional intelligent adults, not college administrators. > The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. > But in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been > indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going > on when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except > at the absolute bottom-most level. "abstraction" > We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion > and higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper > tools, mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, > it can be argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a > computer programmer. baby duck syndrome. > I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't > really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I > had picked up Scheme when I picked up C. I think that it is just dandy as SECOND language. > > Seriously, most people are not very smart. BASIC has a fairly low > > entry level - the learning curve is modest. The reason that most of > > the other "teaching languages" designed to replace it haven't worked > > out on anything like the same scale. (E.g. Logo, Scheme) > > Concepts such as local versus global variables, scope, recursion and > > so on are complex, difficult stuff unless someone is both very very > Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles > BASIC puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed > "imperative place". all of the hurdles are important to learn. But NOT until one has had a successful experience of putting their own name on the screen. > Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion > was hard? How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with > higher order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do > it today, for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn > Slowly.) baby duck syndrome > Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve > something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. "They should start with SOLDER!" From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 13:30:27 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:30:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to adults In-Reply-To: <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120103112130.K719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: > Maybe 80% of the current industry. > Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. 80% of EVERY industry! 30 years ago, a student couldn't handle remedial college arithmetic. His "counselor" suggested, that to handle his cognitive deficiencies, he should switch his major to "Computer Programming"! I talked to the student, and recommended another change; he is now a happy successful MBA. The "counselor" is now president of the college. . . . and people wonder why defenestration is necessary One must keep in mind the pace of a college class. Would you really want to do recursion in somebody's first day? OK, now scale that to a college class - recursion belongs in the second semester. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 13:42:23 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:42:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Neil Lincoln once told me that he thought that APL was the perfect > language to introduce one to programming. He said his kids took to > it like ducks to water. It does have a few specific items that work for beginners, such as use of an arrow for the assignment operation leminates the beginner mistake of 3 = X (I think that for first day programmers (which actually translates to almost a semester!), that "LET . . . " helped convey the difference between assginemtn and equality.) All of the bizarre hieroglyphic characters in APL are FUN! > One can readily see the popularity of this idea by the vast amount of > APL code to be seen on the Web... I don't see much matrix manipulation software on the Web in ANY language. I think that the character set killed APL. Just the special type ball and pieces of tape on the keys. But, I've actually had students ask why there isn't a "plus or minus", or a "not equal" character for use in C if() statements. So, I pass a VT100 keyboard around the room. From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 13:45:18 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:45:18 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to adults In-Reply-To: <20120103112130.K719@shell.lmi.net> References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> <20120103112130.K719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:30 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: >> Maybe 80% of the current industry. >> Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. > > 80% of EVERY industry! > > 30 years ago, a student couldn't handle remedial college arithmetic. ?His > "counselor" ?suggested, that to handle his cognitive deficiencies, he > should switch his major to "Computer Programming"! ?I talked to the > student, and recommended another change; he is now a happy successful MBA. > The "counselor" is now president of the college. ?. . . and people wonder > why defenestration is necessary > > > One must keep in mind the pace of a college class. ?Would you really want > to do recursion in somebody's first day? ?OK, now scale that to a college > class - recursion belongs in the second semester. > > to understand recursion, you need to understand recursion also see K&R 2nd ed(not first ed) lookup recursion in the index Dave Caroline From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 13:50:28 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:50:28 +0000 Subject: Scheme implementation [was RE: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC] Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE683@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: ben Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:27 AM > On 1/3/2012 7:03 AM, Toby Thain wrote: >> Yeah? Scheme has come in at around forty. And you don't get much more >> modern than that. > I thought scheme was written in C. SCHEME[1] was written in MACLISP under the ITS operating system running on a PDP-10. Who says Lisp isn't good for writing interesting software? ;-> [1] The name was really "Schemer", a follow-on to Conniver which was a response to Planner. Program names are represented in 6-bit packed 6 per word in ITS. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 3 13:51:29 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:51:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - baby duck syndrome (why everybody thinks that everybody else needs to learn it their way) In-Reply-To: <20120103111159.E719@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <20120103111159.E719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201031951.OAA10761@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > You need to get some of them to the point of understanding that they > need to set the values of the variavbles BEFORE they do calculations > based on them. Yes, I am talking about otherwise fully functional > intelligent adults, not college administrators. This is actually a very interesting point. There are a few languages (METAFONT comes to mind) which are sufficiently declarative that this isn't true, or at least isn't entirely true. I suspect that there is a tendency - doubtless stronger in some people than others - to think declaratively. This is reinforced by the way many languages use syntax for assignment that looks more like a declaration of fact than a statement of action to be taken; interpreted declaratively, it makes sense to think that order doesn't matter. Pascal kinda-sorta tries to deal with this by using := rather than =. APL gets it much righter with its left-arrow operator. From a psychological point of view, it's a pity more languages don't use <- for assignment, or put the value first and use ->, or some such. (This is one respect in which Lisp wins, with setq - of course, the mere existence of setq throws functional-programming wonks into a tizzy.) >> [...] > baby duck syndrome >> [...] > baby duck syndrome Indeed. I count myself lucky I had no clearly-defined first system; when I first started actually using computers, I learnt two or three, fairly drastically different, at more or less the same time. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 14:01:37 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:01:37 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <20120103100817.Y719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE699@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: quad Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 10:44 AM > The Scheme standard (dubbed "R5RS") is short enough to be read in an > afternoon. Around 50-80 pages. See here: The current standard is R6RS (90 pages), and R7RS is under way at http://scheme-reports.org/ , where several generations of the Report may be seen. The short name folds in an exponent. It expands to "The Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme". I agree with the recommendation of _Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_ as an introductory text, though I do wish that Common Lisp had existed as more than a discussion mailing list at SAIL when the first edition was published, or they might have used the better language. (Hi, Ian! Shot across bows noted! :-) Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From spc at conman.org Tue Jan 3 14:02:57 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:02:57 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated: > > > Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it > > > ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just > > > say lambda!) > > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > C++11 has lambda expressions. > > Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? Personally, I would use Lua. It's small and nearly consistent [1] and certainly one can write straight forward imperative code in it. But it also supports recursion, lambda functions, closures and does tail call optimizations. In fact, the Y combinator [2] can be written as: function Y(f) local function g(...) return f(g,...) end return g end Also, World of Warcraft and nmap use Lua as a scripting language, so those interested in gaming or network based exploits will learn a useful skill. -spc (It's also very portable, being written in strict C-89 code) [1] There's a bit of a mess with traditional arrays (besides being 1-based) in that: a = { "one" , "two" , "three" } has a length of 3, while b = { "one" , "two" , nil , "four" } is technically undefined. Such arrays can't have a nil value. It's easy to work around and generally, I've never found it to be much of an issue, but it does keep popping up on the Lua mailing list. [2] Those that care will know what this does [3]; those that don't, will probably never need to use this anyway. [3] Allow an anonymous function to call itself. From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 3 14:11:52 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:11:52 +0000 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE6D8@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: MikeS Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:23 AM > I think many if not most of the people on here discovered that they > enjoyed and had a gift for programming by playing with BASIC on their > C64 or equivalent [snip] I think that many if not most of the people on here learned to program on something other than BASIC. I, for example, learned FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1401 6 years before the MITS Altair 8800 was introduced to the world. I did personally not encounter BASIC until I was in grad school, on an IBM 370/168 running Wylbur for interactive computing. I was much more taken with the DEC-20. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 14:16:14 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:16:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - baby duck syndrome (why everybody thinks that everybody else needs to learn it their way) In-Reply-To: <201201031951.OAA10761@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> from Mouse at "Jan 3, 12 02:51:29 pm" Message-ID: <201201032016.q03KGEOb010498@floodgap.com> > I suspect that there is a tendency - doubtless stronger in some people > than others - to think declaratively. This is reinforced by the way > many languages use syntax for assignment that looks more like a > declaration of fact than a statement of action to be taken; I see your LET and raise you Prolog: predicate(X) :- .... X is X/2, ... but then, that technically *is* a declaration of fact (or a condition to be satisfied). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Doesn't everyone cry when Vin Diesel tries to act? -- Impact Alberto, CAA -- From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 14:17:34 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:17:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 3, 12 11:17:44 am" Message-ID: <201201032017.q03KHYkh012354@floodgap.com> > > Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? > > Neil Lincoln once told me that he thought that APL was the perfect > language to introduce one to programming. He said his kids took to > it like ducks to water. > > One can readily see the popularity of this idea by the vast amount of > APL code to be seen on the Web... The same thing could be said about LOGO. However, I got a lot more code done in C64 BASIC than I ever did in C64 LOGO, and I don't think the interpreter overhead was the only reason. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Since we're all here, we must not be all there. -- Bob "Mountain" Beck ----- From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 14:17:58 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:17:58 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F02F1F6.4104.8999B5@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 11:42, Fred Cisin wrote: > I don't see much matrix manipulation software on the Web in ANY > language. Most of the web seems to be database and graphics. Not much explicit math there at all (of course, there's a lot of math going on behind the scene in graphics, but few programmers ever get to see that). > I think that the character set killed APL. Just the special type ball > and pieces of tape on the keys. There were variants that used ASCII di-and-trigraphs to represent the special characters, but they made the nearly unreadable almost totally unreadable. In general, most "standard" computer character sets are not well thought out. > But, I've actually had students ask why there isn't a "plus or minus", > or a "not equal" character for use in C if() statements. So, I pass > a VT100 keyboard around the room. Algol suffered from similar issues. Yes, you had substitutions, but I think they impaired readability. The original 6-bit CDC Display Code set had many Algol characters, but that meant that others had to be dropped, such as quotation marks (both double and single) and question and exclamation marks, among others: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_display_code The colon was a horrible problem, being code 00, where 0000 in the low-order 12 bits of a word signified an end-of-line. Two colons in the wrong place in a line would end the line and elide both colons. Most print trains only had a single colon, so printing slowed down when there were too many of them. I seem to remember that a similar problem existed for character code 00 on even-parity 7-track mag tape. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 3 14:33:18 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:33:18 -0500 Subject: CSS [was Re: 22disk & CP/M's diskettes] In-Reply-To: <201112250816.DAA28989@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <006201ccc1a3$426977e0$c73c67a0$@it>, <4EF4AA63.23363.14F6748@cclist.sydex.com>, <4EF6C282.2050600@tx.rr.com> <4EF65C70.30077.2D3AB85@cclist.sydex.com> <201112250816.DAA28989@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F03660E.4070200@neurotica.com> On 12/25/2011 03:16 AM, Mouse wrote: > The _real_ problem with CSS, though, is that it's on the wrong end of > the HTTP link. Content providers should not be presentation imposers. [chiming in late here, I was on the road] This is 100% true of course, but just as with HTTP itself, the world of technologically-inept morons who can spot a potential marketing mechanism in ANYTHING have perverted it beyond all recognition. HTML5 is cleaning some of it up, but man, what a mess these kids have made of things. And to add insult to injury, when you try to teach them about any of this, they assume the "that's just your opinion!" attitude...which is pretty damn arrogant coming from people who have no idea of where this stuff came from or why it was brought into existence in the first place. People Who Weren't There, in other words, trying to tell People Who Were There about stuff. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From james at machineroom.info Tue Jan 3 12:34:33 2012 From: james at machineroom.info (James Wilson) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:34:33 +0000 Subject: Visiting Bristol UK In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F034A39.4000408@machineroom.info> On 01/01/2012 06:33, Huw Davies wrote: > I'm yet again visiting Bristol UK for most of January 2012. I guess during the week I'll have to attend the training course that work is sending me to, but I wondered if anyone had any classic computer recommendations for the weekend? Assuming the weather is OK, I'm happy to drive a reasonable distance but local stuff is easier. > > I did Bletchley Park last time I was in the UK (November 2010) and I've already promised myself that I'll visit the SS Great Britain and the Newport cable bridge, but wondered if there were other CC related things in the area. If anyone in the area wants to catch up for a beer, I'd happily shout a pint of the local bitter. > > Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au > Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the > Australia | air, the sky would be painted green" > > Shame I don't live there any longer! There used to be a museum/collection in Swindon which isn't too far. Don't recall the details right now but shouldn't be hard to find. Jim Austins collection (http://www.computermuseum.org.uk/) is also really worth a visit but it's several hours from Bristol which in the UK we consider a long distance :-) Enjoy From mark.kahrs at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 14:30:50 2012 From: mark.kahrs at gmail.com (Mark Kahrs) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:30:50 -0500 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum Message-ID: Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an NSA t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun just to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In case you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key length or key escrow. But worth a detour? Definitely. From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Jan 3 14:34:39 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 12:34:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to adults In-Reply-To: References: <969386054-1325584749-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-767416537-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <440260133-1325585801-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-723863116-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <4F0309D5.7070008@telegraphics.com.au> <20120103112130.K719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Dave Caroline wrote: > On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:30 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>> Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: >>> Maybe 80% of the current industry. >>> Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. >> >> 80% of EVERY industry! >> >> 30 years ago, a student couldn't handle remedial college arithmetic. ?His >> "counselor" ?suggested, that to handle his cognitive deficiencies, he >> should switch his major to "Computer Programming"! ?I talked to the >> student, and recommended another change; he is now a happy successful MBA. >> The "counselor" is now president of the college. ?. . . and people wonder >> why defenestration is necessary >> >> >> One must keep in mind the pace of a college class. ?Would you really want >> to do recursion in somebody's first day? ?OK, now scale that to a college >> class - recursion belongs in the second semester. >> >> > > to understand recursion, you need to understand recursion > > also see K&R 2nd ed(not first ed) lookup recursion in the index > Brought to you by the Group To Stamp Out, Eliminate and Remove Redundancy Group. g. :) -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 3 14:39:05 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:39:05 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> On 01/03/2012 02:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> Neil Lincoln once told me that he thought that APL was the perfect >> language to introduce one to programming. He said his kids took to >> it like ducks to water. > > It does have a few specific items that work for beginners, such as use of > an arrow for the assignment operation leminates the beginner mistake of > 3 = X > (I think that for first day programmers (which actually translates to > almost a semester!), that "LET . . . " helped convey the difference > between assginemtn and equality.) A very early memory of mine was reading a BASIC program for the first time. I saw a line like this: 40 A = A + 1 ...and I remember being very confused, saying "no, it isn't!!" Pascal's assignment operator does little to address this, and APL's does it well, but since all it took was reading like two sentences in a book to learn what was going on, it seems this isn't really a big problem in search of a solution. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 14:41:29 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:41:29 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025772.20312.3462474@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4F025F92.15804.365E05A at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > On 3 Jan 2012 at 2:28, Richard wrote: > > > It's not really a fair comparison as we expect a "modern" language to > > do much more than FORTRAN 66. > > Do what, exactly? Are you saying that simple languages can't "do" > what more complicated ones do? They're all turing equivalent, so you could write the same thing in Brainfuck as you could in FORTRAN, but I'm pretty sure you would rather work in FORTAN 66. The same comparison works with modern languages to put FORTRAN 66 on the losing side. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 14:44:22 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:44:22 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: > It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated: > > > > Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it > > > > ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just > > > > say lambda!) > > > > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > > C++11 has lambda expressions. > > > > Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? For the record, no, I don't recommend C++ for beginners, although some do and many have done that as their first programming course. I would probably start with Logo, then C#, then C++, then assembly. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 14:50:40 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:50:40 -0700 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: In article <4F030D4A.2010704 at mail.msu.edu>, Josh Dersch writes: > I know how to program in BASIC (and many other imperative programming > languages). I also know how to program in Lisp. The learning of the > latter did not require me to "un-learn" anything I had previously come > across. > > Dijkstra's statement is snarky and amusing. It is not, however, an > essential truism. As someone who learned BASIC first and then a slew of other languages later, I would also disagree with Dijkstra's statement. It's a nice sound bite that gets people's attention, but it's neither a truism, nor is it even an essential statement about programming. It's just his bias showing through. The only programming language I never really bent my brain around was Prolog, but I admit to only having sampled it briefly in a programming languages survey course. I probably would have grokked it had I spent more time with it. LISP, functional programming (in fp, no less ), Modula-2, Algol (call by name, yay!), OO languages, symbolic programming in Mathemtica, etc., never gave me any problems. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 3 15:17:04 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:17:04 -0500 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F037050.3030601@neurotica.com> On 01/03/2012 03:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. > Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely > worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even > brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an NSA > t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor > board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun just > to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being > run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The > modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In case > you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little > mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key > length or key escrow. > > But worth a detour? Definitely. I second this wholeheartedly. I used to go there regularly, when I lived just a few miles from there. I've had many a long talk with the staffers there. By far the best part of that place, IMO, is the Enigma exhibit. To walk up and operate a real Enigma is an awesome experience. The last time I was there, there was a PDP-11/70 on exhibit. Is it still there? Oh, and...I'm sorry to bust your bubble, but about the "Cray I"...it's not a "Cray I", it's just an SSD (Solid-State Disk) assembly that was possibly once attached to a Cray I. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com Tue Jan 3 15:24:16 2012 From: jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:24:16 -0600 (CST) Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Mark Kahrs wrote: > Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. > Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely > worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even > brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an NSA > t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor > board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun just > to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being > run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The > modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In case > you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little > mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key > length or key escrow. I went about six years ago and while I was there I asked if I could take some of the skins off the CM5 and the Cray. The docent relayed my query to some guy behind a desk who shrugged and went 'Sure'. So I took them apart while other people wandered through the museum and took pictures of the insides. I liked the place. - JP From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 15:23:38 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 13:23:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: CSS [was Re: 22disk & CP/M's diskettes] In-Reply-To: <4F03660E.4070200@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 3, 12 03:33:18 pm" Message-ID: <201201032123.q03LNcDi005936@floodgap.com> > > The _real_ problem with CSS, though, is that it's on the wrong end of > > the HTTP link. Content providers should not be presentation imposers. > > This is 100% true of course, but just as with HTTP itself, the world > of technologically-inept morons who can spot a potential marketing > mechanism in ANYTHING have perverted it beyond all recognition. HTML5 > is cleaning some of it up, but man, what a mess these kids have made of > things. Hey, I was happy with Gopherspace. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them. ----------------------- From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 15:23:44 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 21:23:44 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE60B@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <20120102180933.I61599@shell.lmi.net> <201201030454.q034sEet013478@floodgap.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EE60B@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 19:07, Rich Alderson wrote: > From: Liam Proven > Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 4:07 AM > > On 3 January 2012 12:05, Liam Proven wrote: > >>> ? I >>>> remember watching my boss in 1984 use a CP/M card in his Apple II for >>>> business apps (mostly spreadsheets), > >> Huh? Wasn't Visicalc a native Apple II app? > > Indeed it was, and the first ever "killer app" in > the microcomputer world. ?The market pressure of Fortune 500 employees > purchasing Apple II systems to run Visicalc was what led to the creation > of the IBM Personal Computer. > > There was far more business software written for CP/M at the time, and > the creation of the Z-80 Softcard ("the CP/M card" in an Apple II) let > the typical business user run both Visicalc and CP/M word processors, > accounting packages, etc. ?I actually doubt that they were used to run > many CP/M-based spreadsheet programs, but I'm prepared to be wrong on > that. That matches my recollections from my reading at the time. (Apple kit was expensive and very rare in the UK.) Similarly with CP/M. Visicalc was, as you say, the killer Apple app. If there were killer CP/M apps, they were probably dBase II or Wordstar, at a guess? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 3 15:23:52 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:23:52 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Ian King writes: > ISTR another 'stupid programming language tricks' page that opined there > are almost always several ways to solve any given problem - and you'll > find ALL of them in C++! I'd say that's accurate. Some people find freedom uncomfortable. For those people, there is Java. > Not only do I like Scheme/Lisp, but I don?t think it's that hard to teach > it to beginners. LOGO is likened to be LISP without parenthesis, which is why it's what I tell people to play with when they say "what should I tell my kid to try if he wants to learn programming?". With turtle graphics built in, it's easy to get sucked into making pictures and forget that you're learning how to write recursive programs. Additionally, I think that interpretive environment's like LISP or LOGO are better for experimentation and rapid feedback. Compiling is great for speed, but not so good for reinforcing immediate positive feedback. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 3 14:13:58 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:13:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "J.G.Harston" at Dec 31, 11 10:51:12 pm Message-ID: > > ard wrote: > > BASIC-09 gains by having user-defined types, but not requiring line > > numbewrs > > You don't need line numbers in BBC BASIC either if you don't use > GOTO, GOSUB or RESTORE nnnn. Maybe not in the more recent (Archimedes, etc) versions, but the version I run on my Beebs (and the 6502 side of my ACW) certainly requires line numbers. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 3 14:32:33 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:32:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 2, 12 08:57:42 pm Message-ID: > >> I don't know much about the Dragon and CoCo, but they certainly had > >> competent graphics and sound, and as they were the first platforms I > > > > No brillieant on either front! The Text mode was 32*16 characters, uppe= > r > > case only (porgamming C was 'entertaining, sicne lower-case was display= > ed > > as inverse video), The highest resolution graphics mode was 256*192 dot= > s > > in 2 colours. Sounds was a 6 bit DAC, entirely software driven > > Wow. Worse than a Spectrum! Impressive, and not in a good way. I thought hte original Spectrumn had only single-bit sound, a DAC was certainly an improvement on that. I wouldn't be suprised if later vertsions of the Spectrum had AY3-8910 (or simialr) ICs, like the Amstrad CPCs. There were 2 Radio Shack sound cartridges for the CoCo that I know of. One was claled 'Orchestra 90' and was a pair of 8 bit DACs (stereo sound. The ROM in siad cartridge allowed you to play music, you defined the ratios of the harmoncs for each instrument (rather like the drawbars on a Hammod), entered the notes, it calcualted the wave tables nnd played it. The oterh was the 'Speech/Sound Pac'. This contains an SPO-256 speech syntheiser chip, a microcntorlelr to do text-to-speech and an AY-3-8910 (probbalby an 8913, actually, since it wouldn't need the I/O ports) for sound/ .That was quite nice, but very little software used it. As for the graphivcs, the machine was essentialy the Motorola application circuit for hte 6883 SAM and 6847 VDG, and thus you were limited to what those ICs could do. The COCO 3 replaced them with the GIME chip which did a lot more. > > > I seem to remember the OS-9 console driver accepted certain contrl > > sequecnests to sset graphics mode, plot a point, on the CoCo. You could > > certianyl do that from BASIC-09 (and fro many other language, I remembe= > r > > wriing programs in Pascal to plot various fucntions). > > Way over my head, I suspect, then or now. Actually, I mis-rememebred. I've just dug out my BASIC-09 manual for the CoCo 2 version and it appears you got a library called 'GFX' with it. This incldued funcitos toset the graphics mode (and go back to text mode), set/reset points, test pixels, draw lines and circles and (oddly) to rwad the joysticks. You coudl do thins like RUN GFX("line",0,0,24,65) to draw a line fron (0,0) to (24,65) > > Oh,I amsolutely agree. It seems that modern PCs are not intended to be > > programmed by the user (look at the adverts, they talk of storing music= > , > > photos, etc, nothing about programming). > > Indeed. That is what the Raspberry Pi is designed to rectify. Whether > it succeeds remains to be seen. Yes, 've heard about it. Personally I think the Beeb was a ratehr better educational machine because it encouraged you to try hardware too. I am not convinced that python is the best choice of lanuage either. > :=AC) I never had a BBC. Only used them at University. I came into the > Acorn fold with my Archimedes A305 - when I bought it, 2nd hand, for > =A3800, it was considerably faster than the quickest machine my > employers sold: an IBM PS/2 Model 70-A21, a 25MHz 80386DX with SRAM > cache, which came in at about =A310,500 minus monitor, keyboard or DOS - > quite a lot over 10=D7 the price. > > No user port or anything on an Archie, but I wasn't and am not really Actually I beelive there was a podule to add soemthing like that. There certainly was an internal expansion board for the A3000 to add a user port (I have it in mine). Of course there wsas an I2C bus on a cuuple of pins of the system bus (it was used for the intenral real time clock chip, but Acorn deecided to make it avaialble to hackers too). Adding a user prot to that is a matter of a PCF8574 chip. > >> And yes, in programming terms, I am very much an amateur! > > > > An amateur is somebody who does something because they love it (think > > Latin), it has nothing to do with ability. > > True, and have a bonus point for pedantry. ;=AC) Sorry. This is a pet hate of mine. I am an amateur when it comes to electronics, computing, etc. I do it because I like it, I am entirely self-taught. And even if I say so myself, I donm;t think this makes me totally clueless. But there are those who claim that because I don't have the right bit of paper I cna't possibly know how to do . > jaded with IT, though. I want out. Playing with older kit is still > fun, and occasionally using it to write on, but that's about it. > Modern games are mostly boring, with intensely difficult but very > derivative gameplay, stunning graphics but no originality. The OSs are I amsolutely agree with you there. I don't think I've found any game for the last 35 years or so to be enjoyable. OK, I'm strange, but I got a lot more enjoyment out of the HP67 games pac (a set of magnetic cards to run on an HP67 clacualtor, a amchine with no sound and jsut a 7 segment numberic dispaly) than I did when a friend convinced me to try Doom (or soemthing) on his PC. > so complex that dabblers can't get involved, the hardware is vastly > powerful but locked away behind elaborate drivers and > professionals-only-need-apply languages. It's all rather dull. That's why I stick to the older machines I can understand. They do all I want, I see no reaso nto replace them with somethign that can execute instructions many thousands of times faster, but it won't execute the isntructiosn I want. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 3 14:39:49 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:39:49 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 2, 12 02:59:58 pm Message-ID: > > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to > > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not > > often docuemnted. > > MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the > language to let you create and call machine language code. If you can Sure. Most BASICs had some way to call machine language routines. But doing so was totally differnet to using built-in fucntions (or using BASIC subroutines) and requried you gerneally to remember th rright addresses. Better tnan nothing, but a kludge. > find them, there are commercial packages of machine language functions > for common tasks. Such as Brett Salter's "Peeks and Pokes". > > On platforms with appropriate hardware (such as Coco, and even 5150), > MICROS~1 BASIC usually provided a usable set of graphics primitives, built > into their BASIC!, consisting of set-a-pixel and read-a-pixel, with some > minimal extensions, such as line draw. Of course. the problem comes when you ad/chnage this hardware. If I take my IBM5150 and interfce it to an I2S image proccessor/display system then there's no easy way to add functions to M$ BASIC to cotnrol it (OK, you cna use the USR function, but it's a kludge). But I could write a library of functions in C and clal them from my C progrmas without any difficulty. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 3 15:36:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 21:36:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to adults In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jan 3, 12 07:45:18 pm Message-ID: > also see K&R 2nd ed(not first ed) lookup recursion in the index To my shame it toom me a second to spot it. The last page numebr given under 'recursion' is, of coruse ,the page numebr that that bit of the index appears on. -tony From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 15:42:05 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 16:42:05 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Jan 3, 2012, at 2:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > But, I've actually had students ask why there isn't a "plus or minus", or > a "not equal" character for use in C if() statements. So, I pass a VT100 > keyboard around the room. Shouldn't you pass around a teletype instead? - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 15:56:23 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 16:56:23 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <5FE08257-D654-44A7-82DA-C5AC86142D28@gmail.com> On Jan 3, 2012, at 3:44 PM, Richard wrote: > For the record, no, I don't recommend C++ for beginners, although some > do and many have done that as their first programming course. I would > probably start with Logo, then C#, then C++, then assembly. At my university, we used to have CS 201 in C. CS 201 was intended to be the intro to CS for students who already had *some* programming experience (C, Javascript, BASIC, whatever), whereas 104 was intended to be the "remedial" course where folks with zero experience would learn the basics. Unfortunately, the advisors responsible for incoming student authorizations gave into the impatient students and started letting just anyone take CS 201. By the time I was a TA (13 years after the paradigm had been established), probably only about 20% of the class had had any programming experience (and were quite bored) while we struggled to guide the rest of them through first UNIX shells and then the code-compile-run-swear-repeat sequence. We switched to Python a few years ago, and the difference has been amazing. At least compared to C, it just gets out of the way of learning the principles of programming pretty well. I think what caused the most trouble was the bit about meaningful indentation, which is something I've never really been a fan of; I like my braces (or at least some form of explicit block boundary)! Of course, the students who never learned to pay attention to their indentation level were generally the sort that wound up as IT or English majors anyway. If nothing else, Python taught the students that neatness counts. :-) I, myself, learned BASIC first on my elementary school's Apple IIs. For a kid, it's a pretty good language. I transitioned to C when I discovered that I couldn't do much interesting with what BASICs were available to me, but I never understood pointers until I learned assembly (it was a major epiphany, especially since I learned on PowerPC, where pointer dereferencing was an entire different instruction, not just a different addressing mode). Currently, our students learn C concurrently with assembly further on in the program (it's a 300-level course), which I think is a great idea. All of the web designers who just want to learn Java and get a job are already shunted away on a different track at that point. I shudder at the fact that many of our high schools use Java as an introductory language. I really can't see the point of starting someone out saying, "Your program runs from a special method in a special class (we'll teach you what both of those are later) labelled 'public static void main()'. Just wave the chicken correctly, and maybe if you stick with it long enough, you'll find out what that magic incantation means." - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 16:28:13 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:28:13 -0500 Subject: CSS [was Re: 22disk & CP/M's diskettes] In-Reply-To: <4F03660E.4070200@neurotica.com> References: <006201ccc1a3$426977e0$c73c67a0$@it> <4EF4AA63.23363.14F6748@cclist.sydex.com> <4EF6C282.2050600@tx.rr.com> <4EF65C70.30077.2D3AB85@cclist.sydex.com> <201112250816.DAA28989@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F03660E.4070200@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 12/25/2011 03:16 AM, Mouse wrote: >> The _real_ problem with CSS, though, is that it's on the wrong end of >> the HTTP link. ?Content providers should not be presentation imposers. One of the loudest laments I remember from traditional media producers (publishers, editors, graphic artists, writers, journalists, etc.) about the Web when it was new was "OMG! We can't control the exact user experience for all of our readers and they *need* us to do that for them!" They were used to the size, the color, the font, the look, everything about the finished product being exactly as it was when it left their hands. One of the features of settings in the browser was the ability for people with different sized screens, or different thicknesses of glasses or whatever to tweak the appearance for their preference or convenience. It's one of the reasons that PDFs exist - they de-abstracted delivered content back to a virtual rendering of a printed page that you could then print out. PDF features were built-in to lock users out of altering the rendered appearance, partially as DRM and partially to enforce the content producer's emissions as the be-all-end-all of the content. CSS to me is a footnote of that - it centralizes that enforcement so that it takes less labor to tweak or re-work a style, but it's just, IMO, a macro system for extracting formatting out of the primary document and centralizing it. What I can't stand is when, frequently, due to network congestion or load or whatever, when I get the HTML page but _not_ the CSS to go with it. I see raw spewage from one page or another several times a week because of this. They _could_ embed the style information inside the primary document, but that adds back in the labor savings of a single centrally-maintained style sheet, so I rarely see embedded style info these days. > ?This is 100% true of course, but just as with HTTP itself, the world of > technologically-inept morons who can spot a potential marketing mechanism in > ANYTHING have perverted it beyond all recognition. I'd call that the second wave... after the content producers were satisfied that they could once again maintain their control, they settled down and the marketing types moved in to exploit the landscape. > ?And to add insult to injury, when you try to teach them about any of this, > they assume the "that's just your opinion!" attitude...which is pretty damn > arrogant coming from people who have no idea of where this stuff came from > or why it was brought into existence in the first place. ?People Who Weren't > There, in other words, trying to tell People Who Were There about stuff. There's plenty of that to go around (like AOL "telling" Time-Warner how the business world and the Internet was going to be... we all know how well that ended up for AOL - Disclaimer: I used to work for AOL-Time-Warner and saw more than I care to remember of that while it was unfolding). -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 3 16:32:08 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:32:08 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 13:41, Richard wrote: > They're all turing equivalent, so you could write the same thing in > Brainfuck as you could in FORTRAN, but I'm pretty sure you would > rather work in FORTAN 66. The same comparison works with modern > languages to put FORTRAN 66 on the losing side So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for I/O? How many languages were first written in FORTRAN? SNOBOL, for sure, as well as PL/M. Several FORTRAN compilers that I know of were written in FORTRAN for the most part. Quite a number of cross- assemblers were also written in FORTRAN. --Chuck From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 3 16:32:23 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:32:23 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC (was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) References: Message-ID: Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:24:36 -0800 From: Josh Dersch Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On 12/31/2011 12:15 PM, MikeS wrote: > > ----- Reply: > >> Just curious: >> Does your memory configuration support swapping out the RDOS boot/monitor >> ROM? > Not at the moment, I haven't quite worked out if this can be made to work > properly with non-Cromemco memory boards. The 64FDC manual suggests > "Set[ting] the switches on the RAM board(s) so that memory from 8000h to > FFFFh is disabled..." which implies that the boards must support some way > of re-enabling the memory via software (for when the FDC's ROM is disabled > via a write to port 40h). > I'm wondering if this board isn't really optimal for this setup -- it > seems very geared toward having a complete Cromemco setup, which I do not > have. ---------------- I don't see why it would be a problem; the RDOS boot/monitor ROM lives at C000 so it should work with 48K RAM even if you don't disable it; ISTR that some folks simply connected the ROM chip select to the Phantom line if they had non-bankable memory and wanted to switch it in and out. And of course the ROM can be completely disabled as well. It controls up to four total 5.25 and/or 8" drives with write precomp, has an RS-232 console port and a pretty good monitor with the usual memory and disk manipulation, some basic diagnostics, etc.; not a bad card IMO. And it's fairly well documented. ---------------- > For right now, I was just planning on assembling a raw binary image and > using a PC (with a bit of hacked together software) to push the image into > the IMSAI's memory via the 64FDC's serial port, using the onboard monitor > commands. Just for fun :). > If you know of a source for images of these third-party CP/Ms, let me > know. Dave Dunfield's site has a CP/M for the 16FDC, which as far as I > can tell (from a cursory glance at the manuals) has identical I/O port > behavior to the 64FDC so I may just be able to use that, assuming I can > write the 8" image to a 5.25" floppy. ---------------- As a matter of fact Dave also has a utility for the FDC that actually lets you create a bootable disk over the serial port. No big difference between the 16FDC and the 64 FDC; mostly just stuff added for later models of 8" drives (Tandon 848) and mods for the tape drives. mike From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 3 16:32:27 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:32:27 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC (was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) References: Message-ID: <985D53AEF34A411AA018696DCE5C8B7A@vl420mt> Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:02:11 -0800 (PST) From: Jerry Wright Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > Josh, I would love to get your 64FDC for my Cromemco 68020 machine that > is missing one. I have 16 FDC and other Croemeco Z-80 Boards to go along > with it. Which model 68020 Cromemco is it? I might be able to find a spare 64FDC... mike From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 16:43:23 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:43:23 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Richard wrote: > In article <4F030D4A.2010704 at mail.msu.edu>,?Josh Dersch writes: >> I know how to program in BASIC (and many other imperative programming >> languages). ?I also know how to program in Lisp. ?The learning of the >> latter did not require me to "un-learn" anything I had previously come >> across. >> >> Dijkstra's statement is snarky and amusing. ?It is not, however, an >> essential truism. > > As someone who learned BASIC first and then a slew of other languages > later, I would also disagree with Dijkstra's statement. ?It's a nice > sound bite that gets people's attention, but it's neither a truism, > nor is it even an essential statement about programming. ?It's just > his bias showing through. I would agree with you both. I learned BASIC first because what I could get my hands on when I was first learning was the trio of consumer machines: the Commodore PET, the Apple II and the TRS-80. I wrote BASIC on all three before moving up to 6502 on the PET and 1802 machine code on the Elf (yes, machine code - it was years later that I first touched an assembler). Like many others on this list, I have moved up from such humble beginnings to make a decent livelihood in the field. I suppose one could over-interpret Dijkstra's statement in its most literal form and say that those of us who self-learned BASIC first don't qualify as having been taught it (raising the possibility that the problem is in the pedagogy not the material). Here's the whole rant: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 3 16:46:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:46:27 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> On 01/03/2012 03:44 PM, Richard wrote: >> It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated: >>>>> Of course, there are people who think if it doesn't look like C/C++, it >>>>> ain't programmin'. :-) (Of course, not talking about you, Josh - just >>>>> say lambda!) >>> >>> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >>>> C++11 has lambda expressions. >>> >>> Would yu use that for teaching programming to first-time beginners? > > For the record, no, I don't recommend C++ for beginners, although some > do and many have done that as their first programming course. ...and the result is the horrid crop of morons who call themselves "programmers" today. C++ is perhaps the worst choice for a first language. What makes it even worse is how the object-oriented methodology is taught. > I would > probably start with Logo, then C#, then C++, then assembly. Logo is an interesting first choice...keeps things interesting and fun. I also agree with your last choice. But C#...teaching a proprietary single-platform commercial language designed with vendor lock-in as its first criteria, which came into being purely with the goal of unseating another language, isn't a good idea at all to present in academia, unless presented as a sidebar entitled "here's how perversely greedy the industry you're about to go into can get". Maybe C++ should be in that list, sure, but before assembly? Maybe switch those two around. Teach them how computers actually *work* first (which is pretty well accomplished by assembly, at least from the software perspective, how code is executed), that may go at least part way toward keeping them from abusing the true procedural/imperative nature of processors too much with the repugnant abstract-for-abstractions-sake-performance-be-damned-look-how-clever-I-am mess that is C++. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From quapla at xs4all.nl Wed Jan 4 08:02:59 2012 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (E. Groenenberg) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:02:59 +0100 Subject: Latest find Message-ID: During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up and which I could take home. A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface & 64KW mem one complete 11/24 (cpu. KT24, 128Kw mem) a test unit for SMD drives (for CDC & RM02/3/5), a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III a box full with all kinds of DEC loop-back test connectors a crt testkit with 8 different tube connection boards. Ed -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 07:54:31 2012 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 05:54:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Guy claims to have re-badged VIC-1001 Message-ID: <1325685271.46749.YahooMailNeo@web113505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Ebay Item 320822744546 http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320822744546 His title "VERY RARE: This Commodore VIC-20 is a Re-badged VIC-1001. Made In Japan." Am I crazy or wasn't all the VICs made in Japan?? From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 4 02:16:11 2012 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 08:16:11 -0000 Subject: CSS [was Re: 22disk & CP/M's diskettes] In-Reply-To: <4F03660E.4070200@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <2E54502045F24D8DADDE692F0E95E4CF@ANTONIOPC> Dave McGuire [mcguire at neurotica.com] wrote: > On 12/25/2011 03:16 AM, Mouse wrote: >> The _real_ problem with CSS, though, is that it's on the wrong end of >> the HTTP link. Content providers should not be presentation >> imposers. > > [chiming in late here, I was on the road] > > This is 100% true of course, I thought that with CSS, *you* could override the site's decisions and superimpoose your will? Without CSS I do (lots of times) and you don't get much choice. Although, if you're on lynx, does it make much difference either way? Antonio From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Jan 4 02:14:23 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 09:14:23 +0100 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Richard wrote: > > In article , > Michael Thompson writes: > > > After seven months of Saturdays the PDP-8/L at the Rhode Island > > Computer Museum is finally running. > > Great news! I like the restoration blog you kept of your work. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! Like it too. I've repaired several old computers (no PDP8) and it is always fascinating to read such blogs. I know "mass dead effects" of several TTL chips too, specially russian chips in plastic case are the sources for failure. They like it to get to high impedance at the outputs. Nothing wrong with russian chips in ceramic housings... Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 01:12:53 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 02:12:53 -0500 Subject: Oscilloscope vector display driver... In-Reply-To: References: <1323701292.68413.YahooMailClassic@web45104.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 2:30 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > It might be difficult to build something equivalent to the AVR Scope Clock > from scratch for less than $30 by the time you're all done, if this > hardware is suitable for your needs. > > http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9306 > > I don't have one of these myself yet but I should buy one to make use of my > Tek X-Y monitor. I have an older version of the hardware - binding posts for scope probes, no on-board amplifier to directly drive scope inputs via BNC cables, but otherwise similar. I had fun putting it together in 2008. -ethan From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Wed Jan 4 00:36:37 2012 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (Charlie Carothers) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:36:37 -0600 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F03F375.3000204@tx.rr.com> On 1/2/2012 2:57 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > > 25y of support work and building and running networks has left me very > jaded with IT, though. I want out. Playing with older kit is still > fun, and occasionally using it to write on, but that's about it. > Modern games are mostly boring, with intensely difficult but very > derivative gameplay, stunning graphics but no originality. The OSs are > so complex that dabblers can't get involved, the hardware is vastly > powerful but locked away behind elaborate drivers and > professionals-only-need-apply languages. It's all rather dull. > It occurs to me that you might find something like beagleboard.org interesting... -- Later, Charlie C. In God We Trust!!! From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 21:04:53 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:04:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20120103190325.D16151@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > As someone who learned BASIC first and then a slew of other languages > later, I would also disagree with Dijkstra's statement. It's a nice > sound bite that gets people's attention, but it's neither a truism, > nor is it even an essential statement about programming. It's just > his bias showing through. But, you agree with his comments about COBOL? APL? FORTRAN? PL1? Entertaining, if slightly exaggerated. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 3 21:01:30 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:01:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > A very early memory of mine was reading a BASIC program for the first > time. I saw a line like this: > 40 A = A + 1 > ...and I remember being very confused, saying "no, it isn't!!" > Pascal's assignment operator does little to address this, and APL's > does it well, but since all it took was reading like two sentences in a > book to learn what was going on, it seems this isn't really a big > problem in search of a solution. Whilst attempting to explain the difference between equality and assignment, I wrote: N = 1 N = N + 1 I told the class, "That is a proof by INDUCTIVE LOGIC that all numbers are the same. That would bring about total destruction of the universe. Therefore, never let any mathematician see it! Oh, wait. Are there any mathematicians in this class?" A few, very few, got it. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 19:23:04 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:23:04 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201031414.q03EEjji011698@floodgap.com> References: <201201031414.q03EEjji011698@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F03A9F8.2050503@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 9:14 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> No argument from me. I've coded assembler for most of my life. [...]My >>> coworker turned to him and said "you do realize Java eventually gets >>> translated to assembler in order for it to actually do anything, don't >>> you?" Even that didn't work! >> >> Some people should be doing something else. From what I see around: >> Maybe 80% of the current industry. >> >> Why? They didn't learn and they won't learn. > > Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a debugger single stepping through PowerPC > assembly language and I don't even work in the industry anymore. > Exactly. People who want to learn will always find a way. :D --Toby > I'm toying with writing an SECD VM in 6502 assembly language, though. > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 19:00:24 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:00:24 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F03A4A8.9060406@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 3:39 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/03/2012 02:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Neil Lincoln once told me that he thought that APL was the perfect >>> language to introduce one to programming. He said his kids took to >>> it like ducks to water. >> >> It does have a few specific items that work for beginners, such as use of >> an arrow for the assignment operation leminates the beginner mistake of >> 3 = X >> (I think that for first day programmers (which actually translates to >> almost a semester!), that "LET . . . " helped convey the difference >> between assginemtn and equality.) > > A very early memory of mine was reading a BASIC program for the first > time. I saw a line like this: > > 40 A = A + 1 > > ...and I remember being very confused, saying "no, it isn't!!" > And now we have languages that know it isn't. Meet Erlang. :) --Toby > Pascal's assignment operator does little to address this, and APL's does > it well, but since all it took was reading like two sentences in a book > to learn what was going on, it seems this isn't really a big problem in > search of a solution. > > -Dave > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 19:13:09 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:13:09 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201031727.MAA08287@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <201201031727.MAA08287@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F03A7A5.7040406@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 12:27 PM, Mouse wrote: >> Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of >> "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: >> [...] >> - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? How do I build >> anything else? Oh right. I can't. > > If you think you can't, you need to learn to program. Just because the > language doesn't help you do something doesn't mean it can't be done. > >>> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >>> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, >> And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. > >> The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to >> programming. [...] > > I didn't write the double-quoted text above. But the conclusion _I_ > come to is that Scheme is not suitable for a beginner. (Well, most > beginners.) > >> But in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been >> indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really >> going on when you program. > > Sounds as though you've been so indoctrinated that you think it can't > be programming if it isn't...I don't know, written in a Lisp dialect? > Functional? Full of parentheses? I expected to hear this eventually. How about "no". The syntax of Lisp is as irrelevant as the syntax of any other language. But the abstractions matter. And they're not illuminated by BASIC. I notice that many working programmers have a great deal of trouble with declarative languages of all kinds (e.g. stuff that doesn't look like lists of instructions). I wonder why that is. > > Nobody really knows what is going on when someone programs; the process > of converting a problem to a program to solve it is a very difficult > one to understand, like most creative processes. To presume that _you_ > know better than _someone else_ what is going on when that someone else > programs is...ludicrous. Not to mention jaw-droppingly arrogant. > >> Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at the absolute >> bottom-most level. > > I've got news for you: programs in most language inherently are > sequences of instructions at more than just the machine-code level. "Most languages". Not all problems (and languages) are sequential. We seem to agree. --T > >> We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion >> and higher-order functions are alien concepts. > > You appear to think recursion and higher-order functions are somehow > not sequences of instructions. If so, I think you're wrong. > > "(apply fn args)" is just as much an "instruction" as "a[i] = 0;" is. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 19:18:04 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:18:04 -0500 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: <4F037050.3030601@neurotica.com> References: <4F037050.3030601@neurotica.com> Message-ID: That's not a cray1 cpu tower there? Or has that been moved? Last I heard there was a full tower system there On Jan 3, 2012 4:51 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On 01/03/2012 03:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > >> Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. >> Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely >> worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even >> brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an >> NSA >> t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor >> board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun >> just >> to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being >> run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The >> modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In >> case >> you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little >> mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key >> length or key escrow. >> >> But worth a detour? Definitely. >> > > I second this wholeheartedly. I used to go there regularly, when I lived > just a few miles from there. I've had many a long talk with the staffers > there. > > By far the best part of that place, IMO, is the Enigma exhibit. To walk > up and operate a real Enigma is an awesome experience. > > The last time I was there, there was a PDP-11/70 on exhibit. Is it still > there? > > Oh, and...I'm sorry to bust your bubble, but about the "Cray I"...it's > not a "Cray I", it's just an SSD (Solid-State Disk) assembly that was > possibly once attached to a Cray I. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 3 19:22:04 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:22:04 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> On 03/01/12 10:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 3 January 2012 13:57, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >>> On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> >>>> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>>>> powerful abstractions. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>>>> >>>>>> What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>>>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >>>>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >>>>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >>>>> get the hell out of the way). >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. >>> >>> >>> O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, >>> natural programmer. >> >> >> Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the point >> here. > > Even worse. > > There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do > you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer > perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software > engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit > that they are barely related. > > If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something Exactly the reverse. Professional software engineers I've seen around wouldn't touch Lisp with a barge pole. While, for people who want to get stuff done elegantly and simply, without irrelevancies, Scheme is ideal. > clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn It's not hard stuff (q.v) > right, in the same way that I learned swordfighting with a foil, the > feeblest weapon but the one controlled by the strictest rules. If you > can fight foil, then you can move to the less-demanding sabre easily, > and the relatively undemanding ep?e is straightforward; but start with > ep?e and learning the formalities of foil will be much harder. > >> Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of >> "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: >> - full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? what >> good is this to a beginner?); > > Oh come off it! Line numbers went out in 1985, man! Don't judge BASIC > by the crappy implementations of the early 1980s when 8K of RAM was a > lot! Line numbers are not the issue. > >> - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? > > No, not at all. I would expect at least integers, floats, variable > length strings, multidimensional arrays of any other type, and quite > possibly different lengths of integer and possibly signed and unsigned > forms. Possibly booleans and things as well; maybe a complex type. But > to be a programmer does not mandate being a mathematician. I have > taught programming to people who did not know what a percentage was, > who did not know how to multiply or divide by fractions and so on. > Many people do not need fancy types. > >> How do I build anything >> else? Oh right. I can't. > > Again, a limitation only of very primitive, early BASICs, although I > have to say, I never found it a limitation. Have user-defined > structured data types if you want, though. Can I make a list? > >> - most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an >> IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s >> (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); > > Again, a limitation of the early 1980s. Not true of any decent BASIC > from about 1983 onwards. > >> - lacks named functions& procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a crippled >> hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) > > See above. Have you actually *seen* /any/ even 1990s BASIC, FFS? > >> - a fundamental >> abstracting/factoring tool. > > You'll have to explain what that means. Functions are a fundamental abstracting/factoring tool. So they better work well. -> Closures, too. > >> Now with Scheme, >> - you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; > > But is incomprehensible To you... > and uses bizarre postfix notation. Not Schemes I'm familiar with. > >> - you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures >> without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; > > Straw man. > >> - there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which is >> good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. > > If you can grasp the basics, pardon the pun, which I doubt most could. > >> There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. > > You have no real experience of actual high-school students, then, I > can see that. Not true; I know some who are learning Scheme and Haskell with no trouble. > >>> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >>> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, >> >> And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. > > Oh bollocks! > > Q.v. Dylan: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_%28programming_language%29#Syntax > Q.v. Lisp 2 and Elephant, discussed here /passim./ > > Even John McCarthy himself later conceded that Lisp's syntax was a > major hindrance in teaching it. Oh, yes, people have been trained to be terrified of it. It's a phantom fear. > >> The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. > > That is not even remotely /like/ the conclusion that I came to. You > are putting words in my mouth and I *object*, strenuously. > > I did not say it was not relevant. I did not say it was a bad thing to > start with. I said it was /too hard/ for the average person, and I > stand by that. > >> But >> in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been >> indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going on >> when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at the >> absolute bottom-most level. > > You have no idea of what any BASIC from even 20y ago is like, as you > have demonstrated, and you also seem to be very unfamiliar with the > limitations of actual ordinary people. For nonspecialists, concepts > such as loops are quite hard at first. Iterative thinking has to be > learned. Starting off utter newbies with prefix notation, CAR and > CADR, lists versus atoms, quoting and lambda calculus is like taking > the play-blocks off a kindergarten class and asking them to build the > cathedral of Notre Dame instead. > >> We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion and >> higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper tools, >> mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can be >> argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer programmer. > > Actually, I am sure you're right. > > But this misses the strength of the old BASICs of the late 1980s and > 1990s: that they brought programming to the common man. Yes, that's true; but it is 2011. And we are preparing kids whose careers will peak in 2030. > > Sure, we need better developers, but we /also/ need easy, friendly, > fun tools to reintroduce the ordinary Joe to writing programs at all. > Python and so on are far too big and complex for this. > >> I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't >> really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I had >> picked up Scheme when I picked up C. > > So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? C moreso. I should have picked up something I could learn more from. > >> Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles BASIC >> puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed "imperative >> place". > > You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved > on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. > >> Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion was >> hard? > > It isn't. I've written recursive programs. In BASIC. In a good BASIC: > in BBC BASIC V, a very fast, 32-bit BASIC with full support for named > procedures, local variables, passing by reference and value and so on. I'm very very familiar with BBC BASIC. It can't by any stretch be compared to a Lisp or ML family language, for example. > > > How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with higher >> order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it today, >> for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) > > I don't, because I am not a programmer and I don't aim to be. > >> Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve >> something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. > > They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a > late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, > which are too big, too complex and too abstract. > And after that, where will they fill in the missing pieces in their education? --Toby From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 3 17:31:06 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:31:06 -0800 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200DC7DC-6D2D-4D38-96C6-4FE206E46D5E@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 3, at 12:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw > from Ft. > Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, > definitely > worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they > even > brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can > buy an NSA > t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP > processor > board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's > fun just > to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox > being > run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about > it. The > modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. > (In case > you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is > little > mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions > like key > length or key escrow. > > But worth a detour? Definitely. Did you see the SIGSALY display (aka "X System")? Haven't been to the crypto museum myself, but I was reading about SIGSALY recently, and see they have some of the equipment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ SIGSALY). Real-time voice cryptography using pulse code modulation and digital algorithms and technology in WWII: http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/ publications/sigsaly_start_digital.shtml http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/ publications/sigsaly_story.shtml Reading about it, I could see the technological ability to do it at the time, but I had no idea until recently it had actually been done at the time! Shannon had some involvement in its development, just a couple of years before his papers on information theory. The historical connections and influences make for very interesting reading: http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39429?show=full (download PDF from there) The paper by Lars Lundheim 'On Shannon and "Shannon's Formula"' http://www.iet.ntnu.no/projects/beats/journals.htm is also interesting for some historical developments leading to information theory, including the concepts of sampling and digitising analog data, see mention of Alec Harley Reeves. From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 3 16:55:20 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:55:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jan 3, 12 08:39:49 pm" Message-ID: <201201032255.q03MtKwb006074@floodgap.com> > > > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to > > > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not > > > often docuemnted. > > > > MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the > > language to let you create and call machine language code. If you can > > Sure. Most BASICs had some way to call machine language routines. But > doing so was totally differnet to using built-in fucntions (or using > BASIC subroutines) and requried you gerneally to remember th rright > addresses. Better tnan nothing, but a kludge. That's not quite right. If you knew your stuff, for example, you could put USR() to very good, er, use. One of my earliest hacks was something that looked at the RAM under ROM on a C64. I wrote a USR routine that got its argument from FAC#1, turned it into an integer, banked out ROM, copied out a value, turned it back into a float and stuffed it in FAC#1, so I could either PEEK() or USR() an address. Even SYS/CALL/etc. could be made more useful if you knew the BASIC routines to get and grab parameters. jsr $aefd:jsr $ad9e:jsr $b7f7 is burned in my brain (check for and skip a comma, call BASIC FRMEVL to get an expression and then turn it into a 16-bit integer at $0014-5) allowing stuff like SYS49152,3+35*X to work. My current idiom on the C64 is BASIC for stuff that isn't speed critical and assembly for the rest. Such stuff benefits from simple tools like that. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "Garbage in -- gospel out" ------------------------------------------------- From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 3 17:10:59 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 18:10:59 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: <674490A232B74121934A07F971C7D07B@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 20:11:52 +0000 From: Rich Alderson To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" Subject: RE: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC From: MikeS Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 7:23 AM >> I think many if not most of the people on here discovered that they >> enjoyed and had a gift for programming by playing with BASIC on their C64 >> or equivalent [snip] > I think that many if not most of the people on here learned to program on > something other than BASIC. I, for example, learned FORTRAN IV on an IBM > 1401 6 years before the MITS Altair 8800 was introduced to the world. > I did personally not encounter BASIC until I was in grad school, on an IBM > 370/168 running Wylbur for interactive computing. I was much more taken > with the DEC-20. -------Reply: You're probably right about this particular group where most people are old enough to wax nostalgic about the DECs of their distant youth and many are presumably retired as well since they have enough spare time to waste on discussions like this one... ;-) I personally started on an IBM 650 and then the very first Burroughs B260 installed in Canada, and didn't encounter BASIC either until I bought one of the first PETs some 13 years or so later. But I suspect many of the programmers actually writing code in the 'real' world today are somewhat younger than 45 or 50, and did indeed start on an 8-bitter of the 70's and 80's when the whole field exploded. m From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 17:02:23 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 18:02:23 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to >> > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not >> > often docuemnted. >> >> MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the >> language to let you create and call machine language code... > > Sure. Most BASICs had some way to call machine language routines. But > doing so was totally differnet to using built-in fucntions (or using > BASIC subroutines) and requried you gerneally to remember th rright > addresses. Better tnan nothing, but a kludge. I wrote at lot of hybrid BASIC/6502-machine-code programs back in the day. In the Commodore world (PET BASIC all the way through the C-128), you had the USR() function, which was handy if you wanted to pass one floating-point arg to your program and/or wanted your routine to pass you back a value - just POKE the address of your code into the documented USR() vector location so BASIC could hit it via a JMP-indirect instruction ($6C), or if you didn't need to pass args in/out (or you were willing to play parser tricks), just directly call your routine with SYS. It was all clearly described in the manuals - I wouldn't call it a kludge, just a method that was probably present in Microsoft BASICs that might not have been present in versions of BASIC that was, for lack of a better term, more Dartmouth-like. I didn't ever have much experience in the past with HP BASIC or DEC EDUsystem BASIC, so I can't guess what, if any, mechanisms there were for those commonly-encountered-at-school environments. I guess if you were writing your own machine code, as I was doing, you'd know your entry points, vs trying to make use of someone else's code, where I can see how it might seem arbitrary and kludgey, especially if they didn't prepend things with a jump table. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 3 16:49:39 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 17:49:39 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <20120103200257.GB28340@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Sean Conner wrote: > ?Personally, I would use Lua... > > ?Also, World of Warcraft and nmap use Lua as a scripting language, so those > interested in gaming or network based exploits will learn a useful skill. It's also the scripting language for Celestia, in case astronomy appeals to you more than games. I've looked at it, but haven't tried writing anything in it yet. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 3 16:55:24 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:55:24 -0500 Subject: Forth, was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F03875C.6080807@neurotica.com> On 01/02/2012 06:51 PM, David Riley wrote: >> Although I don't speak a word of Forth, other than once having read >> Brodie's book ("Starting Forth"), it seems ideal for working with >> mastering the issues of getting a software structure to connect >> with the hardware. > > Forth is great. I'm writing a small Forth engine right now to bring > up an AVR board I designed; it only takes a day or so to dream up the > inner workings of the kernel for a particular architecture, and then > another few to code up the words necessary to do any real work. Seconded! I tend to put Forth on pretty much everything I build, which have mostly been Z80-based SBCs. Forth is amazing in so many ways. I suspect so many people fear it because it isn't "just another language that looks sorta like C"...most of "those" languages someone with enough experience can get the general gist of by being exposed to some source code. Not so with Forth; one must actually learn a little bit about the language first. ...which is why people dislike it. It seems extreme laziness and the need for INSTANT (as opposed to "fifteen minutes from now") ruins even awesome stuff like this for some people. That's ok, people like you and I will still reap the massive benefits of Forth. =) Dave, FYI, my GA144 chip arrived the other day. Massive wood! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From nierveze at radio-astronomie.com Tue Jan 3 15:33:42 2012 From: nierveze at radio-astronomie.com (nierveze) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 22:33:42 +0100 Subject: Connect Shugart SA850 to PC References: <4F034010.5040805@gmail.com> Message-ID: <34BDDDBD4141437C8AECD02ECDE42D08@Pc12> hello,look here http://www.dbit.com/fdadap.html hope this will help you best regards alain nierveze ----- Original Message ----- From: "shadoooo" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 6:51 PM Subject: Connect Shugart SA850 to PC > Hello. > I have a Shugart SA850 I would connect to a PC, to read/write old > diskettes using linux. > I would need a suggestion on how to do connections and specially how to > set the > jumpers on the driver. > Any advice? > Andrea From jgh at mdfs.net Wed Jan 4 08:56:27 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:56:27 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47eae29ae6f58b2fc1d426011569bed1@mdfs.net> ard wrote: >> You don't need line numbers in BBC BASIC either if you don't use >> GOTO, GOSUB or RESTORE nnnn. > > Maybe not in the more recent (Archimedes, etc) versions, but the > version > I run on my Beebs (and the 6502 side of my ACW) certainly requires > line > numbers. Only to actually enter the code from the keyboard. The program itself doesn't need line numbers, and you don't need to enter them if you write the code with a screen editor instead of the line editor. -- J.G.Harston - jgh at mdfs.net - mdfs.net/jgh From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 17:32:29 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 15:32:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Chuck Guzis >If you've been exposed to machine langauge before an HLL, I suspect >that you gain a deeper understanding of how langauges work. ?Omgosh why before? Why not after? How many, but the truly deranged/depraved, learned machine language (machine language!) as their first language??? I mean no offense to those who learned ml on a keypad. Oh who am I kidding. I could care less if I pissed them off!. But I learned assembler on a k/b! The real man's way! ?Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a check today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast majority probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. But what do I know. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 3 16:56:50 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:56:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Toby Thain >Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to powerful >abstractions. There's not such a huge distance between Fortran and BASIC! ?A well known fact in some circles. And this is why they both bloody rock! Both are dead easy to get started in (alright most FORTRANs I know of make you format your code properly, but what's wrong w/that for a beginner's language?). BASIC let's you be more sloppy (not so good a thing). I don't know about melding FORTRAN w/assembler, probably no more difficult then in BASIC, and which of us didn't get into that w/our Commy 64s and cheap pc's? ?For most people assembler is something of a dog to learn, especially on your own (but I did it w/the right text - yes text, not something typically found on bookstore bookshelves. Self teaching yourself assembler w/something by Sam's or whatever was a total exercise in frustration). But those that stuck it out found that all that crap sort of "clicked" 6 months to a year down the road. Granted if you started w/BASIC, and I was very young, the "hardest" part (it seemed) was having to send directives to the assembler. It was just a pain to me. It's almost the same every friggin time (though not always). I guess I was just lazy and spoiled and has something less then an ideal background (er, in BASIC). I just wanted to get down and dirty. Spare me the details. ?But as for data types, control structures, etc. in BASIC, who needs that w/an introductory language? A lot of people would get turned off if bogged down in all that. If you're in your early teens anyway. >What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? At least the kids learning today might learn something that still serves them in 10, 20 years. It's not like the >world is moving back towards BASIC... ?Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on disk. You betcha. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 12:28:59 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:28:59 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> References: , , <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 17:46, Dave McGuire wrote: > Logo is an interesting first choice...keeps things interesting and > fun. I also agree with your last choice. But C#...teaching a > proprietary single-platform commercial language designed with vendor > lock-in as its first criteria, which came into being purely with the > goal of unseating another language, isn't a good idea at all to > present in academia, unless presented as a sidebar entitled "here's > how perversely greedy the industry you're about to go into can get". I'm struggling to remember the name of a language I read about back in the late 70s or early 80s. It was part of a "natural language programming for the uninitiated" trend back then. It had statements like: TAKE THE THIRD THROUGH THE 17-TH CHARACTER OF MYDATA AND SHOW THEM. The language allowed for considerable leeway in abbreviation and tolerated lots of "junk fill" words. Anyone remember this? --Chuck From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jan 4 12:40:35 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:40:35 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC (was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06d201cccb10$5911b630$0b352290$@sudbrink@verizon.net> A simple implementation, done at the time, was to tie the RDOS ROM chip enable pin to the S-100 PHANTOM line with a diode. I have both 4 and 16 FDCs modified that way and it works very well. Bill S. From vintagecoder at aol.com Wed Jan 4 12:42:51 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:42:51 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Hell, my Ada brainf$$k interpreter for x86_64 Linux is 169K. If I didn't have to screw around with ASCII/EBCDIC issues I would try to see how small a bf interpreter FORTRAN G could generate. I actually thought of trying to write a compiler in modern FORTRAN since I seem to be too old to learn anything new, but the F90 and later language is so wierd and ugly (good grief, lower case and indentation?! Sacrilege!) I decided against it. I thought I had read one of the early IBM FORTRAN compilers was written in FORTRAN but the G & H compilers appear to be in assembler like all the other OS/360 stuff. SNOBOL4 and SPITBOL-360 for IBM are both written in assembler. SNOBOL4 is arguably written in MINIMAL but the IBM implementation is assembler with heavy usage of macros. Whatever the intermediate language is, at the end of the day it's an all assembler implementation, like almost everything ever written for the mainframe. I think part of SPITBOL is self-hosted but I haven't looked into it. I have the source somewhere. Were earlier SNOBOL versions for IBM written in FORTRAN or was that only on other platforms? -----Original Message----- From: "Chuck Guzis" Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2012 14:32:08 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On 3 Jan 2012 at 13:41, Richard wrote: > They're all turing equivalent, so you could write the same thing in > Brainfuck as you could in FORTRAN, but I'm pretty sure you would > rather work in FORTAN 66. The same comparison works with modern > languages to put FORTRAN 66 on the losing side So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for I/O? How many languages were first written in FORTRAN? SNOBOL, for sure, as well as PL/M. Several FORTRAN compilers that I know of were written in FORTRAN for the most part. Quite a number of cross- assemblers were also written in FORTRAN. --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 12:56:11 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 10:56:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Guy claims to have re-badged VIC-1001 In-Reply-To: <1325685271.46749.YahooMailNeo@web113505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> from Christian Liendo at "Jan 4, 12 05:54:31 am" Message-ID: <201201041856.q04IuBZw015668@floodgap.com> > Ebay Item 320822744546 > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320822744546 > > His title "VERY RARE: This Commodore VIC-20 is a Re-badged VIC-1001. Made > In Japan." > > Am I crazy or wasn't all the VICs made in Japan?_ Most were, and Commodore reused the case design, of course. What this probably is, is an FCC testing prototype or dealer demo model. Still worth something to collectors, I suppose. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "A View To A Kill" --------------------------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 12:57:03 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 13:57:03 -0500 Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:02 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: > > During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up > and which I could take home. > > A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, I'd like to know more about this... vendor? model number? photos? -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 13:34:26 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 11:34:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120104113200.A37747@shell.lmi.net> > > But, I've actually had students ask why there isn't a "plus or minus", or > > a "not equal" character for use in C if() statements. So, I pass a VT100 > > keyboard around the room. On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > Shouldn't you pass around a teletype instead? For other courses, perhaps, although it's a little bulky, and a VT100 (or PC) keyboard is small and light. But the point that I try to make was to consider what was in front of the early develpers and users of the language. What terminals were they using? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 13:39:55 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:39:55 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com>, <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 19:01, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > > A very early memory of mine was reading a BASIC program for the > > first > > time. I saw a line like this: > > 40 A = A + 1 > > ...and I remember being very confused, saying "no, it isn't!!" > > Pascal's assignment operator does little to address this, and > > APL's > > does it well, but since all it took was reading like two sentences > > in a book to learn what was going on, it seems this isn't really a > > big problem in search of a solution. And the number of times that I've seen the = used in C conditionals instead of == is amazing. I note that many writers have adopted the "if ( constant == expression)" form rather than the somewhat more intuitive "if ( expression==constant)" just to catch this kind of error. Say what you want about FORTRAN, but the .EQ. conditional test could never be mistaken for an assignment. When I first saw the BASIC conditional of = for equality testing, I told myself "There's going to be trouble there." Then we could wander off into Verilog syntax and go on about the common error of using = instead of <=. But we all know that Verilog isn't a programming language.... :) --Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 4 13:53:57 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:53:57 -0700 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: In article , Ethan Dicks writes: > Here's the whole rant: > http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html Wow. Reading that just lowered my opinion of him, although not substantially. It reads more like a usenet post to alt.flame than something that speaks of "truths". He savages pretty much every au courant language of the time except Algol. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 4 13:55:06 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:55:06 -0700 Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , "E. Groenenberg" writes: > During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up > and which I could take home. > > [...] > a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III What's in the spares kit? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Wed Jan 4 13:59:35 2012 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:59:35 +0100 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Message-ID: <201201042000.q04K027N054189@billy.ezwind.net> > One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is > that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the > high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers > - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. Are you aware of FreeBASIC (the one with the nice horsy logo) and had a look whether that floats your boat? This is an extendable freeware BASIC programming environment for Windoze (I dunno if it's available for other platforms too, I don't care at the moment) which can be enabled to do sound, Windows GUI widgets, networking primitives and the like via downloadable modules/libraries, which should be well documented and examples provided. I located and installed it a few years ago as a win- and TCP-enabled replacement for Turbo BASIC, both for my usual day-to-day diddling and intending to program a control application/"driver" for some not-quite-xterm, but couldn't scrounge up the spare time for more than a very cursory examination 'til now. Arno Kletzander ...sent from my HTC Magician PDA From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 14:08:09 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:08:09 -0600 Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: nice haul of randomnes from work On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 8:02 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: > > During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up > and which I could take home. > > A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, > 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface & 64KW mem > one complete 11/24 (cpu. KT24, 128Kw mem) > a test unit for SMD drives (for CDC & RM02/3/5), > a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III > a box full with all kinds of DEC loop-back test connectors > a crt testkit with 8 different tube connection boards. > > Ed > > -- > Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. > > From rga24 at cantab.net Wed Jan 4 14:22:18 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 04 Jan 2012 20:22:18 +0000 Subject: Guy claims to have re-badged VIC-1001 In-Reply-To: <1325685271.46749.YahooMailNeo@web113505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325685271.46749.YahooMailNeo@web113505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Jan 4 2012, Christian Liendo wrote: > > >Ebay Item 320822744546 > >http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320822744546 > > His title "VERY RARE: This Commodore VIC-20 is a Re-badged VIC-1001. Made > In Japan." > >Am I crazy or wasn't all the VICs made in Japan? It's a PET keyboard VIC 20. One of the early ones. It's a rebadged VIC-1001, if you like, in the sense that all VIC 20s are rebadged VIC-1001s. The VIC-1001 came out first. I have VIC 20s made in Germany, England, USA and Canada. None made in Japan. From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Wed Jan 4 14:30:17 2012 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:30:17 -0600 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201032255.q03MtKwb006074@floodgap.com> References: from Tony Duell at "Jan 3, 12 08:39:49 pm",<201201032255.q03MtKwb006074@floodgap.com> Message-ID: > From: spectre at floodgap.com > Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 14:55:20 -0800 > > > > > In genral, BASICs were not extendable like that. It is very difficult to > > > > add new keywords ot a BASIC interpretter, and the way to do it is not > > > > often docuemnted. > > > > > > MICROS~1 BASIC typically has a somewhat awkward DEFUSR function in the > > > language to let you create and call machine language code. If you can > > > > Sure. Most BASICs had some way to call machine language routines. But > > doing so was totally differnet to using built-in fucntions (or using > > BASIC subroutines) and requried you gerneally to remember th rright > > addresses. Better tnan nothing, but a kludge. > > That's not quite right. If you knew your stuff, for example, you could > put USR() to very good, er, use. One of my earliest hacks was something > that looked at the RAM under ROM on a C64. I wrote a USR routine that got > its argument from FAC#1, turned it into an integer, banked out ROM, copied out > a value, turned it back into a float and stuffed it in FAC#1, so I could > either PEEK() or USR() an address. > > Even SYS/CALL/etc. could be made more useful if you knew the BASIC routines > to get and grab parameters. jsr $aefd:jsr $ad9e:jsr $b7f7 is burned in my > brain (check for and skip a comma, call BASIC FRMEVL to get an expression > and then turn it into a 16-bit integer at $0014-5) allowing stuff like > SYS49152,3+35*X to work. > > My current idiom on the C64 is BASIC for stuff that isn't speed critical and > assembly for the rest. Such stuff benefits from simple tools like that. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- "Garbage in -- gospel out" ------------------------------------------------- An easy way to add commands is replace the vector to SYNTAX ERROR with your own parser. I did this for a commercial product, USDATA industrial BASIC, adding PLC communication commands (Allen Bradley, Modicon) to a disassembled MS basic. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 14:42:37 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:42:37 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> On 3 Jan 2012 at 15:32, Chris M wrote: > ?Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a check > today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast majority > probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. But what do I > know. I'm struggling to understand what point you're trying to get across. My point was that it's probably best to learn arithmetic before one learns algebra or calculus--that is, to understand the way numbers work. Of course, some would disagree. But if you don't understand how a computer works, it's hard to believe that programming languages will come easy to you. Of course, there are plenty of people in middle-school bands who learned to play a musical instrument who don't understand the first thing about musical theory or even how and why their instrument works. The administration cares only that the band can play the school fight song at athletic events. Understanding be damned.. It's my contention that there are educational systems set up to accomplish the same sort of thing in information technology. --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 14:43:20 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:43:20 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <674490A232B74121934A07F971C7D07B@vl420mt> References: <674490A232B74121934A07F971C7D07B@vl420mt> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 6:10 PM, MikeS wrote: > But I suspect many of the programmers actually writing code in the 'real' > world today are somewhat younger than 45 or 50, and did indeed start on an > 8-bitter of the 70's and 80's when the whole field exploded. I'm 45. I consider my start to be learning to program on a PET (a 4K PET down at the public library at first, then my own 32K PET a couple of years later) which led directly to my first job, programming applications in BASIC and assembler on the C-64. Many of my younger co-workers' first experiences were on a C-64; a much smaller number learned BASIC on Apples or Ataris. Some are young enough that their first computer experience was using an MS-DOS-based PC, but none of those individuals tell any stories about writing any software on them, just playing games. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 14:54:07 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 12:54:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 3, 12 05:49:39 pm" Message-ID: <201201042054.q04Ks7Ba005626@floodgap.com> > I've looked at it, but haven't tried writing anything in it yet. Plua was the best way to write apps on PalmOS. I made so many useful little one-offs when I was a medical student so I didn't kill anybody. former maintainer of the Mac OS X pluac, -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx ------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 14:57:36 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:57:36 -0500 Subject: Cheap Chinese electrolytics - a plague - Re: TV -> D-Sub converter possible? In-Reply-To: <20111218200549.GE41884@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <4EE94D90.6050905@telegraphics.com.au> <4EE95C33.1060401@neurotica.com> <20111215132107.GA22313@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4EEA374B.4000506@neurotica.com> <20111216165005.GE28813@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4EEBA5D7.8030200@neurotica.com> <20111218200549.GE41884@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > It was only this single Part on the picture about that I've sayd this can't > be made econmically even for a chinese. The price difference between the > original part and the small noname cap and the additional used parts > (Housing, tube, print, bottom and contacts plus the needed work) will > really be to small, even for an chinese worker. Don't overestimate the costs of making fake products compared to real ones. It's unlikely the maker of that cap-in-a-cap paid full price for the inner cap, and the outer shell/print/bottom are a fixed cost anyway - they just saved on a) having to have/run a machine that rolls real caps and b) the full cost on the materials for a real cap. It's probably they picked up a truckload of smaller caps at pennies on the dollar (or yuan) and _that_ can easily be cheaper than making legitimate product from fair-market raw materials. And even if the profit margin is only $0.05 per unit more than doing it "right", someone will still be happy to take home that extra profit at the consumer's expense. -ethan From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 4 15:11:12 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:11:12 -0700 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F04C070.6010302@brouhaha.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I wrote at lot of hybrid BASIC/6502-machine-code programs > back in the day. In the Commodore world (PET BASIC all the > way through the C-128), you had the USR() function, which was > handy if you wanted to pass one floating-point arg to your > program and/or wanted your routine to pass you back a value In the C64 (and maybe VIC20), someone at Commodore hacked the Microsoft BASIC to have RAM hooks that could be used to add statements or modify expression processing. The work was clearly done by someone who wasn't really all that familiar with the internals of Microsoft 6502 BASIC, because the hooks were installed in suboptimal places in the ROM code, making it slightly trickier to add those extensions than it needed to be. In early 1982, I wrote a program that added structured programming statements, hexadecimal constants, and various other useful stuff, but the company that was going to sell it flaked out. I had been using their Commodore equipment, which I had to send back to them, and I didn't have the money to buy a C64 (then $595) and 1541 (then around $400) to continue development. I suppose I should have found another company to sell the software, or just given it away. Hindsight is 20/20. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 15:09:19 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 13:09:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102143007.E61599@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120104123744.Q41929@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I wrote at lot of hybrid BASIC/6502-machine-code programs back in the > day. In the Commodore world (PET BASIC all the way through the > C-128), you had the USR() function, which was handy if you wanted to > pass one floating-point arg to your program and/or wanted your routine > to pass you back a value - just POKE the address of your code into the > documented USR() vector location so BASIC could hit it via a > JMP-indirect instruction ($6C), or if you didn't need to pass args > in/out (or you were willing to play parser tricks), just directly call > your routine with SYS. It was all clearly described in the manuals - > I wouldn't call it a kludge, just a method that was probably present > in Microsoft BASICs that might not have been present in versions of > BASIC that was, for lack of a better term, more Dartmouth-like. Note: using the BASIC floating point accumulator as a means to pass a value back from a machine language routine resulted in a program that would work on 5150, but would NOT work on ANY of the clones (Compaq, etc.) In 1982, PC-WORLD did a comparison of clones. They referred to Xeno-copy as "the acid test", because the copy that they had would run on 5150s, but not any clone. The copy that they had was not a current one - it clearly stated on the title page that that version was only for real IBM PCs and to contact the publisher for versions for other machines. My publisher, may the rot in pieces, deliberately kept that market split, to "increase sales, and frustrate piracy". (They had a lot of experience being pirates) PC-World didn't bother to mention that, nor that the current version ran on anything that ran PC-DOS (I had immediately changed the code to bring back the return code from INT13h in a memory location). It cost sales. It also gave me the idea for "XenoPhobe : The Acid Test" which was a never released program specifically for quantifying compatability. Confessions: many commercial programs in those days were written in BASIC ! and then that information would be hidden. Overheard at a Comdex party: Q: What language is your program written in? A: Sorry, can't answer that. Q: Oh. Which BASIC compiler do you use? I rewrote in C before I began doing my own marketing. (HINT: which C compiler author argued that K&R did NOT specify puts() appending a newline?) There was not a SCHEME compiler available at the time, and some of the early SCHEME compilers were unable to use their 64K of stack space for recursion of anything more than trivial classroom exercises. I assume that the current ones have improved that. I wrote a bunch of additional commercial software, but nothing ever again in BASIC. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 15:16:55 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 13:16:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on > disk. > You betcha. . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on the disk! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 15:28:13 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:28:13 -0500 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > Like it too. > I've repaired several old computers (no PDP8) and it is always fascinating > to read such blogs. I know "mass dead effects" of several TTL chips too Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. For my testing, I rigged up a 3M test clip (http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/389650-16-pin-test-clip-3-row-space-923700.html) to a ribbon cable with two IDC headers crimped on one end about an inch apart so that I could mount one IDC connector on each side of the clip, then cobbled up an adapter for the other end of the cable from a wire-wrap socket so that in the end, I had a cable that could clip onto one IC and fit into the ZIF socket of a hand-held IC tester. I would test my FLIP-CHIP modules out of the box, letting the tester power all the ICs on the board but only fiddle the lines on the chip under test. With that device, I could test a pile of M111, M113... M216, etc., boards in a few minutes and identify failed ICs. Complex boards like the M220 Major Registers module, though, still have to be tested the hard way. -ethan From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 4 15:39:48 2012 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:39:48 -0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0A8506B18B8249CEB019AF4584BCD60D@ANTONIOPC> Ian King [IanK at vulcan.com]wrote: > My OS professor in my Masters program said he worked with > Dijkstra for a time, and claimed that he really was a > curmudgeon. Well, that wasn't the exact word my instructor I heard him lecture once - very entertaining. I can only imagine how entertaining it must have been to have been one of his students :-) Antonio arcarlini at iee.org From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 15:51:14 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 13:51:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Vintage Coder wrote: > I actually thought of trying to write a compiler in modern FORTRAN since > I seem to be too old to learn anything new, but the F90 and later > language is so wierd and ugly (good grief, lower case and indentation?! > Sacrilege!) I decided against it. F90 and even Fortran77 are nice languages for some people, BUT THEY AIN'T FORTRAN ! > I thought I had read one of the early IBM FORTRAN compilers was written > in FORTRAN but the G & H compilers appear to be in assembler like all > the other OS/360 stuff. It used to be that EVERY CS grad student wrote a new language, as a rite of passage. I don't know whether that was required by the university, or just social pressure. One of the "requirements" was that the final version of it must have been written in it and compiled BY IT. (Obviously earlier versions must have used assemblers and/or compilers of other languages) While it seems like a nice "proof" of the language, it very clearly shows a lack of understanding that if the new language was not intended for, and designed as, a compiler authoring tool, that that would certainly NOT be the best choice for creation of the final product. Of course, many schools (UC Berkeley) DON'T CARE about that, and teach that if the only problems are speed and size performance, that the correct solution is throw hardware at them! "If you want to sort an array larger than 64K, then GET MORE RAM." "If it's too slow, then use a faster computer." (also used by OS tech support with, "I'm amazed that it can even RUN on such obsolete [1 year old], inadequate [Are YOU inadequate?] hardware! Try something more current!") Note: I made my Data Structures and Algorithms students write a MERGE program to combine two already sorted files. I've heard UC grads insist that the CORRECT way to write it is to append the two files, load the result into memory, and use a Shell Metzner sort. [How many things are wrong with THAT?] C is pretty good for writing compilers, and it takes little more than "The dragon book" (Aho & Ullman) plus a LOT of time and effort to produce one. C is best at systems programming, particularly due to how easy it is to shove it out of your way if you need to get closer to the hardware, but C is often MISUSED for writing general purpose and even business programs, for which it can be spectacularly inappropriate. FORTRAN is well suited for many things, including a lot of different kinds of scientific programming, but is NOT a good choice for writing compilers. Maybe F90 might be better, to use INSTEAD OF FORTRAN. PASCAL is a good rigorous INTERMEDIATE (not first exposure) teaching language. It's usable, but not great, for compiler writing. For example, see the runtime library used in the early Microsoft compilers, particularly their FORTRAN compiler (where simple benchmarks, such as a "Sieve of Erastothanes" run slower than interpreted BASIC) What is SCHEME best suited for? (An answer of "EVERYTHING" will destroy your credibility.) Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 16:02:42 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:02:42 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120104113200.A37747@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <20120104113200.A37747@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> > But, I've actually had students ask why there isn't a "plus or minus", or >> > a "not equal" ?character for use in C if() statements. ?So, I pass a VT100 >> > keyboard around the room. > > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: >> Shouldn't you pass around a teletype instead? > > For other courses, perhaps, although it's a little bulky, and a VT100 (or > PC) keyboard is small and light. I was thinking that a VT100 keyboard hurts less when it falls into your lap when you are passing it around the room. > But the point that I try to make was to consider what was in front of the > early develpers and users of the language. ? What terminals were they > using? According to http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html ... "By early 1973, the essentials of modern C were complete. The language and compiler were strong enough to permit us to rewrite the Unix kernel for the PDP-11 in C during the summer of that year." The VT52 came out in 1975, the VT100 (with its embedded 8080 chewing on ANSI codes) came out in 1978, well after the nature of C was established. So during the critical interval of 1971-1973, when B became C, what terminals would have been in common usage at Bell Labs? In particular, what would have they (Ken and DMR) have typed their curly braces on? (since ASR-33s lack them) -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 16:05:22 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:05:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com>, <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120104135916.U41929@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > And the number of times that I've seen the = used in C conditionals > instead of == is amazing. I note that many writers have adopted the > "if ( constant == expression)" form rather than the somewhat more > intuitive "if ( expression==constant)" just to catch this kind of > error. Prob'ly the single most common error by C writers. Followed by accidental inclusion of a semi-colon after a condition: while (3 > X); { . . . There's almost always at least one student asking, "Then why doesn't the compiler prevent it?" My answer is, "A GOOD compiler might give you a WARNING, for which you should be grateful. But, it should never PREVENT suspicious code, because you might WANT to write something like while (*T++ = *S++); " > Say what you want about FORTRAN, but the .EQ. conditional test could > never be mistaken for an assignment. Like the arrow for assignment in APL, some languages have things that others should learn from! > When I first saw the BASIC > conditional of = for equality testing, I told myself "There's going > to be trouble there." Yep! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 16:11:06 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:11:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Randy Dawson at "Jan 4, 12 02:30:17 pm" Message-ID: <201201042211.q04MB6G1015960@floodgap.com> > An easy way to add commands is replace the vector to SYNTAX ERROR with your > own parser. Actually, for those Microsoft BASICs with a CHRGET routine in RAM, easier still was to wedge (hence the name) into that. On PETs that was the only way you could do it, in fact. Its chief drawback was speed. For that matter, altering the tokenizer vector (such as ICRUNCH on the 64) is a better method than trapping errors. Lots of C64 tools added commands in that fashion. But for my own projects, I usually just use SYS/USR and extensions to get parameters. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn ------------------------- From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 16:21:43 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 22:21:43 +0000 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201042000.q04K027N054189@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201042000.q04K027N054189@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2012 9:49 PM, "Arno Kletzander" wrote: > > > One of the things that frustrates me with C21 OSs and languages is > > that the graphics facilities of machines are locked away behind the > > high walls of libraries and APIs designed for professional developers > > - which are simply too hard for an interested amateur such as myself. > > Are you aware of FreeBASIC (the one with the nice horsy logo) and had a look whether that floats your boat? This is an extendable freeware BASIC programming environment for Windoze > (I dunno if it's available for other platforms too, I don't care at the moment) which can be enabled to do sound, Windows GUI widgets, networking primitives and the like via downloadable modules/libraries, which should be well documented and examples provided. > > I located and installed it a few years ago as a win- and TCP-enabled replacement for Turbo BASIC, both for my usual day-to-day diddling and intending to program a control application/"driver" for some not-quite-xterm, but couldn't scrounge up the spare time for more than a very cursory examination 'til now. > I am indeed aware of it but I've not really looked at it yet. I must do. All my pro type mates are horrified by the mere thought & treat any mention of it as much if I'd said that I thought I might try intravenous heroin just for a laugh. ;-) Some want me to try Python, some Ruby, some Lisp, some Scheme, some Perl. One suggests FreePascal. None approve of Free BASIC. Poor unloved thing. - LP From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 16:24:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:24:27 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> On 01/04/2012 03:42 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Of course, some would disagree. But if you don't understand how a > computer works, it's hard to believe that programming languages will > come easy to you. > > Of course, there are plenty of people in middle-school bands who > learned to play a musical instrument who don't understand the first > thing about musical theory or even how and why their instrument > works. > > The administration cares only that the band can play the school fight > song at athletic events. Understanding be damned.. It's my > contention that there are educational systems set up to accomplish > the same sort of thing in information technology. This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at the assembly language level. This is something that many (most?) people think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's not. Looking at the state of software today proves my point beyond any shadow of a doubt. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 16:33:33 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 22:33:33 +0000 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2012 9:39 PM, "Richard" wrote: > > > In article , > Ethan Dicks writes: > > > Here's the whole rant: > > http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > Wow. > > Reading that just lowered my opinion of him, although not substantially. > > It reads more like a usenet post to alt.flame than something that > speaks of "truths". > > He savages pretty much every au courant language of the time except > Algol. Indeed he does. What /did/ he approve of, then? Something he created himself, perchance? (Did he do so, in fact?) - LP From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 16:40:28 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:40:28 -0500 Subject: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <201201032255.q03MtKwb006074@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Randy Dawson wrote: > An easy way to add commands is replace the vector to SYNTAX ERROR with your own parser. > > I did this for a commercial product, USDATA industrial BASIC, adding PLC communication commands (Allen Bradley, Modicon) to a disassembled MS basic. Here's what you get to play with under Microsoft ROM BASIC on the C-64... IERROR 0300-0301 768-769 Vector: Print BASIC Error Message IMAIN 0302-0303 770-771 Vector: BASIC Warm Start ICRNCH 0304-0305 772-773 Vector: Tokenize BASIC Text IQPLOP 0306-0307 774-775 Vector: BASIC Text LIST IGONE 0308-0309 776-777 Vector: BASIC Char. Dispatch IEVAL 030A-030B 778-779 Vector: BASIC Token Evaluation The drawback with grabbing the error vector is that part of what you may want to see has already gone past the parser pointer, so you either have to back that up, or accept some character overhead every time you want to "extend" the language. Since PET BASIC did not have these vectors and since many C-64 tool writers started with PETs, the typical mechanism was to jump in front of the regular parser (by patching the CHRGONE routine in low RAM), look for your own token, then either handle the rest yourself, or let the BASIC detokenizer handle it. A few cycles of overhead, sure, but the technique worked across multiple platforms. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 17:28:29 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:28:29 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F04E09D.9050803@neurotica.com> On 01/03/2012 10:01 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> A very early memory of mine was reading a BASIC program for the first >> time. I saw a line like this: >> 40 A = A + 1 >> ...and I remember being very confused, saying "no, it isn't!!" >> Pascal's assignment operator does little to address this, and APL's >> does it well, but since all it took was reading like two sentences in a >> book to learn what was going on, it seems this isn't really a big >> problem in search of a solution. > > Whilst attempting to explain the difference between equality and > assignment, I wrote: > N = 1 > N = N + 1 > I told the class, "That is a proof by INDUCTIVE LOGIC that all numbers are > the same. That would bring about total destruction of the universe. > Therefore, never let any mathematician see it! Oh, wait. Are there any > mathematicians in this class?" > > A few, very few, got it. ROFL!! -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 17:32:31 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:32:31 -0500 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: References: <4F037050.3030601@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F04E18F.4060300@neurotica.com> Nope...unless they've added one in the past year and a half or so, which I'd probably have heard about, the one labeled "Cray I" there is just an SSD. -Dave On 01/03/2012 08:18 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > That's not a cray1 cpu tower there? Or has that been moved? Last I heard > there was a full tower system there > On Jan 3, 2012 4:51 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > >> On 01/03/2012 03:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: >> >>> Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. >>> Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely >>> worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even >>> brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an >>> NSA >>> t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor >>> board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun >>> just >>> to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being >>> run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The >>> modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In >>> case >>> you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little >>> mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key >>> length or key escrow. >>> >>> But worth a detour? Definitely. >>> >> >> I second this wholeheartedly. I used to go there regularly, when I lived >> just a few miles from there. I've had many a long talk with the staffers >> there. >> >> By far the best part of that place, IMO, is the Enigma exhibit. To walk >> up and operate a real Enigma is an awesome experience. >> >> The last time I was there, there was a PDP-11/70 on exhibit. Is it still >> there? >> >> Oh, and...I'm sorry to bust your bubble, but about the "Cray I"...it's >> not a "Cray I", it's just an SSD (Solid-State Disk) assembly that was >> possibly once attached to a Cray I. >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> New Kensington, PA >> -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 17:34:15 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:34:15 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F04E1F7.30704@neurotica.com> On 01/03/2012 06:32 PM, Chris M wrote: >> If you've been exposed to machine langauge before an HLL, I >> suspect that you gain a deeper understanding of how langauges >> work. > > Omgosh why before? Why not after? How many, but the truly > deranged/depraved, learned machine language (machine language!) as > their first language??? I mean no offense to those who learned ml on > a keypad. Oh who am I kidding. I could care less if I pissed them > off!. But I learned assembler on a k/b! The real man's way! > > Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a check > today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast majority > probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. But what do I > know. I had to read this about three times before I realized that by "ml" you meant "machine language", not the language "ML". -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 17:46:46 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:46:46 -0600 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: would this kit work? http://azur-electronics.com/images/HP%205015T%20c.JPG *HP 5015T LOGIC TROUBLESHOOTING KIT * On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > > Like it too. > > I've repaired several old computers (no PDP8) and it is always > fascinating > > to read such blogs. I know "mass dead effects" of several TTL chips too > > Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my > experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found > more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. > > For my testing, I rigged up a 3M test clip > ( > http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/389650-16-pin-test-clip-3-row-space-923700.html > ) > to a ribbon cable with two IDC headers crimped on one end about an > inch apart so that I could mount one IDC connector on each side of the > clip, then cobbled up an adapter for the other end of the cable from a > wire-wrap socket so that in the end, I had a cable that could clip > onto one IC and fit into the ZIF socket of a hand-held IC tester. I > would test my FLIP-CHIP modules out of the box, letting the tester > power all the ICs on the board but only fiddle the lines on the chip > under test. > > With that device, I could test a pile of M111, M113... M216, etc., > boards in a few minutes and identify failed ICs. Complex boards like > the M220 Major Registers module, though, still have to be tested the > hard way. > > -ethan > From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 4 17:56:26 2012 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:56:26 -0000 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> Richard [legalize at xmission.com] wrote: > As someone who learned BASIC first and then a slew of other > languages later, I would also disagree with Dijkstra's > statement. It's a nice sound bite that gets people's > attention, but it's neither a truism, nor is it even an > essential statement about programming. It's just his bias > showing through. Dijkstra was more interested in whether you could prove that your program behaved according to its specification. Whether your program worked every time you ran it was less important than whether it could conceivably fail. Don't forget that you couldn't meet his definition of programmer without being a mathematician. It's apples and oranges, I think. Antonio From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 4 18:02:59 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:02:59 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120104135916.U41929@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com>, <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> <20120104135916.U41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F04E8B3.4030700@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/4/2012 3:05 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Yep! Nope ... LET BAR=FOO vs IF FOO=BAR > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > > From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:03:09 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:03:09 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <20120104113200.A37747@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <8457AF58-8FAD-410A-9D16-E3C538B17FCE@gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2012, at 5:02 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > So during the critical interval of 1971-1973, when B became C, what > terminals would have been in common usage at Bell Labs? In > particular, what would have they (Ken and DMR) have typed their curly > braces on? (since ASR-33s lack them) Simple (graphical) answer: http://nushackers.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/nerdpol-ken-den.jpg - Dave From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 18:18:32 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:18:32 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F047BD8.17254.1582CB4@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 13:51, Fred Cisin wrote: > > F90 and even Fortran77 are nice languages for some people, > BUT THEY AIN'T FORTRAN ! I was an alternate rep to X3J3 (vector extensions) for what was supposed to be FORTRAN 8X, but the quarreling and threats from various vendors made the meetings resemble blood feuds. At one point, both DEC and IBM threatenned to leave--particularly bad form, in my opinion. I think the die was cast from the moment the committee decided that the purpose of a standards committe was to invent language rather than to certify certain current practices. Even today, I can't stand to look at Fortran 90 or anything later. I can manage FORTRAN 77 because it tolerates FORTRAN 66 syntax. They took my simple homespun darling and turned her into a harlot. --Chuck From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:20:03 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 00:20:03 -0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <0F7C9D2EBDB24C32B951CB8B6D5A3020@EMACHINE> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: 04 January 2012 22:24 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for > 8080/Z80 BASIC > > > On 01/04/2012 03:42 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > Of course, some would disagree. But if you don't understand how a > > computer works, it's hard to believe that programming languages will > > come easy to you. > > > > Of course, there are plenty of people in middle-school bands who > > learned to play a musical instrument who don't understand the first > > thing about musical theory or even how and why their instrument > > works. > > > > The administration cares only that the band can play the > school fight > > song at athletic events. Understanding be damned.. It's my > > contention that there are educational systems set up to accomplish > > the same sort of thing in information technology. > > This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a > programmer > these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at > the assembly language level. This is something that many > (most?) people > think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around > statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a > car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's > not. Looking > at the state of software today proves my point beyond any > shadow of a doubt. > It amazes me how little our current programmers know about the windows environment. They wanted to run a scheduled task every minute because they didn't know how to create a service... > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 18:20:48 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:20:48 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <674490A232B74121934A07F971C7D07B@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F04ECE0.60706@neurotica.com> On 01/04/2012 03:43 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> But I suspect many of the programmers actually writing code in the 'real' >> world today are somewhat younger than 45 or 50, and did indeed start on an >> 8-bitter of the 70's and 80's when the whole field exploded. > > I'm 45. I consider my start to be learning to program on a PET (a 4K > PET down at the public library at first, then my own 32K PET a couple > of years later) which led directly to my first job, programming > applications in BASIC and assembler on the C-64. Many of my younger > co-workers' first experiences were on a C-64; a much smaller number > learned BASIC on Apples or Ataris. Some are young enough that their > first computer experience was using an MS-DOS-based PC, but none of > those individuals tell any stories about writing any software on them, > just playing games. ...a time-honored tradition that continues even into today. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 18:25:11 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:25:11 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> References: , <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 13:16, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or > > on disk. You betcha. > > . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware > version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! . . . and, for those > missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on the disk! At one point, I seem to recall that there was a proposal put forward for Plug'n'Pray cards that each would contain a small ROM with some Forth code--the idea being that the card wouldn't be tied to a particular CPU. It never went anywhere, AFAIK. --Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 4 18:30:59 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:30:59 -0700 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: In article , Liam Proven writes: > On Jan 4, 2012 9:39 PM, "Richard" wrote: > > In article 8YgJhGOvCXzd2eMjVeoB1G5qk30-YUo25y03iZ7FKJg at mail.gmail.com>, > > Ethan Dicks writes: > > > > > Here's the whole rant: > > > http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html > > > > Wow. > > > > Reading that just lowered my opinion of him, although not substantially. > > > > It reads more like a usenet post to alt.flame than something that > > speaks of "truths". > > > > He savages pretty much every au courant language of the time except > > Algol. > > Indeed he does. What /did/ he approve of, then? Something he created > himself, perchance? (Did he do so, in fact?) No praise is given, only insults hurled, so it's hard to say. I merely note that Algol survived unscathed. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:41:16 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:41:16 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? > Well, yeah. All my Forth interpreters are written in assembler (the parts that aren't written in Forth, anyway). Often it progresses to adding assembler macros to the interpreter to compile, which then turns it into a Forth compiler. Of course, at that point, you can self-host if you want to (a lot of Forth, Inc.'s implementations used to do that, and I think Chuck Moore's ColorForth does something similar). - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 18:43:45 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:43:45 -0500 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F03038E.9010306@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030D4A.2010704@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2012, at 5:33 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > On Jan 4, 2012 9:39 PM, "Richard" wrote: >> He savages pretty much every au courant language of the time except >> Algol. > > Indeed he does. What /did/ he approve of, then? Something he created > himself, perchance? (Did he do so, in fact?) Well. Algol. - Dave From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 4 19:01:35 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:01:35 -0500 Subject: Cheap Chinese electrolytics - a plague - Re: TV -> D-Sub converter possible? In-Reply-To: References: <4EE94D90.6050905@telegraphics.com.au> <4EE95C33.1060401@neurotica.com> <20111215132107.GA22313@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4EEA374B.4000506@neurotica.com> <20111216165005.GE28813@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4EEBA5D7.8030200@neurotica.com> <20111218200549.GE41884@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <4F04F66F.5010702@telegraphics.com.au> On 04/01/12 3:57 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Holm Tiffe wrote: >> It was only this single Part on the picture about that I've sayd this can't >> be made econmically even for a chinese. The price difference between the >> original part and the small noname cap and the additional used parts >> (Housing, tube, print, bottom and contacts plus the needed work) will >> really be to small, even for an chinese worker. > > Don't overestimate the costs of making fake products compared to real > ones. ... > > And even if the profit margin is only $0.05 per unit more than doing > it "right", someone will still be happy to take home that extra profit > at the consumer's expense. > Precisely. And that's why we have this problem, at all levels. --T > -ethan > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 4 19:12:59 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:12:59 -0500 Subject: 11/34a board sets + operator console interface& 64KW mem - Re: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F04F91B.2010606@telegraphics.com.au> On 04/01/12 9:02 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: > > During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up > and which I could take home. > > A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, > 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface& 64KW mem I'd probably be interested in these if there are no other takers. regards --Toby > one complete 11/24 (cpu. KT24, 128Kw mem) > a test unit for SMD drives (for CDC& RM02/3/5), > a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III > a box full with all kinds of DEC loop-back test connectors > a crt testkit with 8 different tube connection boards. > > Ed > From jecel at merlintec.com Wed Jan 4 20:32:00 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:32:00 -0300 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201050134.q051YUub066105@billy.ezwind.net> Richard wrote: > LOGO is likened to be LISP without parenthesis, which is why it's what > I tell people to play with when they say "what should I tell my kid to > try if he wants to learn programming?". With turtle graphics built > in, it's easy to get sucked into making pictures and forget that > you're learning how to write recursive programs. I am very interested in this thread since I design computers for children, with one of the main goals being to get them to learn programming (more for the side effects of learning how to debug and how to incrementally arrive at working solutions). Back in 1983 I designed a 6809 based computer with Logo in ROM. One issue was the problem domain. Turtle graphics are great, but robotics and games are even more attractive. Robotics was already being worked on in the Lego Logo project, so I concentrated on games. Having multiple concurrent turtles like in Coco Logo would be a good start, and allowing the turtles to have any shape (in TI99/4A Logo you had sprites which could change shape, but those were not turtles) would really help. I also added object orientation, and this feature got used more and more so I ended up switching to Smalltalk in 1984. > Additionally, I think that interpretive environment's like LISP or > LOGO are better for experimentation and rapid feedback. Compiling is > great for speed, but not so good for reinforcing immediate positive > feedback. That is absolutely critical. But one limitation of Logo was that it wasn't self revealing. I have played with many implementations of the language and if I don't have written documentation I can't get very far (specially in implementations based not based on English). Unfortunately, the children didn't get that documentation. If it was available at all, the teacher normally kept it to him/herself. Contrast that with Basic on the Sinclair machines. Every possible command was printed right there on the keyboard. You could try random things and learn without a book. But you normally had a book and a few magazines. Back in the 8 bit era it was hard to do something about this, but in a modern system all the documentation you could want should be in the system itself. One interesting alternative, which I considered for that project, was the 1978 Super Basic for the Bally Astrocade (a Z80 machine, so we are back to the start of this thread) which claimed to be self revealing. It had GOSUB but also allowed you to define your own named functions (it called them macros). These functions used INPUT to read the values supplied as arguments at the call site, but if the argument was missing it would print the associated prompt text and read the value from the keyboard. And all the built in commands worked just like this, so typing in a parcial expression would make the computer print out what additional data it needed. This interpreter was not sold, so a repackaged version of it was developed and sold as the Datamax UV-1 high end machines for video artists and the language was renamed to Zgrass. A side effect of having one Basic command in each key on the Sinclair machines (to make typing in programs tolerable on the horrible keyboards) was that the beginner didn't have to worry about syntax errors. If you typed something and the computer interpreted it as something else you saw it right away and could fix it before going any further. By the time you hit ENTER the syntax was ok, though you might still have logical errors. The free form text entry in Logo made it easier to make syntax errors, though misspelled names were more likely to be a problem. A modern alternative for reducing syntax errors is the use of graphical blocks to represent code, like in Etoys or Scratch (two systems implemented in Squeak Smalltalk). It helps a lot in the beginning, though eventually this gets in the way of writing code. One problem that Logo in general had was that it was seen by everyone involved as a very limited tool. As you mentioned, the language itself certainly doesn't lack power. But most implementations were very weak due to the limited memories. A good interpreter will take up most of 64KB and leave little room for the user's programs. So Logo was used for small projects in elementary school while Basic and Pascal were used in high school. And children quickly tire of things they perceive as being uninteresting to adults or older children. So in my project I put in a lot of effort to have a professional quality interpreter. The hardware included a circuit to have a separate 64KB instruction address space from the 64KB data address space. That allowed the interpreter to live in a 32KB EPROM and still have the full 64KB of RAM for user programs. -- Jecel From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 4 19:43:30 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:43:30 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> On 04/01/12 7:25 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 4 Jan 2012 at 13:16, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: >>> Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or >>> on disk. You betcha. >> >> . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware >> version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! . . . and, for those >> missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on the disk! > > At one point, I seem to recall that there was a proposal put forward > for Plug'n'Pray cards that each would contain a small ROM with some > Forth code--the idea being that the card wouldn't be tied to a > particular CPU. > > It never went anywhere, AFAIK. That was implemented as http://www.openfirmware.org/ (found in Suns, Macs, etc). The format is Fcode; it's actually a brilliant idea that of course was of more pressing importance when the hardware market was actually heterogeneous. --Toby > > --Chuck > > From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 4 19:48:45 2012 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:48:45 -0600 Subject: server outage Message-ID: My apologies... the classiccmp server crashed, and it took some real doing to get it functional again. It was not a hardware issue, it was an issue with both Xen and FreeNAS (mostly Xen as to the delay in getting it back up). I'm embarrassed to admit, but I finally had to open up a per-incident support case with Citrix to get the thing resolved. On the bright side, there are backups (daily) of mysql, the website content directories, and the mailman archive, so no data was ever at risk. However, since those aren't full system backups - recovery from them would have been a bit time-consuming but certainly doable with no data loss. Yes, I'm setting up monthly snapshots (or vm exports) shortly just in case it happens again. Best, J From jecel at merlintec.com Wed Jan 4 20:47:15 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:47:15 -0300 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201050149.q051nj0a066461@billy.ezwind.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for > I/O? PICOBIT is a Scheme that can run on PIC microcontrollers with 6KB of ROM and 1KB of RAM. But it is a cross compiler, not a native system. http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~feeley/papers/StAmourFeeleyIFL09.pdf > How many languages were first written in FORTRAN? SNOBOL, for sure, > as well as PL/M. Several FORTRAN compilers that I know of were > written in FORTRAN for the most part. Quite a number of cross- > assemblers were also written in FORTRAN. PALASM (the grandfather of Verilog and VHDL) was written in FORTRAN. I helped with a 68000 assembler in FORTRAN, and it was not a nice experience. -- Jecel From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 20:01:51 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:01:51 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, Message-ID: <4F04940F.19597.1B6C409@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 19:41, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, > > again? > > Of course, at that point, you can self-host if you want to (a lot of > Forth, Inc.'s implementations used to do that, and I think Chuck > Moore's ColorForth does something similar). Well, even in the limited resource 8-bit days in the 70s, it didn't make sense to write a compiler in assembler, even when you were using assembler to write the code. You first wrote a macro preprocessor or interpreter that implemented a bunch of operations to perform lexical operations--and then you wrote assembler routines to support them. That's the way a number of outfits did it--including Ryan-McFarland, for example. You could take the code for one architecture, rewrite the support routines and the back end code generation and re-host it on a completely different machine. What's harder is the runtime support for any particular machine+OS combination. That was often assembly, due to speed concerns. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 20:02:22 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:02:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer > these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at > the assembly language level. This is something that many (most?) people > think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around > statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a > car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's not. Looking > at the state of software today proves my point beyond any shadow of a doubt. As a former mechanic, I have to disagree. Slightly. Driver (on cellphone): Help! My Prius has been going 90 mile an hour for an hour and a half, and I can't stop it! 911: Put it in neutral. Driver: But if I do that, it'll flip over! 911: Then turn off the engine. Driver: But, if I do that, I'll get rear-ended! Take away his cellphone., and ticket for using it. Take away his car. Frankly, I suspect that Sykes made the bogus call as a way to avoid getting ticketed by a cop who had already seen him. People with THAT level of lack of understanding of the mechanical aspects should not be driving. Why are permitting people to drive who don't know how to stop a car with a stuck accelerator, or with bad brakes? The safety of the rest of the populace requires that people understand more about a vehicle than that. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 4 20:23:25 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:23:25 -0800 Subject: server outage In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F05099D.3020405@bitsavers.org> On 1/4/12 5:48 PM, Jay West wrote: > My apologies... the classiccmp server crashed, and it took some real doing to get it functional again. It was not a hardware issue did the new disks / box upgrade ever happen? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 20:32:53 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:32:53 -0800 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> References: , <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 20:43, Toby Thain wrote: > That was implemented as http://www.openfirmware.org/ (found in Suns, > Macs, etc). > > The format is Fcode; it's actually a brilliant idea that of course was > of more pressing importance when the hardware market was actually > heterogeneous. Finding anything about this is a little difficult--lots of 404s, etc. when trying to search. What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 20:51:35 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:51:35 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com> <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <3CB6FA66-794C-45C0-8101-D80D0A480357@gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2012, at 21:32, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > > What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this > stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. Probably the last PowerPC Macs, or the OLPC, or a few embedded things... Sadly, OF seems to have fallen out of favor, which I think is a real loss. - Dave From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 20:55:33 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:55:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <3CB6FA66-794C-45C0-8101-D80D0A480357@gmail.com> from David Riley at "Jan 4, 12 09:51:35 pm" Message-ID: <201201050255.q052tXpN015040@floodgap.com> > > What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this > > stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. > > Probably the last PowerPC Macs, or the OLPC, or a few embedded things... > Sadly, OF seems to have fallen out of favor, which I think is a real loss. Pretty sure the OLPC. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- lp0 reported invalid error status (on fire, eh?) -- Linux 1.1.62 ----------- From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 20:58:56 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 18:58:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Astrocade was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201050134.q051YUub066105@billy.ezwind.net> from "Jecel Assumpcao Jr." at "Jan 4, 12 11:32:00 pm" Message-ID: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> > One interesting alternative, which I considered for that project, was > the 1978 Super Basic for the Bally Astrocade (a Z80 machine, so we are > back to the start of this thread) which claimed to be self revealing. It > had GOSUB but also allowed you to define your own named functions (it > called them macros). These functions used INPUT to read the values > supplied as arguments at the call site, but if the argument was missing > it would print the associated prompt text and read the value from the > keyboard. And all the built in commands worked just like this, so typing > in a parcial expression would make the computer print out what > additional data it needed. This interpreter was not sold, so a > repackaged version of it was developed and sold as the Datamax UV-1 high > end machines for video artists and the language was renamed to Zgrass. I have an Astrocade and wonder who's got those Datamaxen -- I'd sure love one for mine. Astro BASIC is a marvel, considering the severe constraints in which it must operate. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- To be, or not to be -- that always confused me ... -- "In Living Color" ---- From cctech at vax-11.org Wed Jan 4 21:07:38 2012 From: cctech at vax-11.org (cctech at vax-11.org) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:07:38 -0700 (MST) Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:02 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: >> >> During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up >> and which I could take home. >> >> A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, > > I'd like to know more about this... vendor? model number? photos? > > -ethan > Me too. Clint From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jan 4 21:12:08 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:12:08 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F051508.102@verizon.net> On 01/04/2012 04:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Vintage Coder wrote: >> I actually thought of trying to write a compiler in modern FORTRAN since >> I seem to be too old to learn anything new, but the F90 and later >> language is so wierd and ugly (good grief, lower case and indentation?! >> Sacrilege!) I decided against it. > > F90 and even Fortran77 are nice languages for some people, > BUT THEY AIN'T FORTRAN ! > Never used Fortran. My first language was Darthmuth BASIC on GE Tymeshare. Next year (this was still thae dark ages 1969) I was exposed to be BOCES LYRICS PDP8I Timeshre system BASIC and FOCAL. My pet peve with both was very minimal string handling, I want to answer "yes|YES" to a question not "1". That lead to PAL, and the awkward path to assembler. >> I thought I had read one of the early IBM FORTRAN compilers was written >> in FORTRAN but the G& H compilers appear to be in assembler like all >> the other OS/360 stuff. > It used to be that EVERY CS grad student wrote a new language, as a rite > of passage. I don't know whether that was required by the university, or > just social pressure. > One of the "requirements" was that the final version of it must have been > written in it and compiled BY IT. (Obviously earlier versions must have > used assemblers and/or compilers of other languages) > While it seems like a nice "proof" of the language, it very clearly shows > a lack of understanding that if the new language was not intended for, and > designed as, a compiler authoring tool, that that would certainly NOT be > the best choice for creation of the final product. > Not a CS student and never thought that made sense. Right up there with every machine shop student making a hammer. And not even a good one! > Of course, many schools (UC Berkeley) DON'T CARE about that, and teach > that if the only problems are speed and size performance, that the > correct solution is throw hardware at them! > "If you want to sort an array larger than 64K, then GET MORE RAM." > "If it's too slow, then use a faster computer." (also used by OS tech > support with, "I'm amazed that it can even RUN on such obsolete [1 year > old], inadequate [Are YOU inadequate?] hardware! Try something more > current!") > Thats broke. IF you can get a bigger machine, nice. Most cases you use what you have as in the real world the purchasing isn't delivering before your due date. > Note: I made my Data Structures and Algorithms students write a MERGE > program to combine two already sorted files. I've heard UC grads insist > that the CORRECT way to write it is to append the two files, load the > result into memory, and use a Shell Metzner sort. [How many things are > wrong with THAT?] > > I took data structures using PASCAL at SUNY.. The first day was discussion on how to use 029 and feed the Univac1180, bah! I asked if I coud use my NS* Horizon. After the, whats that?? I would bring it tto the next class and demonstrate UCSD PASCAL running on Z80 with floppies and how using a video scree editor on a H19 terminal (in ansi mode). Youd have thought I've just demonstrated Nuke Fusion.. Needless to say I never learned the 029 or the 1180 but I did learn data structures. > C is pretty good for writing compilers, and it takes little more than "The > dragon book" (Aho& Ullman) plus a LOT of time and effort to produce one. > C is best at systems programming, particularly due to how easy it is to > shove it out of your way if you need to get closer to the hardware, but > C is often MISUSED for writing general purpose and even business programs, > for which it can be spectacularly inappropriate. > C is a basic tool, like a macroassembler. A good library can make programming tasks easier. C is one of the few (PASCAL and Fortran also) that if its on a machine generally we are taking the same language where BASIC often can be variable from tinybasic to all the various flavors that can run some but not always programs from other BASICs. > FORTRAN is well suited for many things, including a lot of different kinds > of scientific programming, but is NOT a good choice for writing compilers. > Maybe F90 might be better, to use INSTEAD OF FORTRAN. > > PASCAL is a good rigorous INTERMEDIATE (not first exposure) teaching > language. It's usable, but not great, for compiler writing. For example, > see the runtime library used in the early Microsoft compilers, > particularly their FORTRAN compiler (where simple benchmarks, such as a > "Sieve of Erastothanes" run slower than interpreted BASIC) > PASCAL to me is like C, for somethings C is too close to the iron where PASCAL is often too far from the iron. So if the task is to talk to iron PASCAL is wrong where C micht not be the best choice to write a database that requires rigorous type checking. > What is SCHEME best suited for? (An answer of "EVERYTHING" will destroy > your credibility.) > > Beats me, never used it, or Ruby or Python to name a few. I've use LUA in embedded 32bit work. Its JALWIOPS.. Just Another Language With Its Peculiar Stuff. Borrowed from the early days: Wygins: What You Get Is No Surpize (early LQ printers and editors). WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get (graphic screen editors with, images and fonts. Often missed is WGMA, What Gets the Message Across. > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? > > I thought C was for that, ducking and running. ;) Seriously C is maybe one step above a good Macroassembler and for PDP11 maybe it is assembler. For some machines I see C used but it fits not at all, PIC and other small chips. I still write code for things like Z80, PIC and 8051 relatives in ASM because even if the rom got bigger, dang it, the tasks did too. The old saw is still true, programs will expand to exceed the available space only now thats typically 8GB and it needs 4 2.8Ghz cores to plow through it. In the end my old NS* Horizon stilll boots faster and prints that letter saying your payment is still overdue. OK, so it's prints to a Laserjet4L and the letter is marked up with Runoff but, the uVAX running current VMS can print that same letter and so can the PC under linux. In the end getting the task done is more than all the fancy cruft and CPUs with a bag on the side. Allison From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 21:19:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:19:46 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Message-ID: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> ROFL...installed in hundreds of thousands, if not milliins of machines running all over the world. Nearly all PPC-based Macs, all Suns (including current ones I think) past the Sun4c family, all reasonably modern RS6000s, what else...it was an IEEE standard for a long time, #1275. -Dave Chuck Guzis wrote: >On 4 Jan 2012 at 20:43, Toby Thain wrote: > >> That was implemented as http://www.openfirmware.org/ (found in Suns, >> Macs, etc). >> >> The format is Fcode; it's actually a brilliant idea that of course was >> of more pressing importance when the hardware market was actually >> heterogeneous. > >Finding anything about this is a little difficult--lots of 404s, etc. >when trying to search. > >What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this >stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. > >--Chuck > From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 21:26:31 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:26:31 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC Message-ID: <3rfxkjcpe9krusscr0cu860x.1325733991502@email.android.com> I agree that it's a big loss, made even worse by some platforms moving to EFI, which is a joke in comparison. Like so many other inferior technologies, EFI was a solution in search of a problem, and some clueless sod in management somewhere decided to force it into some product lines, so now we have to put up with it when we've worked with much better. -Dave David Riley wrote: >On Jan 4, 2012, at 21:32, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > >> >> What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this >> stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. > >Probably the last PowerPC Macs, or the OLPC, or a few embedded things... Sadly, OF seems to have fallen out of favor, which I think is a real loss. > >- Dave From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jan 4 21:24:53 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:24:53 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> On 1/3/2012 2:32 PM, MikeS wrote: > Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:24:36 -0800 > From: Josh Dersch > Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > On 12/31/2011 12:15 PM, MikeS wrote: >> >> ----- Reply: >> >>> Just curious: >>> Does your memory configuration support swapping out the RDOS >>> boot/monitor >>> ROM? > >> Not at the moment, I haven't quite worked out if this can be made to >> work >> properly with non-Cromemco memory boards. The 64FDC manual suggests >> "Set[ting] the switches on the RAM board(s) so that memory from 8000h to >> FFFFh is disabled..." which implies that the boards must support some >> way >> of re-enabling the memory via software (for when the FDC's ROM is >> disabled >> via a write to port 40h). > >> I'm wondering if this board isn't really optimal for this setup -- it >> seems very geared toward having a complete Cromemco setup, which I do >> not >> have. > ---------------- > I don't see why it would be a problem; the RDOS boot/monitor ROM lives at > C000 so it should work with 48K RAM even if you don't disable it; Actually, the board occupies everything from $8000 on up, if the manual is to be believed ("The 64FDC appears on the S-100 bus as a 32K memory card..."). Since the ROM is at most 8K in size that's a bit suboptimal :). (And it starts at C000 for apparently arbitrary reasons...) > ISTR that > some folks simply connected the ROM chip select to the Phantom line if > they > had non-bankable memory and wanted to switch it in and out. And of course > the ROM can be completely disabled as well. How does the "phantom" line work? I see references to this in some of my S-100 manuals but I'm not clear how it works (who raises/lowers it, when, etc...) > > It controls up to four total 5.25 and/or 8" drives with write precomp, > has > an RS-232 console port and a pretty good monitor with the usual memory > and > disk manipulation, some basic diagnostics, etc.; not a bad card IMO. And > it's fairly well documented. It is pretty nice, the documentation is fairly decent (though seriously lacking in documentation of error codes as I'm finding while trying to get it to boot a floppy :)). Thanks for the help! - Josh From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jan 4 21:27:06 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:27:06 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F05188A.80004@verizon.net> On 01/04/2012 09:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >> This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer >> these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at >> the assembly language level. This is something that many (most?) people >> think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around >> statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a >> car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's not. Looking >> at the state of software today proves my point beyond any shadow of a doubt. To that I say YES! I was looking at a project someone was doing to do some basic logic based on 4 inputs. One of those, if this line and that line do this, do that, kind of thing. His choice was a PIC18, Not even a PIC16! Talk about hunting ducks with tactical Nukes. My choice was a 2816(2k EEPROM) , 74374(D latch) and 555(osc). State machine trumps CPU for dumb task. Took an hour to explain it, likely more to teach him to program a EEprom. > As a former mechanic, I have to disagree. Slightly. > I use the more basic analogy. Average dude on side of road with flat, Sitting for two hours complaining of the heat on the cell. In the back is a good jack, wrench, spare and simple instructions. Enough said. Some people stand in the rain and complain of getting wet. Allison From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 4 21:30:48 2012 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:30:48 -0600 Subject: server outage In-Reply-To: <4F05099D.3020405@bitsavers.org> References: <4F05099D.3020405@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <456A663E-B514-4F7B-9FBA-60F290DC60F5@classiccmp.org> On Jan 4, 2012, at 8:23 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/4/12 5:48 PM, Jay West wrote: >> My apologies... the classiccmp server crashed, and it took some >> real doing to get it functional again. It was not a hardware issue > > did the new disks / box upgrade ever happen? > Yes, it's been running on those disks for some time. From jecel at merlintec.com Wed Jan 4 22:34:21 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 01:34:21 -0300 Subject: Astrocade was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> References: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <201201050336.q053ap5f068136@billy.ezwind.net> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I have an Astrocade and wonder who's got those Datamaxen -- I'd sure love > one for mine. I used to see ads for those machines in Byte magazine and they always looked like they were meant for rich artists and not normal people like me. http://www.ballyalley.com/documentation/zgrass/zgrass.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datamax_UV-1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiPPVvtX91o > Astro BASIC is a marvel, considering the severe constraints in which it > must operate. http://www.ballyalley.com/basic/basic.html is nice, but not as impressive as Super Basic/Zgrass would have been if it had been released for this machine. -- Jecel From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 4 21:39:04 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:39:04 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F051B58.3010909@telegraphics.com.au> On 04/01/12 9:32 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 4 Jan 2012 at 20:43, Toby Thain wrote: > >> That was implemented as http://www.openfirmware.org/ (found in Suns, >> Macs, etc). >> >> The format is Fcode; it's actually a brilliant idea that of course was >> of more pressing importance when the hardware market was actually >> heterogeneous. > > Finding anything about this is a little difficult--lots of 404s, etc. > when trying to search. > > What was the last product that used Open Firmware? Most of this > stuff seems to be from the mid '90s. As David says, PowerPC Macs used it until the line was discontinued some time after 2007. --Toby > > --Chuck > > From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 21:47:23 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:47:23 -0600 Subject: server outage In-Reply-To: <456A663E-B514-4F7B-9FBA-60F290DC60F5@classiccmp.org> References: <4F05099D.3020405@bitsavers.org> <456A663E-B514-4F7B-9FBA-60F290DC60F5@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: lol jaywest lol From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 21:53:43 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 19:53:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F051508.102@verizon.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F051508.102@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, allison wrote: > Never used Fortran. Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like PRINTUSING, with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. CALL instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences that you can list them! > My first language was Darthmuth BASIC on GE Tymeshare. I've always assumed that Kurtz and Kemeny's intent was just to make getting started in FORTRAN a little easier for beginners. > My pet peve with both was very minimal string handling, I want to answer > "yes|YES" > to a question not "1". But what about "SI", "JA", "DA" . . . Howzbout if ((A[0] & 0x5F) <> 'N') . . . > Not a CS student and never thought that made sense. Right up there with > every > machine shop student making a hammer. And not even a good one! At least making a hammer would give you some of the concepts of forge work. > > "If you want to sort an array larger than 64K, then GET MORE RAM." > > "If it's too slow, then use a faster computer." (also used by OS tech > > support with, "I'm amazed that it can even RUN on such obsolete [1 year > > old], inadequate [Are YOU inadequate?] hardware! Try something more > > current!") > Thats broke. IF you can get a bigger machine, nice. Most cases you use > what > you have as in the real world the purchasing isn't delivering before > your due date. "No matter how large a machine you can find, I can find a set of data that is too big to fit. With properly written algorithms, 64K is PLENTY. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Load it into memory and use a Shell Metzner sort is NOT the right answer for merging two file, finding the largest/smallest element in a large file, finding the first screeful to display in order, nor even restoring order to a fataset with a gew elements out of place. > video scree editor on a H19 terminal (in ansi mode). Youd have thought > I've just demonstrated Nuke Fusion.. Needless to say I never learned the > 029 or the 1180 but I did learn data structures. You could have had OTHER fun with the 029 and 1180! Although I was TEACHING C at the community college, I had to TAKE a C class as a requirement for my MLIS. I used an Atari Portfolio in class, and had to show the "teacher" how to do dynamic memory allocation to work with MARC records in a 64K data space (as opposed to his 256K per record). > in embedded 32bit work. Its JALWIOPS.. Just Another Language With Its > Peculiar Stuff. > Wygins: What You Get Is No Surpize (early LQ printers and editors). > WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get (graphic screen editors with, > images and fonts. > Often missed is WGMA, What Gets the Message Across. YAFIYGI: You Asked For It, You Got It (embedded formatting) without a WYSIWYG editor > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? > I thought C was for that, ducking and running. ;) > Seriously C is maybe one step above a good Macroassembler and > for PDP11 maybe it is assembler. I was quoting somebody who was too enamored with SCHEME/LISP to appreciate it. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 21:55:45 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:55:45 -0800 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> References: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> Message-ID: <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 22:19, Dave McGuire wrote: ROFL...installed in hundreds of thousands, if not milliins of > machines running all over the world. Nearly all PPC-based Macs, all > Suns (including current ones I think) past the Sun4c family, all > reasonably modern RS6000s, what else...it was an IEEE standard for a > long time, #1275. My list of IEEE standards says that IEEE 1275-1994 was withdrawn in 1998--5 years. I blinked and missed it, I guess--I was off doing PeeCee stuff and didn't notice. Shame, it was a nice idea. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 21:59:35 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:59:35 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com>, <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F04AFA7.30384.2229049@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 18:02, Fred Cisin wrote: > People with THAT level of lack of understanding of the mechanical > aspects should not be driving. Why are permitting people to drive > who don't know how to stop a car with a stuck accelerator, or with bad > brakes? The safety of the rest of the populace requires that people > understand more about a vehicle than that. Bob Pease (may he rest in peace) wrote a column on that--and what to do if it happens. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 22:05:26 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:05:26 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05188A.80004@verizon.net> References: , <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net>, <4F05188A.80004@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 22:27, allison wrote: > My choice was a 2816(2k EEPROM) , 74374(D latch) and 555(osc). State > machine trumps CPU for dumb task. Took an hour to explain it, likely > more to teach him to program a EEprom. Nowadays, I'm not so sure. An 8-pin MCU is dirt-cheap and can be easily adjusted to change the algorithm. I think it was ED that had an article not too long ago that asked if an MCU or a 555 was better for new projects. The question came down to the need for programming of the MCU, so the 555 still had an edge. My last application that I would have normally solved with a couple of one-shots was solved with an 8-pin PIC--I could design the thing with a few more smarts and self-calibration. So choices aren't always so clear-cut, particularly in today's cheap silicon days. It's already coming down to which is cheaper--an FPGA or an MCU. Design choices, I suspect, will become even more difficult. --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 4 22:13:18 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:13:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 4, 12 10:19:46 pm" Message-ID: <201201050413.q054DIda013148@floodgap.com> > ROFL...installed in hundreds of thousands, if not milliins of machines > running all over the world. You know what, I'm a total moron. OpenFirmware machines are still made: my POWER6 has OpenFirmware, and I'm sure the POWER7s still do. I imagine even the current SPARC Snoracle machines do too. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- What you don't mean, can't hurt you. -- Firesign Theater ------------------- From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 4 22:17:40 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:17:40 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F052464.1020803@neurotica.com> On 01/04/2012 10:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > ROFL...installed in hundreds of thousands, if not milliins of >> machines running all over the world. Nearly all PPC-based Macs, all >> Suns (including current ones I think) past the Sun4c family, all >> reasonably modern RS6000s, what else...it was an IEEE standard for a >> long time, #1275. > > My list of IEEE standards says that IEEE 1275-1994 was withdrawn in > 1998--5 years. I blinked and missed it, I guess--I was off doing > PeeCee stuff and didn't notice. > > Shame, it was a nice idea. Yes, apparently the $$ was a factor. But the fact that the IEEE blood money hadn't been paid didn't have any bearing on its deployment. As I said, I believe even current big Sun machines use it. Certainly the just-previous generation does. (one twenty feet from me) OpenBoot is hardly unknown. It just runs in machines that reboot so infrequently that their admins rarely see it. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Wed Jan 4 22:20:15 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:20:15 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <075701cccb61$539a0210$face0630$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Josh Dersch wrote: > How does the "phantom" line work? I see references to this in some of > my S-100 manuals but I'm not clear how it works (who raises/lowers it, > when, etc...) It can be a little bit "implementation dependent" but usually there are cards that assert phantom (it is active low, there has to be a pull up on it somewhere (the CPU card I think)) and cards that "honor" phantom. When an address is presented to the bus, any phantom asserting card that whishes to override that address pulls the phantom line low. A phantom honoring card that would normally respond to the address will instead suppress any activity. Note that this system does not prevent multiple phantom asserting or phantom honoring cards from stepping on each other. Careful system configuration is still the responsibility of the builder. In the case of the Cromemco FDC cards, the FDC becomes a phantom asserter. Any RAM card that the system has that resides in the same address space ($C000-$CFFF in the case of a 4FDC) must honor phantom. The CPU presents an address to the bus, the FDC card does an address decode, determines that it is an address it wants to respond to and activates the ROM (the CE (chip enable) pin on the ROM is also active low) asserting PHANTOM at the same time, disabling the RAM card. When you deactivate the RDOS ROM with the poke to the I/O address, then the FDC card will no longer activate the ROM, PHANTOM will no longer be asserted and the RAM card will respond to the address previously occupied by RDOS. I run CDOS in a full 64K configuration this way. Bill S. From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 4 22:33:24 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:33:24 -0600 Subject: Astrocade was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201050336.q053ap5f068136@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> <201201050336.q053ap5f068136@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <201201050435.q054ZUK7068915@billy.ezwind.net> At 10:34 PM 1/4/2012, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: >I used to see ads for those machines in Byte magazine and they always >looked like they were meant for rich artists and not normal people like me. Yes, that's why we bought Amigas in 1985. - John From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 22:43:53 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:43:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F051508.102@verizon.net> <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120104204204.B48285@shell.lmi.net> > > Never used Fortran. > Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like PRINTUSING, > with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable whose > name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters between I > and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless > you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line number to > every line. Oops! For FORTRAN, that should read, "like some brands of BASIC, you can skip assigning line numbers to lines that aren't explicitly referenced." From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 4 22:44:38 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:44:38 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com>, <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> <4F043A8B.8571.5917AD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201050444.XAA07417@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > [T]he number of times that I've seen the = used in C conditionals > instead of == is amazing. One of the relatively few good things I have to say about gcc is that it has a large assortment of warning options that, when set suitably, alleviate some of the worst issues I have with C. To deal with this particular bit of lossage, it's -Wparentheses. > Say what you want about FORTRAN, but the .EQ. conditional test could > never be mistaken for an assignment. True. But I'd much prefer to fix this particular problem by changing the assignment operator rather than changing the equality-comparison operator. Pascal had the right idea here, but I don't care for its choice of thing to use for the assignment operator.... /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From george at rachors.com Wed Jan 4 22:47:59 2012 From: george at rachors.com (George Rachor) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:47:59 -0800 Subject: Astrocade was Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> References: <201201050258.q052wuLQ010544@floodgap.com> Message-ID: oh man.. I almost bought that machine as it would have been my first home comptuer. George Rachor On Jan 4, 2012, at 6:58 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> One interesting alternative, which I considered for that project, was >> the 1978 Super Basic for the Bally Astrocade (a Z80 machine, so we are >> back to the start of this thread) which claimed to be self revealing. It >> had GOSUB but also allowed you to define your own named functions (it >> called them macros). These functions used INPUT to read the values >> supplied as arguments at the call site, but if the argument was missing >> it would print the associated prompt text and read the value from the >> keyboard. And all the built in commands worked just like this, so typing >> in a parcial expression would make the computer print out what >> additional data it needed. This interpreter was not sold, so a >> repackaged version of it was developed and sold as the Datamax UV-1 high >> end machines for video artists and the language was renamed to Zgrass. > > I have an Astrocade and wonder who's got those Datamaxen -- I'd sure love > one for mine. > > Astro BASIC is a marvel, considering the severe constraints in which it > must operate. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- To be, or not to be -- that always confused me ... -- "In Living Color" ---- > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 4 22:58:24 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 23:58:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F051508.102@verizon.net> <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201050458.XAA07680@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > [In FORTRAN, a]ny variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L > M or N (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of > "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. ...and others are assumed to be real. But is the first two letters of "integer" where that came from? I'd always assumed it came from mathematical convention, which uses letters i through n (often modified with subscripts and the like) for things such as summation indices that are most appropriately translated into programming languages as integral types. > Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. ...?? First time I've ever heard that about any variant of FORTRAN, even the oldest ones. Which one(s)? /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 4 23:04:09 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 00:04:09 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> <4F05188A.80004@verizon.net> <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201050504.AAA08047@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > References: , > <20120104172214.U48285 at shell.lmi.net>, <4F05188A.80004 at verizon.net> People, please make sure your user agents don't generate syntax errors like this! (I've done it myself, I know; my UA does not create such errors, but also does not fix them when adding to existing References: headers...I really ought to fix it. I fixed this one manually.) > Nowadays, I'm not so sure. An 8-pin MCU is dirt-cheap and can be > easily adjusted to change the algorithm. I think it was ED that had > an article not too long ago that asked if an MCU or a 555 was better > for new projects. Like most such questions, the answer is a definite "it depends". I recently used a 555 because it had something like 1/4 to 1/10 of the power consumption, which in this case mattered. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Wed Jan 4 23:05:13 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:05:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F052464.1020803@neurotica.com> References: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> <4F052464.1020803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/04/2012 10:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> ROFL...installed in hundreds of thousands, if not milliins of >>> machines running all over the world. Nearly all PPC-based Macs, all >>> Suns (including current ones I think) past the Sun4c family, all >>> reasonably modern RS6000s, what else...it was an IEEE standard for a >>> long time, #1275. >> >> My list of IEEE standards says that IEEE 1275-1994 was withdrawn in >> 1998--5 years. I blinked and missed it, I guess--I was off doing >> PeeCee stuff and didn't notice. >> >> Shame, it was a nice idea. > > Yes, apparently the $$ was a factor. But the fact that the IEEE blood > money hadn't been paid didn't have any bearing on its deployment. As I said, > I believe even current big Sun machines use it. Certainly the just-previous > generation does. (one twenty feet from me) OpenBoot is hardly unknown. It > just runs in machines that reboot so infrequently that their admins rarely > see it. ;) While [U]EFI is standard on Intel Macs, it still doesn't seem to have much of a foothold. What's going on with Coreboot? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 4 23:19:25 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2012 21:19:25 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201050458.XAA07680@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net>, <201201050458.XAA07680@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F04C25D.19483.26BA507@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 23:58, Mouse wrote: > > > Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. > > ...?? First time I've ever heard that about any variant of FORTRAN, > even the oldest ones. Which one(s)? Never seen it either, unless perhaps some interactive variant that employs line numbers for editing purposes like BASIC. --Chuck . From vrs at msn.com Wed Jan 4 23:19:41 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:19:41 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for > I/O? Hmm...that sounds like a disturbingly good idea :-). Vince From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 4 23:30:32 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 21:30:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201050458.XAA07680@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F051508.102@verizon.net> <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> <201201050458.XAA07680@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120104212000.K48285@shell.lmi.net> > > [In FORTRAN, a]ny variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L > > M or N (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of > > "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Mouse wrote: > ...and others are assumed to be real. except that it is usually FLOATING POINT. (arguably a subset of RATIONAL numbers, where denominator must be a power of 2) I've never used a computer where "REAL" was a REAL real number. May seem irrelevant until you try to teach what floating point is, and why it could matter, to students who argue, "but the manual says that it is a REAL number!" > But is the first two letters of > "integer" where that came from? I'd always assumed it came from > mathematical convention, which uses letters i through n (often modified > with subscripts and the like) for things such as summation indices that > are most appropriately translated into programming languages as > integral types. which I was once told was to facilitate the mnemonic of INteger to remember that. No idea whether there is any truth to the derivation. The guy who told me that (mid 1960s) died in about 1980. When I started teaching, they gave me his old desk, with lots of interesting old papers. He was a hated curmudgeon. My favorite teacher. > > Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. > ...?? First time I've ever heard that about any variant of FORTRAN, > even the oldest ones. Which one(s)? Yeah, I blew that! Somehow, I started describing BASIC in terms of FORTRAN, when I meant to be decriving FORTRAN in terms of BASIC. should read, "like some brands of BASIC, line numbers can beleft off of lines that aren't explicitly referenced." From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 23:56:13 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 00:56:13 -0500 Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> References: <2yn2myxkiop2h1obg7ffwo0c.1325733586384@email.android.com> <4F04AEC1.10186.21F0BA7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5B211133-DAE5-45AF-9790-DBCBEC2FA68E@gmail.com> On Jan 4, 2012, at 10:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 4 Jan 2012 at 22:19, Dave McGuire wrote: > > My list of IEEE standards says that IEEE 1275-1994 was withdrawn in > 1998--5 years. I blinked and missed it, I guess--I was off doing > PeeCee stuff and didn't notice. It was withdrawn as an IEEE standard, but that didn't cause people to stop using it. :-) Apple certainly used it all the way through the end of the G5s. - Dave From paisley at erols.com Wed Jan 4 13:47:46 2012 From: paisley at erols.com (paisley at erols.com) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:47:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201041947.000429@ms19.lnh.mail.rcn.net> Hi Ed. You wouldn't happen to have a DEC H-960 rack? I need one desperately. I am offering a reward for one! Thanks. Todd. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 17:51:37 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:51:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <1325631410.21403.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1325721097.42035.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Fred Cisin To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 4:16 PM Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on > disk. > You betcha. . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on the disk! C: I somehow sense that you mean supplement deficiencies of the firmware version w/yet more deficiencies on floppy. ?BASIC, despite it's deficiencies, was almost always *there*. If most every computer back in the 80s had firmware PROLOG, I guess I'd be arguing for it. I know I would have been as happy w/ROM based FORTRAN, somewhat less w/Pascal. The major point being it was *there*, and you could do a lot of newbie hacky type stuff with it. Peter Norton illustrated pc innards and stuff w/BASIC. I won't say BASIC facilitated taking baby steps in assembler as well as debug, but you could do it. If ya really wanted to. Granted I could do rudimentary coding in MASM before I knew what a DEG SEG =&Hnnnn was used fer though. But that didn't make me like it any less, and possibly more. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 18:00:40 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:00:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1325721640.31792.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more?? Or ever will, again? ?why bother? Optimization in most F90 implementations take care of the hard work for you ! *ducks for cover* From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 18:06:58 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:06:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: AT & T 7300 docs (update) Message-ID: <1325722018.49183.YahooMailNeo@web164507.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I'll have to rebox them as smaller parcels. I can't lift anything near that right now (or anytime soon). If you're still interested (those that previously responded), let me know. Media rate from 08005. Figure 2-3 boxes @ 25 or 15 lbs. each. If that suits you, they're yours. It'll probably take me another week or a bit more to get all that done though. I'll need a check for shippage. If you send me more (owing to my possibly exuberant estimates), I'll refund the difference, so no need to ruffle your punch cards. Let me know. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 18:36:14 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:36:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ? This is definitely the case.? It's pretty tough to find a programmer these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at the assembly language level.? This is something that many (most?) people think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's not.? Looking at the state of software today proves my point beyond any shadow of a doubt. ? ? ? ? ? -Dave C: I hate to tell you but was always the case. Unless the programmer was working in al/ml, he didn't nor needed to know much about the innards and what was going on under the hood. Granted there was a time when you _needed_ to be something of a mechanic to get behind the wheel. But isn't that one of the natural goals of technology, to make things easier to use, and be able to devote time to other things? How many housewives (or their husbands!) know how to fix a washing machine? Some people get to poking around, and that's a good thing generally. When you advance to poking around inside your computer (w/1s and 0s or a scope/logic probe) all the better. But what does programming w/objects have to do w/interrupt vector tables??? I thought that we want to one day communicate w/our computers solely by voice. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 18:53:05 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:53:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04E1F7.30704@neurotica.com> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04E1F7.30704@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1325724785.28698.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Dave McGuire To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 6:34 PM Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC On 01/03/2012 06:32 PM, Chris M wrote: >> If you've been exposed to machine langauge before an HLL, I >> suspect that you gain a deeper understanding of how langauges >> work. > > Omgosh why before? Why not after? How many, but the truly > deranged/depraved, learned machine language (machine language!) as > their first language??? I mean no offense to those who learned ml on > a keypad. Oh who am I kidding. I could care less if I pissed them > off!. But I learned assembler on a k/b! The real man's way! > > Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a check > today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast majority > probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. But what do I > know. ? I had to read this about three times before I realized that by "ml" you meant "machine language", not the language "ML". ?C: Well read it again anyway. Chuck makes the assumption that all language "work". You don't need no stinking ml to tell you that. You might need ml to tell you things about the ones that don't work! Psyyyche... ?Am I a pain? I've been on this list for 6 or 7 years, and I yet to hear from anyone regarding whether it's painful to read my posts. Or am I just forgetful...too? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 4 19:05:14 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 17:05:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F04E09D.9050803@neurotica.com> References: , , <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <4F036769.9000908@neurotica.com> <20120103185755.X16151@shell.lmi.net> <4F04E09D.9050803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1325725514.48122.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> On 01/03/2012 10:01 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Whilst attempting to explain the difference between equality and > assignment, I wrote: > N = 1 > N = N + 1 > I told the class, "That is a proof by INDUCTIVE LOGIC that all numbers are > the same.? That would bring about total destruction of the universe. > Therefore, never let any mathematician see it!? Oh, wait.? Are there any > mathematicians in this class?" > > A few, very few, got it. ? ROFL!! C: Yeah go ahead and laugh. But by reading some of these threads, you'd get the impression that the universe is ALREADY hopelessly fouled by the inception of BASIC roms. So just start looking for a different corner of the multiverse to dwell in. I'd argue that we're far better off then in other regions, because in THOSE most early home computers had Simula-67 (the multi-headed Beast itself) in rom (and still do). Imagine, teaching objects to 4th graders. My word! If that doesn't cause reality to descend into utter chaos, I don't know what will.. From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Wed Jan 4 19:12:39 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 20:12:39 -0500 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From:?Ethan Dicks > Date:?Wed, 4 Jan 2012 16:28:13 -0500 > Subject:?Re: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my > experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found > more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. That is what we found from our recent PDP-8/L revival. We also found quite a few failed 7400, 7410, 7450/7460, I bought a HP 10529A Logic Comparator that sounds like the chip test device that you made. -- Michael Thompson From vintagecoder at aol.com Thu Jan 5 01:20:10 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (vintagecoder at aol.com) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 07:20:10 +0000 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> >From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 07:08:31 2012 > On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, Vintage Coder wrote: > > I actually thought of trying to write a compiler in modern FORTRAN since > > I seem to be too old to learn anything new, but the F90 and later > > language is so wierd and ugly (good grief, lower case and indentation?! > > Sacrilege!) I decided against it. > > F90 and even Fortran77 are nice languages for some people, > BUT THEY AIN'T FORTRAN ! Well I thought I was the only one. People born in the last 20 or 30 years laugh at me when I write FORTRAN, they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well it's an acronym! And they say unindented code in all caps is unreadable which is just the opposite of my experience and I don't know how they can explain how we were able to read and write it back in the day and now it's unacceptable but I realize my opinions are usually if not always in the minority and nobody listens to me anyway, so... > > I thought I had read one of the early IBM FORTRAN compilers was written > > in FORTRAN but the G & H compilers appear to be in assembler like all > > the other OS/360 stuff. > > It used to be that EVERY CS grad student wrote a new language, as a rite > of passage. I don't know whether that was required by the university, or > just social pressure. One of the "requirements" was that the final > version of it must have been written in it and compiled BY IT. > (Obviously earlier versions must have used assemblers and/or compilers of > other languages) While it seems like a nice "proof" of the language, it > very clearly shows a lack of understanding that if the new language was > not intended for, and designed as, a compiler authoring tool, that that > would certainly NOT be the best choice for creation of the final product. Agreed. I only considered it to get myself out of somewhat of a design slump. And I wound up not doing it anyway. Still slumpin' > Of course, many schools (UC Berkeley) DON'T CARE about that, and teach > that if the only problems are speed and size performance, that the > correct solution is throw hardware at them! "If you want to sort an array > larger than 64K, then GET MORE RAM." "If it's too slow, then use a faster > computer." (also used by OS tech support with, "I'm amazed that it can > even RUN on such obsolete [1 year old], inadequate [Are YOU inadequate?] > hardware! Try something more current!") Fortunately in the business I am in that hasn't been much of an option or an issue although our customers frequently consider it an option. I hope there is no relation (they also write code) but I don't know. > C is pretty good for writing compilers, and it takes little more than > "The dragon book" (Aho & Ullman) plus a LOT of time and effort to produce > one. Emphasis on a LOT of time, I looked at the book and gave up! Blinded me, with SCIENCE! > C is best at systems programming, particularly due to how easy it is to > shove it out of your way if you need to get closer to the hardware, but C > is often MISUSED for writing general purpose and even business programs, > for which it can be spectacularly inappropriate. Toby and I and others had this discussion recently. You have stated what seems to have been our consensus. > FORTRAN is well suited for many things, including a lot of different > kinds of scientific programming, but is NOT a good choice for writing > compilers. Maybe F90 might be better, to use INSTEAD OF FORTRAN. ;-) > PASCAL is a good rigorous INTERMEDIATE (not first exposure) teaching > language. It's usable, but not great, for compiler writing. For > example, see the runtime library used in the early Microsoft compilers, > particularly their FORTRAN compiler (where simple benchmarks, such as a > "Sieve of Erastothanes" run slower than interpreted BASIC) PASCAL as delivered was pretty unusable. I'm not a UNIX guy, not by a long shot and none of the UNIX heros show up on my radar, but I must say Kernighan's (I think?) elegant piece on what's wrong with PASCAL nailed the coffin shut. Of course many later implementations solved those problems and there are certainly usable dialects and have been for a long time. > What is SCHEME best suited for? (An answer of "EVERYTHING" will destroy > your credibility.) I have no idea but I'm sure you will get some answers ;-) > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? Yeah as far as I know, IBM always has and still does. I am not sure about the XL series though. -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Vintage Coder America Online ivagntrpbqre at nby.pbz | | | | Collecting: DOS assemblers, compilers, & books (Z80, M68K, 6502, 808X) | | Software & doc for IBM S/360 through OS/390 | | | | Wants: Ada 95 compilers for MVS/ESA & Solaris SPARC | | PL/I X Optimizing Compiler for MVS, APL/SV for MVS | | Stony Brook Modula-2 for Solaris SPARC | |---------------------------------------+--------------------------------| | Powered by Slackware 64 Intel and Solaris 10 SPARC | |=======================================+================================| | PGP Key 4096R 0x1CB84BEFC73ACB32 Encrypted email preferred | | PGP Fingerprint 5C1C 3AEB A7B2 E6F7 34A0 2870 1CB8 4BEF C73A CB32 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From vintagecoder at aol.com Thu Jan 5 01:22:47 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (vintagecoder at aol.com) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 07:22:47 +0000 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming In-Reply-To: <4F047BD8.17254.1582CB4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201050722.q057Mpo2016080@ims-m12.mx.aol.com> > On 4 Jan 2012 at 13:51, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > > F90 and even Fortran77 are nice languages for some people, > > BUT THEY AIN'T FORTRAN ! > I think the die was cast from the moment the committee decided that the > purpose of a standards committe was to invent language rather than to > certify certain current practices. That is valuable info I think is missing from common knowledge. Thanks for posting it. > Even today, I can't stand to look at Fortran 90 or anything later. I can > manage FORTRAN 77 because it tolerates FORTRAN 66 syntax. I thought I was alone in that. > They took my simple homespun darling and turned her into a harlot. Unfortunately all too apt. > > --Chuck From vintagecoder at aol.com Thu Jan 5 01:24:28 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (vintagecoder at aol.com) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 07:24:28 +0000 Subject: server outage In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <201201050724.q057OX9m000624@ims-d12.mx.aol.com> >From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jan 5 07:07:46 2012 > My apologies... the classiccmp server crashed, and it took some real > doing to get it functional again. It was not a hardware issue, it was an > issue with both Xen and FreeNAS (mostly Xen as to the delay in getting it > back up). I'm embarrassed to admit, but I finally had to open up a > per-incident support case with Citrix to get the thing resolved. No apologies necessary, thank you very much for maintaining the list. Glad you got it going again. Happy New Year to you and everyone on the list. From holm at freibergnet.de Thu Jan 5 03:21:46 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:21:46 +0100 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <20120105092146.GB57847@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Adrian Stoness wrote: [..] I have an Fluke Trendar 200 IC Testclip where you can place a known good chip on to a test socket and place the probe with this chip over the pins of a chip under test. The probe than reports differences in the behavior from the tested chip and the test normal with LEDs. I don't used this device jet, since most of the boards I have to repair have some protective laquer all over the board so this probe would have problems to get properly contacted. http://www.ebay.ch/itm/Fluke-Trendar-200-IC-Test-Clip-200-01-Case-/270781765024 Otherwise it would be ideal to find such bugs. For my problem Chips, that are mostly russian 7400s and 7408s but tohers too. Its seems that those chips in plativ mold have problems if they where stored for laon time in moisture environment and get repaowered after years. They are functioning at first but several days later they fail. Maybe baking the entire board in an oven before repaowering the chips would help? Kind Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From holm at freibergnet.de Thu Jan 5 03:41:46 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:41:46 +0100 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: <20120105092146.GB57847@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <20120105092146.GB57847@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <20120105094146.GA58400@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Holm Tiffe wrote: > Adrian Stoness wrote: > [..] > > I have an Fluke Trendar 200 IC Testclip where you can place a known good > chip on to a test socket and place the probe with this chip over the pins > of a chip under test. The probe than reports differences in the behavior > from the tested chip and the test normal with LEDs. > I don't used this device jet, since most of the boards I have to repair > have some protective laquer all over the board so this probe would have > problems to get properly contacted. > > http://www.ebay.ch/itm/Fluke-Trendar-200-IC-Test-Clip-200-01-Case-/270781765024 > > Otherwise it would be ideal to find such bugs. > > For my problem Chips, that are mostly russian 7400s and 7408s but tohers > too. Its seems that those chips in plativ mold have problems if they where > stored for laon time in moisture environment and get repaowered after > years. They are functioning at first but several days later they fail. > Maybe baking the entire board in an oven before repaowering the chips would > help? > > > Kind Regards, > > Holm > -- > Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, > Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 > www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 Attention: Don't buy the tester from the link above. There are some special IC sockets missing (looking like wire wrap ic sockets) that need to be configured for the IC type under test. The tester distinguishes between inputs and outputs with long and short leads. The manufacturer forbids the use of standard sockets for this purpose since the connectors will be get damadged this way. Try to find a unit with spare sockets. Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 03:48:21 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 03:48:21 -0600 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: <20120105094146.GA58400@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <20120105092146.GB57847@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <20120105094146.GA58400@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: i have the hp kit my self i just was curious if it was good tool for this sorta stuff? On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > Holm Tiffe wrote: > > > Adrian Stoness wrote: > > [..] > > > > I have an Fluke Trendar 200 IC Testclip where you can place a known good > > chip on to a test socket and place the probe with this chip over the pins > > of a chip under test. The probe than reports differences in the behavior > > from the tested chip and the test normal with LEDs. > > I don't used this device jet, since most of the boards I have to repair > > have some protective laquer all over the board so this probe would have > > problems to get properly contacted. > > > > > http://www.ebay.ch/itm/Fluke-Trendar-200-IC-Test-Clip-200-01-Case-/270781765024 > > > > Otherwise it would be ideal to find such bugs. > > > > For my problem Chips, that are mostly russian 7400s and 7408s but tohers > > too. Its seems that those chips in plativ mold have problems if they > where > > stored for laon time in moisture environment and get repaowered after > > years. They are functioning at first but several days later they fail. > > Maybe baking the entire board in an oven before repaowering the chips > would > > help? > > > > > > Kind Regards, > > > > Holm > > -- > > Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, > > Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 > > www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 > > > Attention: Don't buy the tester from the link above. There are some special > IC sockets missing (looking like wire wrap ic sockets) that need to be > configured for the IC type under test. The tester distinguishes between > inputs and outputs with long and short leads. The manufacturer forbids the > use of standard sockets for this purpose since the connectors will be > get damadged this way. Try to find a unit with spare sockets. > > > Regards, > > Holm > > -- > Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, > Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 > www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 > > From quapla at xs4all.nl Thu Jan 5 04:22:28 2012 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (E. Groenenberg) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:22:28 +0100 Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5e19ce57c52b4df3e966aecf9a0ec742.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Several people did ask for pictures of the TU58 emulator/filer and of other parts of the find. Some pics can now be found at http://www.groenenberg.net/download/pic/ Ed > > During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up > and which I could take home. > > A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, > 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface & 64KW mem > one complete 11/24 (cpu. KT24, 128Kw mem) > a test unit for SMD drives (for CDC & RM02/3/5), > a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III > a box full with all kinds of DEC loop-back test connectors > a crt testkit with 8 different tube connection boards. > > Ed > > -- > Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. > > -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 5 06:27:46 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:27:46 -0600 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com > References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> At 06:36 PM 1/4/2012, Chris M wrote: > This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at the assembly language level. Not hard at all. Just filter for the ones over 40 who expect a decent salary. Maybe they've already moved to upper management. - John From als at thangorodrim.de Thu Jan 5 07:05:45 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:05:45 +0100 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F051508.102@verizon.net> <20120104192936.A48285@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120105130545.GA30511@thangorodrim.de> On Wed, Jan 04, 2012 at 07:53:43PM -0800, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, allison wrote: > > Never used Fortran. > > Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like PRINTUSING, > with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable whose > name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters between I > and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless > you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line number to > every line. CALL instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences > that you can list them! > > > My first language was Darthmuth BASIC on GE Tymeshare. > > I've always assumed that Kurtz and Kemeny's intent was just to make > getting started in FORTRAN a little easier for beginners. > > > > My pet peve with both was very minimal string handling, I want to answer > > "yes|YES" > > to a question not "1". > > But what about "SI", "JA", "DA" . . . > > Howzbout > if ((A[0] & 0x5F) <> 'N') . . . > > > > Not a CS student and never thought that made sense. Right up there with > > every > > machine shop student making a hammer. And not even a good one! > > At least making a hammer would give you some of the concepts of forge > work. Not necessarily - you could just mill it out of a solid block of steel. There is always at least one wrong way to do it ... ;-) > > > > "If you want to sort an array larger than 64K, then GET MORE RAM." > > > "If it's too slow, then use a faster computer." (also used by OS tech > > > support with, "I'm amazed that it can even RUN on such obsolete [1 year > > > old], inadequate [Are YOU inadequate?] hardware! Try something more > > > current!") > > Thats broke. IF you can get a bigger machine, nice. Most cases you use > > what > > you have as in the real world the purchasing isn't delivering before > > your due date. > > "No matter how large a machine you can find, I can find a set of data that > is too big to fit. With properly written algorithms, 64K is PLENTY. Of course. The problem is that an apparently increasing number of programmers test their code with the smallest possible dataset, notice that it works and call it a day. When I tested graphical MUAs a few years ago, they would all work fine with a few mailboxes with a few small mails, but most would break horribly when dealing with mailboxes containing a few 10k emails. Whereas mutt deals with those just fine (and speedily). > "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Or a thumb ;-) > Load it into memory and use a Shell Metzner sort is NOT the right answer > for merging two file, finding the largest/smallest element in a large > file, finding the first screeful to display in order, nor even restoring > order to a fataset with a gew elements out of > place. And after all, tape sorting algorithms are already invented. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From sander.reiche at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 07:24:27 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:24:27 +0100 Subject: Latest find In-Reply-To: <5e19ce57c52b4df3e966aecf9a0ec742.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> References: <5e19ce57c52b4df3e966aecf9a0ec742.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: Ed, I'm also interested in the DigiFiler and I was wondering if the 11/24 was the 'small chassis' version, like in the linked picture, as I'm not seeing any photographs of the machine on the below mentioned URL? http://hampage.hu/pdp-11/kepek/11-24c_2.jpg With kind regards, Sander On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:22 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: > > Several people did ask for pictures of the TU58 emulator/filer and > of other parts of the find. > > Some pics can now be found at http://www.groenenberg.net/download/pic/ > > Ed > >> >> During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up >> and which I could take home. >> >> A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, >> 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface & 64KW mem >> one complete 11/24 (cpu. KT24, 128Kw mem) >> a test unit for SMD drives (for CDC & RM02/3/5), >> a spares kit for an LA-120/Decwriter III >> a box full with all kinds of DEC loop-back test connectors >> a crt testkit with 8 different tube connection boards. >> >> Ed >> >> -- >> Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. >> >> > > > -- > Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. > -- ~ UNIX is basically a simple operating system, ? ? ? ? ? ?but you have to be a genius to understand its simplicity. ~ dmr From james at attfield.co.uk Thu Jan 5 07:38:16 2012 From: james at attfield.co.uk (James Attfield) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:38:16 -0000 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000c01cccbaf$47a45890$d6ed09b0$@co.uk> Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:02:11 -0800 (PST) From: Jerry Wright Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC >> Josh, I would love to get your 64FDC for my Cromemco 68020 machine that >> is missing one. I have 16 FDC and other Croemeco Z-80 Boards to go along >> with it. > Which model 68020 Cromemco is it? I might be able to find a spare 64FDC... > mike Long shot, but if you have another or Josh doesn't take it I'd love to give it a home. I have a complete Cromemco board set here in an IMS-5000 chassis and a pair of TM848's but have consistently failed to get the 16-FDC to talk to them reliably. I'd dearly love to get a 64-FDC for it to go with the ZPU and/or an STD hard disk controller (or an IMI drive to go with the WDI-II controller I have). Anyone? FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. During boot RDOS ensures that the top 32K flips in and RDOS then flips out giving a clean 64K map. All done through port 40H. Jim From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 08:12:44 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 09:12:44 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <36377BB4-D7DC-47FF-AB5B-C8A97F4F3E4D@gmail.com> On Jan 5, 2012, at 7:27 AM, John Foust wrote: > At 06:36 PM 1/4/2012, Chris M wrote: >> This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at the assembly language level. > > Not hard at all. Just filter for the ones over 40 who expect a > decent salary. Maybe they've already moved to upper management. Well, they don't *have* to be over 40. :-) It's not the worst metric to use, but it would certainly count me out. Good thing I already have a job! I think finding people who list "various assembly languages" instead of a few specific ones on their resumes might be a better one. People who know how computers really work know that Assembly is really one language with a bunch of different alphabets (modulo some really odd architectures, like the Forth machines). :-) - Dave From jonas at otter.se Thu Jan 5 03:39:14 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (jonas at otter.se) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:39:14 +0100 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> > Never used Fortran. >> Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like >> PRINTUSING, >> with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable >> whose >> name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters >> between I >> and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, >> unless >> you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line >> number to >> every line. > > Oops! > For FORTRAN, that should read, "like some brands of BASIC, you can > skip > assigning line numbers to lines that aren't explicitly referenced." > Strictly speaking, "line numbers" in FORTRAN are actually labels. They do not have anything to do with line numbering and IIRC they do not have to appear in an ascending sequence either, they can be assigned randomly and with arbitrary gaps in the sequence. Assigning labels ("line numbers") to not explicitly referenced lines in FORTRAN would be like giving every line a label in assembler, completely meaningless clutter. /Jonas From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Thu Jan 5 04:30:12 2012 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:30:12 -0000 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> References: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> Message-ID: >>>> Dijkstra was more interested in whether you could prove that your program behaved according to its specification. Whether your program worked every time you ran it was less important than whether it could conceivably fail. Don't forget that you couldn't meet his definition of programmer without being a mathematician. It's apples and oranges, I think. <<<< At one of his conference lectures on this subject I asked him: (this is undoubtedly a tidied-up form ... it must have been more than 30 years ago) OK, so you prove that your program matches the specification. Haven't you just pushed the problem back onto the correctness of the specification? (a very cautious agreement) But then how do you prove the specification to be accurate to the real-world problem and what do you do when it changes? You don't accept the specification unless it is accurate and if it changes you start again. (and a quick move on to someone else's question) - - - To be fair, he was an interesting lecturer and when you read some of his earlier works you can see why his earlier experience using a much less formal style encouraged him towards his later views. "* You are not expected to understand this." Unix V6 source " you are advised in your own best interests not to modify the following code without contacting ..." George 1/2 source (has someone got a copy of this so I can remind myself of the details?) From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 09:00:36 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:00:36 -0500 (EST) Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <201201051500.KAA16228@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well > it's an acronym! Not in the usual sense of `acronym', though. But... > PASCAL as delivered was pretty unusable. ...if you're going to draw the distinction between "Fortran" and "FORTRAN", you might at least get Pascal's name right. :) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Thu Jan 5 09:10:08 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:10:08 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <000c01cccbaf$47a45890$d6ed09b0$@co.uk> References: <000c01cccbaf$47a45890$d6ed09b0$@co.uk> Message-ID: <07ab01cccbbc$1d4e6970$57eb3c50$@sudbrink@verizon.net> James Attfield wrote: > > FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. I just double checked the schematics and this is not correct. The 16FDC feeds address lines 15-12 through a 74ls30 to do a specific decode for a 4K address range, normally set to $C000-$CFFF. If the high four address bits do not match, the card will not respond. Bill S. From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 09:15:32 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:15:32 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain wrote: > On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>> >>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>> >>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>> powerful abstractions. >> >> >> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >> >>> What's wrong with Scheme? ?Or at worst, Python? >> >> >> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >> get the hell out of the way). > > > Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. So in the same breath that you say that BASIC's syntax is sufficiently unlike the syntax of modern languages to render it unsuitable for teaching, you feel that the non-algebraic syntax of Scheme is not a hindrance to teaching beginners? You'd take someone who did not know that "25% of ?8000" meant ( (8000/100)*25 ) i.e. ?8000 ? 100 = ?80 ?80 ? 25 = ?2000 ... and you'd present them with (+ 1 2 3 4) evaluating to 10 As equivalent to a = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 ... or (defun factorial (n) (if (<= n 1) 1 (* n (factorial (- n 1))))) If so, you are on crack or something, because I cannot believe that a smart, sane person with experience of children and random members of the public would believe this, I really can't. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 09:25:26 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:25:26 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <201201051500.KAA16228@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <201201051500.KAA16228@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Mouse wrote: >> they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well >> it's an acronym! > > Not in the usual sense of `acronym', though. ?But... It's a portmanteau of Formula and Translator, AFAIK. -ethan From vintagecoder at aol.com Thu Jan 5 09:51:31 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:51:31 +0000 Subject: Right toolf for the job Message-ID: <77169650-1325778683-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1690640727-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> If you look at the November, 1972 paper Wirth put out called "The Programming Language Pascal (Revised Report) you will find both "Pascal" and "PASCAL" in the text. The canonical "PASCAL User Manual and Report" (Springer-Verlag, 1974) uses all caps in the title and then in a few places such as "PASCAL 6000". Just because it's a proper name doesn't mean it's incorrect to capitalize it. After all, wasn't Blaise Pascal a Frenchman, and don't the French capitalize last names to this very day? ;-) ------Original Message------ From: Mouse Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: cctalk at classiccmp.org ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job Sent: 5 Jan 2012 15:00 > they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well > it's an acronym! Not in the usual sense of `acronym', though. But... > PASCAL as delivered was pretty unusable. ...if you're going to draw the distinction between "Fortran" and "FORTRAN", you might at least get Pascal's name right. :) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 09:52:14 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:52:14 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 4 January 2012 01:22, Toby Thain wrote: > On 03/01/12 10:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 3 January 2012 13:57, Toby Thain ?wrote: >>> >>> On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain ? ?wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>>>>> powerful abstractions. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>>>>> >>>>>>> What's wrong with Scheme? ?Or at worst, Python? >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>>>>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >>>>>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >>>>>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >>>>>> get the hell out of the way). >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, >>>> natural programmer. >>> >>> >>> >>> Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the >>> point >>> here. >> >> >> Even worse. >> >> There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do >> you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer >> perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software >> engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit >> that they are barely related. >> >> If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something > > > Exactly the reverse. Professional software engineers I've seen around > wouldn't touch Lisp with a barge pole. While, for people who want to get > stuff done elegantly and simply, without irrelevancies, Scheme is ideal. > > >> clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn > > > It's not hard stuff (q.v) Believe me, as someone trying to learn Lisp, IT IS. >> right, in the same way that I learned swordfighting with a foil, the >> feeblest weapon but the one controlled by the strictest rules. If you >> can fight foil, then you can move to the less-demanding sabre easily, >> and the relatively undemanding ep?e is straightforward; but start with >> ep?e and learning the formalities of foil will be much harder. >> >>> Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of >>> "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: >>> ?- full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? >>> what >>> good is this to a beginner?); >> >> Oh come off it! Line numbers went out in 1985, man! Don't judge BASIC >> by the crappy implementations of the early 1980s when 8K of RAM was a >> lot! > > Line numbers are not the issue. *You* raised them as an issue. >>> ?- numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? >> >> No, not at all. I would expect at least integers, floats, variable >> length strings, multidimensional arrays of any other type, and quite >> possibly different lengths of integer and possibly signed and unsigned >> forms. Possibly booleans and things as well; maybe a complex type. But >> to be a programmer does not mandate being a mathematician. I have >> taught programming to people who did not know what a percentage was, >> who did not know how to multiply or divide by fractions and so on. >> Many people do not need fancy types. >> >>> How do I build anything >>> else? Oh right. I can't. >> >> Again, a limitation only of very primitive, early BASICs, although I >> have to say, I never found it a limitation. Have user-defined >> structured data types if you want, though. > > Can I make a list? I have no idea. I have not programmed in any meaningful sense in over 20y. I would expect so, yes. >>> ?- most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an >>> IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s >>> (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); >> >> Again, a limitation of the early 1980s. ?Not true of any decent BASIC >> from about 1983 onwards. >> >>> ?- lacks named functions& ?procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a crippled >>> >>> hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) >> >> See above. Have you actually *seen* /any/ even 1990s BASIC, FFS? >> >>> - a fundamental >>> abstracting/factoring tool. >> >> You'll have to explain what that means. > > Functions are a fundamental abstracting/factoring tool. So they better work > well. -> Closures, too. Even the very early 1980s BASICs included functions. I don't think I've ever used one that didn't. As for Closures, AIUI, many computer languages do not include them. Pointess crippled tools like C, for example. TBH I do not even understand the Wikipedia definition of what a closure /is./ >>> Now with Scheme, >>> ?- you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; >> >> But is incomprehensible > > To you... The unreadability of Lisp syntax is widely agreed, /even by the creator of Lisp./ It is often cited as one of the main reasons for the lack of penetration of Lisp in mainstream business computing. >> and uses bizarre postfix notation. > > Not Schemes I'm familiar with. Prefix notation, then. Whatever the hell you call this (+ 1 2 3 4) nonsense. >>> ?- you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures >>> without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; >> >> Straw man. >> >>> ?- there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which is >>> good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. >> >> If you can grasp the basics, pardon the pun, which I doubt most could. >> >>> There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. >> >> You have no real experience of actual high-school students, then, I >> can see that. > > Not true; I know some who are learning Scheme and Haskell with no trouble. /Some./ *Some* kids also learn ancient Greek or advanced undergrad-level algebra when they are under 10. >>>> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >>>> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, >>> >>> And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. >> >> Oh bollocks! >> >> Q.v. Dylan: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_%28programming_language%29#Syntax >> Q.v. Lisp 2 and Elephant, discussed here /passim./ >> >> Even John McCarthy himself later conceded that Lisp's syntax was a >> major hindrance in teaching it. > > Oh, yes, people have been trained to be terrified of it. It's a phantom > fear. I could not disagree more strongly. There is, I suspect, a certain mindset that can learn new mathematical notation and quickly and easily adjust to it. To the common man, though, mere algebra itself - simple x = a - b x is 10, b is 10; what is a? ... level-stuff - is as good as hieroglyphics. It is bizarre, byzantine, impenetrable. But if you show them a language that says ? apples = 5 oranges =10 total_fruit = apples + oranges print total_fruit ? And they can do that right at the command line, and they can save it, edit it and change it and watch the results change - than that is a useful teaching tool for introducing the notions of computer programming to complete beginners. I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or aptitude for it will be able to. >>> The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. >> >> >> That is not even remotely /like/ the conclusion that I came to. You >> are putting words in my mouth and I *object*, strenuously. >> >> I did not say it was not relevant. I did not say it was a bad thing to >> start with. I said it was /too hard/ for the average person, and I >> stand by that. >> >>> But >>> in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been >>> indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going >>> on >>> when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at >>> the >>> absolute bottom-most level. >> >> >> You have no idea of what any BASIC from even 20y ago is like, as you >> have demonstrated, and you also seem to be very unfamiliar with the >> limitations of actual ordinary people. For nonspecialists, concepts >> such as loops are quite hard at first. Iterative thinking has to be >> learned. Starting off utter newbies with prefix notation, CAR and >> CADR, lists versus atoms, quoting and lambda calculus is like taking >> the play-blocks off a kindergarten class and asking them to build the >> cathedral of Notre Dame instead. >> >>> We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion and >>> higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper tools, >>> mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can be >>> argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer >>> programmer. >> >> Actually, I am sure you're right. >> >> But this misses the strength of the old BASICs of the late 1980s and >> 1990s: that they brought programming to the common man. > > Yes, that's true; but it is 2011. And we are preparing kids whose careers > will peak in 2030. Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. >> Sure, we need better developers, but we /also/ need easy, friendly, >> fun tools to reintroduce the ordinary Joe to writing programs at all. >> Python and so on are far too big and complex for this. >> >>> I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't >>> really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I >>> had >>> picked up Scheme when I picked up C. >> >> >> So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? > > C moreso. I should have picked up something I could learn more from. >> >>> Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles >>> BASIC >>> puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed >>> "imperative >>> place". >> >> You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved >> on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. >> >>> Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion >>> was >>> hard? >> >> It isn't. I've written recursive programs. In BASIC. In a good BASIC: >> in BBC BASIC V, a very fast, 32-bit BASIC with full support for named >> procedures, local variables, passing by reference and value and so on. > > I'm very very familiar with BBC BASIC. It can't by any stretch be compared > to a Lisp or ML family language, for example. I am sure it can't and I am not arguing that. What I saying is that it was a world away from the simple crappy early BASICs which didn't even have if/then/else or more than single-letter array names. And BBC BASIC was in many ways superceded by later developments like QuickBASIC, which was a quite grown-up, structured language, written in a simple IDE so that it could dispense with the line numbers that you hate so much. (Personally, I think that for an interactive interpreter, line numbers are a simple, useful concept. If you type in language statements, they are executed; if you prefix them with a number, they are stored, for later execution. I see them as no more iniquitous than row and column identifiers in spreadsheets.) >> ?> ?How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with higher >>> >>> order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it >>> today, >>> for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) >> >> I don't, because I am not a programmer and I don't aim to be. >> >>> Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve >>> something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. *For a career in software*. That is the $64K statement, an all-important qualifier. So let me spell out what I am trying to say very clearly. If you are trying to teach a child - possibly an under-10 - about programs and logic and execution and evaluation, then a decent BASIC is actually a pretty good tool. Most of these kids will never be programmers, they will at best /use/ computers, but this gives them the rudimentary core understanding. For a non-programmer, it is enough. For such purposes, a good, structured BASIC is an excellent tool. If you are trying to teach an undergraduate university student reading computing, computer science or information technology about the art of programming, to make them a skilled programmer who is capable of going on to get a degree or multiple degrees in disciplines around programming, then from what I have read, yes, Scheme is an excellent teaching tool. I would expect these to be highly intelligent young people, the cream of the crop, with a background education in mathematics. And quite possible for any undergrad in the sciences, who one can therefore expect to be intelligent and used to structured thinking and reasoning and the basics of maths and algebra, then yes, for them too, Scheme is probably an excellent teaching tool. >> They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a >> late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, >> which are too big, too complex and too abstract. > > And after that, where will they fill in the missing pieces in their > education? You need to define who we are talking about here. Are we talking about: [a] nonspecialists who will never program again, apart from maybe some formulae in spreadsheets? [b] nontrained people, nonspecialists, who drift into doing a bit of scripting or basic coding, like most people in IT support? [c] trained professional programmers with higher-education training in programming and programme design? For group A, I think a good BASIC is ideal. For group B, possibly something more pragmatic like Python For group C, yes, I think the Lisp family is probably best, and from my reading, I'd say that Scheme is probably the best candidate for teaching purposes. But I think that Scheme or the like would be overkill for nonspecialists. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jan 5 10:51:45 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 16:51:45 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/5/12 7:52 AM, "Liam Proven" wrote: >[snip] >I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally >hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it >completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional >with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I >really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or >aptitude for it will be able to. And that statement goes to the heart of this conversation: once one has been 'indoctrinated' into one paradigm it can be devilishly hard to wrap one's head around another. My first language was FORTRAN IV (on Hollerith cards), my second was BASIC (again, on Hollerith cards, then an ASR33). When I learned C (from the K&R book) I had the usual struggle with pointers until the 'moment of enlightenment' after which I used them with no more thought than any other construct. Later I was exposed to Prolog, again having a struggle to set aside almost everything I'd learned to that point and being rewarded with a new way to look at applying information technology to solve problems. Lisp/Scheme was a similar personal evolution, and was enabled by exposure to functional programming. FP seems to spawn a religious fervor, but frankly so did OOP in the early days of C++ ("this will fix EVERYthing!"), and fortunately I was able to (eventually) grasp the value of a new paradigm without drinking the Kool-Aid. And I learned my first language in the mid-1970s, but only 'got' Lisp/Scheme in the last couple of years. These things don't necessarily happen overnight, but YMMV. So I empathize with your discomfort with Scheme, but I disagree that your experience validates the belief you hold that because you are not grokking it, 'normal folks' can't/won't grok it. You are already part of a distinct cohort: experienced users of information technology. How can you map your experience onto the broader population? And while your knowledge born of long tenure grants you many positive attributes in this field, there are down sides - such as this one, that you look at Scheme through the lens of your own experience and say, "that's just so wrong." It would certainly make for bad [BASIC | FORTRAN | C/C++ | etc.] but once you have the 'moment of enlightenment' it seems very consistent and elegant. For example, I far prefer prefix or postfix notation to messy infix notation that requires a table of operator precedence a page long! My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, aimed at experienced programmers. I switched to Scheme because, as I've said before, I felt it was not as bloated and bowdlerized as so-called Common Lisp. When I later picked up "Little Schemer" I found it interesting, but a bit tedious at points, probably because of the challenge of overcoming 'normal' thinking about programming. :-) But I agree it's a good book and can help one achieve literacy in the ways of Scheme. So I think you or anyone else *can* learn to program in a Lisp-like language and come to appreciate its value. Your addendum about that person having "neither interest [n]or aptitude" is another matter entirely. And I don't mean that unkindly: my daughter wants me to learn to ice-skate?. -- Ian From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 10:54:03 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:54:03 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 7:20, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote: > Well I thought I was the only one. People born in the last 20 or 30 > years laugh at me when I write FORTRAN, they tell me it's not > "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well it's an acronym! And > they say unindented code in all caps is unreadable which is just the > opposite of my experience and I don't know how they can explain how we > were able to read and write it back in the day and now it's > unacceptable but I realize my opinions are usually if not always in > the minority and nobody listens to me anyway, so... Go and read some standards. It was FORTRAN before F90, but part of the ANSI F90 standard is that "Fortran" is acceptable. Do any programmers who use a language actually read the standard for it? --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 10:56:56 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:56:56 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming > computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. That is a gross exaggeration. For 2006, the stats I could find without spending all morning, it looks like this: US Civilian Population - 230M US Civilian Labor Force - 150M Estimated number of "Computer Programmers" (Seried ID EEU80737101) - 700K So as of a few years ago, in the US, it's more like one in 200 active workers was classified as a programmer, not one in a million. One can debate how many of those are "career programmers", but I think the order of magnitude is close enough. I also think that there is a significant difference between teaching elementary/middle-school children (6-12) and college students (18-23) specifically in reference to abstractness. Young adults pursuing a technical education are going to be able to handle abstract concepts better than someone half their age or younger (or they are going to be finding a new field of study ;-). Having learned these concepts before age 12 and having taught workshops (as an amateur, not certified, teacher), my experience tells me that if you want to teach programming concepts to the age 6-12 crowd, it's important to start with very concrete examples and build on those to abstraction, much like teaching arithmetic is easier by putting items on a table and having a child count and group real objects before moving on to mathematical notation (numbers, symbols, etc). To that end, I don't see how teaching BASIC, even 1980s BASIC with its limitations and line numbers and all, is a terrible way to introduce simple concepts like assignment, input and output, branching and control flow. You can do a lot with LET (optional typically, I know, but useful educationally), PRINT, INPUT, GOTO, and uncomplicated IF/THEN/GOTO statements. FOR loops, subroutines, arrays, etc., are easy to add in later, and may be easier if the students have encountered sets and arrays in their math classes. I would posit that trying to teach recursion as a programming concept is likely to be frustrating unless the students have encountered factorials in math as well. It's a hard enough concept to teach when it's just trying to explain what 5! is, let alone asking a student to abstract the concept to general recursion (and besides, unless you are doing certain kinds of tree walking or string searches, how often _have_ you written recursive routines? I don't do it as often as once in five years with the kind of code I write). Five-ish years ago, I got involved with a thread on the author/futurist David Brin's blog because he was looking for a contemporary way to provide a BASIC environment for his, IIRC, 13-year-old son to learn on. There were examples of BASIC code in his son's math book, but it took extra (and not well known by the general public) steps to get BASIC onto a Mac or PC of the day. Since he was looking for a small computer that would be used specifically for this purpose, not a toolset to load onto a "modern" machine, I pointed out several kit computers (like the MicroKIM and Spare Time Gizmos Elf 2000) that could run Tiny BASIC. I would be curious to learn what ever developed from that inquiry. It's only one datapoint, but it's via someone who took an active interest in furthering their own child's education, so IMO, one worth examining. For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ -ethan -- References: http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/employ08.html http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/43888.html From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 11:09:14 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:09:14 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 16:51, Ian King wrote: > On 1/5/12 7:52 AM, "Liam Proven" wrote: >>[snip] > >>I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally >>hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it >>completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional >>with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I >>really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or >>aptitude for it will be able to. > > And that statement goes to the heart of this conversation: once one has > been 'indoctrinated' into one paradigm it can be devilishly hard to wrap > one's head around another. > > My first language was FORTRAN IV (on Hollerith cards), my second was BASIC > (again, on Hollerith cards, then an ASR33). ?When I learned C (from the > K&R book) I had the usual struggle with pointers until the 'moment of > enlightenment' after which I used them with no more thought than any other > construct. ?Later I was exposed to Prolog, again having a struggle to set > aside almost everything I'd learned to that point and being rewarded with > a new way to look at applying information technology to solve problems. > > Lisp/Scheme was a similar personal evolution, and was enabled by exposure > to functional programming. ?FP seems to spawn a religious fervor, but > frankly so did OOP in the early days of C++ ("this will fix EVERYthing!"), > and fortunately I was able to (eventually) grasp the value of a new > paradigm without drinking the Kool-Aid. ?And I learned my first language > in the mid-1970s, but only 'got' Lisp/Scheme in the last couple of years. > These things don't necessarily happen overnight, but YMMV. > > So I empathize with your discomfort with Scheme, but I disagree that your > experience validates the belief you hold that because you are not grokking > it, 'normal folks' can't/won't grok it. ?You are already part of a > distinct cohort: experienced users of information technology. ?How can you > map your experience onto the broader population? ?And while your knowledge > born of long tenure grants you many positive attributes in this field, > there are down sides - such as this one, that you look at Scheme through > the lens of your own experience and say, "that's just so wrong." > > It would certainly make for bad [BASIC | FORTRAN | C/C++ | etc.] but once > you have the 'moment of enlightenment' it seems very consistent and > elegant. ?For example, I far prefer prefix or postfix notation to messy > infix notation that requires a table of operator precedence a page long! > > My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, aimed > at experienced programmers. ?I switched to Scheme because, as I've said > before, I felt it was not as bloated and bowdlerized as so-called Common > Lisp. ?When I later picked up "Little Schemer" I found it interesting, but > a bit tedious at points, probably because of the challenge of overcoming > 'normal' thinking about programming. ?:-) ?But I agree it's a good book > and can help one achieve literacy in the ways of Scheme. > > So I think you or anyone else *can* learn to program in a Lisp-like > language and come to appreciate its value. ?Your addendum about that > person having "neither interest [n]or aptitude" is another matter > entirely. ?And I don't mean that unkindly: my daughter wants me to learn > to ice-skate?. ?-- Ian All right, some interesting points there. But, by way of seeking clarification - well, let's put it this way. I am interested and very curious about Lisp, Scheme, Lisp Machines and so on. Indeed I am, as a result of my reading, trying to research and write an article on the history of Lisp Machines. And yet, despite reading acres about this, I have yet to find *any* coherent nonspecialist texts, guides, tutorials or explanations about these languages. For instance, the lambda calculus. What is it? What does it do, what is it for, why is it special? Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. If the teaching & reference materials that I have found so far are unable to convey these core concepts, then there would seem to be two possible conclusions: [a] /all/ the materials that I've been able to find are extremely poor, even the ones that are more or less universally agreed to be very good or [b] these are complex, difficult concepts and a massive amount of back-knowledge is necessary to understand it. I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 11:15:40 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:15:40 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Do any programmers who use a language actually read the standard for > it? I read the ANSI C standard when it was new, but part of the inspiration was due to my boss being the DECUS representative to the X3J committee and hearing some of the stories of what it took to forge the standard in the first place (I'd only been programming in C for 2-3 years at the time). I haven't re-read it in the intervening 25 years, however. -ethan From vintagecoder at aol.com Thu Jan 5 11:18:03 2012 From: vintagecoder at aol.com (Vintage Coder) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:18:03 +0000 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> , <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1220834493-1325783874-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-218465181-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> I don't know, I haven't written any FORTRAN to speak of since IBM FORTRAN H. I thought you agreed with me, but that must have been somebody else. -----Original Message----- From: "Chuck Guzis" Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:54:03 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job On 5 Jan 2012 at 7:20, vintagecoder at aol.com wrote: > Well I thought I was the only one. People born in the last 20 or 30 > years laugh at me when I write FORTRAN, they tell me it's not > "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well it's an acronym! And > they say unindented code in all caps is unreadable which is just the > opposite of my experience and I don't know how they can explain how we > were able to read and write it back in the day and now it's > unacceptable but I realize my opinions are usually if not always in > the minority and nobody listens to me anyway, so... Go and read some standards. It was FORTRAN before F90, but part of the ANSI F90 standard is that "Fortran" is acceptable. Do any programmers who use a language actually read the standard for it? --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 11:20:37 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:20:37 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 16:56, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming >> computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. > > That is a gross exaggeration. > > For 2006, the stats I could find without spending all morning, it > looks like this: > > US Civilian Population - 230M > US Civilian Labor Force - 150M > Estimated number of "Computer Programmers" (Seried ID EEU80737101) - 700K > > So as of a few years ago, in the US, it's more like one in 200 active > workers was classified as a programmer, not one in a million. ?One can > debate how many of those are "career programmers", but I think the > order of magnitude is close enough. OK, I concede the point. (Although worldwide I think the argue would be massively different.) I had to google "Seried ID EEU80737101" which meant I found the GoogleAnswer you got it from, pre-typo. :?) > I also think that there is a significant difference between teaching > elementary/middle-school children (6-12) and college students (18-23) > specifically in reference to abstractness. ?Young adults pursuing a > technical education are going to be able to handle abstract concepts > better than someone half their age or younger (or they are going to be > finding a new field of study ;-). ?Having learned these concepts > before age 12 and having taught workshops (as an amateur, not > certified, teacher), my experience tells me that if you want to teach > programming concepts to the age 6-12 crowd, it's important to start > with very concrete examples and build on those to abstraction, much > like teaching arithmetic is easier by putting items on a table and > having a child count and group real objects before moving on to > mathematical notation (numbers, symbols, etc). > > To that end, I don't see how teaching BASIC, even 1980s BASIC with its > limitations and line numbers and all, is a terrible way to introduce > simple concepts like assignment, input and output, branching and > control flow. ? You can do a lot with LET (optional typically, I know, > but useful educationally), PRINT, INPUT, GOTO, and uncomplicated > IF/THEN/GOTO statements. ?FOR loops, subroutines, arrays, etc., are > easy to add in later, and may be easier if the students have > encountered sets and arrays in their math classes. ?I would posit that > trying to teach recursion as a programming concept is likely to be > frustrating unless the students have encountered factorials in math as > well. ?It's a hard enough concept to teach when it's just trying to > explain what 5! is, let alone asking a student to abstract the concept > to general recursion (and besides, unless you are doing certain kinds > of tree walking or string searches, how often _have_ you written > recursive routines? ?I don't do it as often as once in five years with > the kind of code I write). Absolutely agreed. Including about recursion. It took me something like a decade, from early efforts typing in BASIC listings to, after my degree, designing and building simple apps of my own, for the very first time I found an actual /use/ for recursion. (It was, if anyone is curious, writing a TREE command for Acorn RISC OS in BBC BASIC. RISC OS doesn't have any equivalent, either in the CLI or in the GUI. Taught me why XTree was a big deal in its day, and why the Norton NCD command is particularly clever.) > Five-ish years ago, I got involved with a thread on the > author/futurist David Brin's blog because he was looking for a > contemporary way to provide a BASIC environment for his, IIRC, > 13-year-old son to learn on. ?There were examples of BASIC code in his > son's math book, but it took extra (and not well known by the general > public) steps to get BASIC onto a Mac or PC of the day. ?Since he was > looking for a small computer that would be used specifically for this > purpose, not a toolset to load onto a "modern" machine, I pointed out > several kit computers (like the MicroKIM and Spare Time Gizmos Elf > 2000) that could run Tiny BASIC. ?I would be curious to learn what > ever developed from that inquiry. ?It's only one datapoint, but it's > via someone who took an active interest in furthering their own > child's education, so IMO, one worth examining. > > For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC > on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug > http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, back in the day! Er - why? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 5 11:53:22 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:53:22 -0700 Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> References: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> Message-ID: In article <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8 at ANTONIOPC>, writes: > Dijkstra was more interested in whether you could prove that your > program behaved according to its specification. I've seen a lot of people talk about this kind of approach towards correctness. The problem is that it doesn't account for buggy specifications; once you can prove that your program adheres to the specification, you just need to prove that your specification is written correctly. In other words, we're now debugging our specifications instead of our programs and the problem hasn't substantially changed. The specifications will always need to be written in something that can be digested by a computer in order to prove the program correct, so now I've just shifted the problem of writing a correct program to writing a correct specification. Fundamentally I've always believed that this approach doesn't fix anything, it just changes the language in which I have to write and debug stuff. > Whether your > program worked every time you ran it was less important than > whether it could conceivably fail. It's been my experience that this is what unit testing (when done properly) is providing you: confidence that you've exercised every single execution path in your code, including all the error handling cases that are highly unlikely to occur when you manually test your program. > Don't forget that you couldn't meet his definition of programmer > without being a mathematician. Mathematics certainly helps, but programming is more than that. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 11:55:35 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:55:35 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 12:20 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ > > Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, > back in the day! Er - why? [raises hand] Oooh! I know this one! Because it was hands-down THE most popular, widely-deployed one from the 1980s, at least in the US. (or maybe because he wanted to!) Of course a statement like that is sure to draw people out of the woodwork screaming "NO! was the most popular!" No, I was never a "commie" by any stretch, but of all the people I knew who had computers at home in the 1980s when I was in high school, the breakdown went something like this: 90%: Commodore 64 or VIC-20 5%: Atari 400 or 800 1%: Apple (rich kids) 1%: COCO 1%: Non-COCO TRS-80 (kids with parents who ran their own businesses) 1%: CP/M 1%: RSTS/E =) (only 1...betcha can't guess who that was!) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 11:57:51 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:57:51 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 5 January 2012 16:56, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Five-ish years ago, I got involved with a thread on the >> author/futurist David Brin's blog because he was looking for a >> contemporary way to provide a BASIC environment for his, IIRC, >> 13-year-old son to learn on... Since I just re-read the Salon.com article, even though he himself used an Apple II in past years, he ended up buying an inexpensive C-64 and 1541 for his son. >> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ > > Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, > back in the day! Er - why? For one, I didn't start the project, I joined it after the first release; and for another, I am *deeply* familiar with that version of BASIC because it's what I learned at age 11 and explored down to unpublished entry points and code hacking on my own hardware at age 13 (by porting Mark Zimmerman's FLOPTRAN from BASIC1 to BASIC2 on the PET), then used daily at my first job at age 15. I readily admit that professional BASIC experience is uncommon, but there you have it. >From your comment, I have to guess that you haven't met Tiny BASIC, Apple Integer BASIC, Applesoft BASIC, TRS-80 Level 1 BASIC, Atari BASIC, or TI 99/4a BASIC - I put all of those below CBM BASIC2 (not BASIC1 from 1977), though I doubt someone looking into that pool from the outside would make much differentiation among any of them. In terms of string manipulation, complex expressions, control flow, and variable and array type/quantity/amount/management, I'd put TRS-80 Level 1 BASIC, Tiny BASIC, and Atari BASIC at the bottom of that pile, in that order (and if you don't know why I put Atari BASIC down there, you haven't ever filled up your VTOC). -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 5 11:57:51 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:57:51 -0700 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: > On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're seriously out of the loop. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 12:03:03 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:03:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120105095303.T76006@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Go and read some standards. It was FORTRAN before F90, but part of > the ANSI F90 standard is that "Fortran" is acceptable. > > Do any programmers who use a language actually read the standard for > it? >From what you said earlier, about "inventing language", perhaps it would be equally valid to ask Do any language standards writers actually USE it? My impression was that each and every committee member wanted a completely different language than the current language. ("fortran should look like Pascal!" "Fortran should be as 'elf-documenting' as COBOL!", etc.) And, each one wanted complete standardization on THAT committee member's unique implementation. OK, WE aren't exceptions. I want every language to use .EQ. for comparision, and an arrow for assignment. // for comments in C is actually convenient, but it is a serious break from the original CONCEPT of newline being nothing more than "whitespace". From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:09:54 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:09:54 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F05E772.8040400@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > I have no idea. I have not programmed in any meaningful sense in over > 20y. I would expect so, yes. [cited for reference below] > The unreadability of Lisp syntax is widely agreed, /even by the > creator of Lisp./ It is often cited as one of the main reasons for the > lack of penetration of Lisp in mainstream business computing. "Mainstream business computing" is extremely low-tech stuff, done by people who regularly say "oh, it crashed, that's just how computers are, just do it again, and reinstall if it doesn't work". In architecture and engineering in particular, Lisp is used on a daily basis by probably 95% of the industry. The architect working on my building plans diddles with AutoLisp regularly, and until we discussed it, he didn't even realize he was doing any programming! > I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally > hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it > completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional > with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I > really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or > aptitude for it will be able to. Please forgive me for jumping in, but I have to speak up here. You keep going on and on about how you've got all this "IT experience" (you didn't specifically mention "IT" above, but you have before), and that should make you more able, not less able, to understand abstract "CS" (as distinct from "IT") concepts. You reinforce what I'm saying by also stating that you're not a software developer. Wrangling systems and networks, working with databases, etc etc and whatever else constitutes your day-to-day work life has jack-point-squat to do with advanced theoretical concepts (with practical implementations) such as, for example, closures. It is my opinion that you should not feel it's unusual that you don't "get" that stuff even though you are "a computer professional". That's like saying "I'm a podiatrist, so I work on the human body too...all that stuff about understanding how neurons work is just bunk, because I don't get it!" I'm down with Death Flu(tm), and I'm sure I could've illustrated my point a bit better above, but I think you get the general gist of what I'm trying to say. The only reason *I* see the difference is because I do both...otherwise I'd probably not get it either. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 12:11:00 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:11:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: OpenFirmware/Fcode - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F047D67.4650.15E4678@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F050042.3090100@telegraphics.com.au> <4F049B55.802.1D33028@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201051811.NAA18855@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> The format is Fcode; [...] > Finding anything about this is a little difficult--lots of 404s, etc. > when trying to search. I have a PostScript file documenting, among other things, FCode, which I got from, near as I can tell, http://playground.sun.com/pub/p1275/coredoc/1275-1994/1275.ps.gz, on 2001-06-21. It's available from ftp.rodents-montreal.org in /mouse/misc/playground.sun.com%pub%p1275%coredoc%1275-1994%1275.ps.gz in case anyone would like a copy. (If anyone has trouble with gzip, I can gunzip it for you, but I'd rather not leave the five-times-the-size gunzipped file lying around for crawlers to soak up my bandwidth with.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 12:22:46 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:22:46 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> On Jan 5, 2012, at 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. I can take that one, though I fully expect someone to correct me if I get something wrong. Closures are a way of encapsulating data in a particular function instance, not unlike the member data associated with an object's method. For example, in Python I could write the following function: # foo is expected to be a list here def function_generator(foo): def _f(x): foo.append(x) return _f And I would generate a callable function that would append x to the list foo. For example: bar = [] append_func = function_generator(bar) append_func("abc") print bar Would print "['abc']". It's a toy example, for sure, but they're great for things like callbacks (it's similar to a callback with a context pointer, which is a pretty popular idiom in C; a closure just encapsulates the context pointer much like a C++ object does for its methods). I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. - Dave From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 12:27:08 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:27:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <201201051827.NAA19101@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> ? This is definitely the case.? It's pretty tough to find a programmer thes$ > C: I hate to tell you but was always the case. Unless the programmer was wor$ Please do not use paragraph-length lines. Compensating, >> This is definitely the case.? It's pretty tough to find a programmer >> these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even >> at the assembly language level.? This is something that many (most?) >> people think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to >> fling around statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic >> just to drive a car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when >> it's not. It _is_ an appropriate analogy - for end users. Not for programmers. > C: I hate to tell you but was always the case. Actually, it wasn't. The very earliest computers _did_ demand an understanding of their workings of their programmers. > How many housewives (or their husbands!) know how to fix a washing > machine? Again, appropriate analogy if we're talking about end users; inappropriate analogy if we're talking about programmers. > But what does programming w/objects have to do w/interrupt vector > tables??? About as much as installing cruise control in a car has to do with the universal joints on the driving wheels. In each case, if all you're doing is the one, you don't really need to know much about the other. But few people do only one thing. And, at least in my experience, it is occasionally useful to know things about other parts of any system, even ones very distant from the ones you're working with. > I thought that we want to one day communicate w/our computers solely > by voice. Maybe you do. "We" don't, at least not to the extent that I'm part of that "we". On output, voice is a horrible channel (as compared to vision), with low bandwidth and poor exploitation of the human sense it depends on. On input, voice...well, we don't actually know; nobody has built a good voice input system yet. I might like to play with the possibility. I do not, now, want to switch entirely to it, and won't until the technology has matured. I suspect - and a guess is all it is, at this point - that it will prove difficult to achieve suitable levels of precision and bandwidth through voice. I also suspect - and, again, it's just a guess - that it's harder, for most people, to develop a voice that can speak constantly for eight hours a day than to develop hands that can type for eight hours a day. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 12:29:34 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:29:34 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/05/2012 12:20 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >>> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >>> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ >> >> Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, >> back in the day! Er - why? > > ?[raises hand] > > ?Oooh! ?I know this one! ?Because it was hands-down THE most popular, > widely-deployed one from the 1980s, at least in the US. I can get behind that. > (or maybe because he wanted to!) That never hurts. > ?Of course a statement like that is sure to draw people out of the woodwork > screaming "NO! was the most popular!" Bring it. ;-) >?No, I was never a "commie" by any stretch... I was, from day one. I _used_ other machines, and I did admire certain features of other machines (like the Hi-res graphics of the Apple II when all I had was a character-graphic PET), but really enjoyed getting to know Commodore products at the ROM-code and register level (something I never enjoyed on the Apple II, even when I was being paid to to program it - I appreciate and admire Woz's hardware from a technician's standpoint, but I can't stand the consequences of his achievements from a programming standpoint). > but of all the people I knew who had computers at home in the > 1980s when I was in high school, the breakdown went something like this: > > ?90%: Commodore 64 or VIC-20 > ?5%: Atari 400 or 800 > ?1%: Apple (rich kids) > ?1%: COCO > ?1%: Non-COCO TRS-80 (kids with parents who ran their own businesses) > ?1%: CP/M > ?1%: RSTS/E =) ?(only 1...betcha can't guess who that was!) I'd say that was about right, though for the crowd I knew, I'd flip Atari and Apple, largely because we had a lot of Apples in local schools and a lot of parents just went with the expensive but easy option when buying a machine. I did know a couple of Ohio Scientific owners, but that's probably because the company was a couple of hours from where I grew up, and one DEC Rainbow owner (Dad was a lawyer for whom cost was not a deciding factor). Later, of course, the whole mess shifted to PC, Amiga, and Mac, with some 68K Atari owners hanging off the fringes, but the days of BASIC were over - even if someone happened to own a PC with BASIC in ROM, I never saw that it in use past about 1984. -ethan From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 12:30:18 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:30:18 -0000 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <90AD08C6AE48437C9C2A97D07802105E@EMACHINE> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard > Sent: 05 January 2012 17:58 > To: cctalk > Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching > programming to kids > > > > > On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or > ever will, again? > > People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're > seriously out of the loop. No they don't (depends of course on what you mean by writing compilers) they write the grammer and get FLEX/LEX and Yacc/BISON to write the compiler for them, or they write a new back end for GCC... http://dinosaur.compilertools.net/ > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version > available for download > > Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 12:33:10 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:33:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> > > Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming > > computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > That is a gross exaggeration. > For 2006, the stats I could find without spending all morning, it > looks like this: > US Civilian Population - 230M > US Civilian Labor Force - 150M > Estimated number of "Computer Programmers" (Seried ID EEU80737101) - 700K > So as of a few years ago, in the US, it's more like one in 200 active > workers was classified as a programmer, not one in a million. One can > debate how many of those are "career programmers", but I think the > order of magnitude is close enough. But, how is "computer programmer" DEFINED for the purpose of those numbers? (What categories are available?) If there is no category for "website designer", do they get counted as "programmer"? "I PROGRAM in DreamWeaver!" In the opposite direction, I remember when computer programming was not one of the choices for business activity on IRS 1040 schedule C - had to choose something like "computer related manufacturing"! From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 12:33:58 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:33:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Imperative thought patterns - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <5C45C4BFBB33409DBF052A4935AA82A8@ANTONIOPC> Message-ID: <201201051833.NAA19236@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Dijkstra was more interested in whether you could prove that your >> program behaved according to its specification. > The problem is that it doesn't account for buggy specifications; once > you can prove that your program adheres to the specification, you > just need to prove that your specification is written correctly. In > other words, we're now debugging our specifications instead of our > programs and the problem hasn't substantially changed. Actually, it's gotten worse, because... > The specifications will always need to be written in something that > can be digested by a computer in order to prove the program correct, ...the prover will make mistakes (due to bugs, if automated; no piece of software the size of a program prover is without bugs). > so now I've just shifted the problem of writing a correct program to > writing a correct specification. And added the problem of constructing code that provably implements that specification. (This might be automatable, in which case it's just a compiler for a new language.) "Beware of bugs in the above code. I have only proved it correct, not actually tried it." (From memory, probably not quite exact.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 12:35:01 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:35:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <20120105095303.T76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com> <20120105095303.T76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201051835.NAA19266@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > // for comments in C is actually convenient, but it is a serious > break from the original CONCEPT of newline being nothing more than > "whitespace". That concept was shot as soon as the preprocessor was invented. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 12:46:25 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:46:25 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <1220834493-1325783874-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-218465181-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com>, <1220834493-1325783874-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-218465181-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 17:18, Vintage Coder wrote: > I don't know, I haven't written any FORTRAN to speak of since IBM > FORTRAN H. I thought you agreed with me, but that must have been > somebody else. No, just saying that it's FORTRAN 66, FORTRAN 77 and FORTRAN II, but "Fortran 90", "Fortran 2003" although "FORTRAN 90" is also okay, according to ANSI. Perhaps everyone should follow the trend though and talk about c, cobol, pl/i, snobol, simscript, basic, jovial, dos, vms... Maybe they already do... --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:46:51 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:46:51 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F05F01B.8000407@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 12:57 PM, Richard wrote: >> On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> >>> Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? > > People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're > seriously out of the loop. It was a joke, son. I say, a JOKE. -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:50:11 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:50:11 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com>, <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F05F0E3.7050109@neurotica.com> On 01/04/2012 07:36 PM, Chris M wrote: > This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer > these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at > the assembly language level. This is something that many (most?) > people think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling > around statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to > drive a car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's > not. Looking at the state of software today proves my point beyond > any shadow of a doubt. > > -Dave > > C: I hate to tell you but was always the case. Unless the programmer > was working in al/ml, he didn't nor needed to know much about the > innards and what was going on under the hood. Granted there was a > time when you _needed_ to be something of a mechanic to get behind > the wheel. But isn't that one of the natural goals of technology, to > make things easier to use, and be able to devote time to other > things? How many housewives (or their husbands!) know how to fix a > washing machine? Some people get to poking around, and that's a good > thing generally. When you advance to poking around inside your > computer (w/1s and 0s or a scope/logic probe) all the better. But > what does programming w/objects have to do w/interrupt vector > tables??? I thought that we want to one day communicate w/our > computers solely by voice. We're not really in disagreement here. What I'm saying is that a much larger percentage of today's programmers are of the type who think it is somehow "beneath" them to understand what the computer (not the compiler) is doing with their code. There have always been lazy, disinterested programmers who don't care about becoming better programmers. Now it's pretty much ALL of them. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 5 12:50:38 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:50:38 -0700 Subject: DEC LISP text (was: teaching programming to kids) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Ian King writes: > My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, aimed > at experienced programmers. [...] This sounds interesting. What was the book? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:51:31 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:51:31 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325724785.28698.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04E1F7.30704@neurotica.com> <1325724785.28698.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F05F133.2070004@neurotica.com> On 01/04/2012 07:53 PM, Chris M wrote: >> Omgosh why before? Why not after? How many, but the truly >> deranged/depraved, learned machine language (machine language!) as >> their first language??? I mean no offense to those who learned ml >> on a keypad. Oh who am I kidding. I could care less if I pissed >> them off!. But I learned assembler on a k/b! The real man's way! >> >> Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a >> check today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast >> majority probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. >> But what do I know. > > I had to read this about three times before I realized that by "ml" > you meant "machine language", not the language "ML". > > C: Well read it again anyway. Chuck makes the assumption that all > language "work". You don't need no stinking ml to tell you that. You > might need ml to tell you things about the ones that don't work! > Psyyyche... > > Am I a pain? I've been on this list for 6 or 7 years, and I yet to > hear from anyone regarding whether it's painful to read my posts. Or > am I just forgetful...too? Not at all! You are unusual, but personally, I rather dig that about you. I was just complaining in a minor way about unnecessary abbreviating when it actually caused a problem. I didn't lose any sleep over it. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 12:51:34 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:51:34 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F0580B6.2470.76DC0A@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 12:15, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I read the ANSI C standard when it was new, but part of the > inspiration was due to my boss being the DECUS representative to the > X3J committee and hearing some of the stories of what it took to forge > the standard in the first place (I'd only been programming in C for > 2-3 years at the time). On further consideration, I guess that's okay. Few people sit down and read their mortgages either, it seems. Some standards, such as that for PL/I can give you a real headache. But, as in a mortgage, it's always nice to know what the rules are. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:52:05 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:52:05 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 12:19 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for I/O? > > Hmm...that sounds like a disturbingly good idea :-). That sounds like a TANTALIZINGLY good idea!! -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 12:52:49 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:52:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to college kids In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120105100404.B76006@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I also think that there is a significant difference between teaching > elementary/middle-school children (6-12) and college students (18-23) > specifically in reference to abstractness. Young adults pursuing a > technical education are going to be able to handle abstract concepts > better than someone half their age or younger (or they are going to be > finding a new field of study ;-). Clancy/Harvey (UCB): "The very first course in our lower division undergraduate [first year of collefge] curricula is Abstraction, using SCHEME. It is a fantastic language, capable of many things THAT NO OTHER LANGUAGE CAN DO." [They then put a problem on the board that "cannot be done in any other language, becayse recursion is the only possible way to do it." (traversing a 2 dimensional array) While they typed in their solution, I wrote out solutions (WITHOUT recursion) on my notepad in C, BASIC, FORTRAN, and was halfway through COBOL! (I didn't get a chance to do APL, ASM, or Pascal) Their religious proselytizing got seriously in the way of their arguments of how good it is.] Q: I see that your SECOND course is "demystification" using C. Since that's a different language in non-trivial ways from the previous course, will the students be learning C in the second course, instead of the first one? A: NO! We expect them to already have a solid working knowledge of C before they come here. WHAT??? They repeated it. Any student entering their first year of college there as a CS major was assumed to already know C. Q: Won't some students have difficulty with that? A: Oh, it's "Social Darwinism". We have too many entering students, so we WANT 80% to drop out of the program in the first year. If we don't get at least 80% leaving the program, then we merely increase the workload until enough fail and leave. Sometimes we have to work them 20 hours a day, and assign 4:00 AM lab times, etc. to get the desired result. They won't be expelled, or anything, they can still become business majors. [I lost some respect for the UCB CS program] [Does their "Darwinism" select for CS ability, or STAMINA and tolerance for ABUSE?] [Sorry, Toby, but C/H prejudiced me against SCHEME. I do still intend some day to give it a fair try] Q: What's your timeframe for implementing this curricula? A: Oh, we've been doing it with wonderful success for over 5 years. Q: The current college catalog is nothing like that, it still has the traditional program. When do you expect the catalog changes to be made. A: Oh, that happened YEARS ago. This years catalog just has a glitch and must have reprinted an old version. [Doe Library [reference desk] has current and older catalogs. NO prior catalog had their sequence!] I don't think that UC Berkeley has THE ANSWER. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 5 12:55:20 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:55:20 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Jan 5, 2012, at 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > > > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. Closures are great for JavaScript because it lets you have truly private data that other people can't muck with. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:55:51 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:55:51 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 07:27 AM, John Foust wrote: > At 06:36 PM 1/4/2012, Chris M wrote: >> This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a >> programmer these days who has any idea of how a computer actually >> works, even at the assembly language level. > > Not hard at all. Just filter for the ones over 40 who expect a > decent salary. Maybe they've already moved to upper management. ROFL! Yes! And that crazy idea that being in "management" (overhead positions that require no real brainpower) as opposed to creating things has really crippled our industry. We have a crop of highly talented, interested programmers who are bored to tears in meetings, and the work they SHOULD be doing is being done by PFYs who wouldn't know elegant simplicity if it walked up and pinched them on the ass. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 12:56:23 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:56:23 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <77169650-1325778683-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1690640727-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> References: <77169650-1325778683-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1690640727-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F05F257.4010408@neurotica.com> Umm. Wow. I'm sorry Mouse, but..."oh, snap!" ;) -Dave On 01/05/2012 10:51 AM, Vintage Coder wrote: > If you look at the November, 1972 paper Wirth put out called "The Programming Language Pascal (Revised Report) you will find both "Pascal" and "PASCAL" in the text. > > The canonical "PASCAL User Manual and Report" (Springer-Verlag, 1974) uses all caps in the title and then in a few places such as "PASCAL 6000". > > Just because it's a proper name doesn't mean it's incorrect to capitalize it. After all, wasn't Blaise Pascal a Frenchman, and don't the French capitalize last names to this very day? ;-) > > ------Original Message------ > From: Mouse > Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job > Sent: 5 Jan 2012 15:00 > >> they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well >> it's an acronym! > > Not in the usual sense of `acronym', though. But... > >> PASCAL as delivered was pretty unusable. > > ...if you're going to draw the distinction between "Fortran" and > "FORTRAN", you might at least get Pascal's name right. :) > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > > -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 5 12:57:32 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:57:32 -0700 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: <20120104081423.GA50979@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: In article , Ethan Dicks writes: > On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 3:14 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > > Like it too. > > I've repaired several old computers (no PDP8) and it is always fascinating > > to read such blogs. I know "mass dead effects" of several TTL chips too > > Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my > experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found > more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. > > For my testing, I rigged up a 3M test clip > (http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/389650-16-pin-test-clip-3-row-space-923700. html) > to a ribbon cable with two IDC headers crimped on one end about an > inch apart so that I could mount one IDC connector on each side of the > clip, then cobbled up an adapter for the other end of the cable from a > wire-wrap socket so that in the end, I had a cable that could clip > onto one IC and fit into the ZIF socket of a hand-held IC tester. I > would test my FLIP-CHIP modules out of the box, letting the tester > power all the ICs on the board but only fiddle the lines on the chip > under test. > > With that device, I could test a pile of M111, M113... M216, etc., > boards in a few minutes and identify failed ICs. Complex boards like > the M220 Major Registers module, though, still have to be tested the > hard way. Wow, what a great idea! I'm filing that one away. