From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 08:28:27 2021 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 09:28:27 -0400 Subject: Unidentified IBM Module / Package In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think those are IBM Q-Pacs, mil spec modules for the Informer computers. -- Will On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 1:53 AM Cory Heisterkamp via cctalk wrote: > > Does anyone recognize these IBM modules? My gut says late 50?s based on the transistor packages and font. Perhaps for a contract or military system? Thanks- Cory > > https://www.dropbox.com/s/izitf1lmjqwcbuo/IBM1.jpg?dl=0 > https://www.dropbox.com/s/dq8macaubrechkz/IBM2.jpg?dl=0 From lproven at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 09:02:36 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 16:02:36 +0200 Subject: Ian Hirschsohn - DISSPLA, Superset Inc. and sad news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 31 Jul 2021 at 07:56, Randy Dawson via cctalk wrote: > Well, he is dead I find out, killed last year in Mexico is what the news says, buried in a well with his wife. They went often, many times a year. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2021-01-26/baja-authorities-arrest-suspect-in-slaying-of-san-diego-pair-in-70s-ian-hirschsohn-kathy-harvey That's horrible. :-( -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From lproven at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 09:10:45 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 16:10:45 +0200 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 1 Aug 2021 at 04:21, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote: > > I would argue that this is totally wrong. iOS, Which is a Unix. Derived from Mac OS X, which is an Open Group certified UNIX?. > Android A Linux distro. > and other mobile > systems, QNX as in Blackberry 10? A Unix. Jolla Sailfish? Meego? Tizen? Samsung Bada? Huawei Harmony OS? All Linux. > with decidedly different user experiences and programming interfaces Sure, yes. Still Unices underneath, though. > As we get > better a consumer level containerization and sandboxing, more end users > are seeing chimera's like Android apps running under ChromeOs Linux apps running under Linux: more proof that Linux is Linux, ISTM. > or Windows > apps on macos and Linux. WINE is pretty good these days. I use it for several things. There are basically 2 OS families left for general-purpose computing: Windows NT and UNIX. DOS is dead. Netware is dead. OS/2 is very very nearly dead. BeOS is dead; Haiku is alive and developing but very niche. RISC OS is alive but very niche. AmigaOS is not well at all and even including MorphOS and AROS it's as niche as RISC OS or more so. Symbian is dead. NewtonOS is dead. Classic MacOS is dead. CP/M is surprisingly alive for something so old and rudimentary and seeing some activity, e.g. CPMish, but I don't think anyone would claim it has much of a future. CCP/M is dead although I think Toshiba just about supports 4680 and 4690. VMware was originally based around Linux although the company tried hard to cover that up. Xen is alive and well but it's not a GP OS, I'd say. I'm struggling to think of anything else. There are things but they're even more niche than say Haiku. Redox OS? Genode? HelenOS? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From coryheisterkamp at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 11:12:03 2021 From: coryheisterkamp at gmail.com (Cory Heisterkamp) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 11:12:03 -0500 Subject: Unidentified IBM Module / Package In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <507BEA70-B62C-403C-95BD-C0A1BCDBF543@gmail.com> > On Aug 1, 2021, at 8:28 AM, William Donzelli wrote: > > I think those are IBM Q-Pacs, mil spec modules for the Informer computers. > > -- > Will > > On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 1:53 AM Cory Heisterkamp via cctalk > wrote: >> >> Does anyone recognize these IBM modules? My gut says late 50?s based on the transistor packages and font. Perhaps for a contract or military system? Thanks- Cory >> >> https://www.dropbox.com/s/izitf1lmjqwcbuo/IBM1.jpg?dl=0 >> https://www.dropbox.com/s/dq8macaubrechkz/IBM2.jpg?dl=0 Thanks Will, it looks like you?re right on the money. Page 22 (in the scan) shows one definitively. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/4020/4020_Military_Computer_General_Info_Oct59.pdf From healyzh at avanthar.com Sun Aug 1 11:14:34 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 09:14:34 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> On Aug 1, 2021, at 7:10 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > CP/M is surprisingly alive for something so old and rudimentary and > seeing some activity, e.g. CPMish, but I don't think anyone would > claim it has much of a future. CCP/M is dead although I think Toshiba > just about supports 4680 and 4690. I have to admit, this one surprises me. > I'm struggling to think of anything else. There are things but they're > even more niche than say Haiku. Redox OS? Genode? HelenOS? OpenVMS 9.2 will run on x86, as does the 9.1FT that?s currently out. I believe they?ve even had it running on an Atom-based board. z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. Zane From cclist at sydex.com Sun Aug 1 12:17:32 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 10:17:32 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> On 8/1/21 9:14 AM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > On Aug 1, 2021, at 7:10 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: >> CP/M is surprisingly alive for something so old and rudimentary and >> seeing some activity, e.g. CPMish, but I don't think anyone would >> claim it has much of a future. CCP/M is dead although I think Toshiba >> just about supports 4680 and 4690. > > I have to admit, this one surprises me. > >> I'm struggling to think of anything else. There are things but they're >> even more niche than say Haiku. Redox OS? Genode? HelenOS? > > OpenVMS 9.2 will run on x86, as does the 9.1FT that?s currently out. I believe they?ve even had it running on an Atom-based board. > > z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. > > Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. There are MCU RTOSs, for example, https://www.freertos.org FreeRTOS, than can be found in many IoT devices. Not Linux, Windows, or Android. The lack of interest in the classic/vintage computing segments is a bit surprising, since many of these MCUs far exceed the computing power of many legacy platforms. Silicon is cheap. --Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Aug 1 12:52:52 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 11:52:52 -0600 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 2021-08-01 11:17 a.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > The lack of interest in the classic/vintage computing segments is a bit > surprising, since many of these MCUs far exceed the computing power of > many legacy platforms. > > Silicon is cheap. > Only with good marketing, and lucky designs like the 6502. Look at the Intel APX_432 for good example not so cheap and forgotton Silicon. Ben. From tom at figureeightbrewing.com Sun Aug 1 10:42:53 2021 From: tom at figureeightbrewing.com (Tom Uban) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 10:42:53 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Jim, I have a 9track drive hooked to my old Sun IPX which may be able to read your tape. I am in Valapraiso IN if you are up for a drive. Best, --tom On 7/30/21 1:02 PM, James Liu via cctech wrote: > Hi, > > I have been lurking for a few years, but thought I'd finally speak up > as I just received a 9 track tape purportedly containing the source > code to Schoonschip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoonschip). This > is a 2400' reel recorded at 1600 bpi based on the labels, and a > cursory examination suggests that it is still in pretty good shape > (although I am not sure how it was stored over the years). Here is a > picture of the tape: > > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JgY8QdVDchxubUz39jYn86gEczSvFhcZ/view?usp=sharing > > We no longer have any equipment that can read the tape, so I was > wondering if anyone may be willing to help or if anyone had > suggestions on where to go to get it read. Thanks! > > - jim > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Aug 1 13:32:22 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 11:32:22 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> Message-ID: <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> On 8/1/21 10:52 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2021-08-01 11:17 a.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> The lack of interest in the classic/vintage computing segments is a bit >> surprising, since many of these MCUs far exceed the computing power of >> many legacy platforms. >> >> Silicon is cheap. >> > Only with good marketing, and lucky designs like the 6502. > Look at the Intel APX_432 for good example not so cheap and forgotton > Silicon. Non-sequitur. The 6502 is a simple design that was steeply discounted (grab one out of the fishbowl for $25) early on when other MPUs were still pretty dear. The 432 was a massive multi-chip affair that was also hugely complex. Problems with the performance/dollar, slipping delivery schedules, incompatibility with earlier platforms and general lack of interest in the marketing sector doomed it. By 1982, it was clear that it was a non-starter. I remember that our Intel sales rep (whom I knew from CDC) initially talked it up in the 1970s, but by 1981, flatly admitted that we didn't really want it. Would the 68K have succeeded if it were not for Apple and Commodore? --Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sun Aug 1 13:45:56 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 12:45:56 -0600 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> Message-ID: <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> On 2021-08-01 12:32 p.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Would the 68K have succeeded if it were not for Apple and Commodore? > > --Chuck I suspect if they had the proper virtual memory, it would have been picked up as a Unix cpu, instead. It is the only common non segemented 16 bit cpu I can think in that time frame. Ben. From paulkoning at comcast.net Sun Aug 1 13:51:38 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 14:51:38 -0400 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <152D1FA0-ECCA-496D-8006-B26B53BABD42@comcast.net> > On Aug 1, 2021, at 2:45 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: > > On 2021-08-01 12:32 p.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> Would the 68K have succeeded if it were not for Apple and Commodore? >> --Chuck > I suspect if they had the proper virtual memory, it would have been picked > up as a Unix cpu, instead. It is the only common non segemented 16 bit cpu I can think in that time frame. Apollo built a workstation company around the 68000. That was hairy because that chip doesn't handle page faults right. I think they used two of them, running in lock step one cycle apart so the one behind could be used to save state at a paging exception and allow it to be restored. In the 68010 that design oversight was fixed and page faults became properly restartable. paul From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 14:06:36 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 20:06:36 +0100 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <2d3d01d78708$5a265a30$0e730e90$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of ben via cctalk > Sent: 01 August 2021 19:46 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What > We Have Lost" > > On 2021-08-01 12:32 p.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > > Would the 68K have succeeded if it were not for Apple and Commodore? Atari used it as well. It also saw a lot of use in embedded cards for other systems > > > > --Chuck > I suspect if they had the proper virtual memory, it would have been picked > up as a Unix cpu, instead. It is the only common non segemented 16 bit cpu I > can think in that time frame. > Ben. > > Dave From cclist at sydex.com Sun Aug 1 14:10:26 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 12:10:26 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 8/1/21 11:45 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: > I suspect if they had the proper virtual memory, it would have been picked > up as a Unix cpu, instead. It is the only common non segemented 16 bit > cpu I can think in that time frame. There were ways around that. You could run two, with one slightly lagging the other, such that one would hit a trap condition before the "real one" (was that Daisy?) Or you could limit the instruction set to the restartable ones (Apple). I recall attending a trade show (NCC, WESCON...?) where the Moto reps were handing out literature (but not chips). After a brief reading of the 68K manual, I approached the rep with a question about implementing virtual memory. He looked wearily at me (he'd probably been asked the same question a hundred times before) and quietly said, no, there wasn't enough information saved in a trap to ensure restartability of all instructions. You also have to recall that at the time, virtual memory Unix was very new--I think it was introduced with BSD in 1979 or so. I still have a BSD tape from Ernie (Co VAX) from that time. --Chuck From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Aug 1 14:21:56 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 12:21:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 1 Aug 2021, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Would the 68K have succeeded if it were not for Apple and Commodore? Without your engineering expertise, I would still say, "YES". (I was reading Infoworld, etc., as compared to you designing the machines) Before we heard anything about Apple picking it, and before any sort of announcements of such, the first that I ever heard about the 68000 was, "Hey! check this out! This is gonna be the BEST 16 bit processor. I hope that somebody builds a machine around it SOON. Anybody who wants to design THE BEST machine from scratch, rather than just add kludges on top of kludges would have to use it. 'Course, they'd have to re-write all the software from scratch, and that would make it slow to get market share." The Intel approach of each one being based closely on the previous meant that the 5150 had software VERY fast. For example, Wordstar was up and running in weeks, but then was delayed while the user manual got rewritten. Supercalc was very soon. OTOH, when the Lisa, and then Mac, came out, Apple was smart enough to provide basic software. I heard a story at the time that it was ordained that "the Mac will be shipped with FOUR software packeages", but that the four ended up finally being MacWrite, MacPaint, MacWrite, and MacPaint. Third party software took much longer than it had for the 5150, because it had to be written, not just patched from a previous iteration. 'Course, the 6502 marketing of "First one's free" sort of made it almost inevitable for homebrew bootstrap such as Apple1 and Apple2. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Aug 1 14:24:21 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 12:24:21 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <34695a88-e3cd-cd7e-d6e0-c0e0e2a530a2@sydex.com> <7a658148-2b56-775c-4423-6abbd997f447@sydex.com> <880101c5-05bd-55b3-e81f-106d19b5b11f@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <46e10829-3e61-cf01-d680-9fff51f44dbf@bitsavers.org> On 8/1/21 11:45 AM, brainded ben via cctalk wrote: > I suspect if they had the proper virtual memory, it would have been picked > up as a Unix cpu Pull your head out of your ass. Unisoft had a very profitable business porting Unix to 68000 computers (note, NOT 68010) The Apple Lisa's 68000 ran Unisoft Unix and Xenix. The whole world of Stanford SUN CPU workstation wannabes existed before the Sun port of BSD and the 'brain transplant'. Originally, Sun Microsystems' workstation ran Unisoft with a 68000. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 19:51:28 2021 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 20:51:28 -0400 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: > z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. > > Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. It is amazing how many people - IBMers included - that simply do not realize that Unisys exists, and both MCP and OS2200 are modern, up to date operating systems running on quite a lot of sites in the real world. -- Will From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sun Aug 1 20:02:20 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 21:02:20 -0400 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On 8/1/21 8:51 PM, William Donzelli via cctalk wrote: >> z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. >> >> Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. > > It is amazing how many people - IBMers included - that simply do not > realize that Unisys exists, and both MCP and OS2200 are modern, up to > date operating systems running on quite a lot of sites in the real > world. > > -- > Will > And that like IBM still being able to run S/360 programs Unisys 2200 can still run Univac 1100 programs. bill From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 20:13:44 2021 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 21:13:44 -0400 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: > And that like IBM still being able to run S/360 programs Unisys 2200 > can still run Univac 1100 programs. And that MCP and OS2200 put everyone else to shame in the security arena... Because they thought about it back in the 1960s. -- Will From len at shustek.com Sun Aug 1 21:46:48 2021 From: len at shustek.com (Len Shustek) Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2021 19:46:48 -0700 Subject: Reading MT/ST tapes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20210802024702.B1D664E788@mx2.ezwind.net> >Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2021 18:37:17 -0500 >From: Cory Heisterkamp > This is a bit of a long shot, but is anyone aware of a successful > method to read IBM Selectric MT/ST tapes? > A museum in Australia has a box of them and are interested in the contents. At the Computer History Museum we sometimes use a software technique to recover data from the analog waveforms on mag tapes. https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape I'd like to try that on MT/ST tapes. Does anyone have a couple of MT/ST tape cartridges with data that I can experiment with? From phb.hfx at gmail.com Sun Aug 1 22:07:03 2021 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 00:07:03 -0300 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <0bdf70dd-aaf5-77ad-2ade-991a8b216df1@gmail.com> On 2021-08-01 1:14 p.m., Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > On Aug 1, 2021, at 7:10 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: >> CP/M is surprisingly alive for something so old and rudimentary and >> seeing some activity, e.g. CPMish, but I don't think anyone would >> claim it has much of a future. CCP/M is dead although I think Toshiba >> just about supports 4680 and 4690. > I have to admit, this one surprises me. > >> I'm struggling to think of anything else. There are things but they're >> even more niche than say Haiku. Redox OS? Genode? HelenOS? > OpenVMS 9.2 will run on x86, as does the 9.1FT that?s currently out. I believe they?ve even had it running on an Atom-based board. > > z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. > OS/400 is a direct descendant of the operating system on S/38 one of the actual products that was based on ideas from the "Future Systems" project of the 1970s. It also had some of the ease of use features of the S/36 operating system rolled into it.? Even the hardware of the first AS/400 systems was similar to the S38. Besides the single level store, another major feature was user programs ran on a microcode layer that hid the actual hardware, this allowed for significant changes to the underlying hardware during the lifetime of the systems without impact to customer programs. The hardware of the S/36 was much simpler and completely different it came from a series that started with S/32.? While unspectacular in terms of hardware S/36 was loved for it ease of use and the announcement of its demise was not well received by customers. Paul. From healyzh at avanthar.com Sun Aug 1 22:24:05 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2021 20:24:05 -0700 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <153F5C36-ED54-4656-934B-75F6E3CAE1F3@avanthar.com> > On Aug 1, 2021, at 5:51 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > >> z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously called OS/400. >> >> Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. > > It is amazing how many people - IBMers included - that simply do not > realize that Unisys exists, and both MCP and OS2200 are modern, up to > date operating systems running on quite a lot of sites in the real > world. Actually I should remember that one as well? I supported a Unisys mainframe, after I worked with GCOS-8, though I spent most of my time with HP-UX and SunOS at that time. Zane From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Aug 2 02:58:47 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 08:58:47 +0100 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: <153F5C36-ED54-4656-934B-75F6E3CAE1F3@avanthar.com> References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <4C278F90-1AE4-44C0-879A-A32A8C615350@avanthar.com> <153F5C36-ED54-4656-934B-75F6E3CAE1F3@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <30c801d78774$39bcce70$ad366b50$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Zane Healy via > cctalk > Sent: 02 August 2021 04:24 > To: William Donzelli > Cc: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: Re: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What > We Have Lost" > > > > > On Aug 1, 2021, at 5:51 PM, William Donzelli wrote: > > > >> z/OS runs on IBM Mainframes, there is also ?IBM i?, which was previously > called OS/400. > >> > >> Last I checked, GCOS-8 is still running, but with Itanium end-of-life, I?m > not sure what on. It?s been a niche market for decades. I?d argue that it was > a serious niche when I was using it in the early 90?s. > > > > It is amazing how many people - IBMers included - that simply do not > > realize that Unisys exists, and both MCP and OS2200 are modern, up to > > date operating systems running on quite a lot of sites in the real > > world. > > Actually I should remember that one as well? I supported a Unisys > mainframe, after I worked with GCOS-8, though I spent most of my time with > HP-UX and SunOS at that time. > > Zane > > > Until very recently Fujitsu was still supporting the ICL VMS operating system, as I understand it for use by UK Government departments. I think it?s a pity we don't see the S/38, AS/400, I software more widely available. I am sure that it would run well on modern Intel or even ARM Dave From jimliu at umich.edu Mon Aug 2 10:11:13 2021 From: jimliu at umich.edu (James Liu) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 11:11:13 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape Message-ID: Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made around 1978 at SLAC. For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to IBM S/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as I gathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to an intermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the IBM PL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the PL/I like language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never fully completed for reasons unknown to me. Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's where I'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be updated. But the update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided on m68k assembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably would have been the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he insisted on developing his own toolchain (assembler, linker, etc). This was before my time at Michigan, but basically he ported Schoonschip to just about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, Atari, Amiga, Mac, NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We have a pretty good collection of m68k code (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html), but nothing earlier. Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it exists on the tape. - jim -- James T. Liu, Professor of Physics 3409 Randall Laboratory, 450 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1040 Tel: 734 763-4314 Fax: 734 763-2213 Email: jimliu at umich.edu From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 2 11:19:56 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 12:19:56 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> > On Aug 2, 2021, at 11:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: > > Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from > one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made > around 1978 at SLAC. > > For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's > at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less > insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high > level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid assessment. CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran is not the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language processors, which this sounds like. > ... > Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like > code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC > source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The > CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it > exists on the tape. Just to make sure you're aware of this: if it is CDC source code, you can run that on the DtCyber emulator. That's a full 6000 / 170 series machine emulator which can run almost all CDC 6000 series software and operating systems. Not a 180 (for NOS/VE) system, nor an implementation of the 7600 architecture, but I assume you're not dealing with peripheral processor code anyway. DtCyber is open source; a fork of it has been running the PLATO system for over 10 years now. Copies of NOS are also openly available (by permission of the owners, not bootleg copies). paul From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Aug 2 15:14:11 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 16:14:11 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/2/21 12:19 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > >> On Aug 2, 2021, at 11:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >> >> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from >> one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made >> around 1978 at SLAC. >> >> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. > > Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid assessment. CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran is not the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language processors, which this sounds like. > Some might argue with you about that. PL/M was done in Fortran IV. bill From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 2 15:16:49 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 16:16:49 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: <09564577-724D-4009-8AAA-07CD6F7386F3@comcast.net> > On Aug 2, 2021, at 4:14 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/2/21 12:19 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>> On Aug 2, 2021, at 11:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >>> >>> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from >>> one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made >>> around 1978 at SLAC. >>> >>> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >>> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >>> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >>> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. >> Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid assessment. CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran is not the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language processors, which this sounds like. > > Some might argue with you about that. PL/M was done in Fortran IV. Interesting. So was IBM Fortran H, if I remember right. And I talked to a DEC engineer who built an expression parser in COBOL. Still, these are not the usual case. paul From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Aug 2 15:42:07 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 13:42:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 2 Aug 2021, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > Some might argue with you about that. PL/M was done in Fortran IV. A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language. A REAL programmer can write any program in FORTRAN. (although, it is often the wrong tool for the job, possibly resulting in too much work and poorer performance.) From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Aug 2 15:47:49 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 21:47:49 +0100 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> > > Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid > assessment. CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran is not > the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language > processors, which this sounds like. > > > > Some might argue with you about that. PL/M was done in Fortran IV. > I will argue with that. If you wanted code that was pretty portable you used FORTRAN (or COBOL if you had masochistic tendencies). You were almost certain to be able to find a FORTRAN compiler for most any machine. "We" wrote X.25 networking software in FORTRAN 77 because every machine sold to a UK university had to have FORTRAN 77. Salford University even wrote a FORTRAN 77 compiler!. In the UK University machines had to come with 10 years of hardware and software support. Salford originally had an ICL1900 which ICL actually replaced with a 2900 because it was so old and they ran out of spares but they would not upgrade the software so we/they were stuck with FORTRAN 66 under DME (1900 emulation) As there was no money for upgrades from ICL but there was research money Salford wrote a FORTRAN77 compiler for ICL 1900. It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran 66. When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME... .. later it was ported to MSDOS... More info here https://www.silverfrost.com/53/ftn77_personal_edition.aspx > bill Dave From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Aug 2 17:48:08 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 18:48:08 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/2/21 4:42 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: > On Mon, 2 Aug 2021, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> Some might argue with you about that.? PL/M was done in Fortran IV. > > > A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language. > A REAL programmer can write any program in FORTRAN.? (although, it is > often the wrong tool for the job, possibly resulting in too much work > and poorer performance.) > I don't remember if it was Ryan-McFarland or an early MicroFocus but "back in the day" there was a COBOL compiler written in COBOL. bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Mon Aug 2 17:50:20 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 18:50:20 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 8/2/21 4:47 PM, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk wrote: > >>> Depending on what he was trying to do that may well be a valid >> assessment. CDC Fortran was known to be pretty good, but Fortran is not >> the obvious answer for implementing interpreters or other language >> processors, which this sounds like. >>> >> >> Some might argue with you about that. PL/M was done in Fortran IV. >> > > I will argue with that. If you wanted code that was pretty portable you used FORTRAN (or COBOL if you had masochistic tendencies). > You were almost certain to be able to find a FORTRAN compiler for most any machine. > "We" wrote X.25 networking software in FORTRAN 77 because every machine sold to a UK university had to have FORTRAN 77. > Salford University even wrote a FORTRAN 77 compiler!. In the UK University machines had to come with 10 years of hardware and software support. > Salford originally had an ICL1900 which ICL actually replaced with a 2900 because it was so old and they ran out of spares but they would not upgrade the software so we/they were stuck with FORTRAN 66 under DME (1900 emulation) > As there was no money for upgrades from ICL but there was research money Salford wrote a FORTRAN77 compiler for ICL 1900. > It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran 66. > When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME... > .. later it was ported to MSDOS... More info here > > https://www.silverfrost.com/53/ftn77_personal_edition.aspx > > >> bill > > Dave > Smart Prime sites had that Salford Compiler you were talking about. :-) bill From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Aug 2 18:07:46 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 16:07:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: >>> Some might argue with you about that.? PL/M was done in Fortran IV. >> A REAL programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language. >> A REAL programmer can write any program in FORTRAN.? (although, it is >> often the wrong tool for the job, possibly resulting in too much work and >> poorer performance.) On Mon, 2 Aug 2021, Bill Gunshannon wrote: > I don't remember if it was Ryan-McFarland or an early MicroFocus but > "back in the day" there was a COBOL compiler written in COBOL. Not surprising. One of the rites of passage (not necessarily the only one) in "computer science" education is that every grad student invents a new language, and writes a compiler. The compiler is not considered finished until the current iteration of that compiler was written in that language and compiled by that iteration of the compiler. One of my heresies is that I believe that each language has some things that it does well, and some not so well. Certainly it is usually, and should be, possible with a "general purpose" language, but it would seem that it would make sense to use a language appropriate for the task. IS the specialty of the language WRITING COMPILERS? If not, it would seem that a better compiler for that language would be written in a language best suited for writing compilers (strong string/text handling and parsing, suitable tree structures, pattern matching, and optimization,for example). But, it seems that the specialties of languages and compilers are compromised for the sake of writing a compiler for writing compilers. "The language/compiler that I created is SO versatile that the compiler is written in that language and compiled with that compiler." Good. But does that mean that the language was optimized for THAT, instead of the specialty for which it was intended? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From tony.aiuto at gmail.com Mon Aug 2 19:21:28 2021 From: tony.aiuto at gmail.com (Tony Aiuto) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 20:21:28 -0400 Subject: Branching the thread away from Compaq deskpro boards: "What We Have Lost" In-Reply-To: References: <936b4ddf-6cb4-317c-2d40-0b2988b943a0@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: You are conflating the OS kernel with the developer A On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 10:11 AM Liam Proven via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Sun, 1 Aug 2021 at 04:21, Tony Aiuto via cctalk > wrote: > > > > I would argue that this is totally wrong. iOS, > > Which is a Unix. Derived from Mac OS X, which is an Open Group certified > UNIX?. > > > Android > > A Linux distro. > > > and other mobile > > systems, > > QNX as in Blackberry 10? A Unix. > > Jolla Sailfish? Meego? Tizen? Samsung Bada? Huawei Harmony OS? > > All Linux. > > > with decidedly different user experiences and programming interfaces > > Sure, yes. Still Unices underneath, though. > > > As we get > > better a consumer level containerization and sandboxing, more end users > > are seeing chimera's like Android apps running under ChromeOs > > Linux apps running under Linux: more proof that Linux is Linux, ISTM. > > > or Windows > > apps on macos and Linux. > > WINE is pretty good these days. I use it for several things. > > There are basically 2 OS families left for general-purpose computing: > Windows NT and UNIX. > > DOS is dead. Netware is dead. OS/2 is very very nearly dead. BeOS is > dead; Haiku is alive and developing but very niche. > > RISC OS is alive but very niche. > > AmigaOS is not well at all and even including MorphOS and AROS it's as > niche as RISC OS or more so. > > Symbian is dead. NewtonOS is dead. Classic MacOS is dead. > > CP/M is surprisingly alive for something so old and rudimentary and > seeing some activity, e.g. CPMish, but I don't think anyone would > claim it has much of a future. CCP/M is dead although I think Toshiba > just about supports 4680 and 4690. > > VMware was originally based around Linux although the company tried > hard to cover that up. Xen is alive and well but it's not a GP OS, I'd > say. > > I'm struggling to think of anything else. There are things but they're > even more niche than say Haiku. Redox OS? Genode? HelenOS? > > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com > Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven > UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 > From gavin at learn.bio Mon Aug 2 20:00:05 2021 From: gavin at learn.bio (Gavin Scott) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 20:00:05 -0500 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 2, 2021 at 6:07 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > One of the rites of passage (not necessarily the only one) in "computer > science" education is that every grad student invents a new language, and > writes a compiler. The compiler is not considered finished until the > current iteration of that compiler was written in that language and > compiled by that iteration of the compiler. It's an interesting language classification as to whether the primary / reference implementation of the language is written in itself or not. For example, the primary Python implementation is CPython written primarily in C, and Java is primarily C++ (certainly both have substantial libraries that are written in the language however, and there exist implementations of both that are written in themselves I believe like PyPy for Python). For languages that aren't written in themselves it means that some of the core language developers may primarily be C/C++ programmers which might have some impact on the language's design and/or implementation. Another interesting question is whether the currently shipping version of a language written in itself was compiled using the same version of itself or the previous version. I recall HP compilers generally being built with the previous version (at least the last time I looked which was probably in another century). From cclist at sydex.com Mon Aug 2 20:10:00 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 18:10:00 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <160acaf0-df97-fdda-3fc8-03ac58cac16b@sydex.com> Message-ID: <24a252d8-da88-19c4-f8a8-128e4839a5da@sydex.com> On 8/2/21 5:53 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > He did say "in the 1960s" so it may have been an early one without the high quality optimizations that grew over time. FTN was spawned during the 1960s. Bitsavers has the GIM from 1966: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/cyber/lang/fortran/60176400_FTN_Extd_Inf_Oct66.pdf RUN was sort of a cheap-and-quick compiler. CDC kept around both, as FTN compilation time was considerably longer (for obvious reasons). RUN started out to be the do-everything compiler. You could stack decks of FORTRAN and COMPASS in the same job and RUN would invoke the assembler as needed and invoke the loader load-and-go at the end. The JCL for that was simply "RUN." --Chuck From billdegnan at gmail.com Mon Aug 2 21:22:41 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 22:22:41 -0400 Subject: For Sale: FANUC A860 papertape reader with DOSTEK BTR (adapter) Message-ID: FANUC A860-0056-T020 Papertape Reader and DOSTEK 440A BTR https://www.ebay.com/itm/274883740917 Ebay listing includes my project notes. Hopefully someone here will want it. Bill From stefan.skoglund at agj.net Tue Aug 3 03:33:47 2021 From: stefan.skoglund at agj.net (Stefan Skoglund) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2021 10:33:47 +0200 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1a09889942d11d1c40f7e48cd451336274864fdc.camel@agj.net> m?n 2021-08-02 klockan 20:00 -0500 skrev Gavin Scott via cctalk: > > > Another interesting question is whether the currently shipping > version > of a language written in itself was compiled using the same version > of > itself or the previous version. I recall HP compilers generally being > built with the previous version (at least the last time I looked > which > was probably in another century). GNAT itself was written in Ada from the beginning, though the backend is part of gcc so partly rewritten to support some Ada constructs (which also benefitted C++). >From the beginning I believe they used the Alsys compiler until GNAT was able to compile itself. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Aug 2 19:45:00 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 17:45:00 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <160acaf0-df97-fdda-3fc8-03ac58cac16b@sydex.com> On 8/2/21 8:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: > Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. Happy to contirubte. > For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's > at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less > insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high > level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The > code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but > its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. Which CDC FORTRAN? RUN, maybe--but FTN extended was pretty darned good in optimizing and scheduling instructions. A lot of work went into that one. As a matter of fact, when we COMPASS scriveners came up against a nasty loop that we wanted to optimize for the 6600, one approach was to code it in FORTRAN to see what the compiler would do with it and then work from there. Some of the optimizations were quite startling, particularly with the "UO" option selected. If you've never written and hand-optimized 6600 code, it could be a daunting task. Did you know that parts of FTN are written in FTN? I recall the COMMON/EQUIVALENCE processor written as a mess of assigned GOTO statements (state machine) and being utterly bereft of commentary."Don't touch it--you might break something!" FORTRAN was CDC's bread-and-butter language for years, as it was the universal choice of number-crunchers everywhere during the 60s through 80s. And CDC excelled at number-crunching. My .02 for what it's worth. --Chuck From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 2 19:53:06 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 20:53:06 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <160acaf0-df97-fdda-3fc8-03ac58cac16b@sydex.com> References: <160acaf0-df97-fdda-3fc8-03ac58cac16b@sydex.com> Message-ID: > On Aug 2, 2021, at 8:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctech wrote: > > On 8/2/21 8:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. > > Happy to contirubte. > >> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The >> code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but >> its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. > > Which CDC FORTRAN? RUN, maybe--but FTN extended was pretty darned good > in optimizing and scheduling instructions. A lot of work went into that one. He did say "in the 1960s" so it may have been an early one without the high quality optimizations that grew over time. > As a matter of fact, when we COMPASS scriveners came up against a nasty > loop that we wanted to optimize for the 6600, one approach was to code > it in FORTRAN to see what the compiler would do with it and then work > from there. Some of the optimizations were quite startling, > particularly with the "UO" option selected. > > If you've never written and hand-optimized 6600 code, it could be a > daunting task. So I learned, having to do it on a 6400 -- which is quite a lot easier. But I learned a lot from reading the OS source code, stuff like the analog of memcpy that used both the boolean and shift units for transfer operations so it could do two of them one cycle apart. paul From billdegnan at gmail.com Mon Aug 2 21:19:01 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2021 22:19:01 -0400 Subject: For sale: FANUC Tape Reader and Adapter Message-ID: I put my FANUC tape reader for sale on Ebay, if anyone might be interested: From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Aug 3 08:36:36 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 06:36:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Skew vs. interleave In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jul 2021, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Good question. > You obviously understand the issue, but others might not. So, here is the > background: > This was a great read, Fred. Thanks for taking the time to write it up! 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Aug 3 09:04:02 2021 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 14:04:02 +0000 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <1a09889942d11d1c40f7e48cd451336274864fdc.camel@agj.net> References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> , <1a09889942d11d1c40f7e48cd451336274864fdc.camel@agj.net> Message-ID: Recompiling Forth was always such a trivial process, there was no reason to not recompile itself using itself. It was also a good check of the output. One could compare the output and check any differences to ensure that they were intended. One could run it twice again as a check as well. It wouldn't always ensure that it had no errors but would validate that only the intended changes were there. Some of the early Forths had bugs in some of the math operations. I recall reading about such errors in the groups and recompiling the version I had to fix such errors. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Stefan Skoglund via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, August 3, 2021 1:33 AM To: Gavin Scott ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts ; Fred Cisin Subject: Re: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape m?n 2021-08-02 klockan 20:00 -0500 skrev Gavin Scott via cctalk: > > > Another interesting question is whether the currently shipping > version > of a language written in itself was compiled using the same version > of > itself or the previous version. I recall HP compilers generally being > built with the previous version (at least the last time I looked > which > was probably in another century). GNAT itself was written in Ada from the beginning, though the backend is part of gcc so partly rewritten to support some Ada constructs (which also benefitted C++). >From the beginning I believe they used the Alsys compiler until GNAT was able to compile itself. From lproven at gmail.com Tue Aug 3 09:46:19 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 16:46:19 +0200 Subject: Europe-based restorer of old mechanical keyboards? Message-ID: I am not a collector exactly -- I just salvaged a bunch when they were being sent to recycling. My Model Ms are going strong, no bolt mod needed, but I also have 2 Apple Extended II and an Extended I and both, sadly, need some attention. I am almost devoid of electronics skills. Does anyone know of anywhere in Europe that does this kind of repair/refurb work? I do not want to do intercontinental shipping... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Aug 3 11:46:56 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 10:46:56 -0600 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> On 2021-08-02 5:07 p.m., Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > IS the specialty of the language WRITING COMPILERS?? If not, it would > seem that a better compiler for that language would be written in a > language best suited for writing compilers (strong string/text handling > and parsing, suitable tree structures, pattern matching, and > optimization,for example).? But, it seems that the specialties of > languages and compilers are compromised for the sake of writing a > compiler for writing compilers. How many languages are defined to be simple to parse or compile. Recursive decent parses programs nicely,but does not generate a 'correct' parse tree with inner nodes evaluated 1st. How about being able to bootstrap as important feature. Simple is good too. With object oriented programming, I have no idea just what is done at a low level. > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred???????????? cisin at xenosoft.com Hardware makes software interesting, or is it the other way around? With C being developed on a PDP 11, you had no decimal operations, but IBM had PL/I that did. Every thing was binary floating point since then, until the latest standard of floating point for hardware and software came out. Decimal is BACK Now things are more confusing than ever with operating systems changing CPU's with the latest marketing gimmick. Ben. From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 3 13:44:28 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 11:44:28 -0700 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 8/3/21 9:46 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: > Hardware makes software interesting, or is it the other way around? > With C being developed on a PDP 11, you had no decimal operations, > but IBM had PL/I that did. Every thing was binary floating point > since then, until the latest standard of floating point for > hardware and software came out. Decimal is BACK Now things are more > confusing than ever with operating systems changing CPU's with the > latest marketing gimmick. You don't need decimal hardware to do decimal arithmetic. CDC 6000 COBOL killed IBM S/360 COBOL, even though the latter had hardware decimal features and the former did not--the big CDC iron was never really sold as a COBOL cruncher, even though it did quite well at it. Using numbers in their 6-bit display code representation (33->44 octal), it's a simple matter to perform 10 digit decimal addition and subtraction in just a few instructions. I'll leave it as an exercise to those who are curious (I'll give a hint that octal 25 25 25 25... plays a part). Also note that display "0' = 33 octal and display "9" = 44 octal, so that nines' complement of a display number is the same as the ones' complement, so subtraction follows quite naturally. The CDC 6000 has only one addressing granularity--60 bit word. There's no CPU hardware for handling bytes (6 or 8 bit). Yet character manipulation isn't very difficult at all. The wonders of RISC. Do a few things, but do them quickly. --Chuck From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 3 13:58:49 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 14:58:49 -0400 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <6397525C-F26A-4330-BC38-9C0BA1F1F1EE@comcast.net> > On Aug 3, 2021, at 2:44 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/3/21 9:46 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: > >> Hardware makes software interesting, or is it the other way around? >> With C being developed on a PDP 11, you had no decimal operations, >> but IBM had PL/I that did. Every thing was binary floating point >> since then, until the latest standard of floating point for >> hardware and software came out. Decimal is BACK Now things are more >> confusing than ever with operating systems changing CPU's with the >> latest marketing gimmick. > > You don't need decimal hardware to do decimal arithmetic. CDC 6000 COBOL > killed IBM S/360 COBOL, even though the latter had hardware decimal > features and the former did not--the big CDC iron was never really sold > as a COBOL cruncher, even though it did quite well at it. Similarly, think of all the machines that did floating point arithmetic without benefit of floating point hardware. Or integer division without a divide instruction. > Using numbers in their 6-bit display code representation (33->44 octal), > it's a simple matter to perform 10 digit decimal addition and > subtraction in just a few instructions. I'll leave it as an exercise > to those who are curious (I'll give a hint that octal 25 25 25 25... > plays a part). > > Also note that display "0' = 33 octal and display "9" = 44 octal, so > that nines' complement of a display number is the same as the ones' > complement, so subtraction follows quite naturally. I didn't realize that. Interesting. Probably a coincidence, but one wonders. > The CDC 6000 has only one addressing granularity--60 bit word. There's > no CPU hardware for handling bytes (6 or 8 bit). Yet character > manipulation isn't very difficult at all. Mostly true; some machines had the "compare-move unit" which would do what it says -- move or compare string of 6-bit characters". But nothing fancier. > The wonders of RISC. Do a few things, but do them quickly. One of the classic bits of character magic without character instructions is the famous "wod" library function -- convert a 60 bit integer to its 20 digit octal representation, in two words of 10 6-bit display code characters each (by C. R. Willis, U. of Minnesota). 35 lines of straight code, no loops. paul From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 3 14:28:24 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 12:28:24 -0700 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <6397525C-F26A-4330-BC38-9C0BA1F1F1EE@comcast.net> References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> <6397525C-F26A-4330-BC38-9C0BA1F1F1EE@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0d1b9744-0bfd-2fdc-9506-27d0f0ee0f00@sydex.com> On 8/3/21 11:58 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > Mostly true; some machines had the "compare-move unit" which would do what it says -- move or compare string of 6-bit characters". But nothing fancier. I think the CMU arrived with the CYBER 7x line--I don't recall seeing a 6400 with one. Of course, you couldn't get it on the Cyber 74 or 76. The CMU appropriated the no-op opcode (46xxx), which was likely safe because it always assembled by COMPASS as 46000. Before the CYBER 170, you could devise a test for a CMU by coding a CMU move in the first two parcels of a word, followed by a jump in the lower 30 bits (I'm glossing over details a bit). If the CMU existed, the jump wouldn't be taken. This got bollixed up in the 170 where anything but a 46000 on the non-CMU systems would cause an illegal instruction fault. Broke some code, it did. NOS used it in the CMTR storage move routine, if available. One of my favorite 6000 bits of code was the register save and restore routines (not using CEJ). It was a favorite interview question for those job seekers claiming to be proficient in COMPASS. --Chuck From drb at msu.edu Tue Aug 3 15:31:24 2021 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2021 16:31:24 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 02 Aug 2021 21:47:49 +0100.) <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> References: <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20210803203124.CB3522D0B6C@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was > replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran 66. > When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the > "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME... Wish we could find that Prime compiler. I think there were one or two others, as well. De From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 3 15:41:09 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 13:41:09 -0700 Subject: Compilers and languages (Was: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <7754886f-2327-51d7-8535-6673d653008b@jetnet.ab.ca> <6397525C-F26A-4330-BC38-9C0BA1F1F1EE@comcast.net> <0d1b9744-0bfd-2fdc-9506-27d0f0ee0f00@sydex.com> Message-ID: <1fc6d5d2-c998-9102-3440-d3ef16abded9@sydex.com> On 8/3/21 1:12 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > > >> On Aug 3, 2021, at 3:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> ... >> One of my favorite 6000 bits of code was the register save and restore >> routines (not using CEJ). It was a favorite interview question for >> those job seekers claiming to be proficient in COMPASS. > > ALL the registers, right? I remember seeing that problem description. And later I saw the code, don't remember it but now I know how it is done. Yup, the trick is getting the first 18 bit register saved. Not obvious since normal stores are done through the (A6,X6 and A7,X7) registers. The trick is using RJ instructions to store an indication of each bit of a B-register. After you get one register saved this way, the rest falls out like a stacked deck in Solitaire. --Chuck From jwsmail at jwsss.com Tue Aug 3 12:45:13 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 10:45:13 -0700 Subject: For Sale: FANUC A860 papertape reader with DOSTEK BTR (adapter) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <97dd501b-246d-dbae-0314-e95a40230d0f@jwsss.com> On 8/2/2021 7:22 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > FANUC A860-0056-T020 Papertape Reader and DOSTEK 440A BTR > https://www.ebay.com/itm/274883740917 > > Ebay listing includes my project notes. Hopefully someone here will want > it. > > Bill I see that to ship from you to the Los Angeles area is $112.00, addressing one of your concerns.? Very reasonable shipping for that type and size off device. If I didn't have a pile of Remex reader / punches I might take a run at it. thanks Jim From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Aug 3 15:51:23 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 