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 12:58:34 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:58:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120105105628.A76006@shell.lmi.net> > > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're > seriously out of the loop. I was speaking facetiously! "Nobody program in assembly any more; nor ever will again." is another quote from Clancy and Harvey. . . . and, YES. I AM very seriously out of the loop. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 12:59:23 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:59:23 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1325724785.28698.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: , <4F04E1F7.30704@neurotica.com>, <1325724785.28698.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F05828B.24912.7E020E@cclist.sydex.com> On 4 Jan 2012 at 16:53, Chris M wrote: > ?C: Well read it again anyway. Chuck makes the assumption that all > language "work". You don't need no stinking ml to tell you that. You > might need ml to tell you things about the ones that don't work! > Psyyyche... Linux 2.4.18-14? Cuuuuupid? I have no idea what you're trying to say. --Chuck From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Thu Jan 5 13:03:54 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:03:54 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F05F41A.4030008@mail.msu.edu> On 1/5/2012 9:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > All right, some interesting points there. > > But, by way of seeking clarification - well, let's put it this way. I > am interested and very curious about Lisp, Scheme, Lisp Machines and > so on. Indeed I am, as a result of my reading, trying to research and > write an article on the history of Lisp Machines. > > And yet, despite reading acres about this, I have yet to find *any* > coherent nonspecialist texts, guides, tutorials or explanations about > these languages. What texts have you looked at? "Practical Common Lisp" is fairly decent, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (http://deptinfo.unice.fr/~roy/sicp.pdf) is a great introduction. Recently I've skimmed through "Land of Lisp" which is a fun book with a good sense of humor that teaches Lisp by way of writing simple games. > > For instance, the lambda calculus. What is it? What does it do, what > is it for, why is it special? It's the fundamental mathematical concept behind functional programming languages. It's by no means a prerequisite for using (or understanding) Lisp. I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it coherently, so I'll let someone else chime in here :). > > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. (Warning, huge URL, to Peter Siebel's "Practical Common Lisp") http://books.google.com/books?id=gwyZ4jdn_jMC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=closures+in+lisp&source=bl&ots=PfkTcPue18&sig=S4J-MJ4rbbW5Qan49AXt0tgMEss&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UewFT7bYBoeiiQLJ8YCBDA&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=closures&f=false See page 68 at least. I'd also suggest reading "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs." It's Scheme-based, but most of what it's talking about applies to Lisp as well. And it uses closures heavily as a powerful abstraction. > > If the teaching& reference materials that I have found so far are > unable to convey these core concepts, then there would seem to be two > possible conclusions: > > [a] /all/ the materials that I've been able to find are extremely > poor, even the ones that are more or less universally agreed to be > very good > > or > > [b] these are complex, difficult concepts and a massive amount of > back-knowledge is necessary to understand it. Or [c] you're taking the wrong approach to actually learning this. Sit down with a copy of SICP and a computer running Scheme. Go through the examples. Experiment. And don't worry about understanding everything all at once. (I'd also argue that the two items you list as "core concepts" are not as "core" as you're making them out to be. As I've said, understanding Lambda calculus at the mathematical level is by no means a requirement for actually using a functional programming language. Similarly, closures are very useful but by no means required knowledge for starting off in Lisp.) > > I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links > but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. > > But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That > these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? I'm not going to say these things are easy -- programming isn't easy in general. Learning a new programming paradigm isn't easy. Lisp and Scheme themselves are not complicated, but there are concepts in them that you really won't understand until you sit down and start using them. You'll have a few "a ha!" moments, and things will start making more sense. I'm still relatively inexperienced with Lisp. I know my way around it, but I don't claim to be an expert, and I'm still learning new things that make me say "a ha!" - Josh From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 13:04:52 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:04:52 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > My first language was FORTRAN IV (on Hollerith cards), Wow! With round holes? -- Will From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 13:21:52 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:21:52 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> > Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming >> > computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. > > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Estimated number of "Computer Programmers" (Seried ID EEU80737101) - 700K > > But, how is "computer programmer" DEFINED for the purpose of those > numbers? ?(What categories are available?) I completely understand the limitations of Federal job designations, but this is what I was able to pull up, and at least shows that "one in a million" is a vast undercount. I was not trying to suggest it is an all-inclusive/properly-exclusive statistic. I'm certainly willing to stand behind "less than 1%" of the workforce programs computers for a living, but how many slivers of a percent is it really? A few, probably. > If there is no category for "website designer", do they get counted as > "programmer"? The definition given where I got the stat does mention that "programmer" _might_ build websites, so it likely covers folks who wear many hats but may or may not include workers who only build web sites. It's unclear. > "I PROGRAM in DreamWeaver!" Yes... I've heard that. I try not to react in an antagonistically offensive manner (but I often fail trying). > In the opposite direction, I remember when computer programming was not > one of the choices for business activity on IRS 1040 schedule C - had to > choose something like "computer related manufacturing"! The first time in my life I ever applied for unemployment, the best IT definition for my former job would have been "VMS System Administrator" (called "System Manager" at the time, which happened to make the situation worse since I did not manage subordinate employees). There was nothing even remotely close to that in the Federal Job Register. I was declared a Mainframe Systems Programmer and was required to apply for 1-3 matching jobs per week to maintain my status to receive my weekly checks. I don't think it's a shock that I wasn't actually qualified to be employed as a Mainframe Systems Programmer, so 100% of the leads for State jobs that were funneled my way by the Job and Family Service folks were a bad fit. Eventually, I found gainful employment on my own with no assistance from the public safety net (and the benefits paid for by my previous employer meant I could keep my house and eat). I started my career as a contractor, paid on a 1099, and filing a Schedule C (talk about growing up fast)... I seem to recall the same paperwork dilemma you had, and my accountant picked something similar for that blank as well. -ethan From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 5 13:29:57 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:29:57 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <868A1BB175F14B6FA49971D5BD80032B@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:10:08 -0500 From: "Bill Sudbrink" James Attfield wrote: > >> FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. > I just double checked the schematics and this is not correct. > The 16FDC feeds address lines 15-12 through a 74ls30 to do a > specific decode for a 4K address range, normally set to $C000-$CFFF. > If the high four address bits do not match, the card will not > respond. > Bill S. -------------------------------------------------- The 16FDC does indeed have a set of jumpers to select a 4kB block, normally at $C000, but the 64FDC that we were talking about only uses A15, i.e. the upper 32kB; also, the 64FDC's RDOS ROM is 8kB vs. the 16FDC's 4kB. In any case, the memory boards are usually configured to map out the upper 32kB. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 5 13:45:25 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:45:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 5, 12 01:29:34 pm" Message-ID: <201201051945.q05JjPGP014484@floodgap.com> > I was, from day one. I _used_ other machines, and I did admire > certain features of other machines (like the Hi-res graphics of the > Apple II when all I had was a character-graphic PET), but really > enjoyed getting to know Commodore products at the ROM-code and > register level (something I never enjoyed on the Apple II, even when I > was being paid to to program it - I appreciate and admire Woz's > hardware from a technician's standpoint, but I can't stand the > consequences of his achievements from a programming standpoint). Well-put. Programming on the Apple II, as clever as the design was, is generally an exercise in trying to figure out what Woz was thinking at the time. I rarely, if ever, had that kind of frustration with the Commodore 64. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Watch your mouth, kid, or you'll find yourself floating home. -- Han Solo -- From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 5 13:54:37 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:54:37 -0800 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F05FFFD.1070409@bitsavers.org> On 1/5/12 10:50 AM, Richard wrote: > In article, > Ian King writes: > >> My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, aimed >> at experienced programmers. [...] > > This sounds interesting. What was the book? Steele "Common Lisp: The Language" 1984 2nd edition published in 1990 From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 5 13:54:05 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:54:05 -0600 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201051955.q05Jt3aM091357@billy.ezwind.net> At 12:33 PM 1/5/2012, Fred Cisin wrote: >If there is no category for "website designer", do they get counted as >"programmer"? >"I PROGRAM in DreamWeaver!" I think even the most graphic-art-intensive web designer is acquainted with HTML, probably JavaScript, XML, and before you know it, they're picking up Unix concepts from web hosts, making small alterations to PHP or other scripting languages, maybe touching SQL. Does the average web designer routinely bump up against more programming languages per day than the average programmer? - John From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 13:55:01 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:55:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> > > C is pretty good for writing compilers, and it takes little more than > > "The dragon book" (Aho & Ullman) plus a LOT of time and effort to produce > > one. On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 vintagecoder at aol.com wrote: > Emphasis on a LOT of time, I looked at the book and gave up! Blinded me, > with SCIENCE! Same here. But, then I sat through Alan Holub's "Compiler Writing" class. It was a great experience. But, now the dragon book seems simple in comparison. Holub and I have chatted on occasion. I feel strongly that C code on the blackboard needs to be spread out into multiple statements to make it easiest and quickest to follow and understand. Holub doesn't agree. But, he couldn't see why IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM had to be contiguous at the beginning of the disk. My canonical example, while (*T++=*S++); just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR STUDENT to follow as something like: do { X = *S; *T = X; S++; T++; } while('\0' <> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than efficiency for EXPLAINING something) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 14:08:31 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:08:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com>, <1220834493-1325783874-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-218465181-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120105115944.W76006@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Perhaps everyone should follow the trend though and talk about c, > cobol, pl/i, snobol, simscript, basic, jovial, dos, vms... When I first started teaching (FORTRAN, BASIC, beginning DOS), I had a long commute, and a lot to learn. One of my students who is blind gave me copies of books on tape - there is an ENORMOUS selection of amateur readings for the blind. I put a copy of the the COBOL textbook (Olson and Price (text written by OUR instructors)) into the car tape player with auto-repeat, turned the volume fairly low and let it drone on over and over and over, until I knew the wording of the book. When I did that with K&R, it was disconcerting at first to hear constant references to "capsee" - the readers for the blind voice the capitalization. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From alexeyt at freeshell.org Thu Jan 5 14:18:43 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:18:43 +0000 (UTC) Subject: teaching programming to college kids In-Reply-To: <20120105100404.B76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105100404.B76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Fred Cisin wrote: > Q: Won't some students have difficulty with that? > A: Oh, it's "Social Darwinism". We have too many entering students, so we > WANT 80% to drop out of the program in the first year. If we don't get at > least 80% leaving the program, then we merely increase the workload until > enough fail and leave. Sometimes we have to work them 20 hours a day, and > assign 4:00 AM lab times, etc. to get the desired result. They won't be > expelled, or anything, they can still become business majors. UMCP does the exact same thing, only they mix in unfair/arbitrary grading practices to jack up the failure rate. AFAICT, they do it so that they can get the students' money for a couple of semesters but not actually have to teach them anything. I switched to math after 2 semesters in CS and never looked back. Not that that stopped me from programming (for the university no less), or getting a career in software development... made me hate the university administration though. Alexey From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 14:19:03 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:19:03 -0800 Subject: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <20120105095303.T76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F05652B.2322.B44A4@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120105095303.T76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F059537.4137.C6F181@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 10:03, Fred Cisin wrote: > My impression was that each and every committee member wanted a > completely different language than the current language. ("fortran > should look like Pascal!" "Fortran should be as 'elf-documenting' as > COBOL!", etc.) And, each one wanted complete standardization on THAT > committee member's unique implementation. OK, WE aren't exceptions. > I want every language to use .EQ. for comparision, and an arrow for > assignment. // for comments in C is actually convenient, but it is a > serious break from the original CONCEPT of newline being nothing more > than "whitespace". My impressions of X3J3 left me with the feeling that it was less a meeting of people interested in advancing the art, than a meeting of lobbyists for outside interests. Thus, IBM came to the vector extensions group with the specific intention of ratifying VECTRAN as the standard, rather than producing something useful. Others held the feeling that it would be a cold day in Hell if any part of VECTRAN made it into the standard. You get the idea. But that's the way standards committees have always worked as far as I know. The FLOW-MATICs against the COMTRANs. The more curious thing is that few representatives, other than those from the national research institutions (Sandia, LLL, etc.) have much experience in everyday usage of the the stuff that they're trying to standardize.. A substantial number of them come from the compiler implementation segment, as in "I write COBOL, but have never written anything in it other than a trivial "Hello World" program". Most dutifully took the questions back to their employers to let the marketing people chew on them. I do not know if this holds for other committees, such as the standards committe for C++. Maybe standards committees are to software advancement as standing armies are to civil rights--they're incompatible. --Chuck From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 11:41:38 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 12:41:38 -0500 Subject: Email address for Hans Pufal of ACONIT? Message-ID: Can someone send me the email address for Hans Pufal of ACONIT? I would like to talk to him about the PDP-9 project at the RICM. -- Michael Thompson From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 5 14:30:18 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:30:18 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <4C3B6DAA0D1545C8AC9F9FF9038E6F51@vl420mt> ----------------------- Original Message: Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:38:16 -0000 From: "James Attfield" Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:02:11 -0800 (PST) From: Jerry Wright Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC >> Josh, I would love to get your 64FDC for my Cromemco 68020 machine that >> is missing one. I have 16 FDC and other Croemeco Z-80 Boards to go along >> with it. > Which model 68020 Cromemco is it? I might be able to find a spare 64FDC... > mike Long shot, but if you have another or Josh doesn't take it I'd love to give it a home. I have a complete Cromemco board set here in an IMS-5000 chassis and a pair of TM848's but have consistently failed to get the 16-FDC to talk to them reliably. I'd dearly love to get a 64-FDC for it to go with the ZPU and/or an STD hard disk controller (or an IMI drive to go with the WDI-II controller I have). Anyone? FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. During boot RDOS ensures that the top 32K flips in and RDOS then flips out giving a clean 64K map. All done through port 40H. Jim -----------------------Reply: Hi Jim, Are you the same Jim I'm corresponding with elsewhere about a broken 256/1024KZ? If so, you and I can discuss the 64FDC off-list; I haven't heard from Jerry. I do have some IMI drives, both the 8" 11MB and the 5" 5MB and 20MB units, but I'm pretty sure at least some of them are non-functional.What size/capacity are you looking for? IMI drives were also used by Corvus; as a matter of fact the two companies ultimately merged. The IMI 20MB mechanism was also available with a normal ST412/506 interface card and used in XT clones etc., in case you have a defective drive with a good IMI board and can find one of those drives. m From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 5 13:27:34 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:27:34 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 4, 12 01:16:55 pm Message-ID: > > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on > > disk. > > You betcha. > > . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware > version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! > . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on > the disk! Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, and if you can't prgoram it, it's not a computer. -tony (only _half_ joking) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 5 13:35:29 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:35:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 4, 12 04:28:13 pm Message-ID: > Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my > experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found > more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. When I was repairing m HP98x0 machines I noticed that 74Hxx parts were significantly more likely to fail than plain 74xx parts. And I think the 74H40 and 74H74 were high up the list of those that had failed. > > For my testing, I rigged up a 3M test clip > (http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/389650-16-pin-test-clip-3-row-space-923700.html) > to a ribbon cable with two IDC headers crimped on one end about an > inch apart so that I could mount one IDC connector on each side of the > clip, then cobbled up an adapter for the other end of the cable from a > wire-wrap socket so that in the end, I had a cable that could clip > onto one IC and fit into the ZIF socket of a hand-held IC tester. I > would test my FLIP-CHIP modules out of the box, letting the tester > power all the ICs on the board but only fiddle the lines on the chip > under test. That's OK if the flipchip sinmply brigns out each IC to different pins on the connector (a lot of the simpler ones do), but surely on more complex boards where the ICs are interconnected, you're going to have contentions between the outputs of the IC tester andf the outputs of other ICs on the board (which are being powered from the tester). There is, of course, HP's logic comparator, which is a device that takes a good IC of the type you are looking at, feeds it the same inputs and the drive on the board you're tersting and compeaes the outputs of the good IC and the one on the board. It then indicates which pins are different. It's fie for simple gate ICs. It falls down on sequential devices unless you can be sure they start off i nthe same state (suppose you use a counter as a clock divider and don't bother to reset it to 0 on power-on. The one in the tester may start off in a diifferent state, so that all the outputs are differnet for evermore, even though the 2 counters are workign perfectly). It also falls down if you have open-collector devices wihci are wire-ANDed. I am not sure eitehr the logic comparator or the IC tester will pick up ICs that are 'going slow'. I've had S TTL fail in such a way that it still perfoms the right function, but the propagation delay is much longer than it should be. Trakcign that sort of fualt down is entertaining. Personally,giiven all the restrictions, I am not sure either method is ant faster than the old-fashuioned way of seeing what doesn't work and tracing signals to find why it doesn';t work. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 5 14:06:26 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:06:26 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 4, 12 08:05:26 pm Message-ID: > > On 4 Jan 2012 at 22:27, allison wrote: > > > My choice was a 2816(2k EEPROM) , 74374(D latch) and 555(osc). State > > machine trumps CPU for dumb task. Took an hour to explain it, likely > > more to teach him to program a EEprom. > > Nowadays, I'm not so sure. An 8-pin MCU is dirt-cheap and can be > easily adjusted to change the algorithm. I think it was ED that had As can a state machine. You change the progrtammaing of the state ROM (or whatever you're using). > an article not too long ago that asked if an MCU or a 555 was better > for new projects. > > The question came down to the need for programming of the MCU, so the > 555 still had an edge. Ther;'es also the issue of reliability. It's true that a microcontroller is more reliable than the same thing built out of simple logic chips -- if you need all the functionailty of the microcontroller. But my experience suggests that more complex ICs are noticeably less reliable than simple ones, and that a boaud of 3 or 4 TTL packages can well be more reliable an the same thing done with just a single-chip microcontroller. In my case there;s no constast. I can have the 555 version built and running before I've even fired up a compute rto urn the MCU tools. > > My last application that I would have normally solved with a couple > of one-shots was solved with an 8-pin PIC--I could design the thing > with a few more smarts and self-calibration. I'd probably hav eused a state machine, but then I don;t know what the problem was. > > So choices aren't always so clear-cut, particularly in today's cheap > silicon days. It's already coming down to which is cheaper--an FPGA > or an MCU. I am rapidly gettign the feeling that just as few people seem to be able ot program any more, very few people can design hardware any more.... I remmeebr a conversation I had some yeas ago THegroup was deisnging a device which involved some high-speed analiguye and ECL circuity and thus had ot go on a 16 layer, arefull-made (read : mega-expensive) PCB. There was one bit of the desing that handn't been completed, It came down to producing a logic signal from 3 other logic signals (I think all F TTL). Thing is, they wanteto get the PCB off to the manufcaturer ASAP, without finising that part of the desigbn. I glanced at the problem and said 'That's trivial. I can do it in one IC'. One of the others's replied 'A PROM? A PAL? are they fast enough? Do we have the programmer for them'. 'No', I said, 'Just a plain TTL chip with no programming needed'. OK, what was the chip I suggested? (if did get used, BTW, and worked prefectly). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 5 13:45:48 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:45:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 4, 12 05:24:27 pm Message-ID: > This is definitely the case. It's pretty tough to find a programmer > these days who has any idea of how a computer actually works, even at I suspect there are quite a fww on this list. I am not sure if I am one of them. I haev a pretty good idea of how some computers work, but I don;t think I should be classed as a programmer. > the assembly language level. This is something that many (most?) people > think is "just fine", and some have even go so far as to fling around > statements like "why should I learn to be a mechanic just to drive a > car?" ...thinking that's an appropriate analogy when it's not. Looking Actually, I would think that a good driver would have a fair idea as to how the car works os that (a) he knows how he can 'misuse' it to get out of trouble, (b) recognises problems before they get serious (e.g. spongy breaks, play in the steering) and (c) can get going after a breakdown. I am prehaps unique inm that I have never learnt to drive, but there's no car reapr ithat would worry me. The only subsystem I can't fully repair is the air conditioning, ans that's simply because I don't ahve the vacuum pump, etc, rig. With access to that I could easily do it. > at the state of software today proves my point beyond any shadow of a doubt. Err, yes... -tony From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 14:51:01 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:51:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201052051.PAA21434@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > And that crazy idea that being in "management" (overhead positions > that require no real brainpower) as opposed to creating things has > really crippled our industry. It's almost as bad as the idea that management is pure overhead that brings no value. I mean that. Management _can_ be pure zero/negative-production overhead. But hey, so can any other position. And a really good manager is a godsend. There's a tendency for computer geeks to wear blinkers specific to their field, to think that anyone who can't make a computer sit up and dance must be stupid (cf the "no real brainpower" remark above), as if computer technical smarts were somehow the only true kind of smarts. Then those same computer geeks wonder why they fall flat on so many other aspects of life. Out-negotiated. Out-friended. Out-written. Out-organized. When they are so much "smarter" than "everyone else". I got news for you, wondering geeks. You're judging everything by your own metric, judging "smart" by your own kind of smarts, missing out on so many other kinds of smarts. Interpersonal smarts. Kinesthetic smarts. Musical smarts. Smarts which are far more useful than your kind in so many other fields. And, yes, one of those kinds of smarts is management smarts. The kind of smarts that can take a disastrous disorganized clusterfuck of (possibly individually highly talented) people and turn them into an awesomely effective team. Part of the reason it's hard for computer geeks to see this is that, like certain other jobs (notably sysadmin), when management is done really well it's also really hard to notice, except by others also highly skilled in the art. > We have a crop of highly talented, interested programmers who are > bored to tears in meetings, and the work they SHOULD be doing is > being done by PFYs who wouldn't know elegant simplicity if it walked > up and pinched them on the ass. A good example of management being done wrong. Not the second part - elegance and simplicity are not always appropriate metrics to judge code goodness by - but leaving _anyone_ "bored to tears" is bad management. None of what I said above should be mistaken to mean that good management is easy or common. Really good managers are no more common than really good coders, or really good cricket players, or really good racecar drivers, or whatever else. Possibly less so; I suspect management ability requires the confluence of more of the seven? eight? basic kinds of smarts than many things do, making it rarer. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From colineby at isallthat.com Thu Jan 5 14:50:00 2012 From: colineby at isallthat.com (Colin Eby) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:50:00 +0000 Subject: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: <200DC7DC-6D2D-4D38-96C6-4FE206E46D5E@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200DC7DC-6D2D-4D38-96C6-4FE206E46D5E@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <1325796600.3291.6.camel@hp0> Brent, As it happens I also put in a visit to this museum over the holidays. The SIGSALY display is a model rather than the real gear. I don't know how much of the original gear they might have in the vaults, but it's not what's displayed. They use models in a number of places -- mostly to good didactic effect. For a hardware connoisseur it would be a bit disappointing other than to see how it was all racked. I have a photo of it if you're interested. On Tue, 2012-01-03 at 15:31 -0800, Brent Hilpert wrote: > On 2012 Jan 3, at 12:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > > Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw > > from Ft. > > Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, > > definitely > > worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they > > even > > brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can > > buy an NSA > > t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP > > processor > > board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's > > fun just > > to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox > > being > > run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about > > it. The > > modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. > > (In case > > you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is > > little > > mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions > > like key > > length or key escrow. > > > > But worth a detour? Definitely. > > Did you see the SIGSALY display (aka "X System")? Haven't been to the > crypto museum myself, but I was reading about SIGSALY recently, and > see they have some of the equipment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ > SIGSALY). > > Real-time voice cryptography using pulse code modulation and digital > algorithms and technology in WWII: > > http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/ > publications/sigsaly_start_digital.shtml > http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/center_crypt_history/ > publications/sigsaly_story.shtml > > Reading about it, I could see the technological ability to do it at > the time, but I had no idea until recently it had actually been done > at the time! > > Shannon had some involvement in its development, just a couple of > years before his papers on information theory. The historical > connections and influences make for very interesting reading: > > http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39429?show=full > (download PDF from there) > > The paper by Lars Lundheim 'On Shannon and "Shannon's Formula"' > > http://www.iet.ntnu.no/projects/beats/journals.htm > > is also interesting for some historical developments leading to > information theory, including the concepts of sampling and digitising > analog data, see mention of Alec Harley Reeves. > > -- Colin From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 14:57:42 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:57:42 -0500 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120105105628.A76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120105105628.A76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F060EC6.9030602@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 01:58 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? > > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >> People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're >> seriously out of the loop. > > I was speaking facetiously! > "Nobody program in assembly any more; nor ever will again." is another > quote from Clancy and Harvey. > > . . . and, YES. > I AM very seriously out of the loop. ...but nowhere near as far as Clancy and Harvey! -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 15:32:47 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 16:32:47 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <6901B9AB-5EF9-4452-B013-72BD41DDC5EE@gmail.com> On Jan 5, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Not hard at all. Just filter for the ones over 40 who expect a >> decent salary. Maybe they've already moved to upper management. > > ROFL! Yes! > > And that crazy idea that being in "management" (overhead positions that require no real brainpower) as opposed to creating things has really crippled our industry. We have a crop of highly talented, interested programmers who are bored to tears in meetings, and the work they SHOULD be doing is being done by PFYs who wouldn't know elegant simplicity if it walked up and pinched them on the ass. The trend I've noticed in our clients is that bad engineers get promoted to management because someone has the dangerously stupid idea that they can do less damage there. You know where they might actually do less damage? The mail room. Granted, we usually work for our clients *because* they're dysfunctional, so I may be seeing the effects of selection bias. - Dave From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 15:35:36 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:35:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120105132430.T76006@shell.lmi.net> > > But, how is "computer programmer" DEFINED for the purpose of those > > numbers? ?(What categories are available?) On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I completely understand the limitations of Federal job designations, > but this is what I was able to pull up, and at least shows that "one > in a million" is a vast undercount. I was not trying to suggest it is > an all-inclusive/properly-exclusive statistic. I'm certainly willing > to stand behind "less than 1%" of the workforce programs computers for > a living, but how many slivers of a percent is it really? A few, > probably. Your point is adequately supported. My questioning of the statistic was not meant to challenge its validity as an approximation. I am quite seriously interested in such statistics, but for them to be more meaningful than as an extremely rough approximation, there are always issues of their derivation. My father's field was "Social Science Research Methods", so I'm a bit obsessive over statistics sources. > employees). There was nothing even remotely close to that in the > Federal Job Register. I was declared a Mainframe Systems Programmer Ah HA! So, YOU got counted in that number > I started my career as a contractor, paid on a 1099, and filing a > Schedule C (talk about growing up fast)... I seem to recall the same > paperwork dilemma you had, and my accountant picked something similar > for that blank as well. If a kid were to put up a lemonade stand, would it qualify as child abuse for the parent to make them do a chedule C? From vrs at msn.com Thu Jan 5 16:09:31 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:09:31 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> Message-ID: From: Dave McGuire: Thursday, January 05, 2012 10:52 AM > On 01/05/2012 12:19 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>> So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for I/O? >> >> Hmm...that sounds like a disturbingly good idea :-). > > That sounds like a TANTALIZINGLY good idea!! Yes, that's just what I meant. Unfortunately, I'm already worried that the years needed to finish projects I'm already working on (or at least thinking about) may have exceeded the more pessimistic estimates of my remaining lifetime. So I'm reluctant to start such a thing just now. Vince From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 16:16:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:16:27 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to college kids In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105100404.B76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F06213B.1070501@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 03:18 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote: >> Q: Won't some students have difficulty with that? >> A: Oh, it's "Social Darwinism". We have too many entering students, so we >> WANT 80% to drop out of the program in the first year. If we don't get at >> least 80% leaving the program, then we merely increase the workload until >> enough fail and leave. Sometimes we have to work them 20 hours a day, and >> assign 4:00 AM lab times, etc. to get the desired result. They won't be >> expelled, or anything, they can still become business majors. > > UMCP does the exact same thing, only they mix in unfair/arbitrary > grading practices to jack up the failure rate. AFAICT, they do it so > that they can get the students' money for a couple of semesters but not > actually have to teach them anything. I switched to math after 2 > semesters in CS and never looked back. Not that that stopped me from > programming (for the university no less), or getting a career in > software development... made me hate the university administration though. U.S. colleges seem to be *extremely* profitable businesses. Assuming you're talking about the University of Maryland at College Park, I've had some contact with that particular organization. Their shenanigans aren't new; they started in the mid-1990s. They very much fall into the "how the mighty have fallen" category. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 16:40:54 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 14:40:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120105143842.B76006@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. > I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it > does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use > said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, > and if you can't prgoram it, it's not a computer. > -tony (only _half_ joking) Every computer should have a machine language monitor in ROM. at least on a par with DEBUG. From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 5 16:37:42 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:37:42 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:50:11 -0500 From: Dave McGuire > There have always been lazy, disinterested programmers who don't care > about becoming better programmers. Now it's pretty much ALL of them. ---------------- I thought _you_ were a programmer; shouldn't that be 'us' instead of 'them'? Oh, I see, you exclude yourself of course, and perhaps even a few select members of this group, right? What other "them"s do you make denigrating generalizations about? Plumbers? Women? Jews? From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 5 16:46:59 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:46:59 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: ------- Original Message: Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:09:54 -0500 From: Dave McGuire On 01/05/2012 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: ... >> I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally hailed >> as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it completely >> incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional with around a >> quarter century of experience. --- > It is my opinion that you should not feel it's unusual that you don't > "get" that stuff even though you are "a computer professional". ... > The only reason *I* see the difference is because I do both...otherwise > I'd probably not get it either. -------- Reply: Well! I guess he told you! Too funny... From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jan 5 16:52:01 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 22:52:01 +0000 Subject: FORTRAN vs. BASIC [was RE: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids] Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EF495@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:54 PM On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, allison wrote: >> Never used Fortran. > Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like PRINTUSING, > with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable whose > name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters between I > and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless > you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line number to > every line. CALL instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences > that you can list them! You corrected/clarified the statement regarding "line numbers", but it's still not correct. FORTRAN does not have line numbers, it has *statement* numbers, and they need not be sequential, nor increasing from beginning of program to end. Certain constructs, such as the DO loop and the FORMAT-driven I/O statements, *require* statement numbers: DO 10 I=1,10 WRITE (7,100) I 10 CONTINUE 100 FORMAT (1X,1I3) Statement numbers occur in the first 5 columns of the input card; a character other than a space in column 6 marks a card as a continuation of the preceding statement. Spacing within columns 1-5 is not significant. >> My first language was Darthmuth BASIC on GE Tymeshare. > I've always assumed that Kurtz and Kemeny's intent was just to make > getting started in FORTRAN a little easier for beginners. You don't have to assume. They state as much in the early documents. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 16:58:41 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:58:41 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201052051.PAA21434@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> <201201052051.PAA21434@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F062B21.2010207@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 03:51 PM, Mouse wrote: >> And that crazy idea that being in "management" (overhead positions >> that require no real brainpower) as opposed to creating things has >> really crippled our industry. > > It's almost as bad as the idea that management is pure overhead that > brings no value. > > I mean that. Management _can_ be pure zero/negative-production > overhead. But hey, so can any other position. And a really good > manager is a godsend. > > There's a tendency for computer geeks to wear blinkers specific to > their field, to think that anyone who can't make a computer sit up and > dance must be stupid (cf the "no real brainpower" remark above), as if > computer technical smarts were somehow the only true kind of smarts. No. You're jumping to an incorrect conclusion. I'm fully aware that a really good manager is a godsend. I'm also fully aware that such managers are an endangered species to the point of practically being a fabled creature. I've been working in this field professionally for a few decades now, and I have never met one. I'm not just saying that I've never worked for one, I've never MET one. Ever. So yes, while your assertion is quite right theoretically speaking, in practice things are quite a bit less nice. The people that actually get the managerial positions typically have just about zero brainpower; that has very much become the norm for such positions. I would never make the assertion that computer technical smarts are somehow the only true kind of smarts. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 17:15:49 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:15:49 -0500 Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Don't know if it's similar to what you've seen or not, but from my >> experience testing M-series modules for the -8/L and -8/i, I've found >> more dead 7474s and 7440s than any other type of chip. > > When I was repairing m HP98x0 machines I noticed that 74Hxx parts were > significantly more likely to fail than plain 74xx parts. And I think the > 74H40 and 74H74 were high up the list of those that had failed. There are some H-series logic parts used in the PDP-8/L, but not enough, IIRC, to be statistically significant compared to straight TTL parts. That said, it doesn't surprise me that you saw a similar pattern with a different logic family in a different machine. >> For my testing, I rigged up a 3M test clip... >> into the ZIF socket of a hand-held IC tester. >> ...letting the tester >> power all the ICs on the board but only fiddle the lines on the chip >> under test. > > That's OK if the flipchip sinmply brigns out each IC to different pins on > the connector (a lot of the simpler ones do), A lot do. In my original post, I gave several examples for which this works. It turns out to be the vast majority of the single-height M-series modules in an -8/L or -8/I (the M452 clock generator and M310 delay line being two exceptions I can come up with off the top of my head). > but surely on more complex boards where the ICs are interconnected, > you're going to have contentions between the outputs of the IC tester > andf the outputs of other ICs on the > board (which are being powered from the tester). Quite so. I mentioned the M220 Major Registers module as being one of those cases. The M706 and M707 TTY interface boards are two others. > There is, of course, HP's logic comparator, which is a device that takes > a good IC of the type you are looking at, feeds it the same inputs and > the drive on the board you're tersting and compeaes the outputs of the > good IC and the one on the board. It then indicates which pins are different. Yes. I don't happen to have one of those, nor have I noticed one for sale. I already had the ZIF-socket PIC-processor-driven IC tester - I did not purchase it specifically to test DEC boards. I made a cable to adapt an existing tool for this specific job. > Personally,giiven all the restrictions, I am not sure either method is ant > faster than the old-fashuioned way of seeing what doesn't work and tracing > signals to find why it doesn';t work. In the specific case of the PDP-8/L, my experience is that if you are seeing single and double-bit errors with address/data loads and registers on the lights just from a few tweaks of the front panel switches, you have a high probability that the problem is on one of your M220 boards. Outside of that, you can have the printset open and *quickly* pull each single-height, Chip-Tester-friendly board from the path you wish to investigate, move the clip and press the "test" button 3-4 times and replace the board faster than you can install a board extender, replace the board, and re-run the test you just ran to look for the failure. In no way did I ever say that many or most or every IC failure can be detected with a hand-held tester and a custom clip cable. I _did_ say that I built one and repaired my machine with it and I'm happy with how quickly I could confirm for myself that hundreds of ICs were likely to be functional. Yes, there are failure modes for simple TTL gates that won't be picked up by a hand-held tester. In my experience, those are rare compared to a chip with a blown input or output that just plain produces the wrong output when the inputs are tickled. *That* will be found by the tester and clip. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 17:36:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:36:12 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> References: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F0633EC.60901@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 05:37 PM, MikeS wrote: >> There have always been lazy, disinterested programmers who don't care >> about becoming better programmers. Now it's pretty much ALL of them. > ---------------- > I thought _you_ were a programmer; shouldn't that be 'us' instead of > 'them'? > > Oh, I see, you exclude yourself of course, and perhaps even a few select > members of this group, right? Yes, I pride myself on doing things right. Occasionally I actually achieve it. Daily I clean up the messes of others. > What other "them"s do you make denigrating generalizations about? > Plumbers? Women? Jews? All of them, all the time. Is there some reason you're being a dick to me? I ask because I can be ten times the dick if required; I just want to know if it's something worth getting worked up over. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 17:40:08 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:40:08 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0634D8.1060409@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 05:46 PM, MikeS wrote: > ------- Original Message: >>> I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally hailed >>> as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it completely >>> incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional with >>> around a >>> quarter century of experience. > --- >> It is my opinion that you should not feel it's unusual that you don't >> "get" that stuff even though you are "a computer professional". > ... >> The only reason *I* see the difference is because I do both...otherwise >> I'd probably not get it either. > > -------- Reply: > > Well! I guess he told you! > > Too funny... Did we get up on the wrong side of the Prozac this morning, Mike? Don't pick a fight with me. I've been down with the flu for a week and am generally in a really piss poor mood. Dick. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 5 17:50:32 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:50:32 -0800 Subject: SIGSALY /was Re: Visiting the Cryptologic museum In-Reply-To: <1325796600.3291.6.camel@hp0> References: <200DC7DC-6D2D-4D38-96C6-4FE206E46D5E@cs.ubc.ca> <1325796600.3291.6.camel@hp0> Message-ID: <9896DF3D-4FB5-4403-BF52-CBA0A1A2F60A@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 5, at 12:50 PM, Colin Eby wrote: > Brent, > As it happens I also put in a visit to this museum over the holidays. > The SIGSALY display is a model rather than the real gear. I don't know > how much of the original gear they might have in the vaults, but it's > not what's displayed. They use models in a number of places -- mostly > to good didactic effect. For a hardware connoisseur it would be a bit > disappointing other than to see how it was all racked. I have a > photo of > it if you're interested. Oh.. well it's quite the mock-up then (there are some pics on the web site). I think the NSA museum site said what was on display was a 'portion' of one system. For my part, I'm more interested in technical details and the system design. There is some technical description at one of the links I mentioned below (sigsaly_start_digital), but it still left a few questions about the design and requirements. > On Tue, 2012-01-03 at 15:31 -0800, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> On 2012 Jan 3, at 12:30 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: >>> Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw >>> from Ft. >>> Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, >>> definitely >>> worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they >>> even >>> brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can >>> buy an NSA >>> t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP >>> processor >>> board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's >>> fun just >>> to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox >>> being >>> run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about >>> it. The >>> modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. >>> (In case >>> you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is >>> little >>> mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions >>> like key >>> length or key escrow. >>> >>> But worth a detour? Definitely. >> >> Did you see the SIGSALY display (aka "X System")? Haven't been to the >> crypto museum myself, but I was reading about SIGSALY recently, and >> see they have some of the equipment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ >> SIGSALY). >> >> Real-time voice cryptography using pulse code modulation and digital >> algorithms and technology in WWII: >> >> http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/ >> center_crypt_history/ >> publications/sigsaly_start_digital.shtml >> http://www.nsa.gov/about/cryptologic_heritage/ >> center_crypt_history/ >> publications/sigsaly_story.shtml >> >> Reading about it, I could see the technological ability to do it at >> the time, but I had no idea until recently it had actually been done >> at the time! >> >> Shannon had some involvement in its development, just a couple of >> years before his papers on information theory. The historical >> connections and influences make for very interesting reading: >> >> http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/39429?show=full >> (download PDF from there) >> >> The paper by Lars Lundheim 'On Shannon and "Shannon's Formula"' >> >> http://www.iet.ntnu.no/projects/beats/journals.htm >> >> is also interesting for some historical developments leading to >> information theory, including the concepts of sampling and digitising >> analog data, see mention of Alec Harley Reeves. >> >> > > > -- Colin From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 5 18:03:43 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:03:43 -0500 Subject: Aww MAN! Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> References: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F063A5F.1040305@neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 05:37 PM, MikeS wrote: >> There have always been lazy, disinterested programmers who don't care >> about becoming better programmers. Now it's pretty much ALL of them. > ---------------- > I thought _you_ were a programmer; shouldn't that be 'us' instead of > 'them'? > > Oh, I see, you exclude yourself of course, and perhaps even a few select > members of this group, right? > > What other "them"s do you make denigrating generalizations about? > Plumbers? Women? Jews? This is one of those times where I think of a FAR better response than the one I sent as a knee-jerk reaction to someone pissing in my pool AFTER the fact. What a bummer. Here's a response to the above that actually MEANS something: Generally speaking I don't. But when plumbers, women, or Jews start displaying the unbelievable levels of incompetence at plumbing, femaleness, or Judaism that I see coming out of computer programmers every day nowdays, you'd better grab your popcorn, because I will have PLENTY to say about them. I don't deride these people because they're programmers. Nor would I deride someone because they're a plumber, a woman, or a Jew. That would be silly just to begin with, but on top of that, I have a friend who's a plumber, I'm happily engaged to a women, and I have LOTS of friends who are Jewish. Finding out that I have to clarify things like this for supposedly intelligent people is deeply disheartening and causes me to lose confidence in the general state of society. But then you're probably just bored, sitting in your parents' basement, giggling to yourself thinking "ahh, that hot-head McGuire is here, he'll take ANY bait, let's have some fun!" -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 18:27:06 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:27:06 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 4, 12 08:05:26 pm, Message-ID: <4F05CF5A.19752.1AA0B23@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 20:06, Tony Duell wrote: > I remmeebr a conversation I had some yeas ago THegroup was deisnging a > device which involved some high-speed analiguye and ECL circuity and > thus had ot go on a 16 layer, arefull-made (read : mega-expensive) > PCB. There was one bit of the desing that handn't been completed, It > came down to producing a logic signal from 3 other logic signals (I > think all F TTL). Thing is, they wanteto get the PCB off to the > manufcaturer ASAP, without finising that part of the desigbn. Your description's a little vague, but I suspect something like a 74156 with a pullup on the (combined) outputs. If that's not right, a better explanation of the problem might help. --Chuck From coredump at gifford.co.uk Thu Jan 5 18:38:43 2012 From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:38:43 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F064293.5000400@gifford.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > I remmeebr a conversation I had some yeas ago THegroup was deisnging a > device which involved some high-speed analiguye and ECL circuity and thus > had ot go on a 16 layer, arefull-made (read : mega-expensive) PCB. There > was one bit of the desing that handn't been completed, It came down to > producing a logic signal from 3 other logic signals (I think all F TTL). > Thing is, they wanteto get the PCB off to the manufcaturer ASAP, without > finising that part of the desigbn. > > I glanced at the problem and said 'That's trivial. I can do it in one > IC'. One of the others's replied 'A PROM? A PAL? are they fast enough? Do > we have the programmer for them'. 'No', I said, 'Just a plain TTL chip > with no programming needed'. > > OK, what was the chip I suggested? (if did get used, BTW, and worked > prefectly). Was it a multiplexer? With some jumpers to select the desired logic function? -- John Honniball coredump at gifford.co.uk From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 5 18:43:59 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:43:59 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05CF5A.19752.1AA0B23@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F04B106.10307.227EAD5@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 4, 12 08:05:26 pm, <4F05CF5A.19752.1AA0B23@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F0643CF.6080501@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/5/2012 5:27 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Jan 2012 at 20:06, Tony Duell wrote: > >> I remmeebr a conversation I had some yeas ago THegroup was deisnging a >> device which involved some high-speed analiguye and ECL circuity and >> thus had ot go on a 16 layer, arefull-made (read : mega-expensive) >> PCB. There was one bit of the desing that handn't been completed, It >> came down to producing a logic signal from 3 other logic signals (I >> think all F TTL). Thing is, they wanteto get the PCB off to the >> manufcaturer ASAP, without finising that part of the desigbn. > > Your description's a little vague, but I suspect something like a > 74156 with a pullup on the (combined) outputs. If that's not right, > a better explanation of the problem might help. > I'll scream if it is 7400. :-) > --Chuck > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 19:31:46 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:31:46 -0800 Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <20120105115944.W76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120105115944.W76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F05DE82.21178.1E5406D@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 12:08, Fred Cisin wrote: > When I did that with K&R, it was disconcerting at first to hear > constant references to "capsee" - the readers for the blind voice the > capitalization. Now, there's a neat party trick--especially if you're blind-drunk-- recite the content of K&R from memory. Just about as cool as the engineer-pianist I once knew who could play the entire set of Golberg Variations but only if he was drunk. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 19:57:02 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 17:57:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <4F05DE82.21178.1E5406D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120105115944.W76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F05DE82.21178.1E5406D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120105175239.C76006@shell.lmi.net> > > When I did that with K&R, it was disconcerting at first to hear > > constant references to "capsee" - the readers for the blind voice the > > capitalization. On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Now, there's a neat party trick--especially if you're blind-drunk-- > recite the content of K&R from memory. > Just about as cool as the engineer-pianist I once knew who could play > the entire set of Golberg Variations but only if he was drunk. With my memory, I'd need to keep at it a lot longer. But, for years, miscellaneous phrases would pop up, and some phrases would trigger memories of the next sentence. I'd rather learn and understand the content than just the wording. But, it'd sure be fun to listen to Knuth. Start to finish! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 20:04:58 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:04:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Aww MAN! Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F063A5F.1040305@neurotica.com> References: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> <4F063A5F.1040305@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120105175735.O76006@shell.lmi.net> > What other "them"s do you make denigrating generalizations about? > Plumbers? Women? Jews? ???? Wht's you leave out blacks, disabled folk, and the Irish? Is it OK if I generalize and stereotype about college administrators? (Good ones could exist. In therory. But, they would not be permitted in the college where I am.) Every time that we rejoice over losing a bad administrator, they manage, no matter how seemingly IMPOSSIBLE, to find a worse one as a replacement. Remember Monte, and the VP who dumpstered his entire collection? Ask him what he thinks of the replacement! From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 20:10:07 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 21:10:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201060210.VAA25972@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > There was one bit of the desing that handn't been completed, It came > down to producing a logic signal from 3 other logic signals [...] > I glanced at the problem and said 'That's trivial. I can do it in one > IC'. One of the others's replied 'A PROM? A PAL? are they fast > enough? Do we have the programmer for them'. 'No', I said, 'Just a > plain TTL chip with no programming needed'. > OK, what was the chip I suggested? Without knowing which of the 256 possible three-input functions functions was needed, we can't more than guess. It could have been anything from a '08 or '21 if the function was simple AND or '32 if OR or '86 if XOR, through something like a '00 for ~C | (A & B), all the way up to a '151, which allows generating whatever function you like by strapping the data inputs correctly. Depending on the design, the dynamic behaviour may matter (for some choices, the output may glitch on certain input transitions even though both stable states give the same output), and if this were a case like that it certainly could affect your choice. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 5 20:23:51 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 21:23:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F062B21.2010207@neurotica.com> References: <4F021FF8.6247.26D6D34@cclist.sydex.com> <1325633549.55980.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F04493D.14868.92820A@cclist.sydex.com> <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com> <1325723774.52153.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <201201051235.q05CZV7G076769@billy.ezwind.net> <4F05F237.5010205@neurotica.com> <201201052051.PAA21434@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F062B21.2010207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201060223.VAA26172@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > I'm fully aware that a really good manager is a godsend. I'm also > fully aware that such managers are an endangered species to the point > of practically being a fabled creature. I once had the fortune to work under a manager who was, as far as I can tell, a good manager. I don't have wide enough experience to tell whether he was _really_ good, but he certainly stands out in my memory. Perhaps I overestimate his quality. But he was good at running interference; he made the annoying parts of my job that didn't really have anything to do with what I was nominally there for vanish - that alone puts him a major step up on my other managers. He was technical enough to converse intelligently about what I was doing - he probably could have done, or learned to have done, most of it himself, if he'd had the time and inclination. He slapped me down when I deserved it. I don't know whether this particular branch of the conversation amounts to comparing my selection bias with your selection bias, or whether I was just lucky, or whether I'm overestimating his quality, or what. But my experience leads me to think the good manager is not a mythical creature. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 20:34:40 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 02:34:40 +0000 Subject: Fwd: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX In-Reply-To: <0ECB9011-E154-445A-A912-E1266655658D@comcast.net> References: <09787EF419216C41A903FD14EE5506DD030F1081BE@AUSX7MCPC103.AMER.DELL.COM> <0ECB9011-E154-445A-A912-E1266655658D@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Jan 5, 2012 10:57 PM, "Paul Koning" wrote: > > One of my colleagues sent this; I figured the list might find it interesting. > > paul > > Begin forwarded message: > > > ... > > Subject: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX > > > > Thought you might find this interesting: > > > > http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix/0 > > Fascinating. Thanks for that. From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 20:56:29 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 21:56:29 -0500 Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <20120105175239.C76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F057F81.13353.722485@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120105115944.W76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F05DE82.21178.1E5406D@cclist.sydex.com> <20120105175239.C76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <9B918BB9-2448-4967-BCCC-556D5E2583FF@gmail.com> On Jan 5, 2012, at 8:57 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > But, it'd sure be fun to listen to Knuth. Start to finish! He needs to make a series of audiobooks before he dies. Maybe after he finishes volume 4, anyway. Failing that, I'd listen to TAOCP read by Neil Gaiman, but I suspect Mr. Gaiman might not be up for it. - Dave From geoffr at zipcon.net Thu Jan 5 21:51:15 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:51:15 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F062B21.2010207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/5/12 2:58 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On 01/05/2012 03:51 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> And that crazy idea that being in "management" (overhead positions >>> that require no real brainpower) as opposed to creating things has >>> really crippled our industry. >> >> It's almost as bad as the idea that management is pure overhead that >> brings no value. >> >> I mean that. Management _can_ be pure zero/negative-production >> overhead. But hey, so can any other position. And a really good >> manager is a godsend. >> >> There's a tendency for computer geeks to wear blinkers specific to >> their field, to think that anyone who can't make a computer sit up and >> dance must be stupid (cf the "no real brainpower" remark above), as if >> computer technical smarts were somehow the only true kind of smarts. > > No. > > You're jumping to an incorrect conclusion. I'm fully aware that a > really good manager is a godsend. I'm also fully aware that such > managers are an endangered species to the point of practically being a > fabled creature. I've been working in this field professionally for a > few decades now, and I have never met one. I'm not just saying that > I've never worked for one, I've never MET one. Ever. > > So yes, while your assertion is quite right theoretically speaking, > in practice things are quite a bit less nice. The people that actually > get the managerial positions typically have just about zero brainpower; > that has very much become the norm for such positions. > > I would never make the assertion that computer technical smarts are > somehow the only true kind of smarts. > > -Dave I've had really good managers ( a couple) adequate managers (a couple) and horrible managers (too many to count). Anymore at least in the corporate setting it seems that management is too busy playing corporate politics to get the management job done properly. From geoffr at zipcon.net Thu Jan 5 21:55:20 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:55:20 -0800 Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <9B918BB9-2448-4967-BCCC-556D5E2583FF@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/5/12 6:56 PM, "David Riley" wrote: > On Jan 5, 2012, at 8:57 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> But, it'd sure be fun to listen to Knuth. Start to finish! > > He needs to make a series of audiobooks before he dies. Maybe after he > finishes volume 4, anyway. > > Failing that, I'd listen to TAOCP read by Neil Gaiman, but I suspect Mr. > Gaiman might not be up for it. > > > - Dave > > > TAOCP as read by Robert Llewellen from red dwarf. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:08:23 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:08:23 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 2:55 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> C is pretty good for writing compilers, and it takes little more than >>> "The dragon book" (Aho& Ullman) plus a LOT of time and effort to produce >>> one. > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 vintagecoder at aol.com wrote: >> Emphasis on a LOT of time, I looked at the book and gave up! Blinded me, >> with SCIENCE! > > Same here. But, then I sat through Alan Holub's "Compiler Writing" class. > It was a great experience. But, now the dragon book seems simple in > comparison. Holub and I have chatted on occasion. I feel strongly that C > code on the blackboard needs to be spread out into multiple statements to > make it easiest and quickest to follow and understand. Holub doesn't > agree. But, he couldn't see why IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM had to be > contiguous at the beginning of the disk. > > My canonical example, > while (*T++=*S++); > just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR STUDENT to > follow as something like: > > do > { > X = *S; > *T = X; > S++; > T++; > } > while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ ITYM != > > (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than efficiency > for EXPLAINING something) The long version isn't less efficient. --T > > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > > > > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:10:35 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:10:35 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201051955.q05Jt3aM091357@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> <201201051955.q05Jt3aM091357@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F06743B.9000100@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 2:54 PM, John Foust wrote: > At 12:33 PM 1/5/2012, Fred Cisin wrote: >> If there is no category for "website designer", do they get counted as >> "programmer"? >> "I PROGRAM in DreamWeaver!" > > > I think even the most graphic-art-intensive web designer is acquainted > with HTML, probably JavaScript, XML, and before you know it, they're > picking up Unix concepts from web hosts, making small alterations to > PHP or other scripting languages, maybe touching SQL. > I wish they learned them thoroughly (and some theory to go with it). > Does the average web designer routinely bump up against more > programming languages per day than the average programmer? > Maybe. A lot of programmers pride themselves on refusing to learn more than one language or paradigm. :/ --T > - John > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:12:26 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:12:26 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0674AA.2070300@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 2:27 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: >>> Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on >>> disk. >>> You betcha. >> >> . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware >> version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! >> . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on >> the disk! > > > Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. > > I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it > does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use > said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, Most computers with free operating systems meet this criterion, surely. Man pages, gcc, and usually a few dozen other languages out of the box. --Toby > and if you can't prgoram it, it's not a computer. > > -tony (only _half_ joking) > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:14:10 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:14:10 -0500 Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 1:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/05/2012 12:19 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>> So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for >>> I/O? >> >> Hmm...that sounds like a disturbingly good idea :-). > > That sounds like a TANTALIZINGLY good idea!! > You'll probably want to look up the work of Marc Feeley, but I think it would be more fun to do it from scratch... --T From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 22:13:35 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 02:13:35 -0200 Subject: [half-OT]: The chinese Beeprog inside References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <084701cccc29$acb26680$6400a8c0@tababook> http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/o-beeprog-chines-fotos-internas.html This is one of the **best** device programmers your money can buy today. The chinese version is a clone, but completely equal the original. Here you have the photos :o) --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 22:17:31 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:17:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Caps? (Was: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120105201206.U76006@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > TAOCP as read by Robert Llewellen from red dwarf. or Tom Baker. I liked his performance in Hyperland (pre-WWW future of internet by Ted Nelson and Douglas Adams - wish that I could get a goof quality copy) TAOCP read by James Earl Jones would actually work to learn from it. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 22:23:38 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:23:38 -0800 Subject: FORTRAN vs. BASIC [was RE: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids] In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EF495@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EF495@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <4F0606CA.29384.282971C@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 22:52, Rich Alderson wrote: > From: Fred Cisin > Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:54 PM > > > Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like > > PRINTUSING, with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. > > Any variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L M or N > > (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of > > "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. > > Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. CALL > > instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences that you can > > list them! > FORTRAN does not have line numbers, it has *statement* numbers, and > they need not be sequential, nor increasing from beginning of program > to end. Certain constructs, such as the DO loop and the FORMAT-driven > I/O statements, *require* statement numbers: > > DO 10 I=1,10 > WRITE (7,100) I > 10 CONTINUE > 100 FORMAT (1X,1I3) FORTRAN has restrictions about what you can and can't do in a DO loop. For example, you are not permitted to change the value of the index variable during the course of a loop. At the normal (rather than a premature exit via GO TO) end, the value of the index variable is undefined. Unlike BASIC, the terminal statement of a DO loop does not specify which loop of a nested DO is being terminated--in fact, the same terminal statement may be used for all members of a nested DO. There are other restrictions about transfer in and out of DOs. The devil's in the details and FORTRAN has a considerable number of them. There were other "simplified FORTRANs'' running around at about the same time as K&K were working on BASIC. For example, there was IITRAN (Illinois Institute of Technology), primarily intended for students on TTYs, first implemented on a 7040 in 1964. Here's a sample: http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-iitran-1899.html Note that the "==" is the assignment and "=" is the relational operator. And there were other "simplified FORTRANs", such as PUFFT, an ultra- forgiving compile-and-go FORTRAN from Purdue, Waterloo had WATFOR, and so forth. All mostly because machine time was expensive and students appreciated instant gratification. --Chuck From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:26:21 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:26:21 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > ... > For instance, the lambda calculus. What is it? What does it do, what > is it for, why is it special? There is a wealth of material at all levels devoted to this. Pick up any functional programming text, e.g. I highly recommend * Functional Programming - Application and Implementation (Henderson). * The Architecture of Symbolic Computers - Peter M. Kogge > > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. Readable and comprehensible explanations: * SICP * Programming in Scheme (Abelson & Eisenberg) * aforementioned Henderson. and dozens of others. There are A LOT of good functional programming texts out there, many dating back to the 70s and 80s of course, and far in conceptual advance of the mainstream (PHP! ASP.NET! Java! snore). > > If the teaching& reference materials that I have found so far are > unable to convey these core concepts, then there would seem to be two > possible conclusions: > > [a] /all/ the materials that I've been able to find are extremely > poor, even the ones that are more or less universally agreed to be > very good > > or > > [b] these are complex, difficult concepts and a massive amount of > back-knowledge is necessary to understand it. I had high school math and a pile of imperative programming experience but was still able to understand the basics (i.e. enough to use these concepts in a functional language). > > I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links > but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. > > But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That > these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? > One does not imply the other. It's as EASY or as HARD as sailing a yacht, yet people manage to do that latter. If you're not motivated you won't succeed. This is no different to anything else in life. --T From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 22:43:30 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:43:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> > > My canonical example, > > while (*T++=*S++); > > just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR STUDENT to > > follow as something like: > > > > do > > { > > X = *S; > > *T = X; > > S++; > > T++; > > } > > while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > ITYM != Probably. Certainly for my own use or second semester students. With most C compilers either would work. <> is slightly more intuitive for beginners than != until they recognize it as a crude drawing of a not-equal sign. Once they've got THAT, though, they're probably ready for while(X) One trivial mistake of style that I made in this example, was that because I used 'S' for "source" and 'T' for "target", I didn't have 'T' available for the temporary variable name. > > (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than efficiency > > for EXPLAINING something) > The long version isn't less efficient. I meant as a general principal. BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the temporary variable, the long version will be a TINY bit slower due to the extra temporary variable being written and read, and then read again for the comparison. In the "short" )"crammed together") version the value is in a register when it is needed, and presumably in the accumulator for the conditional jump that the while translates to. Likewise, by incrementing the pointers separately from de-referencing them, you'll probably end up with an an "unnecessary" retrieval of the pointer value from memory instead of register for the de-reference. If the purpose is the fastest possible code, that stuff matters. If the purpose is having the students understand it, without having to decipher the "puzzle code", delaying them moving on to the rest of the topic, the long version is far superior. THAT's where Holub and I don't agree - he considers the long version to be bordering on "WRONG", even for classroom blackboard! In one of his columns, he actually CORRECTED similar code in a reader question (about another issue) - I felt that ease of comprehension by his readers/students should be a higher priority than "efficiency" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 5 22:47:28 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 20:47:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F06743B.9000100@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> <201201051955.q05Jt3aM091357@billy.ezwind.net> <4F06743B.9000100@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120105204508.O76006@shell.lmi.net> > > Does the average web designer routinely bump up against more > > programming languages per day than the average programmer? On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > Maybe. A lot of programmers pride themselves on refusing to learn more > than one language or paradigm. :/ WE do tend to be stubborn. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a thumb." If we know a solution, we tend to be reluctant to do the work to look at alternatives. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:51:58 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:51:58 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 4 January 2012 01:22, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 03/01/12 10:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >>> On 3 January 2012 13:57, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> >>>> On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to "what >>>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other languages >>>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, and >>>>>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less to >>>>>>>> powerful abstractions. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> What's wrong with Scheme? Or at worst, Python? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>>>>>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very confused >>>>>>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or Knuth >>>>>>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is to >>>>>>> get the hell out of the way). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, >>>>> natural programmer. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the >>>> point >>>> here. >>> >>> >>> Even worse. >>> >>> There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do >>> you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer >>> perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software >>> engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit >>> that they are barely related. >>> >>> If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something >> >> >> Exactly the reverse. Professional software engineers I've seen around >> wouldn't touch Lisp with a barge pole. While, for people who want to get >> stuff done elegantly and simply, without irrelevancies, Scheme is ideal. >> >> >>> clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn >> >> >> It's not hard stuff (q.v) > > Believe me, as someone trying to learn Lisp, IT IS. For you, yes. We hear that. It's not clear they are objectively hard. I'm not a genius. And worse, like you, I have decades of imperative imprinting, as well. > >>> right, in the same way that I learned swordfighting with a foil, the >>> feeblest weapon but the one controlled by the strictest rules. If you >>> can fight foil, then you can move to the less-demanding sabre easily, >>> and the relatively undemanding ep?e is straightforward; but start with >>> ep?e and learning the formalities of foil will be much harder. >>> >>>> Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of >>>> "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: >>>> - full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? >>>> what >>>> good is this to a beginner?); >>> >>> Oh come off it! Line numbers went out in 1985, man! Don't judge BASIC >>> by the crappy implementations of the early 1980s when 8K of RAM was a >>> lot! >> >> Line numbers are not the issue. > > *You* raised them as an issue. They are an annoyance, but you can take them away and all the other probems remain. > >>>> - numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? >>> >>> No, not at all. I would expect at least integers, floats, variable >>> length strings, multidimensional arrays of any other type, and quite >>> possibly different lengths of integer and possibly signed and unsigned >>> forms. Possibly booleans and things as well; maybe a complex type. But >>> to be a programmer does not mandate being a mathematician. I have >>> taught programming to people who did not know what a percentage was, >>> who did not know how to multiply or divide by fractions and so on. >>> Many people do not need fancy types. >>> >>>> How do I build anything >>>> else? Oh right. I can't. >>> >>> Again, a limitation only of very primitive, early BASICs, although I >>> have to say, I never found it a limitation. Have user-defined >>> structured data types if you want, though. >> >> Can I make a list? > > I have no idea. I have not programmed in any meaningful sense in over > 20y. I would expect so, yes. How? > >>>> - most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an >>>> IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s >>>> (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); >>> >>> Again, a limitation of the early 1980s. Not true of any decent BASIC >>> from about 1983 onwards. >>> >>>> - lacks named functions& procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a crippled >>>> >>>> hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) >>> >>> See above. Have you actually *seen* /any/ even 1990s BASIC, FFS? >>> >>>> - a fundamental >>>> abstracting/factoring tool. >>> >>> You'll have to explain what that means. >> >> Functions are a fundamental abstracting/factoring tool. So they better work >> well. -> Closures, too. > > Even the very early 1980s BASICs included functions. I don't think > I've ever used one that didn't. > > As for Closures, AIUI, many computer languages do not include them. > Pointess crippled tools like C, for example. TBH I do not even > understand the Wikipedia definition of what a closure /is./ JavaScript does. PHP does. (Inelegantly of course.) Are these obscure languages? Closures are being retrofitted to many "mainstream" languages, apparently out of red-faced embarrassment, and/or to leverage skills investment, claw a few years out of these superannuated environments, etc. As for Wikipedia -- I long ago stopped expecting to find neophyte level expositions in it. For that, I go to pedagogical texts on the subject (see other reply). > >>>> Now with Scheme, >>>> - you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; >>> >>> But is incomprehensible >> >> To you... > > The unreadability of Lisp syntax is widely agreed, /even by the > creator of Lisp./ It is often cited as one of the main reasons for the > lack of penetration of Lisp in mainstream business computing. The alleged "unreadability" is actually an artefact of familiarity. You didn't learn the language, how could you read it easily? Did you learn Greek? Can you read Greek? It is only familiarity that leads people to say that C, C++, PHP are more readable. With those glasses taken off, they are horrible. > >>> and uses bizarre postfix notation. >> >> Not Schemes I'm familiar with. > > Prefix notation, then. Whatever the hell you call this (+ 1 2 3 4) nonsense. As was pointed out in another reply, prefix notation has several advantages. Do you just refuse to see them? They might be easier to appreciate with actual experience of S-expression notation (there are reasons it's still with us after nearly 50 years). > >>>> - you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures >>>> without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; >>> >>> Straw man. >>> >>>> - there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which is >>>> good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. >>> >>> If you can grasp the basics, pardon the pun, which I doubt most could. >>> >>>> There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age student. >>> >>> You have no real experience of actual high-school students, then, I >>> can see that. >> >> Not true; I know some who are learning Scheme and Haskell with no trouble. > > /Some./ *Some* kids also learn ancient Greek or advanced > undergrad-level algebra when they are under 10. I will never manage to dent your conviction that these things cannot be taught to ordinary people. Oh well. > >>>>> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >>>>> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, >>>> >>>> And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. >>> >>> Oh bollocks! >>> >>> Q.v. Dylan: >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_%28programming_language%29#Syntax >>> Q.v. Lisp 2 and Elephant, discussed here /passim./ >>> >>> Even John McCarthy himself later conceded that Lisp's syntax was a >>> major hindrance in teaching it. >> >> Oh, yes, people have been trained to be terrified of it. It's a phantom >> fear. > > I could not disagree more strongly. There is, I suspect, a certain > mindset that can learn new mathematical notation and quickly and > easily adjust to it. To the common man, though, mere algebra itself - > simple > > x = a - b > > x is 10, b is 10; what is a? > > ... level-stuff - is as good as hieroglyphics. It is bizarre, > byzantine, impenetrable. But if you show them a language that says > > ? > apples = 5 > oranges =10 > > total_fruit = apples + oranges > > print total_fruit > ? > > And they can do that right at the command line, and they can save it, > edit it and change it and watch the results change - than that is a > useful teaching tool for introducing the notions of computer > programming to complete beginners. > > I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally > hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it > completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional > with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I > really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or > aptitude for it will be able to. Maybe you should just give up on that. Keep doing the stuff you are good at. But let other people who need these tools try to learn them, as desperately hopeless an endeavour that may be... (Btw, without functional programming, there would be no Google search or PageRank. Or Erlang. You do realise why Erlang is significant, right?) > >>>> The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to programming. >>> >>> >>> That is not even remotely /like/ the conclusion that I came to. You >>> are putting words in my mouth and I *object*, strenuously. >>> >>> I did not say it was not relevant. I did not say it was a bad thing to >>> start with. I said it was /too hard/ for the average person, and I >>> stand by that. >>> >>>> But >>>> in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been >>>> indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going >>>> on >>>> when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except at >>>> the >>>> absolute bottom-most level. >>> >>> >>> You have no idea of what any BASIC from even 20y ago is like, as you >>> have demonstrated, and you also seem to be very unfamiliar with the >>> limitations of actual ordinary people. For nonspecialists, concepts >>> such as loops are quite hard at first. Iterative thinking has to be >>> learned. Starting off utter newbies with prefix notation, CAR and >>> CADR, lists versus atoms, quoting and lambda calculus is like taking >>> the play-blocks off a kindergarten class and asking them to build the >>> cathedral of Notre Dame instead. >>> >>>> We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion and >>>> higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper tools, >>>> mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can be >>>> argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer >>>> programmer. >>> >>> Actually, I am sure you're right. >>> >>> But this misses the strength of the old BASICs of the late 1980s and >>> 1990s: that they brought programming to the common man. >> >> Yes, that's true; but it is 2011. And we are preparing kids whose careers >> will peak in 2030. > > Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming > computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. Oh, *if only* that were true. > >>> Sure, we need better developers, but we /also/ need easy, friendly, >>> fun tools to reintroduce the ordinary Joe to writing programs at all. >>> Python and so on are far too big and complex for this. >>> >>>> I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't >>>> really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only I >>>> had >>>> picked up Scheme when I picked up C. >>> >>> >>> So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? >> >> C moreso. I should have picked up something I could learn more from. >>> >>>> Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles >>>> BASIC >>>> puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed >>>> "imperative >>>> place". >>> >>> You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved >>> on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. >>> >>>> Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion >>>> was >>>> hard? >>> >>> It isn't. I've written recursive programs. In BASIC. In a good BASIC: >>> in BBC BASIC V, a very fast, 32-bit BASIC with full support for named >>> procedures, local variables, passing by reference and value and so on. >> >> I'm very very familiar with BBC BASIC. It can't by any stretch be compared >> to a Lisp or ML family language, for example. > > I am sure it can't and I am not arguing that. What I saying is that it > was a world away from the simple crappy early BASICs which didn't even > have if/then/else or more than single-letter array names. I agree. I liked it a lot. In 1983. But soon found I liked Pascal better (and then fell into the C trap). > > And BBC BASIC was in many ways superceded by later developments like > QuickBASIC, which was a quite grown-up, structured language, written > in a simple IDE so that it could dispense with the line numbers that > you hate so much. > > (Personally, I think that for an interactive interpreter, line numbers > are a simple, useful concept. If you type in language statements, they > are executed; if you prefix them with a number, they are stored, for > later execution. I see them as no more iniquitous than row and column > identifiers in spreadsheets.) They are problematic in programming languages, being cognitive load, and a conceptual irrelevance. > >>> > How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with higher >>>> >>>> order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it >>>> today, >>>> for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) >>> >>> I don't, because I am not a programmer and I don't aim to be. >>> >>>> Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve >>>> something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. > > *For a career in software*. That is the $64K statement, an > all-important qualifier. > > So let me spell out what I am trying to say very clearly. > > If you are trying to teach a child - possibly an under-10 - about > programs and logic and execution and evaluation, then a decent BASIC > is actually a pretty good tool. Most of these kids will never be > programmers, they will at best /use/ computers, but this gives them > the rudimentary core understanding. For a non-programmer, it is > enough. > > For such purposes, a good, structured BASIC is an excellent tool. > > If you are trying to teach an undergraduate university student reading > computing, computer science or information technology about the art of > programming, to make them a skilled programmer who is capable of going > on to get a degree or multiple degrees in disciplines around > programming, then from what I have read, yes, Scheme is an excellent > teaching tool. I would expect these to be highly intelligent young > people, the cream of the crop, with a background education in > mathematics. These kind of people *aren't* highly represented among working programmers - in a perfect world they might be - and that's a problem for the industry. > > And quite possible for any undergrad in the sciences, who one can > therefore expect to be intelligent and used to structured thinking and > reasoning and the basics of maths and algebra, then yes, for them too, > Scheme is probably an excellent teaching tool. > >>> They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a >>> late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, >>> which are too big, too complex and too abstract. >> >> And after that, where will they fill in the missing pieces in their >> education? > > You need to define who we are talking about here. > > Are we talking about: > [a] nonspecialists who will never program again, apart from maybe some > formulae in spreadsheets? > [b] nontrained people, nonspecialists, who drift into doing a bit of > scripting or basic coding, like most people in IT support? > [c] trained professional programmers with higher-education training in > programming and programme design? > > For group A, I think a good BASIC is ideal. > For group B, possibly something more pragmatic like Python > For group C, yes, I think the Lisp family is probably best, and from > my reading, I'd say that Scheme is probably the best candidate for > teaching purposes. > > But I think that Scheme or the like would be overkill for nonspecialists. > We can't identify in advance which group a particular child will end up in, so whatever we choose to do will be taking a punt. I tend to agree that 'modelling and abstraction' (what programming really is, at least, at the professional level) is not going to serve all beginners. Some people just don't care about that and want quick and dirty fireworks (Arduino fans, geeks). It's always going to be a compromise. I only hope that people who DO end up graduating and working in the field sooner or later get exposed to something a bit more mind-expanding than the burger-flippin' languages around. "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing." -- Alan Perlis --Toby From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 22:55:23 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:55:23 -0500 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 12:57 PM, Richard wrote: >> On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> >>> Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, again? ^^^^^^^^^^^ > > People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're > seriously out of the loop. In assembly? --T From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jan 5 22:56:27 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 04:56:27 +0000 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: <4F05FFFD.1070409@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 1/5/12 11:54 AM, "Al Kossow" wrote: >On 1/5/12 10:50 AM, Richard wrote: >> In article, >> Ian King writes: >> >>> My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, >>>aimed >>> at experienced programmers. [...] >> >> This sounds interesting. What was the book? > >Steele "Common Lisp: The Language" 1984 > >2nd edition published in 1990 This one is "A Programmer's Guide to Common Lisp" by Deborah G. Tatar, 1987, Digital Press (and copyright by DEC). From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 23:18:21 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:18:21 -0800 Subject: [half-OT]: The chinese Beeprog inside In-Reply-To: <084701cccc29$acb26680$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net>, <084701cccc29$acb26680$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F06139D.233.2B4B197@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2012 at 2:13, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/o-beeprog-chines-fotos-i > nternas.html > > This is one of the **best** device programmers your money can buy > today. > The chinese version is a clone, but completely equal the original. > Here you have the photos :o) Money is right. The BeeProg+ (the original BeeProg is discontinued) is distributed in the USA by B&K as the 866B and by Dataman as the Dataman 48+Pro. Both are in the 4-digit USD$ range. Please tell me about the Chinese clones... --Chuck From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 23:20:38 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:20:38 -0500 Subject: Ratfor, structured Fortran - Re: FORTRAN vs. BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0606CA.29384.282971C@cclist.sydex.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EF495@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F0606CA.29384.282971C@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F0684A6.8020406@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 11:23 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Jan 2012 at 22:52, Rich Alderson wrote: > >> From: Fred Cisin >> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:54 PM >> >>> Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like >>> PRINTUSING, with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. >>> Any variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L M or N >>> (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of >>> "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. >>> Many brands of it require giving a line number to every line. CALL >>> instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences that you can >>> list them! > >> FORTRAN does not have line numbers, it has *statement* numbers, and >> they need not be sequential, nor increasing from beginning of program >> to end. Certain constructs, such as the DO loop and the FORMAT-driven >> I/O statements, *require* statement numbers: >> >> DO 10 I=1,10 >> WRITE (7,100) I >> 10 CONTINUE >> 100 FORMAT (1X,1I3) > > FORTRAN has restrictions about what you can and can't do in a DO > loop. For example, you are not permitted to change the value of the > index variable during the course of a loop. At the normal (rather > than a premature exit via GO TO) end, the value of the index variable > is undefined. Unlike BASIC, the terminal statement of a DO loop does > not specify which loop of a nested DO is being terminated--in fact, > the same terminal statement may be used for all members of a nested > DO. There are other restrictions about transfer in and out of DOs. > > The devil's in the details and FORTRAN has a considerable number of > them. > > There were other "simplified FORTRANs'' running around at about the > same time as K&K were working on BASIC. For example, there was > IITRAN (Illinois Institute of Technology), primarily intended for > students on TTYs, first implemented on a 7040 in 1964. > > Here's a sample: > > http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-iitran-1899.html > > Note that the "==" is the assignment and "=" is the relational > operator. > > And there were other "simplified FORTRANs", such as PUFFT, an ultra- > forgiving compile-and-go FORTRAN from Purdue, Waterloo had WATFOR, > and so forth. Some preprocessors added significant value, such as Ratfor, which was used to demonstrate the clarity of structured programming in The Elements of Programming Style (Brian W. Kernighan and P.J. Plauger, 2nd ed, 1978), which drily explains: "A preprocessor is a program which translates a Fortran* dialect with adequate control flow statements into pure Fortran; ideally you never need to look at the generated Fortran. (The 'pseudo-code' that we will present in the next sections is based on Ratfor ... it is described in Software Tools, by Brian W. Kernighan and P.J. Plauger, Addison-Wesley, 1976.) "A third possibility is to think out your code in a decent language, then translate into Fortran when it comes time to start transcribing the code into machine-readable form. This requires no software, just discipline. To see how it works in practice, consider the following quadratic equation solver, in which IF statements come so thick and fast as to baffle the reader. ..." --Toby * - Following the book's orthography. > > All mostly because machine time was expensive and students > appreciated instant gratification. > > --Chuck > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 23:27:20 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:27:20 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F068638.8090803@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 11:43 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> My canonical example, >>> while (*T++=*S++); >>> just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR STUDENT to >>> follow as something like: >>> >>> do >>> { >>> X = *S; >>> *T = X; >>> S++; >>> T++; >>> } >>> while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ > > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> ITYM != > > Probably. Certainly for my own use or second semester students. > With most C compilers either would work.<> is slightly more intuitive I've never encountered a compiler which would accept <>; e.g. gcc does not. Which one are you referring to? Microsoft's maybe? > for beginners than != until they recognize it as a crude drawing of a > not-equal sign. Once they've got THAT, though, they're probably ready for > while(X) > > One trivial mistake of style that I made in this example, was that because > I used 'S' for "source" and 'T' for "target", I didn't have 'T' available > for the temporary variable name. > >>> (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than efficiency >>> for EXPLAINING something) >> The long version isn't less efficient. > > I meant as a general principal. > > BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to > compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the > temporary variable, the long version will be a TINY bit slower due to the > extra temporary variable being written and read,... Not at all. It's an obvious optimisation... > > > If the purpose is the fastest possible code, that stuff matters. > gcc version 4.0.1, -O3, produces *identical* assembly for both versions, on my machine (and probably yours). > If the purpose is having the students understand it, without having to > decipher the "puzzle code", delaying them moving on to the rest of the > topic, the long version is far superior. Yes, probably. But I expect any C programmer to be able to reliably read this idiom (we had that thread a few months ago). --Toby .section __TEXT,__text,regular,pure_instructions .section __TEXT,__picsymbolstub1,symbol_stubs,pure_instructions,32 .machine ppc .text .align 2 .p2align 4,,15 .globl _a _a: .p2align 4,,15 L3: lbz r0,0(r4) addi r4,r4,1 extsb r0,r0 cmpwi cr7,r0,0 stb r0,0(r3) addi r3,r3,1 bne cr7,L3 blr .align 2 .p2align 4,,15 .globl _b _b: .p2align 4,,15 L12: lbz r0,0(r4) addi r4,r4,1 extsb r0,r0 cmpwi cr7,r0,0 stb r0,0(r3) addi r3,r3,1 bne cr7,L12 blr .subsections_via_symbols > > THAT's where Holub and I don't agree - he considers the long version to be > bordering on "WRONG", even for classroom blackboard! In one of his > columns, he actually CORRECTED similar code in a reader question (about > another issue) - I felt that ease of comprehension by his > readers/students should be a higher priority than "efficiency" > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 5 23:28:58 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:28:58 -0500 Subject: Stuck in a groove - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120105204508.O76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105102749.T76006@shell.lmi.net> <201201051955.q05Jt3aM091357@billy.ezwind.net> <4F06743B.9000100@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105204508.O76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F06869A.401@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 11:47 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Does the average web designer routinely bump up against more >>> programming languages per day than the average programmer? > > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> Maybe. A lot of programmers pride themselves on refusing to learn more >> than one language or paradigm. :/ > > WE do tend to be stubborn. > > "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a thumb." > > If we know a solution, we tend to be reluctant to do the work to look at > alternatives. Sometimes it's even the *right* attitude. :) How to know when it's not? Troublesome. One way is to listen to advice from others, I suppose. --Toby From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Thu Jan 5 23:34:40 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:34:40 -0700 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F0687F0.5040702@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/5/2012 9:55 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're >> seriously out of the loop. > > In assembly? What is the memory footprint for a simple compiled lanquage, that can compile itself. I am thinking of word based machine, 16 or more bits wide and having some basic file I/O and non-recursive subroutine calls. > --T > > From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 5 23:46:12 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 03:46:12 -0200 Subject: [half-OT]: The chinese Beeprog inside References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net>, <084701cccc29$acb26680$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F06139D.233.2B4B197@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <005b01cccc36$8b8bd880$6400a8c0@tababook> >> http://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/o-beeprog-chines-fotos-i >> nternas.html >> This is one of the **best** device programmers your money can buy >> today. >> The chinese version is a clone, but completely equal the original. >> Here you have the photos :o) > Money is right. The BeeProg+ (the original BeeProg is discontinued) > is distributed in the USA by B&K as the 866B and by Dataman as the > Dataman 48+Pro. Both are in the 4-digit USD$ range. Please tell me > about the Chinese clones... Well, at least untill now, it works :o) I cannot tell yet how good they are, only that they LOOK like the original beeprog. You can buy them in china here: http://www.drivestar.biz/beeprog-programmer-p-478.html - this is the same I've got, but I got mine locally in Brazil. I had the original beeprog and wish I could have stayed with him. Hope this chinese clone can work like the original. Important info: These chinese clones CANNOT BE UPDATED. If you load a newer software (v2.63, from 2010) on this programer, it will be instantanealy bricked. This seller (drivestar) has the unbricking program to load into the 18F263 microcontroller inside the programmer, but you must choose if you can live with this flaw. For me it is ok, I don't believe I'll program any chip newer than anything avaiable in 2010. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 5 23:47:57 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:47:57 -0800 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com> On 5 Jan 2012 at 23:55, Toby Thain wrote: > In assembly? I'd be surprised if there has been a single production compiler (i.e. not some hobby project) written in assembly in the last 20 years. Anything's possible, I guess. --Chuck From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 00:01:23 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:01:23 -0500 Subject: JavaScript and Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F068E33.1050805@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > ... > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. > Another approachable, practical discussion of closures, with applications, is in Douglas Crockford's "JavaScript - The Good Parts". In fact it's hard to do anything half interesting in JavaScript *without* using closures. Many people including Crockford say this is the #1 thing JavaScript got right (and if Eich had had more time and leeway, he'd have incorporated more of Scheme's power). From Coders at Work* (Siebel): Peter Seibel: ------------- Let's go back to those ten days when you implemented the original JavaScript. I know that at some point someone had turned you on to Abelson and Sussman and your original idea was to put Scheme in the browser. Brendan Eich: ------------- The immediate concern at Netscape was that it must look like Java. People have done Algol-like syntaxes for Lisp but I didn't have time to take a Scheme core so I ended up doing it all directly and that meant I could make the same mistakes that others made. I didn't have total dynamic scope, like Stallman insisted was somehow important for Emacs and infested Elisp with. JavaScript has mostly lexical scope [like Scheme and Common Lisp] with some oddness to it---there are a few loopholes that are pretty much dynamic: the global object, the with statement, eval. But it's not like dollar variables in Perl before my or upvar, uplevel in Tcl. The '90s was full of that---it was trendy. But I didn't stick to Scheme and it was because of the rushing. ... Seibel: ------- So basically now people make a top-level function to get a namespace. Eich: ----- Yeah. You see people have a function and they call it right away. It gives them a safe environment to bind in, private variables. Doug's a big champion of this. It was not totally unknown to the Schemers and Lispers but a log of JavaScript people had to learn it and Doug and others have done a valuable service by teaching them. It's not like you're getting everybody to be high-quality Scheme programmers, unfortunately, but to some extent they've succeeded, so people now do understand more functional idioms at some patterny level, not necessarily at a deep level. ... Seibel: ------- In some of the discussions about ES4, you cited Guy Steele's paper, "Growing a Language". Speaking as a Lisper, to me the take-away from that was, step one, put a macro system in your language. Then all of this special sugar goes away. Eich: ----- There are two big problems, obviously. C syntax means you have a much harder time than with S-expressions, so you have to define your ASTs and were going to have to standardise them and that's going to be a pain. ... * http://www.codersatwork.com/brendan-eich.html From csquared3 at tx.rr.com Fri Jan 6 00:07:22 2012 From: csquared3 at tx.rr.com (Charlie Carothers) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:07:22 -0600 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> On 1/5/2012 10:43 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> My canonical example, >>> while (*T++=*S++); >>> just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR STUDENT to >>> follow as something like: >>> >>> do >>> { >>> X = *S; >>> *T = X; >>> S++; >>> T++; >>> } >>> while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ > > On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> ITYM != > > Probably. Certainly for my own use or second semester students. > With most C compilers either would work.<> is slightly more intuitive > for beginners than != until they recognize it as a crude drawing of a > not-equal sign. Once they've got THAT, though, they're probably ready for > while(X) > > One trivial mistake of style that I made in this example, was that because > I used 'S' for "source" and 'T' for "target", I didn't have 'T' available > for the temporary variable name. > >>> (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than efficiency >>> for EXPLAINING something) >> The long version isn't less efficient. > > I meant as a general principal. > > BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to > compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the > temporary variable, the long version will be a TINY bit slower due to the > extra temporary variable being written and read, and then read again for > the comparison. In the "short" )"crammed together") version the value is > in a register when it is needed, and presumably in the accumulator for the > conditional jump that the while translates to. Likewise, by incrementing > the pointers separately from de-referencing them, you'll probably end up > with an an "unnecessary" retrieval of the pointer value from memory > instead of register for the de-reference. > > > If the purpose is the fastest possible code, that stuff matters. > > If the purpose is having the students understand it, without having to > decipher the "puzzle code", delaying them moving on to the rest of the > topic, the long version is far superior. > > THAT's where Holub and I don't agree - he considers the long version to be > bordering on "WRONG", even for classroom blackboard! In one of his > columns, he actually CORRECTED similar code in a reader question (about > another issue) - I felt that ease of comprehension by his > readers/students should be a higher priority than "efficiency" > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > What about the programmer who wrote the code understanding it quickly 6 months or 6 years after he wrote it? What does this do? Who wrote this mess??? Oh, I did... :-( I came to the conclusion several years ago that for 99% of code clarity is more important than efficiency, and that good comments are literally worth as much (sometimes more) to a company's financial results over the long haul than the code. Clear code translates to the bottom line as well! I absolutely loathe "scrunched up" code, especially in complex if statements. And yes, I've had coworkers, including one of my managers, tell me I was wrong and that it made no significant difference. He is still in error, BTW, as is, I strongly suspect, Mr. Holub. :-) Perhaps a bit extreme, but I don't even use the ternary operator in C preferring the simpler and IMNSHO much clearer if/else construct. I've probably even replaced the ternary critter with an if/else in code someone else wrote that I was reworking for some reason. If it takes a microsecond longer to execute the compiled code, who really cares the vast majority of the time. OK, if I knew for sure the ternary was faster, I might grudgingly use it in an interrupt routine but I would not be really happy about it! -- Later, Charlie C. In God We Trust!!! From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 6 00:08:25 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:08:25 -0800 Subject: Ratfor, structured Fortran - Re: FORTRAN vs. BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0684A6.8020406@telegraphics.com.au> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EF495@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, <4F0606CA.29384.282971C@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F0684A6.8020406@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F061F59.31727.2E286FD@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2012 at 0:20, Toby Thain wrote: > "A preprocessor is a program which translates a Fortran* dialect > with > adequate control flow statements into pure Fortran; ideally you never > need to look at the generated Fortran. (The 'pseudo-code' that we will > present in the next sections is based on Ratfor ... it is described in > Software Tools, by Brian W. Kernighan and P.J. Plauger, > Addison-Wesley, 1976.) > "A third possibility is to think out your code in a decent > language, Old stuff, really--precedes 1976 by quite a way. Re: Integer variables initial letter i-n in FORTRAN has an interesting precedent in NELIAC. The variables i through n represented index registers with integer values. --Chuck From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 12:47:12 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 10:47:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F04AFA7.30384.2229049@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F04D19B.2010208@neurotica.com>, <20120104172214.U48285@shell.lmi.net> <4F04AFA7.30384.2229049@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1325789232.16218.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> not going to appear where it should in the que, but forging ahead nevertheless... from: Chuck Guzis On 3 Jan 2012 at 15:32, Chris M wrote: >?Are you willing to declare that every compiler writer getting a check >today learned ml first Chuckers? Something tells me the vast majority >probably cut their teeth on BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN. But what do I >know. I'm struggling to understand what point you're trying to get across. My point was that it's probably best to learn arithmetic before one learns algebra or calculus--that is, to understand the way numbers work. Of course, some would disagree. But if you don't understand how a computer works, it's hard to believe that programming languages will come easy to you. C: There's no cause for struggle. I'll bet few language developers learned machine or assembly language first. My guess is the utter vast majority learned a procedural language, like BASIC, or any other, as first steps. You can liken machine language to arithmetic if you like, but I'd sooner liken it to theory and proofs! It goes w/o saying that to learn the ins and outs of languages you're will as a necessity have to learn to code in primitives, and understand the machine's specifics, and even what happens to chips when they heat up even . But to state that that has to proceed learning other language skills doesn't seem like it would reflect everyday realities. Granted some language developers (or board members) are probably older, and perhaps ?some actually did_need_ to learn machine coding as a first step (for lack of anything else). For the most part, coding in assembly is not all that different from coding in higher level languages. There's less abstraction, but even utilization of BIOS routines insulates you from much of the hardware. ?Does someone need to learn how to develop photographs before taking award winning pictures? Arguably learning too much about machine specifics initially can make it harder to learn newer methodologies, like OOP. Granted languages are written more often in C and assembly or some combination, but higher level constructs in any language add layers of abstraction. Successful ?developers have to leave behind aspects of bits and bolts oftentimes and deal w/the ?methods at hand. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 13:10:27 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:10:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <1325721640.31792.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> , <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry> <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net> <1325721640.31792.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1325790627.32638.YahooMailNeo@web164507.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more?? Or ever will, again? ?why bother? Optimization in most F90 implementations take care of the hard work for you ! *ducks for cover* C: I actually should have written FORTRAN-90 to make the joke worthwhile. Oh well. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 13:19:04 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 11:19:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F04940F.19597.1B6C409@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F04940F.19597.1B6C409@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1325791144.51955.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Chuck Guzis To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 9:01 PM Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids On 4 Jan 2012 at 19:41, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more?? Or ever will, > > again? Well, even in the limited resource 8-bit days in the 70s, it didn't make sense to write a compiler in assembler, even when you were using assembler to write the code. C: It should also be pointed out that any assembly code is going to have to be optimized anyway (usually by hand). A good assembler programmer can write efficient assembly code. But any s/w that worth it's salt likely went through many iterations of testing (for speed usually) and rewriting. My assembler instructor (who didn't know what the 8088 Trap flag was for, I respectfully kept my mouth shut, a break from the usual) told the story of some guy who wanted to play chess on some embedded machine (sounds funky I know). He got everything in the allotted memory space, but one byte. He eventually had to go over the whole shebang to fit. It was tight to begin with, but had to be just a wee bit tighter. From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Jan 5 14:57:57 2012 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:57:57 -0500 Subject: Fwd: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX References: <09787EF419216C41A903FD14EE5506DD030F1081BE@AUSX7MCPC103.AMER.DELL.COM> Message-ID: <0ECB9011-E154-445A-A912-E1266655658D@comcast.net> One of my colleagues sent this; I figured the list might find it interesting. paul Begin forwarded message: > ... > Subject: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX > > Thought you might find this interesting: > > http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix/0 > From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 21:28:25 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:28:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 4, 12 01:16:55 pm Message-ID: <1325820505.87766.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Tony Duell > On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on > > disk. > > You betcha. > > . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware > version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! > . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on > the disk! Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, and if you can't prgoram it, it's? not a computer. -tony (only _half_ joking) C: But BASIC is so well known. Most or nearly everything you learned on a TRS-80 model 3/4 could be utilized straitaway on a peecee. Yes BASIC and BASICA added features, but those are bonus'! The Tandy 2000 DOS/BASIC manuals (can't remember if they were distinct, probably) as a fer instance were pretty well written and comprehensive AFAIK (no manual is perfect though). ? How many puters came with M$ BASIC? ?I don't know the first thing about FORTH, sorry. But all I know is a whole nudda world was available to the curious little punk who cared to get their hands a little dirty. I have no reason to hate BASIC. Ideal for all tasks, definitely not. But even Quick BASIC wasn't so bad for some things. A number of developers were and still are fond of Quick C for quick and dirty stuff (I know that statement astounds people, but it's true just the same). And I'm no big fan of M$, but that has nothing to do w/finding one of their tools as moderately useful. Not everyone on this list is a developer, or needs to work solely in the most modern methodologies. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 5 21:37:09 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 19:37:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120105143842.B76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120105143842.B76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1325821029.11148.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Fred Cisin On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. > I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it > does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use > said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, > and if you can't prgoram it, it's? not a computer. > -tony (only _half_ joking) Every computer should have a machine language monitor in ROM.? at least on a par with DEBUG. C: Now there's a novel idea. The Canon AS-100 and the NEC APC both have some sort of monitor that presents itself on power up. My memory isn't what it should be (I was tempted to say the C64 had one, but on second thought I think it was just some other commies). A feature we're more likely to see on 8 bit toys (in the US anyway) then man-puters. But the more I think of it even, a lot of them were actually disk or cartridge based. Is there any reason to wonder why people still love their old 8 bitters? From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 01:06:59 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 02:06:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> while (*T++=*S++); >> do >> { >> X = *S; >> *T = X; >> S++; >> T++; >> } >> while('\0' != X); (obvious fix applied to the condition) > The long version isn't less efficient. Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; there certainly are semantic differences between them. In particular, in the original, there is no sequence point during the load-store-increment-increment operation, which means the compiler can make assumptions like "neither T nor S points into either T or S" and let the undefined behaviour resulting from multiple modifications between sequence points cover for it if they do. The long version has sequence points all through it, and, for example, the compiler cannot assume that T does not point into S and thus S++ cannot be collapsed with *S. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 01:22:17 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 02:22:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201060722.CAA00638@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >>> while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ >> ITYM != > With most C compilers either would work. Really? If so, it's an extension, since <> in that context is a syntax error in C. (Indeed, I can't think of any context in which it isn't a syntax error in C, except cases like a string or character literal, where almost any two source characters are acceptable, or cases like part of a false #if block where it doesn't actually get compiled.) Which compilers have you found accept it? /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From spc at conman.org Fri Jan 6 02:21:24 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 03:21:24 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20120106082124.GA1433@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Charlie Carothers once stated: > > Perhaps > a bit extreme, but I don't even use the ternary operator in C preferring > the simpler and IMNSHO much clearer if/else construct. I've probably > even replaced the ternary critter with an if/else in code someone else > wrote that I was reworking for some reason. If it takes a microsecond > longer to execute the compiled code, who really cares the vast majority > of the time. OK, if I knew for sure the ternary was faster, I might > grudgingly use it in an interrupt routine but I would not be really > happy about it! What about the following (real code I've written): /* example 1 */ if (flags[0] == 'r') oflags = (flags[1] == '+') ? O_RDWR : O_RDONLY; else if (flags[0] == 'w') oflags = (flags[1] == '+') ? O_CREAT | O_RDWR : O_CREAT | O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC; else if (flags[0] == 'a') oflags = (flags[1] == '+') ? O_RDWR | O_APPEND : O_WRONLY | O_APPEND; else luaL_error(L,"illegal flag: %s",flags); /* example 2 */ printf( "; Questions = %lu\n" "; Answers = %lu\n" "; Name Servers = %lu\n" "; Additional Records = %lu\n" "; Authoritative Result = %s\n" "; Truncated Result = %s\n" "; Recursion Desired = %s\n" "; Recursion Available = %s\n" "; Result = %s\n", (unsigned long)result->qdcount, (unsigned long)result->ancount, (unsigned long)result->nscount, (unsigned long)result->arcount, result->aa ? "true" : "false", result->tc ? "true" : "false", result->rd ? "true" : "false", result->ra ? "true" : "false", dns_rcode_text(result->rcode) ); The first example is about the craziest I ever got with the ternary operator. -spc (But I still find its intent clear ... ) From spc at conman.org Fri Jan 6 02:40:41 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 03:40:41 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Mouse once stated: > >> while (*T++=*S++); > > >> do > >> { > >> X = *S; > >> *T = X; > >> S++; > >> T++; > >> } > >> while('\0' != X); > > (obvious fix applied to the condition) > > > The long version isn't less efficient. > > Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; there > certainly are semantic differences between them. > > In particular, in the original, there is no sequence point during the > load-store-increment-increment operation, which means the compiler can > make assumptions like "neither T nor S points into either T or S" and > let the undefined behaviour resulting from multiple modifications > between sequence points cover for it if they do. The long version has > sequence points all through it, and, for example, the compiler cannot > assume that T does not point into S and thus S++ cannot be collapsed > with *S. I don't think you're right about that. I can write, for instance: void copy(char *t,char *s) { while((*t++ = *s++)) ; } int main(int argc,char *argv[]) { copy(argv[0],argv[0]); return 0; } C has to assume (well, prior to C99, more on that in a bit) that pointers it receives point to the same location, otherwise, why have memcpy() and memmove()? C99 has ways of telling the compiler that the two pointers won't be aliases of each other: void copy (char *restrict t,char *restrict s) { while(*t++ = *s++) ; } copy(argv[0],argv[0]); I would exepct a C99 compiler to bitch about aliased pointers. Hold on ... wow ... GCC 3.4.6 didn't bitch about that. "splint --strict" kind of ... did: a.c:9:3: Statement has no effect (possible undected modification through call to unconstrained function copy): copy(argv[0], ar... Statement has no visible effect --- no values are modified. It may modify something through a call to an unconstrained function. (Use -noeffectuncon to inhibit warning) I'm ... um ... surprised at this. -spc (dismayed is more like it ... ) From gerhard.kreuzer at liftoff.at Fri Jan 6 03:02:34 2012 From: gerhard.kreuzer at liftoff.at (Gerhard Kreuzer) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:02:34 +0100 Subject: teaching programming to kids Message-ID: <1E52E896F6CC4334A48F88BB46D6C849@mars> Try this out: http://phrogram.com/ With best regards Gerhard From james at attfield.co.uk Fri Jan 6 04:08:40 2012 From: james at attfield.co.uk (James Attfield) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:08:40 -0000 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000301cccc5b$2a8a2ad0$7f9e8070$@co.uk> > Hi Jim, > Are you the same Jim I'm corresponding with elsewhere about a broken > 256/1024KZ? > If so, you and I can discuss the 64FDC off-list; I haven't heard from Jerry. > I do have some IMI drives, both the 8" 11MB and the 5" 5MB and 20MB units, > but I'm pretty sure at least some of them are non-functional.What > size/capacity are you looking for? > IMI drives were also used by Corvus; as a matter of fact the two companies > ultimately merged. The IMI 20MB mechanism was also available with a normal > ST412/506 interface card and used in XT clones etc., in case you have a > defective drive with a good IMI board and can find one of those drives. Hi Mike, yes I am - I'm about to start in on the 256KZ just now. Agreed we take this off-list - I'll drop you an email. Jim From james at attfield.co.uk Fri Jan 6 04:15:34 2012 From: james at attfield.co.uk (James Attfield) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:15:34 -0000 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000401cccc5c$20ec5b00$62c51100$@co.uk> > James Attfield wrote: > > > > FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. > > I just double checked the schematics and this is not correct. > The 16FDC feeds address lines 15-12 through a 74ls30 to do a > specific decode for a 4K address range, normally set to $C000-$CFFF. > If the high four address bits do not match, the card will not > respond. > > Bill S. My sloppy work, apologies, I was referring to the top bank of the memory cards - the top 32K of a 64KZ will remain disabled until RDOS has relocated itself during boot or test sequences then it switches it back in. Ignore comment about port 40H - that is used for bank switching in 8-bit systems. Jim From kspt.tor at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 03:23:12 2012 From: kspt.tor at gmail.com (Tor Arntsen) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:23:12 +0100 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 17:56, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming >> computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. > > That is a gross exaggeration. [..] I didn't see the original post.. but yes, that's not accurate. With one in a million there should be just 4 programmers in all of Norway. And (I'm Norwegian) here we are about 50 career programmers in just this one company I'm working in, which is in a small town (_very_ small by most other countries' standards) and we're not alone.. there are several other companies in this town where programming and software design is part of what they do. Can't talk too much for those others, but we don't do web page design either, this is traditional software development with numeric processing and data handling, mostly under Unix (in the past) and Linux (now), and, before that, mini-computers and their operating systems (their passing is one reason I'm attracted to classic computing lists like these). So I don't know where that one in a million came from.. I see similar programming environments as ours when I travel elsewhere in the world, and ours is just one of those industries out there where proper, good old programming is required. -Tor From pontus at update.uu.se Fri Jan 6 05:37:03 2012 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:37:03 +0100 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices Message-ID: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> Hi The topic says is all, can a PDP-11/23 (on a M8189 card) boot from MSCP devices? My guess is that you need proper roms on your BDV11 ? Would these usually be included? Regards, Pontus. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 07:52:02 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:52:02 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 2:06 AM, Mouse wrote: >>> while (*T++=*S++); > >>> do >>> { >>> X = *S; >>> *T = X; >>> S++; >>> T++; >>> } >>> while('\0' != X); > > (obvious fix applied to the condition) > >> The long version isn't less efficient. > > Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; gcc compiles to the same assembly, which is what I meant by "not less efficient". I expect most popular compilers would do the same. --T > there > certainly are semantic differences between them. > > In particular, in the original, there is no sequence point during the > load-store-increment-increment operation, which means the compiler can > make assumptions like "neither T nor S points into either T or S" and > let the undefined behaviour resulting from multiple modifications > between sequence points cover for it if they do. The long version has > sequence points all through it, and, for example, the compiler cannot > assume that T does not point into S and thus S++ cannot be collapsed > with *S. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 08:14:13 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:14:13 -0500 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 12:47 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 5 Jan 2012 at 23:55, Toby Thain wrote: > >> In assembly? > > I'd be surprised if there has been a single production compiler (i.e. > not some hobby project) written in assembly in the last 20 years. Well, again, it depends on whether you count interpreters. Forth interpreters are quite often done in assembly. They also often progress to compilation as well. Of course, then it also depends what you call a "hobby project"; Forth tends to make its way onto things like satellites which aren't exactly hobby projects (inasmuch as the US doesn't consider NASA to be a hobby, which it increasingly seems to), but they are certainly often one-off designs. - Dave From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 08:18:58 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:18:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <201201061418.JAA06174@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> [...] the compiler can make assumptions like "neither T nor S points >> into either T or S" > I don't think you're right about that. [...] I said "points into either T or S", not "points into what either T or S points to". That is, "*T = X;" may change S (as opposed to changing the memory S points to). /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 08:19:28 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:19:28 -0500 Subject: Code golf - Re: Right toolf for the job In-Reply-To: <1325791144.51955.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F04940F.19597.1B6C409@cclist.sydex.com> <1325791144.51955.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F0702F0.10503@telegraphics.com.au> On 05/01/12 2:19 PM, Chris M wrote: > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Chuck Guzis > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2012 9:01 PM > Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids > > On 4 Jan 2012 at 19:41, David Riley wrote: > >> On Jan 4, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> >>> Does anybody write compilers in assembly any more? Or ever will, >>> again? > > Well, even in the limited resource 8-bit days in the 70s, it didn't > make sense to write a compiler in assembler, even when you were using > assembler to write the code. > > C: It should also be pointed out that any assembly code is going to have to be optimized anyway (usually by hand). > ... some guy who wanted to play chess on some embedded machine (sounds funky I know). He got everything in the allotted memory space, but one byte. He eventually had to go over the whole shebang to fit. It was tight to begin with, but had to be just a wee bit tighter. > The Hugi Size competition and similar things let you keep these skills warm. http://myweb.cableone.net/benlunt/hugi/compoold.htm And, putting aside the subjects of assembler and optimisation - for HLLs there is of course "golf". http://codegolf.com/ I have to say that I don't find excessive *compactness* to be the problem in HLL code that I read day to day. It is excessive *verbosity*; people writing 5-15 foggy lines where one short direct line will do. There are many causes of this, I think. Again, there is an analogy to English. Few people write first draft English that won't benefit from editing. In both cases I'm talking about low-hanging fruit, though. Returns diminish. The Elements of Programming Style, the best book on that subject that I know of, sets out to show that high level languages should be optimised for *clarity*. --Toby From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 08:29:10 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:29:10 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2012, at 6:37 AM, Pontus wrote: > Hi > > The topic says is all, can a PDP-11/23 (on a M8189 card) boot from MSCP devices? > > My guess is that you need proper roms on your BDV11 ? Would these usually be included? Certainly mine can (8189 with BH roms). Technically, it's an 11/23+, but the only real difference from a /23 is the address lines (22 in the /23+). Look for booting from DU (or MU if you're looking to boot from TMSCP). The boot table on mine offers the following options: DU DSA 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 DL RL01/RL02 0 1 2 3 DX RX01 0 1 DY RX02 0 1 DD TU58 0 1 XH QNA 0 1 MS TQK25/TS05 0 MU TK50 0 The KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001) indicates that all versions of the ROM should be able to boot MSCP, if I'm reading it right. The BH revision adds support for TK50 (thus, presumably, TMSCP). - Dave From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 08:31:22 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:31:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201201061431.JAA06452@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >>>> while (*T++=*S++); [compressed vertically -Mouse] >>>> do { X = *S; *T = X; S++; T++; } while('\0' != X); >>> The long version isn't less efficient. >> Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; > gcc compiles to the same assembly, For some hardware, perhaps, for some particular version of gcc. (A load/store architecture, perhaps?) Try it on something that has an addressing mode which supports loading *S++ or storing *T++ as a single operation. The VAX and the PDP-11 are examples. My memory of the 68k is fuzzier, but I think it has such addressing modes too. > which is what I meant by "not less efficient". On that particular hardware with that particular compiler, it's no less efficient. That doesn't mean much when we're discussing C per se. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From schoedel at kw.igs.net Fri Jan 6 08:51:29 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (schoedel at kw.igs.net) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:51:29 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <201201061418.JAA06174@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> <201201061418.JAA06174@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120106144727.M77098@kw.igs.net> On Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:18:58 -0500 (EST), Mouse wrote > I said "points into either T or S", not "points into what either T or S > points to". That is, "*T = X;" may change S (as opposed to changing > the memory S points to). Ah. The rule that permits the compiler to optimize the long form into the short here is C89 3.3.16.1: If the value being stored in an object is accessed from another object that overlaps in any way the storage of the first object, then the overlap shall be exact and the two objects shall have qualified or unqualified versions of a compatible type; otherwise the behavior is undefined. (C11 changes 'accessed' to 'read'.) -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 09:10:26 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:10:26 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7C0EF932-B8DE-454A-95F5-0C559097166D@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:07 AM, Charlie Carothers wrote: > I absolutely loathe "OK, if I knew for sure the ternary was faster, I might grudgingly use it in an interrupt routine but I would not be really happy about it! I actually like the ternary statement and think it reads a lot clearer, as long as it's simple conditions (e.g. "foo = bar ? baz : NULL;" or the like, certainly nothing that needs to occupy more than one line; I even start to get nervous when parentheses get involved). However, I've found that a lot of people who are otherwise quite good programmers are totally unfamiliar with it, so I tend to avoid using it in anything I'll have to share. - Dave From IanK at vulcan.com Fri Jan 6 10:43:26 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 16:43:26 +0000 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/5/12 8:43 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: [snip] >BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to >compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the >temporary variable, The only time modern compilers don't do optimization is when you tell them not to, usually so you can step through the code in a debugger. One of the most common optimizations is the elimination of temporary variables (which is why you turn off optimization to step through it!). After being a test manager over a compiler suite that served several different types of processor on which the target OS ran and seeing the same principles expressed on load/store architectures and (ugh) x86, I now routinely opt for clarity in my C code because I have confidence the compiler will collapse all of the 'courtesy code' into something every bit as tight as if I'd tried to be tricky and terse. And, as someone else noted on this thread, it's a whole lot easier if someone (even if it's you) must look at this code six months later. >the long version will be a TINY bit slower due to the >extra temporary variable being written and read, and then read again for >the comparison. In the "short" )"crammed together") version the value is >in a register when it is needed, and presumably in the accumulator for the >conditional jump that the while translates to. Likewise, by incrementing >the pointers separately from de-referencing them, you'll probably end up >with an an "unnecessary" retrieval of the pointer value from memory >instead of register for the de-reference. > > >If the purpose is the fastest possible code, that stuff matters. Another thing modern compilers do is optimize stuff we don't think about, for instance, load hoists or elimination of redundant memory accesses in optimized code. (I saw some of the latter in a compiler I wrote as part of a graduate-level compiler course, as my simple optimizations created some redundant sequences that a more sophisticated compiler eliminates through such mechanisms as keyhole optimization.) They can play to processor-specific attributes such as cache size and branch optimization, too. Relax and write clear code. > >If the purpose is having the students understand it, without having to >decipher the "puzzle code", delaying them moving on to the rest of the >topic, the long version is far superior. > >THAT's where Holub and I don't agree - he considers the long version to be >bordering on "WRONG", even for classroom blackboard! In one of his >columns, he actually CORRECTED similar code in a reader question (about >another issue) - I felt that ease of comprehension by his >readers/students should be a higher priority than "efficiency" Yeah, having debugged code that tried to be 'clever' and could have been written clearly instead, Holub and I would be on opposite sides of that argument. It was true thirty years ago that 'cleverly' written C could be faster (and there were tests to prove it), but there's little justification for that position today. -- Ian From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 6 10:46:51 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:46:51 -0600 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0633EC.60901@neurotica.com> References: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> <4F0633EC.60901@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201061653.q06Gr9Xi018907@billy.ezwind.net> At 05:36 PM 1/5/2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > Is there some reason you're being a dick to me? I ask because I can be ten times the dick if required; I just want to know if it's something worth getting worked up over. Hah! You'll be a manager before you know it. - John From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 10:53:44 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:53:44 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> Message-ID: <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> David Riley wrote: > On Jan 6, 2012, at 6:37 AM, Pontus wrote: >> The topic says is all, can a PDP-11/23 (on a M8189 card) boot from >> MSCP devices? My guess is that you need proper roms on your BDV11 ? >> Would these usually be included? The M8189 is a quad-height 11/23-plus card which includes bootstrap, LTC, SLUs, etc and there wouldn't normally be a BDV11 in the same system. The M8186 is the dual-height 11/23 card, and that would normally have a BDV11 in the system. The original 11/23-plus bootstrap ROMs are modified versions of the BDV11 boot ROMs and have the same boot options -- no MSCP. Those ROMs would be labelled 23-339-01E2 and 23-340-01E2 (or sometimes 23-339E2 and 23-340E2). > Certainly mine can (8189 with BH roms). Technically, it's an 11/23+, > but the only real difference from a /23 is the address lines (22 in > the /23+). That's not quite right. The early 11/23 cards (M8186 dual-height) are only 18-bit but all Rev.C and later 11/23 cards are 22-bit. All M8189 are 11/23-plus cards and are 22-bit. The only difference between different M8189 cards (apart from inconsequential etch revisions) are the boot ROMS. The original release -BA are 2K ROMs equivalent to BDV11 boot ROMs and they were used in PDP-11/23-plus systems (BA11S box). Later ones such as -BE and onwards that support MSCP were made specifically for microPDP-11/23+ systems (BA23 box). > The KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001) indicates > that all versions of the ROM should be able to boot MSCP, if I'm > reading it right. No, the oldest versions can't. Only the ones intended for microPDP-11/23+ system have MSCP support (-BE and later). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 11:15:32 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 09:15:32 -0800 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: My M8189 came with unlabeled 2716 EPROMs. I don't know what version that was. I don't think it could boot from MSCP. That would match what Pete says. Unless I missed it all of the M8189 versions listed here are 8K versions, not 2K versions: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist I updated my M8189 to the 23-380E4 / 23-381E4 M8189-BG (or -BH) version. The only trick is you need to find 24-pin MCM68766 8KB EPROMs, which aren't as common or cheap as most other EPROMs. -Glen From evan at snarc.net Fri Jan 6 11:20:00 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 17:20:00 +0000 Subject: VCF East keynote announced Message-ID: <199436078-1325870402-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1107656632-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Hi all -- this year's VCF East 8.0 keynote speaker is Tom Kurtz, who co-developed BASIC while at Dartmouth in the mid-1960s. There will (probably) be a second equally awesome speaker announced soon .... I wish I could reveal who, but he's not confirmed yet. ;) The show is May 5-6 this year, at our usual location in New Jersey. - Evan From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 11:25:24 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 12:25:24 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 11:53 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: >> The KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001) indicates >> that all versions of the ROM should be able to boot MSCP, if I'm reading it right. > > No, the oldest versions can't. Only the ones intended for > microPDP-11/23+ system have MSCP support (-BE and later). Ah, good to know. That's not noted in the manual, unless I missed something. I don't have the older ROMs. So wait, then, what's the difference between a /23 and a /23+ if not the 22-bit addressing? I was led to believe that was it. - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 11:50:55 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 12:50:55 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:25 PM, David Riley wrote: > So wait, then, what's the difference between a /23 and a /23+ if not the 22-bit addressing? ?I was led to believe that was it. Just KDF11-A vs KDF11-B... KDF11-A may or may not be 22-bit (only Rev A is 18-bit). All -B are 22-bit. Dual-height CPU only vs Quad-height CPU plus dual SLU plus on-board Boot ROMs. If you are building a system from scratch and have an up-rev KDF11-A plus a couple of serial ports (like half of a DLV11-J) plus a Bootstap/terminator board then compare that to a /23+ system, the effective difference is that the /23+ system will have fewer boards to do the same thing and more open slots. No effective difference from a software standpoint. One can also assemble a KDF11-A system in one of the oddball narrow backplanes that originally shipped with the LSI-11/2 where a KDF11-B won't fit, but that's still just packaging. A minimal /23+ system could be as little as 2 modules - KDF11-B plus memory - use the second SLU for a TU58 or TU58 emulator and you could boot RT-11. A /23 system will have more boards. -ethan From quadricode at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 10:45:13 2012 From: quadricode at gmail.com (Robert Smith) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:45:13 -0700 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> On 1/5/2012 9:26 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 05/01/12 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> ... >> For instance, the lambda calculus. What is it? What does it do, what >> is it for, why is it special? > > There is a wealth of material at all levels devoted to this. Pick up any > functional programming text, e.g. I highly recommend > * Functional Programming - Application and Implementation (Henderson). > * The Architecture of Symbolic Computers - Peter M. Kogge * Types and Programming Languages by Pierce This book explains type theory and the theory of programming languages. You write several little interpreters, like an interpreter for the core, untyped lambda calculus. You learn about the relevance of lambda calculus as a fundamental computer science concept, and how one builds upon that. As said, it explains type theory too. * Purely Functional Data Structure by Okasaki Talks about data structures which are immutable and efficient, suitable for purely functional languages. This is more about functional programming than the lambda calculus. * Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell by Bird This is a book, *not* about Haskell, but rather about functional programming. That is, it's relatively language unspecific, but uses Haskell as a vehicle for examples. * Learn You A Haskell For Great Good by Lipovaca Okay, now if you want to be spoonfed Haskell and functional programming, read this. You'll start with syntax, recursion, and types; and it'll carry you to monads, zippers, applicative functors, randomness, etc. It does not talk about really serious stuff like unsafe IO, some of the finer points of lazy evaluation, monad transformers >> >> Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible >> explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are >> powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. > > Readable and comprehensible explanations: > * SICP > * Programming in Scheme (Abelson & Eisenberg) > * aforementioned Henderson. > and dozens of others. There are A LOT of good functional programming > texts out there, many dating back to the 70s and 80s of course, and far > in conceptual advance of the mainstream (PHP! ASP.NET! Java! snore). > SICP should explain closures just fine. I mean, not only are closures (and lexical scope as a prerequisite) explained, but you also use closures in a practical way. And there is no way SICP is poor. * Let Over Lambda by Hoyte Chapter 1 of this book dives into a pragmatic explanation of what a closure is by describing it as a "Let Over Lambda". For example (define closure (let ((x 2)) (lambda () (display x))) This is an extremely simple example. CLOSURE is bound to a lambda expression. But not just some pure lambda, it has extra information about its environment. So it's a lambda (code) + environment (data). If we proceed to call CLOSURE, we get: > (closure) 2 We can be more fancy: (define counter (let ((count 0)) (lambda () (set! count (+ 1 count)) count))) Here the lambda captures COUNT. Now we call COUNTER a few times: > (counter) 1 > (counter) 2 > (counter) 3 Look ma! Encapsulation! COUNT is not accessible from the outside. C++ers might call this a ~private variable~, but really it's just a variable closed inside some execution context. Anyway, that's what Chapter 1 of said book talks about. * Lisp In Small Pieces by Quiennec This talks about compiling Lisp if you're interested in how closures might be compiled. It also talks about formal semantics and other mathy stuff. >> >> If the teaching& reference materials that I have found so far are >> unable to convey these core concepts, then there would seem to be two >> possible conclusions: >> >> [a] /all/ the materials that I've been able to find are extremely >> poor, even the ones that are more or less universally agreed to be >> very good >> >> or >> >> [b] these are complex, difficult concepts and a massive amount of >> back-knowledge is necessary to understand it. No, these are not necessarily poor nor complex just because *you* don't understand it. >> >> I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links >> but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. >> >> But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That >> these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? >> The best way to go about it is to actually write some programs in Scheme or Standard ML or Haskell or whatever. Then you actually internalize what things mean, instead of these abstract definitions like what the semantics of lambda is. You'll find the easy-to-understand books typically do the programming for you by showing you code examples. Remember, programming isn't like history, where you can just read a book and understand what's going on. It's more like medicine and being a doctor, where both book reading *and* practice are important, the latter being almost surely more important. --Robert P.S., The moral of the story is, sit down, open a Scheme, and read SICP from start to finish. It's not too difficult or too confusing, for it's often the first book a compsci major gets to read. READ SICP DAMMIT. From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 6 12:01:44 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:01:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > >> The long version isn't less efficient. > > Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; > gcc compiles to the same assembly, which is what I meant by "not less > efficient". > I expect most popular compilers would do the same. First, THANK YOU, for taking the time to check that out. If you will recall, I said, UNLESS THE COMPILER OPTIMIZES. Replacing your^H^H^H^H MY code with something "equivalent", but presumably "better" is called OPTIMIZATION, and that is what happened, and why the code produced identical results. In this case, it is a correct and appropriate optimization. Sometimes it isn't. Some early optimizing compilers created complications (not with THIS, but with polling loops, etc.). But, in this case, the optimization is completely correct. The reason that they produce the same code, IS because gcc did NOT compile what was asked for. It "knew" that there was a better way (DWIM?) and replaced the requested code with equivalent. IFF you turn off optimization COMPLETELY, then the results are NOT identical. (If your results ARE identical, then you did NOT turn off optimization) After my screw-ups with forgetting what were extensions, other languages, odd copmpiler weirdities, and my own unrefreshed unreliable dynamic RAM, I need to add disclaimers: "MOST/MANY C compilers" WILL permit you to ask for strcpy(p+1,p); /* on MOST/MANY compilers that is NOT a way to insert a charcter position! */ C is not a padded room - the foot guns are fully loaded with plenty of rope. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 6 12:04:20 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:04:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au> <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com> <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120106100212.O16005@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 6, 2012, at 12:47 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > On 5 Jan 2012 at 23:55, Toby Thain wrote: > > > >> In assembly? > > > > I'd be surprised if there has been a single production compiler (i.e. > > not some hobby project) written in assembly in the last 20 years. > > Well, again, it depends on whether you count interpreters. Forth interpreters are quite often done in assembly. They also often progress to compilation as well. > > Of course, then it also depends what you call a "hobby project"; Forth > tends to make its way onto things like satellites which aren't exactly > hobby projects (inasmuch as the US doesn't consider NASA to be a hobby, > which it increasingly seems to), but they are certainly often one-off > designs. NOTE: the original quote that triggered THIS thread did not include the word "production". (mostly an omission, but also because it was based on "self-hosting" by grad student "new" languages) From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 12:05:06 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 13:05:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106144727.M77098@kw.igs.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> <201201061418.JAA06174@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106144727.M77098@kw.igs.net> Message-ID: <201201061805.NAA08977@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> That is, "*T = X;" may change S (as opposed to changing the memory S >> points to). > Ah. The rule that permits the compiler to optimize the long form > into the short here is C89 3.3.16.1: > If the value being stored in an object is accessed from another > object that overlaps in any way the storage of the first object, > then the overlap shall be exact and the two objects shall have > qualified or unqualified versions of a compatible type; otherwise > the behavior is undefined. The C99 draft I have has similar language in 6.5.16.1 #3. This would make memcpy-style copying of objects via char pointers useless (except for a few cases such as char-sized objects), because it stores through char objects and then accesses through objects which are not char-sized (and thus cannot overlap exactly) and/or do not have types compatible with char. So I think this must mean something else. I'm going to ask the C language lawyer I know about this. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 6 12:11:40 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:11:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120106100804.E16005@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Ian King wrote: > On 1/5/12 8:43 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: > > [snip] > >BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to > >compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the > >temporary variable, > > The only time modern compilers don't do optimization is when you tell them > not to, usually so you can step through the code in a debugger. One of I will concede that "modern" compilers DEFAULT to optimization on. (I'm not modern) > Yeah, having debugged code that tried to be 'clever' and could have been > written clearly instead, Holub and I would be on opposite sides of that > argument. It was true thirty years ago that 'cleverly' written C could be > faster (and there were tests to prove it), but there's little > justification for that position today. That's my point. To be fair, my chats with Holub WERE 25 - 30 years ago. So, the environment is now different. From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 12:12:25 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 10:12:25 -0800 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: I couldn't find these switch settings documented anywhere. Here are the switch settings as I experimentally determined them after updating my M8189 to KDF11B-BH ROM V1.0 (23-380E4 / 23-381E4) firmware: M8189 KDF11B-BH ROM V1.0 (23-380E4 / 23-381E4) Boot Switches S1 Short Memory Test S1-7 off Long Memory Test S1-7 ON Plain terminal S1-8 off ANSI terminal S1-8 ON Boot Switches S1 +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU0 | off | off | off | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU1 | ON | off | off | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU2 | off | ON | off | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU3 | ON | ON | off | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU4 | off | off | ON | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU5 | ON | off | ON | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DU6 | off | ON | ON | ON | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DL0 | off | off | off | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DL1 | ON | off | off | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DL2 | off | ON | off | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DL3 | ON | ON | off | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DX0 | off | off | ON | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DX1 | ON | off | ON | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DY0 | off | ON | ON | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DY1 | ON | ON | ON | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DD0 | off | ON | off | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot DD1 | ON | ON | off | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot XH0 | off | off | ON | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot XH1 | ON | off | ON | off | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot MS0 | ON | off | off | off | off | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Auto boot MU0 | off | off | off | ON | ON | +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ (Auto boot DU7 is missing from this list. I couldn't seem to get that setting to work) From ajp166 at verizon.net Fri Jan 6 12:38:20 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:38:20 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F073F9C.9050808@verizon.net> Pete Turnbull wrote: > David Riley wrote: >> On Jan 6, 2012, at 6:37 AM, Pontus wrote: > >>> The topic says is all, can a PDP-11/23 (on a M8189 card) boot from >>> MSCP devices? My guess is that you need proper roms on your BDV11 ? >>> Would these usually be included? > > The M8189 is a quad-height 11/23-plus card which includes bootstrap, > LTC, SLUs, etc and there wouldn't normally be a BDV11 in the same > system. The M8186 is the dual-height 11/23 card, and that would > normally have a BDV11 in the system. The original 11/23-plus > bootstrap ROMs are modified versions of the BDV11 boot ROMs and have > the same boot options -- no MSCP. Those ROMs would be labelled > 23-339-01E2 and 23-340-01E2 (or sometimes 23-339E2 and 23-340E2). MSCP boot devices (RQDXn) can be booted with any Qbus 11 cpu. The 16/18/22 bit this is a red herring in that it's a dont care save for address space. However like Pete has said the BOOT program is device specific and some of the 11/23CPUs (M8186) have no boot roms at all and depend on the BDV11 to carry the roms where the later M8189 had the boot roms on the board along with serial ports. The Even then there were two version and the primary difference was what Eproms were installed. Where the 11/23 vs 11/23+ differed si what devices the BOOT rom knew about. So the real comment should be not can a PDP11/23 boot MSCP? As the answer is yes with the provision that the rom at the boot address (nominally 173000) contains MSCP boot. > >> Certainly mine can (8189 with BH roms). Technically, it's an 11/23+, >> but the only real difference from a /23 is the address lines (22 in >> the /23+). > > That's not quite right. The early 11/23 cards (M8186 dual-height) are > only 18-bit but all Rev.C and later 11/23 cards are 22-bit. All > M8189 are 11/23-plus cards and are 22-bit. > And most of the pre rev-C could do Q22, save for they were not tested or qualified for it unless it was missing the second chip that provided the MMU. Without that chip its only Q16. > The only difference between different M8189 cards (apart from > inconsequential etch revisions) are the boot ROMS. The original release > -BA are 2K ROMs equivalent to BDV11 boot ROMs and they were used in > PDP-11/23-plus systems (BA11S box). Later ones such as -BE and > onwards that support MSCP were made specifically for microPDP-11/23+ > systems (BA23 box). > >> The KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001) indicates >> that all versions of the ROM should be able to boot MSCP, if I'm >> reading it right. > > No, the oldest versions can't. Only the ones intended for > microPDP-11/23+ system have MSCP support (-BE and later). > The oldest versons would require the user to use ODt to enter a rather long boot program to boot MSCP. the alternate is if that older system has both an RX01/2, RL01/02/ RK/TU58 and a booter on that device you could boot of those and do a boot/foreign (RT11) to the MSCP device. I do that on my tU58 based 6 board system wich is all dual width with 11/23, 512KB ram, DLV11j, RQDX3, MRV11 with TU58 boot). Boot Tu58 with Rt11 and usethat to boot the MSCP (2x RD52 31mb each) with usually RT11 but the second hard disk has RSTS. It's what DEC would call an unsupported configuration but by the book doable. Allison From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 6 12:37:25 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:37:25 -0800 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com>, <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2012 at 9:14, David Riley wrote: > Well, again, it depends on whether you count interpreters. Forth > interpreters are quite often done in assembly. They also often > progress to compilation as well. I have a difficult time calling Forth a "compiled language", though I'll readily grant that it's mostly a matter of sematics. There are also a couple of other "bootstrapping" lanaguages that, due to their sparseness (right word?) probably qualify more as alternative assemblers. But then an assembler with a sufficiently powerful macro language is probably indistinguishable from many HLLs. So I'll give you that one, somewhat reluctantly. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 12:48:18 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 13:48:18 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:12 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > I couldn't find these switch settings documented anywhere. Here are > the switch settings as I experimentally determined them after updating > my M8189 to KDF11B-BH ROM V1.0 (23-380E4 / 23-381E4) firmware: They're documented in the KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001). At least the DUn ones are. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 12:59:55 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 13:59:55 -0500 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com>, <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <88B1B892-F5D4-4B4A-A6C1-692959F7A3B4@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:37 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6 Jan 2012 at 9:14, David Riley wrote: > >> Well, again, it depends on whether you count interpreters. Forth >> interpreters are quite often done in assembly. They also often >> progress to compilation as well. > > I have a difficult time calling Forth a "compiled language", though > I'll readily grant that it's mostly a matter of sematics. There are > also a couple of other "bootstrapping" lanaguages that, due to their > sparseness (right word?) probably qualify more as alternative > assemblers. Well, that's why I waver on it. It *can be* a compiled language, and the more optimized versions of it are. But it's sort of a bizarre anomaly as languages go, since it's also usually at least partly interpreted (especially when running interactively, with the notable exception of ColorForth which actually compiles as you type). - Dave From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Fri Jan 6 13:04:31 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:04:31 -0700 Subject: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <1325791144.51955.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F04940F.19597.1B6C409@cclist.sydex.com> <1325791144.51955.YahooMailNeo@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F0745BF.1010107@jetnet.ab.ca> > C: It should also be pointed out that any assembly code is going to > have to be optimized anyway (usually by hand). A good assembler > programmer can write efficient assembly code. But any s/w that worth > it's salt likely went through many iterations of testing (for speed > usually) and rewriting. My assembler instructor (who didn't know what > the 8088 Trap flag was for, I respectfully kept my mouth shut, a > break from the usual) told the story of some guy who wanted to play > chess on some embedded machine (sounds funky I know). He got > everything in the allotted memory space, but one byte. He eventually > had to go over the whole shebang to fit. It was tight to begin with, > but had to be just a wee bit tighter. > Hmm chess machines range from the PDP 8 with 4K to massive computing systems. So how well did it play? Ben. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 6 13:04:46 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:04:46 -0800 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net>, <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au>, <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F06D54E.20553.460172@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2012 at 10:01, Fred Cisin wrote: > If you will recall, I said, UNLESS THE COMPILER OPTIMIZES. Real optimization is perhaps the most difficult job a compiler writer faces--and indeed, the code dealing with optimization can be lengthier than the rest of the compiler code. Note that I'm not talking about simple things, such as eliminating invariants from loops and doing "peephole" work and other things local to the basic block. I mean true global optimization across all units of a program. Ones that can make whole subroutines disappear, or change parameter-passing mechanisms. The requirement is that optimized code, within reason, provide the same answer as the non-optimized version. That can be difficult if you're involved in floating point work. Even exploiting something as simple as the associative property in an expression can change the outcome of a computation. Some compilers have "unsafe optimization" switches to allow particularly aggressive optimization. However, that's of little use unless it can be turned off for critical code sections. On the other hand, there are some processors that are such beasts to manually write correct assembly for (the Intel i860 comes to mind), that you want to leave that task to a compiler with a good optimizer rather than use up your monthly allotment of Anacin. And there are compilers can can often generate better code than most assembly programmers, simply because the optimizer has a wider view and may have more "tricks" in its bag than the programmer. I find it difficult to believe that K&R ever intended that C would be the object of an automatic optimizer. Who would invent a pointer type that can point to *anything* if automatic optimization was intended? --Chuck From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 13:13:28 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 11:13:28 -0800 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:48 AM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:12 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > >> I couldn't find these switch settings documented anywhere. ?Here are >> the switch settings as I experimentally determined them after updating >> my M8189 to KDF11B-BH ROM V1.0 (23-380E4 / 23-381E4) firmware: > > They're documented in the KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001). ?At least the DUn ones are. > Thanks. I don't think I found that document online anywhere previously. I was able to find a copy online just now. The switch settings are fully documented in Table 1-5 of that manual. The swtich setting I thought should be Auto Boot DU7 is listed as "Select MSCP autoboot" in that table. -Glen From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 6 13:28:15 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:28:15 -0700 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: <4F05FFFD.1070409@bitsavers.org> References: <4F05FFFD.1070409@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <4F05FFFD.1070409 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > On 1/5/12 10:50 AM, Richard wrote: > > In article, > > Ian King writes: > > > >> My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, aimed > >> at experienced programmers. [...] > > > > This sounds interesting. What was the book? > > Steele "Common Lisp: The Language" 1984 > > 2nd edition published in 1990 Ah, OK. Got that one. We used it for the LISP class I took. I like the bit in the back about "apply hermeneutics". -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 13:30:15 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 14:30:15 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 2:13 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 10:48 AM, David Riley wrote: >> They're documented in the KDF11-B CPU System Maintenance manual (EK-245AA-MG-001). At least the DUn ones are. >> > > Thanks. I don't think I found that document online anywhere > previously. I was able to find a copy online just now. The switch > settings are fully documented in Table 1-5 of that manual. I think I found it searching for the switch settings some months ago, so there you go. :-) It certainly explained why the ROM displays listed in the KDF11-BA manual were somewhat different from what I was seeing on mine. :-) Glad that whomever I bought the board from saw fit to upgrade it (they're clearly a retrofit; the EPROM windows are covered with bits of floppy disk label). - Dave From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 6 13:44:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:44:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120105143842.B76006@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 5, 12 02:40:54 pm Message-ID: > Every computer should have a machine language monitor in ROM. at least on > a par with DEBUG. I would agree... On the other hand every version of Forth worthy of the name ahs the words ! and @, and often related words like C! and C@ (the HP71 versionn has N! and N@ to access individualt nybbles too(). So it's easy enough to write a machien code monitor in Forth. Even most ROM BASICs count, in tha they have PEEK and POKE (and related commends to accesss I/O ports on appropriate machines). The ROM BASIC In my IBM machines saved me a lot of time when I had a disk controller fault. The machine couldn't boot of course, but I could send values ot the controller I/O ports from the ROM BASIC and trace the signals on the PCB wit ha logic probe. I am not sure how you do it with no porgramming lanaugage available (and no front panel, for the pedants). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 6 13:52:23 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:52:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The PDP-8/L at the RICM is running! In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 5, 12 06:15:49 pm Message-ID: > > That's OK if the flipchip sinmply brigns out each IC to different pins on > > the connector (a lot of the simpler ones do), > > A lot do. In my original post, I gave several examples for which this A lto of the eariler/.simpler ones certainly do, so this is probably fine fo the 8/I. A lot of later one, used in PDP11 devie cotnllers do not. As with all debuging methods, you have to know the limtitations and only use it where applicable. > > There is, of course, HP's logic comparator, which is a device that takes > > a good IC of the type you are looking at, feeds it the same inputs and > > the drive on the board you're tersting and compeaes the outputs of the > > good IC and the one on the board. It then indicates which pins are different. > > Yes. I don't happen to have one of those, nor have I noticed one for > sale. I already had the ZIF-socket PIC-processor-driven IC tester - I They do turn up on E-bay from time to time. You want to get one with plenty of the little boards with the 'good' ICs on them -- I think there are jumper pins ot solder int to determine if a pin is an input or an output too. I think there's a bvoard with a socket on it, and switches in place of the pins. A sort of 'universal' board. If you can get that one, it'd be very handy. FWIW, I don't have a logic comparator either. It's something I would buy if it was cheap enoug has a curiousirt, but I doubt I'd use it for much real troubleshooting. I've foudn that tracing signal;s with a 'scope or LA is by fasr the quickest method. > Yes, there are failure modes for simple TTL gates that won't be picked > up by a hand-held tester. In my experience, those are rare compared > to a chip with a blown input or output that just plain produces the > wrong output when the inputs are tickled. *That* will be found by the > tester and clip. One that I kept on finding in the HP9800 machines was an IC (often a 74Hxx) where the upper transistor of the totem-pole hadfialed (or somethign similar, thuse turning it into an open-collector gage. That's eveil becuase an unonnected TTL input wil lfloat high, so thingd appear to be working (and some lesser testers will pass the device), but of coursew with no active pull-up on the line, the timing goes to h*ll. Onvce I know what to look for it was OK, but the fist one took some finding. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 6 13:59:28 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:59:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05CF5A.19752.1AA0B23@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 5, 12 04:27:06 pm Message-ID: > Your description's a little vague, but I suspect something like a > 74156 with a pullup on the (combined) outputs. If that's not right, > a better explanation of the problem might help. OK, her;'es the problem specified more completely : A large, complex PCB. It had soem high-speed analogue stuff on it, and thus it had to be a PCB. In fact it had to be a 16 layer PCB with ground planes either side of the analogue tracks. Said PCB could not be made in-house, the turnaroudn time was significant. And it was expesnive, meaning we wanted it to work first time. The deisgn was almost complete. Oen bit that hadn't been done -- I think it was the last bit -- was a digital signal which was a function -- an unknown (at hthis time) function -- of 3 other signals. We didn't want to haev a wirewrap area or anything like that to add ICs later. The otuptu signal was an enable to another device,it wasn't a clock, so glitches didn't matter too much. my solution, as others have suggested, was to use a 74F151 multiplexer. Select inputs fA, B, C) to the 3 input signals, multiplexer output to the signal I was tryign to produce. The inputs to the mux were, IIRC, pulled high by 1k reissotors (one of those SIL packs) with links to ground to configure it. I think the prototype had a pin header and push-on links, the 'production ones had links soldered i nthe right positions. -tony From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 6 14:43:25 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:43:25 -0700 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F061A8D.31481.2CFC9CE@cclist.sydex.com>, <81A66363-512A-4EEF-BD82-4FC0334E251F@gmail.com> <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4F06CEE5.9309.2CFA29 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > But then an assembler with a sufficiently powerful macro language is > probably indistinguishable from many HLLs. The first implementation of BEFLIX, was essentially a FAP macro card deck that provided the language as a set of macros. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 6 14:47:18 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:47:18 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F05CF5A.19752.1AA0B23@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 5, 12 04:27:06 pm, Message-ID: <4F06ED56.575.A3E229@cclist.sydex.com> On 6 Jan 2012 at 19:59, Tony Duell wrote: > my solution, as others have suggested, was to use a 74F151 > multiplexer. Select inputs fA, B, C) to the 3 input signals, > multiplexer output to the signal I was tryign to produce. The inputs > to the mux were, IIRC, pulled high by 1k reissotors (one of those SIL > packs) with links to ground to configure it. I think the prototype had > a pin header and push-on links, the 'production ones had links > soldered i nthe right positions. Same idea, but inside-out. Uses an OC 3-to-8 demux rather than a multiplexer. One pullup instead of a bunch. I thought the mux solution too obvious. AAR, not very challenging. Can you do a similar thing when the inputs were of dissimilar logic families (you mentioned ECL) with a single IC? --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 14:49:43 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 15:49:43 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <8457AF58-8FAD-410A-9D16-E3C538B17FCE@gmail.com> References: <20120103105159.P719@shell.lmi.net> <4F02E3D8.30138.5276D7@cclist.sydex.com> <20120103113409.U719@shell.lmi.net> <20120104113200.A37747@shell.lmi.net> <8457AF58-8FAD-410A-9D16-E3C538B17FCE@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 7:03 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 4, 2012, at 5:02 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> So during the critical interval of 1971-1973, when B became C, what >> terminals would have been in common usage at Bell Labs? ?In >> particular, what would have they (Ken and DMR) have typed their curly >> braces on? (since ASR-33s lack them) > > Simple (graphical) answer: > > http://nushackers.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/nerdpol-ken-den.jpg I have seen that picture before, but it doesn't directly address the question. Those are ASR-33s - commonly used with DEC equipment, but have no lower-case and no curly braces. Digging around this morning, I found the answer: D. M. Ritchie and K. Thompson, `The Unix Time-sharing System, C. ACM 17 No. 7 (July 1974), pp 365-37. "1971... early summer... we supported Teletype?s model 37 terminals..." >From my reading, I also learned that Model 37s were used with Multics. Makes sense. I've now seen pictures of the 37. I can safely say that I've never seen one in person. One webpage I found claims that at some point in the past, large amounts of them were herded up and sent to the Soviet Union. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 6 15:01:36 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:01:36 -0700 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Ian King writes: > On 1/5/12 11:54 AM, "Al Kossow" wrote: > > >On 1/5/12 10:50 AM, Richard wrote: > >> In article, > >> Ian King writes: > >> > >>> My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, > >>>aimed > >>> at experienced programmers. [...] > >> > >> This sounds interesting. What was the book? > > > >Steele "Common Lisp: The Language" 1984 > > > >2nd edition published in 1990 > > This one is "A Programmer's Guide to Common Lisp" by Deborah G. Tatar, > 1987, Digital Press (and copyright by DEC). I'm assuming it differs from Steele in that it's not as thick :-). How else does it differ? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 6 16:03:44 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:03:44 -0700 Subject: HP HIL ID module: what's it for? Message-ID: I keep seeing these listed on ebay and I don't understand what role they play in the HP HIL environment. Can someone enlighten me? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 16:13:20 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 14:13:20 -0800 Subject: HP HIL ID module: what's it for? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Richard wrote: > I keep seeing these listed on ebay and I don't understand what role > they play in the HP HIL environment. ?Can someone enlighten me? http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1989-12.pdf Page 39 There are a few HP-HIL devices that are not easily categorized. For example, the HP 46084A ID Module, which is used to prevent unauthorized software duplication, does not generate any input, but occupies a position on the HP-HIL. It currently cannot be accessed through the X server. A client program can access it directly, but not across a network From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 6 16:29:18 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:29:18 -0700 Subject: HP HIL ID module: what's it for? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Glen Slick writes: > On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Richard wrote: > > I keep seeing these listed on ebay and I don't understand what role > > they play in the HP HIL environment. Can someone enlighten me? > > http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1989-12.pdf > Page 39 > > There are a few HP-HIL devices that are not easily categorized. For > example, the HP 46084A ID Module, which is used to prevent > unauthorized software duplication, does not generate any input, but > occupies a position on the HP-HIL. It currently cannot be accessed > through the X server. A client program can access it directly, but not > across a network Ahhh.... so it's a serial number dongle. That makes sense. I wonder how the ids are assigned. I suppose HP guarantees that each id module is unique and you'd run some program on your HP workstation that spits out your id and you tell this to the vendor and they generate a license key based on that and your key won't work on someone else's machine because they don't have your dongle. At least now I know that I can safely ignore these while looking to build up my HP-HIL peripheral collection :-). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Jan 6 15:13:07 2012 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 15:13:07 -0600 Subject: Contact request: Curtis Wilbar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: All, apologies, I'm trying to reach Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. If you have contact info for him, please let me know at your convenience. Thanks, -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From mark.kahrs at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 12:13:32 2012 From: mark.kahrs at gmail.com (Mark Kahrs) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 13:13:32 -0500 Subject: SIGSALY Message-ID: I grabbed a copy of a free (!) publication from the Cryptologic Museum entitled "The start of the Digital Revolution: SIGSALY - Secure Digital Voice Communications in World War II". It mentions that you can visit the library and look at "The Green Hornet... America's Unbreakable Code for Secret Telephony" -- privately published in 1999 by D. E. Mitchell. It says it is very complete. And yes, the museum only has a mock up. But when you consider the noise disks, it's an amazing feat. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 17:35:52 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:35:52 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:25 PM, David Riley wrote: >> So wait, then, what's the difference between a /23 and a /23+ if not the 22-bit addressing? I was led to believe that was it. > > Just KDF11-A vs KDF11-B... KDF11-A may or may not be 22-bit (only Rev > A is 18-bit). All -B are 22-bit. Dual-height CPU only vs Quad-height > CPU plus dual SLU plus on-board Boot ROMs. Yes, plus LTC, of course. > If you are building a system from scratch and have an up-rev KDF11-A > plus a couple of serial ports (like half of a DLV11-J) plus a > Bootstap/terminator board then compare that to a /23+ system, the > effective difference is that the /23+ system will have fewer boards to > do the same thing and more open slots. No effective difference from a > software standpoint. > One can also assemble a KDF11-A system in one of the oddball narrow > backplanes that originally shipped with the LSI-11/2 where a KDF11-B > won't fit, but that's still just packaging. > > A minimal /23+ system could be as little as 2 modules - KDF11-B plus > memory - use the second SLU for a TU58 or TU58 emulator and you could > boot RT-11. A /23 system will have more boards. You can actually do that with a KDF11-A and an MXV11-B as well. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 17:58:52 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 15:58:52 -0800 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 3:35 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > >> >> A minimal /23+ system could be as little as 2 modules - KDF11-B plus >> memory - use the second SLU for a TU58 or TU58 emulator and you could >> boot RT-11. ?A /23 system will have more boards. > > > You can actually do that with a KDF11-A and an MXV11-B as well. > Aren't there some OS restrictions when using an MXV11-B? Something like you can't run RSTS/E because the MXV11-B on-board memory is non-parity memory and parity memory is required for RSTS/E? From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 18:02:17 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:02:17 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F073F9C.9050808@verizon.net> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <4F073F9C.9050808@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F078B89.5090607@dunnington.plus.com> Allison wrote: > The oldest versons would require the user to use ODt to enter a rather long > boot program to boot MSCP. the alternate is if that older system has > both an > RX01/2, RL01/02/ RK/TU58 and a booter on that device you could boot of > those and do a boot/foreign (RT11) to the MSCP device. Yep, that's what I used to do on my original 11/23. Bob Schor posted the MSCP boot to vmsnet.pdp11 a long time ago, and I expect copies are floating around the net. But to save exercising Google too hard, here's part of Bob's post from 1994. As Allison says, it's not short. =============================================================== The following is MSCP.MAC, the code for the toggle-in bootstrap for DU0 as listed (almost) in the RT-11 5.6 manuals. When this is assembled, the .SAV image at 76000 will match that of the boot. The first set of comments on the right are the (octal) location and contents of the bootstrap, should you actually need to toggle it in. I am indebted to Jim Crapuchettes for deducing the missing word in the manual listing, and for providing the comments as to what the code is doing. [MSCP is a pretty mysterious protocol. Suffice to say that you build instruction packets in PDP-11 memory, then tell the controller to execute them.] Note that I have used this code, as ODT instructions, to "ram" the bootstrap over a serial line to an 11/73 which had no DU boot. The 11/73 came up in ODT, so all I had to do was to fire up VTCOM and send the ODT-like instructions over the serial line (ending, of course, with 76000G). To my surprise, it worked! ;------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ;This is the MSCP bootstrap as listed in the RT-11 5.6 INS manual ... ; along with its disassembly (by hand!). Additional comments and ; attempts to make "nicer" assembly by ; Bob Schor bschor at vms.cis.pitt.edu (412) 647-2116 (w) ; ;Missing word (at 76102) and most of the explanation supplied by ; Jim Crapuchettes jimc at netcom.com 408-732-0569 ; .asect . = 42 .word 1000 ;-; Set stack pointer for RT-11 - don't "toggle" in . = 76000 ; The contents of R0 must be the MSCP unit number. Although it is set to 0 ; below, it could be manually set to some other value and then execution ; started at 76002. start: clr r0 ;76000/5000 ;; Preset register to 0 (unit) mov #172150, r1 ;76002/12701 ;; Point to IP register ;76004/172150 1$: mov #itabl, r4 ;76006/12704 ;; Point to init/cmd params ;76010/76156 mov #4000, r5 ;76012/12705 ;; Set init step to 1 ;76014/4000 ; Do 4-step controller initialization. Begin by writing any value to IP to ; reset the controller; all the rest of initialization is done through SA. mov r1, r2 ;76016/10102 ;; Copy IP address, write to mov r0, (r2)+ ;76020/10022 ;; IP to init & bump to SA 2$: tst (r2) ;76022/5712 ;; Test for error bit in SA bmi 1$ ;76024/100770 ;; Error = start init again bit (r2), r5 ;76026/31205 ;; Test step bit in SA br 3$ ;76030/401 ;; ????, appears to skip next bic (r1)+, (r5)+ ;76032/42125 ;; ????, seems to be skipped 3$: beq 2$ ;76034/1772 ;; Wait for next step ready mov -(r4),(r2) ;76036/14412 ;; Next init param to SA asl r5 ;76040/6305 ;; Move to next init step bpl 2$ ;76042/100367 ;; Loop thru 4 steps ; Bring unit on-line, read bootstrap (block 0) from the disk and start it up. 4$: tstb -(r4) ;76044/105744 ;; Point to next cmd byte bne 5$ ;76046/1002 ;; Loop thru commands mov pc, r4 ;76050/10704 ;; Point r4 to "clr pc" and clr pc ;76052/5007 ;; go start at location 0 5$: clr r2 ;76054/5002 ;; Init for clearing memory 6$: clr (r2)+ ;76056/5022 ;; Clear memory from loc 0 cmp r2, #17204 ;76060/20227 ;; thru loc 17202 ;76062/17204 blo 6$ ;76064/103774 ;; Loop until done incb @#17101 ;76066/105237 ;; Packet length = 400 bytes ;76070/17101 mov r0, @#17110 ;76072/10037 ;; Set unit number = 0 ;76074/17110 movb (r4), @#17114 ;76076/111437 ;; Move command to cmd pkt ;76100/17114 movb -(r4), @#17121 ;76102/114437 ;; Set parameter from table ;76104/17121 mov #17004, (r2)+ ;76106/12722 ;; Set response packet de- ;76110/17004 ;; scriptor: low 16 address mov r5, (r2)+ ;76112/10522 ;; bits & PortOwn bit mov #17104, (r2)+ ;76114/12722 ;; Set command packet de- ;76116/17104 ;; scriptor: low 16 address mov r5, (r2) ;76120/10512 ;; bits & PortOwn bit cmp -(r2),-(r2) ;76122/24242 ;; Point back to resp desc tst (r1) ;76124/5711 ;; Poll controller to start 7$: tst (r2) ;76126/5712 ;; Wait for resp desc PO bit bmi 7$ ;76130/100776 ;; => 0 == response received tst @#17016 ;76132/5737 ;; Status byte = success (0)? ;76134/17016 beq 4$ ;76136/1742 ;; Yes, go to next command stop: halt ;76140/0 ;; No, stop here... ; NOTE: This table MUST be - immediately preceeded by a zero byte (the HALT ; instruction) because it is the "end-of-table" marker; and immediately ; precede the Initialization Step Parameter table since a single register ; points first to the IStep Params (1 word each) and then to the commands ; (1 byte for the command, 1 byte for the parameter), passing through them ; in reverse. .byte 2 ;; Set byte count to 1000 for OP.RD .byte 41 ;; OP.RD = ReaD .byte 0 ;; 0 parameter for OP.ONL .byte 11 ;; OP.ONL = ON Line ;; .word 20402 ;76142/20402 ;; .word 4400 ;76144/4400 .word 1 ;76146/1 ;; IS4: GO bit .word 0 ;76150/0 ;; IS3: Ring base high address .word 17204 ;76152/17204 ;; IS2: Ring base low address .word 100000 ;76154/100000 ;; IS1: bits- ;; [15] = 1, [14] (WR) = 0, [13:11] (cmd ring ;; size) = 0, [10:8] (resp ring size) = 0, [7] ;; (IE) = 0, [6:0] (int vect/4) = 0 :: command ;; and response rings = 1 element, no inter- ;; rupts and no interrupt vector. itabl =: . ;need pointer to end of table ;76000g to start ODT .end stop ;For RT-11 only, don't "toggle" in -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 17:56:35 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:56:35 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F078A33.8080502@dunnington.plus.com> Glen Slick wrote: > My M8189 came with unlabeled 2716 EPROMs. I don't know what version > that was. I don't think it could boot from MSCP. That would match > what Pete says. > > Unless I missed it all of the M8189 versions listed here are 8K > versions, not 2K versions: > > http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs/ROMlist 23-339E2 and 23-340E2 are 2K devices. There's a typo in the listing (corrected now!), but if you look at the files you'll see they're 2Kx8, and of course the E2 suffix means 2Kx8. > I updated my M8189 to the 23-380E4 / 23-381E4 M8189-BG (or -BH) > version. The only trick is you need to find 24-pin MCM68766 8KB > EPROMs, which aren't as common or cheap as most other EPROMs. Or modify the sockets. I don't think there's quite enough room to replace the 24-pin sockets with 28-pin on a KDF11-B card, but it can be done with a carrier. For KDF11-A systems, there's room to do it on a BDV11, and I have one that's been so modified. Of course with a BDV11 you can also re-jumper it to spread the 8K across 4 pairs of sockets. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 18:09:04 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:09:04 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F078D20.7080108@dunnington.plus.com> Glen Slick wrote: > Aren't there some OS restrictions when using an MXV11-B? Something > like you can't run RSTS/E because the MXV11-B on-board memory is > non-parity memory and parity memory is required for RSTS/E? Could be -- but RSTS is one of the few DEC OSs I know next to nothing about and have never used. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 18:42:45 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:42:45 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <7C0EF932-B8DE-454A-95F5-0C559097166D@gmail.com> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> <7C0EF932-B8DE-454A-95F5-0C559097166D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F079505.4090807@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 10:10 AM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:07 AM, Charlie Carothers wrote: > >> I absolutely loathe "OK, if I knew for sure the ternary was faster, >> I might grudgingly use it in an interrupt routine but I would not be really happy about it! > > I actually like the ternary statement and think it reads a lot clearer, as long as it's simple conditions (e.g. "foo = bar ? baz : NULL;" or the like, certainly nothing that needs to occupy more than one line; I even start to get nervous when parentheses get involved). However, I've found that a lot of people who are otherwise quite good programmers are totally unfamiliar with it, so I tend to avoid using it in anything I'll have to share. > Sometimes it's clearer and sometimes it's not. I will use it when I want an expression and not a pointless obfuscating control structure :) --Toby > - Dave > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 18:49:39 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:49:39 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <20120105201755.U76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F068F9A.2090901@tx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4F0796A3.6060208@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 1:07 AM, Charlie Carothers wrote: > On 1/5/2012 10:43 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>>> My canonical example, >>>> while (*T++=*S++); >>>> just for the sake of readability, is easier for a beginner OR >>>> STUDENT to >>>> follow as something like: >>>> >>>> do >>>> { >>>> X = *S; >>>> *T = X; >>>> S++; >>>> T++; >>>> } >>>> while('\0'<> X); /* Yes, of course, (X), but that's my point. */ >> >> On Thu, 5 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>> ITYM != >> >> Probably. Certainly for my own use or second semester students. >> With most C compilers either would work.<> is slightly more intuitive >> for beginners than != until they recognize it as a crude drawing of a >> not-equal sign. Once they've got THAT, though, they're probably ready for >> while(X) >> >> One trivial mistake of style that I made in this example, was that >> because >> I used 'S' for "source" and 'T' for "target", I didn't have 'T' available >> for the temporary variable name. >> >>>> (Readability and ease of understanding is more important than >>>> efficiency >>>> for EXPLAINING something) >>> The long version isn't less efficient. >> >> I meant as a general principal. >> >> BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to >> compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the >> temporary variable, the long version will be a TINY bit slower due to the >> extra temporary variable being written and read, and then read again for >> the comparison. In the "short" )"crammed together") version the value is >> in a register when it is needed, and presumably in the accumulator for >> the >> conditional jump that the while translates to. Likewise, by incrementing >> the pointers separately from de-referencing them, you'll probably end up >> with an an "unnecessary" retrieval of the pointer value from memory >> instead of register for the de-reference. >> >> >> If the purpose is the fastest possible code, that stuff matters. >> >> If the purpose is having the students understand it, without having to >> decipher the "puzzle code", delaying them moving on to the rest of the >> topic, the long version is far superior. >> >> THAT's where Holub and I don't agree - he considers the long version >> to be >> bordering on "WRONG", even for classroom blackboard! In one of his >> columns, he actually CORRECTED similar code in a reader question (about >> another issue) - I felt that ease of comprehension by his >> readers/students should be a higher priority than "efficiency" >> >> >> -- >> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com >> > ... I don't even use the ternary operator in C preferring > the simpler and IMNSHO much clearer if/else construct. I've probably > even replaced the ternary critter with an if/else in code someone else > wrote that I was reworking for some reason. If it takes a microsecond > longer to execute the compiled code, who really cares the vast majority > of the time. OK, if I knew for sure the ternary was faster, I might > grudgingly use it in an interrupt routine but I would not be really > happy about it! Ternary isn't faster. None of this is about performance. It's about *clarity*. Neither if() nor ?: is always clearer than the other; context matters. Like the aforementioned strcpy idiom, a C/PHP/JavaScript programmer must be able to read the ternary operator. (If it *were* about speed: it has been admitted time and time again by even the best programmers* that they almost always guess wrongly about where performance bottlenecks might lurk.) --T * - e.g. Joe Armstrong in a recent Erlang list posting. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Fri Jan 6 18:52:21 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:52:21 +0000 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F079745.6090804@dunnington.plus.com> Glen Slick wrote: > I couldn't find these switch settings documented anywhere. > (Auto boot DU7 is missing from this list. I couldn't seem to get that > setting to work) It doesn't exist. The list is published in more than one of the manuals, for example it's in the Micro PDP-11 Maintenance Manual. Here's the list Roger Wallace posted to vmsnet.pdp11 many years ago. It's valid for all the -BE to -BJ versions, with the caveats that the TMSCP boot is only present in the last versions, older versions don't support later hard drives, -BE doesn't support TSV05/TK25 or the MSCP sniffer boot. If S1-1 to S1-6 are all open, autoboot is disabled; if they're all closed, the self-test loops (and does not autoboot, of course). The MSCP sniffer boot first tries all removable-media MSCP devices, then all fixed MSCP devices, and boots from the first it finds with a valid bootstrap. ====================================== S1-8: Console Select -- ON = ANSI CRT (e.g. VT-100) OFF = NOT ANSI CRT (Hard copy TTY) S1-7: Memory Diagnostic -- ON = Run Quick Memory Diagnostics (But the system seems to run this anyway, even with the switch OFF) S1-1 through S1-6: Select Boot Device as follows (0=Open/1=Closed): S1 6 5 4 3 2 1 *** Device *** 0 0 0 0 0 1 TSV05 Unit0 (TK25) 0 0 0 0 1 0 TU58 Drive 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 TU58 Drive 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 RX01 Drive 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 RX01 Drive 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 RX02 Drive 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 RX02 Drive 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 DU0: 0 0 1 0 0 1 DU1: 0 0 1 0 1 0 DU2: 0 0 1 0 1 1 DU4: 0 0 1 1 0 1 DU5: 0 0 1 1 1 0 DU6: 0 0 1 1 1 1 DU: "Sniffer Boot" 0 1 0 0 0 0 DL0: 0 1 0 0 0 1 DL1: 0 1 0 0 1 0 DL2: 0 1 0 0 1 1 DL3: 0 1 0 1 0 0 DEQNA / Unit 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 DEQNA / Unit 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 TK50 0 0 0 0 0 0 Inhibit Autoboot 1 1 1 0 0 0 DECNET / DUV11 1 1 1 0 0 1 DECNET / DLV11-E 1 1 1 0 1 0 DECNET / DLV11-F Other possible combinations are "reserved" or "unused". With luck 8-} , I copied these correctly from by KDF11BJ ROM upgrade kit manual. The DU: "Sniffer Boot" was the default for DEC Micro-11 systems; it tests _removable_ MSCP devices, then _fixed_ MSCP devices, in numerical order and boots the system from the first bootable device found. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 18:58:23 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:58:23 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106100804.E16005@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120106100804.E16005@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0798AF.8050109@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 1:11 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Ian King wrote: > >> On 1/5/12 8:43 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: >> >> [snip] >>> BUT, even in this example, unless the compiler does "optimization" to >>> compile something other than what you asked for (DWIM!) and removes the >>> temporary variable, >> >> The only time modern compilers don't do optimization is when you tell them >> not to, usually so you can step through the code in a debugger. One of > > I will concede that "modern" compilers DEFAULT to optimization on. > (I'm not modern) gcc doesn't, although the level expected "for free" has probably changed in 35 years. lcc does not have an "optimiser" yet can produce very good code with good machine descriptions. > > >> Yeah, having debugged code that tried to be 'clever' and could have been >> written clearly instead, Holub and I would be on opposite sides of that >> argument. It was true thirty years ago that 'cleverly' written C could be >> faster (and there were tests to prove it), but there's little >> justification for that position today. > > That's my point. +1. --Toby > > To be fair, my chats with Holub WERE 25 - 30 years ago. So, the > environment is now different. > > > > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 19:00:13 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:00:13 -0500 Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F07991D.2020800@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 1:01 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >>>> The long version isn't less efficient. >>> Actually, it is, or at least may be, depending on the compiler; >> gcc compiles to the same assembly, which is what I meant by "not less >> efficient". >> I expect most popular compilers would do the same. > > First, THANK YOU, for taking the time to check that out. > > > If you will recall, I said, UNLESS THE COMPILER OPTIMIZES. > I must have missed that part, sorry. > Replacing your^H^H^H^H MY code with something "equivalent", but presumably > "better" is called OPTIMIZATION, and that is what happened, and why the > code produced identical results. > > In this case, it is a correct and appropriate optimization. Yes, I'm aware. --T > Sometimes it isn't. Some early optimizing compilers created > complications (not with THIS, but with polling loops, etc.). But, in this > case, the optimization is completely correct. > ... > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 19:07:49 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:07:49 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F079AE5.8080801@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 11:45 AM, Robert Smith wrote: > > On 1/5/2012 9:26 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 05/01/12 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> ... >>> Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible >>> explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are >>> powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. >>... > The best way to go about it is to actually write some programs in Scheme > or Standard ML or Haskell or whatever. Then you actually internalize > what things mean, instead of these abstract definitions like what the > semantics of lambda is. You'll find the easy-to-understand books > typically do the programming for you by showing you code examples. The Crockford book - "JavaScript: The Good Parts" - is a good example of this. JavaScript would be much less powerful and more horrible without closures. Millions of people use them in code every day without hand-wringing. (Not forgetting the analogies that one can demonstrate between *objects* and closures - yet who's now crying FUD over objects? Before that it was POINTERS ARE TOO HARD.) An interesting question, now that closures are practically normal, is "what's next?" :D --T > > Remember, programming isn't like history, where you can just read a book > and understand what's going on. It's more like medicine and being a > doctor, where both book reading *and* practice are important, the latter > being almost surely more important. > > --Robert > > P.S., The moral of the story is, sit down, open a Scheme, and read SICP > from start to finish. It's not too difficult or too confusing, for it's > often the first book a compsci major gets to read. > > READ SICP DAMMIT. > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 19:09:06 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:09:06 -0500 Subject: Relax and write clear code!! - Re: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F079B32.3010305@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 11:43 AM, Ian King wrote: > ... Relax and write clear code. You sir, one thousand internets. --T From dkelvey at hotmail.com Fri Jan 6 19:14:20 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 17:14:20 -0800 Subject: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F0687F0.5040702@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net> ,,<4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com> , , , <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com>, <1605589528-1325702564-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1715241573-@b15.c1.bise3.blackberry>, <20120104132145.L41929@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F067EBB.8020804@telegraphics.com.au>,<4F0687F0.5040702@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: Hi I can't recall exactly but I had a NC4000 CPU with less than 4K words in ROM and about 1K words for the compiler that could completely recompile it self in about 17 seconds ( including compiling the compiler-compiler ). The NC4000 was running a 4MHz with a old XT HD controller and a 5 Meg hard disk. Of course, it was an optimized Forth processor and could run two memory busses at the same time. It used a variant of Forth call CMFORTH. It was vary simple and had no states like many Forths. It had two interperters, one for interactive and one to compile. While a Forth interpreter could be completely written in assembly, I've not seen it done. It is quite trivial and can only really benifit from an assembly language dictionary search as the rest has vary little overhead. Such and interpreter would look like: Parse out a word from the input stream See if it is in the dictionary If so execute it If not see if it is a number If so put it on the stack else report error and stop Repeat. You'll note that there is no funny business about checking to see what comes first, just do it as you come across it. It has no need for recursive interpretation. In a sense it is just like machine language with unlimited macro power built in. It make no distiction between machine level code and threaded code ( could even be call threaded ). Dwight > Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 22:34:40 -0700 > From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: compilers in assembly - Re: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids > > On 1/5/2012 9:55 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > > >> People write compilers all the time. If you think they don't, you're > >> seriously out of the loop. > > > > In assembly? > > What is the memory footprint for a simple compiled lanquage, > that can compile itself. I am thinking of word based machine, 16 or more > bits wide and having some basic file I/O and non-recursive subroutine > calls. > > > --T > > > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 6 19:35:59 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 17:35:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <4F07991D.2020800@telegraphics.com.au> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> <4F07991D.2020800@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120106173323.E24753@shell.lmi.net> > > If you will recall, I said, UNLESS THE COMPILER OPTIMIZES. On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > I must have missed that part, sorry. OK, NOW I understand what we were arguing about! But, there was a LOT of good information along the way. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 19:38:15 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:38:15 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F078B89.5090607@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <4F073F9C.9050808@verizon.net> <4F078B89.5090607@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <8ED54BB5-81B9-45D5-B264-F6564F96A270@gmail.com> On Jan 6, 2012, at 7:02 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Bob Schor posted the MSCP boot to vmsnet.pdp11 a long time ago, and I expect copies are floating around the net. But to save exercising Google too hard, here's part of Bob's post from 1994. As Allison says, it's not short. I tried writing the corresponding version of this to write blocks to my DU volumes (SCSI from a CQD-220). It wasn't pretty; I have a short ~20 word serial bootstrap with which I can upload anything I want instead, so I just built it as a binary instead and blasted it over with that. MSCP is nice (in its own way), but it's not simple. - Dave From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 19:50:47 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:50:47 -0500 Subject: Is this the room for an argument? - Re: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106173323.E24753@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F06FC82.9030708@telegraphics.com.au> <20120106094604.F16005@shell.lmi.net> <4F07991D.2020800@telegraphics.com.au> <20120106173323.E24753@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F07A4F7.5070605@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 8:35 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> If you will recall, I said, UNLESS THE COMPILER OPTIMIZES. > > On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: >> I must have missed that part, sorry. > > OK, NOW I understand what we were arguing about! "I might have been arguing in my spare time!" --T > > > But, there was a LOT of good information along the way. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From chrise at pobox.com Fri Jan 6 20:05:42 2012 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:05:42 -0600 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> Can you boot from ANY MSCP controller even if it is third party such as CMD as long as you have the correct ROMs? -- Chris Elmquist From vrs at msn.com Fri Jan 6 20:49:12 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 18:49:12 -0800 Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: From: Toby Thain: Thursday, January 05, 2012 8:14 PM > On 05/01/12 1:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> On 01/05/2012 12:19 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>>> So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for >>>> I/O? >>> >>> Hmm...that sounds like a disturbingly good idea :-). >> >> That sounds like a TANTALIZINGLY good idea!! >> > > You'll probably want to look up the work of Marc Feeley, but I think it > would be more fun to do it from scratch... I found him, and read a couple of his papers. There'd still be plenty to do, just optimizing his stuff for a PDP-8. I was trying to get a feel for what the capabilities of the result might be. With 32Kw of memory, if you could get, say, 10K cons cells + atoms, would that be an interesting system? Or would it be too tiny to be useful? Also, how would the code density of the compiled Scheme compare to native machine code? That global optimizer is quite something. I want one of those! Vince From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Fri Jan 6 20:56:58 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 18:56:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve Gibson's SBC6120 loader Message-ID: I was looking at Steve Gibson's tools for playing with the SBC6120 at http://www.grc.com/pdp-8/os8utils-sbc.htm and started wondering. Does anyone here know how to do under Linux what those three utilities do? I suppose the WinToAta and AtaToWin could be replicated with dd(1) and some glue shell scripting. The third one appears to be a disk partitioner. What's going on there? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 21:08:33 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:08:33 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <4F07B731.3040407@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 9:05 PM, Chris Elmquist wrote: > > Can you boot from ANY MSCP controller even if it is third party such > as CMD as long as you have the correct ROMs? > That should work, bugs notwithstanding. --Toby From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 6 21:10:38 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:10:38 -0500 Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F07B7AE.7000102@telegraphics.com.au> On 06/01/12 9:49 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: Toby Thain: Thursday, January 05, 2012 8:14 PM >> On 05/01/12 1:52 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> On 01/05/2012 12:19 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >>>>> So, who's gotten Scheme to run on a 4K PDP-8 with only an ASR-33 for >>>>> I/O? >... > I was trying to get a feel for what the capabilities of the result might > be. > With 32Kw of memory, if you could get, say, 10K cons cells + atoms, > would that be an interesting system? Or would it be too tiny to be useful? > > Also, how would the code density of the compiled Scheme compare to > native machine code? Imho PDP-8 is a difficult target for a HLL compiler; they like more registers. It's very cramped. --T > > That global optimizer is quite something. I want one of those! > > Vince > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 6 21:32:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:32:12 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201061653.q06Gr9Xi018907@billy.ezwind.net> References: <9C82B6A6CAE843799CF9D312504546D2@vl420mt> <4F0633EC.60901@neurotica.com> <201201061653.q06Gr9Xi018907@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F07BCBC.2070508@neurotica.com> On 01/06/2012 11:46 AM, John Foust wrote: >> Is there some reason you're being a dick to me? I ask because I >> can be ten times the dick if required; I just want to know if it's >> something worth getting worked up over. > > Hah! You'll be a manager before you know it. ROFL!! -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 6 21:43:46 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 22:43:46 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <4F078558.4060008@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 6:35 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Just KDF11-A vs KDF11-B... KDF11-A may or may not be 22-bit (only Rev >> A is 18-bit). ?All -B are 22-bit. ?Dual-height CPU only vs Quad-height >> CPU plus dual SLU plus on-board Boot ROMs. > > Yes, plus LTC, of course. Yes. That too. >> A minimal /23+ system could be as little as 2 modules - KDF11-B plus >> memory - use the second SLU for a TU58 or TU58 emulator and you could >> boot RT-11. ?A /23 system will have more boards. > > You can actually do that with a KDF11-A and an MXV11-B as well. Ah, yes. Good point. I rarely remember the MXV11-B, mostly I think because I mostly worked with systems that had one or more boards of "real" memory and either a DLV11J (in BA-11s) or some type of quad-height quad serial card (in BA-23s). My own first PDP-11/23 was a customer-returned "HASPBOX" from the pre-COMBOARD days of Software Results Corp. It was shipped with 100% DEC hardware and 100% SRC software to be a bisync serial I/O front-end processor for a larger RSTS machine, probably a PDP-11/70. When the customer decommissioned their RSTS box, they didn't know what to do with the little BA11N hanging off of it, so they read the sticker and sent it back to us. I bought it for peanuts... in 1985, $300 got me a KDF11-A, four 32K memory cards (MSV11-D?), an LPV11, a DLV11J, some flavor of DEC sync serial board with a COM5025 USART, and a BDV11. I think I had to buy my own RXV21, and I know I had to buy my own RLV11 ($100 at the time since the RLV12 was just out and didn't need a CD-interconnect backplane, so was very popular). I borrowed a VT100, an RL01, and an LA180 from my PDP-8/a and ran RT-11 V5.0 on it. I made my living for a couple of years on that box. At one point, I even ran the extra backplane wires to manually upgrade it to 22-bit, then upgraded the dual-height memory card that was half-full of 4164 DRAMs, from 128K to 256K IIRC. Lots of soldering. Took three passes to find all the dry joints, but I did get it working with no strange crashes (just crashes caused by my buggy MACRO-11 code. ;-) Fun times. I'm still happy I found someone to pay me to build and program PDP-11s. Great job. No budget for MSCP disks, though. My experience with that came (two years?) later once low-end MicroPDPs were starting to go for cheap. -ethan From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 21:48:27 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 22:48:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201201070348.WAA16297@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > I was trying to get a feel for what the capabilities of the result > might be. With 32Kw of memory, if you could get, say, 10K cons cells > + atoms, would that be an interesting system? Or would it be too > tiny to be useful? Depends on what you count as useful. I just did a rudimentary test. I have a Lisp engine of my own. It is comparable to Scheme only in that they both recognizably belong to the Lisp family. I started it up and let it execute its startup code. It has hooks that expose internal stats of the memory allocation code to Lisp examination: I used them to see what was in use. The results: [Dualicious] 11> lisp -> (progn (mapc #'(lambda (x) (print x) (terpri)) (gc-stats)) (values)) (%float (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%symbol (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 716) (%free . 881) (%collected . 0)) (%cons (%gccount . 3) (%inuse . 5521) (%free . 36401) (%collected . 116487)) (%string (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 726) (%free . 4313) (%collected . 7)) (%spiece (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 725) (%free . 4314) (%collected . 7)) (%sbuf (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 724) (%free . 6555) (%collected . 7)) (%regex (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%rematch (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%stream (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 4) (%free . 1332) (%collected . 0)) (%readtable (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 1) (%free . 18) (%collected . 0)) (%closure (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 19) (%free . 2601) (%collected . 99)) (%binding (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 206) (%free . 2414) (%collected . 5364)) (%thread (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 1) (%free . 948) (%collected . 0)) (%mvalue (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 32) (%free . 7247) (%collected . 2901)) (%evc (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 24) (%free . 5015) (%collected . 169)) (%contin (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%gcnotice (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%package (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 1) (%free . 3852) (%collected . 0)) (%interning (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 694) (%free . 2425) (%collected . 0)) (%ilistroot (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 693) (%free . 12409) (%collected . 0)) (%error (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%array (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%mutex (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%condvar (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%pipe (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%tio (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%tsize (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%buffer (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%marker (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%window (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%screen (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 1) (%free . 1454) (%collected . 0)) (%fd (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%hash (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) (%gc (%gccount . 4) (%lisp . 1)) -> So, to the extent to which this is a fair illustration (which it may well not be), 10K things should be enough to do stuff. (The startup code defines a bunch of things, such as defun, the # macro, and setf, which are important but not actually built into the engine, and includes the top-level read-eval-print loop. 476 lines.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From rivie at ridgenet.net Fri Jan 6 21:57:20 2012 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 19:57:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F07B7AE.7000102@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> <4F07B7AE.7000102@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Fri, 6 Jan 2012, Toby Thain wrote: > > Imho PDP-8 is a difficult target for a HLL compiler; they like more > registers. It's very cramped. No problem. Just think of page zero as registers. That gives you 128 of 'em. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgenet.net From vrs at msn.com Fri Jan 6 22:27:54 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:27:54 -0800 Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F07B7AE.7000102@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> <4F07B7AE.7000102@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: From: Toby Thain: Friday, January 06, 2012 7:10 PM > On 06/01/12 9:49 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: >> Also, how would the code density of the compiled Scheme compare to >> native machine code? > > Imho PDP-8 is a difficult target for a HLL compiler; they like more > registers. It's very cramped. These are targeted for PIC. I'm not familiar with the larger PICs, but if they are like the smaller ones, I don't think the PDP-8 can be a lot worse than that. (The small PICs I've used actually remind me a bit of the PDP-8, except for the mess they've made of the memory map.) Vince From vrs at msn.com Fri Jan 6 22:39:41 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:39:41 -0800 Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201070348.WAA16297@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> <201201070348.WAA16297@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: From: Mouse: Friday, January 06, 2012 7:48 PM > [Dualicious] 11> lisp > -> (progn (mapc #'(lambda (x) (print x) (terpri)) (gc-stats)) (values)) > (%float (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 0) (%free . 0) (%collected . 0)) > (%symbol (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 716) (%free . 881) (%collected . 0)) > (%cons (%gccount . 3) (%inuse . 5521) (%free . 36401) (%collected . 116487)) > (%string (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 726) (%free . 4313) (%collected . 7)) > (%spiece (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 725) (%free . 4314) (%collected . 7)) > (%sbuf (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 724) (%free . 6555) (%collected . 7)) ... > (%closure (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 19) (%free . 2601) (%collected . 99)) > (%binding (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 206) (%free . 2414) (%collected . 5364)) > (%thread (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 1) (%free . 948) (%collected . 0)) > (%mvalue (%gccount . 0) (%inuse . 32) (%free . 7247) (%collected . 2901)) ... > (%interning (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 694) (%free . 2425) (%collected . 0)) > (%ilistroot (%gccount . 1) (%inuse . 693) (%free . 12409) (%collected . 0)) Interesting. Should I assume that most of those inuse cons are actually representations of code? Vince From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jan 6 23:25:29 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 21:25:29 -0800 Subject: SIGSALY In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2012 Jan 6, at 10:13 AM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > I grabbed a copy of a free (!) publication from the Cryptologic Museum > entitled "The start of the Digital Revolution: SIGSALY - Secure > Digital > Voice Communications in World War II". It mentions that you can > visit the > library and look at "The Green Hornet... America's Unbreakable Code > for > Secret Telephony" -- privately published in 1999 by D. E. > Mitchell. It > says it is very complete. > > And yes, the museum only has a mock up. But when you consider the > noise > disks, it's an amazing feat. Right.. found some higher-res photos online and see it is just printed panels stuck in some cabinets. A few refs to the Green Hornet book on the web (authored by Donald E. Mehl) but no more content. I guess I should go look up the patents mentioned (awarded in 1976, over 30 years after being filed). For those who might be following this peripherally, the cryptography key was the random thermal noise from mercury-vapor tubes, digitised and recorded using FSK onto phonograph records. These key records were used as a one-time pad and had to be synchronised to a few mS at the two ends of the communication link. The whole system was a fascinating amalgam of theory and then-state-of-the-art techniques. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 6 23:47:23 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 00:47:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Tiny/embedded Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120102212036.F61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F025F92.15804.365E05A@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F031168.27701.104708B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F05F155.6030504@neurotica.com> <4F067512.9030003@telegraphics.com.au> <201201070348.WAA16297@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <201201070547.AAA18016@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> -> (progn (mapc #'(lambda (x) (print x) (terpri)) (gc-stats)) (values)) >> [...] > Interesting. Should I assume that most of those inuse cons are > actually representations of code? Probably not. You may note that the %collected value for conses is much higher than for anything else; this reflects the fact that the interpreter (this Lisp engine is entirely interpreted) uses conses heavily for its internal lists. By setting breakpoints in gdb, I find that, immediately after the last gc before printing the first prompt, there are 2328 conses in use - but doing (assq '%cons (gc-stats)) at that prompt prints 4698, and doing it again immediately reports 25428 conses in use - but it also triggers a gc, after which gdb says there are 2486 conses in use, so the gc probably happens after (gc-stats) sampled the values but before the top-level read-eval-print loop printed the result. Those 2328 and 2486 values probably _are_ mostly representations of code; though they do include the then-current state of the interpreter stacks, those stacks are usually relatively small at that point, maybe a few hundred conses I'd say (this based largely on past experience watching output with internal debugging turned on, which dumps all the interpreter stacks every interpreter cycle). /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From tsw-cc at johana.com Sat Jan 7 01:01:51 2012 From: tsw-cc at johana.com (Tom Watson) Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 23:01:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Xyplex terminal server Message-ID: <1325919711.7096.YahooMailClassic@web112403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I have a nice Xyplex 1640 terminal server that for the most part works just fine. The little problem is that I am attempting to get the memory card functional. To that end, I enter the command: Xyplex>> show card status To which I get the response: Xyplex -786- Memory Card Feature disabled So my question is: How do I enable this nice feature. Is it a function of the software image (I'm using V6.3S15), or some magic command that I need to sprinkle holy water upon? I write this message here, since this is an older device and somebody here probably knows the secret incantation. As always, I thank all for their help. -- Tom Watson tsw at johana.com being at home for the present. From james at slor.net Sat Jan 7 01:16:07 2012 From: james at slor.net (James) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 02:16:07 -0500 Subject: Anyone have a case or memory for an HP 9000 712/60 In-Reply-To: References: <004e01ccc11c$f461d8c0$dd258a40$@slor.net> <002f01ccc120$108c5bd0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20111224085232.35264459.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> <008501ccc254$84039350$8c0ab9f0$@slor.net> Message-ID: <022101cccd0c$3a52ac60$aef80520$@slor.net> > I was just looking at one of my 712/60's to see what the part number is on > the DRAM modules. It is A2575-60001 on the 32MB modules. > > If you haven't already found a cheaper source, here's the cheapest I found > on a quick look today: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/150636102804 > HP A2575-60001 2x32MB SIMM Memory HP9000 E35 Thanks for the link. Received a couple pairs of those today, and my machine is now maxed out at 128 MB. Now, if someone would just offer up a better case... :) James From legalize at xmission.com Sat Jan 7 02:24:52 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:24:52 -0700 Subject: Beehive International's first terminal in 1968 Message-ID: I've been reading through the documentation included with some Beehive B100s that I purchased. Included in that was a statement in a brochure that Beehive started with their first terminal product in 1968. I'm interested if anyone knows any additional information about these early Beehive terminals. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 04:13:42 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 02:13:42 -0800 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2012 6:09 PM, "Chris Elmquist" wrote: > > Can you boot from ANY MSCP controller even if it is third party such > as CMD as long as you have the correct ROMs? > If you just use the BOOT command or configure for auto boot there are probably restrictions on how the CSR addresses and device unit numbers are configured for the MSCP controllers. If necessary both the KDF11-B and KDJ11-B firmware should let you specify a non-standard CSR address using the BOOT command with the /A option as documented in the manuals. I haven't had any problems booting from Dilog and CMD SCSI SCSI controllers and Dilog and Emulex ESDI controllers using the standard KDF11-B and KDJ11-B firmware MSCP boot. -Glen From pontus at update.uu.se Sat Jan 7 05:12:10 2012 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:12:10 +0100 Subject: Xyplex terminal server In-Reply-To: <1325919711.7096.YahooMailClassic@web112403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1325919711.7096.YahooMailClassic@web112403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F08288A.5010400@update.uu.se> On 01/07/2012 08:01 AM, Tom Watson wrote: > So my question is: How do I enable this nice feature. Is it a function of the software image (I'm using V6.3S15), or some magic command that I need to sprinkle holy water upon? > > I write this message here, since this is an older device and somebody here probably knows the secret incantation. Questions about this device comes from time to time and it's fairly old, so it is quite on topic :) I'm usually not of much help since my Xyplex servers mostly collect dust. However, unless you have seen it, this page contains most information/documentation that I have found about them: http://www.gno.org/~gdr/xyplex/ Regards, Pontus. From jdr_use at bluewin.ch Sat Jan 7 05:50:59 2012 From: jdr_use at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:50:59 +0100 Subject: Early electronic music.. Message-ID: <4F0831A3.5080108@bluewin.ch> While not a computer, it might still be of interest here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9671950.stm Jos From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Sat Jan 7 06:34:24 2012 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis Kotlowy) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 23:04:24 +1030 Subject: Early electronic music.. In-Reply-To: <4F0831A3.5080108@bluewin.ch> References: <4F0831A3.5080108@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <201201072304.24680.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> On Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:20:59 PM Jos Dreesen wrote: > While not a computer, it might still be of interest here : > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9671950.stm > > Jos Good video. I think the music at 1:30 is by John Baker of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop however. There seems to be more information about the machine publicly available (pictures and video via a Google search) since the last time I checked. I've had a play about with a similar idea to Oramics with my synthesiser and oscilloscope. Here's a sample: http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/Klaviersonate11.mp3 I still don't know how this could be controlled by 35mm film. The best I can think of is a few phototransistors arranged like you would find in a paper tape machine. This wouldn't produce free flowing changes in voltage. but would move up and down in steps. So I don't know. The other option is to have one CRT per tape, but I don't think it was done that way either. Alexis. From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 07:38:21 2012 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 08:38:21 -0500 Subject: Early electronic music.. In-Reply-To: <201201072304.24680.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <4F0831A3.5080108@bluewin.ch> <201201072304.24680.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Alexis Kotlowy > > I still don't know how this could be controlled by 35mm film. The best I > can > think of is a few phototransistors arranged like you would find in a paper > tape machine. This wouldn't produce free flowing changes in voltage. but > would > move up and down in steps. > You run it through a slew limiter. http://www.synthesizers.com/q105.html From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 08:03:43 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 09:03:43 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: <4F07B731.3040407@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> <4F07B731.3040407@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2012, at 10:08 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 06/01/12 9:05 PM, Chris Elmquist wrote: >> >> Can you boot from ANY MSCP controller even if it is third party such >> as CMD as long as you have the correct ROMs? >> > > That should work, bugs notwithstanding. Yes - the whole point of MSCP was to present a hardware-agnostic view of a disk (or, in the case of TMSCP, a tape). The ROM boots my third-party CMD CQD-220 just fine. Likewise, I imagine if I hooked up any SCSI tape drive (don't have one), the MS: boot mode labelled "TK50" should probably work as well, since it's just TMSCP. - Dave From ajp166 at verizon.net Sat Jan 7 09:01:55 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:01:55 -0500 Subject: Can PDP-11/23 boot MSCP devices In-Reply-To: References: <4F06DCDF.8040901@update.uu.se> <4F072718.6000507@dunnington.plus.com> <1F99E385-A114-4E1B-9423-34CBB7E6254E@gmail.com> <433F9C9A-436E-44CF-B99F-48E45AE9E205@gmail.com> <20120107020542.GC20082@n0jcf.net> Message-ID: <4F085E63.3000407@verizon.net> On 01/07/2012 05:13 AM, Glen Slick wrote: > On Jan 6, 2012 6:09 PM, "Chris Elmquist" wrote: >> Can you boot from ANY MSCP controller even if it is third party such >> as CMD as long as you have the correct ROMs? >> > If you just use the BOOT command or configure for auto boot there are > probably restrictions on how the CSR addresses and device unit numbers are > configured for the MSCP controllers. There are, those are listed in manuals for the primary and secondary device addresses. > If necessary both the KDF11-B and KDJ11-B firmware should let you specify a > non-standard CSR address using the BOOT command with the /A option as > documented in the manuals. > They can but usually not needed unless you have the primary and secondary device addresses filled. > I haven't had any problems booting from Dilog and CMD SCSI SCSI controllers > and Dilog and Emulex ESDI controllers using the standard KDF11-B and > KDJ11-B firmware MSCP boot. Same here. I have a KD11J/A with RXV11, RLV11, RQDX3, in it and it knows how to boot them all for all the possible media. I have a KDF11B (11/23+) that does that too. I covered the one oddball I've made using dual width cards like The KDF11A. Even that boots just about anything (dualwidth) so long as I put that boot in the MRV11 Eprom card. The uVAXII has both CMD SCSI and RQDX3 and has no issues. The older 11/23 boards and the LSI-11 boards including the SBC11 (falcon) may need help booting devices that are newer than they are but generally they do given the right boot program. DEC Qbus systems did a very nice job in maintaining forward improvement without blowing up the ability to use new and old hardware. But, I also give the caveat that if you understand Qbus systems some of the discussion is already known and DEC did a very good job with their various handbooks to educate. I imagine those books are getting scarce but once they were very common as DEC literally handed them out. If you don't have them you should be seeking them in paper or on line. They are a vast record of basic and needed information. Allison From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sat Jan 7 09:03:33 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:03:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: C idioms - Re: Right tool for compilers In-Reply-To: <20120106144727.M77098@kw.igs.net> References: <201201050720.q057KEIQ071156@billy.ezwind.net> <20120105113009.X76006@shell.lmi.net> <4F0673B7.2010908@telegraphics.com.au> <201201060706.CAA00312@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106084041.GB1433@brevard.conman.org> <201201061418.JAA06174@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120106144727.M77098@kw.igs.net> Message-ID: <201201071503.KAA25302@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> I said "points into either T or S", not "points into what either T >> or S points to". That is, "*T = X;" may change S (as opposed to >> changing the memory S points to). > Ah. The rule that permits the compiler to optimize the long form into > the short here is C89 3.3.16.1: > If the value being stored in an object is accessed from another > object that overlaps in any way the storage of the first object, > then the overlap shall be exact and the two objects shall have > qualified or unqualified versions of a compatible type; otherwise > the behavior is undefined. The C99 draft I have contains very similar language in 6.5.16.1 #3, so similar I don't think it's worth quoting it. ("accessed" becomes "read", and there's a comma after the last "otherwise".) It's one of the constraints on simple assignment. After a multi-email exchange with my C language lawyer friend, most of which was us talking past one another because I was misreading that constraint until he realized how my reading differed from the intended one, I think it's straightened out, and it isn't relevant here. To use the modern language, annotated to clarify the understanding I now have of it, "[i]f the value being stored [in a simple assignment] in an object is read from [ie, is obtained by reading from] another object that overlaps in any way the storage of the first object, [...]". That is, to put it a bit loosely, this is talking about overlap between the LHS and RHS of the assignment, not overlap between the LHS of the assignment and some later read of the same object. Thus, none of the assignments in the long form violate this constraint and there is no undefined behaviour, or at least not due to that constraint. This then means the compiler is not justified in moving the S++ increment across the *T=X assignment, at least not absent some other reason behaviour is undefined, and on hardware with an instruction set that permits doing the S++ at the same time as the *S (VAX, PDP-11, maybe 68k), the short form very well may be more efficient. Reinforcing the idea that my reading of that constraint is wrong is that, when read that way, it means that a char-by-char copy from one object to another produces undefined behaviour in most cases, and that's something which is definitely supposed to work. This is why I've been pretty sure from the start that that reading was wrong; I just had trouble figuring out _how_ it was wrong. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 10:38:47 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 16:38:47 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 6 January 2012 09:23, Tor Arntsen wrote: > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 17:56, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming >>> computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. >> >> That is a gross exaggeration. > [..] > I didn't see the original post.. but yes, that's not accurate. With > one in a million there should be just 4 programmers in all of Norway. > And (I'm Norwegian) here we are about 50 career programmers in just > this one company I'm working in, which is in a small town (_very_ > small by most other countries' standards) and we're not alone.. there > are several other companies in this town where programming and > software design is part of what they do. Can't talk too much for those > others, but we don't do web page design either, this is traditional > software development with numeric processing and data handling, mostly > under Unix (in the past) and Linux (now), and, before that, > mini-computers and their operating systems (their passing is one > reason I'm attracted to classic computing lists like these). > > So I don't know where that one in a million came from.. I see similar > programming environments as ours when I travel elsewhere in the world, > and ours is just one of those industries out there where proper, good > old programming is required. It's just an English figure of speech: "one in a million" is a common way of saying that something is very rare or unusual. Certainly, several comments have indicated that - as a pure random guess! - mine was a /very/ inaccurate estimate. I wonder what a more reasonable approximation would be, for the developed world? Perhaps one in a thousand? And also, what sort of programming the majority of them actually do. Whether it is scripting or relatively simple system automation, or macro programming in apps, or actual full-on application development, or what? Is there, I wonder, a line as to where simple tools and simple tuition for nonspecialists might be appropriate - e.g. BASIC for schoolkids - versus serious techniques and methods for those expected to be professional developers - e.g. Scheme for CS undergrads? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From dkelvey at hotmail.com Sat Jan 7 12:15:50 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:15:50 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: , , <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu>, , <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net>, <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au>, <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>, <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au>, , <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au>, , <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au>, , , , Message-ID: > Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC ---snip--- > > Is there, I wonder, a line as to where simple tools and simple tuition > for nonspecialists might be appropriate - e.g. BASIC for schoolkids - > versus serious techniques and methods for those expected to be > professional developers - e.g. Scheme for CS undergrads? > Hi I don't really like using BASIC to teach with. Not being a procedural language it tends to not teach the student how to think in levels of the problem. Strict procedural languages tend to help the student factor the problems into chunks that help to find the solutions. Yes, I know one can write BASIC that way but it isn't enforced by the language. Dwight From toby at telegraphics.com.au Sat Jan 7 12:16:14 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:16:14 -0500 Subject: We Don't Need No Education? -Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F088BEE.1040705@telegraphics.com.au> On 07/01/12 11:38 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > ... > And also, what sort of programming the majority of them actually do. > Whether it is scripting or relatively simple system automation, or > macro programming in apps, or actual full-on application development, > or what? > > Is there, I wonder, a line as to where simple tools and simple tuition > for nonspecialists might be appropriate - e.g. BASIC for schoolkids - > versus serious techniques and methods for those expected to be > professional developers - e.g. Scheme for CS undergrads? > One doesn't need to get very far into "scripting", web front-ends, etc to benefit from *actually learning programming.* Even simple bash, PHP, or JavaScript, and certainly SQL, benefit from a proper education. And that means a good part of the curriculum of "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". Sure, boil down the material into simpler texts. That's been done; many citations were posted recently. The idea that "oh, lots of people can get by doing this stuff without education" only goes so far. It is not a problem for the highly motivated, self-taught group who will eventually cover the same ground themselves. But it can't save the rest. This fantasy, "I don't need to learn more", seems to lead directly to the regrettable status quo. On the earlier question of teaching kids, Joshua Bloch has this to say in "Coders At Work": Joshua Bloch ------------ ... There's a certain precision of thinking that comes with doing math. I coached a Math Olympiad team for fourth and fifth graders. This is just the age at which some kids are starting to understand, at some level, the notion of a proof---that a proposition can be demonstrably, unequivocally true rather than just "I think it's true because here are a few examples were it seems to work." In order to understand the notion of an invariant, you have to understand the notion of a proof. Unfortunately, there are plenty of adults who don't. And it's a style of thinking that's typically taught in mathematics classes. Seibel ------ You almost wonder if maybe the better forum to teach that kind of thinking would be in programming. If you just taught programming as being about invariants--- Bloch ----- To a certain extent I agree, but you can go too far in that direction. Then we're back to Dijkstra. ... Dijkstra says you shouldn't even let students even touch a computer until they've manipulated symbols, stripped of their true meaning, for a semester. That's crazy! There's a joy in telling the computer to do something, and watching it do it. I would not deprive students of that joy. And furthermore, I wouldn't assume that I could---computers are everywhere. Ten-year-olds are programming. ... [ snip anecdote about a difficult bug in a C program where stack and thread local storage were being silently smashed ] This is an example of why you need safe languages. This is just not something that anyone should ever have to cope with. I was talking to someone recently at a university who asked me what I thought about the fact that his university wanted to teach C and C++ first and then Java, because they thought that programmers should understand the system "all the way down." I think the premise is right but the conclusion is wrong. Yes, students should learn low-level languages. In fact, they should learn assembly language, and even chip architecture. ... they'll be much better high-level language programmers if they understand what's going on in the lower layers of the system. So yes, I think it's important that you learn all this stuff. But do I think you should start with a low-level language like C? No! Students should not have to deal with buffer overruns, manual memory allocation, and the like in their first exposure to programming. --------- --Toby From holm at freibergnet.de Sat Jan 7 12:31:28 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 19:31:28 +0100 Subject: Huhi.. TITS? for PDP11? Message-ID: <20120107183128.GC77115@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Hi, As I already wrote before, I have an russian PDP11, an Elektronika E60. I'm repairing currently some spare boards. I do have diskettes with an TMOC Test System with some Hardwaretests: -TMOS- MONITOR DXTC 06-JUN-84 28K RESTARTADR: 152250 GELADEN VON LW : 0 UM DIE MITTEILUNG ABZUBRECHEN, DRUECKEN SIE CTRL/C(^C) ->MONITORBEFEHLE: F STELLT VERZOEGERUNGSWERT EIN D AUSGABE DIRECTORY AUF TERMINAL D/F KURZFASSUNG DIRECTORY AUF TERMINAL D/L AUSGABE DIRECTORY AUF DRUCKER D/L/F KURZFASSUNG DIRECTORY AUF DRUCKER R FILNAM LADET UND STARTET EIN PROGRAMM L FILNAM LADET EIN PROGRAMM IN SPEICHER S STARTET GELADENES PROGRAMM S ADR STARTET GELADENES PROGRAMM VON ADRESSE ADR C FILNAM BEFEHLSABARBEITUNG KETTENFILE C FILNAM/QV SCHNELLE BEFEHLSABARBEITUNG KETTENFILE (JEDER FILE NUR EINMAL) .D NUMMER FILNAM.TYP DATUM LAENGE START 000001 DXTC .BIN 11-DEC-84 17 000050 000002 UPD1 .BIN 9-JAN-85 17 000071 000003 UPD2 .BIN 23-JAN-85 31 000112 000004 XTECO .BIN 23-JAN-85 30 000151 000005 COPY .BIN 23-JAN-85 27 000207 000006 TMOC01.DIR 4-JUN-80 2 000242 000007 CPUC .BIC 11-DEC-84 17 000244 000010 CPUZA .BIC 11-DEC-84 17 000265 000011 CPUFP .BIC 11-DEC-84 16 000306 000012 INT .BIC 11-DEC-84 12 000326 000013 PIO .BIC 11-DEC-84 6 000342 000014 SYS .BIC 11-DEC-84 17 000350 000015 MEM .BIC 11-DEC-84 9 000371 000016 DXD .BIC 15-MAY-85 20 000402 000017 DXC .BIC 19-DEC-84 17 000426 000020 SIO .BIN 11-DEC-84 8 000447 000021 REAS .BIN 1-APR-83 13 000457 000022 013101.BIN 22-OCT-82 8 000474 000023 VT13 .BIN 1-JAN-70 24 000504 000024 UPIO .BIN 13-DEC-84 8 000534 000025 BOOT .BIN 13-DEC-84 2 000544 000026 MTC .BIN 9-JAN-85 14 000546 000027 MTD .BIC 9-JAN-85 12 000564 000030 001103.BIN 6-JUN-80 9 000600 000031 TT .BIN 23-JAN-85 24 000611 000032 T .BIC 12-APR-90 1 000641 000033 TOME .CCC 21-FEB-85 1 000642 000034 TST1 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000643 000035 TST2 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000651 000036 TST3 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000657 000037 TST4 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000665 000040 TST5 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000673 000041 TST6 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000701 000042 TST7 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000707 000043 TST8 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000715 000044 TST9 .BIC 24-JUN-81 6 000723 000045 HILFE .TXT 24-JUN-81 5 000731 000046 KOMUPD.TXT 24-JUN-81 6 000736 000047 PUFFER.BIN 9-APR-80 1 000744 000050 DOR00 .BIN 11-APR-84 1 000745 000051 0 .BIN 11-APR-84 1 000746 000052 I2 .CCC 27-MAR-85 1 000747 000053 DIR .CCC 21-MAY-85 1 000750 000054 MK .BIN 28-FEB-85 1 000751 000055 ZETST .CCC 1-JUL-85 1 000752 000056 ZETST .BAK 1-JUL-85 1 000753 ... this is a german version. Is this an old XXDP or what? I've tried to run the Program REAS.BIn and get that: .R REAS TITS 75 19DEC79 FOR: 11/03 WITH: TRAP VGDISP LDEV PDEV ...entered some numbers and finally an 'L', than it hung. Maybe it wanted to load something from the Tape Reader or so, there is none connected... 1207 421 12706 ? ? 105067 L What the heck is TITS? (Yes, I know that womans have tits, and I know how to mount them :-)) I don't think that this is a russian Program, does anybody knows something about it? Kind Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From swtpc6800 at comcast.net Sat Jan 7 12:48:25 2012 From: swtpc6800 at comcast.net (Michael Holley) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:48:25 -0800 Subject: Beehive International's first terminal in 1968 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002a01cccd6c$f0758f20$d160ad60$@comcast.net> Here is a Beehive advertisement in Computerworld March 31, 1980 on page 13. It gives the 1968 date for Beehive Electrotech's first terminal. http://books.google.com/books?id=fYukjC5PayUC&pg=PA13 Michael Holley www.swtpc6800.com/mholley -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 12:25 AM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Beehive International's first terminal in 1968 I've been reading through the documentation included with some Beehive B100s that I purchased. Included in that was a statement in a brochure that Beehive started with their first terminal product in 1968. I'm interested if anyone knows any additional information about these early Beehive terminals. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 12:50:28 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 18:50:28 +0000 Subject: We Don't Need No Education? -Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F088BEE.1040705@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F088BEE.1040705@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 07/01/12 11:38 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> > ?So yes, I think it's important that you learn all this stuff. But do I > think you should start with a low-level language like C? No! Students should > not have to deal with buffer overruns, manual memory allocation, and the > like in their first exposure to programming. So some education teaches Java a cough "safe language" and we get slow memory hogs because they know no better! yes they do need a proper education with low level code in C or assembler etc and why the other solutions are slower eg from the Haskell wiki (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Introduction#What_is_functional_programming.3F) Whereas the C program describes the particular steps the machine must make to perform a sort -- with most code dealing with the low-level details of data manipulation -- the Haskell program encodes the sorting algorithm at a much higher level, with improved brevity and clarity as a result (at the cost of efficiency unless compiled by a very smart compiler): Cost of efficiency seems to be a problem not acknowledged by proponents of most high level languages. Dave Caroline From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jan 7 12:59:27 2012 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:59:27 -0800 Subject: Huhi.. TITS? for PDP11? In-Reply-To: <20120107183128.GC77115@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120107183128.GC77115@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: I don't know the answer to your question, however, I do know this. If you haven't already imaged those floppies, you need to. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Photographer | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | My flickr Photostream | | http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ | From toby at telegraphics.com.au Sat Jan 7 13:28:34 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:28:34 -0500 Subject: Fallacies about efficiency - Re: We Don't Need No Education? -Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F088BEE.1040705@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F089CE2.7030300@telegraphics.com.au> On 07/01/12 1:50 PM, Dave Caroline wrote: > On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 07/01/12 11:38 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >> So yes, I think it's important that you learn all this stuff. But do I >> think you should start with a low-level language like C? No! Students should >> not have to deal with buffer overruns, manual memory allocation, and the >> like in their first exposure to programming. > > So some education teaches Java a cough "safe language" and we get slow > memory hogs > because they know no better! yes they do need a proper education with > low level code in C or assembler etc and why the > other solutions are slower This is all addressed by Bloch even in that short extract. > > eg from the Haskell wiki > (http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Introduction#What_is_functional_programming.3F) > > Whereas the C program describes the particular steps the machine must > make to perform a sort -- with most code dealing with the low-level > details of data manipulation -- the Haskell program encodes the > sorting algorithm at a much higher level, with improved brevity and > clarity as a result This is actually very important ^^ > (at the cost of efficiency unless compiled by a > very smart compiler): Haskell can of course be "faster" than C, for the rare times when that actually matters. But you know that already from your research, I'm sure. It is a fallacy that programs written in assembler and C are "fast"[*]. It is a fallacy that programs written in dynamic/functional/other languages are "slow". It is a fallacy that "fast" and "slow" are always the primary consideration. It is not a fallacy that programmers expend too much effort in writing confused and unmaintainable code, sometimes chasing those false grails. --Toby * an illuminating anecdote: http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2011-November/062240.html > > Cost of efficiency seems to be a problem not acknowledged by > proponents of most high level languages. > > Dave Caroline > > From holm at freibergnet.de Sat Jan 7 14:24:19 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 21:24:19 +0100 Subject: Huhi.. TITS? for PDP11? In-Reply-To: References: <20120107183128.GC77115@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <20120107202419.GA77914@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Zane H. Healy wrote: > I don't know the answer to your question, however, I do know this. > If you haven't already imaged those floppies, you need to. > > Zane > > > There are some of them archived from another person already.. >From that concrete Floppy I have 3 copies, so I think I'm not in a hurry. Currently I can't low level format the floppies with that RX01 (or RX02?) like russian floppy drive, I simply don't have a format program. I do have a CP/M Machine and get a Drive next week to test if I can format the new floppies that I have on that machine so I can copy the at least the disks that I've playing with. I think I know what I'm doing here. That machine is rater old and I repaired the 3rd set of boards now to wake at least another one. They are for a bunker museum from the former GDR. If you want to see some pics from the inside of this machine, look at here: http://www.robotrontechnik.de/html/forum/thwb/showtopic.php?threadid=7733 This is a QBUS machine but with metric connectors and metric dimensions. It's in german altough.. Here are some Pics from the machines (the tower and a desktop, 11/03 like on the blue steel box) that are now in the bunker. I only have a Floppy drive and an card craddle here to repair this things. http://www.tiffe.de/Robotron/E60/DSCF0065.JPG http://www.tiffe.de/Robotron/E60/DSCF0066.JPG http://www.tiffe.de/Robotron/E60/DSCF0067.JPG http://www.tiffe.de/Robotron/E60/DSCF0068.JPG The last is a GDR Robotron made Printer SD1156 which is a 35 needle printer (makes a 5x7 matrix print for an complete letter at once). It can only print latin capitals and cyrillic capitals where the small latin characters are in the ascii table. (when it wasn't modified like that which I had tens of years before on my CP/M computer...) Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 7 14:21:54 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 20:21:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F06ED56.575.A3E229@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 6, 12 12:47:18 pm Message-ID: > > On 6 Jan 2012 at 19:59, Tony Duell wrote: > > > my solution, as others have suggested, was to use a 74F151 > > multiplexer. Select inputs fA, B, C) to the 3 input signals, > > multiplexer output to the signal I was tryign to produce. The inputs > > to the mux were, IIRC, pulled high by 1k reissotors (one of those SIL > > packs) with links to ground to configure it. I think the prototype had > > a pin header and push-on links, the 'production ones had links > > soldered i nthe right positions. > > Same idea, but inside-out. Uses an OC 3-to-8 demux rather than a > multiplexer. One pullup instead of a bunch. I thought the mux > solution too obvious. There is nothing wrong with obvious solutions (if they work). OI can think of several disadvantages to the '156 method : The output line, driving other circuitry, is an open-colelctoer signal with a psasive pull-up reissotr. It may not rise as sharply as a totem-pole output, particualrly if it's driving a capactivie load The jumper links are carrying high-seped logic signals. If you use the '151, the configuration links are 'static' Does the 74F156 exist? I've neer come across it. There aren't that many open-colelctor functions i nthe mroe recent families. Yes, the 74S156 existed, and would hae been fast ewnough, but I think it was discontinued by the time we were doing this design. And I certainly wouldn't recomend a device that was out-of-production. The 74F151 ws in all the catalogues at the time. > > AAR, not very challenging. Can you do a similar thing when the I will reserve judgement on that.... > inputs were of dissimilar logic families (you mentioned ECL) with a > single IC? Not that I am aware of. I suppose you're goign to tell me that there;s an FPGA with configurable I/O cells that does TTL, 3.3V CMOS, ECL, etc. Actually, I've never seen one, but,,.. But that wasn't part of the problem Had one of the signals been ECL, I'd have specified adding a 10124 or 10125 as appropriate. The problem wasn't to get it down to one chip. It was to come up with somethign that could be put on the PCB, so that the artwork could be finished and the boards made. If it has been 2 ICs, that would have been fine. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 7 14:36:57 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 20:36:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP HIL ID module: what's it for? In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 6, 12 03:03:44 pm Message-ID: > > I keep seeing these listed on ebay and I don't understand what role > they play in the HP HIL environment. Can someone enlighten me? It's basically a dongle. It returns a unique number when it gets a 'Report Security' command. If the manual is to be beleived : Byte Buts 1 7-0 Header : 0x10 2 7-0 ) Product (or exchange) part numbewr in biary. Byte 2 3 7-0 ) is least significat. Likely to be 46084 when converted to 4 7 ) decimal 4 6-0 Product letter (A) or least significant digit of exchange identifier 5 7-0 } The 9 digit module serial number, ignoring the country letter 6 7-0 ) in binary. Bytr 5 is least significat. This will be unique, 7 7-0 ) apart from exchange modules 8 5-0 ) 8 7-6 Reserved, set to 0 9 6-0 Serial number country letter 9 7 Reserved, set to 0 AS I understnad it, the first HP9000 machines (early versions of the 9826 and 9836) had no unique machine ID at all. Later ones, and things like the 9816, hd a PROM on the CPU board that contaiend the serial number, and was thus unique ot the machine. Software could read this number to check it was running o nthe machine it was licesned for, and IIRC if you repaced the CPU bord you transfered the ID PROM to the new board to maintain the ID. Machiens with HP-HIL used these ID modules. If an ID module failed, you might end up with an 'exchange module which gave the same serial number but a different product ID (see byte 4). I believe you then ahd to return your old ID module. Thus no 2 modules ever made gave the excat same response, and no 2 modules in the field reported the same serial number. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 7 14:49:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 20:49:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: HP HIL ID module: what's it for? In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 6, 12 03:29:18 pm Message-ID: > > At least now I know that I can safely ignore these while looking to > build up my HP-HIL peripheral collection :-). It's up to you waht you collect, but I wouldn't exclude it from such a colelction because it was an HP-HIL peripheral. It may not be very useful, but that's no the point... I'd quite like one, but all the ones I see on E-bay are far too expensive (or have ridiculous shipping for something that's about the size of a cigarrette packet) to be worth buying. WHat HP-HIL devices do you knwo about? The manual I have mentions the following : HP35723A touchscreen bezel HP46021A keyboard. There is also the 46020 keyboard which is functionally identical, but very differnet internally. That matters to me... HP46060 mouse HP46080 extension module (a line driver to add 8 feet of cable) HP46081 Audio/extension (Same line driver as the 46080, but with a speaker included, which AFAIK has noting to dow ith the HP-HIL side) HP46082A/B Audio/extension. Longer distanve line drivers HP46083 Rotary knob. This is a signle twiddleknob with a button on the side to seelct what it does (normally X or Y position) HP460-84 ID module HP46085 Control dials. 9 User-definable twiddleknobs. Thaes up 3 of the avaialble 7 addresses (!). HP46086 function box : 32 definable funciton keys HP46087 A-size digitizer HP46088 B-size digitzer HP46089 4-button cursor (a puck for the 2 digitizers, not really an HP-HIL device) HP46094 Quadrature port. For using Quadrature mice, trackballs, etc HP98203C keybar. A 'compact' keybaard. HP92916 Bar code reader For completeness, there's also the HP Inegral keyboard which is an HP-HIL deviec and differnet to any of the other keybaords. The keyboards also camme in various national layouts -tony From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 17:26:17 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 18:26:17 -0500 Subject: JavaScript and Scheme - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F068E33.1050805@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F068E33.1050805@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Jan 6, 2012, at 1:01 AM, Toby Thain wrote: > From Coders at Work* (Siebel): I really like this book. I'm only about halfway through reading it, but I certainly recommend doing so; it's interesting to see how a lot of very smart people think, including the ones I don't necessarily agree with. Highly recommended. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 17:34:57 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 18:34:57 -0500 Subject: We Don't Need No Education? -Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F088BEE.1040705@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <9E128664-83D5-4FE1-A422-3B84EBC8FD87@gmail.com> On Jan 7, 2012, at 1:50 PM, Dave Caroline wrote: > On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 07/01/12 11:38 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >> So yes, I think it's important that you learn all this stuff. But do I >> think you should start with a low-level language like C? No! Students should >> not have to deal with buffer overruns, manual memory allocation, and the >> like in their first exposure to programming. > > So some education teaches Java a cough "safe language" and we get slow > memory hogs > because they know no better! yes they do need a proper education with > low level code in C or assembler etc and why the > other solutions are slower Perhaps, but I don't read what Toby said as "don't teach people C". It's "don't start with C", which I *do* agree with; it would be like teaching a 16-year-old to drive on a Formula 1 race car. Wait until they at least understand safe stopping distances and proper disaster avoidance before taking away the airbags and the anti-lock breaks. :-) In my experience at university when we changed the introductory curriculum from C to Python (it was never meant to be a first-programming-experience course, but the advisors kept assigning it that way, so we changed the curriculum to match reality), I have to say that people "get" the fundamentals of programming a lot better the first time when they don't have to learn how to wave the chicken just right to make things work. Python also has the beneficial aspect of being a fairly powerful general-purpose imperative/object-oriented/functional language again; students will likely be using what they've learned for a long time to come. I only picked up Python a few years ago so I could properly TA the course, and I've been using it in a lot of places I never would have expected to use a "scripting" language in the past. Now the university teaches C alongside assembly, which is exactly where it belongs (why would you even try to teach pointers without showing what the CPU is actually doing with them?). In a sense, that's where we take off the training wheels (and the airbags and the anti-lock brakes, if I wanted to mix metaphors). It seems to work pretty well. - Dave From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 7 17:59:10 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:59:10 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F06ED56.575.A3E229@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 6, 12 12:47:18 pm, Message-ID: <4F086BCE.17122.1458B1C@cclist.sydex.com> On 7 Jan 2012 at 20:21, Tony Duell wrote: > But that wasn't part of the problem Had one of the signals been ECL, > I'd have specified adding a 10124 or 10125 as appropriate. The problem > wasn't to get it down to one chip. It was to come up with somethign > that could be put on the PCB, so that the artwork could be finished > and the boards made. If it has been 2 ICs, that would have been fine. So I wanted to do something non-obvious. Anyone knows that a MUX/decoder implments a truth table of its inputs, so the problem you posed was obvious. I proposed a workable solution that no one else had. You didn't specify what the mystery device was driving--if it had been a line that required an OC output, the shoe would be on the other foot. Shrug. --Chuck From jws at jwsss.com Sat Jan 7 19:26:03 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:26:03 -0800 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA Message-ID: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/2788398684.html not my listing, but not far if someone needs help getting it. Jim From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 7 19:44:07 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 17:44:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA In-Reply-To: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, jim s wrote: > http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/2788398684.html > > not my listing, but not far if someone needs help getting it. What's a Mac SE2? I can't quite make out the label, but I'm guessing it's an SE/30. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 19:56:06 2012 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 20:56:06 -0500 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA In-Reply-To: References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 8:44 PM, David Griffith wrote: > > What's a Mac SE2? I can't quite make out the label, but I'm guessing it's > an SE/30. > The SE/30 didn't have dual drives. Could be an SE FDHD, which was kind of like the Mac 512KE version of the SE. From teoz at neo.rr.com Sat Jan 7 19:58:43 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 20:58:43 -0500 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <85C62A0DD47042C6A236AE29D1135E7F@dell8300> Only the SE had the option for 2 floppies (SE30 had 1 floppy and 1 HD). The original SE had DD drive(s) while the second model FDHD had superdrives (required a chip swap). Looks like an original SE to me with dual floppies. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Griffith" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 8:44 PM Subject: Re: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA > On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, jim s wrote: > >> http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/2788398684.html >> >> not my listing, but not far if someone needs help getting it. > > What's a Mac SE2? I can't quite make out the label, but I'm guessing it's > an SE/30. > > -- > David Griffith > dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu > > A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? > A: Top-posting. > Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From jws at jwsss.com Sat Jan 7 20:17:43 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 18:17:43 -0800 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA In-Reply-To: <85C62A0DD47042C6A236AE29D1135E7F@dell8300> References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> <85C62A0DD47042C6A236AE29D1135E7F@dell8300> Message-ID: <4F08FCC7.4060805@jwsss.com> I'm not much of a mac person, and even less of a "classic" or SE one. Sorry for the confusion, you guys can figure it out. I'm still happy to assist if need be. Jim On 1/7/2012 5:58 PM, TeoZ wrote: > Only the SE had the option for 2 floppies (SE30 had 1 floppy and 1 > HD). The original SE had DD drive(s) while the second model FDHD had > superdrives (required a chip swap). Looks like an original SE to me > with dual floppies. > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Griffith" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012 8:44 PM > Subject: Re: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA > > >> On Sat, 7 Jan 2012, jim s wrote: >> >>> http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/2788398684.html >>> >>> not my listing, but not far if someone needs help getting it. >> >> What's a Mac SE2? I can't quite make out the label, but I'm guessing >> it's an SE/30. >> >> -- >> David Griffith >> dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu >> >> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. >> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? >> A: Top-posting. >> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? > > From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 7 20:34:26 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 7 Jan 2012 21:34:26 -0500 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA In-Reply-To: References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <4C97BDE7-BA07-47A5-B190-D96909ACA852@gmail.com> On Jan 7, 2012, at 8:56 PM, Jason McBrien wrote: > On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 8:44 PM, David Griffith wrote: > >> >> What's a Mac SE2? I can't quite make out the label, but I'm guessing it's >> an SE/30. >> > > The SE/30 didn't have dual drives. Could be an SE FDHD, which was kind of > like the Mac 512KE version of the SE. I think SE2 was a typo on the part of Jim; the auction just says SE. The SE could contain 2 floppy drives or 1 floppy and 1 SCSI drive; this machine looks like the former (i.e. it has no internal hard drive). - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 7 22:18:31 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:18:31 -0500 Subject: SIGSALY In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F091917.6070006@neurotica.com> On 01/07/2012 12:25 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > For those who might be following this peripherally, the cryptography key > was the random thermal noise from mercury-vapor tubes, digitised and > recorded using FSK onto phonograph records. These key records were used > as a one-time pad and had to be synchronised to a few mS at the two ends > of the communication link. The whole system was a fascinating amalgam of > theory and then-state-of-the-art techniques. [gape] Ok, that is AWESOME. I've done some work with entropy sources (primarily P-N junction noise) to feed random number generators, but this is a technique I've never heard of. My mind is blown. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mikeford at socal.rr.com Sun Jan 8 02:36:00 2012 From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:36:00 -0800 Subject: Vintage Macintosh SE2 in HB, CA In-Reply-To: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> References: <4F08F0AB.5080906@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <4F095570.7010701@socal.rr.com> On 1/7/2012 5:26 PM, jim s wrote: > http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/sys/2788398684.html $75 as is seems a bit ambitious. One of my friends bought I think a hundred for around $3 each, but its been ten years or so. This one looks unfaded etc., but as is? Be nice if its worth it, I only have about 35 early macs piled around slowly getting parted out for any odd bits that look worth keeping. I don't think I kept any to start with that weren't earlier than a SE, or an SE30. From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 8 06:59:20 2012 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:59:20 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com> References: , , <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> On 1/4/2012 1:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm struggling to remember the name of a language I read about back > in the late 70s or early 80s. It was part of a "natural language > programming for the uninitiated" trend back then. It had statements > like: > > TAKE THE THIRD THROUGH THE 17-TH CHARACTER OF MYDATA AND SHOW THEM. > > The language allowed for considerable leeway in abbreviation and > tolerated lots of "junk fill" words. That looks a little like SNAP to me. Once, long ago (like 1975) I tried to find a fortran deck for the compiler/interpreter but was unable. I believe there was a book published on it, and a research paper. I think I have a copy of the paper (a pdf) if you'd like a copy. an interesting attempt at natural language programming -brad From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 8 09:56:40 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 07:56:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> from Brad Parker at "Jan 8, 12 07:59:20 am" Message-ID: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> > That looks a little like SNAP to me. The Panasonic HHCs allegedly can be programmed in SNAP. I don't have an interpreter for mine though. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I must confess, I was born at a very early age. -- Groucho Marx ------------ From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 8 10:18:25 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:18:25 -0500 Subject: mini-M68000 home brew computer Message-ID: <002101ccce21$40c310b0$c2493210$@YAHOO.COM> Hi! One of the lesser known N8VEM home brew computers is the ECB mini-M68000 board. Presently it runs TUTOR 1.3 and we are planning on porting CP/M-68K Here is a description of the computer. It connects to the ECB bus to use various other home brew computer peripherals. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/file/48863865/baby%20M68K%20descr.txt All of the information is public and freely available. The PCBs are $20 each plus $2 shipping in the US and $5 elsewhere. http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=ECB%20mini-M680 00 If you would like to build one of your own mini-M68000 please contact me at LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM The main discussion on the mini-M68000 is on the N8VEM mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/n8vem Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Sun Jan 8 10:32:34 2012 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:32:34 -0500 Subject: SIGSALY In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Mark Kahrs wrote: > I grabbed a copy of a free (!) publication from the Cryptologic Museum > entitled "The start of the Digital Revolution: SIGSALY - Secure Digital > Voice Communications in World War II". It mentions that you can visit the > library and look at "The Green Hornet... America's Unbreakable Code for > Secret Telephony" -- privately published in 1999 by D. E. Mitchell. It > says it is very complete. There's a bit on SIGSALY on this author's amusingly titled history of the vocoder: http://howtowreckanicebeach.com/ (Link to authors blog with an entry on the topic) From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 8 12:20:29 2012 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 13:20:29 -0500 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <53B3F07B-0595-43C9-A5F1-B67AF6ABD75D@heeltoe.com> This is the SNAP I was talking about, from 1969: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1476815&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=77190706&CFTOKEN=53278519 -brad On Jan 8, 2012, at 10:56 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > >> That looks a little like SNAP to me. > > The Panasonic HHCs allegedly can be programmed in SNAP. I don't have an > interpreter for mine though. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- I must confess, I was born at a very early age. -- Groucho Marx ------------ From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Jan 8 12:41:04 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 10:41:04 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> References: , , <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com> <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <98BFF475-E5B7-48C9-AD46-B043BE1A7BF5@cs.ubc.ca> > On 1/4/2012 1:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I'm struggling to remember the name of a language I read about back >> in the late 70s or early 80s. It was part of a "natural language >> programming for the uninitiated" trend back then. It had statements >> like: >> >> TAKE THE THIRD THROUGH THE 17-TH CHARACTER OF MYDATA AND SHOW THEM. >> >> The language allowed for considerable leeway in abbreviation and >> tolerated lots of "junk fill" words. .. There was ENGLISH in the Microdata-Reality/Pick system that could look a lot like that. Mid-70s. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 8 13:01:03 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:01:03 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> References: , <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4F09776F.30413.39C6A6@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2012 at 7:59, Brad Parker wrote: > That looks a little like SNAP to me. Once, long ago (like 1975) I > tried to find a fortran deck for the compiler/interpreter but was > unable. I believe there was a book published on it, and a research > paper. That, I think, was it. I remember reading the book, but I don't ever recall seeing a real implementation of the language. But the ideas were interesting for the time. Yes, please, I'd love a PDF! Thanks, Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Sun Jan 8 13:04:40 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 11:04:40 -0800 Subject: Early electronic music.. In-Reply-To: <201201072304.24680.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <4F0831A3.5080108@bluewin.ch> <201201072304.24680.