21:51:23 +0100 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <20210803203124.CB3522D0B6C@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <20210803203124.CB3522D0B6C@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <02cf01d788a9$51f21870$f5d64950$@gmail.com> > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Dennis Boone > via cctalk > Sent: 03 August 2021 21:31 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Help reading a 9 track tape > > > It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was > > replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran > 66. > > When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the > > "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME... > > Wish we could find that Prime compiler. I think there were one or two > others, as well. Well you could ask Silverfrost who now own it. I think a lot of Salford Pr1me software was lost. I wish I could find the X.25 software we wrote... > > De Dave From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Aug 3 15:57:34 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 16:57:34 -0400 Subject: For Sale: FANUC A860 papertape reader with DOSTEK BTR (adapter) In-Reply-To: <97dd501b-246d-dbae-0314-e95a40230d0f@jwsss.com> References: <97dd501b-246d-dbae-0314-e95a40230d0f@jwsss.com> Message-ID: thanks Jim.....you don't want to know what I paid for all of this, plus the time I put into the project, but there is a point where you have to cut bait. Hopefully someone else will want it,. Others selling just the same DostEK adapter price closer to $500, but without it the FANUK is kind of useless if you're trying to build a reader with controls. On Tue, Aug 3, 2021 at 4:49 PM jim stephens via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On 8/2/2021 7:22 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > > FANUC A860-0056-T020 Papertape Reader and DOSTEK 440A BTR > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/274883740917 > > > > Ebay listing includes my project notes. Hopefully someone here will want > > it. > > > > Bill > I see that to ship from you to the Los Angeles area is $112.00, > addressing one of your concerns. Very reasonable shipping for that type > and size off device. > > If I didn't have a pile of Remex reader / punches I might take a run at it. > > thanks > Jim > > From drb at msu.edu Tue Aug 3 15:59:00 2021 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2021 16:59:00 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 03 Aug 2021 21:51:23 +0100.) <02cf01d788a9$51f21870$f5d64950$@gmail.com> References: <02cf01d788a9$51f21870$f5d64950$@gmail.com> <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <20210803203124.CB3522D0B6C@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <20210803205901.3D0062D0C9A@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Well you could ask Silverfrost who now own it. I think a lot of Salford > Pr1me software was lost. Vague memory suggests that someone did, and that they don't have it any more. When I asked Rob Jung, ex-Primate, if he still had the Prime version of his ARJ compressor, he didn't have that either. So many ex-things... There was a 2550 on ebay some years back that came from Salford, and I had hoped that someone would get it running so we could see if anything interesting was on its disks, but it dropped out of sight. > I wish I could find the X.25 software we wrote... That'd be interesting too. At least we have the Prime X.25. De From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Tue Aug 3 18:18:35 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 19:18:35 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <02cf01d788a9$51f21870$f5d64950$@gmail.com> References: <36be01d787df$a993c710$fcbb5530$@gmail.com> <8BFE9ADC-5D1A-468B-A5C2-C8FB2C18F145@comcast.net> <20210803203124.CB3522D0B6C@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <02cf01d788a9$51f21870$f5d64950$@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 8/3/21 4:51 PM, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk wrote: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk On Behalf Of Dennis Boone >> via cctalk >> Sent: 03 August 2021 21:31 >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: Help reading a 9 track tape >> >> > It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was > >> replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran >> 66. >> > When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the >>> "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME... >> >> Wish we could find that Prime compiler. I think there were one or two >> others, as well. > > Well you could ask Silverfrost who now own it. I think a lot of Salford > Pr1me software was lost. > I wish I could find the X.25 software we wrote... > A lot of third-party software that ran on Pr1me has been lost. EDv Editor was nice. Written in Fortran. A really good version of APL. The best and most complete version of The Software Tools Virtual Operating System from GA Tech. And others I can not recall the names of at the moment. When I was doing Pr1mes we had all of it. I even did a port of The UNaXcess BBS system as an interface to USENET. People have talked about porting other old OSes to modern hardware if the sources hadn't been lost. I would love to have a shot at porting Primos to run on x86-64 or even ARM. bill From spectre at floodgap.com Tue Aug 3 20:19:06 2021 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2021 18:19:06 -0700 (PDT) Subject: FTGH for pickup in So Cal v3: Power Macs, DuoDock, Compaq 486, ... Message-ID: <202108040119.1741J6fP7340136@floodgap.com> A number of the prior systems were picked up or other arrangements made, and a couple more pulled from storage to make room. As before, these are FREE TO A GOOD HOME but you have to come PICK UP from various locations in the Riverside-San Bernardino, CA region. Contact me privately if interested. These remaining machines and peripherals will go to the scrapper on August 14 if not otherwise claimed. NOT WORKING: Network General Sniffer (Compaq 486 portable). Should "just work" with a new power supply, but I don't have any time to deal with it anymore and Wireshark has made it generally obsolete for what I used to use it for. NOT WORKING: Macintosh DuoDock, with key. Doesn't feed; this is usually a capacitor problem. A bit yellowed but otherwise physically intact. I use a different dock with my 2300 so I don't really need this either. PARTIALLY WORKING: 500MHz iBook G3 laptop (snow, not colour) M6497 with tray loader optical drive and power supply. Does boot OS X, but needs a new LCD backlight (mini VGA port works and you can see the display in bright light) and battery is of course toast. Otherwise physically intact except that ex-bro-in-law put grotty stickers on it. PARTIALLY WORKING: Sawtooth Power Mac G4 450MHz. No RAM, no video card, no hard disk. Used to be my file server but had issues with one of the PCI slots. Has optical drive and ZIP with matching Apple bezels. Does power on, but obviously without RAM or a video card (AGP) will not pass POST. Add your own USB keyboard and mouse. Various other items: Apple II Super Serial card with DB-25 670-0020-? (uses 6551 ACIA) and Apple IIe 80 column 64K memory expansion 607-0103-K. Can't test them but both look intact. Kurta Penmouse. Serial and PS/2 connectors. Seems to have a power supply jack (9V) but I don't have the power supply and I don't know if it needs it. Can't test it, no drivers, physically intact. Sun model 411 SCSI CD-ROM. Requires caddy. Won't mount discs, might need a recap. UMAX Astra 2100U flatbed USB scanner with power supply. Powers on. Works with classic Mac OS but probably most systems. No driver disc. Pair of Telular SX5 GSM terminals. These were the server room's backup communication system. They work, but no GSM network to connect to anymore. Might be fun if you set one up. Real serial ports! Real GSM modem! Full kits with power supply. Visual UpTime Select T1 CSU/DSU. Has a Cisco V.35 cable connected and jacks for Ethernet, serial, DSX-1 and T1. Powers on, obviously goes right into Red Alarm since there's no network. You telco nerds will love it. Samsung 17" SyncMaster CRT. Works fine, great shape, just too big to keep around anymore. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Never say never again. ----------------------------------------------------- From cube1 at charter.net Wed Aug 4 09:25:16 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2021 09:25:16 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying to read them. Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into ASCII if that is desirable). I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely "bake" it first before trying to read it. Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free to contact me. JRJ On 8/2/2021 10:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: > Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from > one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made > around 1978 at SLAC. > > For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's > at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less > insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high > level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The > code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but > its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. > > In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to IBM > S/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as I > gathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to an > intermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the IBM > PL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the PL/I > like language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never fully > completed for reasons unknown to me. > > Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's where > I'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be updated. But > the update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided on m68k > assembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably would have > been the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he insisted on > developing his own toolchain (assembler, linker, etc). This was > before my time at Michigan, but basically he ported Schoonschip to > just about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, Atari, Amiga, Mac, > NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We have a pretty good > collection of m68k code > (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html), but nothing > earlier. > > Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like > code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC > source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The > CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it > exists on the tape. > > - jim > From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 4 15:11:59 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2021 13:11:59 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> Message-ID: <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> Paul Pierce read some 7-track and 9-track tapes for me about twenty years ago. He was in Portland, OR at the time. His "lab" was on the east side of the Willamette river, so maybe it didn't get burned down. I don't know whether he still has a setup to read tapes. His software would read blocks forward and backward, including the parity frames, and make corrections. Van Snyder On Wed, 2021-08-04 at 09:25 -0500, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 > Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a > couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era > before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying > to read them. > Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape > images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into > ASCII if that is desirable). > I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such > that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be > before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely > "bake" it first before trying to read it. > Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used > on a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). > So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free > to contact me. > JRJ > On 8/2/2021 10:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: > > Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape > > fromone of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was > > probably madearound 1978 at SLAC. > > For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the > > 1960'sat CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or > > lessinsisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or > > other highlevel languages would just get in the way and slow things > > down. Thecode was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the > > 1970's, butits future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC > > hardware. > > In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to > > IBMS/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as > > Igathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to > > anintermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the > > IBMPL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the > > PL/Ilike language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never > > fullycompleted for reasons unknown to me. > > Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's > > whereI'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be > > updated. Butthe update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided > > on m68kassembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably > > would havebeen the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he > > insisted ondeveloping his own toolchain (assembler, linker, > > etc). This wasbefore my time at Michigan, but basically he ported > > Schoonschip tojust about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, > > Atari, Amiga, Mac,NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We > > have a pretty goodcollection of m68k code( > > http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html), but > > nothingearlier. > > Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I > > likecode as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also > > have CDCsource, but that is less obvious until we can see the > > contents. TheCDC source is historically the most relevant, and I > > am hoping itexists on the tape. > > - jim From cclist at sydex.com Wed Aug 4 16:14:48 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2021 14:14:48 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> Whoever does it, I have a few suggestions when it comes to 40+ year old tapes. 1) Bake the thing at 58C for a day or two. It might just prevent you from staring at a tape stuck to the head and a pile of brown dust at the bottom of the drive. (Before you start, make note of the brand and type of tape; some are much worse than others). If you're uncertain, check back here and I'll tell you what I know. 2) If you're determined to use a SCSI drive, initially turn off automatic retries (shoe-shining). With sticky tape, you can do a lot of damage to the tape. Retries can come later when you're confident about the condition of the tape. 3) Should the tape turn out to be sticky, don't try to clean it--it will only foul up the cleaning equipment (I'm assuming a tape cleaning machine here). Coat the tape with cyclomethicone. At least it won't stick to anything and you'll get a chance to do a good read. 4) If you have a choice of read speeds, use the lowest speed to start with. Make sure that you can deal with tape errors. 5) Forget using a streamer--they're just not suited to dealing with fragile tape. If you're not equipped to deal with this, don't attempt it. A tape written 10 years ago, is not the same as one written 40-60 years ago. The 1980s, in particular, were responsible for some truly wretched stock. I thank my lucky stars that cellulose acetate never made it as computer tape base. Curiously, tapes from the 1960s and 70s can be less of a problem than those from the 80s and 90s. My .02 for what it's worth. --Chuck From binarydinosaurs at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 08:07:56 2021 From: binarydinosaurs at gmail.com (Adrian Graham) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 14:07:56 +0100 Subject: XENIX for Tandy 2000 Message-ID: <2EF369BA-8EEB-4C89-AAF4-FB082587B286@gmail.com> Hi folks, Does anyone happen to have any links for XENIX on a Tandy 2000? Cheers, -- Adrian Graham Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 5 07:39:05 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 07:39:05 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <93d8d8f5-31db-a3c1-c732-0cba02d05d05@charter.net> I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). He does not do that very often. He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. He does not actually read "blocks". He reads the tape in an *analog* fashion, and then processes the results with software. That is how he recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would be likely to volunteer. JRJ On 8/4/2021 3:11 PM, Van Snyder wrote: > Paul Pierce > read some > 7-track and 9-track tapes for me about twenty years ago. He was in > Portland, OR at the time. His "lab" was on the east side of the > Willamette river, so maybe it didn't get burned down. > > I don't know whether he still has a setup to read tapes. His software > would read blocks forward and backward, including the parity frames, and > make corrections. > > Van Snyder > > On Wed, 2021-08-04 at 09:25 -0500, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >> James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 >> Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a >> couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era >> before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying to >> read them. >> >> Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape >> images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into >> ASCII if that is desirable). >> >> I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such >> that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be >> before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely "bake" >> it first before trying to read it. >> >> Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on >> a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). >> >> So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free to >> contact me. >> >> JRJ >> >> On 8/2/2021 10:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >>> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from >>> one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made >>> around 1978 at SLAC. >>> >>> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >>> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >>> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >>> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The >>> code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but >>> its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. >>> >>> In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to IBM >>> S/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as I >>> gathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to an >>> intermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the IBM >>> PL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the PL/I >>> like language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never fully >>> completed for reasons unknown to me. >>> >>> Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's where >>> I'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be updated. But >>> the update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided on m68k >>> assembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably would have >>> been the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he insisted on >>> developing his own toolchain (assembler, linker, etc). This was >>> before my time at Michigan, but basically he ported Schoonschip to >>> just about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, Atari, Amiga, Mac, >>> NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We have a pretty good >>> collection of m68k code >>> ( >>> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html >>> >>> ), but nothing >>> earlier. >>> >>> Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like >>> code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC >>> source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The >>> CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it >>> exists on the tape. >>> >>> - jim >>> From dkelvey at hotmail.com Thu Aug 5 07:57:09 2021 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 12:57:09 +0000 Subject: VCF west is happening this weekend Message-ID: It will be at the CHM. The museum is still closed but VCF will be happening. To be consistent with current Santa Clara covid conditions, bring your mask. see: https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ I hope to see you all there. Dwight Vintage Computer Festival West 2021 ? Vintage Computer Federation - VCF Updated 2021-05-23. VCF West is for everyone! Computer geeks, families/children, students, collectors, IT professionals, curious onlookers? VCF West 2021 vcfed.org From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 5 08:14:58 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 09:14:58 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <93d8d8f5-31db-a3c1-c732-0cba02d05d05@charter.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <93d8d8f5-31db-a3c1-c732-0cba02d05d05@charter.net> Message-ID: <4AD05376-92CD-42D2-9979-0165E80F731D@comcast.net> Perhaps the work could be split up: reading the track waveforms is the one step that requires special hardware (and the skill to handle the tape with minimal damage). Given a collection of recovered waveforms, the data recovery can then be done by anyone. paul > On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > > I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). He does not do that very often. He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. > > He does not actually read "blocks". He reads the tape in an *analog* fashion, and then processes the results with software. That is how he recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. > > To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would be likely to volunteer. > > JRJ > > On 8/4/2021 3:11 PM, Van Snyder wrote: >> Paul Pierce > read some 7-track and 9-track tapes for me about twenty years ago. He was in Portland, OR at the time. His "lab" was on the east side of the Willamette river, so maybe it didn't get burned down. >> I don't know whether he still has a setup to read tapes. His software would read blocks forward and backward, including the parity frames, and make corrections. >> Van Snyder >> On Wed, 2021-08-04 at 09:25 -0500, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >>> James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 >>> Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a >>> couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era >>> before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying to >>> read them. >>> >>> Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape >>> images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into >>> ASCII if that is desirable). >>> >>> I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such >>> that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be >>> before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely "bake" >>> it first before trying to read it. >>> >>> Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on >>> a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). >>> >>> So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free to >>> contact me. >>> >>> JRJ >>> >>> On 8/2/2021 10:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >>>> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from >>>> one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made >>>> around 1978 at SLAC. >>>> >>>> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >>>> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >>>> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >>>> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The >>>> code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but >>>> its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. >>>> >>>> In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to IBM >>>> S/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as I >>>> gathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to an >>>> intermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the IBM >>>> PL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the PL/I >>>> like language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never fully >>>> completed for reasons unknown to me. >>>> >>>> Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's where >>>> I'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be updated. But >>>> the update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided on m68k >>>> assembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably would have >>>> been the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he insisted on >>>> developing his own toolchain (assembler, linker, etc). This was >>>> before my time at Michigan, but basically he ported Schoonschip to >>>> just about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, Atari, Amiga, Mac, >>>> NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We have a pretty good >>>> collection of m68k code >>>> ( >>>> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html >>>> >>>> ), but nothing >>>> earlier. >>>> >>>> Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like >>>> code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC >>>> source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The >>>> CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it >>>> exists on the tape. >>>> >>>> - jim >>>> From jimliu at umich.edu Thu Aug 5 09:28:53 2021 From: jimliu at umich.edu (James Liu) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 10:28:53 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 10:25 AM Jay Jaeger wrote: > > James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 > Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a > couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era > before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying to > read them. > > Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape > images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into > ASCII if that is desirable). > > I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such > that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be > before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely "bake" > it first before trying to read it. Thanks, Jay (and others) for offering your assistance. I've asked Chuck to have a look at the tape, and we'll see how it goes. > Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on > a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). I can't say I know much about IBM systems, but apparently Strubbe, who was doing the port and who I got the tape from, was no fan of IEBUPDTE. I wonder if IEBUPDTX was his attempt at an improvement. As for CDC Schoonschip, old reports indicate that it consisted of about 25k lines of COMPASS code along with 1k lines of FORTRAN for handling I/O. At the time (1960's), Tini may have been right about making the most of the hardware, especially memory limitations, by coding in assembly. For example, I think Schoonschip packed a lot of data into bitfields which FORTRAN may not be so adept at handling. However I think he hung on to this sort of "high level languages cripple the computer" mentality for too long. Then again, he was quite the character. Stephen Wolfram has some interesting musings on Schoonschip at https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/01/tini-veltman-1931-2021-from-assembly-language-to-a-nobel-prize/ > So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free to > contact me. > > JRJ > - jim -- James T. Liu, Professor of Physics 3409 Randall Laboratory, 450 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1040 Tel: 734 763-4314 Fax: 734 763-2213 Email: jimliu at umich.edu From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 5 10:23:45 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 10:23:45 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> Message-ID: <3e30a5df-d3db-d0e9-d536-e7c4e0ee5922@charter.net> Some thoughts On 8/4/2021 4:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctech wrote: > Whoever does it, I have a few suggestions when it comes to 40+ year old > tapes. > > 1) Bake the thing at 58C for a day or two. It might just prevent you > from staring at a tape stuck to the head and a pile of brown dust at the > bottom of the drive. (Before you start, make note of the brand and type > of tape; some are much worse than others). If you're uncertain, check > back here and I'll tell you what I know. > I have found that generally baking more than 12 hours has not made much additional difference. I have been baking mine at 120F/50C. > 2) If you're determined to use a SCSI drive, initially turn off > automatic retries (shoe-shining). With sticky tape, you can do a lot > of damage to the tape. Retries can come later when you're confident > about the condition of the tape. > Good idea. Also, if one notices it is sticking or squealing, STOP and evaluate the situation before letting it go further. > 3) Should the tape turn out to be sticky, don't try to clean it--it > will only foul up the cleaning equipment (I'm assuming a tape cleaning > machine here). Coat the tape with cyclomethicone. At least it won't > stick to anything and you'll get a chance to do a good read. > Folks are also doing that with floppies, though so few of my floppies have stuck (and those that did didn't have anything that wasn't already archived earlier file by file rather than image) that I haven't had to resort to that. > 4) If you have a choice of read speeds, use the lowest speed to start > with. Make sure that you can deal with tape errors. > > 5) Forget using a streamer--they're just not suited to dealing with > fragile tape. My HP 88780B is a streamer, but also has a feed side tension arm. I generally read good tapes end to end without any stopping. I have had no problems with breaking or stretching tape - in the rare case where a tape did stick badly to a head even after baking (1980's era tape or two - they were just awful), the drive stopped immediately when it "overfed" from the feed side which stopped the drive, just as a "standard" drive (two tension arms or vacuum columns) would. > > If you're not equipped to deal with this, don't attempt it. A tape > written 10 years ago, is not the same as one written 40-60 years ago. > The 1980s, in particular, were responsible for some truly wretched > stock. I thank my lucky stars that cellulose acetate never made it as > computer tape base. Curiously, tapes from the 1960s and 70s can be less > of a problem than those from the 80s and 90s. > That timeframe has been my experience as well (but I'd add that the early to mid 1970's tapes have generally been no problem at all), generally, but I don't think that is curious at all. It was a result of the coatings used during those latter eras by some manufacturers. Before that, those coatings were not used. Somewhere I kept a record of which brands and series I found to be problematic, but I seem to have lost track of it. > My .02 for what it's worth. > --Chuck > > Also, before starting (after baking and cool-down) I unspool maybe 25 feet of tape onto a clean surface to make sure it isn't sticking. If it does, I let it sit for a few hours, and then bake it again. Have not had to bake for additional time very often, and in those cases, it ended up not helping as much as one might like. JRJ From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 5 10:25:42 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 10:25:42 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <4AD05376-92CD-42D2-9979-0165E80F731D@comcast.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <93d8d8f5-31db-a3c1-c732-0cba02d05d05@charter.net> <4AD05376-92CD-42D2-9979-0165E80F731D@comcast.net> Message-ID: <42ebeb2a-3342-0b7b-18bf-1d8e6b6d23c4@charter.net> Yeah, well, the first part is the hard part - setting it all up and making recording. The second part is more or less trivial, once the software was done. One of the 1410 tapes had a persistent parity error - that one I was able to figure out from knowledge of the machine, instruction set, etc. JRJ On 8/5/2021 8:14 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > Perhaps the work could be split up: reading the track waveforms is the one step that requires special hardware (and the skill to handle the tape with minimal damage). Given a collection of recovered waveforms, the data recovery can then be done by anyone. > > paul > >> On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >> >> I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). He does not do that very often. He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. >> >> He does not actually read "blocks". He reads the tape in an *analog* fashion, and then processes the results with software. That is how he recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. >> >> To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would be likely to volunteer. >> >> JRJ >> >> On 8/4/2021 3:11 PM, Van Snyder wrote: >>> Paul Pierce > read some 7-track and 9-track tapes for me about twenty years ago. He was in Portland, OR at the time. His "lab" was on the east side of the Willamette river, so maybe it didn't get burned down. >>> I don't know whether he still has a setup to read tapes. His software would read blocks forward and backward, including the parity frames, and make corrections. >>> Van Snyder >>> On Wed, 2021-08-04 at 09:25 -0500, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >>>> James, I am located in Madison WI. I would need to fire up my SCSI 9 >>>> Track drive (software on Linux) and test it as I have not used in a >>>> couple of years, but I have done recovery of old tapes from this era >>>> before, and have a primitive setup for "baking" tapes before trying to >>>> read them. >>>> >>>> Assuming my HP 9 track is still happy, I can produce AWS format tape >>>> images, raw block files and extract individual files (translated into >>>> ASCII if that is desirable). >>>> >>>> I don't remember exactly the time period when tape coatings were such >>>> that reading them without "baking" them is very risky - this might be >>>> before that era - Al Kossow would probably know - so I'd likely "bake" >>>> it first before trying to read it. >>>> >>>> Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on >>>> a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). >>>> >>>> So, if you haven't found somebody to read this thing yet, feel free to >>>> contact me. >>>> >>>> JRJ >>>> >>>> On 8/2/2021 10:11 AM, James Liu via cctech wrote: >>>>> Thanks for feedback and offers to assist. I received the tape from >>>>> one of the maintainers of Schoonship at CERN, and it was probably made >>>>> around 1978 at SLAC. >>>>> >>>>> For some background, Tini Veltman developed Schoonship in the 1960's >>>>> at CERN on the CDC 6600. My understanding is that he more or less >>>>> insisted on coding in assembly since he thought FORTRAN or other high >>>>> level languages would just get in the way and slow things down. The >>>>> code was maintained by Veltman and Strubbe well into the 1970's, but >>>>> its future was held back by being so closely tied to CDC hardware. >>>>> >>>>> In the mid 1970's, Strubbe began a conversion of Schoonschip to IBM >>>>> S/360 and S/370. It was sort of a curious technique, as far as I >>>>> gathered. The idea was to first translate CDC COMPASS source to an >>>>> intermediate PL/I like language. But then, instead of using the IBM >>>>> PL/I compiler, a bunch of macros were developed to implement the PL/I >>>>> like language in IBM assembly. This conversion was never fully >>>>> completed for reasons unknown to me. >>>>> >>>>> Later on, when Tini joined the University of Michigan (that's where >>>>> I'm located), he realized that Schoonschip needed to be updated. But >>>>> the update was ... instead of CDC assembly he decided on m68k >>>>> assembly. (At this time, in the early 1980's, C probably would have >>>>> been the natural language of choice.) Moreover, he insisted on >>>>> developing his own toolchain (assembler, linker, etc). This was >>>>> before my time at Michigan, but basically he ported Schoonschip to >>>>> just about all the m68k machines of that era (Sun, Atari, Amiga, Mac, >>>>> NeXT, and others I am not familiar with). We have a pretty good >>>>> collection of m68k code >>>>> ( >>>>> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~williams/Vsys/index.html >>>>> >>>>> ), but nothing >>>>> earlier. >>>>> >>>>> Getting back to the tape, I'm pretty sure it has Strubbe's PL/I like >>>>> code as it is an archive of the PL/I conversion. It may also have CDC >>>>> source, but that is less obvious until we can see the contents. The >>>>> CDC source is historically the most relevant, and I am hoping it >>>>> exists on the tape. >>>>> >>>>> - jim >>>>> > From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 5 10:27:48 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 10:27:48 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> Message-ID: <32b28a1c-d759-c62d-9659-6d1ccda4e114@charter.net> On 8/5/2021 9:28 AM, James Liu wrote: > On Wed, Aug 4, 2021 at 10:25 AM Jay Jaeger wrote: >> > > Thanks, Jay (and others) for offering your assistance. I've asked > Chuck to have a look at the tape, and we'll see how it goes. > Great! >> Given the name "IEBUPDTX" this tape was certainly intended to be used on >> a 360 or 370, as you described below (IBM has a utility IEBUPDTE). > > I can't say I know much about IBM systems, but apparently Strubbe, who > was doing the port and who I got the tape from, was no fan of > IEBUPDTE. I wonder if IEBUPDTX was his attempt at an improvement. > Sounds likely. > > - jim > JRJ From dillera at dillernet.com Thu Aug 5 10:46:22 2021 From: dillera at dillernet.com (Andrew Diller) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 11:46:22 -0400 Subject: Shows in next few months In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> Just a run-down as there is a lot happening in the next few months: https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ West is THIS WEEKEND August 7th and 8th Mountain View, CA. https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ August 20-22 Atlanta, GA http://vcfmw.org/ September 11-12 Elmhurst, IL