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On 2012 Jan 7, at 4:34 AM, Alexis Kotlowy wrote: > On Sat, 7 Jan 2012 10:20:59 PM Jos Dreesen wrote: >> While not a computer, it might still be of interest here : >> >> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9671950.stm >> >> Jos > > Good video. I think the music at 1:30 is by John Baker of the BBC > Radiophonic > Workshop however. There seems to be more information about the machine > publicly available (pictures and video via a Google search) since > the last > time I checked. > > I've had a play about with a similar idea to Oramics with my > synthesiser and > oscilloscope. Here's a sample: > > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/Klaviersonate11.mp3 > > I still don't know how this could be controlled by 35mm film. The > best I can > think of is a few phototransistors arranged like you would find in > a paper > tape machine. This wouldn't produce free flowing changes in > voltage. but would > move up and down in steps. So I don't know. The other option is to > have one > CRT per tape, but I don't think it was done that way either. If you haven't seen it, this interview with the designer/builder describes roughly some of the techniques they used (more depth would nonetheless be nice): http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb09/articles/oramics.htm Made their own phototransistors by exposing ordinary transistors to light. The film was used for several things, in both analog and digital modes. (warning: the writer also make some strange statements like: "continuously variable volume controls did not exist in 1965!" !) From Arno_1983 at gmx.de Sun Jan 8 14:17:47 2012 From: Arno_1983 at gmx.de (Arno Kletzander) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 21:17:47 +0100 Subject: teaching programming to beginners Message-ID: <201201082018.q08KIVBT068452@billy.ezwind.net> Dave Riley wrote: > I shudder at the fact that many of our high schools use Java as an introductory language. I really can't see the point of starting someone out saying, "Your program runs from a special method in a special class (we'll teach you what both of those are later) labelled 'public static void main()'. Just wave the chicken correctly, and maybe if you stick with it long enough, you'll find out what that magic incantation means." Well put. Alas that was the situation I was facing in University, where Java was a compulsory assignment for all EE students (and thus probably their first encounter with programming for some of them). I had hitherto only dabbled in various BASIC dialects (CBM, Borland Turbo, and Visual BASIC) - and NO, I don't feel like a brain-crippled Zombie! - but had read my share of C code too, so one of the instructors asked me whether I was a C coder - but probably just because I had picked up that style of abbreviated, mixed-case procedure and variable naming... That however only came later, when I took a course "Systems programming in C". There at last, some really useful education about things like I/O, queues and scheduling (however *n*x-centric) started to happen - but that course was primarily targeted at grammar / high school level *teachers*! I was just barely allowed to take an oral exam and turn in the earned credits (an A-) for my diploma on a special agreement basis. A while later, I also got some exposure to FORTH when I started hacking around on Sun workstations, like modifying their boot net routines (to get away from the RARP requirement that some OBP revisions imposed) and adding support for nonstandard frame buffer resolutions. (BTW, anybody here been into the cgthree ASIC deep enough to tell me whether it can do interlacing and if so, how to frob it to?) I did also got to write some assembly for an AVR microcontroller in my pre-diploma thesis. Arno Kletzander ...sent from my HTC Magician PDA From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 8 14:26:26 2012 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 15:26:26 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F09776F.30413.39C6A6@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> <4F09776F.30413.39C6A6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1FD3567E-AAA0-4C3F-BE60-1FF68B6FFB38@heeltoe.com> On Jan 8, 2012, at 2:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 8 Jan 2012 at 7:59, Brad Parker wrote: > >> That looks a little like SNAP to me. Once, long ago (like 1975) I >> tried to find a fortran deck for the compiler/interpreter but was >> unable. I believe there was a book published on it, and a research >> paper. > > That, I think, was it. I remember reading the book, but I don't ever > recall seeing a real implementation of the language. But the ideas > were interesting for the time. > > Yes, please, I'd love a PDF! This is the book http://www.springerlink.com/content/w72673776171q4n4/ I think I may have bought this (so can't redistribute): http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1476815 I think that's the best I can do sorry... in my dreams some one discovers a card drawer with the original fortran source :-) -brad From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 8 14:32:27 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:32:27 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> References: , <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <4F098CDB.13012.8D763B@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2012 at 7:59, Brad Parker wrote: > an interesting attempt at natural language programming Some years ago, I was sent a floppy with something called NACC on it-- an attempt to provide a YACC-type natural language front-end generator. I dutifully filed it away, but never looked at it. I ran across the floppy the other day while trying to get some sort of organization in my library. Anyone interested in it? AFAIK, the floppy was a demo. --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 8 13:52:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 19:52:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F086BCE.17122.1458B1C@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 7, 12 03:59:10 pm Message-ID: > > On 7 Jan 2012 at 20:21, Tony Duell wrote: > > > But that wasn't part of the problem Had one of the signals been ECL, > > I'd have specified adding a 10124 or 10125 as appropriate. The problem > > wasn't to get it down to one chip. It was to come up with somethign > > that could be put on the PCB, so that the artwork could be finished > > and the boards made. If it has been 2 ICs, that would have been fine. > > So I wanted to do something non-obvious. Anyone knows that a > MUX/decoder implments a truth table of its inputs, so the problem you For a suitable definition of 'anybody', which seems to exclude almost all the memebrs of the group I was working in at the time. But anyway. And yes, a decoder with the outputs ORed together (In the case of an open-collector inverted output decoder, wire-ANDIng them is equivalent of course) is equivalent to a multiplexer wit hthe data inputs tied high or low. 'Anybody' who knows what a multiplexer consists of will realise that. It's also equivlaent to a 1-bit wide PROM. Many programmable logic devices consist of an 'AND array' which combines the input varialbees and their inverses followed by an 'OR array' which combines the outputs of the ANDs to produce the otuptus of the device. Some of the arly PLE chips (the 82S100 springs to midn) had both arrays prgramamble. A PROM (or a multiplexer, or an open-collector decoder with the otuputs tied toghter as here) is a fixed AND array geenrating all the miniterms of the inputs (a complete decoder) follwed by a prograable OR array (you get to specify how they are ORed together to form the otuput). The standard PAL/GAL architecture is a programmable AND array follwed by a fixed OR array > posed was obvious. I proposed a workable solution that no one else Actually, I dispute that. Yes, the design works perfectly on paper. But a deisng is only workable if you can get the devices needed ot build it. It's no good deisnging with devices you wish would exist. And I've been through a lot of databooks and catalogues and I can find no mention of the '156 in 74F, 74ALS or 74AS (and actually not 74S either). So a suitable high-speed decoder doesn't exist. FWIW, the '559 (4-16 line, open-colelctor version fo the '154) doesn't exist in the high-speed families either. Do you have evidence it exists? If so, I'll be happy grant you have a workable solution > had. You didn't specify what the mystery device was driving--if it > had been a line that required an OC output, the shoe would be on the > other foot. Of course. I did say 'TTL level signal' I suppsoed that could have meant an line shared iwth other open-collector deivces, but the default interpretation of 'driving a TTL signal' would imply to me a totem-pole driver. It never hurts to check these things, I agree. -tony From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jan 8 14:45:45 2012 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 15:45:45 -0500 Subject: 11/34a board sets + operator console interface& 64KW mem - Re: Latest find In-Reply-To: <4F04F91B.2010606@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F04F91B.2010606@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <85B35022-C1E8-4A5C-8711-34E518127511@heeltoe.com> On Jan 4, 2012, at 8:12 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > > On 04/01/12 9:02 AM, E. Groenenberg wrote: >> >> During a cleanup of stuff at our company, some interesting items popped up >> and which I could take home. >> >> A device which emulates 2 tu-58's but then as 2 3.5" floppies, >> 2 complete 11/34a board sets + operator console interface& 64KW mem > > I'd probably be interested in these if there are no other takers. yowza - I didn't realize it was *for sale* :-) I'll get in line also. my 11/730 could use such a gizmo to replace the linux box run the tu58 emulator :-) -brad From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 8 15:42:25 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 13:42:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> References: , , <4F038543.2080305@neurotica.com> <4F0429EB.19603.182853@cclist.sydex.com> <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <20120108134025.T93774@shell.lmi.net> On 1/4/2012 1:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm struggling to remember the name of a language I read about back > in the late 70s or early 80s. It was part of a "natural language > programming for the uninitiated" trend back then. It had statements > like: > TAKE THE THIRD THROUGH THE 17-TH CHARACTER OF MYDATA AND SHOW THEM. Well, it's obviously not COBOL, but it looks like it. Do you remember where you read about "NOT-COBOL"? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 8 17:16:29 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:16:29 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <20120108134025.T93774@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F099328.3060103@heeltoe.com>, <20120108134025.T93774@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F09B34D.9009.123A39B@cclist.sydex.com> On 8 Jan 2012 at 13:42, Fred Cisin wrote: > Well, it's obviously not COBOL, but it looks like it. > Do you remember where you read about "NOT-COBOL"? Brad nailed it--it's SNAP. It *is* surprising how many programming languages are called SNAP. But the 1969 version is the one I remember. Interesting idea for the time. It would seem to me that since English (even Basic English) is imprecise enough that one would have to learn the precise meaning of any word or term in the subject language and how to construct phrases and sentences, one might as well learn a *regular* language. --Chuck From ian_primus at yahoo.com Sun Jan 8 19:41:33 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2012 17:41:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Morrow Switchboard/Thinker Toys interface board schematics Message-ID: <1326073293.96233.YahooMailClassic@web121601.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> I have a "Thinker Toys Universal Interface Board" here, and I've been trying to figure it out. This is an early version of the Morrow Switchboard. It has a copyright date of 1978. The manuals available online are for the more common Morrow Switchboard, Rev 2. Comparing this board to a Switchboard reveals some subtle differences, but by and large, the boards are the same. This older version I have has no solder mask, while the Rev 2 has a blue solder mask. There are minor component placement differences. The most drastic difference seems to be the comparators that read the switches at the top of the board. As found, the board had a LOT of trace cuts and jumps, and some traces just plain peeled off - all around those four LS266's at the upper right, directly under the SW5 and SW6. Attempting to figure out what was done is nearly impossible. The switches themselves are still connected to the 266's with factory traces, at least, most of them - but the rest of the inputs were a mess of wires with bad solder joints. Of course... it doesn't work, and the wiring of the switches doesn't even come close to matching the schematics. Not only that, the factory traces that remain don't match the schematics. I mean, the switches wouldn't even be in the same order. It's a mess. So... does anyone have the schematics for this thing? -Ian From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sun Jan 8 20:43:55 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:43:55 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <075701cccb61$539a0210$face0630$@sudbrink@verizon.net> References: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> <075701cccb61$539a0210$face0630$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F0A546B.4000305@mail.msu.edu> On 1/4/2012 8:20 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> How does the "phantom" line work? I see references to this in some of >> my S-100 manuals but I'm not clear how it works (who raises/lowers it, >> when, etc...) > It can be a little bit "implementation dependent" but usually there are > cards that assert phantom (it is active low, there has to be a pull up > on it somewhere (the CPU card I think)) and cards that "honor" phantom. > When an address is presented to the bus, any phantom asserting card that > whishes to override that address pulls the phantom line low. A phantom > honoring card that would normally respond to the address will instead > suppress any activity. Note that this system does not prevent multiple > phantom asserting or phantom honoring cards from stepping on each other. > Careful system configuration is still the responsibility of the builder. > In the case of the Cromemco FDC cards, the FDC becomes a phantom asserter. > Any RAM card that the system has that resides in the same address space > ($C000-$CFFF in the case of a 4FDC) must honor phantom. The CPU presents > an address to the bus, the FDC card does an address decode, determines that > it is an address it wants to respond to and activates the ROM (the CE (chip > enable) pin on the ROM is also active low) asserting PHANTOM at the same > time, disabling the RAM card. When you deactivate the RDOS ROM with the > poke to the I/O address, then the FDC card will no longer activate the ROM, > PHANTOM will no longer be asserted and the RAM card will respond to the > address previously occupied by RDOS. I run CDOS in a full 64K > configuration this way. > > Bill S. > Thanks for the clarification! I do have a 32K Static RAM card that seems to support the Phantom line, I'll have to play around with it once I find something to fill the last 16K. (Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the FDC to write floppies correctly...) - Josh From evan at snarc.net Sun Jan 8 21:54:30 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 03:54:30 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? Message-ID: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) Ebay #190404561375 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Jan 8 21:57:32 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:57:32 -0700 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F0A65AC.5020305@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/8/2012 8:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) > > Ebay #190404561375 > > Well for $800,000 one could develop any chip they like today. Ben. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Sun Jan 8 22:40:00 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:40:00 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0A65AC.5020305@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> <4F0A65AC.5020305@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4F0A6FA0.2070309@telegraphics.com.au> On 08/01/12 10:57 PM, ben wrote: > On 1/8/2012 8:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) >> >> Ebay #190404561375 >> >> > > Well for $800,000 one could develop any chip they like today. > Ben. > For $800 I could get somebody to paint a copy of the Mona Lisa. Um... now what. --Toby From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 8 23:00:25 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:25 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F0A7469.6020502@neurotica.com> On 01/08/2012 10:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) > > Ebay #190404561375 I've got like eight of those. I think I'd sell seven of them pretty quickly. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pinball at telus.net Sun Jan 8 23:19:40 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:19:40 -0800 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0A65AC.5020305@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> <4F0A65AC.5020305@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4F0A78EC.7000402@telus.net> ben wrote: > On 1/8/2012 8:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) >> >> Ebay #190404561375 >> >> > > Well for $800,000 one could develop any chip they like today. > Ben. > For $800K one would consider counterfeits as a possible risk... John ;-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 01:29:26 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:29:26 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:54 AM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. ? :) > > Ebay #190404561375 oooh shiny! well scratched beyond its price I am looking for the Facit boat anchor printer that had two 4040's in it. Dave Caroline From jws at jwsss.com Mon Jan 9 01:29:54 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:29:54 -0800 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Message-ID: <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> I googled 4040 and found the image all over the place, but the original was from a defunct (as of 2008) web site called www.theintelcollection.com A copyright notice on it was The Intel Collection (c) 2006 - Lee Gallagher that link is via: http://www.chipdb.org/member.php?action=showprofile&user_id=22 The image is interesting if it is actually of the chip because it has what may be a true intel working date for the date code. All of the other hits are using some other method, maybe a die number or sequence to track the part. the one listed is marked 7505, which would be near the first availability of the part. Someone on the Boing Boing comment picked up and says the ES indicates this is true. The engineering samples are rare, but not at this level. I'd think you'd need a 4004 or earlier part of some note to have anything approaching 10000 bucks (from me if I had it). I have seen a lot of NDA parts out there as outfits fold, and someone posts the junk boxes, so an NDA part (or maybe Engineering Sample) in and of itself is not that rare. However Intel was really going at the time this part came out, so it isn't as historic as a 4004 would be. That said, most of those parts were not for sale, so one wonders how a prototype or sample or early availability Intel part ended up in hong kong. which brings up the second point, if you want it, I don't think I'd be wiring or paypal'ing the money to Honk Kong, but rather flying first class (only probably $20,000) with cash in hand to purchase it and bring it back. Anyone know what other than the Intellec mentioned in the article that the 4004 was used in? Anything significant, early routers? other functions. That would push up the value if it was more significant in its use to advance Intel or the industry. Jim On 1/8/2012 7:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) > > Ebay #190404561375 > > From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 9 02:30:34 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:30:34 -0700 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > The Panasonic HHCs allegedly can be programmed in SNAP. > I don't have an interpreter for mine though. If you've got an HHC, you have the interpreter. It's in the main ROM. What you don't have is the compiler. SNAP is a token-threaded dialect of FORTH, developed by Friends Amis. Most of the HHC software, other than Microsoft BASIC, is written in SNAP. There was a SNAP cartridge that contained the compiler, allowing native SNAP development. It was in a cartridge rather than a plugin ROM because it is 16KB, and the maximum size 24-pin EPROM that could be used as a plugin was 8KB. There was also a SNAPBASIC ROM, which is completely unrelated to the Microsoft BASIC. I spent some time a few years back working on reverse-engineering the SNAP interpreter, and identified the tokens for some of the most common FORTH words, but that didn't get me beyond hand-coding very simple SNAP programs. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Mon Jan 9 04:29:48 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 02:29:48 -0800 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On 2012 Jan 8, at 11:29 PM, jim s wrote: > On 1/8/2012 7:54 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) >> >> Ebay #190404561375 > I googled 4040 and found the image all over the place, but the > original was from a defunct (as of 2008) web site called > www.theintelcollection.com A copyright notice on it was The Intel > Collection (c) 2006 - Lee Gallagher > > that link is via: http://www.chipdb.org/member.php? > action=showprofile&user_id=22 > > The image is interesting if it is actually of the chip because it > has what may be a true intel working date for the date code. All > of the other hits are using some other method, maybe a die number > or sequence to track the part. the one listed is marked 7505, > which would be near the first availability of the part. Someone on > the Boing Boing comment picked up and says the ES indicates this is > true. > > The engineering samples are rare, but not at this level. I'd think > you'd need a 4004 or earlier part of some note to have anything > approaching 10000 bucks (from me if I had it). I have seen a lot > of NDA parts out there as outfits fold, and someone posts the junk > boxes, so an NDA part (or maybe Engineering Sample) in and of > itself is not that rare. However Intel was really going at the > time this part came out, so it isn't as historic as a 4004 would be. > > That said, most of those parts were not for sale, so one wonders > how a prototype or sample or early availability Intel part ended up > in hong kong. > > which brings up the second point, if you want it, I don't think I'd > be wiring or paypal'ing the money to Honk Kong, but rather flying > first class (only probably $20,000) with cash in hand to purchase > it and bring it back. > > Anyone know what other than the Intellec mentioned in the article > that the 4004 was used in? Anything significant, early routers? > other functions. That would push up the value if it was more > significant in its use to advance Intel or the industry. Somebody got a whole embedded 4004-based system for $85, probably unknowingly and unappreciated: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/190586201364 http://www.ebay.ca/itm/190586201633 A few years ago I got one for free: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/4004Monument/index.html The links there show some typical avionics resellers of the units. I should mention that it was allison of the list here that made the connection between my orphan module and ARC equipment a couple of years ago. A 4004 is also present in Prolog M900 PROM programmers, although in the instance of the one I have it is a 2nd-source Nat-Semi 4004, not Intel. Is this secret information that will produce a run on this equipment? How much is a run-of-the-mill 4004 worth these days? The holy grail in the 4004 arena of course is a Busicom calculator that the 4004 was developed for. From classiccmp at crash.com Mon Jan 9 04:29:45 2012 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:29:45 -0800 Subject: DEC workstations FTGH in SF Bay Area, CA, US Message-ID: <4F0AC199.9040608@crash.com> Time to thin the herd - I have a number of DEC machines that are free to a good home, though beer fund donations will be accepted. Available for pickup in central Berkeley by appointment, or I may be able to deliver to some parts of the East or South Bay at my convenience. I'll also take them to a Mailboxes Etc equivalent to be packed and shipped if you really want to pay for that... Here's what's on offer: DEC 3000/300LX - Alpha 21064, can get to PROM monitor on all of these #1 - 32MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD (~500MB) #2 - 256MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD (~500MB) #3 - 160MB RAM, no HDD but bracket is included DECstation 3100 - MIPS R2000, don't have MMJ or video cables, can't verify #1 - Can see VSIMM and 4 SIMMs, no HDD DECstation 5000/133 - MIPS R3000?, no graphics, no response on the DB25 serial ports #1 - 32MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD VAXstation 3100 m38 - don't have MMJ or video cables, can't verify #1 - Can see 2 RAM daughterboards, no HDD, 8 bit graphics board? #2 - At least 1 RAM board, 1 x RZ23E HDD (100MB?), 1 x RX23 floppy, graphics board First come, first served based on email. --/Steve/. From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 9 08:14:32 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 06:14:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> from Eric Smith at "Jan 9, 12 01:30:34 am" Message-ID: <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> > > The Panasonic HHCs allegedly can be programmed in SNAP. > > I don't have an interpreter for mine though. > > If you've got an HHC, you have the interpreter. It's in the main ROM. > What you don't have is the compiler. Ah, yes! I sit corrected. > I spent some time a few years back working on reverse-engineering the > SNAP interpreter, and identified the tokens for some of the most common > FORTH words, but that didn't get me beyond hand-coding very simple SNAP > programs. That doesn't sound very similar to what Brad found, though. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- A dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. -- Alfred Kahn -------------- From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 08:29:53 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:29:53 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4f052993.48a22a0a.6998.6901SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> References: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> <4f052993.48a22a0a.6998.6901SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Jan 4, 2012, at 11:20 PM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> How does the "phantom" line work? I see references to this in some of >> my S-100 manuals but I'm not clear how it works (who raises/lowers it, >> when, etc...) > > It can be a little bit "implementation dependent" but usually there are > cards that assert phantom (it is active low, there has to be a pull up > on it somewhere (the CPU card I think)) and cards that "honor" phantom. > When an address is presented to the bus, any phantom asserting card that > whishes to override that address pulls the phantom line low. A phantom > honoring card that would normally respond to the address will instead > suppress any activity. Note that this system does not prevent multiple > phantom asserting or phantom honoring cards from stepping on each other. This sounds a lot like the INHIBIT line on the Apple II bus. Is that roughly analogous? - Dave From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Mon Jan 9 08:31:18 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:31:18 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F0A546B.4000305@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> <075701cccb61$539a0210$face0630$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <4F0A546B.4000305@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <0bd201cccedb$5ac9dc40$105d94c0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Josh Dersch wrote: > (Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the FDC to write > floppies correctly...) Which FDC? I've had trouble with the original 1793 controller chips (the early programmed ones with the painted over window on top) going bad on a couple of 16FDCs I have. Replacing with a newer hard programmed plastic package chip and then recalibrating the data sep circuit solved a bunch of problems. The 4FDCs tended to just be "twitchy". I think there was a known problem with the controller chip used on them. Bill From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 08:41:34 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:41:34 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <745CC2EB-55A0-42D6-BC1B-656FA448BA2E@gmail.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:29 AM, jim s wrote: > Anyone know what other than the Intellec mentioned in the article that the 4004 was used in? Anything significant, early routers? other functions. That would push up the value if it was more significant in its use to advance Intel or the industry. ISTR a few very early drum machines and synths used 4004 as a sequencer. I'm not finding anything on Google to back that up, though, which leads me to wonder if maybe I dreamed it up. Here's a nice (if annoyingly multi-page) article on various uses of the 4004 over the years, including pinball machines. http://technologizer.com/2011/11/15/intel-4004/ - Dave From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 09:09:26 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:09:26 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <1E52E896F6CC4334A48F88BB46D6C849@mars> References: <1E52E896F6CC4334A48F88BB46D6C849@mars> Message-ID: On 6 January 2012 09:02, Gerhard Kreuzer wrote: > Try this out: ?http://phrogram.com/ It looks interesting, but it's proprietary, commercial and Windows-only - all of which make it of little use to me, at least. I don't even have a copy of Windows on this laptop. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 09:36:37 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 10:36:37 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <745CC2EB-55A0-42D6-BC1B-656FA448BA2E@gmail.com> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com> <745CC2EB-55A0-42D6-BC1B-656FA448BA2E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 9:41 AM, David Riley wrote: >> Anyone know what other than the Intellec mentioned in the article that the 4004 was used in? > > ISTR a few very early drum machines and synths used 4004 as a sequencer... maybe I dreamed it up. > > Here's a nice (if annoyingly multi-page) article on various uses of the 4004 over the years, including pinball machines. > http://technologizer.com/2011/11/15/intel-4004/ I have two i4004s - one came from a portable non-UPC barcode scanner I picked up at the Dayton Hamvention 30 years ago, the other from a commercial digital kitchen scale that was discarded in the late 1980s. -ethan From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 9 09:52:07 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:52:07 -0800 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <745CC2EB-55A0-42D6-BC1B-656FA448BA2E@gmail.com> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry>, <4F0A9772.9050609@jwsss.com>, <745CC2EB-55A0-42D6-BC1B-656FA448BA2E@gmail.com> Message-ID: > Subject: Re: What's an Intel 4040 worth? > From: fraveydank at gmail.com > Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 09:41:34 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:29 AM, jim s wrote: > > > Anyone know what other than the Intellec mentioned in the article that the 4004 was used in? Anything significant, early routers? other functions. That would push up the value if it was more significant in its use to advance Intel or the industry. > > ISTR a few very early drum machines and synths used 4004 as a sequencer. I'm not finding anything on Google to back that up, though, which leads me to wonder if maybe I dreamed it up. > > Here's a nice (if annoyingly multi-page) article on various uses of the 4004 over the years, including pinball machines. > > http://technologizer.com/2011/11/15/intel-4004/ > > - Dave > > Hi The SIM-4 on page 8 is mine. Doug C. took the picture. I payed less than $50 for the system at a surplus place. I still use it occationally to read or program 1702A's. Dwight From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 9 09:58:16 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:58:16 -0800 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > From: eric at brouhaha.com > > Cameron Kaiser wrote: > > The Panasonic HHCs allegedly can be programmed in SNAP. > > I don't have an interpreter for mine though. > > If you've got an HHC, you have the interpreter. It's in the main ROM. > What you don't have is the compiler. > > SNAP is a token-threaded dialect of FORTH, developed by Friends Amis. > Most of the HHC software, other than Microsoft BASIC, is written in > SNAP. There was a SNAP cartridge that contained the compiler, allowing > native SNAP development. It was in a cartridge rather than a plugin ROM > because it is 16KB, and the maximum size 24-pin EPROM that could be used > as a plugin was 8KB. > > There was also a SNAPBASIC ROM, which is completely unrelated to the > Microsoft BASIC. > > I spent some time a few years back working on reverse-engineering the > SNAP interpreter, and identified the tokens for some of the most common > FORTH words, but that didn't get me beyond hand-coding very simple SNAP > programs. > Hi What a horrible thing to do with Forth but I see why one might want to do something like that. It is something like how I read Forth code in my head when looking at source. It is Forth and not FORTH by the way. It is not an acronym(sp?). It was suppose to be Fourth but the computer first used on only allowed 5 letters for the name. At least that is what Chuck Moore said once. Dwight From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 9 09:53:31 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 07:53:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <1E52E896F6CC4334A48F88BB46D6C849@mars> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > On 6 January 2012 09:02, Gerhard Kreuzer wrote: >> Try this out: ?http://phrogram.com/ > > It looks interesting, but it's proprietary, commercial and > Windows-only - all of which make it of little use to me, at least. I > don't even have a copy of Windows on this laptop. Windows and proprietary, but free: http://smallbasic.com/ g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 09:55:37 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:55:37 +0000 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 6 January 2012 04:51, Toby Thain wrote: > On 05/01/12 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 4 January 2012 01:22, Toby Thain ?wrote: >>> >>> On 03/01/12 10:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> On 3 January 2012 13:57, Toby Thain ? ?wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 03/01/12 7:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 3 January 2012 04:16, Toby Thain >>>>>> ?wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 02/01/12 10:00 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to >>>>>>>>>> "what >>>>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other >>>>>>>>>> languages >>>>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Well, there is the "small" problem that BASIC syntax, data types, >>>>>>>>> and >>>>>>>>> control structures relate poorly to modern languages and even less >>>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>>> powerful abstractions. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm not convinced that's a problem. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> What's wrong with Scheme? ?Or at worst, Python? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The same thing that was wrong with the New Math: you don't dump the >>>>>>>> full load of theory on a beginner, not unless you want a very >>>>>>>> confused >>>>>>>> beginner, or you have the incredible luck to get a Ramanujan or >>>>>>>> Knuth >>>>>>>> as a student (and if so, honestly, the best thing anyone can do is >>>>>>>> to >>>>>>>> get the hell out of the way). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Scheme has no more theoretical load than BASIC. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> O_o So speaketh a *highly* intelligent, perhaps near-genius-level, >>>>>> natural programmer. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Of course, I meant to qualify this as: "for a beginner", which is the >>>>> point >>>>> here. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Even worse. >>>> >>>> There is a core question here which you seem to be skipping over. Do >>>> you want to teach people to write code, to be able to make a computer >>>> perform new tasks? *Or* do you want to train professional software >>>> engineers? These are not at /all/ the same thing. Indeed I'd submit >>>> that they are barely related. >>>> >>>> If you want the latter, then sure, yes, Scheme or Lisp or something >>> >>> >>> >>> Exactly the reverse. Professional software engineers I've seen around >>> wouldn't touch Lisp with a barge pole. While, for people who want to get >>> stuff done elegantly and simply, without irrelevancies, Scheme is ideal. >>> >>> >>>> clever and rather arcane. Start 'em on the hard stuff so they learn >>> >>> >>> >>> It's not hard stuff (q.v) >> >> >> Believe me, as someone trying to learn Lisp, IT IS. > > > For you, yes. We hear that. It's not clear they are objectively hard. I'm > not a genius. And worse, like you, I have decades of imperative imprinting, > as well. The objections are not trivial and are not idiosyncratic to me. I don't see why you wish to completely ignore the peculiarities, weirdnesses and just-plain-hard-work bits of /your/ chosen teaching language while damning mine out of hand because of its limitations. This is, perhaps, a little like the previous argument about Unix shells versus, well, every-other-type-of-shell-but-exemplified-by-Windows' shell. I have absolutely no argument that the Windows shell is less capable and less powerful than sh/csh/bash/zsh/$OTHER_UNIX_SHELL. My point was that the Windows one is actually better at the mundane everyday stuff I need - i.e. things like mass file renames/moves/copies - than the Unix type. The Unix ones make this stuff harder - more work, more syntax, writing mini one-line scripts and loops - so that whereas they can do far more, I don't /need/ the extra facilities whereas the missing simple stuff is a major drawback. Late-period BASICs are structured, procedural, support user-defined types and data structures and so on. No, they don't support lambda calculus, closures and so on - but nor do lots of other extremely widely-used languages. This does not mean that they are useless or indeed crippled or limited. A good BASIC makes it easy to put together simple programs to do simple things. It would not be my choice for writing a compiler or an OS kernel, no; it has limitations that make it poorer for this than other languages. But that's not reason to dismiss it. Simplicity and easiness are powerful virtues. I am trying to learn about Lisp-like languages, because I am intrigued by them. However, the learning curve is formidably steep and asking around I have met many many programmers who have either never met them, or tried and failed, or didn't "get it", and Lisp syntax is an industry joke. I knew "legions of irritatingly-stacked parentheses" before I'd ever seen a line of code or knew who invented it, why, or when. There has been one well-documented attempt to create a Lisp-like language that uses the notation of, well, virtually every other mainstream programming language *ever*. (Except, arguably, Forth and Postscript, neither of which are particularly mainstream. Yes, millions of machines contain interpreters for both, but few humans write code in them. Hundreds of millions of machines contain operating systems in the TRON family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project) but few have ever heard of it, seen it or interacted directly with it.) The Lisp-like language I'm talking about is Dylan, and it has almost died and lies ignored and moldering. I think that's tragic - the snippets of Dylan source code I've seen are the most readable of any of the Lisp family by a country mile and also outdo Smalltalk for comprehensibility. Compare and contrast these code snippets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_(programming_language)#Syntax One is impenetrable unless you already know Lisp and its notation. The other is readable by pretty much anyone who knows any form of programming language of any form ever. If you do not think that is a powerful and compelling advantage, then the maxim "there are none so blind as those who will not see" has seldom if ever applied more strongly. > >> >>>> right, in the same way that I learned swordfighting with a foil, the >>>> feeblest weapon but the one controlled by the strictest rules. If you >>>> can fight foil, then you can move to the less-demanding sabre easily, >>>> and the relatively undemanding ep?e is straightforward; but start with >>>> ep?e and learning the formalities of foil will be much harder. >>>> >>>>> Since modelling and abstraction are far more important parts of >>>>> "programming" than syntax, BASIC fails completely: >>>>> ?- full of irrelevant lexical bullshit and limitations (line numbers? >>>>> what >>>>> good is this to a beginner?); >>>> >>>> >>>> Oh come off it! Line numbers went out in 1985, man! Don't judge BASIC >>>> by the crappy implementations of the early 1980s when 8K of RAM was a >>>> lot! >>> >>> >>> Line numbers are not the issue. >> >> >> *You* raised them as an issue. > > > They are an annoyance, but you can take them away and all the other probems > remain. Whereas I am willing to concede that the language has limitations, I submit that [a] this is acceptable in a language for beginners - and let us not forget what the B of BASIC stands for - and [b] that many users might never hit those limits in their working lives. > >> >>>>> ?- numbers, strings, fixed length arrays? that's it? >>>> >>>> >>>> No, not at all. I would expect at least integers, floats, variable >>>> length strings, multidimensional arrays of any other type, and quite >>>> possibly different lengths of integer and possibly signed and unsigned >>>> forms. Possibly booleans and things as well; maybe a complex type. But >>>> to be a programmer does not mandate being a mathematician. I have >>>> taught programming to people who did not know what a percentage was, >>>> who did not know how to multiply or divide by fractions and so on. >>>> Many people do not need fancy types. >>>> >>>>> How do I build anything >>>>> else? Oh right. I can't. >>>> >>>> >>>> Again, a limitation only of very primitive, early BASICs, although I >>>> have to say, I never found it a limitation. Have user-defined >>>> structured data types if you want, though. >>> >>> >>> Can I make a list? >> >> >> I have no idea. I have not programmed in any meaningful sense in over >> 20y. I would expect so, yes. > > > How? I have never used or implemented a list in my life. I've never needed one. I /once/ wrote a bit of code to /follow/ a list. But if the language is Turing-complete, then you can implement one if you need to. Me, I'd probably do it with an array with a dimension for the contents of an entry and dimensions for links to the preceding and following entries or something like that. Not all BASICs do it, but I've used some that permit flexible-sized arrays, that can be enlarged or shrunk on demand. Very handy that, sometimes. > >> >>>>> ?- most BASICs lack structured programming primitives, so even as an >>>>> IMPERATIVE language it fails to teach important patterns from the 1980s >>>>> (which might explain some of the code I see around the place); >>>> >>>> >>>> Again, a limitation of the early 1980s. ?Not true of any decent BASIC >>>> from about 1983 onwards. >>>> >>>>> ?- lacks named functions& ? ?procedures (yeah, some BASICs have a >>>>> crippled >>>>> >>>>> hack for this; see lexical bullshit above) >>>> >>>> >>>> See above. Have you actually *seen* /any/ even 1990s BASIC, FFS? >>>> >>>>> - a fundamental >>>>> abstracting/factoring tool. >>>> >>>> >>>> You'll have to explain what that means. >>> >>> >>> Functions are a fundamental abstracting/factoring tool. So they better >>> work >>> well. -> ?Closures, too. >> >> >> Even the very early 1980s BASICs included functions. I don't think >> I've ever used one that didn't. >> >> As for Closures, AIUI, many computer languages do not include them. >> Pointess crippled tools like C, for example. TBH I do not even >> understand the Wikipedia definition of what a closure /is./ > > > JavaScript does. PHP does. (Inelegantly of course.) Are these obscure > languages? Closures are being retrofitted to many "mainstream" languages, > apparently out of red-faced embarrassment, and/or to leverage skills > investment, claw a few years out of these superannuated environments, etc. [Shrug] I'm sure you're right, in which case, should someone want to, they could be retrofitted to a BASIC as well, no? > As for Wikipedia -- I long ago stopped expecting to find neophyte level > expositions in it. For that, I go to pedagogical texts on the subject (see > other reply). It's the best freely-available general-contents source I am aware of. If there are better, do please tell me! > >> >>>>> Now with Scheme, >>>>> ?- you start with a syntax that is not pedagogically toxic; >>>> >>>> >>>> But is incomprehensible >>> >>> >>> To you... >> >> >> The unreadability of Lisp syntax is widely agreed, /even by the >> creator of Lisp./ It is often cited as one of the main reasons for the >> lack of penetration of Lisp in mainstream business computing. > > > The alleged "unreadability" is actually an artefact of familiarity. You > didn't learn the language, how could you read it easily? Did you learn > Greek? Can you read Greek? The alphabet, yes. The language, no. Science degree - you need to know the alphabet. The thing that you seem unwilling to address is this. For one language - or one family - to use a non-algebraic notation, one that is therefore unfamiliar to most of the literate, numerate human race, i.e. most programmers, is a very major issue. The advantages of that notation would have to be pretty damned stunning to make it worth the while, because even Lisp textbooks, of which I have several, all tend to devote a chapter or two to teaching the notation, complete with exercises and notes to the effect that "we know this seems weird, but it gets easier with practice, believe us". Example: http://nostoc.stanford.edu/Docs/livetutorials/lispintro.html Quote: "This seems complex (or at least verbose!), but when you get used to it you'll find that it's actually very easy to follow, and incredibly convenient in many ways. Here are some others to try out. See if you can figure out what they evaluate to before trying them::" Why should programmers *have* to get used to it? The existing notation that everything else uses is not broken. People do not need pages of exercises to get used to it. They do not have to do exercises in order to work out what an expression means. The *job* of a high-level language is to make life easier for human beings, or we'd all write everything in machine code. A language which needs people to learn new, difficult patterns and practices because they are more convenient for the interpreter or compiler, or are easier for the program itself to manipulate, is a language which is biased in favour of the computer and the implementer and against the user, and that is a very profoundly dangerous direction to take. I might go so far as to say it is a serious flaw. That in itself is an admission of failure. McCarthy admitted this inasmuch as he eliminated it from Lisp 2, AIUI. What higher authority do you need? That is /ex cathedra./ > > It is only familiarity that leads people to say that C, C++, PHP are more > readable. With those glasses taken off, they are horrible. I think all are pretty horrible, yes, actually. :?) > >> >>>> and uses bizarre postfix notation. >>> >>> >>> Not Schemes I'm familiar with. >> >> >> Prefix notation, then. Whatever the hell you call this (+ 1 2 3 4) >> nonsense. > > > As was pointed out in another reply, prefix notation has several advantages. > Do you just refuse to see them? They might be easier to appreciate with > actual experience of S-expression notation (there are reasons it's still > with us after nearly 50 years). No, I do see them, and I have carefully worked through the exercises and tutorials to get the hang of it. (More or less.) After this and after due consideration I do not think that the advantages outweigh the costs. I freely admit I don't know enough about it to confidently say this, but others agree and I think that the argument needs to be heard. > >> >>>>> ?- you have the breath of a hope of constructing useful data structures >>>>> without artificial limitations which can only frustrate; >>>> >>>> >>>> Straw man. >>>> >>>>> ?- there is the opportunity to introduce more theoretical load, which >>>>> is >>>>> good. The door is always unlocked to go beyond where one already is. >>>> >>>> >>>> If you can grasp the basics, pardon the pun, which I doubt most could. >>>> >>>>> There is nothing here that cannot be taught to a high school age >>>>> student. >>>> >>>> >>>> You have no real experience of actual high-school students, then, I >>>> can see that. >>> >>> >>> Not true; I know some who are learning Scheme and Haskell with no >>> trouble. >> >> >> /Some./ *Some* kids also learn ancient Greek or advanced >> undergrad-level algebra when they are under 10. > > > I will never manage to dent your conviction that these things cannot be > taught to ordinary people. Oh well. It is not that. I submit, though, that as someone who has taught for a living and who still writes technical documentation for a living, it is so very common as to be almost a general rule that technically-minded people fail to truly grasp how /non/ technically-minded ordinary people are... and also, I am afraid, just how relatively dim ordinary people are compared to techies. Ubuntu, to pick an example, while it is busily alienating Linux techies, has set out to be "Linux for human beings" - a superbly /easy/ Linux which non-techie non-computery people can just pick up and use. Result: it is the world's most widespread Linux by a country mile and it achieved this within a few years, after 15y or so of almost no general penetration of Linux at all beyond hackers and geeks. There is a big important need for simple tools for the rest of us. The complex, difficult, hard-to-learn tools are great for expert, competent people, but most people are not competent or expert. Linux is brilliant, powerful and free. But there are at least 5x as many Apple Mac OS X users - and probably 10x as many iOS users as them. Not because it's more powerful - it isn't. Not because it's cheaper or runs on more kit - it doesn't; it's commercial and only runs on one make of computer. Why? Because it's /easier/. > >> >>>>>> I have only read a tiny little bit about Scheme but it is virtually >>>>>> impenetrable to me - and I have years of programming experiences, >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> And that is EXACTLY what Dijkstra was on about. >>>> >>>> >>>> Oh bollocks! >>>> >>>> Q.v. Dylan: >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_%28programming_language%29#Syntax >>>> Q.v. Lisp 2 and Elephant, discussed here /passim./ >>>> >>>> Even John McCarthy himself later conceded that Lisp's syntax was a >>>> major hindrance in teaching it. >>> >>> >>> Oh, yes, people have been trained to be terrified of it. It's a phantom >>> fear. >> >> >> I could not disagree more strongly. There is, I suspect, a certain >> mindset that can learn new mathematical notation and quickly and >> easily adjust to it. To the common man, though, mere algebra itself - >> simple >> >> x = a - b >> >> x is 10, b is 10; what is a? >> >> ... level-stuff - is as good as hieroglyphics. It is bizarre, >> byzantine, impenetrable. But if you show them a language that says >> >> ? >> apples = 5 >> oranges =10 >> >> total_fruit = apples + oranges >> >> print total_fruit >> ? >> >> And they can do that right at the command line, and they can save it, >> edit it and change it and watch the results change - than that is a >> useful teaching tool for introducing the notions of computer >> programming to complete beginners. >> >> I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally >> hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it >> completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional >> with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I >> really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or >> aptitude for it will be able to. > > > Maybe you should just give up on that. Keep doing the stuff you are good at. I might do, but I have an article to write all the same! > But let other people who need these tools try to learn them, as desperately > hopeless an endeavour that may be... Are you deliberately misinterpreting me? I am not for a moment saying it's hopeless, or impossible, or pointless. That is absurd. I am saying it's hard. That is not controversial or contentious, but you appear utterly unwilling to even concede it for the sake of argument. > (Btw, without functional programming, > there would be no Google search or PageRank. Or Erlang. You do realise why > Erlang is significant, right?) No. Why? > >> >>>>> The conclusion YOU come to is that Scheme isn't relevant to >>>>> programming. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> That is not even remotely /like/ the conclusion that I came to. You >>>> are putting words in my mouth and I *object*, strenuously. >>>> >>>> I did not say it was not relevant. I did not say it was a bad thing to >>>> start with. I said it was /too hard/ for the average person, and I >>>> stand by that. >>>> >>>>> But >>>>> in fact the opposite is true: A good part of what you have been >>>>> indoctrinated with, from BASIC onwards, *obscures* what is really going >>>>> on >>>>> when you program. Programs are not "sequences of instructions" except >>>>> at >>>>> the >>>>> absolute bottom-most level. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> You have no idea of what any BASIC from even 20y ago is like, as you >>>> have demonstrated, and you also seem to be very unfamiliar with the >>>> limitations of actual ordinary people. For nonspecialists, concepts >>>> such as loops are quite hard at first. Iterative thinking has to be >>>> learned. Starting off utter newbies with prefix notation, CAR and >>>> CADR, lists versus atoms, quoting and lambda calculus is like taking >>>> the play-blocks off a kindergarten class and asking them to build the >>>> cathedral of Notre Dame instead. >>>> >>>>> We do not need *another* generation of programmers for whom recursion >>>>> and >>>>> higher-order functions are alien concepts. Worse: Not given proper >>>>> tools, >>>>> mental and literal, for modelling and abstraction. Abstraction, it can >>>>> be >>>>> argued, is the single most important idea to learn as a computer >>>>> programmer. >>>> >>>> >>>> Actually, I am sure you're right. >>>> >>>> But this misses the strength of the old BASICs of the late 1980s and >>>> 1990s: that they brought programming to the common man. >>> >>> >>> Yes, that's true; but it is 2011. And we are preparing kids whose careers >>> will peak in 2030. >> >> >> Very *very* few people's careers are going to involve programming >> computers. One in a million, maybe, if that. > > > Oh, *if only* that were true. I was way out in my guesstimate. It is still a tiny minority of people. Agreed? And it would be better if more people understood it. Agreed? >>>> Sure, we need better developers, but we /also/ need easy, friendly, >>>> fun tools to reintroduce the ordinary Joe to writing programs at all. >>>> Python and so on are far too big and complex for this. >>>> >>>>> I too learned with assembler, BASIC, Pascal, C, and so on; but I didn't >>>>> really learn anything except how to navigate limitations. Ugh. If only >>>>> I >>>>> had >>>>> picked up Scheme when I picked up C. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> So in fact BASIC did /not/ give you brain damage and stop you learning? >>> >>> >>> C moreso. I should have picked up something I could learn more from. >>>> >>>> >>>>> Actually none of these are more difficult than the artificial hurdles >>>>> BASIC >>>>> puts in front of you. Once again you speak from your confessed >>>>> "imperative >>>>> place". >>>> >>>> >>>> You have shown that you don't actually understand how much BASIC moved >>>> on from the crappy MS BASIC 4 days of 1980. >>>> >>>>> Now imagine that you had learned Scheme first. Would you say recursion >>>>> was >>>>> hard? >>>> >>>> >>>> It isn't. I've written recursive programs. In BASIC. In a good BASIC: >>>> in BBC BASIC V, a very fast, 32-bit BASIC with full support for named >>>> procedures, local variables, passing by reference and value and so on. >>> >>> >>> I'm very very familiar with BBC BASIC. It can't by any stretch be >>> compared >>> to a Lisp or ML family language, for example. >> >> >> I am sure it can't and I am not arguing that. What I saying is that it >> was a world away from the simple crappy early BASICs which didn't even >> have if/then/else or more than single-letter array names. > > > I agree. I liked it a lot. In 1983. But soon found I liked Pascal better > (and then fell into the C trap). > >> >> And BBC BASIC was in many ways superceded by later developments like >> QuickBASIC, which was a quite grown-up, structured language, written >> in a simple IDE so that it could dispense with the line numbers that >> you hate so much. >> >> (Personally, I think that for an interactive interpreter, line numbers >> are a simple, useful concept. If you type in language statements, they >> are executed; if you prefix them with a number, they are stored, for >> later execution. I see them as no more iniquitous than row and column >> identifiers in spreadsheets.) > > > They are problematic in programming languages, being cognitive load, and a > conceptual irrelevance. You seem to fail to consider a far larger cognitive load for beginners: that without line numbers and the simple, interactive mode that they supply, then suddenly a whole ton of other complex abstractions must be mastered: the notions of "editors" and "files" and loading a file into an editor to modify it, then "saving" it into a "filesystem", then quitting the editor and running arcane specialist tools with no real-world equivalent, that is, a "compiler" or an "interpreter", against your "saved file" and examing the "output". This is a /much/ bigger "cognitive load" on a complete newbie. For someone computer literate, it's trivial, but you have to /become/ computer literate /first./ > >> >>>> ?> ? ?How will you program effectively in 2030 without dealing with >>>> higher >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> order functions, continuations, immutable state? (How can one do it >>>>> today, >>>>> for that matter; only because in software Things Move So Damn Slowly.) >>>> >>>> >>>> I don't, because I am not a programmer and I don't aim to be. >>>> >>>>> Kids being educated for a career in software starting today deserve >>>>> something better than BASIC. Things are bad enough already. >> >> >> *For a career in software*. That is the $64K statement, an >> all-important qualifier. >> >> So let me spell out what I am trying to say very clearly. >> >> If you are trying to teach a child - possibly an under-10 - about >> programs and logic and execution and evaluation, then a decent BASIC >> is actually a pretty good tool. Most of these kids will never be >> programmers, they will at best /use/ computers, but this gives them >> the rudimentary core understanding. For a non-programmer, it is >> enough. >> >> For such purposes, a good, structured BASIC is an excellent tool. >> >> If you are trying to teach an undergraduate university student reading >> computing, computer science or information technology about the art of >> programming, to make them a skilled programmer who is capable of going >> on to get a degree or multiple degrees in disciplines around >> programming, then from what I have read, yes, Scheme is an excellent >> teaching tool. I would expect these to be highly intelligent young >> people, the cream of the crop, with a background education in >> mathematics. > > > These kind of people *aren't* highly represented among working programmers - > in a perfect world they might be - and that's a problem for the industry. And you think starting beginners on something harder would /help/ this?! > >> >> And quite possible for any undergrad in the sciences, who one can >> therefore expect to be intelligent and used to structured thinking and >> reasoning and the basics of maths and algebra, then yes, for them too, >> Scheme is probably an excellent teaching tool. >> >>>> They deserve something better than a 1970s BASIC, sure... But even a >>>> late 1980s BASIC would, I submit, be more use than Python or Ruby, >>>> which are too big, too complex and too abstract. >>> >>> >>> And after that, where will they fill in the missing pieces in their >>> education? >> >> >> You need to define who we are talking about here. >> >> Are we talking about: >> [a] nonspecialists who will never program again, apart from maybe some >> formulae in spreadsheets? >> [b] nontrained people, nonspecialists, who drift into doing a bit of >> scripting or basic coding, like most people in IT support? >> [c] trained professional programmers with higher-education training in >> programming and programme design? > > > > >> >> For group A, I think a good BASIC is ideal. >> For group B, possibly something more pragmatic like Python >> For group C, yes, I think the Lisp family is probably best, and from >> my reading, I'd say that Scheme is probably the best candidate for >> teaching purposes. >> >> But I think that Scheme or the like would be overkill for nonspecialists. >> > > We can't identify in advance which group a particular child will end up in, > so whatever we choose to do will be taking a punt. > > I tend to agree that 'modelling and abstraction' (what programming really > is, at least, at the professional level) is not going to serve all > beginners. Some people just don't care about that and want quick and dirty > fireworks (Arduino fans, geeks). > > It's always going to be a compromise. Agreed. But you need to try to provide a gentle learning curve for children or they won't bother trying to climb it at all. Perhaps Logo is a better answer than BASIC; I don't know! But I am pretty sure that Scheme is *not.* > I only hope that people who DO end up graduating and working in the field > sooner or later get exposed to something a bit more mind-expanding than the > burger-flippin' languages around. Definitely - agreed. > > "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not > worth knowing." -- Alan Perlis Good line. But before it can be valid, one has to think about programming at all. And that means there must be an initial learning-to-program stage, before one /has/ thinking that can be changed. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Mon Jan 9 10:13:10 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:13:10 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <0bd201cccedb$5ac9dc40$105d94c0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> References: <4F051805.8070204@mail.msu.edu> <075701cccb61$539a0210$face0630$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <4F0A546B.4000305@mail.msu.edu> <0bd201cccedb$5ac9dc40$105d94c0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F0B1216.70004@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 6:31 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> (Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the FDC to write >> floppies correctly...) > Which FDC? I've had trouble with the original 1793 controller chips > (the early programmed ones with the painted over window on top) going > bad on a couple of 16FDCs I have. Replacing with a newer hard programmed > plastic package chip and then recalibrating the data sep circuit solved > a bunch of problems. The 4FDCs tended to just be "twitchy". I think > there was a known problem with the controller chip used on them. Right now I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC to play with (one is on loan). I'm using Dave Dunfield's RDOS transfer utilities to upload the "INIT" software into RAM from a PC. From there I can initialize floppies (single-sided, single-density), and this appears to work -- it goes through all 40 sectors (5.25" drive) and the drive steps and no errors are reported. Then INIT attempts to write the filesystem to the drive and it fails (it's a "Home Error" on Track 0, Surface 0, Sector 8, if I recall). Ignoring that and using the RDOS utilities to attempt to write a disk image fail similarly ("Err-H 34" IIRC). I've tried a pile of different disks and three different floppy drives -- a Tandon TM-100 (300 RPM), a modified 1.2M 5.25" drive that runs at 300RPM, and a standard 1.2M drive (360RPM) and all three fail in exactly the same way. (I don't currently have an 8" drive I can wire up, I need to build a cable...) I've also tried swapping the cable out, and both the 16FDC and the 64FDC fail identically. I'm wondering if there's some fundamental problem with my current set-up that's causing issues here... - Josh From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 9 10:24:17 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:24:17 -0800 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> References: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> from Eric Smith at "Jan 9, 12 01:30:34 am", <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0AA431.11730.B0809@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2012 at 6:14, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > That doesn't sound very similar to what Brad found, though. It's not--as I mentioned to Fred, it's amazing how many computer languages are called "SNAP". And they look nothing like each other. I guess the name's just too tempting. I'm thinking about my own languge--I think I'll call it "C" for "Chuck"... (A Pythonesqe (not the language, the comedy group) "Cole Porter" (the one who wrote "Anything Goes" that one that has to do with fish and bananas) moment in life...) --Chuck From wheagy at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 11:04:41 2012 From: wheagy at gmail.com (Win Heagy) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:04:41 -0500 Subject: TRS-80 Model 100 disk/video interface box Message-ID: Hi, Any TRS 80 gurus that can point me in the right direction with the disk/video interface box? I recently picked one up and have it connected to my model 100. Everything appears to be working, but when I start the interface box, it requests a system disk. Is this required to use the interface box, or is there a way to go right to the mode to display 80 columns and skip the boot disk in the interface box? I have the owner's manual, unfortunately the disk is missing and it appears the disk is required to get the interface box to do anything? Any pointers where I might find the software? Thanks, Win From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 9 11:05:21 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:05:21 -0700 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: In article , Liam Proven writes: > I have absolutely no argument that the Windows shell is less capable > and less powerful than sh/csh/bash/zsh/$OTHER_UNIX_SHELL. [...] Windows opted for extensibility and scripting in a different direction than Unix. Windows opted for scriptable COM objects and VB6/JavaScript/VBScript for automation. JavaScript + COM objects in Windows is more like perl + modules in Unix, except that you're not limited to perl. (In fact, on Windows perl can use the same COM objects.) Besides, powershell is the au courant way of using a shell on Windows and it's *better* than unix shells IMO. Now cue Dave McGuire to bitch about Windows in a mindless rant. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From IanK at vulcan.com Mon Jan 9 11:17:06 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:17:06 +0000 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/9/12 7:55 AM, "Liam Proven" wrote: >The thing that you seem unwilling to address is this. > >For one language - or one family - to use a non-algebraic notation, >one that is therefore unfamiliar to most of the literate, numerate >human race, i.e. most programmers, is a very major issue. The >advantages of that notation would have to be pretty damned stunning to >make it worth the while, because even Lisp textbooks, of which I have >several, all tend to devote a chapter or two to teaching the notation, >complete with exercises and notes to the effect that "we know this >seems weird, but it gets easier with practice, believe us". > >Example: >http://nostoc.stanford.edu/Docs/livetutorials/lispintro.html > >Quote: >"This seems complex (or at least verbose!), but when you get used to >it you'll find that it's actually very easy to follow, and incredibly >convenient in many ways. Here are some others to try out. See if you >can figure out what they evaluate to before trying them::" > >Why should programmers *have* to get used to it? The existing notation >that everything else uses is not broken. People do not need pages of >exercises to get used to it. They do not have to do exercises in order >to work out what an expression means. You're close to convincing me that Dijkstra was right. :-) The sticking point here seems to be that you assume that everything *should* use algebraic notation, just because "everyone knows it." Such thinking complicates the use of computers for non-numeric data or concepts. (Do you use algebraic notation for writing sentences?) The first electronic computers were intended for numerical processing, and McCarthy's genius was seeing past that and designing a simple, elegant programming language that allows expression of logical operations on symbolic data that did not rely on, for instance, mapping Boolean 'false' to one numeric value and 'true' to all others (!). Not to be holier-than-thou: I realize now that my earliest attempts to learn Lisp were doomed by the fact that I expected to perform numeric calculations, which is only a subset of what we do with computational devices. I think Dijkstra was wrong that the 'damage' was irrevocable, but otherwise he was spot on. > >The *job* of a high-level language is to make life easier for human >beings, or we'd all write everything in machine code. A language which >needs people to learn new, difficult patterns and practices because >they are more convenient for the interpreter or compiler, or are >easier for the program itself to manipulate, is a language which is >biased in favour of the computer and the implementer and against the >user, and that is a very profoundly dangerous direction to take. I >might go so far as to say it is a serious flaw. But here, we are talking about a language that asks people to learn "new [...] patterns and practices" (which assumes they've already learned other patterns and practices) because it clarifies underlying ideas and frees computing from its artificially imposed numerical roots. It's not about convenience for the machine, but empowerment for the human mind. As an aside: I'm seeing a related challenge for many in the social sciences. They have become convinced by the rhetoric of the positivists that since they don't use numbers they aren't doing science. So, they use complicated methods to map natural phenomena onto numbers - which is very similar to what we are often forced to do with algebraically structured programming languages, unless our problem domain is merely "take these numbers, massage gently, and produce those numbers." That's fine for accounting, but often insufficient for understanding the world. If I have to go through programmatic gyrations to express problems as algebraic expressions, has the HLL made my life easier? -- Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 11:22:49 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:22:49 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> On 01/09/2012 12:05 PM, Richard wrote: > Besides, powershell is the au courant way of using a shell on Windows > and it's *better* than unix shells IMO. > > > Now cue Dave McGuire to bitch about Windows in a mindless rant. Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic "Microsoft's is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the line from "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. My blood pressure has found benefit in my new-found ability to simply laugh at fanboys rather than try to help them out. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From tdk.knight at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 11:45:35 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 11:45:35 -0600 Subject: DEC workstations FTGH in SF Bay Area, CA, US In-Reply-To: <4F0AC199.9040608@crash.com> References: <4F0AC199.9040608@crash.com> Message-ID: this was in my spam box duno if it wound up in anyone els's (on gmail) On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 4:29 AM, Steven M Jones wrote: > Time to thin the herd - I have a number of DEC machines that are free to a > good home, though beer fund donations will be accepted. Available for > pickup in central Berkeley by appointment, or I may be able to deliver to > some parts of the East or South Bay at my convenience. I'll also take them > to a Mailboxes Etc equivalent to be packed and shipped if you really want > to pay for that... > > Here's what's on offer: > > DEC 3000/300LX - Alpha 21064, can get to PROM monitor on all of these > #1 - 32MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD (~500MB) > #2 - 256MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD (~500MB) > #3 - 160MB RAM, no HDD but bracket is included > > DECstation 3100 - MIPS R2000, don't have MMJ or video cables, can't verify > #1 - Can see VSIMM and 4 SIMMs, no HDD > > DECstation 5000/133 - MIPS R3000?, no graphics, no response on the DB25 > serial ports > #1 - 32MB RAM, 1 x RZ25L HDD > > VAXstation 3100 m38 - don't have MMJ or video cables, can't verify > #1 - Can see 2 RAM daughterboards, no HDD, 8 bit graphics board? > #2 - At least 1 RAM board, 1 x RZ23E HDD (100MB?), 1 x RX23 floppy, > graphics board > > > First come, first served based on email. > --/Steve/. > > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 9 13:02:59 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 11:02:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/09/2012 12:05 PM, Richard wrote: >> Besides, powershell is the au courant way of using a shell on Windows >> and it's *better* than unix shells IMO. >> >> >> Now cue Dave McGuire to bitch about Windows in a mindless rant. > > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic "Microsoft's > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the line from > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > > My blood pressure has found benefit in my new-found ability to simply laugh > at fanboys rather than try to help them out. ;) > Oh, so if I refer to Steve Jobs as an unconscionable trinket salesman, your head *won't* explode? Well fiddlesticks. :) (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Mon Jan 9 13:17:34 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:17:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201091917.OAA10446@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> "This seems complex (or at least verbose!), but when you get used to >> it you'll find that it's actually very easy to follow, and >> incredibly convenient in many ways. Here are some others to try out. >> See if you can figure out what they evaluate to before trying >> them::" >> Why should programmers *have* to get used to it? They don't. They can use, for example, FORTRAN, which was designed for numerical work and is actually pretty good at it. But if you're doing something that plays to Lisp's strengths, the value of a uniform code representation even for numerical code is high. > The sticking point here seems to be that you assume that everything > *should* use algebraic notation, just because "everyone knows it." It's not a _completely_ stupid stance. After all, this... >> The *job* of a high-level language is to make life easier for human >> beings, or we'd all write everything in machine code. ...is true. Using algebraic notation for things that are well-suited to it is a significant win. And - not coincidentally, I believe - the best Lisp I've used (on the Lisp Machines we had back when I worked in academia) had a notation which did let the programmer write numerical expressions in traditional infix notation. The triggering character was one that doesn't exist in Latin-1, but, if I use @ for it instead, one could write something like (let ((size @(n*3)+k-7@)) ...) instead of (let ((size (+ (* n 3) k -7))) ...) which in a sense is the best of both worlds: the human can use traditional infix notation for those fragments for which it produces clearer code. (Note that this is independent of the representation generated. This is an I/O issue, not an internal-representation issue.) Yes, if you force everything into infix notation, you will end up with a horrible botch. But not even FORTRAN does that. Forcing everything into prefix notation is a little more tolerable, but it suffers from the same problem (in a milder form). >> A language which needs people to learn new, difficult patterns and >> practices because they are more convenient for the interpreter or >> compiler, or are easier for the program itself to manipulate, is a >> language which is biased in favour of the computer and the >> implementer and against the user, and that is a very profoundly >> dangerous direction to take. I might go so far as to say it is a >> serious flaw. Per se, I agree. In the case of Lisp, though, those patterns and practices have proven, through more years of experience than almost any other lanugage has survived, to have substantial value in their own right. I have seen it written that knowing Lisp makes you a better programmer even if you never write anything in Lisp, and I agree with it; the mental tools I have because I know Lisp improve the code I write regardless of the language I'm writing in. To put it another way, you shouldn't learn those patterns and practices because they are more conveinent for the Lisp engine. You should learn them because they are important, and Lisp is just an especially good language in which to learn, and work with, them. You _can_ learn them, most of them at least, without ever seeing a single s-expression. But it's much easier that way - and, once you have your head around them, you mostly know Lisp anyway. > If I have to go through programmatic gyrations to express problems as > algebraic expressions, has the HLL made my life easier? But, conversely, if you have to go through programmatic gyrations to express algebraeic formulae in a notation at odds with every other algebraeic context, has the language made your life easier? Dogmatic insistence on seeing everything the Lisp way is just as bad as dogmatic insistence on seeing everything the FORTRAN way, or for that matter the Prolog way or the C way. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 9 13:32:09 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:32:09 -0700 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Dave McGuire flamed to my trashcan: > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic "Microsoft's > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the line from > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. I find the above characterization of my posts to this lists highly laughable. While *you* CAN be guaranteed to make endless flames against Microsoft and/or Windows, and this is readily backed up by searching the archives, you CAN'T find anything in the archives to back up your characterization of me. Feel free to go digging if you wish, but if you have any capacity for self-reflection you may find the disturbing facts that your irrational hatred of MS/Windows/etc. causes you to project your own mouth-foaming irrational craziness onto anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you 100%. I now return you to my KILL file. Having automagically ignored you for some time now, I find my cctalk experience lifted into pleasantness and not because you have an opinion different than mine, but because your opinion reads like a rabid dog devoid of meaningful content. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From asc135 at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 13:39:10 2012 From: asc135 at gmail.com (Amardeep S Chana) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:39:10 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC Message-ID: > > > (Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the FDC to write floppies correctly...) Can you describe the problem in detail? I recall that you're using a 16FDC with 8" drives that are not Persci brand. Are you aware that the 16FDC 8" bus is wired differently than what is required for Shugart compatible drives? The Persci drives did not have a TG43 signal so the write current may be too high on the inner tracks of a non-Persci drive mated to a 16FDC -- causing errors. Fortunately, it is possible to modify a 16FDC to be compatible with a couple of cuts and jumpers. I have some photos and text that describe the mod. Should this happen to be the problem you're experiencing, I'll upload the mod info to a site and send the link. If not, please describe what problem you are having in more detail. Amardeep From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 13:41:01 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:41:01 -0200 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <100801cccf06$a3b1e580$6400a8c0@tababook> > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. ZzZzZzZz...ttl...ZzZzzzZz...cmos...ZzZzZz... From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jan 9 13:46:17 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 19:46:17 +0000 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EFD0A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Richard Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 1:02 PM > In article , > Ian King writes: >> On 1/5/12 11:54 AM, "Al Kossow" wrote: >>> On 1/5/12 10:50 AM, Richard wrote: >>>> In article, >>>> Ian King writes: >>>>> My first Lisp text that made sense to me was one published by DEC, >>>>> aimed at experienced programmers. [...] >>>> This sounds interesting. What was the book? >>> Steele "Common Lisp: The Language" 1984 >>> 2nd edition published in 1990 >> This one is "A Programmer's Guide to Common Lisp" by Deborah G. Tatar, >> 1987, Digital Press (and copyright by DEC). > I'm assuming it differs from Steele in that it's not as thick :-). > How else does it differ? In intent and content??? Steele is a codification of Common Lisp, as defined by the Quinquivirate. Tatar is a textbook for teaching to professional programmers the variant of the Lisp language created by the Gang of Five and laid out by Steele in his book. (If you don't think this is the purpose of Steele, look at the second edition, which reverses some decisions based on later experience with the language as described in the first. This is encoded into the use of "CLtLv1" and CLtLv2" as descriptives for versions of Common Lisp prior to ANSI X3J13.) Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Mon Jan 9 13:53:19 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0c2a01cccf08$56293190$027b94b0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Amardeep S Chana wrote: > Can you describe the problem in detail? I recall that you're using a > 16FDC with 8" drives that are not Persci brand. Are you aware that > the 16FDC 8" bus is wired differently than what is required for Shugart > compatible drives? The Persci drives did not have a TG43 signal so the > write current may be too high on the inner tracks of a non-Persci drive > mated to a 16FDC > -- causing errors. > > Fortunately, it is possible to modify a 16FDC to be compatible with a > couple of cuts and jumpers. I have some photos and text that describe > the mod. I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply modified ribbon cable. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Mon Jan 9 13:57:14 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:57:14 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping > up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon > cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you > later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up > making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply > modified ribbon cable. > By the way, based on your description of the symptoms, I still suspect the 1793 is going bad. From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jan 9 13:37:01 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:37:01 -0500 Subject: TRS-80 Model 100 disk/video interface box References: Message-ID: ------ Original Message: Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:04:41 -0500 From: Win Heagy To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: TRS-80 Model 100 disk/video interface box Hi, Any TRS 80 gurus that can point me in the right direction with the disk/video interface box? I recently picked one up and have it connected to my model 100. Everything appears to be working, but when I start the interface box, it requests a system disk. Is this required to use the interface box, or is there a way to go right to the mode to display 80 columns and skip the boot disk in the interface box? I have the owner's manual, unfortunately the disk is missing and it appears the disk is required to get the interface box to do anything? Any pointers where I might find the software? Thanks, Win -------Reply: No, unfortunately you need the disk to load the required firmware into both the DVI and the M100 and I don't believe anyone has taken the time yet to figure out how to image/restore that format. Send me your address off-list and I'll send you a copy. You might also want to join the 'Model T' mailing list: http://www.bitchin100.com/ And of course there's *THE* place for everything M100/102/200-related: http://www.club100.org/ mike From dm561 at torfree.net Mon Jan 9 14:00:20 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:00:20 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <5F30060AE45E4BF8B5459725CD33A55A@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:13:10 -0800 From: Josh Dersch ... Right now I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC to play with (one is on loan). I'm using Dave Dunfield's RDOS transfer utilities to upload the "INIT" software into RAM from a PC. ... I'm wondering if there's some fundamental problem with my current set-up that's causing issues here... - Josh ----- Reply: Have you tried creating a bootable Cromemco format disk (CDOS or CP/M) from an image? Even if it's a configuration that doesn't match yours, you could at least run some diagnostics on the diskette using RDOS. The 5.25DD format can be troublesome to create, but generally an 8" image on a 5.25" HD disk & drive is no problem, especially if you can use the same physical drive in the PC and the Cromemco and avoid any alignment issues. You are aware that using a 5.25HD drive as an 8" requires a jumper to connect /READY to the FDC's 5.25" interface? mike From spectre at floodgap.com Mon Jan 9 14:04:57 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:04:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Gene Buckle at "Jan 9, 12 11:02:59 am" Message-ID: <201201092004.q09K4vEv014630@floodgap.com> So pretty much this entire exercise has boiled down to de gustibus non disputandum. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Quote me as saying I was misquoted. -- Groucho Marx ------------------------ From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 14:29:12 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:29:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> > >>>>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to > >>>>>>>>>> "what > >>>>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other > >>>>>>>>>> languages > >>>>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. You might agree with the above; you might disagree with the above. (You already know where I stand) BUT, it is surely NOT so brilliant as to warrant being quoted by the next TEN respondents. It has had so many chevrons (a name for the '>' "greater than" character) prepended that relatively short lines have wrapped. (Since people might not trim even THIS, I'm using shorter lines) It's nice to have a little bit of context V "WHO are youagreeing/disagreeing with?". But, do we really NEED the entire transcript of the thread repeated every time? Howzbout: delete what's unnecessary of what the person you are replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to quoted of what the person they were replying to. On [impersonal] your most recent post, how many lines of unnecessary crap did [impersonal] YOU delete? If you want to reply or flame THIS, select a line or two that best summarizes what you feel needs to be answered. There are immense chevrons made of chevrons, as people add their input, but never delete ANY of the previous crap. But, it is heartening that due to the prevalence of bottom and interlinear posting here, at least some of those chevrons are asymmetrical. (The MOST annoyingly over-quoted stuff is near the beginning) There has been an immense amount of VERY useful and important information buried in the 33K (out of 34K) of extraneous crap! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 14:32:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:32:46 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what you run. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Richard wrote: > > Dave McGuire flamed to my trashcan: >> Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic "Microsoft's >> is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the line from >> "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > I find the above characterization of my posts to this lists highly > laughable. > > While *you* CAN be guaranteed to make endless flames against Microsoft > and/or Windows, and this is readily backed up by searching the archives, > you CAN'T find anything in the archives to back up your characterization > of me. > > Feel free to go digging if you wish, but if you have any capacity for > self-reflection you may find the disturbing facts that your irrational > hatred of MS/Windows/etc. causes you to project your own mouth-foaming > irrational craziness onto anyone who doesn't immediately agree with > you 100%. > > I now return you to my KILL file. Having automagically ignored you > for some time now, I find my cctalk experience lifted into > pleasantness and not because you have an opinion different than mine, > but because your opinion reads like a rabid dog devoid of meaningful > content. > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 9 13:45:57 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 19:45:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jan 9, 12 07:29:26 am Message-ID: > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:54 AM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > > Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. =A0 :) > > > > Ebay #190404561375 > > oooh shiny! well scratched beyond its price My 3 are all in devices I want to keep operationmal (one in the Intel UPP, the other 2 in a Fluke data logger). > > I am looking for the Facit boat anchor printer that had two 4040's in it. That sounds fun, but please keep it operational as an example of an odd control system (I assume it's odd, mnot may pinters pf that vintage had 2 microprocessors in them). It saddens me when things like this are raided for aprticualr ICs which then go to collectors who never power them up... -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 14:37:22 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:37:22 -0500 Subject: Of course... Message-ID: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" Hey, better late than never! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 9 14:51:48 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:51:48 -0700 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> References: <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0B5364.2040405@brouhaha.com> Cameron Kaiser wrote: > That doesn't sound very similar to what Brad found, though. The SNAP language of the HHC is a FORTH dialect, and AFAICT entirely unrelated to any other SNAP language, past or present. From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 9 14:56:51 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:56:51 -0700 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0AA431.11730.B0809@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> from Eric Smith at "Jan 9, 12 01:30:34 am", <201201091414.q09EEWQv014298@floodgap.com> <4F0AA431.11730.B0809@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F0B5493.3020901@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm thinking about my own languge--I think I'll call it > "C" for "Chuck"... Is your name not Bruce? That's going to cause a little confusion. Mind if we call you Bruce to keep it clear? From pcw at mesanet.com Mon Jan 9 14:46:04 2012 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:46:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:32:46 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire > Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, > compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for > 8080/Z80 BASIC) > > > Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous > as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my fault > that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, > appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what > you run. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > now now, rememember your blood pressure... From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 9 15:03:16 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:03:16 -0700 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com> dwight elvey wrote: > What a horrible thing to do with Forth but I see > why one might want to do something like that. If you're referring to token-threading, there are a lot of good reasons for it. Two of the most obvious: 1) Code density: the tokens for the most common Forth words are a single byte. 2) Portability: the mainframe ROM tokens don't change when the ROMs are revised, so programs in plug-in ROMs aren't dependent on the addresses of the Forth words in the mainframe ROM remaining constant. This also applies to cases where one plug-in ROM calls another. From tdk.knight at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 15:01:04 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:01:04 -0600 Subject: Of course... In-Reply-To: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> References: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> Message-ID: huh? On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" > > Hey, better late than never! > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 9 15:22:53 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 13:22:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> References: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: >> >> I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping >> up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon >> cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you >> later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up >> making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply >> modified ribbon cable. >> > By the way, based on your description of the symptoms, I still suspect > the 1793 is going bad. Unicorn Electronics may have stock on the 1793 - http://198.170.117.30/IC/CRT.html it's listed for $4.99. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 15:28:23 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:28:23 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <687E165A-47C5-4BC1-9F51-B3FAFBDC3D59@neurotica.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 3:46 PM, "Peter C. Wallace" wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what you run. >> >> >> > > now now, rememember your blood pressure... This is me keeping it down. :) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 15:29:08 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:29:08 -0500 Subject: Of course... In-Reply-To: References: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <5E00783E-1069-4DE7-8A1B-19263DB41452@neurotica.com> In reference to my knee-jerk reaction to Richard's knee-jerk reaction. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > huh? > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> >> ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" >> >> Hey, better late than never! >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> New Kensington, PA >> >> From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 15:35:47 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:35:47 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > for aprticualr ICs which then go to collectors who never power them up... They were a dot matrix, very fast and had a pneumatic bladder under the head to lean it forward to the platten. Zinc diecast case I think iirc one 4040 did machine control the other was input buffer/character set to pin pattern Not sure of the printer model number maybe was 4050. > > -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 15:43:30 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 13:43:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: TRS-80 Model 100 disk/video interface box In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120109133406.E46256@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Win Heagy wrote: > Any TRS 80 gurus that can point me in the right direction with the > disk/video interface box? I recently picked one up and have it connected > to my model 100. Everything appears to be working, but when I start the > interface box, it requests a system disk. Is this required to use the > interface box, or is there a way to go right to the mode to display 80 > columns and skip the boot disk in the interface box? I have the owner's > manual, unfortunately the disk is missing and it appears the disk is > required to get the interface box to do anything? Any pointers where I > might find the software? That WOULD HAVE BEEN Rick Hansen. (R.I.P.) But, there should be a few others with copies of it. If I remember correctly, it's double density, single? sided, 256? bytes per sector, with a linked list FAT style directory structure near the middle of the disk like Microsoft Stand-Alone BASIC (similar to, but not matching, Coco, NEC, Oki, etc.). XenoCopy-PC handled it. The OTHER disk drives for the Model 100 were 3.5" drives that didn't resemble anybody else's formats. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 15:46:09 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:46:09 -0500 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:03 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > dwight elvey wrote: > > What a horrible thing to do with Forth but I see > > why one might want to do something like that. > > If you're referring to token-threading, there are a lot of good reasons for it. Two of the most obvious: > > 1) Code density: the tokens for the most common Forth words are a single byte. > > 2) Portability: the mainframe ROM tokens don't change when the ROMs are revised, so programs in plug-in ROMs aren't dependent on the addresses of the Forth words in the mainframe ROM remaining constant. This also applies to cases where one plug-in ROM calls another. Both of these, of course, were why Open Firmware's boot code was tokenized Forth (they called it FCode). In theory, you could boot the same card in a Sun as in a PowerPC Mac, though I imagine that seldom worked as well as anyone intended; anyone ever tried? - Dave From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 15:51:40 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:51:40 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Jeeze. Talk about a biting, heated response. What ever happened to civility and not demeaning people by trying to throw around labels? :) On Jan 9, 2012 3:45 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > > Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as > innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not > my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, > appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what > you run. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > > > On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Richard wrote: > > > > > Dave McGuire flamed to my trashcan: > >> Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic > "Microsoft's > >> is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the > line from > >> "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > > > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > > > I find the above characterization of my posts to this lists highly > > laughable. > > > > While *you* CAN be guaranteed to make endless flames against Microsoft > > and/or Windows, and this is readily backed up by searching the archives, > > you CAN'T find anything in the archives to back up your characterization > > of me. > > > > Feel free to go digging if you wish, but if you have any capacity for > > self-reflection you may find the disturbing facts that your irrational > > hatred of MS/Windows/etc. causes you to project your own mouth-foaming > > irrational craziness onto anyone who doesn't immediately agree with > > you 100%. > > > > I now return you to my KILL file. Having automagically ignored you > > for some time now, I find my cctalk experience lifted into > > pleasantness and not because you have an opinion different than mine, > > but because your opinion reads like a rabid dog devoid of meaningful > > content. > > -- > > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for > download > > > > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 15:52:28 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:52:28 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Also, uptime has almost lost its meaning these days in favor of availability.... today's systems almost don't give a damn about individual box uptime :) On Jan 9, 2012 3:45 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > > Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as > innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not > my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, > appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what > you run. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > > > On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Richard wrote: > > > > > Dave McGuire flamed to my trashcan: > >> Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic > "Microsoft's > >> is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the > line from > >> "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > > > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > > > I find the above characterization of my posts to this lists highly > > laughable. > > > > While *you* CAN be guaranteed to make endless flames against Microsoft > > and/or Windows, and this is readily backed up by searching the archives, > > you CAN'T find anything in the archives to back up your characterization > > of me. > > > > Feel free to go digging if you wish, but if you have any capacity for > > self-reflection you may find the disturbing facts that your irrational > > hatred of MS/Windows/etc. causes you to project your own mouth-foaming > > irrational craziness onto anyone who doesn't immediately agree with > > you 100%. > > > > I now return you to my KILL file. Having automagically ignored you > > for some time now, I find my cctalk experience lifted into > > pleasantness and not because you have an opinion different than mine, > > but because your opinion reads like a rabid dog devoid of meaningful > > content. > > -- > > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for > download > > > > > > Legalize Adulthood! > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 9 16:06:08 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:06:08 -0800 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <4F0B5493.3020901@brouhaha.com> References: <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com>, <4F0AA431.11730.B0809@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F0B5493.3020901@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F0AF450.19937.14402D6@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2012 at 13:56, Eric Smith wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I'm thinking about my own languge--I think I'll call it > > "C" for "Chuck"... > > Is your name not Bruce? That's going to cause a little confusion. > Mind if we call you Bruce to keep it clear? Only if I move to Australia... --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 16:15:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:15:46 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <2B6F7987-8EAC-4CFB-B5B6-2260377FE5E5@neurotica.com> I'm glad it came across clearly, though I wish you guys could've been spared it. ;) I've had enough of the fanboy's tendency of throwing rocks at me and then saying I'm "foaming" when I respond, especially when he's the only blind, knee-jerk, unconditionally-devoted advocate (long form of "fanboy") involved in the conversation. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Jeeze. Talk about a biting, heated response. What ever happened to civility > and not demeaning people by trying to throw around labels? :) > On Jan 9, 2012 3:45 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > >> >> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as >> innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not >> my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, >> appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what >> you run. >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> New Kensington, PA >> >> >> On Jan 9, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Richard wrote: >> >>> >>> Dave McGuire flamed to my trashcan: >>>> Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic >> "Microsoft's >>>> is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the >> line from >>>> "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. >>> >>> Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So >>> I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. >>> >>> I find the above characterization of my posts to this lists highly >>> laughable. >>> >>> While *you* CAN be guaranteed to make endless flames against Microsoft >>> and/or Windows, and this is readily backed up by searching the archives, >>> you CAN'T find anything in the archives to back up your characterization >>> of me. >>> >>> Feel free to go digging if you wish, but if you have any capacity for >>> self-reflection you may find the disturbing facts that your irrational >>> hatred of MS/Windows/etc. causes you to project your own mouth-foaming >>> irrational craziness onto anyone who doesn't immediately agree with >>> you 100%. >>> >>> I now return you to my KILL file. Having automagically ignored you >>> for some time now, I find my cctalk experience lifted into >>> pleasantness and not because you have an opinion different than mine, >>> but because your opinion reads like a rabid dog devoid of meaningful >>> content. >>> -- >>> "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for >> download >>> >>> >>> Legalize Adulthood! >> >> From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 16:19:23 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:19:23 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <1D9C94B7-C814-40E0-9EAE-84C9BC0DEF78@neurotica.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:52 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Also, uptime has almost lost its meaning these days in favor of > availability.... today's systems almost don't give a damn about individual > box uptime :) I think uptime has been de-emphasized in order to breath life into the market for one particularly unstable OS. ;) Personally, I demand both, as I have work to do. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA >> From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 9 16:20:33 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:20:33 -0700 Subject: DEC LISP text In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EFD0A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EFD0A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: In article <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7EFD0A at 505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, Rich Alderson writes: > Tatar is a textbook for teaching to professional programmers the variant > of the Lisp language created by the Gang of Five and laid out by Steele > in his book. Interesting. In my LISP class, we used "Lisp, Objects and Symbolic Programming" by Bob Kessler. Probably because the class was taught by Bob Kessler :-). Steele was a 2nd book that I got as a reference. I seem to recall it might have been an optional text for the class, but that was 20+ years ago. I wouldn't want to learn CommonLISP from Steele, that would not be so great. It seems Tatar's book is available used for ~$5 so I might get it some time. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 16:20:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:20:46 -0500 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com> <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com> <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com> <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9C36AF86-7E82-43D9-AB54-531D1CBD4742@neurotica.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:46 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:03 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > >> dwight elvey wrote: >>> What a horrible thing to do with Forth but I see >>> why one might want to do something like that. >> >> If you're referring to token-threading, there are a lot of good reasons for it. Two of the most obvious: >> >> 1) Code density: the tokens for the most common Forth words are a single byte. >> >> 2) Portability: the mainframe ROM tokens don't change when the ROMs are revised, so programs in plug-in ROMs aren't dependent on the addresses of the Forth words in the mainframe ROM remaining constant. This also applies to cases where one plug-in ROM calls another. > > Both of these, of course, were why Open Firmware's boot code was tokenized Forth (they called it FCode). In theory, you could boot the same card in a Sun as in a PowerPC Mac, though I imagine that seldom worked as well as anyone intended; anyone ever tried? I've done it between Suns and RS/6000s. It works fine. I've no reason to expect Macs to be any different there. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From asc135 at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 16:23:07 2012 From: asc135 at gmail.com (Amardeep S Chana) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:23:07 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC Message-ID: "Bill Sudbrink" wrote: > I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping > up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon > cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you > later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up > making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply > modified ribbon cable. I have always found it interesting how quickly people comment on issues without first studying them in depth. :-) The TG43 signal is entirely absent from the 16FDC drive connector and no cable mod alone can correct that. The board modification brings the signal from the FDC1793 through a driver to the connector so that a cable can carry it to the drive. If you choose to operate the SA-851 out of spec, it is certainly your right. I chose to make my 16FDC compatible with the drive's operating requirements. Incidentally, the Shugart SA-800/801 doesn't require TG43 and will work with just a cable mod (or maybe no mod at all since that drive is single sided). Almost every newer drive, including SA-851, however, will have higher error rates on the inner cylinders without the reduced write current controlled by TG43. From asc135 at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 16:26:33 2012 From: asc135 at gmail.com (Amardeep S Chana) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:26:33 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC Message-ID: Josh Dersch wrote: > I'm wondering if there's some fundamental problem with my current set-up > that's causing issues here... Are you terminating the drive bus correctly? From tdk.knight at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 16:30:16 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 16:30:16 -0600 Subject: Of course... In-Reply-To: <5E00783E-1069-4DE7-8A1B-19263DB41452@neurotica.com> References: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> <5E00783E-1069-4DE7-8A1B-19263DB41452@neurotica.com> Message-ID: lol ok must be a thread i havent been fallowing lol On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > In reference to my knee-jerk reaction to Richard's knee-jerk reaction. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > > > On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > > > huh? > > > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Dave McGuire > wrote: > > > >> > >> ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" > >> > >> Hey, better late than never! > >> > >> -Dave > >> > >> -- > >> Dave McGuire > >> New Kensington, PA > >> > >> > From lbickley at bickleywest.com Mon Jan 9 16:31:29 2012 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 14:31:29 -0800 Subject: Vintage gear available at Weirdstuff... Message-ID: <201201091431.29862.lbickley@bickleywest.com> I checked out a number of vintage items that were recently found at Weirdstuff. If you're interested in any of these items, contact "Jim" at Weirdstuff (408-743-5650). If you have any technical questions regarding these items, you can contact me as I've looked them over (but didn't test)... 1. (3) New in box Hayes JT Dual Port FAX modems 14400B w/manuals and software 2. (1) Toshiba P321SL "3 in 1" Printer (missing plastic cover) 3. (1) ThinkJet printer w/GPIB interface 4. (4) Sun 68 pin SCSI Disk UniPack enclosures with auto-termination 5. (1) Macintosh Portable, Model M5120, complete with case, power supply and unused ID cards. 6. (1) New in box DEC VMS 5.4 manual set dated 26 Jul 90 7. (1) Kaypro II, S/N 61085, clean keyboard w/cable, (2) 5.25" FDD 8. (1) Manual Set, HP83480A (Digital Communications Analyzer) & HP54750A (Digitizing Oscilloscope) 9. (1) HP 85025 A/B/E Detector 10. (1) Tektronix 577 D1 or D2 Curve Tracer Service/Instructional Manual 11. (1) Intermac Trakker Antares 241X Hand Held Terminal Manual 12. (1) Heath Appliance Control, Model SL-6166-RX I am not affiliated with Weirdstuff and receive no financial renumeration to list these items - I'd just like to see vintage stuff get a good home... Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 16:32:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:32:46 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0B6B0E.4040604@neurotica.com> On 01/09/2012 02:02 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > Oh, so if I refer to Steve Jobs as an unconscionable trinket salesman, > your head *won't* explode? Well fiddlesticks. :) Nope. I rail against blind, adoring devotion to one company's products. I don't really care if you *don't* like something, and I likely won't say anything about it as long as you provide defensible reasons when stating it in public. :) Besides, I know damn well you're not a fanboy. ;) > (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) Except that they're *nix. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 16:36:59 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:36:59 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <1D9C94B7-C814-40E0-9EAE-84C9BC0DEF78@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <1D9C94B7-C814-40E0-9EAE-84C9BC0DEF78@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Funny, I was thinking solaris clusters among other things when I thought about availability. :) as well as linux, bsd, etc.... most services I can think about don't care if one or two boxes fail. Then again, half of them are virtualized anyway and the OS dosnt realize the hardware failed... :) On Jan 9, 2012 5:31 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:52 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > > Also, uptime has almost lost its meaning these days in favor of > > availability.... today's systems almost don't give a damn about > individual > > box uptime :) > > I think uptime has been de-emphasized in order to breath life into the > market for one particularly unstable OS. ;) Personally, I demand both, as > I have work to do. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > >> > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 16:48:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:48:27 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0B6EBB.3030605@neurotica.com> On 01/09/2012 02:45 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > My 3 are all in devices I want to keep operationmal (one in the Intel > UPP, the other 2 in a Fluke data logger). What model of data logger uses 4040s? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 17:06:45 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:06:45 -0500 Subject: Of course... In-Reply-To: References: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> <5E00783E-1069-4DE7-8A1B-19263DB41452@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0B7305.4000701@neurotica.com> You didn't miss much. ;) -Dave On 01/09/2012 05:30 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > lol ok must be a thread i havent been fallowing lol > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> >> In reference to my knee-jerk reaction to Richard's knee-jerk reaction. >> >> -Dave >> >> -- >> Dave McGuire >> New Kensington, PA >> >> >> On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: >> >>> huh? >>> >>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Dave McGuire >> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" >>>> >>>> Hey, better late than never! >>>> >>>> -Dave >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Dave McGuire >>>> New Kensington, PA >>>> >>>> >> -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 9 17:24:19 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:24:19 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <1D9C94B7-C814-40E0-9EAE-84C9BC0DEF78@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0B7723.4050109@neurotica.com> On 01/09/2012 05:36 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Funny, I was thinking solaris clusters among other things when I thought > about availability. :) Solaris is my primary server OS here. I use NetBSD for some network infrastructure roles (NAT, etc). > as well as linux, bsd, etc.... most services I can > think about don't care if one or two boxes fail. Then again, half of them > are virtualized anyway and the OS dosnt realize the hardware failed... :) Indeed. I do have quite a bit of redundancy here (and at work(s)), but I prefer *NO* failures ideally. I come pretty close to that. That's the root of my impatience with Windows. (not related to my impatience with Windows fanboys) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Mon Jan 9 17:31:54 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:31:54 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0c9401cccf26$df39dd40$9dad97c0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Amardeep S Chana wrote: > > The TG43 signal is entirely absent from the 16FDC drive connector and > no cable mod alone can correct that. The board modification brings the > signal from the FDC1793 through a driver to the connector so that a > cable can carry it to the drive. If you choose to operate the SA-851 > out of spec, it is certainly your right. I chose to make my 16FDC > compatible with the drive's operating requirements. Boy! Everybody is techy techy techy... The SA-851 can be jumpered to handle its own write current requirements. No input from the controller is required. See the 851 manual on bitsavers. I have seen several 4 and 16 FDC cards where the 34 and 50 pin headers have been hacked to bits. I was hoping to avoid another. From tdk.knight at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 17:35:48 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:35:48 -0600 Subject: Of course... In-Reply-To: <4F0B7305.4000701@neurotica.com> References: <95C44331-1400-4880-B2B9-5C714FE908C6@neurotica.com> <5E00783E-1069-4DE7-8A1B-19263DB41452@neurotica.com> <4F0B7305.4000701@neurotica.com> Message-ID: the sillynes on the interwebs is classic On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > You didn't miss much. ;) > > -Dave > > > On 01/09/2012 05:30 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > >> lol ok must be a thread i havent been fallowing lol >> >> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Dave McGuire >> wrote: >> >> >>> In reference to my knee-jerk reaction to Richard's knee-jerk reaction. >>> >>> -Dave >>> >>> -- >>> Dave McGuire >>> New Kensington, PA >>> >>> >>> On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:01 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: >>> >>> huh? >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Dave McGuire >>>> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> ...I should've just said "Who's foaming now?" >>>>> >>>>> Hey, better late than never! >>>>> >>>>> -Dave >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Dave McGuire >>>>> New Kensington, PA >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>> > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 17:49:28 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:49:28 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: <4F0B7723.4050109@neurotica.com> References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <1D9C94B7-C814-40E0-9EAE-84C9BC0DEF78@neurotica.com> <4F0B7723.4050109@neurotica.com> Message-ID: As of late, my experiances with newer windows and older NT about rival stability and uptime of other systems. :) my only failures / unexpected downtime are hardware failures. It is all in knowing the software and putting it in the right environment. (Aka following HCLs, proper hardware and not cheap consumer gear, etc). On Jan 9, 2012 6:38 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On 01/09/2012 05:36 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > >> Funny, I was thinking solaris clusters among other things when I thought >> about availability. :) >> > > Solaris is my primary server OS here. I use NetBSD for some network > infrastructure roles (NAT, etc). > > as well as linux, bsd, etc.... most services I can >> think about don't care if one or two boxes fail. Then again, half of them >> are virtualized anyway and the OS dosnt realize the hardware failed... :) >> > > Indeed. I do have quite a bit of redundancy here (and at work(s)), but I > prefer *NO* failures ideally. I come pretty close to that. That's the root > of my impatience with Windows. (not related to my impatience with Windows > fanboys) > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 19:00:36 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:00:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: > (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) Always use the best tool for the job. Games: I don't know from games. SURELY not Windoze??? work: needs further subdivision. non-platform specific computer work: *nix digital sweatshop, Outhouse, management-controlled: Windows graphic arts books, serious works: TeX digital photo: PhotoShop party-invites, flyers: Mac door-propping: surely nothing can compete with the Times/Sinclair door wedge. barricades: PCs, lots of them piled up (price!) From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 19:06:47 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:06:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> > Dave McGuire flamed to Richard's trashcan: > > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic "Microsoft's > > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the line from > > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. NOBODY here is in my KILL file. The most rabid dogmatic fanatical insistent fanboys still provide a lot of useful, or at least interesting and/or entertaining, information. Did this NOT go to KILL file for anybody? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 19:14:47 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 17:14:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: <0c2a01cccf08$56293190$027b94b0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> References: <0c2a01cccf08$56293190$027b94b0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> I just tripped over an unusual cable: It has a trapezoidal thin black box labeled "TRS0-80", but no part number, one side has a few inches of cable with a 40 pin card edge connector, the other side has a few feet of cable with a 50 pin edge connector. 40 pin was probably model 1 expansion bus (I hafn'y messed with model 2/12/16). But what did Radio Shack use on model 1 with 50 pin? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From mokuba at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 19:20:24 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 20:20:24 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Some of us use devices that don't support the concept :p. Too new..... On Jan 9, 2012 8:11 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: > > Dave McGuire flamed to Richard's trashcan: > > > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic > "Microsoft's > > > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the > line from > > > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > NOBODY here is in my KILL file. > The most rabid dogmatic fanatical insistent fanboys still provide a lot of > useful, or at least interesting and/or entertaining, information. > > > Did this NOT go to KILL file for anybody? > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Mon Jan 9 19:41:03 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:41:03 -0500 Subject: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0B972F.5050104@telegraphics.com.au> On 09/01/12 3:29 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >... > There has been an immense amount of VERY useful and important > information buried in the 33K (out of 34K) of extraneous crap! > A concise summary of every medium known to Man :) --Toby > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From terry at webweavers.co.nz Mon Jan 9 19:57:44 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:57:44 +1300 Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Hmm..could it have been a special cable used to connect the 50 pin System 80 (aka PMC-80 in the US) expansion card to the 40 pin TRS-80 Model 1 Expansion interface. I have one of these cables. However, are you saying it came in a Radio Shack box? If this is the case, maybe not. Terry (Tez) On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > I just tripped over an unusual cable: > > It has a trapezoidal thin black box labeled "TRS0-80", but no part number, > one side has a few inches of cable with a 40 pin card edge connector, > the other side has a few feet of cable with a 50 pin edge connector. > > 40 pin was probably model 1 expansion bus (I hafn'y messed with model > 2/12/16). But what did Radio Shack use on model 1 with 50 pin? > > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From terry at webweavers.co.nz Mon Jan 9 19:58:59 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:58:59 +1300 Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: References: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: PMC-80 Expansion card edge on the computer I mean of course. Terry On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > Hmm..could it have been a special cable used to connect the 50 pin System > 80 (aka PMC-80 in the US) expansion card to the 40 pin TRS-80 Model 1 > Expansion interface. I have one of these cables. > > However, are you saying it came in a Radio Shack box? If this is the > case, maybe not. > > Terry (Tez) > > > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > >> I just tripped over an unusual cable: >> >> It has a trapezoidal thin black box labeled "TRS0-80", but no part number, >> one side has a few inches of cable with a 40 pin card edge connector, >> the other side has a few feet of cable with a 50 pin edge connector. >> >> 40 pin was probably model 1 expansion bus (I hafn'y messed with model >> 2/12/16). But what did Radio Shack use on model 1 with 50 pin? >> >> >> -- >> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com >> > > From snhirsch at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 20:13:12 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:13:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <0c2a01cccf08$56293190$027b94b0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Fred Cisin wrote: > I just tripped over an unusual cable: > > It has a trapezoidal thin black box labeled "TRS0-80", but no part number, > one side has a few inches of cable with a 40 pin card edge connector, > the other side has a few feet of cable with a 50 pin edge connector. > > 40 pin was probably model 1 expansion bus (I hafn'y messed with model > 2/12/16). But what did Radio Shack use on model 1 with 50 pin? 8" floppy interface? -- From ttmrichter at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 20:24:50 2012 From: ttmrichter at gmail.com (Michael Richter) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:24:50 +0800 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 10 January 2012 09:06, Fred Cisin wrote: > > Dave McGuire flamed to Richard's trashcan: > > > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic > "Microsoft's > > > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the > line from > > > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > NOBODY here is in my KILL file. > The most rabid dogmatic fanatical insistent fanboys still provide a lot of > useful, or at least interesting and/or entertaining, information. > > > Did this NOT go to KILL file for anybody? I tend to throw anybody who thinks the contents of their kill file is even remotely interesting to other people into my kill file. Oops?. -- "Perhaps people don't believe this, but throughout all of the discussions of entering China our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our revenue or profit or whatnot." --Sergey Brin, demonstrating the emptiness of the "don't be evil" mantra. From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 20:32:56 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:32:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: References: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120109182732.T46256@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Terry Stewart wrote: > Hmm..could it have been a special cable used to connect the 50 pin System > 80 (aka PMC-80 in the US) expansion card to the 40 pin TRS-80 Model 1 > Expansion interface. I have one of these cables. > However, are you saying it came in a Radio Shack box? If this is the case, > maybe not. Good guess, but, . . . I don't remember ever having had an extra PMC cable, but I had LNW, Lobo, HuH expension units. But, the embossed "TRS-80" on it would seem to make those not a possibility, due to Radio Shacks heavy handed trademark enforcement. No box. But, next to a buffered EI cable. Thanks, From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 20:40:58 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 18:40:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: References: <0c2a01cccf08$56293190$027b94b0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120109183351.N46256@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Steven Hirsch wrote: > 8" floppy interface? Hmmm. I thought about 8" or SCSI, but the trapezoidal boc is too thin to be an interface - presumably just a circuit board for spreading the 40 pin cable out to 50 pin. All of the 8" interfaces that I had for TRS-80 (except for separate EIs) were piggy-back boards for the FDC chp socket in the EI. Hmmm. did either the RADIO SHACK brand voice input, voice output (rebranded Votrax), or X10 interface use 50 pin? I don't think so. I'd offer to give it away, but that is a surefire way to find whatever device needs it! From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 21:33:53 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:33:53 -0600 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: >> (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) > > Always use the best tool for the job. > > Games: I don't know from games. SURELY not Windoze??? It's probably always been true that the majority of games try to push the hardware to its limit, and hence any kind of OS really only serves to get in the way. > door-propping: surely nothing can compete with the Times/Sinclair door wedge. I think the profile might be a little tall in some cases; in those situations, the Sinclair MK14 might be better suited to ramming beneath the door to hold it open. But then when talking about door-propping we're dealing with hardware, and *nix / Windows are both software, so any argument is completely pointless anyway. ;) cheers Jules From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 21:58:45 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:58:45 +0000 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> Message-ID: > > I think the profile might be a little tall in some cases; in those > situations, the Sinclair MK14 might be better suited to ramming beneath the > door to hold it open. Damned expensive door stop see ebay item 230725428053 sold for ?1,979.49 I still have the one I bought new, yes it did little useful work though the keypad was terrible, I made an external keyboard for mine. > > But then when talking about door-propping we're dealing with hardware, and > *nix / Windows are both software, so any argument is completely pointless > anyway. ;) > > cheers > > Jules > From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 9 22:10:28 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 20:10:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120109200917.W60326@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Dave Caroline wrote: > Damned expensive door stop > see ebay item 230725428053 sold for ?1,979.49 > I still have the one I bought new, yes it did little useful work though > the keypad was terrible, I made an external keyboard for mine. You weren't trying to type on that decorative PICTURE of a keyboard, were you? From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 22:21:16 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:21:16 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <596A2D12-27B2-42B0-BA44-361654A89DD7@gmail.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 10:33 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: >> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) >> Always use the best tool for the job. >> Games: I don't know from games. SURELY not Windoze??? > > It's probably always been true that the majority of games try to push the hardware to its limit, and hence any kind of OS really only serves to get in the way. Perhaps, but it really comes down to economics; the majority of computer users use Windows, so the big-budget titles tend to be developed primarily for it. Mac OS is beginning to approach parity, but it still has a long way to go. Linux had a brief period where major games were ported to it, but since Loki Games (the major porting house) collapsed, not so much. Most games these days run at a sufficiently high level (and processors are sufficiently powerful) that the OS itself doesn't play as much of a factor as far as performance. Almost all of the graphics are being executed through powerful dedicated hardware, and background tasks tend not to take up more than about 1% of the processor, so the major obstacles tend to be hardware support (including driver quality and performance, which is a major performance driver) and decent software interfaces to the hardware (OpenGL vs. DirectX, various audio libraries, input processing, etc). Direct3D, since it is not managed by a large cabal intent on preserving compatibility amongst several (often warring) factions, tends to advance a little faster (for better or for worse). Depending on what you're trying to do with it and how early you consider portability issues, it can be relatively simple or devilishly complex to translate Direct3D operations to OpenGL; lots of developers with cutting-edge engines just don't find it worth it to try to support OpenGL as a "second-tier" solution, which necessarily ties the games to Windows or XBox 360 (which, as I understand it, runs a very modified NT kernel). Interestingly enough, lots and lots of indie games are cross-platform and run on all three platforms. It's sort of a bathtub curve; there's enough development effort to support the abstraction necessary to run on multiple platforms, and the engines aren't so overwrought that they become difficult to port between platforms. - Dave From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 9 22:22:35 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 20:22:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0B6B0E.4040604@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <4F0B6B0E.4040604@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/09/2012 02:02 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> Oh, so if I refer to Steve Jobs as an unconscionable trinket salesman, >> your head *won't* explode? Well fiddlesticks. :) > > Nope. I rail against blind, adoring devotion to one company's products. I > don't really care if you *don't* like something, and I likely won't say > anything about it as long as you provide defensible reasons when stating it > in public. :) > I'm much more of a fan of wild-eyed supposition instead of facts. More fun that way. :) > Besides, I know damn well you're not a fanboy. ;) > Well I _might_ be. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jan 9 22:24:29 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:24:29 -0700 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120109200917.W60326@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> <20120109200917.W60326@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0BBD7D.5000007@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/9/2012 9:10 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Dave Caroline wrote: >> Damned expensive door stop >> see ebay item 230725428053 sold for ?1,979.49 >> I still have the one I bought new, yes it did little useful work though >> the keypad was terrible, I made an external keyboard for mine. > > You weren't trying to type on that decorative PICTURE of a keyboard, were > you? Just the latest gimmick for your phone. A Sinclair(sp) emulator. :) Ben. From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jan 9 23:09:12 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 21:09:12 -0800 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, , <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com>, <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com>, <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> Message-ID: > From: fraveydank at gmail.com > > On Jan 9, 2012, at 4:03 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > > > dwight elvey wrote: > > > What a horrible thing to do with Forth but I see > > > why one might want to do something like that. > > > > If you're referring to token-threading, there are a lot of good reasons for it. Two of the most obvious: > > > > 1) Code density: the tokens for the most common Forth words are a single byte. > > > > 2) Portability: the mainframe ROM tokens don't change when the ROMs are revised, so programs in plug-in ROMs aren't dependent on the addresses of the Forth words in the mainframe ROM remaining constant. This also applies to cases where one plug-in ROM calls another. > > Both of these, of course, were why Open Firmware's boot code was tokenized Forth (they called it FCode). In theory, you could boot the same card in a Sun as in a PowerPC Mac, though I imagine that seldom worked as well as anyone intended; anyone ever tried? > > > - Dave > > Hi Dave No real complaint against token Forths. I was refering to cluttering Forth up with such words a 'tAKE THE' and other such filller words to make it seem more like English. Of course, English isn't the only natural language but some think it is. Well writen Forth is like reading sentences, just not in a lanuage one is used to. I've recently been play with the source code for the Forth used in the Canon Cat. I wanted to write a printer driver for HP printers instead of being restricted to Canon printers. It uses a token threaded Forth as well. I've competed that and off plaing with other things. Dwight From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 23:25:57 2012 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:25:57 +1100 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Tuesday, 10 January 2012 7:33 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) > Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. > It's not my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. > *I* don't care what you run. Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no comprehension of current technology whatsoever. As a manager of various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. Indeed our OS failure rate is higher for the Solaris hosts - the Windows hosts are actually more reliable. Drag yourself out of the digital stone age and actually have a look at what is out there these days - I suspect you won't as you've time and again demonstrated your distaste to adapt and see others points of view. Lance From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 9 23:39:26 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:39:26 -0700 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <596A2D12-27B2-42B0-BA44-361654A89DD7@gmail.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> <596A2D12-27B2-42B0-BA44-361654A89DD7@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <596A2D12-27B2-42B0-BA44-361654A89DD7 at gmail.com>, David Riley writes: > Direct3D, since it is not managed by a large cabal intent on preserving > compa tibility amongst several (often warring) factions, tends to advance > a little fa ster (for better or for worse). True. OpenGL has been kinda adrift since SGI fell from grace. It used to be that they were the single guiding hand to OpenGL. now it's petty squabbling. > Depending on what you're trying to do with it and how early you consider > portability issues, it can be relatively simple or d evilishly complex > to translate Direct3D operations to OpenGL; For games, its not that hard to have it work on both. The parts that don't map well between the two APIs (logical ops on pixels, indexed color both come to mind) are not the areas that are used by games. With OGL you have to have the right extensions, i.e. have a modern card, or the game won't run, but what else is new. > lots of developer s with cutting-edge engines just don't find it worth it > to try to support OpenGL as a "second-tier" solution, which necessarily > ties the games to Windows or X Box 360 (which, as I understand it, > runs a very modified NT kernel). It's generally not that hard to have an engine that works well on both D3D and OGL. Xbox 360 is more like D3D9, while the PC is using a much more advanced shader model whether it's via D3D{10,11} or OGL. For so-called "AAA" titles, console portability is more important to them than reaching the Mac. That means Xbox 360 and PS3. Both of these have proprietary SDKs with details that are under NDA; I know Xbox 360 looks like D3D9 with a few extra features and more direct access to the GPU (you are, for intents and purposes, the only process running and the hardware is fixed, not variable). I don't know what the PS3 API looks like, if it's OpenGL or something more low-level and you're on your own to build higher layers of abstraction on top of it. IIRC, it's got a commodity GPU in there somewhere in addition to the Cell BE. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 9 23:59:54 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:59:54 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> <596A2D12-27B2-42B0-BA44-361654A89DD7@gmail.com>! Message-ID: <0C6B93C6-97BB-4B06-A6E6-74CF051D910F@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 12:39 AM, Richard wrote: >> Depending on what you're trying to do with it and how early you consider >> portability issues, it can be relatively simple or d evilishly complex >> to translate Direct3D operations to OpenGL; > > For games, its not that hard to have it work on both. The parts that > don't map well between the two APIs (logical ops on pixels, indexed > color both come to mind) are not the areas that are used by games. Indeed; I've certainly written code that ports between both. It's a lot harder to port *existing* code which was exclusively designed for one or the other; a lot of assumptions (like the ordering of matrices) have to be undone or worked around. If you start from the ground up assuming you need to make allowances, it's not so bad. Shaders are a little harder, but obviously there are options. I think Trinity uses Cg and compiles that to native shaders, which isn't *terrible*, but I haven't worked with it in a while, so I may not be remembering clearly. >> lots of developer s with cutting-edge engines just don't find it worth it >> to try to support OpenGL as a "second-tier" solution, which necessarily >> ties the games to Windows or X Box 360 (which, as I understand it, >> runs a very modified NT kernel). > > It's generally not that hard to have an engine that works well on both > D3D and OGL. Xbox 360 is more like D3D9, while the PC is using a much > more advanced shader model whether it's via D3D{10,11} or OGL. > > For so-called "AAA" titles, console portability is more important to > them than reaching the Mac. That means Xbox 360 and PS3. Well, yes. Which is why most PC games still exist at a D3D9 level of graphics. :-) (notable exceptions are becoming more abundant, of course) > Both of > these have proprietary SDKs with details that are under NDA; I know > Xbox 360 looks like D3D9 with a few extra features and more direct > access to the GPU (you are, for intents and purposes, the only process > running and the hardware is fixed, not variable). I don't know what > the PS3 API looks like, if it's OpenGL or something more low-level and > you're on your own to build higher layers of abstraction on top of it. > IIRC, it's got a commodity GPU in there somewhere in addition to the > Cell BE. It does, and I know folks who have done that directly (before their PS3s dropped the "other OS" feature, UMBC used to use them for a Cell programming class, and some people took it a bit further). They came to appreciate what the drivers did a great deal more after that. I have no idea what the official SDK looks like, but it must not be that different from DX9 or we'd see a lot fewer titles bridging the gap. No idea what the Wii SDK looks like, either, but I've definitely seen way more of its machine code than I care to have done. The existing homebrew efforts have produced some interesting OGL-lite stuff that works pretty OK. - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 00:05:06 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:05:06 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65a e.5d4f@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 12:25 AM, "Lance Lyon" wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: Tuesday, 10 January 2012 7:33 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? > - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) > > >> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as > innocuous as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. >> It's not my fault that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for > performance, appreciation of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. >> *I* don't care what you run. > > Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your above > comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no comprehension of > current technology whatsoever. As a manager of various Solaris, Linux and > Windows servers for one of Australia's largest banks, I find very, very > little difference in the reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. > Indeed our OS failure rate is higher for the Solaris hosts - the Windows > hosts are actually more reliable. > > Drag yourself out of the digital stone age and actually have a look at what > is out there these days - I suspect you won't as you've time and again > demonstrated your distaste to adapt and see others points of view. I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? Wow this list has a whole lot of clueless these days. NONE of my customers have used Windows in YEARS. Moron. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 10 00:10:13 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:10:13 -0800 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com>, Message-ID: <4F0B65C5.4308.2FF346B@cclist.sydex.com> On 9 Jan 2012 at 21:09, dwight elvey wrote: > Of course, English isn't the only natural language but some think it > is. No, but Basic English (note the caps) has a pedigree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English To the best my knowledge, other languages, say, Old Church Slavonic, do not have a similar pedigree.. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 00:22:16 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:22:16 -0500 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> <4F0BB1A1.20905@gmail.com> Message-ID: <03503FE9-A3B6-4A8C-84DF-F1192B709DB4@neurotica.com> On Jan 9, 2012, at 10:33 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > But then when talking about door-propping we're dealing with hardware, and *nix / Windows are both software, so any argument is completely pointless anyway. ;) ROFL! And the voice of reason. :-) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 00:23:56 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:23:56 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> References: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F0BD97C.5070008@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 11:57 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > Bill Sudbrink wrote: > > By the way, based on your description of the symptoms, I still suspect > the 1793 is going bad. > Do you think it's likely that two cards (the 16 and the 64FDC) I have would have 1793s that are failing in exactly the same way? (Is this a common failure mode for these?) Thanks, Josh From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 00:25:58 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:25:58 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0BD9F6.6080204@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 11:39 AM, Amardeep S Chana wrote: >> > (Now I just have to figure out why I can't get the FDC to write > floppies correctly...) > > Can you describe the problem in detail? I recall that you're using a 16FDC > with 8" drives that are not Persci brand. I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC (for the moment) and right now I have it wired to a single 5.25" drive (w/proper termination). I've tried three different drives -- a Tandon TM-100, an unmodified 1.2M 5.25" drive, and one that's modded to spin at 300rpm. Same exact behavior on all three. > Are you aware that the 16FDC 8" > bus is wired differently than what is required for Shugart compatible > drives? The Persci drives did not have a TG43 signal so the write current > may be too high on the inner tracks of a non-Persci drive mated to a 16FDC > -- causing errors. That's good to know for when I do attempt to hook up an 8" drive -- thanks! - Josh > > Fortunately, it is possible to modify a 16FDC to be compatible with a > couple of cuts and jumpers. I have some photos and text that describe the > mod. > > Should this happen to be the problem you're experiencing, I'll upload the > mod info to a site and send the link. If not, please describe what problem > you are having in more detail. > > Amardeep > From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 00:29:10 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:29:10 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <5F30060AE45E4BF8B5459725CD33A55A@vl420mt> References: <5F30060AE45E4BF8B5459725CD33A55A@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F0BDAB6.60204@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 12:00 PM, MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:13:10 -0800 > From: Josh Dersch > > ... > Right now I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC to play with (one is on > loan). I'm using Dave Dunfield's RDOS transfer utilities to upload the > "INIT" software into RAM from a PC. > ... > I'm wondering if there's some fundamental problem with my current set-up > that's causing issues here... > > - Josh > ----- Reply: > > Have you tried creating a bootable Cromemco format disk (CDOS or CP/M) > from an image? Even if it's a configuration that doesn't match yours, > you could at least run some diagnostics on the diskette using RDOS. I've created a few floppies from my PC on a 5.25" drive using ImageDisk, I have been unable to get the FDC to read them (or boot, obviously). I wasn't 100% sure it wasn't just the setup I have on my PC getting in the way, hence my latest attempt to use the FDC itself to write the disks. > > The 5.25DD format can be troublesome to create, but generally an 8" > image on a 5.25" HD disk & drive is no problem, especially if you can > use the same physical drive in the PC and the Cromemco and avoid any > alignment issues. Yeah, I didn't appear to have any issues writing the disks from the PC, though I don't have any way of knowing if they turned out correct at the moment :) > > You are aware that using a 5.25HD drive as an 8" requires a jumper to > connect /READY to the FDC's 5.25" interface? I was not aware, but the 16/64FDC has connectors for both 5.25" and 8" drives, I've been using the 5.25" connector and the controller seems to be able to communicate with it OK -- it has no trouble seeking and formatting tracks... it just can't read or write them at the moment... Thanks, Josh > > mike > From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 00:30:24 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:30:24 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F0BDB00.5020805@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 1:22 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Bill Sudbrink wrote: > >> Bill Sudbrink wrote: >>> >>> I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping >>> up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon >>> cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you >>> later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up >>> making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply >>> modified ribbon cable. >>> >> By the way, based on your description of the symptoms, I still suspect >> the 1793 is going bad. > > Unicorn Electronics may have stock on the 1793 - > http://198.170.117.30/IC/CRT.html it's listed for $4.99. Thanks for the pointer, I'll check into that once I've managed to confirm whether my 1793(s) are at fault. $25 minimum order, so I'll have to figure out something else I need from them :). - Josh > > g. > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 10 00:33:04 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:33:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your >> above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no >> comprehension of current technology whatsoever. As a manager of >> various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's >> largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the >> reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. > I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. Not that I like Windows. I don't. It's a horrible, horrible OS in multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. (Indeed, the only exception I can think of is the purely pragmatic one of being popular as a game loader, and for my use even that is far outweighed by other considerations.) Without more data than Lance gave - indeed, without data that Lance probably should not give - we are not in a position to tell _why_ Linux, Solaris, and Windows exhibit comparable reliability, whether this indicates an improvement in Windows or a deterioration in the other two (or perhaps some of each), to what extent it is due to idiosyncracies of the workload in question, what level of sysadmin attention is required to achieve those levels of reliability, how much work (for whatever measure) gets done per capex dollar and/or recurring dollar, etc, etc - the list is long and mostly pretty boring. Since it is unlikely to change anyone's mind much, it'd also be pretty pointless even were the data available. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From tpresence at hotmail.com Mon Jan 9 16:38:51 2012 From: tpresence at hotmail.com (Kevin Reynolds) Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 15:38:51 -0700 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> Well for $800,000 one could develop any chip they like today. >> Ben.For $800,000 I will build you a 4004 with plumbing.Kevin From jgh at mdfs.net Mon Jan 9 18:14:10 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:14:10 +0000 Subject: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise =?UTF-8?Q?reached=3F=20-=20Re?= =?UTF-8?Q?=3A=20teaching=20programming=20to=20kids=20-=20Re=3A=20Looking?= =?UTF-8?Q?=20for=20=38=30=38=30/Z=38=30=20BASIC?= In-Reply-To: <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Fred Cisin wrote: > It has had so many chevrons (a name for the '>' "greater than" > character) prepended that relatively short lines have wrapped. Even better, my mail client shows quoted sections with coloured lines on each side of the text, so I get a pretty effect: |------------------------------------------------------------------| ||----------------------------------------------------------------|| ||| I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction || |||| to "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed ||| |||| exposed to other languages immediately after grasping the ||| ||| basic principles. || ||----------------------------------------------------------------|| |------------------------------------------------------------------| JGH From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 01:12:30 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:12:30 -0800 Subject: Please stop (was: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F0BE4DE.2040606@mail.msu.edu> On 1/9/2012 10:33 PM, Mouse wrote: > the list is long and mostly pretty boring. Since it > is unlikely to change anyone's mind much, it'd also be pretty pointless > even were the data available. > This, this, a thousand times, this. :) Can we just take the flamewar as assumed at this point and just skip to the end? - Josh From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 01:27:44 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:27:44 -0500 Subject: Please stop (was: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: <4F0BE4DE.2040606@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0BE4DE.2040606@mail.msu.ed u> Message-ID: <86B8F673-BED6-425A-AD31-70217AEBFCE1@neurotica.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 2:12 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > On 1/9/2012 10:33 PM, Mouse wrote: >> the list is long and mostly pretty boring. Since it >> is unlikely to change anyone's mind much, it'd also be pretty pointless >> even were the data available. >> > > This, this, a thousand times, this. :) Can we just take the flamewar as assumed at this point and just skip to the end? I like this idea! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 10 02:32:14 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:32:14 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: ----- Original Message: Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:29:10 -0800 From: Josh Dersch To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ... > I've created a few floppies from my PC on a 5.25" drive using ImageDisk, I > have been unable to get the FDC to read them (or boot, obviously). I > wasn't 100% sure it wasn't just the setup I have on my PC getting in the > way, hence my latest attempt to use the FDC itself to write the disks. You don't say which images and whether you're talking about a DD drive or an HD drive emulating an 8" disk. Let me say it again: very few PCs will reliably write the Cromemco 360K DD format, but 8" images written to a 1.2M HD drive (on 1.2MB disks!) are usually quite reliable. See below. >> You are aware that using a 5.25HD drive as an 8" requires a jumper to >> connect /READY to the FDC's 5.25" interface? > I was not aware, but the 16/64FDC has connectors for both 5.25" and 8" > drives, I've been using the 5.25" connector and the controller seems to be > able to communicate with it OK -- it has no trouble seeking and formatting > tracks... it just can't read or write them at the moment... Umm... if you can't read it how do you know it was formatted correctly? The 5.25" connector normally only supports DD drives/formats (which, as I said, are notoriously unreliable reading disks made on a PC) because the /READY signal needed for 8" drives is not available on that connector. To use the more reliable 1.2M HD drives (360RPM with 1.2M HD disks) (or 3.5" HD drives for that matter) connected to the 5.25" port as 8" you need to connect pin 34 to /READY (and jumper the drive to supply /RY instead of /DC). Incidentally, that also avoids the 8" drive issues that Bill and Amardeep are arguing about. So, frankly, I'm very skeptical that your 1.2M HD drive is working at all *as an 8" drive*. BTW, your 300RPM HD drive is also going to be troublesome if not completely useless. And of course you have to select the correct drive type in RDOS with one, two or three semicolons. I'd be surprised if the 1793 were the problem, especially both of them. The 4FDC had a bad reputation for that, but out of the 20+ Cromemco systems that I supported (and still have most of) only ONE ever developed problems reading disks and I never did investigate what the cause actually was. No offence, but most likely you're doing something wrong; image/disk incompatibility, wrong type selected, etc. etc. Good luck! From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 10 02:38:14 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:38:14 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <4F297B4307304296B685FCE1FC049FDF@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500 From: "Bill Sudbrink" Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC ... > I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply modified ribbon cable. care to share the details? m From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 10 03:49:14 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:49:14 -0700 Subject: SNAP was Re: teaching programming to beginners In-Reply-To: References: <201201081556.q08FufdV006082@floodgap.com>, , <4F0AA5AA.6090205@brouhaha.com>, <4F0B5614.6050701@brouhaha.com>, <3AA124BC-DEBD-493F-9B4E-FEB2CBBEEC5E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F0C099A.9000008@brouhaha.com> dwight elvey wrote: > No real complaint against token Forths. I was refering to > cluttering Forth up with such words a 'tAKE THE' and > other such filller words to make it seem more like English. I've never seen a Forth that did that. Certainly SNAP on the HHC doesn't. But as has been commented before, it is totally unrelated to any other SNAP language that has been discussed. Eric From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 05:19:06 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:19:06 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" wrote: > > >> Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your > >> above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no > >> comprehension of current technology whatsoever. As a manager of > >> various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's > >> largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the > >> reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. > > I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? > > If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing > Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows > fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in > that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. > > Not that I like Windows. I don't. It's a horrible, horrible OS in > multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. What he said! I dislike Windows myself these days & try to avoid it. I can use it, support it & work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too our are not being paid to. Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. Anyone flaming about how unreliable it is immediately *shows themselves to be an irrational non,MS fanboy* because such opinions are not based upon current facts; they are bigotry, based only on prejudice & badly out-of-date hearsay. If I am paying someone for technical advice and skills, I expect a current skill set of all major platforms. For some things, the right tool may be one that somebody does not personally like. They should be able to suggest this without their emotion and preferences getting in the way. If they can't, then they are unfit for the job. That means current knowledge and no bigotry and hatred. From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 05:22:10 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:22:10 +0000 Subject: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Jan 9, 2012 8:33 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: > > > >>>>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction to > > >>>>>>>>>> "what > > >>>>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other > > >>>>>>>>>> languages > > >>>>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. > > > You might agree with the above; > you might disagree with the above. > (You already know where I stand) > > BUT, it is surely NOT so brilliant as to warrant > being quoted by the next TEN respondents. > It has had so many chevrons (a name for the '>' > "greater than" character) prepended that relatively > short lines have wrapped. > > (Since people might not trim even THIS, I'm using > shorter lines) > > It's nice to have a little bit of context V > "WHO are youagreeing/disagreeing with?". > But, do we really NEED the entire transcript > of the thread repeated every time? > > Howzbout: delete what's unnecessary of > what the person you are replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to > quoted of what the person they were replying to. > > On [impersonal] your most recent post, > how many lines of unnecessary crap did > [impersonal] YOU delete? > > If you want to reply or flame THIS, select a line or two > that best summarizes what you feel needs to be answered. > > There are immense chevrons made of chevrons, > as people add their input, but never delete > ANY of the previous crap. > > > > > But, it is heartening that due to the prevalence of bottom and > interlinear posting here, at least some of those chevrons are > asymmetrical. (The MOST annoyingly over-quoted stuff is near > the beginning) > > There has been an immense amount of VERY useful and important > information buried in the 33K (out of 34K) of extraneous crap Fair point. I am using Gmail, which collapses & hides quoted text I have read before. Also, often, I am writing on my phone, which makes block deletions very hard work. But I must remember that others may not be. From sander.reiche at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 06:51:22 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:51:22 +0100 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012, Popeye wrote: > Does anyone have an idea of what color "Hazeltine Green" (phosphor) is, > or might be, or where that info could be found? > Seems like `Hazeltine' was more of a company than anything else, which produced machines for the movie industry: "A machine which a color time at a lab or optical house uses to determine how to 'time' a film print for the proper amounts of red, blue, and green light. Also called a color analyzer." And this link should suit you in this quest, http://superuser.com/questions/361297/what-colour-is-the-dark-green-on-old-fashioned-green-screen-computer-displays . Regards, Sander P.S. Any chance of this for X11/Windows? :) http://ldopa.net/2006/01/14/glterminal/ From asc135 at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 07:08:44 2012 From: asc135 at gmail.com (Amardeep S Chana) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:08:44 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC Message-ID: Josh Dersch wrote: > I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC (for the moment) and right now I have it wired to a single > 5.25" drive (w/proper termination). I've tried three different drives -- a Tandon TM-100, an > unmodified 1.2M 5.25" drive, and one that's modded to spin at 300rpm. Same exact behavior on all three. Sounds like you have the basics covered. Are you running your Z-80 CPU board at 4MHz? Though I'd find it unlikely that *both* controllers would be seriously out of adjustment, I'd also check that the data separator oscillator is at the right frequency. Instructions are in the FDC user manuals for checking and adjusting that. From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Tue Jan 10 07:28:03 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:28:03 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F0BD97C.5070008@mail.msu.edu> References: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <4F0BD97C.5070008@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <0d4601cccf9b$af0b5de0$0d2219a0$@sudbrink@verizon.net> Josh Dersch wrote: > > Do you think it's likely that two cards (the 16 and the 64FDC) I have > would have 1793s that are failing in exactly the same way? (Is this a > common failure mode for these?) > No, I agree that is pretty unlikely. I had one go bad that seemed to function OK in "normal" operation but would not format correctly. Clearly something wrong with the "track write" function. The other simply did not work at all. From schoedel at kw.igs.net Tue Jan 10 07:29:52 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (Kevin Schoedel) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:29:52 -0500 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785- @b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> References: <831830674-1326081273-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-1759296785- @b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> Message-ID: At 3:54 am +0000 2012/01/09, Evan Koblentz wrote: >Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) > >Ebay #190404561375 I still think Intel should issue a commemorative 4004 in 22nm. Or failing that, easter-egg one (or a few thousand) into Haswell somewhere. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 07:40:11 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:40:11 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F0BDB00.5020805@mail.msu.edu> References: <0c2b01cccf08$e2b9b0d0$a82d1270$@sudbrink@verizon.net> <4F0BDB00.5020805@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2012, at 1:30 AM, Josh Dersch wrote: > On 1/9/2012 1:22 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> >> Unicorn Electronics may have stock on the 1793 - http://198.170.117.30/IC/CRT.html it's listed for $4.99. > > Thanks for the pointer, I'll check into that once I've managed to confirm whether my 1793(s) are at fault. $25 minimum order, so I'll have to figure out something else I need from them :). Ooh, another place I can find 4116s cheaply (even more so than Jameco). Wish I'd known about this place when I was fixing my Defender boards! - Dave From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 08:44:18 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:44:18 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 17:55, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/05/2012 12:20 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> >>> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >>> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ >> >> >> Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, >> back in the day! Er - why? > > ?[raises hand] > > ?Oooh! ?I know this one! ?Because it was hands-down THE most popular, > widely-deployed one from the 1980s, at least in the US. (or maybe because he > wanted to!) > > ?Of course a statement like that is sure to draw people out of the woodwork > screaming "NO! was the most popular!" ?No, I was never a "commie" by > any stretch, but of all the people I knew who had computers at home in the > 1980s when I was in high school, the breakdown went something like this: > > ?90%: Commodore 64 or VIC-20 > ?5%: Atari 400 or 800 > ?1%: Apple (rich kids) > ?1%: COCO > ?1%: Non-COCO TRS-80 (kids with parents who ran their own businesses) > ?1%: CP/M > ?1%: RSTS/E =) ?(only 1...betcha can't guess who that was!) Must be an American thing. It changed year-on-year and my memories are not that chronologically detailed, but here, from 1982 or so, it was something like: Sinclair, Oric, Commodore, Dragon, Acorn, and later Amstrad. Outliers - no significant numbers, probably in your 1% bracket - were weird stuff like Memotech, Camputers Lynx, Jupiter Ace, Video Genie, Atari, Mattel Aquarius, Sord M5, TI 99/4a, Newbrain, Apple. But in the main group, it was Sinclair at first, then later, as prices fell & people realised it was really all about games & almost nobody programmed the things, the superior hardware of the Commodore 64 trounced everything else. Later, Amstrad won out, because it had better hardware: bundled monitor and tape drive or a good fast disk drive, with lots of storage - DS/DD - although a weird 3" size. And the thing is, all of those had at least rudimentary BASICs with graphics and sound commands. And the Beeb with its proper procedural, structured BASIC. Except Commodore, which was just as sh*t on the C64 as it was on the VIC20, which was just as sh*t as it was on the Commodore PET. Now on the PET, it wasn't a problem. It didn't /have/ graphics or sound. But on the VIC20 it was an embarrassment, but then, with 5K of RAM or something, there wasn't /room/ to write anything much in BASIC. But on the C64, it was just a sick twisted evil joke to play on buyers of a ?300-?400 computer with market-leading graphics, best-of-breed sound, a decent keyboard and lots of RAM. It was like selling someone a full-priced 4X4 off road vehicle and putting Medi?val solid wooden carriage wheels on it. It was utterly crippled by its pathetic, 5-years-out-of-date language taken directly from a machine some 3 hardware generations earlier, outclassed by /every other product on the market/ in its segment. Which is why I am genuinely amazed to discover that someone's reimplemented it today! I am stunned. It is, for my money, THE single worst example of its type, the horrendous shameful guilty embarrassment of its generation, the twisted crippled mutant that people didn't talk about and kept locked in the attic. The deformed puppy that should have been stillborn. And anyway, Dave, if your justification is that it was the clear market leader, then by that argument, we should all be using x86 PCs - as they are 95% or more of the general-purpose computer market and have been for 20 years now - and on them we should be running MS Windows, because that's the utterly dominant market leading OS. And you wouldn't like that, would you? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 08:44:29 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:44:29 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65! ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2012, at 6:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" wrote: >> >> If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing >> Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows >> fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in >> that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. >> >> Not that I like Windows. I don't. It's a horrible, horrible OS in >> multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. > > What he said! > > I dislike Windows myself these days & try to avoid it. I can use it, > support it & work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too our > are not being paid to. > > Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. I'll second that; for all its warts, modern Windows does tend to be reliable for me. Third-party drivers, of course, are a mixed bag and have been the cause of 100% of the bluescreens I've gotten since moving to Windows 7 on my PC (that's still only 2, for the record, about 1 per year). It's also come a long way under the hood; having written a PCI device driver somewhat recently, I can say with confidence that the driver frameworks are pretty evolved and relatively easy to work with. Of course, I don't like pretty much anything that comes with the Windows user experience. - It's ridiculous that I have to write a .ini file for a driver just to install and find the magical incantations somewhere in Microsoft's mountain of poor documentation while I try to worm out what the obtuse error messages mean. - It's patently absurd that Windows 7 64-bit won't let me develop my own drivers without having to put the system in a special mode that disables some media playback because I just might be loading a driver to capture DVD output. - The registry is just abuse. Yes, we could debate endlessly about how bad text files are in comparison. No, it's not going to change my mind. - Whoever decided that Windows Update should forcibly restart the machine, no matter what is going on, after silently installing an update and giving you 2 minutes to respond should be shot (thankfully, that feature is gone now). But none of these things reflect on the reliability of the system itself, and I'll at least throw a bone Redmond's way on that one. Now, of course, if you want to talk security, they've still got things to answer for. But the security threats for other major systems are beginning to approach those for Windows these days, and I'm not certain that a lot of the remaining difference can't be explained by the larger installed base and thus target value of Windows. - Dave From james at attfield.co.uk Tue Jan 10 08:50:29 2012 From: james at attfield.co.uk (James Attfield) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:50:29 -0000 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000601cccfa7$325a0470$970e0d50$@co.uk> > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500 > From: "Bill Sudbrink" > Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC > > I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping > up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon > cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you > later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up > making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply > modified ribbon cable. Bill, the Tandon 848's look like they have a pretty similar interface to the SA-851. I have two TM-848-2's I would like to hook up - what chance do you think that your modified cable might work (I'm with you on this one rather than board cut'n'shut) and if so could you kindly email me the layout off-list? Jim From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 09:15:21 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:15:21 +0000 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On 10 January 2012 14:44, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 10, 2012, at 6:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > >> On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" wrote: >>> >>> If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing >>> Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows >>> fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in >>> that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. >>> >>> Not that I like Windows. ?I don't. ?It's a horrible, horrible OS in >>> multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. >> >> What he said! >> >> I dislike Windows myself these days & try to avoid it. I can use it, >> support it & work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too our >> are not being paid to. >> >> Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. > > I'll second that; for all its warts, modern Windows does tend to be reliable for me. ?Third-party drivers, of course, are a mixed bag and have been the cause of 100% of the bluescreens I've gotten since moving to Windows 7 on my PC (that's still only 2, for the record, about 1 per year). Indeed. And on servers, of course, you would generally avoid all the fancy drivers for consumer-end stuff like 3D cards, so this is not an issue. > It's also come a long way under the hood; having written a PCI device driver somewhat recently, I can say with confidence that the driver frameworks are pretty evolved and relatively easy to work with. Interesting - I didn't know that. > Of course, I don't like pretty much anything that comes with the Windows user experience. There are still a few aspects of Explorer that I prefer to Nautilus, but Windows 7 is trying very hard to eliminate those, so soon Explorer will fall to parity. > - It's ridiculous that I have to write a .ini file for a driver just to install and find the magical incantations somewhere in Microsoft's mountain of poor documentation while I try to worm out what the obtuse error messages mean. 8?) I'll take your word. > - It's patently absurd that Windows 7 64-bit won't let me develop my own drivers without having to put the system in a special mode that disables some media playback because I just might be loading a driver to capture DVD output. Really?! > - The registry is just abuse. ?Yes, we could debate endlessly about how bad text files are in comparison. ?No, it's not going to change my mind. Some kind of distributed network-aware database of text files...? :?) > - Whoever decided that Windows Update should forcibly restart the machine, no matter what is going on, after silently installing an update and giving you 2 minutes to respond should be shot (thankfully, that feature is gone now). Yup. > But none of these things reflect on the reliability of the system itself, and I'll at least throw a bone Redmond's way on that one. Yup. > Now, of course, if you want to talk security, they've still got things to answer for. ?But the security threats for other major systems are beginning to approach those for Windows these days, and I'm not certain that a lot of the remaining difference can't be explained by the larger installed base and thus target value of Windows. That is the one argument I am still not convinced about, frankly. Even in Vista & 7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 09:47:31 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:47:31 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9! AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <33FE69B7-F80C-47D7-886E-989E618081D9@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> - The registry is just abuse. Yes, we could debate endlessly about how bad text files are in comparison. No, it's not going to change my mind. > > Some kind of distributed network-aware database of text files...? :?) Well, yes, NetInfo (on the Mac and I guess NeXT?) was possibly worse than the registry. Thankfully, it's gone away now. >> Now, of course, if you want to talk security, they've still got things to answer for. But the security threats for other major systems are beginning to approach those for Windows these days, and I'm not certain that a lot of the remaining difference can't be explained by the larger installed base and thus target value of Windows. > > That is the one argument I am still not convinced about, frankly. Even > in Vista & 7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been > comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their > pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". I guess I don't end up being as worried about privileges as I am about exploitable code. Privileges are a good second barrier to further damage, but minimizing the surface area for attacks is still the most important thing. After all, anyone exploiting a remote hole on a program running on any operating system of note (that has a networking stack) could easily open up a listen port and start acting as an SMTP relay; that doesn't require privileges (and in fact, the built-in mini-firewall on Win7 will pop up a warning that your program has suddenly started sending packets and did you want those walled off?). But yes, the privilege model is too permissive. I found it amusing that they finally caught up with the rest of the world in requiring programs which wanted administrative rights to basically sudo (something that Unix has had forever and OS X has done from its public release), but had to back it off in the face of overwhelming user complaints due to sloppily-written software that assumed too much. In short, I think the problems with Windows can be laid much more often at the feet of third-party developers than at those of Microsoft (at least these days, anyway). - Dave From md.benson at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 10:14:25 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:14:25 +0000 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com References: Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... > > http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson From jon at jonworld.com Tue Jan 10 10:22:00 2012 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:22:00 -0500 Subject: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Mark Benson wrote: >> Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... >> >> http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ > > Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? Only two people I could think of Dave McGuire and Ethan O'Toole. Sorry to put you guys on the spot ;) From pontus at Update.UU.SE Tue Jan 10 10:35:46 2012 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:35:46 +0100 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120110163546.GA32446@Update.UU.SE> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 04:14:25PM +0000, Mark Benson wrote: > Begin forwarded message: > > > Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... > > > > http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ > > Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? Doesn't the Cray-1 run of an Eclipse front end. So he is really asking how to boot an Eclipse? Regards, Pontus From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 10:38:26 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:38:26 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >>>> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >>>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ >>> >>> Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, >>> back in the day! Er - why? >> >> ?90%: Commodore 64 or VIC-20 >> ?5%: Atari 400 or 800 >> ?1%: Apple (rich kids) . . . > Must be an American thing. Yes. > It changed year-on-year... Yes. > and my memories are not that chronologically detailed, but here, from 1982 or so, it was > something like: > > Sinclair, Oric, Commodore, Dragon, Acorn, and later Amstrad. In the very early 1980s, the cheapest, nastiest, crappiest common computer I encountered in the States was the Sinclair ZX80 (and even then, I think I knew 3-4 owners - fewer than Apples). Worst keyboard ever, video that interrupted to process keystrokes, "one-touch" keyword input for BASIC, a RAM expander that flaked out when you pressed the keyboard hard enough to register keystrokes, and so on. It had one (and to me, only one) market advantage: it was under $100. After the VIC-20 dropped below $100 (from its initial price of $299) and took over the bottom of the home computer market, I don't think I ever saw another ZX80 powered up again. I knew one Sinclair QL (68008-based) owner in the States. He was a total fanatic about it, and it was the least expensive way to play with one of the coolest architectures of the day, but he was alone in his mania - even he didn't know any other local owners in a city of a million people. I never saw an Oric, a Dragon, or an Acorn here. I might have seen an Amstrad or two by the late 1980s. > But in the main group, it was Sinclair at first, then later, as prices > fell & people realised it was really all about games & almost nobody > programmed the things, the superior hardware of the Commodore 64 > trounced everything else. Commodore continued to advertise the "learning" aspects of the C-64, but I doubt many were sold because of that. It hit the US market at $599, dropped to, IIRC, $299 after a couple of years, and by the late 1980s, was selling at toy stores for $99. They sold millions of them for $99. > Except Commodore, which was just as sh*t on the C64 as it was on the > VIC20, which was just as sh*t as it was on the Commodore PET. Jack Tramiel's business goals were as plainly stated as can be - when faced with the "imminent invasion" of MSX (which never gained any traction in the States, but I think I saw a couple in shop windows when I lived in the UK for the summer of 1985) he famously declared "we will become the Japanese" and priced the C-64 so low, nobody could touch the combination of memory, sound, and graphics for the price. As part of that, since Commodore had purchased a license for Microsoft BASIC at very favorable terms to Commodore (I don't remember the deepest details off the top of my head, but the effect was a lifetime license for BASIC2 for little or no cost), updating the BASIC would have added, in effect, a Microsoft tax on every Commodore computer sold. To Tramiel especially, this would have been a serious disincentive to update BASIC. When the C-64 was selling for $99, it was profitable. IIRC, the cost to Commodore per unit was around $16-$18. Adding even a $10-per-unit license fee would have been a significant hit to profitability. Upgrading BASIC wouldn't really add enough new customers to pay for itself. > Now on the PET, it wasn't a problem. It didn't /have/ graphics or sound. But > on the VIC20 it was an embarrassment, but then, with 5K of RAM ort > something, there wasn't /room/ to write anything much in BASIC. They sold a lot of game cartridges for the VIC-20, and a lot of RAM expanders. The real problem with the VIC-20 was the chunky 22x23 screen. If you didn't have a lot of money, it was barely tolerable (i.e. better than no computer, and better than some because it had color in a day when that was not a universal feature). If you had money, you put the VIC-20 in the closet and bought a C-64. > But on the C64, it was just a sick twisted evil joke to play on buyers > of a ?300-?400 computer with market-leading graphics, best-of-breed > sound, a decent keyboard and lots of RAM. And there's part of the problem - pricing in the UK. The C-64 came out thirty years ago into a US market where IBM was rapidly displacing other machines in the office, but at $2K-$5K, was not making inroads into the home (yet) where the Apple II was the king of the hill. Expensive ($1200-$2000 was ordinary, depending on mono vs color monitor and 1 vs 2 disk drives), but highly desired and sought after. At $599 for the computer itself and another $499-599 for the external diskette drive, lots of people opted for the $99 tape drive. Even for those that splurged and bought CPU+disk, that was the same cost as a low-end Apple II (mono monitor, 16K, 1 disk, 1-bit sound...) Prices came down very quickly on the C-64 and very slowly on the Apple II, cementing the trend. People still desired the Apple II, but more _bought_ the C-64. Having spent 4 months of 1985 living and going to school in Europe (mostly Greece and the UK), I can say that the economics of home computers was entirely different on each side of the pond. You had models that were virtually unknown in the States and through import duties and VAT and the like, favorably priced against hideously expensive US imports. US prices fell so fast in the 1980s that Japanese and European models never could gain a foothold. The drop was rapid enough to kill off many of the once major players in the States (further accelerated by frequent clearance sales), so it was not without its "cost" even here. In this environment, we never saw the joke here. We just saw cheap computers. They all came with BASIC, they all had some good features and some bad, and people picked favorites for rational and irrational reasons. As part of the Commodore tribe, we looked down on the cost of the Apple II at the same time we looked up to its graphics and the expectation that it would have at least one floppy drive. We looked down on the crappy keyboard of the Atari 400 and clunky BASIC, and slightly up at the Antic graphics. We all looked down at the ZX80. And on and on. The other tribes rearranged their likes/dislikes and crowed about different features, but it was essentially the same tune. I don't remember a single person ever saying they were avoiding the C-64 specifically because they didn't thought its implementation of BASIC was inadequate. Buyers used entirely different priorization criteria. > Which is why I am genuinely amazed to discover that someone's > reimplemented it today! I am stunned. It is, for my money, THE single > worst example of its type, the horrendous shameful guilty > embarrassment of its generation, the twisted crippled mutant that > people didn't talk about and kept locked in the attic. The deformed > puppy that should have been stillborn. That's a lot of vitrol that I think is quite misplaced. Earlier in this thread, I listed a number of BASICs that I have personal experience with that I found far, far less pleasant to deal with than Microsoft BASIC2 on Commodore hardware. To recap and summarize, any BASIC that had significant array limitations (elements 255 or less, single dimensional, etc), had limited string handling (length, etc), had variable name limitations (one letter, or a VTOC "variable table"), lacked a screen editor, lacked disk/tape/screen I/O handling ("OPEN n/PRINT #n/CLOSE n" in CBM BASIC), lacked boolean operators, lacked substring processing, or lacked direct I/O port manipulation (via PEEK/POKE or some IN/OUT statements)... and there were *lots* of machines that had one or more of those deficiencies... *those* are the worst examples, shameful embarassments, stunted, crippled, etc. I'm not saying we never wished for BASIC statements to simplify sound and graphics manipulation - we did. Some of us bought or wrote BASIC extensions (I did it with "SYS X, n, n, n" and "USR()" mechanisms, as Cameron Kaiser was describing). Others just worked with BASIC as shipped and wrote (and shared through user groups and magazine articles) pretty cool programs for the C-64. Yet others decided to toss BASIC to the curb and wring every drop out of the hardware through assembly, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. -ethan From popeye at p-t-b.com Tue Jan 10 06:08:17 2012 From: popeye at p-t-b.com (Popeye Theophilus Barrnumb) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:08:17 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green Message-ID: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Does anyone have an idea of what color "Hazeltine Green" (phosphor) is, or might be, or where that info could be found? My question is regarding web and programmatic simulations of green phosphor monitors. (in an attempt to be somewhat accurate and also have them look "right") -- Quinn From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 10 11:06:05 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:06:05 -0800 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: <20120110163546.GA32446@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120110163546.GA32446@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4F0C6FFD.3090407@bitsavers.org> On 1/10/12 8:35 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > So he is really asking > how to boot an Eclipse? > He has a (mostly) complete disk image of the pack from the Eclipse. The problem is he hasn't found anyone who is willing, or remembers, how the system internals work. He is on the Controlfreaks mailing list, which is probably the largest surviving brain trust of things CDC and Cray, and hasn't gotten the answers he's looking for. I have to give it to the guy for being persistent, though. From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 10 11:32:34 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:32:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 10, 12 11:38:26 am" Message-ID: <201201101732.q0AHWYH5027968@floodgap.com> > In the very early 1980s, the cheapest, nastiest, crappiest common > computer I encountered in the States was the Sinclair ZX80 (and even > then, I think I knew 3-4 owners - fewer than Apples). My folks actually looked at one, and I used one in school in southern California, but it was the teacher's unit and it was replaced by a C64 the next year, and then the school got Apple IIes after that. > As part of that, since Commodore had purchased a license for Microsoft > BASIC at very favorable terms to Commodore (I don't remember the > deepest details off the top of my head, but the effect was a lifetime > license for BASIC2 for little or no cost), updating the BASIC would > have added, in effect, a Microsoft tax on every Commodore computer > sold. To Tramiel especially, this would have been a serious > disincentive to update BASIC. When the C-64 was selling for $99, it > was profitable. IIRC, the cost to Commodore per unit was around > $16-$18. Adding even a $10-per-unit license fee would have been a > significant hit to profitability. Upgrading BASIC wouldn't really add > enough new customers to pay for itself. I don't know if this is true per se. Development costs might have been a concern, but Commodore did BASIC 3.5 (+4/16) and 7.0 (128) and even 10.0 (65) and I don't think Microsoft ever saw a cent. My bet is that Tramiel didn't want to delay the machines to market developing the software, nor did he want to "waste" R&D costs on building a better BASIC, but I'm quite sure his terms with Microsoft didn't require him to give Gates a penny even if he did muck with it. Tramiel knew he had Gates over the barrel back then and I doubt very much Jack would have left such a loophole. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; ----------------------------------------------- From jbmcb1 at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 12:07:05 2012 From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:07:05 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:44 AM, David Riley wrote: > - It's patently absurd that Windows 7 64-bit won't let me develop my own > drivers without having to put the system in a special mode that disables > some media playback because I just might be loading a driver to capture DVD > output. > Windows Vista/7 could have been *wonderful* operating systems, with advanced file systems and a fantastic driver architecture. Unfortunately, the requirements of HDCP blew everything out of the water. WDM - a mature and decent driver architecture, was thrown out of the Window just for HDCP support. It broke hardware audio acceleration to the point that sound card manufacturers had to come up with their own audio API, bypassing DirectAudio completely (OpenAL) The stupidly onerous, and consumer-device-centric, security requirements that armor the HDMI media stream are, I'm convinced, the single reason Windows Vista was a steaming pile of junk, and why there are still Windows 7 still has problems. All so you can watch a Blu-ray on Windows. And it was all for nothing - HDCP encryption was bad to begin with, and was cracked in 2010. > > - The registry is just abuse. Yes, we could debate endlessly about how > bad text files are in comparison. No, it's not going to change my mind. > Hear hear. At least there are more standardized, sane places to put system-wide (ProgramData) and User (AppData) config files. Places that you don't need to be an administrator to access. From tshoppa at wmata.com Tue Jan 10 12:16:09 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:16:09 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com Message-ID: Pontus writes: >On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 04:14:25PM +0000, Mark Benson wrote: >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> > Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... >> > >> > http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ >> >> Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? > Doesn't the Cray-1 run of an Eclipse front end. So he is really asking > how to boot an Eclipse? Other brand front ends were used too... Cray themselves used an Eclipse, but some customers used DEC or (ack!) IBM front ends. If someone wants to understand booting RDOS on a Nova or Eclipse, this is the best start: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dg/software/rdos/093-000188-02_Load_and_Generate_RDOS_Jul79.pdf From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 12:17:25 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:17:25 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9! AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <8D4D87FA-C964-409C-9BB3-A40CDEB726FC@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 1:07 PM, Jason McBrien wrote: > Hear hear. At least there are more standardized, sane places to put > system-wide (ProgramData) and User (AppData) config files. Places that you > don't need to be an administrator to access. If the application in question actually uses them instead of just assuming either somewhere off of C: (I'm looking at you, FPGA and simulation vendors) or worse, "C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\", which I've noticed they had to backfill with shortcuts now that they've removed spaces from the path (which also tended to confuse a lot of programs). - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 12:31:38 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:31:38 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201101732.q0AHWYH5027968@floodgap.com> References: <201201101732.q0AHWYH5027968@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > My bet is that Tramiel didn't want to delay the machines to market developing > the software, nor did he want to "waste" R&D costs on building a better BASIC I'm sure that's true. > but I'm quite > sure his terms with Microsoft didn't require him to give Gates a penny > even if he did muck with it. Tramiel knew he had Gates over the barrel back > then and I doubt very much Jack would have left such a loophole. That's more what I was trying to describe. Tramiel wouldn't have gone back to Microsoft for a "new" BASIC on new terms - he got his bargain back in the PET days and wouldn't have voluntarily put himself under less favorable terms moving forward. CBM BASIC 3.5 and 7.0 (and 10.0?) were, as I understand them, more like extensions on the original code rather than a new development effort. I could be woefully ignorant, however - once I got an Amiga 1000 (and AmigaDOS 1.2 was released), I spent far less time in the 8-bit world. -ethan From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 12:56:48 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:56:48 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0C89F0.8060404@mail.msu.edu> On 1/10/2012 12:32 AM, MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:29:10 -0800 > From: Josh Dersch > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > ... >> I've created a few floppies from my PC on a 5.25" drive using >> ImageDisk, I >> have been unable to get the FDC to read them (or boot, obviously). I >> wasn't 100% sure it wasn't just the setup I have on my PC getting in the >> way, hence my latest attempt to use the FDC itself to write the disks. > > You don't say which images and whether you're talking about a DD drive > or an > HD drive emulating an 8" disk. The CPM 2.2 images on Dave's site are for an 8" drive, I've tried those as well as the CDOS floppies (5.25"). I've tried both DD and HD drives. > > Let me say it again: very few PCs will reliably write the Cromemco > 360K DD > format, but 8" images written to a 1.2M HD drive (on 1.2MB disks!) are > usually quite reliable. See below. > >>> You are aware that using a 5.25HD drive as an 8" requires a jumper to >>> connect /READY to the FDC's 5.25" interface? > >> I was not aware, but the 16/64FDC has connectors for both 5.25" and 8" >> drives, I've been using the 5.25" connector and the controller seems >> to be >> able to communicate with it OK -- it has no trouble seeking and >> formatting >> tracks... it just can't read or write them at the moment... > > Umm... if you can't read it how do you know it was formatted correctly? > > The 5.25" connector normally only supports DD drives/formats (which, as I > said, are notoriously unreliable reading disks made on a PC) because the > /READY signal needed for 8" drives is not available on that connector. To > use the more reliable 1.2M HD drives (360RPM with 1.2M HD disks) (or > 3.5" HD drives for that matter) connected to the 5.25" port as 8" you > need > to connect pin 34 to /READY (and jumper the drive to supply /RY > instead of /DC). Incidentally, that also avoids the 8" drive issues > that Bill and Amardeep are arguing about. I've been using Dave's transfer utilities to run the CDOS "INIT" program (configured such that it's set up for 5.25" drives, according to the documentation) to format disks in Single-Density/Single-Sided at the moment, and I've tried it using a Tandon TM-100 which I'd expect would avoid the issues with the /READY line that you're mentioning above -- or am I still missing something here? > > So, frankly, I'm very skeptical that your 1.2M HD drive is working at all > *as an 8" drive*. BTW, your 300RPM HD drive is also going to be > troublesome > if not completely useless. I am not, at the moment, trying to use the drive as an 8" drive. > > And of course you have to select the correct drive type in RDOS with one, > two or three semicolons. > > I'd be surprised if the 1793 were the problem, especially both of > them. The > 4FDC had a bad reputation for that, but out of the 20+ Cromemco > systems that > I supported (and still have most of) only ONE ever developed problems > reading disks and I never did investigate what the cause actually was. > > No offence, but most likely you're doing something wrong; image/disk > incompatibility, wrong type selected, etc. etc. > > Good luck! Thanks :). - Josh > > From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 10 12:58:40 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:58:40 -0700 Subject: glterminal (was: Hazeltine Green) In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Message-ID: In article , Sander Reiche writes: > P.S. Any chance of this for X11/Windows? :) > http://ldopa.net/2006/01/14/glterminal/ It does the curved effect with textures using OpenGL. That should run under X11 or Windows on a PC. It won't run on older X terminals that don't have GLX. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 10 13:03:41 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:03:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from Ethan Dicks at "Jan 10, 12 01:31:38 pm" Message-ID: <201201101903.q0AJ3fTj017864@floodgap.com> > CBM BASIC 3.5 and 7.0 (and 10.0?) were, as I understand them, more > like extensions on the original code rather than a new development > effort. Yes, they were just evolutions of the original code. Commodore did twist the knife a bit by putting a (C)1977 MICROSOFT into the 128's banner, though. I'm sure there was quite a lot of cussing in the Microsoft executive washroom in 1985. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being." From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 10 13:13:11 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:13:11 -0700 Subject: What a silly subject line (was: The redundancy of Dave McGuire) In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9! AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: In article , Liam Proven writes: > [...] Even > in Vista & 7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been > comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their > pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". For better or worse, MS does this in exact response to customer feedback. The most secure computer is one that's unplugged, both from power and network, and in a locked room that noone can enter. It is also the most worthless computer. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 10 13:08:31 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:08:31 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Message-ID: In article <4F0C2A31.1060002 at p-t-b.com>, Popeye Theophilus Barrnumb writes: > Does anyone have an idea of what color "Hazeltine Green" (phosphor) is, > or might be, or where that info could be found? I'd see if you can find some sort of technical specification that listed the phosphor composition and then look it up in a CRC Phosphor handbook (there's one on google books). -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From jdr_use at bluewin.ch Tue Jan 10 13:36:03 2012 From: jdr_use at bluewin.ch (Jos Dreesen) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:36:03 +0100 Subject: What a silly subject line In-Reply-To: References: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9! AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F0C9323.3040107@bluewin.ch> On 01/10/2012 08:13 PM, Richard wrote: > The most secure computer is one that's unplugged, both from power and network, and in a locked room that noone can enter. Wouldn't that describe your ( and mine ) computer collections ? > It is also the most worthless computer. maybe not... Jos From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:07:05 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:07:05 +0000 Subject: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see (was Re: What a silly subject line) In-Reply-To: <4F0C9323.3040107@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: On 1/10/12 11:36 AM, "Jos Dreesen" wrote: >On 01/10/2012 08:13 PM, Richard wrote: >> The most secure computer is one that's unplugged, both from power and >>network, and in a locked room that noone can enter. > >Wouldn't that describe your ( and mine ) computer collections ? >> It is also the most worthless computer. > >maybe not... No, I agree with Richard. :-) -- Ian (*Living* Computer Museum) From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:09:35 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:09:35 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/10/12 5:29 AM, "Kevin Schoedel" wrote: >At 3:54 am +0000 2012/01/09, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>Perhaps quite a lot, but not $800,000. :) >> >>Ebay #190404561375 > >I still think Intel should issue a commemorative 4004 in 22nm. Or failing >that, easter-egg one (or a few thousand) into Haswell somewhere. Now there's a fun thought: a chip with oodles of 4004 cores, each with a bit of RAM and a communication infrastructure. But how would that maintain the x86 hegemony? Sorry, nonstarter?. -- Ian From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:13:03 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:13:03 +0000 Subject: "BASIC English" vs. natural languages Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Chuck Guzis Sent: Monday, January 09, 2012 10:10 PM > On 9 Jan 2012 at 21:09, dwight elvey wrote: >> Of course, English isn't the only natural language but some think it >> is. > No, but Basic English (note the caps) has a pedigree: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_English > To the best my knowledge, other languages, say, Old Church Slavonic, > do not have a similar pedigree.. What do you mean by "pedigree" in these statements? Basic English (which, contra the Wick, is "Business, Arts, Science, Industry, Commerce English") is the failed pipedream of a single person (and I'm speaking here as someone with 40+ years and undergraduate and graduate degrees in linguistics). It's an attempt to round off the corners of a natural language in order to make it easier for those unfortunate enough to be born elsewhere than in the United States of America to be governed by those more graced by God. In what way does that constitute a pedigree? And it's interesting that you chose, of all languages, Old Church Slavonic as your example. OCS was based on the South Slavic languages of the 10th Century (CE) Balkans, with vocabulary borrowed as needed from Koine ("New Testament") and Byzantine Greek to fill in the needed concepts for expressing (Orthodox) Christian theology in languages which did not share that world view. The Christian scriptures were translated into this refined and enhanced language for the purpose of converting the heathen Slavs from their old ways of belief. It worked. I'd say that that's a pretty damn good pedigree as these things go. Damn, this soapbox didn't look so tall when I climbed up here. Rich Alderson not speaking for anyone but himself, and so including no .sig that might lead some reader to think otherwise. From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 14:14:56 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:14:56 -0500 Subject: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see (was Re: What a silly subject line) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2012, at 3:07 PM, Ian King wrote: > On 1/10/12 11:36 AM, "Jos Dreesen" wrote: > >> Wouldn't that describe your ( and mine ) computer collections ? >>> It is also the most worthless computer. >> >> maybe not... > > No, I agree with Richard. :-) -- Ian (*Living* Computer Museum) It's the most worthless computer until you plug it back in. Then it changes state. Typical engineering tradeoff. :-) - Dave From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:19:16 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:19:16 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/9/12 5:06 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: >> Dave McGuire flamed to Richard's trashcan: >> > Never wanting to disappoint, I'll just say your almost-robotic >>"Microsoft's >> > is better!" statements about damn near EVERYTHING crossed the >>line from >> > "irritating" to "entertaining" a long time ago. >On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >> Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So >> I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > >NOBODY here is in my KILL file. >The most rabid dogmatic fanatical insistent fanboys still provide a lot of >useful, or at least interesting and/or entertaining, information. +1. If I didn't agree with that, I would probably have unsubscribed a long time ago?. :-) From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 10 14:32:21 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:32:21 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <02663ECB4D1443EBB23D7A5DA1A03858@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:50:29 -0000 From: "James Attfield" To: Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500 > From: "Bill Sudbrink" > Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC > > I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping > up circuit boards. Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon > cable instead. Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you > later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up > making the modification. I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply > modified ribbon cable. Bill, the Tandon 848's look like they have a pretty similar interface to the SA-851. I have two TM-848-2's I would like to hook up - what chance do you think that your modified cable might work (I'm with you on this one rather than board cut'n'shut) and if so could you kindly email me the layout off-list? Jim ------------------------------- Reply:---------------------------- I'd be interested as well! Quinnteam used to make and sell something called a Top Hat which consisted of a pair of TM-848's mounted side-by-side horizontally across the top of a Z-2; this was before the 64FDC came out so they made a number of mods to the *drives * in order to work correctly with the 16FDC. I've still got TM-848s out of scrapped Top Hats and they work well with the 16FDC, as well as unmodified TM-848s out of scrapped System 3's which work with the 64FDC, but I've never taken the time to investigate just what's involved in getting either drive type to work with the other FDC; this thread has kind of reawakened my curiosity. Maybe some folks on the Cromemco mail list have more information... mike From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 10 14:42:21 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:42:21 -0800 Subject: "BASIC English" vs. natural languages In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <4F0C322D.24972.AE43A2@cclist.sydex.com> On 10 Jan 2012 at 20:13, Rich Alderson wrote: > And it's interesting that you chose, of all languages, Old Church > Slavonic as your example. OCS was based on the South Slavic languages > of the 10th Century (CE) Balkans, with vocabulary borrowed as needed > from Koine ("New Testament") and Byzantine Greek to fill in the needed > concepts for expressing (Orthodox) Christian theology in languages > which did not share that world view. The Christian scriptures were > translated into this refined and enhanced language for the purpose of > converting the heathen Slavs from their old ways of belief. > > It worked. I'd say that that's a pretty damn good pedigree as these > things go. > > Damn, this soapbox didn't look so tall when I climbed up here. Well, I'll defer to your scholarship, as I haven't studied the matter too much. Basic English did get a lot of attention at one point--and regarding Scripture, there does exist a Basic English version of the Bible. Whether or not it's converted anyone is another matter entirely. --Chuck From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:45:02 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:45:02 +0000 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm speaking specifically of Windows "The Desktop OS", not server stuff. The OS decides when I will install patches - never mind that I need to pick up my daughter at school, and my (former, replaced by a Mac) laptop insists that *now* is the time it wants to take fifteen minutes to install a patch (or, more likely, twenty or thirty of them) I didn't know about when I booted up that day (i.e. I'm not blowing off patching requests). Then when I restart the machine, it's another fifteen minutes while meaningless messages scroll across my screen. (And if I don't restart within some undefined period of time, the install seems to 'time out' and must start all over again. None of this is explained.) Then there are the meaningless error messages (that are sometimes explained on *non-Microsoft* websites, i.e. victim support groups). By way of comparison, one of my favorite error messages of all time said in essence, "Your system resources are not appropriate to what you want to do. Run this command line [displayed] and your machine will reset [list of parameters] and reboot, and everything will work." (It did.) This was VMS, a ~35-year-old OS. Windows? Not so helpful. On boot, "please wait for the ". I have no idea how this is supposedly 'serving' me, as I'm trying to get work done. Sometimes the work I'm trying to do takes less time than the boot process - and sometimes, less than the shutdown process. I guess I should be grateful it says "please." It's so much more polite than the implied "I, the computer, am far more important than you, the user who paid for all of this [stuff]." (Note about the obscurity of system messages: I worked for Microsoft for several years. They were no more meaningful then, unless you were the one who wrote the code. And even that wasn't a guarantee.) To do the same things I did ten years ago (or five years, or less), I must purchase a new computer. I could understand if I was restricted in using new and "exciting" things because of insufficient or absent hardware resources, but Windows keeps sucking up more and more and MORE CPU cycles, RAM and persistent store to do the same things I wanted to do ten years ago - and often, more slowly. (See: Vista.) (Of course, Ubuntu seems hellbent on the same path to perdition, but it's behind the MS curve.) And don't get me started on MS-Office?. -- Ian On 1/10/12 3:19 AM, "Liam Proven" wrote: >On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" wrote: >> >> >> Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your >> >> above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no >> >> comprehension of current technology whatsoever. As a manager of >> >> various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's >> >> largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the >> >> reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. >> > I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? >> >> If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing >> Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows >> fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in >> that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. >> >> Not that I like Windows. I don't. It's a horrible, horrible OS in >> multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. > >What he said! > >I dislike Windows myself these days & try to avoid it. I can use it, >support it & work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too >our >are not being paid to. > >Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. Anyone >flaming about how unreliable it is immediately *shows themselves to be an >irrational non,MS fanboy* because such opinions are not based upon current >facts; they are bigotry, based only on prejudice & badly out-of-date >hearsay. > >If I am paying someone for technical advice and skills, I expect a current >skill set of all major platforms. For some things, the right tool may be >one that somebody does not personally like. They should be able to suggest >this without their emotion and preferences getting in the way. > >If they can't, then they are unfit for the job. > >That means current knowledge and no bigotry and hatred. > From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 10 14:51:19 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:51:19 +0000 Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <03503FE9-A3B6-4A8C-84DF-F1192B709DB4@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/9/12 10:22 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: >On Jan 9, 2012, at 10:33 PM, Jules Richardson > wrote: >> But then when talking about door-propping we're dealing with hardware, >>and *nix / Windows are both software, so any argument is completely >>pointless anyway. ;) > > ROFL! And the voice of reason. :-) Reason? How did *that* sneak in here? Out, damn'd spot! From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 10 14:55:06 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:55:06 -0700 Subject: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see (was Re: What a silly subject line) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In article , Ian King writes: > On 1/10/12 11:36 AM, "Jos Dreesen" wrote: > > >On 01/10/2012 08:13 PM, Richard wrote: > >> The most secure computer is one that's unplugged, both from power and > >>network, and in a locked room that noone can enter. > > > >Wouldn't that describe your ( and mine ) computer collections ? > >> It is also the most worthless computer. > > > >maybe not... > > No, I agree with Richard. :-) -- Ian (*Living* Computer Museum) The computers in my museum are only off because i) I don't have real exhibits running or working yet, ii) I don't have sufficient power distribution in my current location, and iii) my current location is storage more than it is exhibit. If I could address all those concerns right now, most everything in the Computer Graphics Museum would be on and working. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 15:13:42 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:13:42 -0200 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) References: Message-ID: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> > The OS decides when I will install patches - never mind that I need to > pick up my daughter at school, and my (former, replaced by a Mac) laptop > insists that *now* is the time it wants to take fifteen minutes to install > a patch (or, more likely, twenty or thirty of them) I didn't know about > when I booted up that day (i.e. I'm not blowing off patching requests). > Then when I restart the machine, it's another fifteen minutes while > meaningless messages scroll across my screen. (And if I don't restart > within some undefined period of time, the install seems to 'time out' and > must start all over again. None of this is explained.) I don't know what windows are you using, but my Windows XP downloads the patches (because I configured it to do so) and tells me they are avaiable, to be installed whenever I want. And when I shutdown the system, it asks if I want to shutdown installing patches or just shutdown. > To do the same things I did ten years ago (or five years, or less), I must > purchase a new computer. I could understand if I was restricted in using > new and "exciting" things because of insufficient or absent hardware > resources, but Windows keeps sucking up more and more and MORE CPU cycles, > RAM and persistent store to do the same things I wanted to do ten years > ago - and often, more slowly. (See: Vista.) (Of course, Ubuntu seems > hellbent on the same path to perdition, but it's behind the MS curve.) Well, I still uses Win2000 in a very old P3, and many friends do that. My XP ran into a p4 machine (now an IBM T-60 dual core), and I still do things I was able to do ten years ago without the NEED to upgrade the machine. BTW, I know friends with P233 (yep!) notebooks running Win2000, reading e-mail on outlook, using firefox and office. And they work with that. It is a bit slow, but works. Of course, none of my 5 PCs run anything beyond XP. > And don't get me started on MS-Office?. -- Ian I used office 97 with the 2010 (or whatever) compatibility pack for ages. Now I use Office XP because I got a copy for free...And it always worked :o) From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 10 15:47:33 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:47:33 -0600 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> At 03:13 PM 1/10/2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > I don't know what windows are you using, but my Windows XP downloads the patches (because I configured it to do so) and tells me they are avaiable, Which Windows is he using? Well, something beyond XP. It'll download updates, it might give you a choice whether you want to install them, but once you do, it'll install updates now, then maybe again pre-shutdown and then maybe again post-startup, and no, it doesn't warn you before it does it or while it's doing it, and then you can rise-lather-repeat any number of times before it's all updated, and then maybe tomorrow it'll decide there was a few more it forgot about. Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of date was your advice? - John From terry at webweavers.co.nz Tue Jan 10 15:58:13 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:58:13 +1300 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: Guys, I'm someone who is not a programmer, not working in the IT industry but does dabble with vintage computers and has enough knowledge of an OS to tinker with settings if need be. I've used Windows XP since about 2002. I'm still using it. I've used Windows 7 (on one of my office machines) and that seems fine too. I can't comment on Windows XP and 7 from a programmers point of view but as far as a general user is concerned they are fine! Windows XP is very stable, and I can't remember having any issues with it. Getting drivers, software and support is usually easy for a Windows machine as the knowledge base is huge. Yes, I have used (and do use) OS X on my wife's iMac. That's fine too. I'm amazed how worked up people get about Windows. Sure, I used it in the late 80s and 90s and stability was questionable (mind you, I suspect often from badly written 3rd party drivers). Having played with OS/2 and the Mac Os'es of the time (System 6 and 7 etc.) I would agree they were miles ahead of Win 3.1,' 95 and '98 in the user experience. But hey...times move on. The Windows of today is not the Windows of the 1990s. For the majority of desktop users, it's a stable, very usable platform. Terry (Tez) From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 16:08:00 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:08:00 -0500 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <31FB9383-D9CA-4B0D-9ECA-3FEFE9126649@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 4:47 PM, John Foust wrote: > At 03:13 PM 1/10/2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I don't know what windows are you using, but my Windows XP downloads the patches (because I configured it to do so) and tells me they are avaiable, > > Which Windows is he using? Well, something beyond XP. It'll download updates, > it might give you a choice whether you want to install them, but once you do, > it'll install updates now, then maybe again pre-shutdown and then maybe again > post-startup, and no, it doesn't warn you before it does it or while it's > doing it, and then you can rise-lather-repeat any number of times before > it's all updated, and then maybe tomorrow it'll decide there was a few > more it forgot about. > > Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of > date was your advice? My complaint was actually about pre-SP3 XP, something which up until a year or two ago I still had to use for work on a semi-regular basis. The settings could be changed, of course, but the default was to auto-install and force a restart, often while I was on a bathroom break and still connected to a few servers over SSH. Every time I came upon a new machine, I got bitten by it again. It's solved by default now, yes, but I am still quite angry about it many years later. It was rightly pointed out to me off-list that this kept most average home users well-patched despite their best (or worst efforts), which is true, but I found it offensively poorly-planned. I'm a member of the "save early and often" school, but many others aren't (yes, it's their own damn fault for not saving before they got up). I think the default was changed in SP3, but I wouldn't swear to it. I still have to use XP a lot because curiously, companies in the tech sector are slow to approve an update, so yes, the failings of a nearly decade-old operating system are a real and pressing concern to me now. I think, if nothing else, it speaks well of XP's overall design relative to its predecessors that it's still very much preferred by a great many people. - Dave From christian_liendo at yahoo.com Tue Jan 10 16:08:24 2012 From: christian_liendo at yahoo.com (Christian Liendo) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:08:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: I don't care if you don't like Windows. In-Reply-To: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Honestly, I don't care if you like Windows or not..? All this flame war means is I am getting a ton of useless mail that doesn't have anything to do with classic computers and classiccmp is becoming alsmost as bad as craigslist's rant page. I mean all we need is a few Obama and racial remarks and it will be there. The people to perpetuate it are not making their case, they are just plain annoying. Don't like MS, ok.. fine.. I understand this is on/off topic, but honestly you guys are abusing this.. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 10 16:34:27 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:34:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> WOW! I am going to top-post here! Just because I feel a need to show the exact messages. I use Outhouse for work stuff, because they DEMAND that, and because of the crap that I receive. For example, one of our top administrators will create a one paragraph short document (changing the locaation of a meeting) using Weird, then print it (on a color printer - it has a single RED horizontal rule, the college logo, and his signature in blue ink), then SCAN it, then ATTACH the uncompressed IMAGE scan as a PDF file to an email whose subject is "FYI", and whose content is "Read this." Otherwise, it would be VERY difficult to include a horizontal rule that is NOT QUITE horizontal! Another administrator sent an 8MB XMAS card to 2000 people in the college email system. >From another missive on the same day: "The state mandate for "Information Competency" doesn't apply to us, because all of our staff already use the latest version of Microsoft Office, and are fully Information Competent." Alas, the campus that I am currently at doesn't have a bell tower. I also forward Harbor Freight flyers, etc. to that account, in order to be able to read them using Outhouse. BUT, for all of MY email (not related to work), I use PINE on a shell account at my ISP! I haven't changed that in about 20 years. I often get told that I am "out of touch [with reality]", "out of date", etc. and that I REALLY should "get current" . I have to admit that that is all true. BUT, . . . Now I find "modern" clients that reformat the message, including changing line breaks, altering punctuation (just chevrons in this case), but nevertheless ALTERING/CORRUPTING the content (which in THIS case was explicitly using formatting examples!) And "modern" clients that HIDE the content of the message from the user! I really need to apologize to the entire list. I had always ascribed lack of trimming to simple human laziness - we just don't bother, because it "isn't important". But, we really need to defenestrate the authors of the "modern" email clients - what they are doing to their own users is criminal. Gmail has misrepresented Liam (below) as being uncooperatively snarky (which I may have deserved), when it is actually their software that is the true miscreant. BTW, other than his email client not trimming, I've yet to see anything he has posted that I didn't enjoy. After examples like these, I may NEVER "update"! I hope that there are enough other neo-luddites that my ISP (LMI.NET) keeps offering shell accounts! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, J.G.Harston wrote: > Fred Cisin wrote: > > It has had so many chevrons (a name for the '>' "greater than" > > character) prepended that relatively short lines have wrapped. > > Even better, my mail client shows quoted sections with coloured lines > on each side of the text, so I get a pretty effect: > > |------------------------------------------------------------------| > ||----------------------------------------------------------------|| > ||| I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction || > |||| to "what is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed ||| > |||| exposed to other languages immediately after grasping the ||| > ||| basic principles. || > ||----------------------------------------------------------------|| > |------------------------------------------------------------------| > > JGH On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Liam Proven wrote: > On Jan 9, 2012 8:33 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: > > > > > >>>>>>>>>> I consider BASIC to be an excellent beginner's introduction > to > > > >>>>>>>>>> "what > > > >>>>>>>>>> is a program?", etc., so long as they are exposed to other > > > >>>>>>>>>> languages > > > >>>>>>>>>> immediately after grasping the basic principles. > > > > > > You might agree with the above; > > you might disagree with the above. > > (You already know where I stand) > > > > BUT, it is surely NOT so brilliant as to warrant > > being quoted by the next TEN respondents. > > It has had so many chevrons (a name for the '>' > > "greater than" character) prepended that relatively > > short lines have wrapped. > > > > (Since people might not trim even THIS, I'm using > > shorter lines) > > > > It's nice to have a little bit of context V > > "WHO are youagreeing/disagreeing with?". > > But, do we really NEED the entire transcript > > of the thread repeated every time? > > > > Howzbout: delete what's unnecessary of > > what the person you are replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to > > quoted of what the person they were replying to. > > > > On [impersonal] your most recent post, > > how many lines of unnecessary crap did > > [impersonal] YOU delete? > > > > If you want to reply or flame THIS, select a line or two > > that best summarizes what you feel needs to be answered. > > > > There are immense chevrons made of chevrons, > > as people add their input, but never delete > > ANY of the previous crap. > > > > > > > > > > But, it is heartening that due to the prevalence of bottom and > > interlinear posting here, at least some of those chevrons are > > asymmetrical. (The MOST annoyingly over-quoted stuff is near > > the beginning) > > > > There has been an immense amount of VERY useful and important > > information buried in the 33K (out of 34K) of extraneous crap > > Fair point. I am using Gmail, which collapses & hides quoted text I have > read before. Also, often, I am writing on my phone, which makes block > deletions very hard work. But I must remember that others may not be. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 10 16:41:27 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:41:27 -0800 Subject: "BASIC English" vs. natural languages In-Reply-To: <4F0C322D.24972.AE43A2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, <4F0C322D.24972.AE43A2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F0C4E17.26564.11B4AE3@cclist.sydex.com> I will add, however, to Jim's "why English" that English does dominate the computer world. When a Russian talks about his web presence, it seem that he uses the word "Sait" (Is the mailing list software is capable of Cyrillic characters?). I once had a little green book for IBM employees in Japan. It seemed that much of the computer vocabulary was simply transliterated English (spelled in Katakana). I don't know if it's true any longer, but there was a time when a college chemistry major was required to learn German, as that country once held a commanding lead in the field.. All of this is completely ignoring the silly attempts of L'Acad?mie fran?aise to " frenchify" computer terminology. Do the francophone Quebecers follow the guidelines for computer technology set down by L'Acad?mie? Do Frenchmen? --Chuck From alexeyt at freeshell.org Tue Jan 10 16:49:18 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:49:18 +0000 (UTC) Subject: I don't care if you don't like Windows. In-Reply-To: <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Christian Liendo wrote: > Don't like MS, ok.. fine.. > > I understand this is on/off topic, but honestly you guys are abusing this.. +1 Alexey From ajp166 at verizon.net Tue Jan 10 16:48:55 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:48:55 -0500 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Message-ID: <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net> On 01/10/2012 07:08 AM, Popeye Theophilus Barrnumb wrote: > Does anyone have an idea of what color "Hazeltine Green" (phosphor) is, > or might be, or where that info could be found? > > My question is regarding web and programmatic simulations of green > phosphor monitors. (in an attempt to be somewhat accurate and also have > them look "right") > > -- Quinn > > It's standard P1 phosphor used for CRTs. P1 phosphor is a medium persistence green used for many CRTs and common in older oscilloscopes (most common was the 3ap1 and 5up1/5rp1). The CRTS used back then for data terminals were 13 or 15xxP1 types where the XX were one of a large set of letters used for magnetic deflection CRTs of various deflection angles. Other CRTs were the P5(short blue) P7 (short blue, long yellow[ish]) common for radar applications and P4 (black and white TV). FYI: the persistence was a factor in color choice. The green P1 was about right as was P4 the amber/orange had too long a persistence and made for very smeary looking screens. The Short blues were prone to flicker and hard to look at for hours. it was the mid 80 when Color CRT phosphors were applied to monochrome tubes and DEC had a very good Amber and a shorter green for the late VT100- and the VT2xx series would add a whiter white (DEC paper white). Generally pre 1979 all Hazeltine green monitors/terminals were P1, they also did an white P4. I can say this as I worked there for a while (15xx and 14xx terminals). I used a lot of 1100 and 1200 series terminals. Allison From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 16:56:15 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:56:15 -0500 Subject: I don't care if you don't like Windows. In-Reply-To: <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Obama's a damn white redneck hick with a rusted out PDP-11 in his back yard that he won't even tarp over so property values have dropped 12940812040981098421% since that darn president moved into the neighborhood..... is that close enough? :) With that said, I agree. Let's go tinker with our NeXTcubes and PDPs and enjoy those instead. :) I for one just shipped out a NeXTdimension board to some lucky fellow out in England! :) On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 5:08 PM, Christian Liendo wrote: > > > Honestly, I don't care if you like Windows or not.. > > > All this flame war means is I am getting a ton of useless mail that doesn't have anything to do with classic computers and classiccmp is becoming alsmost as bad as craigslist's rant page. I mean all we need is a few Obama and racial remarks and it will be there. > > > The people to perpetuate it are not making their case, they are just plain annoying. > > Don't like MS, ok.. fine.. > > > I understand this is on/off topic, but honestly you guys are abusing this.. > > -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 10 17:00:21 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:00:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120110145027.M87214@shell.lmi.net> > I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC (for the moment) and right now I have > it wired to a single 5.25" drive (w/proper termination). I've tried > three different drives -- a Tandon TM-100, an unmodified 1.2M 5.25" > drive, and one that's modded to spin at 300rpm. Same exact behavior on > all three. Are you attempting to format single or double sided? WHICH is your TM-100? Are you attempting to format 40 track or 80? Although most 1.2M drives can be configured for 80 track DOUBLE (NOT "HIGH"!) density, it adds additional unnecessary variables. 1.2M is the WRONG drive for that FDC port. It might be feasible to cable the 1.2 (or a 1.4M!) drive to the 8" port, but don't even try until you get the "normal" stuff working. When it "won't read", in what way? Is it failing to see sectors and formatting? Or is it just unhappy with the directory structure and/or "boot" sector? There are numerous format variations possible with Cromemco. Most [5.25"] have 10 sectors of 512 bytes per sector, and the index and data gaps are "not easy" for a PC FDC to read. However, a disk formatted to 10 x 512 on a PC, with appropriate content in the "boot" sector is readable by Cromemco, and solves SOME data interchange issues. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 17:13:18 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:13:18 -0200 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> > Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of > date was your advice? It depends on how much money you like to burn for nothing. I have a core duo notebook, 2GB Ram, some 500-odd GB in the HD and use it as my main computer, for designing embbedded hardware. I use ALL programs you can think about (even Altium Designer) and have no troubles with that. If you like to use office 1*10^128 and Windows 1384, it is up to you, I use what works for me and I don't need to fork tons of money to have "the newest crop" to show my friends. It is a matter of usability x price. I'll buy a new computer (and hard disk, and OS, etc) when and IF I feel the need, not because it is new. From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 17:14:03 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:14:03 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line In-Reply-To: References: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9! AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F0CC63B.1070108@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 02:13 PM, Richard wrote: >> [...] Even >> in Vista& 7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been >> comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their >> pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". > > For better or worse, MS does this in exact response to customer > feedback. ...and they don't seem to understand that this is the WORST possible thing that they could do. Their customers are (typically) the least computer-literate computer users out there. They don't necessarily understand that asking for "less security stuff getting in the way" makes things less secure. Now, granted, they should learn about this stuff before ever sitting down in front of a computer. But they don't, and likely won't. IMO Microsoft should take the high road and give them what they NEED rather than what they ask for. They'd have a far higher-quality product as a result. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 17:15:18 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:15:18 -0200 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <31FB9383-D9CA-4B0D-9ECA-3FEFE9126649@gmail.com> Message-ID: <182501cccfed$eba21ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> > My complaint was actually about pre-SP3 XP, something which up until a > year or two ago I still had to use for work on a semi-regular basis. The > settings could be changed, of course, but the default was to auto-install > and force a restart, often while I was on a bathroom break and still > connected to a few servers over SSH. Every time I came upon a new > machine, I got bitten by it again. Default of all cars is to have the motor turned off and gear disengaged ;o) > I think the default was changed in SP3, but I wouldn't swear to it. I > still have to use XP a lot because curiously, companies in the tech sector > are slow to approve an update, so yes, the failings of a nearly decade-old > operating system are a real and pressing concern to me now. I think, if > nothing else, it speaks well of XP's overall design relative to its > predecessors that it's still very much preferred by a great many people. This is not a curiosity. This is sanity! Why will I change something that just works? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:20:27 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:20:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jan 9, 12 09:35:47 pm Message-ID: > > > for aprticualr ICs which then go to collectors who never power them up... > They were a dot matrix, very fast and had a pneumatic bladder under > the head to lean it forward to the platten. > Zinc diecast case I think > iirc one 4040 did machine control the other was input buffer/character > set to pin pattern I suddently want one of these :-) I can't see it would be worth shipping, so I am unlikely to get one, but it sure sounds fun.... For a diffrent reason I'd like to find an HP9871 daisywheel printer. This thing has 2 motors fixed to the chassis. If they rotat the same way, the carriage moves. If they rotate in opposite directions the daiwywheel spins. Soo odd. I want to pull the case on one. Several more recent printers had multiple 8-bit microprocessors. The Sands 700 (and I assume 900) machines have a z80 for processing the commands, handling the font ROMs, etc a Z8 to handle the input data nd another Z8 to drive the printhead. An odd machine, it's a multi-pass dot matrix built on the mechansim of a Diablo 630 daiyswheel with a 7 (or 9) pin printhead in plase of the daisyweel and its motor. The DEC LA324 has 3 processors too, I think. I seem to rememebr all of the 7031/8051 flavour, but I may ne misrememebring. It's been a long time since I've been inside one of those. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:28:10 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:28:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0B6EBB.3030605@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 9, 12 05:48:27 pm Message-ID: > > On 01/09/2012 02:45 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > My 3 are all in devices I want to keep operationmal (one in the Intel > > UPP, the other 2 in a Fluke data logger). > > What model of data logger uses 4040s? I will have to dig the instrument out to check (and I know the service manual is sitting on top of the instruemt, so I can't check that any more easily), but I think it's a 2240 IIRC all such units contai na 4040 for system control, etc. In mine there's a secodn 4040 on the optional parallel output card (to drive a Facit 4070 punch), used for code conversion, etc. I don't know what other pptional cards were avaialble and whether they contain 4040s. IIRC it doens't use any of the 4004/4040 specific memory ICs though. It uses a thing called a 4289 (IIRC), which convertes the 4040 bus into a convential memory bus (address + data) and uses that to talk to standard RAM and EPROM ICs. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:35:36 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:35:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120109164630.O46256@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 9, 12 05:00:36 pm Message-ID: > > On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: > > (Windows for games, *nix for work, Mac for door-propping) :) > > Always use the best tool for the job. That is the first sensible thing in this thread! Personally, I couldn't care less what you choose to use. But I hope you have reasons for your choice. > > Games: I don't know from games. SURELY not Windoze??? In my case : HP calcualtor. [...] > door-propping: surely nothing can compete with the Times/Sinclair door wedge. My door is cureenbly being held open by an HP6490B Multiprogrammer, but that's only bevcause the only place I can put it it agaist the door. It's useful for a lot more than just a doorstop... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:40:03 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:40:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? In-Reply-To: <20120109170345.D46256@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 9, 12 05:06:47 pm Message-ID: > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > NOBODY here is in my KILL file. Ditto. > The most rabid dogmatic fanatical insistent fanboys still provide a lot of > useful, or at least interesting and/or entertaining, information. However.could I please remind the children here that this is the classic computers list. Not the OS-advocacy list, the modern-computing list, or anything else. So discussions of modifying (or not) Cromemco disk controllers are on-topic. Machines that use the 4040 are on-topic. the SNAP programaing language (whether the older one like English, or the toekn-threaded think in the Panasoic/Quasar machine) is on-topic. But surely the modern Windows .vs. modern linux war is off-topic. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:43:40 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:43:40 +0000 (GMT) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: <20120109170914.N46256@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 9, 12 05:14:47 pm Message-ID: > > I just tripped over an unusual cable: > > It has a trapezoidal thin black box labeled "TRS0-80", but no part number, > one side has a few inches of cable with a 40 pin card edge connector, > the other side has a few feet of cable with a 50 pin edge connector. > > 40 pin was probably model 1 expansion bus (I hafn'y messed with model > 2/12/16). But what did Radio Shack use on model 1 with 50 pin? Is this a genuine Radio Shack part or a 3rd party thing? If it is Radio Shack, I can think of 2 possibilities : 1) The Model 3 expansion bus was 50 pins. I seem to remember there was an adapter to use certain hardware dvices for the M3 on the M1 2) Whether this is the same as (1) I don't rememeber, but I seem to rememebr a product consistng of LDOS and an adapter cable to sue the M3 hard disk units on the M1. Is there any electroncis inside? Or can't it be openeed? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 16:51:52 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:51:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jan 10, 12 03:58:45 am Message-ID: > > I still have the one I bought new, yes it did little useful work though So do I. Unfoprtunaely the 7805 died on mine and took out the SC/MP processor (wha were they thinking not putting a heatsink on the regulaotr???) I never bothered to replace it when you could easily get SC/MP chips. > the keypad was terrible, I made an external keyboard for mine. There was an edge conenctor for that in front of the reset button IRIC. The pinout wasn't in the manual or on the scheamtic, but it didn't take long to trace it out. My MK14 want through 3 versios of on-PCB keyboard. The first oen was a sheet of conductive rubber and that was totally unsuable. The nect thing was a Sinclair 'upgrade kit' (I was foolish in those days...) which consisted of 20 plasick buttons, 20 melay click dopes and a double sided sicky sheet. This went toghter with the metal platem the legened sheet and the spacer of the original keeboard (omitting the conducive rubber sheet) to make a keyboard with a click effect and movinng buttons. Still didn't work very well. I then realses there were 4 solder pads under each key lcation spaced to take the ltitle keyboard switches that Maplin sold at the time. Fitting 20 of those in place of the origianl kweyboard made it useable. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 17:31:15 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:31:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: I don't care if you don't like Windows. In-Reply-To: from "Alexey Toptygin" at Jan 10, 12 10:49:18 pm Message-ID: > > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Christian Liendo wrote: > > > Don't like MS, ok.. fine.. > > > > I understand this is on/off topic, but honestly you guys are abusing this.. > > +1 ++ There's off-topic and there's OFF-TOPIC. I'ev always assumed that on this list wer can talk about things that are sort-of related to old computers but which aren't actually old computers. Things like 'I've got this strip printer off a data looging system. It's actually a Victor Comptometer calculator chassis without the carry mechanism and with solenoids over the keys'. It's not a computer, it's not part of a computer. But it's related to them. -tony From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 17:33:41 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:33:41 -0500 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated yet / won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark (www.bizspark.com) from program from microsoft are low and they give you all their software free for up to 3 years. Just a heads up. On Jan 10, 2012 6:20 PM, "Alexandre Souza - Listas" wrote: > Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of >> date was your advice? >> > > It depends on how much money you like to burn for nothing. > > I have a core duo notebook, 2GB Ram, some 500-odd GB in the HD and use > it as my main computer, for designing embbedded hardware. I use ALL > programs you can think about (even Altium Designer) and have no troubles > with that. If you like to use office 1*10^128 and Windows 1384, it is up to > you, I use what works for me and I don't need to fork tons of money to have > "the newest crop" to show my friends. > > It is a matter of usability x price. I'll buy a new computer (and hard > disk, and OS, etc) when and IF I feel the need, not because it is new. > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 10 17:40:43 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:40:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted. Message-ID: Hopefully this won;t develop into a flamewar.... I am looking for a terminal emoulator program that runs on the Epson HX20. The copy of SIDHA-Dialog that was on a website is corrupt. I contacted the website owner, he agrees, in fact it's not a tar fiel atall, but an html error page!. Does anyone know of a terminal emulator for the HX20? I also read a rumour that there was a FORTH ROM for the HX20 that plugged into the empty ROM socket in the machine. Does anyone have an image of that or, inded, images of any other option ROMs for it? Thanks in advnce for any help -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 17:42:43 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:42:43 -0500 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F0CCCF3.7090402@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 06:13 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of >> date was your advice? > > It depends on how much money you like to burn for nothing. > > I have a core duo notebook, 2GB Ram, some 500-odd GB in the HD and use > it as my main computer, for designing embbedded hardware. I use ALL > programs you can think about (even Altium Designer) and have no troubles > with that. If you like to use office 1*10^128 and Windows 1384, it is up > to you, I use what works for me and I don't need to fork tons of money > to have "the newest crop" to show my friends. > > It is a matter of usability x price. I'll buy a new computer (and hard > disk, and OS, etc) when and IF I feel the need, not because it is new. BRAVO!! -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From terry at webweavers.co.nz Tue Jan 10 17:48:45 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:48:45 +1300 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) Message-ID: On a related note, what are people's feeling's about the following.... I've recently had some discussions with someone who collects a particular brand of classic computer from the early 1980s. He has a few of these but they are never, ever switched on or tested. He doesn't want to test them as he feels doing so may damage the old electronics. Consequently they are never plugged in. This attitude is an anathema to me. I strive to maintain computers in my collecton so they can be fired up and demonstrated to people working as they were in the day. Otherwise they are inert "dead" collection of metal and plastic (still of interest as regards case design maybe). I like to know if a computer is working or not, and if not perhaps try to fix it. To me, if you won't start up an old computer for fear that something will (or has) failed then, for practical purposes, it's broken. The end result is the same. It's inert. Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. Terry (Tez) From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 17:54:32 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:54:32 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0CCFB8.7070008@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 05:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: ... [utter madness about idiot suits making technical decisions deleted] > After examples like these, I may NEVER "update"! I hope that there are > enough other neo-luddites that my ISP (LMI.NET) keeps offering shell > accounts! If they don't, I will. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From tosteve at yahoo.com Tue Jan 10 18:02:03 2012 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:02:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: FREE: Apollo Workstation 8-inch floppy disks Message-ID: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I don't know what these are specifically, but they are related to Apollo Workstation systems and AEGIS OS. Free for the asking. See pics here: http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-1.jpg http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-2.jpg http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-3.jpg http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-4.jpg http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-5.jpg http://oldcomputers.net/temp/apollo-disks-6.jpg Located in Orange County, southern California. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 10 18:17:54 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:17:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120110161236.H93942@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > Is this a genuine Radio Shack part or a 3rd party thing? It looks like genuine Radio Shack, and has TRS-80 embossed on it, which due to trademark issues means it is probably genuine. > If it is Radio Shack, I can think of 2 possibilities : > > 1) The Model 3 expansion bus was 50 pins. I seem to remember there was an > adapter to use certain hardware dvices for the M3 on the M1 sounds reasonable. In which case, I don't know why I have it, since I don't remember ever getting any M3 external devices. > 2) Whether this is the same as (1) I don't rememeber, but I seem to > rememebr a product consistng of LDOS and an adapter cable to sue the M3 > hard disk units on the M1. Sounds nice, but I never had a hard disk on a M1 > Is there any electroncis inside? Or can't it be openeed? It's not intended to be opened, but I will try. carefully. It's too thin, however, for any chips of that era. If anybody can come up with a need for it, it's available. along with a M1 buffered EI cable. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 10 18:24:53 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:24:53 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small > business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated yet / > won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... The first hit is free, eh? If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? --T From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 18:30:39 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:30:39 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0CD82F.6070803@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 09:44 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > And anyway, Dave, if your justification is that it was the clear > market leader, then by that argument, we should all be using x86 PCs - > as they are 95% or more of the general-purpose computer market and > have been for 20 years now - and on them we should be running MS > Windows, because that's the utterly dominant market leading OS. You keep saying that. More Microsoft-funded "market statistics"? As perhaps we've argued about before, I run into Windows machines very rarely. They're not used much in my lines of work...and I have several lines of work, and some of them are not at all esoteric. From my perspective, Windows machines are pretty rare where real work is involved. That is my perspective. Yours may differ, and if it does, then I respectfully suggest that you hang out in less-seedy neighborhoods for your own safety. ;) Note well that I didn't say a single negative thing about Windows above, so, WinTribesman, put away your spears. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 18:31:49 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:31:49 -0500 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: <4F0C6FFD.3090407@bitsavers.org> References: <20120110163546.GA32446@Update.UU.SE> <4F0C6FFD.3090407@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F0CD875.7040308@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 12:06 PM, Al Kossow wrote: >> So he is really asking how to boot an Eclipse? > > He has a (mostly) complete disk image of the pack from the Eclipse. Was it in fact an Eclipse? Cray-1s were front-ended by a bunch of different types of systems, not just DG machines. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 18:34:48 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:34:48 -0500 Subject: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0CD928.8070502@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 11:22 AM, Jonathan Katz wrote: > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Mark Benson wrote: >>> Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... >>> >>> http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ >> >> Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? > > Only two people I could think of Dave McGuire and Ethan O'Toole. Sorry > to put you guys on the spot ;) The machine he's (sorta) working with predates the machines I've worked with by 20-30 years and have no architectural similarities. I doubt I'd be of much help for that reason. I'm willing to take a whack at it, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 10 18:41:56 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:41:56 -0500 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0CDAD4.7060809@telegraphics.com.au> On 10/01/12 6:48 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > On a related note, what are people's feeling's about the following.... > ... > Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer > community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. I own many machines I've never fired up, but it's due to lack of TIME. :( --Toby > > Terry (Tez) > From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 18:49:31 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:49:31 -0600 Subject: Fwd: [rescue] Cray Supercomputer - from Hackaday.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0CDC9B.40309@gmail.com> Shoppa, Tim wrote: > Pontus writes: >> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 04:14:25PM +0000, Mark Benson wrote: >>> Begin forwarded message: >>> >>>> Hi folks - I thought this was interesting and at least *somewhat* OT... >>>> >>>> http://hackaday.com/2012/01/10/help-chris-boot-his-cray-1-supercomputer/ >>> Dunno if anyone saw this - looks VERY interesting - can anyone help this guy?? >> Doesn't the Cray-1 run of an Eclipse front end. So he is really asking >> how to boot an Eclipse? > > Other brand front ends were used too... Cray themselves used an Eclipse, but some > customers used DEC or (ack!) IBM front ends. Yes, is it confirmed that this one was an Eclipse (and that it was RDOS rather than something else)? cheers Jules From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 10 18:51:02 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:51:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120110164605.E93942@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > Hopefully this won;t develop into a flamewar.... > I am looking for a terminal emoulator program that runs on the Epson HX20. > The copy of SIDHA-Dialog that was on a website is corrupt. I contacted the > website owner, he agrees, in fact it's not a tar fiel atall, but an html > error page!. Does anyone know of a terminal emulator for the HX20? > I also read a rumour that there was a FORTH ROM for the HX20 that plugged > into the empty ROM socket in the machine. Does anyone have an image of > that or, inded, images of any other option ROMs for it? > Thanks in advnce for any help This probably won't be any help, since I no longer have ANY of it (Uncle Roger has most of my old hardware. also schematics and "service" manual). 15-20 years ago, there was a crude terminal program for the HC-20 (HX in beige instead of grey, with addition of katakana character set). That would presumably been from Hudson Soft or Ski Soft. There was a text editor called SkiWriter from SkiSoft. From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 10 18:51:41 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:51:41 +0000 Subject: VCF East Day 2 keynote: Kottke Message-ID: <2008296839-1326243102-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-48868701-@b5.c15.bise6.blackberry> A few days ago I announced that this year's VCF East 8.0 Day 1 keynote is Tom Kurtz, the co-inventor of BASIC. Now I'm happy to announce that the Day 2 keynote is Dan Kottke. Dan was a college buddy of Steve Jobs. They went to India together and sought enlightenment. Dan assembled Apple 1 boards in Jobs' parent's garage, and was officially employee #12, although in reality he was in the first five or so. He speaks on Sunday, May 6, at 12:30. Details to be posted at http://www.vintage.org/2012/east and http://www.facebook.com/vcfeast8. From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 18:55:26 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:55:26 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 06:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" wrote: >> >>>> Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your >>>> above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no >>>> comprehension of current technology whatsoever. As a manager of >>>> various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's >>>> largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the >>>> reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. >>> I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? >> >> If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing >> Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows >> fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in >> that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. >> >> Not that I like Windows. I don't. It's a horrible, horrible OS in >> multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. > > What he said! > > I dislike Windows myself these days& try to avoid it. I can use it, > support it& work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too our > are not being paid to. > > Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. Anyone > flaming about how unreliable it is immediately *shows themselves to be an > irrational non,MS fanboy* because such opinions are not based upon current > facts; they are bigotry, based only on prejudice& badly out-of-date > hearsay. Yes but you poo-poo any statement that is anti-Windows or anti-Microsoft, regardless of the facts. > If I am paying someone for technical advice and skills, I expect a current > skill set of all major platforms. For some things, the right tool may be > one that somebody does not personally like. They should be able to suggest > this without their emotion and preferences getting in the way. > > If they can't, then they are unfit for the job. > > That means current knowledge and no bigotry and hatred. You're wrong on two counts. My experience is varied, but the areas in which I'm paid for my advice and skills are high-performance scientific computing, supercomputers, large-scale and high-reliability servers, and (the opposite end of the spectrum) embedded systems development. I am Just Not Into suitly desktop computing with spreadsheets and word processors. I use both on occasion, yes, but that's not my area of work. I don't work in the not-very-demanding, not-very-technical world of office desktop computing or home desktop computing. The other is the more important (to me) point that has me particularly hot under the collar. You, like most Microsoft people (regardless of how loudly you state that you don't like or use Windows, you still tout it at every turn) automatically label ANY anti-Windows statement as somehow not being based on facts or experience, and automatically entirely emotionally-based. That is insane, insulting, and more importantly, just plain wrong. I use the best tool for the job, regardless of the job. The day that Windows becomes a good tool for a job that I need to have done, I will use Windows. That day hasn't come yet. If you feel otherwise, I'm sorry, I disagree. Either way, though, I will not permit you to simply dismiss every word out my keyboard as automatically subject to some sort of emotional bias just because you don't like it and don't want it to be true. Personally I don't give a rat's ass what you think, as you've proven time and time again that you really don't know what you're talking about when it comes to certain major categories of stuff. I offer your repeated assertions that "95% of all computers run Windows" and "computer programmers number one in a million" up as examples. This is why I don't even listen to your arguments that actually seem plausible anymore, because I have no idea if you've actually looked at the facts. Further, you're a guy who loudly proclaims that you're not a programmer, yet you'll try to ram your opinions regarding programming languages down anyone's throat who happens to pass by! What kind of crap is that? So drop it, forget it, stop with your Microsoft touting, and get the hell out of my face. For once again, you've ruined my day, because I made the mistake of trying really hard yet again to develop some professional respect for you. I didn't even start this particular fight, Richard did, and you decided to just join in! Go find a hobby. Some of us have work to do, and some of us are actually interested in classic computing. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 18:55:57 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:55:57 -0200 Subject: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted. References: Message-ID: <18bb01cccffb$e79e6480$6400a8c0@tababook> > I also read a rumour that there was a FORTH ROM for the HX20 that plugged > into the empty ROM socket in the machine. Does anyone have an image of > that or, inded, images of any other option ROMs for it? I MAY have it on mine, but I'll be with that on hand only in 2 or 3 months...I remembering seeing that From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 18:57:46 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:57:46 -0500 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B9EAB08-DA7D-4D51-BA4B-6F78141C89CE@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 6:48 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > On a related note, what are people's feeling's about the following.... > > I've recently had some discussions with someone who collects a particular > brand of classic computer from the early 1980s. He has a few of these but > they are never, ever switched on or tested. He doesn't want to test them > as he feels doing so may damage the old electronics. Consequently they are > never plugged in. As I continuously clarify to my wife and other relatives, this is what distinguishes my vintage computer *collection* from a *graveyard*. I have one bin for boards ready to be stripped of parts (either ones that someone else has irrevocably broken or bits from old stereos that were never that great but have lots of .1uf caps). > This attitude is an anathema to me. I strive to maintain computers in my > collecton so they can be fired up and demonstrated to people working as > they were in the day. Otherwise they are inert "dead" collection of metal > and plastic (still of interest as regards case design maybe). I like to > know if a computer is working or not, and if not perhaps try to fix it. To > me, if you won't start up an old computer for fear that something will (or > has) failed then, for practical purposes, it's broken. The end result is > the same. It's inert. > > Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer > community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. I think on this list, most of us will switch them on, but will also be careful about doing so the first time (i.e. don't just plug it into the wall, flip the switch and hope for the best). Anyone who wants to actually preserve the hardware will first make sure the power supply is operating within range before running it on a live board. - Dave From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 18:57:29 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:57:29 -0200 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) References: Message-ID: <18c601cccffc$16319c40$6400a8c0@tababook> > Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer > community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. Every man has the right to do whatever he wants with his stuff, as smart or as dumb as it may be. Mine are all plugged in to use imediatelly ;o) BTW, I need to image that Unitron 512 ROMs... :oO From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 10 19:00:06 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:00:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? In-Reply-To: from Tony Duell at "Jan 10, 12 10:40:03 pm" Message-ID: <201201110100.q0B1067F017992@floodgap.com> > > > Dave, you realize you're in my KILL file since a while ago, right? So > > > I don't see your mindless rants unless they're quoted by someone else. > > > > NOBODY here is in my KILL file. > > Ditto. I don't have a kill file, I have a can't-reply-to file. Rather than using blinders with people who annoy me, I have my client rigged so that it can't reply to them, teaching me to properly ignore idiocy instead of going bananas when it rears its dopey head. It has saved me a couple of times. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- J. K. Galbraith - From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 19:04:08 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:04:08 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Jan 10, 2012, at 5:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > I use Outhouse for work stuff, because they DEMAND that, and because of > the crap that I receive. For example, one of our top administrators will > create a one paragraph short document (changing the locaation of a > meeting) using Weird, then print it (on a color printer - it has a single > RED horizontal rule, the college logo, and his signature in blue ink), > then SCAN it, then ATTACH the uncompressed IMAGE scan as a PDF file to an > email whose subject is "FYI", and whose content is "Read this." > Otherwise, it would be VERY difficult to include a horizontal rule that is > NOT QUITE horizontal! I'll do you one better: a friend of mine worked for a second language testing institute that frequently got "snail" mail that was typed out in GMail (on the web) and printed out, then mailed. He also frequently got emails of the type you mention, only they'd gone an extra step and inserted the PDF into a Word document. > From another missive on the same day: > "The state mandate for "Information Competency" doesn't apply to us, > because all of our staff already use the latest version of Microsoft > Office, and are fully Information Competent." > Alas, the campus that I am currently at doesn't have a bell tower. Was the Tower of Art taken? I hear the Librarian has a pretty good heave these days. > I really need to apologize to the entire list. I had always ascribed lack > of trimming to simple human laziness - we just don't bother, because it > "isn't important". But, we really need to defenestrate the authors of the > "modern" email clients - what they are doing to their own users is > criminal. Gmail has misrepresented Liam (below) as being uncooperatively > snarky (which I may have deserved), when it is actually their software > that is the true miscreant. He's also using his phone, with which I can sympathize; I use my iPhone occasionally, which is theoretically better about block deletes, but isn't really. I just sit my finger on the "delete" key for paragraphs at a time instead; it's actually easier. Which is why I don't reply to the list much when I'm away from my main machine. I occasionally contemplate just moving back to Eudora on my LC III, but alas, I'm too lazy. I'd still use PINE for most of my home email if it would display the HTML mail that people insist on sending; I wish I had the option to ignore it. - Dave From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 19:21:12 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:21:12 -0600 Subject: FREE: Apollo Workstation 8-inch floppy disks In-Reply-To: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F0CE408.1010003@gmail.com> steven stengel wrote: > I don't know what these are specifically, but they are related to Apollo > Workstation systems and AEGIS OS. Free for the asking. Interesting... I've only ever seen Apollo systems with 5.25" drives (or none at all), never 8" - even the early machines only had internal space for 5.25" drives I thought. Hopefully someone will shout and rescue them! :-) cheers Jules From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 10 19:22:52 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:22:52 -0600 Subject: What I don't like about Windows today (was Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire, etc.) In-Reply-To: <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <201201110126.q0B1Qn57035710@billy.ezwind.net> At 05:13 PM 1/10/2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >>Vista was released five years ago, Windows 7 two years ago, so how out of >>date was your advice? > > It depends on how much money you like to burn for nothing. I didn't say you needed to buy a new computer. I said the advice was old. I may still run an XP SP3 machine myself, but if I give a client advice that's five-years invalid, I'm not helping them and I'm not helping me. - John From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 10 19:24:38 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:24:38 -0600 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201110126.q0B1QnMq035711@billy.ezwind.net> At 05:48 PM 1/10/2012, Terry Stewart wrote: >I've recently had some discussions with someone who collects a particular >brand of classic computer from the early 1980s. He has a few of these but >they are never, ever switched on or tested. He doesn't want to test them >as he feels doing so may damage the old electronics. Aldo Leopold said "The first prerequisite of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces." - John From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 19:30:05 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:30:05 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: Well, after the three years they usually offer perpetual license grants to what you're currently using. Then you don't have to upgrade anymore ;) On Jan 10, 2012 7:57 PM, "Toby Thain" wrote: > On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > >> Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small >> business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated yet >> / >> won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... >> > > The first hit is free, eh? > > If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. > > Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? > > --T > From terry at webweavers.co.nz Tue Jan 10 20:17:06 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:17:06 +1300 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) In-Reply-To: <18c601cccffc$16319c40$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <18c601cccffc$16319c40$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas < pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote: > Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer >> community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. >> > > Every man has the right to do whatever he wants with his stuff, as smart > or as dumb as it may be. > > Absolutley! I wasn't questioning that right at all. I was just wondering how common this "won't fire up" philosophy was amongst collectors. Terry (Tez) From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 20:24:28 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:24:28 -0500 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? In-Reply-To: <201201110100.q0B1067F017992@floodgap.com> References: <201201110100.q0B1067F017992@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <6D0286C5-C125-43AA-8C69-3024867EBECD@gmail.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 8:00 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I don't have a kill file, I have a can't-reply-to file. Rather than > using blinders with people who annoy me, I have my client rigged so that > it can't reply to them, teaching me to properly ignore idiocy instead > of going bananas when it rears its dopey head. > > It has saved me a couple of times. That's actually a pretty good idea, mostly because I think it blocks the actual problem (hot-headed comments) instead of the symptom (reading hot-headed comments). - Dave From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 10 20:46:01 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:46:01 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0CD82F.6070803@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> <4F0CD82F.6070803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0CF7E9.7050508@mail.msu.edu> On 1/10/2012 4:30 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/10/2012 09:44 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> And anyway, Dave, if your justification is that it was the clear >> market leader, then by that argument, we should all be using x86 PCs - >> as they are 95% or more of the general-purpose computer market and >> have been for 20 years now - and on them we should be running MS >> Windows, because that's the utterly dominant market leading OS. > > You keep saying that. More Microsoft-funded "market statistics"? > As perhaps we've argued about before, I run into Windows machines very > rarely. They're not used much in my lines of work...and I have > several lines of work, and some of them are not at all esoteric. From > my perspective, Windows machines are pretty rare where real work is > involved. That is my perspective. Yours may differ, and if it does, > then I respectfully suggest that you hang out in less-seedy > neighborhoods for your own safety. ;) > > Note well that I didn't say a single negative thing about Windows > above, so, WinTribesman, put away your spears. Well, aside from the part where you likened Windows (and their users) to a ghetto (though you did follow that with an emoticon... I guess that negates it?), you did totally manage to avoid saying a single negative thing. "A" for effort? :) - Josh > > -Dave > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 10 20:50:07 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:50:07 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F0CF8DF.4010606@telegraphics.com.au> On 10/01/12 8:30 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Well, after the three years they usually offer perpetual license grants to > what you're currently using. Then you don't have to upgrade anymore ;) Free of charge? And some people say /open source/ business models are confusing... --T (scratching head) > On Jan 10, 2012 7:57 PM, "Toby Thain" wrote: > >> On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >> >>> Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small >>> business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated yet >>> / >>> won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... >>> >> >> The first hit is free, eh? >> >> If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. >> >> Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? >> >> --T >> > From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 20:57:22 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:57:22 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0CF7E9.7050508@mail.msu.edu> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> <4F0CD82F.6070803@neurotica.com> <4F0CF7E9.7050508@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4F0CFA92.4070904@neurotica.com> On 01/10/2012 09:46 PM, Josh Dersch wrote: >>> And anyway, Dave, if your justification is that it was the clear >>> market leader, then by that argument, we should all be using x86 PCs - >>> as they are 95% or more of the general-purpose computer market and >>> have been for 20 years now - and on them we should be running MS >>> Windows, because that's the utterly dominant market leading OS. >> >> You keep saying that. More Microsoft-funded "market statistics"? As >> perhaps we've argued about before, I run into Windows machines very >> rarely. They're not used much in my lines of work...and I have several >> lines of work, and some of them are not at all esoteric. From my >> perspective, Windows machines are pretty rare where real work is >> involved. That is my perspective. Yours may differ, and if it does, >> then I respectfully suggest that you hang out in less-seedy >> neighborhoods for your own safety. ;) >> >> Note well that I didn't say a single negative thing about Windows >> above, so, WinTribesman, put away your spears. > > Well, aside from the part where you likened Windows (and their users) to > a ghetto (though you did follow that with an emoticon... I guess that > negates it?), you did totally manage to avoid saying a single negative > thing. "A" for effort? :) Yes. =) But the idea was more a matter of the environment...office drones, cubical prisons, that sort of thing. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 10 21:09:40 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:09:40 -0500 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) References: <18c601cccffc$16319c40$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <830A91D81630422199E4CCA25467979B@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Stewart" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:17 PM Subject: Re: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) > On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas < > pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote: > Absolutley! > > I wasn't questioning that right at all. I was just wondering how common > this "won't fire up" philosophy was amongst collectors. > > Terry (Tez) I would think it all depends on how rich you are and how valuable the item is. If something was worth over $100K because it is rare and all original in working condition would you risk blowing up a chip that cannot be replaced (correct date code etc)? People go out and play using a $1M+ violin, but they don't have to worry about something popping due to electricity (just not to forget it on a train). From classiccmp at crash.com Tue Jan 10 21:13:01 2012 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:13:01 -0800 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0CCFB8.7070008@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> <4F0CCFB8.7070008@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F0CFE3D.1000103@crash.com> On 01/10/2012 03:54 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/10/2012 05:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > ... > [utter madness about idiot suits making technical decisions deleted] > >> After examples like these, I may NEVER "update"! I hope that there are >> enough other neo-luddites that my ISP (LMI.NET) keeps offering shell >> accounts! > > If they don't, I will. I still keep a very serviceable shell account at TheWorld.com (aka world.std.com, Software Tool & Die) for these and other reasons. And to keep it on-topic: I'm tickled to death that they're still using IRIX and SGI MIPS-based servers to provide said service... (IP27, Origin 2k or Onyx2 introduced ~1996) --/S/. From innfoclassics at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 21:50:39 2012 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:50:39 -0600 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: <4F0B6EBB.3030605@neurotica.com> Message-ID: I sold a bunch of 4040s several years ago for $40 to $50 to chip collectors. An early Engineering Sample (ES) should be worth about $200 in my opinion, maybe a little more but the condition is not the best on this one. I found a gold 4004 in an early typesetter, an AM100 which I scrapped in the mid-late 1980s. Pax -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 21:58:34 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:58:34 -0500 Subject: Gartner and friends (was: Windows piss-and-moan-o-rama) Message-ID: Hmm...questioning statistics with conspiracy...if that does not raise the big red kook flag, I do not know what would. ANYWAY... Market reports and surveys from years past are actually pretty interesting to read. Gartner is probably the best known of the bunch. Is anyone actively saving these reports? I assume CHM is. -- Will From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 10 22:01:32 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:01:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Lookin In-Reply-To: <4F0CFE3D.1000103@crash.com> from Steven M Jones at "Jan 10, 12 07:13:01 pm" Message-ID: <201201110401.q0B41WPg018774@floodgap.com> > I still keep a very serviceable shell account at TheWorld.com (aka > world.std.com, Software Tool & Die) for these and other reasons. > > And to keep it on-topic: I'm tickled to death that they're still using > IRIX and SGI MIPS-based servers to provide said service... (IP27, Origin > 2k or Onyx2 introduced ~1996) Oh, that's fun! But there is another Ste(ph)en M Jones who also provides a useful shell service and has for many years: http://sdf.org/ gopher://sdf.org/ I maintain my own shell account, of course, though I've had an Armory.com account since 1994. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- So what's my point? I don't know, it's fun to talk about. -- Judy Blackburn From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 22:04:25 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:04:25 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: <4F0CF8DF.4010606@telegraphics.com.au> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0CF8DF.4010606@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: Free of charge! ... meet the extremely lax qualifications for the program for 3 years (..... say... a 1 man startup developing unix to windows migration software that uh, transfers data by FTPing data from the UNIX box to the Windows box.... ) and stay under $1m/yr revenue for that business.... then click a few buttons.. and get yay you are licensed forever for the software you indicated docs. essentially. otherwise, if you don't apply to "graduate" you have to pay that $100 fee at the end of the 3 years or when you break over $1m/yr in revenue. it's almost like drugs, but legal.... once you've become an MS shop.... ... though, i'm sure if you said you were developing windows to unix migration software, too, it'd be just as welcomed. they also sometimes accept non-'qualified' entities such as business that aren't 99% software dev / oriented, or independant developers, as well. i know one or two individuals who fell under the independant category, applied anyway, and got in On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 10/01/12 8:30 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >> >> Well, after the three years they usually offer perpetual license grants to >> what you're currently using. Then you don't have to upgrade anymore ;) > > > Free of charge? > > And some people say /open source/ business models are confusing... > > --T (scratching head) > > >> On Jan 10, 2012 7:57 PM, "Toby Thain" ?wrote: >> >>> On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >>> >>>> Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small >>>> business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated >>>> yet >>>> / >>>> won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... >>>> >>> >>> The first hit is free, eh? >>> >>> If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. >>> >>> Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? >>> >>> --T >>> >> > -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 10 22:22:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:22:12 -0500 Subject: Gartner and friends (was: Windows piss-and-moan-o-rama) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7ED7D690-90DE-4CF6-A534-452FBBADDD6D@neurotica.com> On Jan 10, 2012, at 10:58 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > Hmm...questioning statistics with conspiracy...if that does not raise > the big red kook flag, I do not know what would. And the predictables chime in. This from the guy who claimed "SPARC is on life support and Ellison has his hand on the plug" a few days after SPARC development funding was dramatically increased and a whole slew of machines were introduced. Also the same guy who said every platform that doesn't run Windows is doomed BECAUSE it doesn't run Windows. That was a good laugh. I'm sorry Will, I'll happily defer to your known experience with mainframe hardware, old military radio gear, and scrapping, but for the rest of it, I'm not going to sit and deny that none of the machines around me, home or work, run Windows. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 10 22:43:23 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:43:23 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0CF8DF.4010606@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F0D136B.5080009@telegraphics.com.au> On 10/01/12 11:04 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: > Free of charge! ... meet the extremely lax qualifications for the > program for 3 years (..... say... a 1 man startup developing unix to > windows migration software that uh, transfers data by FTPing data from > the UNIX box to the Windows box.... ) and stay under $1m/yr revenue > for that business.... then click a few buttons.. and get yay you are > licensed forever for the software you indicated docs. essentially. > > otherwise, if you don't apply to "graduate" you have to pay that $100 > fee at the end of the 3 years or when you break over $1m/yr in > revenue. So free if you don't succeed? But otherwise they've got you by the balls? Hm... attractive. --T > > it's almost like drugs, but legal.... once you've become an MS > shop.... ... though, i'm sure if you said you were developing windows > to unix migration software, too, it'd be just as welcomed. they also > sometimes accept non-'qualified' entities such as business that aren't > 99% software dev / oriented, or independant developers, as well. i > know one or two individuals who fell under the independant category, > applied anyway, and got in > > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 10/01/12 8:30 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >>> >>> Well, after the three years they usually offer perpetual license grants to >>> what you're currently using. Then you don't have to upgrade anymore ;) >> >> >> Free of charge? >> >> And some people say /open source/ business models are confusing... >> >> --T (scratching head) >> >> >>> On Jan 10, 2012 7:57 PM, "Toby Thain" wrote: >>> >>>> On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >>>> >>>>> Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small >>>>> business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated >>>>> yet >>>>> / >>>>> won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... >>>>> >>>> >>>> The first hit is free, eh? >>>> >>>> If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. >>>> >>>> Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? >>>> >>>> --T >>>> >>> >> > > > From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jan 10 22:44:24 2012 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:44:24 -0800 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From: terry at webweavers.co.nz > ---snip--- > > Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer > community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. > > Terry (Tez) Sometimes I'm a little careless turning them on but I still do. I've so far not damaged anything beyond repair. I always want to see the computer doing something. Dwight From mokuba at gmail.com Tue Jan 10 22:59:54 2012 From: mokuba at gmail.com (Gary Sparkes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:59:54 -0500 Subject: Politics, SOPA, fraud, and Microsoft - Re: What I don't like about Windows In-Reply-To: <4F0D136B.5080009@telegraphics.com.au> References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <201201102150.q0ALoFDE029137@billy.ezwind.net> <181c01cccfed$8c7fb440$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F0CD6D5.5000703@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0CF8DF.4010606@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0D136B.5080009@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: Actually, i'm reading more of the agreements - you're free to keep using everything, but it's stuff you're putting into production (aka servers for your software-as-a-service) that you need the license grants for. otherwise 'internal company use' is basically a blank check on the software as long as you download it and make sure to claim your keys On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:43 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 10/01/12 11:04 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >> >> Free of charge! ... meet the extremely lax qualifications for the >> program for 3 years (..... say... a 1 man startup developing unix to >> windows migration software that uh, transfers data by FTPing data from >> the UNIX box to the Windows box.... ) and stay under $1m/yr revenue >> for that business.... then click a few buttons.. and get yay you are >> licensed forever for the software you indicated docs. essentially. >> >> otherwise, if you don't apply to "graduate" you have to pay that $100 >> fee at the end of the 3 years or when you break over $1m/yr in >> revenue. > > > So free if you don't succeed? But otherwise they've got you by the balls? > Hm... attractive. > > --T > > >> >> it's almost like drugs, but legal.... once you've become an MS >> shop.... ... though, i'm sure if you said you were developing windows >> to unix migration software, too, it'd be just as welcomed. they also >> sometimes accept non-'qualified' entities such as business that aren't >> 99% software dev / oriented, or independant developers, as well. i >> know one or two individuals who fell under the independant category, >> applied anyway, and got in >> >> On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Toby Thain >> ?wrote: >>> >>> On 10/01/12 8:30 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Well, after the three years they usually offer perpetual license grants >>>> to >>>> what you're currently using. Then you don't have to upgrade anymore ;) >>> >>> >>> >>> Free of charge? >>> >>> And some people say /open source/ business models are confusing... >>> >>> --T (scratching head) >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 10, 2012 7:57 PM, "Toby Thain" >>>> ?wrote: >>>> >>>>> On 10/01/12 6:33 PM, Gary Sparkes wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Just to throw out a bone here for MSFT - if you have spin up a small >>>>>> business to develop a software product (even if it's not incorporated >>>>>> yet >>>>>> / >>>>>> won't formally be) the requirments for the bizspark... >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The first hit is free, eh? >>>>> >>>>> If only the problems with Microsoft were merely /technical/. >>>>> >>>>> Y'all realise they stand behind SOPA, right? >>>>> >>>>> --T >>>>> >>>> >>> >> >> >> > -- Gary G. Sparkes Jr. KB3HAG From geoffr at zipcon.net Tue Jan 10 23:10:58 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:10:58 -0800 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <687E165A-47C5-4BC1-9F51-B3FAFBDC3D59@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/9/12 1:28 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On Jan 9, 2012, at 3:46 PM, "Peter C. Wallace" wrote: >> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous >> as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my fault >> that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, appreciation >> of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what you run. >>> >>> >>> >> >> now now, rememember your blood pressure... > > This is me keeping it down. :) > > -Dave I was glad when I went from a company that the mantra was "we always use the right tool for the job, and it is a microsoft tool" to We use the right tool for the job, help us buy a scalable reliable tape library system.... And then we spent 100K+ on a storageTek library hooked up to a sun E450 and Clariion RAID array... And they were happy and it cost less and was more stable than the same raid and tape library hooked up to windows 2K server box.... The storage tek rep that came out to help fine tune it was surprised that we didn't have to reboot the server daily like their customers running windows were. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 10 23:15:03 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:15:03 -0700 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to see) - ot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0D1AD7.8060307@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/10/2012 9:44 PM, dwight elvey wrote: > > >> From: terry at webweavers.co.nz >> > ---snip--- >> >> Is this "scared to switch on" attitude common in the classic computer >> community, or do most reflect the same feelings I have about it. >> >> Terry (Tez) > > Sometimes I'm a little careless turning them on but I still do. > I've so far not damaged anything beyond repair. > I always want to see the computer doing something. Now here, this pile of 386's the chickens can roost on. > Dwight Ben. From geoffr at zipcon.net Tue Jan 10 23:15:23 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:15:23 -0800 Subject: ID: Odd cable? In-Reply-To: <20120109182732.T46256@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/9/12 6:32 PM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Terry Stewart wrote: >> Hmm..could it have been a special cable used to connect the 50 pin System >> 80 (aka PMC-80 in the US) expansion card to the 40 pin TRS-80 Model 1 >> Expansion interface. I have one of these cables. >> However, are you saying it came in a Radio Shack box? If this is the case, >> maybe not. > > Good guess, but, . . . > > I don't remember ever having had an extra PMC cable, but I had LNW, Lobo, > HuH expension units. > > But, the embossed "TRS-80" on it would seem to make those not a > possibility, due to Radio Shacks heavy handed trademark enforcement. > > > No box. But, next to a buffered EI cable. > > > > Thanks, > Possibly a mod3/4 to trs-80 hard disk unit cable? From geoffr at zipcon.net Tue Jan 10 23:17:23 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:17:23 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F0BD97C.5070008@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On 1/9/12 10:23 PM, "Josh Dersch" wrote: > On 1/9/2012 11:57 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote: >> Bill Sudbrink wrote: >> >> By the way, based on your description of the symptoms, I still suspect >> the 1793 is going bad. >> > > Do you think it's likely that two cards (the 16 and the 64FDC) I have > would have 1793s that are failing in exactly the same way? (Is this a > common failure mode for these?) > > Thanks, > Josh > > Early wd controllers 1771, 73, 91 and 93 had a tendancy to eat themselves.... From geoffr at zipcon.net Tue Jan 10 23:30:25 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:30:25 -0800 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/10/12 3:19 AM, "Liam Proven" wrote: > > Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. Anyone > flaming about how unreliable it is immediately *shows themselves to be an > irrational non,MS fanboy* because such opinions are not based upon current > facts; they are bigotry, based only on prejudice & badly out-of-date > hearsay. > > If I am paying someone for technical advice and skills, I expect a current > skill set of all major platforms. For some things, the right tool may be > one that somebody does not personally like. They should be able to suggest > this without their emotion and preferences getting in the way. > > If they can't, then they are unfit for the job. > > That means current knowledge and no bigotry and hatred. > The newer version of windows are more reliable than the older versions, but side by side at my last gig, the windows boxes were less reliable, the sun T2Ks AND T5120s we ran were able to almost reach t5 9's of availability, the services that ran on windows 2k8 boxes were nowhere near that, and don't get me started on having to back up a windows update because it had issues with a dell or compaq/hp or sun x86/x64 controller, videoboard, etc :( When we contacted ms support about said issues (enterprise support contract) inevitably we would eventually be told "yes, that is not compatible with x hardware" but they were not allowed to put that in the public knowledgebase only in the internal only KB and we only heard that after crawling up the support ladder as high as we could go.) The couple of times that we had solaris patches tank machines sun then oracle owned up to the issue right away and helped us back out the patches if we were having issues. But we were paying mondo $$ in support (to both) With minimal pain you can install the current oracle on solaris and have a usable DB server that will meet most needs, oracle on windows takes more tuning to make it happy and SQL server on windows will chew up available memory if you install the OS and sql server out of the box and don't tweak settings. From nick.allen at comcast.net Tue Jan 10 21:13:46 2012 From: nick.allen at comcast.net (Nick Allen) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:13:46 -0600 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse Message-ID: <4F0CFE6A.5000804@comcast.net> Anyone have a sun1 optical mouse for sale/trade? It would go to either a Sun 1, 100, 100u or Sun 2 workstation? From davebarnes at roadrunner.com Tue Jan 10 21:38:26 2012 From: davebarnes at roadrunner.com (David Barnes) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:38:26 -0500 Subject: I don't care if you don't like Windows. In-Reply-To: References: <16cb01cccfdc$c284f570$6400a8c0@tababook> <1326233304.44933.YahooMailNeo@web113518.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: +2 On Jan 10, 2012, at 5:49 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote: > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Christian Liendo wrote: > >> Don't like MS, ok.. fine.. >> >> I understand this is on/off topic, but honestly you guys are abusing this.. > > +1 > > Alexey David Barnes davebarnes AT roadrunner DOT com OpenVMS , Tru64 , Solaris , Linux , OS X , SGI Irix 'Making a movie is like asking a question, and when you finish, the movie itself is the answer.' - Francis Ford Coppola From jgh at mdfs.net Tue Jan 10 21:41:59 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:41:59 +0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise =?UTF-8?Q?reached=3F=20-=20Re=3A=20teaching=20programming=20to?= =?UTF-8?Q?=20kids=20-=20Re=3A=20Looking=20for=20=38=30=38=30/Z=38=30=20BA?= =?UTF-8?Q?SIC?= In-Reply-To: <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <11b96c0275b118af3b6c4e33464e2696@mdfs.net> Fred Cisin wrote: > After examples like these, I may NEVER "update"! I hope that there > are > enough other neo-luddites that my ISP (LMI.NET) keeps offering shell > accounts! Hear hear! I normally read and write my email on View (a text editor) on a BBC Micro. When I'm away from home I occassionaly log into my ISP's mail server via a web client, and it's presentation of messages has got more and more mickey mouse with irrelevant bells and whistles that get in the way of actually doing anything. I spent about an hour earlier today bugfixing a friend's Yahoo email account, about 50 minutes of which was spent getting past all the fluff, pictures and videos that are fetched on every page of the Yahoo webmail client. Grrr. -- J.G.Harston - jgh at mdfs.net - mdfs.net/jgh From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 10 21:47:02 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:47:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: FREE: Apollo Workstation 8-inch floppy disks In-Reply-To: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1326253622.84586.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> very much interested. As long as you can ship to NJ. Let me know (if I'm eligible). From: steven stengel I don't know what these are specifically, but they are related to Apollo Workstation systems and AEGIS OS. Free for the asking. See pics here: From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 01:10:23 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:10:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted. In-Reply-To: <20120110164605.E93942@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120110164605.E93942@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120110230841.J93942@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Fred Cisin wrote: > This probably won't be any help, since I no longer have ANY of it (Uncle > Roger has most of my old hardware. also schematics and "service" manual). > 15-20 years ago, there was a crude terminal program for the HC-20 (HX in That should read 25 to 30 yrars ago! It has been TOO long. From bear at typewritten.org Wed Jan 11 01:35:35 2012 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:35:35 -0800 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse In-Reply-To: <4F0CFE6A.5000804@comcast.net> References: <4F0CFE6A.5000804@comcast.net> Message-ID: <6AA0AF92-D2B2-4247-8975-CE7CA5614756@typewritten.org> On Jan 10, 2012, at 7:13 PM, Nick Allen wrote: > Anyone have a sun1 optical mouse for sale/trade? It would go to either a Sun 1, 100, 100u or Sun 2 workstation? A Sun 1 mouse is different from a Sun 2 mouse. Which is it you need? ok bear. -- until further notice From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 11 01:32:53 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:32:53 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <6608E0C7B24045E081CA83528D2CEBA1@vl420mt> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:00:21 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin Subject: Re: Cromemco FDC > Although most 1.2M drives can be configured for 80 track DOUBLE (NOT > "HIGH"!) density, it adds additional unnecessary variables. 1.2M is the > WRONG drive for that FDC port. It might be feasible to cable the 1.2 (or a > 1.4M!) drive to the 8" port, but don't even try until you get the "normal" > stuff working. ------ I hate to argue with you of all people, Fred, but what is your reasoning? Why "DOUBLE (NOT "HIGH")" and why is 1.2M the "WRONG" drive type? IMHO it's the opposite: HIGH (NOT "DOUBLE") and 1.2M HD is the BEST choice with a 16 or 64FDC. >From the controller's point of view a 1.2MB HD drive/disk is indistinguishable from an 8" DD drive/disk, and a number of us are indeed happily using 'normal' 360RPM 5.25" 1.2MB HD drives & diskettes and even 3.5" HD drives (set to rotate at 360RPM); the only mod needed is to switch the pin 34 jumper from the PC standard /Disk Change to /Ready. If by 80track/double density you actually mean 'quad' density, that's not really supported although if the drive also rotated at 300RPM instead of 360 then I suppose you could use 1/2 of it as a 360K DD disk. If you want to go to the trouble of making a 34<>50 pin adapter then you're good to go; on the other hand, the nice thing about the FDCs is that they have both 34 pin and 50 pin headers, so as long as you connect the /ready signal to pin 34 of the 34-pin header you can put all 4 drives on the same 34-pin cable in any mix of 5.25DD, 5.25HD and 3.5HD . As I've mentioned, for whatever reason (RPM, transfer rate, short inter-sector gaps?) most people have far more trouble creating Cromemco-readable 5.25"DD disks from an image on a PC than 5.25"HD (as 8") versions (not to mention 'real' 8" drives); that's certainly been my experience. And of course you do get more than three times the capacity. mike From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 02:04:03 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:04:03 -0600 Subject: osborne 1 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ok so i am back in winnipeg now swaped the keyboard and responds to hitting enter but... http://youtu.be/bRd_ARLwaaY From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 02:44:13 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:44:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <6608E0C7B24045E081CA83528D2CEBA1@vl420mt> References: <6608E0C7B24045E081CA83528D2CEBA1@vl420mt> Message-ID: <20120111003319.B6655@shell.lmi.net> > > Although most 1.2M drives can be configured for 80 track DOUBLE (NOT > > "HIGH"!) density, it adds additional unnecessary variables. 1.2M is the > > WRONG drive for that FDC port. It might be feasible to cable the 1.2 (or a > > 1.4M!) drive to the 8" port, but don't even try until you get the "normal" > > stuff working. On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, MikeS wrote: > I hate to argue with you of all people, Fred, but what is your reasoning? > Why "DOUBLE (NOT "HIGH")" and why is 1.2M the "WRONG" drive type? > IMHO it's the opposite: HIGH (NOT "DOUBLE") and 1.2M HD is the BEST choice > with a 16 or 64FDC. > >From the controller's point of view a 1.2MB HD drive/disk is > indistinguishable from an 8" DD drive/disk, and a number of us are indeed > happily using 'normal' 360RPM 5.25" 1.2MB HD drives & diskettes and even > 3.5" HD drives (set to rotate at 360RPM); the only mod needed is to switch > the pin 34 jumper from the PC standard /Disk Change to /Ready. I worded it quite badly! I meant that a 1.2M drive is a poor choice to use for the Cromemco 5.25" formats, as a substitute for his TM100, because, as you said, it is really a small 8" drive instead. It sounded like he was trying to use 1.2M drives for the 400K 5.25" formats. That CAN be made to work, but introduces a few unnecessary hassles. > If by 80track/double density you actually mean 'quad' density, that's not > really supported although if the drive also rotated at 300RPM instead of 360 > then I suppose you could use 1/2 of it as a 360K DD disk. I have seen 800K "quad" disks from Cromemcos. (I detest the term "quad density", since it is double density with more tracks, resulting in quad CAPACITY, but not quad density on the tracks.) > If you want to go to the trouble of making a 34<>50 pin adapter then you're > good to go; on the other hand, the nice thing about the FDCs is that they > have both 34 pin and 50 pin headers, so as long as you connect the /ready > signal to pin 34 of the 34-pin header you can put all 4 drives on the same > 34-pin cable in any mix of 5.25DD, 5.25HD and 3.5HD . I had heard (incorrectly?) that the 34 pin connector was only configurable for the 5.25" data transfer rates (125K, 250K) V the 50 pin connector being configured for the 8" rates (250K, 500K) > Is that completely wrong? > As I've mentioned, for whatever reason (RPM, transfer rate, short > inter-sector gaps?) most people have far more trouble creating > Cromemco-readable 5.25"DD disks from an image on a PC than 5.25"HD (as 8") > versions (not to mention 'real' 8" drives); that's certainly been my > experience. Yes, the Cromemco 5.25" formats do tend to be problematic. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 02:54:23 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:54:23 -0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8FCA3145822A45548DA8AE00AACB8F24@HP4CORE> >-----Original Message----- >From: Geoffrey Reed >Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 5:10 AM >To: cctalk >Subject: Re: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise >reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 >BASIC) > >On 1/9/12 1:28 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > >> On Jan 9, 2012, at 3:46 PM, "Peter C. Wallace" wrote: >>> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as >>> innocuous >>> as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my >>> fault >>> that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, >>> appreciation >>> of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what you run.> >>> >>> >>> >> >> now now, rememember your blood pressure... > > This is me keeping it down. :) > > -Dave > > >I was glad when I went from a company that the mantra was "we always use >the >right tool for the job, and it is a microsoft tool" to We use the right >tool for the job, help us buy a scalable reliable tape library system.... >And then we spent 100K+ on a storageTek library hooked up to a sun E450 and >Clariion RAID array... And they were happy and it cost less and was more >stable than the same raid and tape library hooked up to windows 2K server >box.... The storage tek rep that came out to help fine tune it was >surprised that we didn't have to reboot the server daily like their >customers running windows were. Please not that crap. Where I work we have circa 250 windows servers. If we had to re-boot a significant number of them every day I would never get any time to "play" computers. My trouble with Windows servers and commodity computing in general is that MANAGERS think it absolves them from any of the hard stuff (Capacity Management, Security, Change Control, Checking Log Files etc. etc). My Manager still isn't happy that we have some RAID-10 storage in the SAN because it "wastes space". Yesterday I had a bunch of developers asking to create a Business Objects database on the same box that has SharePoint (if you don't know, don't ask, I think of it as Facebook for Businesses) and which already has i/o service times that are heading towards the 1 second mark, goodness even the mainframe we had 35 years ago managed 25 i/o a second! Building a solid infrastructure is about proper design and architecture across the board. Run a UNIX shop in the same sloppy way folks run Windows shops and you would be up your neck in Poo Poo just as quickly. I know I have been there. Its been a while but I once spent a less than happy Sunday afternoon removing core dump files from a Solaris box. A disk partition was full where some one had rolled out a dodgy version of Mozilla that crashed on an Intranet page. The temp space had filled with core dump files and the whole production line had stopped because the apps that ran it wouldn't start. (yes it was a UK factory owned by a big US Corp. I won't name on here as they might sue but every one on here would know them) More recently having to work late because one of our Solaris boxes which has a hardened console had crashed (I can't remember why, possibly extended power outage) and fsck wouldn't complete with human input. I couldn't get any input in through the attached USB keyboard. Turns out the USB was disabled to prevent tampering! I ended up using Hyperterm on a Windows box above as the keyboard and watching the display on KVM monitor ... Now that is fun, needing a windows box to fix a Solaris one.... (No Solaris ones near by to patch the cable across) The above don't mean Solaris is bad, just it needs a little loving care and a bunch of flowers once in a while. Any computing system will crash if it is care is neglected and it runs out of resources. If a large number of users increase their resources a little bit its easy to kill any thing. I always hate the first day back after Christmas. In the UK many folks take the time between Christmas Eve and New Years day off. Judging by our car park yesterday it was the first day back for many. The result is that the load on the mail servers was up as folks read two weeks of back mail. Love to all, even Cobol programmers Dave Doing things virtually for over 30 years... From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jan 11 03:03:09 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:03:09 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <20120110145027.M87214@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120110145027.M87214@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0D504D.9060302@mail.msu.edu> On 1/10/2012 3:00 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> I have both a 16FDC and a 64FDC (for the moment) and right now I have >> it wired to a single 5.25" drive (w/proper termination). I've tried >> three different drives -- a Tandon TM-100, an unmodified 1.2M 5.25" >> drive, and one that's modded to spin at 300rpm. Same exact behavior on >> all three. > Are you attempting to format single or double sided? WHICH is your > TM-100? > Are you attempting to format 40 track or 80? It's a TM-100-2A (originally from an IBM PC). Formatting single sided at the moment, 40 tracks. > > Although most 1.2M drives can be configured for 80 track DOUBLE (NOT > "HIGH"!) density, it adds additional unnecessary variables. 1.2M is the > WRONG drive for that FDC port. > It might be feasible to cable the 1.2 (or a 1.4M!) drive to the 8" port, > but don't even try until you get the "normal" stuff working. Good to know. Tried the 1.2M drives because I had them lying around as an alternative to the Tandon. > > > When it "won't read", in what way? Is it failing to see sectors and > formatting? Or is it just unhappy with the directory structure and/or > "boot" sector? RDOS (the ROM monitor) says "Err-H 34" on a read which (if I recall the manual correctly) translates as "Record Not Found". I can't remember what I get for writes, I'll have to try it again when I get a chance (hopefully in the next few days.) > > There are numerous format variations possible with Cromemco. Most > [5.25"] have 10 sectors of 512 bytes per sector, and the index and data > gaps are "not easy" for a PC FDC to read. However, a disk formatted to > 10 x 512 on a PC, with appropriate content in the "boot" sector is > readable by Cromemco, and solves SOME data interchange issues. Ok, thanks for the tip. I'm currently trying to write disk images using Dave Dunfield's RDOS transfer utilities (it pushes data to the ROM monitor over the serial port to write the floppies, and uses a copy of CDOS's "INIT" program to format them) but it'll be useful at some point to be able to do this from a PC. I figured removing the PC-floppy part of the equation and focusing just on the Cromemco controller side of things would make things easier... - Josh From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 11 03:03:40 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:03:40 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire (was: Truce, compromise reached? - was: teaching programming to kids - was: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <8FCA3145822A45548DA8AE00AACB8F24@HP4CORE> References: <8FCA3145822A45548DA8AE00AACB8F24@HP4CORE> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:54 AM, Dave wrote: > ning windows were. >> > > Please not that crap. Where I work we have circa 250 windows servers. If > we had to re-boot a significant number of them every day I would never get > any time to "play" computers. It is a lot better than it used to be. Hell, I have citrix boxes that stay up for a whole week or two now, instead of 4-5 hours. (; -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- The barman says "sorry we dont serve faster than light particles in here", a neutrino walks into a bar! From mark at wickensonline.co.uk Wed Jan 11 03:22:57 2012 From: mark at wickensonline.co.uk (Mark Wickens) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:22:57 +0000 Subject: Data Dynamics Tele Printer with ASR ZIP 30 Tape Reader, ebay UK Message-ID: <4F0D54F1.5030407@wickensonline.co.uk> Not mine, just letting anyone know who is interested: Item number: 120841259593 From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Wed Jan 11 04:10:24 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:10:24 +0000 Subject: FREE: Apollo Workstation 8-inch floppy disks In-Reply-To: <1326253622.84586.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1326240123.46431.YahooMailClassic@web110614.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <1326253622.84586.YahooMailNeo@web164513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F0D6010.10506@philpem.me.uk> On 11/01/12 03:47, Chris M wrote: > very much interested. As long as you can ship to NJ. Let me know (if I'm eligible). > > From: steven stengel > > > I don't know what these are specifically, but they are related to Apollo Workstation systems and AEGIS OS. Free for the asking. > See pics here: Blast it! Was going to ask for these to image on the DiscFerret... Sounds like they could contain interesting/useful stuff. Cheers, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Wed Jan 11 04:27:12 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:27:12 +0100 (CET) Subject: "BASIC English" vs. natural languages In-Reply-To: <4F0C4E17.26564.11B4AE3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, <4F0C322D.24972.AE43A2@cclist.sydex.com> <4F0C4E17.26564.11B4AE3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I don't know if it's true any longer, but there was a time when a > college chemistry major was required to learn German, as that country > once held a commanding lead in the field.. That's because once upon a time, Germans knew how to speak and write German, which is not really the case today. Big companies like IBM, Siemens, Telefunken etc. all had their German vocabulary for technical terms (e.g. Kellerspeicher ("cellar memory") for stack, or bistabile Kippstufe ("bi-stable flipping gate") for flip-flop). Same thing in France with Bull etc. > All of this is completely ignoring the silly attempts of L'Acad?mie > fran?aise to " frenchify" computer terminology. Do the francophone > Quebecers follow the guidelines for computer technology set down by > L'Acad?mie? Do Frenchmen? I'd say yes. Interesting enough, the word 'courriel' (= courrier ?lectronique; email), which must be used in official documents in France, is a Canadian creation. Christian From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 06:58:51 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:58:51 -0200 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> <11b96c0275b118af3b6c4e33464e2696@mdfs.net> Message-ID: <1ad201ccd061$3b9dbc60$6400a8c0@tababook> > I spent about an hour earlier today bugfixing a friend's Yahoo email > account, about 50 minutes of which was spent getting past all the > fluff, pictures and videos that are fetched on every page of the > Yahoo webmail client. Grrr. I'd like to understand what you, old buffs, has with newer technology. I have gmail and (personal servers) accounts, use web, windows XP and have NO problems with all of that. Someone here is clearly wrong. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 11 07:34:50 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:34:50 -0500 Subject: Reboot will fix it - Re: The redundancy of Microsoft critics In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0D8FFA.7080701@telegraphics.com.au> On 11/01/12 12:10 AM, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > On 1/9/12 1:28 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > >> On Jan 9, 2012, at 3:46 PM, "Peter C. Wallace" wrote: >>> On Mon, 9 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> Ha! Typical Microsoft fanboy. Anyone who even says something as innocuous >>> as "maybe this isn't so nice" is "mouth-foaming", etc. It's not my fault >>> that you have no taste, value of uptime, desire for performance, appreciation >>> of efficiency, or knowledge of OS design. *I* don't care what you run. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> now now, rememember your blood pressure... >> >> This is me keeping it down. :) >> >> -Dave > > > I was glad when I went from a company that the mantra was "we always use the > right tool for the job, and it is a microsoft tool" to We use the right > tool for the job, help us buy a scalable reliable tape library system.... > And then we spent 100K+ on a storageTek library hooked up to a sun E450 and > Clariion RAID array... And they were happy and it cost less and was more > stable than the same raid and tape library hooked up to windows 2K server > box.... The storage tek rep that came out to help fine tune it was > surprised that we didn't have to reboot the server daily like their > customers running windows were. This "tyranny of low expectations", and the attendant "if reboot doesn't fix it, then it can't be fixed" legacy, are two of the substantial contributions of Microsoft to computer users. --T > > > From jonas at otter.se Wed Jan 11 03:46:06 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (jonas at otter.se) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:46:06 +0100 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 =?UTF-8?Q?worth=3F?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13e9d5d242c3d972ec1bc537fedc84c4@otter.se> >> > for aprticualr ICs which then go to collectors who never power >> them up... >> They were a dot matrix, very fast and had a pneumatic bladder under >> the head to lean it forward to the platten. >> Zinc diecast case I think >> iirc one 4040 did machine control the other was input >> buffer/character >> set to pin pattern > > I suddently want one of these :-) I can't see it would be worth > shipping, > so I am unlikely to get one, but it sure sounds fun.... > Yes, you do want one (or two) of those :-) I used them a lot during the '80s. We had one at work as our main printer for listings etc, and we sold a bunch to a customer who used them for printing pallet labels with barcodes and large text used on their production line for submersible pumps, in a dirty industrial environment. They were built like tanks. The print head used a patented "flexhammer" system, instead of pins the dots were made by leaf springs which had their ends bent over and shaped to a little square point. The springs were held bent off the paper by solenoids, which de-energised to print the dots, whereby the spring would shoot forward against the paper to make the dot and then rebound and be held by the magnet again. They claimed the printheads had a life of a billion characters or something like that. They would print on just about anything up to thin card, provided it had tractor feed holes. They were absolutely indestructible, you could probably run over it with a lorry without even denting it. The only thing that ever broke was a small bulb in an optical encoder on the carriage motor, that had to be replaced about every other year. There were two models, the 4540 which was two-colour (black and red), and the 4544 which was four-colour with a very wide ribbon. Ours had the serial interface board with barcode option, which had its own processor to generate graphics, very large characters and barcodes. I can't remember them using 4040s though, I think ours had a Z80 on the main board and another on the interface board. I may be wrong though. You would love one, I'm sure I would if I could find one and if I had room for it... Absolutely the nicest printer I have ever seen. /Jonas From robert at irrelevant.com Wed Jan 11 08:22:52 2012 From: robert at irrelevant.com (Rob) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:22:52 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <13e9d5d242c3d972ec1bc537fedc84c4@otter.se> References: <13e9d5d242c3d972ec1bc537fedc84c4@otter.se> Message-ID: On 11 January 2012 09:46, wrote: [Facit Printers] >>> They were a dot matrix, very fast and had a pneumatic bladder under >>> the head to lean it forward to the platten. >>> Zinc diecast case I think >>> iirc one 4040 did machine control the other was input buffer/character >>> set to pin pattern >> >> >> I suddently want one of these :-) I can't see it would be worth shipping, >> so I am unlikely to get one, but it sure sounds fun.... >> > > Yes, you do want one (or two) of those :-) > > I used them a lot during the '80s. We had one at work as our main printer > for listings etc, and we sold a bunch to a customer who used them for > printing pallet labels with barcodes and large text used on their production > line for submersible pumps, in a dirty industrial environment. They were > built like tanks. I can testify to the built like tanks comment - at one time Facit printers were the principle brand sold by an ex-employer of mine for printing invoices, delivery notes, picking lists etc., mostly on multi-part forms, and we never seemed to have any issues coming back from them despite theire being subjected to a very hard life in some quite challenging environments at times - the cheaper Epsons and the like were forever being carted backwards and forwards between customer and repairer... (Maybe that's why he stopped selling them; no repeat business!) I have no idea if they, or the customers, have any still kicking about - we parted ways end of 2004 - but if you (Tony) want to find out, contact me off-list for their details. Rob From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 08:35:35 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:35:35 +0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <1ad201ccd061$3b9dbc60$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> <11b96c0275b118af3b6c4e33464e2696@mdfs.net> <1ad201ccd061$3b9dbc60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On 11 January 2012 12:58, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I spent about an hour earlier today bugfixing a friend's Yahoo email >> account, about 50 minutes of which was spent getting past all the >> fluff, pictures and videos that are fetched on every page of the >> Yahoo webmail client. Grrr. > > > ? I'd like to understand what you, old buffs, has with newer technology. I > have gmail and (personal servers) accounts, use web, windows XP and have NO > problems with all of that. > > ? Someone here is clearly wrong. I have to agree! Life moves on. I have no beef with vintage computers, or I wouldn't be here. I have a number of Sinclair Spectrum machines. I do not use them for my email, though. I have several Acorn RISC OS boxes. I don't surf the web on them. They are not good tools for that job. I am also interested in vintage science fiction and have an extensive collection of it, but if I am trying to introduce someone to SF, I do not start them on 50Y old books. Use an appropriate tool. If you liked PINE, then Mutt is a decent relatively modern text-mode keyboard-driven Curses email client. If you like a GUI program, then use the latest version of it; if there isn't one, then either find something similar, or if you really must, use the last available version on the most modern machine that will run it. I write for a living. I actually like MS Word. I know many dozens of other WPs but for 20y or more now I have actually liked Word. Word 95 did everything I need and more, and it supports long filenames and so on. But its file format is now obsolete and it can't access documents from Word 97 or newer. So, I run Word 97. It's tiny by modern standards and runs *blisteringly* quickly on even a 6-7YO PC. It runs acceptable on Windows 7/64-bit and under WINE on 64-bit Linux, so that is all I need. I am using a 15Y old bit of code on OSs that did not exist when it was written, using CPUs whose architecture didn't exist when it was written. I am most definitively *NOT* arguing that everyone should be using the very latest code, clients or hardware - but /using/ 20y old S/W on 20yo H/W for actual work in the modern world is an exercise in masochism. Use them for processes which have not changed. The Internet has changed. 20Y ago the public Web did not exist. Trying to limp onto it with kit that predates it is not impressive or laudable; it's an exercise in bloody-minded pointlessness. Futility and self-defeat is not something to applaud. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 09:04:38 2012 From: madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:04:38 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> <11b96c0275b118af3b6c4e33464e2696@mdfs.net> <1ad201ccd061$3b9dbc60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: Just because Outlook and Yahoo Mail are lousy doesn't mean that ALL modern clients are bad. Gmail is quite nice indeed, while KMail works nicely as a local client. From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 11 09:39:25 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:39:25 -0800 Subject: Acorn luggable Message-ID: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> forgot to mention this while the auction was going http://www.ebay.com/itm/120837824705 From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 09:53:22 2012 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:53:22 +0000 Subject: Acorn luggable In-Reply-To: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> References: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 11 January 2012 15:39, Al Kossow wrote: > forgot to mention this while the auction was going > http://www.ebay.com/itm/120837824705 Impressive, obviously a homebrew but nicely done! Shipping to the UK would be a tad expensive though :s -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 11 10:11:22 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:11:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: "BASIC English" vs. natural languages In-Reply-To: <4F0C4E17.26564.11B4AE3@cclist.sydex.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F0654@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, <4F0C322D.24972.AE43A2@cclist.sydex.com> <4F0C4E17.26564.11B4AE3@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201111611.LAA18710@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > All of this is completely ignoring the silly attempts of L'Acad?mie > fran?aise to " frenchify" computer terminology. Do the francophone > Quebecers follow the guidelines for computer technology set down by > L'Acad?mie? Directly? I doubt it. They would be more likely to pay attention to the (Qu?bec) Office de la langue fran?aise, perhaps the closest analog Qu?bec has to the AF. I don't know the extent to which the OLF pays attention to the Acad?mie when making its own choices. In practice, the ones I meet generally use English terms, but, since I am not really competent to operate in French, it's fairly likely there's a hefty dose of selection bias there. > Do Frenchmen? Dunno. I've lived in Qu?bec but not in France. :) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ats at offog.org Wed Jan 11 10:16:02 2012 From: ats at offog.org (Adam Sampson) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:16:02 +0000 Subject: Acorn luggable In-Reply-To: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> (Al Kossow's message of "Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:39:25 -0800") References: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Al Kossow writes: > forgot to mention this while the auction was going > http://www.ebay.com/itm/120837824705 Looks like an LTM Portable machine -- a reboxed BBC B or B+ -- without the usual branding stickers. I'd pay $50 for it but shipping to Dundee would be silly! There are some pictures of a similar machine here (search for "LTM"): http://8bs.com/seecomputers.htm And pictures of the BBC Master version: http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/Computers/LTMPortable.html -- Adam Sampson From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 11 10:23:00 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:23:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201111623.LAA18870@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Gmail has misrepresented Liam (below) as being uncooperatively snarky > (which I may have deserved), when it is actually their software that > is the true miscreant. Well, sems to me the user has to take at least some of the blame; the user agent is the user's chosen proxy, after all. Choosing a misbehaving proxy - especially continuing to choose a misbehaving proxy after becoming aware it's misbehaving - is a user choice.... > After examples like these, I may NEVER "update"! Things like this make me glad I wrote my own user agent. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 11 12:19:17 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:19:17 -0700 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching Message-ID: This paper might be interesting: "Snobol4: A Computer Programming Language for the Humanities" -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 11 12:15:31 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:15:31 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <7150976C4FD545769B0D87D8598ACD56@vl420mt> > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:03:09 -0800 > From: Josh Dersch > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: > Message-ID: <4F0D504D.9060302 at mail.msu.edu> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > On 1/10/2012 3:00 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> Are you attempting to format single or double sided? WHICH is your >> TM-100? >> Are you attempting to format 40 track or 80? > > It's a TM-100-2A (originally from an IBM PC). Formatting single sided > at the moment, 40 tracks. I didn't see an answer to my question whether you're correctly specifying the drive/disk type for RDOS? d;;;xy where d=drive (A) ;;; = 5.25" x=sides (S or D) y=density (S or D) Also, what speed is your Z80? As mentioned, if you're using the 40 track DD format you have to use a 40 track DD drive; an 80 track DD drive might work, but an HD drive spins at the wrong speed, among other issues. As a matter of fact at the time Dave and I both worked on a version of what became his RT program, but I gave up while he obviously persevered; I don't think there were any gotchas in his final version but now I'm going to have to try it out again just to get reacquainted. m From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 11 12:20:09 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:20:09 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: Message-ID: <8F5D1D3328804D72B61573579465805F@vl420mt> ----- Original Message > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:44:13 -0800 (PST) > From: Fred Cisin ... > I meant that a 1.2M drive is a poor choice to use for the Cromemco 5.25" > formats, as a substitute for his TM100, because, as you said, it is > really a small 8" drive instead. > > It sounded like he was trying to use 1.2M drives for the 400K 5.25" > formats. That CAN be made to work, but introduces a few unnecessary > hassles. Yes, you're right; it can substitute nicely for an 8" drive but not a 5.25" DD drive. >> If by 80track/double density you actually mean 'quad' density, that's not >> really supported although if the drive also rotated at 300RPM instead of >> 360 then I suppose you could use 1/2 of it as a 360K DD disk. > > I have seen 800K "quad" disks from Cromemcos. (I detest the term "quad > density", since it is double density with more tracks, resulting in quad > CAPACITY, but not quad density on the tracks.) Agreed; a confusing term which is why I put it in quotes, but unfortunately the one folks usually use. You've obviously seen a much wider variety of disks than I have and I don't doubt that Cromemco used 'quad' disks somewhere, but I don't think the RDOS on the FDC supports that format. >> If you want to go to the trouble of making a 34<>50 pin adapter then >> you're >> good to go; on the other hand, the nice thing about the FDCs is that they >> have both 34 pin and 50 pin headers, so as long as you connect the /ready >> signal to pin 34 of the 34-pin header you can put all 4 drives on the >> same >> 34-pin cable in any mix of 5.25DD, 5.25HD and 3.5HD . > > I had heard (incorrectly?) that the 34 pin connector was only configurable > for the 5.25" data transfer rates (125K, 250K) V the 50 pin connector > being configured for the 8" rates (250K, 500K) > > Is that completely wrong? The signals that are relevant on the 34 pin connector are in parallel with the equivalent signals on the 50 pin connector, so the controller doesn't know or care which connector is being used. The extra 8" signals are not relevant to the HD drives except for the /RY signal which is not used by 5.25" DD drives like the TM100 but is expected from an 8" drive and thus has to be jumpered from (50)-22 to (34)-34. m From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 11 12:26:34 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:26:34 -0700 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/11/2012 11:19 AM, Richard wrote: > This paper might be interesting: > > "Snobol4: A Computer Programming Language for the Humanities" > > It would be nice, to have source card deck for the language so future people can rebuild it for joy,laughs or a even a programing course in Hyper-C-2050. Ben. From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 12:30:43 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:30:43 +0000 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: <13e9d5d242c3d972ec1bc537fedc84c4@otter.se> Message-ID: We used the Facit as a tee shirt sublimation printer, they went to Blackpool and similar places. We also used another boat anchor printer the Logabax LX 360, it used two heads and did not have the nice padding of the Facit, was a little noisy but very fast for the year, looking at the manual 360 c/s or 140 lpm. I do know an ex Logabax employee is collecting Logabax manuals and information (I seem to have the only LS 360 manual at the moment, must scan) Dave Caroline From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Wed Jan 11 12:43:44 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:43:44 -0800 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <7150976C4FD545769B0D87D8598ACD56@vl420mt> References: <7150976C4FD545769B0D87D8598ACD56@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F0DD860.6080507@mail.msu.edu> On 1/11/2012 10:15 AM, MikeS wrote: >> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:03:09 -0800 >> From: Josh Dersch >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> >> Subject: >> Message-ID: <4F0D504D.9060302 at mail.msu.edu> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed >> >> On 1/10/2012 3:00 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > >>> Are you attempting to format single or double sided? WHICH is your >>> TM-100? >>> Are you attempting to format 40 track or 80? >> >> It's a TM-100-2A (originally from an IBM PC). Formatting single sided >> at the moment, 40 tracks. > > I didn't see an answer to my question whether you're correctly > specifying the drive/disk type for RDOS? I'm using the RDOS transfer utilities -- nowhere in the instructions does it require me to enter RDOS commands for selecting a drive. The version of INIT provided with the utilities has (apparently) been built with all drives (A-D) defined as 5.25", 40 track drives, the rest of the choices INIT presents for me allow me to select the density and sides I want to format for. > > d;;;xy > where > > d=drive (A) > ;;; = 5.25" > x=sides (S or D) > y=density (S or D) > > Also, what speed is your Z80? It's a 2Mhz Z80 on an Ithaca Audio IA-1010 board. > > As mentioned, if you're using the 40 track DD format you have to use a > 40 track DD drive; an 80 track DD drive might work, but an HD drive > spins at the wrong speed, among other issues. Yes, this has been sufficiently beaten into me at this point :). > > As a matter of fact at the time Dave and I both worked on a version of > what became his RT program, but I gave up while he obviously > persevered; I don't think there were any gotchas in his final version > but now I'm going to have to try it out again just to get reacquainted. If you do discover a gotcha, let me know :). - Josh > > m > From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 11 12:48:34 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:48:34 -0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2012 at 11:19, Richard wrote: > This paper might be interesting: > > "Snobol4: A Computer Programming Language for the Humanities" > References: Message-ID: <4F0D6BA3.15848.5086DE@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2012 at 11:19, Richard wrote: > This paper might be interesting: > > "Snobol4: A Computer Programming Language for the Humanities" > > I am looking for a terminal emoulator program that runs on the Epson HX20. > The copy of SIDHA-Dialog that was on a website is corrupt. I contacted the > website owner, he agrees, in fact it's not a tar fiel atall, but an html > error page!. Does anyone know of a terminal emulator for the HX20? In http://electrickery.xs4all.nl/comp/hx20/doc/EpsonTechSuppManS1_2.pdf are simple BASIC examples for file transfer. I remember making a very simple (half-duplex) terminal program of similar routines. Not as good as the real stuff, but better than nothing... Fred Jan From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 13:17:48 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:17:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <8F5D1D3328804D72B61573579465805F@vl420mt> References: <8F5D1D3328804D72B61573579465805F@vl420mt> Message-ID: <20120111104447.M23479@shell.lmi.net> > > I meant that a 1.2M drive is a poor choice to use for the Cromemco 5.25" > > formats, as a substitute for his TM100, because, as you said, it is > > really a small 8" drive instead. > > It sounded like he was trying to use 1.2M drives for the 400K 5.25" > > formats. That CAN be made to work, but introduces a few unnecessary > > hassles. On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, MikeS wrote: > Yes, you're right; it can substitute nicely for an 8" drive but not a 5.25" > DD drive. The FIRST 5.25" 1.2M that I had (purchased at a Silicon Valley swap) was a pre-production? Mitsubishi 4854, that had a 50 pin connector, and did not appear to internally support double stepping nor RPM change for "360K" formats. Once I figured out that it was a 5.25" 8" drive, I had to have it, and paid more than $20. The ORIGINAL 5170 implementation of always running 360RPM and switching the data transfer rate from 250K to 300K meant that SOME 1.2M drives were virtually impossible to use for double density unless the controller expected them (and had the 300K data transfer rate). Later, the dual speed drives solved most of that. BUT, those extras MIGHT throw in some complications for jumpering, etc. Therefore, I'd still recommend getting the machine working using a REAL 8" first. > > I have seen 800K "quad" disks from Cromemcos. (I detest the term "quad > > density", since it is double density with more tracks, resulting in quad > > CAPACITY, but not quad density on the tracks.) > Agreed; a confusing term which is why I put it in quotes, but unfortunately > the one folks usually use. Intertec (Superbrain) actually used "QUAD Density" to refer to ordinary Double SIDED double density! So, then, when they came out with an 80 track format, they had already used the term! So, they called their 80 cylinder double sided double density format "SUPER Density", which they abbreviated "SD"!! Can't we standardize on "jumbo colossal"? (observational comedy sketch about sizes of olives from the 1970s) Will I continue to tilt at windmills? Until the beast is vanquished! > You've obviously seen a much wider variety of disks than I have and I don't > doubt that Cromemco used 'quad' disks somewhere, but I don't think the RDOS > on the FDC supports that format. Unfortunately, I rarely saw the machines that sample disks came from! And, users would rarely let me know if their system was modified from the original factory setup. If I were to question them about changes, many would insist, "EVERYBODY makes that change." It was hard enough dealing with people who would insist that their Morrow disks came from an "ADM3A computer". I was once given a "Pentabs" computer, actually a Vector-Graphic bundled and rebadged for Pentabs accounting software. > The signals that are relevant on the 34 pin connector are in parallel with > the equivalent signals on the 50 pin connector, so the controller doesn't > know or care which connector is being used. The extra 8" signals are not > relevant to the HD drives except for the /RY signal which is not used by > 5.25" DD drives like the TM100 but is expected from an 8" drive and thus has > to be jumpered from (50)-22 to (34)-34. Great! So, when I was told that the signals were different, that was COMPLETELY wrong (other than pinout of TG43, READY, etc.) Thank you, -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 11 13:19:26 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:19:26 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net> Message-ID: In article <4F0CC057.2080609 at verizon.net>, allison writes: > It's standard P1 phosphor used for CRTs. [...] You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google books: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 11 13:37:14 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:37:14 -0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> On 1/11/12 10:26 AM, ben wrote: > It would be nice, to have source card deck for the language Griswold's SNOBOL archive at the University of Arizona was archived. From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 14:27:00 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:27:00 -0000 Subject: UK IT Teaching revamp.... RE: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16493929 Hope u can all see this.... Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow > Sent: 11 January 2012 19:37 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching > > > On 1/11/12 10:26 AM, ben wrote: > > > It would be nice, to have source card deck for the language > > Griswold's SNOBOL archive at the University of Arizona was archived. > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 11 13:40:59 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:40:59 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing to In-Reply-To: from "Terry Stewart" at Jan 11, 12 12:48:45 pm Message-ID: > > On a related note, what are people's feeling's about the following.... To avoid flamage, what I am goign to say below is _my_ personal view. It is not preseneted as a fact. You are welcome to disagree with it. > > I've recently had some discussions with someone who collects a particular > brand of classic computer from the early 1980s. He has a few of these but > they are never, ever switched on or tested. He doesn't want to test them > as he feels doing so may damage the old electronics. Consequently they are > never plugged in. > > This attitude is an anathema to me. I strive to maintain computers in my And to me. I guess I haev little interest in what are normally called 'The Arts' so things like the appearance of the case of a classic computer are of little interest to me. What interests me is how it works, what it could be used for. In otehr words things that depend on it being a computer, rather than a plastic or metal case with some electronics inside. > collecton so they can be fired up and demonstrated to people working as > they were in the day. Otherwise they are inert "dead" collection of metal > and plastic (still of interest as regards case design maybe). I like to > know if a computer is working or not, and if not perhaps try to fix it. To My aim is to haev everything in my collection operational. I've not got there yet, mostly due to lack of time, althoguh there are machiens that I've put on one side awaiting parts or until I learn the skills to fix them properly. > me, if you won't start up an old computer for fear that something will (or > has) failed then, for practical purposes, it's broken. The end result is > the same. It's inert. Preceisely. If you never power it up, it doesn't matter if it works or not. If you p[ower it up and after a tiem something irrepairable fails (like a custom IC), the machine still looks the saem. So you can still keep it as a machine that's never powered up. You might as well enjoy it while you can. That said, I do think you should take some precaustions before powering it up. I don't think it's a good idea to just apply mains and see what happens. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 11 13:47:22 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:47:22 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted. In-Reply-To: <20120110164605.E93942@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 10, 12 04:51:02 pm Message-ID: > > On Tue, 10 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > > Hopefully this won;t develop into a flamewar.... > > I am looking for a terminal emoulator program that runs on the Epson HX20. > > The copy of SIDHA-Dialog that was on a website is corrupt. I contacted the > > website owner, he agrees, in fact it's not a tar fiel atall, but an html > > error page!. Does anyone know of a terminal emulator for the HX20? > > I also read a rumour that there was a FORTH ROM for the HX20 that plugged > > into the empty ROM socket in the machine. Does anyone have an image of > > that or, inded, images of any other option ROMs for it? > > Thanks in advnce for any help > > This probably won't be any help, since I no longer have ANY of it (Uncle > Roger has most of my old hardware. also schematics and "service" manual). I have the hardware techncial manual on paper (it was given to me along with another HX20 and a TF20 drive unit). There are similarl manauls avaialble for download on the web.. > 15-20 years ago, there was a crude terminal program for the HC-20 (HX in > beige instead of grey, with addition of katakana character set). That > would presumably been from Hudson Soft or Ski Soft. > There was a text editor called SkiWriter from SkiSoft. Right.... I usspect that's going to be equally hard to find :-(. And I also susepct that word processing o na 20*4 display is an 'interesting' experiece.... I guess there was always the video interface, but (a) it's uses the 6847 chip so it has the tame text capbailities as a CoCo) and (b) it's impossible to find (I don't have it). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 11 13:59:19 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:59:19 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: <830A91D81630422199E4CCA25467979B@dell8300> from "TeoZ" at Jan 10, 12 10:09:40 pm Message-ID: > > On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas < > > pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote: > > Absolutley! > > > > I wasn't questioning that right at all. I was just wondering how common > > this "won't fire up" philosophy was amongst collectors. > > > > Terry (Tez) > > I would think it all depends on how rich you are and how valuable the item > is. If something was worth over $100K because it is rare and all original in And just how many of us have classic computers worth more than $100K? And how many of those have parts that can't be replaced (my experience suggests that a lot of the rarer machiens were not built in sufficient quantitiy to justify the production of custom ICs, etc, for them. There are exxeptions, of ocurse). > working condition would you risk blowing up a chip that cannot be replaced > (correct date code etc)? Part fail even just sitting o nthe shelf. A non-powered-up computer will not last for ecer (ant it may not me easy-to-repalce parts, like electrolytic capacitors, that fail either). And how do you know it's perfectly working if you never power it up? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 11 14:28:29 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:28:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 =?UTF-8?Q?worth=3F?= In-Reply-To: <13e9d5d242c3d972ec1bc537fedc84c4@otter.se> from "jonas@otter.se" at Jan 11, 12 10:46:06 am Message-ID: > environment. They were built like tanks. The print head used a patented > "flexhammer" system, instead of pins the dots were made by leaf springs > which had their ends bent over and shaped to a little square point. The > springs were held bent off the paper by solenoids, which de-energised to > print the dots, whereby the spring would shoot forward against the paper What happened wehen the power went off? Presumably all the springs hit the paper. Did this mean you could damage the head by moving paper/ribbon with the ppwer off? And how did the springs get back to the soenoids when the pwwer was turend on again? (were the solenoids powerful enough to attract the leaf prings back?) > > You would love one, I'm sure I would if I could find one and if I had Indeed it appears I would... > room for it... Absolutely the nicest printer I have ever seen. Hmm.. I think for dot matrix printers that honour has to go to the Sanders 12/7 (or maybe the 700) machine. This is a 7 pin dont marrix printer that is so well made that some fonts use 8 passes of the printhead -- and it is worth doign that. They do things like justifying text, lining up columns, etc. The 12/7 uses a Z80 processor with 2 Z80-DMA chips, one ot read in characters from the host, the other to send them to the printhead ciruirry. I nthe 700, the DMA chips are effecively each replaced by a Z8. In both cases there's a correction PROM fro the printhead chracteristics to correct the pin fire timin, programemd for that particular printhead. Yes, they're that precise. The 12/7 is built on Sanders onw mechanism. The fonts are stred in EPROMs which pluginto ome of the PCBs inside. The 700 is built on a Diablo 630 chass (as I mentioend last night). Fonts come in little plug-in cartridges (contiaing a pair of EPROMs) which fit int oa row of sockets in front of the carriage area. -tony From dm561 at torfree.net Wed Jan 11 14:48:22 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:48:22 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:58:51 -0200 > From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" > I'd like to understand what you, old buffs, has with newer technology. > I have gmail and (personal servers) accounts, use web, windows XP and have > NO problems with all of that. > > Someone here is clearly wrong. I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as in most instances of closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very people who bad-mouth Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that they would not stoop to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant experience and their opinions have no more authority than a KKK member's opinion of a non-caucasian's intelligence. Fortunately their frequent personal attacks on anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-) It's probably safe to say that on average Windows users are more interested in just _using_ their computers than in tuning and tinkering and as a result probably have more issues than your average Unix or Linux user, but that's more a reflection of their interests or needs, not their intelligence or even their computer's OS. But if a business' Windows system really needed rebooting every day I suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another job. And when people who say they support a Windows installation complain about not being able to back up or migrate to another disk/computer as I read in the previous round of this tedious ritual, that tells me more about their competence than any flaws in Windows (and there are some, to be sure). Sadly, no matter how often or how many people complain that they're tired of these rants, the folks in question either don't care or just can't help themselves. Apologies for adding to the pile... m From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 11 15:00:32 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:00:32 -0700 Subject: MakeSLC meets at the Computer Graphics Museum every Wednesday Message-ID: MakeSLC @ Computer Graphics Museum 7pm to 10pm 653 S. State Street Salt Lake City Free and open to the general public -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 11 15:43:42 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:43:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201112143.QAA23078@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > [T]he very people who bad-mouth Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also > brag the loudest that they would not stoop to using it; therefore > they obviously have no relevant experience [and are thus unqualified > to hold such opinions] Speaking personally, I wouldn't go near webmail for reasons that have nothing to do with the user interface, and more reasons that have little to do with it. But I also wouldn't use anything that imposes an interface anything like what I've seen over the shoulders of friends and cow-orkers and acquaintances who do; actually trying to use it myself is not necessary, given the list of things, obvious on even the sort of cursory inspection I can carry out under such circumstances, which I would find somewhere between unpleasant and intolerable. As for Windows itself? Again, many of the reasons behind my remark upthread that Windows is "a horrible, horrible OS" for my purposes are things that do not need experience to back them, at least not experience with Windows in particular. As for the ones that do, well, I once spent a month working as a Windows sysadmin (I was curious and figured I could at least tolerate it for a month; I was right, barely). It was in the NT 4 days, but, again based on what I've seen over others' shoulders and heard others complaining about, I have reason to think the essential-to-me problems remain unalleviated, in some cases perhaps even exacerbated. > But if a business' Windows system really needed rebooting every day I > suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another > job. I work at, among other places, an ISP. An ISP which offers hosting services. Hosting services on, at least, Windows, Linux, and NetBSD. I personally don't deal with any of them much, and the Windows not at all, but I interact regularly with people who do. Based on what I've heard from them, I would say that, while your remark may be correct as worded, the sysadmin load required to achieve that level of reliability is significantly higher for Windows than for either Linux or NetBSD. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 15:57:28 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:57:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > And how do you know it's perfectly working if you never power it up? Is Schrodinger's cat alive? (Loosely related to the Heinekin Uncertainty Principle: How many were there last night?) From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Wed Jan 11 16:10:50 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:10:50 +0000 Subject: DiscFerret -- URGENT software update Message-ID: <4F0E08EA.4060701@philpem.me.uk> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi guys, I've released a new version of the DiscFerret interface library and microcode. This is libdiscferret v1.5, with microcode release 0x0028. The reason I'm declaring this an urgent update is because in an earlier release of the microcode (possibly back to the initial release) introduced an extremely nasty bug... This bug WILL corrupt the data read from the disc if either * An index pulse arrives at the same time as a flux transition, or * The counter overflows immediately before a transition. In either of these cases, the flux transition will be dropped, and either a Counter Overflow or an Index Trigger byte will be stored instead. For extra bonus points, the counter overflow logic made it absolutely impossible to represent a counter value of 127, or a multiple thereof. These would cause an overflow store... followed by another count up. The transition would be completely ignored. This basically means that any disc image created with any microcode release earlier than 0x0027 (i.e. libdiscferret 1.4 or earlier) should be considered unreliable and not an accurate representation of the data on the disc. These images should be discarded and the discs re-imaged. To resolve this problem I have: 1) Re-engineered the data coding format and the disc-reader logic to prevent a counter overflow or index store from causing a missed transition 2) Completely rewritten the testbench to remove the stupid mistake which allowed these mistakes to slip through the net in the first place. 3) Changed Magpie (the disc image reader) and Merlin (the analyser) to create "DFE2" format files. Attempting to load a "DFER" image into Merlin will work, however it will warn you that the data may be inconsistent. I've screwed up bigtime here -- a tool designed for data preservation should most definitely NOT have had bugs like this. I can't believe I screwed up the design so badly, and I've been cursing at myself since the bug was reported on the DiscFerret IRC channel (#discferret on irc.freenode.net) last week. An even more subtle bug in the test bench code rendered all my tests pointless (basically: the test_fail() function would cause the testbench to abort with a 'success, tests passed' code). The aforementioned test benches have now been rewritten from scratch in a way which will hopefully prevent this kind of thing from happening again. Yes, I am doing both positive and negative testing, and testing the testbench framework. I've left the "torture test" testbench running for several hours with various types of input waveform, including some which would cause timing violations on other parts of the circuitry (specifically, the input filters). No timing violations or data errors were detected, even under these challenging (and in some cases outright impossible) scenarios. The output data matches the hardware model and my specification documents *perfectly*. No doubt some vendors of similar products will take this opportunity to take a dig at me and my product. Whether they choose to act in this highly unprofessional manner is entirely up to them. However, please bear in mind that my code is available for peer review, and I accept submissions of code from others (and bug/feature requests). The bug tracker (Mantis) is open to the public. How many other projects like DiscFerret operate with this level of transparency? The software update is available to download, free of charge, from the usual download source: http://www.discferret.com/ (click the Downloads link on the left hand side). As always, if you have any issues with your DiscFerret, please feel free to contact me -- either by email, the DiscFerret mailing list, or on IRC (philpem on irc.freenode.net). Thank you all for your time. - -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPDgjqAAoJEBWrukZv/+iU2D8IAMU33sK0Q3Psa24xmMOi5mah yBMvCXqPAatqtt2HkUBhn/Lp4fiMxUiIxfbfc2itqpHccxNKNoIlNg0agUK1YSoS H1zACCtoAlSWUvg6yN2p8X5OYVYOXiO0FLNEmnal7CvwBPIwktzBkO4LRkR1WydG rK99EL1fyFZYTQ74SUZ1YSTW3PqPg8Sw4N8eYnODyVTfcNxkiwSklaeupdqu9Tpf 2HoG2YlFKo9/KyBIF4iqy3w092zVhAcv/Z7HG9rhlB+bgYhdmFrX0tNvZLRQTeUZ ruElVDhDv6D/O1hgNqN7QtguekMjNz8FaTfFurq1CsQeWjrMDDop25vjzp9qnwU= =uk9i -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 11 16:14:36 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:14:36 -0800 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> References: , <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0D994C.23754.102E2C7@cclist.sydex.com> On 11 Jan 2012 at 13:57, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > > And how do you know it's perfectly working if you never power it up? > > Is Schrodinger's cat alive? There are two types of collectors. Those who play with vintage Barbie dolls and those who leave them in their original packaging. I suppose it's fortunate that we don't do the same with pancakes... --Chuck From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 11 16:19:49 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:19:49 -0800 Subject: The structuring of BASIC / was Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In the discussion of BASIC, various "improved" BASICs have been mentioned, on various 1980's microcomputer platforms, leaving the impression perhaps that the improvements to BASIC were a phenomenon of that period and arena. The BASIC on the Microdata-REALITY system had many of these improvements back in the mid-70's, on a professional/business/mini- computer platform: structured if-then-else, statement numbers are optional, indentable, etc. Below is a code snippet from a program I wrote in 1977/8 (the numbers on the far left are line numbers, not part of the source). There was also a 'LOOP-statement-WHILE/UNTIL-condition-DO-statement- REPEAT' facility. I don't remember whether procedures/subroutines were provided for or not. This was a compiled BASIC as I recall. So when did the structuring of BASIC begin? Are there earlier examples? Was the 'official' language definition improved or were they all independent developments? ======== I started out with basic BASIC on an HP9830 in 1976, although at the same time I was exposed to 8080/Z80 machine and assembly language. A couple years later in 1st-year university the prof declared at the beginning of the year we would be learning ALGOL. I had the impertinence to ask him why we wouldn't be using BASIC. He had a very short answer for me. I soon saw the light. ========= 58 *********************** 59 * PRINTING LOOPS 60 300 PRINTER ON 61 LL(1)=PN; LL(2)=FN 62 FOR P=1 TO P2 63 IF P=1 THEN H='(PROGRAMS)'; NP=2 ELSE H='(FILES) '; NP=1 64 PGE=0; LNE=0 65 * 66 FOR LC(1)=1 TO LL(P) 67 * 68 DA=''; M=0 69 FOR LC(2)=1 TO LL(NP) 70 IF EXTRACT(FA,2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1)=1 THEN M=M+1; DA=INSERT(DA,M,0,0EXTRACT(FA,NP,LC(2),1)) 71 NEXT LC(2) 72 * 73 M=INT(M/2+0.5) 74 LNE=LNE+M 75 IF LNE>60 OR PGE=0 THEN 76 PGE=PGE+1; LNE=M+3 77 PRINT PC 78 PRINT 'PROGRAM - FILE CROSS REFERENCE':SPACE (29):TIMEDATE()[11,11] 79 PRINT H:SPACE(55):'PAGE ':PGE L2 80 END 81 * 82 PRINT U; PRINT; LNE=LNE+3 83 T=EXTRACT(FA,P,LC(1),1):':' 84 PRINT T L22:S3: 85 FOR D=1 TO M 86 PRINT EXTRACT(DA,D,0,0) L22:S3:EXTRACT(DA,M+D,0,0) L22 87 PRINT S25: 88 NEXT D 89 PRINT 90 IF M=0 THEN PRINT 91 * 92 NEXT LC(1) 93 NEXT P 94 STOP 95 *********************** 96 * ERROR MESSAGE 97 900 PRINT; PRINT "ERROR ":ERR:" HAS OCCURRED IN PROGRAM 'X'" 98 END From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 11 16:18:59 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:18:59 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> On 01/11/2012 03:48 PM, MikeS wrote: > I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as in most instances of > closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very people who bad-mouth > Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that they would not > stoop > to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant experience and their > opinions have no more authority than a KKK member's opinion of a > non-caucasian's intelligence. Wrong. In my case at least, yes it's true that I don't use it, never really have save for the odd installation here and there to help a friend, but that doesn't mean I have no experience with it. This is an incorrect assumption. > Fortunately their frequent personal > attacks on > anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-) Only when it's deserved. ;) > But if a business' Windows system really needed rebooting every day I > suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for another job. Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want; many major Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating procedure. When I ran a colocation company, we'd see about a dozen people filter in every friday night to reboot their machines, with about fifty more incidents in the ICMP logs when machines had gone down on a schedule. This added up to ALL of the Windows machines in the colo. (out of a few thousand machines...to some math-challenged Gartner-is-gospel types, this means "95%") > And when people who say they support a Windows installation complain about > not being able to back up or migrate to another disk/computer as I read in > the previous round of this tedious ritual, that tells me more about their > competence than any flaws in Windows (and there are some, to be sure). I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've watched highly competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and even days trying. Have YOU done it? If so, how did you get around the tied-to-the-hardware thing (whose name escapes me at the moment)? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 16:24:26 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:24:26 -0200 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing References: , <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> <4F0D994C.23754.102E2C7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <200801ccd0af$da0bc380$6400a8c0@tababook> > There are two types of collectors. Those who play with vintage > Barbie dolls and those who leave them in their original packaging. Can't I play with her and later store it on the original package? :oO From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Jan 11 16:49:50 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:49:50 -0700 Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: <200801ccd0af$da0bc380$6400a8c0@tababook> References: , <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> <4F0D994C.23754.102E2C7@cclist.sydex.com> <200801ccd0af$da0bc380$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F0E120E.5060404@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/11/2012 3:24 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> There are two types of collectors. Those who play with vintage Barbie >> dolls and those who leave them in their original packaging. > > Can't I play with her and later store it on the original package? :oO > Only if you have plastic shrink wrap machine. :) Ben. PS: For the pancake collectors. I never could get pancakes back in the box after I made them. From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 11 16:59:47 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:59:47 -0600 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! In-Reply-To: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201112316.q0BNGjBr068078@billy.ezwind.net> At 04:18 PM 1/11/2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want; many major Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating procedure. [...] > I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've watched highly competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and even days trying. Have YOU done it? Dave's 100% right. Apart from all the other inanities, what drives me crazy are the subsystems that are so poorly engineered as to seem non-deterministic and/or capable of spontaneous change. - John From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 17:19:06 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:19:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: <4F0D994C.23754.102E2C7@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> <4F0D994C.23754.102E2C7@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120111151543.O23479@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > There are two types of collectors. Those who play with vintage > Barbie dolls and those who leave them in their original packaging. > > I suppose it's fortunate that we don't do the same with pancakes... One of my father's favorite jokes: Guy: Doc, my wife keeps tellimg me that I'm crazy, just because I like pancakes. Dr: Nothing wrong with that; I happen to like pancakes. Guy: GREAT! C'mon over to my house. I've got a whole trunkfull in the attic. From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 17:43:07 2012 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:43:07 +1100 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4f0e1e92.28b3ec0a.2e31.2d80@mx.google.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 9:19 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want; many major > Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating > procedure. Err - no actually - we have system critical IVR applications that run on Windows servers - these are mandated to have an availability and uptime (note BOTH terms) of 99.95%. In the last 12 months we have managed 100% - I cannot same the same of the Solaris hosts which have a slightly lower availability requirement. Also, please point out where Microsoft "recommends" periodic reboots of critical servers - and please don't point to something that was released 15 years ago - something recent. Deny it all you want, but Windows servers are reliable - if they are managed correctly (this applies to all server operating systems). TOC on the Windows hosts is also far cheaper than on some of the other systems as well. Horses for courses, but it irritates me no end when people who have little experience with managing data centres constantly spout of (usually ancient history too) about how bad Windows systems are. For home use, apart from my 8 bit Commies (which I certainly don't use for anything like email or browsing although they are of course capable) I have two systems - one is a dev box running Red Hat enterprise 5.7, this isn't used for day to day "stuff" as the packages are generally poorer than commercially available ones for the "other" OS. That OS is Windows 7 - it's been running for close on 18 months, has never crashed and is only updated when *I* decide it should - ergo only reboots when *I* decide it should. The Windows haters need to get out of the mentality that Windows is a poor OS - that may have been the case with W95/98 (and definitely ME) but two releases (XP and 7) stand out as well designed and reliable systems. I would not use either in a server environment, but then neither would I use Debian in a server environment for the same reason - they are all consumer operating systems. The world has moved on - perhaps the old stodgies should do the same. Lance From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Jan 11 17:45:31 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:45:31 +1300 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <20120109120223.J46256@shell.lmi.net> <20120110135416.W87214@shell.lmi.net> <11b96c0275b118af3b6c4e33464e2696@mdfs.net> <1ad201ccd061$3b9dbc60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:04 AM, Michael Kerpan wrote: > Just because Outlook and Yahoo Mail are lousy doesn't mean that ALL > modern clients are bad. Gmail is quite nice indeed, while KMail works > nicely as a local client. > I've just started to use Gmail in the last week or so and I find it very intuitive in fact more intuitive than any client I've ever used! I do have niggling security/privacy concerns but they are outweighed by the sheer usefulness of being able to seamlessly email from mutiple machines including my smartphone. I use Gmail as an interface to my POP box (it checks it every few minutes leaving a copy on the server). Once a day I'll use my standard desktop client on my main machine to download all messages hence they all end up being stored on the hard drive in case they ever disappear from the "cloud". Anything sent from GMail I Bcc. to myself so copies of any Sent Items are also collected during the desktop client drawdown and stored to the hard drive. Anyway, not the only way to solve the issue of using multiple machines in multiple places but it works well for me. Terry (Tez) From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 11 17:57:09 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:57:09 -0500 Subject: Icon / SNOBOL family - Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F0E21D5.90300@telegraphics.com.au> On 11/01/12 1:48 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 11 Jan 2012 at 11:19, Richard wrote: > >> This paper might be interesting: >> >> "Snobol4: A Computer Programming Language for the Humanities" >> > Nah, who'd want to use a language what was so obviously full of > GOTOs? Its successor (more or less), Icon, is actually quite interesting. http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/ --Toby > > (Since much of SNOBOL was written in (gasp!) FORTRAN, you've got me > wondering what the name of the string-handling package for FORTRAN 66 > was that I used quite a bit. Time has almost eradicated it from my > memory. I seem to remember that SNOBOL4 could even link to the > FORTRAN run-time library and programs written in FORTRAN). > > --Chuck > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 11 18:18:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:18:12 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4f0e1e92.28b3ec0a.2e31.2d80@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <4f0e1e92.28b3ec0a.2e31.2d80@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4F0E26C4.7070302@neurotica.com> On 01/11/2012 06:43 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: > Horses for courses, but it irritates me no end when people who have little > experience with managing data centres constantly spout of (usually ancient > history too) about how bad Windows systems are. Is this where we get to compare resumes? Oh goodies! Add another digit to the quoted number of machines in your current datacenter and then you'll be in the right order of magnitude to compare to datacenters that I've managed nearly single-handedly. Should we quote numbers and company names? I'm fine with that. You're not dealing with a hobbyist here. (well, you are, but not exclusively so! ;)) Your dismissive arguments are typical of MS pushers. Anyone who doesn't like Windows is automatically labeled as either "behind the times", "inexperienced", or "religious". I'm sorry to disappoint, but I don't fall into those categories. To be fair, though, with the zeal with which I pursue these occasional flamewars I can easily see how I might be perceived as "religious". Not that you'll take my word for it, but I'm really not. I don't say "Windows sucks" because I don't like it...I don't like it because it sucks. Yes, it's improving, and I applaud that. But it's still not good enough for me, because I'm an extremely anal-retentive perfectionist who loves cutting-edge technology, but loves reliability and predictability a lot more, and does NOT like the idea of using the wrong tool for the job. I'm a professional, I do this for a living, I've done so all my life, and I CARE about this industry and the science behind it. Because of that, every time I see someone screaming or crying that Windows just lost all their general ledger entries or all their baby pictures (both of which have happened in the last month, out of the maybe half dozen or so people I know of who still use it) I feel a measure of personal responsibility because "my" industry has failed them. It bothers me. You are to be commended for achieving the uptimes that you get. But why, really? I'm sure if someone worked hard enough, and was driven hard enough by some sort of reward, they could build a skyscraper using a Volkswagen as their only hauling vehicle. But why not just use the tools built for these sorts of jobs anyway? > For home use, apart from my 8 bit Commies (which I certainly don't use for > anything like email or browsing although they are of course capable) I have > two systems - one is a dev box running Red Hat enterprise 5.7, this isn't > used for day to day "stuff" as the packages are generally poorer than > commercially available ones for the "other" OS. That OS is Windows 7 - it's > been running for close on 18 months, has never crashed and is only updated > when *I* decide it should - ergo only reboots when *I* decide it should. Sure, and it takes a Windows expert to do that. I readily acknowledge that Windows machines can develop some uptime. Nowhere near that of a mature OS, but still, 18 months is approaching reasonable. But it needs someone of your level of experience to get there, and most datacenters (including ones I've managed with a few racks of Windows machines in the corner) just don't have that. I know of a few people who can get real reliability out of a Windows machine...there are even a few that I know of on this list. But the poor sods I see plodding around the Windows machines scratching their heads and just rebooting when something doesn't look right are NOT of your caliber, and they are in the vast, vast majority. > The Windows haters need to get out of the mentality that Windows is a poor > OS - that may have been the case with W95/98 (and definitely ME) but two > releases (XP and 7) stand out as well designed and reliable systems. I would > not use either in a server environment, but then neither would I use Debian > in a server environment for the same reason - they are all consumer > operating systems. Wow. I don't know of anyone, not even the most hard-core Microsoft worshipper, who claims Windows to be "well designed". The evidence presented by others in this thread (since clearly you don't believe ME simply because I don't like Windows!) stands clear. And in case it doesn't, I'll utter one word: "Registry". As far as Debian, I've never used that Linux distribution specifically, but then I'm not much of a Linux person. I can say, however, that I readily got multi-year uptimes out of a stack of very high-traffic (hundreds of simultaneous calls each) telephony servers (needed Linux on x86 due to binary-only CODECs) upwards of 6-8 years ago. At one time I disliked Linux as much as I dislike Windows now...but it really has grown up in the past decade. > The world has moved on - perhaps the old stodgies should do the same. The further dismissivity of stating anything that's not Windows is somehow "old" is entertaining but ludicrous. Windows has evolved, as you so loudly say...but so has the rest of the data processing world. And the rest of the data processing world has a very large industry and hundreds (if not thousands) of companies behind it...not just one. Like it or not, the world's heavy lifting isn't done by little Dell machines running Windows. In your datacenter, maybe. But not much else. Before you decide that I'm a hobbyist trying to envision a datacenter full of Commodore 64s, please recall that I've worked in this industry, for real, for a good long time. I speak from experience, not assumptions, suppositions, or wishful thinking. All of your desire to simply dismiss my statements with that assumption will have to be disappointed this time. Now can we please drop this shit for once? When *I* of all people get tired of a good flamewar, you know it has gotten pretty stale. Thanks go to Richard for starting this one, as it was a good one. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 18:27:31 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:27:31 -0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: 11 January 2012 22:19 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING > (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming > to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > > > On 01/11/2012 03:48 PM, MikeS wrote: > > I think what you have to keep in mind is that, as in most > instances of > > closed minds, prejudice and ignorance, the very people who bad-mouth > > Windows, Yahoo etc. the most also brag the loudest that > they would not > > stoop > > to using it; therefore they obviously have no relevant > experience and their > > opinions have no more authority than a KKK member's opinion of a > > non-caucasian's intelligence. > > Wrong. In my case at least, yes it's true that I don't > use it, never > really have save for the odd installation here and there to help a > friend, but that doesn't mean I have no experience with it. > This is an > incorrect assumption. > > > Fortunately their frequent personal > > attacks on > > anyone who's 'on the other side' are generally less violent... ;-) > > Only when it's deserved. ;) > > > But if a business' Windows system really needed rebooting > every day I > > suspect their IT person would very shortly be looking for > another job. > > Microsoft recommends it!! You can suspect all you want; > many major > Windows installations have periodic reboots as standard operating > procedure. When I ran a colocation company, we'd see about a dozen > people filter in every friday night to reboot their machines, > with about > fifty more incidents in the ICMP logs when machines had gone > down on a > schedule. This added up to ALL of the Windows machines in the colo. > (out of a few thousand machines...to some math-challenged > Gartner-is-gospel types, this means "95%") > > > And when people who say they support a Windows installation > complain about > > not being able to back up or migrate to another > disk/computer as I read in > > the previous round of this tedious ritual, that tells me > more about their > > competence than any flaws in Windows (and there are some, > to be sure). > > I know for a fact that this is extremely difficult to do, as I've > watched highly competent, experienced Windows people spend hours and > even days trying. Have YOU done it? If so, how did you get > around the > tied-to-the-hardware thing (whose name escapes me at the moment)? > > -Dave I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN. However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which recommends weely re-boots? It can be tedious to move disks to a different Windows box, because many windows installations use custom IDE drivers that only work with one particular chip. If the disks are IDE you can load the generic IDE driver before the move it works fine. If you can't a little hacking may be required. Some consumer Windows installations are tied to the BIOS in the machine, and will un-licence themselves when migrated. However any one with more than 5 PCs can get a Volume Licence hich gets round this... The BitLocker encryption system also locks disks into a particlar PC ... > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 11 18:43:11 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:43:11 +0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave wrote: > > > I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for > more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN. > However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I > have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which > recommends weely re-boots? > > I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ... and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*. -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From spc at conman.org Wed Jan 11 19:10:08 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:10:08 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> Message-ID: <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great John Many Jars once stated: > On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave wrote: > > > > > > > I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for > > more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN. > > However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I > > have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which > > recommends weely re-boots? > > > I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ... > and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*. You found it? [1] -spc (Wow ... ) [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_after/ From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 11 19:23:58 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:23:58 -0500 Subject: Uptime contest :/ - Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> Message-ID: <4F0E362E.9040609@telegraphics.com.au> On 11/01/12 7:43 PM, John Many Jars wrote: > On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave wrote: > >> >> >> I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not had a re-boot for >> more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to the new SAN. >> However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 days so I guess I >> have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft document which >> recommends weely re-boots? >> >> I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel administrator) ... > and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*. > > It's not very unusual. I've admin'd several Linux servers with 3+ year uptimes. --T From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 19:35:33 2012 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:35:33 +1100 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4f0e38e9.0b86640a.741b.3328@mx.google.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sean Conner Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 12:10 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC You found it? [1] -spc (Wow ... ) [1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_aft er/ I reckon this is an urban myth - I've heard exactly the same story applied to an OS/2 box! Cheers, Lance From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 11 19:44:40 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:44:40 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4f0e38e9.0b86640a.741b.3328@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> <4f0e38e9.0b86640a.741b.3328@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4F0E3B08.6010900@neurotica.com> On 01/11/2012 08:35 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Sean Conner > Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 12:10 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, > compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for > 8080/Z80 BASIC > > You found it? [1] > > -spc (Wow ... ) > > [1] > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_aft > er/ > > I reckon this is an urban myth - I've heard exactly the same story applied > to an OS/2 box! I'm pretty sure I heard the Novell version; I wasn't reading The Register regularly back in 2001 so I must've heard it through the grapevine. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 11 19:46:05 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:46:05 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question Message-ID: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked physically like a 128? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 11 19:50:37 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:50:37 +0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> <20120112011008.GB29752@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:10 AM, Sean Conner wrote: > > You found it? [1] > > -spc (Wow ... ) > > [1] > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_after/ > > Ha! We knew where that one was. My next job, at EDS, was in a huge test lab. There were several machines that we never did find. Ever. -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 19:51:56 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:51:56 -0600 Subject: Uptime contest :/ - Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! In-Reply-To: <4F0E362E.9040609@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0E0AD3.80802@neurotica.com> <41A70C7CDDFE4547A0962534D0345138@EMACHINE> <4F0E362E.9040609@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: my friend has a thoshiba 100mhz laptop that ran a teamspeak server that had heavy traffic for close to 6 yrs befor the hdd failed runing nt4 it was using a Xircome dongled 10/100 eithernet card for its networking sat under his bed all those yrs untuched he tossed a different drive in it and i think its back up to 3 yrs now From geoffr at zipcon.net Wed Jan 11 19:55:15 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:55:15 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Like a smaller version, yes it's the commodore 64c On 1/11/12 5:46 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > looked physically like a 128? > > -Dave From dgahling at hotmail.com Wed Jan 11 19:58:07 2012 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:58:07 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: the 64c resembled a c128 > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:46:05 -0500 > From: mcguire at neurotica.com > To: > Subject: Commodore 64 question > > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > looked physically like a 128? > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Jan 11 19:58:12 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:58:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 11, 12 08:46:05 pm" Message-ID: <201201120158.q0C1wC5m011558@floodgap.com> > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > looked physically like a 128? The 64C looks similar. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- In memory of Werner Klemperer ---------------------------------------------- From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 11 20:01:52 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:01:52 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Yes. On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:46 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked > physically like a 128? > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From james at slor.net Wed Jan 11 20:08:51 2012 From: james at slor.net (James) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:08:51 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <039401ccd0cf$22130020$66390060$@slor.net> > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked > physically like a 128? > Yes, the 64C. In the same styling as the 128 but not quite as big. From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Jan 11 20:09:16 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:09:16 +1300 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: The C64c ? http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/collection/c64c.htm Terry (Tez) On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:46 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked > physically like a 128? > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From jtp at chinalake.com Wed Jan 11 20:13:51 2012 From: jtp at chinalake.com (J. Peterson) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:13:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: FS: $0 BA350 filler faceplate, $20ish BN21V Y SCSI In-Reply-To: <63f2a073-a52e-42ff-ae79-8f52b37e14ce@Prozac> Message-ID: <6449c63c-1019-4303-8b5a-5658b5d8e74e@Prozac> - BA350 filler/faceplate, standard DEC tan, clean front - needs a home for the price of shipping - DEC Y SCSI BN21V-0B (2 F AMP - 1 M HD50), $2O or other reasonable offer -Jim/Boston jtp..chinalake.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 11 20:38:39 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:38:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120111183653.V38696@shell.lmi.net> > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > > looked physically like a 128? Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of the 64 that looked like a 128. From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 20:48:42 2012 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:48:42 +1100 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 12:46 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Commodore 64 question Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked physically like a 128? -Dave Sort of - the whole range (including the A500, A600 and A1200 Amigas) all had a very similar look. Lance From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 11 21:04:57 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:04:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: The structuring of BASIC / was Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > The BASIC on the Microdata-REALITY system had many of these improvements back > in the mid-70's, on a professional/business/mini-computer platform: > structured if-then-else, statement numbers are optional, indentable, etc. > Below is a code snippet from a program I wrote in 1977/8 (the numbers on the > far left are line numbers, not part of the source). > Known as Pick BASIC or DataBASIC. > 70 IF EXTRACT(FA,2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1)=1 THEN M=M+1; > DA=INSERT(DA,M,0,0EXTRACT(FA,NP,LC(2),1)) I've not seen this notation used (well recently) is the EXTRACT above equivalent to: IF FA<2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1> THEN.... ? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 11 21:11:12 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:11:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that looked > physically like a 128? > The 64C. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 11 21:52:52 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:52:52 -0800 Subject: The structuring of BASIC / was Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <818C4B01-9709-4B9A-8CCA-DA26C78079B3@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 11, at 7:04 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > >> The BASIC on the Microdata-REALITY system had many of these >> improvements back in the mid-70's, on a professional/business/mini- >> computer platform: structured if-then-else, statement numbers are >> optional, indentable, etc. Below is a code snippet from a program >> I wrote in 1977/8 (the numbers on the far left are line numbers, >> not part of the source). >> > Known as Pick BASIC or DataBASIC. > >> 70 IF EXTRACT(FA,2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1)=1 THEN M=M+1; >> DA=INSERT(DA,M,0,0EXTRACT(FA,NP,LC(2),1)) > > I've not seen this notation used (well recently) is the EXTRACT > above equivalent to: IF FA<2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1> THEN.... ? Well, I couldn't really say .. 1978 was about the last time I used the Microdata/Pick system. IIRC, EXTRACT() was used to access the fields in a record, the record perhaps having been READ() from the database; I don't recall the exact semantics. Would it make sense if it were something like: value = EXTRACT( record, index1, index2, index3 ) I never saw the x notation .. syntactic shorthand introduced later? From bear at typewritten.org Wed Jan 11 21:54:17 2012 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:54:17 -0800 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse In-Reply-To: <4F0DA48D.7050605@comcast.net> References: <6AA0AF92-D2B2-4247-8975-CE7CA5614756@typewritten.org> <4F0DA48D.7050605@comcast.net> Message-ID: <86120DBC-D8A8-46FC-B583-6C15494673ED@typewritten.org> On Jan 11, 2012, at 7:02 AM, Nick Allen wrote: > for a Sun 100. I connects via a RJ11 plug into an adapter that shares with a RJ11 keyboard. This is a Sun-2 arrangement, used to attach the (serial) mouse and keyboard using RJ11s to the DA15 on a VME processor board. The multibus 2/120 and 2/170 both express the RJ111 connectors directly on the back panel, and does not use a DA15 adapter. A Sun 100(u) will have a Sun-1 framebuffer (which has no keyboard or mouse interface), and use the (parallel) interface on the processor for keyboard (DB25) and mouse (DA15). They are totally different arrangements. I have never seen nor heard of a Sun 100 which uses a Sun-2 keyboard, though it's certainly possible somebody did this after making some more or less significant alterations to the back panel cutouts (and limiting himself to a single memory board as there are only three slots in a Sun 100 sharing the P2 bus necessary for the CPU to connect to memory and the Sun-2 framebuffer). This would be a pretty egregious thing to do to a Sun 100 now and I think in practice, at a time when it would have not been so egregious, an extremely unlikely modification. ok bear. -- until further notice From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 11 23:34:39 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:34:39 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> On 01/11/2012 09:48 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: >> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >> looked physically like a 128? > > Sort of - the whole range (including the A500, A600 and A1200 Amigas) all > had a very similar look. I remember the Amigas and the 128. From the responses I've seen here I believe it is a C64C. I have been offered this machine locally; I was told it was a "Commodore 64" but the picture I was sent looks like a 128. The woman is certain that it's a 64, but I'd never heard of a 64 in a case like that. Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From tdk.knight at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 23:50:08 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:50:08 -0600 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? Message-ID: i grabed a 8in shugart floppy drive off ebay got it yestday yay! anyhow i am looking at it and theres 3 power plugs? http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682794995/in/photostream/lightbox/ and i don't have that style? and i will need to find me a cable for it and eventually a card of some sort for my 11 From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 00:03:09 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:03:09 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0E779D.2050409@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 12:50 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > i grabed a 8in shugart floppy drive off ebay got it yestday yay! > > anyhow i am looking at it and theres 3 power plugs? > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682794995/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > and i don't have that style? and i will need to find me a cable for it and > eventually a card of some sort for my 11 Unless I've missed something, that's two connectors. The lower one is a 2x3-pin connector; it carries DC for the drive electronics. The upper 3-pin connector is AC for the spindle motor. This looks like a model 801 or similar. I think the docs might be on Bitsavers. What model is it, for sure? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 00:04:49 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:04:49 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0E7801.9020202@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 12:50 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > i grabed a 8in shugart floppy drive off ebay got it yestday yay! > > anyhow i am looking at it and theres 3 power plugs? > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682794995/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > and i don't have that style? and i will need to find me a cable for it and > eventually a card of some sort for my 11 Oh, and about a card for your '11...Is this your Heath H-11? A standard RX01 or RX02 controller won't talk to this drive, but there are a great many third-party controllers that should, and will emulate an RX01 or RX02. But let's concentrate on getting it powered up first. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Thu Jan 12 00:05:07 2012 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis Kotlowy) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:35:07 +1030 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> On Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:20:08 PM Adrian Stoness wrote: > i grabed a 8in shugart floppy drive off ebay got it yestday yay! > > anyhow i am looking at it and theres 3 power plugs? > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682794995/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > and i don't have that style? and i will need to find me a cable for it and > eventually a card of some sort for my 11 Have a look at page 22 of this manual for the drive on bitsavers. Pages 18 and 19 describe the pinout. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/shugart/SA8xx/50574-4_SA800_OEM_May80.pdf Another thing to worry about is whether the drive motor matches the mains in your area. There should be a metal label under the drive at the front which says what model it is and what voltage/frequency it expects. The motor should say the same. It's probably okay but it doesn't hurt to check. Alexis. From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 00:11:25 2012 From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:11:25 +1100 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 4:35 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Commodore 64 question > Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does > it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I > couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old breadboxes. Lance From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 00:29:59 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:29:59 -0600 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: 115v 60 hz thats standard here. its an 801 http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682537187/in/photostream/lightbox/ i don't know how i am guna power this beast yet either no conectors... and yes for the h11 rx01 02 i don't got that i have that. i have a mti mqdx mti controllor card though http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/474/mqdx.jpg but thats hdd From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 01:02:14 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:02:14 -0800 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: , <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, Message-ID: <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2012 at 0:29, Adrian Stoness wrote: > 115v 60 hz thats standard here. > > its an 801 > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682537187/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > > i don't know how i am guna power this beast yet either no conectors... If memory serves, the OEM manual for the 801 on bitsavers does have the connector type numbers--and they're still made. --Chuck From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 01:12:20 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:12:20 -0600 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: gues i will have to hit up active electronics here in winnipeg On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:02 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 12 Jan 2012 at 0:29, Adrian Stoness wrote: > > > 115v 60 hz thats standard here. > > > > its an 801 > > > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682537187/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > > > > > i don't know how i am guna power this beast yet either no conectors... > > If memory serves, the OEM manual for the 801 on bitsavers does have > the connector type numbers--and they're still made. > > --Chuck > > From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 01:43:37 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:43:37 -0000 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of John Many Jars > Sent: 12 January 2012 00:43 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING > (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming > to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC > > > On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Dave wrote: > > > > > > > I checked today. Several of our Windows servers have not > had a re-boot for > > more than 300 days, when we swapped the SAN connections to > the new SAN. > > However this does mean they havn't been patched for 300 > days so I guess I > > have some overtime coming up. Please show me the Microsoft > document which > > recommends weely re-boots? > > > > I drew the short straw where I used to work (as a Novel > administrator) ... > and I had to reboot the Novel server that had been up for 4 *years*. At the risk of bringing things back on-topic, about 10 years ago I once spent an enjoyable morning running between two buildings with a box of floppies, copying files from one Netware system that was working to another that wouldn't boot. Apparently the broken one had run out of disk space so the System Manager~h~h~h~h~h~h~h Janitor had deleted some old files that didn't look as of they had been used for a long time. The problem is they some were system driver files for the backup drive. When I finally got the thing working and restored all the missing bits I found the tape they were on was scheduled to be overwritten the coming weekend. Note this was again a major company in the UK.... > > > -- > Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" > Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net > > -------- > > "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single > thing they want. > So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want > some bread, I > won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin > made of broken > glass." > > -Stephen Colbert > From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jan 12 04:08:32 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:08:32 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google > books: You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. Christian From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 12 04:15:44 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:15:44 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC References: Message-ID: -------- Original Message: > Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:18:12 -0500 > From: Dave McGuire > Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, > compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking > for 8080/Z80 BASIC > Is this where we get to compare resumes? Oh goodies! Add another digit > to the quoted number of machines in your current datacenter and then > you'll be in the right order of magnitude to compare to datacenters that > I've managed nearly single-handedly. ... > I'm a professional... --- You wouldn't know it from reading your "mine's bigger than yours" posts like the above and your customary "I'm right and you're an a**hole", not to mention the amount of time you seem to have for these tired same-old same-old MS/Win-bashing threads every couple of months; they really don't do much for your professional image. Just imagine how much more work you could get done if you practiced a little restraint... From snhirsch at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 06:46:27 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:46:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: DiscFerret -- URGENT software update In-Reply-To: <4F0E08EA.4060701@philpem.me.uk> References: <4F0E08EA.4060701@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Philip Pemberton wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Hi guys, > > I've released a new version of the DiscFerret interface library and > microcode. This is libdiscferret v1.5, with microcode release 0x0028. > The reason I'm declaring this an urgent update is because in an > earlier release of the microcode (possibly back to the initial > release) introduced an extremely nasty bug... Philip, You are being much too hard on yourself! Speaking for myself, I'm stunned at the amount of effort you've been able to put into DiscFerret and fully expect that there will be a shakeout period. That said, I'm itching for availability of a "back end" that can parse the captured track information into a sector-image. Where does progress stand on that? Steve -- From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 07:26:45 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:26:45 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 1:11 AM, Lance Lyon wrote: >> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > > "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... > > Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the > older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and > with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old > breadboxes. I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v HMOS II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know a lot of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If you're into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of tunes, each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for comparison. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 07:28:17 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:28:17 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0E779D.2050409@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E779D.2050409@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <0AA4FAEF-EB79-4C61-AF86-D65DB1937048@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 1:03 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > This looks like a model 801 or similar. I think the docs might be on Bitsavers. What model is it, for sure? Well, the label on the photo says "Shugart 801". - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 07:29:44 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:29:44 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:12 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > gues i will have to hit up active electronics here in winnipeg Worst case, you could probably also order them from Digi-Key or Mouser. Not sure what their Canadian shipping prices are like. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 07:32:48 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:32:48 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6B46B7B4-4F00-44F7-864A-7C3F198D9AD1@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 8:26 AM, David Riley wrote: > I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v HMOS II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know a lot of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If you're into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of tunes, each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for comparison. Er, yes, that link was: http://www.6581-8580.com/ - Dave From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 12 07:48:35 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:48:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fear of firing up (was Re: An unplugged computer is a sad thing In-Reply-To: <20120111131131.T23479@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1326376115.73432.YahooMailClassic@web121602.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 1/11/12, Fred Cisin wrote: > > And how do you know it's perfectly working if you > never power it up? > > Is Schrodinger's cat alive? No, of course not. Schrodinger had that cat in like 1935. Cats don't live anywhere near that long. But, seriously, back on topic... I never saw a whole lot of point in collecting computers if you're not going to try to get them to work. Now, sure, some machines require precautions to be taken before powering them up for the first time in years (check power supplies first, etc), but nothing should prevent you from doing so. Now, I'll admit to having machines that I have never turned on, but that's due to lack of other things (three phase power, important peripherals, or time) - but not lack of willingness to do so. But, I'm afraid that some people that collect computers do so simply to say they have them, or to have a pretty box that lights up, and have no knowledge or interest in doing anything with them. I find that attitude rather boring. I collect *computers*. Their function is to compute. Most of the fun of the hobby is getting them to do so. If I wanted to collect things that don't do anything, I'd collect Hummels [1], they're lighter, and take up less space. -Ian [1] Hummels are porcelain figurines, usually of children. They're the sort of thing one collects, puts on the shelf, and then spends the next 20 years dusting. From nick.allen at comcast.net Wed Jan 11 09:02:37 2012 From: nick.allen at comcast.net (Nick Allen) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:02:37 -0600 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse In-Reply-To: <6AA0AF92-D2B2-4247-8975-CE7CA5614756@typewritten.org> References: <6AA0AF92-D2B2-4247-8975-CE7CA5614756@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <4F0DA48D.7050605@comcast.net> for a Sun 100. I connects via a RJ11 plug into an adapter that shares with a RJ11 keyboard. From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 16:04:30 2012 From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:04:30 -0800 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? Message-ID: ever figure out how to fix this? All twenty of my (poorly warehoused) vt220s are doing this! thx jake From jjacocks at mac.com Wed Jan 11 21:33:18 2012 From: jjacocks at mac.com (J. Alexander Jacocks) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:33:18 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <20120111183653.V38696@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <20120111183653.V38696@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> > ? ?Hey Commie folks. ?Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >> > looked physically like a 128? > > Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of > the 64 that looked like a 128. Maybe you're thinking of the 64C? That's very 128-esque, but it's quite a bit smaller, and has fewer keys. - Alex From iamvirtual at gmail.com Wed Jan 11 22:16:48 2012 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:16:48 -0700 Subject: DEC-11-AJPB-PB paper tape Message-ID: Does anyone have an electronic dump of the Basic-11 paper tape for the PDP-11? I am looking for Version 007A that was released 10/22/70. The id of the paper tape is: DEC-11-AJPB-PB PDP-11 BASIC V007A 10/22/70 Many thanks! --barrym From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 08:31:29 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 06:31:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: from "J. Alexander Jacocks" at "Jan 11, 12 10:33:18 pm" Message-ID: <201201121431.q0CEVTJC011516@floodgap.com> > > > > _ _Hey Commie folks. _Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > > > > looked physically like a 128? > > > > Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of > > the 64 that looked like a 128. > > Maybe you're thinking of the 64C? That's very 128-esque, but it's > quite a bit smaller, and has fewer keys. I believe Fred was making a funny. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FORTUNE: Today is a great day for making firm decisions. Or is it? --------- From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Thu Jan 12 08:46:46 2012 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:46:46 +0100 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Isn't that the error code you get when the keyboard is not connected? That's easy to check ... if so: check the plug for dirt (bad contact) and check the cable for a broken wire inside ... - Henk. -------------------------------------------------- From: "Jacob Ritorto" Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 11:04 PM To: Subject: Re: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? > ever figure out how to fix this? All twenty of my (poorly warehoused) > vt220s are doing this! > > thx > jake > From chrise at pobox.com Thu Jan 12 09:08:41 2012 From: chrise at pobox.com (Chris Elmquist) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:08:41 -0600 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120112150841.GB21748@n0jcf.net> On Thursday (01/12/2012 at 08:29AM -0500), David Riley wrote: > On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:12 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > > > gues i will have to hit up active electronics here in winnipeg > > Worst case, you could probably also order them from Digi-Key or Mouser. Not sure what their Canadian shipping prices are like. In a normal winter, you could just run down to Thief River Falls from Winnipeg on your snowmobile and pick up the parts at Digi-Key ;-) -- Chris Elmquist From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 09:20:08 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:20:08 -0500 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2012, at 9:46 AM, Henk Gooijen wrote: > Isn't that the error code you get when the keyboard is not connected? > That's easy to check ... if so: check the plug for dirt (bad contact) and > check the cable for a broken wire inside ... Aside from dirt, check the connector for corrosion. That can make for a rather poor connection as well, and it's likely to be a problem if it's been warehoused in poor environmental conditions. Correcting the corrosion could be a bit of a task, since fine-grit sandpaper might be difficult to get in the plug without damaging anything. - Dave From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 12 09:26:18 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:26:18 -0800 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one time. + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. It does have an ac motor, and there were at one time parts to change to 50 hz. I don't recall if the voltage problem is strappable, or has to be handled externally with a stepdown. Never worked with the floppies, only with SMD drives at 50hz for export. Jim On 1/12/2012 5:29 AM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:12 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > >> gues i will have to hit up active electronics here in winnipeg > Worst case, you could probably also order them from Digi-Key or Mouser. Not sure what their Canadian shipping prices are like. > > > - Dave > > > From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 09:30:42 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:30:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: The structuring of BASIC / was Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <818C4B01-9709-4B9A-8CCA-DA26C78079B3@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> <818C4B01-9709-4B9A-8CCA-DA26C78079B3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > On 2012 Jan 11, at 7:04 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> >>> The BASIC on the Microdata-REALITY system had many of these improvements >>> back in the mid-70's, on a professional/business/mini-computer platform: >>> structured if-then-else, statement numbers are optional, indentable, etc. >>> Below is a code snippet from a program I wrote in 1977/8 (the numbers on >>> the far left are line numbers, not part of the source). >>> >> Known as Pick BASIC or DataBASIC. >> >>> 70 IF EXTRACT(FA,2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1)=1 THEN M=M+1; >>> DA=INSERT(DA,M,0,0EXTRACT(FA,NP,LC(2),1)) >> >> I've not seen this notation used (well recently) is the EXTRACT above >> equivalent to: IF FA<2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1> THEN.... ? > > Well, I couldn't really say .. 1978 was about the last time I used the > Microdata/Pick system. > > IIRC, EXTRACT() was used to access the fields in a record, the record perhaps > having been READ() from the database; I don't recall the exact semantics. > Would it make sense if it were something like: > > value = EXTRACT( record, index1, index2, index3 ) > > I never saw the x notation .. syntactic shorthand introduced later? > It's manipulating a dynamic array - x. This is how Pick (and Pick-alikes like REALITY, UniVerse, etc) store data. If you have a record that looks like this: 001: NAME 002: ADDRESS 003: CITY]STATE]ZIP You could work with it like this: read workrec from customer.file, "1001" then cust.name = workrec<1> cust.addr = workrec<2> cust.city = workrec<3,1> cust.st = workrec<3,2> cust.zip = workrec<3,3> end Pick has its quirks like any other DB system, but it stomps the guts out of SQL on pure flexibility alone. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 09:35:16 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:35:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/11/2012 09:48 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: >>> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >>> looked physically like a 128? >> >> Sort of - the whole range (including the A500, A600 and A1200 Amigas) all >> had a very similar look. > > I remember the Amigas and the 128. From the responses I've seen here I > believe it is a C64C. I have been offered this machine locally; I was told > it was a "Commodore 64" but the picture I was sent looks like a 128. The > woman is certain that it's a 64, but I'd never heard of a 64 in a case like > that. > > Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does it run > the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I couldn't > resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > Dave, the C-64C is primarily just a case upgrade and later on a cost-reduced main board update (4464 instead of 4164, etc). The KERNAL and BASIC ROMs are basically the same as what is found in the old breadbox 64. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From ttmrichter at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 09:37:04 2012 From: ttmrichter at gmail.com (Michael Richter) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:37:04 +0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 12 January 2012 02:48, Chuck Guzis wrote: > (Since much of SNOBOL was written in (gasp!) FORTRAN, you've got me > wondering what the name of the string-handling package for FORTRAN 66 > was that I used quite a bit. Time has almost eradicated it from my > memory. I seem to remember that SNOBOL4 could even link to the > FORTRAN run-time library and programs written in FORTRAN). I'm pretty sure, actually, that SNOBOL4 (the version of SNOBOL most people are referring to when they say SNOBOL) was written in SIL. What is SIL? The SNOBOL Implementation Language, of course. No, really, what is SIL? It's a huge collection of very portable assembler macros. Indeed you can see a modern implementation of SNOBOL4 built on SIL (using C as the assembler this time) right over here . Individuals who are not familiar with the way SNOBOL4 is implemented > usually assume that it is written in assembly language. Those who have > heard of > its machine independence generally assume it is written in FORTRAN. PL/I > is sometimes supposed since PL/ I is a high-level language whose > operations are > more suitable to such an implementation. > > Clearly machine independence and portability rule out assembly language in > its basic form. At the time the implementation of SNOBOL4 was undertaken, > FORTRAN was considered but rejected because it is poorly suited to perform- > ing the string and list manipulations that are the heart of SNOBOL4. There > are > versions of FORTRAN that have such capabilities, but these extensions vary > from machine to machine and lack the desired independence. PL/I was also > considered but rejected. The reasons for this rejection are somewhat > different. > At the time the implementation was started, there was no viable > implementation > of PL/I. Neither was there a likelihood of compatible versions of PL/I for > most > large-scale scientific machines. Other languages (such as COBOL, ALGOL, and > LISP) were considered but rejected for similar reasons. What alternative remained? The answer seemed to be to develop a machine- > independent language suitable for implementing SNOBOL4. Such a language, > to be useful, would have to be considerably simpler than SNOBOL4 itself > since > the implementation language has to be implemented for each machine on which > SNOBOL4 is desired. Thus, the idea of the SNOBOL4 Implementation Lan- > guage (SIL) evolved. Again, there were choices. SIL could be a procedural > lan- > guage, such as ALGOL. Another alternative was an assembly-like language. > The latter choice was made since most machines have assembly languages with > macro facilities that permit the definition of new operations [21-23]. > Taking ad- > vantage of existing macro assemblers, therefore, makes the implementation > of > SIL considerably easier. (Source: *The Macro Implementation of SNOBOL4*, Ralph E. Griswold, 1972) -- "Perhaps people don't believe this, but throughout all of the discussions of entering China our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our revenue or profit or whatnot." --Sergey Brin, demonstrating the emptiness of the "don't be evil" mantra. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 09:38:13 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:38:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Lance Lyon wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] > On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: Thursday, 12 January 2012 4:35 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Commodore 64 question > >> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > > "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... > > Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the > older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and > with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old > breadboxes. > Um....The "new" SID chip didn't show up in the 64C until the Rev E (I _think_) board. Also, practically nothing was surface mounted. Here's a picture of the Rev E board: http://www.oldsoftware.com/softimg8/64cboard.jpg g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 09:46:19 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:46:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 12, 2012, at 1:11 AM, Lance Lyon wrote: > >>> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >>> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >>> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? >> >> "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... >> >> Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the >> older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and >> with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old >> breadboxes. > > I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v HMOS > II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know a lot > of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If you're > into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of tunes, > each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for > comparison. What site? :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 09:48:14 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:48:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <6B46B7B4-4F00-44F7-864A-7C3F198D9AD1@gmail.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> <6B46B7B4-4F00-44F7-864A-7C3F198D9AD1@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 12, 2012, at 8:26 AM, David Riley wrote: > >> I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v >> HMOS II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know >> a lot of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If >> you're into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of >> tunes, each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for >> comparison. > > Er, yes, that link was: http://www.6581-8580.com/ > Thanks. http://www.radio6581.com is a great choice if you like your chiptunes streamed. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 10:28:05 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:28:05 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3F829537-46AC-4001-B455-F412A6956054@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 10:46 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v HMOS II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know a lot of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If you're into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of tunes, each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for comparison. > > What site? :) Yeah, bonehead mistake; it was in the next one, but for reference, it's http://www.6581-8580.com/. - Dave From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 10:52:17 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:52:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <3F829537-46AC-4001-B455-F412A6956054@gmail.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> <3F829537-46AC-4001-B455-F412A6956054@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 12, 2012, at 10:46 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: > >>> I've heard that, though I've also heard they were more reliable (9v HMOS II instead of 12v NMOS dissipating less heat...) I certainly know a lot of chiptune artists prefer the older 6581 to the newer 8580. If you're into chiptunes, this site has MP3s of recordings of thousands of tunes, each running on two revisions of the 6581 and also the 8580 for comparison. >> >> What site? :) > > Yeah, bonehead mistake; it was in the next one, but for reference, it's > http://www.6581-8580.com/. Is there a torrent of their collection available somewhere? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 10:56:21 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:56:21 -0200 Subject: [OT]: Paging Beeprog users References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> <3F829537-46AC-4001-B455-F412A6956054@gmail.com> Message-ID: <241801ccd14b$46b06720$6400a8c0@tababook> Sorry for the offtopic, but I could use some help here Any Beeprog users here? I need a photo of the diagnostic pod that comes with the unit... Please, if you can help (or the pinout), pvt me Thanks Alexandre Souza, PU1BZZ --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 11:01:46 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:01:46 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <20120111183653.V38696@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <20120111183653.V38696@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F0F11FA.8070508@gmail.com> Fred Cisin wrote: >>> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >>> looked physically like a 128? > > Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of > the 64 that looked like a 128. Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. From lbickley at bickleywest.com Thu Jan 12 10:59:05 2012 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:59:05 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> Message-ID: <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Thursday 12 January 2012, Christian Corti wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google > > books: > > You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. You can preview a good deal of the book - from the Cover to page 348 Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 12 11:00:58 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:00:58 -0800 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <4F0F11CA.9040009@jwsss.com> ebay auction for open frame supply for 2/3 of the voltages: 140670971601 +5 at 5a +24 at 4a. Getting the -5 is only necessary on an 800L I noticed in the manual, do you have an 800L? I recall that not all 5v supplies at the time were happy in a system supplying as -5, but I don't recall how to tell which you needed. I think that would take some research to figure out from the type of power supply. Also there are implications with the AC in and grounding which come into play. It was always nice to find the triple output supplies and not have to deal with a separate -5 supply. Jim On 1/12/2012 7:26 AM, jim s wrote: > There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one > time. + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. > > It does have an ac motor, and there were at one time parts to change > to 50 hz. I don't recall if the voltage problem is strappable, or has > to be handled externally with a stepdown. Never worked with the > floppies, only with SMD drives at 50hz for export. > > Jim > From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 11:02:45 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:02:45 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <22E3E75D-DA54-4510-B57C-B8FDAA7CEDB1@gmail.com> <3F829537-46AC-4001-B455-F412A6956054@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3EE55CD1-EBF0-4E66-8A6B-8721D8AE7489@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 11:52 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> What site? :) >> >> Yeah, bonehead mistake; it was in the next one, but for reference, it's http://www.6581-8580.com/. > > Is there a torrent of their collection available somewhere? Not to my knowledge, but I haven't really looked. - Dave From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Thu Jan 12 11:18:32 2012 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:18:32 -0600 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net>, , Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:08:32 +0100 > From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Hazeltine Green > > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google > > books: > > You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. > > Christian Its there, go to google books and type the title From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 12 11:24:51 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:24:51 -0700 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <4F0CC057.2080609@verizon.net> Message-ID: In article , Christian Corti writes: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > > You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google > > books: > > You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. Funny, I was reading page 514 when I posted that. Maybe you're referring to not being able to see every single page, but they still have these things called libraries and used book sellers. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 11:30:18 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:30:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F11FA.8070508@gmail.com> from Jules Richardson at "Jan 12, 12 11:01:46 am" Message-ID: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> > >>> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that > >>> looked physically like a 128? > > > > Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of > > the 64 that looked like a 128. > > Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. I moved my 64 a bit left on the desk but it's still a 64. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I know you're out there, Eh!Steve! ----------------------------------------- From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 11:45:43 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:45:43 -0800 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> References: , <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com>, <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <4F0EABC7.19104.253852@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2012 at 7:26, jim s wrote: > There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one > time. + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. I've seen bricks for modems with +5 and +/-12 and still have a pile. I can't recall seeing a brick with -5 and +24, however. What would they have been for? And would they be able to supply the necessary current (in particular for the +24)? Open frame linears and switchers with all of the voltages were quite common, however. --Chuck From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Thu Jan 12 12:04:53 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:04:53 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Lyle Bickley wrote: > On Thursday 12 January 2012, Christian Corti wrote: >> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >>> You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google >>> books: >> >> You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. > > You can preview a good deal of the book - from the Cover to page 348 No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering you a pirated copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing except the possibility to write a review and export the citation. Christian From korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu Thu Jan 12 12:08:44 2012 From: korpela at ssl.berkeley.edu (Eric J Korpela) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:08:44 -0800 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I must admit that I use Gmail as my mail interface, mainly for its archive and search capabilities. ?One problem with Gmail is that I often don't notice when I'm sending formatted html rather than plain text. But my mail actually goes to a linux machine and through a challenge/response spam filter that I wrote myself, then a copy is archived locally in addition to being forwarded to Gmail. On the linux machine I use mutt for reading mail. Apparently I'm about the last person on campus who still runs a non-dedicated mail server. The whole campus is moving to Gmail in the near future. Don't know what that means for my spam filter. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 12:10:36 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:10:36 -0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: , <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2012 at 23:37, Michael Richter wrote: > I'm pretty sure, actually, that SNOBOL4 (the version of SNOBOL most > people are referring to when they say SNOBOL) was written in SIL. That may be true, but when I used SNOBOL4, it was on a S/360 machine and catastrophic error messages always came from the FORTRAN routines. Now you've made me go search my my book... Okay, look at page 171 in the GPP 1968 SNOBOL4 book. Note that it mentions FORTRAN I/O routines. Or page 163, where it's mentioned that input is read from FT05F001--the FORTRAN standard data set. I suspect SNOBOL4 (or at least S/360 SNOBOL4) was more of a mongrel, with perhaps some of the parser and interpreter written in SIL, but called from a FORTRAN mainline program. And there were several versions of SNOBOL4. The one the book concerns itself with was 2.0. There was the 1964 SNOBOL and the 1966 SNOBOL3. Was there ever a SNOBOL2? It might be fun to revisit SNOBOL after 40-odd years. It was something of a hog on a S360/40 back then. It'd probably run like the wind on a low-end consumer PC today. --Chuck From bryan.pope at comcast.net Thu Jan 12 12:18:45 2012 From: bryan.pope at comcast.net (bryan.pope at comcast.net) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:18:45 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Buckle" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 10:35:16 AM Subject: Re: Commodore 64 question On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/11/2012 09:48 PM, Lance Lyon wrote: >>> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >>> looked physically like a 128? >> >> Sort of - the whole range (including the A500, A600 and A1200 Amigas) all >> had a very similar look. > > I remember the Amigas and the 128. From the responses I've seen here I > believe it is a C64C. I have been offered this machine locally; I was told > it was a "Commodore 64" but the picture I was sent looks like a 128. The > woman is certain that it's a 64, but I'd never heard of a 64 in a case like > that. > > Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does it run > the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I couldn't > resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > Dave, the C-64C is primarily just a case upgrade and later on a cost-reduced main board update (4464 instead of 4164, etc). The KERNAL and BASIC ROMs are basically the same as what is found in the old breadbox 64. The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. Cheers, Bryan g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From rga24 at cantab.net Thu Jan 12 12:31:09 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 12 Jan 2012 18:31:09 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12 2012, Lance Lyon wrote: >> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > >"Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... It's practically BASIC 1.0, which is the version Jack Tramiel licensed from Bill Gates in 1977 for a flat fee of $250,000 to use on as many units as he liked. The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi symbol and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed anything at all. In BASIC 7.0 on the C128, it's used in "GO 64" to switch to C64 mode. There is an expansion for BASIC 2.0, which is called Super Expander, for both the VIC 20 and C64. Well worth seeking out, it's the same dialect later used in BASIC 3.5 for the plus/4 and BASIC 7.0 for the C128. >Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the >older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and >with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old >breadboxes. 6581 SIDs have a very variable filter but when you get a good one it's really nice. The transfer function for the cutoff frequency is roughly speaking exponential. Whereas 8580 SIDs have much more consistent filters between units, stronger resonance and a linear transfer function for the cutoff frequency. The 6581 filter distorts a lot but in a very nice "analogue synthesizer" sort of way. In the same way that a Korg MS20 filter or a Moog filter is nice, so is the 6581 filter nice. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 12:27:36 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:27:36 -0500 Subject: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5BB2B21D-6571-41CA-A044-467A6E6EB084@neurotica.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 5:15 AM, "MikeS" wrote: > -------- Original Message: >> Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:18:12 -0500 >> From: Dave McGuire >> Subject: Re: "Modern" e-mail clients suck! (Was: QUOTING (Was: Truce, >> compromise reached? - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking >> for 8080/Z80 BASIC > >> Is this where we get to compare resumes? Oh goodies! Add another digit >> to the quoted number of machines in your current datacenter and then >> you'll be in the right order of magnitude to compare to datacenters that >> I've managed nearly single-handedly. > ... >> I'm a professional... > --- > You wouldn't know it from reading your "mine's bigger than yours" posts like > the above and your customary "I'm right and you're an a**hole", not to > mention the amount of time you seem to have for these tired same-old > same-old MS/Win-bashing threads every couple of months; they really don't do > much for your professional image. I type fast, and since this isn't a "professional" list and I'm not looking for work, I really couldn't care less. I appreciate your concern, though. > Just imagine how much more work you could get done if you practiced a little > restraint... Ignoring little hand grenades lobbed at me (in case you didn't see the start of this flame war) would definitely be beneficial. I've never been very good at considering the source. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 12:32:44 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:32:44 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> References: <4F0F11FA.8070508@gmail.com> <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >> >>> ? ?Hey Commie folks. ?Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >> >>> looked physically like a 128? >> > >> > Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of >> > the 64 that looked like a 128. >> >> Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. > > I moved my 64 a bit left on the desk but it's still a 64. Shift to the Left! Shift to the Right! Push Down! Pop Up! Byte! Byte! Byte! -ethan From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 12:38:29 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:38:29 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0F11CA.9040009@jwsss.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> <4F0F11CA.9040009@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <417A2DC5-E009-4AD6-B639-1277CF3B3E84@gmail.com> If you wanted a new supply that's not likely to fail any time soon, you can get lots of 5v/24v/-12v or 5v/24v/-15v supplies from Jameco for around $50. If the manual is correct (page 19), you can use the -12v/-15v with some jumpering. If you wanted to play it safe and not jumper it, you could always drop (raise?) the -12v/-15v to -5v with a 7905; it uses 0.1A max, so you'd probably at least want a small heatsink (you'll be burning 0.7W/1W), but nothing too huge. Power supplies (all can handle the spec'ed 1.7A on +24v): http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_2103206_-1 http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_323812_-1 http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_132371_-1 - Dave On Jan 12, 2012, at 12:00 PM, jim s wrote: > ebay auction for open frame supply for 2/3 of the voltages: 140670971601 +5 at 5a +24 at 4a. > > > Getting the -5 is only necessary on an 800L I noticed in the manual, do you have an 800L? > > I recall that not all 5v supplies at the time were happy in a system supplying as -5, but I don't recall how to tell which you needed. I think that would take some research to figure out from the type of power supply. Also there are implications with the AC in and grounding which come into play. It was always nice to find the triple output supplies and not have to deal with a separate -5 supply. > > Jim > > On 1/12/2012 7:26 AM, jim s wrote: >> There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one time. + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. >> >> It does have an ac motor, and there were at one time parts to change to 50 hz. I don't recall if the voltage problem is strappable, or has to be handled externally with a stepdown. Never worked with the floppies, only with SMD drives at 50hz for export. >> >> Jim >> From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 12:40:14 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:40:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Christian Corti wrote: > On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Lyle Bickley wrote: >> On Thursday 12 January 2012, Christian Corti wrote: >>> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >>>> You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google >>>> books: >>> >>> You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. >> >> You can preview a good deal of the book - from the Cover to page 348 > > No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering you a pirated > copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing except the possibility to > write a review and export the citation. > Click on the cover. *rolls eyes* g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 12:58:49 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:58:49 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, Message-ID: <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2012 at 19:04, Christian Corti wrote: > No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering you a > pirated copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing except the > possibility to write a review and export the citation. A substantial part of the book is available, at least on my system. I simply click on the image of the cover of the book and it (slowly) loads. There are missing pages, yet there is much useful information. --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 12:59:24 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:59:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 12, 12 10:10:36 am" Message-ID: <201201121859.q0CIxOJb030064@floodgap.com> > I suspect SNOBOL4 (or at least S/360 SNOBOL4) was more of a mongrel, > with perhaps some of the parser and interpreter written in SIL, but > called from a FORTRAN mainline program. I've been trying to find documentation on SIL and the related VM language MINIMAL, but other than references to papers on it I can't find, I can't find a description of opcodes. Does anyone have this around? I found a SNOBOL4 text book, however, and it's a rather fascinating language. I can see where TRAC got some of its ideas. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Nasty habits/Here to stay! -- Oingo Boingo --------------------------------- From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 13:30:40 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:30:40 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <0AA4FAEF-EB79-4C61-AF86-D65DB1937048@gmail.com> References: <4F0E779D.2050409@neurotica.com> <0AA4FAEF-EB79-4C61-AF86-D65DB1937048@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F0F34E0.7000805@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 08:28 AM, David Riley wrote: >> This looks like a model 801 or similar. I think the docs might be on Bitsavers. What model is it, for sure? > > Well, the label on the photo says "Shugart 801". Duh. Somehow I didn't see that label. I'm drugged up and coughing my head off with pneumonia, that's my excuse! ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 13:33:26 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:33:26 -0500 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0F3586.5020402@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 09:46 AM, Henk Gooijen wrote: > Isn't that the error code you get when the keyboard is not connected? > That's easy to check ... if so: check the plug for dirt (bad contact) and > check the cable for a broken wire inside ... I've also seen the contacts in the female connectors with the wires pushed up and to the side a little bit, and stuck there. Make sure they're all sprung down into the appropriate positions. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 13:51:18 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:51:18 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Richard Atkinson wrote: > It's practically BASIC 1.0, which is the version Jack Tramiel licensed from > Bill Gates in 1977 for a flat fee of $250,000 to use on as many units as he > liked. I did not recall the precise amount, but those sound like the terms I remember. > The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi symbol > and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed anything at > all. It allows GO TO vs GOTO (TO is already a tokenized keyword for FOR statements) -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 14:01:44 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:01:44 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 01:11 AM, Lance Lyon wrote: >> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? > > "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... I was just razzing Liam since he hates it so much. I have very little experience with or knowledge of Commodore BASIC. > Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the > older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and > with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old > breadboxes. Ahh, gotcha. Thank you for the info. I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 14:04:32 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:04:32 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> References: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 01:18 PM, bryan.pope at comcast.net wrote: > Dave, the C-64C is primarily just a case upgrade and later on a > cost-reduced main board update (4464 instead of 4164, etc). The KERNAL > and BASIC ROMs are basically the same as what is found in the old breadbox > 64. Gotcha. It sounds like it was basically a minor technology refresh & cost cutting machine. Odd that I've never seen one around; all of my friends had 64s back in the day, and some of them moved to 128s at some point, but I've never seen one of these 64C machines. Hadn't even heard of them. Interesting! > The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jan 12 14:10:08 2012 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:10:08 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> References: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0F3E20.80800@arachelian.com> On 01/12/2012 12:30 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>> Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of >>> the 64 that looked like a 128. >> Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. > I moved my 64 a bit left on the desk but it's still a 64. > LDA #$40 ASL Get it? To go back, just hold the Commodore key as you power on your new 128 From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 14:15:37 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:15:37 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0F34E0.7000805@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E779D.2050409@neurotica.com> <0AA4FAEF-EB79-4C61-AF86-D65DB1937048@gmail.com> <4F0F34E0.7000805@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:30 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 08:28 AM, David Riley wrote: >>> This looks like a model 801 or similar. I think the docs might be on Bitsavers. What model is it, for sure? >> >> Well, the label on the photo says "Shugart 801". > > Duh. Somehow I didn't see that label. I'm drugged up and coughing my head off with pneumonia, that's my excuse! ;) Likewise, there's no guarantee that the label's accurate. :-) - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 12 14:18:21 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:18:21 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: <4F0F400D.5020805@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 01:29 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > 115v 60 hz thats standard here. > > its an 801 > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/1ajs/6682537187/in/photostream/lightbox/ > > > i don't know how i am guna power this beast yet either no conectors... > > and yes for the h11 > > rx01 02 i don't got that i have that. i have a mti mqdx mti controllor card > though > http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/474/mqdx.jpg but thats hdd Ok. Don't worry about that too much; controllers like this aren't too tough to find. I may have one here, but I will have to finish my move (five trucks and counting!) before I can really look through my boards. Concentrate on getting it powered first. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 14:30:47 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:30:47 -0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <201201121859.q0CIxOJb030064@floodgap.com> References: <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 12, 12 10:10:36 am", <201201121859.q0CIxOJb030064@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0ED277.32179.BC564B@cclist.sydex.com> On 12 Jan 2012 at 10:59, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > I've been trying to find documentation on SIL and the related VM > language MINIMAL, but other than references to papers on it I can't > find, I can't find a description of opcodes. Does anyone have this > around? Do these help? ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/snobol/ http://www.snobol4.org/doc/arizona/index.html --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 14:33:45 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:33:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 12, 12 03:01:44 pm" Message-ID: <201201122033.q0CKXjND027048@floodgap.com> > I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? At the time they probably thought they were fixing it, since the voltage leak widely exploited for primitive D-A conversion ($d418) was technically a bug and is the most (in)famous thing fixed between the 6581 and the 8580. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Art is anything you can get away with. -- Marshall McLuhan ----------------- From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 12 13:08:53 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:08:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: from "Jacob Ritorto" at Jan 11, 12 02:04:30 pm Message-ID: > > ever figure out how to fix this? All twenty of my (poorly warehoused) > vt220s are doing this! >From what I remeebr, all sorts of keybord problems _can_ cause this, but the most ocmmon one is ahort somwehre in the keyboard memberan matrix, or equvalently a key stuck down. I did investigate this some years ago. I started fof by taking the keyboard apart : Unplug the keyboard cable at the keyboard end, remvoe the black push-in 'feet' (if present) and the 2 screws udner them. Then take off the top part of the caseing. Free the locking tak and slide the guts to get it out of the botto mcase. OK, the /guts' conissts of the keybaord membrane assmebly linked to a little encoder board. The ones I saw had an 8051 microcotnroller on them. I am told oterhs were used too. The encoder is fized to the keybaord by a metal clip on the tap of the votlage regualtor and t least one screw. With those out, you can move the encoder away. It's connected to 3 'tails fro, the memberan =assmebly, which are held in place by metal clips. Bend up the tabs on these (on the print seid of the PCB), remvoe the clips and separate the encoder and embrane assemnly. I foudn that if you conencted the bare encoder board to a VT220 (or whatever( useing the standard cable, it would power up with no errors. And after doing a lot of circuit-tracing had the conenctions to the memorbrane assmbly worked out. Shortign the approrpriate contacts o nthe PCB (where the tails connected) simulated a keypress, and I found that worked too. The encode board was not the problem. The keycaps come off quite easily (you need to twist them to free the lockign barbs, this is obvious if you are doing it. But that didn't help with the fault. The membrane assembly is heat-staked togetheer. I tried cutting off th=e stakes. It'll all come apart easilty, but I never foudn a way to get it to stay back together agina for any length of time. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 12 14:00:58 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:00:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0EFB9A.3030700@jwsss.com> from "jim s" at Jan 12, 12 07:26:18 am Message-ID: > > There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one time. > + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. I seem to rememebr that some 8" drives needed a -ve DC supply rail too. The electronics needed -5V, but there was a 3-terminal regulator on the PCB that could be connected or not by jumper options. SO the drive migth want -5V, it might want a bit more (often specified as -12V). Worth checking the links _bfore_ powering it up. > > It does have an ac motor, and there were at one time parts to change to > 50 hz. I don't recall if the voltage problem is strappable, or has to > be handled externally with a stepdown. Never worked with the floppies, > only with SMD drives at 50hz for export. I thinmk there wwee 230BV motors made. Iv'e enver seen oen thart could bn strapped for differnet voltages (well, OK, I've seen motors that could be strapped for different voltages, but not in 8" floppy drives). A lot of 8" drives over here (UK, which is 230V 50Hz mains) were 115V ones, run of an autotransformer. Obviously they were 50Hz motors/pulley sets. -tony From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 14:36:03 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:36:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Richard Atkinson wrote: > On Jan 12 2012, Lance Lyon wrote: > >>> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does it >>> run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >>> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? >> >> "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... > > It's practically BASIC 1.0, which is the version Jack Tramiel licensed from > Bill Gates in 1977 for a flat fee of $250,000 to use on as many units as he > liked. > > The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi symbol > and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed anything at > all. In BASIC 7.0 on the C128, it's used in "GO 64" to switch to C64 mode. > For those interested: http://www.pagetable.com/?p=46 - there is a zip file linked there that will allow you to create byte-exact versions of the following versions of BASIC (using the cc65 assembler): Commodore BASIC 1 OSI BASIC AppleSoft I KIM-1 BASIC Commodore BASIC 2 (PET) Intellivision Keyboard Component BASIC MicroTAN BASIC > There is an expansion for BASIC 2.0, which is called Super Expander, for both > the VIC 20 and C64. Well worth seeking out, it's the same dialect later used > in BASIC 3.5 for the plus/4 and BASIC 7.0 for the C128. > I wonder how difficult it would be to disassemble the Super Expander ROM and fold it into the existing BASIC v2 for the 64 in order to burn a new BASIC ROM - it would leave the cart port free for other things. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From rga24 at cantab.net Thu Jan 12 14:38:26 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 12 Jan 2012 20:38:26 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: Wikipedia says $25,000 not $250,000. I expect Tramiel sensed that the young Microsoft needed the money more than Bill Gates was letting on. On Jan 12 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: >On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Richard Atkinson wrote: >> It's practically BASIC 1.0, which is the version Jack Tramiel licensed >> from Bill Gates in 1977 for a flat fee of $250,000 to use on as many >> units as he liked. > > I did not recall the precise amount, but those sound like the terms I > remember. > >> The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi >> symbol and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed >> anything at all. > > It allows GO TO vs GOTO (TO is already a tokenized keyword for FOR > statements) > >-ethan > From rga24 at cantab.net Thu Jan 12 14:41:20 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 12 Jan 2012 20:41:20 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi >> symbol and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed >> anything at all. > > It allows GO TO vs GOTO (TO is already a tokenized keyword for FOR > statements) So you're allowed GO TO but not GO SUB? From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 12 14:44:08 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:44:08 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4650D6B7-8556-4469-865B-D826EB042389@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 12, at 10:58 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 12 Jan 2012 at 19:04, Christian Corti wrote: > >> No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering you a >> pirated copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing except the >> possibility to write a review and export the citation. > > A substantial part of the book is available, at least on my system. > I simply click on the image of the cover of the book and it (slowly) > loads. There are missing pages, yet there is much useful > information. There seems to be a variety of experiences with google books. I can't find any content at the link that was provided earlier in the thread (the cover is not an active link as I experience it here), however, another copy or version on google books: http://books.google.ca/books?id=I9O1K20- uo4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=phosphor +handbook&hl=en#v=onepage&q=phosphor%20handbook&f=false presents a lot of the book. I found EIA phosphor P1 listed on page 617 (did the page numbers change between versions?). .. ? From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 14:43:16 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:43:16 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jan 12, 2012, at 3:01 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the >> older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and >> with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old >> breadboxes. > > Ahh, gotcha. Thank you for the info. > > I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? It's not a downgrade per se; they actually improved it from a technical standpoint, in the same way that transistor amps improve upon tube amps from a technical standpoint (both from a consistency and a distortion point of view). The problem is that sometimes the distortion sounds better. :-) The 8580 certainly sounded more consistent from chip to chip; it has a much "cleaner" sound. Some games actually had knobs to twiddle because the filter blocks in the old 6581s could vary so much that the music would sound kinda wrong. It also didn't distort quite as much and the filters were much more resonant due to the higher gain of the HMOS II process over the older NMOS process. Check out the different samples in the site I linked; the 6581 versions sound distinctively more "dirty", which could be a good or a bad thing depending on your point of view (and depending on what music you're trying to play through it). There's a pretty spiffy interview with Bob Yannes (designer of the chip, later founder of Ensoniq) here: http://sid.kubarth.com/articles/interview_bob_yannes.html And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ And hopefully some time in the future, a visual interactive simulation here: http://visual6502.org/images/pages/Commodore_8580_SID.html - Dave From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 12 14:45:19 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:45:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120112123823.L65771@shell.lmi.net> > Worst case, you could probably also order them from Digi-Key or Mouser. > Not sure what their Canadian shipping prices are like. Worst case, you can use individual pins (IIRC, sames as 5.25" connector) and mold your own insulation around them. On my first one, I just wrapped each pin with electrical tape (which is a risky way to do it) BTW, 8" drive power requirements are not completely standardized. I needed different connector? and one different voltage to use a Tandon 848. I had access to LOTS of 5.25" bare pins and used connectors, due to my previous partnership in Elcompco, making and peddling 5.25" 2 drive units with smoked plex covers. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 12 14:50:09 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:50:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> References: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 01:18 PM, bryan.pope at comcast.net wrote: >> Dave, the C-64C is primarily just a case upgrade and later on a >> cost-reduced main board update (4464 instead of 4164, etc). The KERNAL >> and BASIC ROMs are basically the same as what is found in the old breadbox >> 64. > > Gotcha. It sounds like it was basically a minor technology refresh & cost > cutting machine. Odd that I've never seen one around; all of my friends had > 64s back in the day, and some of them moved to 128s at some point, but I've > never seen one of these 64C machines. Hadn't even heard of them. > Interesting! > >> The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. > > Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. > If it doesn't yell and and I'll send you some disks. You're on your own to find a mouse though - I'm keeping mine. (1351 is the model # of the mouse AFAIR) Are you getting a disk drive with it? If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From shadoooo at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 14:53:21 2012 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:53:21 +0100 Subject: Connect Shugart SA850 to PC Message-ID: No problem at all to build up the cable. The problem is that I don't know how to set the jumpers on the drive. Andrea From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 14:56:30 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:56:30 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 01:11 AM, Lance Lyon wrote: >> Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the >> older ones (sound-wise). > > ?I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. ?Cost reasons? Ultimately, I'm sure that's the cause. I don't think the intention was to "downgrade" the SID, but fanatical coders found ways to abuse the audio filters in ways that were not foreseen by the designers (and in ways that were not documented, nor guaranteed to work), so the effect was that some of the more interesting and creative effects that were developed on the 6581 (original) SID didn't work on the 8580 (later) SID. As I understand it, the most visible impact was on 4-bit digitized sound playback (as seen in "Impossible Mission"), but there were other "features" that were left behind in the redesign/remask. -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 15:13:46 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:13:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0ED277.32179.BC564B@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 12, 12 12:30:47 pm" Message-ID: <201201122113.q0CLDkN7026890@floodgap.com> > > I've been trying to find documentation on SIL and the related VM > > language MINIMAL, but other than references to papers on it I can't > > find, I can't find a description of opcodes. Does anyone have this > > around? > > Do these help? > > ftp://ftp.cs.arizona.edu/snobol/ > http://www.snobol4.org/doc/arizona/index.html Lol, I found those about five minutes after I posted the message. Thank you. Strangely, they don't talk about MINIMAL, but I suspect SIL ~= (or is very similar to) MINIMAL. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The reason is for fun, the most practical of all reasons. -- Jerome H. Fine From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Thu Jan 12 15:17:37 2012 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:17:37 -0600 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <20120112211737.GA5050@RawFedDogs.net> Christian, On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 07:04:53PM +0100, Christian Corti wrote: > No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering you > a pirated copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing except > the possibility to write a review and export the citation. Based on your e-mail address I think I know the problem. I've heard that for some Google full and/or partial views are only available to folks in the US. I'm in the US. I tried looking at the book in question and I do have a "preview book" link available. If you don't see a "preview book" link when you try to view the book it's probably because you're not in the US. -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 15:19:46 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:19:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: for the Prolog and Forth nerds Message-ID: <201201122119.q0CLJksd019216@floodgap.com> For people such as myself who are inordinately fascinated by Prolog, and terribly intimidated by things like the Warren Abstract Machine, here is a practical subset of Prolog written in the much easier to implement Forth along with various companion articles (including one on SKI combinators). http://soton.mpeforth.com/flag/jfar/vol4.html -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- A penny saved is stupid. --------------------------------------------------- From vrs at msn.com Thu Jan 12 15:19:55 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:19:55 -0800 Subject: DEC-11-AJPB-PB paper tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From: "B M" : Wednesday, January 11, 2012 8:16 PM > Does anyone have an electronic dump of the Basic-11 paper tape for the > PDP-11? I am looking for Version 007A that was released 10/22/70. > > The id of the paper tape is: > DEC-11-AJPB-PB PDP-11 BASIC V007A 10/22/70 http://iamvirtual.ca/collection/systems/mediadoc/mediadoc.html#papertape http://iamvirtual.ca/collection/systems/mediadoc/BOX-100/DEC-11-AJPB-PB.ptap (That isn't your site?) Brian Hechinger apparently had two copies back in July of 2001: http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/geeks/2001-July/002473.html Also Herb Johnson: http://www.midatlanticretro.org/PDP/Inventory.htm That's all I've found so far with Google :-). Vince From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 12 15:22:43 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:22:43 -0800 Subject: The structuring of BASIC / was Re: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: <4F0DD45A.8010502@jetnet.ab.ca> <4F0DE4EA.8090403@bitsavers.org> <818C4B01-9709-4B9A-8CCA-DA26C78079B3@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <206FBBEA-5C3B-4EE4-9F5E-CA26C78EEEE5@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 12, at 7:30 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> On 2012 Jan 11, at 7:04 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: >>>> The BASIC on the Microdata-REALITY system had many of these >>>> improvements back in the mid-70's, on a professional/business/ >>>> mini-computer platform: structured if-then-else, statement >>>> numbers are optional, indentable, etc. Below is a code snippet >>>> from a program I wrote in 1977/8 (the numbers on the far left >>>> are line numbers, not part of the source). >>> Known as Pick BASIC or DataBASIC. >>>> 70 IF EXTRACT(FA,2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1)=1 THEN M=M+1; >>>> DA=INSERT(DA,M,0,0EXTRACT(FA,NP,LC(2),1)) >>> I've not seen this notation used (well recently) is the EXTRACT >>> above equivalent to: IF FA<2,LC(NP),LC(P)+1> THEN.... ? >> >> Well, I couldn't really say .. 1978 was about the last time I used >> the Microdata/Pick system. >> >> IIRC, EXTRACT() was used to access the fields in a record, the >> record perhaps having been READ() from the database; I don't >> recall the exact semantics. Would it make sense if it were >> something like: >> >> value = EXTRACT( record, index1, index2, index3 ) >> >> I never saw the x notation .. syntactic shorthand >> introduced later? >> > It's manipulating a dynamic array - x value>. This is how Pick (and Pick-alikes like REALITY, UniVerse, > etc) store data. > > If you have a record that looks like this: > > 001: NAME > 002: ADDRESS > 003: CITY]STATE]ZIP > > You could work with it like this: > > read workrec from customer.file, "1001" then > cust.name = workrec<1> > cust.addr = workrec<2> > cust.city = workrec<3,1> > cust.st = workrec<3,2> > cust.zip = workrec<3,3> > end > > Pick has its quirks like any other DB system, but it stomps the > guts out of SQL on pure flexibility alone. I liked working on the Microdata-Reality/Pick system at the time, albeit as someone quite young and inexperienced. Working and programming with the database seemed quite effective for the nature of the work (business/accounting). The wikipedia article on the Pick system mentions files being structured with items, attributes, values and sub-values, which would fit with: value = EXTRACT( item, attribute, value, sub-value ) so as you surmised it looks like EXTRACT and <> are equivalent. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 15:22:18 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:22:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3E20.80800@arachelian.com> from Ray Arachelian at "Jan 12, 12 03:10:08 pm" Message-ID: <201201122122.q0CLMIaZ026962@floodgap.com> > >>> Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of > >>> the 64 that looked like a 128. > >> Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. > > I moved my 64 a bit left on the desk but it's still a 64. > LDA #$40 > ASL > Get it? Yes, I got it the first time ;) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "In God We Trust (All Others We Monitor)" ---------------------------------- From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 15:24:12 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:24:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 12, 12 03:04:32 pm" Message-ID: <201201122124.q0CLOCOM020182@floodgap.com> > > The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. > > Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. I bet not. I bet people didn't know what it was. GEOS should have had much more penetration based on the number of actual copies distributed, and the only conclusion I can draw is that people tried it and didn't find it useful, or didn't understand what it was in the first place. FTR, I didn't really appreciate GEOS until I'd used a Mac for a few years and realized just how much work Berkeley Softworks had to do to even simulate a subset of that environment. But by then life had moved onto GeoWorks. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Only death cures stupidity! -- "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" ------------------- From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 15:27:04 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:27:04 -0600 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F0F400D.5020805@neurotica.com> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0F400D.5020805@neurotica.com> Message-ID: txs i will talk with my father to see if hes got anything. hes an insturmentation tech and that h11 was his 2nd computer On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:18 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 01:29 AM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > >> 115v 60 hz thats standard here. >> >> its an 801 >> >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/**1ajs/6682537187/in/**photostream/lightbox/ >> >> >> i don't know how i am guna power this beast yet either no conectors... >> >> and yes for the h11 >> >> rx01 02 i don't got that i have that. i have a mti mqdx mti controllor >> card >> though >> http://img267.imageshack.us/**img267/474/mqdx.jpgbut thats hdd >> > > Ok. Don't worry about that too much; controllers like this aren't too > tough to find. I may have one here, but I will have to finish my move > (five trucks and counting!) before I can really look through my boards. > Concentrate on getting it powered first. > > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From rga24 at cantab.net Thu Jan 12 15:28:11 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 12 Jan 2012 21:28:11 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <201201122033.q0CKXjND027048@floodgap.com> References: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 12, 12 03:01:44 pm" <201201122033.q0CKXjND027048@floodgap.com> Message-ID: >> I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? > > At the time they probably thought they were fixing it, since the voltage > leak widely exploited for primitive D-A conversion ($d418) was > technically a bug and is the most (in)famous thing fixed between the 6581 > and the 8580. The filter cutoff frequency varied enormously between 6581 chips, they fixed that completely in the 8580. While also changing its character a lot. I wouldn't say it's downgraded, it's good to have both versions. From geoffr at zipcon.net Thu Jan 12 15:29:55 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:29:55 -0800 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: <4F0F3586.5020402@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/12/12 11:33 AM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On 01/12/2012 09:46 AM, Henk Gooijen wrote: >> Isn't that the error code you get when the keyboard is not connected? >> That's easy to check ... if so: check the plug for dirt (bad contact) and >> check the cable for a broken wire inside ... > > I've also seen the contacts in the female connectors with the wires > pushed up and to the side a little bit, and stuck there. Make sure > they're all sprung down into the appropriate positions. > > -Dave If they are corroded then worst case use a q-tip, better to use a video cleaning swab with some caig de-oxit. From vrs at msn.com Thu Jan 12 15:37:30 2012 From: vrs at msn.com (Vincent Slyngstad) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:37:30 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: From: Chuck Guzis: Thursday, January 12, 2012 10:58 AM > A substantial part of the book is available, at least on my system. > I simply click on the image of the cover of the book and it (slowly) > loads. There are missing pages, yet there is much useful > information. These pages where you have to guess what to do torque me off... This one is especially bad because the "Preview this book ?" link doesn't go to the same place, and as far as I can tell, will *not* let you see page 514. Anyway... You can click on the picture of the book, then fix the URL to look like this: http://books.google.com/books?id=lWlcJEDukRIC&pg=PA514&lpg=PP1 Or you can go to the bottom, click on "Page 456", then click forward until you get there. Every 10 pages or so it tells you that you've seen all you are going to get -- just ignore that and keep clicking forward. Eventually, you'll get to: http://books.google.com/books?id=lWlcJEDukRIC&pg=PA514&lpg=PA456 Such fun. Vince From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 15:49:52 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:49:52 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? Message-ID: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> I have two working Defender board sets that I'm almost ready to start building cabinets for. I'm scoping out new power supplies (I have the linear ones they came with but no giant transformers for it; I've been using PC power supplies but would like to use something with no moving parts). Does anyone know the approximate rail requirements for it? They don't seem specced in the drawings/theory of operation manuals anywhere. An old 230W AT power supply seems to work fine, but I don't think I need anything that heavy-duty. I know the 5v is going to pull a lot because it's used for most of the logic, and the regulated 12v and -5v are probably somewhat heavy since they power the sense amps for the 24 4116s. As far as I can tell, the unregulated 12v is only used to power the audio amp and the -12v (unregulated) is only used for the negative reference on the audio DAC; am I missing anything? I haven't measured current draw per rail yet, mostly out of laziness (and missing a few sizes of .156" plugs). BTW, the Apple color monitor they sold with the IIgs works great as an arcade monitor in a much smaller size if you can set the sync polarity correctly. Fortunately, Defender has solder jumpers for selecting that. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 16:13:40 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:13:40 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01BD76F8-82A9-4F24-8237-229AAD822B77@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 3:00 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> There were power "bricks" with all of the DC voltages made at one time. >> + and -- 5 and 24v was a popular item at the swap meets. > > I seem to rememebr that some 8" drives needed a -ve DC supply rail too. > The electronics needed -5V, but there was a 3-terminal regulator on the > PCB that could be connected or not by jumper options. SO the drive migth > want -5V, it might want a bit more (often specified as -12V). Worth > checking the links _bfore_ powering it up. The 801 manual indicates that it wants either -5v or (with appropriate jumper) -9 to -16v, which sounds appropriate. -12v or -15v are more common than -5v on supplies with +24v. - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 16:37:09 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:37:09 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Richard Atkinson wrote: > On Jan 12 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > >>> The only two keywords added in BASIC 2.0 as far as I know are the pi >>> symbol and the GO keyword, and I have no idea what GO does, if indeed >>> anything at all. >> >> It allows GO TO vs GOTO (TO is already a tokenized keyword for FOR >> statements) > > So you're allowed GO TO but not GO SUB? Yes. SUB is not a token. -ethan From dm561 at torfree.net Thu Jan 12 16:40:06 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:40:06 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question References: Message-ID: <39B81AF911D6404C88D95E4C106A05B4@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: > Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:36:03 -0800 (PST) > From: Gene Buckle > For those interested: http://www.pagetable.com/?p=46 - there is a zip file > linked there that will allow you to create byte-exact versions of the > following versions of BASIC (using the cc65 assembler): > Commodore BASIC 1 > OSI BASIC > AppleSoft I > KIM-1 BASIC > Commodore BASIC 2 (PET) > Intellivision Keyboard Component BASIC > MicroTAN BASIC What, no 8K AIM65 version? Hrmph! BTW, thanks to Dwight and another AIM65'er the ROMs and manual for the little-known AIM65 Pascal have been (re)discovered and the original author is even still around, so as soon as we get past the memory map issues hopefully there will be *four* languages for the AIM65: BASIC, Forth, PL/65 and Pascal (plus the assembler of course). mike From mtapley at swri.edu Thu Jan 12 17:31:54 2012 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:31:54 -0600 Subject: Fortran integers (was: Re: Right toolf for the job...) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 1:01 -0600 1/5/12, Mouse wrote: > > [In FORTRAN, a]ny variable whose name starts with the letters I J K L >> M or N (alphabetic letters between I and N (which is the start of >> "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless you tell it otherwise. > >...and others are assumed to be real. But is the first two letters of >"integer" where that came from? I'd always assumed it came from >mathematical convention, which uses letters i through n (often modified >with subscripts and the like) for things such as summation indices that >are most appropriately translated into programming languages as >integral types. "Perrier". (H to O, exclusive) Sorry for long-delayed response, and bad pun. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward. From dgahling at hotmail.com Thu Jan 12 17:34:14 2012 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:34:14 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <201201122124.q0CLOCOM020182@floodgap.com> References: <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 12, Message-ID: there was the pain in the a$$ copyprotection, which can be taken care of. a much nicer/better version was the first GEOS for PC. geos can be found online if you look in the right places. > From: spectre at floodgap.com > Subject: Re: Commodore 64 question > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:24:12 -0800 > > > > The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. > > > > Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. > > I bet not. I bet people didn't know what it was. GEOS should have had much > more penetration based on the number of actual copies distributed, and the > only conclusion I can draw is that people tried it and didn't find it > useful, or didn't understand what it was in the first place. > > FTR, I didn't really appreciate GEOS until I'd used a Mac for a few years > and realized just how much work Berkeley Softworks had to do to even > simulate a subset of that environment. But by then life had moved onto > GeoWorks. > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- Only death cures stupidity! -- "Cowboy Bebop: The Movie" ------------------- From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 12 17:54:34 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:54:34 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> References: <201201121730.q0CHUINC019456@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <4F0F72BA.6010906@telegraphics.com.au> On 12/01/12 12:30 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: >>>>> Hey Commie folks. Did Commodore build a version of the 64 that >>>>> looked physically like a 128? >>> >>> Aside from a LOT of extraneous circuit changes, the 128 was a version of >>> the 64 that looked like a 128. >> >> Well, all you need to do is take a 64 and shift it left a bit. > > I moved my 64 a bit left on the desk but it's still a 64. > Harharharharharharhar. --T From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 17:56:55 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:56:55 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> <201201122033.q0CKXjND027048@floodgap.com> Message-ID: > The filter cutoff frequency varied enormously between 6581 chips, they fixed > that completely in the 8580. While also changing its character a lot. I > wouldn't say it's downgraded, it's good to have both versions. I suspect the SID upgrade was an attempt to get Commodore into the synth market, even if just a supplier of the chips. Just about every synth marker eyed the 6581 to some extent, but they all found the variations found in the chips to be intolerable. But, by the time the 8580 happened, so did the DX7. -- Will From als at thangorodrim.de Thu Jan 12 18:08:07 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:08:07 +0100 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: <20120113000806.GB20562@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 10:40:14AM -0800, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Christian Corti wrote: > > >On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Lyle Bickley wrote: > >>On Thursday 12 January 2012, Christian Corti wrote: > >>>On Wed, 11 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > >>>>You can find this on page 514 of the "Phosphor Handbook" on google > >>>>books: > >>> > >>>You can't read that book on Google books; it's not available. > >> > >>You can preview a good deal of the book - from the Cover to page 348 > > > >No, I can't. There's no single page. Perhaps Google is offering > >you a pirated copy of the book, but here, there's just nothing > >except the possibility to write a review and export the citation. > > > Click on the cover. > > *rolls eyes* Which does nothing for me (from Switzerland). Free hint: not all members of this list are inside the US. Not all services available inside the US are available from outside the US. With Google Books especially there are limitations in how you can use the service depending on geocode: it is fully launched in the US and AFAIK launched in the UK, meaning you get access to content and can buy ebooks where available[0]. From other places, the service is much more restricted. Kind regards, Alex. [0] When I was physically in the US, I could attempt to buy books from Google books but checkout failed because I had a *gasp* *horror* Swiss credit card, not a US one. I bloody damn well _hate_ geo restricted services.[1] [1] Yes, especially for content[2], the rights holders[3] are usually to blame, not the folks trying to (legally) sell said content. [2] books, movies, music ... [3] and the laws they buy -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 12 18:21:25 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:21:25 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: Here's an alternative, still on google books though: Practical Applications of Phosphors By William M. Yen, Shigeo Shionoya, Hajime Yamamoto http://books.google.ca/books?id=b61jkO- ZKkwC&pg=PA420&lpg=PA420&dq=p1+phosphor +wavelength&source=bl&ots=bp0pgdGf0N&sig=mP9jCJxzhDv-gfIyab- FhWHSXb4&hl=en#v=onepage&q=p1%20phosphor%20wavelength&f=false A search for "P1 phosphor wavelength" took me straight to page 421 which mentions P1 (ZnSiO4:Mn), and a graph of the spectrum on page 422. .. Mentions PDP phosphors but I think that's a different PDP .. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 18:27:16 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:27:16 -0200 Subject: Defender power requirements? References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> >requirements for it? They don't seem specced in the drawings/theory of >operation manuals anywhere. An old >230W AT power supply seems to work >fine, but I don't think I need anything that heavy-duty. If it is working, WHY MESS WITH IT??? :o) From geoffr at zipcon.net Thu Jan 12 18:50:54 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:50:54 -0800 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/12/12 1:49 PM, "David Riley" wrote: > I have two working Defender board sets that I'm almost ready to start building > cabinets for. I'm scoping out new power supplies (I have the linear ones they > came with but no giant transformers for it; I've been using PC power supplies > but would like to use something with no moving parts). Does anyone know the > approximate rail requirements for it? They don't seem specced in the > drawings/theory of operation manuals anywhere. An old 230W AT power supply > seems to work fine, but I don't think I need anything that heavy-duty http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/manuals.html There are defender theory of operation manuals there. Old and new boardsets. Towards the end there is information on the overcurrent levels of the powersupplies. From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 19:21:35 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:21:35 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 7:27 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> requirements for it? They don't seem specced in the drawings/theory of operation manuals anywhere. An old >230W AT power supply seems to work fine, but I don't think I need anything that heavy-duty. > > If it is working, WHY MESS WITH IT??? :o) Because the fan is making noises like it won't work for long. In general, I'd rather have no moving parts in there, since a fan is much more likely to fail over time than old logic (I got these boards off Ebay and only had to replace a total of 8 chips, only one of which was not a 4116, and that's on a 30-year-old board). Also, I only have one power supply between the two sets. - Dave From fpersen2000 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 12 19:30:46 2012 From: fpersen2000 at yahoo.com (Frank Ersen) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:30:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dr Dobb's Journal Message-ID: <1326418246.41104.YahooMailNeo@web113810.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Greetings; Like many of you here I am an old time home computer guy who got his start in 1976 when I built my first computer, an Altair 8800. I am writing to get some information on a number of Dr Dobb's Journals that I wish to sell. I would like some input on what an honest price would be. I am also trying to determine if I should sell these one by one or in volume sets. I have the following: Volume number? Issue # 1??? ??? ???????????????? 1,3,6, 10 2????????????????????????? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 3????????????????????????? 2,5,6,7,8,9,10 4?????????????????????????? 1,3,4,6,7,8,9,10 5?????????????????????????? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 6?????????????????????????? 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 7??????????????????????????? 2 Your input would be appreciated. Frank Relotto From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 20:30:36 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:30:36 -0200 Subject: Defender power requirements? References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> > Because the fan is making noises like it won't work for long. In general, > I'd rather have no moving parts in there, since a fan is much more likely > to fail over time than old logic (I got these boards off Ebay and only had > to replace a total of 8 chips, only one of which was not a 4116, and > that's on a 30-year-old board). Have you tried to use the AT PSU without the fan? Sometimes the current used is so low, it can turn the fan off > Also, I only have one power supply between the two sets. But an ATX power supply is SO cheap...Do you need any help hooking it up directly to the board and measuring current? From ttmrichter at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 20:32:24 2012 From: ttmrichter at gmail.com (Michael Richter) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:32:24 +0800 Subject: for the Prolog and Forth nerds In-Reply-To: <201201122119.q0CLJksd019216@floodgap.com> References: <201201122119.q0CLJksd019216@floodgap.com> Message-ID: On 13 January 2012 05:19, Cameron Kaiser wrote: > For people such as myself who are inordinately fascinated by Prolog, and > terribly intimidated by things like the Warren Abstract Machine, here is > a practical subset of Prolog written in the much easier to implement Forth > along with various companion articles (including one on SKI combinators). > > http://soton.mpeforth.com/flag/jfar/vol4.html That is indeed very cool. I'm confused, though: why are you intimidated by the WAM? First, you really don't need to be using the WAM directly when you program in Prolog. Second, even if you do decide to get involved with WAM-level stuff, there's a very accessible explanation of it available. -- "Perhaps people don't believe this, but throughout all of the discussions of entering China our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our revenue or profit or whatnot." --Sergey Brin, demonstrating the emptiness of the "don't be evil" mantra. From ttmrichter at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 20:40:00 2012 From: ttmrichter at gmail.com (Michael Richter) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:40:00 +0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F0D6902.21591.464011@cclist.sydex.com> <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 13 January 2012 02:10, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > I'm pretty sure, actually, that SNOBOL4 (the version of SNOBOL most > > people are referring to when they say SNOBOL) was written in SIL. > > That may be true, but when I used SNOBOL4, it was on a S/360 machine > and catastrophic error messages always came from the FORTRAN > routines. > This is because the *I/O routines* were Fortran's. They linked to Fortran libraries for I/O, in short. > And there were several versions of SNOBOL4. The one the book > concerns itself with was 2.0. > And all of them were written in SIL and (on the '360!) used Fortran's I/O routines. Note that, though: *just* the I/O routines. If you can acquire the book on the implementation (it's "out there" in electronic form) it's actually quite an interesting read. Griswold doesn't disguise his missteps and misfeatures at all. If anything he's occasionally too harsh on himself. > There was the 1964 SNOBOL and the 1966 SNOBOL3. Was there ever a > SNOBOL2? > Not that was ever released, no. From what I gathered SNOBOL came out, then was constantly incrementally modified into a glorious mess and that whole process is kind of viewed as "SNOBOL2". When they decided on a ground-up rewrite they called it SNOBOL3. Or something like that. Memory is hazy. > It might be fun to revisit SNOBOL after 40-odd years. It was > something of a hog on a S360/40 back then. It'd probably run like > the wind on a low-end consumer PC today. > I have a cheap laptop here and can, according to CSNOBOL's timing utility, pump about 2.5 million operations per second. I'm pretty sure a '360 couldn't do that? :D -- "Perhaps people don't believe this, but throughout all of the discussions of entering China our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our revenue or profit or whatnot." --Sergey Brin, demonstrating the emptiness of the "don't be evil" mantra. From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 12 20:43:56 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:43:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: for the Prolog and Forth nerds In-Reply-To: from Michael Richter at "Jan 13, 12 10:32:24 am" Message-ID: <201201130243.q0D2hu5r030766@floodgap.com> > That is indeed very cool. > > I'm confused, though: why are you intimidated by the WAM? First, you > really don't need to be using the WAM directly when you program in Prolog. > Second, even if you do decide to get involved with WAM-level stuff, > there's a very accessible explanation of > it available. I do have that book, but the Forth implementation on that page is much more accessible. While one certainly doesn't need to understand the WAM to write Prolog, I like to understand my interpreters, and I've always wanted to resurrect a Prolog on the 6502 (Micro-Prolog, and more importantly the source to the same, seems to have disappeared in the wind). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Computer geeks don't byte; we just nybble. --------------------------------- From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 21:00:58 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:00:58 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 4:49 PM, David Riley wrote: > I have two working Defender board sets that I'm almost ready to start building cabinets for. Nice. > I know the 5v is going to pull a lot because it's used for most of the logic Sure. > and the regulated 12v and -5v are probably somewhat heavy since they power the sense amps for the 24 4116s0. Not so much current there... if you can't find official specs, I _know_ the 4116 datasheets aren't hard to find. ISTR it's a few mA per chip for -5V, and I think it's a bit more of +12V. I do remember that I wanted to replace a 7905 with an ICL7990 charge-pump negative voltage supply and it was way too small for 16 4116s. One thing to be careful of is that 4116s are sensitive to the order that rail voltages are applied and removed. Some classic memory circuits explicitly control the order, but others I've seen are less stringent, depending on, I think, charging a large electolytic cap on the rail that is supposed to be brought up last (can't remember the proper order - someone else here might, or it should be in the datasheet). You should be able to find the schematics for the Defender power supply - be on the lookout for any parts that look odd or look like they might affect on/off or rise time. Good luck! -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 12 21:34:06 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:34:06 -0800 Subject: Speaking of programming languages for teaching In-Reply-To: References: , <4F0EB19C.8026.3BFF21@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F0F35AE.3480.23FE801@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2012 at 10:40, Michael Richter wrote: > This is because the *I/O routines* were Fortran's. They linked to > Fortran libraries for I/O, in short. So SNOBOL4's link to FORTRAN isn't imaginary. :) > I have a cheap laptop here and can, according to CSNOBOL's timing > utility, pump about 2.5 million operations per second. I'm pretty > sure a '360 couldn't do that... :D Especially not a model 40. Even using a S/360 emulator on a modern laptop would probably run a couple of orders of magnitude faster. Thanks, Chuck From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jan 12 23:39:19 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:39:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 01:11 AM, Lance Lyon wrote: >>> Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? Does >>> it run the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I >>> couldn't resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? >> >> "Super Awesome" is not exactly how'd I'd describe BASIC 2.0 ....... > > I was just razzing Liam since he hates it so much. I have very little > experience with or knowledge of Commodore BASIC. > >> Major difference is with the SID chip - the new SIDs aren't as good as the >> older ones (sound-wise). The PC board is also mostly all surface mount and >> with a reduced chip count. Apart from that, largely the same as the old >> breadboxes. > > Ahh, gotcha. Thank you for the info. > > I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? The revised SIDs are technically correct and behave according to spec. The earlier ones, while being buggy, their "dirt" gave them a sort of desirable warmth. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 23:42:29 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:42:29 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <940073AE-E4EB-4F50-9AD3-F4B5C69ED993@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 9:30 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> Because the fan is making noises like it won't work for long. In general, I'd rather have no moving parts in there, since a fan is much more likely to fail over time than old logic (I got these boards off Ebay and only had to replace a total of 8 chips, only one of which was not a 4116, and that's on a 30-year-old board). > > Have you tried to use the AT PSU without the fan? Sometimes the current used is so low, it can turn the fan off Wasn't in the mood to open up the power supply. I'm not a huge fan of using the AT power supply to begin with; I had to chop off the ends to stick 'em in .156" headers anyway (which I don't feel too badly about because they're cheap generic PC supplies, not an actual vintage item). >> Also, I only have one power supply between the two sets. > > But an ATX power supply is SO cheap...Do you need any help hooking it up directly to the board and measuring current? I could use an ATX supply if I wanted to put a soft switch in. At some point, I'll have to make a board to wire up whatever supply I use to the .156" pins anyway, so why not? They are, in fact, cheap. But I also like the dedicated, fanless ones. Sometimes it's a matter of aesthetics. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 23:43:39 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:43:39 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55A9220C-F400-41BA-8596-22A244584CA0@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 7:50 PM, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/manuals.html > > There are defender theory of operation manuals there. Old and new boardsets. > Towards the end there is information on the overcurrent levels of the > powersupplies. I have those, but I guess I hadn't been reading them closely enough. They do indeed detail the overcurrent mechanisms; doesn't specify the load they expect to see, but I should be able to extrapolate a bit. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 12 23:45:30 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:45:30 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <91744DFB-042A-4488-AAA9-CC294973627D@gmail.com> On Jan 12, 2012, at 10:00 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > One thing to be careful of is that 4116s are sensitive to the order > that rail voltages are applied and removed. Some classic memory > circuits explicitly control the order, but others I've seen are less > stringent, depending on, I think, charging a large electolytic cap on > the rail that is supposed to be brought up last (can't remember the > proper order - someone else here might, or it should be in the > datasheet). You should be able to find the schematics for the > Defender power supply - be on the lookout for any parts that look odd > or look like they might affect on/off or rise time. Good to keep in mind. It's worked fine with the AT supply so far, and I don't remember seeing a sequencing requirement in the datasheets, but it's possible I overlooked it. Jameco still sells replacements fairly cheap, but I don't relish the thought of having to replace 24 of them. :-) - Dave From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 12 11:21:45 2012 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:21:45 +0000 Subject: VT220 Keyboard Error 4? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 11/01/2012 22:04, "Jacob Ritorto" wrote: > ever figure out how to fix this? All twenty of my (poorly warehoused) > vt220s are doing this! I assume you've tried more than one keyboard? Error 4 means it's not detecting a keyboard. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jonas at otter.se Thu Jan 12 13:41:44 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:41:44 +0100 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0F3778.5020202@otter.se> >> environment. They were built like tanks. The print head used a patented >> "flexhammer" system, instead of pins the dots were made by leaf springs >> which had their ends bent over and shaped to a little square point. The >> springs were held bent off the paper by solenoids, which de-energised to >> print the dots, whereby the spring would shoot forward against the paper > What happened wehen the power went off? Presumably all the springs hit > the paper. Did this mean you could damage the head by moving paper/ribbon > with the ppwer off? And how did the springs get back to the soenoids when > the pwwer was turend on again? (were the solenoids powerful enough to > attract the leaf prings back?) No, as a previous poster mentioned, below the head was a little rubber bladder that pushed the head against the paper when printing, normally it would be angled slightly away from the paper. The head ran across the paper supported by the usual bearings running against a bar at the bottom IIRC, and a solid bar that ran across the paper at the top. I seem to remember that many printers of the time supported the top of the printhead against a wire, and using a bar instead was said to be a big advantage. To print, the head would be pushed against the paper by filling the bladder with air. I don't think there was a compressor in the printer, IIRC just some sort of solenoid in the bottom of the printer pushed against another bladder. The two bladders would have been connected with a little tube that moved with the head. My memory is not too clear about the details here. So what would have happened is that all the magnets in the head were energised, the bladder was expanded and the head run across the paper while working the magnets and springs, at the end of the stroke the bladder would be released and the magnets de-energised while the paper moved, and the process repeated while the head went back across the paper for the next line of dots. It was quite fast as well. We had the two colour version but used all black ribbons which were cheaper, IIRC there was a DIP switch to say whether the ribbon was red and black or all black. IIRC the ribbons were rather like typewriter ribbons, on reels, and you would have to thread the ribbon through the mechanism. The ribbons would come with a pair of plastic gloves so that you didn't have to get your fingers dirty. >> You would love one, I'm sure I would if I could find one and if I had > Indeed it appears I would... > >> room for it... Absolutely the nicest printer I have ever seen. > Hmm.. I think for dot matrix printers that honour has to go to the > Sanders 12/7 (or maybe the 700) machine. This is a 7 pin dont marrix > printer that is so well made that some fonts use 8 passes of the > printhead -- and it is worth doign that. They do things like justifying > text, lining up columns, etc. > Ah, but I haven't seen one of those ;-) It sounds quite amazing. Another nice printer I have come across was a Qume daisywheel printer, it was connected to the PDP-11/40 at the department of applied electronics at the university, which I used for my master's thesis. They had the manual for it, which included the circuit diagrams and technical description. Lots of analogue servo mechanisms. /Jonas From jonas at otter.se Thu Jan 12 14:03:09 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:03:09 +0100 Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F0F3C7D.4040500@otter.se> > The 12/7 uses a Z80 processor with 2 Z80-DMA chips, one ot read in > characters from the host, the other to send them to the printhead > ciruirry. I nthe 700, the DMA chips are effecively each replaced by a Z8. > In both cases there's a correction PROM fro the printhead chracteristics > to correct the pin fire timin, programemd for that particular printhead. > Yes, they're that precise. I wonder how they measured the printhead characteristics for the correction PROM. Did you have to replace that PROM if you changed the carriage motor, for example? /Jonas From driley at mantaro.com Thu Jan 12 14:21:45 2012 From: driley at mantaro.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:21:45 -0500 Subject: Toyota problems: tin whiskers to blame? Message-ID: <88D5D311-9538-482C-AAA1-450A953004A3@mantaro.com> Hopefully another nail in the coffin for lead-free solder: http://www.edn.com/article/520531-Toyota_accelerations_revisited_hanging_by_a_tin_whisker.php It's a very brief summary, but it links to the entire NASA presentation. - Dave From dan at decodesystems.com Thu Jan 12 15:55:14 2012 From: dan at decodesystems.com (Dan Veeneman) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:55:14 -0500 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 Message-ID: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a number of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, including a six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System. The report is available in PDF at http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_System.pdf Cheers, Dan dan at decodesystems.com www.decodesystems.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 12 17:20:36 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:20:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: about the Apollo disks In-Reply-To: <4F0D40BC.3090409@jwsss.com> References: <4F0D40BC.3090409@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <1326410436.21243.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I'm not on the net everyday, I'm working my way through the dialog. What's most important is that someone who w/o doubt can image them. I don't care about the physical disks so much. Just that they're in the hands of someone who can make the most of them (and yes I would like to partake in the digital booty). All I have thus far is an Apollo m/b. Don't even know if it works, but maybe someday... From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 12 17:31:16 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:31:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Acorn luggable In-Reply-To: References: <4F0DAD2D.9070806@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <1326411076.28199.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Adam Sampson Al Kossow writes: > forgot to mention this while the auction was going > http://www.ebay.com/itm/120837824705 Looks like an LTM Portable machine -- a reboxed BBC B or B+ -- without the usual branding stickers. I'd pay $50 for it but shipping to Dundee would be silly! There are some pictures of a similar machine here (search for "LTM"): ? http://8bs.com/seecomputers.htm And pictures of the BBC Master version: ? http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/Computers/LTMPortable.html C: It's similar but not entirely identical to the LTM portable. Possibly an earlier issue? ?I e-mailed the seller. I hate when people (Al) do this to me. I'm supposed to be getting rid of stuff!! From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Thu Jan 12 18:04:04 2012 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:04:04 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 12/01/2012 20:04, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > Gotcha. It sounds like it was basically a minor technology refresh & > cost cutting machine. Odd that I've never seen one around; all of my > friends had 64s back in the day, and some of them moved to 128s at some > point, but I've never seen one of these 64C machines. Hadn't even heard > of them. Interesting! If you weren't about to get one I've got bloody loads here in the UK you could have :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From tdk.knight at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 01:46:54 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:46:54 -0600 Subject: Toyota problems: tin whiskers to blame? In-Reply-To: <88D5D311-9538-482C-AAA1-450A953004A3@mantaro.com> References: <88D5D311-9538-482C-AAA1-450A953004A3@mantaro.com> Message-ID: wow intersting On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:21 PM, David Riley wrote: > Hopefully another nail in the coffin for lead-free solder: > > > http://www.edn.com/article/520531-Toyota_accelerations_revisited_hanging_by_a_tin_whisker.php > > It's a very brief summary, but it links to the entire NASA presentation. > > > - Dave > > > From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Fri Jan 13 02:58:02 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:58:02 +0000 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Dan Veeneman wrote: > The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a number > of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, including a > six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System. > > The report is available in PDF at > > http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_System.pdf > > > I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //. Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small? -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 03:13:45 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:13:45 -0000 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <91744DFB-042A-4488-AAA9-CC294973627D@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2F419ED0B4964AADB3483B3833E44C37@EMACHINE> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley > Sent: 13 January 2012 05:46 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Defender power requirements? > > > On Jan 12, 2012, at 10:00 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > One thing to be careful of is that 4116s are sensitive to the order > > that rail voltages are applied and removed. Some classic memory > > circuits explicitly control the order, but others I've seen are less > > stringent, depending on, I think, charging a large > electolytic cap on > > the rail that is supposed to be brought up last (can't remember the > > proper order - someone else here might, or it should be in the > > datasheet). You should be able to find the schematics for the > > Defender power supply - be on the lookout for any parts > that look odd > > or look like they might affect on/off or rise time. > > Good to keep in mind. It's worked fine with the AT supply so > far, and I don't remember seeing a sequencing requirement in > the datasheets, but it's possible I overlooked it. Jameco > still sells replacements fairly cheap, but I don't relish the > thought of having to replace 24 of them. :-) > There is some times a statement that the power voltages should never cross which implies there is also a power off requirement as well... > > - Dave > From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Jan 13 04:00:00 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com> <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: > Click on the cover. > > *rolls eyes* I can't! There's no link! And yes, I've tried different web browsers. I'll happily try it again if you give me the URL of an open web proxy in the US. Christian From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Fri Jan 13 04:02:23 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:02:23 +0100 (CET) Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: <4650D6B7-8556-4469-865B-D826EB042389@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <201201120859.06131.lbickley@bickleywest.com>, <4F0EBCE9.11587.682570@cclist.sydex.com> <4650D6B7-8556-4469-865B-D826EB042389@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > There seems to be a variety of experiences with google books. > > I can't find any content at the link that was provided earlier in the thread > (the cover is not an active link as I experience it here), however, another > copy or version on google books: > > http://books.google.ca/books?id=I9O1K20-uo4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=phosphor+handbook&hl=en#v=onepage&q=phosphor%20handbook&f=false Nope, doesn't work here. Christian From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 06:48:54 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:48:54 -0200 Subject: Defender power requirements? References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> <940073AE-E4EB-4F50-9AD3-F4B5C69ED993@gmail.com> Message-ID: <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> > Wasn't in the mood to open up the power supply. I'm not a huge fan of > using the AT power supply to begin with; I had to chop off the ends to > stick 'em in .156" headers anyway (which I don't feel too badly about > because they're cheap generic PC supplies, not an actual vintage item). I use them in all kind of projects, and have no problems. > I could use an ATX supply if I wanted to put a soft switch in. At some > point, I'll have to make a board to wire up whatever supply I use to the > .156" pins anyway, so why not? They are, in fact, cheap. But I also like > the dedicated, fanless ones. Sometimes it's a matter of aesthetics. It is up to you, but ATX power supplies are cheap :) You don't NEED to put a soft switch. Short the green wire with a black wire, and key the AC supply. It works :) From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 07:03:30 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:03:30 -0200 Subject: Commodore 64 question References: Message-ID: <293701ccd1f4$37026130$6400a8c0@tababook> > If you weren't about to get one I've got bloody loads here in the UK you > could have :) If the offer is extensible... ;o) From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Fri Jan 13 07:18:45 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:18:45 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <293701ccd1f4$37026130$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <293701ccd1f4$37026130$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas < pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote: > If you weren't about to get one I've got bloody loads here in the UK you >> could have :) >> > > If the offer is extensible... ;o) > Yeah... same here. and I too live in the UK... (; -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From wrm at dW.co.za Fri Jan 13 07:05:29 2012 From: wrm at dW.co.za (Wouter de Waal) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:05:29 +0200 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> *tap* *tap* I tried posting to the list a few weeks ago, don't think it worked. I saw on http://manx.classiccmp.org/details.php/47,13105 that the SDK-51 assembly manual's not available as a scan, so I scanned my copy, which is taking up space. So, anyone interested in the scan, and anyone interested in the original, which I will otherwise (shock, horror, but I really need to get rid of stuff) chuck. W From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 08:22:00 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:22:00 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> <940073AE-E4EB-4F50-9AD3-F4B5C69ED993@gmail.com> <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <0B3CBE50-1066-44CE-A20E-04B68FE1784F@gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2012, at 7:48 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> Wasn't in the mood to open up the power supply. I'm not a huge fan of using the AT power supply to begin with; I had to chop off the ends to stick 'em in .156" headers anyway (which I don't feel too badly about because they're cheap generic PC supplies, not an actual vintage item). > > I use them in all kind of projects, and have no problems. I don't have a problem with the power supply itself, it's the chopping up that makes me nervous. It's not a technical thing, it's a guilt thing. :-) An entirely misplaced one at that, I'll admit. >> I could use an ATX supply if I wanted to put a soft switch in. At some point, I'll have to make a board to wire up whatever supply I use to the .156" pins anyway, so why not? They are, in fact, cheap. But I also like the dedicated, fanless ones. Sometimes it's a matter of aesthetics. > > It is up to you, but ATX power supplies are cheap :) You don't NEED to put a soft switch. Short the green wire with a black wire, and key the AC supply. It works :) True, and I do that often enough. About half the ATX supplies out there have a mains switch built into the back, too (would be nice if they still had the passthrough for the monitor plug that the AT supplies used to have. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 08:29:03 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:29:03 -0500 Subject: Defender power requirements? In-Reply-To: <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> <940073AE-E4EB-4F50-9AD3-F4B5C69ED993@gmail.com> <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <1589562A-F743-48B4-BAB8-9BF2FE406A0A@gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2012, at 7:48 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > It is up to you, but ATX power supplies are cheap :) You don't NEED to put a soft switch. Short the green wire with a black wire, and key the AC supply. It works :) Hm, looking into it, though, it looks like modern ATX supplies have done away with the -5v wire (which makes sense, since there's not much that uses it that can't use the -12v through a switcher/LDO these days). Perhaps I'll just have to be picky. :-) - Dave From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 08:45:52 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:45:52 -0200 Subject: Defender power requirements? References: <0182EB94-218A-49DA-8157-475028E0E8D8@gmail.com> <26e201ccd18a$24534230$6400a8c0@tababook> <0B46C06D-FCE8-4FD3-8A06-A0F377F9909C@gmail.com> <27b201ccd19b$6f9e4080$6400a8c0@tababook> <940073AE-E4EB-4F50-9AD3-F4B5C69ED993@gmail.com> <28d501ccd1f1$d06b7ad0$6400a8c0@tababook> <1589562A-F743-48B4-BAB8-9BF2FE406A0A@gmail.com> Message-ID: <2a1c01ccd202$2a933600$6400a8c0@tababook> > Hm, looking into it, though, it looks like modern ATX supplies have done > away with the -5v wire (which makes sense, since there's not much that > uses it that can't use the -12v through a switcher/LDO these days). > Perhaps I'll just have to be picky. :-) Yes, they did. -5V was used only in ISA/EISA buses, seems that PCI doesn't use that anymore (I may be wrong). Anyways, you can take -5V from -12V, a 7905 may help you :) I try to keep "period correct" my old computers. But sometimes (did I heard "Commodore 64 and the big brick of death!" on the back???) if you use te puter everyday, it is better to put a beefy, stable and NEW PSU. From ray at arachelian.com Fri Jan 13 09:21:49 2012 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:21:49 -0500 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <20120112123823.L65771@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201121635.07246.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> <4F0E14F6.3077.2E5F057@cclist.sydex.com> <12D1FFC6-4C05-4984-A5DE-F997C1E82597@gmail.com> <20120112123823.L65771@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F104C0D.6040801@arachelian.com> On 01/12/2012 03:45 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > Worst case, you can use individual pins (IIRC, sames as 5.25" > connector) and mold your own insulation around them. On my first one, > I just wrapped each pin with electrical tape (which is a risky way to > do it) Hot melt glue is perfect for this, as it's a wax more than a plastic, and fairly easy to remove, and is inexpensive - both the gun and the glue sticks. From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 09:33:45 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 07:33:45 -0800 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2012 5:41 AM, "Wouter de Waal" wrote: > > I tried posting to the list a few weeks ago, don't think it worked. > > I saw on http://manx.classiccmp.org/details.php/47,13105 that the SDK-51 assembly manual's not available as a scan, so I scanned my copy, which is taking up space. > I replied last time this came up. Maybe you didn't see that. Is your manual the same as this one? http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/8051/SDK-51/sdk-51_assembly_manual_121589-001.pdf -Glen From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 13 11:37:20 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:37:20 -0800 Subject: Hazeltine Green In-Reply-To: References: <4F0C2A31.1060002@p-t-b.com>, <4650D6B7-8556-4469-865B-D826EB042389@cs.ubc.ca>, Message-ID: <4F0FFB50.13934.2DCB25@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2012 at 11:02, Christian Corti wrote: > On Thu, 12 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > > There seems to be a variety of experiences with google books. > > > > I can't find any content at the link that was provided earlier in > > the thread (the cover is not an active link as I experience it > > here), however, another copy or version on google books: > > > > http://books.google.ca/books?id=I9O1K20-uo4C&printsec=frontcover&dq= > > phosphor+handbook&hl=en#v=onepage&q=phosphor%20handbook&f=false Well, perhaps some kind soul has installed GooReader and will download the book and send it out your way. --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 13 13:19:42 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:19:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <20120112123823.L65771@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 12, 12 12:45:19 pm Message-ID: > > > Worst case, you could probably also order them from Digi-Key or Mouser. > > Not sure what their Canadian shipping prices are like. > > Worst case, you can use individual pins (IIRC, sames as 5.25" connector) > and mold your own insulation around them. On my first one, I just wrapped > each pin with electrical tape (which is a risky way to do it) Heatshrink sleeving is probably better than insulting tape [1] for this and would probably be OK for the DC rails. I am not sure I'd risk if for the mains feed to the motor though. [1] Mot one of my typos, it's what I generally call it... > > BTW, 8" drive power requirements are not completely standardized. I > needed different connector? and one different voltage to use a Tandon 848. I';ve seen at least one 8" drive where the DC power input was a single-row hreader plug at 0.156" spacing. > > I had access to LOTS of 5.25" bare pins and used connectors, due to my > previous partnership in Elcompco, making and peddling 5.25" 2 drive units > with smoked plex covers. AFAIK 5.25"-type power conenctors are still easy to get new. So are similar size pin and socket contacts. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 13 13:03:13 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:03:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0F3778.5020202@otter.se> from "Jonas Otter" at Jan 12, 12 08:41:44 pm Message-ID: > >> room for it... Absolutely the nicest printer I have ever seen. > > Hmm.. I think for dot matrix printers that honour has to go to the > > Sanders 12/7 (or maybe the 700) machine. This is a 7 pin dont marrix > > printer that is so well made that some fonts use 8 passes of the > > printhead -- and it is worth doign that. They do things like justifying > > text, lining up columns, etc. > > > Ah, but I haven't seen one of those ;-) It sounds quite amazing. THose Sanders printers are amazing machines IMHO. 'Only' a 7 pin head, but with 8 passes for things like the Greek font [1] the outpu quality is pretty good. They suffered from not having much intenranal RAM, and as a result there were no downloadable fots or even a bit-image mode. You could print text using the avaialbe font ROMs and that's it. But if that's what you wanted to do they are great. [1] This mapped the Greek letters to 'similar' Roamn ones. Of course there are 24 of the former and 26 of the latter, so there were 2 unusued spaces. IIRC these were used for h-bar and lambda-bar (!). I beleive there ws a thing caleld the Sanders 900, which was effectively a 700 with a 9 pin head. Certainly the hardwre of the 700 ahs some 9-bit wide data paths in it (the main RAM is 9 bits wide too), presuambly for this model. > Another nice printer I have come across was a Qume daisywheel printer, I haev a Print 3 and a Sprint 5 somewhere. Nver done much with them,... The old Diablo daiswywheels are built link tanks too. I have ome somewhere that's built in a diesast alloy housing.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 13 13:11:17 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:11:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: What's an Intel 4040 worth? In-Reply-To: <4F0F3C7D.4040500@otter.se> from "Jonas Otter" at Jan 12, 12 09:03:09 pm Message-ID: > > In both cases there's a correction PROM fro the printhead chracteristics > > to correct the pin fire timin, programemd for that particular printhead. > > Yes, they're that precise. > I wonder how they measured the printhead characteristics for the > correction PROM. That I don;t know... > Did you have to replace that PROM if you changed the carriage motor, for > example? No. The PROM went with the printhead and that's it... I nthe 12/7 the PROM (known as the PinFire Compensator) is one one of the lgoic boards inside. There's a label stuch on it with a serial number that matches the serial number of the printhead. If I remewmebr the service manaual correctly, you got a new PROM with a new printhead and replaced the one in the machine with it. In the 700, the PinFire Compensator PROM is on a little PCB on the back of the printhead itself. The printhead assembly is easy to change, IIRC it plugs into an adge connector in the carriage and is reetained by a clip mechanism. I assume you bought the complete assembly as a spare part, including the PROM. Strangely, at least in my 700, this PROM is socketed (as are all the other PROMs, etc in both the 12/7 and 700) so it would be easy to replace separately. Made it easy to take a backup of it too. FWIW I don't think it's as crticial as they made out... When I got my 700, the brazing betweenm one fo the printhead armatures and its pin had failed. I got a tecnician where I was workign to braze it for me (he had access to a breazing hearth, etc). Until I had it done, I 'borrowed' a pin asembly from my 12/7 [1]. I could detect no degrading of the output, even though I obviosuly didn't try to reprogram the PinFire Compensator. [1] In many ways the 12/7 is the better machine, so I did want to keep that eotking. However, the 700 bas both RS232 and Centronics interfaces as standard (the 12/7 has oen or the otehr, mine has RS232), and I had a better collection of forts for the 700. And anyway I wanted to try it out. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 13 13:13:17 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:13:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: from "David Riley" at Jan 12, 12 03:15:37 pm Message-ID: > Likewise, there's no guarantee that the label's accurate. :-) Should we even assume that the photos are of the drive in question, and not of some other drive :-)? -tony From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 13 13:52:25 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:52:25 -0700 Subject: Tek 401x terminal motherboard? Message-ID: www.ebay.com/itm/260934669305 Is this the motherboard for a Tek 401x? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 13 14:16:37 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:16:37 -0800 Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: References: <20120112123823.L65771@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 12, 12 12:45:19 pm, Message-ID: <4F1020A5.18417.BFA0D2@cclist.sydex.com> On 13 Jan 2012 at 19:19, Tony Duell wrote: > I';ve seen at least one 8" drive where the DC power input was a > single-row hreader plug at 0.156" spacing. Let's not forget the dreaded Calcomp (103?) drives that used a 40-pin header to handle both DC power and signals. Woe unto you if you plugged the connector in upside-down... Were there any drives that used an edge connector or header to also supply AC for the motor? --Chuck From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Fri Jan 13 16:56:34 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:56:34 +0000 Subject: DiscFerret -- URGENT software update In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E08EA.4060701@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <4F10B6A2.6090001@philpem.me.uk> On 12/01/12 12:46, Steven Hirsch wrote: > That said, I'm itching for availability of a "back end" that can parse > the captured track information into a sector-image. Where does progress > stand on that? Sarayan (one of the developers for the MESS project) is working on adding flux image support to Floptool (the MESS floppy disk imaging tool). Merlin is getting a rewrite with a new, faster data processing engine and acquisition support. Magpie will stay, as a command line "I want an image, of this format, NOW" tool, but Merlin will take over more of the specialised work ("I want to look at track 14, head 0 and splice it in in place of the one in my current image"). A new disc image format is in the works too -- watch this space :) -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 13 18:20:49 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:20:49 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F10CA61.6060105@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 03:50 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. >> >> Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. >> > If it doesn't yell and and I'll send you some disks. You're on your own > to find a mouse though - I'm keeping mine. (1351 is the model # of the > mouse AFAIR) Excellent, thanks! > Are you getting a disk drive with it? Yes, a 1541 and a 1541-II. > If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a > uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From geoffr at zipcon.net Fri Jan 13 18:24:36 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:24:36 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F10CA61.6060105@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/13/12 4:20 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: >> On 01/12/2012 03:50 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > >> Are you getting a disk drive with it? > > Yes, a 1541 and a 1541-II. > >> If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a >> uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ > > Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! > > -Dave Also you may want to get youself a zoomfloppy from Jim also, USB-IEC adapter so you can write commodore floppies from a modern (usb) pc or mac. From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 13 18:24:33 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:24:33 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> On 01/12/2012 03:43 PM, David Riley wrote: >> I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? > > It's not a downgrade per se; they actually improved it from a > technical standpoint, in the same way that transistor amps improve > upon tube amps from a technical standpoint (both from a consistency > and a distortion point of view). The problem is that sometimes the > distortion sounds better. :-) Ahh I understand. Thank you for the education. Very interesting stuff. Like I said I wasn't a "Commie" back in those days; it seems to have been a very interesting and diverse (and large!) corner of home computing. > And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: > http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ Good heavens. Are those guys reverse-engineering the whole chip?? Some amazing shots there, and interesting documentation! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 13 18:30:38 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:30:38 -0500 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> Message-ID: <4F10CCAE.1080300@neurotica.com> On 01/13/2012 08:05 AM, Wouter de Waal wrote: > So, anyone interested in the scan, and anyone interested in the > original, which I will otherwise (shock, horror, but I really need to > get rid of stuff) chuck. Oh, please don't chuck it. I have an unbuilt SDK-51 with no documentation. If it needs a new home, and if international shipping is a pain for you, I have a business associate on your continent (closer than here at least!), in South Africa, who regularly ships things here, maybe he could put it in one of his outbound boxes. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From brain at jbrain.com Fri Jan 13 18:39:16 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:39:16 -0600 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F10CEB4.6020206@jbrain.com> On 1/13/2012 6:24 PM, Geoffrey Reed wrote: >>> If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a >>> uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ >> Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! >> >> -Dave > Also you may want to get youself a zoomfloppy from Jim also, USB-IEC adapter > so you can write commodore floppies from a modern (usb) pc or mac. > Consider JiffyDOS if you're so inclined. WIthout it, CBM drives are extremely slow (uIEC or otherwise) From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 13 18:52:14 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:52:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Honeywell DDP-124 manuals... Message-ID: I've got two copies of the Honeywell DDP-124 Instruction Manual Volume II (Timing/Flow Diagrams and Instruction Analyses) that need a new home. Hopefully someone can scan one or both of them. They're dated 1967 and the comb binding isn't faring so well after 44 or so years. They're an odd size - 11" x 15". The DDP-124 was the computer behind the Conductron-Missouri 737-200 and 727-100 flight simulators I used to work on. It ran the flight model & motion base. The visuals were provided by a Sperry machine (Vital II) for the 737 and a Varian 610 (Vital I) for the 727. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 13 18:54:33 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:54:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F10CA61.6060105@neurotica.com> References: <1506643443.864522.1326392325114.JavaMail.root@sz0028a.westchester.pa.mail.comcast.net> <4F0F3CD0.7040406@neurotica.com> <4F10CA61.6060105@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/12/2012 03:50 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>>> The C64C also came bundled with GEOS. >>> >>> Oh neat! I wonder if that'll come with the 64C that I'm about to get. >>> >> If it doesn't yell and and I'll send you some disks. You're on your own >> to find a mouse though - I'm keeping mine. (1351 is the model # of the >> mouse AFAIR) > > Excellent, thanks! > Send me your mailing address and I'll see what I've got in my piles of floppies. :) >> Are you getting a disk drive with it? > > Yes, a 1541 and a 1541-II. > >> If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a >> uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ > > Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! You'll want to get JiffyDOS ROMs as well - they're well worth it. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 13 18:55:07 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:55:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Jan 2012, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > On 1/13/12 4:20 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > >>> On 01/12/2012 03:50 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> >>> Are you getting a disk drive with it? >> >> Yes, a 1541 and a 1541-II. >> >>> If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a >>> uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ >> >> Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! >> >> -Dave > > Also you may want to get youself a zoomfloppy from Jim also, USB-IEC adapter > so you can write commodore floppies from a modern (usb) pc or mac. It'll also allow you to read/write physical media using the VICE emulator. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 20:10:11 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:10:11 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jan 13, 2012, at 7:24 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: >> http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ > > Good heavens. Are those guys reverse-engineering the whole chip?? Some amazing shots there, and interesting documentation! Yes, actually. They're looking to do a simulation like the visual 6502 (at visual6502.org), which should present some interesting challenges (the analog portion will probably be a lot harder to simulate). Someone may be intending to make new hardware, as well; there are quite a few hardware SID synths (HardSID, for example) that make use of actual pulls or NOS, but both pulls and NOS are getting quite hard to come by now (especially of the 6581). Sounds like an interesting project to me; I think intentionally making a crappy filter is better left to discrete transistors than an IC. - Dave From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 13 20:37:38 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:37:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: [TRS-80] Re: Model I for sale (fwd) Message-ID: I'm not able to get this one, but hopefully someone on this list may be interested in it. Tnx! g. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:18:10 -0000 From: pauls1950 Reply-To: TRS-80 at yahoogroups.com To: TRS-80 at yahoogroups.com Subject: [TRS-80] Re: Model I for sale I thought I had it taken but it fell through so here is a list of what I have: TRS Model 1 , converted to level 2 16K,original CRT, expansion interface, modem, two original floppy drives, cassette, assembler programming tapes and docs, several boot disks, LDOS, TRSDOS, NEWDOS etc..., Tech manual (scematics and diagnostics), programming manuals. I tried booting it today for the first time in 15 years?? and although the CRT lights up I don't get any output to it - with and without the expansion interface connected so it is in need of repair (either the monitor or the video circuitry in the CPU. I am asking just $100 for everything but whether I get any money for it or not it either gets a new owner or it goes to be recycled. I am in Seattle you can contact me by phone at 206.725.0881 or by email at paulstephens (at) q (dot) com. Please someone take this system - all hardware is original RadioShack. Paul --- In TRS-80 at yahoogroups.com, "pauls1950" wrote: > > I have a 1978 model I with expansion interface, two floppy drives, lots of manuals and software. This is a complete system and documentation. I am moving and never use it anymore so I need it to go to a good home. > contact me at paulstephens at ... or 206.725.0881 if interested. > > Paul > ------------------------------------ Using an emulator? Please join!Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRS-80/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TRS-80/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: TRS-80-digest at yahoogroups.com TRS-80-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: TRS-80-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 13 20:40:30 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:40:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 13, 2012, at 7:24 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > >>> And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: >>> http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ >> >> Good heavens. Are those guys reverse-engineering the whole chip?? Some amazing shots there, and interesting documentation! > > Yes, actually. They're looking to do a simulation like the visual 6502 > (at visual6502.org), which should present some interesting challenges > (the analog portion will probably be a lot harder to simulate). > I wonder when they're going to do the VIC II. :) > Someone may be intending to make new hardware, as well; there are quite > a few hardware SID synths (HardSID, for example) that make use of actual > pulls or NOS, but both pulls and NOS are getting quite hard to come by > now (especially of the 6581). Sounds like an interesting project to me; > I think intentionally making a crappy filter is better left to discrete > transistors than an IC. > Dave, check this out: http://www.swinkels.tvtom.pl/swinsid/ g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 21:53:15 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:53:15 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <8E9FB4DC-C7CA-4160-BBA4-115E4A4E9430@gmail.com> On Jan 13, 2012, at 9:40 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > Dave, check this out: http://www.swinkels.tvtom.pl/swinsid/ Not bad! Doing the analog bits in DSP is the next best thing... kinda like my guitar amp (most of the tube sound, none of the really dreadful reliability/power cost issues). - Dave From geoffr at zipcon.net Fri Jan 13 23:03:06 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:03:06 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/13/12 4:24 PM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: > On 01/12/2012 03:43 PM, David Riley wrote: >>> I wonder why they downgraded the SID chip. Cost reasons? >> >> It's not a downgrade per se; they actually improved it from a >> technical standpoint, in the same way that transistor amps improve >> upon tube amps from a technical standpoint (both from a consistency >> and a distortion point of view). The problem is that sometimes the >> distortion sounds better. :-) > > Ahh I understand. Thank you for the education. Very interesting > stuff. Like I said I wasn't a "Commie" back in those days; it seems to > have been a very interesting and diverse (and large!) corner of home > computing. > It is similar to the whole tube/IC amplifier debates. >> And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: >> http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ > > Good heavens. Are those guys reverse-engineering the whole chip?? > Some amazing shots there, and interesting documentation! > > -Dave From geoffr at zipcon.net Fri Jan 13 23:04:11 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:04:11 -0800 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F10CEB4.6020206@jbrain.com> Message-ID: On 1/13/12 4:39 PM, "Jim Brain" wrote: > On 1/13/2012 6:24 PM, Geoffrey Reed wrote: >>>> If you're planning on using it much, I would highly recommed getting a >>>> uIEC from Jim Brain. http://store.go4retro.com/ >>> Oh yes, most definitely. Thanks for the pointer! >>> >>> -Dave >> Also you may want to get youself a zoomfloppy from Jim also, USB-IEC adapter >> so you can write commodore floppies from a modern (usb) pc or mac. >> > Consider JiffyDOS if you're so inclined. WIthout it, CBM drives are > extremely slow (uIEC or otherwise) > When I have the $ to spare I'll be doing that on the 64's and 1541's and the C128 and 1571 I have. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 14 00:24:05 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:24:05 -0500 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> <4f0e7998.a888ec0a.64d7.5729@mx.google.com> <4F0F3C28.8050002@neurotica.com> <4F10CB41.7060706@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F111F85.6060700@neurotica.com> On 01/13/2012 09:10 PM, David Riley wrote: >>> And lots of cool die shots of various revisions here: >>> http://oms.wmhost.com/misc/ >> >> Good heavens. Are those guys reverse-engineering the whole chip?? >> Some amazing shots there, and interesting documentation! > > Yes, actually. They're looking to do a simulation like the visual > 6502 (at visual6502.org), which should present some interesting > challenges (the analog portion will probably be a lot harder to > simulate). > > Someone may be intending to make new hardware, as well; there are > quite a few hardware SID synths (HardSID, for example) that make use > of actual pulls or NOS, but both pulls and NOS are getting quite hard > to come by now (especially of the 6581). Sounds like an interesting > project to me; I think intentionally making a crappy filter is better > left to discrete transistors than an IC. Yes. Wow, this is awesome work that they're doing. One of the things I always ran into about the Commie vs. Atari camps was the C64's crap graphics but great sound, and the Atari's far superior graphics but comparatively primitive sound. It looks like the C64's sound has a huge following at the "guts" level. This is really cool. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Jan 14 02:23:18 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:23:18 +0100 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> Message-ID: <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote: > I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //. > Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small? Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000, and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice. As soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back then, and the adaption was very easy. Cheers From wrm at dW.co.za Sat Jan 14 02:16:20 2012 From: wrm at dW.co.za (Wouter de Waal) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:16:20 +0200 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114101529.01b47c48@196.22.225.198> > >I replied last time this came up. Maybe you didn't see that. Is your >manual the same as this one? Yup, that's it. Dunno why I didn't see anything last time. Thanks! Anyone interested in the paper copy? Postage from .za. W From wrm at dW.co.za Sat Jan 14 02:56:34 2012 From: wrm at dW.co.za (Wouter de Waal) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:56:34 +0200 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114105437.02f22688@196.22.225.198> David Riley wrote: >Ooh, another place I can find 4116s cheaply (even more so than Jameco). >Wish I'd known about this place when I was fixing my Defender boards! I replaced the 4116s in my Apple with 4164s. OK, it's not original (you should have seen the mix of 4116s that came out of there) and you only use a quarter of the chip but it doesn't need all those pesky voltages and they run cooler too. W From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Sat Jan 14 05:45:00 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:45:00 +0000 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:23 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote: > > Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000, > and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice. As > soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make > changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back then, > and the adaption was very easy. > > Thinking back, the main problems were: * the disk system, which required files to always be contiguous. You therefore had to k)runch drives if there wasn't enough space to store things. * the system used lots of memory, meaning you had to write things in little pieces and chain them together * the system used substantial amounts of floppy drive space, leaving very little for the actual data. I was going to buy a 5 meg hard drive. * I think the IO system (talking to the modem) was the last straw. (; I don't remember why... When I got my hands on Turbo Pascal 3 on a Tandy 1000, I was in heaven... -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 07:06:40 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:06:40 -0200 Subject: Cromemco FDC References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114105437.02f22688@196.22.225.198> Message-ID: <007401ccd2bd$8913f460$6400a8c0@tababook> > I replaced the 4116s in my Apple with 4164s. OK, it's not original (you > should have seen the mix of 4116s that came out of there) and you only use > a quarter of the chip but it doesn't need all those pesky voltages and > they run cooler too. If the move is to be non-original, just replace it with a 62512 SRAM from a PC motherboard and presto, 64K-on-the-fly :o) From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 07:34:16 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:34:16 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114105437.02f22688@196.22.225.198> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114105437.02f22688@196.22.225.198> Message-ID: <7C20749B-41B1-4EEC-8519-68E1CE714BA5@gmail.com> On Jan 14, 2012, at 3:56 AM, Wouter de Waal wrote: > David Riley wrote: > >> Ooh, another place I can find 4116s cheaply (even more so than Jameco). Wish I'd known about this place when I was fixing my Defender boards! > > I replaced the 4116s in my Apple with 4164s. OK, it's not original (you should have seen the mix of 4116s that came out of there) and you only use a quarter of the chip but it doesn't need all those pesky voltages and they run cooler too. True, and people certainly do that with Defender boards a lot. At least in the case of Defender, it does require an adaptor, though. In an Apple II, you could at least make an adaptor to use all of the chip (if you wanted, it's probably more trouble than it's worth), but in Defender, it actually reads out of all three banks simultaneously for the video shift register load, so there'd definitely be a waste of RAM. A 41464, though, could cut down significantly on the number of chips. Anyway, there's lots of options, but it's kinda nice to have an original-looking board (well, as original as it came, anyway; someone modified the battery holder on one of them to be a CR2032 holder, which is pragmatic if nothing else). - Dave From ajp166 at verizon.net Sat Jan 14 09:21:51 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:21:51 -0500 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <4F119D8F.5080207@verizon.net> On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote: >> I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //. >> Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that >> small? > Used it on LSI-11 and NS*, still have both hardware but only the NS* version. I still run it on occasion. The biggest complaint was no assembler supplied and it was slow being compiled to pcode. It was a good system for learning the language and and taking a data structures course. Allison From jthecman at netscape.net Sat Jan 14 09:45:03 2012 From: jthecman at netscape.net (jthecman at netscape.net) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:45:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Honeywell DDP-124 manuals... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8CEA0EA9D8B6134-16F0-A5142@Webmail-m116.sysops.aol.com> If you still have the books the museum here will take them. The zip here is 77036, let me know the postage and I will sen it to you. John -----Original Message----- From: Gene Buckle To: cctalk Sent: Sat, Jan 14, 2012 3:10 am Subject: Honeywell DDP-124 manuals... I've got two copies of the Honeywell DDP-124 Instruction Manual Volume II (Timing/Flow Diagrams and Instruction Analyses) that need a new home. Hopefully someone can scan one or both of them. They're dated 1967 and the comb binding isn't faring so well after 44 or so years. They're an odd size - 11" x 15". The DDP-124 was the computer behind the Conductron-Missouri 737-200 and 727-100 flight simulators I used to work on. It ran the flight model & motion base. The visuals were provided by a Sperry machine (Vital II) for the 737 and a Varian 610 (Vital I) for the 727. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sat Jan 14 10:41:51 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:41:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> Message-ID: <201201141641.LAA16104@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > [...] the SDK-51 assembly manual's not available as a scan, so I > scanned my copy, [...] > So, anyone interested in the scan, and anyone interested in the > original, which I will otherwise (shock, horror, but I really need to > get rid of stuff) chuck. How large is the scan? If it's not too huge, I'd kinda like to save a copy. Not that I have any immediate use for it, but such things have a way of unexpectedly becoming useful. Of course, if it's going up on bitsavers or some such, I probably don't need to save my own copy.... /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Jan 14 11:07:18 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:07:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Honeywell DDP-124 manuals... In-Reply-To: <8CEA0EA9D8B6134-16F0-A5142@Webmail-m116.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CEA0EA9D8B6134-16F0-A5142@Webmail-m116.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 14 Jan 2012, jthecman at netscape.net wrote: > If you still have the books the museum here will take them. The zip here is > 77036, let me know the postage and I will sen it to you. > Thanks for the offer John, but they're going to live at the ddp116.org site. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 12:23:43 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:23:43 +0000 Subject: Commodore 64 question In-Reply-To: <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> References: <4F0E3B5D.1040205@neurotica.com> <4f0e4a0d.0f1b640a.2fcf.40f8@mx.google.com> <4F0E70EF.3080600@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 12 January 2012 05:34, Dave McGuire wrote: > ?Are there any other hardware differences that you're aware of? ?Does it run > the same SUPER AWESOME AMAZINGLY ADVANCED BASIC (sorry Liam, I couldn't > resist! ;)) that the "ordinary" 64 runs? :?D There's a bit of gen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64#Hardware_revisions AFAICS the C64C uses fewer chips and a bit less power, but there are no functional enhancements. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From glen.slick at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 12:49:22 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:49:22 -0800 Subject: Nice starting price, isn't it? ((Remember its not the whole machine its only the front panel)) In-Reply-To: <6C906A05A09644CB877DE3795E8C088E@mars> References: <6C906A05A09644CB877DE3795E8C088E@mars> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 8:38 AM, Gerhard Kreuzer wrote: > Hi, > > is anybody out there, who have enough money for burning it? > > ebay Nr. 250964436666 could be a nice buy ..... > > With best whishes to all for 2012 > > Gerhard Sold for $1400 for just the front panel... Digital DEC PDP 11 45 Front Panel http://www.ebay.com/itm/250964436666 From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Sat Jan 14 14:05:41 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:05:41 -0500 Subject: S-100 6502 CPU board PCBs Message-ID: <000d01ccd2f7$e5b8a460$b129ed20$@YAHOO.COM> Hi I have some left over S-100 6502 CPU board PCBs. Please contact me if interested. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From alhartman at yahoo.com Sat Jan 14 14:11:16 2012 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:11:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1326571876.46489.YahooMailNeo@web161901.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Does anyone on the list know if there is an adapter for TRS-80s (Model I/III/IV) to use PS/2 Keyboards? Cloud-9 makes one for the Color Computer, but the keyboard matrix between the two families are slightly different. My friend has a Model IV with a bad keyboard (the thin film ribbon is damaged) and replacement keyboards don't come up on eBay all that often. Thanks! Al Hartman From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 14 14:45:27 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:45:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: 8in floppy 3 power plugs?? In-Reply-To: <4F1020A5.18417.BFA0D2@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 13, 12 12:16:37 pm Message-ID: > Were there any drives that used an edge connector or header to also > supply AC for the motor? I would hope not. Fortunately every 8" drive I've worekd on has used a sparate connectore for the motor power, not mounted on any PCB, but I ahve seen sevearla different types of connector used. I have worked o na little HP strip printer (I think an HP5055) which feeds AC to the motor over the same card edges and edge connectors ans other (isolated-from the mains) signals. but thsese conenctors are hidden inside the unit, the user is not expected to make connections to them. -tony From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 14 15:56:28 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:56:28 -0200 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? References: <1326571876.46489.YahooMailNeo@web161901.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <03a001ccd307$80a4fd70$6400a8c0@tababook> I don't have a Mod IV. But if I build something here in Brazil, will you be able to duplicate it there? --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Hartman" To: Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:11 PM Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? > Does anyone on the list know if there is an adapter for TRS-80s (Model > I/III/IV) to use PS/2 Keyboards? > > Cloud-9 makes one for the Color Computer, but the keyboard matrix between > the two families are slightly different. > > My friend has a Model IV with a bad keyboard (the thin film ribbon is > damaged) and replacement keyboards don't come up on eBay all that often. > > Thanks! > > Al Hartman From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 14 18:16:22 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:16:22 -0500 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20120114101529.01b47c48@196.22.225.198> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> <5.0.0.25.2.20120114101529.01b47c48@196.22.225.198> Message-ID: <4F121AD6.2050701@neurotica.com> On 01/14/2012 03:16 AM, Wouter de Waal wrote: > Anyone interested in the paper copy? Postage from .za. I'd like it. What might that postage amount to, any idea? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 14 18:17:34 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:17:34 -0500 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <4F121B1E.3010009@neurotica.com> On 01/14/2012 03:23 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote: > On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote: >> I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //. >> Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small? > > Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000, > and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice. > As soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make > changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back > then, and the adaption was very easy. I used it very briefly on a PC "back in the day", but have only gotten into it more in-depth on my Sage II system. I like it just fine, but the I/O is a bit primitive. The NSA document is an interesting and amusing read, but the reference to "Nicholas Worth" (Niklaus Wirth) gave me a big chuckle. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 14 18:24:08 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:24:08 -0500 Subject: SDK-51 Assembly Manual In-Reply-To: <4F121AD6.2050701@neurotica.com> References: <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> <5.0.0.25.2.20120113150036.05302b78@mort.dw.co.za> <5.0.0.25.2.20120114101529.01b47c48@196.22.225.198> <4F121AD6.2050701@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F121CA8.8070604@neurotica.com> On 01/14/2012 07:16 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/14/2012 03:16 AM, Wouter de Waal wrote: >> Anyone interested in the paper copy? Postage from .za. > > I'd like it. What might that postage amount to, any idea? Duh. To USA. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sun Jan 15 02:01:28 2012 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:01:28 -0600 Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 Message-ID: http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf If I embarrass myself to the knowledgeable crowd, apologies. Autodesk bought his line and Xanadu Operating Company Its claimed he coined 'hypertext' in mid 60s From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Sun Jan 15 08:29:03 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:29:03 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT Message-ID: <4F12E2AF.6060809@compsys.to> I have an interesting hardware question. I have been looking at the results for the program RESORC.SAV in RT-11 with respect the MFPT instruction. When the J11 chip is used, the value is 5 and the Maintenance Register at 177750 seems to determine what the rest of the actual hardware supports. I thought it would also be helpful for the user to know if an emulator is being used, either software or hardware, or if perhaps some other 3rd party hardware CPU. I would probably target the various 3rd party boards as far as hardware is concerned (such as QED and Mentec). For software emulators, I would suggest that only the high end PDP-11 processors be supported (the DEC CPUs which support the MFPT instruction) in order to keep things simple, at least initially. An incomplete list of software emulators is: SIMH Ersatz-11 An incomplete list of hardware boards is: QED - more than 1? Mentec - at least 3 and I can remember at least 2 others, but not the company names. Right now the Logical Co. has a combined emulator called a PDQ-1000 board which actually plugs into a Qbus which takes only 4 slots, but includes CPU, memory and many controllers. Thus far, the high order byte of the MFPT instruction always seems to be zero and is currently ignored by the RESORC.SAV program. Under SIMH and Ersatz-11, it would be trivial to use the high order byte of the MFPT instruction to signify which software emulator is being used. Can anyone who has a DEC (or non-DEC) PDP-11 system easily available determine the actual value returned by the MFPT instruction? As far as I know: MFPT Value Hardware 1 PDP-11/44 3 PDP-11/24 (should be 2) 3 PDP-11/23 4 SBC-11/21 5 All J11 chips including 11/73, 11/83, 11/93 I assume that it would be extremely difficult, probably not worth the effort, to modify the high order byte of the MFPT instruction at this point for the 3rd party PDP-11 CPU boards, such as from Mentec. Can anyone comment on this assumption? Might there be another way for hardware to the tell a user which 3rd party board is being used as a PDP-11? The other possibility is to use the Maintenance Register at 177750, although I suspect that there might not be any more bit available. Jerome Fine From toby at telegraphics.com.au Sun Jan 15 10:10:11 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:10:11 -0500 Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F12FA63.3010103@telegraphics.com.au> On 15/01/12 3:01 AM, Randy Dawson wrote: > > http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf > > If I embarrass myself to the knowledgeable crowd, apologies. > > Autodesk bought his line and Xanadu Operating Company > Its claimed he coined 'hypertext' in mid 60s > Yes. Computer Lib/Dream Machines referenced there is a wonderful book. --Toby From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Jan 15 11:54:26 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:54:26 -0800 Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1312D2.4010807@bitsavers.org> On 1/15/12 12:01 AM, Randy Dawson wrote: > > http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf > > If I embarrass myself to the knowledgeable crowd, apologies. > > Autodesk bought his line and Xanadu Operating Company > Its claimed he coined 'hypertext' in mid 60s > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html From dgahling at hotmail.com Sun Jan 15 12:10:48 2012 From: dgahling at hotmail.com (Dan Gahlinger) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:10:48 -0500 Subject: vaxstation video compability question Message-ID: I have a question about video compatibility with the vaxstation. the vaxstations I have (3100s M76) come with a funky cable to output to 3 BNC connectors -R, G, and B. I just picked up a Sony LMD-1410SC Monitor which has RGB BNC connectors (and others). I looked at the specs for the Sony, but not sure it will work. the link for the specs is here: http://www.aegis-elec.com/products/sony-LMD1410SC.html I'd really like to replace the ViewSonic P810 Monitor I've been using for this, even though the P810 is a nice 21" monitor, it's an old CRT, meaning it's huge and weighs a ton. btw the viewsonic is free (for the cost of shipping) to a good home if this works. anyone know? thanks, Dan. From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sun Jan 15 12:49:54 2012 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:49:54 +0100 Subject: vaxstation video compability question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120115184954.GB16624@lug-owl.de> On Sun, 2012-01-15 13:10:48 -0500, Dan Gahlinger wrote: > the vaxstations I have (3100s M76) come with a funky cable to output to 3 BNC connectors -R, G, and B. > > I just picked up a Sony LMD-1410SC Monitor which has RGB BNC connectors (and others). > > I looked at the specs for the Sony, but not sure it will work. > the link for the specs is here: http://www.aegis-elec.com/products/sony-LMD1410SC.html > > I'd really like to replace the ViewSonic P810 Monitor I've been using for this, > even though the P810 is a nice 21" monitor, it's an old CRT, > meaning it's huge and weighs a ton. I'm not sure if I tested it with this specific VAX model (what video option is it?), but with other VAXen. It usually just works. You possibly need to configure the monitor to use "Sync on Green", but that depends on model. However, the referenced page tells you that this monitor can do Sync on Green, so it'll work. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de +49-172-7608481 Signature of: Lauf nicht vor Deinem Gl?ck davon: the second : Es k?nnte hinter Dir stehen! From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Jan 15 13:12:37 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:12:37 -0500 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? References: Message-ID: <9009A0DAE05645A8A83B8BE4B70ED9B3@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:56:28 -0200 From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" > I don't have a Mod IV. But if I build something here in Brazil, will you > be able to duplicate it there? As long as the instructions aren't in Portuguese ;-) You might also talk to Jim Brain; he had/has/will have a PS/2 > matrix kbd adapter for CBM machines and I assume that it would just be a matter of revising the matrix layout for a Mod IV. http://store.go4retro.com/c-key-keyboard-adapter/ I gather that although the old version is still available he's more or less abandoned it and is working on a more flexible USB version now. Someone else is also working on a cheap and simple version for a PET, but there's always room for one more, especially if it actually appears ;-) ************************************************* ----- Original Message ----- From: "Al Hartman" To: Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 6:11 PM Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? > Does anyone on the list know if there is an adapter for TRS-80s (Model > I/III/IV) to use PS/2 Keyboards? > > Cloud-9 makes one for the Color Computer, but the keyboard matrix between > the two families are slightly different. > > My friend has a Model IV with a bad keyboard (the thin film ribbon is > damaged) and replacement keyboards don't come up on eBay all that often. > > Thanks! > > Al Hartman From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 15 13:42:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:42:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <03a001ccd307$80a4fd70$6400a8c0@tababook> from "Alexandre Souza - Listas" at Jan 14, 12 07:56:28 pm Message-ID: > > > I don't have a Mod IV. But if I build something here in Brazil, will you > be able to duplicate it there? Are crosspoint swithc ICs still easily available? (It seems that so many useful ICs are no longer made ;-(). If so,e it would seem to be posisble to use one of those to simulate the keyswithc matrix for just avout any swithc-type keyboard. Add a microcotnroller to decode the PS/2 keyboard signal then if you detect akey-down code close the appropriate swtich in the crosspoint array, if you detect a key-up contd open it. OK, there may be a little more work for keys that were originally mechancially locking, but that's essentially it, I think. -tony From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sun Jan 15 13:51:54 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:51:54 -0200 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? References: Message-ID: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> => Are crosspoint swithc ICs still easily available? (It seems that so many > useful ICs are no longer made ;-(). If so,e it would seem to be posisble > to use one of those to simulate the keyswithc matrix for just avout any > swithc-type keyboard. Add a microcotnroller to decode the PS/2 keyboard > signal then if you detect akey-down code close the appropriate swtich in > the crosspoint array, if you detect a key-up contd open it. OK, there may > be a little more work for keys that were originally mechancially locking, > but that's essentially it, I think. But Tony, I can do everything with a $2 microcontroller...Why the crosspoint IC? :oO From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 15 14:38:02 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:38:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 15 Jan 2012, Randy Dawson wrote: > http://www.newmediareader.com/book_samples/nmr-21-nelson.pdf > If I embarrass myself to the knowledgeable crowd, apologies. > Autodesk bought his line and Xanadu Operating Company Autodesk funded several research and "pure research" projects". Roger Gregory was chief programmer of Project Xanadu. > Its claimed he coined 'hypertext' in mid 60s Hardly "claimed". There are NO other credible claimants, nor ANYBODY disputing it. Ted ranted about "hypertext" and "hypermedia" for three decades before anybody would listen. (Nothing like being an infamous crackpot to keep competition at bay!) Tim Berner's-Lee of Cern (developer of WWW and URLs) acknowledged it. Nelson acknowledges Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think", that he borrowed extensively from; Vannevar Bush did not acknowledge Emmanuel Goldberg's work that he stole extensively from. http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/goldbush.html For an unforgettable entertainment experience, Find a copy of "Hyperland"! It was a BBC documentary about the future of the internet, made in 1991, BEFORE WWW. Written by Ted Nelson and Douglas Adams, and starring Tom Baker! Unfortunately, the only copies that I can find are mediocre [pirated?] MP4s on Google Videos. Does anybody have an excellent copy of it? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From iamvirtual at gmail.com Fri Jan 13 14:21:56 2012 From: iamvirtual at gmail.com (B M) Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:21:56 -0700 Subject: DEC-11-AJPB-PB paper tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: iamvirtual.ca is in fact my [ugly] site. I am working to pull together documentation, media, and walkthroughs on how to take the imaged media and have it work under SimH. I have gone through the process of bootstrapping up a DOS-11 and RSTS-11 systems. My work is available at http://www.iamvirtual.ca My hope is to supply the work along side SimH so that others can play with a simulation of old hardware. I actually have DOS-11 and RSTS-11 disk packs (RK05) prepared and running on my PDP-11/10. I use SimH to prep a simulated drive and then tranfer the disk image onto my RK05 disk using some software I wrote. Ultimately, I want the systems running on my PDP-11/20. I was having issues running Basic-11. At the time I sent out the request, I thought my copy might not be correct. The errors I was getting are related to using lower case characters. Basic-11 disagrees with the use of lower case. I would like to verify my copy is correct. I did read the tape twice and ensured I got the same data, but I would like to ensure there weren't any important updates to the tape. Thanks! --barrym On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > From: "B M" : Wednesday, January 11, 2012 8:16 PM > > Does anyone have an electronic dump of the Basic-11 paper tape for the >> PDP-11? I am looking for Version 007A that was released 10/22/70. >> >> The id of the paper tape is: >> DEC-11-AJPB-PB PDP-11 BASIC V007A 10/22/70 >> > > http://iamvirtual.ca/**collection/systems/mediadoc/** > mediadoc.html#papertape > > http://iamvirtual.ca/**collection/systems/mediadoc/** > BOX-100/DEC-11-AJPB-PB.ptap > > (That isn't your site?) > > Brian Hechinger apparently had two copies back in July of 2001: > http://www.sunhelp.org/**pipermail/geeks/2001-July/**002473.html > > Also Herb Johnson: > http://www.midatlanticretro.**org/PDP/Inventory.htm > > That's all I've found so far with Google :-). > > Vince From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Sun Jan 15 11:09:14 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:09:14 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM Message-ID: We reformed the capacitors in all three power supplies in the PDP-8/I at the RICM and powered on the CPU to see if it would show any signs of life. It randomly lit some lights and would not react to the front panel switches. Looks like we have some debugging to do. The front panel power switch was corroded and burned. Any idea where we can get a replacement? Were can we get some Oshinos OL-1 bulbs to repair the front panel? Does anyone have diagnostics for the 8/I on DECtape? -- Michael Thompson From axelsson at acc.umu.se Sun Jan 15 15:07:53 2012 From: axelsson at acc.umu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:07:53 +0100 Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 In-Reply-To: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F134029.4010501@acc.umu.se> Fred Cisin skrev 2012-01-15 21:38: > For an unforgettable entertainment experience, Find a copy of > "Hyperland"! It was a BBC documentary about the future of the > internet, made in 1991, BEFORE WWW. Written by Ted Nelson and Douglas > Adams, and starring Tom Baker! Unfortunately, the only copies that I > can find are mediocre [pirated?] MP4s on Google Videos. Does anybody > have an excellent copy of it? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com Is this one better or the same? Hyperland By Douglas Adams (BBC2 1990)[mpeg4].torrent Single file 294 MB Duration: 49:22 Image: 352x288 pixels 25 frames per second 101kbps ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder I found it on a Brittish torrent site. Haven't downloaded it yet but the description states "Looks like it was initially recorded onto VHS, and then later converted to mpeg4. The quality is still quite good, I just wish the resolution was a bit higher." Regards, G?ran From james at machineroom.info Sat Jan 14 04:31:02 2012 From: james at machineroom.info (James Wilson) Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:31:02 +0000 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <4F113B76.4010902@e-bbes.com> Message-ID: <4F115966.3020601@machineroom.info> On 14/01/2012 08:23, emanuel stiebler wrote: > On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote: >> I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //. >> Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that >> small? > > Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a > mc68000, and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the > architecture was nice. As soon as you got it working at all, it was > very easy and fast to make changes to the system. We had lots of > different graphic display back then, and the adaption was very easy. > > Cheers > That menu brings back some memories! I worked for Pecan/Cabot back in the day who continued selling P-system based products well in to the 90's. Very popular with the Open University but ultimately lost out to Borland TP (I recall at the time writing a bunch of libraries to emulate those shipped with TP whcih looking back was a sure sign things were wrong). The VM gained another 16 bits and was ported to lots of different chips, including the ST20 (Transputer derived CPU). The 'C' compiler was a total fudge though. James From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 15 18:53:10 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:53:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Just a link, Theodor Nelson 1974 In-Reply-To: <4F134029.4010501@acc.umu.se> References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> <4F134029.4010501@acc.umu.se> Message-ID: <20120115164846.E76368@shell.lmi.net> > > can find are mediocre [pirated?] MP4s on Google Videos. Does anybody > > have an excellent copy of it? On Sun, 15 Jan 2012, [ISO-8859-1] G?ran Axelsson wrote: > Is this one better or the same? > Hyperland By Douglas Adams (BBC2 1990)[mpeg4].torrent > Single file > 294 MB > Duration: 49:22 > Image: 352x288 pixels > 25 frames per second > 101kbps > ffdshow MPEG-4 Video Decoder > I found it on a Brittish torrent site. Haven't downloaded it yet but the > description states "Looks like it was initially recorded onto VHS, and > then later converted to mpeg4. The quality is still quite good, I just > wish the resolution was a bit higher." That sounds like the same one. BBC has apparently never released it, BUT doesn't seem to have objected to the copy on Google videos for years. In the early 90's, Ted promised me a VHS copy, but forgot a few times, and I haven't seen him for more than 10 years now. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From janprunk at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 02:38:10 2012 From: janprunk at gmail.com (Jan Prunk) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:38:10 +0100 Subject: Vintage DEC/SUN/HP/MACINTOSH workstations/servers for sale Message-ID: Hello ! I am releasing my collection of old computer stuff. Only for personal pickup in Ljubljana, Slovenia. If you want the computer badly, the shipping wont be less than 40 EUR/piece inside Europe, for USA or Asia shipping, you better forget it ! The equipment consist of : ### DEC ### 1 x DEC VAXstation 4000/200 - 300 EUR 1 x Digital DEC 3000 - 100 EUR 1 x Digital DEC 2000 Alpha - 100 EUR ### SUN ### 2 x SUN Sparcstation 4 - 50 EUR/each ### HP ### 3 x Hewlett Packard Appollo 9000 712/60 - 50 EUR/each 1 x Hewlett Packard PC 9000 PC-308 (XT) - 50 EUR 1 x Hewlett Packard 9000 E35 - 50 EUR ### Macintosh ### 1 x Power Macintosh 7500/100 - 50 EUR The computers are released in "AS-IS" condition, some have been tested, the others have not, without any warranty. Please for any queries contact me directly to my E-mail address janprunk at gmail.com I don't follow the mailing list. Regards,Jan -- Jan Prunk?? http://www.prunk.si 0x00E80E86? http://pgp.prunk.si http://AS50763.peeringdb.com From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Jan 16 09:46:47 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:46:47 -0500 Subject: Tek 401x terminal motherboard? Message-ID: > www.ebay.com/itm/260934669305 > Is this the motherboard for a Tek 401x? I think a 4014 is a 6 slot motherboard with a 6 slot extension and discrete connections on the short side not long side. Is a 4010 the same? It is vaguely reminiscent of many 70's era Tek backplanes... maybe this is for 0one of their early microprocessor systems? From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 16 12:16:32 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:16:32 -0700 Subject: Who got the VT62? Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Jan 16 12:16:51 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:16:51 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT Message-ID: > I assume that it would be extremely difficult, probably not worth the > effort, to modify the high order byte of the MFPT instruction at this > point for the 3rd party PDP-11 CPU boards, such as from Mentec. > Can anyone comment on this assumption? Might there be another > way for hardware to the tell a user which 3rd party board is being > used as a PDP-11? Late versions of 11M+ use some fine details (timing?) to differentiate between a J11, and the Mentec M1 and M100 (not J11 based). Most of the 3rd party boards (including much of the Mentec stuff) are "just J11's" maybe sped up/speed selected. Tim. From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Mon Jan 16 12:48:08 2012 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:48:08 +0100 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Wow! I have a few VTxx or VTxxx, but never seen this one! Needless to say, I did not get this. For starters, at the wrong side of the "pond" ... - Henk. -------------------------------------------------- From: "Richard" Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 7:16 PM To: Subject: Who got the VT62? > > > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for > download > > > Legalize Adulthood! From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 12:58:27 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:58:27 -0800 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 16, 2012 10:28 AM, "Shoppa, Tim" wrote: > > Most of the 3rd party boards (including much of the Mentec stuff) are "just J11's" maybe sped up/speed selected. > > Tim. I wish the QED993 was just a fast J11. It's a Xilinx FPGA implementation which has some compatibility issues. I'd have to look at its configuration options. It might be possible to alter the return values of the CPU type registers. -Glen From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 13:11:29 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:11:29 +0100 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: these items tend to turn up on the "wrong" side of the pond most of the time, henk. but anyway, congrats to the one who actually got this terminal. didn't know this version too. and I must state: In the last weeks I found out, that there are many great Items out there in Europe too, often not too hard to find. Just ask here. regards, wolfgang ps: please excuse my writing errors, I'm quite sick at the moment... -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/16 Henk Gooijen > Wow! I have a few VTxx or VTxxx, but never seen this one! > Needless to say, I did not get this. > For starters, at the wrong side of the "pond" ... > > - Henk. > > ------------------------------**-------------------- > From: "Richard" > Sent: Monday, January 16, 2012 7:16 PM > To: > Subject: Who got the VT62? > > > >> > >> >> -- >> "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for >> download >> > graphics-pipeline/ >> > >> >> Legalize Adulthood! > >> >> > > From quapla at xs4all.nl Mon Jan 16 14:35:31 2012 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (E. Groenenberg) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:35:31 +0100 Subject: Dec industrial I/O cards (QBus) Message-ID: All, During further sorting out of the stuff I collected from our company as part of their inventory cleanup I came across some Qbus industrial I/O boards. They are : A410 - IAV11-A 4/12 channel A/D converter A6007 - IAV11-B 4 channel isolated 20mA D/A converter A029 - IAV11-C 16 channel expansion mux. M6029 - IDV11-B 16 bit opto isolated output M8005 - IDV11-C 16 bit relay output M5026 - 16 bit opto isolated input with cable and bulkhead connector and a matching test connector for the IAV11-B All 6 cards are dual height ones and are very clean and still sealed in their a.s. bags. Make me an offer for one or more cards. As usual, the items are located in the Netherlands. Ed -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. Zeg NEE tegen de 'slimme' meter. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 16 15:22:45 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:22:45 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> from "Alexandre Souza - Listas" at Jan 15, 12 05:51:54 pm Message-ID: > > => Are crosspoint swithc ICs still easily available? (It seems that so many > > useful ICs are no longer made ;-(). If so,e it would seem to be posisble > > to use one of those to simulate the keyswithc matrix for just avout any > > swithc-type keyboard. Add a microcotnroller to decode the PS/2 keyboard > > signal then if you detect akey-down code close the appropriate swtich in > > the crosspoint array, if you detect a key-up contd open it. OK, there may > > be a little more work for keys that were originally mechancially locking, > > but that's essentially it, I think. > > But Tony, I can do everything with a $2 microcontroller...Why the > crosspoint IC? :oO Can you? I am very supprised... Although having seen the price of crosspoint ICs (which have a much better spec that uou'd need for this) I can see wanting to avoid one. However... The question related to the TRS-80 M1/3/4 keyboard. These keyboards are memory mapped. I don't man that they are controled by memory mapped ports. I maena that the keyboard appears to the CPU as being 256 bytes of memory. The keyboard column lines (say) are the 8 low-oeder CPU address lines, fed through open collector buffers. The keyboard row lines go to a 3-state buffer and then to the CPU data bus. This 3-state buffer is enabled by the system address decoder whenver an address in the 256 bytes assigned othe keyboard is accessed. The normal keyboard scan refrences addeesses xx01, xx02, xx04, xx08, xx10, xx20, xx40 and xx80 in order, thus selecting one column at a time. But you don't _have_ to do that. In particular you could look at one column only (if say all you wanted to detect was the BREAK key). Or you can look at other addresses to get the logical OR of the keys in those columns. In partocular looking at address xxFF will indicate if any key is pressed. These tricks might not be used by the ROM or standard OS drivers, but they work on all m,achiens, and I know some applciation software (games, etc) used them. The keyboard column lines, being simply the low 8 address lines are chaning all the time whether the machine is reading the keyboard or not. You get the low half of every memory, I/O and refresh address there. So what your device has to do is to detect every change of the address lines and present the apporpriate logical OR of the key states to the inputs of the buffers. And you have to do that iwthin the read cycle time of the Z80 processor (which could be clocking at 4MHz in an Model 4). Yo do not have the keyboard read-enable signal available on the keyboard connector (at least not in an M3 or M4) since the buffers are on the CPU board. You might be able ot get it by solderign a wire ot the appropriate pin on the CPU board, I am not sure if it's an avaialve signal on the later 'gate array' machines, though. So what you have to do is detect every change of the column lines 9which, rememebr are CPU address lines) and output the appropraite pattern to the inputs of hte 3 state buffers within, say, 500ns. While also decoding PS/2 data from the keyboard, of course But even if you have the enable signal, and if you've stored the effective contents of all 256 possible keyboard laocations, you still have to get the address, pick the right one of those 256 values and get it on the 3-state buffer inputs in 500ns. Again while decoding PS/2 data. The first seems ot be a very tall order, the later just a tall order for any $2 microcontroller... Unfortunately, the TRS-80 depends on being able to close multiple switchhes at the smae time (and not just obvious extras like the shfit key), so the obvious hardware solution of a multiplxer + demutiplexer (whichonly allows one effective keypress at a time) doesn't work. The necessary logic to do it properly is quite simple, but not easy to build in a few chips (nnless you use an FGPA or similar :-(). -tony > > From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 16 15:57:26 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:57:26 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> from "Alexandre Souza - Listas" at Jan 15, 12 05:51:54 pm, Message-ID: <4F142CC6.5287.DBEB12@cclist.sydex.com> On 16 Jan 2012 at 21:22, Tony Duell wrote: > The necessary logic to do it properly is quite simple, but not easy to > build in a few chips (nnless you use an FGPA or similar :-(). It would seem to me that a 256-byte SRAM (preferably dual-ported, but not strictly necessary if one watches the timing) and a microcontroller to set and clear the bits in said SRAM would be sufficient. Or am I missing something? --Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Jan 16 16:24:04 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:24:04 -0600 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> At 12:16 PM 1/16/2012, Richard wrote: > What was it? Like an upgraded VT-52? - John From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 16 17:07:27 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:07:27 -0800 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> John Foust wrote: > What was it? Like an upgraded VT-52? Depends on what you mean by "upgraded". For normal applications it wouldn't be very useful. It's a specialized "block mode" terminal, useful with specialized application software. They were used for some typesetting systems. From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 17:18:10 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:18:10 -0500 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 16, 2012, at 1:16 PM, Richard wrote: > *sigh* Every time I see this subject line, I keep reading it as "Who's got the 10 1/2?", which is very wrong on many levels. I suspect the majority of the list is either too young or too old to appreciate the mixup. :-) - Dave From jon at jonworld.com Mon Jan 16 17:25:35 2012 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:25:35 -0500 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> References: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Depends on what you mean by "upgraded". ?For normal applications it wouldn't > be very useful. ?It's a specialized "block mode" terminal, useful with > specialized application software. They were used for some typesetting > systems. So there isn't an RS-232 or similar off the back and you can't just jack it into your Linux box? From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Mon Jan 16 18:15:57 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:15:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> Message-ID: <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a > number of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, > including a six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System. > The report is available in PDF at http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_System.pdf After reading it, I really have to wonder why it even needed declassifying, that is, why it was classified at all. And, indeed, I see "UNCLASSIFIED" on all pages but the last (which has no content, or at least no obvious-to-me content), and it looks to me like part of the scan, not a later add-on. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 16 18:41:28 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:41:28 -0800 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F14C3B8.9080509@brouhaha.com> Jonathan Katz wrote: > So there isn't an RS-232 or similar off the back and you can't just jack it into your Linux box? I think it uses some kind of multidrop signalling rather than EIA-232. Even if it uses EIA-232, it's still not going to be much use on a Linux box, unless you write Linux software that knows how to talk to it. It is a block-mode terminal, not character mode. It doesn't send one byte over a serial port every time you hit a key, and it doesn't display a character each time a byte comes in. Trying to use it on a serial line with a getty process would be an exercise in futility. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Jan 16 19:05:31 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:05:31 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F14C95B.9050808@compsys.to> >Shoppa, Tim wrote: >>I assume that it would be extremely difficult, probably not worth the >>effort, to modify the high order byte of the MFPT instruction at this >>point for the 3rd party PDP-11 CPU boards, such as from Mentec. >>Can anyone comment on this assumption? Might there be another >>way for hardware to the tell a user which 3rd party board is being >>used as a PDP-11? >> >Late versions of 11M+ use some fine details (timing?) to differentiate between a J11, and the Mentec M1 and M100 (not J11 based). > > As I am sure you are aware (check the source code for details), DEC used the fine details in the hardware to differentiate between all of the PDP-11 models. However, as DEC was prone to do, none of the 3rd party boards were ever considered. However, with the advent of the emulators, timing could no longer be used - unless Ersatz-11 is the emulator and a multi-core CPU is present which can provide CPU speeds around 100 times the speed of a PDP-11/93. I don't think that any other emulator even approaches that. Can anyone suggest how fast SIMH is compared to a PDP-11/93? The result would need to specify the actual CPU. I think that on a 750 MHz Pentium III, I used to see about the same speed running RT-11 as with a PDP-11/93 using SIMH whereas under Ersatz-11, it was about 15 times the speed of a PDP-11/93. Of course, there was never any way that I know of to determine the actual CPU in these two software emulators. >Most of the 3rd party boards (including much of the Mentec stuff) are "just J11's" maybe sped up/speed selected. > I seem to remember that the first Mentec board used the J11 from DEC. After that, Mentec developed their own hardware. I think that QED also went that route. I also remember a company which was the very first hardware emulator which used a PC and called the dick drives within the PDP-11 environment "container files". Anyone remember their name? They developed a cross- assembler that would run under DOS. Jerome Fine From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 16 19:06:28 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:06:28 -0500 Subject: UCSD p-System as seen by NSA in 1985 In-Reply-To: <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F14C994.30600@neurotica.com> On 01/16/2012 07:15 PM, Mouse wrote: >> The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a >> number of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, >> including a six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System. > >> The report is available in PDF at http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_System.pdf > > After reading it, I really have to wonder why it even needed > declassifying, that is, why it was classified at all. And, indeed, I > see "UNCLASSIFIED" on all pages but the last (which has no content, or > at least no obvious-to-me content), and it looks to me like part of the > scan, not a later add-on. Welcome to the unbelievable waste of the US Gov't. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Jan 16 19:06:15 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:06:15 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F14C987.6090208@compsys.to> >Glen Slick wrote: >On Jan 16, 2012 10:28 AM, "Shoppa, Tim" wrote: > > >>Most of the 3rd party boards (including much of the Mentec stuff) are >> >> >"just J11's" maybe sped up/speed selected. > > >>Tim. >> >> > >I wish the QED993 was just a fast J11. It's a Xilinx FPGA implementation >which has some compatibility issues. > > Can you describe the fine details which make the QED993 different from the J11 chip? For example, the early PDP-11 hardware did not support the MFPT instruction. The PDP-11/73, PDP-11/83 and PDP-11/84 which supported PMI memory could be tested for. The Maintenance Register at 177750 had difference values for systems which included the J11 chip. Any specific differences for the QED993? Also, what is the official spelling of QED993? If it is going to be noted, it is best to use the official spelling used by QED. >I'd have to look at its configuration options. It might be possible to >alter the return values of the CPU type registers. > That would not be needed if the compatibilities between the QED993 and the J11 from DEC can be tested for. Jerome Fine From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 20:46:05 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:46:05 +0000 Subject: What a silly subject line In-Reply-To: <4F0CC63B.1070108@neurotica.com> References: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CC63B.1070108@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 10 January 2012 23:14, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/10/2012 02:13 PM, Richard wrote: >>> >>> [...] Even >>> in Vista& ?7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been >>> comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their >>> pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". >> >> >> For better or worse, MS does this in exact response to customer >> feedback. > > > ?...and they don't seem to understand that this is the WORST possible thing > that they could do. ?Their customers are (typically) the least > computer-literate computer users out there. ?They don't necessarily > understand that asking for "less security stuff getting in the way" makes > things less secure. > > ?Now, granted, they should learn about this stuff before ever sitting down > in front of a computer. ?But they don't, and likely won't. > > ?IMO Microsoft should take the high road and give them what they NEED rather > than what they ask for. ?They'd have a far higher-quality product as a > result. At risk of causing fainting: I entirely agree. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 16 20:58:45 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:58:45 -0500 Subject: What a silly subject line In-Reply-To: References: <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CC63B.1070108@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F14E3E5.3070600@neurotica.com> On 01/16/2012 09:46 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> [...] Even >>>> in Vista& 7, I think the Windows user privileges model has been >>>> comprehensively screwed over and broken by the marketing dept in their >>>> pursuit of something "easy" and "friendly". >>> >>> For better or worse, MS does this in exact response to customer >>> feedback. >> >> ...and they don't seem to understand that this is the WORST possible thing >> that they could do. Their customers are (typically) the least >> computer-literate computer users out there. They don't necessarily >> understand that asking for "less security stuff getting in the way" makes >> things less secure. >> >> Now, granted, they should learn about this stuff before ever sitting down >> in front of a computer. But they don't, and likely won't. >> >> IMO Microsoft should take the high road and give them what they NEED rather >> than what they ask for. They'd have a far higher-quality product as a >> result. > > At risk of causing fainting: I entirely agree. *thud* (<-- Dave faints) ;) -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 21:28:39 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:28:39 -0200 Subject: Who got the VT62? References: Message-ID: <1cd801ccd4ca$478ee090$6400a8c0@tababook> > *sigh* Every time I see this subject line, I keep reading it as "Who's got > the 10 1/2?", which is very wrong on many levels. I suspect the majority > of the list is either too young or too old to appreciate the mixup. :-) I'd love to understand it =) From legalize at xmission.com Mon Jan 16 22:55:55 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:55:55 -0700 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: <4F14C3B8.9080509@brouhaha.com> References: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> <4F14C3B8.9080509@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: In article <4F14C3B8.9080509 at brouhaha.com>, Eric Smith writes: > Even if it uses EIA-232, it's still not going to be much use on a Linux > box, unless you write Linux software that knows how to talk to it. It > is a block-mode terminal, not character mode. It doesn't send one byte > over a serial port every time you hit a key, and it doesn't display a > character each time a byte comes in. Trying to use it on a serial line > with a getty process would be an exercise in futility. Lots of RS-232 terminals can operate in block mode. vt100.net doesn't mention anything about block mode for the VT62, but mentions that it adds inverse video. Usually serial terminals that operate in block mode have an escape sequence that puts them in block mode. I don't have any data either way, but I would think that the VT62 could operate in conversational or block modes like the VT131 did compared to the VT100. Manx provides metadata for the VT62 manuals but they aren't online. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jan 16 23:01:29 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:01:29 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <9009A0DAE05645A8A83B8BE4B70ED9B3@vl420mt> References: <9009A0DAE05645A8A83B8BE4B70ED9B3@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F1500A9.8060103@jbrain.com> On 1/15/2012 1:12 PM, MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > > Date: Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:56:28 -0200 > From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" > >> I don't have a Mod IV. But if I build something here in Brazil, >> will you be able to duplicate it there? > > As long as the instructions aren't in Portuguese ;-) > > You might also talk to Jim Brain; he had/has/will have a PS/2 > matrix > kbd > adapter for CBM machines and I assume that it would just be a matter of > revising the matrix layout for a Mod IV. > > http://store.go4retro.com/c-key-keyboard-adapter/ > > I gather that although the old version is still available he's more or > less > abandoned it and is working on a more flexible USB version now. I actually am selling the unit in the store. I think it would work fine, but I don't know the matrix for a TRS80 Jim From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jan 16 23:04:51 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:04:51 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F150173.8020207@jbrain.com> On 1/15/2012 1:42 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> I don't have a Mod IV. But if I build something here in Brazil, will you >> be able to duplicate it there? > Are crosspoint swithc ICs still easily available? (It seems that so many > useful ICs are no longer made ;-(). If so,e it would seem to be posisble > to use one of those to simulate the keyswithc matrix for just avout any > swithc-type keyboard. Add a microcotnroller to decode the PS/2 keyboard > signal then if you detect akey-down code close the appropriate swtich in > the crosspoint array, if you detect a key-up contd open it. OK, there may > be a little more work for keys that were originally mechancially locking, > but that's essentially it, I think. > > -tony You can still obtain the Mitel (then Zarlink, then Microsemi) MT8812 units from the factory and other places. That's what C=Key uses. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jan 16 23:10:36 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:10:36 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1502CC.8020302@jbrain.com> On 1/15/2012 1:51 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > => Are crosspoint swithc ICs still easily available? (It seems that so > many >> useful ICs are no longer made ;-(). If so,e it would seem to be posisble >> to use one of those to simulate the keyswithc matrix for just avout any >> swithc-type keyboard. Add a microcotnroller to decode the PS/2 keyboard >> signal then if you detect akey-down code close the appropriate swtich in >> the crosspoint array, if you detect a key-up contd open it. OK, there >> may >> be a little more work for keys that were originally mechancially >> locking, >> but that's essentially it, I think. > > But Tony, I can do everything with a $2 microcontroller...Why the > crosspoint IC? :oO I would be interested in hearing how one does that. I tried to implement such a thing with a 16MHz AVR, but there were issues: * Some SW scans the KB in interesting ways, so just emulating the std KB scanning routine triggers was not enough to work. * On the C64, the joysticks share the KB address lines, so if a user presses joystick buttons while using the KB, very non standard pins are connected. * Some apps scan the KB backwards (ie, drive the columns and read the rows as opposed to driving the rows and scanning the columns). That required more code. I *suppose* you could hook each of the 16 KB lines (assuming and 8x8 matrix) to an interrupt, and then create a table of values for any combination. But, it seemed easier and more flexible to use a cross point, especially since I also wanted to allow use of the original KB in addition to the PS/2 KB. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From rivie at ridgenet.net Mon Jan 16 23:16:14 2012 From: rivie at ridgenet.net (Roger Ivie) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:16:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: <201201162234.q0GMYR9v023138@billy.ezwind.net> <4F14ADAF.9010109@brouhaha.com> <4F14C3B8.9080509@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 16 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > Lots of RS-232 terminals can operate in block mode. vt100.net doesn't > mention anything about block mode for the VT62, but mentions that it > adds inverse video. Interesting. Many years ago, before MS-DOS KERMIT got its act together, I noticed that RT-11 K52 seemed to be trying to highlight things using ^[T and ^[U. A VT52, of course, doesn't recognize these sequences. At that time, KERMIT wasn't properly ignoring them. -- roger ivie rivie at ridgnet.net From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 16 23:25:07 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:25:07 -0200 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? References: <03c901ccd3bf$447c68c0$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1502CC.8020302@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <1cfe01ccd4d8$691107d0$6400a8c0@tababook> > I *suppose* you could hook each of the 16 KB lines (assuming and 8x8 > matrix) to an interrupt, and then create a table of values for any > combination. But, it seemed easier and more flexible to use a cross > point, especially since I also wanted to allow use of the original KB in > addition to the PS/2 KB. Hmmm, I didn't know all of that :( From tdk.knight at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 00:03:07 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:03:07 -0600 Subject: ebay spotting ba11-m drawings Message-ID: duno if anyone cares but theres a set of engineering drawings for the ba11-m http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEC-Digital-Equipment-BA11-M-Original-Manual-Circ-1975-Vintage-Computer-Old-NR-/180793742588?_trksid=p4340.m185&_trkparms=algo%3DSIC.NPJS%26its%3DI%252BC%26itu%3DUA%26otn%3D5%26pmod%3D260930541697%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D5666614933151402817 also keep an eye on him hes says hes got more stuff of the sort to list From phil at ultimate.com Mon Jan 16 20:41:50 2012 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:41:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: <4F14C3B8.9080509@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <201201170241.q0H2foCr057610@ultimate.com> Eric Smith wrote: > Jonathan Katz wrote: > > So there isn't an RS-232 or similar off the back and you can't just > jack it into your Linux box? > > I think it uses some kind of multidrop signalling rather than EIA-232. It would do ordinary RS-232 or an async multidrop DDCMP variation. Here's a snip from a collection of 18 year old postings (old enough to vote, but not to drink)! The VT62 was the one with block mode. ftp://cs.utk.edu/pub/shuford/terminal/block_mode_news.txt As far as I know, DEC only made one true block mode terminal: The VT61 (or was it the VT62? I can no longer remember?) The VT61 was designed to be used with a long-forgotten system called TRAX. TRAX was a PDP-11-based dedicated transaction-processing system. A special terminal interface connected VT61's to a TRAX system; communication was based on multi-drop polled DDCMP. The VT61 could do all sorts of fancy on-screen editing before sending data back in a single DDCMP packet. (The VT62 - or perhaps I have the numbers backward - was a VT61 that used standard async lines. I don't know what they were supposed to be used for, and it's not clear to me that DEC ever actually *sold* any. Both terminals were based on the VT52, and did an impressive amount of processing for their size, given the era in which they were built. Within DEC, VT62's were used as VT52 replacements. When used this way, their main advantage was that, unlike the VT52, they supported reverse video.) I gave my (DEC employee purchased) VT62 away a few years back... The flimsey circuit boards had made it unreliable. I kept my VT52, which has a much more satisfying key crunch sound (the VT62 replaced the electromechanical clicker with a speaker). I think there was also a volume pot. for the speaker. I forget what the bell sound on the '62 was. Certainly less offensive than the '52, but that's half the fun! ISTR the VT61 had useful extensions (like insert/delete line and/or insert/delete character), but the only one I ever saw (when I worked at DEC) was noisy, and the screen could be easily scrambled due to electrostatic disturbances (shuffling on the carpet), even at a distance! Phil From glen.slick at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 01:16:30 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:16:30 -0800 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT In-Reply-To: <4F14C987.6090208@compsys.to> References: <4F14C987.6090208@compsys.to> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > Can you describe the fine details which make the QED993 different > from the J11 chip? ?For example, the early PDP-11 hardware did > not support the MFPT instruction. ?The PDP-11/73, PDP-11/83 and > PDP-11/84 which supported PMI memory could be tested for. ?The > Maintenance Register at 177750 had difference values for systems > which included the J11 chip. > > Any specific differences for the QED993? ?Also, what is the official > spelling of QED993? ?If it is going to be noted, it is best to use the > official spelling used by QED. > QED is "Quickware Engineering & Design, Inc." In the documenation I have it is "QED 993", with a space, not a dash. I think one of the big differences is that the QED 993 had no support for FP11 floating-point instructions at all. It wasn't like a DCJ11 chip without a companion FPJ11 Floating-Point Accelerator (FPA) chip. It had no support for FP11 floating-point instructions at all. That seemed to be one of the issues trying to get 2.11BSD to run on the QED 993. When I looked at the 2.11BSD code there seemed to be assumptions in some places that FP11 instructions were always implemented. -Glen From arcarlini at iee.org Tue Jan 17 02:05:10 2012 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:05:10 -0000 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4663D31A5CD446DCA96898F0454DED5E@ANTONIOPC> Richard [legalize at xmission.com]wrote: > Usually serial terminals that operate in block mode have an > escape sequence that puts them in block mode. I don't have > any data either way, but I would think that the VT62 could > operate in conversational or block modes like the VT131 did > compared to the VT100. Manx provides metadata for the VT62 > manuals but they aren't online. I have the IPB and the tech manual on fiche, so I can look things up if that helps anyone, but I don't have access to any sort of fiche scanner so manx will remain bereft of real data for a while longer. Antonio arcarlini at iee.org From iamcamiel at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 07:50:43 2012 From: iamcamiel at gmail.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:50:43 +0100 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data Message-ID: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> Hi Everyone, I have a bunch of PDF files that contain the microcode listings for an IBM 7201-02 CE (enhanced system/360 model 65), like this one: http://ibm360-console.wikispaces.com/file/view/QZ001.pdf. I need their contents for the emulator that drives my '65 control panel. Unfortunately, the OCR software I have tries to recognize English words, and makes gibberish out of them. I'm only interested in the 1's and 0's, so it would be wonderful if there was OCR software that you can tell only to look for 0's and 1's (or have some bias towards recognizing characters as a 1 or 0. Is anyone here aware of such software, or can anyone recommend a program that might do a good job with these? I've been copying sections by hand, but that gets very tedious when there's 2,816 lines of data, each having 100 0's and 1's... Cheers, Camiel From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 08:05:00 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:05:00 -0200 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fb201ccd521$073e4420$6400a8c0@tababook> > I have a bunch of PDF files that contain the microcode listings for an IBM > 7201-02 CE (enhanced system/360 model 65), like this one: > http://ibm360-console.wikispaces.com/file/view/QZ001.pdf. I need their > contents for the emulator that drives my '65 control panel. Unfortunately, > the OCR software I have tries to recognize English words, and makes > gibberish out of them. I'm only interested in the 1's and 0's, so it would > be wonderful if there was OCR software that you can tell only to look for > 0's and 1's (or have some bias towards recognizing characters as a 1 or 0. > Is anyone here aware of such software, or can anyone recommend a program > that might do a good job with these? I've been copying sections by hand, > but > that gets very tedious when there's 2,816 lines of data, each having 100 > 0's > and 1's... Dunno about OCRs, but I believe a simple program can address this. If the limit is 1 or 0 a simple OCR program can be coded, separing the chars and looking for the histogram of each char... From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jan 17 06:11:07 2012 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:11:07 +0100 Subject: Who got the VT62? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F15655B.9020100@softjar.se> On 2012-01-17 07.58, Eric Smith wrote: > Jonathan Katz wrote: > > So there isn't an RS-232 or similar off the back and you can't just > jack it into your Linux box? > > I think it uses some kind of multidrop signalling rather than EIA-232. > > Even if it uses EIA-232, it's still not going to be much use on a Linux > box, unless you write Linux software that knows how to talk to it. It > is a block-mode terminal, not character mode. It doesn't send one byte > over a serial port every time you hit a key, and it doesn't display a > character each time a byte comes in. Trying to use it on a serial line > with a getty process would be an exercise in futility. No. The VT62 use a normal RS-232 serial asynch line, sending and receiving bytes just like any other plain terminal. It really is just an improved VT52, adding a reverse video attribute. I had one, which I used for about 15 years. It's still around, but I more or less donated it to a computer club. If you want to hook it up to your Unix system, just go ahead. No problems. However, unless you create a termcap entry, you'll probably be stuck with the VT52 entry, which means you won't see any reverse video stuff anywhere, since I don't think any termcap/terminfo databases I've seen ever had the VT62. Johnny From jws at jwsss.com Tue Jan 17 12:34:48 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:34:48 -0800 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <1fb201ccd521$073e4420$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> <1fb201ccd521$073e4420$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F15BF48.9080809@jwsss.com> we were able to locate arrays like this using an autocorrelation function. In python, which was simple read each page into a binary array. You would have a sample 1 or 0 shape per what Alexandre suggests as well. The autocorrelation function matches the shapes essentially. The coordinates of the corners will be apparent after the correlation. I believe you could find the 0's with one pass and 1's with a second one. This will take a long time to run at full resolution, so you'd need to break it up into small chunks, since correlation time increases geometrically (I think that is the correct math progression). We were able to find circles in this fashion on our binary arrays. Jim On 1/17/2012 6:05 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I have a bunch of PDF files that contain the microcode listings for >> an IBM >> 7201-02 CE (enhanced system/360 model 65), like this one: >> http://ibm360-console.wikispaces.com/file/view/QZ001.pdf. I need their >> contents for the emulator that drives my '65 control panel. >> Unfortunately, >> the OCR software I have tries to recognize English words, and makes >> gibberish out of them. I'm only interested in the 1's and 0's, so it >> would >> be wonderful if there was OCR software that you can tell only to look >> for >> 0's and 1's (or have some bias towards recognizing characters as a 1 >> or 0. >> Is anyone here aware of such software, or can anyone recommend a program >> that might do a good job with these? I've been copying sections by >> hand, but >> that gets very tedious when there's 2,816 lines of data, each having >> 100 0's >> and 1's... > > Dunno about OCRs, but I believe a simple program can address this. > If the limit is 1 or 0 a simple OCR program can be coded, separing the > chars and looking for the histogram of each char... > From mc68010 at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 12:37:30 2012 From: mc68010 at gmail.com (David Clark) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:37:30 -0800 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0 From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 13:06:00 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:06:00 -0600 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <4F15BF48.9080809@jwsss.com> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> <1fb201ccd521$073e4420$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F15BF48.9080809@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <4F15C698.20402@gmail.com> jim s wrote: > we were able to locate arrays like this using an autocorrelation function. > > In python, which was simple read each page into a binary array. You > would have a sample 1 or 0 shape per what Alexandre suggests as well. > The autocorrelation function matches the shapes essentially. I don't know if you even need to do that, depending on the font style - the ratio of dark to light pixels in a given 'cell' might be enough to determine if it's a 1 or 0. This sort of approach does assume that the data's in a nice enough format (e.g. fixed width font, corrected for any page distortion, little "outside" contamination) to work, though. Of course it also doesn't help the OP, who was looking for an existing program to do it ;) (And I don't know if any OCR process can be fully trusted, so it still needs some form of human validation, or retention of the original scans alongside the OCR data) cheers Jules From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 17 13:30:40 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:30:40 -0800 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 17, at 10:37 AM, David Clark wrote: > Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0 Nice clips of RAMAC in action. From cym224 at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 11:10:59 2012 From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:10:59 -0500 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 17 January 2012 08:50, Camiel Vanderhoeven wrote: > Hi Everyone, > > I have a bunch of PDF files that contain the microcode listings for an IBM > 7201-02 CE (enhanced system/360 model 65), like this one: > http://ibm360-console.wikispaces.com/file/view/QZ001.pdf. I need their > contents for the emulator that drives my '65 control panel. Unfortunately, > the OCR software I have tries to recognize English words, and makes > gibberish out of them. I'm only interested in the 1's and 0's, so it would > be wonderful if there was OCR software that you can tell only to look for > 0's and 1's (or have some bias towards recognizing characters as a 1 or 0. > Is anyone here aware of such software, or can anyone recommend a program > that might do a good job with these? I am not sure how helpful this answer will be but Tesseract (originally a commercial HP product, now in Google Code) has training files for different languages. I have never modified them but my guess, from looking at the documentation, is that you could make training files for a binary language. N. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 17 13:34:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:34:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F142CC6.5287.DBEB12@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 16, 12 01:57:26 pm Message-ID: > > On 16 Jan 2012 at 21:22, Tony Duell wrote: > > > The necessary logic to do it properly is quite simple, but not easy to > > build in a few chips (nnless you use an FGPA or similar :-(). > > It would seem to me that a 256-byte SRAM (preferably dual-ported, but > not strictly necessary if one watches the timing) and a Since the read is totally asynchronous (and you don't, in general, get a read strobe on such keyboard interfaces), the RAM pretty much does have to be dual-ported (or at least separate read and write ports, with separate address lines). If notm there wil lbe times when the host machine is readign the 'keyboard' when your interface is trying to update the RAM. Since the interface can't know when the host machine is redig nthe keyboard, you can't prevent writes at that time. if the RAM is single-ported, then (given a sensible) desing, the host will mopst likely think all keys are up. And with some keyboard drivers, if they detect a key is up after seeing it down after the debounce delay, and then see the key apparently down again (in this case because the interface is no longer writing to the RAM), the host will see 2 keypresses. Thus you'll get what appears to be key boaunce. > microcontroller to set and clear the bits in said SRAM would be > sufficient. > > Or am I missing something? No, given a dual-ported RAM, this works. It's fine for a 8*8 matrix (as in the case of the TRS-80). it's less fine for a 16*8 matrix, when you needa 64K dual-ported RAM and have to update 32768 locations (i.e. half of them) for every key change-of-state. Are small dual-porrted RAMs easy to obtain now? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 17 13:50:35 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:50:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1500A9.8060103@jbrain.com> from "Jim Brain" at Jan 16, 12 11:01:29 pm Message-ID: > I think it would work fine, but I don't know the matrix for a TRS80 Her's the model 4 one, the model 3 is similar but some keys are missing @ H P X 0 8 Enter LShift A I Q Y 1 9 Clear RShift B J R Z 2 : Break Ctrl C K S 3 ; Up Caps D L T 4 , Down F1 E M U 5 - Left F2 F N V 6 . Right F3 G O W 7 / Space The 8 columns are the input to the matrix, driven my open-collector inverters from the system address lines. The 8 rows are the inputs to the 3-state buffer, pulled up by resistors on the CPU board. The keyboard is conencted via a 20 pin header. The pinout is : C1 o o C0 C3 o o C2 C5 o o C4 C7 o o C6 R1 o o R0 R3 o o R2 R5 o o R4 R7 o o R6 Rst NC o o Not used Rst NO o o Rst Com - Ground The rest button is a changeober switch wired with the common to ground and the other 2 pins to NC (normally closed) and NO (Normally open). In fact the normally closed contact is not used on the M4 CPU board I've got. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 17 13:57:08 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:57:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F150173.8020207@jbrain.com> from "Jim Brain" at Jan 16, 12 11:04:51 pm Message-ID: > You can still obtain the Mitel (then Zarlink, then Microsemi) MT8812 > units from the factory and other places. That's what C=Key uses. RIght, thanks, I;ll look into those. Of couese the problem with crospoint switch ICs is that they will act like an array of mechanical switches, and could have 'sneak paths'. If the origianl keyboard has a diode in series iwth each key (or with some of the keys, like SHIFT), then the crosspoint switch IC may not correctly simulate the keyboard's behaviour. A good solution would seem to be a set of latches (one for each column), feeding open-collector buffers (enabled by the column scan lines), the outputs of corresponding buffers of each latcvh being linked togeter and to the row lines. Problem is, there is no 8-bit latch with open-colelctor outputs that I can quickly spot, so it's 2 or 3 ICs (3 ICs, say a '374 and a couple of '03s ) for each column. I suppose you could program an FPGA to do it, but that's horrible... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 17 13:58:43 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:58:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <1cfe01ccd4d8$691107d0$6400a8c0@tababook> from "Alexandre Souza - Listas" at Jan 17, 12 03:25:07 am Message-ID: > > > I *suppose* you could hook each of the 16 KB lines (assuming and 8x8 > > matrix) to an interrupt, and then create a table of values for any > > combination. But, it seemed easier and more flexible to use a cross > > point, especially since I also wanted to allow use of the original KB in > > addition to the PS/2 KB. > > Hmmm, I didn't know all of that :( > Not all digital electornic problems are solved by a microcontroller! -tony From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 17 15:57:12 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:57:12 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: <4F142CC6.5287.DBEB12@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 16, 12 01:57:26 pm, Message-ID: <4F157E38.10527.10F0E32@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2012 at 19:34, Tony Duell wrote: > Since the read is totally asynchronous (and you don't, in general, get > a read strobe on such keyboard interfaces), the RAM pretty much does > have to be dual-ported (or at least separate read and write ports, > with separate address lines). Well, yes and no. Given the speed of a 4MHz Z80 and its timing, I think it would be possible to slip in with even a low-end MCU to do some updating after every line change. I also suspect that the TRS80 probably has some debouncing logic so that momentary glitches in the state of a key isn't a big deal. Or you could split a 512 byte SRAM and divide it into two pages, always writing to one half and swapping pages after every keystroke. > Are small dual-porrted RAMs easy to obtain now? IDT still offers small (1Kx8) async dual-ported 5V SRAMs. I suspect that there are other suppliers as well. In either case, the logic isn't complex. --Chuck From brain at jbrain.com Tue Jan 17 16:49:31 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:49:31 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> On 1/17/2012 1:34 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > No, given a dual-ported RAM, this works. It's fine for a 8*8 matrix (as > in the case of the TRS-80). it's less fine for a 16*8 matrix, when you > needa 64K dual-ported RAM and have to update 32768 locations (i.e. > half of them) for every key change-of-state. Given the original topic, a dual port RAM is indeed feasible. However, for keyboards that can be scanned either way (CBM VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, +4), dual port will not work, as one cannot guarantee that the rows are the "addresses" and the columns are the "data" or vice versa. For reference, the CBM PET has a 3-8 decoder used to select rows in the KB matrix, so a dual port ram option can work (because the design can guarantee the address and data usage) There is a MT8816, which is an 8x16 matrix. As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if not impossible. Jim From computing.comp at study.beds.ac.uk Tue Jan 17 09:52:11 2012 From: computing.comp at study.beds.ac.uk (Computing Comp) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 15:52:11 +0000 Subject: Call for papers Computing Frontier 2012 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ### Apologies for cross-posting / multiple copies ### Call for Paper ACM conference Computing Frontier 2012 I am Glad to invite you to participate in the upcoming conference, IEEE computing Frontier 2012 The 9th ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers May 15-17, 2012, Cagliari, Italy Sponsored by ACM SIGMICRO http://www.computingfrontiers.org The increasing complexity, performance, cost and energy efficiency needs of current and future applications require novel and innovative approaches for the design of computing systems. Boundaries between state of the art and revolutionary innovation constitute the computing frontiers that must be pushed forward to provide the support required for the advancement of science, engineering and information technology. The Computing Frontiers conference focuses on a wide spectrum of advanced technologies and radically new solutions relevant to the development of the whole spectrum of computer systems, from embedded to high-performance computing. Authors are invited to submit full papers to the main conference and Ph.D. students are invited to submit an extended abstract for a special Ph.D. forum and poster session We seek contributions on novel computing paradigms, computational models, application paradigms, computer architecture, development environments, compilers, or operating environments. Papers are solicited in, but not limited to, the following areas: ? Applications, programming and performance analysis of advanced architectures ? Next-generation high performance computing and systems ? Accelerators: many-core, GPU, custom, reconfigurable, embedded, and hybrid ? Defect- and variability-tolerant designs, dependable computing ? Power and energy efficiency: architectures, compilers and algorithms ? Virtualization and virtual machines ? Cloud-, internet-scale, service-oriented and smart infrastructure computing ? Compilers and operating systems: adaptive, run-time, and auto-tuning ? System management and security ? Impact of novel technology (e.g. NV memory, silicon photonics) on computing ? Computational neuroscience, neuromorphic and biologically-inspired architectures ? Computational aspects of intelligent systems and robotics ? Reconfigurable, autonomic, organic, and self-organizing computation and systems ? Interfaces and visualization for emerging applications and systems ? Novel frontiers in computational science and scientific data repositories ? Storing, managing, analysing, and searching large data sets (" big data ") ? Sensors and sensor networks. EXTENDED DEADLINES Paper Submission Deadline January 25, 2012 Ph.D. Forum Deadline January 25, 2012 Author Notification March 7, 2012 Best wishes, Kathiravan.T From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 17 18:24:31 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:24:31 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> References: , <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> On 17 Jan 2012 at 16:49, Jim Brain wrote: > As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if > not impossible. I concocted my soluation after looking at the TRS-80 model 4 schematics. Clearly, other keyboard schemes will require other solutions. But I'd still want a MCU to decode the PS/2 keyboard proposed. Maybe Tony wants to do the decoding with discrete logic, but that would not be my first choice for simplicity, expense or power. It's not the PS/2's choice either to the best of my knowledge. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 19:12:41 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:12:41 -0500 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0B5E50A6-CD73-47AF-B966-D4EAE39F89CA@gmail.com> On Jan 17, 2012, at 19:24, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > On 17 Jan 2012 at 16:49, Jim Brain wrote: > >> As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if >> not impossible. > > I concocted my soluation after looking at the TRS-80 model 4 > schematics. > > Clearly, other keyboard schemes will require other solutions. But > I'd still want a MCU to decode the PS/2 keyboard proposed. Maybe > Tony wants to do the decoding with discrete logic, but that would not > be my first choice for simplicity, expense or power. It's not the > PS/2's choice either to the best of my knowledge. Even the AT keyboard (whose protocol the PS/2 keyboard uses) used an 8042 and possibly a scanning IC. - Dave From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 19:19:34 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:19:34 -0200 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? References: <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> <0B5E50A6-CD73-47AF-B966-D4EAE39F89CA@gmail.com> Message-ID: <01aa01ccd57f$512fed00$6400a8c0@tababook> > Even the AT keyboard (whose protocol the PS/2 keyboard uses) used an 8042 > and possibly a scanning IC. Only an 8049... From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 17 19:37:04 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:37:04 -0500 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> > >> Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0 > > Nice clips of RAMAC in action. That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN. The computers that are mentioned -- MOBIDC, BASICPAC, and COMPAC -- are all part of the Army's FIELDATA program, which was the predecessor to ASCII. FIELDATA (and MOBIDIC, and some others) were all developed at the Army Signal Corps' Evans Signal Lab, in Belmar, N.J. -- which is today the InfoAge Science Center, containing the MARCH computer museum! We even have a very little piece of a MOBIDIC ("Mobile Digital Computer" -- "mobile" meant it fit into two 30-foot trailers.) Come to VCF East at our museum this spring and see it. :) From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 19:45:30 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:45:30 -0500 Subject: VAX-11/751 available Message-ID: I have a VAX-11/751 that could be available, if someone dangles a nice enough carrot in front of me. The '751 is the oddball rackmount version of the VAX-11/750. It is currently in an Applicon cabinet, which is going away pretty quickly. The rest of the Applicon CAD system is long gone - I never had it. I have not tested the VAX, but it looks to be in very nice condition. Tempt me with mainframe stuff, or older minicomputer stuff. Or tempt me other ways. When is the last time you saw a '751, VAX collectors? -- Will, in 10512 From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jan 17 19:58:02 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:58:02 -0500 Subject: PDP-11 Values from MFPT In-Reply-To: References: <4F14C987.6090208@compsys.to> Message-ID: <4F16272A.4090006@compsys.to> >Glen Slick wrote: >>On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > > >>Can you describe the fine details which make the QED993 different >>from the J11 chip? For example, the early PDP-11 hardware did >>not support the MFPT instruction. The PDP-11/73, PDP-11/83 and >>PDP-11/84 which supported PMI memory could be tested for. The >>Maintenance Register at 177750 had difference values for systems >>which included the J11 chip. >> >>Any specific differences for the QED993? Also, what is the official >>spelling of QED993? If it is going to be noted, it is best to use the >>official spelling used by QED. >> >QED is "Quickware Engineering & Design, Inc." In the documenation I >have it is "QED 993", with a space, not a dash. > > I was aware of the company name, although not it full title. Also, it was the "QED 993" characters I was hoping for - THANK YOU! >I think one of the big differences is that the QED 993 had no support >for FP11 floating-point instructions at all. It wasn't like a DCJ11 >chip without a companion FPJ11 Floating-Point Accelerator (FPA) chip. >It had no support for FP11 floating-point instructions at all. That >seemed to be one of the issues trying to get 2.11BSD to run on the QED >993. When I looked at the 2.11BSD code there seemed to be assumptions >in some places that FP11 instructions were always implemented. > As far as I know, every DEC J11 chip includes the floating point instructions. Most of the boards also allow the extra FPA chip, but that just speeds up the execution of floating point calculations. Having no floating point instruction support would be a way to distinguish the QED 993 from a DEC J11 chip if every other implementation (including DEC, Mentec, emulators, etc.) supports floating point instructions. One thing about Ersatz-11 is that it would probably be able to configure the CPU to match a QED 993 since it is so fine grained. Jerome Fine From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 17 19:59:37 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:59:37 -0500 Subject: VAX-11/751 available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <569C76D8-9715-4546-A08D-95512D6B3149@neurotica.com> I'd very much like to have this machine. Would someone whose mail Will isn't filtering please reply to this or forward it to him? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA On Jan 17, 2012, at 8:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > I have a VAX-11/751 that could be available, if someone dangles a nice > enough carrot in front of me. The '751 is the oddball rackmount > version of the VAX-11/750. It is currently in an Applicon cabinet, > which is going away pretty quickly. The rest of the Applicon CAD > system is long gone - I never had it. > > I have not tested the VAX, but it looks to be in very nice condition. > > Tempt me with mainframe stuff, or older minicomputer stuff. Or tempt > me other ways. > > When is the last time you saw a '751, VAX collectors? > > -- > Will, in 10512 From mc68010 at gmail.com Tue Jan 17 20:00:33 2012 From: mc68010 at gmail.com (David Clark) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:00:33 -0800 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F1627C1.3000408@gmail.com> On 1/17/2012 5:37 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >> >>> Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers. >>> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0 >> >> Nice clips of RAMAC in action. > > That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN. > Was just that particular machine named Moby Dick ? From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 17 20:05:19 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:05:19 -0800 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> Message-ID: <9EFD6B77-F4EA-469E-BA63-27ADE8EB78F1@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 17, at 5:37 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>> Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers. >>> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0 >> >> Nice clips of RAMAC in action. > > That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN. > > The computers that are mentioned -- MOBIDC, BASICPAC, and COMPAC -- > are all part of the Army's FIELDATA program, which was the > predecessor to ASCII. FIELDATA (and MOBIDIC, and some others) were > all developed at the Army Signal Corps' Evans Signal Lab, in > Belmar, N.J. -- which is today the InfoAge Science Center, > containing the MARCH computer museum! We even have a very little > piece of a MOBIDIC ("Mobile Digital Computer" -- "mobile" meant it > fit into two 30-foot trailers.) > > Come to VCF East at our museum this spring and see it. :) It keeps getting pointlessly chopped up, there's a third video on there with just the RAMAC scene. ..!?.. From evan at snarc.net Tue Jan 17 20:20:49 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:20:49 -0500 Subject: Short clip of some old systems In-Reply-To: <4F1627C1.3000408@gmail.com> References: <4F0F56C2.5030303@decodesystems.com> <201201170015.TAA03643@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F15BFEA.6020300@gmail.com> <1F1D3B50-FAC4-4F75-BDAA-E6A541466974@cs.ubc.ca> <4F162240.1020000@snarc.net> <4F1627C1.3000408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F162C81.3080204@snarc.net> >> That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN. > > Was just that particular machine named Moby Dick ? MOBIDIC (Mobile Digital Computer) is the one where the showed people walking inside a cramped room -- the room was a trailer. I'm not sure about the control board they showed before that. Five were built (by Sylvania, up in Massachusetts). Sylvania also took three orders for a commercial version called the 9400, but they only shipped two of those. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jan 17 21:07:57 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:07:57 -0500 Subject: VAX-11/751 available In-Reply-To: <569C76D8-9715-4546-A08D-95512D6B3149@neurotica.com> References: <569C76D8-9715-4546-A08D-95512D6B3149@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F16378D.3080506@compsys.to> >Dave McGuire wrote: > I'd very much like to have this machine. Would someone whose mail Will isn't filtering please reply to this or forward it to him? > > Thanks, > -Dave McGuire < > >On Jan 17, 2012, at 8:45 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> I have a VAX-11/751 that could be available, if someone dangles a nice >> enough carrot in front of me. The '751 is the oddball rackmount >> version of the VAX-11/750. It is currently in an Applicon cabinet, >> which is going away pretty quickly. The rest of the Applicon CAD >> system is long gone - I never had it. >> >> I have not tested the VAX, but it looks to be in very nice condition. >> >> Tempt me with mainframe stuff, or older minicomputer stuff. Or tempt >> me other ways. >> >> When is the last time you saw a '751, VAX collectors? >> >> -- >> Will, in 10512 > > Hopefully, William Donzelli will see this! Please let me know if it helped. From brain at jbrain.com Tue Jan 17 22:06:44 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:06:44 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F164554.90707@jbrain.com> On 1/17/2012 6:24 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 17 Jan 2012 at 16:49, Jim Brain wrote: > >> As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if >> not impossible. > I concocted my soluation after looking at the TRS-80 model 4 > schematics. > > Clearly, other keyboard schemes will require other solutions. But > I'd still want a MCU to decode the PS/2 keyboard proposed. Maybe > Tony wants to do the decoding with discrete logic, but that would not > be my first choice for simplicity, expense or power. It's not the > PS/2's choice either to the best of my knowledge. > > --Chuck > I agree. C=Key does exactly that, using a crosspoint for the matrix and an AVR for the PS/2 protocol. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From trash80 at internode.on.net Wed Jan 18 03:26:43 2012 From: trash80 at internode.on.net (Kevin Parker) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:26:43 +1100 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <006d01ccd5c3$4af9b6c0$e0ed2440$@on.net> If you have the pro version of Acrobat it does this quite well from the PDF but be sure to select the ClearScan option - its remarkably good compared to traditional OCR methods. ++++++++++ Kevin Parker Advanced Imaging e: webmaster at advancedimaging.com.au w: www.advancedimaging.com.au m: 0418 815 527 ++++++++++ http://au.linkedin.com/in/krparker -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Camiel Vanderhoeven Sent: Wednesday, 18 January 2012 00:51 To: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data Hi Everyone, I have a bunch of PDF files that contain the microcode listings for an IBM 7201-02 CE (enhanced system/360 model 65), like this one: http://ibm360-console.wikispaces.com/file/view/QZ001.pdf. I need their contents for the emulator that drives my '65 control panel. Unfortunately, the OCR software I have tries to recognize English words, and makes gibberish out of them. I'm only interested in the 1's and 0's, so it would be wonderful if there was OCR software that you can tell only to look for 0's and 1's (or have some bias towards recognizing characters as a 1 or 0. Is anyone here aware of such software, or can anyone recommend a program that might do a good job with these? I've been copying sections by hand, but that gets very tedious when there's 2,816 lines of data, each having 100 0's and 1's... Cheers, Camiel From iamcamiel at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 05:24:29 2012 From: iamcamiel at gmail.com (Camiel Vanderhoeven) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:24:29 +0100 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <006d01ccd5c3$4af9b6c0$e0ed2440$@on.net> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> <006d01ccd5c3$4af9b6c0$e0ed2440$@on.net> Message-ID: <001501ccd5d3$bf20df00$3d629d00$@gmail.com> > If you have the pro version of Acrobat it does this quite well from the PDF > but be sure to select the ClearScan option - its remarkably good compared > to traditional OCR methods. Thanks to everyone who has replied with suggestions. Another suggestion I got is to try Omnipage, so I got myself a 15-day trial version of Omnipage Pro. It allows you to draw a rectangle on the page, then select "Numeric data". It will then only perform OCR on that part of the page, and will try to recognize everything as a number. When in doubt, it will bring up a dialog with a detailed view of the problematic page so you can make manual corrections. Combined with a bit of manual work to fix things up, this seems to work fairly well. Cheers, Camiel From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Wed Jan 18 09:28:45 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:28:45 +0200 Subject: Intertec Superbrain Message-ID: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> In the middle of 1980s, I was user of Intertec Superbrain computer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertec_Superbrain I found information about it on Dave Dunfield website: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/supbrain/index.htm I still own it, but original diskettes came with the computer are lost. (it was CP/M maybe 2.x but not sure, some BASIC, etc) I found also list of CP/M OS images on Dave's website, but I'm not sure: which one could I take to boot Superbrain? I thought, different CP/M machines have different port mappings or...? And how it is possible to write images to floppy diskettes on PC computer so that Superbrain can boot from them? From macabb at carolina.rr.com Wed Jan 18 09:29:50 2012 From: macabb at carolina.rr.com (Steve Abbott) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:29:50 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum Message-ID: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> >> I have this huge collection of Macs (302 different), accessories, software, manuals, magazines, and all such related. >> I have collected these since '84, and have these in my 1400 Sq ft house. I just turned 68, and my aging takes a toll on my work. I'm at the point where I'd like to sell the collections. In my opinion, they belong in the US - the home of their creations. >> I have been advised (by John and James of Retromacast) that the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. >> Might you know other Mac curators who at least would like to talk? I would not like to have this historic collection broken up. >> All your ideas and info are appreciated. When you return from your collecting trip, or whenever you have time, I'd like to chat. > Steve Abbott eMail: macabb at carolina.rr.com Site: www.macabb.com Mail: 6500 Deermont Ct, Charlotte, NC 28211 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 09:56:12 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:56:12 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 11 January 2012 00:55, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/10/2012 06:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On Jan 10, 2012 6:55 AM, "Mouse" ?wrote: >>> >>>>> Then perhaps Dave you should keep out of the conversation - your >>>>> above comment shows you are still stuck in the 90's and have no >>>>> comprehension of current technology whatsoever. ?As a manager of >>>>> various Solaris, Linux and Windows servers for one of Australia's >>>>> largest banks, I find very, very little difference in the >>>>> reliability, performance and uptime of any of them. >>>> >>>> I'm "stuck in the 90s" because I'm not a Windows fanboy?? >>> >>> If you are unable to distinguish between not reflexively bashing >>> Windows based on out-of-date perceptions of it and being a Windows >>> fanboy...well, then, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in >>> that case you deserve at least some of the epithets thrown your way. >>> >>> Not that I like Windows. ?I don't. ?It's a horrible, horrible OS in >>> multiple respects for almost every purpose I care about. >> >> What he said! >> >> I dislike Windows myself these days& ?try to avoid it. I can use it, >> support it& ?work with it if I have to, but I won't if I don't have too >> our >> are not being paid to. >> >> Even so, for all its faults, modern versions are highly reliable. Anyone >> flaming about how unreliable it is immediately *shows themselves to be an >> irrational non,MS fanboy* because such opinions are not based upon current >> facts; they are bigotry, based only on prejudice& ?badly out-of-date >> hearsay. > > ?Yes but you poo-poo any statement that is anti-Windows or anti-Microsoft, > regardless of the facts. I most certainly do not. I am generally regarded by my friends and colleagues in the professional Microsoft community as a member of the Linux Taleben, an extreme zealot and evangelist against anything and everything MS and a flagrant booster and promoter of FOSS. Summary: you don't know anything about me and you are jumping to incorrect conclusions based on scanty & very partial data. >> If I am paying someone for technical advice and skills, I expect a current >> skill set of all major platforms. For some things, the right tool may be >> one that somebody does not personally like. They should be able to suggest >> this without their emotion and preferences getting in the way. >> >> If they can't, then they are unfit for the job. >> >> That means current knowledge and no bigotry and hatred. > > ?You're wrong on two counts. ?My experience is varied, but the areas in > which I'm paid for my advice and skills are high-performance scientific > computing, supercomputers, large-scale and high-reliability servers, and > (the opposite end of the spectrum) embedded systems development. ?I am Just > Not Into suitly desktop computing with spreadsheets and word processors. ?I > use both on occasion, yes, but that's not my area of work. ?I don't work in > the not-very-demanding, not-very-technical world of office desktop computing > or home desktop computing. Doesn't matter. Nobody can advise on technology and IT unless they have at least some knowledge of the whole arena and can comment on it impartially. > ?The other is the more important (to me) point that has me particularly hot > under the collar. ?You, like most Microsoft people (regardless of how loudly > you state that you don't like or use Windows, you still tout it at every > turn) automatically label ANY anti-Windows statement as somehow not being > based on facts or experience, and automatically entirely emotionally-based. > ?That is insane, insulting, and more importantly, just plain wrong. Citation needed. > ?I use the best tool for the job, regardless of the job. ?The day that > Windows becomes a good tool for a job that I need to have done, I will use > Windows. ?That day hasn't come yet. ?If you feel otherwise, I'm sorry, I > disagree. ?Either way, though, I will not permit you to simply dismiss every > word out my keyboard as automatically subject to some sort of emotional bias > just because you don't like it and don't want it to be true. I distrust your opinions because of the way that you lash out at anybody and everybody with personal insults, swearwords and unpleasant ad hominem attacks. This makes you appear to be a ranting fanboy. I am not saying that I am innocent of this myself. But you need to be aware of what you are doing. Everything you say on ClassicCmp is a public record of your mode of interaction with strangers. Think about that. > ?Personally I don't give a rat's ass what you think, Personal attack, invective and swearing. > as you've proven time > and time again that you really don't know what you're talking about when it > comes to certain major categories of stuff. Personal attack. > ?I offer your repeated > assertions that "95% of all computers run Windows" and "computer programmers > number one in a million" up as examples. I can and am happy to back these up with figures. > ?This is why I don't even listen to > your arguments that actually seem plausible anymore, because I have no idea > if you've actually looked at the facts. ?Further, you're a guy who loudly > proclaims that you're not a programmer, yet you'll try to ram your opinions > regarding programming languages down anyone's throat who happens to pass by! > ?What kind of crap is that? Fair call! I do mainly come seeking information and knowledge, though. > ?So drop it, forget it, stop with your Microsoft touting, and get the hell > out of my face. ?For once again, you've ruined my day, because I made the > mistake of trying really hard yet again to develop some professional respect > for you. ?I didn't even start this particular fight, Richard did, and you > decided to just join in! ?Go find a hobby. Some of us have work to do, and > some of us are actually interested in classic computing. That would sound more believable if it was not wrapped in personal insults and laced with swearwords. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From IanK at vulcan.com Wed Jan 18 11:34:02 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:34:02 +0000 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/15/12 9:09 AM, "Michael Thompson" wrote: >We reformed the capacitors in all three power supplies in the PDP-8/I Don't "reform" them, replace them. See, e.g., http://www.cde.com/tech/reliability.pdf on the limitations of lifespan of aluminum electrolytic capacitors. Keep in mind that the electrolytics in a PDP-8/I are at least 40+ years old. >at the RICM and powered on the CPU to see if it would show any signs >of life. It randomly lit some lights and would not react to the front >panel switches. Looks like we have some debugging to do. Again, be sure your power supplies are in good shape, not only in terms of static voltage but also ripple - put a scope on them under load. Some folks don't have an oscilloscope (although I would assume you at RICM do): for those reading along, keep in mind it's not necessary to have a 500MHz dual-trace digital phosphor "video game" if you're working on PDP-8's and such. A simple 10MHz scope that should be available for under $50 (I sold one a couple of years back for $20) is perfectly good for not only measuring power supply ripple but for lots of other diagnostic purposes in machines of this vintage. (I have a vacuum-tube Tektronix 561A that I love to use for things like this, just because I can.) > >The front panel power switch was corroded and burned. Any idea where >we can get a replacement? > >Were can we get some Oshinos OL-1 bulbs to repair the front panel? > >Does anyone have diagnostics for the 8/I on DECtape? I'd recommend finding paper tape images (Bitsavers, pdp8online.com) and feeding them in through a terminal emulator. The DECtape controller is itself a complex piece of equipment - minimize your variables! :-) Once you have the CPU running reliably, then you'll probably need to align the (presumably) TC08 - it has a handful of trimmers that adjust various pulse widths, and I can tell you from experience they aren't just for show. (You'll need a scope for this, too.) -- Ian From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 18 12:41:08 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:41:08 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> Ian King wrote of aluminum electrolytic capacitors: > Don't "reform" them, replace them. See, e.g., > http://www.cde.com/tech/reliability.pdf on the limitations of lifespan > of aluminum electrolytic capacitors. Keep in mind that the > electrolytics in a PDP-8/I are at least 40+ years old. I respectfully disagree. If you want to ensure that the artifact will be operable for the maximum possible time with the minimum required maintenance (e.g., replacing the capacitor again), then you are correct that the capacitors should be replaced. However, this is not generally the primary objective of museums and similar entities with regard to the artifacts. For example, in the PDP-1 restoration, we went to great pains to reform the original capacitors, using a grossly over-engineered technique, and to document every aspect of this process (and of the entire restoration). It is true that the reformed capacitors can't be expected to have as much remaining operating life as a new capacitor, but that isn't the point. We attempted to keep as much of the original artifact as possible, and found that with careful reformation, nearly all of the capacitors still met the original specifications. Given the relatively small percentage of time that the machine is powered up, generally less than 2% of the time, the capacitor lifetime will be predominantly determined by the non-powered wearout mechanisms, which are quite slow. The machine is normally powered up for demonstrations for at least a few hours every two weeks, which is sufficient to prevent deterioration of the oxide layer which would eventually necessitate another round of reformation. We expect to check the power supply ripple on occasion to see how the capacitors are holding up, and certainly we will replace them if they fail, but we don't expect that to happen for some time. If at some point the demonstrations cease and the machine goes unpowered for a long interval, the capacitors will need to be rechecked thoroughly and possibly reformed before the machine can be powered again. Eric From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Jan 18 12:57:00 2012 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt @ Atari Museum) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:57:00 -0500 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F164554.90707@jbrain.com> References: , <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> <4F164554.90707@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> There are a lot of adapters (Atmel and PIC) that will take a PS/2 keybaord and make it into a USB device.... those would be a very good start as you'd have 1/2 of the work down, next you'd want to guy the VUSB core out of the code, then take the input from the PS/2 and set of the ports of the microcontroller for output, setup a row and column and create your matrix and then build the hardware with some diodes for the outputs to avoid debounce and and other issues. Jim Brain wrote: > On 1/17/2012 6:24 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 17 Jan 2012 at 16:49, Jim Brain wrote: >> >>> As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if >>> not impossible. >> I concocted my soluation after looking at the TRS-80 model 4 >> schematics. >> >> Clearly, other keyboard schemes will require other solutions. But >> I'd still want a MCU to decode the PS/2 keyboard proposed. Maybe >> Tony wants to do the decoding with discrete logic, but that would not >> be my first choice for simplicity, expense or power. It's not the >> PS/2's choice either to the best of my knowledge. >> >> --Chuck >> > I agree. C=Key does exactly that, using a crosspoint for the matrix > and an AVR for the PS/2 protocol. > > Jim > From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 18 13:01:25 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:01:25 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> Message-ID: <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> >>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. Very doubtful! Where is he located? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 18 13:20:02 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:20:02 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> References: , <4F164554.90707@jbrain.com>, <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4F16AAE2.22124.4AA417@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 13:57, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > There are a lot of adapters (Atmel and PIC) that will take a PS/2 > keybaord and make it into a USB device.... those would be a very good > start as you'd have 1/2 of the work down, next you'd want to guy the > VUSB core out of the code, then take the input from the PS/2 and set > of the ports of the microcontroller for output, setup a row and column > and create your matrix and then build the hardware with some diodes > for the outputs to avoid debounce and and other issues. I'm not following--the code to interface to a PS/2 keyboard is no big deal--see the PS/2-to-XT converter I did for the VC forum using an 8- pin PIC MCU. In this situation, a 20-pin ATTiny2313 would be more than adquate. The Model 4 uses 8 bits from the address lines and 8 bits of the data lines in a system-defined space. Essentially, the keyboard interface represents 256 bytes of memory where the contents change depending upon what key is pressed. Since the PS/2 keyboard does its own debouncing, I'm having a problem figuring out what the diodes are for. Jim and Tony proposed using an 8x8 crosspoint switch IC; I proposed using a dual-ported 256 byte RAM. as an alternative. I'll admit that I haven't checked prices on either; it could be that the crosspoint switch IC is cheaper than the DP RAM. In either case, I don't see the need for debouncing (although the TRS- 80 probably has code to do it). Maybe you were thinking about using an array of 256 relays? Just color me dense today. --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 18 13:24:57 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:24:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 17, 12 04:24:31 pm Message-ID: > > On 17 Jan 2012 at 16:49, Jim Brain wrote: > > > As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if > > not impossible. > > I concocted my soluation after looking at the TRS-80 model 4 > schematics. > > Clearly, other keyboard schemes will require other solutions. But > I'd still want a MCU to decode the PS/2 keyboard proposed. Maybe > Tony wants to do the decoding with discrete logic, but that would not If you re-read my original post, you'll see I porposed using a microcontroller (to decode the PS/2 signals) and a crosspoint switch IC. > be my first choice for simplicity, expense or power. It's not the > PS/2's choice either to the best of my knowledge. I beleive the PS/2s used a microcontrolelr on the motherboard. The PC/AT certainly did (an 8042). The PC and PC/XT did not, but then keyboard protorcol there is a little simpler. I do feel, though , that in some cases, a microcontroller (or other programmed devices) adds complexity and makes it more dificult to understnd or repair the device in the future, I can understnad why commercial organisations like this, but it does seem rather against the spirit of classic computing (which to some extent depends on understnading old machines and being able to repair them). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 18 13:28:15 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:28:15 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <0B5E50A6-CD73-47AF-B966-D4EAE39F89CA@gmail.com> from "David Riley" at Jan 17, 12 08:12:41 pm Message-ID: > Even the AT keyboard (whose protocol the PS/2 keyboard uses) used an > 8042 and possibly a scanning IC. All IBM PC family keyboards contain a microcontroller. I beleive this was origianlly an 8048, but I have seen at least one IBM keyboard with a 6805 in it. The clone keyboards that I've seen that have recognisable ICs (as opposed to epoxy-cvapped direct-on-board ones) contain 8048s or similar. The PC/AT (and I assume PS/2s) have an 8042 microcntrolelr on the moterhboard to handle communcation with the keyboard. The PC and PC/XT don't, they use a TTL shift register an a little glue logic. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 18 13:19:42 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:19:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> from "Jim Brain" at Jan 17, 12 04:49:31 pm Message-ID: > > On 1/17/2012 1:34 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > No, given a dual-ported RAM, this works. It's fine for a 8*8 matrix (as > > in the case of the TRS-80). it's less fine for a 16*8 matrix, when you > > needa 64K dual-ported RAM and have to update 32768 locations (i.e. > > half of them) for every key change-of-state. > Given the original topic, a dual port RAM is indeed feasible. However, > for keyboards that can be scanned either way (CBM VIC-20, C64, C128, > C128D, +4), dual port will not work, as one cannot guarantee that the > rows are the "addresses" and the columns are the "data" or vice versa. I assume in this case the row and column lines are connected to a PIA or similar chip so that they can either be inputs or outputs. The CoCo is similar. Most other machines enforce in the hardware whether the rows or columns are the 'driven' lines, which means you can use a dual-ported RAM, or digital logic to simulate the keyboard > For reference, the CBM PET has a 3-8 decoder used to select rows in the > KB matrix, so a dual port ram option can work (because the design can > guarantee the address and data usage) > > There is a MT8816, which is an 8x16 matrix. Right. > > As Tony notes, KB matrix diodes would make things more complicated, if > not impossible. I don't think you can simulate such a keybaord usign an analogue crosspoint IC. On the otehr hamd, the existance of such diodes pretty much enforces which lines are inputs and which are outputs, so yuu could then use the dual-ported RAM solution. -tony From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jan 18 13:42:05 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:42:05 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> References: , <4F15FAFB.2040905@jbrain.com> <4F15A0BF.29373.195EF11@cclist.sydex.com> <4F164554.90707@jbrain.com> <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> On 1/18/2012 12:57 PM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: > There are a lot of adapters (Atmel and PIC) that will take a PS/2 > keybaord and make it into a USB device.... those would be a very good > start as you'd have 1/2 of the work down, next you'd want to guy the > VUSB core out of the code, then take the input from the PS/2 and set > of the ports of the microcontroller for output, setup a row and column > and create your matrix and then build the hardware with some diodes > for the outputs to avoid debounce and and other issues. I don't have an issue with the electronics per se. My main stumbling block is the lack cheap uCs that are USB "host" mode capable. For example, the atmega32u2 is USB device mode capable, but not host mode. Host mode capable devices are larger and more expensive. Jim From pontus at update.uu.se Wed Jan 18 14:32:42 2012 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:32:42 +0100 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F172C6A.4070600@update.uu.se> On 01/18/2012 08:01 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. > > Very doubtful! > > Where is he located? Steve has for some reason quoted himself. So the address at the bottom of the mail is his. /P From geneb at deltasoft.com Wed Jan 18 15:07:56 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:07:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. > > Very doubtful! > > Where is he located? > >From the price, I suspect La-La Land. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jan 18 15:23:25 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:23:25 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: So he has 990 items worth $1000 each? or 9999 items worth $100 each? There are not that many Apple items worth major money and the rare ones that are have to be in good working condition. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Buckle" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 4:07 PM Subject: Re: Mac Museum > On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >> >>>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. >> >> Very doubtful! >> >> Where is he located? >> > From the price, I suspect La-La Land. > > g. > > -- > Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 > http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. > http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. > Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. > > ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment > A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. > http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! > > Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical > minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which > holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd > by the clean end. From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 18 15:41:18 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:41:18 -0600 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: <201201182141.q0ILfaUb085921@billy.ezwind.net> At 03:23 PM 1/18/2012, TeoZ wrote: >So he has 990 items worth $1000 each? or 9999 items worth $100 each? >There are not that many Apple items worth major money and the rare ones that are have to be in good working condition. Maybe he has five Apple I and one of everything else. - John From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 18 16:01:11 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:01:11 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> References: , <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com>, <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 13:42, Jim Brain wrote: > example, the atmega32u2 is USB device mode capable, but not host mode. > > Host mode capable devices are larger and more expensive. It seems that it depends on your exact needs. For example, the ATMega32 can be made to talk to a USB mouse: http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ee476/FinalProjects/s2007/blh36_cdl28_d ct23/blh36_cdl28_dct23/index.html I suspect that the same is true of a USB keyboard and other simple HID devices. But those are exceptions and not a general solution. There are interface chips, such as the FTDI Vinculum and the Maxim MAX3421, which probably wouldn't break the bank. With that you can implement a lightweight host on an Arduino: https://github.com/felis/USB_Host_Shield_2.0 LUFA provides specialized (e.g. HID host, MIDI host) host capabilities for a limited set of peripherals using the AT90SUB chips. http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php On the other hand, silicon's getting cheaper, so implementing a host design using ARM or PIC32 isn't a big deal and both have USB host capabilities (and vendor-supplied software to go along with it). But if you're looking for a general host controller with 5V Vcc and a DIP package, I suspect that you'll be looking a long, long time. --Chuck From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Jan 18 16:14:04 2012 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt Vendel) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:14:04 -0500 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> I can use a $1.00 Atmega8A and easily implement a USB keyboard and connect an Atari 800 keyboard in a row/column matrix very easily. Now going the other way around requires the port pins to be outputs and you would use the same amount of pins for talking to a ps/2 keyboard as talking out as a USB device, you'll still need 2 pins for clock lines and run at 12mhz for best results... You don't need to throw a lot at this situation. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 18, 2012, at 5:01 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > On 18 Jan 2012 at 13:42, Jim Brain wrote: > >> example, the atmega32u2 is USB device mode capable, but not host mode. >> >> Host mode capable devices are larger and more expensive. > > It seems that it depends on your exact needs. For example, the > ATMega32 can be made to talk to a USB mouse: > > http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ee476/FinalProjects/s2007/blh36_cdl28_d > ct23/blh36_cdl28_dct23/index.html > > I suspect that the same is true of a USB keyboard and other simple > HID devices. But those are exceptions and not a general solution. > > There are interface chips, such as the FTDI Vinculum and the Maxim > MAX3421, which probably wouldn't break the bank. With that you can > implement a lightweight host on an Arduino: > > https://github.com/felis/USB_Host_Shield_2.0 > > LUFA provides specialized (e.g. HID host, MIDI host) host > capabilities for a limited set of peripherals using the AT90SUB > chips. > > http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php > > On the other hand, silicon's getting cheaper, so implementing a host > design using ARM or PIC32 isn't a big deal and both have USB host > capabilities (and vendor-supplied software to go along with it). > > But if you're looking for a general host controller with 5V Vcc and a > DIP package, I suspect that you'll be looking a long, long time. > > --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 18 16:28:21 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:28:21 -0800 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> On 1/18/12 1:23 PM, TeoZ wrote: > There are not that many Apple items worth major money he was a PC recycler. what he has is what you get through that channel. http://web.me.com/macabbott1/macabb.com/List_of_Macs.html From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jan 18 16:41:29 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:41:29 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> References: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4F174A99.90009@jbrain.com> On 1/18/2012 4:14 PM, Curt Vendel wrote: > I can use a $1.00 Atmega8A and easily implement a USB keyboard and connect an Atari 800 keyboard in a row/column matrix very easily. Now going the other way around requires the port pins to be outputs and you would use the same amount of pins for talking to a ps/2 keyboard as talking out as a USB device, you'll still need 2 pins for clock lines and run at 12mhz for best results... You don't need to throw a lot at this situation. matrix KB to USB is indeed very easy. As you note, M8 is easily doable (LUFA + the KB connector of choice and some glue code). The other way requires host mode functionality. Chuck, I'll admit I did not see the limited Host mode support in LUFA, but I did see the EE project. I dloaded the code, and it's definitely a college project :-). I decided against trying to refactor the code into something usable. In my case, as I redesign C=Key, I have some other goals in mind: * field upgradable via USB port * Support for hose and device mode (current C=Key operates in both directions as well) * Minimal parts count (I'm aware of the VNC1L and such, but they are pricey for what they offer) Since DIP/TH packaging is not a requirement for me, and minimal parts count and small size is, I am leaning towards a small OTG-capable ARM variant for the new design. They are reasonably inexpensive, and offer all of capabilities I feel are needed. I would enjoy a cheaper Xpoint switch option, but perhaps that is asking too much. Dual Port RAM is cheaper, but some apps depend on the interesting effects of "n" key rollover, which is harder to replicate in a dual port RAM setup. Of course, I think the C64, which can scan either way, dual purposes the row and column lines for joysticks, and uses two of the lines to select paddles, is an extreme case, but it's a challenging case nonetheless. TRS-80 M4 does indeed seem easier to support. Jim From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 18 16:42:09 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:42:09 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> > he was a PC recycler. what he has is what you get through that channel. > > http://web.me.com/macabbott1/macabb.com/List_of_Macs.html So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal enjoyment, and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that smells bad. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jan 18 16:57:08 2012 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:57:08 +0000 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 18/01/2012 22:28, "Al Kossow" wrote: > On 1/18/12 1:23 PM, TeoZ wrote: > >> There are not that many Apple items worth major money > > he was a PC recycler. what he has is what you get through that channel. > > http://web.me.com/macabbott1/macabb.com/List_of_Macs.html The TAM is the only one I'd like out of that list, maybe the original 128K too but they're around. Millions eh. His advisers need to stop smoking. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From curt at atarimuseum.com Wed Jan 18 16:59:00 2012 From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt Vendel) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:59:00 -0500 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F174A99.90009@jbrain.com> References: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> <4F174A99.90009@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <20B31D9B-DFC7-4255-AC5F-EEFE0594D9D0@atarimuseum.com> If you want to work together on something Jim, I'd be happy to. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 18, 2012, at 5:41 PM, Jim Brain wrote: > On 1/18/2012 4:14 PM, Curt Vendel wrote: >> I can use a $1.00 Atmega8A and easily implement a USB keyboard and connect an Atari 800 keyboard in a row/column matrix very easily. Now going the other way around requires the port pins to be outputs and you would use the same amount of pins for talking to a ps/2 keyboard as talking out as a USB device, you'll still need 2 pins for clock lines and run at 12mhz for best results... You don't need to throw a lot at this situation. > matrix KB to USB is indeed very easy. As you note, M8 is easily doable (LUFA + the KB connector of choice and some glue code). > The other way requires host mode functionality. Chuck, I'll admit I did not see the limited Host mode support in LUFA, but I did see the EE project. I dloaded the code, and it's definitely a college project :-). I decided against trying to refactor the code into something usable. > > In my case, as I redesign C=Key, I have some other goals in mind: > > * field upgradable via USB port > * Support for hose and device mode (current C=Key operates in both > directions as well) > * Minimal parts count (I'm aware of the VNC1L and such, but they are > pricey for what they offer) > > Since DIP/TH packaging is not a requirement for me, and minimal parts count and small size is, I am leaning towards a small OTG-capable ARM variant for the new design. They are reasonably inexpensive, and offer all of capabilities I feel are needed. > > I would enjoy a cheaper Xpoint switch option, but perhaps that is asking too much. Dual Port RAM is cheaper, but some apps depend on the interesting effects of "n" key rollover, which is harder to replicate in a dual port RAM setup. Of course, I think the C64, which can scan either way, dual purposes the row and column lines for joysticks, and uses two of the lines to select paddles, is an extreme case, but it's a challenging case nonetheless. TRS-80 M4 does indeed seem easier to support. > > Jim > > From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 18 17:11:21 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:11:21 -0600 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> At 04:42 PM 1/18/2012, Evan Koblentz wrote: >So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal enjoyment, and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that smells bad. And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? - John From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 18 17:34:36 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:34:36 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> References: , <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com>, <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 17:14, Curt Vendel wrote: > I can use a $1.00 Atmega8A and easily implement a USB keyboard and > connect an Atari 800 keyboard in a row/column matrix very easily. > Now going the other way around requires the port pins to be outputs > and you would use the same amount of pins for talking to a ps/2 > keyboard as talking out as a USB device, you'll still need 2 pins for > clock lines and run at 12mhz for best results... You don't need to > throw a lot at this situation. The USB keyboard and mice are special HID devices and not at all like most other USB devices as I noted. As a counter-example, I suspect you'll have a lot of trouble talking to a USB flash drive with an ATMega8. In that sense, the ATMega8 isn't a true USB host. See my cite on using a Mega32 to talk to a mouse--mothing to it. Serving as host to a USB WiFi modem, on the other hand, is a real project. One of the more frequent questions on the MCU forums is "how do I talk to a USB flash drive using a low-end AVR or PIC?". The answer is that you don't--at least not without some external help. --Chuck From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Jan 18 17:38:57 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:38:57 +1300 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Are you sure he's a PC recyler? It doesn't say that on his website. It says "Mac consultant". I agree that the collection comes nowhere near the $1 million being floated but I find the tone of these responses pretty negative, The guy seems to be a collector, who's getting on in years (maybe his health's not too good) his collection is getting a little too much for him and he wants to pass it on. He's asked for advice from people on this list so let's be helpful. My advice to him if he wants to maximise the value of his collection is make a plan to sell it off on e-bay or other auction sites. Bulk lot sales often go for a very low price and more often than not they are bought by dealers who cherry pick for e-bay and scrap most of the lot. Few people have the space and resources to take it all at once. Even selling it off bit by bit won't come close to the value suggested though. There is nothing exceedingly rare in there. Terry (Tez) On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Adrian Graham < witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: > On 18/01/2012 22:28, "Al Kossow" wrote: > > > On 1/18/12 1:23 PM, TeoZ wrote: > > > >> There are not that many Apple items worth major money > > > > he was a PC recycler. what he has is what you get through that channel. > > > > http://web.me.com/macabbott1/macabb.com/List_of_Macs.html > > The TAM is the only one I'd like out of that list, maybe the original 128K > too but they're around. > > Millions eh. His advisers need to stop smoking. > > -- > Adrian/Witchy > Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator > Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer > collection? > > > From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 18 17:41:07 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:41:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding >> they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his >> personal enjoyment, and now he's trying to make a huge profit from >> them .... that smells bad. > And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you > coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? I was wondering much the same thing. Reuse is the best form of recycling, right? And where's the problem with a recycler making a profit on resale? That's recyclers they work in general, right? I'm not seeing the problem here. Unless of course he made specific claims about how it was going to be recycled which were lies, but then it's the lies that are the problem, not the rest of it. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 18 17:56:25 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:56:25 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F175C29.1070703@snarc.net> > The guy seems to be a collector Strikes me as a hoarder, not a collector. Nobody in our collecting world strives to have every obscure model of (for example) the Performa. He's just another crazy Machead. If he got over his head and now he's stuck .... oh well. I hope the machines eventually find good homes, but it's hard to respect how he is going about it. From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 17:57:08 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:57:08 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2012 3:38 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > > The USB keyboard and mice are special HID devices and not at all like > most other USB devices as I noted. I must have missed what you were getting at there. In what way specifically are USB keyboards and mice "special"? For the purposes here just that they are typically implemented as Low-Speed devices instead of Full-Speed devices? -Glen From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 18 18:02:35 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:02:35 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F175D9B.5050307@snarc.net> >> And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? - John It's the method and price that offend me. People bring stuff to a recycler; they don't figure he will try to flip it for a million dollars. Or if people hear that he's a collector, then same deal -- collect it, and when you can't anymore, then send it to another good home(s) -- but trying to grossly profit from stuff he presumably obtained free/cheap, and much of which came his way with intentions to be recycled? That's just wrong. From mc68010 at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 18:06:31 2012 From: mc68010 at gmail.com (David Clark) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:06:31 -0800 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> On 1/18/2012 3:41 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> ... that smells bad. >> And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you >> coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? > I was wondering much the same thing. Reuse is the best form of > recycling, right? And where's the problem with a recycler making a > profit on resale? That's recyclers they work in general, right? > I'd rather see stuff kept in one piece than scrapped any day. Only problem I see is if he was an actual non-profit as some recyclers are. Most won't, or can't, sell to the general public though. All sorts of headaches when profit starts coming in. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jan 18 18:14:22 2012 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:14:22 -0600 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <90DE7F97-C8F3-488C-AC5D-3670B5974A6D@classiccmp.org> C'mon, this type of diatribe just isn't necessary, productive, useful, nor informative. People can express their opinions without others feeling some innate need to "prove them wrong". Just let it go. .... all snipped as it's junk..... From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 18:25:41 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:25:41 -0600 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F176305.2020504@gmail.com> Evan Koblentz wrote: > >>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. > > Very doubtful! Guyanese Dollars, maybe? :-) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 18:27:44 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:27:44 -0600 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F176380.6070900@gmail.com> David Clark wrote: > On 1/18/2012 3:41 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>> ... that smells bad. >>> And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you >>> coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? >> I was wondering much the same thing. Reuse is the best form of >> recycling, right? And where's the problem with a recycler making a >> profit on resale? That's recyclers they work in general, right? >> > > I'd rather see stuff kept in one piece than scrapped any day. Agreed, although I'd rather see things distributed sensibly in small batches over it all being in one place. I can't imagine making a single museum out of that lot; the diversity just isn't there. cheers Jules From tshoppa at wmata.com Wed Jan 18 18:31:20 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:31:20 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum Message-ID: >>>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. There is an episode of Taxi where Jim burns down Louie's (Danny DeVito's) apartment and Louie, knowing that Jim's dad is super rich, tries to decide on the exact right amount to ask for in monetary compensation, not too little, not too much, getting close to nice round numbers, but avoiding nice round numbers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcsxzXAUeA From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 18 18:29:26 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:29:26 -0600 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F175D9B.5050307@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> <4F175D9B.5050307@snarc.net> Message-ID: <201201190042.q0J0gY1J089716@billy.ezwind.net> At 06:02 PM 1/18/2012, Evan Koblentz wrote: >It's the method and price that offend me. People bring stuff to a recycler; they don't figure he will try to flip it for a million dollars. Maybe I haven't visited enough private recycling operations, but the big sales floor full of rejuvenated PCs and used parts is my first tip-off that they're eager to skim and sell the best stuff. As has been discussed many times before, isn't it in the classic computer collector's best interest that recyclers are smart enough to skim the more valuable stuff (*for any given definition of valuable). - John From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 18 18:45:48 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:45:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F176305.2020504@gmail.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F176305.2020504@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120118164026.V6255@shell.lmi.net> > >>>> the collection is worth millions, though my estimate is $990,000. > > Guyanese Dollars, maybe? :-) Being that this is classic computing, perhaps in Altairian dollars. In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. It exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination. -HHGTTG How many R at RE Macs (y'know, the ones with the developers' signatures on the inside) does it take to be worth one Altair? From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 18 18:57:04 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:57:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F176380.6070900@gmail.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> <4F176380.6070900@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120118164723.M6255@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote: > Agreed, although I'd rather see things distributed sensibly in small > batches over it all being in one place. I can't imagine making a single > museum out of that lot; the diversity just isn't there. Bill Harrah included in his collection one new Ford from every year - a standing order direct with the factory. It was a massive collection, and for SOME makes, comprehensively complete. When he died, it was referred to as a "1930 used car lot", and was immediately stripped down, sold off, dismantled, and scrapped, keeping just a few choice "examples". Wanna see the first car with Kettering's electric starter or point/condenser ignition? NOT ANY MORE. I watched them auction off a Scarab, and I went home in tears. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 18 20:09:34 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:09:34 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: References: , <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F170ADE.25530.1C196AA@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 15:57, Glen Slick wrote: > On Jan 18, 2012 3:38 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > > > > The USB keyboard and mice are special HID devices and not at all > > like most other USB devices as I noted. > > I must have missed what you were getting at there. In what way > specifically are USB keyboards and mice "special"? For the purposes > here just that they are typically implemented as Low-Speed devices > instead of Full-Speed devices? Well, they're low-speed devices, but they're unique among HID devices in that they also implement a "boot protocol". The HID spec devotes quite a few pages to this. --Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 20:13:36 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:13:36 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > For example, in the PDP-1 restoration, we went to great pains to reform the > original capacitors, using a grossly over-engineered technique, and to > document every aspect of this process (and of the entire restoration). Has there been any thought about installing some sort of non-invasive, reversible monitoring circuitry to the PDP-1 (or other operating artifacts)? Perhaps a circuit to watch the ripple or leakage in the capacitors, and shut down the machine if and danger is sensed? -- Will From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 18 20:21:43 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:21:43 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> William Donzelli wrote: > Has there been any thought about installing some sort of non-invasive, > reversible monitoring circuitry to the PDP-1 I proposed that, but I don't think the idea got any serious consideration. > (or other operating artifacts)? I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 20:34:39 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:34:39 -0500 Subject: VAX-11/751 available In-Reply-To: <4F16378D.3080506@compsys.to> References: <569C76D8-9715-4546-A08D-95512D6B3149@neurotica.com> <4F16378D.3080506@compsys.to> Message-ID: > Hopefully, William Donzelli will see this! The post is noted. Perhaps it would be a good time for me to once again talk about how it is in everyone's best interest to keep the vintage computer dealers and scrappers happy. Although it has not arisen in quite some time on this list, there is a significant portion of collectors here that degrade dealers and scrappers as lower class citizens - greedy soulless scums that are clearly motivated by money and nothing else, and are open game for lowball offers, tire-kicking, chiseling, insults, smears, and other abuse. While some may indeed deserve such treatment, most are fairly decent intelligent people, and deserve a little respect. Treated correctly, these people can be great sources of truly wonderful machines. Treated incorrectly, however, they can be very spiteful, and return the ill will in ways that range from ignoring pleas to complete scrapping of the hardware. Remember, while we view the machines as rare VAX minis, Fujitsu tapedrives, or 3270 terminals, they can view it as just a bunch of metal, with any monetary loss in the present just made up for in the future, with a smile. I have posted about this before - interested students can search the archives for earlier talks on the subject. -- Will From evan at snarc.net Wed Jan 18 20:35:06 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:35:06 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... Message-ID: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine and their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for us -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show. From classiccmp at earthlink.net Wed Jan 18 21:17:48 2012 From: classiccmp at earthlink.net (David C. Jenner) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:17:48 -0800 Subject: Old dgital videos Message-ID: <4F178B5C.2040201@earthlink.net> I have two video cassette tapes from "digital media services" (DEC). Both are Copyright 1976. One is: Introduction to Minicomputers Instruction Sets EY-A0083-VT-001 The other is: Introduction to Minicomputers I/O Techniques EY-A0090-VT-001 These are obviously part of a series "Introduction to Minicomputers." Does anyone have any of the other tapes? Are they archived somewhere? Should they be archived somewhere? Are they a part of a larger set of educational materials for a course? From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jan 18 21:23:14 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:23:14 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <20B31D9B-DFC7-4255-AC5F-EEFE0594D9D0@atarimuseum.com> References: <4F1715FC.8040305@atarimuseum.com> <4F17208D.5090004@jbrain.com> <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com> <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> <4F174A99.90009@jbrain.com> <20B31D9B-DFC7-4255-AC5F-EEFE0594D9D0@atarimuseum.com> Message-ID: <4F178CA2.9020305@jbrain.com> On 1/18/2012 4:59 PM, Curt Vendel wrote: > If you want to work together on something Jim, I'd be happy to. I'd love to. Options for a small-ish OTG-capable uC with 24 pins of IO (8+12 for a 8x12 matrix, 1 for RESET, 1 for LED, 2 for AUX duty) + USB at a low cost would be ideal. Jim From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jan 18 21:28:51 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:28:51 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F16D0A7.3454.DE2DDE@cclist.sydex.com>, <5DA4E92C-0D3A-4D9A-B0FA-0AB3F63A7359@atarimuseum.com> <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F178DF3.5050704@jbrain.com> On 1/18/2012 5:34 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The USB keyboard and mice are special HID devices and not at all like > most other USB devices as I noted. As a counter-example, I suspect > you'll have a lot of trouble talking to a USB flash drive with an ATMega8. I think, in the midst of trimming the post, we've messed with the OP's goal, USB KB to KB matrix. For that purpose, a "pseudo" USB Host implementation that can handle HID would suffice, though it might be more trouble than simply obtaining a true OTG-capable uC. One of my most important design goals is the ability to support a USB flash drive. It sounds silly to do so on a KB interface, but I have found "field-upgrades" to be an essential hobbyist project criteria, as it allows incomplete firmware to be enhanced and bugs fixed without requiring all customers own a programmer and remove the device from the circuit. It makes hobbyist projects infinitely more pleasurable to produce, as you can feel significantly less guilty if a bug is found after production. For this feature, alas, a pseudo-USB host functionality would probably not be enough. For the DIYer, though, it might be enough to use LUFA and it's at90USB HID host support. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From IanK at vulcan.com Wed Jan 18 21:48:56 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:48:56 +0000 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On 1/18/12 6:21 PM, "Eric Smith" wrote: >William Donzelli wrote: > > Has there been any thought about installing some sort of non-invasive, > > reversible monitoring circuitry to the PDP-1 > >I proposed that, but I don't think the idea got any serious consideration. > > > (or other operating artifacts)? > >I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) >systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding >quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. > > > Instead of all of that, why not just replace the capacitors? We've restored a 2065 that runs 24x7, and that's where we learned that you can cross your fingers and pray, or recognize that even when they're sitting on a shelf aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AlECs) degrade with time. I understand the concern about cosmetics - modern AlECs may be significantly different in dimensions, and in situations where they are visible it can impact the appearance of the artifact. On our PDP-7, we elected not to replace the filter capacitors, which are the size of large soup cans. Instead, we added small power supplies in a non-destructive manner (no holes were drilled) and added cabling to provide their output to the machine's circuits. The visual impact is small and the amendment can be completely reversed. It's a real problem that modern AlECs, while superior in construction and density, are commonly far smaller than original components. But replacing existing components with contemporaneous "new old stock" doesn't solve the problem, because AlECs degrade simply sitting on the shelf, according to research. We're going to have to get creative. I've heard of folks who hollow out original AlECs and embed new, higher-density components. We supplemented the existing system with modern switching supplies (which also has the advantage of far higher efficiency). The tension between access and preservation continues, with no simple or obvious answers. -- Ian From radioengr at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 22:12:33 2012 From: radioengr at gmail.com (Rob Doyle) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:12:33 -0700 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> On 1/18/2012 7:21 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > William Donzelli wrote: > > Has there been any thought about installing some sort of non-invasive, > > reversible monitoring circuitry to the PDP-1 > > I proposed that, but I don't think the idea got any serious consideration. > > > (or other operating artifacts)? > > I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) > systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding > quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. It seems to me that you'd need to understand the failure mechanism to build a monitor for it. I just had a big Heathkit Audio Amp loose both of the big filter capacitors... I'm not sure I understand the sequence of events. It's obvious that the rectifier diodes were hot - the board is a little discolored - but the diodes are still good. Both big capacitors are now fully open. In fact the 'innards' rattle inside the capacitor can. It is as-if the capacitors initially shorted for a while, and then opened... I'm not sure why both capacitors failed at the same time - one is on the positive voltage, the other is on the negative voltage. What exactly is the physics of failure for big capacitors? Rob. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 18 22:18:07 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:18:07 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F178DF3.5050704@jbrain.com> References: , <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F178DF3.5050704@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 21:28, Jim Brain wrote: > One of my most important design goals is the ability to support a USB > flash drive. It sounds silly to do so on a KB interface, but I have > found "field-upgrades" to be an essential hobbyist project criteria, > as it allows incomplete firmware to be enhanced and bugs fixed without > requiring all customers own a programmer and remove the device from > the circuit. It makes hobbyist projects infinitely more pleasurable > to produce, as you can feel significantly less guilty if a bug is > found after production. For this feature, alas, a pseudo-USB host > functionality would probably not be enough. Well, you may want to think about the AVR USB MCUs (8 bit, 16MHz). Atmel has a couple of appnotes doing this with an AT90USB647 or AT90USB1287 (AVR247). That's probably close to the minimum (64QFN package) that you can do this in. --Chuck From brain at jbrain.com Wed Jan 18 22:53:05 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:53:05 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F178DF3.5050704@jbrain.com> <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F17A1B1.5030404@jbrain.com> On 1/18/2012 10:18 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Well, you may want to think about the AVR USB MCUs (8 bit, 16MHz). > Atmel has a couple of appnotes doing this with an AT90USB647 or > AT90USB1287 (AVR247). That's probably close to the minimum (64QFN > package) that you can do this in. Understood, though it's $10+ in singles, while the LPC1756 is $8.40 in singles and the price drops faster in 100s than for the AVR. 64tqfp versus 80tqfp. the onboard EEPROM on the 647 (for custom keyboard mappings) makes life interesting, though. Jim From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 22:56:00 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:56:00 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F170ADE.25530.1C196AA@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F16E68C.16124.133B6F6@cclist.sydex.com> <4F170ADE.25530.1C196AA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2012 6:13 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > > Well, they're low-speed devices, but they're unique among HID devices > in that they also implement a "boot protocol". Ok, I can see that point. Writing a general purpose HID report parser doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun if you need to fit it into a small microcontroller. -Glen From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 23:07:59 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:07:59 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9B42F743-E89F-490E-8BFB-C56EF29CB30E@gmail.com> On Jan 18, 2012, at 22:48, Ian King wrote: > On 1/18/12 6:21 PM, "Eric Smith" wrote: > >> I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) >> systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding >> quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. >> >> >> > > Instead of all of that, why not just replace the capacitors? Why not do both? The monitors will help detect when the new capacitors inevitably start failing. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 18 23:13:35 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:13:35 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 18, 2012, at 23:12, Rob Doyle wrote: > It seems to me that you'd need to understand the failure > mechanism to build a monitor for it. In my experience, they tend to lose capacity with age, eventually becoming an open circuit as the electrolyte dries out. This is often reflected as higher ripple. > It is as-if the capacitors initially shorted for a while, > and then opened... I'm not sure why both capacitors failed > at the same time - one is on the positive voltage, the other > is on the negative voltage. Could that not reflect a higher peak current due to high ripple? Or possibly inadequate thermal design to begin with? - Dave From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 18 23:44:07 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:44:07 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> Ian King wrote: > Instead of all of that, why not just replace the capacitors? Why not just verify that the capacitors meet specifications, and only replace them if they've failed? Anyhow, even if the capacitors are replaced, I'll *still* want to monitor the voltage and ripple. > even when they're sitting on a shelf aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AlECs) degrade with time. There is very little non-reversible degradation. Most of the degradation is oxide breakdown, and is reversed by the reformation process. Note that the reformation process isn't doing something bizarre to the capacitor. It's basically doing the same thing the vendor does to it during manufacturing to grow the oxide layer in the first place. > On our PDP-7, we elected not to replace the filter capacitors, which are the size of large soup cans. Have you looked at the capacitors in the "capacitor box" of the ECL power supply of the KL10, between the H760 raw supply and H761 regulated supply? There are 13 300,000uF 15V capacitors. There are certainly modern replacements that are smaller, but if they're not broken, I'm not going to replace them. They're also fairly expensive, roughly $50 each. From eric at brouhaha.com Wed Jan 18 23:50:33 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:50:33 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F17AF29.9020009@brouhaha.com> Rob Doyle wrote: > It seems to me that you'd need to understand the failure > mechanism to build a monitor for it. You don't need to understand the failure mechanism of a component to monitor for the failure. You only need to understand the observable behaviour of a failing component. Nevertheless, the failure mechanisms of aluminum electrolytic capacitors are well understood. Three of the most common are: 1) oxide breakdown - when not under bias for an extended period, the oxide breaks down, which reduces the safe working voltage of the capacitor. At lower voltages, the capacitor appears to be more leaky than it should be. This can be fixed by reforming the capacitor. 2) catastrophic breakdown - when the applied voltage exceeds the safe working voltage (which may be reduced from factory spec due to oxide breakdown), the capacitor will short out in a spectacular manner. Non-repairable. 3) electrolyte drying out - this happens if the seals are bad, or if the capacitor is overstressed and ruptures the seals. Non-repairable. > It is as-if the capacitors initially shorted for a while, > and then opened... Sounds like it had oxide breakdown, which then resulted in catastrophic breakdown. From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 00:32:18 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:32:18 -0700 Subject: Beehive B100 manual Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 00:35:45 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:35:45 -0700 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> <201201182312.q0INC5Sx088176@billy.ezwind.net> <201201182341.SAA16838@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F175E87.5010009@gmail.com> Message-ID: In article <4F175E87.5010009 at gmail.com>, David Clark writes: > I'd rather see stuff kept in one piece than scrapped any day. Only > problem I see is if he was an actual non-profit as some recyclers are. > Most won't, or can't, sell to the general public though. All sorts of > headaches when profit starts coming in. It's a misconception that a non-profit can't make "profits". The rules for non-profit corporations don't require that the NPC lose money. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 00:40:24 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:40:24 -0700 Subject: Restoring a DEC KL10 (was: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: In article <4F177E37.8030204 at brouhaha.com>, Eric Smith writes: > I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) > systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding > quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. I'd advise you to consult with the folks at the Living Computer Museum. IMO, they did a wonderful job of replacing the original power supply in their machines with a modern efficient switching design. It was all done in such a way that the upgrade was fully reversible to restore the machine to it's original condition. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Jan 19 01:00:24 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:00:24 +0100 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120119080024.8klm7n47400kooc4@webmail.opentransfer.com> Zitat von Ian King : We've restored a 2065 that runs 24x7, and that's where we learned that you can cross your fingers and pray, or recognize that even when they're sitting on a shelf aluminum electrolytic capacitors (AlECs) degrade with time. I was involved in a project where we had to guarantee long term availability of some electronic circuits. At the end of it, we decided not to populate the electrolytics and store them on the shelf. There was an adpater build to rejuvenate/reform them every few years and test before being used. Just storing them on a shelf is the worst thing you can do to them ;-) From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 19 01:05:53 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:05:53 -0800 Subject: Restoring a DEC KL10 In-Reply-To: References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F17C0D1.7090609@brouhaha.com> Richard wrote: > I'd advise you to consult with the folks at the Living Computer > Museum. IMO, they did a wonderful job of replacing the original power > supply in their machines with a modern efficient switching design. My understanding is that they replaced the entire ECL power supply system with modern switchers. I plan to keep the original power supply front end (three-phase to -12V DC), and only replace the linear regulator modules (nine each -12V to -5.2V at 35A, and four each -12V to -2.0V at 35A) with switchers. That preserves (and actually improves upon) the AC power-fail functionality of the system, allowing the processor state to be written to RAM, to allow resumption of execution on power restoration. (Assuming that the RAM is nonvolatile, which in the original machines was accomplished by either core memory, or battery-backed DRAM.) However, I plan to get the machine working with the original regulators before I change anything. > It was all done in such a way that the upgrade was fully reversible to > restore the machine to it's original condition. Naturally I plan to do that also. From emu at e-bbes.com Thu Jan 19 01:08:55 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:08:55 +0100 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <9B42F743-E89F-490E-8BFB-C56EF29CB30E@gmail.com> References: <9B42F743-E89F-490E-8BFB-C56EF29CB30E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120119080855.xpi0qpwao40w00cc@webmail.opentransfer.com> Zitat von David Riley : >>> I may be involved in an effort to get one or two DECSYSTEM-2065 (KL10) >>> systems running in the near future, and I'm seriously considering adding >>> quite a few voltage/current/temperature monitors. >> Instead of all of that, why not just replace the capacitors? > Why not do both? The monitors will help detect when the new > capacitors inevitably start failing. The problem is, they are going bad, because you didn't use them. Monitoring them after switching on the power supply isn't not really neccessary, as you can see the hole in the pcb very easily. And a monitoring circuit to monitor a CAP in circuit is not going to be easy anyway. Electrolytic CAPS are changing their capacitance drastically over temperature, and actually the worst is, that going bad, they are getting hot during startup, where you have the worst ripple on the power line. From md.benson at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 01:39:44 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:39:44 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: <90DE7F97-C8F3-488C-AC5D-3670B5974A6D@classiccmp.org> References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> <90DE7F97-C8F3-488C-AC5D-3670B5974A6D@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <7056A33D-758C-4A45-8AA1-CB9D9636F38D@gmail.com> On 19 Jan 2012, at 00:14, Jay West wrote: > C'mon, this type of diatribe just isn't necessary, productive, useful, nor informative. People can express their opinions without others feeling some innate need to "prove them wrong". Just let it go. > > .... all snipped as it's junk..... I agree somewhat. I used to be a list admin for another computer enthusiasts list. I'd have long since told them to take it off-list and threatened the ban hammer if they didn't stop generating BS like that. Does this list even have any moderators? -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts. From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 01:41:02 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:41:02 +0000 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F17AF29.9020009@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On 1/18/12 9:50 PM, "Eric Smith" wrote: >Rob Doyle wrote: >> It seems to me that you'd need to understand the failure >> mechanism to build a monitor for it. > >You don't need to understand the failure mechanism of a component to >monitor for the failure. You only need to understand the observable >behaviour of a failing component. > >Nevertheless, the failure mechanisms of aluminum electrolytic capacitors >are well understood. Three of the most common are: > >1) oxide breakdown - when not under bias for an extended period, the >oxide breaks down, which reduces the safe working voltage of the >capacitor. At lower voltages, the capacitor appears to be more leaky >than it should be. This can be fixed by reforming the capacitor. >2) catastrophic breakdown - when the applied voltage exceeds the safe >working voltage (which may be reduced from factory spec due to oxide >breakdown), the capacitor will short out in a spectacular manner. >Non-repairable. >3) electrolyte drying out - this happens if the seals are bad, or if >the capacitor is overstressed and ruptures the seals. Non-repairable. > > > It is as-if the capacitors initially shorted for a while, > > and then opened... > >Sounds like it had oxide breakdown, which then resulted in catastrophic >breakdown. > > > I've cited this research before in this thread, and it states that the common failure mode is that the equivalent series resistance (ESR) increases, which contributes to other failure modes. "The wearout process is rarely driven by evaporation and escape of the electrolyte unless the safety vent is compromised due to high leakage current and pressure buildup." Overvoltage is not likely to be a factor in an existing system unless there has been some other failure in the power supply, in which case you have other things to worry about, too. http://www.cde.com/tech/reliability.pdf These are the people who *make* these things. I think they probably have some insight here. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 19 03:20:44 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:20:44 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F17A1B1.5030404@jbrain.com> References: , <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F17A1B1.5030404@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F176FEC.27840.34C552B@cclist.sydex.com> On 18 Jan 2012 at 22:53, Jim Brain wrote: > Understood, though it's $10+ in singles, while the LPC1756 is $8.40 in > singles and the price drops faster in 100s than for the AVR. > > 64tqfp versus 80tqfp. > > the onboard EEPROM on the 647 (for custom keyboard mappings) makes > life interesting, though. Oh, I like ARMs too. :) But I thought we were looking for an 8- bit solution. My mistake. If you don't mind single-sourcing, a PIC32MX2 might also be worth a glance. So how many of these things do you plan to put out? I can't imagine that there's a huge market in keyboard-to-vintage PC converters. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 19 03:44:35 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:44:35 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F17E603.60203@brouhaha.com> Ian King wrote: > I've cited this research before in this thread, and it states that the > common failure mode is that the equivalent series resistance (ESR) > increases, which contributes to other failure modes. "The wearout > process is rarely driven by evaporation and escape of the electrolyte > unless the safety vent is compromised due to high leakage current and > pressure buildup." Overvoltage is not likely to be a factor in an > existing system unless there has been some other failure in the power > supply, Actually I don't see anything in that paper that contradicts my claims that the oxide breaks down when the capacitor is not used under bias for a long interval, nor that such an oxide breakdown reduces the effective working voltage of the capacitor, leading to failure when used at the original rated voltage. I've seen other papers from capacitor vendors, possibly including CDE, that discuss this problem. I don't have those papers handy at the moment, so I'll have to dig around for them. From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 19 04:06:11 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:06:11 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F17E603.60203@brouhaha.com> References: <4F17E603.60203@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F17EB13.9000900@brouhaha.com> I wrote: > Actually I don't see anything in that paper that contradicts my claims > that the oxide breaks down when the capacitor is not used under bias > for a long interval, nor that such an oxide breakdown reduces the > effective working voltage of the capacitor, leading to failure when > used at the original rated voltage. > > I've seen other papers from capacitor vendors, possibly including CDE, > that discuss this problem. I don't have those papers handy at the > moment, so I'll have to dig around for them. > Here's a copy of the CDE application guide: http://www.cde.com/catalogs/AEappGUIDE.pdf They explain how the oxide formation is done during manufacture (p. 3) and mention that there is an aging step that does some additional forming (p. 4). They discuss field-reforming capacitors with high DC leakage in the "Shelf Life" section (p. 16). They don't directly state that the reformation process should ramp the voltage relatively slowly, but that's one effect of their recommended 1K series resistor. I'm pretty sure I saw some applications information from a capacitor vendor that had more details on reformation, but I don't recall which vendor and still can't find it. Eric From silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com Thu Jan 19 05:23:18 2012 From: silvercreekvalley at yahoo.com (silvercreekvalley) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:23:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse Message-ID: <1326972198.96007.YahooMailNeo@web65901.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> I have a few early Sun mice. These all have 3 buttons and a black case. The logo on the front is the usual Sun diamond but is more of a blue colour rather than the later purple. One of the mice (part number 530-0307 Rev A) has the earlier orange Sun logo on the back, and is fitted with the DA15 style connector (15 pin). The other mice although looking similar, have RJ style connectors. They are also stamped on the back with 'Sun 2'. Does anyone know if Sun's ever supported 3MBit ethernet? From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 05:25:15 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:25:15 +0000 Subject: The redundancy of Dave McGuire In-Reply-To: <90DE7F97-C8F3-488C-AC5D-3670B5974A6D@classiccmp.org> References: <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F067DEE.9000803@telegraphics.com.au> <4F0B2269.5020207@neurotica.com> <0C5D85FD-E8B9-43A6-905E-DCD686EC06E4@neurotica.com> <4f0bcbec.28f3640a.65ae.5d4f@mx.google.com> <79BC19D8-C799-4E0C-9AD4-DEE42D2C3917@neurotica.com> <201201100633.BAA19982@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F0CDDFE.2030902@neurotica.com> <90DE7F97-C8F3-488C-AC5D-3670B5974A6D@classiccmp.org> Message-ID: On 19 January 2012 00:14, Jay West wrote: > C'mon, this type of diatribe just isn't necessary, productive, useful, nor > informative. People can express their opinions without others feeling some > innate need to "prove them wrong". Just let it go. > > .... all snipped as it's junk..... OK. Sorry - I will shut up about this from now on. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 05:26:40 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:26:40 +0000 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> Message-ID: On 19 January 2012 02:35, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by > George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine and > their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for us > -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show. Liam Proven likes this. I only wish I had a spare ?3000 or so, in order that I could afford to attend... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From oe5ewl at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 06:14:18 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:14:18 +0100 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax Message-ID: Hi, as being a bit sick at the moment and at home from work I'm playing around with my SIMH-Vax. After a few days of work and re-learning old skills it now runs smoothly on my home network. TCP/IP is up, also all major Programming Languages and that stuff. It's no performance-beast but I enjoy to use it. Now I'd like to re-use some of my older sources that rely on RDB. I believe it is open for hobbyist use - license-wise. Just looked around at the Oracle Site but found nothing for VAX. Does anyone have an idea how to get RDB for VAX? Regards, Wolfgang -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 06:54:43 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:54:43 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: > So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding they'd > be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal enjoyment, > and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that smells bad. If they expect the machines to be recycled, they should be asking for Certificates of Destruction. These are basically little contracts that says the recycler will do a reasonable amount of damage to the item(s), in such a away that makes them not fit for their original purpose. The Certificates are very common these days. But really, most people just do not care. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 07:02:52 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:02:52 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F17AF29.9020009@brouhaha.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> <4F179831.5010007@gmail.com> <4F17AF29.9020009@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: > 3) ?electrolyte drying out - this happens if the seals are bad, or if the > capacitor is overstressed and ruptures the seals. Non-repairable. Seals going bad are the curse of every capacitor, not just electroytics, and is the failure mode that they "all" will reach. Right now, we are seeing many of the capacitors of the 1950s starting to go (Bumblebees, we are looking at you!), with even some of the bulletproof designs starting to fail. In the past, mica capacitors were overlooked in repair jobs, simply because they "never" went bad, and could be trusted. Not any more. Just a tiny amount of moisture or contaminant getting by any capacitor seal can really wreck your whole day. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 07:11:19 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:11:19 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <20120119080855.xpi0qpwao40w00cc@webmail.opentransfer.com> References: <9B42F743-E89F-490E-8BFB-C56EF29CB30E@gmail.com> <20120119080855.xpi0qpwao40w00cc@webmail.opentransfer.com> Message-ID: > And a monitoring circuit to monitor a CAP in circuit is not going to be easy > anyway. Electrolytic CAPS are changing their capacitance drastically over > temperature, and actually the worst is, that going bad, they are getting hot > during startup, where you have the worst ripple on the power line. Such circuits are well documented and available. Mainframe equipment (or maybe I should say *real* mainframe equipment - zing!) tends to have such circuitry by default. -- Will From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 19 08:34:09 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:34:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by > George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine and > their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for us > -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show. > I've heard of $100 hamburgers before, but never $700 t-shirts. :( g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 19 08:35:06 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:35:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Old dgital videos In-Reply-To: <4F178B5C.2040201@earthlink.net> References: <4F178B5C.2040201@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, David C. Jenner wrote: > I have two video cassette tapes from "digital media services" (DEC). > Both are Copyright 1976. > > One is: > > Introduction to Minicomputers > Instruction Sets > EY-A0083-VT-001 > > The other is: > > Introduction to Minicomputers > I/O Techniques > EY-A0090-VT-001 > > These are obviously part of a series "Introduction to Minicomputers." Does > anyone have any of the other tapes? Are they archived somewhere? Should they > be archived somewhere? Are they a part of a larger set of educational > materials for a course? > I would strongly recommend you make copies and send them to archive.org. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From keithvz at verizon.net Thu Jan 19 08:36:55 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith M) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:36:55 -0500 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <001501ccd5d3$bf20df00$3d629d00$@gmail.com> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> <006d01ccd5c3$4af9b6c0$e0ed2440$@on.net> <001501ccd5d3$bf20df00$3d629d00$@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F182A87.8010800@verizon.net> On 1/18/2012 6:24 AM, Camiel Vanderhoeven wrote: > Thanks to everyone who has replied with suggestions. Another suggestion I > got is to try Omnipage, so I got myself a 15-day trial version of Omnipage > Pro. It allows you to draw a rectangle on the page, then select "Numeric > data". It will then only perform OCR on that part of the page, and will try > to recognize everything as a number. When in doubt, it will bring up a > dialog with a detailed view of the problematic page so you can make manual > corrections. Combined with a bit of manual work to fix things up, this seems > to work fairly well. I realize you may have already got your answer, but abbyy finereader pro works very well. It also has an option for numeric only data, including the ability to limit which numeric characters to include(ie, only 0 & 1, if you wanted). You can also train it to do pattern recognition, if the recognition of the font doesn't work naturally well. With most of these programs, the quality of your original source material seems to be the determining factor on how much manual work you'll need to do afterwards to correct errors. BTW: what's the end format? http://www.abbyy.com/ I'm unrelated to company......but it does sound like a neat problem. > Cheers, > > Camiel > Good luck, Keith From keithvz at verizon.net Thu Jan 19 08:46:27 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith M) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:46:27 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F182CC3.1090309@verizon.net> On 1/19/2012 6:26 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 19 January 2012 02:35, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by >> George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine and >> their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for us >> -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show. > > Liam Proven likes this. > > I only wish I had a spare ?3000 or so, in order that I could afford to attend... GBP 3000? Where the hell are you coming from? The moon? I know it's not 2:1 anymore, but still $4600.00 USD is enough to fly just about anyone from anywhere, lodging, food, entrance, etc. Some hidden Visa fees, officials to bribe, or something? Keith From keithvz at verizon.net Thu Jan 19 08:53:16 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith M) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:53:16 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> Message-ID: <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> On 1/19/2012 9:34 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: > I've heard of $100 hamburgers before, but never $700 t-shirts. :( I like fine dining, but I'd never pay $100 for a hamburger. At least not in the US. Ok, maybe in Japan. Had a (US) Kobe beef burger at Ditka's ($13-$15 burger), and it wasn't great. Good, but not great. We have a local place called Burgatory which gets tons of great reviews --- that I haven't been to because it's always too busy. http://www.burgatorybar.com/ for pictures. Keith From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 19 09:12:08 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:12:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Keith M wrote: > On 1/19/2012 9:34 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: > >> I've heard of $100 hamburgers before, but never $700 t-shirts. :( > > I like fine dining, but I'd never pay $100 for a hamburger. At least not in > the US. Ok, maybe in Japan. > Keith, the "$100 hamburger" is kind of a joke. People with fresh pilots' licenses tend to make short hops in order to build hours - they typically fly off to a field within roughly 50 or 100 miles of their home airfield and have lunch. When you add up the aircraft rental and fuel, you've paid about $100 (or more) to go get a hamburger. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 10:15:58 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:15:58 +0000 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F182CC3.1090309@verizon.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182CC3.1090309@verizon.net> Message-ID: On 19 January 2012 14:46, Keith M wrote: > On 1/19/2012 6:26 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 19 January 2012 02:35, Evan Koblentz ?wrote: >>> >>> Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by >>> George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine >>> and >>> their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for >>> us >>> -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show. >> >> >> Liam Proven likes this. >> >> I only wish I had a spare ?3000 or so, in order that I could afford to >> attend... > > > GBP 3000? Where the hell are you coming from? The moon? > > I know it's not 2:1 anymore, but still $4600.00 USD is enough to fly just > about anyone from anywhere, lodging, food, entrance, etc. > > Some hidden Visa fees, officials to bribe, or something? Finger in the air guesstimate... But let's put it this way: if I were going to fly 3,500 miles, I am not going to come in, go to the show and go straight back. I'd make a trip of it. I've not left Europe since 2001 and I quite like NYC so I'd probably take a week or so in the big city and generally explore, take in a few gigs, go clubbing, etc. The air fare's cheaper than I thought - about ?500, so $700. But still, there's getting to and from the airport, a hotel, food, transport and travel. If I did it for under ?1,500 - call it $2,500 - that would be a minor miracle. And since at the moment I can't afford $250, and frankly $25 would be a stretch on this month's finances, it's not going to happen. :?( I've just returned home from a month's cat-sitting in Edinburgh to find a final demand for a just-over-?1000 bill and I don't have the money for that, let alone foreign holidays. Ah well... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 19 10:41:17 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:41:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: <1326991277.62876.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 1/18/12, Evan Koblentz wrote: > So if people brought him all those computers with the > understanding they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept > that all for his personal enjoyment, and now he's trying to > make a huge profit from them .... that smells bad. How? A recycler isn't bound by any kind of law that says that everything they take in, they must destroy - except for the individual cases where there are contracts with, for example, the government, to destroy sensitive equipment. If you bring a PC to a recycler to get rid of it, there is nothing wrong with them reselling it, or selling the parts, etc. That's why it is *your* responsibility to erase any sensitive information off the hard drive first. It's just like a junkyard. They buy wrecked/broken cars and sell them for parts or scrap metal. For example, I recently needed a mirror for a Camry. I bought one on eBay from a scrap metal dealer. Someone probably wrecked the car and sold it to him, and he's harvesting parts off it and selling them at a profit. I'm happy, because I got a mirror cheaply and easily, and he's happy, because he sold me a mirror. Tell me where this is a problem? It's how the whole surplus/scrap market works. There is nothing at all wrong with a recycler profiting by selling used machines or parts. It's what they do for a living. If it weren't for surplus dealers, and recyclers selling useful stuff, this hobby would be a hell of a lot harder. -Ian From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 10:41:49 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:41:49 -0700 Subject: Beehive B100 manual Message-ID: The cover picture from the manual was erroneously omitted from the scan. PDF updated. This manual is clearly a photocopy of an original, but until an original shows up for me to scan, this is better than nothing. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 10:44:41 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:44:41 -0700 Subject: OCR software for numeric (binary) data In-Reply-To: <4F182A87.8010800@verizon.net> References: <020901ccd51f$029651d0$07c2f570$@gmail.com> <006d01ccd5c3$4af9b6c0$e0ed2440$@on.net> <001501ccd5d3$bf20df00$3d629d00$@gmail.com> <4F182A87.8010800@verizon.net> Message-ID: In article <4F182A87.8010800 at verizon.net>, Keith M writes: > With most of these programs, the quality of your original source > material seems to be the determining factor on how much manual work > you'll need to do afterwards to correct errors. Yep. I've found that doing things like eliminating speckling (i.e. stray single black pixels) from the input will do wonders for the quality of OCR output. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 10:51:07 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:51:07 -0700 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: In article , William Donzelli writes: > > So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding they'd > > be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal enjoyment, > > and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that smells bad. > > If they expect the machines to be recycled, they should be asking for > Certificates of Destruction. [...] > > But really, most people just do not care. Honestly, most people would be *offended* if you destroyed a perfectly good machine instead of repurposing it. "Recycling" isn't just about reducing inputs to their constituent atoms. The most efficient form of recycling is reuse for another purpose. Except for the county landfill, every place I know locally that recycles computers first examines them to see if they can be reasonably put to some sort of reuse. Reusing and repurposing computers is *much* more "environmentally friendly" than scrapping them. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 10:55:58 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:55:58 -0700 Subject: Old dgital videos In-Reply-To: References: <4F178B5C.2040201@earthlink.net> Message-ID: In article , Gene Buckle writes: > On Wed, 18 Jan 2012, David C. Jenner wrote: > > > I have two video cassette tapes from "digital media services" (DEC). > > Both are Copyright 1976. [...] > > > I would strongly recommend you make copies and send them to archive.org. archive.org doesn't accept things unless the copyright holder explicitly allows them to archive it. I doubt that would be the case here; DEC is the copyright holder, presumably now held by HP. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 19 11:02:06 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:02:06 -0800 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse In-Reply-To: <1326972198.96007.YahooMailNeo@web65901.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <1326972198.96007.YahooMailNeo@web65901.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F184C8E.8060104@bitsavers.org> On 1/19/12 3:23 AM, silvercreekvalley wrote: > Does anyone know if Sun's ever supported 3MBit ethernet? > They did. There is a driver for it at least up through SunOS 3 From tshoppa at wmata.com Thu Jan 19 12:14:21 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:14:21 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 57 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > It's just like a junkyard. They buy wrecked/broken cars and sell them for parts or scrap metal. In the auto junkyard world there's the concept of "salvage title" for motor vehicles and the whole process is nicely codified by the state. In the military surplus world there's the concept of "de-milling" surplus but I'd be surprised if that applied to a pile of Macs. Tim. From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Jan 19 12:48:24 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:48:24 -0600 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 57 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201191848.q0JImOtJ027661@billy.ezwind.net> At 12:14 PM 1/19/2012, Shoppa, Tim wrote: >In the auto junkyard world there's the concept of "salvage title" for motor vehicles and the whole process is nicely codified by the state. >In the military surplus world there's the concept of "de-milling" surplus but I'd be surprised if that applied to a pile of Macs. Any computer recycler of any significant size has procedures to reassure commercial clients that their hard drives will be wiped in a bonded fashion in order to comply with their industry requirements for data privacy. In my experience, perhaps a third of today's PC consumers ask about what'll happen to their hard drive when they give me an old computer for recycling. They just want to be assured I'll erase their drive. Maybe one consumer in a hundred asks to keep their hard drive so they can destroy it themselves, and I'd say most of them don't know how to do it. - John From djg at pdp8online.com Thu Jan 19 07:08:39 2012 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:08:39 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120119130839.GA26054@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 05:34:02PM +0000, Ian King wrote: > > I'd recommend finding paper tape images (Bitsavers, pdp8online.com) and > feeding them in through a terminal emulator. The DECtape controller is > itself a complex piece of equipment - minimize your variables! :-) > To save time I changed the timing capactior on a spare M452 and put that in my 8/I and used a current loop to 232 adapter so I can quickly download the diags from a PC. I aimed for 9600 baud but found with the capacitor I picked I could only adjust it to 4800 baud. Also I found none of the cheap USB to serial boards will do 110 baud, only real serial ports can. My 8/I tape images are here http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/software/paper_tapes/ From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 14:09:16 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:09:16 +0000 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/19/12 8:51 AM, "Richard" wrote: > >In article >, > William Donzelli writes: > >> > So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding >>they'd >> > be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal >>enjoyment, >> > and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that smells >>bad. >> >> If they expect the machines to be recycled, they should be asking for >> Certificates of Destruction. [...] >> >> But really, most people just do not care. > >Honestly, most people would be *offended* if you destroyed a perfectly >good machine instead of repurposing it. > >"Recycling" isn't just about reducing inputs to their constituent atoms. > >The most efficient form of recycling is reuse for another purpose. > >Except for the county landfill, every place I know locally that >recycles computers first examines them to see if they can be >reasonably put to some sort of reuse. > >Reusing and repurposing computers is *much* more "environmentally >friendly" than scrapping them. Especially since much of the "recycling" stream ends up dumped in the third world. -- Ian From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 14:35:29 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:35:29 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? Message-ID: hi got couple thing i'm in need of some paper tapes for my 8a that i appear to be missing so i am unable to do much with my Manichean atm anyone up for making copies i don't have a way of hooking my asr33 into my laptop or my h10 high speed punch reader DEC-08-AJAE-PB DEC-08-ESAC-PB DEC-08-CDDB-PB DEC-08-LBAA-PM DEC-08-LPALA-A-PB these were also suggested to me by CMGauger on irc DEC-08-LRAA-D DEC-08-LBAA-D DEC-08-LHAA-D DEC-08-ESAB-D DEC-08-ASAB-D DEC-08-CMAA-D DEC-08-ARXA-D DEC-08-CDDB-D DEC-08-COCO-D DEC-08-AJAD-D DEC-08-AFCO-D DEC-08-KFXB-D os8? or am i nuts? but yea for sure i need a bin loader i got several rolls of asr33 tape and paper... also got one roll of the black tape for the h10 i could trade and bunch of h11 software on tape if anyone wants to trade?? i don't have the abillity to hook my modern computer up to my asr witch is a laptop a i have the fallowing tapes already MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM2 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM1 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 MAINDEC-08-DJDKA-C-PS1 6/24/77 DKC8-AA OPTION TEST #1 MAINDEC-08-DJEXS-A-PB 6/24/77 2K TO 32K PDP-8A PROCESSOR EXERCISER MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM4 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 MAINDEC-08-DJKKA-C-PB1 6/24/77 PDP-8/A CPU TEST MAINDEC-08-DJMSA-A-PB 6/24/77 1-4K MSA-A MOS MEMORY TEST and these fisher scientific tapes >> http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6067/6089172843_c1d5cb15c5_b.jpg i have a sr33 for communicating atm with the 8a i've got a dataram dr-118a 16kx12 16k stack ready to go in dunno w its jumpers need to be at on it to work with my 8k also would a serial cable from a pdp 11 (currently attached to a m8028) work with my 8a if i was to use it with my m8316 rev D connecting to a usb to serial if that would work any suggestions? note if your going to freak on me for spelling and or grammar i tried my best i suffer from dyslexia and its frustrating to be me so plzz bare with me :'( adrian stoness From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 19 15:45:50 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:45:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> from "Evan Koblentz" at Jan 18, 12 05:42:09 pm Message-ID: > > > > he was a PC recycler. what he has is what you get through that channel. > > > > http://web.me.com/macabbott1/macabb.com/List_of_Macs.html > > So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding > they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal > enjoyment, and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that > smells bad. I don;t get this Most (if not all) people who give their old computers to recyclers don't much care what happens to them. They have no further use for the machine. They may want to keep toxic matrerials out of the landfill (but that would be met if the machine is kept in operation by the recylcer), they don;t want any personal data that may remain on the machin spread aroudn (but there's n osuggestion this is occuring). Presumably you think it would be OK for the recycler to extract any nmaterials of value from the machine and keep the profits himself. So what's the problem with keepign the entire machine intact? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 19 15:56:36 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:56:36 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F175D9B.5050307@snarc.net> from "Evan Koblentz" at Jan 18, 12 07:02:35 pm Message-ID: > > >> And if you were a recycler and someone brought you a computer you > coveted, you'd disassemble it and scrap it? - John > > It's the method and price that offend me. People bring stuff to a > recycler; they don't figure he will try to flip it for a million > dollars. Or if people hear that he's a collector, then same deal -- How do you know what went on? I am not a recylcer, but as you all know, I do collect (and use) various items of old technology. Now, if sosoembody offers me soemthing valuable and I don't feel they should know this, then I tell them, up front, that it is worth \pounds xxx. For example, a neighbour once gave me some very nice valve audio equipment that had belonged ot heer late husband, in exchange for me doing some simple (to me) repairs for he. I told her what I honestly believed the value to be aat that time and she still gave it to me, as whe wanted it to go to a 'good home'. Conversely, if somebody here offers me a piece of classic computer equipment, I feel they should have doen their homework and have some idea fo the value. Of course if they ask what an HPxxxx is worth, I might well reply 'Well one sold on E-bay last month for $150' (or whatever). As fas as I am aware you have no idea what this recycler/collector said ot the people who were giving him said machines. I don't see how you can then accuse him of cheating them. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 19 16:08:09 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:08:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <9B42F743-E89F-490E-8BFB-C56EF29CB30E@gmail.com> from "David Riley" at Jan 19, 12 00:07:59 am Message-ID: > Why not do both? The monitors will help detect when the new capacitors > inevitably start failing. I am not sure I understnd the point of the monitor circuit. If the capacitor fails dead-short, then the PSU fuses will blow (You do hae fuses in series with the transfomer windings, I hope). No monitor circuit is going to do much of use in that situation. If the capacitor fails open, or high ESR, or loses capacitance, the ripple on that supply line will increase. A monitor could detect that, but equally if that happens, the machine stops working correctly. And the first thing I'd do to any piece of vintage hardware that wasn't working -- whatever the fault -- is to check all the supply lines for voltage and ripple. At which point you home in on the faulty capacitor quite quickly. A monitor would perhaps save you 2 or 3 'scope tests. Is that worth it? -tony From alexeyt at freeshell.org Thu Jan 19 17:00:16 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:00:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > I am not sure I understnd the point of the monitor circuit. [snip] > If the capacitor fails open, or high ESR, or loses capacitance, the > ripple on that supply line will increase. A monitor could detect that, > but equally if that happens, the machine stops working correctly. But it is quite possible that a monitor circuit could detect an increase in the ripple before it was large enough to stop the machine from working correctly, and it might be desirable to shut the machine down before the ripple becomes excessive. Alexey From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 19 17:00:17 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:00:17 -0800 Subject: Mac Museum (recycling thread) In-Reply-To: <1326991277.62876.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1326991277.62876.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F18A081.8060103@jwsss.com> In the state off California, there are fees collected on the sale of electronics. The recyclers collect some of that money when the do the recycling. I don't think it comes w/o strings attached to the disposition of the material. On the other hand, i think the regulations allow for reuse rather than destruction. From what I see on the carecycle web site, the only regulations that apply to the collected material applies to all businesses which handle hazardous wastes. So if you break them up into material that is hazardous, you are required to dispose of it as if you were any business, recycler, manufacturer, whatever to keep track of the hazards. I do know of several businesses, mostly old junk dealers in LA who are doing well with this business model, and pull out a lot of equipment and resell it legitimately. The same recycling fees apply again on that sale, as does the requirement to again recycle it rather than dispose of it if possible by the new owner. On 1/19/2012 8:41 AM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > How? A recycler isn't bound by any kind of law that says that everything they take in, they must destroy - except for the individual cases where there are contracts with, for example, the government, to destroy sensitive equipment. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 17:53:32 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:53:32 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: > Honestly, most people would be *offended* if you destroyed a perfectly > good machine instead of repurposing it. You think too highly of the general public. The general public feeling about recycling is a mile wide and an inch deep. Once the stuff is out of their hair, they lose interest very quickly. > The most efficient form of recycling is reuse for another purpose. Yes, I agree, but there is pretty much always far more supply than demand for the repurposed equipment. Keep in mind that the scrap stream is now *very* efficient. Stuff that goes in comes out as over 99 percent good material. There is very little that we have not yet figured out what to do with (ferrites, fiberglass, glass). Everything else is ca$h. > Except for the county landfill, every place I know locally that > recycles computers first examines them to see if they can be > reasonably put to some sort of reuse. It is a good business model. But, what do you do with the excess? Grind it. Sending the stuff to the county landfill is NOT a good business model. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 17:55:01 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:55:01 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Especially since much of the "recycling" stream ends up dumped in the > third world. ?-- Ian Where it gets picked apart by an army of young men, and sent to the mills for refining. This is not 1985 anymore. -- Will From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 19 18:27:23 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:27:23 -0700 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: I wrote: > > Honestly, most people would be *offended* if you destroyed a perfectly > > good machine instead of repurposing it. In article , William Donzelli writes: > You think too highly of the general public. Yeah, probably true. Depends on the day, though :-). > > Except for the county landfill, every place I know locally that > > recycles computers first examines them to see if they can be > > reasonably put to some sort of reuse. > > It is a good business model. But, what do you do with the excess? Grind it. > > Sending the stuff to the county landfill is NOT a good business model. Well, here the county landfill has an electronics recycling point, so I didn't mean to imply that sending it to the landfill just buried the stuff. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From IanK at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 18:57:02 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:57:02 +0000 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <2F25BE3D5F64F342B56139F31854C9B9037ED5@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> Lots of it gets dumped in fields. And the refining techniques that are used by some are often not particularly sophisticated, and result in toxic runoff into local water supplies. No, this is not 1985, it's gotten worse. Read the literature from India and Asia. ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] on behalf of William Donzelli [wdonzelli at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:55 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Mac Museum > Especially since much of the "recycling" stream ends up dumped in the > third world. -- Ian Where it gets picked apart by an army of young men, and sent to the mills for refining. This is not 1985 anymore. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 19 19:00:02 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:00:02 -0800 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com>, , Message-ID: <4F184C12.998.1610AC8@cclist.sydex.com> On 19 Jan 2012 at 18:53, William Donzelli wrote: > > The most efficient form of recycling is reuse for another purpose. > > Yes, I agree, but there is pretty much always far more supply than > demand for the repurposed equipment. I think it depends on the age of the equipment. I can find an occasional use for a 20MHz 80386 system (ISA slots), but much of the old stuff I have just sits in a pile. I started out running my local server (DNS masquerade, radio and email) on a P1/100 MHz system using an early RedHat release. Now, the same function is served by a thin client with a solid-state disk that consumes a fraction of the power. No floppy, CD-ROM or fan-- perhaps 15W conumption. I feel a little silly having it hooked to a 1400VA UPS. I suspect that the UPS consumes more than the thin client. So which is more efficient? Wouldn't we all be better off using the old machine to make cans for Nalley's Chili and reclaim whatever metals the rest of the machine has? > > Except for the county landfill, every place I know locally that > > recycles computers first examines them to see if they can be > > reasonably put to some sort of reuse. > > It is a good business model. But, what do you do with the excess? > Grind it. In our local case, the disassembly is used to train developmentally disabled folks. The recycler also runs a storefront and donates a lot of usable gear to people down on their luck. My Beige G3 came from them, with monitor, keyboard and mouse and USB card all set to go. 6 years ago, it set me back $30. Knowing what they do, I happily forked the money over to them. At the same time, they had a bunch of NIB Farallon 10-port 100BaseT routers for $5 each. I bought a couple and have been using them ever since as network hubs. They're a legit non-profit that relies on a small staff and many volunteers. --Chuck From pete at dunnington.plus.com Thu Jan 19 19:03:01 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:03:01 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F18BD45.1080408@dunnington.plus.com> Adrian Stoness wrote: > i'm in need of some paper tapes for my 8a that i appear to be missing so i > am unable to do much with my Manichean atm > anyone up for making copies i don't have a way of hooking my asr33 into my > laptop or my h10 high speed punch reader > but yea for sure i need a bin loader You should be able to find tape images online in a few places. If you can't find it I can put it on my website for a short while. > i got several rolls of asr33 tape and paper... also got one roll of the > black tape for the h10 i could trade and bunch of h11 software on tape if > anyone wants to trade?? i don't have the abillity to hook my modern > computer up to my asr witch is a laptop a > also > would a serial cable from a pdp 11 (currently attached to a m8028) work > with my 8a if i was to use it with my m8316 rev D connecting to a usb to > serial if that would work any suggestions? I use my laptops (running Linux) with a USB-to-RS232 adapter to connect to the M8650 (KL8-E) on one PDP-8/E and the M8655 (KL8-JA) on another. You have to set the baud rate on the KL8s to something like 1200 baud or higher; apart from file transfers being ridiculously slow otherwise, few USB converters will handle the slowest rates like 110. I usually use 4800 or 9600. You can get a little program called rsend from Kevin McQuiggin's website, to send RIM or BIN format files from the laptops to the PDP-8s: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/pdp8/ The BIN loader in RIM format is there too, as a text file. Yes, a serial cable from a PDP-11 should be fine -- I use one, but I also have a few cables with a 34-way IDC connector for the KL8 on one end and DE9 for the USB converter on the other, which is more convenient than using a thick BC05C or BC01V and a 25-pin to 9-pin adapter. You can get the wiring details from Doug jones'website at http://www.divms.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/hard8e/ -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 19 19:09:44 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:09:44 -0800 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F18BED8.5060805@jwsss.com> In 1985 the containers I know from one place in Kansas City was not going to dumps, but to places which picked apart all the systems for parts and very little just was junked. the Koreans were very adept up to that time in disassembling and reusing material, and the Chinese were not far behind. On 1/19/2012 3:55 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > This is not 1985 anymore. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 19 19:15:20 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:15:20 -0500 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> On 19/01/12 3:35 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > hi got couple thing > > i'm in need of some paper tapes for my 8a that i appear to be missing so i > am unable to do much with my Manichean atm This list has such a... binary worldview. > anyone up for making copies i don't have a way of hooking my asr33 into my > laptop or my h10 high speed punch reader > --T From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 19:23:03 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:23:03 -0500 Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 57 In-Reply-To: <201201191848.q0JImOtJ027661@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201191848.q0JImOtJ027661@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > Any computer recycler of any significant size has procedures to reassure > commercial clients that their hard drives will be wiped in a bonded fashion > in order to comply with their industry requirements for data privacy. Yes, generally this involve large metal teeth. -- Will From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 19:58:55 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:58:55 +0000 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Eric Smith Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 9:44 PM > Ian King wrote: >> Instead of all of that, why not just replace the capacitors? > Why not just verify that the capacitors meet specifications, and only > replace them if they've failed? Ian was not at LCM yet when we did exactly this, after reading the CDE white paper. More than 95% of the aluminum electrolytic caps in the 2065 had failed. We first tried "re-forming" a few. They failed again in days. At that point we made the decision never to waste our time on this. We buy new capacitors (or higher-level components; cf. our PDP-7) and put them in. >> On our PDP-7, we elected not to replace the filter capacitors, which >> are the size of large soup cans. > Have you looked at the capacitors in the "capacitor box" of the ECL > power supply of the KL10, between the H760 raw supply and H761 regulated > supply? There are 13 300,000uF 15V capacitors. There are certainly > modern replacements that are smaller, but if they're not broken, I'm not > going to replace them. They're also fairly expensive, roughly $50 each. As I noted above, Ian was not on the 2065 project. (He did the same kind of surgery on our VAX-11/785 systems.) Keith and I did the 2065, with the aid of two friends of yours, Bruce Kennard and Bob Sellars. The point is that we *run* our systems, unlike the PDP-1 at CHM. We can't afford to mess around. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 19 20:08:26 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:08:26 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F18CC9A.9000907@snarc.net> Wow .... I posted about our keynote lectures that include the co-inventor of BASIC and Apple's Dan Kottke ... no replies .... I posted about this year's SEVEN hands-on classes .... no replies ... then I post about the t-shirt art ... and ya'll come out of the woodwork to discuss ..... hamburgers! What the heck? :) PS - Actually, I didn't post about the classes. My mistake. But we've got 'em. Lookie here for details: http://www.vintage.org/2012/east/session.php From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 20:08:44 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:08:44 -0500 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <2F25BE3D5F64F342B56139F31854C9B9037ED5@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> References: <2F25BE3D5F64F342B56139F31854C9B9037ED5@505MBX2.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: > Lots of it gets dumped in fields. ?And the refining techniques that are used by some are often not particularly sophisticated, and result in toxic runoff into local water supplies. ?No, this is not 1985, it's gotten worse. ?Read the literature from India and Asia. The thing is that India and China is FULL of a bunch of capitalists these days, so those fields are FULL of money. Bring in a container of unsorted scrap, and assign it to a guy to pick apart. Yes, it looks like a mess, but it is a work in progress. What junkyard ANYWHERE doesn't have toxic runoff, anyway? My local yard in New York looks like hell, and is probably a toxic stew, but the guy moves a hell of a bunch of metal to be reused. The (typically) young men and teenagers come in from the farms, where there is no money to be made, and can work their asses off picking apart anything into its basic materials, and make a bunch of money to move to the big city and start a business and/or save money to get married. Those piles of plastic monitor cases you see videos of? They are worth more than steel in China. The monitor cases in the piles today that make such good news footage will not be the same monitor cases in the piles in a week. And the burning of wire to strip the insulation? Well, they figured out that the shred and float tank method doesn't burn up their copper, so the bonfires pretty much died years ago. And the CRTs? Until just a few years ago, they were refurbished and put back into televisions and sent back to the US. No, things have not gotten worse. The Indian and Chinese scrapmen have figured out that efficient operation means more money in their pockets. Money means EVERYTHING to these people. -- Will From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 20:14:21 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:14:21 +0000 Subject: Restoring a DEC KL10 In-Reply-To: <4F17C0D1.7090609@brouhaha.com> References: <4F171244.90306@brouhaha.com> <4F177E37.8030204@brouhaha.com> <4F17C0D1.7090609@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2CDA@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Eric Smith Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 11:06 PM > Richard wrote: >> I'd advise you to consult with the folks at the Living Computer >> Museum. IMO, they did a wonderful job of replacing the original power >> supply in their machines with a modern efficient switching design. > My understanding is that they replaced the entire ECL power supply > system with modern switchers. On our 1095, yes. The 2065 has not undergone surgery quite as extensive as that. We re-built the DEC power supplies with new capacitors [thread tie]. The 1095 was the second effort, as an experiment. > I plan to keep the original power supply front end (three-phase to -12V > DC), and only replace the linear regulator modules (nine each -12V to > -5.2V at 35A, and four each -12V to -2.0V at 35A) with switchers. That > preserves (and actually improves upon) the AC power-fail functionality > of the system, allowing the processor state to be written to RAM, to > allow resumption of execution on power restoration. (Assuming that the > RAM is nonvolatile, which in the original machines was accomplished by > either core memory, or battery-backed DRAM.) > However, I plan to get the machine working with the original regulators > before I change anything. >> It was all done in such a way that the upgrade was fully reversible to >> restore the machine to it's original condition. > Naturally I plan to do that also. Well worth it. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From RichA at vulcan.com Thu Jan 19 20:19:53 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:19:53 +0000 Subject: Sun 1 optical mouse In-Reply-To: <1326972198.96007.YahooMailNeo@web65901.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <1326972198.96007.YahooMailNeo@web65901.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2CEB@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: silvercreekvalley Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:23 AM > Does anyone know if Sun's ever supported 3MBit ethernet? That was the only thing that existed when Andy did the detail design for Ralph's 4M processor board at Snodfart. We had a lot of 3MB Ethernet on campus when I got there in 1984, and the terminal servers and routers all used SUN-1 boards at the time. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 19 20:59:56 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:59:56 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F18D8AC.8070203@brouhaha.com> On 01/19/2012 02:08 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > I am not sure I understnd the point of the monitor circuit. [...] > If the capacitor fails open, or high ESR, or loses capacitance, the > ripple on that supply line will increase. A monitor could detect that, > but equally if that happens, the machine stops working correctly . The ripple can increase quite a bit before it causes failures. A monitoring circuit can catch it before it gets that far. From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 19 21:21:02 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:21:02 -0500 Subject: Straight-8 at VCF East In-Reply-To: <4F18D8AC.8070203@brouhaha.com> References: <4F18D8AC.8070203@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F18DD9E.50706@snarc.net> In a little bit of a friendly rivalry with RICM :) ..... David Gesswein, who you all know, intends to bring his restored/operational ORIGINAL pdp-8 to the VCF East. Our museum has one too, but it's not (yet!) restored. Now, I ask: maybe 10% of cctalker's have ever seen a Straight-8; here in MARCH we're fortunate to have our own; but how many people have ever seen one WORKING? I sure haven't! I fully expect all you DEC-heads who are the foundation of this list to make your pilgrimage to New Jersey this spring. While you're here, you can heckle Dave McGuire, who'll lead our "intro to minicomputer care and feeding" class. But be warned, he heckles back. :-) From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 19 21:38:09 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:38:09 -0500 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F18E1A1.4010700@neurotica.com> On 01/19/2012 07:14 AM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > as being a bit sick at the moment and at home from work I'm playing around > with my SIMH-Vax. After a few days of work and re-learning old skills it > now runs smoothly on my home network. TCP/IP is up, also all major > Programming Languages and that stuff. It's no performance-beast but I enjoy > to use it. > > Now I'd like to re-use some of my older sources that rely on RDB. I believe > it is open for hobbyist use - license-wise. > > Just looked around at the Oracle Site but found nothing for VAX. Does > anyone have an idea how to get RDB for VAX? I have it. Contact me off-list. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 19 22:11:22 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:11:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 57 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327032682.16856.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 1/19/12, William Donzelli wrote: > > Any computer recycler of any > significant size has procedures to reassure > > commercial clients that their hard drives will be > wiped in a bonded fashion > > in order to comply with their industry requirements > for data privacy. > > Yes, generally this involve large metal teeth. Having worked at a recycler many years ago, yes, we did have such a machine. But it was only used if the client paid extra - a fair bit extra - for special secure destruction. Not only does the machine use a massive amount of power, but the shredded drives are/were worth a fair bit less than the non-shredded ones even as scrap. All re-usable drives were one pass wiped/tested for resale as drives. Any junk drives were just tossed in a big bin and sold by the pound. For the normal person off the street paying us to recycle a PC, there was no expectation of any kind of data security. Same with corporate customers that did not pay extra for any kind of special handling. Most corporate customers were "secure wipe" jobs - we booted the entire machines up with a floppy that ran a DoD 7 pass wipe on the drives. These were almost always massive PC replacement projects - so we'd get three pallets of identical Pentium III machines. We'd hook them up, clean/test/wipe, then sell them in bulk to resellers of used PC's. Only the faulty drives were shredded in this case. -Ian From tdk.knight at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 23:05:09 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:05:09 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: so i need a linux box? can i use the hyper terminal in windows to do anything? i think i set it right but not abble to input anything? in hyper term its set up as baud 2400 data bits 8 parity none stop bits 1 flow control none my dip switches are at for 2400 baud with tty turned off as according to the manual? 1 on 2 off 3 on 4 off 5 on 6 on 7 on 8 off 9 on 10 on ???? or do i got them reversed?? http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/503/dipswitch.jpg am i supost to see anything pop up like on the 11?? or be able to input anything at this point? not familiar with how this works with the 8 yet From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 20 00:19:50 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:19:50 -0700 Subject: Mac Museum In-Reply-To: <4F184C12.998.1610AC8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com>, , <4F184C12.998.1610AC8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: In article <4F184C12.998.1610AC8 at cclist.sydex.com>, "Chuck Guzis" writes: > So which is more efficient? Wouldn't we all be better off using the > old machine to make cans for Nalley's Chili and reclaim whatever > metals the rest of the machine has? >From my experience with a local recycler, most of the machines they get are 2-3 years old, not 15 years old. Stuff cycles out of corporations and schools fairly quickly these days. Those are machines that can easily be repurposed. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Thu Jan 19 19:01:22 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:01:22 -0500 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From:?silvercreekvalley > Date:?Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:23:18 -0800 (PST) > Subject:?Sun 1 optical mouse > I have a few early Sun mice. These all have 3 buttons and a black case. The logo on the front > is the usual Sun diamond but is more of a blue colour rather than the later purple. I have one of those, made by Mouse Systems. It has the RJ-11 connector. > Does anyone know if Sun's ever supported 3MBit ethernet? I have a PDF file of a 1982 Sun manual titled SUN 3MBit Ethernet Board. I think that the Ethernet board in my Sun 2/120 is jumperable 3MBit/10MBit. -- Michael Thompson From mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com Fri Jan 20 07:02:05 2012 From: mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com (Martin Bishop) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:02:05 -0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Windows Putty is "better" than HyperTerminal as a "glass TTY" : http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. And, it has many other useful capabilities. UsbSerial dongles may well not come up on "Com2", but ComHwm+1. The Windoze Device Manager both lets you investigate com port numbers, and to an extent change them. Martin Adrian Stoness [tdk.knight at gmail.com] wrote .. -- so i need a linux box? -- can i use the hyper terminal in windows to do anything? From lproven at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 07:26:23 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:26:23 +0000 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F18CC9A.9000907@snarc.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> <4F18CC9A.9000907@snarc.net> Message-ID: On 20 January 2012 02:08, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Wow .... I posted about our keynote lectures that include the co-inventor of > BASIC and Apple's Dan Kottke ... no replies .... I posted about this year's > SEVEN hands-on classes .... no replies ... then I post about the t-shirt art > ... and ya'll come out of the woodwork to discuss ..... hamburgers! ?What > the heck? ?:) Sorry dude! But TBH I do not read lots of info about events that I would like to attend but know that I am unable to. It makes for depressing reading, IYKWIM. I can't speak for anyone else, of course. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 08:18:58 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:18:58 -0200 Subject: Mac Museum References: <96E9B2C6-A4FB-4C09-BD86-042B42952568@carolina.rr.com> <4F171705.2090404@snarc.net> <4F174785.7030005@bitsavers.org> <4F174AC1.2080705@snarc.net> Message-ID: <0d0c01ccd77e$98491800$6400a8c0@tababook> > So if people brought him all those computers with the understanding > they'd be recycled .... but instead he kept that all for his personal > enjoyment, and now he's trying to make a huge profit from them .... that > smells bad. So what is recycling? Turn something that is "trash" in something that is "useable"? He made it. With a very low carbon profile :) From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Jan 20 08:25:02 2012 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:25:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Wanted: HP 21MX boards Message-ID: I'm looking for a couple of boards to get my 2109E configured for running RTE-IVB or RTE-6VM: 12747A 128KB Memory Module (1 or 2) 12731A Memory Expansion Module 12791A Firmware Expansion Module If anyone has any spares, please respond privately with your asking price. If you know of any sources BESIDES Crisis Computer, Monterey Bay Communications or Alant??, I'd also be interested. Thanks. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 20 10:32:27 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:32:27 -0800 Subject: 3MBit Ethernet (was Re: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> On 1/19/12 5:01 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: > I have a PDF file of a 1982 Sun manual titled SUN 3MBit Ethernet Board. > Are there any differences with what I have on bitsavers? > I think that the Ethernet board in my Sun 2/120 is jumperable 3MBit/10MBit. > There were two different boards. They used 3Com for 10mbit and the Stanford design for 3. Very few people deployed 3mbit Ethernet. The main use by the time of the Sun Microsystems workstation was to be able to print at CMU, Stanford and MIT using the Xerox Dover laser printers from the Xerox Educational grant of Altos and Dovers to those universities. From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 20 10:38:03 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:38:03 -0800 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> On 1/19/12 5:58 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > The point is that we *run* our systems, unlike the PDP-1 at CHM. What exactly was the point of posting this bit of disinformation? From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 20 10:58:35 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:58:35 -0700 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <4F19986B.1080209 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > On 1/19/12 5:58 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > > > The point is that we *run* our systems, unlike the PDP-1 at CHM. > > What exactly was the point of posting this bit of disinformation? I know that both the LCM and the CHM run their systems, but I think you'll agree that running them 24/7 is a bit different than running them a couple hours every two weeks. Besides, LCM and CHM have different missions as I see it. CHM has a primary mission of preservation and while it's cool to be able to run things, that seems less important to CHM. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that. When I've been to the CHM, things were in static displays and behind glass cases and turned off. I haven't been there when the PDP-1 was running and the only stuff I've seen operating there was at the PLATO at 50 conference where the PLATO terminals that were running were brought in by someone else and not part of the CHM's collection. Maybe some things are different with the big revolution exhibit, I haven't been there to see that yet. LCM has a primary mission of operating the equipment 24/7. Preservation is still important to them, but not as important as having operating equipment. So they upgrade the power supplies and replace the original capacitors. The PS upgrades are non-destructive and reversible and they keep the old capacitors -- I don't know how you could non-destructively replace capacitors since they have to be soldered into the circuits. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 20 11:01:24 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:01:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> <4F18CC9A.9000907@snarc.net> Message-ID: <20120120090009.D79064@shell.lmi.net> On 20 January 2012 02:08, Evan Koblentz wrote: > Wow .... I posted about our keynote lectures that include the co-inventor of > BASIC and Apple's Dan Kottke ... no replies .... Because we just ASSUMED that they would be comped for their t-shirts and burgers! From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 20 11:13:07 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:13:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <201201201713.MAA16584@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > [...] -- I don't know how you could non-destructively replace > capacitors since they have to be soldered into the circuits. Soldered? Not necessarily. I have a number of large caps which have screw terminals rather than solder terminals. I'm also not entirely sure why you consider unsoldering one thing and soldering in another a destructive operation. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 11:37:37 2012 From: madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:37:37 -0500 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <201201201713.MAA16584@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <201201201713.MAA16584@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: This debate is not unique to the computer world. This debate comes up all the time in the rail and aviation preservation communities as well. In general, groups that tend to be tied in with the museum and academic communities tend to favor a "static display of relics" approach while those from the various enthusiast communities tend to favor the "keep your objects operational" approach. Sadly, many foundations and funding sources tend to favor the "super-preservation" approach which means that groups that want to keep old computers computing, locomotives hauling and planes flying are FAR more reliant on large volunteer groups and/or support from wealthy individuals than more traditional museums are. From tdk.knight at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 12:06:26 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:06:26 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: my usb adaptor comes up as com6 On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 7:02 AM, Martin Bishop < mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com> wrote: > On Windows Putty is "better" than HyperTerminal as a "glass TTY" : > http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. And, it has many > other useful capabilities. > > UsbSerial dongles may well not come up on "Com2", but ComHwm+1. The > Windoze Device Manager both lets you investigate com port numbers, and > to an extent change them. > > Martin > > Adrian Stoness [tdk.knight at gmail.com] wrote .. > > -- so i need a linux box? > > -- can i use the hyper terminal in windows to do anything? > > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 20 12:06:41 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:06:41 -0500 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <201201201713.MAA16584@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <201201201713.MAA16584@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F19AD31.8060808@neurotica.com> On 01/20/2012 12:13 PM, Mouse wrote: >> [...] -- I don't know how you could non-destructively replace >> capacitors since they have to be soldered into the circuits. > > Soldered? Not necessarily. I have a number of large caps which have > screw terminals rather than solder terminals. In fact, nearly ALL "big" capacitors use screw terminals, or to a lesser extent, spade lugs. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jan 20 12:45:10 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:45:10 -0800 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> > I know that both the LCM and the CHM run their systems, but I think > you'll agree that running them 24/7 is a bit different than running > them a couple hours every two weeks. > Running a paper tape based computer that requires operator training makes no sense to run 24/7. The point plot CRT has problems with deflection amplifier failures and the team that maintains the PDP-1 has never suggested that we run it unattended. 24/7 operation makes sense for timesharing environments, which has been what LCM has been offering access to for a while now. > Besides, LCM and CHM have different missions as I see it. CHM has a > primary mission of preservation and while it's cool to be able to run > things, that seems less important to CHM. Please correct me if I'm > wrong about that. > the actual mission statement is: http://www.computerhistory.org/about/ "The mission of the Computer History Museum is to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age." So, how do you balance "present for posterity", keeping an artifact in no worse condition that you received it for future generations, with the desire of enthusiasts to have "hands on" access to them. My personal interpretation is that we make available all of the documentation and software that can be located, which is of the most use to people not in the San Fransisco Bay area, and not use CHM's space and other resources for restorations. This view is shared by the other curators at the museum. > In general, groups that tend to be tied in with the museum and > academic communities tend to favor a "static display of relics" > approach while those from the various enthusiast communities tend to > favor the "keep your objects operational" approach. We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members of the general public in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes a real concern. Along with that, many people feeling the need to touch artifacts, climb on platforms, and try to do things like open equipment drawers. Hopefully, that explains the current thinking of the curatorial staff of the museum. From madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 13:21:54 2012 From: madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com (Michael Kerpan) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:21:54 -0500 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > > We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members of the > general public > in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes a real concern. Along with that, > many people > feeling the need to touch artifacts, climb on platforms, and try to do > things like open > equipment drawers. > > Hopefully, that explains the current thinking of the curatorial staff of the > museum. I'm not saying that the strict preservationist approach is necessarily a bad thing, especially where you've got lots of visitors. Additionally, I do feel that the CHM's software and documentation preservation and sharing work is IMMENSELY beneficial to everyone. I was merely pointing out that the tensions between a preservation-first approach and an operations-oriented approach exist in many contexts. Mike From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jan 20 14:15:00 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:15:00 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2EF2@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Martin Bishop Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 5:02 AM > On Windows Putty is "better" than HyperTerminal as a "glass TTY" : > http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. And, it has many > other useful capabilities. I second the recommendation for PuTTY (and more specifically PortaPuTTY!) for general Windows use. Kermit-32 is another possibility. For *consoles*, we use TeraTerm instead of PuTTY. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jan 20 14:25:23 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:25:23 +0000 Subject: 3MBit Ethernet (was Re: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31) In-Reply-To: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> References: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F02@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Al Kossow Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 8:32 AM > On 1/19/12 5:01 PM, Michael Thompson wrote: >> I have a PDF file of a 1982 Sun manual titled SUN 3MBit Ethernet Board. >> > Are there any differences with what I have on bitsavers? >> I think that the Ethernet board in my Sun 2/120 is jumperable 3MBit/10MBit. > There were two different boards. They used 3Com for 10mbit and the > Stanford design for 3. Very few people deployed 3mbit Ethernet. The > main use by the time of the Sun Microsystems workstation was to be > able to print at CMU, Stanford and MIT using the Xerox Dover laser > printers from the Xerox Educational grant of Altos and Dovers to those > universities. The entire Stanford backbone was 3Mbit when I got there in 1984, and there were TOPS-20 applications for telnet, FTP, SMTP, print services, and several other services I'm not remembering right at the moment. I installed a 10MBit interface into one of our DEC-20s at LOTS with advice from Len Bosack (still at SCORE at the time). PUP (PARC Universal Packets, the 3Mbit layer 2/3) was extended to 10Mbit at Stanford and used for several years in addition to TCP/IP, mostly at LOTS because the kiddies weren't allowed on the Internet until c. 1988. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jan 20 14:38:33 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:38:33 +0000 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Al Kossow Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 8:38 AM > On 1/19/12 5:58 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> The point is that we *run* our systems, unlike the PDP-1 at CHM. > What exactly was the point of posting this bit of disinformation? My apologies, Al, if that came off a little more strident than I intended it to. I'll plead cabin fever (I've been at home due to snow storms in a region with no snow plans even though we're 7.5 degrees north of Chicago), exacerbated by the power outage that woke me up when my CPAP stopped working night before last and which had me running my emergency generator until after 12:30AM this morning. In the context of the discussion (which had gone on to the perennial topic of replacing vs. "reforming" capacitors), our desire to keep those systems which it makes sense to run 24/7 up and running means that we do not use what we consider, based on experience, to be half measures. No, it may not make sense to run the PDP-1 24/7, but the fact that a potential visitor must know when the PDP-1 *will* run, rather than being able to see whenever she has an opportunity to go to to CHM, makes for a different experience. We have similar systems in our much smaller collection, which we are happy to turn on for any visitor any time, if they have been made runnable at all. That's all that was meant by the telegraphic statement you quoted. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 20 14:41:04 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:41:04 -0700 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: In article <4F19B636.4050602 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > I know that both the LCM and the CHM run their systems, but I think > > you'll agree that running them 24/7 is a bit different than running > > them a couple hours every two weeks. > > Running a paper tape based computer that requires operator training makes > no sense to run 24/7. The point plot CRT has problems with deflection > amplifier failures and the team that maintains the PDP-1 has never > suggested that we run it unattended. > > 24/7 operation makes sense for timesharing environments, which has been what > LCM has been offering access to for a while now. I agree with everything you've written. I didn't mean to imply that the difference between the way LCM does things and the way CHM does things means that one is better than the other. I like that we have different organizations so that we can pursue both the preservation goal and the operational goal. > My personal interpretation is that we make available all of the > documentation and software that can be located, which is of the most > use to people not in the San Fransisco Bay area, and not use > CHM's space and other resources for restorations. This view is > shared by the other curators at the museum. I have no problem with that either. > We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members > of the general public in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes > a real concern. Along with that, many people feeling the need to > touch artifacts, climb on platforms, and try to do things like open > equipment drawers. Yes, proper treatment of the equipment is something that concerns me in making interactive hands-on exhibits. Ultimately, it may boil down to making sacrificial replicas for which no harm is ultimately done should vandalism and monkeying about be a concern. I think my museum will be small enough for a while that this won't be an immediate concern (i.e. with 3 seats and an exhibit that's not being used without someone overseeing it's use). However, this is something that will most likely need to be addressed in some fashion at some point. Remember, the cages in zoos protect not only the visitors from the animals, but also protect the animals from the visitors. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 20 14:44:50 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:44:50 -0700 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2EF2@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2EF2@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: In article <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2EF2 at 505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, Rich Alderson writes: > I second the recommendation for PuTTY (and more specifically PortaPuTTY!) > for general Windows use. While PuTTY is free, I prefer CRT from VanDyke Software for terminal and SSH needs on Windows. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From keithvz at verizon.net Fri Jan 20 15:22:10 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:22:10 -0500 Subject: 3MBit Ethernet (was Re: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31) In-Reply-To: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> References: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F19DB02.6030203@verizon.net> On 1/20/2012 11:32 AM, Al Kossow wrote: > Very few people deployed 3mbit Ethernet. Must be the case. I did network support for 11+ years and dealt with literally thousands of different network setups that were around for a long time. Saw plenty of token ring, thick(with vampire taps, of course) & thinnet installations, twinax/coax mainframe configurations, arcnet, amongst others. I'm not sure if I ever even heard a passing comment about 3mbps --- Must have been fairly unpopular(by then) for me not to run into it at least once. This was 15+ years ago..... Keith From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 20 15:23:29 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:23:29 -0800 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2EF2@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <4F19DB51.4050408@brouhaha.com> Richard wrote: > While PuTTY is free, I prefer CRT from VanDyke Software for terminal > and SSH needs on Windows. Seconded. In fact VanDyke's SecureCRT is available in versions for MacOS X and Linux, also. It's not the most full-featured terminal program I've ever used, but it generally does everything I need. Eric From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Fri Jan 20 15:29:31 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:29:31 -0800 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 2012 Jan 19, at 9:05 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: > my dip switches are at for 2400 baud with tty turned off as > according to > the manual? > > 1 on > 2 off > 3 on > 4 off > 5 on > 6 on > 7 on > 8 off > 9 on > 10 on ???? > > or do i got them reversed?? > > http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/503/dipswitch.jpg > > am i supost to see anything pop up like on the 11?? or be able to > input > anything at this point? not familiar with how this works with the 8 > yet You may have the switches reversed. From what I can discern in the photo, those appear to be rocker-style switches (rather than the slide-style switches). With the rocker switches like that one usually pushes down on the side of the desired selection, which would make 2,4,8 on, the others off. Agreed that this is the reverse of what the red marks would suggest, so it's rather ambiguous. From eric at brouhaha.com Fri Jan 20 15:37:47 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:37:47 -0800 Subject: 3MBit Ethernet (was Re: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31) In-Reply-To: <4F19DB02.6030203@verizon.net> References: <4F19971B.4040308@bitsavers.org> <4F19DB02.6030203@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F19DEAB.8050803@brouhaha.com> Keith Monahan wrote: > I'm not sure if I ever even heard a passing comment about 3mbps --- Must > have been fairly unpopular(by then) for me not to run into it at least > once. This was 15+ years ago..... > 15 years ago is *modern* times as the history of Ethernet goes. 3Mbps well on its way out 10 years before that. Note that 3Mbps Ethernet was only a defacto standard. The first industry standard was for 10Mbps, adopted in 1980, and the IEEE standard wasn't published until 1985. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 15:39:55 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:39:55 -0200 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <00e701ccd7bc$14340a00$6400a8c0@tababook> > You may have the switches reversed. From what I can discern in the > photo, those appear to be rocker-style switches (rather than the > slide-style switches). With the rocker switches like that one usually > pushes down on the side of the desired selection, which would make > 2,4,8 on, the others off. Agreed that this is the reverse of what the > red marks would suggest, so it's rather ambiguous. They are, indeed! From IanK at vulcan.com Fri Jan 20 15:58:29 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:58:29 +0000 Subject: 3MBit Ethernet (was Re: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 31) In-Reply-To: <4F19DEAB.8050803@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On 1/20/12 1:37 PM, "Eric Smith" wrote: >Keith Monahan wrote: >> I'm not sure if I ever even heard a passing comment about 3mbps --- Must >> have been fairly unpopular(by then) for me not to run into it at least >> once. This was 15+ years ago..... >> >15 years ago is *modern* times as the history of Ethernet goes. 3Mbps >well on its way out 10 years before that. > >Note that 3Mbps Ethernet was only a defacto standard. The first industry >standard was for 10Mbps, adopted in 1980, and the IEEE standard wasn't >published until 1985. > > > Keep in mind that the original Ethernet, on the Xerox Alto, was driven directly by the microcode engine. Ethernet was one of several cooperatively multitasked 'tasks' in the microcode, others including disk access, drawing the screen and refreshing dynamic RAM. I'm convinced it was 3Mb/s because that was the fastest they felt could be supported without bringing everything else to a crawl. Considering later standards such as ARCnet (at 2.5Mb/s), it's my opinion they were wild optimists. :-) -- Ian From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 20 15:47:32 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:47:32 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> from "Rich Alderson" at Jan 20, 12 01:58:55 am Message-ID: > Ian was not at LCM yet when we did exactly this, after reading the CDE > white paper. More than 95% of the aluminum electrolytic caps in the 2065 > had failed. We first tried "re-forming" a few. They failed again in > days. I was under the impression tha the oxide dielectric film was originally produced by a process that's much the same as the reforming process. So I wonder why the reformed capactiros didn't last. Was theres somethign else wrogn with them? > > At that point we made the decision never to waste our time on this. We > buy new capacitors (or higher-level components; cf. our PDP-7) and put > them in. AS somebody who. like you, wants to run their classic computers, I must admit that I also replace defective capacitors. I use the neares new equivalents that I can find (same or a little hight capacitance, same or a bit hight working voltage). The appearance foesn't matter too much to me. I simply think 'what would have been don e if this capacitor had failed when the machine was in 'serious' use' -- and the answer is 'It would have been replaced by a suitable new part'. Perhaps I've been lucky, but I've not found that electrolytiics are the problem that soem make out. As I said the other doay, I've replaced perhaps 10 of them in all my old machines. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 20 15:54:03 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:54:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F18D8AC.8070203@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jan 19, 12 06:59:56 pm Message-ID: > > On 01/19/2012 02:08 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I am not sure I understnd the point of the monitor circuit. > [...] > > If the capacitor fails open, or high ESR, or loses capacitance, the > > ripple on that supply line will increase. A monitor could detect that, > > but equally if that happens, the machine stops working correctly > . > The ripple can increase quite a bit before it causes failures. A > monitoring circuit can catch it before it gets that far. True, but given the complexity of the monitoring circuit [1], do you really gain that much by having it. I think I'd just conenct all the supply lines to a rotary switch [2] and fed them to a low-end 'scope. And then once a day (or so) trun the swithc round and look at the ripple on each line. [1] When I add bits to a classic computer, I try to use compoennts and designs that were avaialble when the machine was made. So something like this woudl be done using analogue circuitry. Sampling the supply lien withaAnd ADC and tryign to measure the ripple that way would not be somethbing I'd want to do in a classic machine [2] Make sure it's break-brfore-make for very obvious reasons! -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 20 16:02:28 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:02:28 +0000 (GMT) Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 20, 12 01:26:23 pm Message-ID: > But TBH I do not read lots of info about events that I would like to > attend but know that I am unable to. It makes for depressing reading, > IYKWIM. I can't speak for anyone else, of course. THis may cheer you up a little... I can't promise anything yet, but this year is 30 years of HPCC (Handheld and Portable Computer Club), and it's very likely we'll be organising a 2 day conference to mark the occasion. This is not strictly a vitage computer organisation, of course, but it's highly likely I'll br bringing along some of my older HP desktop machines (say about 40 years old), and will have them oprating and in bits (at different times, of course). I am pretty sure that non-members (of HPCC) will be able to attend for a nominal fee, and it'll be in London so you won't have transport or accomodation problems. -tony From jwest at classiccmp.org Fri Jan 20 17:52:43 2012 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:52:43 -0600 Subject: Wanted: HP 21MX boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <23EE0C3C-1CBA-447A-B8E9-BDD6BF323343@classiccmp.org> On Jan 20, 2012, at 8:25 AM, Mike Loewen wrote: > > 12747A 128KB Memory Module (1 or 2) > > 12731A Memory Expansion Module > > 12791A Firmware Expansion Module > > If anyone has any spares, please respond privately with your > asking price. If you know of any sources BESIDES Crisis Computer, > Monterey Bay Communications or Alant??, I'd also be interested. > Thanks. No asking price, but definitely willing to trade instead. I don't think I have much to spare as to the 12747A, but I suspect I have spares of the MEM and FEM. I know I'm looking for FAB boards.... contact off list.... J From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 18:10:22 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:10:22 -0800 Subject: Wanted: HP 21MX boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 20, 2012 6:31 AM, "Mike Loewen" wrote: > > I'm looking for a couple of boards to get my 2109E configured for running RTE-IVB or RTE-6VM: > > 12747A 128KB Memory Module (1 or 2) > Are 12749H incompatible with your memory controller? There are some currently listed on eBay, but I assume you have already ruled those out. -Glen From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Fri Jan 20 18:14:58 2012 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:14:58 -0500 (EST) Subject: Wanted: HP 21MX boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Jan 2012, Glen Slick wrote: > On Jan 20, 2012 6:31 AM, "Mike Loewen" wrote: >> >> I'm looking for a couple of boards to get my 2109E configured for > running RTE-IVB or RTE-6VM: >> >> 12747A 128KB Memory Module (1 or 2) >> > > Are 12749H incompatible with your memory controller? There are some > currently listed on eBay, but I assume you have already ruled those out. The 12749H is high-performance memory, which isn't compatible with my 2102B controller. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From glen.slick at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 18:37:35 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:37:35 -0800 Subject: Wanted: HP 21MX boards In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 20, 2012 4:19 PM, "Mike Loewen" wrote: > > The 12749H is high-performance memory, which isn't compatible with my 2102B controller. > Ok, guess that makes sense. I think I must have 2102E controllers in my 2113E and 2117F. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Fri Jan 20 20:36:23 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:36:23 -0500 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members of the > general public > in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes a real concern. Not just a concern, but a problem. The nautical museums I am involved with have minor artifacts disappear all the time. One time, during a Boy Scout overnight on Battleship MASSACHUSETTS, I was working in the normally padlocked radar shop - a closet sized space - and some little shit STOLE the lock WHILE I was inside. People do these crimes not to make money, but for the simple thrill. I am surer that padlock was dumped overboard. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 20 21:16:01 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:16:01 -0500 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <010FA0B9-ACE6-42CA-8EB1-4F2320894ADC@neurotica.com> On Jan 20, 2012, at 9:36 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members of the >> general public >> in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes a real concern. > > Not just a concern, but a problem. The nautical museums I am involved > with have minor artifacts disappear all the time. One time, during a > Boy Scout overnight on Battleship MASSACHUSETTS, I was working in the > normally padlocked radar shop - a closet sized space - and some little > shit STOLE the lock WHILE I was inside. > > People do these crimes not to make money, but for the simple thrill. I > am surer that padlock was dumped overboard. Oh shit, that was you?! (kidding...KIDDING!) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 21 02:19:41 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:19:41 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F1A751D.1080501@neurotica.com> On 01/19/2012 09:53 AM, Keith M wrote: > We have a local place called Burgatory which gets tons of great reviews > --- that I haven't been to because it's always too busy. > > http://www.burgatorybar.com/ > > for pictures. Mmmmm, Burgatory. Autumn and I have been there several times; we usually go with Alex and Becky whom I believe you also met at the Faire. Burgatory's burgers are fantastic, and unbelievably large. What's even better, though, are their alcohol-laden milk shakes. Not the normal "make a milk shake and throw a teaspoon of booze in it" crap...I'm a big guy, and I have a very high alcohol tolerance, and ONE of these things gives me a buzz. And they're tasty too! Kinda pricey, but worth every penny, and worth the wait. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From dave.thearchivist at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 02:23:07 2012 From: dave.thearchivist at gmail.com (Dave Caroline) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:23:07 +0000 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Im involved with the preservation of a working stationary steam engine We run about 6 times a year and we replace wear parts as would have been done throughout its working life. http://www.middleton-leawood.org.uk/leawood/ I take guidance from 5.8 below and the fact that the maintenance required to do that means we inspect it more so can deal with its condition and any problems as they arise etc. See section 5 of http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/site-information/487-standards-in-the-museum-care-of-larger-a-working-objects 5.7 Demonstrating an object in motion can add immeasurably to our understanding of its purpose and significance; riding on a transport exhibit designed to carry passengers not only shows us how it was made and controlled, but demonstrates conditions of life for those who worked on it or used it. A visitor who has never seen textile machinery at work will have difficulty understanding a static loom, let alone the working conditions of Victorian mill-hands. Running an early computer gives an unique insight into early computing practices. 5.8 Operating an object may also actually contribute to its preservation, eg through distributing lubricants or varying stress points. 5.9 Operating an object may also help to preserve or rediscover appropriate skills. 5.10 However, operating most mechanical objects will inevitably result in their wearing out. At the very least surfaces will be worn and information thus be lost; at the worst the object will end up like the proverbial Grandfather's Axe, with little or nothing preserved from the days before it entered the museum. Dave Caroline From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 21 02:46:25 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:46:25 -0500 Subject: OT: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> On 01/20/2012 03:38 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: >> What exactly was the point of posting this bit of disinformation? > > My apologies, Al, if that came off a little more strident than I > intended it to. I'll plead cabin fever (I've been at home due to snow > storms in a region with no snow plans even though we're 7.5 degrees > north of Chicago), exacerbated by the power outage that woke me up when > my CPAP stopped working night before last and which had me running my > emergency generator until after 12:30AM this morning. Eeeeeek! I am on CPAP as well; power failures are VERY disconcerting. I run mine on a small UPS now. I strongly recommend it. In the event of a power failure, the beeping of the UPS will likely wake you up, but without that oh-so-wonderful suffocating feeling. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From jonas at otter.se Fri Jan 20 14:38:16 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:38:16 +0100 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> >> > Just looked around at the Oracle Site but found nothing for VAX. Does >> > anyone have an idea how to get RDB for VAX? > I have it. Contact me off-list. A couple of years ago you could download it from Oracle's site. You will probably have to register first (free) but as a developer or consultant or whatever you can usually download their products for free. It is not easy to find, there is no obvious link to it from anywhere you usually find when poking around. You will probably need to search for it. I think I have a reasonably recent (~2-3 years old?) version of it too on a CD image somewhere. I know it is running on my SIMH. I could look for it if you need it. /Jonas From tonymaslen at btinternet.com Fri Jan 20 18:03:53 2012 From: tonymaslen at btinternet.com (Tony Maslen) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:03:53 -0000 Subject: Stuff for sale/free (Seattle area) In-Reply-To: <4E7FDEFA.40909@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <583BC7FBE7954CF8BA1D53F54AE62CE3@EyetidyLtd> Hi Josh, I guess the Shibaden FP107 camera has gone to a good home, if not I?m Interested. Best Wishes, Tony From drb at msu.edu Sat Jan 21 04:02:22 2012 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:02:22 -0500 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:38:16 +0100.) <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> References: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> Message-ID: <20120121100223.28E81B02B91@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> >> > Just looked around at the Oracle Site but found nothing for VAX. Does >> > anyone have an idea how to get RDB for VAX? http://web.archive.org/web/20041215051752/http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/rdb7/index.html De From sander.reiche at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 04:02:28 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:02:28 +0100 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> References: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Jonas Otter wrote: > > ?A couple of years ago you could download it from Oracle's site. You will > probably have to register first (free) but as a developer or consultant or > whatever you can usually download their products for free. I have a support contract account, but I cannot find the VAX version at all. > It is not easy to find, there is no obvious link to it from anywhere you > usually find when poking around. You will probably need to search for it. If you have a link, I would like to have it! > I think I have a reasonably recent (~2-3 years old?) version of it too on a > CD image somewhere. I know it is running on my SIMH. I could look for it if > you need it. 3 years old version of Rdb from Oracle for the VAX? Highly interested. Regards, Sander -- ~ UNIX is basically a simple operating system, ? ? ? ? ? ?but you have to be a genius to understand its simplicity. ~ dmr From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 21 04:09:34 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:09:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale Message-ID: I have seven P112 kits for sale. One will ship immediately. The other six will ship a week later, which is when I expect some memory chips to arrive. I'm taking orders first-come first-served, one per customer and ONLY from people who don't have a P112 already. The price is $160 shipped in the US. For outside the US, I expect the charge to be $10 more. These kits include everything you need to end up with a working P112 computer except disk drives, drive cables, power supply, and terminal. You also get a copy of the Walnut Creek CP/N CDROM and Rlee Peter's Archive. Email me with your intent to buy and I'll invoice the first seven. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From rodsmallwood at btconnect.com Sat Jan 21 04:24:49 2012 From: rodsmallwood at btconnect.com (Rod Smallwood) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:24:49 -0000 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <78E5D3680166492CB50F4D5D873C5196@Edicons.local> If it can run it should run. Yes protect it from those who know not. What I am agin is electronic taxidermy ? Rod Smallwood ? ? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Sent: 20 January 2012 20:41 To: cctalk Subject: Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In article <4F19B636.4050602 at bitsavers.org>, Al Kossow writes: > > I know that both the LCM and the CHM run their systems, but I think > > you'll agree that running them 24/7 is a bit different than running > > them a couple hours every two weeks. > > Running a paper tape based computer that requires operator training makes > no sense to run 24/7. The point plot CRT has problems with deflection > amplifier failures and the team that maintains the PDP-1 has never > suggested that we run it unattended. > > 24/7 operation makes sense for timesharing environments, which has been what > LCM has been offering access to for a while now. I agree with everything you've written. I didn't mean to imply that the difference between the way LCM does things and the way CHM does things means that one is better than the other. I like that we have different organizations so that we can pursue both the preservation goal and the operational goal. > My personal interpretation is that we make available all of the > documentation and software that can be located, which is of the most > use to people not in the San Fransisco Bay area, and not use > CHM's space and other resources for restorations. This view is > shared by the other curators at the museum. I have no problem with that either. > We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members > of the general public in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes > a real concern. Along with that, many people feeling the need to > touch artifacts, climb on platforms, and try to do things like open > equipment drawers. Yes, proper treatment of the equipment is something that concerns me in making interactive hands-on exhibits. Ultimately, it may boil down to making sacrificial replicas for which no harm is ultimately done should vandalism and monkeying about be a concern. I think my museum will be small enough for a while that this won't be an immediate concern (i.e. with 3 seats and an exhibit that's not being used without someone overseeing it's use). However, this is something that will most likely need to be addressed in some fashion at some point. Remember, the cages in zoos protect not only the visitors from the animals, but also protect the animals from the visitors. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From oe5ewl at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 04:28:30 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:28:30 +0100 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: References: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> Message-ID: Thank you all for your kind help. Some nice person provided me a Version of RDB already. And it runs nice on my SIMH.VAX. Now it's time to move SIMH to its dedicated Machine (stripped down linux). I ran into some compiler issues regarding libpcap. Hopefully I get this done this weekend. Regards, Wolfgang -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/21 Sander Reiche > On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Jonas Otter wrote: > > > > A couple of years ago you could download it from Oracle's site. You will > > probably have to register first (free) but as a developer or consultant > or > > whatever you can usually download their products for free. > I have a support contract account, but I cannot find the VAX version at > all. > > > It is not easy to find, there is no obvious link to it from anywhere you > > usually find when poking around. You will probably need to search for it. > If you have a link, I would like to have it! > > > I think I have a reasonably recent (~2-3 years old?) version of it too > on a > > CD image somewhere. I know it is running on my SIMH. I could look for it > if > > you need it. > 3 years old version of Rdb from Oracle for the VAX? Highly interested. > > Regards, > > Sander > > -- > ~ UNIX is basically a simple operating system, > but you have to be a genius to understand its simplicity. ~ dmr > > From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 05:11:19 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:11:19 -0200 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> > Eeeeeek! I am on CPAP as well; power failures are VERY > disconcerting. I run mine on a small UPS now. I strongly recommend it. > In the event of a power failure, the beeping of the UPS will likely > wake you up, but without that oh-so-wonderful suffocating feeling. Shoudn't these toys be battery-backed from factory? :oO From jws at jwsss.com Sat Jan 21 06:17:22 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:17:22 -0800 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> I've never seen one that is. I have two bipap machines, one which runs a compression fan continuously, and one when you breath. Neither would probably run long on batteries, they use a lot of power. the newer machines are a lot like my second machine, but still probably draw enough to need a pretty substantial supply to run for very long. Jim On 1/21/2012 3:11 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> Eeeeeek! I am on CPAP as well; power failures are VERY >> disconcerting. I run mine on a small UPS now. I strongly recommend >> it. In the event of a power failure, the beeping of the UPS will >> likely wake you up, but without that oh-so-wonderful suffocating >> feeling. > > Shoudn't these toys be battery-backed from factory? :oO > > From md.benson at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 06:40:31 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:40:31 +0000 Subject: RDB/VMS for Vax In-Reply-To: References: <4F19D0B8.4010203@otter.se> Message-ID: <9EBD6E35-9DA2-4FE4-A45C-DE7913EB2CB5@gmail.com> On 21 Jan 2012, at 10:28, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > Thank you all for your kind help. Some nice person provided me a Version of > RDB already. And it runs nice on my SIMH.VAX. > > Now it's time to move SIMH to its dedicated Machine (stripped down linux). > I ran into some compiler issues regarding libpcap. Hopefully I get this > done this weekend. NetBSD provides an ideal platform for SimH if you don't manage to work out the wrinkles in Linux. You just need a few bits from pkgsrc and it's a goer. -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jan 21 07:59:25 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F1AC4BD.4090409@dunnington.plus.com> Adrian Stoness wrote: > so i need a linux box? > can i use the hyper terminal in windows to do anything? I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely, and use PuTTY for SSH (not that that's useful with a PDP-8!) and serial comms under Windows, but I prefer Kermit under Linux/Unix (Kermit for Windows is good but isn't free). You can use Kermit as a file transfer program but it really wants to talk to another Kermit on the other end, so on a PDP-8 it's mostly useful either simply as a console terminal, or terminal + file transfer if you're running something like OS/8 and Kermit-12 on the 8/A. Otherwise something simpler like rsend that I mentioned before, plus a simple terminal program, is more useful. > my dip switches are at for 2400 baud with tty turned off as according to > the manual? > or do i got them reversed?? Not sure, but others have answered that. > am i supost to see anything pop up like on the 11?? or be able to input > anything at this point? not familiar with how this works with the 8 yet No, you aren't, unless your 8 has a bootstrap that includes some sort of console program - which would be unusual. A PDP-8 doesn't have anything like the equivalent of ODT or a boot conversation such as most PDP-11s have. When you start it up, you would usually have to toggle in the RIM loader, unless of course it's already been saved in non-volatile core. That doesn't issue any prompts or sign-on message, though. From first startup, it goes like this: toggle in the RIM loader (either the slow-speed reader version for ASR33 or similar, or the high-speed version for high speed PTP reader -- they're slightly different) start the RIM loader load the BIN loader from tape run the BIN loader if it didn't self-start from the RIM loader load and run whatever OS, diagnostic, or utility you want You have to watch the lights to see if the PDP-8 is running or not, for example to see when a loader has finished; none of them issue prompts. There are a few toggle-in programs and some related stuff in the PDP-8 directory on my website at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-8/ The cylon toggle-in and some of the others in tests.txt are not very interesting on an 8/A as it has an octal display rather than rows of lights; I use them for demos when I'm at exhibitions and only have a PDP-8/E processor box rather than a complete system, but tests.txt does contain some very simple serial line tests and demos. You'll find them useful while you check the serial line is set up correctly. rimloader.txt describes the RIM loader, if you need to toggle it in. In all these files, the first column is the address, the 2nd is the code, 3rd is labels, and rest is mnemonics or comments, and by stripping off everything after the second column you get something that can be turned immediately into a RIM-format file by the program called rim (see rim.c for the source). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 08:54:30 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:54:30 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <4F1AC4BD.4090409@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> <4F1AC4BD.4090409@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: not seeing the rsend program u mention i dunno if i am an idiot or what. when i run the terminal software i can't get it to do any inputs i'm missing something somewhere also how am i guna load a rim tape when i don't got one :( On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Adrian Stoness wrote: > >> so i need a linux box? >> can i use the hyper terminal in windows to do anything? >> > > I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely, and use PuTTY for SSH (not that > that's useful with a PDP-8!) and serial comms under Windows, but I prefer > Kermit under Linux/Unix (Kermit for Windows is good but isn't free). You > can use Kermit as a file transfer program but it really wants to talk to > another Kermit on the other end, so on a PDP-8 it's mostly useful either > simply as a console terminal, or terminal + file transfer if you're running > something like OS/8 and Kermit-12 on the 8/A. > > Otherwise something simpler like rsend that I mentioned before, plus a > simple terminal program, is more useful. > > my dip switches are at for 2400 baud with tty turned off as according to >> the manual? >> or do i got them reversed?? >> > > Not sure, but others have answered that. > > > am i supost to see anything pop up like on the 11?? or be able to input >> anything at this point? not familiar with how this works with the 8 yet >> > > No, you aren't, unless your 8 has a bootstrap that includes some sort of > console program - which would be unusual. A PDP-8 doesn't have anything > like the equivalent of ODT or a boot conversation such as most PDP-11s > have. When you start it up, you would usually have to toggle in the RIM > loader, unless of course it's already been saved in non-volatile core. That > doesn't issue any prompts or sign-on message, though. From first startup, > it goes like this: > toggle in the RIM loader (either the slow-speed reader version > for ASR33 or similar, or the high-speed version for high speed > PTP reader -- they're slightly different) > start the RIM loader > load the BIN loader from tape > run the BIN loader if it didn't self-start from the RIM loader > load and run whatever OS, diagnostic, or utility you want > You have to watch the lights to see if the PDP-8 is running or not, for > example to see when a loader has finished; none of them issue prompts. > > There are a few toggle-in programs and some related stuff in the PDP-8 > directory on my website at http://www.dunnington.u-net.**com/public/PDP-8/ > > The cylon toggle-in and some of the others in tests.txt are not very > interesting on an 8/A as it has an octal display rather than rows of > lights; I use them for demos when I'm at exhibitions and only have a > PDP-8/E processor box rather than a complete system, but tests.txt does > contain some very simple serial line tests and demos. You'll find them > useful while you check the serial line is set up correctly. rimloader.txt > describes the RIM loader, if you need to toggle it in. > > In all these files, the first column is the address, the 2nd is the code, > 3rd is labels, and rest is mnemonics or comments, and by stripping off > everything after the second column you get something that can be turned > immediately into a RIM-format file by the program called rim (see rim.c for > the source). > > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jan 21 10:01:05 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:01:05 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> <4F1AC4BD.4090409@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F1AE141.4080405@dunnington.plus.com> Adrian Stoness wrote: > not seeing the rsend program u mention You need to compile it, eg from the source at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-8/rsend.c or Kevin McQuiggin's website. > i dunno if i am an idiot or what. when i run the terminal software i can't > get it to do any inputs Running PuTTY or something similar, on a laptop, connected to he PDP-8/A? You need to be running something on the 8/A as well, to talk to it. Unless you have loaded something there, it will be doing absolutely nothing. Until you load some software -- whether that's the RIM loader, a little test program toggled in, or an OS, the PDP-8/A is no more than a noisy room heater, a box of completely dumb unprogrammed elecrical parts. Effectively bare metal. > also how am i guna load a rim tape when i don't got one :( You need to have the rimloader running in the PDP-8. You put that in manually, from the keypad on the panel. Then you use that to load any tapes that are in RIM format, from a TTY with a tape reader (or RIM-format tape image files from a laptop running rsend or equivalent). From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 08:09:34 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:09:34 -0500 Subject: cctech Digest, Vol 101, Issue 33 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > From:?Al Kossow > Date:?Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:45:10 -0800 > Subject:?Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) > > We had around 65,000 visitors last year. With that many members of the general public > in an exhibit, theft and vandalism becomes a real concern. Along with that, many people > feeling the need to touch artifacts, climb on platforms, and try to do things like open > equipment drawers. I volunteer for a Steam Engine and Wireless Radio Museum. http://www.newsm.org. We usually get about 1,000 visitors in 6 hours during our annual Steam-Up. Keeping a close watch on everyone is very difficult. A visitor actually brought tools so they could steal parts from an engine governor. -- Michael Thompson From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Jan 21 11:40:48 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:40:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 21, 12 03:46:25 am" Message-ID: <201201211740.q0LHemZB009506@floodgap.com> > Eeeeeek! I am on CPAP as well; power failures are VERY > disconcerting. I run mine on a small UPS now. I strongly recommend it. > In the event of a power failure, the beeping of the UPS will likely > wake you up, but without that oh-so-wonderful suffocating feeling. I've certainly written letters in my day job capacity for patients with CPAP and oxygen concentrators to give them priority in an outage, also. Depending on your state regulations the power company will honour these from a physician or other qualified medical professional. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The only thing to fear is fearlessness -- R. E. M. ------------------------- From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jan 21 12:33:06 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:33:06 -0800 Subject: Lack of Panasonic/Quasar/Friends Amis HHC tech docs (was Re: Epson HX20 terminal emulaotr (and other software) wanted.) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1B04E2.4050703@brouhaha.com> On 01/11/2012 11:47 AM, Tony Duell wrote: > I have the hardware techncial manual on paper (it was given to me > along with another HX20 and a TF20 drive unit). There are similarl > manauls avaialble for download on the web..' Speaking of technical documentation for compact battery-powered computers, I sure wish some technical documentation on the Panasonic/Quasar/Friends Amis HHC would show up. The hardware is 6502-based, but with an ASIC that controls the memory map and LCD. I've partially reverse-engineered some of the mainframe and plugin ROMs, but parts remain mysterious. Most of the software, other than Microsoft BASIC, was written in SNAP, a token-threaded dialect of Forth. The MIcrosoft BASIC ROM only contains the tiny amount of SNAP code necessary for to interface to the mainframe code. The widely-available image of the Microsoft BASIC ROM for the HHC contains one byte with an obviously incorrect value, apparently due to a glitch when the ROM was read. From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jan 21 13:00:57 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:00:57 -0800 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1B0B69.9070802@brouhaha.com> On 01/20/2012 01:47 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > I was under the impression tha the oxide dielectric film was > originally produced by a process that's much the same as the reforming > process. It is. > So I wonder why the reformed capactiros didn't last. Was theres > somethign else wrogn with them? I would think so. If you do the reforming by simply throwing the capacitor on a current-limited supply and not measuring anything (as seems to be the usual method), then a completely defective capacitor may improve a little bit but still be fundamentally broken, and still fail either immediately or shortly after being put into service. The process we used on the PDP-1 project was to start with the power supply set to 0.5V, watch the current until it dropped below specified leakage, ramp to 1.0V, watch the leakage, and so on up to the rated voltage. At each step the current limit of the power supply is set such that the product of the voltage and the current limit were less than the maximum rated power dissipation of the capacitor. (I think there may have been an additional constraint to avoid having unreasonably high current limit settings at low voltages, but I don't recall the details of that.) Due to the current limit, for a capacitor that needs reformation the power supply will be in current limiting, with the voltage slowly ramping to the voltage setting as the reformation proceeds. If the process takes more than a few hours at a voltage step, the capacitor is probably not going to reform, and should be replaced. If you don't do at least some monitoring of the process (not necessarily as thorough as we did), you won't really know whether the reformation is successful. In the PDP-1 restoration, we encountered a few capacitors that had obviously gone bad and did not successfully complete the restoration process. Most of the capacitors completed the restoration process, and at the completion, performed well within the factory specifications. Although there are other wearout mechanisms, we expect that most of the reformed capacitors will enjoy a reasonable remaining service life. Eric From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 13:46:41 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:46:41 -0000 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F1B0B69.9070802@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <221C0516A6654B3F805F32D9233FEA5B@G4UGMT41> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Eric Smith > Sent: 21 January 2012 19:01 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM > > > On 01/20/2012 01:47 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I was under the impression tha the oxide dielectric film was > > originally produced by a process that's much the same as > the reforming > > process. > > It is. > > > So I wonder why the reformed capactiros didn't last. Was theres > > somethign else wrogn with them? > > I would think so. > > If you do the reforming by simply throwing the capacitor on a > current-limited supply and not measuring anything (as seems to be the > usual method), then a completely defective capacitor may improve a > little bit but still be fundamentally broken, and still fail either > immediately or shortly after being put into service. > This really suprises me. I guess that the caps Radio Hams use may run at higher voltages than those in vintage PSUs but the process has as I was taught it was always to ramp up the voltage whilst checking the leakage. Some interesting circuits here:- http://www.vmars.org.uk/capacitor_reforming.htm > The process we used on the PDP-1 project was to start with the power > supply set to 0.5V, watch the current until it dropped below > specified > leakage, ramp to 1.0V, watch the leakage, and so on up to the rated > voltage. At each step the current limit of the power supply > is set such > that the product of the voltage and the current limit were > less than the > maximum rated power dissipation of the capacitor. (I think there may > have been an additional constraint to avoid having unreasonably high > current limit settings at low voltages, but I don't recall > the details > of that.) Due to the current limit, for a capacitor that needs > reformation the power supply will be in current limiting, with the > voltage slowly ramping to the voltage setting as the reformation > proceeds. If the process takes more than a few hours at a > voltage step, > the capacitor is probably not going to reform, and should be replaced. > > If you don't do at least some monitoring of the process (not > necessarily > as thorough as we did), you won't really know whether the > reformation is > successful. > > In the PDP-1 restoration, we encountered a few capacitors that had > obviously gone bad and did not successfully complete the restoration > process. Most of the capacitors completed the restoration > process, and > at the completion, performed well within the factory specifications. > Although there are other wearout mechanisms, we expect that > most of the > reformed capacitors will enjoy a reasonable remaining service life. > > Eric > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 21 13:52:03 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:52:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <4F19B636.4050602@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20120121115100.T19966@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 20 Jan 2012, William Donzelli wrote: > normally padlocked radar shop - a closet sized space - and some little > shit STOLE the lock WHILE I was inside. You learned to never leave the lock hanging from the shackle! Be glad that he didn't LOCK it, instead! From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 14:18:04 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:18:04 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <4F1AE141.4080405@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F18C028.5030200@telegraphics.com.au> <4F1AC4BD.4090409@dunnington.plus.com> <4F1AE141.4080405@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: o ok thanks i'm 500 miles from the gear atm though so try it out in a week when i get back from work On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:01 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Adrian Stoness wrote: > >> not seeing the rsend program u mention >> > > You need to compile it, eg from the source at http://www.dunnington.u-net. > **com/public/PDP-8/rsend.cor Kevin McQuiggin's website. > > > i dunno if i am an idiot or what. when i run the terminal software i can't >> get it to do any inputs >> > > Running PuTTY or something similar, on a laptop, connected to he PDP-8/A? > You need to be running something on the 8/A as well, to talk to it. > Unless you have loaded something there, it will be doing absolutely > nothing. > > Until you load some software -- whether that's the RIM loader, a little > test program toggled in, or an OS, the PDP-8/A is no more than a noisy room > heater, a box of completely dumb unprogrammed elecrical parts. Effectively > bare metal. > > > also how am i guna load a rim tape when i don't got one :( >> > > You need to have the rimloader running in the PDP-8. You put that in > manually, from the keypad on the panel. Then you use that to load any > tapes that are in RIM format, from a TTY with a tape reader (or RIM-format > tape image files from a laptop running rsend or equivalent). > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 21 13:41:08 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:41:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: from "Dave Caroline" at Jan 21, 12 08:23:07 am Message-ID: [..] I am not involved with a museum. but I do try to preserve the computers (and other objects) that I own. However, I do keep them operational, I do run them from time to time The reason is essentially your '5.7' -- A computer was designed to run programs, that's what makes it ineresting. It is not a piece of fine art, to be used for its appearance. > 5.7 Demonstrating an object in motion can add immeasurably to our > understanding of its > purpose and significance; riding on a transport exhibit designed > to carry passengers not > only shows us how it was made and controlled, but demonstrates > conditions of life for > those who worked on it or used it. A visitor who has never seen > textile machinery at work > will have difficulty understanding a static loom, let alone the > working conditions of > Victorian mill-hands. Running an early computer gives an unique > insight into early > computing practices. > 5.8 Operating an object may also actually contribute to its > preservation, eg through distributing > lubricants or varying stress points. > 5.9 Operating an object may also help to preserve or rediscover > appropriate skills. > 5.10 However, operating most mechanical objects will inevitably result > in their wearing out. At > the very least surfaces will be worn and information thus be > lost; at the worst the object This depends o nthe object IMHO. Let's take an example I can see from where I am sitting -- the HP9810 calculator. If I run the card reader in that then the motor brushes will wear. But what is lost if that happens? It is obvious to anyone whp/s ever seen a DC permanent magnet motor that there should be brushes on the spring metal arms. OK, the lenght of the brush that was there when I got the amchine is lost _but since I didn't have the machjine from new, that's not the length of a new brush_. It's the length of a brush after it's been used to read an unknown number of cards. So I don't think that's particularly improtant. Of course it's entirey reasonable to measure and record information about the machine when you got it -- diameters of spindles, thickness of motor brushes, resistance of a themral printhed (this increases as the head wears). inductance of magnetic heads (which will drop as the head gap wears), and so on. > will end up like the proverbial Grandfather's Axe, with little or > nothing preserved from the > days before it entered the museum. I think that's unliekly. In most machines, and certainly in computers, there are parts that are not going to wear out or fail just becuase the machine is used. For example, it's very unlikely a computer PCB would ever be changed in a museum exhibit. The actual board will be the one that was in the machine when you got it. Components _on_ the board might be changed, but not the board itself. Similarly case parts are lilely to remain original. As I said I run my machines. I don't run them 25/7 of course, but I do use them. And I would estimate I've changed mush less that 1% of the components in any machine I own. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 21 13:48:42 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:48:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Lack of Panasonic/Quasar/Friends Amis HHC tech docs (was Re: Epson In-Reply-To: <4F1B04E2.4050703@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jan 21, 12 10:33:06 am Message-ID: > > On 01/11/2012 11:47 AM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I have the hardware techncial manual on paper (it was given to me > > along with another HX20 and a TF20 drive unit). There are similarl > > manauls avaialble for download on the web..' > Speaking of technical documentation for compact battery-powered > computers, I sure wish some technical documentation on the > Panasonic/Quasar/Friends Amis HHC would show up. The hardware is > 6502-based, but with an ASIC that controls the memory map and LCD. I've > partially reverse-engineered some of the mainframe and plugin ROMs, but > parts remain mysterious. I've traced out scheamtics of the machine and the little thermal printer (the only peripehral I have). Of coruse this doens't tell you what's inside the ASICs (one in the computer, one in the printer), but it might help with things like the keyboard matrix. I cna't rememebr if I gave a copy to the guy who scnns stuff for me, if I didn't I can easiy do so. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 21 13:51:18 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:51:18 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <4F1B0B69.9070802@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jan 21, 12 11:00:57 am Message-ID: > > On 01/20/2012 01:47 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > I was under the impression tha the oxide dielectric film was > > originally produced by a process that's much the same as the reforming > > process. > > It is. I would seem that when the 'leakage current' gets very low then no more oxide is goign to be depositied - -the film will not get any thicker. After all, it's an electrolytic process. There may be some trick the voltage profile (and/or controlling the voltage as a fucntion of the leakage current). I susepct the official way to do this is a trade secret, but there may be some details avaiable for the older processes. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 21 14:40:37 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:40:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) Message-ID: With this discussion of interfacing PC keybaords to vintage machines, I've been thinking about a project I've had in mind for some time now.. Firstly soem backgroud. The HP9915 is essentially an HP85 in a half-rack-width metal case. It could be run on a bench, or there was an HP mounting kit top put it in an instruemtn rack. Electornically, it's similar to the HP85. There is a buit-in tape drive. Ther is no printer. There is no built-in monitor, but there's BNC socket o nthe back that outputs TV-rate composite video (so getting a display is no problem). The keyboard controled IC is present, but obviously there's no built-in keyboard. There are some user-definable buttons on the front which are wired as the programamble function keys on an HP85. The keybaord row and commn lines are also buffered to TTL levels and broufht out on a DB25 socket on the rear of the machine. There was an HP keyboard that conencted here, this is basically just a matrix of switches wired to a DB25 plug. It's the same matrix as the HP85 keyboard, and that one is docuemtned in the service manual (although with at least one typo!). However, the keyboards are much harder to find than the machines. It's a 10*8 matrix with separate lines for the shift, control and capslock keys (these lines are simply grounded by the the appropraite key) My first question in designing this is : Is there ever a time when you press 2 keys simultaneously on an HP85 (other than shift or control along with another key). In onter words, is there ever a time when 2 locations of the keyboard matrix are closed at the same time? The reason I ask is that I can't think of one, and if such a case doesn't have to be considered there's a very simnple interface (a mutlipezer to sleect a scan line drivign the enable input of a demultiplexer to select an input line) that could be used. It'd be 2 or 3 cheap TTL ICs. I'd not want to connect a microcontroller directly to an external connector in any case (risk of damaging it, I notice that HP had much the same idea about the keyboard controller IC in the 9915, all the signals brought out on the connector are buffered). Thing is, it's a lot easier to replace a non-programmed TTL IC than having to program a repalcement microcontroller. So I'd either want to add buffers even if I was goign to try to use the microcontroller direcrly (which for reasons we've already discussed I think it 'pushign it'). The mux/demux ICs wouldn't need any more buffering IMHO, they could be simply wired to the connector. Of course if I do need to be able to have multiple 'keys pressed' at the same time, then I would haev to use the crosspoint switch or dual port RAM solutions we've already discussed. -tony From IanK at vulcan.com Sat Jan 21 15:01:24 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:01:24 +0000 Subject: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <20120121115100.T19966@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 1/21/12 11:52 AM, "Fred Cisin" wrote: >On Fri, 20 Jan 2012, William Donzelli wrote: >> normally padlocked radar shop - a closet sized space - and some little >> shit STOLE the lock WHILE I was inside. > >You learned to never leave the lock hanging from the shackle! >Be glad that he didn't LOCK it, instead! > > > > > I wanted to check out a tablet at a local Worst Buy and its screen was locked with a passcode. An employee unlocked it so I could play with it, telling me that if they didn't lock them with a *known* passcode, random sh*ts (to use your technical term) would set the passcode just to be obnoxious. I've never quite understood vandalism of any sort?. -- Ian From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 21 15:33:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:33:27 -0500 Subject: PDP-8/I at the RICM In-Reply-To: <221C0516A6654B3F805F32D9233FEA5B@G4UGMT41> References: <221C0516A6654B3F805F32D9233FEA5B@G4UGMT41> Message-ID: <4F1B2F27.4070806@neurotica.com> On 01/21/2012 02:46 PM, Dave wrote: >> If you do the reforming by simply throwing the capacitor on a >> current-limited supply and not measuring anything (as seems to be the >> usual method), then a completely defective capacitor may improve a >> little bit but still be fundamentally broken, and still fail either >> immediately or shortly after being put into service. > > This really suprises me. I guess that the caps Radio Hams use may run at > higher voltages than those in vintage PSUs but the process has as I was > taught it was always to ramp up the voltage whilst checking the leakage. For ham radio, as with anything else, it depends completely on the specific application. A B+ (plate) power supply filter capacitor for a 2KW HF amplifier can easily be 3KV. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From tingox at gmail.com Sat Jan 21 11:09:44 2012 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:09:44 +0100 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 11:09 AM, David Griffith wrote: > > I have seven P112 kits for sale. One will ship immediately. The other > six will ship a week later, which is when I expect some memory chips to > arrive. I'm taking orders first-come first-served, one per customer and > ONLY from people who don't have a P112 already. The price is $160 shipped > in the US. For outside the US, I expect the charge to be $10 more. > > These kits include everything you need to end up with a working P112 > computer except disk drives, drive cables, power supply, and terminal. You > also get a copy of the Walnut Creek CP/N CDROM and Rlee Peter's Archive. > Interesting. Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they already soldered when the kit is delivered? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen From djg at pdp8online.com Sat Jan 21 11:46:38 2012 From: djg at pdp8online.com (David Gesswein) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:46:38 -0500 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120121174638.GA32279@hugin2.pdp8online.com> On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 02:35:29PM -0600, Adrian Stoness wrote: > hi got couple thing > > i'm in need of some paper tapes for my 8a that i appear to be missing so i > am unable to do much with my Manichean atm > anyone up for making copies i don't have a way of hooking my asr33 into my > laptop or my h10 high speed punch reader > Joining this thread late so summarizing what I have seen so far. I can make you some tapes. Some paper tapes are fun. For me the novelty would weare off before getting through all you listed so like others I recommend getting setup to be able to send images from a PC. If you still want tapes email me direct and we can discuss which etc. Also if you get a current loop to RS-232 adapter you can punch tapes on your ASR-33. You will then need a real serial port on a PC to do 110 baud. Old PC with motherboard ports work and I have a cardbus/PCMCIA card for an older laptop that works also. I assume your h10 is a Heathkit punch on some Heathkit computer. On my PDP-8 I wrote a little program that punched whatever was received over the console port to allow me to punch tapes. You probably could do something similar with the Heathkit. If your console port doesn't have flow control you will need to do have a way to rate limit the data sent. > os8? or am i nuts? > Do you have mass storage on this machine? I have programs to dump and restore images of the media I have functional on my machines. If what you have matches it can allow you to write or copy media. It also has a simple send paper tape and dumb terminal but from the other posts you probably have solutions for now. http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/software/dumprest/ > MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM2 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 > MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM1 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 > MAINDEC-08-DJDKA-C-PS1 6/24/77 DKC8-AA OPTION TEST #1 > MAINDEC-08-DJEXS-A-PB 6/24/77 2K TO 32K PDP-8A PROCESSOR EXERCISER > MAINDEC-08-DJKMA-B-PM4 4/7/76 KM8-A OPTION TEST #2 > MAINDEC-08-DJKKA-C-PB1 6/24/77 PDP-8/A CPU TEST > MAINDEC-08-DJMSA-A-PB 6/24/77 1-4K MSA-A MOS MEMORY TEST > You have the writups for these? Some I didn't find online. > and these fisher scientific tapes >> > http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6067/6089172843_c1d5cb15c5_b.jpg > Do you have any information on what they do? > would a serial cable from a pdp 11 (currently attached to a m8028) work > with my 8a if i was to use it with my m8316 rev D connecting to a usb to > serial if that would work any suggestions? > Some other people were working with you on this. Did you get it straightened out? If you haven't I can put the card from my 8/A and check the switches. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sat Jan 21 17:35:28 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:35:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Jan 2012, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: > On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 11:09 AM, David Griffith wrote: > >> I have seven P112 kits for sale. One will ship immediately. The other >> six will ship a week later, which is when I expect some memory chips to >> arrive. I'm taking orders first-come first-served, one per customer and >> ONLY from people who don't have a P112 already. The price is $160 shipped >> in the US. For outside the US, I expect the charge to be $10 more. >> >> These kits include everything you need to end up with a working P112 >> computer except disk drives, drive cables, power supply, and terminal. You >> also get a copy of the Walnut Creek CP/N CDROM and Rlee Peter's Archive. > > Interesting. > Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they > already soldered when the kit is delivered? Surface-mounts are already done. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 21 18:41:55 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:41:55 -0500 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer Message-ID: <4F1B5B53.1080006@neurotica.com> Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. I don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) Does anyone in the US have one that I'd be able to borrow for a few days? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From rga24 at cantab.net Sat Jan 21 19:13:14 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 22 Jan 2012 01:13:14 +0000 Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello, I'm looking for a bit of information regarding old terminals. My New England Digital Synclavier II (an old computer based music synthesizer) has the option of having a terminal connected via RS232, and the manual specifically mentions the following three terminals: VT100 VT640 ADM-3A Am I correct in understanding the first two are by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and the third one is by Lear Siegler? How common were and are these three terminals? I'd like to get hold of one for use with the Synclavier, just wondering what views people hold on them, both from a popularity point of view and in terms of usability. Presumably you get a slightly different experience using all three, at least in terms of build quality, display type, keyboard type etc, if not in terms of supported terminal modes as well. Curious to hear what people think. If you're interested, there's a video of me demonstrating the Synclavier on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUh4eIE3-k Richard From wh.sudbrink at verizon.net Sat Jan 21 19:18:07 2012 From: wh.sudbrink at verizon.net (Bill Sudbrink) Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:18:07 -0500 Subject: Cromemco FDC In-Reply-To: <4F297B4307304296B685FCE1FC049FDF@vl420mt> References: <4F297B4307304296B685FCE1FC049FDF@vl420mt> Message-ID: <0ae701ccd8a3$b2ed8080$18c88180$@sudbrink@verizon.net> MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500 > From: "Bill Sudbrink" > Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC > ... > > I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply modified ribbon cable. > > care to share the details? OK. Sorry for the delay, life has been very busy. I finally have a little hobby time, so I pulled out my Cromemco loaded IMSAI: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/outside.JPG and my SA851s: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/drives.JPG Cards front to back: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/inside.JPG ZPU CompuPro RAM17 (It plays nicer with the Dazzler than the 64KZ) Dazzler 1 and 2 16FDC D+7A Here is the 8 inch interface cable: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/cable.JPG http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/cableclose.JPG Cable modifications (they are a little hard to see): FDC16 SA851 2 14 side select 4 32 drive select 4 18 30 drive select 3 24 18 motor on 10 NC seek complete (severed) 12 NC restore (severed) 14 NC eject 30 NC unused 32 NC unused NC 2 reduced write current (TG43) NC 4 unused NC 10 unused (severed) NC 12 disk change (severed) NC 24 sector So, what about TG43, reduced write current? On the dual 851s, I had "plug IW (write current switch)" removed. This has worked fine up until now. On my "Dunfield memorial ImageDisk box": http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/imgdsk1.JPG http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/imgdsk2.JPG I use the ImageDisk parallel port TG43 driver and "plug IW" is jumpered to "interface" on the single 851 it uses. So, I've given this some thought and decided to implement TG43 on the 16FDC. My bench is currently full of SWTPC: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/bench.JPG http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/bench2.JPG but I figured I could do this "around the edges" and in my lap. Here is the card before any mods: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/16fdcfront.JPG http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/16fdcback.JPG Here is a close up of the "PHANTOM" mod we discussed a while ago: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/phantom.JPG A quick look through the schematics suggested reusing the eject driver on IC40 (8T98). I took a 16 pin socket: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/socket.JPG bent out pin 14 and soldered a 2 inch piece of 30 gauge wire to it: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/socketwire.JPG I soldered the other end of the wire to pin 29 of IC26 (the 1793). I removed IC40 from its socket on the board, inserted it in the socket and inserted the socket into the board: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/patch1.JPG http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/patch2.JPG Finally, I patched FDC16 pin 14 to SA851 pin 2 on the interface cable: http://wsudbrink.dyndns.org:8080/images/cromemco/cabletg43.JPG and rejumpered IW to interface on the dual 851s. No cuts on the 16FDC and everything works. The only "downside" is a wire soldered to a pin on the 1793. That can be reversed with a tap of the old soldering iron. I hope this helps, Bill Sudbrink From jgh at mdfs.net Sat Jan 21 21:57:53 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:57:53 +0000 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> Tony wrote: > Is there ever a time when you press 2 keys simultaneously on an HP85 > (other than shift or control along with another key). Yes. n-key rollover. Image you are typing "hello". A very large proportion of the time a typist will still be pressing 'e' by the time their finger starts pressing 'l'. 2-key rollover allows for two such keypresses, as is the maximum that most keyboard input drivers deal with. Also, it's electrically not possible to do 4-key rollover with a matrix keyboard, as as soon as three keys are pressed the four key on the other corner of the "square" formed by the three keys being pressed is seen as being pressed. There is nothing software can do about this, it's an electrical function of matrix keyboard. For those who don't know how to suck eggs, imagine the following matrix keyboard: | | ---A----B---- | | ---C----D----2 | | 1 If A, B and C are pressed, if the software looks to see if D is pressed (by looking at lines 1 and 2) the electricity can flow through C, A and B, making it appear that D is pressed. > The reason I ask is that I can't think of one, and if such a case > doesn't > have to be considered there's a very simnple interface (a mutlipezer > to > sleect a scan line drivign the enable input of a demultiplexer to > select > an input line) that could be used. It'd be 2 or 3 cheap TTL ICs. A simple n-to-2^b multiplexer to select a column and a 2^n-to-n demultiplexer to sample the rows is sufficient on the hardware side. It's better to have the modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, etc) as a seperate row so they can be sampled seperately from the other keys. This is how the BBC does it: http://mdfs.net/Info/Comp/BBC/Circuits/bbckbd.gif with a 4-to-16 output multiplexer to select the rows and each column samplable with a 8-to-3 demultiplexer. -- J.G.Harston - jgh at mdfs.net - mdfs.net/jgh From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 03:40:36 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:40:36 -0000 Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Richard Atkinson > Sent: 22 January 2012 01:13 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Cc: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only > Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II > > > Hello, > > I'm looking for a bit of information regarding old terminals. My New > England Digital Synclavier II (an old computer based music > synthesizer) has > the option of having a terminal connected via RS232, and the manual > specifically mentions the following three terminals: > > VT100 > VT640 > ADM-3A > > Am I correct in understanding the first two are by DEC > (Digital Equipment > Corporation) and the third one is by Lear Siegler? I guess that's the case, but I can't find any reference to the VT640.... > How common > were and are > these three terminals? In DEC shops the VT100 and its successors http://vt100.net/vt_history were pretty common. Not sure about the ADM-3A but again widely used. I wouldn't say these are now "rare" but depending on where you are (and I guess from the comment on the you tube video you are in the UK) finding one in working order would be both challenging and expensive. > I'd like to get hold of one for use with the > Synclavier, just wondering what views people hold on them, > both from a > popularity point of view and in terms of usability. > Presumably you get a > slightly different experience using all three, at least in > terms of build > quality, display type, keyboard type etc, if not in terms of > supported > terminal modes as well. > I don't actually think there is much difference in build quality between the ADM-3A and the VT100. From what I remember they are both well built solid construction, typical of the time. Also note that many other terminals supported VT100 (very popular)and/or ADM-3A emulation. In fact I think VT100 which actually conforms to the ANSi standard was really the defacto standard for many terminals. So whilst it wasn't standard on the Atari ST, which was popular with musicians, there was a VT100 cartridge option to allow the ST to function as a VT100 terminal. > Curious to hear what people think. If you're interested, > there's a video of > me demonstrating the Synclavier on YouTube. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUh4eIE3-k > > Richard > Not had a look yet. I'll have a peek later... Dave From tshoppa at wmata.com Sun Jan 22 08:27:56 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:27:56 -0500 Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II Message-ID: ADM-3A was for a long time the lowest common denominator in the terminal world. The VT-100 came later but became the next lowest common denominator. (Ignoring the VT52 in between.) VT640 is a VT100 with a third-party (Retrographics) graphics board fitted into it. They were the cat's meow for plotting and graphics if you didn't have a real Tek 4010 on your desk. I am guessing that there are additional graphics features the Synclavier could use on a VT640 but that's just a guess. ADM3A and/or VT100 emulation are pretty much expected on any terminal you would've bought in the late 70's onwards. And most all terminal emulation software for PC's claims to do them too (with different degrees of fidelity; MS-DOS Kermit really remains one of the best, with most windows terminal emulation packages choosing to emulate other terminal emulation packages rather than the real terminal!) From snhirsch at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 11:00:15 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:00:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 22 Jan 2012, Richard Atkinson wrote: > Hello, > > I'm looking for a bit of information regarding old terminals. My New > England Digital Synclavier II (an old computer based music synthesizer) > has the option of having a terminal connected via RS232, and the manual > specifically mentions the following three terminals: > > VT100 > VT640 > ADM-3A > > Am I correct in understanding the first two are by DEC (Digital > Equipment Corporation) and the third one is by Lear Siegler? How common > were and are these three terminals? I'd like to get hold of one for use > with the Synclavier, just wondering what views people hold on them, both > from a popularity point of view and in terms of usability. Presumably > you get a slightly different experience using all three, at least in > terms of build quality, display type, keyboard type etc, if not in terms > of supported terminal modes as well. You can probably use minicom on Linux, since it emulates the V100. Granted it's nowhere near as Kewl as having a VT100 sitting next to the unit :-) > Curious to hear what people think. If you're interested, there's a video of > me demonstrating the Synclavier on YouTube. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuUh4eIE3-k I remember sitting in the New England Digital demo room listening to one of their experts run through the entire bag of tricks on the Direct-to-Disk equipped Synclavier. For 1987, it was sheer magic. Steve -- From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 11:27:34 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:27:34 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> References: , <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> Message-ID: <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 3:57, J.G.Harston wrote: > Also, it's electrically not possible to do 4-key rollover with a > matrix keyboard, as as soon as three keys are pressed the four > key on the other corner of the "square" formed by the three > keys being pressed is seen as being pressed. There is nothing > software can do about this, it's an electrical function of > matrix keyboard. Not strictly true! If one uses a *good* keyboard with an isolation diode at each key, n-key rollover (where n is greater than 2) is the result. For a scanned music keyboard, this is a necessity if chords are to be supported. But many PC keyboards implement this also. So, unless a non-n-key-rollover keyboard is laid out carefully, "ghosting" can get to be very annoying for a fast touch typist who pays more attention to the "make" of a key than the "break" (try on an electric typewriter for example). I'm not aware of any crosspoint switch ICs that have a diode at each junction, but perhaps they exist. --Chuck From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Jan 22 12:55:18 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:55:18 -0500 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? References: Message-ID: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> ----- Original Message: Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 From: Pete Turnbull > I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely... Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not only dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to be supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)? From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 22 13:01:14 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:01:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120122105610.J52840@shell.lmi.net> > I'm looking for a bit of information regarding old terminals. My New > England Digital Synclavier II (an old computer based music synthesizer) > has the option of having a terminal connected via RS232, and the manual > specifically mentions the following three terminals: > VT100 > VT640 > ADM-3A > Am I correct in understanding the first two are by DEC (Digital > Equipment Corporation) and the third one is by Lear Siegler? > How common were and are these three terminals? Although the manual might mention three specific terminals, use of those terminals for the synthesizer is actually RARE. Most computers have some sort of terminal emulation software available, which usually CLAIMS VT100 emulation. If you are looking for the LOOK of those terminals, VT100 terminals are not very hard to find. Does the iMac have software to emulate an ADM3A ? From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 22 13:08:00 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:08:00 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > But many PC keyboards implement [n key rollover] also. I wouldn't say "many", as it was always a small fraction. The vast majority did not have diodes or any other technique to prevent ghosting, and only offered two key rollover, which is generally satisfactory for most typists. It was common for some of the "special" keys (shift, control, alt) to not be part of the scanned matrix, so you could detect any number of those, but not reliably detect more than two "normal" keys at once. The USB HID spec stupidly limits USB keyboards to reporting a maximum of six key depressions. I have not seen *any* USB keyboards with diodes or other antighosting. Maybe some of the high-end "gaming keyboards" do. Eric From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 13:32:35 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:32:35 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> References: , <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 11:08, Eric Smith wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > But many PC keyboards implement [n key rollover] also. > I wouldn't say "many", as it was always a small fraction. The vast > majority did not have diodes or any other technique to prevent > ghosting, and only offered two key rollover, which is generally > satisfactory for most typists. It was common for some of the > "special" keys (shift, control, alt) to not be part of the scanned > matrix, so you could detect any number of those, but not reliably > detect more than two "normal" keys at once. The sentence before the one quoted said "good keyboards". "Many", I suppose is subjective--"n-key-rollover" was touted more on older systems than on $10 keyboards offered today. Keytronics used to advertise it heavily on their high-end keyboards. The Toshiba luggable laptops (3000 and 5000 series) all featured n-key rollover. Perhaps, given the large number of keys on a modern keyboard (other than laptops), careful distribution of keys minimizes the effect of ghosting. Six-key rollover seems to be a good compromise; I suspect the most anyone sees in the real world is 3 or 4 key. Or perhaps today's crop of keyboardists never learned to type on a typewriter. --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 13:49:57 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:49:57 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> References: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> Message-ID: On 22 January 2012 18:55, MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 > From: Pete Turnbull > >> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely... > > > Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not only > dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to be > supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)? As for me: I really dislike the business of selecting a session, attaching it to a specified modem device and so on. I want a comms program to just open up and point me at the serial port; I'll do the dialling, thanks. (Well, I say "want". I mean "wanted". Happily it's not something I do any more and haven't for the best part of 15Y. It's a bit like the old debate about how wordprocessors should work (before the debate was killed off by GUIs). Some felt that The Right Thing To Do was open up and give you a blank document for you to start typing. If you want file management, choose that option. Examples: WordPerfect, MS Word for DOS, most text editors. Others felt that no, file management was critically important, as was encouraging people to use templates and so on properly, so they opened up onto the file-management screen and you had to either pick a file to work on or explicitly create a new blank one. Examples: WordStar, LocoScript, & IIRC MultiMate, Samna Executive & many more. I was quite happy with both, personally; I can see arguments both ways. 30Y ago it was a vexed battle, though. I do feel that the basic function of a comms program is to be a terminal emulator, though. HyperTerm compelled you to create a session, install a modem driver, choose a modem and so on, even if you just wanted to type ATI1 ATI2 ATI3 ...etc. If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a null modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was just obstructive. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 22 14:07:04 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:07:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201222007.PAA23109@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Six-key rollover seems to be a good compromise; I suspect the most > anyone sees in the real world is 3 or 4 key. For ordinary typing, ie, using a keyboard as a text input device, I suspect you are correct. But when using a keyboard as a multi-button input device that happens to have lots of buttons, which (for example) many games do, it's far less clear. It would not surprise me to see rollover requirements go as high as nine or maybe even ten in extreme cases; certainly when playing the piano I need N-key rollover for N above 6 - fortunately my piano, unlike most computer text keyboards, is designed for that sort of thing. (It's an electronic piano, not a mechanical one, but a pretty good one as such things went when I bought it; it definitely supports N-key rollover for N well over 6.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 14:11:17 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:11:17 -0800 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: , <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt>, Message-ID: <4F1BFCE5.31891.AF348A@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:49, Liam Proven wrote: > If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a > null modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was > just obstructive. I used HT as a dumb terminal in direct-connect mode. Set up the first session the hard way and then save any subsequent variations to the desktop. From that point on, you clicked on the variation you wanted. It wasn't that bad. --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 22 13:29:14 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:29:14 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm Message-ID: > > Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they > > already soldered when the kit is delivered? > > Surface-mounts are already done. Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 22 14:05:46 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:05:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 22, 12 09:27:34 am Message-ID: > I'm not aware of any crosspoint switch ICs that have a diode at each > junction, but perhaps they exist. I've not seen oen either. For digital signals (which keyhorad scan lines tend to be), and if you know which are the driven lines and which are the inputs (pretty much esenetial if you're goign to use the diodes anyway), then a digital cicuit solution is possible. Store the simulated key states in D-type flip-flops. The output of each D-type feeds on input of an AND gate, the other input is driven by the appropriate scan line, the outptus of all the AND gates sorresponding to a given input line from the keyboard are ORed together and fed to that input. (OK, you may need to invert the scan lines and inputs, but I mean 'logically' ANDing and ORing here). This works with machines that allow multiple scan lines to be driven simultaneously, like the TRS-80 M1/3/4. The downside is that htis logic is really only easy to implement usign an FPGA or simiular. Building it from TTL takes a lot of packages. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 22 13:42:17 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:42:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: from "Richard Atkinson" at Jan 22, 12 01:13:14 am Message-ID: > > Hello, > > I'm looking for a bit of information regarding old terminals. My New > England Digital Synclavier II (an old computer based music synthesizer) has > the option of having a terminal connected via RS232, and the manual > specifically mentions the following three terminals: > > VT100 > VT640 > ADM-3A > > Am I correct in understanding the first two are by DEC (Digital Equipment The VT100 is, indeed a DEC terminal. It's very well-known and not too hard to fidn, but equally there are people who want them. You might also consider a VT101, which looks the same but has more limited intenral expansion (and an easier-to-fix PSU). I don;t think DEC ever made a VT640. The VT640 I know of was made by a company called soemthing like 'Retrographics'. It was a VT100 (genuine DEC) with an extra board added to give a graphics mode (I think the '640; in the mdoen mumber was the horizontal resolution). This board intercepted the RS232 lines between the host machine and the VT100 logic, DEC kidnly provided a connector for his purpose. For text-only operaiton the VT640 and VT100 are indentical AFAIK. FWIW, I think most later DEC ternminals (VT220, VT3xx, etc) will eessentially emulate a VT100. And just about any terminal emulator program offers VT100 emulation. Of coruse this doesn't help if you wanm the real thing. I'e never used a ADM-3A, so I can't comment o nthat one. > Corporation) and the third one is by Lear Siegler? How common were and are > these three terminals? I'd like to get hold of one for use with the VT100s were very common. I can see 2 from where I am sitting (and a VT105 too, which is a VT100 with a DEC graphics module). However, soem DEC enthusiasts also like to have the origianl type of terminal for their PDP11s and VAXen, so these terminals may or may not be easy to find now. The VT640 is not common. I've only ever seen one, that was some years aog. I didn't; get it, a friend and I were colelcting old DEC 'junk'. He got the VT640, I got a VT55 (complete tiwth the built-in electrolytic printer). I think I made the right choice.... As to faults : The VT100 logic is very reliable. There are 2 custom chips in the video ciruitry, but they tend not to fail (I dont think I've ever replacved one). The keyboard uses the same contact system as the VT52, TI99/4A, origianl TRS-80 Model 1, HP85, HP9816, etc. The keyboards can have contact trouble, but it's gernally fixable. The VT100 PSU is a switcher. It's a relatively friendly swithcer iwt hthe cotnrol circuitry o nyhe isolated side (powered by a little linear supply), but it still cah have problems. The VT101 has a simpler suppy lwith a big mains transformer which might be easier to repair The video monitor can have problems. Flyback transformers fail (and are non-trivial to get now). Diodes o nthe video board also fail, this cna kil lthe flyback transfoemer. The CRT can also lose emission, but do clean the screen ebfore thinking about relpalcign it (yes, I fell for that once). The genuine VT100 has a white phosphor IIRC, but the VT640 I say had a green phosphor CRT fitted. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 22 13:56:27 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:56:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> from "J.G.Harston" at Jan 22, 12 03:57:53 am Message-ID: > > Tony wrote: > > Is there ever a time when you press 2 keys simultaneously on an HP85 > > (other than shift or control along with another key). > > Yes. n-key rollover. > > Image you are typing "hello". A very large proportion of the time > a typist will still be pressing 'e' by the time their finger starts > pressing 'l'. 2-key rollover allows for two such keypresses, as is > the maximum that most keyboard input drivers deal with. No, that';s no what I meant. If you are emulating the keyboard by a circuit that can only effectively 'press' one key at once, it won't affect this. WEhen you press the 'E' key, the interface simulates the appopriate key contact closure. When you press the 'L' key (with the 'E' key still down), the interface can then simualate the 'L' key contact closure. Of course at this point it can no longer have the 'E' contact closes from the point of view of the host machine, but that don't matter. The host sees an 'E' keypress followed by a 'L' keypress, which is what you want. > > Also, it's electrically not possible to do 4-key rollover with a > matrix keyboard, as as soon as three keys are pressed the four For a simple matrix of swithces, sure. But if you add a diode in series with each key you can have full n-key rollover (this is one reason why such diodes are present on some keyboards (like the HP46020 IIRC). Such diodes eliminate the 'sneak paths', if you close 3 key contacts, there is no electrical path when the one at the 4th corner of the rectangle is scanned (one diode is reverse-biased). A related problem affects passive matrix LCDs. The LCD pixel/segment is electrically a capacitor, and thus unpolarised -- in fact you energise an LD with an AC signal to prevent electrolysis of the liquid crystal material. For this reason, if you have the pixels in an electrical matrix, you will get sneak paths when you turn on one particualr pixel. This is one reason why the rivers for such displays are not simple, and why there are mutliple drive voltages fed ot the display segments. It also is the explanation fro a rule-of-thumb noticeed by an HPCC member -- 'The cheaper a calculator, the clearer the display'. Point being that a cheap clacualtor probably has a direct-drive 7-segment dispaly (no multiplexing), a high-end graphing calculator is probably multiplexed with 32 backplanes or soemthing. The former will have better contrast than the latter. > A simple n-to-2^b multiplexer to select a column and a 2^n-to-n > demultiplexer to sample the rows is sufficient on the hardware > side. It's better to have the modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, etc) > as a seperate row so they can be sampled seperately from the > other keys. I am doing the reverse. I want to simulare the matrix keyboard, not scan one. On the HP9915, as I mentioend,the shift, control, and caps-lock keys are not part of the matrix. They are on their own. One side of each of those is groudned, the other sides goes to a dedicateds input line (buffered and then fed to the keybaord interface IC). All other keys are in an 10*8 matrix. -tony From lproven at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 14:24:04 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:24:04 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <4F1BFCE5.31891.AF348A@cclist.sydex.com> References: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> <4F1BFCE5.31891.AF348A@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 22 January 2012 20:11, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:49, Liam Proven wrote: > >> If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a >> null modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was >> just obstructive. > > I used HT as a dumb terminal in direct-connect mode. ?Set up the > first session the hard way and then save any subsequent variations to > the desktop. ?From that point on, you clicked on the variation you > wanted. ?It wasn't that bad. Oh, yes, you could do it. It was just a bit of a PITA. If I had something serious to do, I regularly resorted to DOS Procomm in a window, myself. :?) Never got on with Crosstalk, either... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 22 14:28:30 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:28:30 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> On 01/22/2012 02:29 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they >>> already soldered when the kit is delivered? >> >> Surface-mounts are already done. > > Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. Yeah I was thinking the same thing. :-( I'd love to have a P112. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 14:56:16 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:56:16 -0800 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, Message-ID: <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:29, Tony Duell wrote: > > > Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are > > > they already soldered when the kit is delivered? > > > > Surface-mounts are already done. > > Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. It's not that bad, even with a regular soldering iron, but a microscope or other aid to visually inspect the result helps a lot. At some point, someone offered adapter cards with, for the want of a better term, employed a "trench" for each lead, so that misregistration was almost impossible. I don't know if they're still made or even how difficult it would be to fabricate such a thing on a circuit board--but it might bear investigation for future kits. --Chuck From tshoppa at wmata.com Sun Jan 22 14:56:51 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:56:51 -0500 Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II Message-ID: > The genuine VT100 has a white phosphor IIRC, but the VT640 I > say had a green phosphor CRT fitted. All the DEC CRT terminals were available with customers choice of green, white, or amber CRT's. Probably some other phosphors I didn't see too. The default phosphor was white for the VT100. My distant memory tells me that VT100-LC was the order code for the green phosphor I liked best (P31, long glow?). By the time of the VT-220, amber was really popular. Tim. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jan 22 14:43:40 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:43:40 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> References: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F1C74FC.1040506@dunnington.plus.com> MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 > From: Pete Turnbull > >> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely... > > Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not only > dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to be > supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)? It doesn't allow many settings I want, it has a stupid set of configs, it frequently gets confused about state, cut-and-paste is appalling, ... PuTTY is just so much more versatile, configurable, reliable, and more like a real terminal. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jan 22 14:46:25 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:46:25 +0000 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: References: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> Message-ID: <4F1C75A1.4030400@dunnington.plus.com> Liam Proven wrote: > On 22 January 2012 18:55, MikeS wrote: >> ----- Original Message: >> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 >> From: Pete Turnbull >> >>> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely... >> >> Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not only >> dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to be >> supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)? > > As for me: I really dislike the business of selecting a session, > attaching it to a specified modem device and so on. I want a comms > program to just open up and point me at the serial port; I'll do the > dialling, thanks. Yup, that's one of my pet dislikes of HT too. > I do feel that the basic function of a comms program is to be a > terminal emulator, though. HyperTerm compelled you to create a > session, install a modem driver, choose a modem and so on, even if you > just wanted to type > If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a > null modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was > just obstructive. Seconded. Obstructive is a good description. That's most of why I "dislike it intensely". -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 22 15:02:57 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:02:57 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> On 01/22/2012 03:56 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, > particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. I've never understood it. I'm now deep into the through-hole pass on an assembly job I'm doing, and I'm hating every second of it, while the SMT parts were a breeze. The world is full of backward people, it seems. The fear of SMT is a knee-jerk reaction with no foundation in reality. > It's not that bad, even with > a regular soldering iron, but a microscope or other aid to visually > inspect the result helps a lot. Translation: Use the right tools for the job. :-) > At some point, someone offered adapter cards with, for the want of a > better term, employed a "trench" for each lead, so that > misregistration was almost impossible. I don't know if they're still > made or even how difficult it would be to fabricate such a thing on a > circuit board--but it might bear investigation for future kits. Yes, Schmartboard makes those. They sent me a sample a few weeks ago; I haven't tried it yet. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 15:25:33 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:25:33 -0200 Subject: P112 kits for sale References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <079601ccd94c$6fd31c70$6400a8c0@tababook> > I've never understood it. I'm now deep into the through-hole pass on > an assembly job I'm doing, and I'm hating every second of it, while the > SMT parts were a breeze. The world is full of backward people, it > seems. The fear of SMT is a knee-jerk reaction with no foundation in > reality. Do you believe I do love doing that?! :) From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 22 15:38:16 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:38:16 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> References: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <007201ccd94e$40389bf0$c0a9d3d0$@YAHOO.COM> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2012 3:29 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: P112 kits for sale > > On 01/22/2012 02:29 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > >>> Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they > >>> already soldered when the kit is delivered? > >> > >> Surface-mounts are already done. > > > > Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. > > Yeah I was thinking the same thing. :-( I'd love to have a P112. > > -Dave > Hi, There was a P112 clone PCB project at one time but it was scrubbed when it was discovered the original hardware designed is proprietary. Technical information http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=P112%20clone KiCAD EDA files http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/file/49181489/OTHER%20P112-001.zip Unfortunately the project is dead. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 22 15:53:58 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:53:58 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1C8576.10104@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Six-key rollover seems to be a good compromise; While the USB HID spec allows for six keys, I've never seen a USB keyboard that reliably did more than general (not "special" key) two key rollover. There are lots of anecdotes about recent PC keyboards (USB and non-USB) supporting better than two key rollover, but most of those, on investigation, don't hold up. Often it's just a report that some specific three or four key combinations work OK, which proves nothing about the general case. It's not N key rollover unless it works for *any* N keys. There are definitely some high-end, very expensive PS/2 interface keyboards that have N key rollover, but not any for USB due to the stupidity of the USB HID spec. From glen.slick at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 16:44:48 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:44:48 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> References: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Eric Smith wrote: > > The USB HID spec stupidly limits USB keyboards to reporting a maximum of six > key depressions. I have not seen *any* USB keyboards with diodes or other > antighosting. ?Maybe some of the high-end "gaming keyboards" do. > Are you referring specifically to the operation of a USB HID keyboard in boot protocol mode? While it is true that a USB HID keyboard input report while in Boot Protocol mode contains one byte for modifier keys and six bytes for keycodes, that restriction does not apply when the keyboard is not in boot protocol mode when the OS is running and talking to the keyboard instead of the BIOS. Guess I'm missing the supidity to which you are referring to here. -Glen From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 16:57:47 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 14:57:47 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <201201222007.PAA23109@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: , <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com>, <201201222007.PAA23109@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F1C23EB.32719.147A1C7@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 15:07, Mouse wrote: > But when using a keyboard as a multi-button input device that happens > to have lots of buttons, which (for example) many games do, it's far > less clear. It would not surprise me to see rollover requirements go > as high as nine or maybe even ten in extreme cases; certainly when > playing the piano I need N-key rollover for N above 6 - fortunately my > piano, unlike most computer text keyboards, is designed for that sort > of thing. (It's an electronic piano, not a mechanical one, but a > pretty good one as such things went when I bought it; it definitely > supports N-key rollover for N well over 6.) I believe I mentioned music keyboards as an exception, as in the ancient Casio WK-1200 sitting at my right elbow here, which could probably render the Tom Turpin style of playing (i.e. sit on the keyboard, or so it was reported) just fine. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 22 17:17:28 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:17:28 -0800 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: References: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F1C9908.1040608@brouhaha.com> Glen Slick wrote: > Are you referring specifically to the operation of a USB HID keyboard > in boot protocol mode? While it is true that a USB HID keyboard input > report while in Boot Protocol mode contains one byte for modifier keys > and six bytes for keycodes, that restriction does not apply when the > keyboard is not in boot protocol mode Even in normal operation (not Boot Protocol), HID still imposes some significant limitations. Low-speed devices cannot have a report size larger than eight bytes, which potentially means that larger numbers of input changes will require the reporting for some to be delayed to a later USB frame. For normal keyboard usage this wouldn't be a problem, but it does mean that true N key rollover will require delays, or for the keyboard to operate at full speed or faster, rather than low speed. I have not found any USB keyboards that operate at full speed or faster, though perhaps some "gaming keyboards" may. The only USB keyboards that I've examined which have a higher-speed interface are those with internal USB hubs, and in this case the internal keyboard-to-hub interface was low-speed. However, even for the gaming keyboard, the manufacturers' tech support people have stated that the keyboards to not have N key rollover, and have blamed this on the six key limit of boot protocol. What this really means is that their implementation can's support more keys, and that they don't want to put in diodes or other antighosting, nor support for full-speed or faster. Most of this is undoubtedly for cost reasons, though better firmware would presumably only increase NRE and not production cost. From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sun Jan 22 17:15:42 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:15:42 +0000 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1B5B53.1080006@neurotica.com> References: <4F1B5B53.1080006@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1C989E.8000502@philpem.me.uk> On 22/01/12 00:41, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. I > don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying > one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to > learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but > this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) You could DIY one from a couple of shift registers, an LS86 XOR gate, a PROM or two and an LED display... There's an article covering the technical minutiae in the HP Journal archives. There's literally nothing to it except a CRC generator mated to a hex display with a custom character table (if memory serves: 0-9ACFHPU instead of 0-9A-F) to dissuade attempts to figure out "this code means this error" troubleshooting. I think the best way to think of it is as a digital version of an analog signal tracer... (although perhaps a pulser and a logic probe would be a better analogue for that?) Other than that, Stewart of Reading have been trying to shift a HP signature analyser for several years, but given that they're in the UK and as I recall you're in the USA, that might not be the best option. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 22 18:19:11 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:19:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <007201ccd94e$40389bf0$c0a9d3d0$@YAHOO.COM> References: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> <007201ccd94e$40389bf0$c0a9d3d0$@YAHOO.COM> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, Andrew Lynch wrote: > There was a P112 clone PCB project at one time but it was scrubbed when it > was discovered the original hardware designed is proprietary. That's really weird. I never got that impression from Dave Brookes. How did you arrive at the conclusion that cloning the P112 is illegal? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From fraveydank at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 18:38:12 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:38:12 -0500 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> References: , <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: On Jan 22, 2012, at 2:08 PM, Eric Smith wrote: > Chuck Guzis wrote: >> But many PC keyboards implement [n key rollover] also. > The USB HID spec stupidly limits USB keyboards to reporting a maximum of six key depressions. I have not seen *any* USB keyboards with diodes or other antighosting. Maybe some of the high-end "gaming keyboards" do. Das Keyboard, interestingly enough, claims to support n-key rollover when run in PS/2 mode and 6-key rollover in USB mode. Presumably it has the proper anti-ghosting hardware, though I do not own one and have never looked inside one. Fun question: I have an Apple Extended Keyboard II running through an iMate (ADB to USB converter) to my machine. It's great, except for the word (or syllable, as it's frequently found in words) "out". If I type it exceptionally fast, I get a ghost on the semicolon (e.g. "ou;" or "ou;t", sometimes it sees the T and sometimes not). I'm assuming this is a ghosting issue in the keyboard itself, but I don't recall it from when I used it natively on an ADB machine. Of course, it's been years since I've used it natively on an ADB machine (I use crappier keyboards on them these days), so it's possible I'm just a faster typist now. Is anyone else familiar with this problem? Is it just the iMate? I would be surprised. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 18:41:27 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:41:27 -0500 Subject: Typewriters (was: Thinking of keyboard interfaces) In-Reply-To: <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <9C52132F-D23C-43DD-9607-5FC605F1CA36@gmail.com> On Jan 22, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Six-key rollover seems to be a good compromise; I suspect the most > anyone sees in the real world is 3 or 4 key. > > Or perhaps today's crop of keyboardists never learned to type on a > typewriter. I certainly never did. I'm looking into getting a typewriter somewhat soon, both for teaching myself to type a little better (more accurately, and separating the keystrokes better) and also because typewritten recipe cards look so much better than printed ones or my own child-like scrawl. Smith-Corona's Silent and Silent Super seem to be general favorites among the portables; anyone have other recommendations? I seem to be able to find properly working instances of the above for less than $100 on eBay/Etsy. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 18:54:39 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:54:39 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Jan 22, 2012, at 4:02 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/22/2012 03:56 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, >> particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. > > I've never understood it. I'm now deep into the through-hole pass on an assembly job I'm doing, and I'm hating every second of it, while the SMT parts were a breeze. The world is full of backward people, it seems. The fear of SMT is a knee-jerk reaction with no foundation in reality. I always seem to get a lot of bridges unless I do it with paste and a toaster oven. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong instead of some intrinsic problem, but it's enough to make me think twice when it's a problem. Also, I have a pretty crappy 30W Weller whose finest tip is about as sharp as a moderately used pencil, which makes cleanup rather difficult even with desoldering braid. I'm sure with better equipment (say, a proper Metcal and sharper tweezers, plus maybe at least a magnifying glass and a hands-free grip) I could do a better job. I have a hard time with 0402s right now only because they keep sticking to the damn iron. >> At some point, someone offered adapter cards with, for the want of a >> better term, employed a "trench" for each lead, so that >> misregistration was almost impossible. I don't know if they're still >> made or even how difficult it would be to fabricate such a thing on a >> circuit board--but it might bear investigation for future kits. > > Yes, Schmartboard makes those. They sent me a sample a few weeks ago; I haven't tried it yet. I've used them for some QFP parts that we needed to drop on a breadboard when I was an undergraduate. I found that the trenches were even more helpful for preventing bridges than they were for registration, but since I was an undergraduate with no knowledge of signal integrity, the resulting nest of wires to put it onto a solderless breadboard caused considerable ringing problems (I only point this out to make Tony's finger start wagging :-). All in all, probably not bad products, but kind of expensive. For sticking small pitch parts onto breadboards (solderless or perf), I tend to prefer the ones from Bellin (http://www.beldynsys.com/), especially their P513 kit (http://www.beldynsys.com/p513.htm). They're still not super-cheap, but $45 for about 150 pieces (300 patterns, double-sided) isn't a terrible deal. They stick onto your breadboard with a minimum of wasted space and look kind of pretty (and even have fairly intuitive pinouts for parts like SOT-23s). - Dave From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 22 19:05:51 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:05:51 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> <007201ccd94e$40389bf0$c0a9d3d0$@YAHOO.COM> Message-ID: <002101ccd96b$33e3d8c0$9bab8a40$@YAHOO.COM> > That's really weird. I never got that impression from Dave Brookes. How did > you arrive at the conclusion that cloning the P112 is illegal? > > -- > David Griffith [snip] Hi David, I got that impression when David Brooks said the P112 was his design and asked for royalties on new boards. Since there is no "free/open source" type license for the PCB design and he asserted his rights to it I can't see how a "free/open source" board could be made without violating the rules. The documentation for the P112 hardware seems clearly marked for "D-X Designs Pty Ltd" It is unfortunate but reality. Not everyone will release the rights to their designs, nor are they obligated too, so the hardware design can't be reused in a free/open source project. I would love to be wrong on this of course but it seems like an "open and shut case" to me. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From tdk.knight at gmail.com Sun Jan 22 19:09:24 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:09:24 -0600 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? In-Reply-To: <4F1C75A1.4030400@dunnington.plus.com> References: <0259A574043744F2B0A0DF6BAB6196F7@vl420mt> <4F1C75A1.4030400@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: interesting i scored one of those black box's off ebay for 50 shipped so now will have a searial loop to play with when i get back to winnipeg yay :) From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 22 19:20:39 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:20:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <002101ccd96b$33e3d8c0$9bab8a40$@YAHOO.COM> References: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> <007201ccd94e$40389bf0$c0a9d3d0$@YAHOO.COM> <002101ccd96b$33e3d8c0$9bab8a40$@YAHOO.COM> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, Andrew Lynch wrote: >> That's really weird. I never got that impression from Dave Brookes. How > did >> you arrive at the conclusion that cloning the P112 is illegal? >> >> David Griffith > > [snip] > > Hi David, I got that impression when David Brooks said the P112 was his > design and asked for royalties on new boards. > > Since there is no "free/open source" type license for the PCB design and he > asserted his rights to it I can't see how a "free/open source" board could > be made without violating the rules. The documentation for the P112 > hardware seems clearly marked for "D-X Designs Pty Ltd" > > It is unfortunate but reality. Not everyone will release the rights to > their designs, nor are they obligated too, so the hardware design can't be > reused in a free/open source project. > > I would love to be wrong on this of course but it seems like an "open and > shut case" to me. Thanks and have a nice day! The way my involvement with the P112 started was that I asked David Brookes if I could make more. He said, "yes" and handed over the design files. I'm looking around for the emails now. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 20:16:05 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:16:05 -0800 Subject: Typewriters (was: Thinking of keyboard interfaces) In-Reply-To: <9C52132F-D23C-43DD-9607-5FC605F1CA36@gmail.com> References: , <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com>, <9C52132F-D23C-43DD-9607-5FC605F1CA36@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1C5265.19401.1FD2EE4@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:41, David Riley wrote: > I certainly never did. I'm looking into getting a typewriter somewhat > soon, both for teaching myself to type a little better (more > accurately, and separating the keystrokes better) and also because > typewritten recipe cards look so much better than printed ones or my > own child-like scrawl. Smith-Corona's Silent and Silent Super seem to > be general favorites among the portables; anyone have other > recommendations? I seem to be able to find properly working instances > of the above for less than $100 on eBay/Etsy. I've had two Smith-Corona portables in my life--one, a manual and the other, an electric (they were also sold under the Sears name). The electric was okay, but I really got spoiled later by the IBM Model B Executive. A really wonderful machine--and if you get the prop- spacing type, the quality of the output is remarkable. Selectrics aren't too bad either. One thing that an electric forces you into is a rhythm as your speed increases. You can only push the mechanism so far until it starts to fight you until you feel its natural rhythm. It's odd, but when I started using a computer terminal, my speed went down. Perhaps it was due to my looking at the letters on the screen as they appeared (a good typist types "blind"); I don't know. When you use a keypunch, the "chunk" is your source of feedback, so it's a good thing they're noisy--and you type blind. If you use one of the nonprinting punches, such as an 024, you don't even know what you typed until you run the deck through an interpreter or do an 80-80 listing. If you want a somewhat different experience (and this relates to "chording" and "n-key-rollover", try a stenotype machine. --Chuck From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 22 20:39:24 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:39:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, >> particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. > I've never understood it. I'm now deep into the through-hole pass on > an assembly job I'm doing, and I'm hating every second of it, while > the SMT parts were a breeze. The world is full of backward people, > it seems. The fear of SMT is a knee-jerk reaction with no foundation > in reality. Well, I wouldn't classify myself as "deathly afraid of" surface-mount. But I don't like the little of it I've done, and that is the voice of experience, albeit only minor experience, not "no foundation in reality". I'm sure that with proper tools and a fair bit of practice I could be fine, but I definitely prefer through-hole. (My current tools aren't really _bad_ for the job - I'm not talking a half-inch chisel tip on a 45W open-loop iron - but they're hardly ideal.) Strictly, I suspect that it's not through-hole versus surface-mount but 0.1" versus 0.5mm; through-hole 0.5mm, if such a thing exists, would probably aggravate me at least as much as 0.5mm surface-mount, and I wouldn't expect 0.1" surface-mount to be any worse than 0.1" through-hole. Component size matters too. I've seen surface-mount parts that are about four times the size of a typical grain of sand; I'm not fond of the idea of dealing with such a thing at all. (It'd be better with through-hole simply because the leads provide some mechanical mounting which surface-mount doesn't have, but still not great.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 22 21:03:36 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:03:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:29, Tony Duell wrote: > >>>> Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are >>>> they already soldered when the kit is delivered? >>> >>> Surface-mounts are already done. >> >> Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. > > Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, > particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. It's not that bad, even with > a regular soldering iron, but a microscope or other aid to visually > inspect the result helps a lot. > > At some point, someone offered adapter cards with, for the want of a > better term, employed a "trench" for each lead, so that > misregistration was almost impossible. I don't know if they're still > made or even how difficult it would be to fabricate such a thing on a > circuit board--but it might bear investigation for future kits. As someone else mentioned, those are made by Schmartboard. I asked on a homebrewed PCB mailing list how or if trenches like that could be made on a homebrewed or professionally-made board. The answers ranged from "maybe" to "yes, but very expensive" to "no". -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 21:09:47 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:09:47 -0800 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 16:02, Dave McGuire wrote: > Yes, Schmartboard makes those. They sent me a sample a few weeks > ago; I haven't tried it yet. I put in an order for a sample. They claim to be able to do custom PCB utilizing the technology. If prices aren't too high, that may be a possible answer to the phobia. I also asked them if they had a solution for BGA (not that I expect one). --Chuck From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 22 21:30:03 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:30:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2012 at 16:02, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> Yes, Schmartboard makes those. They sent me a sample a few weeks >> ago; I haven't tried it yet. > > I put in an order for a sample. They claim to be able to do custom > PCB utilizing the technology. If prices aren't too high, that may be > a possible answer to the phobia. I also asked them if they had a > solution for BGA (not that I expect one). I can probably deal with QFPs, but BGAs are just nasty, particularly when combined with the wrong sort of solder. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 21:31:57 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:31:57 -0800 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:03, David Griffith wrote: > As someone else mentioned, those are made by Schmartboard. I asked on > a homebrewed PCB mailing list how or if trenches like that could be > made on a homebrewed or professionally-made board. The answers ranged > from "maybe" to "yes, but very expensive" to "no". I could see making a very thick solder mask so that a chip would naturally settle onto the traces. Schmart says they can do custom PCB work, but they won't say how much extra their service costs over a standard PCB. My gut feeling is that it will loads cheaper to job this out with a PCB order just to stuff the SMT items and leave the rest for the customer to handle. I don't like it, but then we don't ask hobbyists to make their own PCBs either. More business for the Chinese, I imagine. So I can understand the P112 kit approach. --Chuck From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 22 21:47:02 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:47:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:03, David Griffith wrote: > >> As someone else mentioned, those are made by Schmartboard. I asked on >> a homebrewed PCB mailing list how or if trenches like that could be >> made on a homebrewed or professionally-made board. The answers ranged >> from "maybe" to "yes, but very expensive" to "no". > > I could see making a very thick solder mask so that a chip would > naturally settle onto the traces. Schmart says they can do custom > PCB work, but they won't say how much extra their service costs over > a standard PCB. > > My gut feeling is that it will loads cheaper to job this out with a > PCB order just to stuff the SMT items and leave the rest for the > customer to handle. I don't like it, but then we don't ask hobbyists > to make their own PCBs either. > > More business for the Chinese, I imagine. So I can understand the > P112 kit approach. That sort of thing is precisely why I had the boards pre-stuffed with the surface-mounts. The boards were fabbed and stuffed a few miles from Portland Oregon by Sunstone Circuits and Screaming Circuits. I'd gladly use their services again. Soo.... anyone want P112 kits? Two are sold. Five more are left. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From dm561 at torfree.net Sun Jan 22 22:13:57 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:13:57 -0500 Subject: pdp8a assistance tapes terminals i dunno? References: Message-ID: ----- Original Message: Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:49:57 +0000 From: Liam Proven On 22 January 2012 18:55, MikeS wrote: > ----- Original Message: > Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:59:25 +0000 > From: Pete Turnbull > >>> I dislike hyperterminal fairly intensely... > > >> Just curious: what is it specifically about HyperTerminal that you not >> only dislike, but dislike "fairly intensely" (other than that it used to >> be supplied by Microsoft and runs in Windows)? > As for me: I really dislike the business of selecting a session, attaching > it to a specified modem device and so on. I want a comms program to just > open up and point me at the serial port; I'll do the dialling, thanks. ------ Different strokes for different folks, I guess; for 'real work', i.e. connecting to an external system/device, I actually like being able to simply click on an appropriate icon and being transparently connected to that system without selecting com ports, dialing numbers, etc. ------ > I do feel that the basic function of a comms program is to be a terminal > emulator, though. HyperTerm compelled you to create a session, install a > modem driver, choose a modem and so on, even if you just wanted to type > ATI1 > ATI2 > ATI3 > ...etc. > If you wanted a dumb terminal session, IIRC, you had to configure a null > modem or a direct cable connection and point it at that. It was just > obstructive. ------ Umm, no, not really; if all you wanted was to talk to a comm port then like any terminal program you selected the comm port, baud rate and handshaking and away you went, optionally saving the configuration to a session in case you wanted to use it again. Of course most of the time you wanted to connect to a _system_ or a _device_ and not a comm port, which would require some additional setup like entering phone numbers, modem configuration parameters, etc. But yes, if what you wanted was to tinker with different baud rates, handshaking, emulations etc. instead of just connecting to whatever, then other terminal programs like Bray's Term, RealTerm, PuTTY etc. or even DOS's ProcommPlus or Telix were indeed more flexible, and I use them all as well from time to time. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 22:29:01 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:29:01 -0800 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: , <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F1C718D.5795.276E381@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:30, David Griffith wrote: > I can probably deal with QFPs, but BGAs are just nasty, particularly > when combined with the wrong sort of solder. My thought was that they'd be able to do the same trick, where each contactl on the BGA would settle into its own solder-filled recess and all you'd have to do is heat the area. But maybe not... --Chuck From n0body.h0me at inbox.com Sun Jan 22 22:52:05 2012 From: n0body.h0me at inbox.com (N0body H0me) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:52:05 -0800 Subject: Typewriters (was: Thinking of keyboard interfaces) In-Reply-To: <9C52132F-D23C-43DD-9607-5FC605F1CA36@gmail.com> References: <4f1bf3d3.29024.8bc5fb@cclist.sydex.com> <4f1bd686.20864.194f6e@cclist.sydex.com> <4f1c5e90.5010607@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <75ED5A8ACCC.000007A9n0body.h0me@inbox.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: fraveydank at gmail.com > Sent: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:41:27 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Typewriters (was: Thinking of keyboard interfaces) > > On Jan 22, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Six-key rollover seems to be a good compromise; I suspect the most >> anyone sees in the real world is 3 or 4 key. >> >> Or perhaps today's crop of keyboardists never learned to type on a >> typewriter. > > I certainly never did. I'm looking into getting a typewriter somewhat > soon, both for teaching myself to type a little better (more accurately, > and separating the keystrokes better) and also because typewritten recipe > cards look so much better than printed ones or my own child-like scrawl. > Smith-Corona's Silent and Silent Super seem to be general favorites among > the portables; anyone have other recommendations? I seem to be able to > find properly working instances of the above for less than $100 on > eBay/Etsy. > > - Dave I'm a fan of the IBM Wheelwriter, myself. They're great machines, and they even show up at thrift stores! They do proportional type like an Exec, without the weight, and you can change typefaces like a Selectric. The olympia electronic machines are nice also, but not at all common in this country these days (I did spot one in a thrift last year, though). ____________________________________________________________ Send your photos by email in seconds... TRY FREE IM TOOLPACK at http://www.imtoolpack.com/default.aspx?rc=if3 Works in all emails, instant messengers, blogs, forums and social networks. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 22 22:57:30 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:57:30 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C718D.5795.276E381@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C718D.5795.276E381@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1CE8BA.2090805@neurotica.com> On 01/22/2012 11:29 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I can probably deal with QFPs, but BGAs are just nasty, particularly >> when combined with the wrong sort of solder. > > My thought was that they'd be able to do the same trick, where each > contactl on the BGA would settle into its own solder-filled recess > and all you'd have to do is heat the area. But maybe not... It's pretty easy to do that with vias. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 22 23:01:02 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:01:02 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> On 01/22/2012 09:39 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, >>> particularly fine-pitch (0.5 mm) QFPs. > >> I've never understood it. I'm now deep into the through-hole pass on >> an assembly job I'm doing, and I'm hating every second of it, while >> the SMT parts were a breeze. The world is full of backward people, >> it seems. The fear of SMT is a knee-jerk reaction with no foundation >> in reality. > > Well, I wouldn't classify myself as "deathly afraid of" surface-mount. > But I don't like the little of it I've done, and that is the voice of > experience, albeit only minor experience, not "no foundation in > reality". Of course. And thinking back a bit, I was really put off by it when I first started doing it too. But after some practice, and getting correct (and good) tools, it became much easier. Just like through-hole soldering. :) I came to like SMT work far, far more than through-hole very shortly after that, though. Now I dread through-hole; it just takes too damn long and is generally a pain compared to SMT. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 23:06:45 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:06:45 -0800 Subject: Typewriters (was: Thinking of keyboard interfaces) In-Reply-To: <75ED5A8ACCC.000007A9n0body.h0me@inbox.com> References: , <9C52132F-D23C-43DD-9607-5FC605F1CA36@gmail.com>, <75ED5A8ACCC.000007A9n0body.h0me@inbox.com> Message-ID: <4F1C7A65.23171.2996F22@cclist.sydex.com> On 22 Jan 2012 at 20:52, N0body H0me wrote: > I'm a fan of the IBM Wheelwriter, myself. They're great machines, and > they even show up at thrift stores! They do proportional type like an > Exec, without the weight, and you can change typefaces like a > Selectric. > > The olympia electronic machines are nice also, but not at all common > in this country these days (I did spot one in a thrift last year, > though). Can't stand the daisy-wheel ones. You hit a key and some variable time later, something happens. It's a complete sensory disconnect. Somewhere, I've got a Brother daisywheel typewriter like that also. There's no sensory immediacy to it. Maybe I'm too old since I learned typing on a full-size Underwood manual with no labeling on the keys. "Okay class, hands home, A, S, D, F, J, K, L, sem, A, S, D, F, J, K, L, sem..." --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 22 23:30:31 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:30:31 -0800 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> References: , <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>, <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1C7FF7.18540.2AF31D0@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 0:01, Dave McGuire wrote: > I came to like SMT work far, far more than through-hole very shortly > after that, though. Now I dread through-hole; it just takes too damn > long and is generally a pain compared to SMT. Heh. Must be a generational thing. I remember many years ago, my late father wanting to recapture some of his experiences and construct his own receiver. So he went to the local electronics dealer and came back with some 14AWG bus wire, a spool of 24AWG magnet (enambeled) wire, a 1G4G and an Eby surface-mount octal socket (he was upset when he discovered that UV201s were no longer made), a No. 6 dry cell and a couple of 45V "B" batteries. He'd already selected and shellacked a nice pine board and was working on fabricating his own book-type "condenser". It worked, and I suppose it was a real work of art, but I thought the use of bare #24 wire was *so* retro and campy, compared my up-to-date use of point-to-point using hookup wire and tie strips... We're fast coming to a time, I suppose when through-hole PCB construction will seem just as dated--and 5V logic will seem curiously power-hungry although RTL was 3V, so at least we've been here before. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 22 23:44:53 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:44:53 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C7FF7.18540.2AF31D0@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>, <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> <4F1C7FF7.18540.2AF31D0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1CF3D5.7050506@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 12:30 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I came to like SMT work far, far more than through-hole very shortly >> after that, though. Now I dread through-hole; it just takes too damn >> long and is generally a pain compared to SMT. > > Heh. Must be a generational thing. I remember many years ago, my > late father wanting to recapture some of his experiences and > construct his own receiver. So he went to the local electronics > dealer and came back with some 14AWG bus wire, a spool of 24AWG > magnet (enambeled) wire, a 1G4G and an Eby surface-mount octal socket > (he was upset when he discovered that UV201s were no longer made), a > No. 6 dry cell and a couple of 45V "B" batteries. He'd already > selected and shellacked a nice pine board and was working on > fabricating his own book-type "condenser". It worked, and I suppose > it was a real work of art, but I thought the use of bare #24 wire was > *so* retro and campy, compared my up-to-date use of point-to-point > using hookup wire and tie strips... Indeed. :) I bet that receiver was a work of art; I hope it's still around somewhere. I learned to solder in the late 1970s; did a bit of tie strips but mostly perf board and through-hole PCBs. (home-etched and kits) It's weird...I enjoy soldering, and I guess I still like through-hole soldering as much as I used to, but SMT is just so much faster and easier that I groan when I get to the inevitable through-hole connectors and such. > We're fast coming to a time, I suppose when through-hole PCB > construction will seem just as dated--and 5V logic will seem > curiously power-hungry although RTL was 3V, so at least we've been > here before. Very true. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 23 00:04:29 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:04:29 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: from "David Griffith" at Jan 21, 12 03:35:28 pm, <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1C7981.1080400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1CF86D.3000606@neurotica.com> On 01/22/2012 07:54 PM, David Riley wrote: > I always seem to get a lot of bridges unless I do it with paste and a > toaster oven. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong instead of > some intrinsic problem, but it's enough to make me think twice when > it's a problem. I suggest getting a good liquid flux (I use a flux pen from MG Chemicals, with rosin flux, very nice) and absolutely drown the area with it. Decrease the solder feed rate. If you find that you have a hard time feeding the solder slowly enough to avoid bridging, switch to a smaller-diameter solder. > Also, I have a pretty crappy 30W Weller whose finest tip is about as > sharp as a moderately used pencil, which makes cleanup rather > difficult even with desoldering braid. I'm sure with better > equipment (say, a proper Metcal and sharper tweezers, plus maybe at > least a magnifying glass and a hands-free grip) I could do a better > job. Oooh. Umm, yes. I use a Metcal SP200. One of the best investments I've ever made, and I was lucky enough to get it cheap. It, plus a good liquid flux makes all the difference. With that, I can use the "drag" technique to solder all 36 pins of a 144-pin QFP in one pass with somewhere between 0-3 bridges in about 8-9 seconds. (just did a bunch of those a few days ago) > I have a hard time with 0402s right now only because they keep > sticking to the damn iron. 0402s are definitely tougher; you have to be very quick with the iron. 0603s aren't much different from 0805s though. (0805 is the "standard" size that I use in my designs unless the it calls for something else) > All in all, probably not bad products, but kind of expensive. For > sticking small pitch parts onto breadboards (solderless or perf), I > tend to prefer the ones from Bellin (http://www.beldynsys.com/), > especially their P513 kit (http://www.beldynsys.com/p513.htm). > They're still not super-cheap, but $45 for about 150 pieces (300 > patterns, double-sided) isn't a terrible deal. They stick onto your > breadboard with a minimum of wasted space and look kind of pretty > (and even have fairly intuitive pinouts for parts like SOT-23s). Oh neat, I will check those out. That price sounds pretty good. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jan 23 00:50:41 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:50:41 +0100 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C718D.5795.276E381@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1C5EFB.10382.22E5A3B@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C718D.5795.276E381@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120123075041.uza50brzacw8owc8@webmail.opentransfer.com> Zitat von Chuck Guzis : > On 22 Jan 2012 at 19:30, David Griffith wrote: > >> I can probably deal with QFPs, but BGAs are just nasty, particularly >> when combined with the wrong sort of solder. > > My thought was that they'd be able to do the same trick, where each > contactl on the BGA would settle into its own solder-filled recess > and all you'd have to do is heat the area. But maybe not... You could, but it is not worth it. There is a lot of information on the web about using temperature controlled toaster ovens, etc. If you add it up, it is still pretty expensive. So, if you like to use BGAs, just go to a contract manufacturer and let them solder this one chip. From brain at jbrain.com Mon Jan 23 00:54:27 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:54:27 -0600 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F176FEC.27840.34C552B@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F17A1B1.5030404@jbrain.com> <4F176FEC.27840.34C552B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1D0423.9060903@jbrain.com> On 1/19/2012 3:20 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 18 Jan 2012 at 22:53, Jim Brain wrote: > >> Understood, though it's $10+ in singles, while the LPC1756 is $8.40 in >> singles and the price drops faster in 100s than for the AVR. >> >> 64tqfp versus 80tqfp. >> >> the onboard EEPROM on the 647 (for custom keyboard mappings) makes >> life interesting, though. > Oh, I like ARMs too. :) But I thought we were looking for an 8- > bit solution. My mistake. If you don't mind single-sourcing, a > PIC32MX2 might also be worth a glance. I'd prefer a small OTG-capableuC that didn;t cost $8.00, but either ARM or AVR will work. I don't know much aboiut PIC32, but I'm shying away from AVR32 and PIC32 and such in favor of ARM. In the spirit of Tony's philosophy on having all the material on hand to fix things, I think the AVR32/PIC32/etc. uCs are too niche. ARM is all over the place, and the likelihood that one could get a compiler and a programmer 10 years from now on ARM is probably better than for some of the other families. > > So how many of these things do you plan to put out? I can't imagine > that there's a huge market in keyboard-to-vintage PC converters. Mainly I am interested in the CBM tangent, and you'd be surprised how many people want a PC KB on their C64/C128. But, it looks like a small design could be re-purposed to handle lots of options. Jim From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jan 23 01:08:19 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:08:19 +0100 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1D0423.9060903@jbrain.com> References: , <4F1728FF.8907.23745EC@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F17A1B1.5030404@jbrain.com> <4F176FEC.27840.34C552B@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1D0423.9060903@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <20120123080819.1fa5a6tzvfkkkowo@webmail.opentransfer.com> Zitat von Jim Brain : > In the spirit of Tony's > philosophy on having all the material on hand to fix things, I think > the AVR32/PIC32/etc. uCs are too niche. ARM is all over the place, and > the likelihood that one could get a compiler and a programmer 10 years > from now on ARM is probably better than for some of the other families. Not being an ARM fan at all, I was still impressed how fast the first design went here with an luminary (now TI). Got the gcc for it, which was a simple compile. OpenOCD for JTAG. Enough examples and makefile on TI's webpage. Just writing down the application after that. From jgh at mdfs.net Sun Jan 22 15:57:48 2012 From: jgh at mdfs.net (J.G.Harston) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:57:48 +0000 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1BD686.20864.194F6E@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C5E90.5010607@brouhaha.com> <4F1BF3D3.29024.8BC5FB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <8b09ce427563e797771469978b9e3d02@mdfs.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Or perhaps today's crop of keyboardists never learned to type on a > typewriter. He he. I learned to type aged 8 on a hugely-heavy "International" typewriter :) -- J.G.Harston - jgh at mdfs.net - mdfs.net/jgh From pinball at telus.net Sun Jan 22 21:57:12 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:57:12 -0800 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1B5B53.1080006@neurotica.com> References: <4F1B5B53.1080006@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1CDA98.3050003@telus.net> Dave McGuire wrote: > > Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. > I don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying > one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to > learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but > this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) > > Does anyone in the US have one that I'd be able to borrow for a few > days? > > Thanks, > -Dave > Any signature analyzer will work - HP merely invented the idea and even snuck in their initials into the characters displayed: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, C, F, H, P, U. I'm in Canada (west coast) so not much use for your borrowing one from me, but SA's are up on eBay all the time. There is a Bugtrap unit for only $75US plus shipping... mffe at napanet.net John :-#)# From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 01:58:28 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:58:28 -0800 Subject: PS/2 Keyboard adapter for TRS-80? In-Reply-To: <4F1D0423.9060903@jbrain.com> References: , <4F176FEC.27840.34C552B@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1D0423.9060903@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <4F1CA2A4.9055.336A52B@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 0:54, Jim Brain wrote: > I'd prefer a small OTG-capableuC that didn;t cost $8.00, but either > ARM or AVR will work. I don't know much aboiut PIC32, but I'm shying > away from AVR32 and PIC32 and such in favor of ARM. In the spirit of > Tony's philosophy on having all the material on hand to fix things, I > think the AVR32/PIC32/etc. uCs are too niche. ARM is all over the > place, and the likelihood that one could get a compiler and a > programmer 10 years from now on ARM is probably better than for some > of the other families. The MX2 is OTG-capable and comes in packages as small as 28 pins. I've got a soft spot for PIC32 in that it's basically a MIPS R4000 core with peripherals tacked on. Microchip does their own silly thing, programming it with their proprietary ISP programmer (PICkit), even though they employ an on-chip ISP-to-JTAG converter (which is what really does the programming). I believe their toolchain has its roots in the GCC R4000 compiler as well, so it isn't as if that's going bye-bye anytime soon. Think of it as an SGI workstation on a chip. Some of the PIC32 family has 5v-tolerant inputs, which is a plus in a lot of cases. No EEPROM, however, which is too bad. But you're right--without some second sources, it's probably doomed in the long run competing against the ARM. ARMs are everywhere and comparatively cheap. I like the low-end 8- bit AVRs, but with the 32-bitters, you might as well use an ARM. --Chuck From Paul.Moers at synopsys.com Mon Jan 23 02:41:10 2012 From: Paul.Moers at synopsys.com (Paul Moers) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:41:10 +0100 Subject: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) Message-ID: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> Hello Edzard... Let me introduce myself first... My name is Paul, from the Netherlands.. and I'm building the Old Junior Computer from Elektor... The computer is already up and running and now I'm busy with the floppy card.... Final step is a memory card ... The goal is to have the DOS -Junior combination back running... But I'm looking for a version of OS65D...which is very hard to find... Maybe you know some entries where I can get a version of this Operating System....V3.3 of the OS would be nice... Many many many thanks in advance, Paul Moers from Netherlands. From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 04:12:11 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:12:11 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... Message-ID: Hi all, finally I got my real Iron delivered. I nearly can't express how happy I am about that. Now the usual Inspection begins (PSUs etc...) Could please one of you have a look at my "board-layout" in the backplane and correct me if I am completely wrong? >From top downwards I would insert the modules as follows: M8189 - 11/23 -CPU M8067 - MSV-11 - 256 KW RAM M8043 - DLV11 - Quad Serial Card M8061 - RLV12 - RL02 Controller M7516 - DELQA - Ethernet Card Goal is to bring this System up with VTSERVER for starters. I hope to add one or two RL02s in Summer. A RX50 and a RD50/51 or 52 (don't remember at the moment) are sitting on my shelf too and I'd like to put them in there. But first I have to get a controller for that. This all sounds like quite an amount of work and a lot of fun for me :) Regards, Wolfgang - who wanted to share his happiness -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org From sander.reiche at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 04:22:12 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:22:12 +0100 Subject: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) In-Reply-To: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> References: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> Message-ID: Seems http://osi.marks-lab.com/ has some disk images of v3.3. Might not be directly usable, but you probably will be better at judging that than me. Else, it seems a great starting point to get where you want. regards, Sander Reiche (also from the Netherlands :)) On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Paul Moers wrote: > Hello Edzard... > > Let me introduce myself first... My name is Paul, from the Netherlands.. and I'm building the Old Junior Computer from Elektor... > The computer is already up and running and now I'm busy with the floppy card.... Final step is a memory card ... The goal is to > have the DOS -Junior combination back running... But I'm looking for a version of OS65D...which is very hard to find... Maybe you > know some entries where I can get a version of this Operating System....V3.3 of the OS would be nice... > > Many many many thanks in advance, > Paul Moers from Netherlands. -- ~ UNIX is basically a simple operating system, ? ? ? ? ? ?but you have to be a genius to understand its simplicity. ~ dmr From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 07:01:37 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:01:37 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1550C374-CBB7-4F27-B1DA-257A7A1840C8@gmail.com> On Jan 22, 2012, at 10:47 PM, David Griffith wrote: > That sort of thing is precisely why I had the boards pre-stuffed with the surface-mounts. The boards were fabbed and stuffed a few miles from Portland Oregon by Sunstone Circuits and Screaming Circuits. I'd gladly use their services again. > > Soo.... anyone want P112 kits? Two are sold. Five more are left. Really? Sunstone is fairly OK (I've dealt with them in the past), but I found Screaming Circuits to be unnecessarily expensive for what they do, and I've gotten great service from Advanced Assembly (aapcb.com). They're located right across the street in Colorado from Advanced Circuits (4pcb.com), who I also really like for PCB manufacturing. Advanced Circuits also has better prices on production quantities (at least >10), so I'll be trying them out for a run of wireless sensor motes soon. As far as the P112, I'll think about it; it's up my alley, but we're buying a house right now, so the budget is a little thin. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 07:06:00 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:06:00 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1CF3D5.7050506@neurotica.com> References: , <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>, <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> <4F1C7FF7.18540.2AF31D0@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1CF3D5.7050506@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <9F5138D5-9CD2-49E1-8792-6EEC9F1F5939@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 12:44 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/23/2012 12:30 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I learned to solder in the late 1970s; did a bit of tie strips but mostly perf board and through-hole PCBs. (home-etched and kits) It's weird...I enjoy soldering, and I guess I still like through-hole soldering as much as I used to, but SMT is just so much faster and easier that I groan when I get to the inevitable through-hole connectors and such. If I had proper tools (which, once we make this move which will hopefully be the last one for a while, I will start doing), I'd probably like SMT more. As is, I've had good luck with the toaster oven method (which isn't *that* different from the industrial reflow process, just a little less controlled) and there wasn't much cleanup with leaded solder. I enjoy soldering, though. I feel like it's been a productive day when I can't get the smell of burnt rosin out of my nostrils. It's a smell that brings back as many fond memories as the smell of burnt gunpowder, which just smells like mischief. :-) - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 07:17:23 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:17:23 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <183696A5-FB3F-40F0-BE03-A8DA75561636@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 5:12 AM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > Hi all, > > finally I got my real Iron delivered. I nearly can't express how happy I am > about that. > > Now the usual Inspection begins (PSUs etc...) > > Could please one of you have a look at my "board-layout" in the backplane > and correct me if I am completely wrong? > > From top downwards I would insert the modules as follows: > > M8189 - 11/23 -CPU > M8067 - MSV-11 - 256 KW RAM > M8043 - DLV11 - Quad Serial Card > M8061 - RLV12 - RL02 Controller > M7516 - DELQA - Ethernet Card Looks OK to me, though I'd point out that the priority is daisy-chained; you may want to consider moving the DELQA further up the chain (or so it's been recommended to me). Someone else may be better able to comment on that. Since the DELQA is a dual-width, you may get some mileage putting it right before the DLV11 (assuming you have a serpentine layout at that point on your backplane, it'll help you fill out the pair of slots, and serial interrupts probably ought to be lower priority than Ethernet, but higher than the disk). You didn't mention what backplane you're using; the BA23 backplane has 3 quad-width slots of straight-through plus CD, then the rest are serpentine. Congrats! Enjoy! It should be easy enough to tell if everything is at least working by probing the CSRs with ODT. - Dave From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de Mon Jan 23 03:56:08 2012 From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:56:08 +0100 Subject: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) In-Reply-To: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> References: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> Message-ID: <4F1D2EB8.8090608@iais.fraunhofer.de> Am 23.01.2012 09:41, schrieb Paul Moers: > Hello Edzard... > > Let me introduce myself first... My name is Paul, from the Netherlands.. and I'm building the Old Junior Computer from Elektor... The computer is already up and running and now I'm busy with the floppy card.... Final step is a memory card ... The goal is to have the DOS -Junior combination back running... But I'm looking for a version of OS65D...which is very hard to find... Maybe you know some entries where I can get a version of this Operating System....V3.3 of the OS would be nice... > > Many many many thanks in advance, > Paul Moers from Netherlands. Hi Paul, simple googling for OS65D will point you to the UK101 page of Mark Csele, where you can get an OS 3.3 image. Of course, you need almost all Elektor articles, as well as the Elektor Computing issues which describe in detail the adaptions to be made. Problem is of course that the Elektor OSI computer uses a rather obscure floppy controller and formatting (some GCR emitted by an asynchronous 6850 that is hacked into a synchronous mode). I doubt you'll find ready to use floppies for that beast, so best that can be done IMHO is transferring the sectors one-by one to the target system, by some serial protocol and then using a program to throw them on the floppy. -- Holger From fpersen2000 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 23 08:23:44 2012 From: fpersen2000 at yahoo.com (Frank Ersen) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:23:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dr. Dobb's Message-ID: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Greetings; Like many of you here I am an old time home computer guy who got his start in 1976 when I built my first computer, an Altair 8800. I am writing to get some information on a number of Dr Dobb's Journals that I wish to sell. I would like some input on what an honest price would be. I am also trying to determine if I should sell these one by one or in volume sets. I have the following: Volume number? Issue # 1??? ??? ???????????????? 1,3,6, 10 2????????????????????????? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 3????????????????????????? 2,5,6,7,8,9,10 4?????????????????????????? 1,3,4,6,7,8,9,10 5?????????????????????????? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 6?????????????????????????? 1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 7??????????????????????????? 2 Your input would be appreciated. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 08:40:44 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:40:44 -0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> http://tinyurl.com/6m6abl8 This is a manual with all computers produced by CCE in Brazil. There are apple clones, PC-XT clones and the MC-1000, an orphan computer that no one is able to perfectly source its origins Please seed. --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 09:28:54 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:28:54 +0000 Subject: Cray-1 on an FPGA Message-ID: This has garnered a lot of attention for me on Twitter and Facebook today. Hardware & case: http://chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/ The hunt for software: http://chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-archeology/ Helping recover the OS: http://blog.archive.org/2011/09/03/hard-drive-archaeology-and-hackerspaces/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From md.benson at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 09:59:19 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:59:19 +0000 Subject: Cray-1 on an FPGA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 Jan 2012, at 15:28, Liam Proven wrote: > This has garnered a lot of attention for me on Twitter and Facebook today. > > Hardware & case: > http://chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/ > > The hunt for software: > http://chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-archeology/ > > Helping recover the OS: > http://blog.archive.org/2011/09/03/hard-drive-archaeology-and-hackerspaces/ Pretty sure I forwarded this from the Rescue list a few weeks back but doesn't do any harm to jog people's memory from time to time especially on such an interesting project. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson From mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com Mon Jan 23 10:51:21 2012 From: mjd.bishop at emeritus-solutions.com (Martin Bishop) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:51:21 -0000 Subject: Cray-1 on an FPGA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A port of Chris Fenton's Cray-1 Verilog source to Spartan 6 (Digilent Atlys) is reported at http://stromeko.net/FPGA/DevBoard2.html Martin From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mark Benson Sent: 23 January 2012 15:59 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Cray-1 on an FPGA On 23 Jan 2012, at 15:28, Liam Proven wrote: > This has garnered a lot of attention for me on Twitter and Facebook today. > > Hardware & case: > http://chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/ > > The hunt for software: > http://chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-archeology/ > > Helping recover the OS: > http://blog.archive.org/2011/09/03/hard-drive-archaeology-and-hackerspac es/ Pretty sure I forwarded this from the Rescue list a few weeks back but doesn't do any harm to jog people's memory from time to time especially on such an interesting project. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 11:39:56 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:39:56 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> Message-ID: <340FBD30-5E98-452F-81DC-86FAEE63545C@gmail.com> On Jan 19, 2012, at 9:53 AM, Keith M wrote: > On 1/19/2012 9:34 AM, Gene Buckle wrote: > >> I've heard of $100 hamburgers before, but never $700 t-shirts. :( > > I like fine dining, but I'd never pay $100 for a hamburger. At least not in the US. Ok, maybe in Japan. > > Had a (US) Kobe beef burger at Ditka's ($13-$15 burger), and it wasn't great. Good, but not great. > > We have a local place called Burgatory which gets tons of great reviews --- that I haven't been to because it's always too busy. If you're ever in SW central Philadelphia (a neighborhood called Graduate Hospital, just south of South), try the burgers at Grace Tavern. $9 for one of the best burgers I've ever had, and the fries are pretty good, too. Plus, if you're into it, there's a constantly rotating hoity-toity beer menu; we've never had to have the same beer twice (though the beer is even better at Resurrection a few blocks away). There are benefits to living in hipster neighborhoods... :-) Not too many vintage computer connoisseurs around, though, as far as I can tell. - Dave From wdonzelli at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 12:09:17 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:09:17 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: <340FBD30-5E98-452F-81DC-86FAEE63545C@gmail.com> References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182E5C.2000002@verizon.net> <340FBD30-5E98-452F-81DC-86FAEE63545C@gmail.com> Message-ID: > There are benefits to living in hipster neighborhoods... :-) Yes, like more hipsters to beat up. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 12:26:41 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:26:41 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 12:40, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > http://tinyurl.com/6m6abl8 > > This is a manual with all computers produced by CCE in Brazil. > There are > apple clones, PC-XT clones and the MC-1000, an orphan computer that no > one is able to perfectly source its origins > > Please seed. Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, that would be better for a lot of people. All the best, Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 23 12:39:07 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:39:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2012 at 12:40, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > >> >> http://tinyurl.com/6m6abl8 >> >> This is a manual with all computers produced by CCE in Brazil. >> There are >> apple clones, PC-XT clones and the MC-1000, an orphan computer that no >> one is able to perfectly source its origins >> >> Please seed. > > Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad > reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual > property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, > that would be better for a lot of people. > So have computers. Better quit using those too. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From rga24 at cantab.net Mon Jan 23 12:48:51 2012 From: rga24 at cantab.net (Richard Atkinson) Date: 23 Jan 2012 18:48:51 +0000 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Jan 23 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: >On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad >> reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual >> property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, >> that would be better for a lot of people. >> >So have computers. Better quit using those too. He's right, I suggest using Megaupload.com, they're one of the best file sharing sites. From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 12:58:32 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:58:32 -0500 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <15856CF2-1BF7-4A05-9088-9E45F4976234@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 1:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad > reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual > property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, > that would be better for a lot of people. Which is a shame, because it's otherwise a perfectly legitimate means of distributing large files (e.g. Linux distributions). I see the same organizations badmouthing BitTorrent as were badmouthing CD burners in the '90s; what I found especially ironic about that situation was that Sony was one of the major record labels pushing for things like excise taxes to counteract piracy on writeable CDs, while they themselves were producing burners and discs. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with BitTorrent, reputation or not. Does your organization flag all torrent connections as illegal downloads? I know a number of universities that do. It's a problem, because a number of legitimate sources (Blizzard's game update mechanism comes to mind) use it as an underlying protocol and get unfairly flagged as a result. - Dave From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jan 23 13:02:48 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:02:48 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1DAED8.6000503@bitsavers.org> On 1/23/12 10:48 AM, Richard Atkinson wrote: > I suggest using Megaupload.com very funny. From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:09:55 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:09:55 -0800 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 2:12 AM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > > Could please one of you have a look at my "board-layout" in the backplane > and correct me if I am completely wrong? > > From top downwards I would insert the modules as follows: > > M8189 - 11/23 -CPU > M8067 - MSV-11 - 256 KW RAM > M8043 - DLV11 - Quad Serial Card > M8061 - RLV12 - RL02 Controller > M7516 - DELQA - Ethernet Card > What backplane do you have? For example you might have one of the DEC backplanes below: H9270 4 x 4 backplane (four rows of four slots) H9273-A 9 x 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) H9275-A 9 X 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) H9276 9 X 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) H9278-A 8 X 4 backplane (eight rows of four slots) If you have a BA23 box you should have a H9278-A backplane. > Goal is to bring this System up with VTSERVER for starters. I hope to add > one or two RL02s in Summer. A RX50 and a RD50/51 or 52 (don't remember at > the moment) are sitting on my shelf too and I'd like to put them in there. > But first I have to get a controller for that. > If you have a BA23 box it should have the distribution panel for an M7555 RQDX3 so then all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x drives. -Glen From sander.reiche at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:22:07 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:22:07 +0100 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1DAED8.6000503@bitsavers.org> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1DAED8.6000503@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:02 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/23/12 10:48 AM, Richard Atkinson wrote: > >> I suggest using Megaupload.com > > > very funny. > > It was. From sander.reiche at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:24:11 2012 From: sander.reiche at gmail.com (Sander Reiche) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:24:11 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > > [...snip] all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, > which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x > drives. > > -Glen Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. Sander -- ~ UNIX is basically a simple operating system, ? ? ? ? ? ?but you have to be a genius to understand its simplicity. ~ dmr From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:26:31 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:26:31 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > What backplane do you have? For example you might have one of the DEC > backplanes below: > hi glen, a little inventory: # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that this PSU needs some work -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed -Cardcage is not bent but needs some of this plastic-PCB-guides, many are broken due to age. -Frontpanel is complete, nice signs of use -Distribution Panel is missing # M8189 11/23 KDF11-B CPU Module. S/N 5014316C # M8067 256 KW Memory Quad-width module # M8043 Quad Serial Board # 3rd Party "Fourth Generation Systems LS-256" 256 KB Memory Module (Dual width) # M8061 RLV 12 RL01/02 Controller # M7516 DELQA Controller -70-21202-01 Cable Assembly with its Distribution Panel attached -D-Link DL583 RJ45 Ethernet Transceiver > If you have a BA23 box it should have the distribution panel for an > M7555 RQDX3 so then all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, > which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x > drives. The Distribution Panel is absent, but it should not be too hard to substitute it with something else. I'm looking forward to fin a M7555, they seem to be quite common. But first I have to repair the PSU and check everything. From RichA at vulcan.com Mon Jan 23 13:27:10 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:27:10 +0000 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3454@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: jim s Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2012 4:17 AM > On 1/21/2012 3:11 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: [quoting Dave McGuire --rma] >>> Eeeeeek! I am on CPAP as well; power failures are VERY >>> disconcerting. I run mine on a small UPS now. I strongly recommend >>> it. In the event of a power failure, the beeping of the UPS will >>> likely wake you up, but without that oh-so-wonderful suffocating >>> feeling. >> Shoudn't these toys be battery-backed from factory? :oO > I've never seen one that is. I have two bipap machines, one which runs > a compression fan continuously, and one when you breath. Neither would > probably run long on batteries, they use a lot of power. > the newer machines are a lot like my second machine, but still probably > draw enough to need a pretty substantial supply to run for very long. A good friend of mine built his own UPS for his CPAP using a deep-cycle marine battery. Plenty of power, long run time on one battery, and he keeps a spare battery for longer outages. He also has a generator at his house, but this means he doesn't have to get up in the middle of the night to kick it into life. My wife has a blind spot WRT these things: "Why don't you just sleep without it for a night?" She doesn't understand that breathing is worse than rock cocaine as an addiction: Since I became able to sleep through the night, I can't go back. :-) Rich From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 13:36:53 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:36:53 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 10:39, Gene Buckle wrote: > > Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad > > reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual > > property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing > > sites, that would be better for a lot of people. > > > So have computers. Better quit using those too. Very funny. I'm just saying what's so. There's a war on P2P going on and I don't want myself or anyone else to get caught in the middle of it. I suspect that there are members of this list with personal websites who probably would be happy to host the content. --Chuck From pontus at update.uu.se Mon Jan 23 13:39:56 2012 From: pontus at update.uu.se (Pontus) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:39:56 +0100 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <15856CF2-1BF7-4A05-9088-9E45F4976234@gmail.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> <15856CF2-1BF7-4A05-9088-9E45F4976234@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1DB78C.6000104@update.uu.se> On 01/23/2012 07:58 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 23, 2012, at 1:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad >> reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual >> property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, >> that would be better for a lot of people. > Which is a shame, because it's otherwise a perfectly legitimate means of distributing large files (e.g. Linux distributions). I see the same organizations badmouthing BitTorrent as were badmouthing CD burners in the '90s; what I found especially ironic about that situation was that Sony was one of the major record labels pushing for things like excise taxes to counteract piracy on writeable CDs, while they themselves were producing burners and discs. > > There's nothing intrinsically wrong with BitTorrent, reputation or not. Does your organization flag all torrent connections as illegal downloads? I know a number of universities that do. It's a problem, because a number of legitimate sources (Blizzard's game update mechanism comes to mind) use it as an underlying protocol and get unfairly flagged as a result. > > > - Dave > > To bad the tech gets to carry the cross here. I know of one big government funded installation that uses bittorrent to distribute a GNU/Linux system image to compute nodes in a cluster simply because there wasn't enough bandwidth to do normal net boot of several hundred nodes simultaneously in a reasonable amount of time. I hope they can continue to do so without feds busting in the door... /Pontus. (Sorry for making this political) From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:48:11 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:48:11 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <946D29FA-CC2A-41EB-BF1E-6DCCD14FAA8A@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:24 PM, Sander Reiche wrote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:09 PM, Glen Slick wrote: >> >> [...snip] all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, >> which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x >> drives. >> >> -Glen > Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable > prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. It's in the US, but: eBay 370550488176 has it for $90 (+$15 shipping) for a Buy It Now. That's pretty typical for what I've seen on eBay when I've looked. The cables are probably a different matter, but they can't be that hard to make yourself with a crimper and generic card edge/pin connectors (I certainly did so for my Pertec interface tape drive with no problem for $20 for two 3-6 foot lengths of cable and it works fine). - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:51:22 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:51:22 -0500 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3454@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3454@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: <325B1946-8135-4E94-B859-E7E9C55A4199@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > My wife has a blind spot WRT these things: "Why don't you just sleep > without it for a night?" She doesn't understand that breathing is worse > than rock cocaine as an addiction: Since I became able to sleep through > the night, I can't go back. :-) Well, also, the withdrawal symptoms include death by asphyxiation, so... there's that. - Dave From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 13:56:02 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:56:02 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > > [...snip] all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, > > which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x > > drives. > > > > -Glen > Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable > prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. > > Seen that already. The reseller's Prices tend to go up enormously now.... But I have time, and maybe I can obtain one or trade one etc etc... $700 is way too much. If I cannot get a RQDX then I will stay with RL02s. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 14:04:05 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:04:05 -0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <003001ccda0a$3a029e40$6400a8c0@tababook> > Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad > reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual > property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing sites, > that would be better for a lot of people. Guns don't kill people. Eletricity don't kill people. Cars don't kill people. Torrent does not pirate software by itself. Torrent is just a (very smart) way of distribuiting something. I can't see torrent as a pirate-only medium. Here you have: http://www.4shared.com/office/k6Aky7-L/Esquemario_Informatica_CCE.html :o) From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 14:05:36 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:05:36 -0800 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Sander Reiche wrote: >> >> [...snip] all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, >> which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x >> drives. >> > Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable > prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. > $700 is rather extreme. A quick search turns up this, which is still not what I would consider a great deal, but 1/10 of that price: DEC M7555 RQDX CTRL http://www.ebay.com/itm/200599388694 $75 - free shipping in US, reasonable shipping listed to Europe From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 14:15:48 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:15:48 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <946D29FA-CC2A-41EB-BF1E-6DCCD14FAA8A@gmail.com> References: <946D29FA-CC2A-41EB-BF1E-6DCCD14FAA8A@gmail.com> Message-ID: > > > It's in the US, but: eBay 370550488176 has it for $90 (+$15 shipping) for > a Buy It Now. That's pretty typical for what I've seen on eBay when I've > looked. > Thanks for the hint! Recently I got a contact of a site still running '11s in Production. I think for CNC-Machines or something like that. Maybe I can get a spare one from there... It's a matter of carefully asking the right person ;) > The cables are probably a different matter, but they can't be that hard to > make yourself with a crimper and generic card edge/pin connectors (I > certainly did so for my Pertec interface tape drive with no problem for $20 > for two 3-6 foot lengths of cable and it works fine). > As you stated, this should not be too hard to do. I have a Crimper in my Lab, the connectors should be obtainable and Cable is on stock. From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 23 14:18:07 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:18:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2012 at 10:39, Gene Buckle wrote: > >>> Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad >>> reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual >>> property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing >>> sites, that would be better for a lot of people. >>> >> So have computers. Better quit using those too. > > Very funny. I'm just saying what's so. There's a war on P2P > going on and I don't want myself or anyone else to get caught in the > middle of it. > Your original statement would have been accurate had it been changed to say "among non-technical users that don't know what they're talking about" from "here in the USA". Following your argument to its (il)logical conclusion would require the elimination of xmodem, zmodem, etc. as well as FTP. Don't forget FidoNet. Gotta smash that doggie flat too. *rolls eyes* g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 14:21:26 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:21:26 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <969740DF-2487-4C24-9F0A-17E390916948@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:56 PM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >> Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable >> prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. >> >> > Seen that already. The reseller's Prices tend to go up enormously now.... > > But I have time, and maybe I can obtain one or trade one etc etc... $700 is > way too much. If I cannot get a RQDX then I will stay with RL02s. In the US, I haven't had much problem finding them on eBay for less than $100. If you get a chance, though, see if you can find a CMD CQD-220; they're an MSCP SCSI adaptor that should work for any OS an RQDX will, but with SCSI disks (i.e. easier to find working disks). Just make sure you don't tell it you have 0 disks and 0 tapes, or I'll have to send you my ROM patch to fix a nasty bug that bricks the board... :-) - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 23 14:23:42 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:23:42 -0500 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1DC1CE.3040201@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 02:36 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten a very bad >>> reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual >>> property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing >>> sites, that would be better for a lot of people. >>> >> So have computers. Better quit using those too. > > Very funny. I'm just saying what's so. There's a war on P2P > going on and I don't want myself or anyone else to get caught in the > middle of it. Indeed, there's a war on any and all file transfers that don't involve HTML and JPEG files going between web servers and web browsers. > I suspect that there are members of this list with personal websites > who probably would be happy to host the content. I can host it. Alexandre? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 23 14:25:06 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:25:06 -0500 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <325B1946-8135-4E94-B859-E7E9C55A4199@gmail.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3454@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <325B1946-8135-4E94-B859-E7E9C55A4199@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1DC222.6090008@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 02:51 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > >> My wife has a blind spot WRT these things: "Why don't you just sleep >> without it for a night?" She doesn't understand that breathing is worse >> than rock cocaine as an addiction: Since I became able to sleep through >> the night, I can't go back. :-) > > Well, also, the withdrawal symptoms include death by asphyxiation, so... there's that. Perhaps Rich has a big life insurance policy. ;) O2 is good to have while one is sleeping. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 14:33:14 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:33:14 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <003001ccda0a$3a029e40$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <003001ccda0a$3a029e40$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1D538A.32128.10842A2@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 18:04, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > Guns don't kill people. Eletricity don't kill people. Cars don't > kill > people. Torrent does not pirate software by itself. Torrent is just a > (very smart) way of distribuiting something. I can't see torrent as a > pirate-only medium. Thank you--I'm not against Bittorrent; I used to use it myself. But it has a bullseye drawn on it by the government and I'd rather stay out of the line of fire. Similarly, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Megaupload. That didn't prevent authorities from taking action against it. The cyber-world in general is not as friendly as it used to be. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 23 14:37:56 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:37:56 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1DC524.7030701@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 02:56 PM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >>> [...snip] all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, >>> which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x >>> drives. >>> >>> -Glen >> Really? I'm having lots of trouble finding those for reasonable >> prices, like those resellers with their standard rate of $700+. >> >> > Seen that already. The reseller's Prices tend to go up enormously now.... > > But I have time, and maybe I can obtain one or trade one etc etc... $700 is > way too much. If I cannot get a RQDX then I will stay with RL02s. I have several spare RQDX3s here; contact me off-list if you'd like to talk about swapping something. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 14:55:57 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:55:57 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F1D58DD.21486.11D0F67@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 12:18, Gene Buckle wrote: > Following your argument to its (il)logical conclusion would require > the elimination of xmodem, zmodem, etc. as well as FTP. Don't forget > FidoNet. Gotta smash that doggie flat too. *rolls eyes* You're confusing official policy with reality. Was Megaupload bad? I don't think so--but look what happened to them. TPB has been the target of massive government efforts to smash it. Perhaps I'm overly paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they're not out to get me. And nowhere, save North Korea and perhaps Iran, is the government more aggressive in trying to stamp out file-sharing than in the USA. If you want to rant at someone, go rant to your elected representatives. That's all I have to say on the matter. --Chuck From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 14:59:17 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:59:17 -0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1DC1CE.3040201@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> >> I suspect that there are members of this list with personal websites >> who probably would be happy to host the content. > I can host it. Alexandre? Anyone who wish to ge a copy, distribute and do anything he/she feels like with that, is free. The file was scanned for preservation, it is "public property". I'm just the one who make it avaiable. So, PLEASE, host it. From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 15:03:06 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:03:06 -0800 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2012 11:40 AM, "Wolfgang Eichberger" wrote: > > hi glen, a little inventory: > > # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that > this PSU needs some work > -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed An H9273 should be a straight Q18 / CD bus so you wouldn't want any dual width cards in the right half of the backplane. With the amount of memory you have installed maybe it was upgraded to a Q22 bus. -Glen From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Mon Jan 23 15:31:42 2012 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:31:42 -0600 Subject: Thinking of keyboard interfaces (HP9915) In-Reply-To: References: <7d47d2fbac7025938eb98c2e330eece7@mdfs.net> Message-ID: <20120123213142.GA12439@RawFedDogs.net> As you demonstrated there's also the possibility of pressing two keys when one only meant to press one: On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 07:56:27PM +0000, Tony Duell wrote: > No, that';s no what I meant. ^---- ' and ; together > WEhen you press the 'E' key, the interface simulates the appopriate key ^---- W and E together -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 15:44:50 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:44:50 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' Message-ID: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? I've been trying to put the word about a bit locally that I'm interested in rescuing vintage machines, but boy is it ever a struggle - sifting through offers of "very big, old computers" that turn out to just be PCs running a decade-old version of MS Windows is getting a little tiring (that's when the "very big, old computer" doesn't turn out to be just a CRT monitor, of course, which happened to me twice last week) Maybe someone's cracked this particular nut and got the wording down just right - or maybe everyone just lives with it. Setting a cut-off date of 1990 (say) wouldn't work, I think, because a) it might cut out a few interesting non-PC/non-Apple items, and b) a lot of people out there really seem to have no idea how *new* the item that they have is. Idle thoughts for an afternoon, anyway... cheers Jules From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 15:43:29 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:43:29 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <548F15B2-8D8C-45DA-B893-7C64BA934451@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that > this PSU needs some work Not sure your level of power supply debug experience, so forgive me if this seems obvious. You checked the PSU loaded, right? A few big, high-watt resistors across each rail to put at least a few amps (or at least a few hundred mA) on? Otherwise, you may be getting wildly inaccurate readings. - Dave From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 15:45:05 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:45:05 -0200 Subject: defining 'vintage' References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <012401ccda18$6517ca70$6400a8c0@tababook> Easy: Anything built before PC-XT. And some. --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 7:44 PM Subject: defining 'vintage' > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone > PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your > garage? > > I've been trying to put the word about a bit locally that I'm interested > in rescuing vintage machines, but boy is it ever a struggle - sifting > through offers of "very big, old computers" that turn out to just be PCs > running a decade-old version of MS Windows is getting a little tiring > (that's when the "very big, old computer" doesn't turn out to be just a > CRT monitor, of course, which happened to me twice last week) > > Maybe someone's cracked this particular nut and got the wording down just > right - or maybe everyone just lives with it. Setting a cut-off date of > 1990 (say) wouldn't work, I think, because a) it might cut out a few > interesting non-PC/non-Apple items, and b) a lot of people out there > really seem to have no idea how *new* the item that they have is. > > Idle thoughts for an afternoon, anyway... > > cheers > > Jules > > > From tshoppa at wmata.com Mon Jan 23 15:46:40 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:46:40 -0500 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian Message-ID: Al writes: > On 1/23/12 10:48 AM, Richard Atkinson wrote: >> I suggest using Megaupload.com >very funny. Just to prove that I am at least 10 years behind the times and therefore on-topic, I'm going to suggest Napster. From robert at irrelevant.com Mon Jan 23 15:54:52 2012 From: robert at irrelevant.com (Rob) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:54:52 +0000 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 23 January 2012 21:44, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC > running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your > garage? I have found being ultra-specific sometimes works ... a wanted ad for BBC Micro bits on a neighbouring freecycle/freegle group some time back produced a "My husband has a disc drive" that turned into several entire systems and two filestores ! (Which I still need to investigate... one I get the study organised with some space for play!) From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Mon Jan 23 15:55:33 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:55:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 > clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just > unearthed in your garage? I haven't, except to people who, while perhaps not _sharing_ the mindset, understand it enough that they don't really need to have it explained. But I haven't put much thought into it, because (a) I consider turning down (or otherwise dealing with) a dozen boring peecees to be a small price to pay to get hold of that one oddball something-or-other from $WHENEVER, and (b) even the peecees hold _some_ value for me. Given a steady stream of boring x86 boxen, which I seem to have, I can just use them as throwaway computron sources - use them for the applications where I don't care about the machine enough that using a vintage machine is worth doing, and, when one breaks, throw it out (whatever that means) and put in another one. Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting* machines. Of course, my tradeoffs are not everyone's; my approach is not necessarily suitable for you, or anyone else for that matter. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:03:50 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:03:50 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C716E.1080607@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 22, 12 03:28:30 pm Message-ID: > > On 01/22/2012 02:29 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > >>> Do builders need to solder the surface-mount components, or are they > >>> already soldered when the kit is delivered? > >> > >> Surface-mounts are already done. > > > > Oh well... A good reason for me not to order one, then. > > Yeah I was thinking the same thing. :-( I'd love to have a P112. Actaully, I was hoping for soem semi=mindless fun stuffing PCBs. Of course the other ereason is that if I solder it myself I can use lead/tin solder, and avoid problems with joints that fall apart after a year, or grow tin whiskers. I am getting ratehr fed up wit hthe number of 'kits' that are sold that are not really kits at all. IMHO an electronic kit should come as a PCB and a bag of components. Nothing should be pre-soldered. If you need special soldering equipment (such as an oven for BGA devices), then this should be mentioned in the kit description, but it should still be up to the constructor to do it. Or at least offer 2 types of kit -- totally unsoldered / with the BGAs pre-mountes (There's something of a precedent for this in model enginenrign. Some of the steam locomotivew kit manufactueres offer either sets of raw castings for you to machine on your own lathe, or kits of finished parts which just need assembly with hand tools) I thought it was most 'unfair' when Heathkit started selling 'kits' with pre-assembled PCBs. I think if I'd bought one of those I'd have returned it as 'does not meet the description' Heck, I feel that floppy drives should have come in kit form -- you get to stuff the PCbs, assemble the mechancials nad do the alignemt. I guess hard drives would have to come as a pre-build HDA, but you still should have got to stuff the PCBs. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:08:23 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:08:23 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 22, 12 12:56:16 pm Message-ID: > Many hobbyists seem to be deathly afraid of soldering SMT, Ture, but the way to overcome these fears is to have a go. You wil lnever learn new skills if you don't try things. If all kits haev the 'difficult' bits done dor you, you'll never learn to do it. What do toy do if you've build a P112 kit and one of the SMD devices fails? You're goign to have to desodler it and solder in a new one then, I guess. I rememebr the first SMD device I fitted. It wwas the I/O contorlelr IC in a Ahrp PC1500 pocket computer, at a time when the PC1500 was not a 'classic computer'. It had failed, and I managed to buy a replacement form the sercvice agents. I worried a lot about doing it, until I tried. Then I foudn how easy it was. of course threre's SMD and SMD, some compoennts being larger and/or have a coarser lead pitch than others. But jsut about anything (otehr than BGAs) can be hand soldered. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:12:06 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:12:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: from "Shoppa, Tim" at Jan 22, 12 03:56:51 pm Message-ID: > > > The genuine VT100 has a white phosphor IIRC, but the VT640 I > > say had a green phosphor CRT fitted. > > All the DEC CRT terminals were available with customers choice of > green, white, or amber CRT's. Probably some other phosphors I didn't see > too. OK, that I didn't know, having never had the chance to buy a new terminal... All the VT1xx's I've seen have had white phoophor. As have all VT220s that I've seen. I think over hear VT3xx's were commonly amber. > > The default phosphor was white for the VT100. My distant memory tells > me that VT100-LC was the order code for the green phosphor I liked best > (P31, long glow?). I can understnad why yyou'd like that, I am using such a monitor at the momnent (IBM 5151). But I'll bet if you turned 'smnooth scroll' on, it was pretty unpleasant... Actually, was smooth scroll useful for anything otyher than turning on on the terminals used by lusers who didn't know how to turn it off? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:41:56 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:41:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 23, 12 00:01:02 am Message-ID: > I came to like SMT work far, far more than through-hole very shortly > after that, though. Now I dread through-hole; it just takes too damn > long and is generally a pain compared to SMT. I think I still prefer through-hole work (maybe becasue I've had more expeirence of it, or becuase you can easilly socket DIL pagkages to make debugging easier, or becuse through-hole prototpying boards are easier to obtain). but I certainly don't worry aobut SMD stuff. -tony From oe5ewl at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 16:12:37 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:12:37 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <548F15B2-8D8C-45DA-B893-7C64BA934451@gmail.com> References: <548F15B2-8D8C-45DA-B893-7C64BA934451@gmail.com> Message-ID: @ david: surely: test under load. its a switcher if i am right. @ dave: i'll contact you tomorrow. maybe we can talk something out.... regards and a nice night. wolfgang -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/23 David Riley > On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:26 PM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > > > # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that > > this PSU needs some work > > Not sure your level of power supply debug experience, so forgive me if > this seems obvious. You checked the PSU loaded, right? A few big, > high-watt resistors across each rail to put at least a few amps (or at > least a few hundred mA) on? Otherwise, you may be getting wildly > inaccurate readings. > > - Dave > > > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:32:06 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:32:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1C989E.8000502@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 22, 12 11:15:42 pm Message-ID: > > On 22/01/12 00:41, Dave McGuire wrote: > > > > Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. I > > don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying > > one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to > > learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but > > this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) > > You could DIY one from a couple of shift registers, an LS86 XOR gate, a > PROM or two and an LED display... There's an article covering the > technical minutiae in the HP Journal archives. I seem to remember the service manual for one of the HP analysers on a web site -- I think it was one of the arcade game sites. Agilent may have a manual on their site too (they have a lot of old HP instrument manuals for download). The manual I saw incldued scheamtics. THere were a couple of PROMs (one was just the 7-segment decoder), but it was fairly obvious how it worked. > > There's literally nothing to it except a CRC generator mated to a hex The CRC polynomial is farily obviously critical. Did all signature analyser manufacturewrs use the same one? > display with a custom character table (if memory serves: 0-9ACFHPU > instead of 0-9A-F) to dissuade attempts to figure out "this code means > this error" troubleshooting. I think the best way to think of it is as a Hmm.. I am pretty sdure the display table was given in the manual, so you could work out the bit-level contents of the shift register. How easy it is gto go from that to the actual signal patttern is another matter... > digital version of an analog signal tracer... (although perhaps a pulser > and a logic probe would be a better analogue for that?) I never really saw the point of signature analysis. If you got the right signature then that signal was problaby correct, but if you got the wrong signature, OK, the signal was not doing the right things, but it doesn't really tell you _how_ it's malfunctioning. It strikes me as being a little better than boardswapping, but only a little. That saiid, if I could find an HP signature analyser at a low price I'd probably add one to the collection, but I doubt i'd use it much. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 15:35:29 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:35:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: from "David Riley" at Jan 22, 12 07:54:39 pm Message-ID: > I always seem to get a lot of bridges unless I do it with paste and a > toaster oven. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong instead of some > intrinsic problem, but it's enough to make me think twice when it's a > problem. I think all you're doing wrong is worrying about it. Serioiusly, with fine ptich SMDs, it's beest to solder the pins donw nad not worry about bridges, and then claen up with desolder braid later. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 16:24:10 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:24:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 23, 12 03:44:50 pm Message-ID: > > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone > PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your > garage? When I mention to j-random-public that I am interested in old computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'. You could try 'not PC clones or Macs', but (a) you might miss out on some intersting stuff (like a PC clone with soem odd expansion boards in it) and (b) you'll probalby end up beiong offered C64s/Spectrums (which may or may not be what you want). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 23 16:28:21 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:28:21 +0000 (GMT) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <012401ccda18$6517ca70$6400a8c0@tababook> from "Alexandre Souza - Listas" at Jan 23, 12 07:45:05 pm Message-ID: > > > Easy: Anything built before PC-XT. And some. While I would agree that just about any computer made before the PC/XT is 'vintage', I think there were some machines made after that date that are also vintage/interesting (Acorn Archimedes, some HP machines, some PDP11s, CoCo3, possibly the PERQ T4 (I forget the exact date of the PC/XT), etc). It would be a pity to miss out on those. -tony From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 16:28:49 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:28:49 -0000 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1DC1CE.3040201@neurotica.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire > Sent: 23 January 2012 20:24 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian > computers > > > On 01/23/2012 02:36 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >>> Sorry, Alexandre, but I don't do torrents--they've gotten > a very bad > >>> reputation here in the USA for a means of pirating intellectual > >>> property. If you could upload this to one of the file-sharing > >>> sites, that would be better for a lot of people. > >>> > >> So have computers. Better quit using those too. > > > > Very funny. I'm just saying what's so. There's a war on P2P > > going on and I don't want myself or anyone else to get caught in the > > middle of it. > > Indeed, there's a war on any and all file transfers that don't > involve HTML and JPEG files going between web servers and web > browsers. > > > I suspect that there are members of this list with personal websites > > who probably would be happy to host the content. > > I can host it. Alexandre? > > -Dave > Oddly, as a search on KSERVICE will show, in the UK both the BBC and BSkyB use P2P to "distribute" time limited copies on the "watch again" service so they can save bandwidth on their own servers. > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From doc at vaxen.net Mon Jan 23 16:29:45 2012 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:29:45 -0600 Subject: CPAP, was Re: CHM's PDP-1 (was Re: PDP-8/I at the RICM) In-Reply-To: <325B1946-8135-4E94-B859-E7E9C55A4199@gmail.com> References: <4F17ADA7.1050700@brouhaha.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2C65@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F19986B.1080209@bitsavers.org> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F2F27@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <4F1A7B61.8080502@neurotica.com> <028d01ccd82d$6d9dd550$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1AACD2.3010102@jwsss.com> <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3454@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> <325B1946-8135-4E94-B859-E7E9C55A4199@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1DDF59.2030602@vaxen.net> On 1/23/12 1:51 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 23, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > >> My wife has a blind spot WRT these things: "Why don't you just sleep >> without it for a night?" She doesn't understand that breathing is worse >> than rock cocaine as an addiction: Since I became able to sleep through >> the night, I can't go back. :-) > > Well, also, the withdrawal symptoms include death by asphyxiation, so... there's that. A couple of my wives would have called that a feature, not a bug... Doc From computing.comp at study.beds.ac.uk Mon Jan 23 16:30:02 2012 From: computing.comp at study.beds.ac.uk (Computing Comp) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:30:02 +0000 Subject: Extended Deadline Call for paper Computing Frontier 2012 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ### Apologies for cross-posting / multiple copies ### Call for Paper ACM conference Computing Frontier 2012 We are Glad to invite you to participate in the upcoming conference, IEEE computing Frontier 2012 The 9th ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers May 15-17, 2012, Cagliari, Italy Sponsored by ACM SIGMICRO http://www.computingfrontiers.org The increasing complexity, performance, cost and energy efficiency needs of current and future applications require novel and innovative approaches for the design of computing systems. Boundaries between state of the art and revolutionary innovation constitute the computing frontiers that must be pushed forward to provide the support required for the advancement of science, engineering and information technology. The Computing Frontiers conference focuses on a wide spectrum of advanced technologies and radically new solutions relevant to the development of the whole spectrum of computer systems, from embedded to high-performance computing. Authors are invited to submit full papers to the main conference and Ph.D. students are invited to submit an extended abstract for a special Ph.D. forum and poster session We seek contributions on novel computing paradigms, computational models, application paradigms, computer architecture, development environments, compilers, or operating environments. Papers are solicited in, but not limited to, the following areas: ? Applications, programming and performance analysis of advanced architectures ? Next-generation high performance computing and systems ? Accelerators: many-core, GPU, custom, reconfigurable, embedded, and hybrid ? Defect- and variability-tolerant designs, dependable computing ? Power and energy efficiency: architectures, compilers and algorithms ? Virtualization and virtual machines ? Cloud-, internet-scale, service-oriented and smart infrastructure computing ? Compilers and operating systems: adaptive, run-time, and auto-tuning ? System management and security ? Impact of novel technology (e.g. NV memory, silicon photonics) on computing ? Computational neuroscience, neuromorphic and biologically-inspired architectures ? Computational aspects of intelligent systems and robotics ? Reconfigurable, autonomic, organic, and self-organizing computation and systems ? Interfaces and visualization for emerging applications and systems ? Novel frontiers in computational science and scientific data repositories ? Storing, managing, analysing, and searching large data sets (" big data ") ? Sensors and sensor networks. EXTENDED DEADLINES Paper Submission Deadline January 25, 2012 Ph.D. Forum Deadline February 15, 2012 Author Notification March 7, 2012 From jon at jonworld.com Mon Jan 23 16:32:05 2012 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:32:05 -0500 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P Message-ID: All, I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome. Thanks! -- -Jon Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN. From drb at msu.edu Mon Jan 23 16:35:26 2012 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:35:26 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale Message-ID: <20120123223526.324C2B03062@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> How does the smt/through-hole discussion qualify as NOT hijacking the P112 thread? De From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 16:59:38 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:59:38 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 4:55 PM, Mouse wrote: > Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as > disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting* > machines. Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that they don't have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard). That, and occasionally I get a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby projects (less and less these days, though). - Dave From silent700 at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 17:01:56 2012 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:01:56 -0600 Subject: FFS: Plessy/Cipher Tape docs Message-ID: I have completed scanning the manuals for the Cipher 1/4" Tape drive and its QBUS interface, along with some Plessy software that came with it. They are posted here: http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/index.php?dir=/computing These aren't in my hard copy preservation pile, so if anyone wants them (one 3-ring binder, about 3" thick) I will send them to you for shipping cost from 60070. Otherwise, to the recycle bin they go. -j From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 17:02:52 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:02:52 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1D769C.5482.19141AE@cclist.sydex.com> Thank you, it was very interesting looking through the schematics. The motherboard appears to be much longer than the usual 5150-type board. Is that really the case? --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 23 17:18:12 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:18:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120123151442.E348@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote: > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone > PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your > garage? Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)? or "Pre August 1981"? "Must NOT be Y2K compliant!" "I don't know 'what is "ART"?', but I know it when I see it." (or was that "porn"?) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From eric at brouhaha.com Mon Jan 23 17:23:24 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:23:24 -0800 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1DEBEC.3090305@brouhaha.com> Tony Duell wrote: > When I mention to j-random-public that I am interested in old > computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'. "486 PCs"? People now think that an old computer is a Pentium 4 or Core 2. The 486 must have been something used by the ancient Egyptians. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 17:30:42 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:30:42 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1D7D22.26992.1AABE75@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 18:59, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > >> I suspect that there are members of this list with personal > >> websites who probably would be happy to host the content. > > I can host it. Alexandre? > You may also want to pass it on to one of my favorite membership sites for this sort of thing: http://www.clubdediagramas.com/ Cheers, Chuck From barythrin at yahoo.com Mon Jan 23 17:32:36 2012 From: barythrin at yahoo.com (Sam Onella) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:32:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Never heard anyone with the answer. Vintage is era and age mentality specific, so really I think you'll be stuck with the timeline to weed out the majority, or sift through the offers. Eventually we'll all be kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based electronics. Kinda one of those beggars can't be choosers philosophies ;-) I used to get pissed off at Goodwill for taking only newer computers which now adays they don't, they take lots of great vintage systems and send them to the chipper too now. --- On Mon, 1/23/12, Jules Richardson wrote: > From: Jules Richardson > Subject: defining 'vintage' > To: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" > Date: Monday, January 23, 2012, 3:44 PM > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of > defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* > interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you > bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 23 17:36:21 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:36:21 -0500 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1DEEF5.2020906@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 04:32 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> You could DIY one from a couple of shift registers, an LS86 XOR gate, a >> PROM or two and an LED display... There's an article covering the >> technical minutiae in the HP Journal archives. > > I seem to remember the service manual for one of the HP analysers on a > web site -- I think it was one of the arcade game sites. Agilent may have > a manual on their site too (they have a lot of old HP instrument manuals > for download). > > The manual I saw incldued scheamtics. THere were a couple of PROMs (one > was just the 7-segment decoder), but it was fairly obvious how it worked. Well, I've found one I can borrow locally, and I've been offered one for $75 to own. My main goal here is to get the instrument repaired for my friend, not have the exercise of building a signature analyzer that I can just go get for $75, given that it's a relatively uninteresting piece of equipment. The 3456a is MUCH more interesting. :) > I never really saw the point of signature analysis. If you got the right > signature then that signal was problaby correct, but if you got the wrong > signature, OK, the signal was not doing the right things, but it doesn't > really tell you _how_ it's malfunctioning. It strikes me as being a > little better than boardswapping, but only a little. > > That saiid, if I could find an HP signature analyser at a low price I'd > probably add one to the collection, but I doubt i'd use it much. Don't try to repair a 3456a, then. ;) Take a look at the service manual. There are schematics, but no firmware listings for the MC6800 and (I think) 8048 that controls everything, and no info on the custom ICs, and on top of that, it's a damn complex instrument to wander around in. I need to find that list of HP internal chip numbers. If HP had included better information in the service manual, this wouldn't be an issue. And, oddly enough, this instrument dates from squarely within the time when HP was publishing *excellent* service manuals. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 17:49:41 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:49:41 -0200 Subject: defining 'vintage' References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare** http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-quer-babar.html --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Riley" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 8:59 PM Subject: Re: defining 'vintage' > On Jan 23, 2012, at 4:55 PM, Mouse wrote: > >> Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as >> disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting* >> machines. > > Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that > they don't have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard). > That, and occasionally I get a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby > projects (less and less these days, though). > > > - Dave > > From terry at webweavers.co.nz Mon Jan 23 17:56:40 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:56:40 +1300 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This site from Mark Csele might help http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/staff/mcsele/OhioScientific.html There are links to connectors on the page. You may have to open the case so you see what din jacks are wired to what on the connector on the board. Terry (Tez) On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Jonathan Katz wrote: > All, > > I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? > > There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know > that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? > Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. > > It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of > it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome. > > Thanks! > > -- > -Jon > Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN. > From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 17:55:38 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:55:38 -0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <00d101ccda11$f89c16e0$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1D769C.5482.19141AE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <024701ccda2a$b23b63e0$6400a8c0@tababook> > Thank you, it was very interesting looking through the schematics. > The motherboard appears to be much longer than the usual 5150-type > board. Is that really the case? No. AFAIK it was just a ipsis-literis clone of the PC XT/Turbo mainboards of the time. The small "laptop" seems to be an entirely brazilian creation. I'm not that sure. From ajp166 at verizon.net Mon Jan 23 18:18:38 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:18:38 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1DF8DE.2040601@verizon.net> On 01/23/2012 02:09 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 2:12 AM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >> Could please one of you have a look at my "board-layout" in the backplane >> and correct me if I am completely wrong? >> >> From top downwards I would insert the modules as follows: >> >> M8189 - 11/23 -CPU >> M8067 - MSV-11 - 256 KW RAM >> M8043 - DLV11 - Quad Serial Card >> M8061 - RLV12 - RL02 Controller >> M7516 - DELQA - Ethernet Card >> > What backplane do you have? For example you might have one of the DEC > backplanes below: > > H9270 4 x 4 backplane (four rows of four slots) > H9273-A 9 x 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) > H9275-A 9 X 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) > H9276 9 X 4 backplane (nine rows of four slots) > H9278-A 8 X 4 backplane (eight rows of four slots) > > If you have a BA23 box you should have a H9278-A backplane. > >> Goal is to bring this System up with VTSERVER for starters. I hope to add >> one or two RL02s in Summer. A RX50 and a RD50/51 or 52 (don't remember at >> the moment) are sitting on my shelf too and I'd like to put them in there. >> But first I have to get a controller for that. >> > If you have a BA23 box it should have the distribution panel for an > M7555 RQDX3 so then all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, > which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x > drives. > > -Glen > Depending on the firmware version the controller will support RX33 format (1.23MB) (TEAC FD55GFR). If only the older firmware you can still use that drive as a single drive RX50. Save for a preserved system any I build from random boards and boxes use the FD55gfr as it more reliable and quieter.. If you do not have BA23 the distribution board out of a BA123 M9058 and cables. FYI the RQDX2 (quad width FDC/HDC) is also usable. Special note early RQDX2s must be in the last unoccupied slot, they do not pass the bus grant signals. Allison From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 18:51:01 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:51:01 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DEBEC.3090305@brouhaha.com> References: <4F1DEBEC.3090305@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com> Eric Smith wrote: > Tony Duell wrote: >> When I mention to j-random-public that I am interested in old >> computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'. > > "486 PCs"? People now think that an old computer is a Pentium 4 or Core > 2. The 486 must have been something used by the ancient Egyptians. I think part of the problem I'm hitting is that people really have no concept of age; they don't know the difference between a 486 PC and a much newer machine running at several 2GHz - if it's more than a couple of years old, it's just an "old, slow computer" to them. From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 18:57:58 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:57:58 -0500 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes Message-ID: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> A while back, I mentioned that I'd found and potentially fixed the "bricking" problem with the CQD-220. To recap, for those that werent following, the problem lies in the code for the on-board 8086 when you set the number of both disks and tapes to zero. The 8086, during its routine to load the values from the EEPROM, loads the total number of disks and tapes and executes a loop with a counter predecrement; if the counter is loaded as 0, it effectively runs through the loop 256 times instead of 7 (the max), which spins out of control and blows away some RAM somewhere before crashing. Fortunately, through a compiler bug or some such, there are 5 bytes available from a totally redundant instruction (loading a value into a register where the same value is already loaded) in just the right place to test the total number of devices and jump to the "uninitialized device table in EEPROM" section of the routine if it is zero. With one byte to spare! (good thing NOP is only a byte in 8086) This applies to the A7A revision of the ROM, anyway; I haven't gotten to the A8 version yet, though I know it exhibits the same bug. Hopefully it also has the same redundant instruction. In any case, I should be able to find and fix it quickly once I have the time, because I know where to look. So, here's the thing; I've finally gotten the time to test the fixed ROM image (was temporarily short of 27256 chips, but that's been resolved) and I'd like to get the fixed images somewhere they'll be easy to find if anyone else runs into the same problem (this took me over a year of sporadic attention to fix). Does anyone know where I should post this? There's my own website, which is really not a thing anymore, but there are probably lots of places Google is more likely to find. Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. The images are only 64K total, so I shouldn't imagine they'll be bandwidth intensive. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 19:01:10 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:01:10 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com> References: <4F1DEBEC.3090305@brouhaha.com> <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 7:51 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > I think part of the problem I'm hitting is that people really have no concept of age; they don't know the difference between a 486 PC and a much newer machine running at several 2GHz - if it's more than a couple of years old, it's just an "old, slow computer" to them. Of course, most of this is due to the fact that a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo runs its generation of software just as slow as a 486 did its generation. To the user, it might as well be the same, modulo some graphical improvements. Software engineers pissing away the results of Moore's Law, all of 'em... - Dave From jon at jonworld.com Mon Jan 23 19:42:51 2012 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:42:51 -0500 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 6:56 PM, Terry Stewart wrote: > This site from Mark Csele might help > http://technology.niagarac.on.ca/staff/mcsele/OhioScientific.html > > There are links to connectors on the page. ?You may have to open the case > so you see what din jacks are wired to what on the connector on the board. > > Terry (Tez) Thank you! It's an interesting machine. It will be more interesting if I can get it running. I think the power supply is toast. From billdeg at degnanco.com Mon Jan 23 19:49:56 2012 From: billdeg at degnanco.com (B Degnan) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:49:56 -0500 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201240150.q0O1oFVW038038@billy.ezwind.net> > >Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P > >All, > >I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? > >There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know >that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? >Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. > >It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of >it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome. > >Thanks! > >-- >-Jon >Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN. Here is a link to the manual http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/C1P-UserManual.pdf Here is a link to my hacked up OSI 1P just to make the point that no two are going to be alike, the video could be different than the users guide. http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/ Note - the 1P is the same thing as a Superboard II with a chassis/cover. Bill From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 19:53:01 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:53:01 -0800 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 4:57 PM, David Riley wrote: > > Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? ?I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. > On my CQD-220/TM with original CMD labeled EPROMs I have F220Y1A8 / F220Y2A8. Is that the same A8 version to which you refer? I also have .HEX files for a CQD-220/TM B2A Release 06/24/94: 220Y1B2A.HEX 220Y2B2A.HEX And a CQD-220/TM B3 Firmware 09/23/94 F220Y1B3.HEX F220Y2B3.HEX I wonder what is different between the A8 and B2A and B3 versions. I don't think I have ever tried loading the B2A or B3 versions on my CQD-220/TM. -Glen From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 19:58:35 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:58:35 -0800 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> References: , <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com>, <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1D9FCB.20956.232205B@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 20:01, David Riley wrote: > Of course, most of this is due to the fact that a 2 GHz Core 2 Duo > runs its generation of software just as slow as a 486 did its > generation. To the user, it might as well be the same, modulo some > graphical improvements. Software engineers pissing away the results > of Moore's Law, all of 'em... Not just Moore's law as I understand it, but it seems that storage is expanding at about the same rate. Multi-terabyte consumer hard drives today; multi-gigabyte 15 years ago; mult-megabyte 15 years before that. Take a look at some of the "lightweight" Linux distros and see what they want in hard disk storage (e.g. The web site for Puppy Linux indicates that 4.5GB would be appropriate). 15 years ago, defining a 4.5GB storage requirement as "lightweight" would have sounded ludicrous. So, it's happening in that area too. So 15 years from now, will we have Petabyte notebook consumer drives on systems with a terabyte of memory with a thousand cores? Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come. --Chuck From jon at jonworld.com Mon Jan 23 19:58:25 2012 From: jon at jonworld.com (Jonathan Katz) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:58:25 -0500 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: <201201240150.q0O1oFVW038038@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201201240150.q0O1oFVW038038@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:49 PM, B Degnan wrote: > Here is a link to the manual > http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/C1P-UserManual.pdf > > Here is a link to my hacked up OSI 1P just to make the point that no two are > going to be alike, the video could be different than the users guide. > http://vintagecomputer.net/OSI/Challenger_1P/ > > Note - the 1P is the same thing as a Superboard II with a chassis/cover. Thank you! I took it apart and figured out which line is the video, but as I posted elsewhere, I need to find a 5V power supply. From evan at snarc.net Mon Jan 23 20:10:51 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:10:51 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1E132B.7080400@snarc.net> > Setting a cut-off date of I've said it a thousand times -- we all have to stop defining what's on-topic by date. From evan at snarc.net Mon Jan 23 20:12:12 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:12:12 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net> > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 > clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just > unearthed in your garage? Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." How hard is that? From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 23 20:13:38 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:13:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Shoppa, Tim wrote: > Al writes: > >> On 1/23/12 10:48 AM, Richard Atkinson wrote: > >>> I suggest using Megaupload.com > > > >> very funny. > > Just to prove that I am at least 10 years behind the times and therefore on-topic, I'm going to suggest Napster. > > I hear Grokster is just teh awsum. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:16:37 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:16:37 -0500 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2012, at 8:53 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 4:57 PM, David Riley wrote: >> >> Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. >> > > On my CQD-220/TM with original CMD labeled EPROMs I have F220Y1A8 / > F220Y2A8. Is that the same A8 version to which you refer? Yes, in fact I'm pretty sure I got the image files from you. :-) > I wonder what is different between the A8 and B2A and B3 versions. I > don't think I have ever tried loading the B2A or B3 versions on my > CQD-220/TM. Not a clue. The locations aren't identical on the A8 rev, but they're very close (within a few lines worth, say about 20 bytes). The reset vector code at 0xFFFF0 does a bit more initialization than the A7A version as well (the A7A just does a "jmp 0xF000:0x0200", the A8 zeroes two memory locations). I don't have the need to examine it further, so I probably won't, but if anyone has any idea, it might satisfy my curiosity. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:20:31 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:20:31 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1D9FCB.20956.232205B@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com>, <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> <4F1D9FCB.20956.232205B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <3EA2016E-0585-42FB-8722-6F003A8C59BF@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 8:58 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come. I guess I wouldn't be criticizing if it weren't for the fact that with all those advances, everything still runs at the same approximate apparent speed. It takes over a minute to boot all of my modern machines off of rather fast hard drives (even with boot caching), while it took 20 seconds to boot my Mac Plus from a floppy. Apples to oranges, I guess, but it's disappointing. We live in the future, but the future sure seems bloated. - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:22:55 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:22:55 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net> Message-ID: <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > >> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? > > Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." > > How hard is that? Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing." - Dave From als at thangorodrim.de Mon Jan 23 20:23:02 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:23:02 +0100 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D58DD.21486.11D0F67@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1D4655.26386.D4AD11@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1D58DD.21486.11D0F67@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120124022302.GA8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:55:57PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2012 at 12:18, Gene Buckle wrote: > > > Following your argument to its (il)logical conclusion would require > > the elimination of xmodem, zmodem, etc. as well as FTP. Don't forget > > FidoNet. Gotta smash that doggie flat too. *rolls eyes* > > You're confusing official policy with reality. Was Megaupload bad? Well, Megaupload was run by Kim Schmitz (lately calling himself Kim Dotcom). Anything _that_ guy touches is bad by definition. In the german hacker scene, he made a name for himself: - always talking wildy - not knowing stuff - having an ego of gigantic proportions - trapping other hackers to sell them to laywers (there was a very profitable cooperation going on with the Freiherr von Gravenreuth for a few years) He was also found guilty of insider trading and embezzlement in 2002 and is known as a con man. Don't touch anything that guy is involved with with a ten foot pole. > I don't think so--but look what happened to them. TPB has been the > target of massive government efforts to smash it. At least those guys appear not to be a bunch of scammers and con men. > Perhaps I'm overly paranoid, but that doesn't mean that they're not > out to get me. As they say: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you!" ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Jan 23 20:31:00 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:31:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are > in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare** > > http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-quer-babar.html Great score! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Jan 23 20:35:20 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:35:20 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >> What backplane do you have? For example you might have one of the DEC >> backplanes below: >> > > hi glen, a little inventory: > > # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that > this PSU needs some work > -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed > -Cardcage is not bent but needs some of this plastic-PCB-guides, many are > broken due to age. Nice system. But that's not a BA23, it's a BA11-N. Standard rackmount CPU box for a PDP-11/03 or early 11/23 systems so what you have may be a box that's had a CPU upgrade (maybe not though, 11/03s would have had RLV11 not RLV12, whereas 11/23s usually had RLV12). It's an 18-bit backplane, which matches your 256KB memory (of which 248K is usable, 8K being reserved for the I/O page). It's fairly easy to upgrade the backplane to 22-bit, though, by removing the card cage and soldering a few wires. Wire-wrap wire is best for that. Your MSV11-P is 22-bit capable, as are all the other cards you listed. > The Distribution Panel is absent, but it should not be too hard to > substitute it with something else. I'm looking forward to fin a M7555, they > seem to be quite common. But first I have to repair the PSU and check > everything. The panel Glen was referring to is a large circuit board that's part of the middle of a BA23 chassis, behind the backplane, and it has a 50-way connector for an RQDX controller, along with some sets of 34-way and 20-way connectors for RDxx and RX50/RX33 drives. Distribution panels for BA11-N boxes are small things for the likes of DB225 serial connectors and DA15 Ethernet AUI connectors -- you've got a good example with the panel attached to the DELQA. They fasten onto a metal back panel, which (if present) is hinged to the back edge of the BA11 box. They're really just small connector panels, not at all like the distribution panel Glen meant. As Allison suggested, an M9058 out of a BA123 is a very good thing to use with an RQDX, but if you only want one hard drive and a floppy, all you need is something to split out the signals passively. If you want to make your own, there's a schematic and PCB layout on my website. I have a BA11 system very similar to yours, hooked to up a small box that used to be a TK50 case, and now has a hard drive, an RX50, and that disti board in it. http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/RQDX/ -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From als at thangorodrim.de Mon Jan 23 20:32:44 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:32:44 +0100 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D538A.32128.10842A2@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccda0a$3a029e40$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1D538A.32128.10842A2@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120124023244.GB8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:33:14PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 23 Jan 2012 at 18:04, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > > Guns don't kill people. Eletricity don't kill people. Cars don't > > kill > > people. Torrent does not pirate software by itself. Torrent is just a > > (very smart) way of distribuiting something. I can't see torrent as a > > pirate-only medium. > > Thank you--I'm not against Bittorrent; I used to use it myself. But > it has a bullseye drawn on it by the government and I'd rather stay > out of the line of fire. > > Similarly, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Megaupload. *LOL* As written before: Kim Schmitz involved. That already is a _big_ red flag yelling "stay the hell away". I would be _very_ surprised if Megaupload didn't keep detailed logs ... that [obscenity deleted] has a history of serving as a well paid judas goat. > That didn't prevent authorities from taking action against it. Honestly, seeing _that_ [obscenity deleted] taken down is a good thing to happen. I hope they take him out if circulation for a while this time. > The cyber-world in general is not as friendly as it used to be. And there are way more con men around than before. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From tdk.knight at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:56:19 2012 From: tdk.knight at gmail.com (Adrian Stoness) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:56:19 -0600 Subject: diskpacks available In-Reply-To: References: <0f15a00e5623a4fdf7af2d60c39f26a0.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: apears to be 4 more for 9 bucks if anyones still looking http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-digital-data-cartridge-cartridges-standing-main-frame-computers-RLO2KDC-/330671707777?pt=COMP_EN_Workstations&hash=item4cfd91d681 From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 21:04:33 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:04:33 -0500 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <20120124023244.GB8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <003001ccda0a$3a029e40$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1D538A.32128.10842A2@cclist.sydex.com> <20120124023244.GB8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:32 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:33:14PM -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> Similarly, there was nothing intrinsically wrong with Megaupload. > > *LOL* > > As written before: Kim Schmitz involved. That already is a _big_ red > flag yelling "stay the hell away". I would be _very_ surprised if Megaupload > didn't keep detailed logs ... that [obscenity deleted] has a history of > serving as a well paid judas goat. Very interesting to know. That's certainly not making the news rounds on this side of the pond, and he's not a very well-known character to me (though I don't travel in the shady circles I once did, I guess). - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 21:11:30 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:11:30 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:35 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >>> What backplane do you have? For example you might have one of the DEC >>> backplanes below: >>> >> hi glen, a little inventory: >> # 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 >> -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that >> this PSU needs some work >> -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed >> -Cardcage is not bent but needs some of this plastic-PCB-guides, many are >> broken due to age. > > Nice system. > > But that's not a BA23, it's a BA11-N. Standard rackmount CPU box for a PDP-11/03 or early 11/23 systems so what you have may be a box that's had a CPU upgrade (maybe not though, 11/03s would have had RLV11 not RLV12, whereas 11/23s usually had RLV12). It's an 18-bit backplane, which matches your 256KB memory (of which 248K is usable, 8K being reserved for the I/O page). It's fairly easy to upgrade the backplane to 22-bit, though, by removing the card cage and soldering a few wires. Wire-wrap wire is best for that. Your MSV11-P is 22-bit capable, as are all the other cards you listed. I'll vouch for that. My backplane (I don't currently have a box) is an H9273; the designers kindly left proper square wire-wrap posts coming out the back. Updating to 22-bit was a very simple operation with a manual wire-wrap tool, and everything appears to work perfectly. If you do that, make sure you run your wires in the same serpentine pattern as the bus! Probably easiest to do the horizontal runs first and then the verticals to splice them together. Refer to the manual if you're not sure of the pattern, but I seem to recall that I could see the traces (it was a few years ago). I wouldn't recommend soldering, mainly because it'd be a huge pain getting the iron in and it's a lot less reversible. Wire-wrapping it is well worth the time if you have the tools and the wire. - Dave From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Jan 23 22:33:37 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:33:37 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1E34A1.4070509@compsys.to> >Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >hi glen, a little inventory: > ># 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that >this PSU needs some work > -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed > -Cardcage is not bent but needs some of this plastic-PCB-guides, many are >broken due to age. > -Frontpanel is complete, nice signs of use > -Distribution Panel is missing > ># M8189 11/23 KDF11-B CPU Module. S/N 5014316C ># M8067 256 KW Memory Quad-width module ># M8043 Quad Serial Board ># 3rd Party "Fourth Generation Systems LS-256" 256 KB Memory Module (Dual >width) ># M8061 RLV 12 RL01/02 Controller ># M7516 DELQA Controller > -70-21202-01 Cable Assembly with its Distribution Panel attached > -D-Link DL583 RJ45 Ethernet Transceiver > > Every BA23 I have uses the first 3 slots as ABCD and the other 5 slots as ABAB in a serpentine manner. If your H973 is the same, then the M8043 (or the dual 256 KB memory board is actually preferred) must be by itself in slot 3. Then, place the next dual board in slot 4 and the next dual board in the other half of slot 4. The M8061 quad board goes into slot 5. (Alternatively, just place the M8061 in slot 3 and run with 3 quad boards at first until you need the other boards.) If you get an M7555 (RQDX3), it will go into the first half of slot 6. Can anyone confirm this for the H9273? If the backplane was ever 18 bit, then it must have been converted to 22 bit since you have 3/4 MB of memory and an 18 bit backplane handles only 1/4 MB of memory. >>If you have a BA23 box it should have the distribution panel for an >>M7555 RQDX3 so then all you need is to find an M7555 plus the cables, >>which shouldn't be too hard to find, to use your RX50 and/or RD5x >>drives. >> >> If the distribution panel for the M7555 is present and you decide to get DEC RD5n drives, the cables are standard MFM for the hard drive (20 pin and 34 pin) and just a 50 pin cable from the M7555 to the distribution panel. The RX50 uses a standard 34 pin cable with a female header at both ends. The standard front panel has ONE pair of buttons for the hard drive to control READY and WRITE PROTECT and 2 LEDs for the floppy drives to detect WRITE PROTECT on the RX50 floppy media. Do NOT look for an RD53 since 90% have sticky problems unless you get them free and are able to fix them. A Micropolis 1325 can be used, but it requires an extra jumper or zero ohm resistor (R7). Then you will need ZRQB?? to format the drive using XXDP software. >The Distribution Panel is absent, but it should not be too hard to >substitute it with something else. I'm looking forward to fin a M7555, they >seem to be quite common. But first I have to repair the PSU and check >everything. > The M8189 distribution panel (usually called cabinet kit) handles BOTH serial ports from the M8189. The distribution panel from the M8043 (also usually called a cabinet kit) handles all 4 ports. If you initially test with just the first 2 boards (CPU and memory since you don't have any drives yet), then you somehow need to connect the terminal to the serial port on the M8189. However, the correct cabinet kit also sets the baud rate for the consol port. If you don't have that cabinet kit, then you will need someone to help with the cable and the setting of the baud rate. Let us know if you are successful. Jerome Fine From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 22:38:42 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:38:42 -0800 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com>, <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net>, <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1DC552.3569.67CFCE@cclist.sydex.com> On 23 Jan 2012 at 21:22, David Riley wrote: > > Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." > > > > How hard is that? > > Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. > "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? > Seems like your sort of thing." But I assume a Rainbow 100 running Windows 1.0 is okay? I'm confused. --Chuck From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Mon Jan 23 22:39:47 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:39:47 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1E3613.9090105@compsys.to> >Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >hi glen, a little inventory: > ># 11/23 BA23 Box S/N AG07072 > > -in there is a H786 Rev.C PSU - after quick measurements it's clear that >this PSU needs some work > -H9273 11/03L Rev.B Backplane is installed > -Cardcage is not bent but needs some of this plastic-PCB-guides, many are >broken due to age. > -Frontpanel is complete, nice signs of use > -Distribution Panel is missing > Since you actually have a BA11-N, disregard the suggestions about the BA23 slots. Also, you will not have an RD5n distribution panel. Your backplane must already be 22 bit since you have 3/4 MB of memory. Jerome Fine From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 22:43:51 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:43:51 -0800 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <20120124022302.GA8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F1D58DD.21486.11D0F67@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120124022302.GA8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <4F1DC687.25455.6C8659@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2012 at 3:23, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > Well, Megaupload was run by Kim Schmitz (lately calling himself Kim > Dotcom). Anything _that_ guy touches is bad by definition. In the > german hacker scene, he made a name for himself: Over at cryptome.org, there are some telling pictures. Heavens, that guy is er, portly. The photos of his digs makes you wonder how he ever made it from one end of the house to the other. Golf cart? Sedan chair? --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 23 22:46:14 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:46:14 -0800 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com>, <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook>, Message-ID: <4F1DC716.14572.6EB29F@cclist.sydex.com> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common > these are > in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare** > > http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de- ba > ba-voce-quer-babar.html Not uncommon here, but new in box is a different matter. Does anyone know if the ERSO reference designs used by the Taiwan clone makers were ever published? --Chuck From evan at snarc.net Mon Jan 23 23:05:57 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:05:57 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DC552.3569.67CFCE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com>, <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net>, <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> <4F1DC552.3569.67CFCE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1E3C35.50107@snarc.net> >>> Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." >>> >>> How hard is that? >> Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? >> Seems like your sort of thing." > But I assume a Rainbow 100 running Windows 1.0 is okay? > > I'm confused. Okay .... "No PCs running Windows 3.1 or newer, or DOS (4/5?) or newer." From n0body.h0me at inbox.com Mon Jan 23 23:25:45 2012 From: n0body.h0me at inbox.com (N0body H0me) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:25:45 -0800 Subject: diskpacks available In-Reply-To: References: <0f15a00e5623a4fdf7af2d60c39f26a0.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Message-ID: <82CB38EF433.00000E13n0body.h0me@inbox.com> *SNORT* That didn't take long . . . . > -----Original Message----- > From: tdk.knight at gmail.com > Sent: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:56:19 -0600 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: diskpacks available > > apears to be 4 more for 9 bucks if anyones still looking > http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-digital-data-cartridge-cartridges-standing-main-frame-computers-RLO2KDC-/330671707777?pt=COMP_EN_Workstations&hash=item4cfd91d681 ____________________________________________________________ TRY FREE IM TOOLPACK at http://www.imtoolpack.com/default.aspx?rc=if5 Capture screenshots, upload images, edit and send them to your friends through IMs, post on Twitter?, Facebook?, MySpace?, LinkedIn? ? FAST! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 23:58:12 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:58:12 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 9:31 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> >> ?These days I got some brand new XT boards :o) Dunno how common these are >> in USA, but in Brazil are **very rare** They were common here once, but I haven't seen one in the bag in a long, long time. >> ?http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com/2012/01/quantos-litros-de-baba-voce-quer-babar.html Nice. I only used an XT clone at home for a short time - picked it up used for, ISTR, $100, when that was a good price, then parted it out for about $150-$200 to about 5 different buyers. It was unremarkable - Taiwanese motherboard, Everex WX-1 clone, Seagate ST225, clone mono video, amber monitor, etc... but $20 here, $25 there added up. I think the only practical use I put it to was running Morse Code tutorials prior to sitting for my Ham license 20+ years ago. There were lots of DOS-based tutorials and precious few, if any, for the Amiga. I did end up passing the 5 WPM level. If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo 8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on a DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a 386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say). But that's still a nice score. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 00:21:03 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 01:21:03 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net> <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:22 PM, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? >> >> Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." >> >> How hard is that? > > Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing." I've run into that. I deal with it by whipping out my phone and showing the offending party a picture of something serious; my PDP-11/70 usually works well. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pinball at telus.net Mon Jan 23 19:39:44 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:39:44 -0800 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1E0BE0.8040107@telus.net> Tony Duell wrote: >> On 22/01/12 00:41, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >>> Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. I >>> don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying >>> one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to >>> learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but >>> this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) >>> >> You could DIY one from a couple of shift registers, an LS86 XOR gate, a >> PROM or two and an LED display... There's an article covering the >> technical minutiae in the HP Journal archives. >> > > I seem to remember the service manual for one of the HP analysers on a > web site -- I think it was one of the arcade game sites. Agilent may have > a manual on their site too (they have a lot of old HP instrument manuals > for download). > > The manual I saw incldued scheamtics. THere were a couple of PROMs (one > was just the 7-segment decoder), but it was fairly obvious how it worked. > > >> There's literally nothing to it except a CRC generator mated to a hex >> > > The CRC polynomial is farily obviously critical. Did all signature > analyser manufacturewrs use the same one? > > >> display with a custom character table (if memory serves: 0-9ACFHPU >> instead of 0-9A-F) to dissuade attempts to figure out "this code means >> this error" troubleshooting. I think the best way to think of it is as a >> > > Hmm.. I am pretty sdure the display table was given in the manual, so you > could work out the bit-level contents of the shift register. How easy it > is gto go from that to the actual signal patttern is another matter... > > >> digital version of an analog signal tracer... (although perhaps a pulser >> and a logic probe would be a better analogue for that?) >> > > I never really saw the point of signature analysis. If you got the right > signature then that signal was problaby correct, but if you got the wrong > signature, OK, the signal was not doing the right things, but it doesn't > really tell you _how_ it's malfunctioning. It strikes me as being a > little better than boardswapping, but only a little. > > That saiid, if I could find an HP signature analyser at a low price I'd > probably add one to the collection, but I doubt i'd use it much. > > -tony > > The advantage of the signature analyzer (SA) was you can deal with circuits that have feedback loops more easilyand without the need to fully understand the operation of the circuit. For example servicing Atari Asteroid/Tempest/Battlezone vector generator (XY video games) there is a signature for each pin and thus you start at one end and work to the other of the schematic, where the signatures don't match you then have a likely suspect -slap on the logic comparator (Bugtrap or HP) or replace the chip. This often found the problem within a few minutes of setting up the tests. The primary saving was more lower level technicians could fix board that would previously have required far more training - and in a small service shop (or distributor repair facility) where you may only see that board once or twice a year it wasn't worth the time to learn all the workings to be able to fix it quickly. I use SA from time to time - it doesn't always help, but it is just one more tool on the shelf to get stuff fixed quickly... John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From randall.kindig at gmail.com Mon Jan 23 20:22:14 2012 From: randall.kindig at gmail.com (Randall.kindig) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:22:14 -0500 Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Jon, I might be interested and live in the Indianapolis area. Randy Kindig Sent from my iPad On Jan 23, 2012, at 5:32 PM, Jonathan Katz wrote: > All, > > I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? > > There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know > that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? > Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. > > It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of > it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome. > > Thanks! > > -- > -Jon > Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN. > From raycretired at charter.net Mon Jan 23 22:08:13 2012 From: raycretired at charter.net (Raymond Phillips) Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:08:13 -0800 Subject: cassette interface of Panasonic HHC Message-ID: <000001ccda4d$cb06cfe0$61146fa0$@net> Hi Eric. I am looking for the printer out of the Rl-P1004A printer /computer combination. Do you have one that you would sell that is operational? Raymond C Phillips, LT USN Retired raycretired at charter.net 10104 West Argent Road, Pasco, WA 99301 509 646 3485. If interested please quote a price? From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 01:13:32 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:13:32 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <1550C374-CBB7-4F27-B1DA-257A7A1840C8@gmail.com> References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> <1550C374-CBB7-4F27-B1DA-257A7A1840C8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1E5A1C.5070001@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 08:01 AM, David Riley wrote: > Really? Sunstone is fairly OK (I've dealt with them in the past), > but I found Screaming Circuits to be unnecessarily expensive for what > they do, and I've gotten great service from Advanced Assembly > (aapcb.com). They're located right across the street in Colorado > from Advanced Circuits (4pcb.com), who I also really like for PCB > manufacturing. Advanced Circuits also has better prices on > production quantities (at least>10), so I'll be trying them out for a > run of wireless sensor motes soon. I use Advanced Circuits regularly; I'm expecting a shipment of PCBs (for work) tomorrow. They're a bit pricey, but they are top-notch. I've never used Advanced Assembly, though they keep sending me spam. I do small production runs myself. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 01:14:26 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:14:26 -0500 Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <9F5138D5-9CD2-49E1-8792-6EEC9F1F5939@gmail.com> References: , <201201230239.VAA27401@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>, <4F1CE98E.6090600@neurotica.com> <4F1C7FF7.18540.2AF31D0@cclist.sydex.com> <4F1CF3D5.7050506@neurotica.com> <9F5138D5-9CD2-49E1-8792-6EEC9F1F5939@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1E5A52.9040504@neurotica.com> On 01/23/2012 08:06 AM, David Riley wrote: > If I had proper tools (which, once we make this move which will > hopefully be the last one for a while, I will start doing), I'd > probably like SMT more. As is, I've had good luck with the toaster > oven method (which isn't *that* different from the industrial reflow > process, just a little less controlled) and there wasn't much cleanup > with leaded solder. I'm happy to help you out when the time comes. > I enjoy soldering, though. I feel like it's been a productive day > when I can't get the smell of burnt rosin out of my nostrils. Ohhhh yes. :-) > It's a > smell that brings back as many fond memories as the smell of burnt > gunpowder, which just smells like mischief. :-) Ahh, you too, eh? ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From terry at webweavers.co.nz Tue Jan 24 01:32:43 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:32:43 +1300 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1DC687.25455.6C8659@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F1D58DD.21486.11D0F67@cclist.sydex.com> <20120124022302.GA8305@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> <4F1DC687.25455.6C8659@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: He's making news behind bars here in New Zealand. There are questions being raise by opposition groups as to why the New Zealand government ever granted him residency here! Seems he got in under an "investors" scheme and had a pretty fat wallet. Terry (Tez) On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 24 Jan 2012 at 3:23, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > > Well, Megaupload was run by Kim Schmitz (lately calling himself Kim > > Dotcom). Anything _that_ guy touches is bad by definition. In the > > german hacker scene, he made a name for himself: > > Over at cryptome.org, there are some telling pictures. Heavens, that > guy is er, portly. The photos of his digs makes you wonder how he > ever made it from one end of the house to the other. Golf cart? > Sedan chair? > > --Chuck > > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 24 02:09:11 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:09:11 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F1E3613.9090105@compsys.to> References: <4F1E3613.9090105@compsys.to> Message-ID: <4F1E6727.6070807@dunnington.plus.com> Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Your backplane must already be 22 bit since > you have 3/4 MB of memory. Oops, so it is. I was half asleep and misread the "256KW" as 256KB", and failed to spot the second memory card at all! -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 24 02:09:13 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:09:13 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F1E6729.60208@dunnington.plus.com> David Riley wrote: > I'll vouch for that. My backplane (I don't currently have a box) is > an H9273; the designers kindly left proper square wire-wrap posts > coming out the back. Updating to 22-bit was a very simple operation > with a manual wire-wrap tool, and everything appears to work > perfectly. If you do that, make sure you run your wires in the same > serpentine pattern as the bus! Are you sure yours was an H9273? Not H9270? I've never seen an H9273 with wirewrap pins, and H9273 is straight (Q18-CD), not serpentine. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 02:10:21 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:10:21 -0000 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <37E43268EAD64C458DA0C764F608466F@EMACHINE> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley > Sent: 24 January 2012 02:23 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: defining 'vintage' > > > On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: > > > > >> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of > defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* > interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you > bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? > > > > Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." > > > > How hard is that? > All rules have exceptions? > Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another > thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't > that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing." > I guess that Windows 1.0 might be of interest to some people, and what about OS/2 that ran Windows programs... > > - Dave > > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 02:30:34 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:30:34 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies Message-ID: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system A commercial deli slicer (for my chef fiancee') -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 24 02:38:41 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:38:41 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' References: <37E43268EAD64C458DA0C764F608466F@EMACHINE> Message-ID: <7FACC799FD734A7AABDE2286F2FCEA76@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave" To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:10 AM Subject: RE: defining 'vintage' >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of David Riley >> Sent: 24 January 2012 02:23 >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: defining 'vintage' >> >> >> On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >> >> > >> >> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of >> defining our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* >> interested in that x86 clone PC running Windows that you >> bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your garage? >> > >> > Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." >> > >> > How hard is that? >> > > All rules have exceptions? > >> Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another >> thing. "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't >> that vintage? Seems like your sort of thing." >> > > I guess that Windows 1.0 might be of interest to some people, and what > about > OS/2 that ran Windows programs... > >> >> - Dave >> The problem you tend to have is the people who are ditching these old machines are not the original owners (grandpa died and we are cleaning out the attic type of thing) or just some reseller who got some old crap dumped on him he wants gone with no fuss. So people have no clue how to turn the machine on or what OS if any is loaded into it. Asking them to see if it works means you have the possibility of people plugging in CGA monitors in the the wrong ports and blowing things up. Non hobbyists also have no clue how old a computer is (anything not in a black case is vintage to them). You can probably start by mentioning does it have a 5.25" floppy drive which means it is early 90's or older. Is that floppy drive in a separate enclosure (that gets you into 8 bit computer territory like C64/Atari 800 etc)? People also tend to think of anything that doesn't look normal as maybe a server (could also be because it is made of solid metal and not flimsy aluminum), who knows what will turn up.Anybody who kept a 20+ year old machine (remember that's a 486 era and older) might have kept the software as well, asking about a few titles will give you a clue of what the machine is or hell just grab the software! From oe5ewl at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 02:56:33 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:56:33 +0100 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: Congratulations, Dave, great score. A lot of nice Items to play with Regards, Wolfgang -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/24 Dave McGuire > > So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an > old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying > "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: > > IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > A commercial deli slicer (for my chef fiancee') > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 03:28:06 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:28:06 -0200 Subject: new haul, serious goodies References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> I still wonder about the size of your barn...eh...house :oO --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 6:30 AM Subject: new haul, serious goodies > > So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an > old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying > "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: > > IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > A commercial deli slicer (for my chef fiancee') > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 03:33:27 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:33:27 -0200 Subject: defining 'vintage' References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <03cd01ccda7b$56c1dd40$6400a8c0@tababook> > If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo > 8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on a > DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a > 386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say). I don't think I'll ever put this lot to work. But a XT would be nice to learn more and teach digital logic applied to a PC. At least you have pins to connect the logic analyzer :) From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 03:35:02 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:35:02 -0200 Subject: P112 kits for sale References: , <4F1C0770.14670.D864CA@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F1C642D.56.242A4D0@cclist.sydex.com> <1550C374-CBB7-4F27-B1DA-257A7A1840C8@gmail.com> <4F1E5A1C.5070001@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <03da01ccda7b$856d09d0$6400a8c0@tababook> > I use Advanced Circuits regularly; I'm expecting a shipment of PCBs > (for work) tomorrow. They're a bit pricey, but they are top-notch. An (ex) friend here in Brazil uses them. Impressive quality! :oO From quapla at xs4all.nl Tue Jan 24 04:32:38 2012 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (E. Groenenberg) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:32:38 +0100 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <974c060f0a38f2149a4dcb985e80a9e0.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> Very nice find! > > So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from > an old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by > saying "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home > with: > > IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > A commercial deli slicer (for my chef fiancee') > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. Zeg NEE tegen de 'slimme' meter. From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Tue Jan 24 04:47:07 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:47:07 +0200 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1E8C2B.40201@conus.info> On 1/23/2012 11:44 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 > clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed > in your garage? To me, it is computers that were before it become very popular home/personal devices. From bqt at softjar.se Tue Jan 24 02:20:48 2012 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:20:48 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> On 2012-01-24 05:34, allison wrote: > Special note early RQDX2s must be in the last unoccupied slot, they do > not pass the > bus grant signals. As far as I can remember it's (only) the RQDX1 that have this problem, but it applies to *all* RQDX1. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 07:13:58 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:13:58 +0000 Subject: Cray-1 on an FPGA In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 23 January 2012 15:59, Mark Benson wrote: > On 23 Jan 2012, at 15:28, Liam Proven wrote: > >> This has garnered a lot of attention for me on Twitter and Facebook today. >> >> Hardware & case: >> http://chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/ >> >> The hunt for software: >> http://chrisfenton.com/cray-1-digital-archeology/ >> >> Helping recover the OS: >> http://blog.archive.org/2011/09/03/hard-drive-archaeology-and-hackerspaces/ > > Pretty sure I forwarded this from the Rescue list a few weeks back but doesn't do any harm to jog people's memory from time to time especially on such an interesting project. Oh, sorry! If so, I either missed it or my memory is failing. The latter is more probable. :?( -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 07:44:32 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:44:32 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F1E6729.60208@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> <4F1E6729.60208@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <800464BF-5137-470F-8EF8-8DE3C6891BF6@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 3:09 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > David Riley wrote: > >> I'll vouch for that. My backplane (I don't currently have a box) is >> an H9273; the designers kindly left proper square wire-wrap posts >> coming out the back. Updating to 22-bit was a very simple operation >> with a manual wire-wrap tool, and everything appears to work >> perfectly. If you do that, make sure you run your wires in the same >> serpentine pattern as the bus! > > Are you sure yours was an H9273? Not H9270? I've never seen an H9273 with wirewrap pins, and H9273 is straight (Q18-CD), not serpentine. Ah, yes, that's what I mean. Momentary memory lapse, aided by the fact that it's not marked on the thing anywhere I can see. Four slots, right? - Dave From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 08:07:09 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:07:09 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <4F1E137C.6080500@snarc.net> <864F3802-4777-4270-9B3A-EFF61644155B@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1EBB0D.1070008@gmail.com> Dave McGuire wrote: > On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:22 PM, David Riley wrote: >> On Jan 23, 2012, at 9:12 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote: >>>> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining >>>> our interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in >>>> that x86 clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have >>>> just unearthed in your garage? >>> Yes. Just say, "No PC clones running Windows." >>> >>> How hard is that? >> Saying it is easy. Getting people to believe it is another thing. >> "But... but it's running, like, Windows 95. Isn't that vintage? >> Seems like your sort of thing." > > I've run into that. I deal with it by whipping out my phone and showing > the offending party a picture of something serious; my PDP-11/70 usually > works well. :-) I had it again yesterday with a "very old" computer where the only other detail from person who had it was that it said 'Sigma' on it. Of course I wasn't expecting there to be an intact SDS machine lurking around here, particularly when they offered to meet me in town with it (bringing a truck, are we?), but it was still sensible to chase things to their conclusion just on the very slim chance that it was a small part of an SDS system, which would still be worth saving from the dump. I've since managed to get a photo from them - it's (you've guessed it) an x86 clone PC, maybe 15 years old at the most... cheers Jules From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Tue Jan 24 08:13:56 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:13:56 +0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers In-Reply-To: <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> <4F1D35E1.14375.946716@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F1EBCA4.6000209@conus.info> On 1/23/2012 8:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> http://tinyurl.com/6m6abl8 >> >> This is a manual with all computers produced by CCE in Brazil. >> There are >> apple clones, PC-XT clones and the MC-1000, an orphan computer that no >> one is able to perfectly source its origins >> >> Please seed. Here I put the file to my website... http://conus.info/stuff/cctalk/Esquemario%20Informatica%20CCE.pdf From pontus at Update.UU.SE Tue Jan 24 09:07:04 2012 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:07:04 +0100 Subject: Identify: IBM memory Message-ID: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Hi This link is making the rounds: http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memory But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :) Cheers, Pontus. From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 09:18:26 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:18:26 -0500 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <5EFE8011-6E9D-4DA7-A0C7-342B49A2AA12@gmail.com> Almost certainly not a drum (it would need to be many times bigger, I think, to hold the motor and the heads, given that it's tube-driven). My semi-educated guess would be a Williams tube (CRT), but I suppose it could be a mercury delay line. -Dave On Jan 24, 2012, at 10:07 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Hi > > This link is making the rounds: > > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memory > > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? > > Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :) > > Cheers, > Pontus. From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 24 10:40:33 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:40:33 -0600 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> At 02:04 PM 10/5/2011, I wrote: >I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few years ago. None worked >out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass >by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few >9-track sales and service places I'd found. This fellow called me again today, out of the blue. In the year ahead, he hopes to sell his building and down-size, focusing on the repair of smaller drives and dumping the bulk of his 9-track business. It sounds like he has a bunch of 88780-class 9-tracks that'll go to the scrapper. He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes. Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is. He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more. A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right? Call it TapeFerret. He mentioned another company that makes a modern 7-track drive and sells it for $50K+ to the seismic end of the oil industry. And that's where his 9-track business is today: much is for the oil industry mostly outside the USA. They want to read old seismic data and reprocess it using new techniques to find more oil. Another more profitable business is fixing more recent tape drives for IBM mainframes. Another chunk is a few specific models of 9-track that work with old Alcatel phone switches. There's still some equipment and processes that require a real drive and that does not work with tape emulators. I offered to hook him up with buyers for any still-working units he doesn't want to keep when he downsizes his business. I also offered to connect him with the professional classic computer curators who might need his help when it comes to reading or restoring old tape media and devices. - John From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:04:38 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:04:38 -0500 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <96208EE5-3788-404A-A705-6A577903F1A9@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote: > He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes. > Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is. > He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more. > > A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right? > Call it TapeFerret. I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while now, but I know I don't have the mechanical expertise to make a tape drive. I'd gladly team up with someone who does, though... modern microcontrollers make the motor control aspects pitifully easy, and they generally have the horsepower (and ADCs, if necessary) to read the data reliably. > He mentioned another company that makes a modern 7-track drive and > sells it for $50K+ to the seismic end of the oil industry. Yeah, I'd be interested. Anyone a good hand at mechanical design? I know very good motor control and analog people. - Dave From blstuart at bellsouth.net Tue Jan 24 11:05:08 2012 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:05:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <1327424708.63752.YahooMailClassic@web83907.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memory??? > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, > Drum?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > ? ? ? > Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :)? My guess would be CRT memory from the 701. It looks too short to me to be mercury delay line, especially for 4k, and it definitely doesn't look like a drum. Plus, I don't recall IBM ever using delay line for main memory. BLS From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 24 11:08:10 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:08:10 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4F1E74FA.1832.12A0DC@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2012 at 16:07, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Hi > > This link is making the rounds: > > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of > -memory > > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? The CHM has one of these selfsame units. Williams tube memory: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/X1284.96 Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 24 11:11:33 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:11:33 -0800 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <03cd01ccda7b$56c1dd40$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com>, <03cd01ccda7b$56c1dd40$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1E75C5.7632.15BA41@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2012 at 7:33, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo > > 8-bit games. I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on > > a DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore (too many hours at work on a > > 386-SX/16 in the mid-1990s, I'd say). Fit it with a solid-state hard drive and it's not too bad. There a few bits of equipment that I own (e.g. PROM programmers, special disk (e.g. Matchpoint) that require the slow speeds of these CPUs owing to their CPU timing loops. So I keep a couple of clones in good operating condition. --Chuck From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Jan 24 11:16:52 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:16:52 -0600 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <96208EE5-3788-404A-A705-6A577903F1A9@gmail.com> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> <96208EE5-3788-404A-A705-6A577903F1A9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201241718.q0OHI8cT055819@billy.ezwind.net> At 11:04 AM 1/24/2012, David Riley wrote: >On Jan 24, 2012, at 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote: > >> He wishes there was a modern replacement for reading old tapes. >> Seven-track and nine-track. Speed is not an issue; data recovery is. >> He says hardly anyone wants to write to tapes any more. >> >> A simple transport, a flexible read-head, a bunch of software, right? >> Call it TapeFerret. A few minutes after I wrote that, I found Al Kossow's project: http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/ It uses an IBM 3480 head. What's the latest on that project, Al? Is my faulty memory also remembering that Jerome Fine did something like this once upon a time? - John From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:38:21 2012 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:38:21 +0100 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: From: "Dave McGuire" Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 9:30 AM To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: new haul, serious goodies > > So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an > old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying > "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: > > IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > A commercial deli slicer (for my chef fiancee') > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA Cool! Good Thing it was not in my neighborhood ... Hauling all that stuff to the house would certainly give problems (not only expressed in lack of space). But very nice stuff indeed. If you ever decide to ditch the TU45, I would be glad with two indicators (buttons?) on the top left side on the front. greetz, - Henk From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:47:54 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:47:54 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <7FACC799FD734A7AABDE2286F2FCEA76@dell8300> References: <37E43268EAD64C458DA0C764F608466F@EMACHINE> <7FACC799FD734A7AABDE2286F2FCEA76@dell8300> Message-ID: <4F1EEECA.1000101@gmail.com> TeoZ wrote: > The problem you tend to have is the people who are ditching these old > machines are not the original owners (grandpa died and we are cleaning > out the attic type of thing) or just some reseller who got some old crap > dumped on him he wants gone with no fuss. So people have no clue how to > turn the machine on or what OS if any is loaded into it. Right... but it seems that to most people, there's no difference between the beige box of an x86 PC and a Commodore 64, say; to them, they're both just "old computers". There probably is no sensible way of explaining it in terms that non-tech-savvy people can understand, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask the list in case someone's somehow managed to crack the problem :-) cheers Jules From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 11:59:06 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:59:06 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F1EF16A.2090307@gmail.com> Mouse wrote: >> Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our >> interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 >> clone PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just >> unearthed in your garage? > > I haven't, except to people who, while perhaps not _sharing_ the > mindset, understand it enough that they don't really need to have it > explained. > > But I haven't put much thought into it, because (a) I consider turning > down (or otherwise dealing with) a dozen boring peecees to be a small > price to pay to get hold of that one oddball something-or-other from > $WHENEVER, and (b) even the peecees hold _some_ value for me. > > Given a steady stream of boring x86 boxen, which I seem to have, I can > just use them as throwaway computron sources - use them for the > applications where I don't care about the machine enough that using a > vintage machine is worth doing, and, when one breaks, throw it out > (whatever that means) and put in another one. > > Furthermore, they often include repurposeable extractable bits such as > disks and PCI cards, many of which are useful in *interesting* > machines. That always used to be the way I did it, but that was when vintage pickings were a bit more common, and I was living in an area that had always been quite technology-focused (so the percentage of folk who knew a PC from something that wasn't a PC was much higher). It's a lot different around here; sparse population, and historically very non-technical (in terms of computing - no problem finding someone e.g. who knows their way around an engine). There probably never was much 'big iron' around here, but I think there might be vintage 'home' machines still lurking, particularly as the low population density equates to dwellings with lots of storage space and hence less need to periodically haul clutter to landfill. Problem right now is that I'm getting quite a few older x86 PCs and no bites with anything that I actually *do* want - as you say, a few older PCs and parts can be useful, but I'm getting to the point where I'll have more than I'll ever need. cheers Jules From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 24 12:16:08 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:16:08 -0700 Subject: Tektronix 4113 Host Programmer's Manual available Message-ID: -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jan 24 11:59:47 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:59:47 -0800 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" Message-ID: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? From ckblackm at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 12:33:17 2012 From: ckblackm at yahoo.com (Christopher Blackmon) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:33:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <1327429997.92635.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> 1) No listing fee for less than 50 items / month. 2) A fool and their money are soon parted. Christopher. ________________________________ From: Al Kossow To: classiccmp at classiccmp.org Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 12:59 PM Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? From alexeyt at freeshell.org Tue Jan 24 12:48:08 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:48:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long > gone, but I still worry about these things. You can get around copyright issues by publishing just the change you made (i.e. change bytes xxx-yyy to blah). The change is your original work, and you have every right to publish it. People that need the changes will have the affected ROM, so they can read it out, apply your change and burn a new one. Alexey From robert at irrelevant.com Tue Jan 24 12:54:11 2012 From: robert at irrelevant.com (Rob) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:54:11 +0000 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 24 January 2012 17:59, Al Kossow wrote: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 > Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? Maybe they did it on a free-listing deal? Now if I had a professional data-recovery firm in the garage, I'd buy it to see what was on the drive that deserved being shot at.. From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 13:00:53 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:00:53 -0600 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F1EFFE5.4020102@gmail.com> Al Kossow wrote: > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 > Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? It's not even tagged as rare! From quapla at xs4all.nl Tue Jan 24 12:58:45 2012 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (E. Groenenberg) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:58:45 +0100 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: There is no listing fee, and maybe he is targeting it as a piece of 'art'? > > http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 > Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? > -- Dit is een HTML vrije email / This is an HTML free email. Zeg NEE tegen de 'slimme' meter. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 24 13:07:45 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:07:45 -0800 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <4F1E9101.26301.801D7C@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2012 at 18:54, Rob wrote: > Maybe they did it on a free-listing deal? > > Now if I had a professional data-recovery firm in the garage, I'd buy > it to see what was on the drive that deserved being shot at.. It might get the $1 that the seller is asking--but geez, to take the photo, compose the listing, etc. surely much take some time. I think the seller has too much time on his hands. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 24 13:07:45 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:07:45 -0800 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <4F1E9101.26301.801D7C@cclist.sydex.com> On 24 Jan 2012 at 18:54, Rob wrote: > Maybe they did it on a free-listing deal? > > Now if I had a professional data-recovery firm in the garage, I'd buy > it to see what was on the drive that deserved being shot at.. It might get the $1 that the seller is asking--but geez, to take the photo, compose the listing, etc. surely much take some time. I think the seller has too much time on his hands. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 13:25:59 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:25:59 -0500 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: <0661D49A-FAA9-4B2B-8A27-8F474036484E@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 1:48 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > >> Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. > > You can get around copyright issues by publishing just the change you made (i.e. change bytes xxx-yyy to blah). The change is your original work, and you have every right to publish it. People that need the changes will have the affected ROM, so they can read it out, apply your change and burn a new one. That's certainly my last resort. I wish there were a more standardized format for binary patches (I don't think a universal diff will cover it, except for the case of hex files). It still raises the question of where to post them so they'll reach people who need them (generally via Google). I don't have much of a web presence anymore (at least not any that isn't covered in cobwebs). - Dave From ian_primus at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 13:27:06 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:27:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <1327433226.90853.YahooMailClassic@web121602.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 1/24/12, Al Kossow wrote: > http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 > Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of > stupidity? Hey at least the warranty seals are intact. -Ian From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 13:28:40 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:28:40 -0500 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <21C2591C-527A-4B09-905B-49BD02BB74C4@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 1:58 PM, E. Groenenberg wrote: > There is no listing fee, and maybe he is targeting it as a piece of 'art'? > >> >> http://www.ebay.com/itm/320835328368 >> Why would someone even pay the listing fee for this bit of stupidity? That's probably what it is. Either that, or the thought process which arrives at "this is an item I can sell for money" is the result of meth, which is not out of the question given the location. - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 13:31:35 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:31:35 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1E75C5.7632.15BA41@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <03cd01ccda7b$56c1dd40$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1E75C5.7632.15BA41@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:11 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > If I set up an XT now, I'm not sure what I'd do with it beyond demo >> > 8-bit games. ?I don't think I have the patience to noodle around on >> > a DOS box under a 386-DX/25 anymore... > > Fit it with a solid-state hard drive and it's not too bad. I have an XT-IDE that I need to build. That plus an IDE-CF adapter (which I also have) would fit the bill. >?There a few bits of equipment that I own (e.g. PROM programmers...) > that require the slow speeds of these CPUs owing to > their CPU timing loops. ?So I keep a couple of clones in good > operating condition. I have a B&C Microsystems UP600A programmer that matches that description. I have it attached to a Compaq 286/SLT - the proprietary parallel card is in the docking station (along with a 10Mbps Ethernet card that I use with DOS Kermit). It works with a 10-ish MHz 286. It does not work on a 25-ish MHz 386. ISTR the "AT Bus" on a 25MHz 386 is clocked at 8.333MHz (clock/3), *not* 8.0MHz. It could be related to that, even with the Turbo button off (which should help the issue of CPU timing loops). I didn't dig very far into the incompatibility. It was easier just to use an older machine, and the 286/SLT has the advantage of being self-contained and portable. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 13:45:28 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:45:28 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:30 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > ?So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an > old friend. ?This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying > "hey, bring a truck!" ?...so I did, and here's what I came home with: > > ?IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > ?DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > ?DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > ?DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > ?DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > ?VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > ?A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system Very nice. More reason for me to come out and visit. My 8300 still has a broken Unibus (UET module problems, I think), and I have neither Unibus nor BI SCSI for it, just a KDB50. I'd also love the chance to see a 36-bit machine up close again - been too many years since I had my hand on that kind of iron. Cheers, -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 24 13:49:43 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:49:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <7FACC799FD734A7AABDE2286F2FCEA76@dell8300> References: <37E43268EAD64C458DA0C764F608466F@EMACHINE> <7FACC799FD734A7AABDE2286F2FCEA76@dell8300> Message-ID: <20120124114519.F31675@shell.lmi.net> > can probably start by mentioning does it have a 5.25" floppy drive which > means it is early 90's or older. Is that floppy drive in a separate > enclosure (that gets you into 8 bit computer territory like C64/Atari 800 "What size disks does it use?" 8" = 1975 - 1985 5.25" = 1978 - 1995 3.5" = 1983 - 2005 "What does it weigh?" "Will it fit in the trunk of a car?" From andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk Tue Jan 24 10:22:01 2012 From: andyh at andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk (Andy Holt) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:22:01 -0000 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: >>>> http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memor y But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :) >>>> Note that I have put these thoughts in the order I had them or researched updates - this makes some of the earlier reasoning incorrect :-) First, I wouldn't necessarily rely on the description ... the machines with memory width in "bytes" did not come into use until significantly later than valves (vacuum tubes) ceased being used for anything other than displays. The top two cylinders certainly look as if they contain crts, but as far as I am aware Williams Tubes were a British idea that wasn't used by IBM** (and I thought that they were about 5" diameter at the face plate whereas these can be at most 3"). They also don't look like delay lines or anything motorised (nobody would so easily (!) carry anything of that era that had rotating memory). OK, I'm wrong here - the IBM701 and 702 apparently had Williams Tubes Further web searches lead me to the IBM 706 which was the main memory of the IBM 701 system. The object looks like one of the 18 units that together provided 2K 36 bit words of storage (and thus provides 4K bits, not bytes, of memory). (and, yes, these are 3" diameter at the face plate) Think that has nailed it. Andy From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Tue Jan 24 14:20:08 2012 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:20:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Jan 2012, Andy Holt wrote: > Further web searches lead me to the IBM 706 which was the main memory of the > IBM 701 system. The object looks like one of the 18 units that together > provided 2K 36 bit words of storage (and thus provides 4K bits, not bytes, > of memory). (and, yes, these are 3" diameter at the face plate) An early version of the Whirlwind computer also used Williams Tubas: "Initially Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube. An additional flood gun maintained the pattern of dots while a writing gun was used to alter the pattern. Thirty two such tubes were needed to provide the 4KBytes of storage that the Whirlwind needed. Given a tube life of one month and cost $1000 the running cost of the machine was very high, $1 per bit per month." http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/Whirlwind.html Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 14:34:56 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:34:56 -0000 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <1327424708.63752.YahooMailClassic@web83907.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <665F3DFE2698424FADE144F7517EC404@G4UGMT41> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brian L. Stuart > Sent: 24 January 2012 17:05 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Identify: IBM memory > > > > > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of > > -memory > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, > > Drum? > > ? ? ? > > Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :) > > My guess would be CRT memory from the 701. > > It looks too short to me to be mercury delay line, especially > for 4k, and it definitely doesn't look like a drum. Plus, I > don't recall IBM ever using delay line for main memory. > No one ever said it was "main memory", just memory. I agree it looks like Williams Tube memory and pictures of the 701 here:- http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/701/701_1415bx01.html show them as pairs of tubes, but the adjustment manual http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM706-WilliamsTubeMemory-RandyNeff.pdf seems to show more tubes and caps than the picture above... > BLS > > > From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 15:21:34 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:21:34 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1F20DE.2060408@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 12:38 PM, Henk Gooijen wrote: > Cool! Good Thing it was not in my neighborhood ... Hauling all that > stuff to > the house would certainly give problems (not only expressed in lack of > space). > But very nice stuff indeed. If you ever decide to ditch the TU45, I > would be glad > with two indicators (buttons?) on the top left side on the front. Ohhh no, sorry, TU45s are really scarce now. I've gotta try to get this one working. It's complete, just in pieces and in very poor condition. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 24 15:26:02 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:26:02 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> Message-ID: <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Johnny Billquist wrote: > On 2012-01-24 05:34, allison wrote: > >> Special note early RQDX2s must be in the last unoccupied slot, they do >> not pass the >> bus grant signals. > > As far as I can remember it's (only) the RQDX1 that have this problem, > but it applies to *all* RQDX1. Mmm, I agree, but a few "RQDX2s" on the second user market were actually field-modified RQDX1s (not necessarily by DEC) and some of those were reworked better than others, hence my quote marks; also sometimes boards are referred to incorrectly as RQDX2s just because they had an EPROM upgrade -- and that isn't sufficient to fix the bus grant problem, nor does it really make the board an RQDX2. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From pete at dunnington.plus.com Tue Jan 24 15:26:05 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:26:05 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <800464BF-5137-470F-8EF8-8DE3C6891BF6@gmail.com> References: <4F1E18E8.5010502@dunnington.plus.com> <4F1E6729.60208@dunnington.plus.com> <800464BF-5137-470F-8EF8-8DE3C6891BF6@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1F21ED.2030607@dunnington.plus.com> David Riley wrote: > On Jan 24, 2012, at 3:09 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > >> David Riley wrote: >> >>> I'll vouch for that. My backplane (I don't currently have a box) >>> is an H9273; the designers kindly left proper square wire-wrap >>> posts coming out the back. Updating to 22-bit was a very simple >>> operation with a manual wire-wrap tool, and everything appears to >>> work perfectly. If you do that, make sure you run your wires in >>> the same serpentine pattern as the bus! >> Are you sure yours was an H9273? Not H9270? I've never seen an >> H9273 with wirewrap pins, and H9273 is straight (Q18-CD), not >> serpentine. > > Ah, yes, that's what I mean. Momentary memory lapse, aided by the > fact that it's not marked on the thing anywhere I can see. Four > slots, right? Yup, that's it. 4x4 serpentine, usually found in a BA11-M. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:24:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:24:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: from "Jonathan Katz" at Jan 23, 12 05:32:05 pm Message-ID: > > All, > > I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? > > There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know > that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? > Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. If it's not obvious from opening the case and inspecting what this sockets are connected to, then I think I'd check the PSU, power up, and try a composite monitor on each socket in turn to see fi you get recognisable video. You will not damage either the machine or the monitor if you connect the latter to one of the tape sockets. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:25:13 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:25:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: P112 kits for sale In-Reply-To: <20120123223526.324C2B03062@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> from "Dennis Boone" at Jan 23, 12 05:35:26 pm Message-ID: > > How does the smt/through-hole discussion qualify as NOT hijacking > the P112 thread? It does, in the saem way yhat the HP9915 keyboard interface thread was hijacked into a discussion of USB keyboards. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:29:58 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:29:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120123151442.E348@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 23, 12 03:18:12 pm Message-ID: > > On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Hmm, have people on here ever found a *sensible* way of defining our > > interests such that it's obvious we're *not* interested in that x86 clone > > PC running Windows that you bought in 2002 and have just unearthed in your > > garage? > > Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)? > or "Pre August 1981"? There are, of course, many interesting machines that were designed or built after the IBM PC. Some of them even had 80c86 processors... > "Must NOT be Y2K compliant!" Actually, a fair numbero of vitnage computers don't have real time clocks at all (or a dated filesystem), so they have no concept of the year. Those are surely Y2K compliant. I think the simnplest solution is, alas, to look at anything offered. If it's of use (even if not a 'vintage' machine by any reasonable definition, then accept it with thanks. If it's not, then politely explain why it's not the sort of thing you collect, but do ask if there's anyything else around (at least once the donor has said 'Oh, I didn't think anyone would want that old stuff', and then been given a CP/M machine) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:31:38 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:31:38 +0000 (GMT) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1DEBEC.3090305@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Jan 23, 12 03:23:24 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > > When I mention to j-random-public that I am interested in old > > computers, I add 'And that doesn't mean 486 PCs'. > > "486 PCs"? People now think that an old computer is a Pentium 4 or Core > 2. The 486 must have been something used by the ancient Egyptians. Absolutley. But a 486 PC is stil ltoo modern to be of interest to me. Some people are truely amazed when I show them my earliest personal computer which is now nearly 40 years old. They are even more suprised when I flip the switch and it works. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:40:02 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:40:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1DEEF5.2020906@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 23, 12 06:36:21 pm Message-ID: > > That saiid, if I could find an HP signature analyser at a low price I'd > > probably add one to the collection, but I doubt i'd use it much. > > Don't try to repair a 3456a, then. ;) Take a look at the service > manual. There are schematics, but no firmware listings for the MC6800 I've seen HP service manuals that give signatures for various testpoint. They generally have a 'faultfinding' guide of the form 'If the signatature at pin 3 of U6 is not 23H7 then change U1, U8, U12, U24 in orde'. In otehr words they don't tell you exactly waht the fualt is and ovber half the time you'd have guessed it was likely to be one of those ICs (probably including the CPU, ROM and RAM) anyway I have a microprocessor-controlled HPIB extender for whaich the official manual gives signatures for various points. But there's also an undocumented (AFAIK) featuer to disable the CPU data buffer and force NOPs onto the data bus. That way you should get recognisable waveforms on the addres lines, chip sleects. etc. That's how I debug it. > and (I think) 8048 that controls everything, and no info on the custom > ICs, and on top of that, it's a damn complex instrument to wander around > in. I need to find that list of HP internal chip numbers. > > If HP had included better information in the service manual, this > wouldn't be an issue. And, oddly enough, this instrument dates from > squarely within the time when HP was publishing *excellent* service manuals. Some HP manauls are better htna others. In particular many of the computer nad desktop calculator manuals are pretty pointless. But since I've figured out how to fix some of those without any official technical info, I don't let the fact that they expect me to use a signature analyser to mean I have to use one :-) It's rare, alas, to get firmware listings in service manuals. A counterexample is the manaul for the 4-channel serial card in my P854, the manual for that has a commented source of the 8085 firmware. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:43:25 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:43:25 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1E0BE0.8040107@telus.net> from "John Robertson" at Jan 23, 12 05:39:44 pm Message-ID: > The advantage of the signature analyzer (SA) was you can deal with > circuits that have feedback loops more easilyand without the need to > fully understand the operation of the circuit. For example servicing And that is precisely why I don't like it. I feel you can only reapri something -- and know you've repaired it -- if you understnaf how it should work, know what it's acutally doing, and then figutre out what could cause the behaviour you're obseerving. Signature analysis doesn't seem to help with this. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 14:53:35 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:53:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: from "Jonathan Katz" at Jan 23, 12 08:58:25 pm Message-ID: > Thank you! I took it apart and figured out which line is the video, > but as I posted elsewhere, I need to find a 5V power supply. > I an't beelive the PSU for a singel-board machine of that vintage is goign to be very complicated. Can you not repari the existing PSU. Ah... I've gound it. I've got a Challenger 1P manual in front of me. The PSU scheamtic (on shet 12 of 13 of the system schematics) is clearly incorrect. It shows a centre-tapped transformer with the tap earthed feeding a bridge rectifier with the -ve side of the output also earthed. This effectively shorts out the transfomer with the diodes, which would blw eitherh te mians fuse or the diodes. I am goign to assuem the earth on the tap is an error, and that the transformer secodnary is not, in fact, tapped. If the PSU layout is to be lelieved, you should get about 8V across C1, this feeds a 3-termain regualtor off the PCBm the outout of that provides 5V to the rst of the machien via fuse F1. So, it is very simple, it should be trivial to fix. If yoyrs is actualyl a Superboard 2, then the PSU is external (the PSU locations o nthe PCB were not populated, I guess), it needs 5V at 3A. If you have the extisting PSU I can't believe it's complicated. -tony From oe5ewl at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 15:34:05 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:34:05 +0100 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong). Regards, Wolfgang -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/24 Ethan Dicks > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:30 AM, Dave McGuire > wrote: > > > > So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an > > old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying > > "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: > > > > IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition > > DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) > > DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs > > DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable > > DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise > > VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI > > A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > > Very nice. More reason for me to come out and visit. > > My 8300 still has a broken Unibus (UET module problems, I think), and > I have neither Unibus nor BI SCSI for it, just a KDB50. I'd also love > the chance to see a 36-bit machine up close again - been too many > years since I had my hand on that kind of iron. > > Cheers, > > -ethan > > From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 24 15:37:46 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:37:46 +0000 (GMT) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120124114519.F31675@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 24, 12 11:49:43 am Message-ID: > "What size disks does it use?" > 8" = 1975 - 1985 > 5.25" = 1978 - 1995 > 3.5" = 1983 - 2005 I;'ve lost count of the number of times a non-technical person has said 'those big floppy disks'. They mean 5.25", I think of 8" -tony From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 15:53:41 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:53:41 -0500 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F1F2865.6020003@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 11:40 AM, John Foust wrote: > At 02:04 PM 10/5/2011, I wrote: >> I had three 9-tracks I'd picked up a few years ago. None worked >> out of the box; they collected dust. Last weekend I knew I'd pass >> by http://www.comco-inc.com/ in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the few >> 9-track sales and service places I'd found. > > This fellow called me again today, out of the blue. > > In the year ahead, he hopes to sell his building and down-size, > focusing on the repair of smaller drives and dumping the bulk > of his 9-track business. It sounds like he has a bunch of > 88780-class 9-tracks that'll go to the scrapper. Damn. I wish he weren't in the middle of nowhere; I'd love to have a stack of those. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From oe5ewl at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 15:54:15 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:54:15 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: First: Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I learned a lot so far... Just a little report of work I've already done on the machine: The PSU is now on my workbench. It's not a completely write-off unit, I think repair is possible - further checkings are needed. Nearly all major Components were found in my parts-box - the rest is a matter of time and studying the schematics and lots of measuring. The boards and the backplane will be cleaned and inspected on next weekend but they look promising. One IC on the RL02 controller looks bad (bent pins, scratched top) but I should have a spare.... In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some missing screws in the chassis and last but not least wired up a nice load for the psu (had some huge resistors in my lab).... Any further suggestions, ideas, hints etc are as usually greatly appreciated. Regards, Wolfgang PS: Some of you may know that I am collecting PDP-11 Operating Systems. A Fellow from Russia will send me some Tapes of a DSM-11 Clone. These Tapes are 9track and my Drive is a total writeoff. Maybe someone of you could assist me in reading this Tapes (as far as I found out there are 2 Tapes)? Also any hints for surviving 9track Drives are appreciated - I'd really like to give one unit a good, clean home (I am located in Austria; but beware: due to the health care of my son I am a bit low on funds and hobby budget is somewhat limited, but with a little time we can work out a solution) -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/24 Pete Turnbull > Johnny Billquist wrote: > >> On 2012-01-24 05:34, allison wrote: >> >> Special note early RQDX2s must be in the last unoccupied slot, they do >>> not pass the >>> bus grant signals. >>> >> >> As far as I can remember it's (only) the RQDX1 that have this problem, >> but it applies to *all* RQDX1. >> > > Mmm, I agree, but a few "RQDX2s" on the second user market were actually > field-modified RQDX1s (not necessarily by DEC) and some of those were > reworked better than others, hence my quote marks; also sometimes boards > are referred to incorrectly as RQDX2s just because they had an EPROM > upgrade -- and that isn't sufficient to fix the bus grant problem, nor does > it really make the board an RQDX2. > > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 16:07:24 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:07:24 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <20120123151442.E348@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Jules Richardson wrote: >> Y'mean it's NOT... "Pre August 1981"? C-64. Announced Jan, 1982, started shipping Oct, 1982. >> "Must NOT be Y2K compliant!" > > Actually, a fair numbero of vitnage computers don't have real time clocks > at all (or a dated filesystem), so they have no concept of the year. C-64 (TI$ time-of-day string, but no date. No date or time on CBM DOS floppies, either). I don't think anyone could (successfully) argue that the C-64 isn't in play. -ethan From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 24 16:15:53 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:15:53 +0000 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1F20DE.2060408@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <4F1F20DE.2060408@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C20@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Dave McGuire Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:22 PM On 01/24/2012 12:38 PM, Henk Gooijen wrote: >> If you ever decide to ditch the TU45, I would be glad with two >> indicators (buttons?) on the top left side on the front. > Ohhh no, sorry, TU45s are really scarce now. I've gotta try to get > this one working. It's complete, just in pieces and in very poor > condition. Seriously unreliable beasts, in the experience of many DEC-20 shops. Old DEC FS joke: "Why don't TU45s make good boat anchors?" . . . V "Because they float intermittently!" Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 16:25:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:25:46 -0500 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1F2FEA.9000505@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 03:43 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> The advantage of the signature analyzer (SA) was you can deal with >> circuits that have feedback loops more easilyand without the need to >> fully understand the operation of the circuit. For example servicing > > And that is precisely why I don't like it. I feel you can only reapri > something -- and know you've repaired it -- if you understnaf how it > should work, know what it's acutally doing, and then figutre out what > could cause the behaviour you're obseerving. > > Signature analysis doesn't seem to help with this. I agree 100%. Last night I repaired an HP 5340A frequency counter and a Tek 7834 oscilloscope frame. (both glorious instruments) I had to trace through a fair amount of circuitry in both cases, and I learned a lot about both designs. In the "credit where credit is due" department, I had a kind assist on the 5340A from Dan Roganti who was here at the time. He kept telling me to look at the Range switch, and I kept saying it couldn't possibly be that switch contact making partial connection when it shouldn't have been...eventually I looked at it to shut him up, and sure enough, that was it! ;) It was holding the counter in reset. I now know how the control logic of the 5340A works. The 7834 frame had a 1M HV resistor on the focus power supply board that had failed open, putting a solid and uncontrollable 400V on the focusing grid. I now know how the focus power supply of the 7834 works...and what an amazing design the rest of it is. Holy cow, have you seen that scope?! In the case of the 3456A, though, it's an instrument from a working lab run by a friend of mine, and he lacks the budget to have it repaired, and I just want to get it working as quickly as possible to help my friend, by any method necessary. The alternative would be to loan him my beloved 3458A, but that beautiful instrument isn't leaving my sight! ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 16:34:10 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:34:10 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F1F31E2.60709@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 02:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:30 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >> So a brief truck trip to Maryland netted some really great stuff from an >> old friend. This is stuff I'd seen before, but he surprised me by saying >> "hey, bring a truck!" ...so I did, and here's what I came home with: >> >> IBM 029 keypunch station, complete and in excellent condition >> DECsystem-2020 (yes, another one!) >> DEC RM03 14" disk drive (aka CDC 9762), but sadly no disk packs >> DEC TU45 magtape drive, in pieces but likely repairable >> DEC LA120 printing terminal, dirty but in good shape otherwise >> VAX 8350 w/Unibus, Unibus SCSI, BI-bus SCSI, and CIBCI >> A few other DEC items, RL02, RX02, small PDP-11/23 system > > Very nice. More reason for me to come out and visit. Thank you! You are always welcome here. Come out and hack on some stuff! > My 8300 still has a broken Unibus (UET module problems, I think), and > I have neither Unibus nor BI SCSI for it, just a KDB50. I'd also love > the chance to see a 36-bit machine up close again - been too many > years since I had my hand on that kind of iron. Maybe we can get one running! I have this RM03 drive; not sure of its operational condition. If I can find a pack or two, maybe I can talk Rich Alderson or Mike Thompson into writing me a bootable pack and we can do some tasty TOPS-20 goodness. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From RichA at vulcan.com Tue Jan 24 16:43:00 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:43:00 +0000 Subject: Availability of 36-bit systems [was RE: new haul, serious goodies] Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Wolfgang Eichberger Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:34 PM > you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good > pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except > virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I > found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong). You can always play on our Tops-10 and TOPS-20 systems, which are assuredly very real hardware. Just use the "Request a Login" button on our home page at http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ to sign up for free accounts. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 16:44:30 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:44:30 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 04:28 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > I still wonder about the size of your barn...eh...house :oO Well if you mean by "house" you mean "place where I sleep", that's currently a 400 square foot (no typo there) apartment. Right around the corner from that, though, is where my waking hours are spent, and that's a 14,000 square foot (no typo there either) building with three-phase power. One nice side effect of the demise of American small business and American manufacturing is the unbelievably cheap commercial property that anyone can just walk up and buy. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From drb at msu.edu Tue Jan 24 16:47:54 2012 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:47:54 -0500 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:25:59 EST.) <0661D49A-FAA9-4B2B-8A27-8F474036484E@gmail.com> References: <0661D49A-FAA9-4B2B-8A27-8F474036484E@gmail.com> <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120124224754.0B195B02F2D@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > That's certainly my last resort. I wish there were a more standardized > format for binary patches (I don't think a universal diff will cover it, > except for the case of hex files). Would definitely be nice if there was a more standardized format. In the absence of that, pick a tool that's relatively widely available (xdelta, maybe?) and use it. Or write two trivial programs, one to dump a file in hex, and one to read such a hex dump and turn it back into a binary file. Then you can distribute garden variety text diffs, and the source code for the two little programs. De From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 16:47:27 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:47:27 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1F34FF.60205@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 04:37 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> "What size disks does it use?" >> 8" = 1975 - 1985 >> 5.25" = 1978 - 1995 >> 3.5" = 1983 - 2005 > > I;'ve lost count of the number of times a non-technical person has said > 'those big floppy disks'. They mean 5.25", I think of 8" Yeah, I chuckle at those people with no idea of scale as well, although it really isn't their fault that they haven't been exposed to it. A few months ago I got all excited when a friend told me about this "ABSOLUTELY HUGE!" hard drive that he'd found in a warehouse and had secured for me. I was envisioning a CDC 9766, and what I got was a Maxtor 4380E. I appreciated it anyway, though, because I have several Emulex MD21s. =) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 17:01:33 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:01:33 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good > pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except > virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I > found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong). I used them as a CompuServe service (CIS) user in the 1980s, watched one (CompuServe's CIVIC node) through the glass at our local science museum (COSI) where I was a high-school volunteer, hung out with some of the DEC-20 crowd while attending Ohio State, and finally _at_ CompuServe, in 1994-1995 as a contractor, then 2002-2003 as an employee, used them for work. Never in all that time did I get closer than the other side of the glass to the hardware. Plenty of time on 12-32 bit DEC gear, but never 36. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 24 17:11:01 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:11:01 -0700 Subject: PSU test load (was: My PDP11/23 arrived...) In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: In article , Wolfgang Eichberger writes: > In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some > missing screws in the chassis and last but not least wired up a nice load > for the psu (had some huge resistors in my lab).... Speaking of wiring up test load resistors for a PSU, just exactly how do you go about deciding what resistance and what power rating to use for a test load? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 17:27:57 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:27:57 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1F31E2.60709@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <4F1F31E2.60709@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 5:34 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/24/2012 02:45 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> Very nice. ?More reason for me to come out and visit. > > ?Thank you! ?You are always welcome here. ?Come out and hack on some stuff! I will hopefully be able to carve out some time this year! > ?Maybe we can get one running! ?I have this RM03 drive; not sure of its > operational condition. ?If I can find a pack or two, maybe I can talk Rich > Alderson or Mike Thompson into writing me a bootable pack and we can do some > tasty TOPS-20 goodness. I have some experience with repair on RM03s, but no parts. When Software Results closed (nearly 20 years ago), in addition to having no room for the TU78 or the 8530 (lack of suitable power in a residential area helped steer that decision), there was no room for the RK07s nor the RM03s. (but I did rescue the 11/750, the 8300, several PDP-11s, and lots, lots more). If you haven't gotten it spinning by then, I can certainly see about casting an eye on your RM03. -ethan From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 24 17:45:20 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:45:20 -0700 Subject: Availability of 36-bit systems [was RE: new haul, serious goodies] In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: In article <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A at 505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>, Rich Alderson writes: > From: Wolfgang Eichberger > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:34 PM > > > you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good > > pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except > > virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I > > found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong). > > You can always play on our Tops-10 and TOPS-20 systems, which are > assuredly very real hardware. Just use the "Request a Login" button on > our home page at http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ to sign up for > free accounts. ...and visit them in person when you're in Seattle. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From teoz at neo.rr.com Tue Jan 24 17:46:58 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:46:58 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <97B28001AE8E48A88FD7D49B5040CE02@dell8300> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave McGuire" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 5:44 PM Subject: Re: new haul, serious goodies > On 01/24/2012 04:28 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I still wonder about the size of your barn...eh...house :oO > > Well if you mean by "house" you mean "place where I sleep", that's > currently a 400 square foot (no typo there) apartment. Right around the > corner from that, though, is where my waking hours are spent, and that's a > 14,000 square foot (no typo there either) building with three-phase power. > > One nice side effect of the demise of American small business and > American manufacturing is the unbelievably cheap commercial property that > anyone can just walk up and buy. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA I would think maintaining a 14K SQFT commercial building would get pricey after a while especially if it is old. From cctech at vax-11.org Tue Jan 24 17:51:16 2012 From: cctech at vax-11.org (cctech at vax-11.org) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:51:16 -0700 (MST) Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> Message-ID: The correct option would be to contact Silicon Image, Inc. (who purchased CMD Technology, Inc. in June of 2001) and ask for them for permission to publish the image files. Clint On Mon, 23 Jan 2012, David Riley wrote: > A while back, I mentioned that I'd found and potentially fixed the "bricking" problem with the CQD-220. > > To recap, for those that werent following, the problem lies in the code for the on-board 8086 when you set the number of both disks and tapes to zero. The 8086, during its routine to load the values from the EEPROM, loads the total number of disks and tapes and executes a loop with a counter predecrement; if the counter is loaded as 0, it effectively runs through the loop 256 times instead of 7 (the max), which spins out of control and blows away some RAM somewhere before crashing. > > Fortunately, through a compiler bug or some such, there are 5 bytes available from a totally redundant instruction (loading a value into a register where the same value is already loaded) in just the right place to test the total number of devices and jump to the "uninitialized device table in EEPROM" section of the routine if it is zero. With one byte to spare! (good thing NOP is only a byte in 8086) > > This applies to the A7A revision of the ROM, anyway; I haven't gotten to the A8 version yet, though I know it exhibits the same bug. Hopefully it also has the same redundant instruction. In any case, I should be able to find and fix it quickly once I have the time, because I know where to look. > > So, here's the thing; I've finally gotten the time to test the fixed ROM image (was temporarily short of 27256 chips, but that's been resolved) and I'd like to get the fixed images somewhere they'll be easy to find if anyone else runs into the same problem (this took me over a year of sporadic attention to fix). Does anyone know where I should post this? There's my own website, which is really not a thing anymore, but there are probably lots of places Google is more likely to find. > > Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. > > Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix. > > > The images are only 64K total, so I shouldn't imagine they'll be bandwidth intensive. > > > - Dave > > From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 18:33:31 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:33:31 -0500 Subject: PSU test load (was: My PDP11/23 arrived...) In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <2018D7EE-2C46-4E90-BCB7-23CBA6D5771F@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 6:11 PM, Richard wrote: > In article , > Wolfgang Eichberger writes: > >> In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some >> missing screws in the chassis and last but not least wired up a nice load >> for the psu (had some huge resistors in my lab).... > > Speaking of wiring up test load resistors for a PSU, just exactly how > do you go about deciding what resistance and what power rating to use > for a test load? I start with the current required. If there's a minimum load current specified, I'll start from that and go up, otherwise anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 the maximum current specified. From there I figure out what resistance I'll need for the voltage rail operating normally, and then spec a resistance (sometimes multiple series or parallel elements) which can withstand from 3-10x the power dissipation (especially in case the supply is wildly out of spec on the voltage). I have some dummy load resistors for tube amp power supplies that are like small ceramic paper towel rolls with wire wrapped around them (the 8 ohm one for the speaker load is especially impressive, though since it's fairly reactive, it's also not a great speaker load). They're rated at something like 150 watts, and I think even that might be with forced air through them if you're running them longer than about a minute (which I don't). - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 18:35:27 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:35:27 -0500 Subject: Availability of 36-bit systems [was RE: new haul, serious goodies] In-Reply-To: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: On Jan 24, 2012, at 5:43 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: > From: Wolfgang Eichberger > Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 1:34 PM > >> you're right, Ethan. Playing with a real 36bit Machine would be a good >> pleasure. Personally, I never had the chance to work on one - except >> virtual ones. It'd be great to see one in action - live, but as far as I >> found out nothing survived here in Austria (correct me if I am wrong). > > You can always play on our Tops-10 and TOPS-20 systems, which are > assuredly very real hardware. Just use the "Request a Login" button on > our home page at http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ to sign up for > free accounts. I'll vouch for the fact that this is pretty cool; I set up accounts on the TOPS-10 and -20 systems a few years ago, and the VAX-11/785 about a month ago. Really neat stuff! Lots more exciting than playing with SIMH, though that's fun in its own right. - Dave From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 18:40:58 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:40:58 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> Sam Onella wrote: > Eventually we'll all be > kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based > electronics. I don't agree there; my guess is that "current" tech of the future will nearly always have some form of emulation/VM software available to allow the PC software of today to run - and if at some point that's not the case, then the time that it stops being true is the time to take a snapshot of the available hardware of the day. I can't see the point in rescuing a modern 3GHz PC that runs Windows XP (say) when I could just as well wait a handful of years and rescue a 2 year old 10GHz PC that will happily run XP in a VM at a faster rate than the 3GHz system. Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. I really can't see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years and wishing I had one. There's just nothing 'cool' about them, no nostalgia value; they're just beige boxes that crunch numbers. They don't even have ports any more that are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of the 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want. Sure, I bet there are some niche bits of hardware out there that are pretty neat and worth saving - but the 'commodity' stuff is just boring, will always be boring, and for the foreseeable future will be succeeded by machines that are just faster versions of the boring hardware of today. Right, well that's me thoroughly depressed... ;-) cheers Jules From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 18:37:58 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:37:58 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 5:44 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/24/2012 04:28 AM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I still wonder about the size of your barn...eh...house :oO > > Well if you mean by "house" you mean "place where I sleep", that's currently a 400 square foot (no typo there) apartment. Right around the corner from that, though, is where my waking hours are spent, and that's a 14,000 square foot (no typo there either) building with three-phase power. > > One nice side effect of the demise of American small business and American manufacturing is the unbelievably cheap commercial property that anyone can just walk up and buy. Especially that close to Pittsburgh, I would imagine so! I lived in Morgantown briefly (not recommended), and there was so much empty space and abandoned factories/warehouses out that way. Interesting, and sad in a lot of ways, but certainly an opportunity. :-) - Dave From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jan 24 18:41:30 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:41:30 -0700 Subject: PSU test load In-Reply-To: <2018D7EE-2C46-4E90-BCB7-23CBA6D5771F@gmail.com> References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> <2018D7EE-2C46-4E90-BCB7-23CBA6D5771F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1F4FBA.9050401@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/24/2012 5:33 PM, David Riley wrote: > > I start with the current required. If there's a minimum load current > specified, I'll start from that and go up, otherwise anywhere from > 1/4 to 1/2 the maximum current specified. From there I figure out > what resistance I'll need for the voltage rail operating normally, > and then spec a resistance (sometimes multiple series or parallel > elements) which can withstand from 3-10x the power dissipation > (especially in case the supply is wildly out of spec on the > voltage). How would you test a AC load, say for Disc Drive for example with a power on sequence? > I have some dummy load resistors for tube amp power supplies that are > like small ceramic paper towel rolls with wire wrapped around them > (the 8 ohm one for the speaker load is especially impressive, though > since it's fairly reactive, it's also not a great speaker load). Come Now, all speakers I can think of is reactive. > They're rated at something like 150 watts, and I think even that > might be with forced air through them if you're running them longer > than about a minute (which I don't). What your ears are rated at is a better rating. > - Dave > > > > From eric at brouhaha.com Tue Jan 24 18:51:47 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:51:47 -0800 Subject: PSU test load In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F1F5223.8040003@brouhaha.com> Richard wrote: > Speaking of wiring up test load resistors for a PSU, just exactly how > do you go about deciding what resistance and what power rating to use > for a test load? For a basic test, where we just want to verify that the PSU works properly near its maximum rated load: rated voltage = E rated current = I resistor value = R = E/I resistor wattage = P = E*I = E^2/R For instance, for a 5.2V 35A power supply, R = 5.2/35 = 0.149 ohms. We aren't going to find an actual 0.149 ohm resistor, but rounding up a bit we can find 0.15 ohm. With that, I = E/R = 5.2/0.15 = 34.67A, near the maximum rated current, and P = (5.2^2)/0.15 = 180.27W. Note that we have to bolt that resistor to a good heatsink, and provide force air cooling, to prevent it from burning up. A 0.15 ohm 200W resistor is roughly 2" diameter by 3" long, which is not much volume (or surface area) for 181W of heat. We can buy a chassis-mount 0.15 ohm 200W resistor from Mouser Electronics, but it costs $46, and that resistor probably won't be of much use to us for anything other than testing that particular power supply. We might be better off buying more resistors of a more common value and paralleling them, or buying a variable resistor. With variable resistors (rheostats) we have to be careful, because the power dissipation rating is at the maximum resistance, and for lower resistance we have to linearly derate the power. For instance, we could try using a 225W 1 ohm variable resistor, but when we set the tap at 0.15 ohms, we now have to derate the power to only 33.75W. That won't meet our requirements. Suppose instead we parallel 33 5 ohm resistors. That gives us an overall resistance of 0.152 ohms, and power dissipation of 5.2W each. We can use resistors that cost us $0.93 each. In total, that is $30.69. We haven't saved much money over the single resistor, and now we have to expend more effort in wiring the resistors up to form the load, but it's far more likely that we'll be able to reuse those resistors for a different power supply load in the future. To do "serious" power supply testing, we would need to measure line regulation and load regulation. For load regulation measurement, we can put a solid-state relay in series with some of our parallel resistors, so that we can near instantaneously change the load current (load step), and watch the supply voltage change on an oscilliscope. Lyle Bickley and I built the test loads for the DEC 728 power supplies of the PDP-1. We did not test line regulation and load regulation for step response; we just tested the power supply under four different load conditions, and measured the DC voltage, RMS ripple, and peak-to-peak ripple of each output under each of the four load conditions, with a variac on the input at 105V, 115V, and 125V. Testing the 728 is complicated by the fact that it is a dual output supply, providing +10V and -15V. There is a maximum current rating for each output, but there is also a maximum overall power, such that one cannot draw the maximum current from both outputs simultaneous. We built the load box with a rotary switch to select load combinations of: +10V at 0.2A, -15V at 0A +10V at 7.5A, -15V at 0A +10V at 0.2A, -15V at 8.5A +10V at 2.0A, -15V at 7.0A Eric From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 24 18:47:49 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:47:49 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <97B28001AE8E48A88FD7D49B5040CE02@dell8300> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <97B28001AE8E48A88FD7D49B5040CE02@dell8300> Message-ID: On Jan 24, 2012, at 6:46 PM, "TeoZ" wrote: > I would think maintaining a 14K SQFT commercial building would get pricey after a while especially if it is old. Not terribly, if properly researched and chosen. It's just like anything else in that regard, just a whole lot better built...which only works in your favor. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 24 19:05:55 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:05:55 -0700 Subject: Availability of 36-bit systems [was RE: new haul, serious goodies] In-Reply-To: References: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F3C6A@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> Message-ID: In article , David Riley writes: > Lots more exciting than playing with SIMH, [...] The best thing is that you don't have to figure out where to get tape images, how to setup SIMH, etc. You just telnet and *bang* you're in the environment. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 19:08:06 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:08:06 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Jules Richardson wrote: > Sam Onella wrote: >> >> Eventually we'll all be >> kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based >> electronics. > > > I don't agree there; I concur. > my guess is that "current" tech of the future will > nearly always have some form of emulation/VM software available to allow the > PC software of today to run Yep. We are largely there already. > Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. I really can't > see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years and wishing I had one. Perhaps there will be certain, specific models that are for some reason interesting, but 99%? Nope. > There's just nothing 'cool' about them, no nostalgia value; they're just > beige boxes that crunch numbers. True, anymore. > They don't even have ports any more that > are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of the > 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want. There's where I do keep a few machines around - I do twiddle stuff that needs real serial ports (110 bps anyone?) and real parallel ports (bit-banged devices hung off of "printer" ports) and SCSI. > Sure, I bet there are some niche bits of hardware out there that are pretty > neat and worth saving - but the 'commodity' stuff is just boring, will > always be boring, and for the foreseeable future will be succeeded by > machines that are just faster versions of the boring hardware of today. I'm in a mild conundrum about a piece I ran across while cleaning up just last night. I dug out some flavor of slow Pentium-1 board, slow enough it has a heat sink, not a fan, and while the board is plenty fast enough for a dedicated purpose I'd like to put it to (Daphne engine to run Dragon's Lair and Space Ace), unfortunately, some time in the past, the NiCd battery leaked and I removed it. The damage must have been not visible at the time, but there sure are damaged traces now. I can't imagine spending a lot of time on a Socket 5 board to get it to work, OTOH, all the "recent" hardware wants massive heat sinks, fans, lacks ports, etc. So I doubt I'l put much effort into repairing a Socket 5 board with an SiS chipset, but I could use a pre-1999 board to take its place. So... old and semi-boring, but not exactly interchangable with "new" gear. In a sense, it's taking desktop hardware and making an embedded project out of it, so that _adds_ interest. -ethan From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 24 19:15:50 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:15:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201250115.UAA03850@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. [...] Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64 and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today, they're much sought after. If it turns out you're right that commodity computers ten years from now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after nostalgia items. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 19:28:49 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:28:49 -0500 Subject: PSU test load In-Reply-To: <4F1F4FBA.9050401@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> <2018D7EE-2C46-4E90-BCB7-23CBA6D5771F@gmail.com> <4F1F4FBA.9050401@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <8D91E431-B74F-4715-8AF9-5FA118C3A81B@gmail.com> On Jan 24, 2012, at 7:41 PM, ben wrote: > How would you test a AC load, say for Disc Drive for example > with a power on sequence? Well, that's more than I've usually had to test. I'd have to think harder about that if I had to test motors. I've certainly done power sequencing for actual projects before (we had an AMC board which had 6 core voltage rails and a handful more I/O that had to be sequenced quite exactly, which was less than fun). I would imagine the same principles apply, just using pass FETs or relays to turn on the loads. Or, if you're looking to make sure the supplies come up in the right order, that's what a multi-channel scope is for. :-) > Come Now, all speakers I can think of is reactive. Agreed! But a wirewound resistor doesn't react like a speaker does, and for general amp testing (at least for power measurement), it's best to have as non-reactive a load as possible. Fidelity testing, conversely, should be done with a live speaker load hooked up (and ideally not at max volume). > What your ears are rated at is a better rating. Most of the dummy loads that size I have are actually for the power supplies to make sure they'll actually pump 150W, not the speaker circuitry. But yes, I wouldn't be testing my 150W guitar amp at full volume in my work area, or indeed anything less than at least a large warehouse. - Dave From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 19:32:39 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:32:39 +0000 Subject: Does anyone have any use for UltraSCSI hard disks? Message-ID: Not sure if SCSI-3 is too modern. I have some plain ol' SCSI2 ones going up soon, too. Anyway, I have just listed a couple of ST19171W drives on the Bay of E: items 270900073846 & 270900074301, I believe. Please excuse the pimping - just thought someone might be interested. Opening price, 99p. (A buck fifty, roughly.) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jan 24 20:08:03 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:08:03 +0000 Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1F6403.9060804@philpem.me.uk> On 24/01/12 20:40, Tony Duell wrote: > I've seen HP service manuals that give signatures for various testpoint. > They generally have a 'faultfinding' guide of the form 'If the > signatature at pin 3 of U6 is not 23H7 then change U1, U8, U12, U24 in > orde'. I have a DIY spectrum analyser article that a friend photocopied for me. Under "Aligning the IF1 filter", it reads: First, obtain a calibrated spectrum analyser with matching calibrated tracking generator. Humm. So I need a spectrum analyser to make a spectrum analyser? I figured you could use a homebrew swept-frequency generator, an ADI logarithmic amplifier (in datasheet 'RF power meter' configuration), a scope and a few junkbox parts to align it for about ?35... > In otehr words they don't tell you exactly waht the fualt is and > ovber half the time you'd have guessed it was likely to be one of those > ICs (probably including the CPU, ROM and RAM) anyway I'd test with the scope (because it's permanently set up on my bench anyway) then dig in with a bus-sniffer and the logic analyser. I prefer looking at symptoms and working back to probable cause. If I can justify the time taken to set up the probes, I'll rig up the logic analyser and sniff the CPU bus. The HP 16700's Inverse Assembler feature really is the mutt's nuts. Total overkill for most things though. > Some HP manauls are better htna others. In particular many of the > computer nad desktop calculator manuals are pretty pointless. But since > I've figured out how to fix some of those without any official technical > info, I don't let the fact that they expect me to use a signature > analyser to mean I have to use one :-) Now why does this statement make me think of the "SX Engine Schematic Set, A.R. Duell Special Edition" as a prime example? :) -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From ajp166 at verizon.net Tue Jan 24 20:36:24 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:36:24 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1F6AA8.6090304@verizon.net> On 01/24/2012 08:08 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 7:40 PM, Jules Richardson > wrote: >> Sam Onella wrote: >>> Eventually we'll all be >>> kicking ourselves for not hanging on the Xeon and 2000 based >>> electronics. >> >> I don't agree there; > I concur. Same here. PCs are meh! I have several 486/dx66 but they only exist as they can run old bus cards and that is useful but not for historical reasons. > Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. I really > can't >> see myself looking back in ten or fifteen years and wishing I had one. > Perhaps there will be certain, specific models that are for some > reason interesting, but 99%? Nope. > Agreed but I do have one oddity of the DOS era, a Tandy HX1000 because it's odd mostly and useless. > >> They don't even have ports any more that >> are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / SCSI etc. on ones of the >> 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits and "do stuff" if I want. > There's where I do keep a few machines around - I do twiddle stuff > that needs real serial ports (110 bps anyone?) and real parallel ports > (bit-banged devices hung off of "printer" ports) and SCSI. > Hence the older 486 pizza box, a K2/450 I ran NT4 on and a 386sx25 mini format board that works but I haven't tossed for some odd reason. They still exist mostly as they can take the ISA cards like IEEE-488, National process IO cards, or simple bus level interfaces. They are all utility boards/boxes. One of the 486s runs boards to do eprom programming, another board for logic analyser, and that sort of stuff. Since they are useful they exist otherwise they would be in PC junk heaven. > So... old and semi-boring, but not exactly interchangable with "new" > gear. In a sense, it's taking desktop hardware and making an embedded > project out of it, so that _adds_ interest. > The biggest reason for having old PCs is to run old hardware that can't plug into the new and may not be available in USB or whatever port is there now. Compared to every other computer I have PCs have been expendable and like a hacksaw blades mostly useless when they are too slow or so unsupported by reasonable OSs that are useful. PCs to me fall out as they have mostly broken the 10year rule. While in 10 years they have gotten faster and cheaper they have generally gotten no more interesting save for being tools. They have gotten so much more complex that understanding one completely is pointless as the standards they are based on are likely in the class of, lagging the implementation, if you can get them. That and if you can buy the machine its already obsolete and the software barely fully uses its features yet. Then there is software. DOS was really all there was , then win3.1, or OS2, then the win9x and NT and finally I got off that wagon for Linux. At least linux still has the same command line as my PDP11 running unix V6 and oddly it's useful still. In short PCs are not fun. Allison From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jan 24 20:46:41 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:46:41 -0500 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <201201241718.q0OHI8cT055819@billy.ezwind.net> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> <96208EE5-3788-404A-A705-6A577903F1A9@gmail.com> <201201241718.q0OHI8cT055819@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F1F6D11.1070806@compsys.to> >John Foust wrote: >A few minutes after I wrote that, I found Al Kossow's project: > >http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/ > >It uses an IBM 3480 head. > >What's the latest on that project, Al? > >Is my faulty memory also remembering that Jerome Fine did something >like this once upon a time? > The only tapes I have EVER used were the TK50 and TK70, in particular the TK70 which I actually used for backups for about 5 years until I acquired a few Sony SMO S-501 magneto optical drives and media. Well, I did bring home a 9 track about 15 years ago, but I never used it since I only had one. I did not consider it to be reasonable to depend on a single point of failure in respect of using it for backups. I still have the Sony SMO S-501 drives and media, along with the TK50 and TK70 and media, but the 9 track tape drive is long gone. Jerome Fine From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jan 24 20:47:04 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:47:04 -0500 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F1F6D28.6090105@compsys.to> >Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: >First: Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I learned a lot so >far... > >Just a little report of work I've already done on the machine: > >The PSU is now on my workbench. It's not a completely write-off unit, I >think repair is possible - further checkings are needed. Nearly all major >Components were found in my parts-box - the rest is a matter of time and >studying the schematics and lots of measuring. > >The boards and the backplane will be cleaned and inspected on next weekend >but they look promising. One IC on the RL02 controller looks bad (bent >pins, scratched top) but I should have a spare.... > >In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some >missing screws in the chassis and last but not least wired up a nice load >for the psu (had some huge resistors in my lab).... > >Any further suggestions, ideas, hints etc are as usually greatly >appreciated. > >Regards, > Wolfgang > >PS: Some of you may know that I am collecting PDP-11 Operating Systems. A >Fellow from Russia will send me some Tapes of a DSM-11 Clone. These Tapes >are 9track and my Drive is a total writeoff. Maybe someone of you could >assist me in reading this Tapes (as far as I found out there are 2 Tapes)? >Also any hints for surviving 9track Drives are appreciated - I'd really >like to give one unit a good, clean home (I am located in Austria; but >beware: due to the health care of my son I am a bit low on funds and hobby >budget is somewhat limited, but with a little time we can work out a >solution) > >-- >Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL >Operating System Collector >Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com >Homepage: www.eichberger.org > If you are interested in RT-11 binary distributions: http://www.classiccmp.org/PDP-11/RT-11/dists/ If you need help, please ask. The ISO files (after they are unzipped) are meant to be used as CD images. They can be used directly under SIMH, but it is STRONGLY suggested that the be keep as READ ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!! So either burn the ISO images to a CD and boot the CD on a real PDP-11 (MSCP SCSI host adapter required) or run SIMH and: ATTACH RQ0: RT11DV10.ISO SET RQ0: NOWRITE or something like that. Usually, I use Ersatz-11 which uses: MOUNT DUA0: RT11DV10.ISO /RONLY SET CPU 83 BOOT DUA0: Jerome Fine From alhartman at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 21:30:21 2012 From: alhartman at yahoo.com (Al Hartman) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:30:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1327462221.92923.YahooMailNeo@web161905.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> The eBay seller never shipped the Model III I won on eBay after 11 days, so I requested a refund. I left negative feedback (his third in a year) and he got nasty. I told him that not shipping an item that was paid for wasn't deserving of any but negative feedback. He felt that not shipping the item and refunding m money was a positive transaction... *sigh!* Model III's and 4s are selling from between $400 and $2400 on eBay. These sellers are mad. I can't say how many Model III's I saw at the old TCF flea markets for $25.00, stacked 3 or 4 deep. Wish I had bought one... My Model I is still toast, and my LNW-80 is too big and heavy to setup and use given my tiny working space. If not for the need to read/write 5.25" floppies, I'd use a small footprint PC and an emulator. The only 5.25" USB solution (http://shop.deviceside.com/prod/FC5025) is read-only, It doesn't support TRS-80 Model I/III/4 formats in any event. I enjoy seeing all these classic computer re-implementations like Vince Briel's Replica I, or the DTV C-64 joystick... I wish someone would reimplement a TRS-80 Model I/III/4 in a chip, like the DTV. There's nothing special about the Model I really, other than maybe the WDC disk controller chip. The Model III is little different, it's only the Model 4 with Hi-res graphics and such where it gets more complicated. A fellow in Australia wrote to me years ago that he was working on one, but I never heard back from him. in the early 90's there was a board that basically replaced the Model I system board and put a full Model III in the case. It was called a "Trash Compactor." I wish I had bought one on those... If anyone knows of such a project, let me know. Or, if you know of a Model I, III or 4?(preferred in reverse order) in the mid-New Jersey area available for sale or trade at a price someone on a fixed income can afford. I would have thought SOMEONE would have made a universal USB to floppy drive adapter that one could use to add a 5.25" drive (or a 3.5") like all of the ATA/SATA adapters out there. I'll keep checking eBay for a machine, I found the LNW-80 (only a Model I, not the Model II which has CP/M and 80 columns) after searching a long time. So, I haven't given up hope. Thanks! Al Hartman Keansburg, NJ From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Tue Jan 24 21:46:55 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:46:55 +0200 Subject: CMD CQD-220 ROM fixes In-Reply-To: <0661D49A-FAA9-4B2B-8A27-8F474036484E@gmail.com> References: <3A825CF4-DBE4-4C06-AC0F-FFB4279B1746@gmail.com> <0661D49A-FAA9-4B2B-8A27-8F474036484E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F1F7B2F.7070408@conus.info> On 1/24/2012 9:25 PM, David Riley wrote: >>> Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things. >> >> You can get around copyright issues by publishing just the change you made (i.e. change bytes xxx-yyy to blah). The change is your original work, and you have every right to publish it. People that need the changes will have the affected ROM, so they can read it out, apply your change and burn a new one. > > That's certainly my last resort. I wish there were a more standardized format for binary patches (I don't think a universal diff will cover it, except for the case of hex files). That question discussed: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/688504/binary-diff-tool-for-very-large-files From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 24 22:01:36 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:01:36 -0500 Subject: Does anyone have any use for UltraSCSI hard disks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F1F7EA0.4010002@telegraphics.com.au> On 24/01/12 8:32 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > Not sure if SCSI-3 is too modern. I have some plain ol' SCSI2 ones > going up soon, too. > > Anyway, I have just listed a couple of ST19171W drives on the Bay of > E: items 270900073846& 270900074301, I believe. Please excuse the > pimping - just thought someone might be interested. Opening price, > 99p. (A buck fifty, roughly.) > YES! I'll take your 50 pin! I'd take the wider ones too, but maybe not shipped from UK. kind regards --Toby From searetcompsoc at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 22:05:05 2012 From: searetcompsoc at gmail.com (SRCS Admin) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:05:05 -0800 Subject: Seattle Retro-Computing Society's 1st 2012 meeting: Sat. Jan. 28th Message-ID: Come one, come all, to the Seattle Retro-Computing Society's first monthly meeting of 2012! It will be held Saturday, January 28th from 11:30 AM to 5:00 PM (please note our new, later starting time). Do you do any of the following with old computers? Will you be near Seattle on Saturday? + Use, collect, and/or restore them + Play games on them + Write programs for them + Develop new hardware for them + Help other people do any of the above If your answer was "yes," then the SRCS is for you! We exist so you can show off your awesome stuff, bounce ideas off of fellow enthusiasts, and be inspired by one another's achievements, plans and aspirations. No idea is too big or too small, and we're not picky about what flavor of vintage machine you prefer! Come on down and tell us about it! The meetings are graciously hosted by the Living Computer Museum, which is gradually fitting out a computer museum in Seattle's SODO neighborhood. There will be refreshments, a Buy-Sell-Free-Trade table, and enough table space & power to set up anything you may want to show off! For further details, please see our web page at http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/ and our mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/seattle-retrocomp . Hope to see you there! Gordon "gsteemso" Steemson SRCS agitator-in-chief -- The Seattle Retro-Computing Society http://www.seattleretrocomputing.com/ From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 22:08:48 2012 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:08:48 -0600 Subject: DEC terminals for New England Digital Synclavier II In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've just gotten back from surgury and am still on some pretty heavy meds,but I think the VT100 only came in white. The only options I can remember are the AVO, PPO, 110/220v, and possibly the WPS kybd. The white, green amber came with the 220 a,b,c and d,e,f., Vr201 and the 330 Which I have a few new ones yet. Thanks, Paul On 1/23/12, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> > The genuine VT100 has a white phosphor IIRC, but the VT640 I >> > say had a green phosphor CRT fitted. >> >> All the DEC CRT terminals were available with customers choice of >> green, white, or amber CRT's. Probably some other phosphors I didn't see >> too. > > OK, that I didn't know, having never had the chance to buy a new terminal... > > All the VT1xx's I've seen have had white phoophor. As have all VT220s > that I've seen. I think over hear VT3xx's were commonly amber. > > >> >> The default phosphor was white for the VT100. My distant memory tells >> me that VT100-LC was the order code for the green phosphor I liked best >> (P31, long glow?). > > I can understnad why yyou'd like that, I am using such a monitor at the > momnent (IBM 5151). But I'll bet if you turned 'smnooth scroll' on, it > was pretty unpleasant... Actually, was smooth scroll useful for anything > otyher than turning on on the terminals used by lusers who didn't know > how to turn it off? > > -tony > > From emu at e-bbes.com Wed Jan 25 00:47:54 2012 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emu at e-bbes.com) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:47:54 +0100 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> Zitat von Jules Richardson : > they're just beige boxes that crunch numbers. They don't even have > ports any more that are really useful to me (unlike serial / parallel / > SCSI etc. on ones of the 80s and 90s) where I can easily twiddle bits > and "do stuff" if I want. IMHO, that's the real point. You can't attach any "old" stuff to them anymore, so we all have our '486 in the garage to copy/test floppies/tapes/drives. Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many terrabytes of diskspace to boot win 10/11, but effectively, all the data is in the cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot something which interprets the data you're getting from the internet and send it back, while your data is located in a big data center somewhere else. Didn't we call them terminals back then? ;-) From michael.99.thompson at gmail.com Tue Jan 24 19:43:33 2012 From: michael.99.thompson at gmail.com (Michael Thompson) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:43:33 -0500 Subject: DEC Application Note AP-M-017 Message-ID: Does anyone have a copy of the DEC Application Note AP-M-017 for the M730 and M731 bus interface modules? -- Michael Thompson From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 21:42:24 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:42:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1327462944.92959.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: David Riley Yes, that's actually why I typically take in older PCs (old enough that they don't have all that functionality integrated on the motherboard).? That, and occasionally I get a 286, 386 or 486 which I can use for hobby projects (less and less these days, though). C: Remember 486s can be used for imaging w/ImageDisk. ?No one should rule out the more interesting vanilla pc clones. If it was made before 85, it's a win in my book. The earlier you go the rarer they are. Most people know that you can tell the age of the mobo by looking at the dates on the chips. For instance 8427 means it was manufactured in the 27th week of 1984. Of course you need to know how to distinguish part codes from date codes. 8253 naturally could be a date code, but statistically it's bound to be a programmable timer, present on every pc or even pseudo pc in existence I would have to guess. ?I spied a hacked up (literally) 5160 on display in some guy's window (he was relocating). I got that and other stuff for 25$ (probably could have payed less, but I needed some part of that "haul" for something and wasn't in the mood to haggle). Also obtained an Advanced Micro Technology "AT junior". Sadly mine was made after IBM forced them to drop the use of _that_ name, and also stop using a diminutive Charlie Chan in their ads (turns out more then one vendor was doing that) and externally it is rebadged the AMT junior. But the BIOS screen loads up as "AT junior". So for me, it was a score. Fun. And illustrative of a lesser known nugget of peecee history. You gotta be in the know to recognize some stuff. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 21:47:30 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:47:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120123151442.E348@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <20120123151442.E348@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1327463250.61868.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Fred Cisin Y'mean it's NOT "10 years old" (to the nearest month)? or "Pre August 1981"? "Must NOT be Y2K compliant!" C: That would rule out my Texas Instruments Professional and Portable Professional (the first mass manufactured color portable to hit the market). A year or two before the new millennium, I changed the date on my TIPC to 12-31-99, 23:59:00. The transition to future was smooth. Arguably that was my first vintage computer. Long before I started collecting. Haven't tried anything else. But I'll be sure and get on it. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 21:58:03 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:58:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: References: <4F1DD4D2.7090603@gmail.com> <201201232155.QAA11523@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <702BA003-E7E9-4FCB-B809-71FEC8CC505F@gmail.com> <023501ccda29$bcddab60$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <1327463883.63554.YahooMailNeo@web164520.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Ethan Dicks I only used an XT clone at home for a short time - picked it up used for, ISTR, $100, when that was a good price, then parted it out for about $150-$200 to about 5 different buyers.? It was unremarkable - Taiwanese motherboard, Everex WX-1 clone, Seagate ST225, clone mono video, amber monitor, etc... but $20 here, $25 there added up. C: I would have to say one of the more striking collectibles I've had the pleasure of viewing was a brass hand made model steam engine replete w/the original wooden storage/display box that said "Tenshodo, Ginza, Tokyo". It was made 2 or 3 years after the bomb was dropped. There was just something awe striking about it. It had historical significance. Somewhat likewise some of the earliest Taiwanese clones might inspire in the same way, being they were made a couple of years or perhaps months after a bomb of a different sort. I hope that my analogy doesn't freak anyone out. It just might help to put some things in perspective. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 24 22:20:40 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:20:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: BYTES wanted, pre-1990 Message-ID: <1327465240.25670.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> And yes that does render them vintage dag nabbit! I'm not too proud to accept donations (I'll pay the media rate postage of course). PO could give you a hard time (ooh they contain advertising, can't claim media rate. Kindly explain that 22 year old advertising doesn't count). I could pay a buck or so per though (except the real oldies, I'm sure I could do better). Just no onesies or twosies. I'll go barkrupt trying to complete my set.? From pontus at Update.UU.SE Wed Jan 25 03:20:05 2012 From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:20:05 +0100 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <20120125092005.GA1424@Update.UU.SE> Thanks for all interresting replies. Here is an update: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57364633-1/antique-ibm-memory-box-math-mind-blowing/ Which confirms what you guys figured out. It is a williams type memory from an IBM 706 /P On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 04:07:04PM +0100, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Hi > > This link is making the rounds: > > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memory > > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? > > Bonuspoints if the machine can be identified :) > > Cheers, > Pontus. From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jan 25 04:29:57 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:29:57 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> <201201250115.UAA03850@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4992B8389BE649AF9035782551CADE9B@dell8300> I have quite a few commodity machines in the basement for no other reason then I collect AGP video gaming cards and need something to run them in. AGP is dead and obsolete just like Nubus, MCA, PCIX, ISA, EISA, VLB and I collect that stuff as well. Trust me 5-15 year old commodity equipment will be collectable just like commodity 386 machines especially when the vast majority of it is being recycled before it gets stuffed into an attic. A 286-8 CPU will pretty much last forever, a 3.8Ghz P4 HT CPU will not just because of ion migration from the heat. Heck there are tons of AGP gaming cards that are dead now while I have never pulled an ISA/VLB card out of a dusty stack that didn't work. If anything the shift from bulky desktops to laptops for general use will shift the hobby from collecting desktops to laptops in the next few decades or so (good luck finding mint working P4M laptops by then). I also think people will be living in smaller homes (and maybe more apartments) down the road as wages drop more, so peoples collections will need to take up less space. You people sound like old farts who think no car made after the Model T will be collectable or worth anything. Different generations will collect different era machines for different reasons. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mouse" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:15 PM Subject: Re: defining 'vintage' >> Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. [...] > > Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64 > and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today, > they're much sought after. > > If it turns out you're right that commodity computers ten years from > now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I > suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than > anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to > something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after > nostalgia items. > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Jan 25 05:40:35 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:40:35 +0100 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. Message-ID: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Hi, I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in an H9275 Backplane. I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the M8047 at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM Address. My question is now regarding the Bootstrap setting, the Manual says that in ODT mode the BDAL16 and BDAL17 are enabled to get access to the higher memory contents. How is this handeled while bootstrapping? I can't set a bootstrap address of 773000 on the KDF11, it boots now in ODT Mode and displays 173000 after Reset, thati's the jumpered address. How is this (BBS7) handeled while bootstrapping? Is the BBS7 low while bootstrap at 173000 or is the M8047 incompatible with this processor? (I've not tested to bootstrap since I don't know what is in the ROMs and I don't have an RX02 nor TU58 to connect, want to put in a M7555 so I have to change the ROMs for sure). As far as I know this KDF11 should be able to handle 22 bits (420HD0 on the Handle, 5013326 D-P4 on the Board) is that the case? Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 is really a bit small.... Next question is about an M7656 Graphic board that I have laying around here. Where was this used and are there any docs available? Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 07:47:50 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:47:50 -0600 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <201201250115.UAA03850@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> <201201250115.UAA03850@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F200806.5060203@gmail.com> Mouse wrote: >> Hardware-wise, there's nothing interesting about modern PCs. [...] > > Very similar words could well have been said about things like the C64 > and 68k-based Macs back when they were a year or two old. Today, > they're much sought after. Well, they were common enough back then, certainly - but there was enough diversity in the industry that I think most people with an interest in the hardware of the day could see that they'd perhaps be desirable in the future. > If it turns out you're right that commodity computers ten years from > now will be just faster peecees, then you are probably right. (I > suspect that will be the case, but of course I don't know any more than > anyone else does.) But if the world lurches away from peecees to > something else, it wouldn't surprise me if they became sought-after > nostalgia items. But my point is that I think even if the hardware of the future is "something else", it'll still be capable of running the software of today; and there's no real "user experience" in today's hardware. If, at some point, that stops being true for whatever reason, then that's the point to start collecting the 'last known good' hardware that will do the job. cheers Jules From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 08:01:06 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:01:06 +0000 Subject: Does anyone have any use for UltraSCSI hard disks? In-Reply-To: <4F1F7EA0.4010002@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F1F7EA0.4010002@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 25 January 2012 04:01, Toby Thain wrote: > On 24/01/12 8:32 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> Not sure if SCSI-3 is too modern. I have some plain ol' SCSI2 ones >> going up soon, too. >> >> Anyway, I have just listed a couple of ST19171W drives on the Bay of >> E: items 270900073846& ?270900074301, I believe. Please excuse the >> >> pimping - just thought someone might be interested. Opening price, >> 99p. (A buck fifty, roughly.) > > YES! I'll take your 50 pin! > > I'd take the wider ones too, but maybe not shipped from UK. Happy to ship surface, if you like...? It takes a long time but it's fairly economical. I sent a Bookmooched huge fat hardback of Harry Potter parodies to NZ surface post for less than the cost of a used copy on Amazon. It took 9mth - we'd nearly written it off as lost - but it got there safe & sound. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From jfoust at threedee.com Wed Jan 25 08:15:43 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:15:43 -0600 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120125092005.GA1424@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <20120125092005.GA1424@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <201201251416.q0PEG8Lr078700@billy.ezwind.net> At 03:20 AM 1/25/2012, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: >Thanks for all interresting replies. Here is an update: > >http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57364633-1/antique-ibm-memory-box-math-mind-blowing/ > >Which confirms what you guys figured out. It is a williams type memory >from an IBM 706 Sorry, it's more circular than that. I tweeted her a link to the CHM page that Chuck posted. Her response to me seemed to indicate it was the first response she'd had that was correct. So credit goes to Chuck. - John From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jan 25 08:23:04 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:23:04 -0500 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > Hi, > > I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in > an H9275 Backplane. > I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the M8047 > at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since > the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM Address. > My question is now regarding the Bootstrap setting, the Manual says that in > ODT mode the BDAL16 and BDAL17 are enabled to get access to the higher > memory contents. How is this handeled while bootstrapping? I can't set a > bootstrap address of 773000 on the KDF11, it boots now in ODT Mode and > displays 173000 after Reset, thati's the jumpered address. > How is this (BBS7) handeled while bootstrapping? Is the BBS7 low while > bootstrap at 173000 or is the M8047 incompatible with this processor? > (I've not tested to bootstrap since I don't know what is in the ROMs and I > don't have an RX02 nor TU58 to connect, want to put in a M7555 so I have to > change the ROMs for sure). As far as I know this KDF11 should be able to > handle 22 bits (420HD0 on the Handle, 5013326 D-P4 on the Board) is that > the case? Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the second one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! Also make sure the backplane is Q22. Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO and boot address space. > Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI > connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does > anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the > KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 > is really a bit small.... > PMI can be used with KDJ11 if its the right PMI. KA630 is not PDP11 but it is microVAX. The memories at least the M7608 (you did mean 7608 and not 6708?) is microVAX memory and incompatible with PDP11 cpus. M7608-AA MS630-BA Q 2-Mbyte RAM for microVAX II (Q-22 via CD) (Also M7608-AC, -AE, -AH, -AL, -AP, -AR, -AS, -AT, -AU, -AV) > Next question is about an M7656 Graphic board that I have laying around > here. Where was this used and are there any docs available? > It was used with the MicroVAX as part of the workstation configuration. You will have to search though the MicroVAX manuals for more. (check bitsavers). Links to looks at: http://www.pdp11.org/ Many links and good info. http://www.strobedata.com/osprey/module.faq This has the DEC module filed guide to translate module number to what it is. http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/pdp11.htm http://vaxarchive.pimpworks.org/hw/vfg/ Allison > Regards, > > Holm From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 25 08:32:46 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:32:46 -0700 Subject: PSU test load In-Reply-To: <4F1F5223.8040003@brouhaha.com> References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> <4F1F5223.8040003@brouhaha.com> Message-ID: In article <4F1F5223.8040003 at brouhaha.com>, Eric Smith writes: > Richard wrote: > > Speaking of wiring up test load resistors for a PSU, just exactly how > > do you go about deciding what resistance and what power rating to use > > for a test load? > > For a basic test, where we just want to verify that the PSU works > properly near its maximum rated load [...] Thanks very much for that informative post, Eric! -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dfnr2 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 09:33:49 2012 From: dfnr2 at yahoo.com (Dave) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:33:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1327505629.62888.YahooMailNeo@web38108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi Jonathan, These machines are pretty easy to fix.? I have seen the video connector on the top (more common) and on the bottom; it may depend on who put the machine together, or who modified it later.? Anyway, just try plugging each of the outputs to a monitor--no harm will come if you don't guess right the first time.? From there, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out the cassette interface.? However, if you just open it up, all will be revealed. If you go to http://osiweb.org , you will find some links to useful OSI debugging resources at the top of the page.? You will find schematics for rev's B, C, and D of the board there, in the "OSI hardware" section, as well as a SAM's manual for this board at http://osiweb.org/manuals/SAMS-C1P-Service-Manual.pdf.?? Best regards, Dave >________________________________ > From: Jonathan Katz >To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 4:32 PM >Subject: Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P > >All, > >I've come across one of these systems. Is there any interest in these? > >There are 3 RCA jacks on the back, but they aren't labelled. I know >that 2 are for a tape recorder and one is video, but which is which? >Anyone know off-hand? I'd like to verify if it works/runs OK. > >It belongs to a friend of mine and he needs to get as much cash out of >it as possible. Any ideas/offers are welcome. > >Thanks! > >-- >-Jon >Jonathan Katz, Indianapolis, IN. > > > From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Jan 25 10:28:03 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:28:03 +0100 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> allison wrote: > On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > >Hi, > > > >I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in > >an H9275 Backplane. > >I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the M8047 > >at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since > >the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM Address. > >My question is now regarding the Bootstrap setting, the Manual says that in > >ODT mode the BDAL16 and BDAL17 are enabled to get access to the higher > >memory contents. How is this handeled while bootstrapping? I can't set a > >bootstrap address of 773000 on the KDF11, it boots now in ODT Mode and > >displays 173000 after Reset, thati's the jumpered address. > >How is this (BBS7) handeled while bootstrapping? Is the BBS7 low while > >bootstrap at 173000 or is the M8047 incompatible with this processor? > >(I've not tested to bootstrap since I don't know what is in the ROMs and I > >don't have an RX02 nor TU58 to connect, want to put in a M7555 so I have to > >change the ROMs for sure). As far as I know this KDF11 should be able to > >handle 22 bits (420HD0 on the Handle, 5013326 D-P4 on the Board) is that > >the case? > > Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the > second > one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! > > Also make sure the backplane is Q22. > > Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it > fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. > > ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three > address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO > and boot address space. Yes, but I mean the difference between 773000 vs 173000. I see the ROMs in ODT at 773000 but not at 173000! Anyway, I'll jumpering the CPU to bootstrap and will look what happens. > > > >Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI > >connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does > >anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the > >KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 > >is really a bit small.... > > > PMI can be used with KDJ11 if its the right PMI. KA630 is not PDP11 but it > is microVAX. Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of the memory Boards additionally until now. > The memories at least the M7608 (you did mean 7608 and > not 6708?) is microVAX memory and incompatible with PDP11 cpus. Oh yes. This was a Typo, I meant M7608. I have two a 2MB and a 4MB Version. > > M7608-AA MS630-BA Q 2-Mbyte RAM for microVAX II (Q-22 via CD) > (Also M7608-AC, -AE, -AH, -AL, -AP, -AR, -AS, > -AT, > -AU, -AV) > > > >Next question is about an M7656 Graphic board that I have laying around > >here. Where was this used and are there any docs available? > > > It was used with the MicroVAX as part of the workstation configuration. > You will have to search though the MicroVAX manuals for more. > (check bitsavers). > > Links to looks at: > > http://www.pdp11.org/ > > Many links and good info. > > http://www.strobedata.com/osprey/module.faq > > This has the DEC module filed guide to translate module number to what > it is. > > > http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/pdp11.htm Thx, but I already knew them. > > http://vaxarchive.pimpworks.org/hw/vfg/ That's new to me, thx. > > > Allison > > >Regards, > > > >Holm Kind Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From mcquiggi at sfu.ca Wed Jan 25 10:43:56 2012 From: mcquiggi at sfu.ca (Kevin McQuiggin) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:43:56 -0800 Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer Message-ID: Hi All: I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in the retrocomputing community before that. Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement last summer. Just coming up for air! I have several old DEC systems, including pdp-8s, pdp-11s, and VAXen. I am getting going on them again. I have acquired some new (NOS I suppose) 82S131 ROM chips, and am looking to write some boot ROMs for my 11/34. Specifically, these are chips that fit into an M9312 Unibus terminator/boot ROM card. I want to create RX01 and RX02 boot ROMs. In DEC-speak, these are 753A9 and 811A9 part numbers. The ROM images are available through Don North at (http://www.ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/). Thanks Don! I have a one-size-fits-all new-fangled EPROM/PROM programmer, and I thought I had it made when I saw the chips. Unfortunately, my programmer is too new to handle these chips. Sigh! I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or who I could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming. Alternatively, if anyone has spares of the these chips (753A9 and 811A9), I can swap you blanks for them. Thanks and I am looking forward to becoming active on the list and in the hobby/fixation again! Kevin mcquiggi at sfu.ca From keithvz at verizon.net Wed Jan 25 11:13:04 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:13:04 -0500 Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <21C2591C-527A-4B09-905B-49BD02BB74C4@gmail.com> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> <21C2591C-527A-4B09-905B-49BD02BB74C4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F203820.1000703@verizon.net> On 1/24/2012 2:28 PM, David Riley wrote: >or the thought process > which arrives at "this is an item I can sell for money" is the result > of meth, which is not out of the question given the location. Hahaha, probably. I love his description: Shot to hell "Literately" Quantum hard drive Shot up Novelty I found this hard drive out in the country of north central Nevada im selling it as is --------------- Damn. You mean it doesn't work!@#? Keith From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 11:15:06 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:15:06 -0800 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: On Jan 25, 2012 8:31 AM, "Holm Tiffe" wrote: > > Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? > I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, > which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of > the memory Boards additionally until now. > If it has on board memory that sounds like an M7554, which I don't think does PMI memory. I think that is only the M8190 which would use M8637 MSV11-J for PMI memory. -Glen From snhirsch at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 11:30:41 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:30:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > I have acquired some new (NOS I suppose) 82S131 ROM chips, and am > looking to write some boot ROMs for my 11/34. Specifically, these are > chips that fit into an M9312 Unibus terminator/boot ROM card. I want to > create RX01 and RX02 boot ROMs. In DEC-speak, these are 753A9 and 811A9 > part numbers. > > The ROM images are available through Don North at > (http://www.ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/). Thanks Don! > > I have a one-size-fits-all new-fangled EPROM/PROM programmer, and I > thought I had it made when I saw the chips. > > Unfortunately, my programmer is too new to handle these chips. Sigh! > > I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or who I > could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming. If all else fails, ping me privately. I am setup to blast bipolar PROMs, Steve -- From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jan 25 11:47:32 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:47:32 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <201201251416.q0PEG8Lr078700@billy.ezwind.net> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <20120125092005.GA1424@Update.UU.SE>, <201201251416.q0PEG8Lr078700@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F1FCFB4.5886.131ACE@cclist.sydex.com> On 25 Jan 2012 at 8:15, John Foust wrote: > Sorry, it's more circular than that. I tweeted her a link to the CHM > page that Chuck posted. Her response to me seemed to indicate it was > the first response she'd had that was correct. So credit goes to > Chuck. If so, I'm flattered, but I'm also surprised that I was first. It took about 30 seconds to Google and find CHM's image. Kudos really goes to CHM for documenting this stuff. --Chuck From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 25 12:17:20 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:17:20 +0000 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F204730.8080307@dunnington.plus.com> On 25/01/2012 14:23, allison wrote: > Links to looks at: > http://www.strobedata.com/osprey/module.faq > > This has the DEC module filed guide to translate module number to what > it is. That's an old version. There's a newer one on Megan's website: world.std.com/~mbg/pdp11-field-guide.txt -- Pete From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 25 12:14:46 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:14:46 +0000 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F204696.7060206@dunnington.plus.com> On 25/01/2012 14:23, allison wrote: > On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in >> an H9275 Backplane. >> I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the >> M8047 >> at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since >> the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM >> Address. > Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the > second > one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! Specifically, all KDF11-B (the quad 11/23plus boards) and all KDF11-A from Rev.C onward are Q22 -- providing, as Allison said, they have the MMU. > Also make sure the backplane is Q22. H9275 is, see http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/QBus_chassis > Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it > fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. But note that although the I/O and bootstrap on an MXV11-A are Q22-compatible, the memory is not. It has to be disabled if you need 22-bit functionality in the system. If you don't, you'll see the same memory in 16 places, because it's only 18-bit and doesn't respect BDAL18-BDAL21. > ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three > address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO > and boot address space. Not quiet, on a KDF11-A ODT is 18-bit. Under program control, the CPU uses BBS7 to address the I/O page regardless of high-order address bits. >> Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI >> connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does >> anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the >> KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 >> is really a bit small.... No KDF11 supports PMI. Only KDJ11-B does (not KDJ11-A nor KDJ11-D etc) -- Pete From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Wed Jan 25 12:49:57 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:49:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <3EA2016E-0585-42FB-8722-6F003A8C59BF@gmail.com> References: , <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com>, <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> <4F1D9FCB.20956.232205B@cclist.sydex.com> <3EA2016E-0585-42FB-8722-6F003A8C59BF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201251849.NAA24288@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come. > I guess I wouldn't be criticizing if it weren't for the fact that > with all those advances, everything still runs at the same > approximate apparent speed. There's a quote I saw, from Seth Breidbart - he of Breidbart Index fame on Usenet - that goes something like "WordStar on a 4.077 MHz 8086 could keep up with my typing; WinWord on a 300MHz Pentium III can't". Perhaps he's just typing faster now. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From ajp166 at verizon.net Wed Jan 25 12:52:35 2012 From: ajp166 at verizon.net (allison) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:52:35 -0500 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <4F204F73.4020307@verizon.net> On 01/25/2012 11:28 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > allison wrote: > >> On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in >>> an H9275 Backplane. >>> I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the M8047 >>> at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since >>> the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM Address. >>> My question is now regarding the Bootstrap setting, the Manual says that in >>> ODT mode the BDAL16 and BDAL17 are enabled to get access to the higher >>> memory contents. How is this handeled while bootstrapping? I can't set a >>> bootstrap address of 773000 on the KDF11, it boots now in ODT Mode and >>> displays 173000 after Reset, thati's the jumpered address. >>> How is this (BBS7) handeled while bootstrapping? Is the BBS7 low while >>> bootstrap at 173000 or is the M8047 incompatible with this processor? >>> (I've not tested to bootstrap since I don't know what is in the ROMs and I >>> don't have an RX02 nor TU58 to connect, want to put in a M7555 so I have to >>> change the ROMs for sure). As far as I know this KDF11 should be able to >>> handle 22 bits (420HD0 on the Handle, 5013326 D-P4 on the Board) is that >>> the case? >> Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the >> second >> one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! >> >> Also make sure the backplane is Q22. >> >> Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it >> fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. >> >> ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three >> address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO >> and boot address space. > Yes, but I mean the difference between 773000 vs 173000. > I see the ROMs in ODT at 773000 but not at 173000! > Anyway, I'll jumpering the CPU to bootstrap and will look what happens. > >> >>> Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI >>> connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does >>> anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the >>> KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 >>> is really a bit small.... >>> >> PMI can be used with KDJ11 if its the right PMI. KA630 is not PDP11 but it >> is microVAX. > Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? To the best info I have all three board noted are for MicroVAX. I do not know the kDJ11B PMI memory needed. I have a KDJ11A and that uses Qbus memory. Most of the systems have M8059 256Kbyte as I have many of them and a few have larger 1mb boards. > I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, > which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of > the memory Boards additionally until now. > > Generally all the PDP11 OSs run in 512Kb or less. You have enough to be useful. Hope that helps. All of my Qbus systems (LSI-11 through J11) Use QBus memory as none of my CPUs require PMI. I do have several Qbus MicroVAX-II and those do use PMI but different part than PDP11. >> The memories at least the M7608 (you did mean 7608 and >> not 6708?) is microVAX memory and incompatible with PDP11 cpus. > Oh yes. This was a Typo, I meant M7608. I have two a 2MB and a 4MB Version. >> M7608-AA MS630-BA Q 2-Mbyte RAM for microVAX II (Q-22 via CD) >> (Also M7608-AC, -AE, -AH, -AL, -AP, -AR, -AS, >> -AT, >> -AU, -AV) >> >> >>> Next question is about an M7656 Graphic board that I have laying around >>> here. Where was this used and are there any docs available? >>> >> It was used with the MicroVAX as part of the workstation configuration. >> You will have to search though the MicroVAX manuals for more. >> (check bitsavers). >> >> Links to looks at: >> >> http://www.pdp11.org/ >> >> Many links and good info. >> >> http://www.strobedata.com/osprey/module.faq >> >> This has the DEC module filed guide to translate module number to what >> it is. >> >> >> http://www.fpns.net/willy/pdp11/pdp11.htm > Thx, but I already knew them. >> http://vaxarchive.pimpworks.org/hw/vfg/ > That's new to me, thx. >> >> Allison >> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Holm > Kind Regards, > > Holm > From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 25 12:58:45 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:58:45 -0500 Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2050E5.6040601@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 11:43 AM, Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in > the retrocomputing community before that. > > Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement > last summer. Just coming up for air! Wow, I haven't seen your name in a while. Welcome back, and congratulations on your retirement! > I have several old DEC systems, including pdp-8s, pdp-11s, and VAXen. > I am getting going on them again. Fantastic! > I have a one-size-fits-all new-fangled EPROM/PROM programmer, and I > thought I had it made when I saw the chips. > > Unfortunately, my programmer is too new to handle these chips. > Sigh! > > I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or > who I could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming. I have a programmer here that will handle them. Contact me off-list if you'd like me to do those for you. > Thanks and I am looking forward to becoming active on the list and in > the hobby/fixation again! Again, welcome back! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Jan 25 13:03:45 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:03:45 +0100 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <4F204696.7060206@dunnington.plus.com> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <4F204696.7060206@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <20120125190345.GA44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Pete Turnbull wrote: > On 25/01/2012 14:23, allison wrote: > >On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > >>Hi, > >> > >>I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in > >>an H9275 Backplane. > >>I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the > >>M8047 > >>at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since > >>the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM > >>Address. > > >Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the > >second > >one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! > > Specifically, all KDF11-B (the quad 11/23plus boards) and all KDF11-A > from Rev.C onward are Q22 -- providing, as Allison said, they have the MMU. Yes it has an MMU. > > >Also make sure the backplane is Q22. > > H9275 is, see http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/QBus_chassis I know that is a "real" serpentine QBUS Backplane. I have a H9278 too, currently the KDJ11 is in there. Maybe I should use it for the KA630 VAX in conjunction with the memory Boards since it has 3 CD private Slots. > > >Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it > >fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. > > But note that although the I/O and bootstrap on an MXV11-A are > Q22-compatible, the memory is not. It has to be disabled if you need > 22-bit functionality in the system. If you don't, you'll see the same > memory in 16 places, because it's only 18-bit and doesn't respect > BDAL18-BDAL21. Yes, I read this before. So at least it provides 2 SLUs.. > > >ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three > >address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO > >and boot address space. > > Not quiet, on a KDF11-A ODT is 18-bit. Under program control, the CPU > uses BBS7 to address the I/O page regardless of high-order address bits. Aha. So it is haindled differently under program control as in the ODT Mode. That was my question. > > >>Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI > >>connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does > >>anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the > >>KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 > >>is really a bit small.... > > No KDF11 supports PMI. Only KDJ11-B does (not KDJ11-A nor KDJ11-D etc) > > -- > Pete Yes. I've asked primarly since I have those 3 CPU Boards, The VAX, The KDJ11 (later version with onboard RAM) and the KDF11 with 2 Hybrids and the MMU. (one socket free). What about the RAM Boards and the KDJ11? I found no documentation for the 7608 ant nothing again for the other Boards (Crislin and NS). Is one of them usable for the KDJ11 or is this VAX RAM different to the PMI RAM for the KDJ11? Kind Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From holm at freibergnet.de Wed Jan 25 13:08:29 2012 From: holm at freibergnet.de (Holm Tiffe) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:08:29 +0100 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <20120125190829.GB44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Glen Slick wrote: > On Jan 25, 2012 8:31 AM, "Holm Tiffe" wrote: > > > > Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? > > I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, > > which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of > > the memory Boards additionally until now. > > > > If it has on board memory that sounds like an M7554, which I don't think > does PMI memory. I think that is only the M8190 which would use M8637 > MSV11-J for PMI memory. > > -Glen Yes it is an M7554, like the one of this guy: http://home.windstream.net/engdahl/pdp-11_53.htm It doesn't have the 50 PIN Ribbon Cable connector on the front like the VAX RAMs, but I Think I've read somwhere that C and D Slots are building a PMI BUS... ??? Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741 From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 13:10:00 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:10:00 -0200 Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer References: Message-ID: <027f01ccdb95$18a35870$6400a8c0@tababook> > I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or who I > could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming. My beeprog does that, but unfortunately I'm in Brazil :o) From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 13:43:18 2012 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:43:18 -0800 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125190829.GB44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <20120125190829.GB44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > > Yes it is an M7554, like the one of this guy: > > http://home.windstream.net/engdahl/pdp-11_53.htm > > It doesn't have the 50 PIN Ribbon Cable connector on the front like the VAX > RAMs, but I Think I've read somwhere that C and D Slots are building a PMI > BUS... ??? > You can't use the VAX memory with the PDP-11 For reference: EK-KDJ1B-UG-001 KDJ11-B CPU Module User's Guide http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1173/EK-KDJ1B-UG_KDJ11-B_Nov86.pdf 1.6 PRIVATE MEMORY INTERCONNECT The PMI is a unique Q22-Bus protocol that provides a high performance data path between the KDJ11-B module and the MSV11-J memory modules. These modules comprise the private memory and interface with the KDJ11-B via a backplane structure that uses the Q22-Bus as the A/B slots and an interconnecting interface as the C/D slots. This backplane structure allows data and address information to be multiplexed and transmitted via the Q22-Bus BDAL <21:0> data/address lines, while the PMI protocol non-multiplexed control lines use the C/D interconnecting interface. The PMI protocol functions in a Unibus system by using the KTJ11-B Unibus adapter module designed to interface with a PMI system. The PMI interface consists of 14 control signals used on the C/D interface, 6 Q22-Bus control signals, the bank 7 select signal (BBS7) and the 22 data/address lines (BDAL <22:0>). A complete description of the PMI operation is provided in Chapter 7. EK-MSV1J-UG-001 MSV11-J MOS Memory User's Guide http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/qbus/EK-MSV1J-UG_001_May85.pdf From mcguire at neurotica.com Wed Jan 25 13:43:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:43:12 -0500 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125190829.GB44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <20120125162803.GA44086@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <20120125190829.GB44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <754E8CFA-9466-438D-AAC6-43DD1891C0E5@neurotica.com> On Jan 25, 2012, at 2:08 PM, Holm Tiffe wrote: > Glen Slick wrote: > >> On Jan 25, 2012 8:31 AM, "Holm Tiffe" wrote: >>> >>> Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? >>> I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, >>> which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of >>> the memory Boards additionally until now. >>> >> >> If it has on board memory that sounds like an M7554, which I don't think >> does PMI memory. I think that is only the M8190 which would use M8637 >> MSV11-J for PMI memory. >> > > Yes it is an M7554, like the one of this guy: > > http://home.windstream.net/engdahl/pdp-11_53.htm > > It doesn't have the 50 PIN Ribbon Cable connector on the front like the VAX > RAMs, but I Think I've read somwhere that C and D Slots are building a PMI > BUS... ??? The PDP-11 PMI bus uses the C-D interconnect, but the MicroVAX-II and -III use a ribbon cable across the tops of the boards. (and I think they use some lines on the C-D interconnect too) These three PMI buses are completely different and are NOT compatible in any way. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 13:49:44 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:49:44 -0500 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125190345.GA44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <4F204696.7060206@dunnington.plus.com> <20120125190345.GA44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <295B3460-D879-4D46-A553-8FC8AF9792FC@gmail.com> On Jan 25, 2012, at 2:03 PM, Holm Tiffe wrote: >>> ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three >>> address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO >>> and boot address space. >> >> Not quiet, on a KDF11-A ODT is 18-bit. Under program control, the CPU >> uses BBS7 to address the I/O page regardless of high-order address bits. > > Aha. So it is haindled differently under program control as in the ODT Mode. > That was my question. Yes, it has to be; the PDP-11 is a 16-bit processor, so those extra two bits have to come from the MMU. In my experience with my KDF11, 773000 is interpreted differently from 173000 by ODT. As far as the CPU's execution unit is concerned, though, they're the same. - Dave From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 25 13:53:38 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:53:38 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 24, at 12:20 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: > On Tue, 24 Jan 2012, Andy Holt wrote: > >> Further web searches lead me to the IBM 706 which was the main >> memory of the >> IBM 701 system. The object looks like one of the 18 units that >> together >> provided 2K 36 bit words of storage (and thus provides 4K bits, >> not bytes, >> of memory). (and, yes, these are 3" diameter at the face plate) > > An early version of the Whirlwind computer also used Williams > Tubas: > > "Initially Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube. An > additional flood gun maintained the pattern of dots while a writing > gun was used to alter the pattern. Thirty two such tubes were > needed to provide the 4KBytes of storage that the Whirlwind needed. > Given a tube life of one month and cost $1000 the running cost of > the machine was very high, $1 per bit per month." > http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/Whirlwind.html Whirlwind never used Williams-tube storage, at least as I understand the definitions. I don't believe it is even historically accurate to say ".. Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube". Williams-tubes memory (or the preferred "Williams-Kilburn-tubes") and the first memory system of Whirlwind were both electrostatic CRT- based storage. The design approach of the Williams-Kilburn-tube- memory was intended to enable the use of standard or off-the-shelf CRTs, while the Whirlwind design used specialised holding-beam CRTs. Causal influences are another matter. The CHM website suggests the influence was the other way (MIT->Manchester). My understanding was that they were simply separate developments of a common concept. -- For reasons explained in a following message, I wouldn't trust that "history-computer.com" site for much of anything. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 25 13:56:25 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:56:25 -0800 Subject: "history-computer.com" web site: what do you do with people like this? / was: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Regarding this "history-computer.com" web site of one Georgi Dalakov: The Whirlwind article on history-computer.com referenced in the IBM memory thread contains this: ... Construction of the machine started in 1948, an effort that employed 175 people, including 70 engineers and technicians. Whirlwind took 3 years to build and first went online on April 20, 1951. The project's budget was $1 million a year, and after three years the Navy had lost interest. However, during this time the Air Force had become interested in using computers to help the task of ground controlled interception (the Cold War just began), and the Whirlwind was the only machine suitable to the task. ... ( http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/ Whirlwind.html ) The Whirlwind article on Wikipedia contains this: ... Construction of the machine started the next year, an effort that employed 175 people including 70 engineers and technicians. Whirlwind took three years to build and first went online on April 20, 1951. The project's budget was $1 million a year, and after three years the Navy had lost interest. However, during this time the Air Force had become interested in using computers to help the task of ground controlled interception, and the Whirlwind was the only machine suitable to the task. ... ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlwind_(computer) ) There are no references or sources cited in the history-computer.com article. On the "sources" page for the site there is a simple global reference to "Wikipedia". While one might question who is copying who or if they have a common author, some indication is provided by another example: Just a few days ago I ended up at the history-computer.com article about Edmund Berkeley's Simon machine: http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Simon.html I've investigated and written about Simon in some depth, so I was interested in what someone else might have to say about it. The article begins with some standard biography of Berkeley, but as I was reading the technical description of Simon, various sentences started to sound very familiar: the technical bits are a wholesale rip-off of my own writing: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/simon/index.html http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/simon/def.html A third of Dalakov's article is a cut-and-paste effort of entire paragraphs, sentences and themes lifted straight from my article, with some occasional rephrasing and reorganisation to fit it into his article. No links, references or attributions are given to my article or site (not surprising - one wouldn't want to make it easy for others to spot such plagiarism.) Dalakov is simply ripping off other people's writings and efforts. While word-for-word plagiarism is bad enough, the cut-and-paste mixing of material means context and accuracy can be lost. It is not original work and his site is nothing to place any reliance on. From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 14:27:43 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:27:43 -0500 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <40A12051-2BB8-4070-A623-26947FE08010@gmail.com> On Jan 25, 2012, at 2:53 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Whirlwind never used Williams-tube storage, at least as I understand the definitions. I don't believe it is even historically accurate to say ".. Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube". > > Williams-tubes memory (or the preferred "Williams-Kilburn-tubes") and the first memory system of Whirlwind were both electrostatic CRT-based storage. The design approach of the Williams-Kilburn-tube-memory was intended to enable the use of standard or off-the-shelf CRTs, while the Whirlwind design used specialised holding-beam CRTs. I tend to think of basically any CRT memory system as "Williams Tubes", which is obviously inaccurate. I'll have to recalibrate my taxonomy. :-) - Dave From legalize at xmission.com Wed Jan 25 14:59:02 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:59:02 -0700 Subject: FYI: USB <-> IEEE-488 bridge Message-ID: This looks good. Imma be gettin' one. There's also an ethernet version (instead of USB) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From terry at webweavers.co.nz Wed Jan 25 15:00:28 2012 From: terry at webweavers.co.nz (Terry Stewart) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:00:28 +1300 Subject: "history-computer.com" web site: what do you do with people like this? / was: IBM memory In-Reply-To: References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: Yes, plagerism. Name and shame is probably a good way to go. Terry (Tez) On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 8:56 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Regarding this "history-computer.com" web site of one Georgi Dalakov: > > The Whirlwind article on history-computer.com referenced in the IBM > memory thread contains this: > ... > Construction of the machine started in 1948, an effort that employed > 175 people, > including 70 engineers and technicians. > Whirlwind took 3 years to build and first went online on April 20, 1951. > The project's budget was $1 million a year, and after three years the > Navy had lost interest. > However, during this time the Air Force had become interested in using > computers to help the task > of ground controlled interception (the Cold War just began), and the > Whirlwind was the > only machine suitable to the task. > ... > ( http://history-computer.com/**ModernComputer/Electronic/** > Whirlwind.html) > > The Whirlwind article on Wikipedia contains this: > ... > Construction of the machine started the next year, an effort that > employed 175 people > including 70 engineers and technicians. > Whirlwind took three years to build and first went online on April 20, > 1951. > The project's budget was $1 million a year, and after three years the > Navy had lost interest. > However, during this time the Air Force had become interested in using > computers to help the task > of ground controlled interception, and the Whirlwind was the only > machine suitable to the task. > ... > ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Whirlwind_(computer)) > > There are no references or sources cited in the history-computer.comarticle. On the "sources" page for the site there is a simple global > reference to "Wikipedia". While one might question who is copying who or if > they have a common author, some indication is provided by another example: > > Just a few days ago I ended up at the history-computer.com article about > Edmund Berkeley's Simon machine: > http://history-computer.com/**ModernComputer/Personal/Simon.**html > > I've investigated and written about Simon in some depth, so I was > interested in what someone else might have to say about it. The article > begins with some standard biography of Berkeley, but as I was reading the > technical description of Simon, various sentences started to sound very > familiar: the technical bits are a wholesale rip-off of my own writing: > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/**e/simon/index.html > http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/**e/simon/def.html > > A third of Dalakov's article is a cut-and-paste effort of entire > paragraphs, sentences and themes lifted straight from my article, with some > occasional rephrasing and reorganisation to fit it into his article. No > links, references or attributions are given to my article or site (not > surprising - one wouldn't want to make it easy for others to spot such > plagiarism.) > > Dalakov is simply ripping off other people's writings and efforts. While > word-for-word plagiarism is bad enough, the cut-and-paste mixing of > material means context and accuracy can be lost. It is not original work > and his site is nothing to place any reliance on. > > From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 15:13:47 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:13:47 -0500 Subject: FYI: USB <-> IEEE-488 bridge In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 25, 2012, at 3:59 PM, Richard wrote: > This looks good. Imma be gettin' one. > > > There's also an ethernet version (instead of USB) > Oh, that's spectacular. I might get some just on the off chance I wind up with some GPIB equipment. From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 25 15:16:30 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:16:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> Message-ID: <20120125125943.K73184@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 emu at e-bbes.com wrote: > Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many terrabytes of > diskspace to boot win 10/11, And, NEED all of that plus multi-THz processor speed to run the text editor (at ALMOST as fast as a 2MHz Z80). Whether or not you WANT it, your grocery list will contain full-motion sound animations. As a "favor to you", any mention of frozen vegetables will automatically splice in a Gree Giant commercial and the latest pop-sci "news" about what is best for you, and send a copy of your menu to the "server"s at your HMO and MiniTrue,MiniLuv. and MiniPlenty. In "Hyperland", Douglas Adams failed to realize the extent of the insidious incursions of Sirius Cybernetics Corp. BUT, it is unreasonable to compare the THz MegaCore machine to the 2MHz Z80, "because it does so much more for you!" > but effectively, all the data is in the > cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot something which interprets > the data you're getting from the internet and send it back, while your > data is located in a big data center somewhere else. > > Didn't we call them terminals back then? > ;-) . . . and then "thin client"s. NOW, "BLOATED clients" "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" (with RPP!) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 25 15:19:38 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:19:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: BYTES wanted, pre-1990 In-Reply-To: <1327465240.25670.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1327465240.25670.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120125131803.E73184@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > And yes that does render them vintage dag nabbit! Well, SOME of those issues are vintage. But, after August 1981, the amount of vintage content per issue declined rapidly! :-) From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jan 25 15:28:08 2012 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:28:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > On 2012 Jan 24, at 12:20 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: >> >> An early version of the Whirlwind computer also used Williams Tubes: >> >> "Initially Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube. An >> additional flood gun maintained the pattern of dots while a writing gun was >> used to alter the pattern. Thirty two such tubes were needed to provide the >> 4KBytes of storage that the Whirlwind needed. Given a tube life of one >> month and cost $1000 the running cost of the machine was very high, $1 per >> bit per month." > >> http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/Whirlwind.html > > Whirlwind never used Williams-tube storage, at least as I understand the > definitions. I don't believe it is even historically accurate to say ".. > Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube". > > Williams-tubes memory (or the preferred "Williams-Kilburn-tubes") and the > first memory system of Whirlwind were both electrostatic CRT-based storage. > The design approach of the Williams-Kilburn-tube-memory was intended to > enable the use of standard or off-the-shelf CRTs, while the Whirlwind design > used specialised holding-beam CRTs. When in doubt, go to the source: "Symposium on Williams'-Tube Storage" http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/39201/MC665_r05_M-1380.pdf "Initial Testing of a Computer Electrostatic Storage System" http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/39822/MC665_r11_R-195.pdf "Storage Tube Program, Project Whirlwind" http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/38916/MC665_r04_M-102.pdf Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 15:29:22 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:29:22 +0000 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <201201251849.NAA24288@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F1E0075.5020102@gmail.com> <5F036594-E6A6-4126-B80D-45B54565398E@gmail.com> <4F1D9FCB.20956.232205B@cclist.sydex.com> <3EA2016E-0585-42FB-8722-6F003A8C59BF@gmail.com> <201201251849.NAA24288@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: On 25 January 2012 18:49, Mouse wrote: >>> Not criticizing, just reflecting on how far we've come. >> I guess I wouldn't be criticizing if it weren't for the fact that >> with all those advances, everything still runs at the same >> approximate apparent speed. > > There's a quote I saw, from Seth Breidbart - he of Breidbart Index fame > on Usenet - that goes something like "WordStar on a 4.077 MHz 8086 > could keep up with my typing; WinWord on a 300MHz Pentium III can't". Of course, one of the joys of PC compatibles is that if you want, you can run that copy of WordStar on your 300MHz PII - or on a 3000MHz Core i7. And by the hypothetical deities, it flies along if you do. Me, I run Word 97. On a modern box, it's very quick indeed. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 15:50:21 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:50:21 -0500 Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120125125943.K73184@shell.lmi.net> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> <20120125125943.K73184@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <67766685-0216-4491-932A-C956DEDF20F9@gmail.com> On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:16 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > editor (at ALMOST as fast as a 2MHz Z80). Whether or not you WANT it, > your grocery list will contain full-motion sound animations. As a "favor Well, we had that in the '90s with Clippy, didn't we? "It looks like you're making a list! Is this a business list or a personal list? Which of these six inappropriate numbering schemes would you like to use? Never mind, I'll pick one for you!" - Dave From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 25 15:43:01 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:43:01 +0000 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: <20120125190345.GA44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> References: <20120125114035.GA43066@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> <4F201048.3000306@verizon.net> <4F204696.7060206@dunnington.plus.com> <20120125190345.GA44569@pegasus.freiberg-net.de> Message-ID: <4F207765.6040600@dunnington.plus.com> On 25/01/2012 19:03, Holm Tiffe wrote: > I know that is a "real" serpentine QBUS Backplane. Yes, but the downside is that being serpentine means certain quad-wide cards can't be used. Anything that uses CD as CD interconnect, or that puts unusual connections on those connectors. > I have a H9278 too, currently the KDJ11 is in there. Maybe I should use it > for the KA630 VAX in conjunction with the memory Boards since it has 3 CD > private Slots. That backplane is meant for a BA23 box, the type used for small microPDP-11 and microVAX systems. Which makes sense if you have an M7554, which is the CPU for a microPDP-11/53 -- one of the smallest and the slowest J11-based microPDP-11 systems ever made. >>> ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three >>> address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO >>> and boot address space. >> >> Not quiet, on a KDF11-A ODT is 18-bit. Under program control, the CPU >> uses BBS7 to address the I/O page regardless of high-order address bits. > > Aha. So it is haindled differently under program control as in the ODT Mode. > That was my question. In a way, yes, but in a way, no. The CPU always asserts BBS7 when addressing the topmost 8KB of memory space; it's just that the 16-bit CPU has a 64KB logical memory space whereas the MMU-equipped device has a larger logical space. And then to complicate matters, but only for that F11 processor, ODT is hardwired to 18 bits (other 22-bit CPUs also have 22-bit ODT). > Yes. I've asked primarly since I have those 3 CPU Boards, The VAX, The > KDJ11 (later version with onboard RAM) and the KDF11 with 2 Hybrids and > the MMU. (one socket free). > What about the RAM Boards and the KDJ11? I found no documentation for the > 7608 ant nothing again for the other Boards (Crislin and NS). > Is one of them usable for the KDJ11 or is this VAX RAM different to the PMI > RAM for the KDJ11? As others have already explained, the microVAX memory is completely incompatible with a PDP-11. The NS638 is definitely microVAX memory, ditto M7608 (it's an MS630), but I don't know about the Crislin. If it has the connector on the end for the ribbon cable to connect memory to a microVAX CPU, it's microVAX memory; if it doesn't have that, it isn't :-) It was quite unusual to have additional memory cards in a microPDP-11/53, because it was designed to be a low-cost all-in-one processor/SLU/memory/bootstrap/clock board. -- Pete From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Wed Jan 25 15:52:05 2012 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:52:05 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120125225205.ac756a1c.jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> On Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:26:31 +0100 Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > I'm looking forward to fin a M7555, they seem to be quite common. Yes. You seem to live in Austria, as your call sign implies. I live in Germany and IIRC I have several RQDX3 / M7555 in spare. If you can't find a RQDX3 more localy I'll help out with one... -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/} From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 25 14:43:17 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:43:17 +0000 (GMT) Subject: PSU test load (was: My PDP11/23 arrived...) In-Reply-To: from "Richard" at Jan 24, 12 04:11:01 pm Message-ID: > Speaking of wiring up test load resistors for a PSU, just exactly how > do you go about deciding what resistance and what power rating to use > for a test load? I start by knowing/estimating a suitable load current. If the power supply ratings are given (e.g in a service manual),m then I ill pick somethign that's around 10%-50% of the maximum load (if there's a minimum load figure given, I'll make sure the current I use is above that, of course). If I don;t have nay details on the PSU, I have to estimate the current. In the case of a lienar PSU, that's quite easy -- eitehr from the types of 3-terminal regualtors used, or from the design of the over-current trip (if it uses a 723, say). For a switcher it gets harder, but you may be able to make some sourt of guess from the circuitry it powers. Then calcualte the resistance in the obvious way (R=V/I where V = the voltage of that PSU output, I = the current you'be just guestimated). And the power dissipated in the load is of cource V*I (It's DC, so there's no power factor to worry about). Often car bulbs amke a suitable loard. It's worth rememebriogn that a filament lamp has an approxximately constant-current (not constant-resistance) characteristic. So a 6V 24W bulb will draw 4A from a 6V supply. I'tll also draw close to 4A from a 5V supply. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 25 14:48:52 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:48:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: from "Wolfgang Eichberger" at Jan 24, 12 10:54:15 pm Message-ID: > In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some Have you tried to completley dismantle the RC50? It's a bit strange. The outer can comes off trivially, then after htant I think you remvoe the sideses, the seek/interface PCB fro,m the back (stepper motor controlelr). Then free the front casting and take off the disk clamp arms (there are C-shapped sring rings whichleft thes when you open the doors. After that the R/W and spindle motor PCBs come off trivially. So does the belt, the spidnel motor and the hubs. But don't touch the stepper motor or heads. The RX50 seems ot haev been desinged so it's almost impossible to alight -- you can't get to the stepper mounting screws when the seek/interface PCB is fitted, conversely you need this fitted to runs the drive. I have a LART resereved fro the 'genius' who came up with that one... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 25 14:35:13 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:35:13 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1F2FEA.9000505@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 24, 12 05:25:46 pm Message-ID: > > On 01/24/2012 03:43 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > >> The advantage of the signature analyzer (SA) was you can deal with > >> circuits that have feedback loops more easilyand without the need to > >> fully understand the operation of the circuit. For example servicing > > > > And that is precisely why I don't like it. I feel you can only reapri > > something -- and know you've repaired it -- if you understnaf how it > > should work, know what it's acutally doing, and then figutre out what > > could cause the behaviour you're obseerving. > > > > Signature analysis doesn't seem to help with this. > > I agree 100%. Last night I repaired an HP 5340A frequency counter > and a Tek 7834 oscilloscope frame. (both glorious instruments) I had to > trace through a fair amount of circuitry in both cases, and I learned a > lot about both designs. I can understand that. I've also learnt a lot from jhaving to understand devices in order to repair them. > > In the "credit where credit is due" department, I had a kind assist > on the 5340A from Dan Roganti who was here at the time. He kept telling > me to look at the Range switch, and I kept saying it couldn't possibly > be that switch contact making partial connection when it shouldn't have Again I know what you maean. I've had my fair share of 'impossible' faults over the years. > In the case of the 3456A, though, it's an instrument from a working > lab run by a friend of mine, and he lacks the budget to have it > repaired, and I just want to get it working as quickly as possible to > help my friend, by any method necessary. The alternative would be to > loan him my beloved 3458A, but that beautiful instrument isn't leaving > my sight! ;) :-) I susepct (never having tried it) that singature analysis (to a rpeairer) is like a monostable (to a digital hardware designer) or a goto (to a programmer). All are useful (and my be the nbest solution) if used intellegently, all are capable of making a right mess of things if you don;t think about what you are doing. I know from your postings that you'd use one sensibly, I hope I would too. Cerainly if I saw an HP signature analyser at a low price I'd buy it (I sort-of collect odd/interesting instruments), but I doubt it'd replace a logic analyser as my faultfinding instrument of choice... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 25 15:14:08 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:14:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F1F6403.9060804@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 25, 12 02:08:03 am Message-ID: > > On 24/01/12 20:40, Tony Duell wrote: > > I've seen HP service manuals that give signatures for various testpoint= > .=20 > > They generally have a 'faultfinding' guide of the form 'If the=20 > > signatature at pin 3 of U6 is not 23H7 then change U1, U8, U12, U24 in=20 > > orde'. > > I have a DIY spectrum analyser article that a friend photocopied for me. > Under "Aligning the IF1 filter", it reads: > > First, obtain a calibrated spectrum analyser with matching calibrated > tracking generator. I see.... The is rumoured to have ebeen a program for th C64 that was supplied on floppy disk. The user guide included instructios for converting to cassette, the list of equipment required to do this included a C64 computer, a C2N cassette unit and a 1541 disk drive. However the service manual for my Tektronix 555 'scope does explain how to debug one half of the unit usign the other half (this is a ture double-beam ;'scome, apart from the CRT and low-votlage PSUs, it's almost 2 'sopes in one box, so you can use one to diagnost faults with the other). > I'd test with the scope (because it's permanently set up on my bench > anyway) then dig in with a bus-sniffer and the logic analyser. As would I.... > I prefer looking at symptoms and working back to probable cause. If I > can justify the time taken to set up the probes, I'll rig up the logic > analyser and sniff the CPU bus. The HP 16700's Inverse Assembler feature > really is the mutt's nuts. I am otld there were inverse assemblers for my 1630, but I have no idea where you'd get them now. I think they were suppied on little tape cassetres to go in an HP82161 drive, I do have the drive...) > > Total overkill for most things though. Indeed, 0% of fautls are 'sillies' like bad swithc contacts ;-) But it's very useful to have the capability to find nasty faults for the reamin 10%.... I guess that's why I'd not use singature analusis much. In a commercial environment it may well find 90% of faults quickly and let you fix those units and get them back in the filed. Thing is, I generally only have one machine (fo a given type) to fix, and I have to fix that one, no matter waht the fault is. > > > Some HP manauls are better htna others. In particular many of the=20 > > computer nad desktop calculator manuals are pretty pointless. But since= > =20 > > I've figured out how to fix some of those without any official technica= > l=20 > > info, I don't let the fact that they expect me to use a signature=20 > > analyser to mean I have to use one :-) > > Now why does this statement make me think of the "SX Engine Schematic > Set, A.R. Duell Special Edition" as a prime example? :) Odd... I was thinking of the pile of diagrms of machines from the HP9100B, via the 9800s and the 98x5s to the HP9000/200s -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jan 25 15:19:05 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:19:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: <1327462221.92923.YahooMailNeo@web161905.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> from "Al Hartman" at Jan 24, 12 07:30:21 pm Message-ID: > Model III's and 4s are selling from between $400 and $2400 on eBay. These= How mauch are M4's going for then? I used an M3 for several years until I got an M4 (older version CPU board without the large gate array chips -- the only custom part is the video timing chain [1]). I've not found anything the M3 could do that I can't also do on the M4, and the 80 column display and ability to run CP/M cabn be useful. [1] This is not a 6845, for all it has much the same pinout. It's a mask-programemd thing, you don't write to all the configuations registers, that's what the mask programming defines. The pin that would be the light pen siganl on a 6845 selects between 2 possible configurations (here used for 64 colun or 80 column modes). -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 25 16:22:15 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:22:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: "Qualtum hard drive Novelty" In-Reply-To: <4F203820.1000703@verizon.net> References: <4F1EF193.7030809@bitsavers.org> <21C2591C-527A-4B09-905B-49BD02BB74C4@gmail.com> <4F203820.1000703@verizon.net> Message-ID: <20120125142150.D75835@shell.lmi.net> > Shot to hell "Literately" Quantum hard drive Shot up Novelty > I found this hard drive out in the country of north central Nevada > im selling it as is > > --------------- > > Damn. You mean it doesn't work!@#? "Untested" From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jan 25 16:36:34 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:36:34 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 25, at 1:28 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: > On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: >> On 2012 Jan 24, at 12:20 PM, Mike Loewen wrote: >>> >>> An early version of the Whirlwind computer also used Williams >>> Tubes: >>> "Initially Whirlwind used a modified form of the Williams tube. >>> An additional flood gun maintained the pattern of dots while a >>> writing gun was used to alter the pattern. Thirty two such tubes >>> were needed to provide the 4KBytes of storage that the Whirlwind >>> needed. Given a tube life of one month and cost $1000 the running >>> cost of the machine was very high, $1 per bit per month." >> >>> http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/Whirlwind.html >> >> Whirlwind never used Williams-tube storage, at least as I >> understand the definitions. I don't believe it is even >> historically accurate to say ".. Whirlwind used a modified form of >> the Williams tube". >> >> Williams-tubes memory (or the preferred "Williams-Kilburn-tubes") >> and the first memory system of Whirlwind were both electrostatic >> CRT-based storage. The design approach of the Williams-Kilburn- >> tube-memory was intended to enable the use of standard or off-the- >> shelf CRTs, while the Whirlwind design used specialised holding- >> beam CRTs. > > When in doubt, go to the source: > > "Symposium on Williams'-Tube Storage" > > http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/39201/MC665_r05_M-1380.pdf > > "Initial Testing of a Computer Electrostatic Storage System" > > http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/39822/MC665_r11_R-195.pdf > > "Storage Tube Program, Project Whirlwind" > > http://dome.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.3/38916/MC665_r04_M-102.pdf Thanks for the references, some great reading, but I'm not clear what your intention or position is. I don't see anything in those papers to contradict my points, I believe they support them. The Williams-tube symposium of the first paper was held in Dec 1951, long (years) after the Whirlwind project had been working at developing CRT-storage. The paper mentions other projects working on Williams-tube implementations (SEAC, ORDVAC, Los Alamos,..), but does not mention Whirlwind in that group. By that time Whirlwind was struggling with the inadequacies of their CRT memory, my take on that paper would be that Everett/Whirlwind was following the efforts of projects using Williams-tube CRT storage, perhaps under consideration of it being an alternative to their own (non-Williams) CRT storage. The first paper states: "One of the early proposed advantages of the Williams'-type storage, that of the relative economy of using ordinary cathode-ray tubes, seems to be hard-pressed for confirmation." Along with other discussion in that paper, along with the paper detailing the Whirlwind design, one can see how different the Williams-tube and Whirlwind designs were. From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 16:37:57 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:37:57 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 6 January 2012 16:45, Robert Smith wrote: > > * Types and Programming Languages by Pierce > > This book explains type theory and the theory of programming languages. You > write several little interpreters, like an interpreter for the core, untyped > lambda calculus. You learn about the relevance of lambda calculus as a > fundamental computer science concept, and how one builds upon that. As said, > it explains type theory too. > > * Purely Functional Data Structure by Okasaki > > Talks about data structures which are immutable and efficient, suitable for > purely functional languages. This is more about functional programming than > the lambda calculus. > > * Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell by Bird > > This is a book, *not* about Haskell, but rather about functional > programming. That is, it's relatively language unspecific, but uses Haskell > as a vehicle for examples. > > * Learn You A Haskell For Great Good by Lipovaca > > Okay, now if you want to be spoonfed Haskell and functional programming, > read this. You'll start with syntax, recursion, and types; and it'll carry > you to monads, zippers, applicative functors, randomness, etc. > > It does not talk about really serious stuff like unsafe IO, some of the > finer points of lazy evaluation, monad transformers Um. Thanks for the suggestions, but I have to point out that I can't really buy and read half a dozen textbooks in order to finish a 2 or 3 thousand word article. I mean, ideally, I'd be knocking out a couple of such pieces a day if I were a staffer and at least a few a week as a freelancer. This simply does not permit such a depth of research! >>> Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible >>> explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are >>> powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. >> >> >> Readable and comprehensible explanations: >> * SICP >> * Programming in Scheme (Abelson & Eisenberg) >> * aforementioned Henderson. >> and dozens of others. There are A LOT of good functional programming >> texts out there, many dating back to the 70s and 80s of course, and far >> in conceptual advance of the mainstream (PHP! ASP.NET! Java! snore). >> > > SICP should explain closures just fine. I mean, not only are closures (and > lexical scope as a prerequisite) explained, but you also use closures in a > practical way. And there is no way SICP is poor. I am amused that you don't even explain what that ETLA stands for. I've added it to my Bookmooch wishlist, anyway, although I doubt I'll get it in time to be much help. > * Let Over Lambda by Hoyte > > Chapter 1 of this book dives into a pragmatic explanation of what a closure > is by describing it as a "Let Over Lambda". For example > > (define closure > ?(let ((x 2)) > ? ?(lambda () (display x))) > > This is an extremely simple example. Er. It may be, but it is not simple enough for me to follow, I'm afraid. This is why I marked these messages as read & have come back to them to reread them once a week or so all this month. I am not getting any closer to enlightenment. > CLOSURE is bound to a lambda > expression. But not just some pure lambda, it has extra information about > its environment. So it's a lambda (code) + environment (data). If we proceed > to call CLOSURE, we get: > >> (closure) > 2 Er... > We can be more fancy: > > (define counter > ?(let ((count 0)) > ? ?(lambda () > ? ? ?(set! count (+ 1 count)) > ? ? ?count))) > > Here the lambda captures COUNT. Now we call COUNTER a few times: > >> (counter) > 1 >> (counter) > 2 >> (counter) > 3 > > Look ma! Encapsulation! COUNT is not accessible from the outside. C++ers > might call this a ~private variable~, but really it's just a variable closed > inside some execution context. I'm sorry, but I don't follow at all. Code examples in a language I don't understand - and references to another one I don't know - do not really help, I'm afraid. Sorry for my inadequate understanding. > Anyway, that's what Chapter 1 of said book talks about. > > * Lisp In Small Pieces by Quiennec > > This talks about compiling Lisp if you're interested in how closures might > be compiled. It also talks about formal semantics and other mathy stuff. This is /way/ too much for me, I fear. >>> If the teaching& reference materials that I have found so far are >>> unable to convey these core concepts, then there would seem to be two >>> possible conclusions: >>> >>> [a] /all/ the materials that I've been able to find are extremely >>> poor, even the ones that are more or less universally agreed to be >>> very good >>> >>> or >>> >>> [b] these are complex, difficult concepts and a massive amount of >>> back-knowledge is necessary to understand it. > > > No, these are not necessarily poor nor complex just because *you* don't > understand it. Pretty much every source I have found says /the Little Schemer/ is a classic. Have you ever actually /seen/ it? It's in Greek, I swear it! The first page starts: ? *The First Commandment* When recurring on a list of atoms, /lat/, ask two questions about it: (null? lat() and *else*. ? That's _before the Foreword._ The text itself starts: ? Is it true that this is an atom? atom Yes, because *atom* is a string of characters beginning with the letter *a*. ? I mean, really, WTF? An instructional text that starts by asking questions about undefined terms? /Really?/ >>> I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links >>> but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. >>> >>> But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That >>> these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? >>> > > The best way to go about it is to actually write some programs in Scheme or > Standard ML or Haskell or whatever. Then you actually internalize what > things mean, instead of these abstract definitions like what the semantics > of lambda is. You'll find the easy-to-understand books typically do the > programming for you by showing you code examples. > > Remember, programming isn't like history, where you can just read a book and > understand what's going on. It's more like medicine and being a doctor, > where both book reading *and* practice are important, the latter being > almost surely more important. That's worth knowing, but it overall, your answer seems strange to me. Apart from the incomprehensible examples, that is. Are the concepts of "closure" and "lambda calculus" really /so/ recondite that they cannot be understood except by reading entire book-length exegeses and learning a whole new skill? I find this implausible. I do not *understand* the Poincar? conjecture, but a mathematician friend of mine, over the course of a 45min talk, gave me enough of the shape of thing to get the gist of it, and to understand the general thrust of Grigori Perelman's essentially topological proof of it - the one that won him the Fields Medal, which he declined to accept. These are decidedly NOT simple subjects, but they /can/ be explained to non-technical people. I simply cannot accept that two basic elements of a programming language (or family thereof), which several here are maintaining is the best one for beginners to learn, is more complex than this. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 25 16:44:26 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:44:26 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> Message-ID: <4F2085CA.1060807@bitsavers.org> On 1/24/12 7:07 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote: > Hi > > This link is making the rounds: > > http://gizmodo.com/5878645/this-giant-chunk-of-metal-is-4-kilobytes-of-memory > > But what type of memory is it? Delay line, CRT tube, Drum? > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/701/pictures/701_Storage_Drawer.jpg http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/X1284.96 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:02:07 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:02:07 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05E772.8040400@neurotica.com> References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E772.8040400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 18:09, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/05/2012 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> I have no idea. I have not programmed in any meaningful sense in over >> 20y. I would expect so, yes. > > > ?[cited for reference below] > > >> The unreadability of Lisp syntax is widely agreed, /even by the >> creator of Lisp./ It is often cited as one of the main reasons for the >> lack of penetration of Lisp in mainstream business computing. > > > ?"Mainstream business computing" is extremely low-tech stuff, done by people > who regularly say "oh, it crashed, that's just how computers are, just do it > again, and reinstall if it doesn't work". > > ?In architecture and engineering in particular, Lisp is used on a daily > basis by probably 95% of the industry. ?The architect working on my building > plans diddles with AutoLisp regularly, and until we discussed it, he didn't > even realize he was doing any programming! > > >> I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally >> hailed as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it >> completely incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional >> with around a quarter century of experience. If I can't follow it, I >> really do not believe that a random person with neither interest or >> aptitude for it will be able to. > > > ?Please forgive me for jumping in, but I have to speak up here. ?You keep > going on and on about how you've got all this "IT experience" (you didn't > specifically mention "IT" above, but you have before), and that should make > you more able, not less able, to understand abstract "CS" (as distinct from > "IT") concepts. ?You reinforce what I'm saying by also stating that you're > not a software developer. ?Wrangling systems and networks, working with > databases, etc etc and whatever else constitutes your day-to-day work life > has jack-point-squat to do with advanced theoretical concepts (with > practical implementations) such as, for example, closures. > > ?It is my opinion that you should not feel it's unusual that you don't "get" > that stuff even though you are "a computer professional". ?That's like > saying "I'm a podiatrist, so I work on the human body too...all that stuff > about understanding how neurons work is just bunk, because I don't get it!" > > ?I'm down with Death Flu(tm), and I'm sure I could've illustrated my point a > bit better above, but I think you get the general gist of what I'm trying to > say. ?The only reason *I* see the difference is because I do > both...otherwise I'd probably not get it either. All right, this is a fair criticism. I should not assume that just because I grok certain aspects of computing, and even of baby-steps use of programming languages, that I can understand everything. I don't understand everything; I know that and freely concede it. So, OK, point taken. But I am a smart guy - no, honest, really I am - and I am literate, numerate, I understand the basics (no pun intended) of programming and so on. I am also a professional explainer-of-difficult-technical-concepts. I really do believe that I /should/ be able to get this, but the texts and so on that I have read make me feel like I am brain-damaged. /The Little Schemer/ for instance is virtually line-noise from the very first page. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:03:29 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:03:29 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 18:22, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 5, 2012, at 12:09 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > >> Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible >> explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are >> powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. > > I can take that one, though I fully expect someone to correct me if I get something wrong. ?Closures are a way of encapsulating data in a particular function instance, not unlike the member data associated with an object's method. ?For example, in Python I could write the following function: > > # foo is expected to be a list here > def function_generator(foo): > ? ?def _f(x): > ? ? ? ?foo.append(x) > > ? ?return _f > > > And I would generate a callable function that would append x to the list foo. ?For example: > > bar = [] > > append_func = function_generator(bar) > > append_func("abc") > > print bar > > > Would print "['abc']". > > It's a toy example, for sure, but they're great for things like callbacks (it's similar to a callback with a context pointer, which is a pretty popular idiom in C; a closure just encapsulates the context pointer much like a C++ object does for its methods). > > I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. Thanks for the example, but I am afraid I can't follow a line of it. Sorry. I have tried to cram some Python into my head several times, but it won't stick. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Wed Jan 25 17:16:25 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:16:25 +0000 Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: <1327462221.92923.YahooMailNeo@web161905.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I had a Model 4p, but I lent it to STEVE ALBANY and he never gave it back. A shame, I loved that computer... On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 9:19 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > Model III's and 4s are selling from between $400 and $2400 on eBay. > These= > > How mauch are M4's going for then? > > I used an M3 for several years until I got an M4 (older version CPU board > without the large gate array chips -- the only custom part is the video > timing chain [1]). I've not found anything the M3 could do that I can't > also do on the M4, and the 80 column display and ability to run CP/M cabn > be useful. > > [1] This is not a 6845, for all it has much the same pinout. It's a > mask-programemd thing, you don't write to all the configuations > registers, that's what the mask programming defines. The pin that would > be the light pen siganl on a 6845 selects between 2 possible > configurations (here used for 64 colun or 80 column modes). > > -tony > > -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:17:41 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:17:41 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E417.2080603@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 18:29, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 12:55 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> On 01/05/2012 12:20 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> >>>> For those that might want to dabble lightly with 1980s Commodore BASIC >>>> on a modern machine, let me shamelessly plug >>>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/cbmbasic/ >>> >>> Wow. You chose to reimplement the poorest-quality BASIC I ever met, >>> back in the day! Er - why? >> >> ?[raises hand] >> >> ?Oooh! ?I know this one! ?Because it was hands-down THE most popular, >> widely-deployed one from the 1980s, at least in the US. > > I can get behind that. > >> (or maybe because he wanted to!) > > That never hurts. > >> ?Of course a statement like that is sure to draw people out of the woodwork >> screaming "NO! was the most popular!" > > Bring it. ?;-) > >>?No, I was never a "commie" by any stretch... > > I was, from day one. ?I _used_ other machines, and I did admire > certain features of other machines (like the Hi-res graphics of the > Apple II when all I had was a character-graphic PET), but really > enjoyed getting to know Commodore products at the ROM-code and > register level (something I never enjoyed on the Apple II, even when I > was being paid to to program it - I appreciate and admire Woz's > hardware from a technician's standpoint, but I can't stand the > consequences of his achievements from a programming standpoint). > >> but of all the people I knew who had computers at home in the >> 1980s when I was in high school, the breakdown went something like this: >> >> ?90%: Commodore 64 or VIC-20 >> ?5%: Atari 400 or 800 >> ?1%: Apple (rich kids) >> ?1%: COCO >> ?1%: Non-COCO TRS-80 (kids with parents who ran their own businesses) >> ?1%: CP/M >> ?1%: RSTS/E =) ?(only 1...betcha can't guess who that was!) > > I'd say that was about right, though for the crowd I knew, I'd flip > Atari and Apple, largely because we had a lot of Apples in local > schools and a lot of parents just went with the expensive but easy > option when buying a machine. ?I did know a couple of Ohio Scientific > owners, but that's probably because the company was a couple of hours > from where I grew up, and one DEC Rainbow owner (Dad was a lawyer for > whom cost was not a deciding factor). > > Later, of course, the whole mess shifted to PC, Amiga, and Mac, with > some 68K Atari owners hanging off the fringes, but the days of BASIC > were over - even if someone happened to own a PC with BASIC in ROM, I > never saw that it in use past about 1984. Different part of the same epic thread... All right. I meant no offence by my questions. "Because I knew it really well" is of course an excellent reason to implement an emulator or the like, and "because I liked it" is another. "Because it was really popular" is also a good one. But, um, well, I am thinking of the sort of objections Toby Thain was giving to BASIC - its dependence on line numbers, the absence of structured programming constructs ("if... then... else..." or "case"/"switch" or "repeat... until" or "while... wend" and stuff like that at the simple level, named procedures with local variables, permitting recursion, at the slightly more sophisticated level.) Given that VIC20/C64 BASIC lacked all this sort of stuff, wouldn't even BASIC 7 from the C128 have been a more useful educational tool to re-implement today? I suppose this begs another question: what did you expect your re-implementation might be used for? I'm really not trying to take the p1ss here. I am just very surprised and a bit mystified, that's all. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:26:32 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:26:32 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F05F41A.4030008@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F05F41A.4030008@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 19:03, Josh Dersch wrote: > > > On 1/5/2012 9:09 AM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> All right, some interesting points there. >> >> But, by way of seeking clarification - well, let's put it this way. I >> am interested and very curious about Lisp, Scheme, Lisp Machines and >> so on. Indeed I am, as a result of my reading, trying to research and >> write an article on the history of Lisp Machines. >> >> And yet, despite reading acres about this, I have yet to find *any* >> coherent nonspecialist texts, guides, tutorials or explanations about >> these languages. > > > What texts have you looked at? The Little Lisper The Little Schemer Lisp by Winston and Horn > "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" > (http://deptinfo.unice.fr/~roy/sicp.pdf) is a great introduction. ?Recently > I've skimmed through "Land of Lisp" which is a fun book with a good sense of > humor that teaches Lisp by way of writing simple games. Top tips - especially the PDF. Many thanks! >> For instance, the lambda calculus. What is it? What does it do, what >> is it for, why is it special? > > > It's the fundamental mathematical concept behind functional programming > languages. ?It's by no means a prerequisite for using (or understanding) > Lisp. ?I'm not sure I understand it well enough to explain it coherently, so > I'll let someone else chime in here :). Sadly, I don't think they did. :?/ >> Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible >> explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are >> powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. > > > (Warning, huge URL, to Peter Siebel's "Practical Common Lisp") > http://books.google.com/books?id=gwyZ4jdn_jMC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=closures+in+lisp&source=bl&ots=PfkTcPue18&sig=S4J-MJ4rbbW5Qan49AXt0tgMEss&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UewFT7bYBoeiiQLJ8YCBDA&ved=0CGAQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=closures&f=false > > See page 68 at least. Roger wilco > Or [c] you're taking the wrong approach to actually learning this. ?Sit down > with a copy of SICP and a computer running Scheme. ?Go through the examples. > ?Experiment. ?And don't worry about understanding everything all at once. OK, fair call. > (I'd also argue that the two items you list as "core concepts" are not as > "core" as you're making them out to be. ?As I've said, understanding Lambda > calculus at the mathematical level is by no means a requirement for actually > using a functional programming language. ?Similarly, closures are very > useful but by no means required knowledge for starting off in Lisp.) All right, I will take that on board. It is just that, AFAICS, when people speak of the superiority of Lisp over other programming languages, or of its core strengths and why it is worth looking at or learning, they tend to cite these things. However, nobody appears to be able to explain /what they are./ It is troubling. >> I would *REALLY* like and hugely value any pointers, ideally web links >> but print references would do as well, as to these concepts. >> >> But are there other possible explanations that I have missed? That >> these things are easy but all the texts are rubbish? > > > I'm not going to say these things are easy -- programming isn't easy in > general. ?Learning a new programming paradigm isn't easy. OK, I can't argue with that. > ?Lisp and Scheme > themselves are not complicated, but there are concepts in them that you > really won't understand until you sit down and start using them. ?You'll > have a few "a ha!" moments, and things will start making more sense. ?I'm > still relatively inexperienced with Lisp. ?I know my way around it, but I > don't claim to be an expert, and I'm still learning new things that make me > say "a ha!" Hmmm. Interesting. All right. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 17:28:17 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:28:17 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 5 January 2012 19:27, Tony Duell wrote: >> >> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: >> > Oh if I had my way, every computer would have BASIC in firmware or on >> > disk. >> > You betcha. >> >> . . . and to supplement or ameliorate deficiencies in the firmware >> version, there can be addtions to it on the disk! >> . . . and, for those missing the firmware copy, put "Gee Whiz BASIC" on >> the disk! > > > Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. > > I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it > does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use > said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, > and if you can't prgoram it, it's ?not a computer. > > -tony (only _half_ joking) Actually, I think you've got a good point there. If you were to restrict the argument to the schools/educational context, I'd entirely agree. "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From arcarlini at iee.org Wed Jan 25 17:35:32 2012 From: arcarlini at iee.org (arcarlini at iee.org) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:35:32 -0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <199EF2581F054515AA95DC6E63C7EEFE@ANTONIOPC> > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Liam Proven > I am amused that you don't even explain what that ETLA stands > for. I've added it to my Bookmooch wishlist, anyway, although > I doubt I'll get it in time to be much help. I've not really followed this thread too closely, but a TLA is a "three letter abbreviation" (like, say, TLA) and an ETLA is an "extended TLA", so a four letter abbreviation (ETLA for example). HTH, Antonio From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 18:07:48 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:07:48 -0500 Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: <1327462221.92923.YahooMailNeo@web161905.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 4:19 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> Model III's and 4s are selling from between $400 and $2400 on eBay. These= Ouch! > I used an M3 for several years until I got an M4 (older version CPU board > without the large gate array chips -- the only custom part is the video > timing chain [1]). I've not found anything the M3 could do that I can't > also do on the M4, and the 80 column display and ability to run CP/M cabn > be useful. When I was in High School, we had two TRS-80s for the "Computer Math" class - an M3 and an M4. I did not know at the time about CP/M options, so I ran some ordinary flavor of TRSDOS on them, whatever the teacher handed us. ISTR preferring the M4 over the M3 when given the opportunity, but it's been long enough that I can't remember why (keyboard tactile feedback or monitor ripple or something trivial - don't think it was software or firmware-related - we had the same OS disks for both). I should see about tracing down the memory fault on my M3 - I've tried memory tests and moving the 4116s around, but it seems to only see 32K of the 48K that's installed. It's possible that a '157 or something further upstream from the DRAM is faulty. -ethan From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Jan 25 18:27:21 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:27:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> > "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and > write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. Job-training for the digital sweatshop. From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 25 18:36:05 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:36:05 +0000 Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F209FF5.6090609@dunnington.plus.com> Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in > the retrocomputing community before that. > > Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement > last summer. Just coming up for air! Welcome back, Kevin! -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From jecel at merlintec.com Wed Jan 25 19:36:32 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:36:32 -0300 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> Liam, > I simply cannot accept that two basic elements of a programming > language (or family thereof), which several here are maintaining is > the best one for beginners to learn, is more complex than this. I think it is possible to have simple explanations. But it depends on having a good idea of what the listner already knows. This isn't my case with you, but as I did see that you didn't like Lisp nor Python examples I will make up my own notation here and see if that helps. A lambda expression just associates a list of names with some computation using those names. Here is one that given two numbers will return the sum of the squares of those numbers: (x,y)==>(x*x+y*y) This is supposed to be a big right arrow. Now lambda calculus is a whole area of math which has lots to say about lambda expressions. For example, it says that the actual names aren't important so that this new lambda expression is entirely equivalent to the first one: (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b) I mentioned computation, but so far we haven't had any. We can apply a lambda expression to a list of values and that will allow us to get a result. I will use a colon to indicate that the expression on the left is being applied to the values on the right: (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b) : (3,4) This is exactly the same thing as (3*3+4*4) which happens to be (9+16) which can be simply written as 25 So how is this different from a function call in C? Except for the fact that I didn't give it some name like squaresum() or something like that it seems like the same thing. There are lots of interesting details in lambda calculus (specially the focus on recursive functions), but let's ignore all that and move on the closures. What would happen if we try to find the value of the following expression? (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+c*c) : (3,4) The best we can do is get down to (25+c*c) We can say that variables "a" and "b" were bound to some values, but "c" remains unbound. It is a free variable in this expression. Here is a way to fix that: [ (c)==>( (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+c*c) ) : (5) ] : (3,4) I just used the square brackets to make things a little less confusing, but they are the same thing as parenthesis. This complicated expression is the same as (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+125) : (3,4) Here "c" is no longer a free variable (also known as an unbound variable or an open variable). It has been bound to a specific value. We can say it has been closed. If we have a way to refer to the thing in the square brackets and save it and later manipulate it, we can do some interesting stuff. Given that this thing has closed over a variable in a lambda expression that would otherwise be free/open/unbound we can call it a closure. You can think of a lambda expression as an anonymous function, and of a closure as a lambda expression that is not loose in the world but exists in a context (or environment) where its free variables have been associated with values. What is the big deal? You can store lambdas and closures in variables, you can return them from functions and manipulate them in several ways. In languages which don't present these concepts to the programmers they are still there, but now hidden in the implementation and out of reach. So these things are rather advanced and won't help at all children take their first steps into programming. But they allow you to tell an interesting story about how things work inside to an advanced learner without having to drop down to the level of assembly language. -- Jecel From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 18:42:35 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:42:35 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <199EF2581F054515AA95DC6E63C7EEFE@ANTONIOPC> References: <199EF2581F054515AA95DC6E63C7EEFE@ANTONIOPC> Message-ID: On 25 January 2012 23:35, wrote: >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Liam Proven >> I am amused that you don't even explain what that ETLA stands >> for. I've added it to my Bookmooch wishlist, anyway, although >> I doubt I'll get it in time to be much help. > > I've not really followed this thread too closely, but a TLA is a > "three letter abbreviation" (like, say, TLA) and an ETLA is an "extended > TLA", > so a four letter abbreviation (ETLA for example). I know. I was using the term "ETLA", facetiously, to refer to the use of "SICP" in the message that I was replying to, when SCIP was never explained or expanded. I had to Google it. Because "SICP" is an ETLA, you see. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 18:44:55 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:44:55 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 00:27, Fred Cisin wrote: >> "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and >> write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. > > Job-training for the digital sweatshop. Yes indeed. And yet British politicians fret about why design and technology is going abroad. I guess American ones might well do the same. Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing to me, that. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jan 25 18:43:26 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:43:26 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F20A1AE.1070306@dunnington.plus.com> Tony Duell wrote: >> In today's lunch break I cleaned up the RX50 drive and completed some > > Have you tried to completley dismantle the RC50? > After that the R/W and spindle motor PCBs come off trivially. So does the > belt, the spidnel motor and the hubs. But don't touch the stepper motor > or heads. The RX50 seems ot haev been desinged so it's almost impossible > to alight -- you can't get to the stepper mounting screws when the > seek/interface PCB is fitted, conversely you need this fitted to runs the > drive. I have a LART resereved fro the 'genius' who came up with that one... Yes, there's a special test rig to do it. No, I don't have one. I think they are the most awful floppy drives I've ever seen. There are at least three different hardware revisions, to fix various problems -- like the unreliability of some, hence the screening and rules about grounding it. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jan 25 18:54:52 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:54:52 -0800 Subject: Want a 9-track repair business? In-Reply-To: <4F1F6D11.1070806@compsys.to> References: <201110052006.p95K5sKU078024@billy.ezwind.net> <201201241645.q0OGjmc5054665@billy.ezwind.net> <96208EE5-3788-404A-A705-6A577903F1A9@gmail.com> <201201241718.q0OHI8cT055819@billy.ezwind.net> <4F1F6D11.1070806@compsys.to> Message-ID: <4F20A45C.2090602@bitsavers.org> On 1/24/12 6:46 PM, Jerome H. Fine wrote: >> http://bitsavers.org/tools/wizl/tapewizl/ >> It uses an IBM 3480 head. >> >> What's the latest on that project, Al? >> John Bordynuik has been using a similar design for several years, and hopefully he will be donating a system to CHM this year. From fraveydank at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 18:55:18 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:55:18 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Jan 25, 2012, at 8:36 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > Liam, > That's certainly the most coherent explanation I've ever seen of it (and to think, I never really even thought about why they were called "closures"). Thanks, Jecel! - Dave From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 25 19:20:34 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:20:34 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> On 25/01/12 5:37 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 6 January 2012 16:45, Robert Smith wrote: >> >> * Types and Programming Languages by Pierce >> >> This book explains type theory and the theory of programming languages. ... >> >> * Purely Functional Data Structure by Okasaki >> >> Talks about data structures which are immutable and efficient, suitable for >> purely functional languages. ... >> >> * Introduction to Functional Programming using Haskell by Bird >> >> This is a book, *not* about Haskell, but rather about functional >> programming. ... >> >> * Learn You A Haskell For Great Good by Lipovaca >> >> Okay, now if you want to be spoonfed Haskell and functional programming, >> read this. ... >>> >>> Readable and comprehensible explanations: >>> * SICP >>> * Programming in Scheme (Abelson& Eisenberg) >>> * aforementioned Henderson. >>> and dozens of others. There are A LOT of good functional programming >>> texts out there, many dating back to the 70s and 80s of course, and far >>> in conceptual advance of the mainstream (PHP! ASP.NET! Java! snore). >>> >> >> SICP should explain closures just fine. I mean, not only are closures (and >> lexical scope as a prerequisite) explained, but you also use closures in a >> practical way. And there is no way SICP is poor. > > I am amused that you don't even explain what that ETLA stands for. > I've added it to my Bookmooch wishlist, anyway, although I doubt I'll > get it in time to be much help. > Google, first hit: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ > Are the concepts of "closure" and "lambda calculus" really /so/ > recondite that they cannot be understood except by reading entire > book-length exegeses and learning a whole new skill? No, of course not, but you insist on saying they are. --Toby > > I find this implausible. > > I do not *understand* the Poincar? conjecture, but a mathematician > friend of mine, over the course of a 45min talk, gave me enough of the > shape of thing to get the gist of it, and to understand the general > thrust of Grigori Perelman's essentially topological proof of it - the > one that won him the Fields Medal, which he declined to accept. These > are decidedly NOT simple subjects, but they /can/ be explained to > non-technical people. > > I simply cannot accept that two basic elements of a programming > language (or family thereof), which several here are maintaining is > the best one for beginners to learn, is more complex than this. > From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Jan 25 20:13:02 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:13:02 -0500 Subject: Creating a slave class - was Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F20B6AE.4000306@telegraphics.com.au> On 25/01/12 7:44 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 26 January 2012 00:27, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and >>> write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. >> >> Job-training for the digital sweatshop. > > Yes indeed. > Meanwhile, university tuition just tripled, did it not? If it happened anywhere else, there would be rioting in the streets! > And yet British politicians fret about why design and technology is > going abroad. I guess American ones might well do the same. > > Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U > of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used > anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing > to me, that. From what I see in the industry - it's the overwhelmingly common condition. --Toby From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Wed Jan 25 22:10:31 2012 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis Kotlowy) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:40:31 +1030 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote: > Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U > of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used > anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing > to me, that. http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png 'nuff said. Though it'd depend on where you study it. I know the Uni of Adelaide is mad for Java. Alexis. From teoz at neo.rr.com Wed Jan 25 22:31:44 2012 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (TeoZ) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:31:44 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexis Kotlowy" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:10 PM Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote: >> Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U >> of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used >> anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing >> to me, that. > > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png > > 'nuff said. Though it'd depend on where you study it. I know the Uni of > Adelaide is mad for Java. > > Alexis. What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use that forever? From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Wed Jan 25 22:57:51 2012 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:57:51 -0800 Subject: CRAY J90 Supercomputer on ebay In-Reply-To: References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F20DD4F.5040603@sbcglobal.net> Item number: 250980918844 It sure would be fun having a Cray keeping the living room warm this winter. Bob From spc at conman.org Wed Jan 25 23:06:03 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:06:03 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20120126050602.GA7835@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: > > I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local > > functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. > > Thanks for the example, but I am afraid I can't follow a line of it. > Sorry. I have tried to cram some Python into my head several times, > but it won't stick. I sent this on January 5th directly to Liam, but I never heard back. I suppose it might have gone into some spam bucket, or just overlooked. Anyway, here's what I originally sent. --- original message --- It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: > > Closures: again, I have yet to find a readable, comprehensible > explanation of what they are, what they are good for, why they are > powerful and what strengths they confer onto a programming language. Understanding closures requires one understands lexical scoping of variables, and that functions can be passed and returned, just like any other type of variable (like an integer or string). I'm going to use Lua here, as it's a simple langauge and should be easy to follow. First, a regular function: function add(x,y) return x + y end Tis a silly function, doesn't do much. But in Lua (and basically, any langauge that supports closures), you can assign the function to another variable. myfunction = add And from there: x = add(1,2) y = myfunction(1,2) x and y contain the same value. In fact, you can rewrite the add() function as: add = function(x,y) return x + y end And even pass a function to another function: function do_something(f,v1,v2) return f(v1,v1 - v2) end Or even return a function, previously defined or not: function whichone(name) if name == 'plus' then return add elseif name == 'minus' then return function(x,y) return x - y end else return function(x,y) error("bad function name") end end end myadd = function('plus') x = add(1,2) y = myadd(1,2) So, functions can be treated like any other type of value, such as integers or strings. Now, what about this function? function adder(increment) return function(x) return add(x,increment) end end This returns a function that adds a set amount to its argument. So we have: a5 = adder(5) x = a5(1) print(x) 6 It works, but why? Once adder() is finished, there shouldn't be an "increment" variable anywhere ... it was a parameter! It's a variable with a supposedly empherial existence, only living while the function is running. Except, we aren't exactly returning a function, but what's called a "closure". The technical terminology is something like "it closes over the lexical scope of all the variables" but really, it's two items treated as a single entity: the function (really, a pointer to a function) and a copy of any variable outside the functions scope used by that variable. Another silly example: function silly(a,b) local count = 0 return function(x) count = count + 1 print("I've been called ",count,"times") return a * x + b end end myfunc = silly(5,3) x = myfunc(1) Here, a, b, and count are copied to the "data portion" of the closure, which is returned along with the (pointer to a) function. And yes, the returned function can modify the "variables" in the closure, but since they're "local" to the function, it's okay. A C-type representation of this would be something like: typedef int (*function__t)(int); typedef struct { function__t code; struct { int a; int b; int count; } data; } closure__t; static int __internal_function(closure__t *self,int x) { self->data.count++; printf("I've been called %d times\n",self->data.count); return self->data.a * x + self->data.b; } closure__t silly(int a,int b) { closure__t *cl; cl = malloc(sizeof(closure)); cl->code = __internal_function; cl->data.a = a; cl->data.b = b; cl->data.count = 0; return cl; } /* ... */ closure__t *myfunc; int x; myfunc = silly(5,3); x = (*myfunc->code)(myfunc,1); Only all these gritty details are hidden and done automatically by the compiler/interpreter/what have you. And that's really what a closure is. What can it be used for? Well, in Lua, closures are used in for() loops. For instance, I have some Lua code that wraps the Unix calls opendir() (to open a directory) and readdir() (to read the next entry in the directory) and one can loop through a directory like: d = fsys.opendir(".") -- current directory while true do entry = fsys.readdir(d) if entry == nil then break end print(entry) end But given how Lua implements a for() loop, we can write: function dir(name) local function internal_dir(state) return fsys.readdir(state) end local directory = fsys.opendir(name) return internal_dir,directory -- for() needs these two values end And now we can do: for entry in dir(".") do print(entry) end That's just one example, in one language, of a closure. It can make some constructs easier and prettier. Why such stuff has to be jargoned up is beyond me. -spc (Well, I guess that's enough procrastination; back to the saltmines) From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jan 25 23:14:37 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:14:37 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 11:31 PM, TeoZ wrote: >> ... I know the Uni of Adelaide is mad for Java. 50> > What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate > college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use > that forever? Thankfully, no. The one and only formal programming course I ever took at Uni was called "Engineering Graphics 200", subtitled "FORTRAN for Engineers". We did all of our work on either the WATFIV(E?) or F77 compilers on an Amdahl (only because they retired the IBM whatever-number-it-was two years before I started). Thankfully, I was able to do all of my work on the 3270 terminals and skip the "joy" of using the line-oriented editors in one of many "WILBUR" terminal rooms. Ecch! Mind you, at the same time I was taking this, I was also learning FORTRAN on the VAX-11/750 at work, along with PDP-11 assembler, and shortly thereafter, C on 4.1BSD on the other VAX 11/750 at work. Nevertheless, I think the point goes back to what has been popping up now and again - what you learn early on affects your worldview and what you are receptive to later. I would not be happy if my very first experience with programming ever was learning Java on modern hardware. More to the point, I would probably be doing something other than software development. I enjoy hammering on registers too much to be stuck in a sandbox. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 00:26:51 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:26:51 -0500 Subject: CRAY J90 Supercomputer on ebay In-Reply-To: <4F20DD4F.5040603@sbcglobal.net> References: <20120115121940.S76368@shell.lmi.net> <4F20DD4F.5040603@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <4F20F22B.2010501@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 11:57 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > Item number: 250980918844 > > It sure would be fun having a Cray keeping the living room warm this > winter. I have several; they are wonderful. They're surprisingly capable (in terms of floating point performance) for their age. I also have some older ones (EL-class) and a relatively recent one (SV1). There are a few inaccurate points in the auction text, however. First, this machine does NOT require three-phase power. Second, it weighs a whole lot more than 240lbs. I'd estimate a two-rack J90 config coming in at about 700lbs. If anyone gets one of these, I can help get it running. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pinball at telus.net Wed Jan 25 11:43:43 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:43:43 -0800 Subject: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F203F4F.1000300@telus.net> Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > Hi All: > > I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in the retrocomputing community before that. > > Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement last summer. Just coming up for air! > > I have several old DEC systems, including pdp-8s, pdp-11s, and VAXen. I am getting going on them again. > > I have acquired some new (NOS I suppose) 82S131 ROM chips, and am looking to write some boot ROMs for my 11/34. Specifically, these are chips that fit into an M9312 Unibus terminator/boot ROM card. I want to create RX01 and RX02 boot ROMs. In DEC-speak, these are 753A9 and 811A9 part numbers. > > The ROM images are available through Don North at (http://www.ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/). Thanks Don! > > I have a one-size-fits-all new-fangled EPROM/PROM programmer, and I thought I had it made when I saw the chips. > > Unfortunately, my programmer is too new to handle these chips. Sigh! > > I wonder if anyone has a programmer they will either part with; or who I could send the 82S131 ROM blanks to, for programming. > > Alternatively, if anyone has spares of the these chips (753A9 and 811A9), I can swap you blanks for them. > > Thanks and I am looking forward to becoming active on the list and in the hobby/fixation again! > > Kevin > mcquiggi at sfu.ca > > > > Kevin, I am in Vancouver (BC) and can burn your Proms... Email or phone me! John :-#)# -- John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames) www.flippers.com "Old pinballers never die, they just flip out" From bqt at softjar.se Wed Jan 25 15:50:55 2012 From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:50:55 +0100 Subject: Some PDP11 related Questions.. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F20793F.7080302@softjar.se> On 2012-01-25 19:00, Holm Tiffe wrote: > allison wrote: > >> > On 01/25/2012 06:40 AM, Holm Tiffe wrote: >>> > >Hi, >>> > > >>> > >I have A M8186 (KDF11-A Rev D) and an M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) currently in >>> > >an H9275 Backplane. >>> > >I've fiddeled around an wondering why I can't access the ROMs on the M8047 >>> > >at 173000. Finally found it, they get active ad 773000 in the ODT, since >>> > >the M8047 is using the BBS7 Signal from the CPU to decode the ROM Address. >>> > >My question is now regarding the Bootstrap setting, the Manual says that in >>> > >ODT mode the BDAL16 and BDAL17 are enabled to get access to the higher >>> > >memory contents. How is this handeled while bootstrapping? I can't set a >>> > >bootstrap address of 773000 on the KDF11, it boots now in ODT Mode and >>> > >displays 173000 after Reset, thati's the jumpered address. >>> > >How is this (BBS7) handeled while bootstrapping? Is the BBS7 low while >>> > >bootstrap at 173000 or is the M8047 incompatible with this processor? >>> > >(I've not tested to bootstrap since I don't know what is in the ROMs and I >>> > >don't have an RX02 nor TU58 to connect, want to put in a M7555 so I have to >>> > >change the ROMs for sure). As far as I know this KDF11 should be able to >>> > >handle 22 bits (420HD0 on the Handle, 5013326 D-P4 on the Board) is that >>> > >the case? >> > >> > Most all KDf11s are Q22 make sure both of the hybrid chips are there the >> > second >> > one has the MMU for the 22 bit mapping! >> > >> > Also make sure the backplane is Q22. >> > >> > Lastly the M8047 make sure its jumpered correctly. If the boot in it >> > fails due to lack of device I think the report is 173003?. >> > >> > ODT only knows 16bit octal. And BBS-7 is activated when the upper three >> > address bits are active for addresses greater than 160000 which is IO >> > and boot address space. > Yes, but I mean the difference between 773000 vs 173000. > I see the ROMs in ODT at 773000 but not at 173000! > Anyway, I'll jumpering the CPU to bootstrap and will look what happens. Here is how it actually works: When the CPU is addressing anything in memory, it goes through the MMU. Always. However, the MMU can act in three different modes. 16-bit 18-bit 22-bit In 22-bit mode, all CPU accesses are virtual addresses, and they get translated by the MMU into other 22-bit addresses. Pretty straight forward. In 18-bit mode, all CPU accesses are also virtual addresses, and they get translated by the MMU into 22-bit addresses. Only part of the PAR registers are used. However, memory access to addresses in the high 4kW are mapped to the high end of the 22-bit address range, even though you only have 18-bit addresses. In 16-bit mode, all CPU accesses are physical addresses. However, the MMU recognize addresses in the high 4kW of the address space, and move those accesses to the high 4kW of the 22-bit address space. Next is the BBS-7 signal, which is active if the physical address then is above 17760000. Anything in the I/O page should never decode the A21-A13. BBS-7 will be the logical AND of A21-A13. In fact, it might be that BBS-7 is shortcircuited inside the MMU, and the MMU don't even drive A21-A13 when you are in 16-bit or 18-bit mode. Anyway, the ROMs are *not* at 173000, if you talk about 22-bit or 18-bit addresses. They are at 173000 if you talk about 16-bit addresses only. In short, they are at address 13000 in the I/O page. Wherever your I/O page is. If you enable 22-bit addressing, and put the I/O page at page 0, the ROM memory will appear at virtual address 13000, really. I hope this makes things clear. Otherwise feel free to ask. It's really not that complicated. >>> > >Next question about RAMs: I do have some QBUS Memory boards with PMI >>> > >connectors (M6708, NatSemi NS638, Chrislin CI-MV8 to be concrete) does >>> > >anyone know if I can use one of them with the KDF11 (or at least the >>> > >KDJ11?) I hve a KA630 too, but I need PDP11 RAM, the 16KW on the M8047 >>> > >is really a bit small.... >>> > > >> > PMI can be used with KDJ11 if its the right PMI. KA630 is not PDP11 but it >> > is microVAX. > Yes, know this. But what's the right PMI for the KDJ11? > I have soldered an additional Megabyte to the KDJ11 and it has now 1,5MB, > which is enough tu run 2.11BSD, therefore I don't have tried to use one of > the memory Boards additionally until now. No. It is not compatible. The PMI memory for VAXen does not work the same way as PMI memory for PDP-11s (even those that do have PMI memory). VAX PMI uses a flat cable between the CPU and the memory boards. PDP-11 PMI memory uses signals in the CD slots to communicate with PMI memory. In addition, for VAXen, PMI is used to be able to address more than 4 MB as well as speed, while on the PDP-11 PMI memory only have PMI for the speed gains, as a PDP-11 cannot address more than 4 MB anyway. Also, the PDP-11 PMI memories works just fine as any normal Qbus memory. It only acts as PMI memory under some specific circumstances, else it's just normal Qbus memory. VAX PMI memory does not work as normal Qbus memory under any circumstances, as far as I know. If you want the designation for the KDJ11 PMI memories, just search through the field guide that is on the internet. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 13:44:21 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:44:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: defining 'vintage' In-Reply-To: <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> References: <1327361556.47639.YahooMailClassic@web161204.mail.bf1.yahoo.com> <4F1F4F9A.7000803@gmail.com> <20120125074754.9n0xqkuiqokwcoos@webmail.opentransfer.com> Message-ID: <1327520661.38230.YahooMailNeo@web164517.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: "emu at e-bbes.com" Looking at PCs, they will have in few year many terrabytes of diskspace to boot win 10/11, but effectively, all the data is in the cloud. So if you flip the switch, you boot something which interprets the data you're getting from the internet and send it back, while your data is located in a big data center somewhere else. Didn't we call them terminals back then? ;-) ?Dumb terminals in fact. And they're just as dumb these days. Dumb and getting dumber. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 15:45:37 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:45:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> Message-ID: <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> wouldn't you do well to ask Dave? He's probably got images of the s/w. ________________________________ From: Dennis Yurichev To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:28 AM Subject: Intertec Superbrain In the middle of 1980s, I was user of Intertec Superbrain computer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertec_Superbrain I found information about it on Dave Dunfield website: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/supbrain/index.htm I still own it, but original diskettes came with the computer are lost. (it was CP/M maybe 2.x but not sure, some BASIC, etc) I found also list of CP/M OS images on Dave's website, but I'm not sure: which one could I take to boot Superbrain? I thought, different CP/M machines have different port mappings or...? And how it is possible to write images to floppy diskettes on PC computer so that Superbrain can boot from them? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 25 15:58:43 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:58:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: BYTES wanted, pre-1990 In-Reply-To: <20120125131803.E73184@shell.lmi.net> References: <1327465240.25670.YahooMailNeo@web164502.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20120125131803.E73184@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1327528723.33074.YahooMailNeo@web164501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Fred Cisin On Tue, 24 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: > And yes that does render them vintage dag nabbit! Well, SOME of those issues are vintage.? But, after August 1981, the amount of vintage content per issue declined rapidly!? :-) C: I agree. A decade at best and it was all over. It was all downhill after IBM put the pc on the front page of Time and whatnot. Egads. I shouldn't be startled at such a response though. Largely vintage to me means what was current when I was in my teens and early twenties. Much the same w/Fred I guess. Difference is I was using a keyboard and he was using toggle switches. Then graduated up to a numeric keypad. From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Thu Jan 26 03:18:37 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:18:37 +0200 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> On 1/25/2012 11:45 PM, Chris M wrote: > wouldn't you do well to ask Dave? He's probably got images of the s/w. I did, and he wrote Superbrain's disk drives wrote data in some "inverted" fashion and it is complicated to write them using usual PC floppy drives, so that's why he didn't put images on website. From jws at jwsss.com Thu Jan 26 06:13:05 2012 From: jws at jwsss.com (jim s) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 04:13:05 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F214351.2000506@jwsss.com> Quite sad considering that when I was a the University of Missouri Rolla in 72 there was a grad student who implemented Lisp on the Microdata 1600 in 16/21 assembly, then later enhanced it with a car function in firmware, and also added virtual swapping of workspace to the disk attached to the system. It would run on a 16 K system for a few iterations, and if it was swapping it would run up to when it filled the 1.25mb of disk space it could get to. Garbage collect was not well implemented on any Lisp at the time, and was a problem given having only 16K of memory (including OS) to work with. He should have headed to UMR... Jim On 1/25/2012 4:44 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U > of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used > anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing > to me, that. > From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 09:51:41 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:51:41 -0700 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server Message-ID: This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:03:39 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:03:39 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120126050602.GA7835@brevard.conman.org> References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> <20120126050602.GA7835@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 05:06, Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: >> > I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local >> > functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. >> >> Thanks for the example, but I am afraid I can't follow a line of it. >> Sorry. I have tried to cram some Python into my head several times, >> but it won't stick. > > ?I sent this on January 5th directly to Liam, but I never heard back. ?I > suppose it might have gone into some spam bucket, or just overlooked. > Anyway, here's what I originally sent. Sorry - I only replied yesterday, as I guess you saw after writing this, as you're replied to my reply. Apologies for both my sluggishness - I have a lot of other stuff to do, as well - and not realising it was a private email rather than to the list. Would you prefer that I revert to directly mailing you? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From spc at conman.org Thu Jan 26 10:08:35 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:08:35 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> <20120126050602.GA7835@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <20120126160835.GB3466@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: > On 26 January 2012 05:06, Sean Conner wrote: > > It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: > >> > I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local > >> > functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. > >> > >> Thanks for the example, but I am afraid I can't follow a line of it. > >> Sorry. I have tried to cram some Python into my head several times, > >> but it won't stick. > > > > ?I sent this on January 5th directly to Liam, but I never heard back. ?I > > suppose it might have gone into some spam bucket, or just overlooked. > > Anyway, here's what I originally sent. > > Sorry - I only replied yesterday, as I guess you saw after writing > this, as you're replied to my reply. > > Apologies for both my sluggishness - I have a lot of other stuff to > do, as well - and not realising it was a private email rather than to > the list. Would you prefer that I revert to directly mailing you? Here or privately, I don't mind. -spc (Others on this list might though ... 8-) From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:12:43 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:12:43 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 26, 2012, at 10:51 AM, Richard wrote: > This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by > hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. > > > Clever web distribution of an old idea! The application-centered one (which, I see, you can download the Apple II side for on that site) is at: http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ Transfer is *much* faster over serial than over the cassette port, for obvious reasons, but if you don't have a compliant serial card (ADT Pro only works with the Super Serial card and derivatives, and all I have is an Apple Communications Card which maxes out at 300 baud unless you mod it anyway), you're pretty much SOL. The Apple II ethernet card (Uther) tends to be relatively hard to acquire. I'm almost tempted to make one myself, but it'll have to go on the ever-longer queue... - Dave From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:17:59 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:17:59 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120126160835.GB3466@brevard.conman.org> References: <0AB6F1D5-4199-4DC2-9BD7-331F0CA12F18@gmail.com> <20120126050602.GA7835@brevard.conman.org> <20120126160835.GB3466@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 16:08, Sean Conner wrote: > It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: >> On 26 January 2012 05:06, Sean Conner wrote: >> > It was thus said that the Great Liam Proven once stated: >> >> > I use this all the time in Python; great for generating tiny local >> >> > functions to thunk a string into the right format, too. >> >> >> >> Thanks for the example, but I am afraid I can't follow a line of it. >> >> Sorry. I have tried to cram some Python into my head several times, >> >> but it won't stick. >> > >> > ?I sent this on January 5th directly to Liam, but I never heard back. ?I >> > suppose it might have gone into some spam bucket, or just overlooked. >> > Anyway, here's what I originally sent. >> >> Sorry - I only replied yesterday, as I guess you saw after writing >> this, as you're replied to my reply. >> >> Apologies for both my sluggishness - I have a lot of other stuff to >> do, as well - and not realising it was a private email rather than to >> the list. Would you prefer that I revert to directly mailing you? > > ?Here or privately, I don't mind. > > ?-spc (Others on this list might though ... 8-) :?) I'm half-way through a reply. I thought that leaving it public might help if others wanted to leap in and try to explain stuff that this dumbass here, yours truly, is missing, you see... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jan 26 10:18:52 2012 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:18:52 -0800 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 8:51 AM -0700 1/26/12, Richard wrote: >This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by >hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. > > > That is seriously cool! Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Photographer | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | My flickr Photostream | | http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ | From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:32:53 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:32:53 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 01:20, Toby Thain wrote: > On 25/01/12 5:37 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> Are the concepts of "closure" and "lambda calculus" really /so/ >> recondite that they cannot be understood except by reading entire >> book-length exegeses and learning a whole new skill? > > No, of course not, but you insist on saying they are. I was not saying the concepts are hard. I was saying that I'd not previously found any explanations of them that were comprehensible to me. I suggested 2 possible interpretations for this & have been offered a third: [1] the concepts are really really hard or [2] the explanations are all rubbish or [3] I'm really stupid & ignorant. It appears that maybe there is a #4: They are moderately hard concepts but the key thing is that they require a fair amount of prior knowledge to build upon; so if the reader *has* that knowledge, they can be conveyed by a relatively simple, step-by-step explanation. But if they don't have it, then the concepts are probably too complex to get across. They're only really meaningful to someone with at least some moderate level of programming knowledge. (E.g. named functions, local versus global variables, and the passing of named parameters - not necessarily a comprehensive list!) The problem with the explanations is that either they assume lots of expert programming knowledge, so aim too high, or that they assume none but only mathematical knowledge and use an entirely different, separate vocabulary, impenetrable if the reader does not know maths. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:39:13 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:39:13 +0000 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 04:31, TeoZ wrote: > > What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate > college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use > that forever? No - I think it's a more general form of the Dijkstra thing. Something like: If an advanced student learns only simple tools, but learns them in considerable depth, that it leaves that student very ill-equipped for learning more complex tools later. Especially if they're trying to teach themselves the more complex tools. Another way of putting it: It's OK to take baby steps in something very simple - but after that, if training a student to do things *properly,* train them on the more advanced, more capable tools, right from the start. Otherwise they won't learn the more sophisticated techniques, and these are much harder to pick up later on. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:39:50 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:39:50 +0000 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 04:10, Alexis Kotlowy wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote: >> Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U >> of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used >> anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing >> to me, that. > > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png > > 'nuff said. Though it'd depend on where you study it. I know the Uni of > Adelaide is mad for Java. Seems I've done him a bit of an injustice - they later went on to Haskell & wrote a Scheme interpreter in Haskell. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:40:58 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:40:58 +0000 Subject: Creating a slave class - was Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F20B6AE.4000306@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F20B6AE.4000306@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 02:13, Toby Thain wrote: > On 25/01/12 7:44 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >> >> On 26 January 2012 00:27, Fred Cisin ?wrote: >>>> >>>> "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and >>>> write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. >>> >>> Job-training for the digital sweatshop. >> >> Yes indeed. > > Meanwhile, university tuition just tripled, did it not? If it happened > anywhere else, there would be rioting in the streets! Yup. >> And yet British politicians fret about why design and technology is >> going abroad. I guess American ones might well do the same. >> >> Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U >> of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used >> anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing >> to me, that. > > From what I see in the industry - it's the overwhelmingly common condition. Yup again. It's grim out there. :?( -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 10:54:35 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:54:35 +0000 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 04:10, Alexis Kotlowy wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote: >> Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U >> of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used >> anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing >> to me, that. > > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png That's excellent, by the way. :?D -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 26 10:30:58 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:30:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Zane H. Healy wrote: > At 8:51 AM -0700 1/26/12, Richard wrote: >> This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by >> hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. >> >> >> > Don't forget http://www.commodoreserver.com - it requires a "Comet64", but it's well worth it. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 11:13:58 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:13:58 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> Message-ID: <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 11:18, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > On 1/25/2012 11:45 PM, Chris M wrote: > > wouldn't you do well to ask Dave? He's probably got images of the > > s/w. > > I did, and he wrote Superbrain's disk drives wrote data in some > "inverted" fashion and it is complicated to write them using usual PC > floppy drives, so that's why he didn't put images on website. The data is inverted, but the address marks are normal. By and large 10-sector formats. I am aware of about 5 different Superbrain formats: The exception is the 30x128 byte sector MFM format, which can be written with a controller that uses the National DP8473 controller (common on ISA SCSI+Floppy controllers, particularly Future Domain and DTC). Here is what I have samples of: (sector size/sectors per track/sides/cylinders): 1. 512*10*1*35 MFM 2. 512*10*1*40 MFM 3. 512*10*2*35 MFM1 4. 512*10*2*80 MFM 5. 128*30*1*40 MFM The Wren Executive shares the second format with the Superbrain. --Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 11:32:33 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:32:33 -0700 Subject: How many DECwriters were sold? Message-ID: How would I find out how many DECwriters (model I, II or III) were made or sold? Did any sales data numbers from DEC ever make it into some sort of historical archive? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 11:52:19 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:52:19 -0700 Subject: I got gypped with my CS degree (was: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids) In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: In article , Liam Proven writes: > On 26 January 2012 04:10, Alexis Kotlowy wrot e: > > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote: > >> Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U > >> of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used > >> anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing > >> to me, that. > > > > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png > > That's excellent, by the way. I had the opposite reaction. If you wanted the middle picture to be your career, you should have gotten a PhD and become a researcher, instead of joining the workforce. The majority of programming needs have always been fairly dull and uninteresting. The actual *programming* that companies have asked me to do for the past 15 years has been fairly unchallenging technologically in the sense that I didn't need to invent new algorithms, solve the P=NP problem, create a new computer architecture, etc. It's been that way for a long time in the world of applied computer science: most of the basic problems have been solved and the challenges we face day-to-day are less technological than they are organizational behavior, teamwork, planning, etc. Read "Mythical Man Month", and you'll be surprised how many of the problems discussed by Brooks are still problems today. Well, you'll be surprised *if* you think that book is about technology problems. You won't be surprised if you recognize that the book is talking more about the problems you encounter from humans than from transistors. After 35 years in the software engineering profession, the more enjoyable stints were the periods when I worked with a team that had a jovial and friendly attitude and who I respected as capable and competent. The less enjoyable periods were when I had to work in an environment that was uptight and/or contained people of less than average capacity. It really didn't matter what the coding was about; the joy in the job really came from the people I worked with more than what we specifically worked on. Still, all other things being equal, I'd rather work on 3D graphics than on other stuff. But I'm not willing to turn myself into a sweat shop worker and go through the game development meat grinder just to work on 3D graphics. Technology isn't everything. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Thu Jan 26 12:03:41 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:03:41 +0200 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> On 1/26/2012 7:13 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> wouldn't you do well to ask Dave? He's probably got images of the >>> s/w. >> >> I did, and he wrote Superbrain's disk drives wrote data in some >> "inverted" fashion and it is complicated to write them using usual PC >> floppy drives, so that's why he didn't put images on website. > > The data is inverted, but the address marks are normal. By and > large 10-sector formats. I am aware of about 5 different Superbrain > formats: The exception is the 30x128 byte sector MFM format, which > can be written with a controller that uses the National DP8473 > controller (common on ISA SCSI+Floppy controllers, particularly > Future Domain and DTC). > > Here is what I have samples of: (sector size/sectors per > track/sides/cylinders): > > 1. 512*10*1*35 MFM > 2. 512*10*1*40 MFM > 3. 512*10*2*35 MFM1 > 4. 512*10*2*80 MFM > 5. 128*30*1*40 MFM > > The Wren Executive shares the second format with the Superbrain. BTW, is it possible to replace Superbrain's drives to something different? Maybe it would be easier to boot it then and copy image from replaced drive to original? (My Superbrain has two drives). From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 12:10:04 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:10:04 -0800 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, Message-ID: <4F21267C.25118.45D0BD@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 16:54, Liam Proven wrote: > http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png > > That's excellent, by the way. :?D That's a shame, since Oracle seems to have about as much interest in being the custodian of Java as they have in development of the Sparc processor. So all that Java training may be for nought. There's an article in the current IEEE "Computer' about the sad state of Java support. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 12:17:44 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:17:44 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F21267C.25118.45D0BD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org>, <4F21267C.25118.45D0BD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F2198C8.7070905@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 01:10 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png >> >> That's excellent, by the way. :?D > > That's a shame, since Oracle seems to have about as much interest in > being the custodian of Java as they have in development of the Sparc > processor. So all that Java training may be for nought. Huh? They've dramatically increased the pace and funding of SPARC development and are pushing it pretty hard, much harder than Sun did. At least as of my last information, which admittedly was a year ago. Has their stance changed? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 12:23:05 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:23:05 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 07:44 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and >>> write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. >> >> Job-training for the digital sweatshop. > > Yes indeed. > > And yet British politicians fret about why design and technology is > going abroad. I guess American ones might well do the same. Our politicians speak only of what their analysts tell them will get them re-elected. It's just like American business; sho:t-term personal financial gain for executives and their friends, at any cost to the rest of society, the environment, or the economy, is goal #1. Now, Americans in general, the few dozen of us left with functioning brains, fret about it all the time. There seems to be a resurgence in tech design and manufacturing starting here, but it remains to be seen if it'll amount to anything. It NEEDS to, or we'll become a third-world country. And you know how we just love to make fun of those. If your politicians actually CARE about this issue, applaud them! > Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap who's doing CompSci at the U > of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used > anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing > to me, that. [shakes head] -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 12:24:22 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:24:22 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F219A56.7020505@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 08:36 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > I think it is possible to have simple explanations. But it depends on > having a good idea of what the listner already knows. This isn't my case > with you, but as I did see that you didn't like Lisp nor Python examples > I will make up my own notation here and see if that helps. [fantastic explanation snipped] Nicely done! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 12:28:40 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:28:40 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> Message-ID: <4F212AD8.31370.56D8BA@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 20:03, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > BTW, is it possible to replace Superbrain's drives to something > different? Maybe it would be easier to boot it then and copy image > from replaced drive to original? (My Superbrain has two drives). Only if you don't have access to 5.25" drives on the system creating the copies. Floppy drives are dumb devices in the extreme--not a whole lot different from an old record-cutting lathe. There's a mechanism to move the head and some circuitry to amplify the read signal and circuitry to drive the heads on write--and not much more. No magic here. The brains are in the controller. --Chuck From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 12:30:16 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:30:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> Message-ID: <1327602616.91149.YahooMailClassic@web121604.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 1/26/12, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > BTW, is it possible to replace Superbrain's drives to > something > different? Maybe it would be easier to boot it then and copy > image from > replaced drive to original? (My Superbrain has two drives). It's not the drive that dictates the format. It's the controller hardware in the computer. The disk drives themselves are all the same. You could easily connect a normal PC drive to the Superbrain, but it won't change the formats the Superbrain can read - it'll still work the same as before. -Ian From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 12:36:33 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:36:33 -0700 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer Message-ID: Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and EE/EPROM programming. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 12:39:08 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:39:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> Message-ID: <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > BTW, is it possible to replace Superbrain's drives to something > different? Maybe it would be easier to boot it then and copy image from > replaced drive to original? (My Superbrain has two drives). WHY?? There is nothing "special" about the drives. THAT is why the address marks are "normal". EVERYTHING that is bizarre about the SuperBrain formats is due to the disk controller. It is NOT hard to create SuperBrain disks on a PC. Just how hard is it to take an array of 512 bytes and invert each byte? Which programming paradigms don't let you do THAT?? What "CS GRADS" can't do THAT? The data being inverted means that it isn't as convenient to LOOK at the data, but that's ALL. There are OTHER issues, NOT related to inverted data, that make the Superbrain disk format crowded and flaky. In addition to the inverted data, be VERY careful about trusting ANYTHING on the disk labels. Superbrain, when they added DOUBLE-SIDED to their 40 track double density format, called it "QUAD DENSITY". THAT IS BULLSHIT. If you have a Superbrain disk that is labelled "QUAD DENSITY", it is NOT 80 track per side (that ALMOST everybody else in the world called "QUAD DENSITY") - it is 40 track per side double sided double density. Likewise, if you have a Superbrain disk that is labelled "SD", that is NOT SINGLE DENSITY! Having used up the name "quad density" oprematurely, they decided to call their 80 cylinder DSDD "SUPER DENSITY", abbreviated "SD"!! (80 * 2 * 10 * 512) At NCC 1983? in Anaheim (the one where a couple of people DIED from the heat in the TENTS), I talked to a few computer manufacturers about their disk formats, and the possibilities for disk format conversion. TWO companies (Televideo and Intertec (Superbrain)) did not understand the concept; insisted that the ONLY possible reason for transferring files between disk formats was to PIRATE their proprietary software!; and threatened to sue me if I included their disk formats in XenoCopy. I added those two formats that night in my hotel room - they never kept their promises (of amazing amounts of free publicity) -- Fred Cisin cisin at xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236 From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 12:49:46 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:49:46 -0800 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F2198C8.7070905@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F21267C.25118.45D0BD@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F2198C8.7070905@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F212FCA.15303.6A29DB@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 13:17, Dave McGuire wrote: > Huh? They've dramatically increased the pace and funding of SPARC > development and are pushing it pretty hard, much harder than Sun did. > At least as of my last information, which admittedly was a year ago. > Has their stance changed? I know about the Sparc T4 announcement, so the following from the article has me scratching my head: "Oracle paid $7.4 billion (including debt) for Sun and discontinued the Sparc line..." My assumption was that the author knows something about Oracle that I don't (which isn't terribly difficult). It's possible that he means that the likes of Fujitsu are really doing the development on the Sparc and that Oracle has little interest in the CPU itself other than building a box around it. Anyone else have a clue? --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 26 12:56:35 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:56:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F2198C8.7070905@neurotica.com> from Dave McGuire at "Jan 26, 12 01:17:44 pm" Message-ID: <201201261856.q0QIuZfH015746@floodgap.com> > > That's a shame, since Oracle seems to have about as much interest in > > being the custodian of Java as they have in development of the Sparc > > processor. So all that Java training may be for nought. > > Huh? They've dramatically increased the pace and funding of SPARC > development and are pushing it pretty hard, much harder than Sun did. > At least as of my last information, which admittedly was a year ago. > Has their stance changed? They're big on SPARC because it fits well with Larry Ellison's drive to vendor lock-in. If everyone's on black boxes running Oracle chips and Oracle databases on Oracle operating systems (read: SPARC, Oracle, Solaris), then Larry can bend them over the barrel and continue to extract money from every orifice without risk of IBM stealing them away. Java doesn't fit into that strategy. Mind you, IBM does some of this with AIX/POWER/DB2 (and even more so with System i and z/Architecture), but Larry seems particularly seized with this dream when you watch the SPARC tech roadmap pressers. HP failed at this with PA-RISC, and then they failed again with x64, but they're happy to blame Intel for that. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Software sucks because users demand it to. -- Nathan Mhyrvold, Microsoft --- From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jan 26 13:05:25 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:05:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive > and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and > EE/EPROM programming. I've pondered getting one for a few years. What's stopping me is that it seems really poorly documented. It seems like it would be a cinch to work with Linux, but I don't know... -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From rogpugh at mac.com Thu Jan 26 13:33:06 2012 From: rogpugh at mac.com (Roger Pugh) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:33:06 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F21AA72.5020007@mac.com> Actually, if I had my way, every computer would have Forth in the frimware. Proud owner of two Fignition(s) "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. Ive been ranting about this to my suffering wife for ages having seen her eldest son go through school with no idea how a computer works or how to do anything with it except enlarge breasts with photoshop and make powerpoint presentations on how he did it! Thank god for some common sense and cheap fpga's Roger From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 13:39:22 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:39:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 1/26/12, Richard wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with > this device?? It's inexpensive > and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM > dumping and > EE/EPROM programming. It has one thing going for it. It's cheap. That is all. Having messed with one (albiet, an older version), I could find no other redeeming qualities. The hardware was flakey. The software was abysmal. You had to set DIP switches for everything. Programming older chips requiring a 25v VPP required hacking in your own power circuit. Even when you were using newer ROMs, it wasn't a good programmer. I know one arcade collector that smashed his with a hammer out of frustration after spending hours trying to burn some common chips. Unless they've made some serious improvements to the design, I think you're better off with nearly anything else. Personally, I love my Needham's PB-10. It's an ISA card with amazingly fantasitc, easy to use software, and it's incredibly reliable. I also have an EETools TopMax, and while the software isn't as nice, it does have a larger range of supported devices, and it too is reliable. -Ian From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Jan 26 13:44:34 2012 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:44:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <51734D37-CAF1-42A9-B840-86978E2C9F91@cs.ubc.ca> <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Thanks for the references, some great reading, but I'm not clear what your > intention or position is. I don't see anything in those papers to contradict > my points, I believe they support them. Sorry, I meant to add that it's quite apparent that the Williams-Kilburn tube wasn't as such used in the Whirlwind, but the M.I.T. Electrostatic Storage Tube was based on a similar principle, even though the implementation was very different. You are correct, and I should have checked more than one source. :-) Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 13:45:26 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:45:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <201201261440.31120.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Message-ID: <20120126114420.S10197@shell.lmi.net> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012, TeoZ wrote: > What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate > college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use > that forever? Maybe! "Baby Duck Syndrome" From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 13:55:48 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:55:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21AA72.5020007@mac.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F21AA72.5020007@mac.com> Message-ID: <20120126115416.K10197@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Roger Pugh wrote: > Ive been ranting about this to my suffering wife for ages having seen > her eldest son go through school with no idea how a computer works or > how to do anything with it except enlarge breasts with photoshop and > make powerpoint presentations on how he did it! Actually, that would seem to have more redeeming social importance than the rest of the digital sweatshop job-training. From brain at jbrain.com Thu Jan 26 13:58:17 2012 From: brain at jbrain.com (Jim Brain) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:58:17 -0600 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F21B059.8070909@jbrain.com> On 1/26/2012 1:05 PM, David Griffith wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > >> Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive >> and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and >> EE/EPROM programming. > > I've pondered getting one for a few years. What's stopping me is that > it seems really poorly documented. It seems like it would be a cinch > to work with Linux, but I don't know... > I use one of these, it works great for programming 27XXX,27CXXX, FLASH, and some uCs. Understand, though, what you are buying. Willem is an open source design, it works best on Windows machines, requires a parallel port (there is a newer version of the Willem that uses USB, but most WIllems are still Parallel Port models), and it a cheap entry level programmer that requires manual switch changes to program different ROMs. To that end, I bought mine for $15+$15 S&H. It looks like they are running a bit higher now, but: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Willem-5-0-EPROM-PIC-Programmer-27C256-27C512-E10-/190482303263?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Test_Measurement_Equipment_ET&hash=item2c59a1491f Looks like a reasonable buy. While there are Linux options (http://sourceforge.net/projects/geepro/), I think you'd be better off buying a better programmer unless you enjoy tinkering with config files and such. The Windows option works well because it's a "select the ROM type, match the switch settings on the device with the picture on the UI, program" type of operation. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 14:08:41 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:08:41 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: , <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F214249.3609.B26A22@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 11:39, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > It has one thing going for it. It's cheap. But some of the Chinese USB-powered programmers are just as cheap and come with a nice box--and they'll do GALs, which, as far as I know, the Willem won't do. Neither, AFAIK, will do bipolar PROMs. Given that a lot of the stuff you want to program is old, your best bet may be an old programmer. I have a parallel-port interfaced Xeltek unit run from DOS and it seems to do most of what I routinely need to do. --Chuck From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 14:09:24 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:09:24 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 01:36, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > Liam, > >> I simply cannot accept that two basic elements of a programming >> language (or family thereof), which several here are maintaining is >> the best one for beginners to learn, is more complex than this. > > I think it is possible to have simple explanations. But it depends on > having a good idea of what the listner already knows. This isn't my case > with you, but as I did see that you didn't like Lisp nor Python examples > I will make up my own notation here and see if that helps. > > A lambda expression just associates a list of names with some > computation using those names. Here is one that given two numbers will > return the sum of the squares of those numbers: > > (x,y)==>(x*x+y*y) > > This is supposed to be a big right arrow. Now lambda calculus is a whole > area of math which has lots to say about lambda expressions. For > example, it says that the actual names aren't important so that this new > lambda expression is entirely equivalent to the first one: > > (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b) > > I mentioned computation, but so far we haven't had any. We can apply a > lambda expression to a list of values and that will allow us to get a > result. I will use a colon to indicate that the expression on the left > is being applied to the values on the right: > > (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b) : (3,4) > > This is exactly the same thing as > > (3*3+4*4) > > which happens to be > > (9+16) > > which can be simply written as > > 25 > > So how is this different from a function call in C? Except for the fact > that I didn't give it some name like squaresum() or something like that > it seems like the same thing. There are lots of interesting details in > lambda calculus (specially the focus on recursive functions), but let's > ignore all that and move on the closures. What would happen if we try to > find the value of the following expression? > > (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+c*c) : (3,4) > > The best we can do is get down to > > (25+c*c) > > We can say that variables "a" and "b" were bound to some values, but "c" > remains unbound. It is a free variable in this expression. Here is a way > to fix that: > > [ (c)==>( (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+c*c) ) : (5) ] : (3,4) > > I just used the square brackets to make things a little less confusing, > but they are the same thing as parenthesis. This complicated expression > is the same as > > (a,b)==>(a*a+b*b+125) : (3,4) > > Here "c" is no longer a free variable (also known as an unbound variable > or an open variable). It has been bound to a specific value. We can say > it has been closed. > > If we have a way to refer to the thing in the square brackets and save > it and later manipulate it, we can do some interesting stuff. Given that > this thing has closed over a variable in a lambda expression that would > otherwise be free/open/unbound we can call it a closure. > > You can think of a lambda expression as an anonymous function, and of a > closure as a lambda expression that is not loose in the world but exists > in a context (or environment) where its free variables have been > associated with values. > > What is the big deal? You can store lambdas and closures in variables, > you can return them from functions and manipulate them in several ways. > In languages which don't present these concepts to the programmers they > are still there, but now hidden in the implementation and out of reach. > So these things are rather advanced and won't help at all children take > their first steps into programming. But they allow you to tell an > interesting story about how things work inside to an advanced learner > without having to drop down to the level of assembly language. That is excellent - many thanks! I read it last night and I think I understood it then. I am too tired to try to go through it again now but I will tomorrow and see if it sinks in. :?) A thousand thanks (as they say in Scandinavia). -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 14:09:26 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:09:26 -0700 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: In article <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic at web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>, Mr Ian Primus writes: > Personally, I love my Needham's PB-10. [...] OK, except for a few problems. 1) I don't have any machines with ISA slots anymore; I'd have to resurrect something. 2) Nobody sells this thing anymore. I'd rather have something that connects to the computer via USB and has software that works with modern versions of Windows (shut up, DM). I don't care if it's open source or not, I'm more interested in ease of use and right-tool-for-the-job-ness. I know everyone has their favorite vintage programmer that only works with MS-DOS and sticks and stone knives, but I'm not interested in recreating a "vintage PROM experience" as I am interested in getting the job of archiving all the little PROM bits in my hardware. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From useddec at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 14:11:11 2012 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:11:11 -0600 Subject: How many DECwriters were sold? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I had a stock report (78?) that said VT100's were being cranked out at one a minute. Not sure about the LA's, but info should be out there. paul On 1/26/12, Richard wrote: > How would I find out how many DECwriters (model I, II or III) were > made or sold? > > Did any sales data numbers from DEC ever make it into some sort of > historical archive? > -- > "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download > > > Legalize Adulthood! > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 14:19:35 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:19:35 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca>, Message-ID: <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 14:44, Mike Loewen wrote: > Sorry, I meant to add that it's quite apparent that the > Williams-Kilburn tube wasn't as such used in the Whirlwind, but the > M.I.T. Electrostatic Storage Tube was based on a similar principle, > even though the implementation was very different. You are correct, > and I should have checked more than one source. :-) At least up through the 70's, Williams-tube type storage was still undergoing development in the form of EBAM (electron beam addressed memory). Was EBAM ever commercially deployed? I remember seeing a rack of them sitting in the hallway at ADL at CDC Arden Hills in the mid-70s and being told that the project was no longer a hot item. cf. IEEE "Computer", February 1975: "The Development of an Experimental Electron Beam-Addressed Memory Module", John Kelly, SRI. (Available online via IEEE CS subscribers). Does anyone have such a device in their collection? CHM maybe? --Chuck From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Thu Jan 26 14:31:26 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:31:26 +0200 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> On 1/26/2012 8:39 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> BTW, is it possible to replace Superbrain's drives to something >> different? Maybe it would be easier to boot it then and copy image from >> replaced drive to original? (My Superbrain has two drives). > > WHY?? > > There is nothing "special" about the drives. THAT is why the address > marks are "normal". > EVERYTHING that is bizarre about the SuperBrain formats is due to the disk > controller. > > It is NOT hard to create SuperBrain disks on a PC. > Just how hard is it to take an array of 512 bytes and invert each byte? > Which programming paradigms don't let you do THAT?? > What "CS GRADS" can't do THAT? Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain in any form? From james at slor.net Thu Jan 26 14:36:38 2012 From: james at slor.net (James Wilkinson) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:36:38 -0500 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F21B059.8070909@jbrain.com> References: <4F21B059.8070909@jbrain.com> Message-ID: <1327610198.1876.4.camel@gopher> > I use one of these, it works great for programming 27XXX,27CXXX, FLASH, > and some uCs. I'd had a couple of these as well. As Brain said, also works great for me for flash and a number of 27x devices. Only thing I've seen is that they (at least the 2 I've used) tend to be finicky with smaller chips like 2764 and 2732. They seemed to like certain brands (e.g. Intel) better than others. That being said, the newer models may be better. To combat the small chip issues, I later snapped up a Pocket Programmer that works great with those and some of the more obscure old chips, and I break out the Willem for flash stuff. James From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 26 14:45:45 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:45:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F214249.3609.B26A22@cclist.sydex.com> from Chuck Guzis at "Jan 26, 12 12:08:41 pm" Message-ID: <201201262045.q0QKjkUE010568@floodgap.com> > Given that a lot of the stuff you want to program is old, your best > bet may be an old programmer. I have a parallel-port interfaced > Xeltek unit run from DOS and it seems to do most of what I routinely > need to do. Heck, my EPROM programmer of choice is my trusty Promenade, connected to the Commodore 128. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- People are weird. -- Law & Order SVU --------------------------------------- From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 15:03:50 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:03:50 -0500 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <659620F7-EC46-43D0-9C2A-14AD283A4216@gmail.com> On Jan 26, 2012, at 3:09 PM, Richard wrote: > > In article <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic at web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>, > Mr Ian Primus writes: > >> Personally, I love my Needham's PB-10. [...] > > OK, except for a few problems. > > 1) I don't have any machines with ISA slots anymore; I'd have to > resurrect something. > > 2) Nobody sells this thing anymore. > > I'd rather have something that connects to the computer via USB and > has software that works with modern versions of Windows. Given all these factors, Xeltek's modern line isn't too bad. They usually support lots of devices as well, including a lot of vintage ones. They're pricey, though; I've hung on to my old parallel port one (SuperPro 280) that requires me to put a PCIe parallel port in my machine and then run XP in a VM so it thinks that the port is at 0x378 just because I spent a pretty penny on it when it was new and I know it works very well (curiously, though, their NMC9306 algorithm is wrong and there appears to be no way to fix it). Their software looks like barf, but it's certainly basically functional. I've not been displeased with the thing aside from the NMC9306 issue. Their modern low-end device (the SuperPro M) runs off USB and is compatible with modern versions of Windows, and it doesn't look like they ever get rid of programming algorithms; it seems to support at least the major chips I use. It's $600, which is probably less than what your time is worth if you spend 6 hours fiddling with a poorly-implemented piece of crap. I'm seriously considering upgrading to that when I have the spare cash, but that's not right now. They do have a trade-in program, which might make it a little less painful for me. If you need to program a zillion EPROMs at a time, they have multi-ganged ones as well, but that doesn't sound like what you need. http://www.xeltek.com/SuperPro-M-product-17713 - Dave From ian_primus at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 15:05:23 2012 From: ian_primus at yahoo.com (Mr Ian Primus) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:05:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1327611923.59366.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 1/26/12, Richard wrote: > I don't care if it's open source or not, I'm more interested > in ease > of use and right-tool-for-the-job-ness. So you'll definitely not want a Willem... > I know everyone has their favorite vintage programmer that > only works > with MS-DOS and sticks and stone knives, but I'm not > interested in > recreating a "vintage PROM experience" as I am interested in > getting > the job of archiving all the little PROM bits in my > hardware. Well, I use the vintage programmer because it works *correctly*. EVERY TIME. No messing around, no fussing with settings, just does exactly what I want it to do, in a very easy to use manner. The software is elegant and clean, and the hardware is reliable. It's the right tool for the job because it does the job it's supposed to do. The fact that it doesn't require Windows is a bonus. :) Personally, I've not had any experience with the latest round of Chinese USB programmers. They might be OK. You'd have to talk to someone that uses one. But don't discount the old programmers - they were built back when EPROM technology was in current use, and many of them work very, very well. Not only that, but many of the very old ROM formats (bipolar PROMs) aren't supported by new programmers. If you only care about stuff from about the mid 80's on up, then you should have absolutely no problem with a modern, inexpensive programmer. But once you start needing to deal with anything older (2532, bipolar PROM, etc) the support can get sketchy. Not everything is just about the fact that we like using old stuff (we do), but sometimes the old stuff really, truly, does work better than new stuff. It's frequently a lot cheaper too. :) -Ian From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 15:05:33 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:05:33 -0500 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE> <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca> <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > At least up through the 70's, Williams-tube type storage was still > undergoing development in the form of EBAM (electron beam addressed > memory). > > Was EBAM ever commercially deployed? ?I remember seeing a rack of > them sitting in the hallway at ADL at CDC Arden Hills in the mid-70s > and being told that the project was no longer a hot item. In the mid-1980s, I remember seeing something of the sort in an industry rag - electron beam semiconductor devices, I think. I have never seen one, and I am doubting they ever left the lab. -- Will From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 15:14:16 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:14:16 -0500 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F21C228.2080100@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 03:09 PM, Richard wrote: > I'd rather have something that connects to the computer via USB and > has software that works with modern versions of Windows (shut up, DM). Excuse me? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 15:20:54 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:20:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net> <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> Message-ID: <20120126131549.L15732@shell.lmi.net> > > It is NOT hard to create SuperBrain disks on a PC. > > Just how hard is it to take an array of 512 bytes and invert each byte? > > Which programming paradigms don't let you do THAT?? > > What "CS GRADS" can't do THAT? On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... > Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain in > any form? THAT is a MUCH more serious problem than any of the technical issues of transferring the data! Sorry, I do not currently have any Superbrain system disks. Sorry, also, if I made you uncomfortable by poking fun at "inverted data" being a serious technical impediment. (In most languages it would be a trivial loop, with a body that did trivial bit twiddling - well, SCHEME would do it recusively :-) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:12:35 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:12:35 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 25, 12 11:02:07 pm Message-ID: > > I really do believe that I /should/ be able to get this, but the texts > and so on that I have read make me feel like I am brain-damaged. /The > Little Schemer/ for instance is virtually line-noise from the very > first page. This is something I know nothign about either, and it would certainly help _me_ if somebody could explain what lambda calculus and 'closures' are useful for. To me all such things are tools for solving particular types of problems, and knowing what those problems are is (at least to me) helpful, rather than startign with a formal defintion and/or an example. For example, the differential calculus (you know, dy/dx and all that) can be formally definied in terms od limits, but there's also the intuitive idea that it's to do with the rate of change of one quatity with repsect to another. Thaat intuitive idea is very helpful at the start. Or to put it another way. Would tuo ratehr undersntat what an oscilloscope does by being given the scheamtic of one, or by being told that bsaisclaly it dispalyes a grpahof hte voltage on the input socket agianst time, and is therefore useful for exampling AC voltages and other changing signals? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:15:37 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:15:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 25, 12 11:28:17 pm Message-ID: > > I think it should be a on offence to sell something as a computer if it > > does not compe with a programming language and the documentation to use > > said language. After all, a computer is a programamed data processor, > > and if you can't prgoram it, it's =A0not a computer. > > > > -tony (only _half_ joking) > > Actually, I think you've got a good point there. If you were to > restrict the argument to the schools/educational context, I'd entirely > agree. Notice I didn't say I'd hae any problem with other devices being sold that were not user programmable (even if they contain microprocessors, etc), provided they're not called computers When I was growing up, every computer came with some way to program it, I think. Even if that way was a lights-and-switches front panel ;-) > > "ICT studies" at school now appears to mean how to send an email and > write a letter in Word. This seems like a very sick joke to me. :-(. I beleive that by European standards I am classed as computer-illiterate, which seems curious at best... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:02:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:02:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 25, 12 10:37:57 pm Message-ID: > Um. Thanks for the suggestions, but I have to point out that I can't > really buy and read half a dozen textbooks in order to finish a 2 or 3 > thousand word article. I mean, ideally, I'd be knocking out a couple > of such pieces a day if I were a staffer and at least a few a week as > a freelancer. This simply does not permit such a depth of research! I am not pointign the finger at you or anybody else, I am sure this is generally the case. But it confirms something that I've suspected fro some time -- there are far too many people writing about things that they themselves do not understand, or at least don;t understnad fully.... I've written a few articles in my time, for user group publications. Of course I am not paid for them. But I do try to do the research first. If I describe a repair, you can be sure _I've_ done that repair on my own workbench (if I am reporting soemthign that was suggested by somebody else, I acknowledge that of course, but I still do it myself to be sure it works). If I describe how soemthign works, then I don't skip over the difficult bits. And yes, I've spent everal weeks buildign and testing just ot write a 2 or 3 page article. But I've read far too many articles and books which are either incomplete or downright wrong. Not just computer books either. I have a book entitled 'Telephone Porjects for the Evil Genius'. It's a classic. I think there's a mistake on each and every scheamtic. Certainly 90%+ of the projects can't work if you build them as shown. Some are 'simple' errors of drawing (like wirs joining where htey shouldn't be), some are fundamental design errors. I don't believe the author has built all the projects in the book and got them to work, if he had, then he'd have spotted things like totaem pole outputs contending with each other (!). Ho hum... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:31:43 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:31:43 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 25, 12 07:07:48 pm Message-ID: > When I was in High School, we had two TRS-80s for the "Computer Math" > class - an M3 and an M4. I did not know at the time about CP/M > options, so I ran some ordinary flavor of TRSDOS on them, whatever the > teacher handed us. ISTR preferring the M4 over the M3 when given the > opportunity, but it's been long enough that I can't remember why > (keyboard tactile feedback or monitor ripple or something trivial - > don't think it was software or firmware-related - we had the same OS > disks for both). > As far as I know, a Model 4 will boot any Model 3 disk/operating system, at which point it hehaces like a Model 3, you don't get any of the extra features. So if you were using an Model 3 TRS-DOS operating system, you wouldn't have had the 80- column screen or the extra memory or... The keyboard has some extra keys, but an M3 OS won't make use of them. There were several differnet keyboards used over the production time of the machines, perhaps the M4 had one you liked better the the one on the M3. My M3 and M4 have essentially the same keyboard, the one using individual Alps switches. The case colour is different (M3 is grey, M4 is white). I can't believe that made any differece The video monitor is the same circuit, so is the PSU. So there shouldn't ahve been any more or less ripple. However, the M3 has a white phosphor CRT, the M4 has a green one. Of coruse the CRT can be changed, but if the machiens were 'stock', that's the most obbvious thing that you might care about. > I should see about tracing down the memory fault on my M3 - I've tried > memory tests and moving the 4116s around, but it seems to only see 32K > of the 48K that's installed. It's possible that a '157 or something > further upstream from the DRAM is faulty. Obvious things would be address decoding or the RAS/CAS drivers. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:35:48 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:35:48 +0000 (GMT) Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: <4F20A1AE.1070306@dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Jan 26, 12 00:43:26 am Message-ID: > > After that the R/W and spindle motor PCBs come off trivially. So does the > > belt, the spidnel motor and the hubs. But don't touch the stepper motor > > or heads. The RX50 seems ot haev been desinged so it's almost impossible > > to alight -- you can't get to the stepper mounting screws when the > > seek/interface PCB is fitted, conversely you need this fitted to runs the > > drive. I have a LART resereved fro the 'genius' who came up with that one... > > Yes, there's a special test rig to do it. No, I don't have one. I I think I managed with some extension cables between the seek/interface PCB and the other PCBs (and the stepper motor, sensors, etc) when I did the one in my Rainbow. Still a right pain... > think they are the most awful floppy drives I've ever seen. There are I've seen much worse. Ones built on a plastic chassis for example. > at least three different hardware revisions, to fix various problems -- > like the unreliability of some, hence the screening and rules about > grounding it. When I got mine working, it seemed pretty reliable actually. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jan 26 14:48:42 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:48:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: from "TeoZ" at Jan 25, 12 11:31:44 pm Message-ID: > What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate > college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use > that forever? I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. -tony From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 15:48:18 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:48:18 -0500 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <1327611923.59366.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1327611923.59366.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > If you only care about stuff from about the mid 80's on up, then you should have absolutely no problem with a modern, inexpensive programmer. But once you start needing to deal with anything older (2532, bipolar PROM, etc) the support can get sketchy. I do need to occasionally burn bipolar PROMs, and I _definitely_ need to program 2532s (for PETs). I also need to program new, massive EEPROMs and GALs and microcontrollers. I have and use multiple programmers. I don't know of one device that handles every device I have burned in the past 10 years. I look at the "modern" USB-only Windows-only programmers the same way I look at my vintage ISA-interface, DOS-only programmer - "Oh, look.. a tool that will become "obsolete" before I'm done needing to use it, forcing me to forever run whatever they call a computer today". There may be USB ports in 20 years, but I doubt that a Windows application I buy today will run natively in 20 years. Interfaces tend to stick around longer than application platforms. I have a dedicated device programmer machine that doesn't get updated now, and I predict I'll have one long into the future. OTOH, I have the source for the download app for the EPROM emulator I use, so as long as I can stuff bits down a pipe at 9600-N-1 from a machine with a C compiler, I should be able to use that to emulate JEDEC EPROMs. It runs on VMS, it runs on DOS, it runs on UNIX. I think I'm set there. -ethan From eric at brouhaha.com Thu Jan 26 16:10:46 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:10:46 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F21C228.2080100@neurotica.com> References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <4F21C228.2080100@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F21CF66.2020809@brouhaha.com> > Excuse me? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. // From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 16:07:34 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:07:34 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F212FCA.15303.6A29DB@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F21267C.25118.45D0BD@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F2198C8.7070905@neurotica.com> <4F212FCA.15303.6A29DB@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F21CEA6.5070603@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 01:49 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Huh? They've dramatically increased the pace and funding of SPARC >> development and are pushing it pretty hard, much harder than Sun did. >> At least as of my last information, which admittedly was a year ago. >> Has their stance changed? > > I know about the Sparc T4 announcement, so the following from the > article has me scratching my head: > > "Oracle paid $7.4 billion (including debt) for Sun and discontinued > the Sparc line..." > > My assumption was that the author knows something about Oracle that I > don't (which isn't terribly difficult). It's possible that he means > that the likes of Fujitsu are really doing the development on the > Sparc and that Oracle has little interest in the CPU itself other > than building a box around it. > > Anyone else have a clue? I know that Fujitsu is (and has been) doing a LOT of SPARC development; their SPARC implementations have been a good bit better than Sun's for at least five years now. One of the things that happened right around the time of the Oracle acquisition (perhaps a bit after, not sure) is that Sun started selling Fujitsu SPARC machines. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 16:37:59 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:37:59 -0500 Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > The video monitor is the same circuit, so is the PSU. So there shouldn't > ahve been any more or less ripple. I more meant that one might have been in nicer shape than the other one, not that one was designed better. >> I should see about tracing down the memory fault on my M3 - I've tried >> memory tests and moving the 4116s around, but it seems to only see 32K >> of the 48K that's installed. ?It's possible that a '157 or something >> further upstream from the DRAM is faulty. > > Obvious things would be address decoding or the RAS/CAS drivers. If I had a 9000A-Z80 pod for my 9010A, I'd probably already have it fixed (I probably use my Fluke for testing memory more than any other single thing - even back in the day, a "DMA test" for a COMBOARD was really just running a memory test on the quadrant of 68K memory space that caused Qbus/Unibus DMA transactions... we could test local ROM, local RAM, or remote RAM via DMA, all with the same buttons and the same tool). Fortunately, I have a 6502 pod as well as a 68000 pod, so the Fluke has plenty of targets at my house. Yes... there are other ways to run address testing, bus testing, etc... they are more work than popping the processor, plugging in a vintage purpose-built tester and hitting well-understood buttons. The lack of a Z80 pod pushes this project further down the stack, especially since I have little software for the M3 that requires more than 32K. -ethan From robert at irrelevant.com Thu Jan 26 16:41:54 2012 From: robert at irrelevant.com (Rob) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:41:54 +0000 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: On 24 January 2012 21:54, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > > PS: Some of you may know that I am collecting PDP-11 Operating Systems. Do you have a copy of "BOS" ? I used to work for one of their resellers; We still had one customer running it on an 11/23 clone, supporting over a dozen serial terminals and several printers, as late as 2001. (BOS was an expensive cross-platform OS designed to run accounts software.. they are still going, but has morphed into an application under windows now...) There's a fairly small chance I might still have a set of discs, but it's likely the box is at the bottom of the heap that's in a storage unit.. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 26 16:43:00 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:43:00 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <92CB6369-AC46-46AD-B73A-727A8FC6F506@cs.ubc.ca>, <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F21D6F4.5040509@bitsavers.org> On 1/26/12 12:19 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > The Development of an > Experimental Electron Beam-Addressed Memory Module T I - Electron-Beam Addressed Memory Research. TN - Final rept. Mar 72-Jan 74 AU - Kelley. dohn: Moore, John S. * CS - Stanford Research Inst Calif*air Force Avionics Lab., PO - Aug 74; 200p CC - 9B: 62A t DE 'memory devices; *storage tubes: Ad essing: Electron beams: ID - 'electron beam addressed memories: Ntisdodaf' SA - Afal-fr-74-176 AP - U7423 RN - Sri-Isu-1778 . CG - F33615-72-C-t906 PN 9 Af-4150 AB - Work toward the r ization of a practical operational W P g~h t - Patterson Af b, ohf 0. PR - pc 65.50/Mf 62.25 Semiconductor devices: Metal oxide semiconductors; Electrostatics Electron-Beam-Addressed Memory tebam) is described. Consideration is given to the design of the various components. The electrostatic microcapacitor or 'mucap' medium i s described and analyzed. Operation' in the quast-continuous mode is discussed and its Importance in the attalnment of devlce stability and target yield is outlined. Measurements on the storage medium are presented, two pieces of equipment are! descrlbed: the Sri-sponsored Analog System, designed for making storage target meaaurments, and an Ebam module, recently delivered to the Usaf avionics Lsboratory, Design, construction, and performance of both systems @re discussed. (author) i GE's R&D center was also working on a similar device called BEAMOS memory a bunch of google hits on "GE BEAMOS" Accession Number : ADA037642 Title : Design, Fabrication, and Evaluation of an Electron Beam Addressable High Information Density Memory Tube. Descriptive Note : Final rept. 1 Mar 75-31 Aug 76, Corporate Author : GENERAL ELECTRIC CORPORATE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SCHENECTADY N Y Personal Author(s) : Lemmond,Charles Q. ; Kirkpatrick,Conilee G. ; Possin,George E. ; Hughes,William C. ; Klotz,T. H. , Jr Report Date : FEB 1977 Pagination or Media Count : 94 Abstract : BEAMOS tubes, designed and constructed prior to this contract, were tested to determine their ability to meet various environmental requirements. Although the tubes were not designed specifically with these requirements in mind, data were gained during the tests for use in effecting a re-design of the tube. Two tubes were fabricated embodying the suggested design improvements. Other design improvements, brought about by General Electric's inhouse BEAMOS development program, were also included. The two tubes so constructed were tested and shown to meet the operational performance goals. The tubes were delivered to the Army. More specifically, several improvements were made to the electron optics of the BEAMOS tube. These changes were made to produce stable operation of the tube under various environmental requirements. Descriptors : *ELECTRON BEAMS, *BLOCK ORIENTED RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES, *ELECTRON OPTICS, *STORAGE TUBES, TEST AND EVALUATION, MAGNETIC FIELDS, MILITARY REQUIREMENTS, COMPUTERS, MEMORY DEVICES, HIGH DENSITY, ENVIRONMENTAL TESTS, ELECTROMAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY, ADDRESSING. Subject Categories : ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT COMPUTER HARDWARE Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE They seem to be density improvements using MOS semiconductor technology of the barrier grid storage tubes of the 50's like the Radechon http://bitsavers.org/pdf/rca/storage_tubes I'll have to dig back through the material from Hobbs we received over the holidays. I remember seeing the SRI report in there. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 17:04:29 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:04:29 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net>, <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> Message-ID: <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 22:31, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... > Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain in > any form? Probably, but *which* Superbrain and what format do you have? --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 17:17:20 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:17:20 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <659620F7-EC46-43D0-9C2A-14AD283A4216@gmail.com> References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>, , <659620F7-EC46-43D0-9C2A-14AD283A4216@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F216E80.29729.15F1F15@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 16:03, David Riley wrote: > Given all these factors, Xeltek's modern line isn't too bad. They > usually support lots of devices as well, including a lot of vintage > ones. They're pricey, though; I've hung on to my old parallel port > one (SuperPro 280) that requires me to put a PCIe parallel port in my > machine and then run XP in a VM so it thinks that the port is at 0x378 > just because I spent a pretty penny on it when it was new and I know > it works very well (curiously, though, their NMC9306 algorithm is > wrong and there appears to be no way to fix it). I just grabbed a cheap Neoware thin client which still has parallel and serial ports. It'll boot off of the internal flash or a USB pen drive. Small, has its own internal power supply, so I don't mind relying on it to run the Xeltek. It looks as if most of Xeltek programming software hasn't changed in look and feel for a very long time. Even the DOS-mode software closely resembles the Windoze stuff. One very cool aspect of the Xeltek stuff is that you can drop some house-numbered TTL DIP into the socket and it'll try to identify it. It doesn't work for the more complex logic, such as 74181s, but it picked up a couple Fujitsu chips that I could not identify. There's another Chinese brand out there that appears to be a bit more professional that the usual junk--the "Wellon" line. They claim a lot of devices, but I know nothing about them other than that. --Chuck From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 26 17:24:34 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:24:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Now, Americans in general, the few dozen of us left with functioning > brains, fret about it all the time. There seems to be a resurgence > in tech design and manufacturing starting here, but it remains to be > seen if it'll amount to anything. It NEEDS to, or we'll become a > third-world country. At this point, I fear that's inevitable. The lunatics are been in charge of the asylum, and have been for too long. In particular, the USA, as a society, does not really value education. One look at what teachers get paid makes that clear. They're at least two generations into the blind leading the blind in some respects. I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and is now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what happened? we used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and start the long slow climb back up again. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 17:25:59 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:25:59 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <4F21D6F4.5040509@bitsavers.org> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F21D6F4.5040509@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F217087.7963.1670B38@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 14:43, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/26/12 12:19 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > The Development of an > > Experimental Electron Beam-Addressed Memory Module I picked up a copy of the Kelly/SRI paper from the IEEE online site and saved the PDF (hint on what to do if you're curious). The Kelly paper basically describes work done for the USAF--the contract number is F33615-72-C-1906. There's a photo showing the experimental AF device (Experimental Unit 740101) being driven by a Macrodata MD-100 memory exerciser. I wondered if CHM had any real EBAM-related iron. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 17:52:59 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:52:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120126155017.N20727@shell.lmi.net> In the early 1980s, one of our college administrators had all of our model 3s CONVERTED into model 4s. Doing each one was only slightly more expensive than buying model 4s to use in addition to the 3s. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 26 18:08:10 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:08:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > This is something I know nothign about either, and it would certainly > help _me_ if somebody could explain what lambda calculus and > 'closures' are useful for. The lambda calculus is useful in the same way that any theoretical discipline is useful. It does not itself solve problems; it informs and supports the creation of methods to solve problems. I'm not the best person to ask about it, because it is something I know only peripherally. Closures, on the other hand, are IMO of great practical use if you're working in a language that supports them; like most language concepts, having the concept sometimes helps even when the language doesn't support it, because it means you can implement it, or a useful subset of it, and then use the resulting tool - without the conceptual tool, it's a lot harder to come up with such things. In languages that have them, closures are useful for currying (there's theory poking its head up again) and encapsulation - in simple cases these are a bit like OO approached from another angle, but they allow some things that are rather outside the bounds of most OO paradigms, though in OO languages with multiple inheritance it's possible to simulate closures with suitably contrived collections of objects. But closures, like most language features, are really convenience: anything closures allow you to do, you can mangae to do without them by simulating them manually. But it's awkward (to varying degrees, depending on things like what language you're using). It's difficult to give a practical problem closures are useful for in much the same way it's difficult to give a practical problem resistors are useful for: they are things which are used to build solutions, rather than themselves being solutions. Loosely put, closures take a blob of code and the bindings of some variable names to variables and return a thing which can be executed like the blob of code, but, while it's executing the code, the name<->variable mappings saved in the closure are temporarily reinstated. This means they can be useful when you want to package up some code along with some state for it to operate on but would rather not resort to global variables. In languages without closures, this can lead to the "callback function and its argument" pattern, but that has problems when you want to pass two arguments, or you want to share the state among multiple functions. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 18:20:52 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:20:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Mouse wrote: > Loosely put, closures take a blob of code and the bindings of some > variable names to variables and return a thing which can be executed > like the blob of code, but, while it's executing the code, the > name<->variable mappings saved in the closure are temporarily > reinstated. This means they can be useful when you want to package up > some code along with some state for it to operate on but would rather > not resort to global variables. In other words, "static local variables"? > In languages without closures, this > can lead to the "callback function and its argument" pattern, but that > has problems when you want to pass two arguments, or you want to share > the state among multiple functions. From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 18:37:47 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:37:47 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 06:24 PM, Mouse wrote: >> Now, Americans in general, the few dozen of us left with functioning >> brains, fret about it all the time. There seems to be a resurgence >> in tech design and manufacturing starting here, but it remains to be >> seen if it'll amount to anything. It NEEDS to, or we'll become a >> third-world country. > > At this point, I fear that's inevitable. The lunatics are been in > charge of the asylum, and have been for too long. > > In particular, the USA, as a society, does not really value education. > One look at what teachers get paid makes that clear. They're at least > two generations into the blind leading the blind in some respects. Yes. > I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and is > now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what happened? we > used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and start the long > slow climb back up again. That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra here. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 26 18:44:17 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:44:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and >> is now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what >> happened? we used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and >> start the long slow climb back up again. > That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are > quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the > escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra > here. Sure...now. My "a while" is probably on the order of a century, maybe two. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 18:51:02 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:51:02 -0200 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server References: Message-ID: <088601ccdc8d$c324cc90$6400a8c0@tababook> > This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by > hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. > > We do it in MSX for AGES :oP From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 18:52:42 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:52:42 -0200 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server References: Message-ID: <088d01ccdc8e$1d9802f0$6400a8c0@tababook> So look at a Brazilian Prototype: http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Riley" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 2:12 PM Subject: Re: Apple ][ disk/game server > On Jan 26, 2012, at 10:51 AM, Richard wrote: > >> This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by >> hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. >> >> >> > > Clever web distribution of an old idea! The application-centered one > (which, I see, you can download the Apple II side for on that site) is at: > > http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ > > Transfer is *much* faster over serial than over the cassette port, for > obvious reasons, but if you don't have a compliant serial card (ADT Pro > only works with the Super Serial card and derivatives, and all I have is > an Apple Communications Card which maxes out at 300 baud unless you mod it > anyway), you're pretty much SOL. > > The Apple II ethernet card (Uther) tends to be relatively hard to acquire. > I'm almost tempted to make one myself, but it'll have to go on the > ever-longer queue... > > > - Dave From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 18:57:43 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:57:43 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0EE48493-C22A-4B1E-9453-421186FCA0CF@gmail.com> On Jan 26, 2012, at 3:48 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate >> college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use >> that forever? > > I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int > othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. I suppose that could be true, depending on which segment of the commercial world you land in. I'm fortunate enough to have landed in the segment where every project is unknown territory, so I'm learning new things all the time (and if I didn't, I'd sink). If I had landed in web development, though, I'd probably be pretty stagnant. ...which is why I don't do web development as a general rule. - Dave From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 18:52:42 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:52:42 -0200 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server References: Message-ID: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> So look at a Brazilian Prototype: http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Riley" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 2:12 PM Subject: Re: Apple ][ disk/game server > On Jan 26, 2012, at 10:51 AM, Richard wrote: > >> This is a nice idea! Feeds the disk images to your Apple ][ by >> hooking up your ipad/computer/etc. audio output to the cassette input. >> >> >> > > Clever web distribution of an old idea! The application-centered one > (which, I see, you can download the Apple II side for on that site) is at: > > http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/ > > Transfer is *much* faster over serial than over the cassette port, for > obvious reasons, but if you don't have a compliant serial card (ADT Pro > only works with the Super Serial card and derivatives, and all I have is > an Apple Communications Card which maxes out at 300 baud unless you mod it > anyway), you're pretty much SOL. > > The Apple II ethernet card (Uther) tends to be relatively hard to acquire. > I'm almost tempted to make one myself, but it'll have to go on the > ever-longer queue... > > > - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 18:57:36 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:57:36 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 07:44 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and >>> is now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what >>> happened? we used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and >>> start the long slow climb back up again. >> That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are >> quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the >> escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra >> here. > > Sure...now. My "a while" is probably on the order of a century, maybe > two. Oh man. I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of nowhere. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Thu Jan 26 18:58:52 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:58:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Loosely put, closures take a blob of code and the bindings of some >> variable names to variables and return a thing which can be executed >> like the blob of code, but, while it's executing the code, the >> name<->variable mappings saved in the closure are temporarily >> reinstated. > In other words, "static local variables"? In some respects. However, each closure contains its own distinct set of values; most languages' "static local variables" don't work that way. As a really simple example, consider (to use Lisp as the language, since that's what I'm most familiar with practical closures in; I'm using my own Lisp here, which is pretty close to Zetalisp in the relevant respects): (defun make-adder (n) #'(lambda (x) (+ x n))) Then (setq a4 (make-adder 4)) (setq a10 (make-adder 10)) a4 and a10 are then closures. Each one has (lambda (x) (+ x n)) as its code blob; its binding list includes a binding of n to some value - 4, in the case of a4, or 10, in the case of a10. (funcall a4 7) -> 11 (funcall a10 7) -> 17 Whereas, in C, which doesn't have closures but does have static local variables, static int n; static int adder(int x) { return(x+n); } static int (*make_adder(int val))(int) { n = val; return(&adder); } the function returned by make_adder will always add the last value passed to make_adder, regardless of which call's return value is called. That is, after int (*a4)(int); int (*a10)(int); a4 = make_adder(4); a10 = make_adder(10); Then (*a4)(7) gives 17, not 11 - though if called between the two make_adder calls, it returns 11. This is because the returned pointers are _not_ closures; the binding of the name n in adder to the storage location it refers to is fixed, and all those references refer to the same location. (Actually, I've seen it said that there's an effort afoot to get closures into C, along with anonymous code blocks and various other things. I think that is spectacularly misguided; if they want Lisp, they know where to find it.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jan 26 19:05:43 2012 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:05:43 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <4F217087.7963.1670B38@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <4F2144D7.28406.BC652F@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F21D6F4.5040509@bitsavers.org> <4F217087.7963.1670B38@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F21F867.8010809@bitsavers.org> On 1/26/12 3:25 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I wondered if CHM had any real EBAM-related iron. > I'll have to dig more if we do. If we have it, it's probably miscataloged From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 19:09:13 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:09:13 -0500 Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <0EE48493-C22A-4B1E-9453-421186FCA0CF@gmail.com> References: <0EE48493-C22A-4B1E-9453-421186FCA0CF@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F21F939.7060106@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 07:57 PM, David Riley wrote: >>> What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate >>> college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use >>> that forever? >> >> I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int >> othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. > > I suppose that could be true, depending on which segment of the commercial world you land in. I'm fortunate enough to have landed in the segment where every project is unknown territory, so I'm learning new things all the time (and if I didn't, I'd sink). If I had landed in web development, though, I'd probably be pretty stagnant. > > ...which is why I don't do web development as a general rule. I'm right there with you. The last time I learned something new at work was...heck, less than an hour ago. I wouldn't have it any other way. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:21:40 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:21:40 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> On Jan 26, 2012, at 7:52 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > So look at a Brazilian Prototype: > http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ > (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) Kind of makes me wish I understood Portuguese better. :-) I can make out the gist of it from my very limited Spanish, though. - Dave From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 19:23:41 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:23:41 -0800 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> References: , <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 22:52, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > So look at a Brazilian Prototype: > http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ > (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) It's been a long time since I've seen an 80186 or 80188 in a ceramic LCC package! Almost all of the "regular" 80188/86s (save for 80188EC) have been PLCC. Vintage, indeed. --Chuck From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:34:23 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:34:23 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: Message-ID: <08ce01ccdc93$dc8b1f30$6400a8c0@tababook> > Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive > and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and > EE/EPROM programming. I had one for ages, it works flawlessly. Uses to have some failures with notebooks (because of the 3.3V parallel port) From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 19:36:18 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:36:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of > nowhere. Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our imminent consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:37:20 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:37:20 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <08e501ccdc94$62a4f4b0$6400a8c0@tababook> > Even when you were using newer ROMs, it wasn't a good programmer. I know > one arcade collector that smashed his with a hammer out of frustration > after spending hours trying to burn some common chips. I never had a problem, but one revision of 27C160 memories that the software couldn't handle From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:39:39 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:39:39 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: , <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <4F214249.3609.B26A22@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <08ee01ccdc94$90d8f570$6400a8c0@tababook> > But some of the Chinese USB-powered programmers are just as cheap and > come with a nice box--and they'll do GALs, which, as far as I know, > the Willem won't do. Neither, AFAIK, will do bipolar PROMs. For $300 you can get a chinese BEEPROG... From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jan 26 19:43:42 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:43:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F21F939.7060106@neurotica.com> References: <0EE48493-C22A-4B1E-9453-421186FCA0CF@gmail.com> <4F21F939.7060106@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120126174002.H24886@shell.lmi.net> > >> I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int > >> othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. > > I suppose that could be true, depending on which segment of the > > commercial world you land in. I'm fortunate enough to have landed in > > the segment where every project is unknown territory, so I'm learning > > new things all the time (and if I didn't, I'd sink). If I had landed > > in web development, though, I'd probably be pretty stagnant. > > ...which is why I don't do web development as a general rule. On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > I'm right there with you. The last time I learned something new at > work was...heck, less than an hour ago. I wouldn't have it any other way. When I stop learning, . . . bring a truck. Load fast before the coroner gets here. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:44:40 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:44:40 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: <1327611923.59366.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> > I have and use multiple programmers. I don't know of one device that > handles every device I have burned in the past 10 years. ` Beeprog from elnec does...Only the 2708 chips needs an adapter. > may be USB ports in 20 years, but I doubt that a Windows application I > buy today will run natively in 20 years. Interfaces tend to stick Thats why I love elnec. Take a look on their site and see how long they support old programmers with updates. > OTOH, I have the source for the download app for the EPROM emulator I > use, so as long as I can stuff bits down a pipe at 9600-N-1 from a > machine with a C compiler, I should be able to use that to emulate > JEDEC EPROMs. It runs on VMS, it runs on DOS, it runs on UNIX. I > think I'm set there. Is this a commercial emulator? Has an hex editor integrated? I'm looking to make my eprom emulator compatible with something good. From dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info Thu Jan 26 19:45:22 2012 From: dennis_mailing_lists at conus.info (Dennis Yurichev) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:45:22 +0200 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net>, <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> On 1/27/2012 1:04 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... >> Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain in >> any form? > > Probably, but *which* Superbrain and what format do you have? QD (Quad Density). From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:45:52 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:45:52 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>, , <659620F7-EC46-43D0-9C2A-14AD283A4216@gmail.com> <4F216E80.29729.15F1F15@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <092201ccdc95$72fb4750$6400a8c0@tababook> > There's another Chinese brand out there that appears to be a bit more > professional that the usual junk--the "Wellon" line. They claim a > lot of devices, but I know nothing about them other than that. I had one before beeprog. The VP-280. Excellent stuff. Better IC tester (it identifies ICs) than Beeprog's From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 19:47:18 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:47:18 -0200 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> Message-ID: <092301ccdc95$a120f030$6400a8c0@tababook> >> So look at a Brazilian Prototype: >> http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ >> (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) > Kind of makes me wish I understood Portuguese better. :-) I can make out > the gist of it from my very limited Spanish, though. Google translator, anyone? http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=pt-BR&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftabalabs.com.br%2Fapple%2Frede_amplus%2F From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 26 20:05:03 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:05:03 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F22064F.9010101@telegraphics.com.au> On 26/01/12 7:57 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/26/2012 07:44 PM, Mouse wrote: >>>> I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and >>>> is now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what >>>> happened? we used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and >>>> start the long slow climb back up again. >>> That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are >>> quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the >>> escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra >>> here. >> >> Sure...now. My "a while" is probably on the order of a century, maybe >> two. > > Oh man. > > I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of nowhere. It's been tried, starting around 1492. Now everyone's running away from the results. --T > > -Dave > From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Thu Jan 26 20:07:06 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:07:06 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 26, at 4:58 PM, Mouse wrote: >>> Loosely put, closures take a blob of code and the bindings of some >>> variable names to variables and return a thing which can be executed >>> like the blob of code, but, while it's executing the code, the >>> name<->variable mappings saved in the closure are temporarily >>> reinstated. >> In other words, "static local variables"? > > In some respects. However, each closure contains its own distinct set > of values; most languages' "static local variables" don't work that > way. > > As a really simple example, consider (to use Lisp as the language, > since that's what I'm most familiar with practical closures in; I'm > using my own Lisp here, which is pretty close to Zetalisp in the > relevant respects): > > (defun make-adder (n) #'(lambda (x) (+ x n))) > > Then > > (setq a4 (make-adder 4)) > (setq a10 (make-adder 10)) > > a4 and a10 are then closures. Each one has (lambda (x) (+ x n)) as > its > code blob; its binding list includes a binding of n to some value - 4, > in the case of a4, or 10, in the case of a10. > > (funcall a4 7) -> 11 > (funcall a10 7) -> 17 > > Whereas, in C, which doesn't have closures but does have static local > variables, > > static int n; > > static int adder(int x) { return(x+n); } > > static int (*make_adder(int val))(int) > { > n = val; > return(&adder); > } > > the function returned by make_adder will always add the last value > passed to make_adder, regardless of which call's return value is > called. That is, after > > int (*a4)(int); > int (*a10)(int); > > a4 = make_adder(4); > a10 = make_adder(10); > > Then (*a4)(7) gives 17, not 11 - though if called between the two > make_adder calls, it returns 11. This is because the returned > pointers > are _not_ closures; the binding of the name n in adder to the storage > location it refers to is fixed, and all those references refer to the > same location. (Actually, I've seen it said that there's an effort > afoot to get closures into C, along with anonymous code blocks and > various other things. I think that is spectacularly misguided; if > they > want Lisp, they know where to find it.) From the 3 explanations (Conner,Assumpcao,Mouse) I have seen so far in this discussion, a "closure" appears to be the functional- programming terminology/equivalent for what in OOP would be an "instance of an object". An instance of an object provides the code (methods) and configuration and state (private properties) accessed via a single reference (handle). The above problem would be solved in OOP with a simple object (make_adder) with a method (adder) and an internal/private property (n) assigned in the object instance constructor. The only difference I see is in the case of the closure the code/method does not have an external name to denote it as there is only one code-block/method for the closure. I am a functional-programming-illiterate, so the discussion and explanations have been interesting. So is this (closure vs. object-instance) just different worlds with different syntax and terminology? That is, leaving aside the functional-programming vs. procedural-programming world differences is there something else to significantly distinguish a closure from an object-instance? From jecel at merlintec.com Thu Jan 26 21:06:09 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:06:09 -0300 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <201201260039.q0Q0dC3X099489@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <201201270211.q0R2BSFH031923@billy.ezwind.net> Liam, > I read it last night and I think I understood it then. I am too tired > to try to go through it again now but I will tomorrow and see if it > sinks in. :?) I hope it does, but if not there are more ways to explain this stuff. > A thousand thanks (as they say in Scandinavia). Thanks to everyone who has said kind words about this little text. I would like to stress something that I said the first time. Lambda expressions, closures, continuations (another interesting idea, but let's not go there now) and macros are nice features that make Scheme a kind of language construction set. None of this is interesting to the novice programmer. Where it starts to become interesting is when you have covered "normal" programming in Scheme and are interested in digging deeper. Then you first find that some things you have been using are actually built out of this stuff and you can create your own variations. Later you can use this to add stuff to understand it. For example: Ada has an interesting concurrency model while Occam and Erlang have different ones. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to see all three side by side in the same language? Using Scheme's building blocks, you can! It is great in physics that we can understand thousands of different materials in terms of combinations of a few hundred kinds of atoms, then understand all these atoms in terms of combinations of electrons, protons and neutrons and later unify them all in terms of combinations of quarks. But it is best to learn them in this order, even though in theory the quarks are the simplest. Anyone who gets really excited about finally "getting" the building blocks of Scheme and want to rush out and point them out to those who are starting out is making a big mistake. -- Jecel From jecel at merlintec.com Thu Jan 26 21:16:18 2012 From: jecel at merlintec.com (Jecel Assumpcao Jr.) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:16:18 -0300 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> David Riley wrote: > On Jan 26, 2012, at 7:52 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > > > > So look at a Brazilian Prototype: > > http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ > > (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) > > Kind of makes me wish I understood Portuguese better. :-) I can > make out the gist of it from my very limited Spanish, though. It is a prototype of a pre-Ethernet network card for the Apple II. I don't think it is related to the game server at all. though even earlier networks were similar. If I remember correctly, Amplus always used red coaxial cables to distinguish themselves from the competition who all used black. I don't remember them selling Apple II boards, only for PCs. Perhaps this prototype never reached the product stage? Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC became important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas (timers, dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine with this, but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the market. If this board has a reasonable amount of memory, then it actually is a more powerful computer than its Apple II host. -- Jecel From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 26 20:19:18 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:19:18 -0500 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> On 26/01/12 3:48 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate >> college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use >> that forever? > > I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int > othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. The inability of the commercial software business, or at least broad swathes of it, to provide or even respect professional development is just another savage indictment of it, to add to the pile. --Toby > > -tony > From mcguire at neurotica.com Thu Jan 26 20:26:02 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:26:02 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 08:36 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >> I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of >> nowhere. > > Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our imminent > consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! I'll bring the scotch. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 26 20:28:06 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:28:06 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F220BB6.9070201@telegraphics.com.au> On 26/01/12 11:32 AM, Liam Proven wrote: > On 26 January 2012 01:20, Toby Thain wrote: >> On 25/01/12 5:37 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>> Are the concepts of "closure" and "lambda calculus" really /so/ >>> recondite that they cannot be understood except by reading entire >>> book-length exegeses and learning a whole new skill? >> >> No, of course not, but you insist on saying they are. > > I was not saying the concepts are hard. I was saying that I'd not > previously found any explanations of them that were comprehensible to > me. > > I suggested 2 possible interpretations for this& have been offered a third: > > [1] the concepts are really really hard > > or > > [2] the explanations are all rubbish > > or > > [3] I'm really stupid& ignorant. > I reject all three above. > It appears that maybe there is a #4: > I think there must be at least one more, yes. > They are moderately hard concepts but the key thing is that they > require a fair amount of prior knowledge to build upon; so if the > reader *has* that knowledge, they can be conveyed by a relatively > simple, step-by-step explanation. But if they don't have it, then the > concepts are probably too complex to get across. > > They're only really meaningful to someone with at least some moderate > level of programming knowledge. (E.g. named functions, local versus > global variables, and the passing of named parameters - not > necessarily a comprehensive list!) > Many would argue the opposite - that experience with imperative programming is a liability in grasping other ways of looking at computation. It may contribute to your difficulties. I suspect it has added to mine, also. But we still need to access that intellectual territory. It's expansive and very important. Because we have a personal, subjective difficulty we can't reject it for others. > The problem with the explanations is that either they assume lots of > expert programming knowledge, so aim too high, or that they assume > none but only mathematical knowledge and use an entirely different, It is true that SICP has a mathematical flavour, and some find this off-putting; but you get out what you put in, and a good part of the math itself is valuable and germane to the topic. Let's not talk about Knuth. :) --T (wipes sweat from brow) > separate vocabulary, impenetrable if the reader does not know maths. > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 20:28:44 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:28:44 -0800 Subject: Identify: IBM memory In-Reply-To: <4F21F867.8010809@bitsavers.org> References: <20120124150703.GA32545@Update.UU.SE>, <4F217087.7963.1670B38@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F21F867.8010809@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4F219B5C.15853.20E59BA@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 17:05, Al Kossow wrote: > On 1/26/12 3:25 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > I wondered if CHM had any real EBAM-related iron. > > > > I'll have to dig more if we do. If we have it, it's probably > miscataloged Found the CHM photo of "Alice": http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102712000 http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102711999 Patents: 3,710,352 assigned to Micro-BIt Corporation, MBC was subsequently purchased by CDC. The EBAM presence in the hallway of ADL is explained by a May 28,1975 Computerworld article (via Google Books): "Control Data Corp. is conducting evaluation tests of a prototype of an Electron Beam Accessed Memory (Ebam) from Micro-Bit Corp. of Lexington, Mass. The unit, being tested on a Star 1B computer as a fast paging device, has a capacity of 1.2M bits distributed in nine parallel channels with 128K bits each and has an access time of 16 ?sec to any page, Micro-Bit said. The memory combines MOS technology with electron-beam access. The first Ebam product is scheduled to be introduced in mid-'76 and will have 18 parallel channels, each with a capacity of 4.2M bits for a total capacity of 75M bits, the firm said." The remainder of the article is about IBM's work in superconductivity, although no mention of Josephson is made. Evidently, as late as 1982, there were still papers being published on the subject. I guess the Williams tube survived longer than anyone thinks... --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 20:30:47 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:30:47 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <08ee01ccdc94$90d8f570$6400a8c0@tababook> References: , <08ee01ccdc94$90d8f570$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F219BD7.4970.2103CC2@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 23:39, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > But some of the Chinese USB-powered programmers are just as cheap > > and come with a nice box--and they'll do GALs, which, as far as I > > know, the Willem won't do. Neither, AFAIK, will do bipolar PROMs. > > For $300 you can get a chinese BEEPROG... For about $100 you can get a Wellon if you shop carefully. For about $30, you can get a Chinese USB programmer that can still do GALs. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 20:32:02 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:32:02 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> References: , <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F219C22.28333.21160B0@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 23:44, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > I have and use multiple programmers. I don't know of one device > > that handles every device I have burned in the past 10 years. > ` > Beeprog from elnec does...Only the 2708 chips needs an adapter. The Beeprog will do 1702A EPROMs and PAL16R8 PALs? --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 20:34:02 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:34:02 -0500 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <1327611923.59366.YahooMailClassic@web121603.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> I have and use multiple programmers. ?I don't know of one device that >> handles every device I have burned in the past 10 years. > > ` > ? Beeprog from elnec does...Only the 2708 chips needs an adapter. I have burned 2708s in the past 10 years - plenty more 2716s, but once in a while, I do need to read or write triple-voltage devices. >> OTOH, I have the source for the download app for the EPROM emulator I >> use... > > ? Is this a commercial emulator? Yes, but no longer offered for sale (Grammar Engine ROMulator and Grammar Engine PromICE) > Has an hex editor integrated? Not AFAIK. You just stuff files down its gullet with its own app - I've never seen anyone try to use one with a terminal emulator. The app reads Intel Hex, but I don't think it pushes Intel Hex over the wire. It might, though - the PromICE does have some debugging capabilities. I never used them - I just wrapped my code in a Makefile that included a download command at the end. > I'm looking to make my eprom emulator compatible with something good. There's probably no reason to maintain compatibility with it unless you were to already own one. I don't have rights to the code, so it wouldn't be right to share it (though I used to work with the guy who _does_ have rights, so unlike many cases involving 20-year-old products, I know exactly who to ask about the status). -ethan From lproven at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 20:36:06 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:36:06 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 January 2012 20:02, Tony Duell wrote: >> Um. Thanks for the suggestions, but I have to point out that I can't >> really buy and read half a dozen textbooks in order to finish a 2 or 3 >> thousand word article. I mean, ideally, I'd be knocking out a couple >> of such pieces a day if I were a staffer and at least a few a week as >> a freelancer. This simply does not permit such a depth of research! > > I am not pointign the finger at you or anybody else, I am sure this is > generally the case. But it confirms something that I've suspected fro > some time -- there are far too many people writing about things that they > themselves do not understand, or at least don;t understnad fully.... > > I've written a few articles in my time, for user group publications. Of > course I am not paid for them. But I do try to do the research first. If > I describe a repair, you can be sure _I've_ done that repair on my own > workbench (if I am reporting soemthign that was suggested by somebody > else, I acknowledge that of course, but I still do it myself to be sure > it works). If I describe how soemthign works, then I don't skip over the > difficult bits. And yes, I've spent everal weeks buildign and testing > just ot write a 2 or 3 page article. > > But I've read far too many articles and books which are either incomplete > or downright wrong. Not just computer books either. I have a book > entitled 'Telephone Porjects for the Evil Genius'. It's a classic. I > think there's a mistake on each and every scheamtic. Certainly 90%+ of > the projects can't work if you build them as shown. Some are 'simple' > errors of drawing (like wirs joining where htey shouldn't be), some are > fundamental design errors. I don't believe the author has built all the > projects in the book and got them to work, if he had, then he'd have > spotted things like totaem pole outputs contending with each other (!). > > Ho hum... There are many different kinds of tech journalism. For starters, there are the basic formal categories: news, news analysis, previews, reviews, comparative reviews, features & columns. Then there is the medium: daily/weekly/monthly. Then there is the audience: nonspecialist/specialist/trade/domain experts. It's not all just one thing. As an outsider, or as a reader, I would not expect people to know or understand this, but it's as different as building a packing crate compared to a Chippendale chair. I have done a bit of all of them. These days, I write general features for the Register. I occasionally do news and news analysis - taking a story and explaining it, in brief, or dissecting it in great detail over 2-3 pages. Those are 2 totally different things. But mostly, I try to come up with ideas about stuff that the main IT press isn't writing about but which I know about - such as historical pieces, or how-to features. So, for instance, they are interested in a piece on Lisp Machines. Now, I am aiming this piece at someone who has never heard of Lisp Machines and has probably never seen a line of Lisp. They are, in the modern PC industry, forgotten prehistoric monsters: bear in mind that in the 2012 PC industry, Windows XP is an ancient legacy OS; Pentium 4s are slow elderly CPUs; 2GB of RAM is a small, constrained machine. Business tends to write off kit in 3 years; hands-on tech staff typically have 2-3y of experience after which they move onwards and upwards. Management and architects don't know or care what OS clients are running. I am not saying any of this is right or good or proper - it's just how it is. If I can write a 3000 word brief history of Lisp Machines, explaining in overview what they were, how they worked, their strengths and weaknesses, in such a way that anyone who has ever actually /used/ one does not go "oh FFS this idiot knows *nothing*", then I will have succeeded. I am not writing a textbook entry; I am not writing a how-to guide on booting one or restoring one. I am describing their interesting features that are different from contemporary computers. No, I have never seen one or used one. I would *LOVE* to but I don't know anyone who has one. I don't know anyone who's even running an emulator. (If anyone is, in the London area, do please let me know! I can only offer gratitude and beer, but I would cherish some hands-on time.) I've asked Stephane Tsacas if he can run up an emulator for me, as my closest friend off the list, but I don't think he is really interested. It runs on Linux and he is not a fan of Linux, to say the least. You might well condemn me for this. But consider this: there are many thousands of books, magazines, TV shows, films and educational posters, models and toys about dinosaurs out there, and not *one* of those authors has ever seen a dinosaur in the wild. I am not writing an article for anyone who knows anything about Lisp Machines. I am writing one for people who have never /heard/ of Lisp Machines, to try to tell them, in a 5-10 minute read, what was interesting about them. I am not going to attempt to defend myself and say that I aim to produce the sort of in-depth technical piece you would want. I am not. I probably never will. But there is a need for things that are at a less formidable technical level than that. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From evan at snarc.net Thu Jan 26 20:43:54 2012 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:43:54 -0500 Subject: VCF East t-shirt news .... In-Reply-To: References: <4F17815A.3070204@snarc.net> <4F182CC3.1090309@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F220F6A.1090501@snarc.net> A small preview of the "VCF Bot" that George Beker designed exclusively for the VCF East 8.0 t-shirts is posted on the event web sites at http://www.vintage.org/2012/east/ andhttp://www.facebook.com/vcfeast8. The shirts will be a light grey color. George requested that this design NOT be used anyplace else. Please respect his wishes. - Evan K. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 20:59:06 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:59:06 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F22064F.9010101@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com>, <4F22064F.9010101@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F21A27A.26659.22A2728@cclist.sydex.com> So who needs to do any programming? Anyone remember John Peers, the flamboyant mustachioed Englishman who came onto the scene in about 1975, offering his "programmerless" computer, ADAM? (no, not the Coleco version) Here's a typical advertisement: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Adambrochure.pdf Sort of puts IBM and Apple advertising to shame, no? Peers had his office in Burlingame (Ca). He and ADAM sort of disappeared as quickly as they appeared. At some point, he changed the name of the ADAM operation to Logical Machine Corp. ("Lomac"). Ah, you just can't make this stuff up... --Chuck From spectre at floodgap.com Thu Jan 26 21:09:30 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:09:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> from Mouse at "Jan 26, 12 07:58:52 pm" Message-ID: <201201270309.q0R39UeY031606@floodgap.com> > (Actually, I've seen it said that there's an effort > afoot to get closures into C, along with anonymous code blocks and > various other things. I think that is spectacularly misguided; if they > want Lisp, they know where to find it.) I believe you are referring to the imminent road accident of a language formerly known as C++0x (now C++11): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++11 -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- I see nothing! Nothing! -- Sgt. Schultz, "Hogan's Heroes" ------------------ From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 21:17:34 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:17:34 -0800 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> References: , <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com>, <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F21A6CE.21472.23B10DF@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 0:16, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some > peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same > devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC > became important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas > (timers, dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine > with this, but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the > market. Well, actually you could--just not with the internal peripherals. There was at least one PC-compatible built using external PIC, DMA, CTC, etc. The benefit was that the 80186/88 had a much streamlined instruction architecture and a compact footprint. The 80186/188 and all of its variations (80C..., EB, EC. etc.) lasted well into the late 1990s and beyond. If you owned a USR Courier modem, you had an 80188 in the box, for example. I haven't checked, but the 80C188 may still be manufactured. But it enjoyed a longer product life than the 8088. --Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 21:23:15 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:23:15 -0500 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:19 PM, Toby Thain wrote: > On 26/01/12 3:48 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> >>> What is the big deal, don't people try out new things AFTER they graduate >>> college? If you only used Java in college then you are going to just use >>> that forever? >> >> I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int >> othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much support to learn anything - if a company shifts its focus, the pattern here for 20 years has been to bring in SMEs (subject matter experts) to replace present employees who have "obsolete" skills and are thusly laid-off (made redundant). I've learned *lots* of things in the commercial world. On rare occasions, it was with the blessing of my current employer. More often, it was something I picked up as it was unfolding, not formally taught (seminars, classes, etc). > The inability of the commercial software business, or at least broad swathes > of it, to provide or even respect professional development is just another > savage indictment of it, to add to the pile. Yes. There are so many available bodies that are eager to snap up entry-level positions that it's cheaper to swap new for old than develop the people who are already in the company. Mostly. There are exceptions, but the overall IT environment is much more tunes towards disposable people than when I started 30 years ago. I've seen it chew people up and spit them out. Some get tired of the treadmill and get out of the industry entirely. Someone who was a director over me in 1999 left that position to make furniture. By all reports, he makes less than half what he once did but is happier for the change. Improvement is possible but not assured. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 21:25:49 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:25:49 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our imminent >> consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! > > ?I'll bring the scotch. That will add to the desirability of your ark by a substantial amount. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 21:44:52 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:44:52 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> Message-ID: <4F21AD34.21833.2540E45@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 3:45, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > On 1/27/2012 1:04 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... > >> Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain > >> in any form? > > > > Probably, but *which* Superbrain and what format do you have? > > QD (Quad Density). I'll have a look. ISTR that some QD floppies used DAMs of FA, rather than the normal FB. I don't think the controller cared, however. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 22:22:46 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:22:46 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Jan 26, 2012, at 10:16 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some > peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same > devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC became > important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas (timers, > dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine with this, > but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the market. If this > board has a reasonable amount of memory, then it actually is a more > powerful computer than its Apple II host. That depends; TTC (the company the the founders of my company and about 1/3 of the current employees worked for before it was no longer fun) made a lot of telecom testers based on the '186/'188. They were decent little embedded chips, and that's where they found most of their market in the end (you could still, as of a few years ago, get modern copies or at least ASIC cores of a '186; I saw a server-in-an-Ethernet-jack that used a tiny '186 for its brain). I think TTC had also made a significant investment in the tools, which also played a much bigger part in the selection. :-) Of course, there are lots of examples of peripheral boards being more powerful than their hosts; I'm pretty sure the 10MHz 68000 one my DELQA is more powerful than the PDP-11/23+ it runs in. If not, it's probably just about at parity. - Dave From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jan 26 22:36:16 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:36:16 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> Message-ID: <4F21B940.6126.2831D73@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 3:45, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > On 1/27/2012 1:04 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > >> Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... > >> Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain > >> in any form? > > > > Probably, but *which* Superbrain and what format do you have? > > QD (Quad Density). But it's not--according to my disks, the QD is 48 tpi double-sided MFM. There *is* a 96 tpi format, but I believe it belongs to the Superbrain II. At any rate, I've got a QD floppy here with a CP/M boot record. However the only program on the floppy is NSWEEP and a bunch of .LBR files. It should boot your system, but you'll have to get the usual CP/M utilities from someone else. If that's okay, I'll send an image along. --Chuck From legalize at xmission.com Thu Jan 26 22:36:45 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:36:45 -0700 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: In article , Ethan Dicks writes: > Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional > world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be > _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much > support to learn anything - [...] Jesus guys, if that's really what you're experiencing, then my advice to you is to quit and move to another company or another city. In 25 years of writing software in Salt Lake City, this has *never* been my experience at any place I've worked. It's just the opposite, actually. The same is echoed by my colleagues that work in Seattle, Portland and Si Valley. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 22:50:06 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:50:06 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21A27A.26659.22A2728@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22064F.9010101@telegraphics.com.au> <4F21A27A.26659.22A2728@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > Sort of puts IBM and Apple advertising to shame, no? I dunno...Datamation and (the lesser known) Computer Decisions magazines had plenty of hot retro datachicks. Except for IBM - where the hell did they get that guy for the S/1? -- Will From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Jan 26 21:58:35 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:58:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/26/2012 08:36 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of >>> nowhere. >> >> Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our imminent >> consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! > > I'll bring the scotch. > Just make sure it's Johnny Walker Blue. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Thu Jan 26 22:50:36 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:50:36 -0500 Subject: objects = closures - Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <4F222D1C.3020806@telegraphics.com.au> On 26/01/12 9:07 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote: > ... > From the 3 explanations (Conner,Assumpcao,Mouse) I have seen so far in > this discussion, a "closure" appears to be the functional-programming > terminology/equivalent for what in OOP would be an "instance of an > object". ... > So is this (closure vs. object-instance) just different worlds with > different syntax and terminology? That is, leaving aside the > functional-programming vs. procedural-programming world differences is > there something else to significantly distinguish a closure from an > object-instance? > > There is a duality between objects and closures, indeed; this is quite visible in JavaScript, for example. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ClosuresAndObjectsAreEquivalent --Toby From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 22:55:41 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:55:41 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > It's been a long time since I've seen an 80186 or 80188 in a ceramic > LCC package! ?Almost all of the "regular" 80188/86s ?(save for > 80188EC) have been PLCC. The LCCC 8018x were vaguely popular with the telecom crowd, but even then... LCCCs were just sort of a dumb idea, anyway. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 22:57:43 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:57:43 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F21A6CE.21472.23B10DF@cclist.sydex.com> References: <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> <4F21A6CE.21472.23B10DF@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: > The 80186/188 and all of its variations (80C..., EB, EC. etc.) lasted > well into the late 1990s and beyond. ?If you owned a USR Courier > modem, you had an 80188 in the box, for example. And dual TMS32025s (for some of the early ones). -- Will From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 23:05:09 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:05:09 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 8:20 PM, Toby Thain wrote: >>> * Learn You A Haskell For Great Good by Lipovaca >>> >>> Okay, now if you want to be spoonfed Haskell and functional programming, >>> read this. ... Hmm... I've _used_ code written in Haskell (an Infocom de-compiler) but never been able to wrap my head around the tool I was handed. This quote might help explain why... http://book.realworldhaskell.org/read/why-functional-programming-why-haskell.html "Along with not modifying data, our Haskell functions usually don't talk to the external world; we call these functions pure. We make a strong distinction between pure code and the parts of our programs that read or write files, communicate over network connections, or make robot arms move" Since I spend a lot of time reading and writing files and communicating over networks and making robots move, I think Haskell is *not* for me. Its "pure functions" are boring to me. I like to write code that interacts with the real world. And this quote really puts me off Haskell (and functional programming)... "In Haskell, we de-emphasise code that modifies data. Instead, we focus on functions that take immutable values as input and produce new values as output. Given the same inputs, these functions always return the same results. This is a core idea behind functional programming." This, to me, sounds like the model of connecting processes with pipes via a shell (a 40-year-old technique, FWIW). I already do that, dozens of times a day. I don't need to do that at the code-block level inside the same process. I enjoyed the emergence of OOP into the world of FORTRAN and vanilla C. I have found many, many things that make sense when represented as objects (and plenty that were severely beaten into that mold, but that's another thing). I have yet to be won over by the "benefits" of functional programming as I'm hearing it evangelized. Perhaps that makes me a curmudgeon, but I'm an employed and successful one, if so. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 23:29:36 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:29:36 -0500 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Richard wrote: > > In article , > ? ?Ethan Dicks writes: > >> Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional >> world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be >> _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much >> support to learn anything - [...] > > Jesus guys, if that's really what you're experiencing, then my advice > to you is to quit and move to another company or another city. I have worked for many companies over 30 years, mostly in the same city. I am rarely enticed away from any present position, but I move when I must (one drag about working for small companies is the low rate of success on the ten-year scale; one drag about working for large companies is the regular purges as the "needs of the business" shift). I ride the economic ups and downs and maintain my technological fluency and relevance largely on my own nickel, supplanted by whatever opportunities float by. > In 25 years of writing software in Salt Lake City, this has *never* > been my experience at any place I've worked. ?It's just the opposite, > actually. ?The same is echoed by my colleagues that work in Seattle, > Portland and Si Valley. I'm in the mid-west and do not desire to live on either coast (I enjoy visiting them, but ~80% of the US carries burdens and costs and issues that I feel outweigh the benefits according to my own values). Perhaps Utah is different, but I've seen friends in the Bay Area and more put through the same meat grinder where companies hire for experience in favor of retaining employees and paying to fit them into new roles. I'm too young for the "employment for life" model of my parents' generation. I've only ever seen 3-5 year cycles of ins and outs. A specific example that worked to my benefit was being hired as a contractor at Lucent/Bell Labs because I had Sun experience and most of the department only had NCR experience from years of AT&T owning NCR. Even in a place where 30-year anniversary parties were a frequent occurrence on the factory floor and around the office spaces (the building was about that old), they chose to hire in a fresh face with specific expertise about a technology they wished to move to rather than train a single person in that new technology. I worked there for two years, ordered $500K of new equipment, and to a large extent, was the departmental expert on the platform. Months after my contract reached its term and I moved on, Lucent sold off the manufacturing assets of the plant and laid off manufacturing-related employees to be rehired by Celestia, a contract manufacturer. They then ran down the outstanding orders then idled the line and shuttered the factory. There are only enough remaining Lucent/Bell Labs folks here locally to fill a school bus, down from a peak of many thousands in the 1970s. Decades of growth and innovation, ending in intellectual pump-and-dump. This tale is far from unique in my experience. If it hasn't happened to you, you are fortunate. -ethan From oe5ewl at gmail.com Thu Jan 26 23:51:37 2012 From: oe5ewl at gmail.com (Wolfgang Eichberger) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:51:37 +0100 Subject: My PDP11/23 arrived... In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E69E0.6030207@softjar.se> <4F1F21EA.5070407@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: Hi all, I was quite busy this week - so I had not much time to play with hardware.... .) no, I did not disassemble the whole RX50. Only a good cleaning was necessary and that sort of stuff.... .) what I did was checking the backplane against the manualy I found and it seems to be fully functional; the frontpanel (okay, it's only 3 switches and 3 lights) too. .) the PSU is still object for work. @Rob: I did hear about BOS but never have seen any material survived. If you ever find your disks, please think of me. -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org 2012/1/26 Rob > On 24 January 2012 21:54, Wolfgang Eichberger wrote: > > > > PS: Some of you may know that I am collecting PDP-11 Operating Systems. > > Do you have a copy of "BOS" ? I used to work for one of their > resellers; We still had one customer running it on an 11/23 clone, > supporting over a dozen serial terminals and several printers, as late > as 2001. (BOS was an expensive cross-platform OS designed to run > accounts software.. they are still going, but has morphed into an > application under windows now...) > > There's a fairly small chance I might still have a set of discs, but > it's likely the box is at the bottom of the heap that's in a storage > unit.. > From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 27 00:02:20 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:02:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F21B940.6126.2831D73@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <4F216B7D.13741.1535A25@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F2201B2.8020402@conus.info> <4F21B940.6126.2831D73@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120126215729.E31580@shell.lmi.net> > > QD (Quad Density). On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > But it's not--according to my disks, the QD is 48 tpi double-sided > MFM. But Superbrain argued that if MFM is DOUBLE density, then double SIDED MFM is "QUAD" density! > There *is* a 96 tpi format, but I believe it belongs to the > Superbrain II. SD (SUPER density) Remember "sizes of olives" ("jumbo colossal", etc.) Since it is already known that there is "non-stantard" use of terms, WE need to avoid use of "quad", and talk ONLY in terms of 48 V 96 TPI, etc. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Fri Jan 27 00:03:10 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:03:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <201201270603.BAA19974@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > From the 3 explanations (Conner,Assumpcao,Mouse) I have seen so far > in this discussion, a "closure" appears to be the > functional-programming terminology/equivalent for what in OOP would > be an "instance of an object". In simple cases, yes. But things can get more complex. For example, it's entirely possible to have two closures and three bindings, with one binding appearing in both closures, with the value shared between them: (let ((c nil)) (list (let ((n 1)) #'(lambda (x) (princ "setter call #") (princ n) (terpri) (incf n) (setq c x) nil)) (let ((n 1)) #'(lambda (x) (princ "getter call #") (princ n) (terpri) (incf n) c)))) This returns (a list containing) a setter function and a getter function which set and get the value associated with c in the binding established by the outer let; there is one binding, which is shared between the two closures. Each closure also has its own private binding of n, which is used to provide the "number of times called" printouts. This could be done in an OO paradigm, of course, either as two methods on a single class (with different instance variables for the two call counters) or as a construct assembled from multiple classes. There is little-to-nothing that closures permit that can't be done otherwise; it's just a question of convenience - of how closely the code mirrors what's in the programmer's mind, if you will. > The only difference I see is in the case of the closure the > code/method does not have an external name to denote it as there is > only one code-block/method for the closure. Well, it does not necessarily have any name. In the Lisp examples I've been giving, the functions have been anonymous lambda expressions, but they do not have to be. I don't know many closure-supporting languages, but it's conceivable that there may even be some that _require_ the code in a closure to have a name. > So is this (closure vs. object-instance) just different worlds with > different syntax and terminology? To some extent. I think the two paradigms emphasize different directions and thus are flexible in different ways; I'd say that thinking of an instance of an OO class as a closure is looking at it from a procedural, not OO, point of view (not necessarily a bad thing); conversely, looking on a closure as an instance of an anonymous class is emphasizing the data rather than the code (again, this may or may not be a useful way to think of it). > That is, leaving aside the functional-programming vs. > procedural-programming world differences is there something else to > significantly distinguish a closure from an object-instance? Well...maybe not if your class/instance mechanisms allow you to create anonymous object classes at run-time and instantiate them on the spot, though I'd have to think about it more to be sure that's fair. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From toby at telegraphics.com.au Fri Jan 27 00:12:35 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:12:35 -0500 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F0677ED.4090206@telegraphics.com.au> <4F072519.1070409@gmail.com> <4F20AA62.8000807@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F224053.5010302@telegraphics.com.au> On 27/01/12 12:05 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > ... > "In Haskell, we de-emphasise code that modifies data. Instead, we > focus on functions that take immutable values as input and produce new > values as output. Given the same inputs, these functions always return > the same results. This is a core idea behind functional programming." > > This, to me, sounds like the model of connecting processes with pipes > via a shell (a 40-year-old technique, FWIW). I already do that, Yes, it is very similar. Remember that FP is much older than shell... > dozens of times a day. I don't need to do that at the code-block > level inside the same process. > Why not? If you keep reading, you'll discover that the same principles that make it concise and effective in shell work at most levels of code - and have other payoffs besides clarity. Check out some of the references that have been posted, and also Jecel's nice synopsis of closures. You'll find there is a lot of worthwhile, if not essential, material in any introductory FP text. (Speaking as a programmer who's used a variety of conventional languages between assembler and Java for 25-odd years.) If you don't care for Haskell then pick up Lisp, Scheme, or an ML family language (the ML texts are particularly excellent and clear). (Erlang, as a benefit of its functional design, has won the crown for high concurrency applications over just about any other platform, but its syntax is a little more idiosyncratic, so not exactly ideal for a starter.) These languages all used in serious commercial applications, as are their increasingly popular derivatives Scala and Clojure, for example. --Toby > I enjoyed the emergence of OOP into the world of FORTRAN and vanilla > C.... From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 00:41:10 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:41:10 -0800 Subject: 80188, was Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: References: , <4F21A6CE.21472.23B10DF@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F21D686.22162.2F57702@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 23:57, William Donzelli wrote: > > The 80186/188 and all of its variations (80C..., EB, EC. etc.) > > lasted well into the late 1990s and beyond. ?If you owned a USR > > Courier modem, you had an 80188 in the box, for example. > > And dual TMS32025s (for some of the early ones). Well, definitely for the Courier HST--one 32040 in DIP and one 32025 in PLCC and the Rockwell TR14 modem board. I've got the Courier V.34 and V.Everything, but never had them open. The HST was opened to go through a do-it-yourself upgrade. USR sent you a new SRAM (upgrade to 62256 form 6264 and a new EPROM--you peeled off the feet and opened the thing up and did the changes yourself. But they wanted the old SRAM and EPROM back, and would call if they hadn't received them in a couple of weeks. By the time they were upgrading V.34 owners to V.Everything, they didn't even want your old modem. All in all, very nice people in the pre-3Com days. --Chuck From mcquiggi at sfu.ca Thu Jan 26 14:32:44 2012 From: mcquiggi at sfu.ca (Kevin McQuiggin) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:32:44 -0800 Subject: Thank You All re Boot PROMs! Message-ID: <7A43DE65-DC45-430B-B225-9AFC06D23566@sfu.ca> Thank you everyone for your replies! Thanks Pete, nice to see you still in the hobby! I see some other old names here too. Kevin Message: 13 Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:36:05 +0000 From: Pete Turnbull To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: DEC Boot PROMs; Looking for Old PROM Programmer Message-ID: <4F209FF5.6090609 at dunnington.plus.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Kevin McQuiggin wrote: > I have been lurking for several years, although I was quite active in > the retrocomputing community before that. > > Work and other pleasures kept me a bit inactive until my retirement > last summer. Just coming up for air! Welcome back, Kevin! -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 13:21:19 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:21:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <1327602616.91149.YahooMailClassic@web121604.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <1327602616.91149.YahooMailClassic@web121604.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1327605679.94014.YahooMailNeo@web164511.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Mr Ian Primus The disk drives themselves are all the same. C: They're mostly similar, but not all the same. There are varied different types of drives in the various pseudo pc's I own. They are not all interchangeable to say the least. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 14:17:29 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:17:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dimension 68000 Message-ID: <1327609049.39607.YahooMailNeo@web164504.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> In the unlikely event someone has in their possession one of these, please send me a private email. And of all ironies, I need to know it's dimensions... From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 15:55:57 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:55:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <20120126131549.L15732@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <1327527937.20893.YahooMailNeo@web164516.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>, <4F211A6D.9040509@conus.info> <4F211956.7504.127538@cclist.sydex.com> <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <20120126101915.A10197@shell.lmi.net> <4F21B81E.6040506@conus.info> <20120126131549.L15732@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <1327614957.64615.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> omg just ask Dave to send you images. Just because he didn't put them on his site doesn't mean he doesn't have them. ________________________________ From: Fred Cisin To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2012 4:20 PM Subject: Re: Intertec Superbrain > > It is NOT hard to create SuperBrain disks on a PC. > > Just how hard is it to take an array of 512 bytes and invert each byte? > > Which programming paradigms don't let you do THAT?? > > What "CS GRADS" can't do THAT? On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dennis Yurichev wrote: > Excuse me, but I don't even have a data to invert... > Does anybody can share OS and/or applications images for Superbrain in > any form? THAT is a MUCH more serious problem than any of the technical issues of transferring the data! Sorry, I do not currently have any Superbrain system disks. Sorry, also, if I made you uncomfortable by poking fun at "inverted data" being a serious technical impediment.? (In most languages it would be a trivial loop, with a body that did trivial bit twiddling - well, SCHEME would do it recusively :-) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred? ? ??? ??? cisin at xenosoft.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 16:27:26 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:27:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: References: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 25, 12 07:07:48 pm Message-ID: <1327616846.52877.YahooMailNeo@web164505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> However, the M3 has a white phosphor CRT, the M4 has a green one. Of coruse the CRT can be changed, but if the machiens were 'stock', that's the most obbvious thing that you might care about. C: I had a 128k version model 4 (presumably). It had a amber screen. I sold it. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 17:10:40 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:10:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: looking to acquire a TI Business Pro Message-ID: <1327619440.60600.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Not a TI Professional, already have those. It's a 286 based tower. I have an old contact, but it belongs to an expired domain. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 26 18:07:16 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:07:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: looking for a Wombat or other Apple ][ clones or components Message-ID: <1327622836.30416.YahooMailNeo@web164506.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> The Wombat. In 1984 an Australia court sided against Apple (apparently the manufacturer copied their roms) stating there was no basis for copyright infringement because it wasn't a literary work LOL LOL LOL LOL From radioengr at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 01:08:51 2012 From: radioengr at gmail.com (Rob Doyle) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:08:51 -0700 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> References: <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <6EB6E01A-67A4-4FA1-B4B5-32919DDF8378@gmail.com> <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4F224D83.20703@gmail.com> On 1/26/2012 8:16 PM, Jecel Assumpcao Jr. wrote: > David Riley wrote: >> On Jan 26, 2012, at 7:52 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> >>> >>> So look at a Brazilian Prototype: >>> http://tabalabs.com.br/apple/rede_amplus/ >>> (it used an 80188 [!!!] as main processor!!!) >> >> Kind of makes me wish I understood Portuguese better. :-) I can >> make out the gist of it from my very limited Spanish, though. > > It is a prototype of a pre-Ethernet network card for the Apple II. I > don't think it is related to the game server at all. though even earlier > networks were similar. > > If I remember correctly, Amplus always used red coaxial cables to > distinguish themselves from the competition who all used black. I don't > remember them selling Apple II boards, only for PCs. Perhaps this > prototype never reached the product stage? > > Alexandre, about the 188 processor: it was just an 8088 with some > peripherals built in (like the iAPX186 was the 8086 with the same > devices). Unfortunately, this chip was designed before the IBM PC became > important so it used different addresses for the same funcionas (timers, > dmas, interrupt controllers). You could build a DOS machine with this, > but not a PC clone so it didn't last very long in the market. If this > board has a reasonable amount of memory, then it actually is a more > powerful computer than its Apple II host. > > -- Jecel > I work in Aerospace. We are still shipping lots of products that use the Intel 188 and 186 of different variants... ditto 386DX, 386EX, etc. It was never intended to do DOS. It was an embedded controller. Most of the peripherals were not PC compliant and they certainly weren't mapped at the right IO addresses. In fact, Intel made it a point to tweak the embedded controllers so that they *could not* run DOS and they could sell them at embedded processor prices. Witness the 80376 and 80386EX. Rob. From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:19:52 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:19:52 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 10:58 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> I'll bring the scotch. >> > Just make sure it's Johnny Walker Blue. :) I still have a bottle of Swing here, I can bring that along. I'm primarily a Laphroaig man, though. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:20:16 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:20:16 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F225030.5030709@neurotica.com> On 01/26/2012 10:25 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:26 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: >>> Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our imminent >>> consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! >> >> I'll bring the scotch. > > That will add to the desirability of your ark by a substantial amount. Scotch and 36-bit iron. Mmmmmm. :-) -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 01:25:33 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:25:33 -0800 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <1327614957.64615.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info>, <20120126131549.L15732@shell.lmi.net>, <1327614957.64615.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F21E0ED.6891.31E1AC2@cclist.sydex.com> On 26 Jan 2012 at 13:55, Chris M wrote: > omg just ask Dave to send you images. Just because he didn't put them > on his site doesn't mean he doesn't have them. I believe that Dave can't do that because he has the QD disks with FA DAMs. It turns out that FBs are fine, but perhaps he doesn't have a way to change them (the NEC controllers can't write FA DAMs). It's actually quite interesting when you get a floppy created with one and files written to it using the other. Sort of a mishmash of FA and FB DAMs. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:31:11 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:31:11 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <4EFF7D94.20309@mail.msu.edu> <20120102152629.M61599@shell.lmi.net> <4F0263E6.4090706@telegraphics.com.au> <201201030300.WAA25961@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F02810B.9090504@telegraphics.com.au> <4F030944.7010809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F03A9BC.7000409@telegraphics.com.au> <4F05E772.8040400@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F2252BF.4030706@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 06:02 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > But I am a smart guy - no, honest, really I am - and I am literate, > numerate, I understand the basics (no pun intended) of programming and > so on. I am also a professional > explainer-of-difficult-technical-concepts. I do not dispute this. > I really do believe that I /should/ be able to get this, but the texts > and so on that I have read make me feel like I am brain-damaged. /The > Little Schemer/ for instance is virtually line-noise from the very > first page. And I can certainly see how this would be the case. Indeed I felt the same way. (I still feel the same way about the book!) It took some time, but then it clicked. I think it has to do with training the brain in certain ways, and it's later difficult to do something any other way. It was HARD to wrap my brain around the concepts of functional programming (to the limited extent that I have!), and I have probably a dozen languages under my belt. It's NOT "just another language" in that they're all fundamentally similar except for little pieces of syntax...it really is a whole different way of thinking and visualizing a problem. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:34:21 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:34:21 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <4F1F31E2.60709@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F22537D.20308@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 06:27 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> Very nice. More reason for me to come out and visit. >> >> Thank you! You are always welcome here. Come out and hack on some stuff! > > I will hopefully be able to carve out some time this year! That would be great! >> Maybe we can get one running! I have this RM03 drive; not sure of its >> operational condition. If I can find a pack or two, maybe I can talk Rich >> Alderson or Mike Thompson into writing me a bootable pack and we can do some >> tasty TOPS-20 goodness. > > I have some experience with repair on RM03s, but no parts. When > Software Results closed (nearly 20 years ago), in addition to having > no room for the TU78 or the 8530 (lack of suitable power in a > residential area helped steer that decision), there was no room for > the RK07s nor the RM03s. (but I did rescue the 11/750, the 8300, > several PDP-11s, and lots, lots more). Oh man. :-( Well at least you got some goodies out of there. > If you haven't gotten it spinning by then, I can certainly see about > casting an eye on your RM03. I'd LOVE some help with it. It's pretty grimy; it needs a lot of cleaning before anything else. I've used lots of RM03s (and non-DECified CDC 9762s) but have never really had to repair one. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:37:12 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:37:12 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> On 01/24/2012 07:37 PM, David Riley wrote: >> One nice side effect of the demise of American small business and >> American manufacturing is the unbelievably cheap commercial >> property that anyone can just walk up and buy. > > Especially that close to Pittsburgh, I would imagine so! I lived in > Morgantown briefly (not recommended), and there was so much empty > space and abandoned factories/warehouses out that way. Interesting, > and sad in a lot of ways, but certainly an opportunity. :-) Ugh, Morgantown. I have a little bit of experience with that town. Better than much of WV, but still not much fun. But yes, while Pittsburgh is very much an "up and coming" town with TONS AND TONS of high tech, it is still in the early years of its upswing, so there are lots of buildings available. Some of them are REALLY nice. We looked at an awesome church, complete with a gigantic pipe organ still installed, that we could've had for about $20K, but it would've needed about $80K of immediate work to be able to do anything with it. Then there was this huge granite former bank building. Gorgeous. It was full of water, unfortunately, and the former bank had removed the vault. (which I just don't get) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 01:49:08 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:49:08 -0500 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2256F4.50404@neurotica.com> On 01/25/2012 04:14 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > However the service manual for my Tektronix 555 'scope does explain how > to debug one half of the unit usign the other half (this is a ture > double-beam ;'scome, apart from the CRT and low-votlage PSUs, it's almost > 2 'sopes in one box, so you can use one to diagnost faults with the other). I too have a Tektronix 555, but I lack a power supply umbilical. Do you have any clue as to where I might find one? I've been meaning to join the well-known TekScopes list; I should do that and ask there as well. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From pinball at telus.net Fri Jan 27 02:00:51 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:51 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2259B3.6010501@telus.net> Richard wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive > and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and > EE/EPROM programming. > > > Consider the Andromeda Research reader/burner for a wide range of device handling. It does need a parallel port, it is DOS/Windows based (perhaps two strikes), but it can read 1702s (with the adapter)! Also handles many of the programmable CPUs including the 68HC05/08/11, 68705, 8748, 8751... You can make you own adapters from their well documented site or buy them as kits (special order) or built. It is a good reader for the small shop that doesn't need a half dozen different burners (like my shop) to cover most of the devices made. http://www.arlabs.com/ I have no stake in the company. They have always been helpful in dealing with questions. John :-#)# From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:31:16 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:31:16 -0500 (EST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, David Griffith wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: > >> Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive >> and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and >> EE/EPROM programming. > I've pondered getting one for a few years. What's stopping me is that it > seems really poorly documented. It seems like it would be a cinch to work > with Linux, but I don't know... I would stay away from the Sivava unit. I bought one several years ago and discovered: - It's a proprietary mod of the Willem with a closed-source fork of the Willem software. - It's poorly documented - The seller does not repond to e-mail - The seller aggravated many in the Willem community with his actions. - The DC-DC voltage converter, required for blowing older 2716/2732 EPROMs is very lightweight and cannot sink enough current to do a good job on the "non-A" variants of these chips. I ended up writing off the investment and buying a new Andromeda Research unit. These have excellent support and the vendor will gladly sell blank boards and schematics for the various personality adapters - a big plus since the costs on those can add up. Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:33:02 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:33:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <1327606762.93003.YahooMailClassic@web121605.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Mr Ian Primus wrote: > --- On Thu, 1/26/12, Richard wrote: > >> Does anyone have any experience with this device?? It's inexpensive and >> seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and >> EE/EPROM programming. > > It has one thing going for it. It's cheap. > > That is all. Having messed with one (albiet, an older version), I could > find no other redeeming qualities. The hardware was flakey. The software > was abysmal. You had to set DIP switches for everything. Programming > older chips requiring a 25v VPP required hacking in your own power > circuit. Yup. I ended up doing exactly that for exactly that reason. > Even when you were using newer ROMs, it wasn't a good programmer. I know > one arcade collector that smashed his with a hammer out of frustration > after spending hours trying to burn some common chips. > > Unless they've made some serious improvements to the design, I think > you're better off with nearly anything else. Seconded and thirded. > Personally, I love my Needham's PB-10. It's an ISA card with amazingly > fantasitc, easy to use software, and it's incredibly reliable. I also > have an EETools TopMax, and while the software isn't as nice, it does > have a larger range of supported devices, and it too is reliable. For older chips, you cannot beat the PB10 in an old ISA motherboard. But, the emphasis is on "older" there :-) Steve -- From snhirsch at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:35:42 2012 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:35:42 -0500 (EST) Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F2259B3.6010501@telus.net> References: <4F2259B3.6010501@telus.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, John Robertson wrote: > Richard wrote: >> Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive >> and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and >> EE/EPROM programming. >> >> >> > Consider the Andromeda Research reader/burner for a wide range of device > handling. It does need a parallel port, it is DOS/Windows based (perhaps two > strikes), but it can read 1702s (with the adapter)! Also handles many of the > programmable CPUs including the 68HC05/08/11, 68705, 8748, 8751... > > You can make you own adapters from their well documented site or buy them as > kits (special order) or built. > > It is a good reader for the small shop that doesn't need a half dozen > different burners (like my shop) to cover most of the devices made. > > http://www.arlabs.com/ Ding! I built the bipolar PROM adapter for mine. Fabricating the jumper plugs was a bit of a PITA, but the unit works great and the company provides good support. -- From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 06:56:45 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:56:45 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: , <091901ccdc95$4473f670$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F219C22.28333.21160B0@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <09e701ccdcf3$51d9be90$6400a8c0@tababook> > The Beeprog will do 1702A EPROMs and PAL16R8 PALs? 16R8 yes, 1702 no From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 07:01:52 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:01:52 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: Message-ID: <0a1001ccdcf3$f8a68cd0$6400a8c0@tababook> A friend of mine discovered how sivava modded the Willem and published a page http://www.py2bbs.qsl.br/willem_pcb45.php --- Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Hirsch" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 10:31 AM Subject: Re: Willem EPROM programmer > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, David Griffith wrote: > >> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Richard wrote: >> >>> Does anyone have any experience with this device? It's inexpensive >>> and seems like it might handle the needs of ROM/PROM/EPROM dumping and >>> EE/EPROM programming. > >> I've pondered getting one for a few years. What's stopping me is that it >> seems really poorly documented. It seems like it would be a cinch to >> work with Linux, but I don't know... > > I would stay away from the Sivava unit. I bought one several years ago > and discovered: > > - It's a proprietary mod of the Willem with a closed-source fork of the > Willem software. > > - It's poorly documented > > - The seller does not repond to e-mail > > - The seller aggravated many in the Willem community with his actions. > > - The DC-DC voltage converter, required for blowing older 2716/2732 EPROMs > is very lightweight and cannot sink enough current to do a good job on the > "non-A" variants of these chips. > > I ended up writing off the investment and buying a new Andromeda Research > unit. These have excellent support and the vendor will gladly sell blank > boards and schematics for the various personality adapters - a big plus > since the costs on those can add up. > > Steve > > > -- > From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Jan 27 07:22:55 2012 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:22:55 -0600 Subject: Fwd: Re: [GreenKeys] Model 33 For Sale (also 33 covers for sale) Message-ID: <201201271327.q0RDR0wg042926@billy.ezwind.net> >From: Keelan Lightfoot >Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:27:32 -0800 >To: Steve Ripper >Cc: "" >Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Model 33 For Sale > >The vintage computer guys will be all over it, I'm sure. > >- Keelan > >On 2012-01-26, at 5:17 AM, "Steve Ripper" <steveripper at comcast.net> wrote: > >>Model 33 for sale in Wexford, PA. Starting bid at $79. Looks to be in very good condition and complete. >> >>http://tinyurl.com/7rs4q3l >> >>If someone in the group is going after this please let the others know. No sense in stepping on each other toes! >> >>Cheers, >> >>Steve Ripper >>steveripper at comcast.net >>steve.ripper at gmail.com >>248-787-0705 >> >> Subject: [GreenKeys] Model 32/33 Covers - New X-BeenThere: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: "Discussion of older radio teletype \(RTTY\) gear " List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============1937634989737752974==" Sender: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net Errors-To: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 X-Spam-Score: -18 X-Spam-Bar: - X-Ham-Report: Spam detection software, running on the system "echo.gendns20.com", has identified this incoming email as possible spam. The original message has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label similar future email. If you have any questions, see the administrator of that system for details. Content preview: FYI: Someone on ebay is selling brand new covers for what I believe are the model 32/33 without the tape reader / punch. Asking $75 each and has more than 10 available. [...] Content analysis details: (-1.9 points, 5.0 required) pts rule name description ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 0.0 FREEMAIL_FROM Sender email is commonly abused enduser mail provider (steveripper[at]comcast.net) -1.9 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1% [score: 0.0000] 0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message -0.0 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list X-Spam-Flag: NO FYI: Someone on ebay is selling brand new covers for what I believe are the model 32/33 without the tape reader / punch. Asking $75 each and has more than 10 available. I have no connection or interest in this auction. http://tinyurl.com/7u45ulj Cheers, Steve Ripper From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 27 07:07:01 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:07:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22064F.9010101@telegraphics.com.au> <4F21A27A.26659.22A2728@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, William Donzelli wrote: >> Sort of puts IBM and Apple advertising to shame, no? > > I dunno...Datamation and (the lesser known) Computer Decisions > magazines had plenty of hot retro datachicks. > Don't forget the "Amp'l Annie" character featured in many Kilobaud and other magazines. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 08:19:12 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:19:12 -0200 Subject: new haul, serious goodies References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> > REALLY nice. We looked at an awesome church, complete with a gigantic > pipe organ still installed, that we could've had for about $20K, but it > would've needed about $80K of immediate work to be able to do anything > with it. Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch time...dreams :D From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 27 07:39:51 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:39:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/26/2012 10:58 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >>> I'll bring the scotch. >>> >> Just make sure it's Johnny Walker Blue. :) > > I still have a bottle of Swing here, I can bring that along. I'm primarily > a Laphroaig man, though. > I may have to try that - as long as it's cheaper than Blue Label. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com Fri Jan 27 09:08:32 2012 From: jplist2008 at kiwigeek.com (JP Hindin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:08:32 -0600 (CST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > > > On 01/26/2012 10:58 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: > >>> I'll bring the scotch. > >>> > >> Just make sure it's Johnny Walker Blue. :) > > > > I still have a bottle of Swing here, I can bring that along. I'm primarily > > a Laphroaig man, though. > > > I may have to try that - as long as it's cheaper than Blue Label. :) Laphroaig has the unmistakable odour of burnt wiring and tastes pretty much the same. I believe it requires a very specific palate! I tried a Cragganmore 17 recently that was utterly superlative, for what it's worth. - JP From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 09:34:22 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:34:22 -0500 Subject: OT: Scotch (was: Re: teaching programming to kids) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2CF2001F-8827-4741-98A3-550D82A096FE@gmail.com> On Jan 27, 2012, at 10:08 AM, JP Hindin wrote: > Laphroaig has the unmistakable odour of burnt wiring and tastes pretty > much the same. I believe it requires a very specific palate! > > I tried a Cragganmore 17 recently that was utterly superlative, for what > it's worth. It's amusing that we've hijacked the "teaching programming to kids" thread with a scotch discussion, but I thought I'd throw my few cents in. Highland Park 18 has to be my absolute favorite. It's a bit pricy (if you're luicky and know a good outlet, you can find it for just under $100/bottle), but very much worth it. I've not tried any of their older stuff; when I went to Edinburgh and visited the Scotch Whisky Experience (which is very much like Hershey Park's World of Chocolate ride, but with good whisky), they were selling a bottle of the 40-year (!) for ?900, which probably would have been worth it. Their 15 year is still pretty good, and not as expensive if you're looking to just try it out. On the cheaper but rather unique (and still very good), Aberlour's A'bunadh is a very interesting one that typically runs about $45-$65 over here. It's done in small batches, and each one does taste slightly different. Very good stuff for not a lot of money. Both are very peaty and done in sherry casks, so if that's not your speed, don't spend $100 on a bottle. :-) - Dave From legalize at xmission.com Fri Jan 27 10:27:29 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:27:29 -0700 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: It's one thing for a company to pay you to stop doing productive work for a long period of time to retrain you in a new specialty. It's an entirely differet thing to receive support to learn new technologies. The statement was made: In article , Ethan Dicks writes: > Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional > world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be > _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much > support to learn anything - [...] Every place I have worked, there is always time to learn something new and I have always received support for it. If by "time to learn anything" you mean that the company should effectively put you on paid 6 month sabbatical, then yeah, *no* company is going to do that. I don't know of *any* company that ever did that. 6 months is half a release cycle for most software projects. For an agile shop it could be anywhere from 2 to 180 software releases. (Yes, there are shops that release daily to the web.) Learning new technologies, practices, techniques, etc., is an ongoing part of software engineering because the field moves too quickly. If someone sits down at a job for 10 years and doesn't learn anything during that time, then sorry but it's their own damn fault they don't know anything that is needed in the current marketplace. Usually all it takes is reading some books to stay up to date and that can easily be done for like 10 minutes a day during lunch. It really isn't that hard to keep learning new stuff, but it's your responsibility to manage your career and make it relevant to marketplace demands, not your employer's responsibility. For people that aren't good autodidacts, there are things like code camps, user group meetings and so-on. The only person looking out for your career is you. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 10:29:13 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:29:13 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <4F22537D.20308@neurotica.com> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <4F1F31E2.60709@neurotica.com> <4F22537D.20308@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 2:34 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> When >> Software Results closed (nearly 20 years ago), in addition to having >> no room for the TU78 or the 8530 (lack of suitable power in a >> residential area helped steer that decision), there was no room for >> the RK07s nor the RM03s. ?(but I did rescue the 11/750, the 8300, >> several PDP-11s, and lots, lots more). > > ?Oh man. :-( ?Well at least you got some goodies out of there. I was sad to leave the RK07s behind - very reliable, very repairable, and we had dozens of packs (with 4.0BSD, 4.1BSD, System V, VMS...). Two of them gave a respectable amount of storage to a Unibus system. When I was fiddling with 2.9BSD on an 11/24 and only had RL02s, I _really_ wished I'd had those RK07s. Would have made a full install and kernel rebuild painless. These days, with the MSCP patches to 2.9BSD, I might try a UDA50 and an RA70 (which I have), but that wasn't an option then. >> If you haven't gotten it spinning by then, I can certainly see about >> casting an eye on your RM03. > > ?I'd LOVE some help with it. ?It's pretty grimy; it needs a lot of cleaning > before anything else. ?I've used lots of RM03s (and non-DECified CDC 9762s) > but have never really had to repair one. I've been in the guts of 9762s and RM02s both (same as RM03 but slower spindle motor to avoid swamping RH11 transfer rates). I haven't done head alignment, but I've done electronics repairs. If you are looking for a 9766, I might be able to help there, too. It didn't come with a pack, so I've been unable to do anything with it. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 10:33:15 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:33:15 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 2:19 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > ?I'm primarily a Laphroaig man, though. I'm down with that - looks like we have more to discuss than ancient DEC iron when we get together next. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 10:44:48 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:44:48 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, , Message-ID: <4F226400.19309.EDE36@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 5:07, Gene Buckle wrote: > On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, William Donzelli wrote: > > I dunno...Datamation and (the lesser known) Computer Decisions > > magazines had plenty of hot retro datachicks. > > > Don't forget the "Amp'l Annie" character featured in many Kilobaud and > other magazines. :) Yes, but IIRC, wasn't Amp'l Annie just a drawing? Hey, it was the 70's. We were much less inhibited back then. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 11:15:31 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:15:31 -0800 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F224D83.20703@gmail.com> References: , <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net>, <4F224D83.20703@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F226B33.3435.2AFC16@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 0:08, Rob Doyle wrote: > I work in Aerospace. We are still shipping lots of products that use > the Intel 188 and 186 of different variants... ditto 386DX, 386EX, > etc. > > It was never intended to do DOS. It was an embedded controller. Most > of the peripherals were not PC compliant and they certainly weren't > mapped at the right IO addresses. I'll take issue with that, Rob. Bill Davidow was on our board of directors. When the software and hardware people ptiched the Moto 68K as a processor for the new machine, Davidow got mad (the 80286 was still not ready for prime time) and said it would be a cold day in hell if any product he had any say in wouldn't use an Intel processor. At the time, DOS (MS, SC, or PC) wasn't an issue. We were pointed at the 80186, along with the yet-nascent 80286 (they'd gotten real-mode sort of working, but PM wasn't there yet). The 80186 early steppings we were given were pretty buggy--one bug that still sticks in my mind is one where the SI and DI registers could be destroyed if an interrupt hit during a DMA operation. We went up to Bellvue and talked to Microsoft about Xenix on 2 CPU machines and came away with a listing of the I/O mechanism used on the TRS-80 model 16 (uses the Z80 for I/O, but otherwise executes on the 68K). At no time did the subject of the PC ever come up, although we did port an early copy of MS-DOS (1.something) to the 80186. The subject of IBM PC compatibility never came up. Altos and Televideo were also involved in using the early 80186 steppings. The problem was that Intel didn't really have anything ready to supplant the 8086, which was already showing its age, particularly in comparison to the 68K and the not-yet-ready-for-primetime NSC CPU. The 432 project had fizzled badly and the 186 and 286 were the only thing Intel had close to being ready at the time. The support peripherals for the 8086 were really old technology as well, mostly created to work with the 8085. It's interesting that the 80C186 EC contains several IBM-PC compliant components, such as cascaded 8259 PICs. So DOS was somewhere in their minds. --Chuck From geneb at deltasoft.com Fri Jan 27 10:27:31 2012 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (Gene Buckle) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:27:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F226400.19309.EDE36@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F226400.19309.EDE36@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 27 Jan 2012 at 5:07, Gene Buckle wrote: > >> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, William Donzelli wrote: > >>> I dunno...Datamation and (the lesser known) Computer Decisions >>> magazines had plenty of hot retro datachicks. >>> >> Don't forget the "Amp'l Annie" character featured in many Kilobaud and >> other magazines. :) > > Yes, but IIRC, wasn't Amp'l Annie just a drawing? > Yep. > Hey, it was the 70's. We were much less inhibited back then. > See my note below about "political correctness". :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 12:45:18 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:45:18 -0500 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F226B33.3435.2AFC16@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <201201270219.q0R2Itc3032020@billy.ezwind.net>, <4F224D83.20703@gmail.com> <4F226B33.3435.2AFC16@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F22F0BE.2040204@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 12:15 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'll take issue with that, Rob. Bill Davidow was on our board of > directors. When the software and hardware people ptiched the Moto > 68K as a processor for the new machine, Davidow got mad (the 80286 > was still not ready for prime time) and said it would be a cold day > in hell if any product he had any say in wouldn't use an Intel > processor. Wow, was he a common ancestor of the past two decades of suits? -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 12:56:11 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:56:11 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F22F34B.1000608@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 10:08 AM, JP Hindin wrote: >>> I still have a bottle of Swing here, I can bring that along. I'm primarily >>> a Laphroaig man, though. >>> >> I may have to try that - as long as it's cheaper than Blue Label. :) > > Laphroaig has the unmistakable odour of burnt wiring and tastes pretty > much the same. I believe it requires a very specific palate! HEY. ;) > I tried a Cragganmore 17 recently that was utterly superlative, for what > it's worth. Mmmmm, Cragganmore. I also very much like Talisker and Dalwhinnie. Dammit now I need to get some. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From alexeyt at freeshell.org Fri Jan 27 13:02:49 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:02:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> References: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <20120126161956.Q22986@shell.lmi.net> <201201270058.TAA11213@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <79E13FAA-B188-47FF-B05F-ABC40A0D7BE8@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote: > From the 3 explanations (Conner,Assumpcao,Mouse) I have seen so far in this > discussion, a "closure" appears to be the functional-programming > terminology/equivalent for what in OOP would be an "instance of an object". > An instance of an object provides the code (methods) and configuration and > state (private properties) accessed via a single reference (handle). They have some similarities, but are not the same: Closures are callable, (most) object instances are not. Closures have a single entry point, (most) object instances can have multiple methods called on them. You can't directly access the data inside the closure from outside, so there is no 'public' or 'protected' data in a closure. Closures don't support destructor methods. Closures don't have a class, i.e. you can't introspect the closure to determine what 'sort' of closure it is, whereas most object systems allow you to determine the class of an object instance. One way of looking at it is that, while closures and object instances are both code plus encapsulated data, they approach it from different ends: an object instance smells like a data structure but also has associated code, whereas a closure smells like a function but also has associated data. Alexey From alexeyt at freeshell.org Fri Jan 27 13:04:16 2012 From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:04:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > Oh man. > > I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of nowhere. Why would smart people want to live in the middle of nowhere? I like urban areas. And they do have communes of smart people in the muddle of an urban area: universities :-P Alexey From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 13:15:47 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:15:47 -0500 Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: References: <4F2209A6.8050308@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Richard wrote: > > It's one thing for a company to pay you to stop doing productive work > for a long period of time to retrain you in a new specialty. > > It's an entirely differet thing to receive support to learn new > technologies. No argument there. Perhaps the difference in viewpoint is around the nature and length of "period of time". >?The statement was made: > > In article , > ? ?Ethan Dicks writes: > >> Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional >> world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be >> _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much >> support to learn anything - [...] > > Every place I have worked, there is always time to learn something new > and I have always received support for it. And I have had a different experience - at _some_ places that was true. At other places, no slack was given to allow time to absorb and become more than a bumbling novice such things. Guess which places were more fun to work at. One place where it _did_ work, we had a team of experienced UNIX developers... about 5-6 of us. The decision was made to shift to Perl as a primary application development language (with a bit of C thrown in for the parts where that still worked well). The dilemma was that at the time (1998), Perl application (not web) developers weren't exactly common, so it made conomic sense to invest in the people they had since they would not be able to build a team of ready-made experts in under 3-6 months. We spent an hour a day, first thing every day, for *weeks*, with the team lead teaching a Perl fundamentals class to us all. Most of us were contractors... the customer spent *thousands* of dollars to do this. At the end of it, everyone was far, far improved and the team went on to produce some pretty hairy stuff because we had the chops to do it. At CompuServe, before I joined a particular team, they did something similar when they shifted from 36-bit and 32-bit hosts in the 1990s to a foray into Windows NT... all the developers were signed up with Developers' CD subscriptions and they took the existing team members and brought in instructors and spun the team up on how to develop for the new OS. Some years later, after AOL bought up CompuServe, the same team, under many of the same (local) managers, right before I was hired, shifted away from Windows and to UNIX (of all flavors and vendors) for business application development. At that transition, they laid off a number of folks (not all, but a good chunk), then hired new folks (including me) who already knew C and Perl and UNIX development. I stand by my claim that if what you have experienced has been the situation at every place you have worked, you are fortunate. Me... I've been nimble over my career, picking certain techologies over others and jumping in (and out) when the gates of change have opened. >?If by "time to learn > anything" you mean that the company should effectively put you on paid > 6 month sabbatical, then yeah, *no* company is going to do that. I meant nothing of the sort. I mean 3 to 5 to 10 workdays. Classes, seminars, etc. > Learning new technologies, practices, techniques, etc., is an ongoing > part of software engineering because the field moves too quickly. I totally agree. > Usually all it takes is reading some books to stay up to date and that > can easily be done for like 10 minutes a day during lunch. I disagree here - to the extent that context switch overhead alone is going to render "reading over lunch" largely an effort in reviewing what you tried to read yesterday. It takes more of a time investment than that. >?It really isn't that hard to keep learning new stuff, but it's your responsibility > to manage your career and make it relevant to marketplace demands, > not your employer's responsibility. ?For people that aren't good > autodidacts, there are things like code camps, user group meetings and > so-on. There are... I have presented at code camps and I have run user groups. They are still no substutite for vendor or technology-based instructional opportunities. They are an augment. > The only person looking out for your career is you. That is at the crux of what I was trying to communicate - your employer is no longer looking out for your long-term development. Your employer is no longer sending you to week-long events like DECUS Symposia or 3-5-day formal training sessions for new technologies, etc. You are expected to be an expert on demand or you will be replaced with someone who claims to be. Now... to counter that... "never" is too strong, but "almost never" may be about right. >From the tone of your responses, it seems to me that I should make a point explicitly clear - I have learned stuff constantly throughout my career. I took exactly *one* course involving programming while pursuing a bachelor's degree, and I had been programming professionally for three years at that point. I did not learn my craft in school, I learned it on my own and on the job as needs demanded and opportunities presented themselves. I have never stopped learning, and as others have expressed, won't stop until I'm dead. I have also found myself eminently employable at all times throughout the past 30 years. I am not crying sour grapes that the world is passing me by because of the state of the IT industry. This particular thread started with the quote "the other week I was told on this list that once you get into the commerical world there's no time to learn anything." that I first asked clarification on the scope of and then presented a hypothesis about what the scope of the original thread behind the quote might have been. Specifically that in the present IT envirionment, companies will not pay you to learn your job, but that once upon a time, they _did_ formally retrain employees with week-here, week-there formal re-education. The model I've seen lately is much like you describe - steal time away from "keeping things running" or "writing XYZ pounds of software" - i.e., day to day workload requirements - and spend that time reading manuals, web pages, etc., while trying to keep skills current enough to remain relevant. On your own time, not with the support or blessing of your employer. Stay current or be replaced. That was my point. -ethan From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 13:36:36 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:36:36 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 02:04 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote: >> Oh man. >> >> I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of >> nowhere. > > Why would smart people want to live in the middle of nowhere? I like > urban areas. Sure, but then it would no longer be the middle of nowhere! :-) > And they do have communes of smart people in the muddle of > an urban area: universities :-P I'm in my 40s, my friend. Perpetual college people generally annoy me. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 14:07:17 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:07:17 -0800 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F22F0BE.2040204@neurotica.com> References: , <4F226B33.3435.2AFC16@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F22F0BE.2040204@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F229375.7205.C83C9E@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 13:45, Dave McGuire wrote: > Wow, was he a common ancestor of the past two decades of suits? Davidow is an engineer who moved into marketing. From his Amazon (yes, he wrote a book, "Marketing High Technology" about it) bio: "William H. Davidow is a general partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures in Menlo Park, California. Before forming this venture capital firm,"he was senior vice president of sales & marketing for Intel Corporation and shepherded the renowned Intel 8080 and 8086 to success. Prior to joining Intel he was a marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard's computer group. Davidow graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University. " Go over to Amazon and read the excerpt--it's got a good view of the Intel world in 1979. It always seemed to me that Intel wasted a lot of time goofing around with memory modules for the IBM S/370 and the like, while not attending to the bread-and-butter. Davidow's not exactly a Carly Fiorina... --Chuck From keithvz at verizon.net Fri Jan 27 14:10:40 2012 From: keithvz at verizon.net (Keith Monahan) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:10:40 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F2304C0.4010105@verizon.net> On 1/27/2012 2:36 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > I'm in my 40s, my friend. Perpetual college people generally annoy > me. ;) Dave is younger, friendlier, and more agreeable in person than he appears online. Don't let him fool you otherwise. :) Keith From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 27 14:13:14 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:13:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> > > REALLY nice. We looked at an awesome church, complete with a gigantic > > pipe organ still installed, that we could've had for about $20K, but it > > would've needed about $80K of immediate work to be able to do anything > > with it. > > Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch > time...dreams :D Build a MIDI interface for it! From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 27 14:14:07 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:14:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120127121337.Y52961@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, JP Hindin wrote: > Laphroaig has the unmistakable odour of burnt wiring and tastes pretty > much the same. I believe it requires a very specific palate! Were you soldering when you made that observation? From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 14:21:14 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:21:14 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F2304C0.4010105@verizon.net> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> <4F2304C0.4010105@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4F23073A.4040709@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 03:10 PM, Keith Monahan wrote: >> I'm in my 40s, my friend. Perpetual college people generally annoy >> me. ;) > > Dave is younger, friendlier, and more agreeable in person than he > appears online. > > Don't let him fool you otherwise. :) Get off my lawn! :-) -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 14:26:40 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:26:40 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F230880.3030704@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 03:13 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >>> REALLY nice. We looked at an awesome church, complete with a gigantic >>> pipe organ still installed, that we could've had for about $20K, but it >>> would've needed about $80K of immediate work to be able to do anything >>> with it. >> >> Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch >> time...dreams :D > > Build a MIDI interface for it! That was going to happen if we got that building. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 27 14:28:11 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:28:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120127122544.B52961@shell.lmi.net> > >> I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of > >> nowhere. > > And they do have communes of smart people in the muddle of > > an urban area: universities :-P Yeah. But why do they have to have the entire 'B' Ark running them? > I'm in my 40s, my friend. Perpetual college people generally annoy > me. ;) You just move to the front of the room, and start RECEIVING money instead of spending it! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From IanK at vulcan.com Fri Jan 27 14:28:19 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:28:19 +0000 Subject: Teaching old guys (was Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 1/27/12 11:36 AM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: >On 01/27/2012 02:04 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote: >>> Oh man. >>> >>> I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of >>> nowhere. >> >> Why would smart people want to live in the middle of nowhere? I like >> urban areas. > > Sure, but then it would no longer be the middle of nowhere! :-) > >> And they do have communes of smart people in the muddle of >> an urban area: universities :-P > > I'm in my 40s, my friend. Perpetual college people generally annoy >me. ;) So? I'm in my fifties. Was there a memo setting an age limit? I must have missed it. :-p -- Ian (Ph.D. student, The Information School, University of Washington) PS: And yes, it's fun being part of 'a big commune of smart people'. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 14:28:10 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:28:10 -0200 Subject: new haul, serious goodies References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <0d3101ccdd32$383459c0$6400a8c0@tababook> >> Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch >> time...dreams :D > Build a MIDI interface for it! Why? The fun is playing on itself! :D From ray at arachelian.com Fri Jan 27 14:48:25 2012 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:48:25 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F23073A.4040709@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> <4F2304C0.4010105@verizon.net> <4F23073A.4040709@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F230D99.4050402@arachelian.com> On 01/27/2012 03:21 PM, Dave McGuire wrote: > > Get off my lawn! :-) > It's "You kids get off my wifi!" now. :-) From fraveydank at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 15:15:50 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:15:50 -0500 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: <0d3101ccdd32$383459c0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> <0d3101ccdd32$383459c0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On Jan 27, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >>> Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch >>> time...dreams :D >> Build a MIDI interface for it! > > Why? The fun is playing on itself! :D I'll agree. I have a working Wurlitzer 200 and one of the new Rhodes from 2008, and half the fun is playing on (and, to an extent, maintaining) the real thing. They built a version of the new Rhodes with a MIDI output, which just... I don't know. Seems dirty to me. - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 15:41:52 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:41:52 -0500 Subject: Teaching old guys (was Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC) In-Reply-To: References: <4F22FCC4.1050002@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Ian King wrote: > PS: And yes, it's fun being part of 'a big commune of smart people'. I enjoyed the academic environment while working for UW, but I was neither paying to be in the back of the room, nor being paid to be in the front of the room - I was being paid to work in an entirely different room! (research). -ethan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 14:53:08 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:53:08 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: <1327616846.52877.YahooMailNeo@web164505.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jan 26, 12 02:27:26 pm Message-ID: > > > > However, the M3 has a white phosphor CRT, the M4 has a green one. Of > coruse the CRT can be changed, but if the machiens were 'stock', that's > the most obbvious thing that you might care about. > > C: I had a 128k version model 4 (presumably). It had a amber screen. I I qam pretty sure the only 'official' way to get 128K in a Mdoel 3 was t o upgrade it to a Model 4 :-) > sold it. As for the CRT, I don't recall Tandy/Radio Shack ever shipping machines with amber CRTs. But I do recall an advert in Byte (and I assume in other magazines) for a complany that supplied amber CRTs to upgrade carious monochrome computers/terminals, and IIRC the M3/M4 was one of them. It's very likely your machine had had the CRT replaced at some point. As I've said several tiems, these mono CRTs are prrtty generic and thus it would be easy to fit a non-original CRT with, say, a different phosphor. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 14:56:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:56:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Forlorn hope for a TRS-80 Reimplementation In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 26, 12 05:37:59 pm Message-ID: > fixed (I probably use my Fluke for testing memory more than any other > single thing - even back in the day, a "DMA test" for a COMBOARD was > really just running a memory test on the quadrant of 68K memory space > that caused Qbus/Unibus DMA transactions... we could test local ROM, > local RAM, or remote RAM via DMA, all with the same buttons and the > same tool). Fortunately, I have a 6502 pod as well as a 68000 pod, so > the Fluke has plenty of targets at my house. Rignt.... I sued to wish fo the 'right' test gear for every problem, then I realised you got a lot more done using what you have :-) > Yes... there are other ways to run address testing, bus testing, > etc... they are more work than popping the processor, plugging in a > vintage purpose-built tester and hitting well-understood buttons. The > lack of a Z80 pod pushes this project further down the stack, > especially since I have little software for the M3 that requires more > than 32K. I think i'd start witha loop (in BASIC or machine code) that accesses a location in the top 16K of RAM and check that all the address, data, RAS and CAS pins to these RAMs are toggling (just iwth a simple logic probe). You'll pick up sillies like a defecctvie driver IC that way. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 15:21:00 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:21:00 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <201201270008.TAA10087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> from "Mouse" at Jan 26, 12 07:08:10 pm Message-ID: > > > This is something I know nothign about either, and it would certainly > > help _me_ if somebody could explain what lambda calculus and > > 'closures' are useful for. > > The lambda calculus is useful in the same way that any theoretical > discipline is useful. It does not itself solve problems; it informs Actaully I think a lot of theoretical concepts were originally develloped to solve particular real problems. They may well have other applciations, of course. > > It's difficult to give a practical problem closures are useful for in > much the same way it's difficult to give a practical problem resistors Actually, I totally disagee with that. I can give a doen problems where resisotrs are useful. The potential divider being high up the list... Let me quote The Art of Electronics (2nd edition is the one I have to hand). 'This is a long and interesting story. It is the heart of electronics. Crudely speaking the name of the game is to make and use gadgets that have interesitng and useful I-versus-V characteristics. Resisotrs (I simply proportial to V), capacitors (I proportional to the rate of change of V), diodes (I flows only in one direction).... are examples.' 'It is an interesting fact that the current throug ha metallic conductor (or other partically conducting material) is proportional to the voltage across it. ... This is by no means a universal law for all objects. For instance the current through a neon bulb is a highly non-linear function of the applied voltage (it is zero up to a critical voltage, at which point it rises dramatically). The same goes for a variety of interesting sepcial devices -- diodes, transistors, light bulbs, etc.' 'Resisotrs are truely ubiquitous. There are almost as many times as there are applications. Resistors are usedi in amplifiers as loads for active devices, in bias networks, and as feedback elements. In combination with capacitors they establish time constnts nad act as filters. They are used to set operating currewnts and signal levbels. Resistors are used in power circuits to reduce voltages by dissipating power, to measure currents, and to discharge capacitors after power is remved. They are used in precision circuuts to establish currents, to provide accurate votlage ratios and to set precise gain values. In logic circuits they act as bus and line terminators and as "pull-up" and "pull-down" rsisotrs. In high-voltage circutis they are used to measure voltages and to equalize leakage currents among diodes or capacitors connected in series. In radio frequency circuits they are even used as coil forms for inductors' 'Roughtly speaking resisotrs are used to convert a votlage to a current and vice vera. This may sound awfully trite, but you will soon see what we mean.' Now I don't for an instant claim that's all there is to resistors. But at least it explains why you'd nee to know about them. Can the same be done for lambda calculaus. There is anotehr difference too. I guess it's _possible_ to have an electronci device withotu a signle resisotr, but such things are not common. It's (almost?) impossible to understnad the operation of any circuit (if you don't treat the ICs as just black boxes0 without understnadign the concept of reisstance (or soemthing equivalent to it, like conductanmce). That's why every book on electroncis covers resistors early on. Now, I don't claim to be much of a programmer, and I certainly don't claim to be a computer scientist. But Iv'e written the odd progrma, I've read source listings of quite a few things, I've read quite a few books on programming (OK, particulalry low-level stuff and OSes). But I've not had to understnad lambda calculus or closures 9yet). OK, you'll tell me that they're not applciaable to device drivers, or data acquisiton systems, or... , whichI fully accpet. But what _are_ they applicable to. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 15:50:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:50:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 27, 12 02:36:06 am Message-ID: > There are many different kinds of tech journalism. For starters, there > are the basic formal categories: news, news analysis, previews, > reviews, comparative reviews, features & columns. Then there is the > medium: daily/weekly/monthly. Then there is the audience: > nonspecialist/specialist/trade/domain experts. However, all of those should be accurate and as complete as possible. And alas many articles are neither. THis is not just a computer-related article/book issue. My favourite is nothing to do with computer oe electronics. It's that old photographic chestnut that the focal length of your camera lens affects the perspective of the image... > > It's not all just one thing. > > As an outsider, or as a reader, I would not expect people to know or Maybe not. But I do understand when an article is talking nonsense. Look, I am not expecting every article to contain schematics and source code. But when I read that 'Uni is a programming language that...' I know that the author doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. > understand this, but it's as different as building a packing crate > compared to a Chippendale chair. Sure. But what annoys me is the equivelent of claiming to be making Chipendale chairs while actually you're making crates. > I am not going to attempt to defend myself and say that I aim to As I said, I wasn;t poining my finger at you, or anyone else. I've not read any of your articles, so I can't possibly comment on them. But Iv'e read a lot of rubbish for other authors... > produce the sort of in-depth technical piece you would want. I am not. > I probably never will. But there is a need for things that are at a > less formidable technical level than that. I also feel it's possible to simplify things too much and thus make them incomprehensible. I am interested in telephones and related stuff [1]. I read several introductory books and found I couldn't understand them. I actually felt that the operation of a Storwger exchange was beyond me. And then, by chance, I got a copy of 'Telephony'. Volume 2 is about automatic echanfes, and it contains full schematics. I spent a couple of weeks reading it through, following the operation of overy relay. And it all made sense. Yes, it was heavy going, but it was worth it. The introductory books were useless. [1] No, I am not interestiend in gettign free calls, or in listening to other people's conversations. I am interesed in the electrical and electronic side. To me 'Telephone hacking' doesn't mean what it means in the gutter press (to listen to somebody else's calls(, it mans making parts for old rotary dial phones from scratch. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 15:25:24 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:25:24 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 26, 12 07:57:36 pm Message-ID: > >> That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are > >> quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the > >> escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra > >> here. > > > > Sure...now. My "a while" is probably on the order of a century, maybe > > two. > > Oh man. > > I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of > nowhere. How do I get to it? Or perhaps I am not 'smart' At least I watch very little TV (and none at all would be OK), neither watch nor play any sport, and don't much care for beer. So I must be doing something right :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 15:29:10 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:29:10 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Computer Science - Re: teaching programming to kids In-Reply-To: <20120126174002.H24886@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 26, 12 05:43:42 pm Message-ID: > > I'm right there with you. The last time I learned something new at > > work was...heck, less than an hour ago. I wouldn't have it any other way. > > When I stop learning, . . . > bring a truck. Load fast before the coroner gets here. Oh, absolutely... 'The day I stop learning is the day I am carried away in a pine box'... But then I am not in the commerical world. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 16:03:42 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:03:42 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Software biz is done, stick a fork in it - Re: Computer Science - In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jan 26, 12 10:23:15 pm Message-ID: > >> I dunno... The other week I was told on this list that once you get int > >> othe commerical world there's no time to learn anything. > > Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in the professional > world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be > _given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much > support to learn anything - if a company shifts its focus, the pattern > here for 20 years has been to bring in SMEs (subject matter experts) > to replace present employees who have "obsolete" skills and are thusly > laid-off (made redundant). I cna't remember the exact quote. It was in the trhead abotu Paul Allen (?) wanting sombody to maintain hs collection of vintage computers and that the job description mentioned that the skills of compoennt-level troubleshootign and TTL/ECL circuit design were 'desirable' and that knowledge of Outlook was 'essential'. I, and others, pointed out that the former was decidedly non0-trivial (and IMHO essential for repairing any vintage machies), the latter could be learnt in an afternoon by anyone who'd ever used an e-mail program. I was then informed that there is no time to learn new stuff in the commercial world, or something like that. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 16:11:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:11:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F2256F4.50404@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 27, 12 02:49:08 am Message-ID: Rew the Subject: line... To me '555' has only one other common meaning and that;s an 8 pin IC that can be used as an astable, monostable or bistable. > > On 01/25/2012 04:14 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > However the service manual for my Tektronix 555 'scope does explain how > > to debug one half of the unit usign the other half (this is a ture > > double-beam ;'scome, apart from the CRT and low-votlage PSUs, it's almost > > 2 'sopes in one box, so you can use one to diagnost faults with the other). > > I too have a Tektronix 555, but I lack a power supply umbilical. Do > you have any clue as to where I might find one? I've been meaning to > join the well-known TekScopes list; I should do that and ask there as well. I don't ahve a spare, I ahve the oen that came with my 'scope, and it's in use :-) I am pretty sure the conenctors were standard (full size Blue Ribbon ones). I dnn't know if they're still made, but you might fidn them second-hand sowmewhere. IIRC it's a straight-through cable, and it's jsut pwoer lines (include the AC feed to the heater transformer in the 'scope),. so the calgbe is not too critical. Ypu might be able to make one. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jan 27 16:45:53 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:45:53 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120127122544.B52961@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jan 27, 12 12:28:11 pm Message-ID: > > > And they do have communes of smart people in the muddle of > > > an urban area: universities :-P > > Yeah. > But why do they have to have the entire 'B' Ark running them? Unfortunately at some universities over here, it appears that the major skills of the staff (and the skill they require all applicants ot have) is the ability to get research grants, rather than any skills in the particualr subject. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 17:49:01 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:49:01 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F225030.5030709@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F225030.5030709@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F22C76D.5277.19340E9@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 2:20, Dave McGuire wrote: > Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our > imminent consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! Count me out--I'd never belong to a club that would sink so low as to have me as a member. And I enjoy living in the middle of nowhere. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Fri Jan 27 18:05:41 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:05:41 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F22C76D.5277.19340E9@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, , <4F225030.5030709@neurotica.com> <4F22C76D.5277.19340E9@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F233BD5.2080903@neurotica.com> On 01/27/2012 06:49 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 27 Jan 2012 at 2:20, Dave McGuire wrote: > >> Or build three giant spaceships (Ark 'A', 'B', 'C') before our >> imminent consumption by the enormous mutant star goat! > > Count me out--I'd never belong to a club that would sink so low as to > have me as a member. Groucho Marx, right? > And I enjoy living in the middle of nowhere. I used to. Then starvation kicked in. :-( -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From als at thangorodrim.de Fri Jan 27 18:01:50 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:01:50 +0100 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120128000150.GB1226@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 07:57:36PM -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/26/2012 07:44 PM, Mouse wrote: > >>>I think the wheel is turning. The USA has had its turn on top and > >>>is now on its way down. In a while it'll be all "bu-but what > >>>happened? we used to be number one!". Then they'll bottom out and > >>>start the long slow climb back up again. > >>That realization will never happen, though. Most people here are > >>quite content with being sedated by TV, sports, beer, and the > >>escapades of Linsay Lohan. "I don't want to think" is the mantra > >>here. > > > >Sure...now. My "a while" is probably on the order of a century, maybe > >two. > > Oh man. > > I want to start a big commune of smart people out in the middle of > nowhere. Ah, but there is a trap. How do you "measure" smarts? Smart enough to get a PhD in hard science (maths, physics, ...)? Smart enough to realize what needs to be done and just do it, no matter what? Smart enough to be beyond "this scut work is below me" bullshit? Smart enough to cooperate, even if he/she/it doesn't like all the other people in the group? I've seen my share of people who were, unarguably, very smart in their speciality, but had plenty of ... other problems. Just make sure (beforehand) that your smart people are actually smart enough to: - unclog a blocked toilet - mop the floors - properly dispose off the rubbish - can replace a broken lamp without holding a conference about it - re-order toilet paper, paper towels and soap - etc ... Just because the janitor is normally invisible doesn't mean he isn't important. ;-) Sorry, but you pressed a rant button with me here. "I know, the problem are stupid people. I'll setup a colony/commune/habitat and let only smart people in. Then there won't be any problems" - and then the place collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't expect a PhD to do such lowly work. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jan 27 18:18:07 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:18:07 +0000 Subject: closures, FUNARGs, and lambdas [was RE: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC] Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F5485@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: Tony Duell Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 1:21 PM [NB: Tony trimmed out the identities, so I'm not going to try to remember them.] >>> This is something I know nothign about either, and it would >>> certainly help _me_ if somebody could explain what lambda calculus >>> and 'closures' are useful for. >> The lambda calculus is useful in the same way that any theoretical >> discipline is useful. It does not itself solve problems; it informs > Actaully I think a lot of theoretical concepts were originally > develloped to solve particular real problems. They may well have other > applciations, of course. In point of fact, closures were often referred to in the early LISP literature as "FUNARGs" ("functional arguments"), and their existence went by the name "the FUNARG problem." There is a famous paper by Joel Moses of MIT entitled "The Function of FUNCTION in LISP, or Why the FUNARG Problem Should be Called the Environment Problem" which discusses them quite clearly using an ALGOL-style syntax for the non- LISP programming audience. Available at http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5854/AIM-199.pdf The late John McCarthy has been quoted as saying that LISP is the way it is because of his misunderstanding at the time of the lambda calculus. Stop trying to understand the latter to understand LISP, and you'll be way ahead. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/ From list at voyager.im Fri Jan 27 18:25:47 2012 From: list at voyager.im (Voyager) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:25:47 +0200 Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers References: <1327328624.30178.YahooMailNeo@web113818.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <01c401ccd9dd$05bffdd0$020a14ac@tababook> Message-ID: <1F057E12359E4C698E76E0A867F1295A@voyager8> Seeding ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Monday, January 23, 2012 4:40 PM Subject: Brazilian curiosity: Schematic of many brazilian computers > > http://tinyurl.com/6m6abl8 > > This is a manual with all computers produced by CCE in Brazil. There > are apple clones, PC-XT clones and the MC-1000, an orphan computer that no > one is able to perfectly source its origins > > Please seed. > > --- > Enviado do meu Motorola PT550 > Meu site: http://www.tabalabs.com.br From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 18:30:53 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:30:53 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F233BD5.2080903@neurotica.com> References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net>, <4F22C76D.5277.19340E9@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F233BD5.2080903@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F22D13D.14212.1B9920D@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 19:05, Dave McGuire wrote: > Groucho Marx, right? Yes indeed. Words of the great Waldorf T. Flywheel. --Chuck From RichA at vulcan.com Fri Jan 27 18:44:47 2012 From: RichA at vulcan.com (Rich Alderson) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:44:47 +0000 Subject: Scotch (was: Re: teaching programming to kids) In-Reply-To: <2CF2001F-8827-4741-98A3-550D82A096FE@gmail.com> References: <2CF2001F-8827-4741-98A3-550D82A096FE@gmail.com> Message-ID: <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D7F54F6@505MBX1.corp.vnw.com> From: David Riley Sent: Friday, January 27, 2012 7:34 AM > It's amusing that we've hijacked the "teaching programming to kids" > thread with a scotch discussion, but I thought I'd throw my few cents > in. "Kids' gotta learn some time..." Rich From geoffr at zipcon.net Fri Jan 27 18:53:28 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:53:28 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <08ee01ccdc94$90d8f570$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On 1/26/12 5:39 PM, "Alexandre Souza - Listas" wrote: >> But some of the Chinese USB-powered programmers are just as cheap and >> come with a nice box--and they'll do GALs, which, as far as I know, >> the Willem won't do. Neither, AFAIK, will do bipolar PROMs. > > For $300 you can get a chinese BEEPROG... > The beeprog original developers claim that if you try to use the current rev of beeprog softwre it can detect the clones and brick them. From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 19:20:07 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:20:07 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: Message-ID: <0e2f01ccdd5b$219447b0$6400a8c0@tababook> >> For $300 you can get a chinese BEEPROG... > The beeprog original developers claim that if you try to use the current > rev > of beeprog softwre it can detect the clones and brick them. That's why it is so cheap. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 19:43:11 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:43:11 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <0e2f01ccdd5b$219447b0$6400a8c0@tababook> References: , <0e2f01ccdd5b$219447b0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 23:20, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > > The beeprog original developers claim that if you try to use the > > current rev of beeprog softwre it can detect the clones and brick > > them. > > That's why it is so cheap. Interesting--Xeltek has had the same issue with Chinese Xelteks. --Chuck From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 20:12:53 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:12:53 -0600 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <1327605679.94014.YahooMailNeo@web164511.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <1327602616.91149.YahooMailClassic@web121604.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1327605679.94014.YahooMailNeo@web164511.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F2359A5.2060007@gmail.com> Chris M wrote: > ________________________________ From: Mr Ian Primus > > > The disk drives themselves are all the same. > > C: They're mostly similar, but not all the same. There are varied > different types of drives in the various pseudo pc's I own. They are not > all interchangeable to say the least. There used to be a factory in Hungary which would employ the careful application of heat, along with a *lot* of pressure, to convert 8" drives into 3.5"... ;-) From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Fri Jan 27 20:24:45 2012 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:24:45 -0600 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120128022444.GA21174@RawFedDogs.net> The subject, minus the word game, brought back a few fond memories. The junior high I went to the longest, Horace Man Junior High, added a computer lab and computer science class my 8th grade year - '83/'84. I took the class and have been hooked ever since. The school had an Apple ][ Plus "network." I don't remember all the details. The host had half a dozen floppy drives attached to it and all the "network" did was give several other computers access to those drives. If I remember correctly it ran ROS, the Remote Operating System. All the boxes on the network were daisy chained off the host by narrow ribbon cables. It was a one semester class. I did well enough that the teacher asked me to be her student aid the second semester. Ah, the memories. -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum. From geoffr at zipcon.net Fri Jan 27 21:52:50 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:52:50 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: On 1/27/12 5:43 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > On 27 Jan 2012 at 23:20, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > >>> The beeprog original developers claim that if you try to use the >>> current rev of beeprog softwre it can detect the clones and brick >>> them. >> >> That's why it is so cheap. > > Interesting--Xeltek has had the same issue with Chinese Xelteks. > > --Chuck It annoys me that the devs of the original unit would purposely damage someone's programmer, I could see making the software not work, but not to purposely brick the hardware. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 22:09:47 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:09:47 -0800 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 19:52, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > It annoys me that the devs of the original unit would purposely damage > someone's programmer, I could see making the software not work, but > not to purposely brick the hardware. It reminds me of an 80's software publishers gambit--go and clobber the hard disk if a pirate copy is discovered on floppy. Can't remember who it was or the details, but I remember that things turned out badly for them. --Chuck From arkaxow at gmail.com Fri Jan 27 22:23:15 2012 From: arkaxow at gmail.com (Jeffrey Brace) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:23:15 -0500 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> References: <4F16E52D.4060508@conus.info> Message-ID: <1A18A7B09C1C4260B1E20AD06E6AD715@ArkCompNew> -----Original Message----- From: Dennis Yurichev Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 10:28 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Intertec Superbrain > In the middle of 1980s, I was user of Intertec Superbrain computer: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertec_Superbrain Speaking of Intertec Superbrain QD. If I was looking to buy one, how much would I reasonably expect to pay for one of these systems ? Jeff Brace From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jan 27 22:33:03 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:33:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > It reminds me of an 80's software publishers gambit--go and clobber > the hard disk if a pirate copy is discovered on floppy. > Can't remember who it was or the details, but I remember that things > turned out badly for them. Vault Corporation. They had a successful copy-protection system called "Prolock". Their suite of copy-protection products included ones with physical damage to the disk - if the running program did not find that physical damage, it would declare the copy bogus. Since it would not impress investors to see a room full of people with paper clips scratching diskettes, they used a "laser fingerprint" to scratch the disk. They ANNOUNCED a NEW AND IMPROVED "PROLOCK PLUS"? with the retaliation "feature". Imagine the liability issues if it ever false triggered! Imagine the liability issues of even a VALID trigger damaging ANYTHING other than THEIR files! (detecting a pirated copy of your program does NOT legally entitle you to damage property of the pirate) (Taking the guys over to visit the pitate and knee-capping him would not have worse press) Imagine the PR issues for any company whose product used that protection! IMMEDIATELY, just about every customer that they had for Prolock dropped it, and publicly stated that they hadn't and wouldn't use the new product. Tactical Nuclear Foot Shooting! They were GONE overnight. The NEW product never reached market, NOBODY ever got it. Yet, for years, clueless Q&A column writers would blame "rogue copy-protection" when they couldn't figure out what actually crashed somebody's machine. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From blstuart at bellsouth.net Fri Jan 27 22:39:19 2012 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:39:19 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120128000150.GB1226@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <6e03173bb7485806ece9dcd6b86af2dc@bellsouth.net> > - and then the place > collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't > expect a PhD to do such lowly work. Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the trash and... :) BLS From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jan 27 22:51:54 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:51:54 -0800 Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F230E6A.15193.2A889A6@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 20:33, Fred Cisin wrote: > Vault Corporation. Thanks for the memory-tickler. It was funny in a way, talk about making strategic errors--even back in the pre-Internet days, the word traveled quickly--and got magnified with every recounting. I wondered when it would get to exploding floppies... --Chuck From useddec at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 02:22:37 2012 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:22:37 -0600 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> <0d3101ccdd32$383459c0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: On 1/27/12, David Riley wrote: > On Jan 27, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: > >>>> Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch >>>> time...dreams :D >>> Build a MIDI interface for it! >> >> Why? The fun is playing on itself! :D > > I'll agree. I have a working Wurlitzer 200 and one of the new Rhodes from > 2008, and half the fun is playing on (and, to an extent, maintaining) the > real thing. They built a version of the new Rhodes with a MIDI output, > which just... I don't know. Seems dirty to me. > > > - Dave > > > From useddec at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 02:36:48 2012 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:36:48 -0600 Subject: new haul, serious goodies In-Reply-To: References: <4F1E6C2A.8010307@neurotica.com> <039201ccda7a$a4b76750$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F1F344E.4080908@neurotica.com> <9608DB07-3931-4FC9-B99B-000EA8379F3E@gmail.com> <4F225428.4070909@neurotica.com> <0a6f01ccdcfe$ab0c84b0$6400a8c0@tababook> <20120127121239.C52961@shell.lmi.net> <0d3101ccdd32$383459c0$6400a8c0@tababook> Message-ID: opppss- sorry about the blank msg. I thinh I still have a few dozen FS kits including (a bit foggy here) TU45, TU 77, 78 3 or 4 11/780 kits RM02/03 RP06 and a perch testerand a lot of parts including heads. Also LA36's and 120's and parts I'm still looking for H960, TU10,VT05, maybe an LP01, LA180 and a few other things. Thanks, Paul On 1/28/12, Paul Anderson wrote: > On 1/27/12, David Riley wrote: >> On Jan 27, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote: >> >>>>> Hmmm...Playing Bach into a pipe dream...eh...organ, at lunch >>>>> time...dreams :D >>>> Build a MIDI interface for it! >>> >>> Why? The fun is playing on itself! :D >> >> I'll agree. I have a working Wurlitzer 200 and one of the new Rhodes >> from >> 2008, and half the fun is playing on (and, to an extent, maintaining) the >> real thing. They built a version of the new Rhodes with a MIDI output, >> which just... I don't know. Seems dirty to me. >> >> >> - Dave >> >> >> > From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 03:02:05 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:02:05 -0200 Subject: Willem EPROM programmer References: Message-ID: <0f1501ccdd9b$a644ae10$6400a8c0@tababook> > It annoys me that the devs of the original unit would purposely damage > someone's programmer, I could see making the software not work, but not to > purposely brick the hardware. Someday, someone will understand the proccess, and make the chinese Beeprog compatible with the original one... :o) From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 03:03:39 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:03:39 -0200 Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <0f2001ccdd9b$d4f49590$6400a8c0@tababook> > Tactical Nuclear Foot Shooting! KKKKKKKKKKKKKK :oD From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 28 03:07:22 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:07:22 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: <20120104131430.G41929@shell.lmi.net> <20120125162646.O75835@shell.lmi.net> <4F219A09.3080607@neurotica.com> <201201262324.SAA09307@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F1DB.8070204@neurotica.com> <201201270044.TAA11006@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F21F680.60003@neurotica.com> <20120126173350.Q24886@shell.lmi.net> <4F220B3A.30100@neurotica.com> <4F225018.8010408@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <7B4B5A86-30EE-431E-ADE2-757FC064B12B@neurotica.com> On Jan 27, 2012, at 11:33 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 2:19 AM, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >> I'm primarily a Laphroaig man, though. > > I'm down with that - looks like we have more to discuss than ancient > DEC iron when we get together next. Most definitely. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 28 03:16:08 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:16:08 -0500 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 27, 2012, at 5:11 PM, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > >> On 01/25/2012 04:14 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> However the service manual for my Tektronix 555 'scope does explain how >>> to debug one half of the unit usign the other half (this is a ture >>> double-beam ;'scome, apart from the CRT and low-votlage PSUs, it's almost >>> 2 'sopes in one box, so you can use one to diagnost faults with the other). >> >> I too have a Tektronix 555, but I lack a power supply umbilical. Do >> you have any clue as to where I might find one? I've been meaning to >> join the well-known TekScopes list; I should do that and ask there as well. > > I don't ahve a spare, I ahve the oen that came with my 'scope, and it's > in use :-) > > I am pretty sure the conenctors were standard (full size Blue Ribbon > ones). I dnn't know if they're still made, but you might fidn them > second-hand sowmewhere. IIRC it's a straight-through cable, and it's jsut > pwoer lines (include the AC feed to the heater transformer in the > 'scope),. so the calgbe is not too critical. Ypu might be able to make one. I will see about those connectors. The 555 is pretty far down in the repair queue, but it's important to me to get it running eventually. In other happy news, I repaired my Tek 575 this evening. It had physical damage to the step generator switch that was holding it in an impossible mode (single-family AND repetitive sweep) and a bad 6AL5 tube in the step generator, so the step capacitor never got discharged. It works great now. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From dave12 at dunfield.com Fri Jan 27 18:18:54 2012 From: dave12 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:18:54 -0500 Subject: TRS80 MDL100 Disk Video Interface Disk Message-ID: <4F233EEE.12979.280F3FC@dave12.dunfield.com> Hi Guys, I saw that someone was looking for the disk to go with the TRS-80 Model 100 Disk-Video Interface ... This is available on my site. Dave -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ From dave12 at dunfield.com Fri Jan 27 18:18:55 2012 From: dave12 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:18:55 -0500 Subject: SuperBrain Disks Message-ID: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> Hi everybody, I've had delivery turned off for a long time - seems I'm no longer subscribed as my password does not work ... hopefully this will make it to the list, however I will not receive replies sent to the list except by checking the archives (which I don't do very often). I checked the archives today to see if a chap I had directed to the list got help with SuperBrain disks. I see several comments that I "should have them". I've never been able to read the diskettes from my original SuperBrain. I can read the first two tracks, then errors on every track - missing address marks. I cannot read them with ImageDisk nor TeleDisk. I've tried multiple different drives and types of drives - I simply cannot read the SuperBrain disks on anything except the SuperBrain. Every so often this comes up, and several people say "but SuperBrain disks are bog standard and easy to read" - so apparently I am the only one on the planet who can't read them. After explaining the above (that I simply cannot read them, and that I have in fact tried really hard) - I always get several offers to send me images or disks that can be read ... but nobody has every followed through, which is why I do not have SuperBrain disks on my site. I do have another system called a "CompuStar" which is a rebadged SuperBrain - and most of the disk from that system ARE readable on a PC ... BUT... the guy who owned it really liked APL, and created his own character generator ROM and custom BIOS to support APL characters on the machine ... All of his disks are "hand made" (not originals) and although his disks boot, they display incomprehensible garbage on a normal SuperBrain. Therefore I see little point in posting them as SuperBrain disks. I've only found one disk from his collection which boots and displays on the normal Brain - and it has the missing address mark problem. I've tried booting the Compustar disks on the SuperBrain and blind- formatting a disk --- but the created disk is still unreadable. I am assuming that the Z80 based disk controller in my SuperBrain makes disks which are not readable on a PC (the SB reads them fine). It can boot and read the CompuStar disks, however it does not appear to be able to format a readable disk. Unfortunately the Compustar is not currently working, and will need significant work to repair - so I cannot try formatting disks on it. And I am unable to create anything on the SuperBrain which I can read on the PC. Which is why I cannot provide disk images for the SuperBrain. I've tried - I simply cannot make it happen. Dave -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ From axelsson at acc.umu.se Fri Jan 27 20:01:58 2012 From: axelsson at acc.umu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?=) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:01:58 +0100 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F235716.1080905@acc.umu.se> I've got a 12 80186 in purple ceramic with sockets. If anyone needs or want one, let me know. Pulled from working VT-220 compatible Nokia terminals (rebranded as Norsk data Notis terminals). I was offered $5 per piece from a gold refiner, but I rather sell them to collectors. ... and before anyone start harassing me about scrapping working terminals. I announced it here on the list two years ago when I helped a friend clean out a storage. Of the close to 200 terminals I still have 60-70 left but I need to get it down to 20 in the end. So, they are also available. I'm located in Ume?, Sweden. /G?ran Chuck Guzis skrev 2012-01-27 02:23: > It's been a long time since I've seen an 80186 or 80188 in a ceramic > LCC package! Almost all of the "regular" 80188/86s (save for 80188EC) > have been PLCC. Vintage, indeed. --Chuck From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 03:46:24 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:46:24 -0200 Subject: TRS80 MDL100 Disk Video Interface Disk References: <4F233EEE.12979.280F3FC@dave12.dunfield.com> Message-ID: <0f3501ccdda1$c53a57b0$6400a8c0@tababook> > This is available on my site. Kudos for the woody portable computer! ;oD From dave12 at dunfield.com Sat Jan 28 07:52:54 2012 From: dave12 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:52:54 -0500 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com> Hi Guys, After reading recent comments (including my own), and thinking about it for a bit - I came up with a way to make images of my SuperBrain disks. Seems like the "smart" disk controller in my SuperBrain always formats with non-standard address marks.... but since it can read and write the CompuStar disks, it does not seem to have trouble accessing disks with standard address marks. So.. I used ImageDisk to create some blank formatted disks (with standard address marks), then PIP'd all the files from my original disks to these new ones - then I read them into images, and used ImageDisk to replace the blank system tracks with the system tracks from the original disks (fortunately the system tracks have standard address marks). I tested the resulting images by writing them back to some fresh disks and booting them in my SuperBrain - and everything seems to work! I've posted these "slightly modified" images of my original CP/M and ZCPR disks for the SuperBrain to my site - look for "Intertec SuperBrain" under "System disks". Dave -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ From als at thangorodrim.de Sat Jan 28 11:09:40 2012 From: als at thangorodrim.de (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:09:40 +0100 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <6e03173bb7485806ece9dcd6b86af2dc@bellsouth.net> References: <20120128000150.GB1226@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> <6e03173bb7485806ece9dcd6b86af2dc@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <20120128170940.GA32005@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: > > - and then the place > > collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't > > expect a PhD to do such lowly work. > > Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly > normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the > trash and... :) Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection with the ground ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 11:17:44 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:17:44 +0000 Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27 January 2012 21:50, Tony Duell wrote: >> There are many different kinds of tech journalism. For starters, there >> are the basic formal categories: news, news analysis, previews, >> reviews, comparative reviews, features & columns. Then there is the >> medium: daily/weekly/monthly. Then there is the audience: >> nonspecialist/specialist/trade/domain experts. > > However, all of those should be accurate and as complete as possible. Accurate, yes, for technical stuff, although I'm not sure it applies to things like comment columns. > And > alas many articles are neither. Well, true. Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crap. > THis is not just a computer-related article/book issue. My favourite is > nothing to do with computer oe electronics. It's that old photographic > chestnut that the focal length of your camera lens affects the > perspective of the image... O_o >> It's not all just one thing. >> >> As an outsider, or as a reader, I would not expect people to know or > > Maybe not. But I do understand when an article is talking nonsense. Well, sure. > Look, I am not expecting every article to contain schematics and source > code. But when I read that 'Uni is a programming language that...' I know > that the author doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. Is this a specific example? I've not heard of a language called "Uni" myself. >> understand this, but it's as different as building a packing crate >> compared to a Chippendale chair. > > Sure. But what annoys me is the equivelent of claiming to be making > Chipendale chairs while actually you're making crates. Ah, well, that is a common problem. >> I am not going to attempt to defend myself and say that I aim to > > As I said, I wasn;t poining my finger at you, or anyone else. I've not > read any of your articles, so I can't possibly comment on them. But Iv'e > read a lot of rubbish for other authors... If you're curious: http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Liam%20Proven (Yes, you will need web access.) >> produce the sort of in-depth technical piece you would want. I am not. >> I probably never will. But there is a need for things that are at a >> less formidable technical level than that. > > I also feel it's possible to simplify things too much and thus make them > incomprehensible. > > I am interested in telephones and related stuff [1]. ?I read several > introductory books and found I couldn't understand them. I actually felt > that the operation of a Storwger exchange was beyond me. And then, by > chance, I got a copy of 'Telephony'. Volume 2 is about automatic > echanfes, and it contains full schematics. I spent a couple of weeks > reading it through, following the operation of overy relay. And it all > made sense. Yes, it was heavy going, but it was worth it. The > introductory books were useless. > > [1] No, I am not interestiend in gettign free calls, or in listening to > other people's conversations. I am interesed in the electrical and > electronic side. To me 'Telephone hacking' doesn't mean what it means in > the gutter press (to listen to somebody else's calls(, it mans making > parts for old rotary dial phones from scratch. I spent Yule Day at a friend's house in Edinburgh. He collects old phones and phone equipment. The house - quite big and rambling with a bunch of guys living there - has an internal switchboard and extensions in every room, including the bathroom, just for fun. There is a live, active Strowger exchange in the hall cupboard, and another in bits in the hall. I tried to persuade him to join ClassicCmp - I think he'd fit in well. :?) Me, obviously, I'm a fake. I had to whip out my smartphone and look up what a "strowger exchange" /was./ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Jan 28 11:21:49 2012 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:21:49 -0700 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120128170940.GA32005@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <20120128000150.GB1226@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> <6e03173bb7485806ece9dcd6b86af2dc@bellsouth.net> <20120128170940.GA32005@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <4F242EAD.7080207@jetnet.ab.ca> On 1/28/2012 10:09 AM, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >>> - and then the place >>> collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >>> expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >> >> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >> trash and... :) > > Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection > with the ground ;-) > PhD see: Please help Dear > Kind regards, > Alex. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 11:35:52 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:35:52 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4F23C178.2905.150912@cclist.sydex.com> On 27 Jan 2012 at 19:18, Dave Dunfield wrote: > Unfortunately the Compustar is not currently working, and will need > significant work to repair - so I cannot try formatting disks on it. > And I am unable to create anything on the SuperBrain which I can read > on the PC. > > Which is why I cannot provide disk images for the SuperBrain. I've > tried - I simply cannot make it happen. What I said--the Superbrain tends (evidently, not all revisions do) to use FA as a DAM. Either edit the raw track to use FBs or use a WD 17xx controller to get the data and rewrite your disk using FBs on a NEC 765-type controller. The Superbrain doesn't care which are used. It's not rocket science. --Chuck From eric at brouhaha.com Sat Jan 28 11:54:42 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:54:42 -0800 Subject: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) In-Reply-To: <4F1D2EB8.8090608@iais.fraunhofer.de> References: <530472156F6BE045A8C1346B61246B53034D8A655A@DE02WXMBX1.internal.synopsys.com> <4F1D2EB8.8090608@iais.fraunhofer.de> Message-ID: <4F243662.9050002@brouhaha.com> Holger Veit wrote: > Problem is of course that the Elektor OSI computer uses a rather > obscure floppy controller and formatting (some GCR emitted by an > asynchronous 6850 that is hacked into a synchronous mode). It's FM, not GCR. Of course, it's not IBM-standard FM. Normally it can only be read and written on an OSI (or Elektor) system. Given how expensive FDC chips were when OSI designed their floppy controller, I suppose it can be considered a clever hack, though nowhere near as clever as Woz's design for the Disk II controller. From mta at umich.edu Sat Jan 28 12:14:29 2012 From: mta at umich.edu (Mike Alexander) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:14:29 -0500 Subject: LA36 available in Ann Arbor Message-ID: <5A01F56644364023D16243FE@mistral.private> Does anyone want a Decwriter LA36? I've got one that I'm willing to give to anyone who will come get it (or pay for shipping, although that would be expensive). As far as I know it works although it hasn't been used in years. The one problem I know of is that the 20 mA interface was blown out in a lightning storm sometime in the 70s, but the EIA interface worked the last time I tried it. I think I also have some (perhaps all) of the user and maintenance manuals for it. I also have an acoustic coupler if you want the true 1970s experience. This is located in Ann Arbor, MI so it would be easiest for someone in southern Michigan or northern Ohio or Indiana to come get it. Mike Alexander From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Jan 28 12:21:05 2012 From: couryhouse at aol.com (Ed Sharpe) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:21:05 -0700 Subject: Need 232 to 60 & 20 mil loop converter thanks Message-ID: Need 232 to 60 & 20 mil loop converter thanks cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: >Send cctalk mailing list submissions to > cctalk at classiccmp.org > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk >or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > cctalk-request at classiccmp.org > >You can reach the person managing the list at > cctalk-owner at classiccmp.org > >When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..." > > >Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 > BASIC (Alexander Schreiber) > 2. Re: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching > programming (Liam Proven) > 3. Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 > BASIC (ben) > 4. Re: SuperBrain Disks (Chuck Guzis) > 5. Re: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) (Eric Smith) > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:09:40 +0100 >From: Alexander Schreiber >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 > BASIC >Message-ID: <20120128170940.GA32005 at mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >> > - and then the place >> > collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >> > expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >> >> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >> trash and... :) > >Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection >with the ground ;-) > >Kind regards, > Alex. >-- >"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and > looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 2 >Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:17:44 +0000 >From: Liam Proven >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" >Subject: Re: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching > programming >Message-ID: > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 > >On 27 January 2012 21:50, Tony Duell wrote: >>> There are many different kinds of tech journalism. For starters, there >>> are the basic formal categories: news, news analysis, previews, >>> reviews, comparative reviews, features & columns. Then there is the >>> medium: daily/weekly/monthly. Then there is the audience: >>> nonspecialist/specialist/trade/domain experts. >> >> However, all of those should be accurate and as complete as possible. > >Accurate, yes, for technical stuff, although I'm not sure it applies >to things like comment columns. > >> And >> alas many articles are neither. > >Well, true. Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crap. > >> THis is not just a computer-related article/book issue. My favourite is >> nothing to do with computer oe electronics. It's that old photographic >> chestnut that the focal length of your camera lens affects the >> perspective of the image... > >O_o > >>> It's not all just one thing. >>> >>> As an outsider, or as a reader, I would not expect people to know or >> >> Maybe not. But I do understand when an article is talking nonsense. > >Well, sure. > >> Look, I am not expecting every article to contain schematics and source >> code. But when I read that 'Uni is a programming language that...' I know >> that the author doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. > >Is this a specific example? I've not heard of a language called "Uni" myself. > >>> understand this, but it's as different as building a packing crate >>> compared to a Chippendale chair. >> >> Sure. But what annoys me is the equivelent of claiming to be making >> Chipendale chairs while actually you're making crates. > >Ah, well, that is a common problem. > >>> I am not going to attempt to defend myself and say that I aim to >> >> As I said, I wasn;t poining my finger at you, or anyone else. I've not >> read any of your articles, so I can't possibly comment on them. But Iv'e >> read a lot of rubbish for other authors... > >If you're curious: > >http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Liam%20Proven > >(Yes, you will need web access.) > >>> produce the sort of in-depth technical piece you would want. I am not. >>> I probably never will. But there is a need for things that are at a >>> less formidable technical level than that. >> >> I also feel it's possible to simplify things too much and thus make them >> incomprehensible. >> >> I am interested in telephones and related stuff [1]. ?I read several >> introductory books and found I couldn't understand them. I actually felt >> that the operation of a Storwger exchange was beyond me. And then, by >> chance, I got a copy of 'Telephony'. Volume 2 is about automatic >> echanfes, and it contains full schematics. I spent a couple of weeks >> reading it through, following the operation of overy relay. And it all >> made sense. Yes, it was heavy going, but it was worth it. The >> introductory books were useless. >> >> [1] No, I am not interestiend in gettign free calls, or in listening to >> other people's conversations. I am interesed in the electrical and >> electronic side. To me 'Telephone hacking' doesn't mean what it means in >> the gutter press (to listen to somebody else's calls(, it mans making >> parts for old rotary dial phones from scratch. > >I spent Yule Day at a friend's house in Edinburgh. He collects old >phones and phone equipment. The house - quite big and rambling with a >bunch of guys living there - has an internal switchboard and >extensions in every room, including the bathroom, just for fun. There >is a live, active Strowger exchange in the hall cupboard, and another >in bits in the hall. > >I tried to persuade him to join ClassicCmp - I think he'd fit in well. :?) > >Me, obviously, I'm a fake. I had to whip out my smartphone and look up >what a "strowger exchange" /was./ > >-- >Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile >Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven >MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven >Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 > > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 3 >Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:21:49 -0700 >From: ben >To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >Subject: Re: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 > BASIC >Message-ID: <4F242EAD.7080207 at jetnet.ab.ca> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > >On 1/28/2012 10:09 AM, Alexander Schreiber wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >>>> - and then the place >>>> collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >>>> expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >>> >>> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >>> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >>> trash and... :) >> >> Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection >> with the ground ;-) >> > >PhD see: Please help Dear > >> Kind regards, >> Alex. > > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 4 >Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:35:52 -0800 >From: "Chuck Guzis" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: Re: SuperBrain Disks >Message-ID: <4F23C178.2905.150912 at cclist.sydex.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >On 27 Jan 2012 at 19:18, Dave Dunfield wrote: > >> Unfortunately the Compustar is not currently working, and will need >> significant work to repair - so I cannot try formatting disks on it. >> And I am unable to create anything on the SuperBrain which I can read >> on the PC. >> >> Which is why I cannot provide disk images for the SuperBrain. I've >> tried - I simply cannot make it happen. > >What I said--the Superbrain tends (evidently, not all revisions do) >to use FA as a DAM. Either edit the raw track to use FBs or use a WD >17xx controller to get the data and rewrite your disk using FBs on a >NEC 765-type controller. > >The Superbrain doesn't care which are used. > >It's not rocket science. > >--Chuck > > > > > >------------------------------ > >Message: 5 >Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:54:42 -0800 >From: Eric Smith >To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > >Subject: Re: Elektor and OSI's OS-65D (was OHIO-DOS) >Message-ID: <4F243662.9050002 at brouhaha.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > >Holger Veit wrote: >> Problem is of course that the Elektor OSI computer uses a rather >> obscure floppy controller and formatting (some GCR emitted by an >> asynchronous 6850 that is hacked into a synchronous mode). >It's FM, not GCR. Of course, it's not IBM-standard FM. Normally it can >only be read and written on an OSI (or Elektor) system. Given how >expensive FDC chips were when OSI designed their floppy controller, I >suppose it can be considered a clever hack, though nowhere near as >clever as Woz's design for the Disk II controller. > > > > > >End of cctalk Digest, Vol 101, Issue 87 >*************************************** From wheagy at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 12:44:42 2012 From: wheagy at gmail.com (Win Heagy) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:44:42 -0500 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case Message-ID: HI, Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of opening the M0001 case? I removed the five screws from the back (including the two deeply recessed screws) but the case is just as tight as when the screws were in. What am I missing? Thanks...Win wheagy at gmail.com From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jan 28 13:05:50 2012 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:05:50 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120128170940.GA32005@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <2ca7b59f48b82ce03ca901b6fe01d2c8@bellsouth.net> > On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >> > - and then the place >> > collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >> > expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >> >> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >> trash and... :) > > Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection > with the ground ;-) ROTFL...I think that's how she sees it too...that and something about doing my fair share :) BLS From blstuart at bellsouth.net Sat Jan 28 13:08:28 2012 From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (blstuart at bellsouth.net) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:08:28 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F242EAD.7080207@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <5e772defe6f8902d3d84e03c7d6d06dc@bellsouth.net> > On 1/28/2012 10:09 AM, Alexander Schreiber wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >>>> - and then the place >>>> collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >>>> expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >>> >>> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >>> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >>> trash and... :) >> >> Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection >> with the ground ;-) >> > > PhD see: Please help Dear Good one. And she liked it too. BLS From md.benson at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 13:08:45 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:08:45 +0000 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7701ECAD-FCC6-456C-97BF-2FFED5539480@gmail.com> On 28 Jan 2012, at 18:44, Win Heagy wrote: > HI, > Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of opening the M0001 case? I > removed the five screws from the back (including the two deeply recessed > screws) but the case is just as tight as when the screws were in. What am > I missing? I can only base my knowledge on a the Mac Plus as that;s the closest to a M0001 I've worked on (in my case to wire in fans to help ventilate the hot air). If I remember rightly, there are 5 large Torx 15 screws, as you say, 2 under the handle (the deep recessed ones), two at the bottom on either side, and one behind the battery flap. Once the large Torx retaining screws are out the back should just slide off but they can take a bit of persuading. Apple techs used to use a 'case cracker' to pull them away but seldom can you even find one never mind use one these days. My method usually involves getting a fir grip on the lid and giving it a light tug away from the main assembly. BE CAREFUL. You want to lift it straight up and not to either side as you might damage the tube or the analogue electronics board. Don't 'pick it up and shake it' either as when it gives the fall could cause damage to the plastics or worse the tube. Usual caveats apply during removal and once the cover is off - mind the tube and analogue electronics - they can have stored charge that will give you a fair whack if you touch it (yes and in some rare circumstances can be life threatening yadayada crossing the road is dangerous etc.). How easy it comes of depends wether it's been removed many times before. First time removals can be tight as hell. Might I ask why you are removing the case bucket? -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sat Jan 28 13:52:35 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:52:35 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <2ca7b59f48b82ce03ca901b6fe01d2c8@bellsouth.net> References: <2ca7b59f48b82ce03ca901b6fe01d2c8@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <1C9F138D-7F2E-41AB-AAEA-F841D6A06B49@neurotica.com> On Jan 28, 2012, at 2:05 PM, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:39:19PM -0500, blstuart at bellsouth.net wrote: >>>> - and then the place >>>> collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't >>>> expect a PhD to do such lowly work. >>> >>> Some people *cough*my wife*cough* think it's perfectly >>> normal to expect a PhD to wash dishes and take out the >>> trash and... :) >> >> Sounds like a sensible woman ensuring her husbands solid connection >> with the ground ;-) > > ROTFL...I think that's how she sees it too...that and something > about doing my fair share :) I'm sure she's honestly trying to help you, in the whole keeping your feet on the ground thing. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From arkaxow at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 14:29:25 2012 From: arkaxow at gmail.com (Jeffrey Brace) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:29:25 -0500 Subject: Intertec Superbrain for Sale In-Reply-To: <4F2359A5.2060007@gmail.com> References: <4F21957D.2060406@conus.info> <1327602616.91149.YahooMailClassic@web121604.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <1327605679.94014.YahooMailNeo@web164511.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F2359A5.2060007@gmail.com> Message-ID: I am buying a Commodore Pet from someone (that I don't know) and he also says that he has an Intertec Superbrain. If anyone is interested, then I can give you his contact information. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 28 14:13:02 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:13:02 +0000 (GMT) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120128000150.GB1226@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> from "Alexander Schreiber" at Jan 28, 12 01:01:50 am Message-ID: > Ah, but there is a trap. How do you "measure" smarts? Smart enough to > get a PhD in hard science (maths, physics, ...)? Smart enough to realize > what needs to be done and just do it, no matter what? Smart enough to be > beyond "this scut work is below me" bullshit? Smart enough to cooperate, > even if he/she/it doesn't like all the other people in the group? > > I've seen my share of people who were, unarguably, very smart in their > speciality, but had plenty of ... other problems. I felt that 'smart people' here meant what we used to call 'hackers' before that term got hijacked by the gutter press. I've yet to meet a true hacker who, if he/she sees something that needs to be done and thet are capable of doing , doest just do it. It's in their nature. > Just because the janitor is normally invisible doesn't mean he isn't > important. ;-) I am fond of pointing out that if the so-called 'celebrities' (pop stars, footballers, etc) all vanished overnight then life would go on much the same. If all the dustment disappeeared overnight, there would be major helth problems in a couple of weeks. So which is acutally more valuable? > > Sorry, but you pressed a rant button with me here. "I know, the problem > are stupid people. I'll setup a colony/commune/habitat and let only > smart people in. Then there won't be any problems" - and then the place > collapses after the last toilet is clogged because you _clearly_ can't > expect a PhD to do such lowly work. A hint for Ph.D students : If the sink in the lab is blocked, by all means try to unblock it. But if you do so by firing tyhe compressed air line down it, make sure a senior member of staff is not looking down the plughole of an adjacent sink. I forget to check this, and said member of staff ended up wit ha jet of drity water in his face.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 28 14:25:30 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:25:30 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 28, 12 04:16:08 am Message-ID: > I will see about those connectors. The 555 is pretty far down in > the repair queue, but it's important to me to get it running eventually. It's problaby the nicest of the 500 series. I know I prefer it to the 556 a friend has, for example (even though the 556 has a higher bandwidth). It's a pity there never was a double-beam 'scope in the 580 seires. Now that would be serious fun. > > In other happy news, I repaired my Tek 575 this evening. It had > physical damage to the step generator switch that was holding it in an > impossible mode (single-family AND repetitive sweep) and a bad 6AL5 tube > in the step generator, so the step capacitor never got discharged. It > works great now. I thought EB91s (6AL5s, whatever) went on for ever... Anyway well done on getting another fine instrument going again. I have a 575, I never had the 175 add-on, so I am limited to 2A maximum collecotr current IIRC (!). I'd love a 570 (the valve curve tracer), but the 'real audip' brigade have sent pries of those sky-high.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 28 15:15:04 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:15:04 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Books on FP, lambda calculus, closures - Re: teaching programming In-Reply-To: from "Liam Proven" at Jan 28, 12 05:17:44 pm Message-ID: > > Look, I am not expecting every article to contain schematics and source > > code. But when I read that 'Uni is a programming language that...' I kn= > ow > > that the author doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. > > Is this a specific example? I've not heard of a language called "Uni" mys= > elf. Sorry, that was one of my typos' It was supposed to be 'Unix is a programming languge that...', And no, I've never heard of a programming language called 'Unix', tha's the point... > I spent Yule Day at a friend's house in Edinburgh. He collects old > phones and phone equipment. The house - quite big and rambling with a > bunch of guys living there - has an internal switchboard and > extensions in every room, including the bathroom, just for fun. There > is a live, active Strowger exchange in the hall cupboard, and another > in bits in the hall. I see... That seems entirely reasonable. I'd like a small Strowger exchange, but even small ones are large enough that I would have serious problems accomodating one. I am not a telephone collector, I leave that to others ;-). Point is that while there are many styles and colours of telephones, there aren't that many electornic designs [1]. But I do have a small collection of 'subscriber station equipment other than telephones' -- there's a 1970's analoge fax amchine on the bench a the moment [2], I've got a discrete-transistor snasweirng machine to work on soon, and so on. [1] Although I would like to get one of the original Americal DTMF phones with pot core inductors and just one transistor on the back of the keypad. My ITTL 2500 has ICs in it :-( ]2] Strange technology. It's mostly discrete transistors, with a few op-amps. And a custom MOS IC for the motor speed control :-(. > > I tried to persuade him to join ClassicCmp - I think he'd fit in well. :=AC= > ) > > Me, obviously, I'm a fake. I had to whip out my smartphone and look up > what a "strowger exchange" /was./ Now if you knwew what a Lorimer exchange was I'd be seriously impressed :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jan 28 15:18:56 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:18:56 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: from "Win Heagy" at Jan 28, 12 01:44:42 pm Message-ID: > > HI, > Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of opening the M0001 case? I > removed the five screws from the back (including the two deeply recessed > screws) but the case is just as tight as when the screws were in. What am > I missing? As far as I know, theree are only 5 screws vixible, but jsut to check, there are 2 receisd in the handle,. one at each end of the connector panel, and one unde the battery cover. With those out the case will be tight. There is a special 'Mac Cracker' tool that has 2 wide flat blades. It fits i nthe gab between the case and the front bezel, and theh squeezign the handles of the tool separates hte blads and forces the case apart. I've never used one. What I do is put the machine face down, grip the case firmly, and press on the battery amd the connectors. In the end it comes free. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 28 15:22:40 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:22:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <4F230E6A.15193.2A889A6@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com>, <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> <4F230E6A.15193.2A889A6@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120128130357.V93318@shell.lmi.net> > > Vault Corporation. On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Thanks for the memory-tickler. It was funny in a way, talk about > making strategic errors--even back in the pre-Internet days, the word > traveled quickly--and got magnified with every recounting. I > wondered when it would get to exploding floppies... I need to mention that my description of the incident is NOT based on first-hand knowledge. All of that was from "news" stories in Infoworld and PC-Week, some as news articles and a little from Spencer Catt (sp?) and Robert Cringely, plus just a few personal discussions with some folk who were Prolock customers before that. Vault Corp. got what they deserved. I don't believe that I have magnified it any further than the absolutely amazing original story. It it, however, close to unbelievable that anybody would make such a public announcement, apparently with NO attempt to check with a lawyer about legality of retaliation (a helluva lot of people can't differentiate revenge V "justice", nor even revenge V "self-defense"), nor check with ANYBODY with common sense over what the PR would be! ("We will rape the horses and ride off on the women!") -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From jgessling at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 15:28:46 2012 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:28:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Repairing a TI-1270 calculator Message-ID: <1327786126.87083.YahooMailNeo@web31904.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I've gotten one of these beauties, a lovely pumpkin orange overlay around the keys.? Inserting a battery, it's pretty good? but the 4 and the 6 key just don't work. I took it apart thinking it's a stuck or rusty key but pushing just on the raw Kilxon keypad it's still the same.? I suppose there is some kind of keyboard scanning going on that's not picking up these pushes even though the actual buttons do work.? My previous experiences of opening similar TI thing have been just disastrous.? The keypad is connected to the logic board by 8 or so hard wires that are looped around to fold it into the case. If anyone has any advice on this please let me know.? Thanks, Jim From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 16:03:03 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:03:03 +0000 Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <20120128130357.V93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com> <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> <4F230E6A.15193.2A889A6@cclist.sydex.com> <20120128130357.V93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 28 January 2012 21:22, Fred Cisin wrote: > > I don't believe that I have magnified it any further than the absolutely > amazing original story. ? It it, however, close to unbelievable that > anybody would make such a public announcement, apparently with NO attempt > to check with a lawyer about legality of retaliation (a helluva lot of > people can't differentiate revenge V "justice", nor even revenge V > "self-defense"), nor check with ANYBODY with common sense over what the > PR would be! I am reminded of the intelligent installation program in Dilbert many years ago: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-12-29/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From lproven at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 16:22:30 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:22:30 +0000 Subject: Over-reactions (Was: Willem EPROM programmer In-Reply-To: <20120128130357.V93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F22E22F.11477.1FBC467@cclist.sydex.com> <4F23048B.20575.281FC25@cclist.sydex.com> <20120127201641.N64945@shell.lmi.net> <4F230E6A.15193.2A889A6@cclist.sydex.com> <20120128130357.V93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On 28 January 2012 21:22, Fred Cisin wrote: On the note of comics... > ("We will rape the horses and ride off on the women!") Also reminds me of a rare, work-safe Oglaf: http://oglaf.com/human-women/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 28 16:27:06 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:27:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com> Message-ID: <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Dave Dunfield wrote: > After reading recent comments (including my own), and thinking > about it for a bit - I came up with a way to make images of my > SuperBrain disks. > Seems like the "smart" disk controller in my SuperBrain always > formats with non-standard address marks.... but since it can read > and write the CompuStar disks, it does not seem to have trouble > accessing disks with standard address marks. That technique works for MOST formats with address mark issues. Unfortunately not some of the TRS-DOS address mark issues. There are several formats in XenoCopy, where it is necessary to generate a formatted disk for the alien format using the PC, copy the files on the alien machine to the "pseudo" disk, and then bring the "psuedo" disk back to the PC for conversion. That is also applicable for quite a few formats, such as double sided Kaypro, where the computer writes sector headers with invalid side numbers, but doesn't object to reading nor writing sectors that happen to have correct sector headers. In addition to address marks, disks with 10 * 512 have a crowded track, and may take liberties with tht length of the index gap and inter-sector gaps. The very visible inverted data is merely a trivial inconvenience in comparison. > I've posted these "slightly modified" images of my original CP/M > and ZCPR disks for the SuperBrain to my site - look for "Intertec > SuperBrain" under "System disks". THANK YOU!! That should help a lot of people. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 28 16:42:26 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:42:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120128143926.X93318@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > I am fond of pointing out that if the so-called 'celebrities' (pop stars, > footballers, etc) all vanished overnight then life would go on much the > same. If all the dustment disappeeared overnight, there would be major > helth problems in a couple of weeks. So which is acutally more valuable? " . . . until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone." (demise of Golgafrincham, where they got rid of the useless third of society - HHGTTG by Doglas Adams) > A hint for Ph.D students : If the sink in the lab is blocked, by all > means try to unblock it. But if you do so by firing tyhe compressed air > line down it, make sure a senior member of staff is not looking down the > plughole of an adjacent sink. I forget to check this, and said member of > staff ended up wit ha jet of drity water in his face.... and thus, REAL world safety procedures were learned. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 16:45:15 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:45:15 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com>, <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2012 at 14:27, Fred Cisin wrote: > > I've posted these "slightly modified" images of my original CP/M and > > ZCPR disks for the SuperBrain to my site - look for "Intertec > > SuperBrain" under "System disks". > > THANK YOU!! Didn't I say the same thing TWO DAYS ago? I even offered to ship a copy of the modified image to the OP and got no response. Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? Give me a clue, folks. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 28 16:59:37 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:59:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F23C178.2905.150912@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> <4F23C178.2905.150912@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120128145728.H93318@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > What I said--the Superbrain tends (evidently, not all revisions do) > to use FA as a DAM. Either edit the raw track to use FBs or use a WD > 17xx controller to get the data and rewrite your disk using FBs on a > NEC 765-type controller. > > The Superbrain doesn't care which are used. > > It's not rocket science. "rocket science" is a lot easier than Superbrain! From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jan 28 17:07:24 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:07:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com>, <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Didn't I say the same thing TWO DAYS ago? I even offered to ship a > copy of the modified image to the OP and got no response. > Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? > Give me a clue, folks. MOST don't know what it stands for, nor the issues involved in non-standard ones. Remember how the discussion got side-tracked into an assumption that the inverted data was the problem? Sometimes, you just have to give step-by-step procedures. REPEATEDLY. From silent700 at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 17:30:15 2012 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:30:15 -0600 Subject: LA36 available in Ann Arbor In-Reply-To: <5A01F56644364023D16243FE@mistral.private> References: <5A01F56644364023D16243FE@mistral.private> Message-ID: Hi Mike - I am near Chicago but will be in Ann Arbor next Friday night. Can you let me know if the LA36 is still available? Thanks! -jason On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Mike Alexander wrote: > Does anyone want a Decwriter LA36? ?I've got one that I'm willing to give to > anyone who will come get it (or pay for shipping, although that would be > expensive). ?As far as I know it works although it hasn't been used in > years. ?The one problem I know of is that the 20 mA interface was blown out > in a lightning storm sometime in the 70s, but the EIA interface worked the > last time I tried it. ?I think I also have some (perhaps all) of the user > and maintenance manuals for it. ?I also have an acoustic coupler if you want > the true 1970s experience. ?This is located in Ann Arbor, MI so it would be > easiest for someone in southern Michigan or northern Ohio or Indiana to come > get it. > > ? ? ?Mike Alexander > -- silent700.blogspot.com Retrocomputing and collecting in the Chicago area: http://chiclassiccomp.org From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 17:40:01 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:40:01 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2012 at 15:07, Fred Cisin wrote: > MOST don't know what it stands for, nor the issues involved in > non-standard ones. Remember how the discussion got side-tracked > into an assumption that the inverted data was the problem? > > Sometimes, you just have to give step-by-step procedures. REPEATEDLY. I guess you're right. I'll start by explaining which side of a floppy is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... While it's true that the data on Superbrain floppies is inverted/complemented, the remainder of the floppy is normal (i.e. address marks, sector ID information, etc. is in the "normal" state. Off the top of my head, the Columbia, Comupustar, M&K (Michels and Kleberhoff), the Sharp MZ-80, and the Shelton systems also did it. Actually, the Sharp MZ-80B also "inverted" the data in the sense that side 0 is the top side of the floppy and side 1 the "bottom" side. As far as "why?", I haven't a clue. Sigh, Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 17:59:22 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:59:22 -0500 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <20120128143926.X93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120128143926.X93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <68FF3B13-6E1D-45AD-B541-BB28FFD54586@gmail.com> On Jan 28, 2012, at 5:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: >> I am fond of pointing out that if the so-called 'celebrities' (pop stars, >> footballers, etc) all vanished overnight then life would go on much the >> same. If all the dustment disappeeared overnight, there would be major >> helth problems in a couple of weeks. So which is acutally more valuable? > > " . . . until they were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease > contracted from a dirty telephone." (demise of Golgafrincham, where they > got rid of the useless third of society - HHGTTG by Doglas Adams) And so we've come back to the B Ark again. :-) - Dave From dave12 at dunfield.com Sat Jan 28 18:26:23 2012 From: dave12 at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:26:23 -0500 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120128145728.H93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F23C178.2905.150912@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128145728.H93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F24922F.17925.85ED56@dave12.dunfield.com> >> What I said--the Superbrain tends (evidently, not all revisions do) >> to use FA as a DAM. Either edit the raw track to use FBs or use a WD >> 17xx controller to get the data and rewrite your disk using FBs on a >> NEC 765-type controller. >> >> The Superbrain doesn't care which are used. >> >> It's not rocket science. > >"rocket science" is a lot easier than Superbrain! Yeah, it is when trying to do this only with standard PC hardware. I don't have a hardware bit reader, and although I've thought of building a 279x based controller on a PC board - I've gotten "a round tuit". So not having ready access to the raw track data does pose a problem with the above suggested solutions. >> Didn't I say the same thing TWO DAYS ago? I even offered to ship >> a copy of the modified image to the OP and got no response. >> Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? >> Give me a clue, folks. I wasn't subscribed to the list two days ago (I got resubscribed in less than a day - Kudos to Jay and helpers for getting this working so smoothly) - but I happened to see Chucks comments about address marks, and that along with a recent conversation with the guy who donated the Compustar where he mentioned that he had no trouble reading the disks with linux DD got me thinking, so I did some tests with the Compustar disks which led to a solution (thanks Chuck). >MOST don't know what it stands for, nor the issues involved in >non-standard ones. Remember how the discussion got side-tracked >into an assumption that the inverted data was the problem? That came from my original email to the guy who asked for disk images. I hadn't visited SuperBrain for a LONG time (at least 5 years), and didn't remember what exactly was non-standard, only that I had not been able to read them - I did recall that the data was inverted, and had the thought that *everything* was inverted (including header data) ... obviously with only the data field inverted, data is data ... so any pattern would be perfectly valid. Anyway, FWIW .. some more good came from this. Got me back into fooling with the Brains, so today I took the time to repair my Compustar. It's good to have them both going again. -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 18:51:51 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 16:51:51 -0800 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: <4F24922F.17925.85ED56@dave12.dunfield.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <20120128145728.H93318@shell.lmi.net>, <4F24922F.17925.85ED56@dave12.dunfield.com> Message-ID: <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> Okay, now here's one where I need some help, having nothing to compare with. I have a TRS-80 model 16 here that boots Aton CP/M (CP/M 2.2 and CP/M 68K) just fine. In theory, I should also be able to boot any TRS-80 Model 2 or 12 system also, at least from what I gathered. But I can't boot a Pickles and Trout floppy--the boot sector is read and the select light on the drive goes out. Nothing more. Similarly, a friend with a Model 2 can't boot the Aton CP/M floppy that boots on mine. Are there different ROMs for the P&T and the Aton? What am I missing? --Chuck From wheagy at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 19:16:46 2012 From: wheagy at gmail.com (Winfield Heagy) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:16:46 -0500 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case Message-ID: >How easy it comes of depends wether it's been removed many times before. First time removals >can be tight as hell. >Might I ask why you are removing the case bucket? Mark, Something happened to the floppy drive. It worked fine for a long time, but now will not allow a disk to be fully inserted. It goes it about all but the last quarter inch. I can't see the problem by looking through the slot, so it looks like I need to get inside. The case just seemed much harder to open than I expected, so I wanted to make sure I didn't break anything. I'll be careful to stay away from the high voltage innards. Thanks...Win From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 22:19:31 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:19:31 -0800 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F24922F.17925.85ED56@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F245853.8194.2624E09@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2012 at 16:51, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I have a TRS-80 model 16 here that boots Aton CP/M (CP/M 2.2 and CP/M > 68K) just fine. In theory, I should also be able to boot any TRS-80 > Model 2 or 12 system also, at least from what I gathered. As Emily Latella said, "Never mind". I went back on my Model 16, reseated all the cards and cleaned the drive heads and both disks (TRS-DOS and P&T CP/M) boot fine. The system hasn't been used in a couple of years, so something got cranky. Should have thought of it sooner... Thanks anyway, Chuck From geoffr at zipcon.net Sat Jan 28 23:14:45 2012 From: geoffr at zipcon.net (Geoffrey Reed) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:14:45 -0800 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: My model 16 when I had it could boot p&t cp/m and cp/m 68k fine and it had the standard roms. Can you boot trsdos on it? On 1/28/12 4:51 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > Okay, now here's one where I need some help, having nothing to > compare with. > > I have a TRS-80 model 16 here that boots Aton CP/M (CP/M 2.2 and CP/M > 68K) just fine. In theory, I should also be able to boot any TRS-80 > Model 2 or 12 system also, at least from what I gathered. > > But I can't boot a Pickles and Trout floppy--the boot sector is read > and the select light on the drive goes out. Nothing more. > > Similarly, a friend with a Model 2 can't boot the Aton CP/M floppy > that boots on mine. > > Are there different ROMs for the P&T and the Aton? What am I > missing? > > --Chuck > > > From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jan 28 23:51:06 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:51:06 -0800 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: References: <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com>, Message-ID: <4F246DCA.9441.2B628B6@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2012 at 21:14, Geoffrey Reed wrote: > My model 16 when I had it could boot p&t cp/m and cp/m 68k fine and it > had the standard roms. > > Can you boot trsdos on it? Yup--and yup. See my later message. Looks to be the usual issues with the silly PCB cage retention on these machines.. Works now. --Chuck From tingox at gmail.com Sat Jan 28 11:54:08 2012 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:54:08 +0100 Subject: Nokia terminals (Was: Apple ][ disk/game server) Message-ID: 2012/1/28 G?ran Axelsson > I've got a 12 80186 in purple ceramic with sockets. If anyone needs or > want one, let me know. > Pulled from working VT-220 compatible Nokia terminals (rebranded as Norsk > data Notis terminals). > > I was offered $5 per piece from a gold refiner, but I rather sell them to > collectors. > > ... and before anyone start harassing me about scrapping working > terminals. I announced it here on the list two years ago when I helped a > friend clean out a storage. Of the close to 200 terminals I still have > 60-70 left but I need to get it down to 20 in the end. So, they are also > available. > Which terminals are those? Models? -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen, Oslo, Norway From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 19:32:09 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:32:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> ________________________________ From: Chuck Guzis I guess you're right.? I'll start by explaining which side of a floppy is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... C: There is no "up" w/double sided disks on a Commie 64 either. You nibble notch that bad boy, then flip it over and keep recording. I still have my original nibble notcher too. Suncom I think. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Sun Jan 29 03:14:05 2012 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:14:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: cobalt qube Message-ID: It might not be THAT old, but it certainly is a cute little oddity. I'm thinking that maybe HP used the Cobalt Qube for inspiration for the new Proliant Microserver. Though... needs an LCD panel with buttons. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From eric at brouhaha.com Sun Jan 29 03:33:11 2012 From: eric at brouhaha.com (Eric Smith) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:33:11 -0800 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <20120128145728.H93318@shell.lmi.net>, <4F24922F.17925.85ED56@dave12.dunfield.com> <4F2427A7.4936.1A4302D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F251257.3050705@brouhaha.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Are there different ROMs for the P&T and the Aton? What am I missing? --Chuck There are several different ROM revisions for the Model 2/16/16B/12/6000, but I think those mainly have to do with adding support for new models of floppy drives, and shouldn't affect what kind of software you can boot (except perhaps if you're trying to boot old software on new drives). Archiving images of the ROMs in my machines is on my todo list. I'll try to get around to it soon. I'm definitely interested in disk images of various versions of CP/M for the M2 etc., and especially CP/M-68K. Eric From md.benson at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 04:42:39 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:42:39 +0000 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <626EB684-331A-4781-BFF8-F3B105A7BB2D@gmail.com> On 29 Jan 2012, at 01:16, Winfield Heagy wrote: >> How easy it comes of depends wether it's been removed many times before. First time removals >> can be tight as hell. > >> Might I ask why you are removing the case bucket? > Mark, > Something happened to the floppy drive. It worked fine for a long time, but now will not allow a disk to be fully inserted. It goes it about all but the last quarter inch. I can't see the problem by looking through the slot, so it looks like I need to get inside. The case just seemed much harder to open than I expected, so I wanted to make sure I didn't break anything. I'll be careful to stay away from the high voltage innards. That's quite a common issue on the original 'auto-inject' drives. They were greased with this god-awful white grease stuff that turns to gooey sludge over the course of time and jams the mechanisms. Best advice is to remove it, see if it's physically damaged (I've had parts bend in them when they jam) and if it seems okay clean and re-lube the mechanism and see if you can get it moving again. -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts. From legalize at xmission.com Sun Jan 29 04:53:46 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:53:46 -0700 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <4F235716.1080905@acc.umu.se> References: , <088f01ccdc8e$bee88d00$6400a8c0@tababook> <4F218C1D.8670.1D2CD77@cclist.sydex.com> <4F235716.1080905@acc.umu.se> Message-ID: In article <4F235716.1080905 at acc.umu.se>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=F6ran_Axelsson?= writes: > ... and before anyone start harassing me about scrapping working > terminals. I announced it here on the list two years ago when I helped a > friend clean out a storage. Of the close to 200 terminals I still have > 60-70 left but I need to get it down to 20 in the end. So, they are also > available. > > I'm located in Ume?, Sweden. It's that very last line that kept me from acting on the offer, sorry. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 19:01:51 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:01:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: all this talk of Intertec, anyone have a Headstart? Message-ID: <1327798911.51181.YahooMailNeo@web164508.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> preferably one I can coerce you to sell :) From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 28 19:28:00 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:28:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: <7701ECAD-FCC6-456C-97BF-2FFED5539480@gmail.com> References: <7701ECAD-FCC6-456C-97BF-2FFED5539480@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1327800480.18341.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> you need a case popper. Get what I believe is called a spring clamp from a hardware store or Home Depot, Lowes. etc. It's like a steel clothes pin on steroids. Typically they have orange rubber on the handles, bigger ones are bright green. You get it in the space between the 2 case halves and pry them apart. It might mar the case a bit (it's been over 15 years since I cracked a Mac I think). Oi kids. From md.benson at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 06:45:49 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:45:49 +0000 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: <1327800480.18341.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <7701ECAD-FCC6-456C-97BF-2FFED5539480@gmail.com> <1327800480.18341.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <21D68D15-1E34-4E1B-A8B7-FE1EE6035544@gmail.com> On 29 Jan 2012, at 01:28, Chris M wrote: > you need a case popper. Get what I believe is called a spring clamp from a hardware store or Home Depot, Lowes. etc. It's like a steel clothes pin on steroids. Typically they have orange rubber on the handles, bigger ones are bright green. You get it in the space between the 2 case halves and pry them apart. It might mar the case a bit (it's been over 15 years since I cracked a Mac I think). Oi kids. I'd urge you to try and do it without metal implements if you can - the case is likely to be more brittle than it was when new. I've handled a lot of aging Apple hardware over the years and their case plastic wasn't usually the best with age. Not exacly falling apart but prone to edges chipping and cracking, especially on the analogue board side where it gets very warm during operation. Of course the majority of my work was done one SE/30s and Mac II/Mac Quadra era stuff which used the later platinum plastics which ere not as robust as the beige plastics. -- Mark Benson http://DECtec.info Twitter: @DECtecInfo HECnet: STAR69::MARK Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts. From LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Sun Jan 29 07:51:34 2012 From: LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM (Andrew Lynch) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:51:34 -0500 Subject: 6502 S-100 Board Writeup on S100Computers.com In-Reply-To: <000301ccd65d$13d68430$3b838c90$@vitasoft.org> References: <000301ccd65d$13d68430$3b838c90$@vitasoft.org> Message-ID: <000f01ccde8d$2a3a7190$7eaf54b0$@YAHOO.COM> Hi! The S-100 6502 CPU boards are with their builders and seem to be working. John has written up a page on S100computers.com on bringing up the S-100 6502 CPU board. http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/6502%20Board/6502%20CPU%20Board.htm We are incorporating the changes necessary for S-100 6502 CPU board V2 to be IEEE-696 compliant with TMI circuitry. The changes necessary are quite extensive. However, if other builders would like to make further changes please contact me. There is a large prototyping area on the V1 board to support the new circuitry. The schematics, PCB layout, parts list, and test software other information is on the N8VEM wiki http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder ¶m=S-100%206502%20CPU%20board%20V1 There are still plenty of the S-100 6502 CPU board V1 PCBs left so if you would like one or more please contact me. They are $20 each plus $3 shipping in the US and $6 elsewhere. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch From fjkraan at xs4all.nl Sun Jan 29 10:15:37 2012 From: fjkraan at xs4all.nl (Fred Jan Kraan) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:15:37 +0100 Subject: TRS-80 Model 2/Model 16 ROMs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2570A9.3090205@xs4all.nl> There are at least five different boot ROMs for the Model II. I posted them with some disassemblies and comment at: http://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/trs80m2/. If someone has knowledge of another version, please let me know. Fred Jan From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 10:44:46 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:44:46 -0600 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F25777E.5010308@gmail.com> Chris M wrote: > > > > ________________________________ From: Chuck Guzis > > I guess you're right. I'll start by explaining which side of a floppy > is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... > > C: There is no "up" w/double sided disks on a Commie 64 either. You > nibble notch that bad boy, then flip it over and keep recording. I still > have my original nibble notcher too. Suncom I think. ... unlike Acorn, where the DFS firmware would treat separate disk surfaces as completely different logical drives: logical drive 0 = physical drive 1, top surface logical drive 1 = physical drive 2, top surface logical drive 2 = physical drive 1, bottom surface logical drive 3 = physical drive 2, bottom surface Access to logical drives 1 and 3 would give an error in a single-drive system. It'd be interesting to know how common that kind of setup was. Most floppy image formats seem to expect there to just be one 'thing' on a disc (i.e. the floppy is either single-sided, or double-sided with the filesystem spanning the whole disk), and metadata can only be attached to the image as a whole. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 29 11:01:03 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:01:03 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com>, <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4F250ACF.12508.6329B@cclist.sydex.com> On 28 Jan 2012 at 17:32, Chris M wrote: > I guess you're right.? I'll start by explaining which side of a > floppy is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... > > C: There is no "up" w/double sided disks on a Commie 64 either. You > nibble notch that bad boy, then flip it over and keep recording. I > still have my original nibble notcher too. Suncom I think. Factory "flippies" weren't uncommon in the 8" format at all. Most of mine simple have the brand "Diskette" (at one time it was a proprietary trademark). --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 29 12:27:13 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:27:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F250ACF.12508.6329B@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com>, <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F250ACF.12508.6329B@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120129102516.R26436@shell.lmi.net> > > I guess you're right.? I'll start by explaining which side of a > > floppy is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... > > C: There is no "up" w/double sided disks on a Commie 64 either. You > > nibble notch that bad boy, then flip it over and keep recording. I > > still have my original nibble notcher too. Suncom I think. On Sun, 29 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Factory "flippies" weren't uncommon in the 8" format at all. Most > of mine simple have the brand "Diskette" (at one time it was a > proprietary trademark). Are there ANY 3" (NOT 3.5") that are NOT double-sided? Some are double sided with two-head drives, some are flippies. From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 29 12:38:55 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:38:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flippy (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20120129103605.X26436@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 28 Jan 2012, Chris M wrote: C: There is no "up" w/double sided disks on a Commie 64 either. You nibble notch that bad boy, then flip it over and keep recording. I still have my original nibble notcher too. Suncom I think. There's a little more to deal with if you want to make flippies out of disks for machines that are aware of the index pulse. The Berkeley Microcomputer Flip-Jig (tm) was by far the best jig for marking the disks. From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 29 13:04:09 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:04:09 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Repairing a TI-1270 calculator In-Reply-To: <1327786126.87083.YahooMailNeo@web31904.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "James Gessling" at Jan 28, 12 01:28:46 pm Message-ID: > > I've gotten one of these beauties, a lovely pumpkin orange overlay around t= ^^^^^^^^ That's an term I prefer to reserve for HP calculators :-) > he keys.=A0 Inserting a battery, it's pretty good=A0 but the 4 and the 6 ke= > y just don't work. I took it apart thinking it's a stuck or rusty key but p= > ushing just on the raw Kilxon keypad it's still the same.=A0 I suppose ther= > e is some kind of keyboard scanning going on that's not picking up these pu= > shes even though the actual buttons do work.=A0 My previous experiences of = > opening similar TI thing have been just disastrous.=A0 The keypad is connec= > ted to the logic board by 8 or so hard wires that are looped around to fold= > it into the case. How far have you got into this one? (Note : I've never seen one AFAIK, certainly not been inside one). I do have a TI 1250, which I've jsut opened uop, and that may be similar. Can you see how many connections there are ot the keyboard. In the 1250, there are 10 bare single-strand wires going to the top edge of the keyboard unit. That's it. Since it has 24 keys, it's a fair bet that thats' a 6*4 matrix (6 rows + 4 colums = 10 wires total). While it's possible for the logic to handle one or two keys in the IC to fail, it's much more common for an entire electical row or column to not work. So if you've just got a couple of dead keys, and that's not an enitre row or column (2 way multipexed keyboards have been used in calculators -- the Sinclair Cambridge, for example -- but they are not that common), then it's much more likely the fault is with the keyboard. Certainly in the 1250, the keyboard does not look easy to take apart. It appears there's a metal strip for each row, cut/formed to make the domes. The plasci keyboard pase carries the column wires, the row wires are then connected ot the apporpriate strips. There are various layers stuck over the top, carefully peelign them up at one corner told me that going much further was not a good idea, I was likley to bend the metal contact strips. If you cna identify which ae row and which are column lines to the keyboard (in the 1250 the column lines are centred on each physical column of keys), you could try shorting each row to each column (with the thing powered on). If you can get '4' and '6' that way, the fault is the keyboard. If not, it's likely to be the IC. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 29 13:21:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:21:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jan 28, 12 03:40:01 pm Message-ID: > > On 28 Jan 2012 at 15:07, Fred Cisin wrote: > > > MOST don't know what it stands for, nor the issues involved in > > non-standard ones. Remember how the discussion got side-tracked > > into an assumption that the inverted data was the problem? > > > > Sometimes, you just have to give step-by-step procedures. REPEATEDLY. > > I guess you're right. I'll start by explaining which side of a > floppy is up--not so easy with users of early Altos boxes... > And then do it for owners of a real RX50 drive... (For the uninitiated -- I almost wrote unitialised :-) -- the RX50 is a double 5.25" drive where one disk goes in lable-up, the other lable down. Yes, the 2 spindles do rotate in oppsite directions inside. It makes mechancial sense when you see how the drive is put togehter, but it's confusing to the user. > While it's true that the data on Superbrain floppies is > inverted/complemented, the remainder of the floppy is normal (i.e. > address marks, sector ID information, etc. is in the "normal" state. > > Off the top of my head, the Columbia, Comupustar, M&K (Michels and > Kleberhoff), the Sharp MZ-80, and the Shelton systems also did it. > > Actually, the Sharp MZ-80B also "inverted" the data in the sense that > side 0 is the top side of the floppy and side 1 the "bottom" side. > > As far as "why?", I haven't a clue. Well, for inverting the data : I seem to eemember that Western Digital disk controlelr ICs were avaialbe with both normal and iverted data buses. If you used the 'wrong' one and cpoied data from ememory to the disk cotnrolelr chip using either DMA or a tight software l;oop, you woudl end up wit hinverted data patterns of the disk, but of course the DAMs, etc, would be normal. Perhaps the inverted-bus version was easier to get, or cheaper, or something Of course an inverting buffer chip would solve the problem, but then as now, far too many companies reduce the parts count as far as possible. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 29 13:27:27 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:27:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: from "Winfield Heagy" at Jan 28, 12 08:16:46 pm Message-ID: > >Might I ask why you are removing the case bucket? > Mark, > Something happened to the floppy drive. It worked fine for a long time, = > but now will not allow a disk to be fully inserted. It goes it about = > all but the last quarter inch. I can't see the problem by looking = Sounds as though the upper head/pressure pad (depending on whether it's a signle or double sided drive) is not lifting properly. Don't force things. you'll do a lot more damage. Instread. get the diive out, tell us what sot of drive it is, and if anything seems to be obviosly wrong (like the upper head hangling loose :-( > through the slot, so it looks like I need to get inside. The case just = > seemed much harder to open than I expected, so I wanted to make sure I = > didn't break anything. I'll be careful to stay away from the high = > voltage innards. =20 IIRC, the easiest way to get the drive out of one of these machines is (with it face down) to remvoe the case, then unplgu the drive cable and power/vide cable from the logic ('digital') board and slide this board out towards what should be the back of the machine. Undo the 4 screws holdig nthe drive metalwork in place, then take the whole assebmbly out. Then take the drvie otu of the metal bracketry. The problem comes in disconnectign the power/video cable. It's often a tight bit on the logic board connector, and comes off suddenly. Problem is, you're workign under the back end of the CRT and it's not unheard-of for the repairer's hand to hit the CRT and crack the neck off it. But if you know of the problem you can take a lot of care and easy the connecotr off. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jan 29 13:37:06 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:37:06 +0000 (GMT) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F25777E.5010308@gmail.com> from "Jules Richardson" at Jan 29, 12 10:44:46 am Message-ID: [Treating the 2 sides of a DS floppy as separate 'drives'] > It'd be interesting to know how common that kind of setup was. Most floppy It wasn;'t uncommon at one time. The RML380Z did it IIRC (I think C: and D: were the flip sides of A: and B: respectively). I've seen other machines that do it too, but the neames don't instantly spring to mind). When I added a double-sided 3" (not 3.5") drive to my CoCo (all those years ago...), I added a lit little bit of hardware (a couple of TTL ICs) to allow the drive to appearr either as a sdouble-sided drive 1 (using the Side Select line in the normal way) or a a pair of single-sided drives 1 and 2. The ROM-based OS used iwth BASIC could onlt handle the latter, OS-9 could work with either (but woe betide me if I set the switch wrongkly, I would end up wit ha corrupted filesystem on the disk). > image formats seem to expect there to just be one 'thing' on a disc (i.e. > the floppy is either single-sided, or double-sided with the filesystem > spanning the whole disk), and metadata can only be attached to the image as > a whole. Isn't the solution to image the 2 sides sparately as single-sided disks? -tony From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Sun Jan 29 13:59:58 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:59:58 -0800 Subject: Starting point for diagnosing unhappy Commodore 1581 drive? Message-ID: <4F25A53E.5000105@mail.msu.edu> As if I needed another project, I picked up a 1581 yesterday at SRCS in unknown condition. Hopefully this won't distract me from my Cromemco floppy issues for too long :). The power switch was broken (permanently stuck in the "off" position) so I replaced it with one from a "parts" C-64. Once that was repaired the symptoms I'm seeing are: - Both LEDs on the front come on and stay on permanently. My understanding is that the access light should turn off after about two seconds. - If the drive is hooked up to my C128 at powerup, the 128 will hang after displaying the startup banner (I assume it's waiting for a response from the drive and not getting one...) - If a disk is in the drive, the disk will spin for a second or so and the heads will seek back to track zero. The last item makes it seem like the 6502 is running and that the EPROM contents are still valid. I dumped the EPROM and verified that its contents are correct against an image from the 'net. The power supply is a known-good & tested supply I've been using with a 1541-II. 5V and 12V supplies look fine. For good measure I've cleaned the sockets & pins for the EPROM and the WD1772 (the only two socketed chips). Anyone have any tips for narrowing down the fault before I start digging through the source listings & schematics? Thanks as always, Josh From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 29 14:12:24 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:12:24 -0500 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F25A828.3090001@neurotica.com> On 01/29/2012 02:21 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > And then do it for owners of a real RX50 drive... (For the uninitiated -- > I almost wrote unitialised :-) -- the RX50 is a double 5.25" drive where > one disk goes in lable-up, the other lable down. Yes, the 2 spindles do > rotate in oppsite directions inside. It makes mechancial sense when you > see how the drive is put togehter, but it's confusing to the user. It seems less confusing, if only a bit, when the drive is mounted vertically, as is the case of a Pro325/350/380, Rainbow, or BA23 mounted in their floor-standing shrouds, or a BA123 in the vertical bay. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From wheagy at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 14:33:25 2012 From: wheagy at gmail.com (Win Heagy) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:33:25 -0500 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case Message-ID: I allowed the case to sit overnight, and when I tried it again today, it came apart much easier...about like I expected. The floppy mechanism was definitely gummed up. It didn't appear to be damaged so I lubed it and reassembled and it works great again. Thanks for the info. Win > Something happened to the floppy drive. It worked fine for a long time, but now will not allow a disk to be fully inserted. It goes it about all but the last quarter inch. I can't see the problem by looking through the slot, so it looks like I need to get inside. The case just seemed much harder to open than I expected, so I wanted to make sure I didn't break anything. I'll be careful to stay away from the high voltage innards. >That's quite a common issue on the original 'auto-inject' drives. They were greased with this god-awful white grease stuff that turns to gooey sludge over the course of time and jams the mechanisms. Best advice is to remove it, see if it's physically damaged (I've had parts bend in them when they jam) and if it seems okay clean and re-lube the mechanism and see if you can get it moving again. From mcguire at neurotica.com Sun Jan 29 14:51:02 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:51:02 -0500 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> On 01/29/2012 04:14 AM, David Griffith wrote: > It might not be THAT old, but it certainly is a cute little oddity. I'm > thinking that maybe HP used the Cobalt Qube for inspiration for the new > Proliant Microserver. Though... needs an LCD panel with buttons. My company (several companies ago) beta-tested those. They really are neat machines. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From fraveydank at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 15:01:34 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:01:34 -0500 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44600CA3-F542-4082-AF3B-2BC92E912B0B@gmail.com> On Jan 29, 2012, at 3:33 PM, Win Heagy wrote: > I allowed the case to sit overnight, and when I tried it again today, it > came apart much easier...about like I expected. The floppy mechanism was > definitely gummed up. It didn't appear to be damaged so I lubed it and > reassembled and it works great again. Thanks for the info. Great to know! I have a 128K (which, early on in its life, my uncle modified to 1MB, so it's alternately a Mac 1024K or a "Mac Minus", because it's still not quite Mac Plus ROMs). It has a similarly finicky floppy (though the external 800K works fine last I checked), so it'll be good to clean it. Gotta find my old German extended Torx driver, though; that was one of the finest hand tools I've owned. - Dave From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 29 15:02:44 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:02:44 -0500 (EST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com> <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com> <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <201201292102.QAA06392@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? > MOST don't know what it stands for, [...] For what it may be worth, I saw "DAM" and wondered what it meant. If I cared about SuperBrains (I got out of such machines a while ago) I would have asked. Not that my reasons are very relevant to anyone else's reactions. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Jan 29 15:04:55 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:04:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Starting point for diagnosing unhappy Commodore 1581 drive? In-Reply-To: <4F25A53E.5000105@mail.msu.edu> from Josh Dersch at "Jan 29, 12 11:59:58 am" Message-ID: <201201292104.q0TL4tPK014384@floodgap.com> > - Both LEDs on the front come on and stay on permanently. My > understanding is that the access light should turn off after about two > seconds. Does the motor spin? > - If the drive is hooked up to my C128 at powerup, the 128 will hang > after displaying the startup banner (I assume it's waiting for a > response from the drive and not getting one...) Yup. > - If a disk is in the drive, the disk will spin for a second or so and > the heads will seek back to track zero. That's a good sign, but does the light go out? It sounds like it doesn't. I'm leaning towards the FDC (should be a WD1770 or 1772 in the 1581). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- MOVIE IDEA: E-mailsignaturebusters ----------------------------------------- From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jan 29 08:45:15 2012 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:45:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: <21D68D15-1E34-4E1B-A8B7-FE1EE6035544@gmail.com> References: <7701ECAD-FCC6-456C-97BF-2FFED5539480@gmail.com> <1327800480.18341.YahooMailNeo@web164519.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <21D68D15-1E34-4E1B-A8B7-FE1EE6035544@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1327848315.59616.YahooMailNeo@web164510.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> From: Mark Benson I'd urge you to try and do it without metal implements if you can C: True metal should be avoided if possible. 2 peeps could try doing it together. One person clamp on the back half, and the other dig their nails into the opening (shorter stronger naiils would be best. My nails, though grow fast, are always bending. Which is why I have to keep them very short. Ouch). You could walk around a Home Depot or equivalent and see what you can find that's say plastic and rigid enough to pry it apart. I don't see you necessarily having a lot of luck though. If you're careful and work slooooow (minimize force/acceleration), you might even be able to do it w/o marring the plastic or cracking, which I guess could be a good point to mention. You could also think about wrapping the ends of the clamp w/something, perhaps even notebook paper (thin and likely to lessen the probability of marring). In any event you can work slow and say start at the bottom of the case, pry a bit (you don't necessarily need to see a lot of movement from the getgo) then go to the top, and repeat. From pinball at telus.net Sun Jan 29 11:25:46 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:25:46 -0800 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F25811A.7020402@telus.net> Tony Duell wrote: >> HI, >> Can someone give me the Cliff Notes version of opening the M0001 case? I >> removed the five screws from the back (including the two deeply recessed >> screws) but the case is just as tight as when the screws were in. What am >> I missing? >> > > As far as I know, theree are only 5 screws vixible, but jsut to check, > there are 2 receisd in the handle,. one at each end of the connector > panel, and one unde the battery cover. > > With those out the case will be tight. There is a special 'Mac Cracker' > tool that has 2 wide flat blades. It fits i nthe gab between the case and > the front bezel, and theh squeezign the handles of the tool separates hte > blads and forces the case apart. > > I've never used one. What I do is put the machine face down, grip the > case firmly, and press on the battery amd the connectors. In the end it > comes free. > > -tony > > "Mac Crackers" can be made from stiff metal spatulas - the kind used for applying plaster, etc., (with a handle). A 2in (5cm) blade which you then grind/file the edge to a thin wedge. Thin kitchen knives sometimes work... John :-#)# From wthorbjo at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 15:00:10 2012 From: wthorbjo at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jostein_Thorbj=F8rnsen?=) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:10 -0700 Subject: Starting point for diagnosing unhappy Commodore 1581 drive? In-Reply-To: <4F25A53E.5000105@mail.msu.edu> References: <4F25A53E.5000105@mail.msu.edu> Message-ID: <4F25B35A.9090800@gmail.com> On 29/01/2012 12:59, Josh Dersch wrote: > As if I needed another project, I picked up a 1581 yesterday at SRCS in > unknown condition. Hopefully this won't distract me from my Cromemco > floppy issues for too long :). > > The power switch was broken (permanently stuck in the "off" position) so > I replaced it with one from a "parts" C-64. Once that was repaired the > symptoms I'm seeing are: > > - Both LEDs on the front come on and stay on permanently. My > understanding is that the access light should turn off after about two > seconds. > - If the drive is hooked up to my C128 at powerup, the 128 will hang > after displaying the startup banner (I assume it's waiting for a > response from the drive and not getting one...) > - If a disk is in the drive, the disk will spin for a second or so and > the heads will seek back to track zero. > > The last item makes it seem like the 6502 is running and that the EPROM > contents are still valid. I dumped the EPROM and verified that its > contents are correct against an image from the 'net. The power supply is > a known-good & tested supply I've been using with a 1541-II. 5V and 12V > supplies look fine. For good measure I've cleaned the sockets & pins for > the EPROM and the WD1772 (the only two socketed chips). > > Anyone have any tips for narrowing down the fault before I start digging > through the source listings & schematics? You may find something helpful in this page from Ray Carlsen's excellent collection of Commodore repair articles: http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/1581.txt -- Jostein From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jan 29 15:39:48 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:39:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <201201292102.QAA06392@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com> <4F23FDB6.6071.609FB7@dave12.dunfield.com> <20120128141633.J93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com> <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <201201292102.QAA06392@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <20120129131339.R26436@shell.lmi.net> > >> Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? > > MOST don't know what it stands for, [...] > For what it may be worth, I saw "DAM" and wondered what it meant. If I "Data Address Mark" By writing a byte with invalid clock bits, the controller can create a byte on the track that is easily recognizable as NOT being part of the data, regardless of where and when on the track the controller starts reading. Such "marks" are used to identify the start of the track (Index Address Mark) as well as start of data and sector headers. In addition to the "normal" DAM ('FB'), most controllers are capable of producing some alternate address marks, in order to maintain maximum level of incompatability. For example, Superbrain uses 'FA' address marks. TRS-DOS uses different address marks for DIRectory sectors V normal data sectors. When RS went to double density, the DD FDC was incapable of creating the specific address marks that Model I TRS-DOS expecte!d BTW, it is rumored that the specific choices made for TRS-DOS DAMs were due to a misprint of a preliminary spec sheet for the FDC. From gyorpb at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 15:51:15 2012 From: gyorpb at gmail.com (Joost van de Griek) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:51:15 +0100 Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: <4F25811A.7020402@telus.net> References: <4F25811A.7020402@telus.net> Message-ID: On 29 Jan 2012, at 18:25 , John Robertson wrote: > "Mac Crackers" can be made from stiff metal spatulas - the kind used for applying plaster, etc., (with a handle). A 2in (5cm) blade which you then grind/file the edge to a thin wedge. > > Thin kitchen knives sometimes work... Never needed any sort of tool for opening compact Macs. Put the Mac face-down on a folded towel. Whack the sides of the back casing with both hands simultaneously. The case halves separate with a satisfying PLOP. .tsooJ From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sun Jan 29 17:10:49 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:10:49 +0000 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F25777E.5010308@gmail.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F25777E.5010308@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F25D1F9.6090603@dunnington.plus.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > ... unlike Acorn, where the DFS firmware would treat separate disk > surfaces as completely different logical drives: > > logical drive 0 = physical drive 1, top surface > logical drive 1 = physical drive 2, top surface > logical drive 2 = physical drive 1, bottom surface > logical drive 3 = physical drive 2, bottom surface > > Access to logical drives 1 and 3 would give an error in a single-drive > system. Not quite right, because upside down. logical drive 0 = physical drive 1, bottom surface logical drive 1 = physical drive 2, bottom surface logical drive 2 = physical drive 1, top surface logical drive 3 = physical drive 2, top surface Remember a single-sided drive has the lower head but not the upper. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Sun Jan 29 19:37:50 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:37:50 +0000 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) Message-ID: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> I've got an Acorn AKF-17 on my workbench, serving duty as a test monitor and the display for my Acorn A3000. For those not in the know, it's essentially a Philips CM8833 Mk.II chassis with most of the inputs blanked off. It's actually quite a nice monitor, except the power switch is on the back (I prefer front-mounted power switches) and it's not quite as nice looking as the metal-case Microvitec Cub (which has a nice industrial look going for it). Here's the catch. It seems to have a bit of a problem in the video synchronisation department. Specifically, the picture rolls vertically (from bottom to top), and seems to move to the right as it does so. In other words, a vertical line turns into a forward-slash. Has anyone worked on one of these "fine" monitors (CM8833, CM8833 Mk2, AKF17 or one of the many re-brands e.g. Atari SC1435) before? What should I be staring daggers at first? Does anyone know where I might be able to get a service manual (or at least a schematic set)? I've got the Mk1 schematics and service manual, but not the Mk2. Apparently someone posted them to Rapidshare last year but the link is now rather dead :( Also, does anyone know where I might be able to get a new power switch? Apparently it's an ITT ME5A, Philips 12NC number 4822 276 11504 though I can't confirm this (I don't have an AKF17 or CM8833mk2 service manual). I've ruled out the A3000 -- MonitorType is 0 (TV-rate monitor) and Sync is 0 too (composite sync). If I switch to Separate Sync (MT0/SYNC1), my LCD monitor (an NEC EA231WMi) will lock on and display video... Cheers, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From IanK at vulcan.com Sun Jan 29 20:15:51 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:15:51 +0000 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/27/12 7:08 AM, "JP Hindin" wrote: > > >On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Gene Buckle wrote: >> On Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: >> >> > On 01/26/2012 10:58 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: >> >>> I'll bring the scotch. >> >>> >> >> Just make sure it's Johnny Walker Blue. :) >> > >> > I still have a bottle of Swing here, I can bring that along. I'm >>primarily >> > a Laphroaig man, though. >> > >> I may have to try that - as long as it's cheaper than Blue Label. :) > >Laphroaig has the unmistakable odour of burnt wiring and tastes pretty >much the same. I believe it requires a very specific palate! > >I tried a Cragganmore 17 recently that was utterly superlative, for what >it's worth. > > - JP > > > Heathen! I love Laphroaig - it is very peaty and quite distinctive. And trust me, I know burnt wiring. -- Ian From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jan 29 20:46:20 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:46:20 -0800 Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: <4F2593FC.7914.21E08AE@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 2:15, Ian King wrote: > Heathen! I love Laphroaig - it is very peaty and quite distinctive. I'm not a scotch drinker, blended or single malt. Could never understand why people like something that tastes like it was dug out of a rotting bog. I use peat moss as a soil conditioner, but that doesn't make me want to eat it. Give me a fine cognac any day. --Chuck From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Sun Jan 29 20:57:59 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:57:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC In-Reply-To: <4F2593FC.7914.21E08AE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F2593FC.7914.21E08AE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201201300257.VAA11997@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > References: , > Whoever's software generated this, please fix it! >> Heathen! I love Laphroaig - it is very peaty and quite distinctive. > I'm not a scotch drinker, blended or single malt. Could never > understand why people like something that tastes like it was dug out > of a rotting bog. [...] > Give me a fine cognac any day. Then I shall offer myself as someone you can both agree is heathen, on the theory that someone you can both point at and exclude can bring you closer together. I teetotal. I've tasted alcoholic beverages three times, and each time I found the experience unpleasant. Nothing I would care to repeat. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From fraveydank at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 21:05:20 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:05:20 -0500 Subject: 11.98135 MHz crystal applications Message-ID: Anyone know what this frequency is for? I have a crystal in my bin of pulls, no idea what I pulled it from (my guess would be an old dead ISA modem or sound card, given where most of my pulls came from). It doesn't divide nicely into NTSC or PAL color subcarriers (my normal assumption for weird frequencies), but it it's still a pretty common part. The one place I found it mentioned that wasn't a datasheet site had something (maybe) to do with DTMF decoding: http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/communications/Gammalink.html Any ideas? - Dave From jlobocki at gmail.com Sun Jan 29 16:43:54 2012 From: jlobocki at gmail.com (joe lobocki) Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:43:54 -0600 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> References: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: I wanted to add one to my collection, but for what they sold for about two years ago, I decided against it. I also remember reading somewhere that telnet-ing (or some other hacking) into the qube voided the warranty... I could be off though. On Sunday, January 29, 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > On 01/29/2012 04:14 AM, David Griffith wrote: >> >> It might not be THAT old, but it certainly is a cute little oddity. I'm >> thinking that maybe HP used the Cobalt Qube for inspiration for the new >> Proliant Microserver. Though... needs an LCD panel with buttons. > > My company (several companies ago) beta-tested those. They really are neat machines. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > New Kensington, PA > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Jan 30 02:15:13 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:15:13 +0000 Subject: 11.98135 MHz crystal applications In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F265191.80705@dunnington.plus.com> David Riley wrote: > Anyone know what this frequency is for? I have a crystal in my bin of pulls, no idea what I pulled it from (my guess would be an old dead ISA modem or sound card, given where most of my pulls came from). It doesn't divide nicely into NTSC or PAL color subcarriers (my normal assumption for weird frequencies), but it it's still a pretty common part. > > The one place I found it mentioned that wasn't a datasheet site had something (maybe) to do with DTMF decoding: > > http://ohlandl.ipv7.net/communications/Gammalink.html Divided by 13, it's a reasonable match to baud rates up to about 9600, assuming a UART wants a clock 16 times the baud rate. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org Mon Jan 30 04:14:52 2012 From: thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org (Alexis Kotlowy) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:44:52 +1030 Subject: Apple II Colour Demodulator Message-ID: <201201302044.52189.thrashbarg@kaput.homeunix.org> Hi, This might interest someone here, so I thought I'd post it. I've been working on a colour demodulator for my Apple //c. It converts the output to component video suitable for any television with component inputs. The original composite output of the //c becomes the luminance input and the circuit extracts the red and blue difference signals. It's not 100% perfect but it does display colour that mostly resembles the original NTSC colour palette. http://kaput.homeunix.org/appleii or http://kaput.retroarchive.org/appleii If you have two MC1496's, feel free to build it. I'd like to see if it works unmodified (or with any modifications) on an NTSC model Apple ][ or //. The reason why I made this is because I don't have a PAL modulator for my //c. My television does support NTSC, but the Australian version of the machine doesn't output the correct timings for NTSC... it was designed to be attached to the PAL modulator. Cheers, Alexis. From pinball at telus.net Mon Jan 30 03:01:02 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:01:02 -0800 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <4F265C4E.2070108@telus.net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > I've got an Acorn AKF-17 on my workbench, serving duty as a test monitor > and the display for my Acorn A3000. For those not in the know, it's > essentially a Philips CM8833 Mk.II chassis with most of the inputs > blanked off. It's actually quite a nice monitor, except the power switch > is on the back (I prefer front-mounted power switches) and it's not > quite as nice looking as the metal-case Microvitec Cub (which has a nice > industrial look going for it). > > Here's the catch. It seems to have a bit of a problem in the video > synchronisation department. > > Specifically, the picture rolls vertically (from bottom to top), and > seems to move to the right as it does so. In other words, a vertical > line turns into a forward-slash. > > Has anyone worked on one of these "fine" monitors (CM8833, CM8833 Mk2, > AKF17 or one of the many re-brands e.g. Atari SC1435) before? > > What should I be staring daggers at first? > > Does anyone know where I might be able to get a service manual (or at > least a schematic set)? I've got the Mk1 schematics and service manual, > but not the Mk2. Apparently someone posted them to Rapidshare last year > but the link is now rather dead :( > > Also, does anyone know where I might be able to get a new power switch? > Apparently it's an ITT ME5A, Philips 12NC number 4822 276 11504 though I > can't confirm this (I don't have an AKF17 or CM8833mk2 service manual). > > I've ruled out the A3000 -- MonitorType is 0 (TV-rate monitor) and Sync > is 0 too (composite sync). If I switch to Separate Sync (MT0/SYNC1), my > LCD monitor (an NEC EA231WMi) will lock on and display video... > > Cheers, > With anything over about ten years you start by replacing electrolytic capacitors. If you want to test instead of shotgun then pick up an ESR meter, but it usually shows more than a few are failing. If the monitor is over twenty years old, then just replace all the electrolytics and then troubleshoot - it there is still a problem that is. Do take care to match the caps to the job they do - low ESR caps for the horizontal, and caps that handle AC ripple for the linear power supplies. John :-#)# From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 07:43:08 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 07:43:08 -0600 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Also, does anyone know where I might be able to get a new power switch? > Apparently it's an ITT ME5A, Philips 12NC number 4822 276 11504 though I > can't confirm this (I don't have an AKF17 or CM8833mk2 service manual). TBH if that were my bench-top display I'd be tempted to mount any old switch in the front of the case and bypass the one at the rear. I don't attach as much historical importance to displays as I do computers anyway, and those 8833 displays were pretty common; I don't think I'd lose any sleep over making one a bit more "user-friendly" :-) > I've ruled out the A3000 -- MonitorType is 0 (TV-rate monitor) and Sync > is 0 too (composite sync). If I switch to Separate Sync (MT0/SYNC1), my > LCD monitor (an NEC EA231WMi) will lock on and display video... Have you tried driving the monitor with something else in case it's a problem with the A3000? Are you absolutely sure it's not a mechanical fault - broken cable, broken/intermittent socket pin (CRT or computer side), damaged solder joints around the socket inside the CRT etc.? It may be that the monitor's default state results in it almost locking onto the picture, even when it's not seeing any sync signal. cheers Jules From lproven at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 08:58:30 2012 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:58:30 +0000 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: References: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 29 January 2012 22:43, joe lobocki wrote: > I wanted to add one to my collection, but for what they sold for about two > years ago, I decided against it. > > I also remember reading somewhere that telnet-ing (or some other hacking) > into the qube voided the warranty... I could be off though. This thread prompted me to do a quick search. There's on on eBay UK for 99p at the moment. No PSU, though. It's listed as spares/repair but actually he's just vacuous and has lost the power cable. I am tempted, but I have no earthly use for the damned thing... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 From md.benson at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 09:23:52 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:23:52 +0000 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: References: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: On 30 Jan 2012, at 14:58, Liam Proven wrote: > This thread prompted me to do a quick search. > > There's on on eBay UK for 99p at the moment. No PSU, though. It's > listed as spares/repair but actually he's just vacuous and has lost > the power cable. > > I am tempted, but I have no earthly use for the damned thing... Thanks for the heads up - I need some spares to fix mine! -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson From md.benson at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 09:34:33 2012 From: md.benson at gmail.com (Mark Benson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:34:33 +0000 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: References: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <302B1DEE-0C7C-4BA4-84B9-3C18C23C12A6@gmail.com> On 30 Jan 2012, at 14:58, Liam Proven wrote: > This thread prompted me to do a quick search. > > There's on on eBay UK for 99p at the moment. No PSU, though. It's > listed as spares/repair but actually he's just vacuous and has lost > the power cable. > > I am tempted, but I have no earthly use for the damned thing... Ah of course that's a Qube *3* (AMD) - mine's a Qube 2 (MIPS). Nevermind. If you want an old, slow x86 server I suppose it's a good deal. I dunno if it uses the same power cable as a Qube2, but I have several spare plug kits to fit a Qube2 if anyone needs one. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 12:39:51 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:39:51 -0600 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F25D1F9.6090603@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F2409FB.7244.13045AD@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120128150120.N93318@shell.lmi.net> <4F2416D1.19411.1626A68@cclist.sydex.com> <1327800729.2166.YahooMailNeo@web164515.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <4F25777E.5010308@gmail.com> <4F25D1F9.6090603@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <4F26E3F7.5070208@gmail.com> Pete Turnbull wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > >> ... unlike Acorn, where the DFS firmware would treat separate disk >> surfaces as completely different logical drives: >> >> logical drive 0 = physical drive 1, top surface >> logical drive 1 = physical drive 2, top surface >> logical drive 2 = physical drive 1, bottom surface >> logical drive 3 = physical drive 2, bottom surface >> >> Access to logical drives 1 and 3 would give an error in a single-drive >> system. > > Not quite right, because upside down. I thought when writing that I might have that backwards! :-) Re. Tony's mention of the 380Z, yes I think it did treat surfaces of the media as different drives too, just with the surface designations iterating "drive first" rather than Acorn's "surface first". I expect that most machines of the era came with either single or double-sided drives and the OS/firmware was coded to treat the entire disk as a single entity. cheers Jules From Stefan.Skoglund at agj.net Mon Jan 30 12:59:44 2012 From: Stefan.Skoglund at agj.net (Stefan Skoglund) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:59:44 +0100 Subject: Apple ][ disk/game server In-Reply-To: <20120128022444.GA21174@RawFedDogs.net> References: <20120128022444.GA21174@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <1327949984.21248.8.camel@compaq.lokeldarn.hobby-site.org> fre 2012-01-27 klockan 20:24 -0600 skrev Kevin Monceaux: > The subject, minus the word game, brought back a few fond memories. The > junior high I went to the longest, Horace Man Junior High, added a computer > lab and computer science class my 8th grade year - '83/'84. I took the > class and have been hooked ever since. The school had an Apple ][ Plus > "network." I don't remember all the details. The host had half a dozen > floppy drives attached to it and all the "network" did was give several > other computers access to those drives. If I remember correctly it ran ROS, > the Remote Operating System. All the boxes on the network were daisy > chained off the host by narrow ribbon cables. It was a one semester class. > I did well enough that the teacher asked me to be her student aid the second > semester. Ah, the memories. Which is comparable with how the networks (two different types from the main manufacturer and a 3d part) in my 'high school' for the swedish ABC series microcomputers worked but in this case it was hard disks in the network hub (central.) ABC computers: z80 machines with basic II and the possibility to run CP/M. The later ones had good ergonomics (separate really thin kbd with built-in handrests and a yellow-brown phosphor display.) The kbd was much better than the one which IBM sold for the AT machines in the new bought CAD lab. ABC computers later produced two UNIX systems where one use case was as an central net hub in a ABC-Net network. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 30 13:26:24 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:26:24 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26E3F7.5070208@gmail.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F25D1F9.6090603@dunnington.plus.com>, <4F26E3F7.5070208@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F267E60.5548.69FE18@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 12:39, Jules Richardson wrote: > I expect that most machines of the era came with either single or > double-sided drives and the OS/firmware was coded to treat the entire > disk as a single entity. Exactly HOW the second side of a floppy was used by various manufacturers was wildly variable--even the order of sectors was subject to variation. For example: MS-DOS (and many other formats) start at the outermost cylinder and use the lower side sectors, then the upper side sectors, then move to the next cylinder. Many CP/M formats use all of the sectors starting with cylinder 0 on the lower side, then go back to cylinder 0 and use all of the sectors on the bottom side. Other CP/M formats use all of the sectors starting with cylinder 0 on the lower side, then turn around on the upper side and work backwards from the highest cylinder to cylinder 0. The National Semi BLC 86 systems start at the middle cylinder (39 on an 80-cylinder drive) to hold the directory, then allocate top and bottom sides, alternately working up to cylinder 79 and down to cylinder 0. Some, such as the Cifer, add a logical "skew" to heads as well as tracks, so that the first sector on each track and side is different. And at least one (I'd have to go to my notes), interleaves the sectors on the top and bottom side before moving to the next cylinder. I suppose arguments can be made for any of these. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 30 13:42:18 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:42:18 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F267E60.5548.69FE18@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F233EEF.6215.280F4D6@dave12.dunfield.com>, <4F26E3F7.5070208@gmail.com>, <4F267E60.5548.69FE18@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F26821A.29066.788C3A@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 11:26, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> Many CP/M formats use all of the sectors starting with cylinder 0 on > the lower side, then go back to cylinder 0 and use all of the sectors > on the bottom side. Make that "go back to cylinder 0 and use all of the sectors on the top side". --Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 30 14:22:18 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:22:18 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Opening the Mac M0001 case In-Reply-To: <44600CA3-F542-4082-AF3B-2BC92E912B0B@gmail.com> from "David Riley" at Jan 29, 12 04:01:34 pm Message-ID: > good to clean it. Gotta find my old German extended Torx driver, > though; that was one of the finest hand tools I've owned. > FWIW, I find the Xcellite System 99 TX15 blade + an X5 extension + a normal (99-1 I think) handle works fine for getting the 'handle' screws out of classic MAcs. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 30 14:24:37 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:24:37 +0000 (GMT) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <201201292102.QAA06392@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> from "Mouse" at Jan 29, 12 04:02:44 pm Message-ID: > > >> Or is it that people don't know what "DAM" stands for? > > > MOST don't know what it stands for, [...] > > For what it may be worth, I saw "DAM" and wondered what it meant. If I 'Data Address Mark'. Basically am 'illegal' pattern of pulses on the disk (one that can't occur elsewhere in a sector) the indicates the start of a new sector or soemthing like lat. > cared about SuperBrains (I got out of such machines a while ago) I > would have asked. It's not specific to Superbrains. I think all soft-sectored FM and MFM floppies use them. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 30 14:32:57 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:32:57 +0000 (GMT) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F25D1F9.6090603@dunnington.plus.com> from "Pete Turnbull" at Jan 29, 12 11:10:49 pm Message-ID: > Remember a single-sided drive has the lower head but not the upper. > And to confuse things further, heads are named by the direction they dace. So the lower head is the 'up' head and the upper head is the 'down' head. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jan 30 14:39:54 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:39:54 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F265C4E.2070108@telus.net> from "John Robertson" at Jan 30, 12 01:01:02 am Message-ID: > With anything over about ten years you start by replacing electrolytic > capacitors. If you want to test instead of shotgun then pick up an ESR Why? I would agree that this problem sounds like a capacitor problem (I would want to make sure the relateively low-frequency vertical sync pulses were getting to the appropraite point, and I'd also want to be sure thete was no mains ripple on the supply lines that could be confusiogn the sync circuitry), but I realyl don't find the all 10 eyar ole (or all 40 year old for that matter) electrolytics are defective. > meter, but it usually shows more than a few are failing. If the monitor > is over twenty years old, then just replace all the electrolytics and > then troubleshoot - it there is still a problem that is. No, torubleshoot first. It may be a capacitor, but you can't be sure unless youtrace the signals and find out what is actually wrong. > > Do take care to match the caps to the job they do - low ESR caps for the > horizontal, and caps that handle AC ripple for the linear power supplies. The CM8833 (al lversions) has a swtich-mode PSU (on a separate PCB to the rest of the monitor). -tony From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Jan 30 15:06:37 2012 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:06:37 +0000 Subject: Who wants a nice monitor (UK)? Message-ID: <4F27065D.5070505@dunnington.plus.com> I've had to have a bit of a tidy up, and I have to part with the nice Sony monitor off one of my SGI INdys. Sony GDM-17E21 17" CRT, colour "granite" grey, to match an Indy or O2 keyboard. Dual inputs: HD15 "VGA" connector and 5 BNC (R/G/B/HS/VS). Not used for a few years but should be in good order. I can't ship this because I can't find a box and packing large enough, so it will have to be collected from York, UK. It also can't stay here long; it was going to the electrical waste this weekend before I put my foot down. But it might stay a few extra days if someone guarantees to collect it. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 30 17:11:17 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:11:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120130151026.D71505@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > 'Data Address Mark'. Basically am 'illegal' pattern of pulses on the disk > (one that can't occur elsewhere in a sector) the indicates the start of a > new sector or soemthing like lat. > > cared about SuperBrains (I got out of such machines a while ago) I > > would have asked. > It's not specific to Superbrains. I think all soft-sectored FM and MFM > floppies use them. But, not all MIS-use them on the scale of Superbrain and TRSDOS From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 30 17:12:32 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:12:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Tony Duell wrote: > It's not specific to Superbrains. I think all soft-sectored FM and MFM > floppies use them. FM and MFM CAN be done without them, particularly if it reads track at a time. What does tyhe Amiga do? From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 17:38:52 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:38:52 -0500 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > FM and MFM CAN be done without them, particularly if it reads track at a > time. > > What does tyhe Amiga do? The Amiga does an entire track of raw data to and from GCR in memory (via logical terms applied by the custom chipset) and slurps in or spews out an entire track of GCR-encoded data via an 8000-plus-bit-long shift register (in the Paula/sound chip). On reads, the shift register pulls in about 1.1 revolutions worth of data and lets the logical terms do the GCR decoding on the entire buffer. For writes, I think it writes nulls for a portion of a revolution, to clear out old data, then it emits the GCR-encoded data as one write, overlapping an unknown number of nulls (and by "null", I don't know if it's binary 00000000; it could be a GCR-encoded "null" - I haven't had to do that level of disk reads myself so I'm a little fuzzy at that layer). Unlike sector-at-a-time formats, the sector-to-sector gap on Amigas is fixed and only as many bytes as required to wrap up one sector and start another. The real "gap" is at the end of the track and is of variable length depending on how many millimeters long the specific track is and how many bits it holds. The hardware is not *required* to do it that way, since Amigas can read IBM-formatted floppies (DD or HD, if your Amiga is equipped with a drive that rotates at half-speed for HD disks (since the shift register can only go so fast)), but "Amiga Format" is always done with the sectors jammed up against each other a track at a time. Phrased differently (and perhaps more succinctly), Amigas do the sector separation in software with a hardware assist from the graphics chips to do it in fewer machine cycles (it's why floppy buffers have to allocated in CHIP RAM that can slow the machine down due to contention when elaborate screen modes are being displayed) The whole ugly mess is largely documented in the Rom Kernel Modules, but in practice, unless you happen to be writing GCR disk utilities, most Amiga programmers don't do more than allocate buffers and call system library routines to invoke hidden magic. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 30 17:56:46 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:56:46 -0800 Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120130151026.D71505@shell.lmi.net> References: , <20120130151026.D71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 15:11, Fred Cisin wrote: > But, not all MIS-use them on the scale of Superbrain and TRSDOS Only in the sense of "misuse" being that used by common commonity disk controllers. In fact, the possibilities for their use are probably close to 255. For example, the Intel MDS800 "double density" MMFM format uses 0B with a clock of 70 for a DAM or 08/72 for a DDAM (deleted DAM). Most controllers can support DDAMs but few operating systems actually use them. Most often, you see them used on the cylinder 0/track 0 volume header used by IBM 3740-compatible formats. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 30 18:19:57 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:19:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <20120130151026.D71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Only in the sense of "misuse" being that used by common commonity > disk controllers. In fact, the possibilities for their use are > probably close to 255. For example, the Intel MDS800 "double > density" MMFM format uses 0B with a clock of 70 for a DAM or 08/72 > for a DDAM (deleted DAM). > Most controllers can support DDAMs but few operating systems actually > use them. Most often, you see them used on the cylinder 0/track 0 > volume header used by IBM 3740-compatible formats. Yes, there are plenty of valid uses for them. But, I'll stick with calling Superbrain a MIS-use. What did it accomplish? In the case of TRSDOS, I think that I get what Randy Cook had in mind, but he never completed code for that use to actually do any good. TRSDOS3 and VTOS showed that he was capable of starting incredible projects with little hope of finishing them. From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Mon Jan 30 18:32:36 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:32:36 +0000 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F2736A4.6080007@philpem.me.uk> On 30/01/12 13:43, Jules Richardson wrote: > Are you absolutely sure it's not a mechanical fault - broken cable, > broken/intermittent socket pin (CRT or computer side), damaged solder > joints around the socket inside the CRT etc.? It may be that the > monitor's default state results in it almost locking onto the picture, > even when it's not seeing any sync signal. Two for two, Jules... Damaged connector on the monitor side of the cable, *AND* a broken wire inside the cable (monitor side again). This thing's been slammed against a wall at some point in its life. Hardly surprising seeing as it's an ex-school machine. The broken wire half-killed one of the colour channels, turning the picture magenta. The broken pin killed the sync, but only some of the time. Reseating the cable got the sync to work (ish), but wiggling it made the colour flicker between "OK" and "someone's been playing with the RGB gain". Said cable has now been replaced with a homebrew cable made from a couple of DE9 connectors and shells and some 6-core screened cable. Little hint for anyone thinking of using the pinouts in the A3000 Service Manual and Acorn Application Note 249 to make a cable. The diagram on AN249 page 4 has the pins mirrored. Assuming you're using the pin numbers on the back of the DE9 socket, the pinout for the AKF17 is: 1. Blue 2. Green 3. Red 4. n/c 5. GND 6. n/c 7. n/c 8. Composite sync 9. n/c Connector on the monitor is a DE9 plug (male), so you want a socket (female connector) to make a cable. The A3000 also uses a DE9 but of the opposite gender. Pinout is: 1. Red 2. Green 3. Blue 4. HSync or CSync If LK24 is set 2-3, you get CSYNC. If it's set 1-2, you get HSYNC. 5. VSync or Mode If LK25 is fitted, you get VSync. If not, you get MODE (required for SCART cables) 6, 7, 8, 9: All GND To get the machine to talk to the AKF17 -- Hold numpad 0. Power on. F12 *Configure Sync Auto *Configure MonitorType 0 Enter Hit the RESET button. Enjoy! Jobs for later: new power switch on the monitor, find or buy an Acorn mouse, seeing as the PS2MouseMini adapter won't fit in the socket on an A3000... :( Other than that? The AKF17 flickers like there's no tomorrow, but that's to be expected for a TV-rate monitor being run in single-field non-interlaced mode (special thanks to Acorn for that bright idea). It's much nicer when fed from a video generator... Although it does one-up the Cub on one point: the monitor stand isn't broken :) By default it tilts up at a ~20 degree angle (I guess the assumption was that it'd be used on a table at slightly below eye level). There's a two-piece plastic tilt-bail on the base which allows the angle to be reduced by half, or reduced to around zero. I have it set in the latter mode :) Now I just need a box of adapters for it. JAMMA, CVBS (hmm, I'll need a colour decoder for that), ..... hmm, what else can I adapt to RGB+CSYNC at TV rate? :) Cheers, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 30 18:47:30 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:47:30 -0800 Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> References: , <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 16:19, Fred Cisin wrote: > But, I'll stick with calling Superbrain a MIS-use. > What did it accomplish? I'm sure their goal was "lock-in". When looking at the pre-PC world, many people fail to understand that "lock-in" was a common product concern. Keeping technical details secret was normal business practice. As in "How do I take all of my B5500 code and run it on my 7090?" Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of secrecy ensuring lock-in. We now depend on actual reliability, economy and usefulness of products to be the determining criteria for product selection. --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 19:01:09 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:01:09 -0500 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F2736A4.6080007@philpem.me.uk> References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> <4F2736A4.6080007@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: On Jan 30, 2012, at 7:32 PM, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Now I just need a box of adapters for it. JAMMA, CVBS (hmm, I'll need a > colour decoder for that), ..... hmm, what else can I adapt to RGB+CSYNC > at TV rate? :) Defender? :-) I'd sell one of my two board sets, but I haven't verified the sound board properly yet. Otherwise, they're working and output both composite and regular sync (selectively invertible). Of course, someone makes a JAMMA harness for it, so I suppose you could consider it a subset of the above. - Dave From mcguire at neurotica.com Mon Jan 30 19:00:07 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:00:07 -0500 Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> References: <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com> <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <2F7F800F-857B-48B3-A073-3084B0B3FB70@neurotica.com> On Jan 30, 2012, at 7:47 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of > secrecy ensuring lock-in. We now depend on actual reliability, > economy and usefulness of products to be the determining criteria > for product selection. [head explodes] -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From fraveydank at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 19:12:18 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:12:18 -0500 Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <100C18E7-722B-4BEF-9BEE-B6A5AB35FA5F@gmail.com> On Jan 30, 2012, at 7:47 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of > secrecy ensuring lock-in. We now depend on actual reliability, > economy and usefulness of products to be the determining criteria > for product selection. Ha! Had me there for a minute. Though I suppose that does hold true depending on the "we" in question. - Dave From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 30 19:15:22 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:15:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120130170200.E71505@shell.lmi.net> > > But, I'll stick with calling Superbrain a MIS-use. > > What did it accomplish? On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I'm sure their goal was "lock-in". When looking at the pre-PC world, > many people fail to understand that "lock-in" was a common product > concern. Keeping technical details secret was normal business > practice. > As in "How do I take all of my B5500 code and run it on my 7090?" Yes, that was certainly the mindset that I encountered with the Intertec booth-suits at NCC Anaheim. I don't think that it actually accomplished any of their objectives. Perhaps it's just my political orientation, but I will still persist in calling that a MIS-use. > Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of > secrecy ensuring lock-in. We HAVE??!? The descendents of the B Ark??!? > We now depend on actual reliability, economy and usefulness of products > to be the determining criteria for product selection. We DO??!? I want to emigrate THERE! Around here, they're using XP and OutHouse. ("actual reliability, economy and usefulness"??!?) From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jan 30 19:29:43 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:29:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <2F7F800F-857B-48B3-A073-3084B0B3FB70@neurotica.com> References: <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com> <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> <2F7F800F-857B-48B3-A073-3084B0B3FB70@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <20120130171810.L71505@shell.lmi.net> > On Jan 30, 2012, at 7:47 PM, "Chuck Guzis" wrote: > > Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of > > secrecy ensuring lock-in. We now depend on actual reliability, > > economy and usefulness of products to be the determining criteria > > for product selection. On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Dave McGuire wrote: > [head explodes] Yeah! Chuck isn't generally given to sarcasm. Chuck, If you are being held against your will, top-post a "Me Two", add a political and religious rant, and explain why fiberglass tubas sound better than brass. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jan 30 19:55:24 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:55:24 -0800 Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120130171810.L71505@shell.lmi.net> References: , <2F7F800F-857B-48B3-A073-3084B0B3FB70@neurotica.com>, <20120130171810.L71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F26D98C.6686.1CE21E8@cclist.sydex.com> On 30 Jan 2012 at 17:29, Fred Cisin wrote: >> Chuck, > If you are being held against your will, top-post a "Me Two", add a > political and religious rant, and explain why fiberglass tubas sound > better than brass. (Glances over shoulder) Oh no, I'm serious. I also agree with the findings of this study: http://bit.ly/zjwbOV (Glances over shoulder again) Okay? --Chuck (It's the season for exploding heads, dontcha know.) From jgessling at yahoo.com Mon Jan 30 19:56:07 2012 From: jgessling at yahoo.com (James Gessling) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:56:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Repairing a TI-1270 calculator Message-ID: <1327974967.65543.YahooMailNeo@web31910.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Thanks Tony.? As you suggested there are 10 wires connecting the main board to the keypad.? As in 4 x 6.? I fiddled around a little, gently.? I've ruined another similar unit by cutting those wires in hopes of reattaching them so I was avoiding that.? I guess I made something that was loose become a circuit at least for now.? I works great.? Really a treat to see it work.? Maybe not an HP, but they rarely break anyway. Jim From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 20:58:29 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:58:29 -0200 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> <4F2736A4.6080007@philpem.me.uk> Message-ID: <078601ccdfc4$54730570$6709a8c0@tababook> > Defender? :-) Hmmm...I have a pac-man / Ms.Pac Man made by SEGA (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)...I'm willing to sell or barter for something interesting :) It may be not working (is stored for a looong time and I never tried to turn it on), but it is complete and in a nice state :) From cctech at beyondthepale.ie Mon Jan 30 06:50:50 2012 From: cctech at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:50:50 +0000 (WET) Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) Message-ID: <01OBECU89XQA000JLZ@beyondthepale.ie> > >With anything over about ten years you start by replacing electrolytic >capacitors. If you want to test instead of shotgun then pick up an ESR >meter, but it usually shows more than a few are failing. If the monitor >is over twenty years old, then just replace all the electrolytics and >then troubleshoot - it there is still a problem that is. > I don't think I've got anything less than ten years old. I can't remember having cause to replace more than an occasional electrolytic here and there except in the case of a television from the 1970's which has required about five or six over years of heavy use. I'm sure if I checked everything with an ESR meter it would show up a bunch that are below par. However, many applications for electrolytic capacitors can tolerate very large variations and they may well have years of usable life left in them even though the meter condemns them. There may be a case for checking critical capacitors in power supplies etc which may be at risk of overheating or leaking, however there is no reason to check every electrolytic. I think replacing large numbers of electrolytics is likely to be be more trouble than it is worth and may even introduce new problems that weren't there before, particularly on old pcbs where the print was never well stuck to the board, even when new. Far better to look for a schematic if available and wade in with the scope looking for the problem with deductive reasoning. > >Do take care to match the caps to the job they do - low ESR caps for the >horizontal, and caps that handle AC ripple for the linear power supplies. > I will agree there. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From tpresence at hotmail.com Mon Jan 30 11:44:53 2012 From: tpresence at hotmail.com (Kevin Reynolds) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:53 -0700 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have a malfunctioning C64 that I would like to repair that is exhibiting the most odd of behaviors. The system operates fine, except displayed fonts cycle through the color palette. If you remember the old atari 2600 game "Adventure" its behaves like the chalice does, every second or so changing colors. I haven't started probing the system at all, and although I can use a soldering iron, my troubleshooting skills are pretty rusty. I was considering this a good project for a refresher. Sound doable, or is it likely I'll be looking to replace lots of components on the board? Kevin From pinball at telus.net Mon Jan 30 11:46:24 2012 From: pinball at telus.net (John Robertson) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:46:24 -0800 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <01OBECU89XQA000JLZ@beyondthepale.ie> References: <01OBECU89XQA000JLZ@beyondthepale.ie> Message-ID: <4F26D770.2090505@telus.net> Peter Coghlan wrote: >> With anything over about ten years you start by replacing electrolytic >> capacitors. If you want to test instead of shotgun then pick up an ESR >> meter, but it usually shows more than a few are failing. If the monitor >> is over twenty years old, then just replace all the electrolytics and >> then troubleshoot - it there is still a problem that is. >> >> > > I don't think I've got anything less than ten years old. I can't remember > having cause to replace more than an occasional electrolytic here and there > except in the case of a television from the 1970's which has required about > five or six over years of heavy use. > > I'm sure if I checked everything with an ESR meter it would show up a bunch > that are below par. However, many applications for electrolytic capacitors > can tolerate very large variations and they may well have years of usable > life left in them even though the meter condemns them. There may be a case for > checking critical capacitors in power supplies etc which may be at risk of > overheating or leaking, however there is no reason to check every electrolytic. > > I think replacing large numbers of electrolytics is likely to be be more > trouble than it is worth and may even introduce new problems that weren't > there before, particularly on old pcbs where the print was never well stuck > to the board, even when new. Far better to look for a schematic if available > and wade in with the scope looking for the problem with deductive reasoning. > > >> Do take care to match the caps to the job they do - low ESR caps for the >> horizontal, and caps that handle AC ripple for the linear power supplies. >> >> > > I will agree there. > > Regards, > Peter Coghlan. > > Most of my experience is with arcade video game monitors - we used to analyze problems to try and determine which component was failing, however in 99% of the cases it was one or more capacitors. So we came to the conclusion that replacing all the electros saved a lot of customer repair billing and fixed almost every monitor that came through. In most cases modern monitors (ten to fifteen years old) can be troubleshot to only a couple of bad caps quickly, but everything else gets new caps as this has proven to reduce future service calls - if we used good quality and proper types on monitor power supplies and horizontal/vertical outputs. We have been servicing games in our part of the world since the 1970s and got tired of seeing the same ones back in every year or so. Since replacing the caps we now only see the game once every ten years or so. Mind you this was for games that are on for 8 to 12 hours/day, 5 - 7 days a week... John :-#)# From tpresence at hotmail.com Mon Jan 30 12:59:44 2012 From: tpresence at hotmail.com (Kevin Reynolds) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:59:44 -0700 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: I know following up your own request is kinda taboo, but I should have shared more information... I am guessing that the problem is with the Color RAM (SRAM) in slot U6. This model of C64 has socketed components, but I am not sure U6 is one of these. The other possible issue is PLA U17. As the problem never goes away, perhaps it is more than this. Is there a good vendor to get replacements this late in the game? Kevin From: tpresence at hotmail.com To: cctech at classiccmp.org Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:44:53 -0700 I have a malfunctioning C64 that I would like to repair that is exhibiting the most odd of behaviors. The system operates fine, except displayed fonts cycle through the color palette. If you remember the old atari 2600 game "Adventure" its behaves like the chalice does, every second or so changing colors. I haven't started probing the system at all, and although I can use a soldering iron, my troubleshooting skills are pretty rusty. I was considering this a good project for a refresher. Sound doable, or is it likely I'll be looking to replace lots of components on the board? Kevin From philpem at philpem.me.uk Mon Jan 30 16:30:11 2012 From: philpem at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:30:11 +0000 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> References: <4F25F46E.7040004@philpem.me.uk> <4F269E6C.8020909@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4F2719F3.1090803@philpem.me.uk> On 30/01/12 13:43, Jules Richardson wrote: > Are you absolutely sure it's not a mechanical fault - broken cable, > broken/intermittent socket pin (CRT or computer side), damaged solder > joints around the socket inside the CRT etc.? It may be that the > monitor's default state results in it almost locking onto the picture, > even when it's not seeing any sync signal. Two for two, Jules... Damaged connector on the monitor side of the cable, *AND* a broken wire inside the cable (monitor side again). This thing's been slammed against a wall at some point in its life. Hardly surprising seeing as it's an ex-school machine. The broken wire killed one of the colour channels, turning the picture magenta. The broken pin killed the sync, but only some of the time. Reseating the cable got the sync to work (ish), but wiggling it buggered up the colour. Said cable has now been replaced with a homebrew cable made from a couple of DE9 connectors and shells and some 6-core screened cable. Little hint for anyone thinking of using the pinouts in the A3000 Service Manual and Acorn Application Note 249 to make a cable. The diagram on AN249 page 4 has the pins mirrored. Assuming you're using the pin numbers on the back of the DE9 socket, the pinout for the AKF17 is: 1. Blue 2. Green 3. Red 4. n/c 5. GND 6. n/c 7. n/c 8. Composite sync 9. n/c Connector on the monitor is a DE9 plug (male), so you want a socket (female connector) to make a cable. The A3000 also uses a DE9 but of the opposite gender. Pinout is: 1. Red 2. Green 3. Blue 4. HSync or CSync If LK24 is set 2-3, you get CSYNC. If it's set 1-2, you get HSYNC. 5. VSync or Mode If LK25 is fitted, you get VSync. If not, you get MODE (required for SCART cables) 6, 7, 8, 9: All GND To get the machine to talk to the AKF17 -- Hold numpad 0. Power on. F12 *Configure Sync Auto *Configure MonitorType 0 Enter Hit the RESET button. Enjoy! Jobs for later: new power switch on the monitor, find or buy an Acorn mouse, seeing as the PS2MouseMini adapter won't fit in the socket on an A3000... :-( -- Phil. philpem at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From hendrikvandewerken at gmail.com Mon Jan 30 17:25:49 2012 From: hendrikvandewerken at gmail.com (HendrikvandeWerken) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:25:49 +0100 Subject: Troubling Olivetti M24 Monochrome Monitor Message-ID: <9C301634F1D14ED98C205653DC4B53AE@marthesp4> Since a few days the monitor of my Olivetti M24 displays a bright spot in the middle of the screen when the system is switched off. I suspect the screen will be soon damaged this way. I know there is a circuit in CRT monitors that prevent this. But I don't know where to look on the circuitboard. I did check the parts on the print on the tube base: they seemed to be alright, so now I'm stuck. Does anyone has a clue for me how to proceed? From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 31 02:14:57 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:14:57 -0500 Subject: cobalt qube In-Reply-To: References: <4F25B136.1010803@neurotica.com> Message-ID: <4F27A301.2080306@neurotica.com> On 01/29/2012 05:43 PM, joe lobocki wrote: > I wanted to add one to my collection, but for what they sold for about two > years ago, I decided against it. The MIPS-based Cobalt machines have a big following. I know probably a dozen people who run NetBSD or Linux on them and use them for home servers and network utility boxes. They're extremely power-efficient. That's why their prices are high. > I also remember reading somewhere that telnet-ing (or some other hacking) > into the qube voided the warranty... I could be off though. I don't remember anything at all like that. I do recall, though, that they went out of their way to get people to configure the machines via their (admittedly kinda neat) front-panel LCD and buttons, rather than properly editing the config files like a grownup. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 31 02:16:46 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:16:46 -0500 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F27A36E.80905@neurotica.com> On 01/28/2012 03:25 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >> I will see about those connectors. The 555 is pretty far down in >> the repair queue, but it's important to me to get it running eventually. > > It's problaby the nicest of the 500 series. I know I prefer it to the 556 > a friend has, for example (even though the 556 has a higher bandwidth). > > It's a pity there never was a double-beam 'scope in the 580 seires. Now > that would be serious fun. Oooooh yes. With storage, too. :) >> In other happy news, I repaired my Tek 575 this evening. It had >> physical damage to the step generator switch that was holding it in an >> impossible mode (single-family AND repetitive sweep) and a bad 6AL5 tube >> in the step generator, so the step capacitor never got discharged. It >> works great now. > > I thought EB91s (6AL5s, whatever) went on for ever... Nope, not this one. It had an open filament. "Gee, why is this tube cold?" :-) > Anyway well done on getting another fine instrument going again. Thanks! > I have a > 575, I never had the 175 add-on, so I am limited to 2A maximum collecotr > current IIRC (!). I'd love a 570 (the valve curve tracer), but the 'real > audip' brigade have sent pries of those sky-high.... I don't have the 175 add-on either, never seen one in person. So, only 2A for me too...sheesh. ;) And yes, a 570 would be great, but those prices are unbelievable. -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Tue Jan 31 03:06:49 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:06:49 +0000 Subject: Who wants a nice monitor (UK)? In-Reply-To: <4F27065D.5070505@dunnington.plus.com> References: <4F27065D.5070505@dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: That's just slightly too far for me to go without my wife noticing! A friend of mine brought me an Apple // europlus last year, and she threatened to rectally insert it in him. Pity... I have an Indy. I put linux on it, as the Irix install was messed up. It's the slowest linux box ever... (; On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Pete Turnbull wrote: > I've had to have a bit of a tidy up, and I have to part with the nice Sony > monitor off one of my SGI INdys. > > Sony GDM-17E21 17" CRT, colour "granite" grey, to match an Indy or O2 > keyboard. Dual inputs: HD15 "VGA" connector and 5 BNC (R/G/B/HS/VS). > > Not used for a few years but should be in good order. I can't ship this > because I can't find a box and packing large enough, so it will have to be > collected from York, UK. It also can't stay here long; it was going to the > electrical waste this weekend before I put my foot down. But it might stay > a few extra days if someone guarantees to collect it. > > -- > Pete Peter Turnbull > Network Manager > University of York > -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Tue Jan 31 03:33:37 2012 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:33:37 +0100 (CET) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: References: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > The Amiga does an entire track of raw data to and from GCR in memory [...] s/GCR/MFM/g GCR was almost never used on the Amiga. Christian From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jan 31 03:42:01 2012 From: dm561 at torfree.net (MikeS) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:42:01 -0500 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling References: Message-ID: Original Message: Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:59:44 -0700 From: Kevin Reynolds > I know following up your own request is kinda taboo, but I should have > shared more information... > I am guessing that the problem is with the Color RAM (SRAM) in slot U6. > This model of C64 has socketed components, but I am not sure U6 is one of > these. The other possible issue is PLA U17. As the problem never goes > away, perhaps it is more than this. > Is there a good vendor to get replacements this late in the game? > Kevin Try here: http://www.arcadecomponents.com/catalog/item/3054735/8335676.htm From john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net Tue Jan 31 05:50:10 2012 From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net (John Many Jars) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:50:10 +0000 Subject: Evil Plan In-Reply-To: <09950AF1B1554504A655A3E282D28898@HAL9000> References: <09950AF1B1554504A655A3E282D28898@HAL9000> Message-ID: Mr Zoidberg, Thank you for bringing that error to our attention. John Stupid John (or web designer) has met with an unfortunate accident. On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 11:25 AM, wrote: > First Name: JohnA > Last Name: Zoidberg > Email: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > City: > State: > Zip: > IP: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx > Evil Plan: Your logo says "Yoyodyne Propolsion Systems", not "Yoyodyne > Propulsion Systems" > -- Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow" Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net -------- "Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want. So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken glass." -Stephen Colbert From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 09:53:05 2012 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:53:05 -0600 Subject: DAMs (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> References: , <4F26BDBE.31849.161847D@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120130161039.H71505@shell.lmi.net> <4F26C9A2.21716.18FF7D8@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <4F280E61.3020806@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Of course, we have evolved past such nonsense dropped the idea of > secrecy ensuring lock-in. We now depend on actual reliability, > economy and usefulness of products to be the determining criteria > for product selection. Coffee just came out of my nose - and I wasn't even drinking coffee at the time! From spc at conman.org Tue Jan 31 10:21:02 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:21:02 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems Message-ID: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). I wrote back, saying the code in question was non-portable to begin with (since it depended upon read() and write()---it was targetted at Posix based systems) and besides, I've never encountered a non-ASCII system in the nearly 30 years I've been using computers. So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 31 10:37:06 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:37:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <201201311637.LAA16664@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) I would say you can assume ASCII (in the ASCII range) in much the same sense you can assume pointers are just memory addresses: you are almost certain to get away with it...and eventually someone will end up cursing the assumption upon running into a case where it fails. Portability is not just about compatability with existing environments; it's also about compatability with future environments. Just because no such system exists today - even if true - is no reason to play fast and loose with portability. (An explicit decision to not even try to target certain systems can be, mind you, but that's not quite the same thing. For example, I not infrequently write code that will break badly on 16-bit systems, not because I think they don't exist but because I don't care about them enough to consider it worth the bother to make my code handle them.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 10:45:48 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:45:48 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4ADEF68D-991B-4F06-841A-9C1B9B3CB0A1@gmail.com> On Jan 31, 2012, at 11:21 AM, Sean Conner wrote: > > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII > based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). > I wrote back, saying the code in question was non-portable to begin with > (since it depended upon read() and write()---it was targetted at Posix based > systems) and besides, I've never encountered a non-ASCII system in the > nearly 30 years I've been using computers. > > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any > other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there > any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? I assume you're counting Unicode as a subset of ASCII (which isn't exactly true, though for practical purposes when you're talking about UTF-8, it's mostly interoperable). If you were in a pure 16-bit Unicode system, that's a consideration. No C compiler I can think of that supports 16-bit Unicode, but Java certainly did. - Dave From legalize at xmission.com Tue Jan 31 11:01:44 2012 From: legalize at xmission.com (Richard) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:01:44 -0700 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: In article <20120131162102.GB30381 at brevard.conman.org>, Sean Conner writes: > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII > based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). I assume he's saying this because you did something like '0' + x or 'A' + x to compute the hex digits. The obvious fix is to instead index a string by the digit value: "0123456789abcdef"[x] -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download Legalize Adulthood! From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 11:06:28 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:06:28 -0500 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Kevin Reynolds wrote: > > I know following up your own request is kinda taboo, but I should have shared more information... > I am guessing that the problem is with the Color RAM (SRAM) in slot U6. ?This model of C64 has socketed components, but I am not sure U6 is one of these. ?The other possible issue is PLA U17. > As the problem never goes away, perhaps it is more than this. The Color SRAM is a 2114. Very ordinary and, in my experience, prone to failure. If you have another C-64, you could try swapping the PLA. You will need an 18-pin socket for the SRAM. The chips are available from a number of surplus places like Unicorn Electronics, BG Micro, and more. Speed ranges for the 2114 are, IIRC, 250ms-450ms. I don't remember what speed the C-64 requires, but you can typically sub a faster chip than the circuit requires. -ethan From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 11:13:41 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:13:41 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2012, at 12:01 PM, Richard wrote: > > In article <20120131162102.GB30381 at brevard.conman.org>, > Sean Conner writes: > >> A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump >> routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII >> based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). > > I assume he's saying this because you did something like '0' + x or > 'A' + x to compute the hex digits. The obvious fix is to instead > index a string by the digit value: > > "0123456789abcdef"[x] Indeed, in most systems I can think of (at least ones that support indirect addressing, which is most aside from the tiniest of 8-bits), that'll produce faster code than the if/then construct required otherwise. - Dave From healyzh at aracnet.com Tue Jan 31 11:21:39 2012 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:21:39 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: At 11:21 AM -0500 1/31/12, Sean Conner wrote: > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump >routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII >based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). >I wrote back, saying the code in question was non-portable to begin with >(since it depended upon read() and write()---it was targetted at Posix based >systems) and besides, I've never encountered a non-ASCII system in the >nearly 30 years I've been using computers. > > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any >other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there >any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? > > -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) Radix-50 on various DEC systems, many of which have C compilers. I forget what was used in GCOS-8. I started writing C code on a DPS-8 Mainframe running GCOS-8 as a learning exercise. Horrid C implementation as I remember, not even really K&R. I can't remember for sure, but I think it might have come out of Waterloo, and creating a C compiler for GCOS-8 was probably someones College project. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Photographer | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | My flickr Photostream | | http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ | From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 11:23:20 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:23:20 -0500 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2012, at 12:06 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: > The Color SRAM is a 2114. Very ordinary and, in my experience, prone > to failure. > > If you have another C-64, you could try swapping the PLA. You will > need an 18-pin socket for the SRAM. The chips are available from a > number of surplus places like Unicorn Electronics, BG Micro, and more. > Speed ranges for the 2114 are, IIRC, 250ms-450ms. I don't remember > what speed the C-64 requires, but you can typically sub a faster chip > than the circuit requires. Jameco has 200ns ones for $2.49 each: http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_38973_-1 I'm not familiar with BG Micro (yet), but I know Unicorn has a hefty minimum, which Jameco does not (while you're there, though, you might as well pick up the socket as well and maybe some spare parts (like more 6502s). - Dave From spc at conman.org Tue Jan 31 11:23:40 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:23:40 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <20120131172340.GC30381@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great David Riley once stated: > On Jan 31, 2012, at 12:01 PM, Richard wrote: > > > > > In article <20120131162102.GB30381 at brevard.conman.org>, > > Sean Conner writes: > > > >> A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > >> routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII > >> based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). > > > > I assume he's saying this because you did something like '0' + x or > > 'A' + x to compute the hex digits. The obvious fix is to instead > > index a string by the digit value: > > > > "0123456789abcdef"[x] > > Indeed, in most systems I can think of (at least ones that support > indirect addressing, which is most aside from the tiniest of 8-bits), > that'll produce faster code than the if/then construct required otherwise. Indeed that was the case. I had: while(size--) { dest[size] = (char)((value & 0x0F) + '0'); if (dest[size] > '9') dest[size] += 7; value >>= 4; } And when I changed the code to: while(size--) { dest[size] = "0123456789ABCDEF"[value & 0x0F]; value >>= 4; } It almost doubled the speed of the program (compiled with "gcc -O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -NDEBUG"), which really surprised me. I didn't think modern systems were that about about handling branches. -spc (But I'm still interested in my original question though ... ) From schoedel at kw.igs.net Tue Jan 31 11:23:49 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (schoedel at kw.igs.net) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:23:49 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <20120131165248.M4562@kw.igs.net> On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:21:02 -0500, Sean Conner wrote > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII I assume the problem is the letters 'A' through 'F'? Standard C does not require them to be contiguous or in order. (They are in EBCDIC, though.) C does require '0' through '9' to be contiguous and in order. > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is > there any other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and > EBCDIC, are there any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have > a C compiler available? Standard C requires both upper and lower case to be available, which rules out a few early codes. There have been codes that interleave upper and lower case (e.g. AaBbCc...) but I doubt any survive in systems that provide C. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 11:39:09 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:39:09 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 11:21, Sean Conner wrote: > > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on > non-ASCII based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside > the issue here). I wrote back, saying the code in question was > non-portable to begin with (since it depended upon read() and > write()---it was targetted at Posix based systems) and besides, I've > never encountered a non-ASCII system in the nearly 30 years I've been > using computers. I have, but then then I've been at this longer. In particular, what bit of code did your friend object to? --Chuck From pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 11:39:40 2012 From: pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza - Listas) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:39:40 -0200 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling References: Message-ID: <0bcd01cce03f$5626b300$6709a8c0@tababook> > I'm not familiar with BG Micro (yet), but I know Unicorn has a hefty > minimum, which Jameco does not (while you're there, though, you might as > well pick up the socket as well and maybe some spare parts (like more > 6502s). Not long ago, Jameco had commodore PLAs for a song (something like a dollar or less). I know a brazilian that bought 50 :o) But remembering - You can put a 27C512 EPROM with a special bin in place of a PLA! Google is your (best) friend! :D From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 12:05:00 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:05:00 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131172340.GC30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <20120131172340.GC30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2012, at 12:23 PM, Sean Conner wrote: > -spc (But I'm still interested in my original question though ... ) Well, this solves the half of your original question that dealt with the compatibility, assuming the C compiler uses strings in whatever your native format is; if you're indexing into a string, whatever character comes out of your routine will be in the appropriate native format, whereas your previous version assumed that '0'-'9' were contiguous (not a guarantee) and that 'A' was located at a specific offset from '9' (which will almost certainly be wrong for non-ASCII) and that 'A'-'F' are contiguous (also not guaranteed; EBCDIC has non-contiguous letters, though A-F are at least contiguous). As far as the speed, branches will almost always be comparatively slow if you have a random chance; the prediction logic can't reasonably predict the direction it's going to go if you have a 3/8 chance of taking it and 5/8 not. Thus you'll introduce pipeline stalls, which will absolutely destroy performance on modern processors. On the other hand, if you're doing table lookups on a 16-byte table (really 17-byte, but the NUL doesn't really matter), the table will probably remain in the cache for the duration of your inner loop (and possibly your outer loop as well) and the loop branch will be predicted away until termination. - Dave From spc at conman.org Tue Jan 31 12:05:23 2012 From: spc at conman.org (Sean Conner) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:05:23 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> It was thus said that the Great Chuck Guzis once stated: > On 31 Jan 2012 at 11:21, Sean Conner wrote: > > > > > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on > > non-ASCII based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside > > the issue here). I wrote back, saying the code in question was > > non-portable to begin with (since it depended upon read() and > > write()---it was targetted at Posix based systems) and besides, I've > > never encountered a non-ASCII system in the nearly 30 years I've been > > using computers. > > I have, but then then I've been at this longer. > > In particular, what bit of code did your friend object to? while(size--) { dest[size] = (char)((value & 0x0F) + '0'); if (dest[size] > '9') dest[size] += 7; value >>= 4; } He suggested the "0123456789ABCDEF"[value & 0x0F] approach (as did a few others here). -spc (But he did mention non-ASCII based systems as the basis for his complaint) From tshoppa at wmata.com Tue Jan 31 12:18:55 2012 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Shoppa, Tim) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:18:55 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems Message-ID: IBM has a very handy page on C compatibility with EBCDIC system services: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/bpxa1p03.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 31 12:42:29 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:42:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: DAM it (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: References: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <20120131103343.A3717@shell.lmi.net> > On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > The Amiga does an entire track of raw data to and from GCR in memory > [...] On Tue, 31 Jan 2012, Christian Corti wrote: > s/GCR/MFM/g > GCR was almost never used on the Amiga. Thus supporting my contention of an instance of MFM without DAMs. (FM/MFM and DAMs are both essential components of the "IBM"/WD track format "standard", but are largely independent of each other - Amiga being an example of MFM without the IBM/WD track structure.) Although rightfully called "IBM standard" track format, use of that term results in clueless lusers who think that computers started with 5150 thinking that we are talking about the PC. Depending on how you define GCR, it can easily be argued that MFM IS A TYPE OF GCR. Ethan is therefore not WRONG. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 12:43:59 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:43:59 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 13:05, Sean Conner wrote: > while(size--) > { > dest[size] = (char)((value & 0x0F) + '0'); > if (dest[size] > '9') dest[size] += 7; > value >>= 4; > } > > He suggested the "0123456789ABCDEF"[value & 0x0F] approach (as did a > few others here). His approach is better--and probably faster on most hardware--and it's certainly clearer to someone reading the code. It also leaves you with the ability to make substitutions for characters (e.g. lowercase instead of uppercase). Does C require 8-bit byte addressability? Are other "byte" lengths permitted, such as 9 bits for system using 36 bit words? --Chuck From schoedel at kw.igs.net Tue Jan 31 13:17:40 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (schoedel at kw.igs.net) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:17:40 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:43:59 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote > Does C require 8-bit byte addressability? Are other "byte" lengths > permitted, such as 9 bits for system using 36 bit words? The smallest unit addressable in standard C, the char, must be at least 8 bits. It can be 9, or 36 for that matter. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 13:33:06 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:33:06 -0000 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <201201311637.LAA16664@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <2CEF19A990234BC8AB82EC1E6160A524@G4UGMT41> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mouse > Sent: 31 January 2012 16:37 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems > > > > -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) > Please consider other character codes. An EBCDIC port of GCC is alive and well on several of the "legacy" operating systems (MVS, VM and Music) that run on the Hercules IBM 360/370/XA/390/z emulator. And whilst zLinux runs in ASCII (or whatever it uses to get more than 256 points in a code page) many zLinux sites also have the zVM hypervisor, which includes an optional EBCDIC C compiler. Having ported the BREXX interpreter to this environment I was stung by the fact that the original author had made assumptions about character ordering that are not true on an EBCDIC platform. > I would say you can assume ASCII (in the ASCII range) in much > the same sense you can assume pointers are just memory > addresses: you are almost certain to get away with it...and > eventually someone will end up cursing the assumption upon > running into a case where it fails. > > Portability is not just about compatability with existing > environments; it's also about compatability with future > environments. Just because no such system exists today - > even if true - is no reason to play fast and loose with > portability. (An explicit decision to not even try to target > certain systems can be, mind you, but that's not quite the > same thing. For example, I not infrequently write code that > will break badly on 16-bit systems, not because I think they > don't exist but because I don't care about them enough to > consider it worth the bother to make my code handle them.) > > /~\ The ASCII Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 13:43:16 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:43:16 -0500 Subject: DAM it (Was: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: <20120131103343.A3717@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120130151142.A71505@shell.lmi.net> <20120131103343.A3717@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 1:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: >> On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> > The Amiga does an entire track of raw data to and from GCR in memory >> [...] > On Tue, 31 Jan 2012, Christian Corti wrote: >> s/GCR/MFM/g >> GCR was almost never used on the Amiga. Doh! Too many years since I was grubbing around at that level (following too many years of deep grubbing on 4040s and 1541s). > Thus supporting my contention of an instance of MFM without DAMs. > (FM/MFM and DAMs are both essential components of the "IBM"/WD track > format "standard", but are largely independent of each other - Amiga being > an example of MFM without the IBM/WD track structure.) Yes. If you were to magnaflux an IBM/WD diskette, it would look radically different (pun intended) from an Amiga diskette, the biggest visible difference being individual sectors with variable gaps vs jammed-together sectors with a variable-length tail. The consequence of such is that the Amiga doesn't have to look for the start of a sector when reading - it just opens the gates, slurps up slightly more than one turn of the medium and figures out what's what in software. > Depending on how you define GCR, it can easily be argued that MFM > IS A TYPE OF GCR. ?Ethan is therefore not WRONG. Thanks for defending me, but I mis-remembered. CBM disks use a recognizable GCR, and Amiga floppies use an MFM scheme. The rest should be accurate (sectors are adjacent without variable intersector gaps, and the blitter engine is used to convert to/from binary buffers in CHIPMEM) -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 14:13:54 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:13:54 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> Message-ID: <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 14:17, schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote: > On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:43:59 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote > > Does C require 8-bit byte addressability? Are other "byte" lengths > > permitted, such as 9 bits for system using 36 bit words? > > The smallest unit addressable in standard C, the char, must be at > least 8 bits. It can be 9, or 36 for that matter. That's what I thought--and I seem to remember a port of Unix to the Univac 1100 series that used 9 bit "bytes". So that &0x0f will have issues for creating dumps on that machine. Writing truly portable code is daunting. I recall that when "portable" text-based programs were written in FORTRAN, the first data card in the deck was the character set for the hardware, read in A1 format. In fact, you didn't even know that the system you were working on did arithmetic in binary. We seem to have forgotten decimal computers. How many modern computer languages REQUIRE binary arithmetic and logical operations? --Chuck From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 14:40:55 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:40:55 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <1AD364F0-950D-4DE3-905E-C0BD84481353@gmail.com> On Jan 31, 2012, at 3:13 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > We seem to have forgotten decimal computers. How many modern > computer languages REQUIRE binary arithmetic and logical operations? Don't forget biquinary! Which is, I guess, technically decimal. - Dave From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 13:58:58 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:58:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling In-Reply-To: from "Kevin Reynolds" at Jan 30, 12 11:59:44 am Message-ID: > > > I know following up your own request is kinda taboo=2C but I should have sh= > ared more information... > I am guessing that the problem is with the Color RAM (SRAM) in slot U6. Th= > is model of C64 has socketed components=2C but I am not sure U6 is one of t= > hese. The other possible issue is PLA U17. > As the problem never goes away=2C perhaps it is more than this. > Is there a good vendor to get replacements this late in the game? IIRC some (all?) C64s use a 2114-type RAM for the colour information. If that''s the case, change it. I've had more problem with that sort of chip than any other component ;-). I've lost count of thew number of things I've had to fix by replacign one or more 2114s. If it's not socketed, don't worry. If your desodlering skills are not up to much, then cut the pins off the old IC close to the package, remvoe the packagem, and remove each pin separately. Grab the pin on the top side of the board with a pair of fine pliers, melt the solder on the other side and pull the pin out. Then clear out the holes using a solder sucker from the top side while heatign the solde on the bottom side. I'd ft ta socket. A turned pin (machined pin I think you call them) socket. While a socket is less reliable than a soldered-in chip, I've never hadn a problem from a turned pin socket (that is not true of cheaper formed-pin sockets!), so I think it's sensible to fit one unless there are good electrical reasons (such as stray capacitance) not to. That doesnt' apply here. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 13:53:05 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:53:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <01OBECU89XQA000JLZ@beyondthepale.ie> from "Peter Coghlan" at Jan 30, 12 12:50:50 pm Message-ID: > > I don't think I've got anything less than ten years old. I can't remember > having cause to replace more than an occasional electrolytic here and there Ditto. In fact many of mu classic computers (some are 40 years old) are running on all their original electrolytics. Of course I've replaced some aluminium aleectrolytics over the years. I've also replaced tanatalum electrolytics, fetal film capacitors, resistors, signal diodes, rectifier diodes, transsitors, simple ICs, LSI ICs, switches, connectors, etc, etc, etc. I don;t find that aluminium electrolytics are the problem that soem make them out to be. > except in the case of a television from the 1970's which has required about > five or six over years of heavy use. > > I'm sure if I checked everything with an ESR meter it would show up a bunch > that are below par. However, many applications for electrolytic capacitors Tektronix used to say that the best tube tester (valve tsster to me :-)) was the circuit the valve was usewd it. If it works correctly, the valve is good. If it doesn't, the valve may be the problem. Replacing valves that a conventional tester says are below par won't cure all probems, and may introduce problems. Similarly a valve tester may not pick up the reason a valve fails to work in a particular circuit that requires some particualr porperty. > can tolerate very large variations and they may well have years of usable > life left in them even though the meter condemns them. There may be a case for > checking critical capacitors in power supplies etc which may be at risk of > overheating or leaking, however there is no reason to check every electrolytic. If a cpaacitor could cause more damage if it fails (either electrically or mechancially (say it'll hit somethign deleicate if it blows its top [1]), then I'll test it and change it. If not, then I'll only change it if it's causing problems. [1] A concrete example that applied to me. The 2 mains smoothing capacitors in myh HP120 CP/M machine were 'doming' on top. They tested fine, but they're physically located on a pCB alongside the CRt and if they blow up, they are likely to hit the CRT neck. Since gettign a repalcemetn CRT is non-trivial, I replaced the capacitors before anyhting happened > > I think replacing large numbers of electrolytics is likely to be be more > trouble than it is worth and may even introduce new problems that weren't Yes. You may be 'prefect' and never fit the wrogn part, and never make a dry joint. You may also be lucky and enver get a defective new component. For the rest of us living in the real world, it seems better not to change things unnecessarily. If you ware worried about the reliability of the old capacitors, then IMHO it's better to get the thin working properly first (changing any capacitors that you have to), and then change the others one seciton at a time and test the machine after each set of repalcements, Then if there's a mistake soemwhere you'll know where to look. But I think you're wasting time and money to repalce working capacitors in such amchines. > there before, particularly on old pcbs where the print was never well stuck > to the board, even when new. Far better to look for a schematic if available > and wade in with the scope looking for the problem with deductive reasoning. Agreed... I find it strange... When I learnt faultfindign all those years ago, every book told you to _think_ about it. To make measurements and deduce waht the problem is. Nowadays I somethimes think I'm the only person left who does that. But since it works for me (and other methods most certianly don't), I am not changing. I ahve no idea whay the standard method changed, but if I ever find the idiot who came up with it, I'll be tempted to insert a logic analyser rectally... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 14:24:52 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:24:52 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F2719F3.1090803@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 30, 12 10:30:11 pm Message-ID: > Jobs for later: new power switch on the monitor, find or buy an Acorn > mouse, seeing as the PS2MouseMini adapter won't fit in the socket on an > A3000... :-( Is that a quadrature-output mouse with a 9 pin mini-DIN? I've found that rewireable mini-DINs are significantly larger tham moulded ones. Quite often the former won't fit. There are at elast 3 solutions : 1) RS (used to?) sell cables with a moulded mini-DIN on each end. Cut said cable in half and wire the bare ends to whatever you are building. I don't think tye do 9 pin ones though (they did do 8 pin ones when I was makign serial cables for my Epson PX4/PX8 machines). 2) If you cut the end off the outer cleeve of the mini-DIN plug it'll often fit. Of coures the resulting plug is more likely to come apart, but it's OK for things like mice. 3) Remvoe the darn mini-DIN socket fro mthe PCB, fit a DE9 or similar on the case and wire it up. %deity do I hate mini-DINs... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 14:53:27 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:53:27 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <4F27A36E.80905@neurotica.com> from "Dave McGuire" at Jan 31, 12 03:16:46 am Message-ID: > > It's a pity there never was a double-beam 'scope in the 580 seires. Now > > that would be serious fun. > > Oooooh yes. With storage, too. :) Actually a storage version of the 555 would be fun. The only storage 'scope I know of in this series (and I don't have one) is the 549, which is a storage 545 IIRC. Incidentally, if you get a chance, l ook at hte 564 'scope manual, in particualr the storage system scheamtic. The cleaning lady mopping up the water put there by the flood gun is a classic... > > I thought EB91s (6AL5s, whatever) went on for ever... > > Nope, not this one. It had an open filament. "Gee, why is this tube > cold?" :-) Eek.... One of the few times a vlave tester would have been reliable in finding the fault (see another thread). On the other hand, it's not hard to check the reisstnace between pins 3 and 4 with an ohmmeter. Years ago over here there was a simple battery + bulb continuity tester sold with varios valve sockets on it, The tester was wired to the heater pins of the sockets (pins 4 and 5 of the B9A, pins 3 and 4 of a B7G, and a segond B7G with 1 and 7 wires 'for battery valves only' and so on. It's actualyl quite useful for weeding out totally dead valves before you use the AVO Mk 4 or Tekky 570 ;-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 14:54:03 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:54:03 +0000 (GMT) Subject: SuperBrain Disks In-Reply-To: from "Christian Corti" at Jan 31, 12 10:33:37 am Message-ID: > > On Mon, 30 Jan 2012, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > The Amiga does an entire track of raw data to and from GCR in memory > [...] > > s/GCR/MFM/g > > GCR was almost never used on the Amiga. Isn't MFM just a special case of GCR? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 14:29:58 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:29:58 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: <4F2736A4.6080007@philpem.me.uk> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jan 31, 12 00:32:36 am Message-ID: > Now I just need a box of adapters for it. JAMMA, CVBS (hmm, I'll need a > colour decoder for that), ..... hmm, what else can I adapt to RGB+CSYNC IIRC the true CM8833 has an internal PAL decoder. The Acorn version doesn't, but it's the same PCB, just with lots of components not fitted and maybe a few links. If you get the full service manual (yes, I know you're looking for it), you cna probalby add the decoder. Findign soem of the bits might be interesting, it'll involve raiding old TV sets for the delay line a(and maybe even the ICs now). > at TV rate? :) Juast about anything given a scan converter :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jan 31 14:32:20 2012 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:32:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Repairing a TI-1270 calculator In-Reply-To: <1327974967.65543.YahooMailNeo@web31910.mail.mud.yahoo.com> from "James Gessling" at Jan 30, 12 05:56:07 pm Message-ID: > > Thanks Tony.=A0 As you suggested there are 10 wires connecting the main boa= > rd to the keypad.=A0 As in 4 x 6.=A0 I fiddled around a little, gently.=A0 = > I've ruined another similar unit by cutting those wires in hopes of reattac= I think if i had to seaprate the keybaord from the logic board in one of those calculators, I'd desolder the wires at the PCB end. -tony From dbetz at xlisper.com Tue Jan 31 15:21:40 2012 From: dbetz at xlisper.com (David Betz) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:21:40 -0500 Subject: Looking for Andrew Back Message-ID: <575918AB-4364-43F6-B4DC-29514539CA28@xlisper.com> Does anyone here know how to contact Andrew Back? I have some equipment to send him and I need a mailing address. Thanks, David Betz From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 15:36:51 2012 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (Dave) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:36:51 -0000 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <0A747A3963B2490F9F3A6654B8E1247A@G4UGMT41> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis > Sent: 31 January 2012 20:14 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems > > > On 31 Jan 2012 at 14:17, schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote: > > > On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:43:59 -0800, Chuck Guzis wrote > > > Does C require 8-bit byte addressability? Are other > "byte" lengths > > > permitted, such as 9 bits for system using 36 bit words? > > Any thing longer than "8". The constant CHAR_BIT as defined in "limits.h" should say how many bits/byte... > > The smallest unit addressable in standard C, the char, must be at > > least 8 bits. It can be 9, or 36 for that matter. > > That's what I thought--and I seem to remember a port of Unix to the > Univac 1100 series that used 9 bit "bytes". So that &0x0f will > have issues for creating dumps on that machine. > The Honeywell L66 series (and later the DPS8) which some one elase has mentioned has 36-bit words which can be treated as 4x9-bit bytes or 6x6 bit BCD characters. I only ever wrote in "B" on these machines which had no notion of characters, everything was done in terms of words.. There were routines to convert to characters for i/o.. > Writing truly portable code is daunting. I recall that when > "portable" text-based programs were written in FORTRAN, the first > data card in the deck was the character set for the hardware, read in > A1 format. In fact, you didn't even know that the system you were > working on did arithmetic in binary. > > We seem to have forgotten decimal computers. How many modern > computer languages REQUIRE binary arithmetic and logical operations? > > --Chuck > > Dave Wade G4UGM Illegitimi Non Carborundum From phil at ultimate.com Tue Jan 31 12:00:52 2012 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:52 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <201201311800.q0VI0qVN026340@ultimate.com> Sean Conner wrote: > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any > other encoding scheme used? If you go back into the mists of time far enough you would find there were many vendors with 6-bit character sets, no two of them EXACTLY alike (and possibly even different ones between different systems from the same vendor, or even different installations). Reading a (1/2 inch magtape) from another system was a painful adventure, starting with "deblocking" the tape (figuring out how many (72 or 80 column) card images were packed into a single tape record), and followed by translating their character set to your local one, and possibly replacing the padding spaces with EOLs. > And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there > any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? > > -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) See "IBM libascii functions for z/OS UNIX System Services" http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/libascii.html Overview The libascii functions are integrated into the base of the Language Environment. They help you port ASCII-based C applications to the EBCDIC-based z/OS UNIX environment. From cctech at beyondthepale.ie Tue Jan 31 12:10:57 2012 From: cctech at beyondthepale.ie (Peter Coghlan) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:10:57 +0000 (WET) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems Message-ID: <01OBG2UX0NF6000JLZ@beyondthepale.ie> At 11:21 AM -0500 1/31/12, Sean Conner wrote: > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump >routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII >based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). >I wrote back, saying the code in question was non-portable to begin with >(since it depended upon read() and write()---it was targetted at Posix based >systems) and besides, I've never encountered a non-ASCII system in the >nearly 30 years I've been using computers. > > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any >other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there >any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? > > -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?) A unix called UTS (Universal Time Share?) by Amdahl ran (amongst other things under VM) on an Amdahl 5870 I worked with in the early 1990's. This was an EBCDIC machine. I never did much with UTS but I'm pretty sure it had a C compiler. There was also C/370 for VM/CMS and MUSIC. Regards, Peter Coghlan. From cym224 at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 12:32:06 2012 From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:32:06 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On 31 January 2012 12:21, Zane H. Healy wrote (in part): >> And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there >> any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler >> available? z/OS is not only POSIX, it is UNIX (see http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3470.htm). (Sorry for not replying to the OP -- I just saw this now.) N From tpresence at hotmail.com Tue Jan 31 12:59:07 2012 From: tpresence at hotmail.com (Kevin Reynolds) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:59:07 -0700 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling (Ethan Dicks) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > The Color SRAM is a 2114. Very ordinary and, in my experience, prone > to failure. > > If you have another C-64, you could try swapping the PLA. You will > need an 18-pin socket for the SRAM. The chips are available from a > number of surplus places like Unicorn Electronics, BG Micro, and more. > Speed ranges for the 2114 are, IIRC, 250ms-450ms. I don't remember > what speed the C-64 requires, but you can typically sub a faster chip > than the circuit requires. > > -ethan I have already purchased a replacement sram for the 2114 (acutally 2 of the units, one P2114 and one MM2114N-2) and intend to replace the IC sometime today. I do have another C64, but no chips are socketed, and I don't want to ruin it, thus I'll just try replacing it in the bad unit. My understanding is that I need a chip that has a speed faster than half a machine cycle for the system to work properly. The spec sheet on the P2114 states that it has a 450ns access time. For the MM2114N-2 it looks like its 200ns. I understand that the access speed requirement is .5*(cpu freq/1)/machine-cycle. I don't know the machine cycle for this operation, but assuming the worst with an IC having an access time of 450ns, the machine-cycle couldn't be over 2.25 for things to be ok. If I use the 200ns IC, I should be good with a machine-cycle of just over 5. I could probably solve this by opening up the unit and just pulling the IC scribe marks and looking up the data sheet, but the location with the ICs is 50 miles from the house, and I happened to be nearby yesterday...so I just winged it. Can anyone checksum my thoughts here? Is my algorithm and its implementation ok? I also bought a replacement for the PLA, however, I had misunderstood the requirement. I thought it was just a plain ole N82S100, but now I understand that it is a specially programmed N82S100. Although I have found a ROM file I could perhaps burn on the chip, I simply don't have the gear. I'm hoping this isn't the problem, as I have to mail order the part, but I understand that this is the most common IC to fail on the C64 board. Since I'm getting only character color palette cycling, and have a border and don't have a problem with a blank screen, I am encouraged that this IC is probably ok. Just to be safe, I bought a replacement for U29, as the description in the c64 chip and common problems guide has content that really looks similar to my problem, moreso than even the description for problems with U6 (the 2114). Thanks for your commentary though. I'm likely to buy sockets for these chips as well, as they aren't that expensive, and it may save me issues should the selection I made be suboptimal. Kevin From fraveydank at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 15:46:36 2012 From: fraveydank at gmail.com (David Riley) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:46:36 -0500 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 31, 2012, at 3:24 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > 1) RS (used to?) sell cables with a moulded mini-DIN on each end. Cut said > cable in half and wire the bare ends to whatever you are building. I > don't think tye do 9 pin ones though (they did do 8 pin ones when I was > makign serial cables for my Epson PX4/PX8 machines). The same applies to power cords: the electronics store near my parents' house in Baltimore (similar idea to what Radio Shack used to be, back when it was really Radio Shack) will sell me a power cord with a wall plug on one end and exposed wires on the other for $5. It will sell me an otherwise identical extension cord for $2. A pair of cutting pliers is the great equalizer. :-) - Dave From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 16:49:55 2012 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:49:55 -0500 Subject: Commordore 64 character color cycling (Ethan Dicks) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 1:59 PM, Kevin Reynolds wrote: > I have already purchased a replacement sram for the 2114 (acutally 2 of the units, one P2114 and one MM2114N-2) and intend to replace the IC sometime today. ?I do have another C64, but no chips are socketed... Bummer. ISTR my C-64s have socketed PLAs, but perhaps they are older units. > My understanding is that I need a chip that has a speed faster than half a machine cycle for the system to work properly. That is more-or-less true, but the devil is in the details. In the case of the color SRAM, both the 6510 and the VIC chip access it, on alternate phases of the clock, so with a clock speed of approx 1MHz, the SRAM can be accessed twice in 1ms. That suggests that a 450ns chip is fast enough, though I might want something faster myself so that I knew it wouldn't be a problem. A 450ns chip is plenty fast enough for most 1970s and 1980s microcomputers with a single-access 1Mhz design (some of the early SRAMs like the 5101/2101/1822 256x4 SRAM had access times of 650ms... those can have problems in some places, but you won't find those in common usage after 1978 or so. They were displaced by various 4Kbit parts). > I also bought a replacement for the PLA, however, I had misunderstood the requirement. ?I thought it was just a plain ole N82S100, but now I understand that it is a specially programmed N82S100. Yes. It's an 82S100 that is programmed to "do the right thing" in a C-64. Yes, it fails often, but fortunately, it's a well-understood chip and can be reproduced. In the medium-term, you might be able to find someone who can burn your blank for you. > Thanks for your commentary though. ?I'm likely to buy sockets for these chips as well, as they aren't that expensive, and it may save me issues should the selection I made be suboptimal. Let me echo Tony Duell's recommendation of turned-pin (machined-pin) sockets. I use them exclusively, even in kits I buy (I throw the supplied cheap sockets in a box and use my own). -ethan From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Jan 31 16:51:10 2012 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:51:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: from Nemo at "Jan 31, 12 01:32:06 pm" Message-ID: <201201312251.q0VMpBCN018208@floodgap.com> > >> And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there > >> any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler > >> available? > > z/OS is not only POSIX, it is UNIX (see > http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3470.htm). > > (Sorry for not replying to the OP -- I just saw this now.) Wow. This is not a widely known fact (it was certainly news to me). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- iumop ap!sdn w,I idlaH ----------------------------------------------------- From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jan 31 17:00:54 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:00:54 +0000 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2872A6.5050300@philpem.me.uk> On 31/01/12 20:24, Tony Duell wrote: > Is that a quadrature-output mouse with a 9 pin mini-DIN? Yep. 5V LSTTL. > I've found that rewireable mini-DINs are significantly larger tham > moulded ones. Quite often the former won't fit. I have a couple of solderable mini-DINs, and you're right, they're far too big. About twice times the length of the plug on the PS2MouseMini, and a good 5mm extra diameter. The A3000 will take a moulded mini-DIN plug *and that's it*. CJE apparently have spare mouse cables, but they're not much cheaper than an entire mouse :( Price for a new mouse? ?43. No, there isn't a missing decimal there, I asked. > 3) Remvoe the darn mini-DIN socket fro mthe PCB, fit a DE9 or similar > on the case and wire it up. %deity do I hate mini-DINs... Actually, I could probably route one through the back. There are some pads on the board marked "ALTERNATE MOUSE" which appear to connect to the mouse socket. I'd sooner hide a PIC micro and a PS/2 socket inside though. Get rid of the external adapter entirely :) It's still just about the worst connector they could have picked... :-/ -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 31 17:14:47 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:14:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120131151214.D12431@shell.lmi.net> > A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump > routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on > non-ASCII based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside > the issue here). I wrote back, saying the code in question was > non-portable to begin with (since it depended upon read() and > write()---it was targetted at Posix based systems) and besides, I've > never encountered a non-ASCII system in the nearly 30 years I've been > using computers. Do you anticipate having any Chinese users? From nigel.d.williams at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 17:20:03 2012 From: nigel.d.williams at gmail.com (Nigel Williams) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 10:20:03 +1100 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 3:21 AM, Sean Conner wrote: > ?So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any > other encoding scheme used? Burroughs 6-bit BCL character code (B5000) survived in Burroughs MCP systems until sometime in the early 1980s when support for it was finally removed (mostly from the compilers/editors I think, I have a vague idea the codepage tables might still be there), and they continued on with EBCDIC. From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 31 17:22:41 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:22:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20120131152147.S12431@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 31 Jan 2012, Shoppa, Tim wrote: > IBM has a very handy page on C compatibility with EBCDIC system services: > http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/features/unix/bpxa1p03.html Does it mention what OS360 does when it encounters /* as the first two characters on a punch card? From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 31 17:29:16 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:29:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120131152710.I12431@shell.lmi.net> On 31 Jan 2012 at 14:17, schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote: > The smallest unit addressable in standard C, the char, must be at > least 8 bits. It can be 9, or 36 for that matter. EXACTLY! In the early days of the Mac, I played briefly (long enough to walk away from) a compiler that had 16 bits as sizeof(char) From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 17:36:26 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:36:26 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <0A747A3963B2490F9F3A6654B8E1247A@G4UGMT41> References: <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com>, <0A747A3963B2490F9F3A6654B8E1247A@G4UGMT41> Message-ID: <4F280A7A.17387.8781F1@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 21:36, Dave wrote: > Any thing longer than "8". The constant CHAR_BIT as defined in > "limits.h" should say how many bits/byte... Digging around on the web a bit, I see claims of a couple of C compilers for the 60-bit CDC 6000/7000/Cyber70/170 systems, but I've never run into one in person. Initially, this was all uppercase OS software using 6 bit characters where A=1, B=2,...Z=26, 0=27....; later, lowercase support was added (and printing slowed down) by using 12-bit characters based on the 6- bit set. Ones' complement hardware, too. It must have been a nightmare to get any sort of portability out of it. --Chuck From mcguire at neurotica.com Tue Jan 31 17:48:42 2012 From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:48:42 -0500 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F287DDA.3040409@neurotica.com> On 01/31/2012 03:53 PM, Tony Duell wrote: >>> It's a pity there never was a double-beam 'scope in the 580 seires. Now >>> that would be serious fun. >> >> Oooooh yes. With storage, too. :) > > Actually a storage version of the 555 would be fun. The only storage > 'scope I know of in this series (and I don't have one) is the 549, which > is a storage 545 IIRC. I have a 549. It's a beautiful instrument, as should be expected. The brightness of the stored trace isn't as good as it should be, but I've not yet gone into troubleshooting it. > Incidentally, if you get a chance, l ook at hte 564 'scope manual, in > particualr the storage system scheamtic. The cleaning lady mopping up the > water put there by the flood gun is a classic... Yes. :-) >>> I thought EB91s (6AL5s, whatever) went on for ever... >> >> Nope, not this one. It had an open filament. "Gee, why is this tube >> cold?" :-) > > Eek.... One of the few times a vlave tester would have been reliable in > finding the fault (see another thread). On the other hand, it's not hard > to check the reisstnace between pins 3 and 4 with an ohmmeter. ...which is exactly what I did. > Years ago over here there was a simple battery + bulb continuity tester > sold with varios valve sockets on it, The tester was wired to the heater > pins of the sockets (pins 4 and 5 of the B9A, pins 3 and 4 of a B7G, and > a segond B7G with 1 and 7 wires 'for battery valves only' and so on. It's > actualyl quite useful for weeding out totally dead valves before you use > the AVO Mk 4 or Tekky 570 ;-) Or before you mortgage your house to buy a 570! -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA From classiccmp at philpem.me.uk Tue Jan 31 18:19:11 2012 From: classiccmp at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:19:11 +0000 Subject: Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2884FF.8020807@philpem.me.uk> On 31/01/12 19:53, Tony Duell wrote: > I ahve no idea whay the standard method changed, but if I ever find the > idiot who came up with it, I'll be tempted to insert a logic analyser > rectally... Ugh, that would be downright cruel. To the logic analyser. I mean... the only LA I'm aware of which would stand a chance of fitting would be the HP LogicDART, and I can think of far better uses for one of those. Now a DSO-Nano on the other hand... XD -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/ From nigel.d.williams at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 18:55:03 2012 From: nigel.d.williams at gmail.com (Nigel Williams) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 11:55:03 +1100 Subject: Visiting Bristol UK In-Reply-To: <4F034A39.4000408@machineroom.info> References: <4F034A39.4000408@machineroom.info> Message-ID: On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 5:34 AM, James Wilson wrote: > Jim Austins collection > (http://www.computermuseum.org.uk/) is also really worth a visit but it's > several hours from Bristol which in the UK we consider a long distance :-) I had the pleasure of staying at Jim's very-comfortable barn (adjacent to the sheds containing the collection) and viewing his collection a couple of weeks ago and can confirm that it really is worth the effort of getting there if at all possible. Jim has an astonishing array of machines covering the entire spectrum, not all are yet listed on the website so be prepared for some surprises. The collection covers several thousand square feet and even after several hours we had only done a brief walkthrough. Hearing the stories of how the systems were rescued often trumps the machines themselves. To an Australian York/Yorkshire is a real feast for the senses too, and there is an amazing nearby pub (Glass&Pipe) which should not be missed. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 31 20:56:34 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:56:34 -0500 Subject: 16 bit int - Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131152710.I12431@shell.lmi.net> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> <20120131152710.I12431@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <4F28A9E2.10104@telegraphics.com.au> On 31/01/12 6:29 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On 31 Jan 2012 at 14:17, schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote: >> The smallest unit addressable in standard C, the char, must be at >> least 8 bits. It can be 9, or 36 for that matter. > > EXACTLY! > > In the early days of the Mac, I played briefly (long enough to walk away > from) a compiler that had 16 bits as sizeof(char) MPW still hosts a 68K compiler with that property; at least until PowerPC it was a common runtime model. It's not really a big deal to write C code such that this would not be a problem, and certainly no trickier than being 32/64 portable. --Toby From toby at telegraphics.com.au Tue Jan 31 20:59:41 2012 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:59:41 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F27B6BD.16902.1368FE@cclist.sydex.com> <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> On 31/01/12 1:05 PM, Sean Conner wrote: >> On 31 Jan 2012 at 11:21, Sean Conner wrote: >> >>> >>> A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump >>> routine) saying it depended upon ASCII ... > He suggested the "0123456789ABCDEF"[value& 0x0F] approach (as did a few > others here). This is essentially how Professor Knuth achieved portability to non-ASCII systems for TeX, METAFONT and his other tools. --Toby > > -spc (But he did mention non-ASCII based systems as the basis for his > complaint) > > From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 31 21:14:22 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 03:14:22 +0000 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 1/28/12 1:16 AM, "Dave McGuire" wrote: [snip] > > In other happy news, I repaired my Tek 575 this evening. It had >physical damage to the step generator switch that was holding it in an >impossible mode (single-family AND repetitive sweep) and a bad 6AL5 tube >in the step generator, so the step capacitor never got discharged. It >works great now. > > -Dave > >-- >Dave McGuire >New Kensington, PA Congratulations! I have a 561A that makes me happy. :-) I do need to clean its switches, though. FWIW, I'd love to find a 3A74 plug-in for it. There's enough stuff that I do with vintage machines, requiring not screaming hot bandwidth but multiple inputs, that the 3A74 would just be far too cool for words. Just sayin'? I also have a HP 1741A that I use for faster things. At the Museum we have Tek digital 'phosphor' scopes. When people on this list say they don't own an oscilloscope, I wonder how they fetch water, cook their meals and eliminate their waste products. For folks who do what we do, a scope seems that basic, to my way of thinking. I don't use it every day, but when I need it there's no other tool that compares. -- Ian From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 31 21:15:55 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:15:55 -0500 (EST) Subject: 16 bit int - Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F28A9E2.10104@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> <20120131152710.I12431@shell.lmi.net> <4F28A9E2.10104@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <201202010315.WAA01087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> >> In the early days of the Mac, I played briefly (long enough to walk >> away from) a compiler that had 16 bits as sizeof(char) > MPW still hosts a 68K compiler with that property; at least until > PowerPC it was a common runtime model. It's not really a big deal to > write C code such that this would not be a problem, and certainly no > trickier than being 32/64 portable. Depends on what you're doing. I've written plenty of code for which 256-entry tables are totally practical but 65536-entry tables are somewhere between difficult and completely out of the question. (And even without such tables, related remarks apply; for example, enumerating all pairs of chars is often reasonable for 8-bit chars but utterly out of reach for 16-bit chars.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 21:35:50 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:35:50 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 21:59, Toby Thain wrote: > This is essentially how Professor Knuth achieved portability to > non-ASCII systems for TeX, METAFONT and his other tools. Essentially, the rule is "Don't do arithmetic on characters". But I've had a lot of questions about what the specs actually mean. If the "smallest addressable unit" in C of being type char apparently doesn't mean that the machine has to be char-addressable. For example, a machine with 128-bit words, and only addressable by word addresses doesn't need to have type char as 128 bits, only that the compiler and run-time need to make provision for some means of addressing chars, even if that means a separate system of addressing; e.g. "C" addresses are machine addresses shifted by 4 bits. I suppose it's even possible to create a C where word addresses == char addresses; the char being aligned in a word, one char per word, with the remainder of the word unsued. So does the difference between to void* pointers necessarily equate to a count of chars between those addresses? Take the case of one char per word above, for example. Do char and int addresses have to share the same space? Or can chars and ints enjoy separate addressing spaces? Do addressing spaces need to be compatible? (I think about low-end PIC 8-bit and AVR where data stored in code space as constants don't have the same granularity. --Chuck From mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com Tue Jan 31 21:44:14 2012 From: mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com (Michael B. Brutman) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:44:14 -0600 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> Message-ID: <4F28B50E.6000406@brutman.com> The AS/400 and its current variants are generally EBCDIC systems, and to make things worse if you are using the native C compiler then pointers are not the same size as integers. And I believe that both of those are legal for ANSI C. Mike From useddec at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 21:48:26 2012 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:48:26 -0600 Subject: off topic? Signetics chips 10K ecl chips available Message-ID: Starting to go through some smaller boxes and found a few thousand Signetics 10100 - 10175 chips. all sorted (pretty much) bulk. and some hard to find. Date codes are mostly around 1978. I would like to sell in as large a lot as possible or maybe variety packs. I have 3 or 4 gaylords of small parts,mostly chips,and it's going to be a slow. process. The company I got this from was a board repair depot, and also repaired core memory boards. Please feel free to contact me off list with any questions. shipping fron 61853. Thanks, Paul From schoedel at kw.igs.net Tue Jan 31 22:02:53 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (Kevin Schoedel) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:02:53 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: At 7:35 pm -0800 2012/01/31, Chuck Guzis wrote: >For example, a machine with 128-bit words, and only addressable by >word addresses doesn't need to have type char as 128 bits, only that >the compiler and run-time need to make provision for some means of >addressing chars, even if that means a separate system of addressing; >e.g. "C" addresses are machine addresses shifted by 4 bits. > >I suppose it's even possible to create a C where word addresses == >char addresses; the char being aligned in a word, one char per word, >with the remainder of the word unsued. > >So does the difference between two void* pointers necessarily equate >to a count of chars between those addresses? Yes. "A pointer to void shall have the same representation and alignment requirements as a pointer to a character type." Pointers to other types are not required to have the same representation, but it is necessary to be able to convert to a void* and back without losing information. >Do char and int addresses have to share the same space? Yes, because a union of a char and an int is possible. >Do addressing spaces need to be compatible? (I think about >low-end PIC 8-bit and AVR where data stored in code space as >constants don't have the same granularity. That's a separate question, which is mostly covered in a separate technical report TR 18037. The standard does allow pointers to two different objects to have the same value, and therefore be distinguished only in some other way, e.g. TR 18037 address space. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From schoedel at kw.igs.net Tue Jan 31 22:10:19 2012 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (Kevin Schoedel) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:10:19 -0500 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: >>Do char and int addresses have to share the same space? > >Yes, because a union of a char and an int is possible. I should clarify that a little. Because a union of a char and an int is possible, it must be *possible* for them to share the same space. But a compiler is not constrained in how it places independent chars or ints in memory, and a pointer to a union does not have to have the same representation as a pointer to any of its members. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Tue Jan 31 22:17:10 2012 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:17:10 -0500 Subject: 16 bit int - Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <201202010315.WAA01087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F27C5EF.15030.4EC279@cclist.sydex.com>, <20120131191200.M59094@kw.igs.net> <4F27DB02.4385.A11742@cclist.sydex.com> <20120131152710.I12431@shell.lmi.net> <4F28A9E2.10104@telegraphics.com.au> <201202010315.WAA01087@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F28BCC6.6020104@compsys.to> >Mouse wrote: >Depends on what you're doing. > >I've written plenty of code for which 256-entry tables are totally >practical but 65536-entry tables are somewhere between difficult and >completely out of the question. (And even without such tables, related >remarks apply; for example, enumerating all pairs of chars is often >reasonable for 8-bit chars but utterly out of reach for 16-bit chars.) > It depends on how much memory is available. Even on the PDP-11, FORTRAN under RT-11 supports virtual arrays of MB of memory. Since a 65536 entry table of words needs only 128 KB, that would be very feasible. Plus under E11, it is very easy to run a PDP-11 which makes explicit use of PC memory. I have requested up to 1280 MB of PC memory under Windows XP when I run RT-11 and I want to sieve for Prime Numbers. I does come in handy and it would be possible to make a real device under a real DEC PDP-11 with 4 GB of memory supported with the same sort of IOPAGE registers for access to the PC memory from inside an RT-11 program. Jerome Fine From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 31 22:28:14 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:28:14 -0800 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <196EB9FC-0A14-44C1-89A1-1869D72864C2@cs.ubc.ca> On 2012 Jan 31, at 7:14 PM, Ian King wrote: > > I have a 561A that makes me happy. :-) I do need to clean its > switches, > though. FWIW, I'd love to find a 3A74 plug-in for it. There's enough > stuff that I do with vintage machines, requiring not screaming hot > bandwidth but multiple inputs, that the 3A74 would just be far too > cool > for words. Just sayin' There is a 4-channel plug-in (presumably a 3A74) in one of the 500 series Tek scopes at the radio museum here. Not sure which 5xx base it is in. I'd love to be working on it. I have this nagging fear one day I will go in to the museum and somebody will have thrown out the tek scopes. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 31 22:37:33 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:37:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <20120131180523.GD30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F28AA9D.2090809@telegraphics.com.au> <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201202010437.XAA01952@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > If the "smallest addressable unit" in C of being type char apparently > doesn't mean that the machine has to be char-addressable. Well, it does have to be in the sense that it has to be possible to (somehow) refer to individual chars. It does not have to be char-addressable in the sense of there being any machine-code object which can be trivially indirected through to obtain a single C char. Indeed, there is no _requirement_ that C use whatever indirection the machine code level supports, though if there's a way to implement the C abstract machine semantics without too much hair, it should be used. I think there was once a C implementation for the Lisp Machine that represented pointers as pairs - Lisp arrays, of course. > I suppose it's even possible to create a C where word addresses == > char addresses; the char being aligned in a word, one char per word, > with the remainder of the word unsued. Only if you never use the rest of the word for any purpose, because copying something by pointer casting to char * or unsigned char * and copying the chars has to copy the entire object. (The Lisp Machine implementation above presumably took advantage of the way that model of Lisp Machine allowed two arrays to overlay one another, sharing storage.) > Do char and int addresses have to share the same space? Yes and no. They have to share the same space in the sense that copying the chars making up an object copies the object. They do not have to share the same space in the sense that the conversion between (say) a pointer-to-int and a pointer-to-char pointing to the first char making up the int may be an arbitrarily complicated operation. (As a quality-of-implementation issue, it's probably better that it not be especially complicated, but that's not a conformance issue.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 31 22:42:34 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:42:34 -0500 (EST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F28B50E.6000406@brutman.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F28B50E.6000406@brutman.com> Message-ID: <201202010442.XAA02010@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > The AS/400 and its current variants are generally EBCDIC systems, and > to make things worse if you are using the native C compiler then > pointers are not the same size as integers. And I believe that both > of those are legal for ANSI C. The latter certainly is; there need not be _any_ integer type that's the same size as a pointer, though on most machines there will be. (Indeed, I _think_ there's no need that there be any integral type large enough to hold a pointer....) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From derschjo at mail.msu.edu Tue Jan 31 22:50:01 2012 From: derschjo at mail.msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:50:01 -0800 Subject: Well, that's depressing. Message-ID: <4F28C479.4000201@mail.msu.edu> eBay item 320840589826. I suppose if anyone's looking for a Symbolics Ivory 2 CPU to play around with (LispM on a chip) here's your chance. Sad to think about all the machines these came out of... - Josh From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 22:55:32 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:55:32 -0500 Subject: off topic? Signetics chips 10K ecl chips available In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Starting to go through some smaller boxes and found a few thousand Signetics > 10100 - 10175 chips. all sorted (pretty much) bulk. and some hard to find. Date > codes are mostly around 1978. I would like to sell in as large a lot > as possible or > maybe variety packs. Not off topic at all - there are a few people here with machines that use 10K ECL. I have buckets of 10K ECL as well - 10K, 10H, some 10E and even some 10G - so I will pass. The only 10K ECL parts I really would like to have spares of are Hitachi 10001s. -- Will From IanK at vulcan.com Tue Jan 31 22:58:10 2012 From: IanK at vulcan.com (Ian King) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 04:58:10 +0000 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: <196EB9FC-0A14-44C1-89A1-1869D72864C2@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On 1/31/12 8:28 PM, "Brent Hilpert" wrote: >On 2012 Jan 31, at 7:14 PM, Ian King wrote: >> >> I have a 561A that makes me happy. :-) I do need to clean its >> switches, >> though. FWIW, I'd love to find a 3A74 plug-in for it. There's enough >> stuff that I do with vintage machines, requiring not screaming hot >> bandwidth but multiple inputs, that the 3A74 would just be far too >> cool >> for words. Just sayin' > >There is a 4-channel plug-in (presumably a 3A74) in one of the 500 >series Tek scopes at the radio museum here. Not sure which 5xx base >it is in. I'd love to be working on it. > >I have this nagging fear one day I will go in to the museum and >somebody will have thrown out the tek scopes. Have you ever heard the phrase "justifiable homicide"? OK, kidding - mostly. - Ian From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jan 31 23:26:03 2012 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:26:03 -0800 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2012 Jan 31, at 8:58 PM, Ian King wrote: > On 1/31/12 8:28 PM, "Brent Hilpert" wrote: > >> On 2012 Jan 31, at 7:14 PM, Ian King wrote: >>> >>> I have a 561A that makes me happy. :-) I do need to clean its >>> switches, >>> though. FWIW, I'd love to find a 3A74 plug-in for it. There's >>> enough >>> stuff that I do with vintage machines, requiring not screaming hot >>> bandwidth but multiple inputs, that the 3A74 would just be far too >>> cool >>> for words. Just sayin' >> >> There is a 4-channel plug-in (presumably a 3A74) in one of the 500 >> series Tek scopes at the radio museum here. Not sure which 5xx base >> it is in. I'd love to be working on it. >> >> I have this nagging fear one day I will go in to the museum and >> somebody will have thrown out the tek scopes. > > Have you ever heard the phrase "justifiable homicide"? OK, kidding - > mostly. - Ian I know the feeling, but [throwing them out] wouldn't be unprecedented. We (the museum - including me) throw out a lot of stuff and there are widely-varying opinions about what to toss and what to keep. We have very limited space (we just got rid of a couple of dozen low-end tube scopes), the teks do take up a lot of space, and I'm one of the few/only there who appreciates them. There have been a few occasions where things have been dumpstered before I had an opportunity to divert them away from the dumpster, e.g. some nixie-tube calcs, a SAGE 68000 system, etc. This site is interesting, it attempts to track some prices: http://www.barrytech.com/tektronix/vintage/tekvintage.html Everything is dirt cheap, EXCEPT the 570. There is one on ebay right now for over 5000$. Coincidentally, the unit came from UBC and is being sold from a location within the region here. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jan 31 23:32:02 2012 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:32:02 -0800 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <201202010437.XAA01952@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com>, <201202010437.XAA01952@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> Message-ID: <4F285DD2.14166.1CD1078@cclist.sydex.com> On 31 Jan 2012 at 23:37, Mouse wrote: > Only if you never use the rest of the word for any purpose, because > copying something by pointer casting to char * or unsigned char * and > copying the chars has to copy the entire object. (The Lisp Machine > implementation above presumably took advantage of the way that model > of Lisp Machine allowed two arrays to overlay one another, sharing > storage.) Sort of. Are there any particular C rules saying that types long, int and char must be integral multiples of one another. For instance, could one have a char of 16 bits, an int of 21 bits and a long of 29 bits? Pointers really are the poison in C and drives automatic optimizers crazy. But then, perhaps C was never intended to be automatically optimized. FORTRAN (IV) had a similar problem with variables in COMMON being passed as arguments (FORTRAN does all argument passing by reference). So you could have a routine simultaneously referring to the same variable as a passed argument and also as a member of COMMON. The standard said "Don't do that", but every once in awhile we'd get a program trouble report filed with exactly that situation being called a deficiency. Was C ever implemented on the Burroughs B5500 and later systems that used descriptor addressing? --Chuck From wdonzelli at gmail.com Tue Jan 31 23:44:07 2012 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:44:07 -0500 Subject: Tek Triple Nickel, Re: OT: HP signature analyzer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Everything is dirt cheap, EXCEPT the 570. Sometimes the scarcer Teks go for decent money - the very early gray cased scopes or the oddball 519 come to mind (but not 570 money). Some of the plugins do OK as well, like the polar plotting one, or the very difficult to find engine analysis one (sorry, I do not remember the numbers of these). But yes, the truth of the matter is that right now, the supply of classic Teks is far, far greater than the demand, and this is likely to be the case for the next 10 years. -- Will From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Jan 31 23:48:50 2012 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:48:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F285DD2.14166.1CD1078@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org>, <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com>, <201202010437.XAA01952@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F285DD2.14166.1CD1078@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <20120131214157.M20629@shell.lmi.net> On Tue, 31 Jan 2012, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Sort of. Are there any particular C rules saying that types long, > int and char must be integral multiples of one another. For > instance, could one have a char of 16 bits, an int of 21 bits and a > long of 29 bits? Absolutely. In K&R C (I don't know from ANSI), it was recommended that an int be whatever type was easiest to deal with. A short int could be the same or smaller. A long int could be the same or larger. It was explicitly stated that the only given was that the sizeof long int could not be SMALLER than the size of int, and the sizeof in could not be smaller than the sizeof short int. int and unsigned int are often the same size, but that was NOT required. From mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG Tue Jan 31 23:50:14 2012 From: mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG (Mouse) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:50:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: <4F285DD2.14166.1CD1078@cclist.sydex.com> References: <20120131162102.GB30381@brevard.conman.org> <4F284296.21998.162AF51@cclist.sydex.com> <201202010437.XAA01952@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> <4F285DD2.14166.1CD1078@cclist.sydex.com> Message-ID: <201202010550.AAA04943@Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG> > Are there any particular C rules saying that types long, int and > char must be integral multiples of one another. (I'm assuming that's a question, despite the non-question punctuation.) Only in that everything must be made up of chars. > For instance, could one have a char of 16 bits, an int of 21 bits and > a long of 29 bits? Sort of. You could have a char of 16 bits, an int of 21 significant and 11 insignificant bits, and a long of 29 significant and 3 insignificant bits. You could not have an int made up of one and five-sixteenths chars; everything must be made up of an integral number of chars. (Well, every object must be. There are a very few things that might be non-objects, though that area is not entirely clear to me.) > Pointers really are the poison in C and drives automatic optimizers > crazy. But then, perhaps C was never intended to be automatically > optimized. Only sort of. C was designed as an OS implementation language. There are places where this means you really really don't want optimization; C has grown things like `volatile' to give coders a way to tell the optimizer to butt out when necessary. (There are other places where you do want optimization, even when writing OSes and certainly when writing lots of other kinds of code. Arguably using C for other things is a misuse of the language, but, misuse or not, that ship sailed a _long_ time ago.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From jonas at otter.se Tue Jan 31 16:10:25 2012 From: jonas at otter.se (Jonas Otter) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:10:25 +0100 Subject: C compilers and non-ASCII systems In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F2866D1.40502@otter.se> At 11:21 AM -0500 1/31/12, Sean Conner wrote: > > So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any > >other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there > >any systems using those encoding schemes*AND* have a C compiler available? > > Not sure what you mean by 6-bit BCD? For current systems which use a 6-bit character code, the Unisys 1100/2200 class systems (ClearPath nowadays) use Fieldata as well as 9-bit ASCII. They have a C compiler. These machines are 36-bit, so to fit ASCII characters in, they extended the characters to 9 bits, fitting 4 "ASCII" characters in a word instead of 6 Fieldata characters. It is possible to use all 9 bits which creates interesting problems when you need to migrate the code to a different architecture. I have come across (ancient but "modernised") applications which mix Fieldata and 9-bit ASCII... Also IIRC there is no reasonable way to handle Fieldata in Unisys C, so you have to treat Fieldata characters as hex or octal values. /Jonas From huw.davies at mail.vsm.com.au Tue Jan 31 21:49:36 2012 From: huw.davies at mail.vsm.com.au (Huw Davies) Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:49:36 +1100 Subject: Visiting Bristol UK In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1FF0A1DC-E051-4917-A19E-51AAB1B3B8B9@kerberos.davies.net.au> On 01/01/2012, at 5:33 PM, Huw Davies wrote: > I'm yet again visiting Bristol UK for most of January 2012. I guess during the week I'll have to attend the training course that work is sending me to, but I wondered if anyone had any classic computer recommendations for the weekend? Assuming the weather is OK, I'm happy to drive a reasonable distance but local stuff is easier. > > I did Bletchley Park last time I was in the UK (November 2010) and I've already promised myself that I'll visit the SS Great Britain and the Newport cable bridge, but wondered if there were other CC related things in the area. If anyone in the area wants to catch up for a beer, I'd happily shout a pint of the local bitter. I arrived back home today and whilst I had an 'interesting' time, things didn't go as planned. As expected the first two weeks were very intensive, more than even I thought - it wasn't uncommon to work 10 hour days. The interesting bit was having my left leg grow an additional 8cm in circumference - mild panic regarding DVT set in leading to a few (very good) interactions with the National Health Service. It turns out I didn't have DVT but had so spend most of my holidays resting. Much beer and food was consumed but no visit to anything computer related. Next time? Thanks to all for their suggestions. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"