https://www.kennettclassic.com/2nd-annual-kennett-classic-announced/ September 25 Kennett Square, PA https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ October 8-10 Wall, NJ From billdegnan at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 11:50:55 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 12:50:55 -0400 Subject: Shows in next few months In-Reply-To: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> References: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> Message-ID: Thanks for the announcement! We have the venue and the plans are nearly completed. I will be sending a flyer with details asap. bill On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 11:46 AM Andrew Diller via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Just a run-down as there is a lot happening in the next few months: > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ > West is THIS WEEKEND August 7th and 8th > Mountain View, CA. > > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ > August 20-22 > Atlanta, GA > > http://vcfmw.org/ > September 11-12 > Elmhurst, IL > > https://www.kennettclassic.com/2nd-annual-kennett-classic-announced/ > September 25 > Kennett Square, PA > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ > October 8-10 > Wall, NJ > > > From dillera at dillernet.com Thu Aug 5 12:07:41 2021 From: dillera at dillernet.com (Andrew Diller) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 13:07:41 -0400 Subject: Shows in next few months In-Reply-To: References: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> Message-ID: I am excited to see this as I missed the first one. My 25th is clear and I will be there. -andy > On Aug 5, 2021, at 12:50 PM, Bill Degnan wrote: > > Thanks for the announcement! We have the venue and the plans are nearly completed. I will be sending a flyer with details asap. > bill > > On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 11:46 AM Andrew Diller via cctalk > wrote: > Just a run-down as there is a lot happening in the next few months: > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ > West is THIS WEEKEND August 7th and 8th > Mountain View, CA. > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ > August 20-22 > Atlanta, GA > > http://vcfmw.org/ > September 11-12 > Elmhurst, IL > > https://www.kennettclassic.com/2nd-annual-kennett-classic-announced/ > September 25 > Kennett Square, PA > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ > October 8-10 > Wall, NJ > > From cclist at sydex.com Thu Aug 5 11:21:25 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 09:21:25 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <3e30a5df-d3db-d0e9-d536-e7c4e0ee5922@charter.net> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> <3e30a5df-d3db-d0e9-d536-e7c4e0ee5922@charter.net> Message-ID: <1538356b-4ea8-0a8f-b090-dd611eab1fde@sydex.com> On 8/5/21 8:23 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > > Also, before starting (after baking and cool-down) I unspool maybe 25 > feet of tape onto a clean surface to make sure it isn't sticking.? If it > does, I let it sit for a few hours, and then bake it again.? Have not > had to bake for additional time very often, and in those cases, it ended > up not helping as much as one might like. ...and think twice before you attempt recovering data from 80's Wabash tape (or floppies). Pure agony. --Chuck From elson at pico-systems.com Thu Aug 5 13:20:18 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 13:20:18 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> Message-ID: <67b7c47d-6992-a299-311c-645e1edf11e4@pico-systems.com> On 8/4/21 4:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > 5) Forget using a streamer--they're just not suited to dealing with > fragile tape. I may differ on this one.? CDC Keystone (92181 and 92185) drives are really gentle on tape. They have air bearing "hubs" that the tape wraps over, and nothing but the tape head and cleaner blades touch the oxide side of the tape.? But, they can still suffer from tape sticking to the heads. I agree that some other streamers like Digi-Data were pretty horrible contraptions. Jon From cclist at sydex.com Thu Aug 5 13:55:17 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 11:55:17 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <67b7c47d-6992-a299-311c-645e1edf11e4@pico-systems.com> References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> <67b7c47d-6992-a299-311c-645e1edf11e4@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: On 8/5/21 11:20 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > They have air bearing "hubs" that the tape wraps over, and nothing but > the tape head and cleaner blades touch the oxide side of the tape.? But, > they can still suffer from tape sticking to the heads. ...which is where the tape ends up sticking, no matter the drive. --Chuck From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 5 14:04:16 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 15:04:16 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> <67b7c47d-6992-a299-311c-645e1edf11e4@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: > On Aug 5, 2021, at 2:55 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/5/21 11:20 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: >> They have air bearing "hubs" that the tape wraps over, and nothing but >> the tape head and cleaner blades touch the oxide side of the tape. But, >> they can still suffer from tape sticking to the heads. > > ...which is where the tape ends up sticking, no matter the drive. > > --Chuck Does anything other than (real) DECtape arrange for an air cushion between tape and head? Would it be possible to tweak a tape drive -- streaming or otherwise -- to do that? paul From cclist at sydex.com Thu Aug 5 14:20:21 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 12:20:21 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <56773198-f0f9-6568-d06b-3d1adbdf9e5b@charter.net> <853764d83ea35799b1610cb025114c34a791fdae.camel@sbcglobal.net> <1a12ce24-bdee-b134-93fd-754a2e6690a3@sydex.com> <67b7c47d-6992-a299-311c-645e1edf11e4@pico-systems.com> Message-ID: On 8/5/21 12:04 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > Does anything other than (real) DECtape arrange for an air cushion between tape and head? Would it be possible to tweak a tape drive -- streaming or otherwise -- to do that? Dunno--probably not at 6250 GCR, htough. From silent700 at gmail.com Thu Aug 5 14:39:27 2021 From: silent700 at gmail.com (Jason T) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 14:39:27 -0500 Subject: Shows in next few months In-Reply-To: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> References: <2852BAA9-F7A5-4FDB-9F54-516F723486EF@dillernet.com> Message-ID: Thank you for mentioning VCF Midwest! Here's another local show. Despite the narrow niche, it keeps growing every year: The 29th Annual ?Last? Chicago CoCoFEST https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest November 6-7 Elk Grove Village, IL -j On Thu, Aug 5, 2021 at 10:46 AM Andrew Diller via cctalk wrote: > > Just a run-down as there is a lot happening in the next few months: > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ > West is THIS WEEKEND August 7th and 8th > Mountain View, CA. > > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/ > August 20-22 > Atlanta, GA > > http://vcfmw.org/ > September 11-12 > Elmhurst, IL > > https://www.kennettclassic.com/2nd-annual-kennett-classic-announced/ > September 25 > Kennett Square, PA > > https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/ > October 8-10 > Wall, NJ > > -- vcfmw.org / chiclassiccomp.org / nocarrier.net From len at shustek.com Thu Aug 5 14:57:47 2021 From: len at shustek.com (Len Shustek) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2021 12:57:47 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape Message-ID: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> > On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). He does not do that very often. He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. > > He does not actually read "blocks". He reads the tape in an *analog* fashion, and then processes the results with software. That is how he recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. > > To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would be likely to volunteer. Some years ago, inspired by Paul Pierce's earlier program in Java, I wrote similar software in C to decode the analog waveforms from tapes in a variety of formats: 7-track NRZI, 9-track NRZI, PE, and 6250 BPI GCR, and 6-track NRZI for Whirlwind. https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape As a one-time physics major, I *am* interested in the Schoonschip content. I've offered to James Liu to give it a go if he can't get someone like Chuck to read it in a more straightforward fashion. From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 5 15:12:02 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 16:12:02 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <1480AACB-2F70-42CF-B617-F702931E9F6C@comcast.net> > On Aug 5, 2021, at 3:57 PM, Len Shustek via cctalk wrote: > > > On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > > I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). He does not do that very often. He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. > > > > He does not actually read "blocks". He reads the tape in an *analog* fashion, and then processes the results with software. That is how he recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. > > > > To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would be likely to volunteer. > > Some years ago, inspired by Paul Pierce's earlier program in Java, I wrote similar software in C to decode the analog waveforms from tapes in a variety of formats: 7-track NRZI, 9-track NRZI, PE, and 6250 BPI GCR, and 6-track NRZI for Whirlwind. > https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape I remember reading that -- nice piece of work indeed. Around the same time I also saw a project along the same lines in Poland, which recovered an interesting body of software for various early Polish machines. One of these days we hope to read some 10-track 1/2 inch tapes from an Electrologica X1, a very odd format that could be described as "DECtape with variable length blocks". paul From classiccmp at crash.com Thu Aug 5 17:30:04 2021 From: classiccmp at crash.com (Steven M Jones) Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2021 15:30:04 -0700 Subject: VCF west is happening this weekend In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/5/21 5:57 AM, dwight via cctalk wrote: > It will be at the CHM. The museum is still closed but VCF will be happening. To be consistent with current Santa Clara covid conditions, bring your mask. > see: https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ > I hope to see you all there. Bought my two day ticket a few weeks ago. Digging up some goodies for the consignment room now - Tek 454 & Dumont scopes, an Altos 5, an HP Z80 emulator, who knows what else will find it's way into the car... Plan to get there tomorrow circa 5PM to unload, unless that option's been revoked. --S. From cube1 at charter.net Fri Aug 6 11:45:55 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 11:45:55 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On 8/5/2021 2:57 PM, Len Shustek via cctalk wrote: > > On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech > wrote: > > I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI).? He does not do > that very often.? He did not indicate any issue with a fire at the > building that contains his collection when I last spoke with him. > > > > He does not actually read "blocks".? He reads the tape in an *analog* > fashion, and then processes the results with software.? That is how he > recovered the IBM 1410 system tapes and diagnostics, for example. > > > > To be honest, I doubt that this content would be such that he would > be likely to volunteer. > > Some years ago, inspired by Paul Pierce's earlier program in Java, I > wrote similar software in C to decode the analog waveforms from tapes in > a variety of formats: 7-track NRZI, 9-track NRZI, PE, and 6250 BPI GCR, > and 6-track NRZI for Whirlwind. > https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape Cool! For completeness, here is a link to Paul's 7 track recovery software info (which is what I believe you are referring to - there is also an older version.) http://piercefuller.com/collect/a7tv.html > > As a one-time physics major, I *am* interested in the Schoonschip > content. I've offered to James Liu to give it a go if he can't get > someone like Chuck to read it in a more straightforward fashion. > There is also this one for 9 track drives: https://github.com/jakubfi/ninetracklab (There is an article out on the 'net that points to this project, referencing use of a logic analyzer to capture the data, but today I am having trouble finding it with my searching spells.) JRJ From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 6 12:01:46 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 10:01:46 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <198ddf6c-ac3b-cd54-5212-4d75f654f9f8@bitsavers.org> On 8/6/21 9:45 AM, Len via cctalk wrote: >> Some years ago, inspired by Paul Pierce's earlier program in Java, I wrote similar software in C to decode the analog waveforms from tapes >> in a variety of formats: 7-track NRZI, 9-track NRZI, PE, and 6250 BPI GCR, and 6-track NRZI for Whirlwind. >> https://github.com/LenShustek/readtape > The advantage of digitizing the output of the head preamp with a https://usd.saleae.com/products/saleae-logic-pro-16 is you can do software AGC and sometimes do eyeball recovery of dropouts. Disadvantage is for a long tape you need >128gb of RAM as a capture buffer, and even with lossless compression the captured data files are quite large. The Saleae is also pretty expensive, but work really well. From jfoust at threedee.com Fri Aug 6 12:21:15 2021 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Fri, 06 Aug 2021 12:21:15 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> At 11:45 AM 8/6/2021, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >On 8/5/2021 2:57 PM, Len Shustek via cctalk wrote: >> > On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >> > I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). Where did Paul work at UW-Madison? I don't recall him. I was on campus from 1981 to 1985. >There is also this one for 9 track drives: >https://github.com/jakubfi/ninetracklab Has anyone ever developed a method of reading a magnetic tape with some sort of array of new sensors capable of the pre-1908s densities and tracks? A fine array of Hall effect sensors? At 6250 BPI the bits are pretty tiny, aren't they? - John From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 6 12:27:25 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 13:27:25 -0400 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <1C7CA9CA-B84C-47BA-A56B-1A8B2BA1E543@comcast.net> > On Aug 6, 2021, at 1:21 PM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > > At 11:45 AM 8/6/2021, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/5/2021 2:57 PM, Len Shustek via cctalk wrote: >>>> On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >>>> I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). > > Where did Paul work at UW-Madison? I don't recall him. I was on campus > from 1981 to 1985. > >> There is also this one for 9 track drives: >> https://github.com/jakubfi/ninetracklab > > Has anyone ever developed a method of reading a magnetic tape > with some sort of array of new sensors capable of the pre-1908s > densities and tracks? A fine array of Hall effect sensors? > At 6250 BPI the bits are pretty tiny, aren't they? That was done by a number of people using MR (magneto-resistive) heads. John Bordynuik was one of them, years ago; some others have done likewise. Those heads were built by IBM for high density tape cartridges; 6250 is low density for them. They have some nice properties, from what I understand, one of them is that the output signal levels don't depend on the tape speed as regular inductive heads do. So for old tape recovery you can readily run at very low speeds if needed to protect fragile media. paul From cclist at sydex.com Fri Aug 6 13:37:02 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 11:37:02 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <1C7CA9CA-B84C-47BA-A56B-1A8B2BA1E543@comcast.net> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> <1C7CA9CA-B84C-47BA-A56B-1A8B2BA1E543@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7b1d1616-91f0-9855-8862-5ccdb7bacbbe@sydex.com> On 8/6/21 10:27 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > That was done by a number of people using MR (magneto-resistive) heads. John Bordynuik was one of them, years ago; some others have done likewise. Those heads were built by IBM for high density tape cartridges; 6250 is low density for them. They have some nice properties, from what I understand, one of them is that the output signal levels don't depend on the tape speed as regular inductive heads do. So for old tape recovery you can readily run at very low speeds if needed to protect fragile media. IBM 3490 - 36 track. The 3590 and later get silly numbers of tracks on half-inch tapes. Don't know if the 18-track 3480 was MR, however. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Aug 6 13:43:12 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2021 11:43:12 -0700 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <7b1d1616-91f0-9855-8862-5ccdb7bacbbe@sydex.com> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> <1C7CA9CA-B84C-47BA-A56B-1A8B2BA1E543@comcast.net> <7b1d1616-91f0-9855-8862-5ccdb7bacbbe@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 8/6/21 11:37 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > IBM 3490 - 36 track. The 3590 and later get silly numbers of tracks on > half-inch tapes. Don't know if the 18-track 3480 was MR, however. > According to this report: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-8243628c307c697d4f7e3ab72875e8cd/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-8243628c307c697d4f7e3ab72875e8cd.pdf the 3480 18-track head is indeed MR read, thin-film write. --Chuck From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 7 08:18:37 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 08:18:37 -0500 Subject: Help reading a 9 track tape In-Reply-To: <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210805195906.E8CD44E768@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210806172136.DD6E9273E7@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <54fd404d-563b-7425-5516-71adae993774@charter.net> On 8/6/2021 12:21 PM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > At 11:45 AM 8/6/2021, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/5/2021 2:57 PM, Len Shustek via cctalk wrote: >>>> On Aug 5, 2021, at 8:39 AM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >>>> I know Paul well (we were contemporaries at U. WI). > > Where did Paul work at UW-Madison? I don't recall him. I was on campus > from 1981 to 1985. > He was a student here in Madison before that timeframe, as was I. > > - John > JRJ From invi at vivaldi.net Sat Aug 7 09:31:02 2021 From: invi at vivaldi.net (invi at vivaldi.net) Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:31:02 +0000 Subject: VT101 free to good home, pick up in w. Oregon Message-ID: It was sitting in the trash. No keyboard, no power cord. Case was open and some of the bundles of wires inside are disconnected, so I doubt it's in working condition. I'm not much of a hardware collector, so I was hoping to put it in the hands of someone who would like it. From stueberahoo at yahoo.de Sat Aug 7 13:18:18 2021 From: stueberahoo at yahoo.de (Anke =?utf-8?Q?St=C3=BCber?=) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 20:18:18 +0200 Subject: Lecture: The Whirlwind I, 2021-08-14, 19:00 References: <20210807181818.GA9550.ref@cortexcerebri.geruempel.org> Message-ID: <20210807181818.GA9550@cortexcerebri.geruempel.org> Hi all, you're invited to the Update computer club[0] public lecture series "Updateringar"[1]! When: 2021-08-14, 19:00 CEST Where: https://bbb.cryptoparty.se/b/upd-0mo-m2u-aq8 The Whirlwind I The Whirlwind was a computer of the first generation built at the servomechanisms lab at MIT. It was the first computer designed to be a highly reliable part of a system, and to be controlled in real time, rather than be a programmable calculator for scientific research. Its interactive nature directly started a tradition of computer engineering at MIT which includes the TX-0, TX-2 and DEC's PDP line of minicomputers. Its role in a simulated air defense system led to the development of the AN/FSQ-7 computer, the center piece of the SAGE system. In my talk I will give the historical context in which Whirlwind was designed and built, explain its architecture and block diagrams, go into how it was built and how it evolved over its lifetime, and of course show some simple demos in my emulator. Those who want to stick around for a bit longer are encouraged to join me in a little hands-on hacking session where we look at some original code, but also write our own to get a feeling for what programming the Whirlwind is like. Angelo Papenhoff (Humboldt University of Berlin) The lecture is free and open to everyone. Upcoming: 2021-09-11, 19:00: The evolution of TECO and EMACS ? hands-on demo. Lars Brinkhoff (ICtech) Hope to see you there, Anke [0] http://www.update.uu.se/index_eng.html [1] https://www.update.uu.se/wiki/doku.php/projekt:updateringar From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 7 23:17:42 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 21:17:42 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> On 8/7/21 8:20 PM, r.stricklin wrote: > > Ugh? I hadn?t even thought of that. You?re confident of it? > Until someone comes up with a better theory, yes. Consider this supply: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert/Boschert_OL25_Single-Stage_Power_Supply_Maintenance_Manual_May79.pdf Go to the BOM on page 32. Note hat a 10-1038 is a 1N4004, a 10-1013 is a 1N4148, a 13-1055 is a MPS2222, and so on. Your numbers seem to follow this line, just without the prefix, which I assume indicates the general type of component; e.g. 10 - silicon rectifier diode; 13 an NPN transistor, 12 a PNP and so on. Or the BOM on page 10 here: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert/XL25.pdf Follows the same convention, with some of the same part numbers. It's curious that Q1, the inverter power transistor, doesn't appear on the BOM, though the schematic says MJE13006. Could be that there's no substitute. --Chuck From bear at typewritten.org Sat Aug 7 23:48:34 2021 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 21:48:34 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> Message-ID: <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> > On Aug 7, 2021, at 9:17 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > On 8/7/21 8:20 PM, r.stricklin wrote: > >> Ugh? I hadn?t even thought of that. You?re confident of it? > Until someone comes up with a better theory, yes. Consider this supply: > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert/Boschert_OL25_Single-Stage_Power_Supply_Maintenance_Manual_May79.pdf > > Go to the BOM on page 32. Note hat a 10-1038 is a 1N4004, a 10-1013 is > a 1N4148, a 13-1055 is a MPS2222, and so on. Your numbers seem to > follow this line, just without the prefix, which I assume indicates the > general type of component; e.g. 10 - silicon rectifier diode; 13 an NPN > transistor, 12 a PNP and so on. I?m convinced. Annoying, but I still appreciate the tip. I think I can get where I need to go with the assorted Boschert manuals on Bitsavers, if I put the effort into tracing mine out. It looks a lot, based on where they appear in the schematics, like a reasonable guess that the four 1027 (DO-42ish) devices I diked out (and one of which is shorted) are either 1N4004 or MR820. Based on the packaging I think I can guess they are perhaps 1N4004 (59-10). But I should trace the thing out anyway and try to draw my own schematic, first. Thanks. ok bear. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 7 23:57:22 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 21:57:22 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <2896b722-affe-fcfd-e559-f11759cff5fa@bitsavers.org> On 8/7/21 9:48 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > But I should trace the thing out anyway and try to draw my own schematic, first. if you do trace it out, I'd like to add it to bitsavers. there aren't many boschert schematics on the web From bear at typewritten.org Sat Aug 7 19:50:10 2021 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 17:50:10 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? Message-ID: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> Anyone have an early ?80s Motorola semiconductor reference manual? I am attempting to repair a Boschert power supply from ~1983 that is full of Motorola parts marked as 1027 (DO-42ish), 1077 (TO-3ish), 1078 (DO-5ish), etc. It would be extremely helpful to know their specifications, or ideally how to cross-ref them to ?standard? parts. ok bear. From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 7 21:24:59 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 19:24:59 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> On 8/7/21 5:50 PM, r.stricklin via cctech wrote: > Anyone have an early ?80s Motorola semiconductor reference manual? I am attempting to repair a Boschert power supply from ~1983 that is full of Motorola parts marked as 1027 (DO-42ish), 1077 (TO-3ish), 1078 (DO-5ish), etc. It would be extremely helpful to know their specifications, or ideally how to cross-ref them to ?standard? parts. Those are Boschert "house numbers'. Unless you can find a Boschert maintenance document that lists them and ther equivalents, it's going to be a bit of a detective sleuth. --Chuck From bear at typewritten.org Sat Aug 7 22:20:20 2021 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2021 20:20:20 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> Message-ID: <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> > On Aug 7, 2021, at 7:24 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctech wrote: > > On 8/7/21 5:50 PM, r.stricklin via cctech wrote: >> Anyone have an early ?80s Motorola semiconductor reference manual? I am attempting to repair a Boschert power supply from ~1983 that is full of Motorola parts marked as 1027 (DO-42ish), 1077 (TO-3ish), 1078 (DO-5ish), etc. It would be extremely helpful to know their specifications, or ideally how to cross-ref them to ?standard? parts. > > Those are Boschert "house numbers'. Unless you can find a Boschert > maintenance document that lists them and ther equivalents, it's going to > be a bit of a detective sleuth. Ugh? I hadn?t even thought of that. You?re confident of it? ok bear. From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Sun Aug 8 02:30:37 2021 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 08:30:37 +0100 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <2896b722-affe-fcfd-e559-f11759cff5fa@bitsavers.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> <2896b722-affe-fcfd-e559-f11759cff5fa@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 8, 2021 at 5:57 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/7/21 9:48 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > > > But I should trace the thing out anyway and try to draw my own schematic, first. > > if you do trace it out, I'd like to add it to bitsavers. > there aren't many boschert schematics on the web > Would you also like the schematics I traced out of the Boschert OL130 SMPSU and a little Boschet 12V linear regulator? They are part of the Atlantic Research Intervew 3600 that I worked on last year. I also have the official ICL document for the PERQ 1 power supply section, which is a Boschert unit. It includes the schematic (most of it, the -ve resistance board is not included for some reason). I can try to scan it if there is any interest Note that many of these units contain 'selected' transistors. That's one reason for the house numbers. It may well be a 2Nxxxx but one that has been tested for some parameter. Without knowing what it was tested for you are going to have 'fun'. -tony From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Aug 8 06:26:30 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 04:26:30 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <292e26e6-1344-958c-cff3-4d19608ef571@bitsavers.org> On 8/7/21 9:48 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > Annoying, but I still appreciate the tip. I think I can get where I need to go with the assorted Boschert manuals on Bitsavers, if I put the effort into tracing mine out. > Tony forwarded me some schematics which i've added to http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert the OL400 from the PERQ was a nice find since their 1980's higher wattage supplies are very hard to find information on From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Sun Aug 8 08:34:46 2021 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 09:34:46 -0400 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <292e26e6-1344-958c-cff3-4d19608ef571@bitsavers.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> <292e26e6-1344-958c-cff3-4d19608ef571@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210808093446.599bfdfc@dragonsweb.org> Not directly useful for part number interchange, but schematic and mechanicals for the 3T series switching regulators here: http://www.rknorman.co.uk/Boschert%20PSU%20Circuit%20diagram.pdf On Sun, 8 Aug 2021 04:26:30 -0700 Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/7/21 9:48 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > > > Annoying, but I still appreciate the tip. I think I can get where I > > need to go with the assorted Boschert manuals on Bitsavers, if I > > put the effort into tracing mine out. > > Tony forwarded me some schematics which i've added to > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert > > the OL400 from the PERQ was a nice find since their 1980's higher > wattage supplies are very hard to find information on > From cclist at sydex.com Sun Aug 8 10:00:58 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 08:00:58 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> <2896b722-affe-fcfd-e559-f11759cff5fa@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <425ee10d-6b8f-4a05-b0d8-ccfea69df9a4@sydex.com> On 8/8/21 12:30 AM, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > Note that many of these units contain 'selected' transistors. That's > one reason for the house numbers. It may well be a 2Nxxxx but one that > has been tested for some parameter. Without knowing what it was tested > for you are going to have 'fun'. That's a good point--and one I thought about mentioning. I recall chatting with some of the people who worked with Bob and their take seemed to be that early SMPSU design was half engineering and half voodoo. --Chuck From couryhouse at aol.com Sun Aug 8 16:30:58 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 21:30:58 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Bell vs gray. The Telephone wars and invention.of telephone etc. History chan. tonight check your TV schedule. References: <900783789.851296.1628458258173.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <900783789.851296.1628458258173@mail.yahoo.com> Bell vs gray. The Telephone wars and invention.of telephone etc. History chan. tonight check your TV schedule. Sent from the all new AOL app for Android From matti.nummi at hotmail.fi Sun Aug 8 16:33:36 2021 From: matti.nummi at hotmail.fi (Matti Nummi) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 21:33:36 +0000 Subject: r.stricklin: regarding SysV/68 and SysV/88 tapes Message-ID: I have tried to reach You Raymond. Presumably You have following tape images: Sys V/68 Graphic Services Extension R3V6 XW02.10(IR06) Sys V/88 R3.2V1.2C BOS Obj UZ88.01 We are trying to build a X environment with some success already for Motorola MVME unix computers. These tapes could help. Can You comment on this (privately). BR Matti Nummi matti dot-char nummi at-char hotmail dot-char fi From rdawson16 at hotmail.com Sun Aug 8 17:38:42 2021 From: rdawson16 at hotmail.com (Randy Dawson) Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2021 22:38:42 +0000 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> Message-ID: I found a few of the databooks here: https://usermanual.wiki/search.php?q=motorola%20semiconductor%20reference Randy ________________________________ From: cctech on behalf of r.stricklin via cctech Sent: Saturday, August 7, 2021 5:50 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? Anyone have an early ?80s Motorola semiconductor reference manual? I am attempting to repair a Boschert power supply from ~1983 that is full of Motorola parts marked as 1027 (DO-42ish), 1077 (TO-3ish), 1078 (DO-5ish), etc. It would be extremely helpful to know their specifications, or ideally how to cross-ref them to ?standard? parts. ok bear. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Aug 9 02:03:11 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 00:03:11 -0700 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> Message-ID: <654d64b9-ba68-0331-7fc1-741cb6c143d9@sydex.com> On 8/8/21 3:38 PM, Randy Dawson via cctech wrote: > I found a few of the databooks here: > > https://usermanual.wiki/search.php?q=motorola%20semiconductor%20reference > Randy, if you're looking for Moto databooks, Al has archived a pile of them on bitsavers: http://bitsavers.org/components/motorola/_dataBooks/ --Chuck From mike_t_norris at hotmail.com Mon Aug 9 05:44:56 2021 From: mike_t_norris at hotmail.com (Mike Norris) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 10:44:56 +0000 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free Message-ID: Hello, During a clear out I found the following floppy disk sets, I am not sure if they are of any use to anyone: Pathworks V5.1 (35 disks) plus LAN Mgr Setup - these are copies not originals Mastering Windows Programming with Borland C++4 (Sams - don't have the book though!) Borland SQL Link for Windows for Interbase 3.3 (3 disk) Paradox for Windows V 4.5 (2 disk) Paradox for Windows Object Converters for Forms (1 disk) Turbo C++ for Windows 3.1 (7 disks) Proto Gen V2.2 (1 disk) Adaptec 7800 Family Manager Set for Win NT 3.5 or Win 95/98 (3 disks) CDs - Adaptec EZ-SCSI Deluxe Edition V5 Easy CD Creator & DirectCD All are untried and I have no means to read them, but have been stored in a clean environment, some still in their original wrapping, free except for the cost of postage (I am in the UK). Regards Mike Norris From mike_t_norris at hotmail.com Mon Aug 9 05:47:45 2021 From: mike_t_norris at hotmail.com (Mike Norris) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 10:47:45 +0000 Subject: PC floppy disk sets available free In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Should have added these are 3 1/4 1.44Mb Regards Mike Norris ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Mike Norris via cctalk Sent: 09 August 2021 11:44 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free Hello, During a clear out I found the following floppy disk sets, I am not sure if they are of any use to anyone: Pathworks V5.1 (35 disks) plus LAN Mgr Setup - these are copies not originals Mastering Windows Programming with Borland C++4 (Sams - don't have the book though!) Borland SQL Link for Windows for Interbase 3.3 (3 disk) Paradox for Windows V 4.5 (2 disk) Paradox for Windows Object Converters for Forms (1 disk) Turbo C++ for Windows 3.1 (7 disks) Proto Gen V2.2 (1 disk) Adaptec 7800 Family Manager Set for Win NT 3.5 or Win 95/98 (3 disks) CDs - Adaptec EZ-SCSI Deluxe Edition V5 Easy CD Creator & DirectCD All are untried and I have no means to read them, but have been stored in a clean environment, some still in their original wrapping, free except for the cost of postage (I am in the UK). Regards Mike Norris From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Mon Aug 9 11:10:14 2021 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 10:10:14 -0600 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 8/9/21 4:44 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk wrote: > Hello, Hi, > During a clear out I found the following floppy disk sets, I am not > sure if they are of any use to anyone: > > Pathworks V5.1 (35 disks) plus LAN Mgr Setup - these are copies not originals I would *VERY* *MUCH* /like/ to get my hands on Pathworks. I'd be quite happy to pay for shipping for just them, or if you prefer, all of the (unclaimed) disks. I would be happy to cross ship other disks to other interested parties (after imaging). > Mastering Windows Programming with Borland C++4 (Sams - don't have the book though!) > Borland SQL Link for Windows for Interbase 3.3 (3 disk) > Paradox for Windows V 4.5 (2 disk) > Paradox for Windows Object Converters for Forms (1 disk) > Turbo C++ for Windows 3.1 (7 disks) > Proto Gen V2.2 (1 disk) > Adaptec 7800 Family Manager Set for Win NT 3.5 or Win 95/98 (3 disks) > > CDs - > Adaptec EZ-SCSI Deluxe Edition V5 > Easy CD Creator & DirectCD > > All are untried and I have no means to read them, but have been stored > in a clean environment, some still in their original wrapping, free > except for the cost of postage (I am in the UK). I wonder what snail mail postage to the greater Denver Colorado area in the U.S.A. would be. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Aug 9 11:23:19 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 09:23:19 -0700 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> On 8/9/21 9:10 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I would *VERY* *MUCH* /like/ to get my hands on Pathworks. http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/decnet/ sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting this s*it up From healyzh at avanthar.com Mon Aug 9 11:30:18 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 09:30:18 -0700 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Aug 9, 2021, at 9:23 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/9/21 9:10 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > >> I would *VERY* *MUCH* /like/ to get my hands on Pathworks. > > http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/decnet/ > > sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting this s*it up I?d been looking at this recently, and found myself wondering what ISA cards are supported. At some point I need to dig deeper into this. Zane From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Aug 9 11:30:19 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 09:30:19 -0700 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: On 8/9/21 9:10 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I would *VERY* *MUCH* /like/ to get my hands on Pathworks.? I'd be quite happy to pay for shipping for just them, or if you prefer, all of > the (unclaimed) disks. Whatever happened to PRIVATE replies. It isn't even that hard to do, you just have to copy their source adr from the message, since this list's default reply is to the whole fsckin' list I could care less about this, and all it does is aggravate me to see someone hasn't even bothered to look if this is already on line. From imp at bsdimp.com Mon Aug 9 11:32:10 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 10:32:10 -0600 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2021 at 10:23 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/9/21 9:10 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > > I would *VERY* *MUCH* /like/ to get my hands on Pathworks. > > http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/decnet/ > > sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting this s*it up > Because for every person that can't find it dozens of others can quietly download things and are eternally grateful (again) that what we were looking for was so easy to get. Warner From jfoust at threedee.com Mon Aug 9 13:14:05 2021 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2021 13:14:05 -0500 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210809181659.8B6764E819@mx2.ezwind.net> At 11:23 AM 8/9/2021, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting this s*it up Well, actually... it said "Pathworks V5.1 (35 disks) plus LAN Mgr Setup." So is it 5.1 or is it the 4.1 you have on Bitsavers? An ISO of a 5.1 CD is at https://vetusware.com/download/Pathworks%205.1/?id=8935 if that's a real site. - John From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Aug 9 13:32:25 2021 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 14:32:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DQ11 prints needed Message-ID: <20210809183225.155D918C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Anyone have a set of DQ11 prints? The DQ11 MM is missing some important info, which is apparently only on the prints. Noel From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Aug 9 14:05:07 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 12:05:07 -0700 Subject: DQ11 prints needed In-Reply-To: <20210809183225.155D918C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20210809183225.155D918C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6c486e8a-23ca-3220-fba8-93c5a4c0863c@bitsavers.org> On 8/9/21 11:32 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > Anyone have a set of DQ11 prints? The DQ11 MM is missing some important > info, which is apparently only on the prints. > > Noel > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/DQ11_RevL_Engineering_Drawings_Aug75.pdf From glen.slick at gmail.com Mon Aug 9 17:08:16 2021 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 15:08:16 -0700 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: <20210809181659.8B6764E819@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> <8d4e5a06-11cc-8364-c173-3079b958177c@bitsavers.org> <20210809181659.8B6764E819@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 9, 2021, 11:17 AM John Foust via cctalk wrote: > At 11:23 AM 8/9/2021, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > >sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting this s*it up > > Well, actually... it said "Pathworks V5.1 (35 disks) plus LAN Mgr Setup." > > So is it 5.1 or is it the 4.1 you have on Bitsavers? > > An ISO of a 5.1 CD is at > https://vetusware.com/download/Pathworks%205.1/?id=8935 > if that's a real site. > > - John > There is also a Compaq PATHWORKS 32 Version 7.2. 2000 May AG-R36UE-BE.iso.zip (112 Mb) CD image available here: http://www.vaxhaven.com/CD_Image_Archive > From cube1 at charter.net Mon Aug 9 17:21:21 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 17:21:21 -0500 Subject: DQ11 prints needed In-Reply-To: <6c486e8a-23ca-3220-fba8-93c5a4c0863c@bitsavers.org> References: <20210809183225.155D918C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <6c486e8a-23ca-3220-fba8-93c5a4c0863c@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <71710820-ce42-89f8-0574-4491dc4a9e96@charter.net> ROTFL - especially given the earlier case, and since Noel knows about you folks quite well.. Typically I search the "mirror" on my drive first (which I update about once/year), then if I come up empty, search the bitsavers site. BTW I hope to scan the Xenix manuals tomorrow. If not, it will have to be next week. JRJ On 8/9/2021 2:05 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/9/21 11:32 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: >> Anyone have a set of DQ11 prints? The DQ11 MM is missing some important >> info, which is apparently only on the prints. >> >> ?????? Noel >> > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus/DQ11_RevL_Engineering_Drawings_Aug75.pdf > > From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Mon Aug 9 18:42:51 2021 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 17:42:51 -0600 Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: On 8/9/21 10:30 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > Whatever happened to PRIVATE replies. I did not feel the need for a private reply. I wanted to put my hand up as interested in the disks, but I /also/ wanted to make it known that I wanted someone else with a /need/ to have first dibs. I was speaking both to Mike /and/ to the community at large. > It isn't even that hard to do, you just have to copy their source adr > from the message, since this list's default reply is to the whole > fsckin' list Easy or hard has nothing to do with it when doing so is contrary to the objective, as stated above. > I could care less about this, and all it does is aggravate me to see > someone hasn't even bothered to look if this is already on line. You seem to be assuming incorrectly. I /have/ been keeping an eye out for DEC PathWorks for 5+ years. I've not seen it when I've trolled various file / abandonware sites many times. It's not uncommon for things to be added to sites in between such trolls through the inventory. As for bitsaveers, I had not looked /there/ because in my head I associate them with /documentation/, and /not/ software. So ... why would I look for software in -- what to me is -- a documentation repository? Please don't assume that "someone hasn't even bothered to look". As this is a perfect example if I have looked (in the wrong places) multiple times. Also note that I did not broadcast asking for it. I responded to someone offering a copy of it. If you don't care about the thread, use your email client's ability to ignore the thread so that you don't see anything else from it. Don't passively attack people that are participating in it. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Aug 9 20:12:30 2021 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 21:12:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DQ11 prints needed Message-ID: <20210810011230.83C9C18C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Al Kossow > Date: Mon Aug 9 14:05:07 CDT 2021 Wow! That was _amazing_ speed, to get that uploaded so quickly (even if you had already scanned it in), considering I only posted my request at 14:32 EDT! Thank you very, very much: that allowed me to complete the DQ11 page on the CHWiki: https://gunkies.org/wiki/DQ11_NPR_Synchronous_Line_Interface The MM was unclear on many points (including the backplanes; the MM says, in 2.3.1.2, "double-system unit", making it sound like the option version uses a 9-slot backplane, but it's actually two 4-slot units). You aren't by any chance sitting any DM11-AA manuals, are you? :-) (The weirdest interface I've ever seen; the shift registers are kept in main memory, resulting in many DMA cycles _per character_.) Noel From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Aug 9 20:26:15 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2021 18:26:15 -0700 Subject: DQ11 prints needed In-Reply-To: <20210810011230.83C9C18C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20210810011230.83C9C18C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On 8/9/21 6:12 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > You aren't by any chance sitting any DM11-AA manuals, are you? :-) probably. there are still quite a few drawings to go through From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Tue Aug 10 01:23:03 2021 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 08:23:03 +0200 (CEST) Subject: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Aug 2021, Al Kossow wrote: > Whatever happened to PRIVATE replies. > > It isn't even that hard to do, you just have to copy their source adr from > the message, since this list's default reply is to the whole > fsckin' list That's why I have a procmail rule that fixes that: REPLYTO_=`formail -cXReply-To: | cut -d',' -f1 | sed -e 's/Reply-To: //' | sed -e 's/\"/\\\"/g'` :0 fw * ^To:.*classiccmp|^Cc:.*classiccmp | sed -e 's/\[cctalk\] //g' | formail -i "From: $REPLYTO_" -i "Reply-To: \"General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts\" " Christian From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Tue Aug 10 11:34:56 2021 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 10:34:56 -0600 Subject: procmail recipe for cctalk -- was -- Re: PC floppy disk sets avaialble free In-Reply-To: References: <6f925d61-dc05-e1d3-0051-865abfdd36be@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> Message-ID: Hi Christian, Thank you for sharing your procmail recipe. Like all good recipes, I have taken ideas from it to adapt ~> augment my own. # cctalk - List-ID :0 E * List-Id: .* { :0 Whc: .maildir/.Mail\ Lists.cctalk/procmail.lock |/usr/bin/formail -D 4096 .maildir/.Mail\ Lists.cctalk/formail.message-id.cache :0 a: .maildir/.Mail\ Lists.cctalk/duplicates.mbox CCTALKFROM=`formail -czxReply-To: | cut -f1 -d, | sed -e 's/\"/\\\"/g'` :0 fB |/usr/bin/formail -fb -i "List-Post: >" -R Reply-To: Old-Reply-To: -i "From: $CCTALKFROM" :0 .maildir/.Mail\ Lists.cctalk/ } On 8/10/21 12:23 AM, Christian Corti wrote: > That's why I have a procmail rule that fixes that: > > REPLYTO_=`formail -cXReply-To: | cut -d',' -f1 | sed -e 's/Reply-To: //' > | sed -e 's/\"/\\\"/g'` Aside: You can remove use "-x" to extract the header without the (Reply-To:) header. You can use "-z" to remove the space between the (Reply-To:) header and it's value. Thus eliminating the need for the first sed. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Aug 10 18:30:10 2021 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 19:30:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DQ11 prints needed Message-ID: <20210810233010.7053018C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jay Jaeger > ROTFL - especially given the earlier case, and since Noel knows about > you folks quite well.. The joke's actually on you: DQ11_RevL_Engineering_Drawings_Aug75.pdf 2021-08-09 14:05 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I'd actually looked in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus earlier that morning (before I sent my request), and by chance I still had that browser window open. I suppose I could have done a screen-shot... > From: Al Kossow >> You aren't by any chance sitting any DM11-AA manuals, are you? :-) > probably. there are still quite a few drawings to go through That was mostly a joke. I mean, there are no DM11-AA documents of any kind online, so it would be interesting to get some (there are still a few un-answered questions); but there's a good DM11 entry in "pdp11 peripherals and interfacing handbook", 1972 edition, that enabled me to produce a decent entry: https://gunkies.org/wiki/DM11_asynchronous_serial_line_interface which is probably more than good enough - the interface is actually a dog, I doubt any still exist. Noel From cube1 at charter.net Tue Aug 10 22:23:48 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 22:23:48 -0500 Subject: DQ11 prints needed In-Reply-To: <20210810233010.7053018C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20210810233010.7053018C08F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <89632887-7d04-8995-8e82-4410a0251fab@charter.net> On 8/10/2021 6:30 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > From: Jay Jaeger > > > ROTFL - especially given the earlier case, and since Noel knows about > > you folks quite well.. > > The joke's actually on you: > > DQ11_RevL_Engineering_Drawings_Aug75.pdf 2021-08-09 14:05 > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > I'd actually looked in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/unibus earlier that > morning (before I sent my request), and by chance I still had that > browser window open. I suppose I could have done a screen-shot... > > > > From: Al Kossow > > >> You aren't by any chance sitting any DM11-AA manuals, are you? :-) > > > probably. there are still quite a few drawings to go through > > That was mostly a joke. I mean, there are no DM11-AA documents of any kind > online, so it would be interesting to get some (there are still a few > un-answered questions); but there's a good DM11 entry in "pdp11 peripherals > and interfacing handbook", 1972 edition, that enabled me to produce a decent > entry: > > https://gunkies.org/wiki/DM11_asynchronous_serial_line_interface > > which is probably more than good enough - the interface is actually > a dog, I doubt any still exist. > > Noel > Yeah, I figured that out later. ;) BTW, I have only the sales brochure for the DM11, near as I can tell. 114X-00871-1715/J . If you want me to drag the box of sales lit from the garage, and scan it, me know - could do it next week. JRJ From david at thecoolbears.org Tue Aug 10 15:55:06 2021 From: david at thecoolbears.org (David Coolbear) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 13:55:06 -0700 Subject: CPU Tests Message-ID: My KA655 CPU is freezing during the power up sequence, after test number 04: KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 Performing normal system tests. 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. 08..07..06..05..04.. Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 15:55:54 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:55:54 -0400 Subject: CPU Tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: re-do the headsink paste On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 4:55 PM David Coolbear via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > My KA655 CPU is freezing during the power up sequence, after test number > 04: > > KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 > Performing normal system tests. > 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. > 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. > 08..07..06..05..04.. > > Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? > From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Aug 10 15:56:31 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 16:56:31 -0400 Subject: CPU Tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: sorry...take that back misread. On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 4:55 PM Bill Degnan wrote: > re-do the headsink paste > > On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 4:55 PM David Coolbear via cctech < > cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> My KA655 CPU is freezing during the power up sequence, after test number >> 04: >> >> KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 >> Performing normal system tests. >> 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. >> 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. >> 08..07..06..05..04.. >> >> Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? >> > From healyzh at avanthar.com Tue Aug 10 16:59:02 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 14:59:02 -0700 Subject: CPU Tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Aug 10, 2021, at 1:55 PM, David Coolbear via cctech wrote: > > My KA655 CPU is freezing during the power up sequence, after test number 04: > > KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 > Performing normal system tests. > 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. > 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. > 08..07..06..05..04.. > > Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? You never get the dead sergeant prompt? Looking at the manual, I think you want pages 4-20 and 4-21. If I?m right, it?s failing on the board reset. http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/655/EK-306A-MG-001_655Mnt_Mar89.pdf Zane From cube1 at charter.net Tue Aug 10 22:30:14 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2021 22:30:14 -0500 Subject: IBM PC diagnostics disks In-Reply-To: References: <11388420-20ac-46c3-9618-d5d68f600fe2.ref@frontier.com> <11388420-20ac-46c3-9618-d5d68f600fe2@frontier.com> <0ebd9e62-e5c6-ecc6-d32e-f596756e6725@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <7ce9be27-ecf0-f2ea-64ed-8dc357eba45a@charter.net> On 7/29/2021 1:22 PM, Mark Huffstutter via cctech wrote: > Yes, I sadly, learned that important lesson years ago, after finding My > "Original" Original PC DOS diskette set pretty much destroyed, left in > The folders in storage for too long..... > > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow via cctalk > Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2021 10:15 AM > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: IBM PC diagnostics disks > > On 7/29/21 10:08 AM, Mark Huffstutter via cctalk wrote: >> Hi Richard, >> I could use them if they are still available, I have the very nice binder manual for them, minus the disks! >> > > Don't store diskettes in vinyl sleeves. > The plasticiser leaches out of the vinyl onto the surface of the diskettes. > > Interesting. The IBM ones that I have had in the clear 5 x 8.5 vinyl sleeves were in their paper-like material sleeves inside the vinyl. They have been mostly just fine - just read them in this past week. On the other hand maybe 10% or so of my 3B2 floppies that were similarly stored, but in a somewhat different form of vinyl had more sector errors. Fortunately I copied some of them (the most critical ones) some time ago, and those were stored separately, so I expect those will be fine, but I haven't yet read them in. JRJ From Mark at Misty.com Wed Aug 11 09:04:33 2021 From: Mark at Misty.com (Mark G Thomas) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 10:04:33 -0400 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay Message-ID: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> Hi, I'm not prepared to lay out $200 for these Xerox ROMs, but if I do manage to get them, I'll read and share them. I did not know there were 5.0 ROMs for the 820-II, but it appears there were, and they are included. https://www.ebay.com/itm/184980603844 Mark -- Mark G. Thomas , KC3DRE From Mark at Misty.com Wed Aug 11 08:31:51 2021 From: Mark at Misty.com (Mark G Thomas) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:31:51 -0400 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay Message-ID: <20210811133150.GA5849@allie.home.misty.com> Hi, I'm not prepared to lay out $200 for these Xerox ROMs, but if I do manage to get them, I'll read and share them. I did not know there were 5.0 ROMs for the 820-II, but it appears there were, and they are included. https://www.ebay.com/itm/184980603844 Mark -- Mark G. Thomas , KC3DRE From tom at figureeightbrewing.com Wed Aug 11 09:37:24 2021 From: tom at figureeightbrewing.com (Tom Uban) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:37:24 -0500 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> Message-ID: I have a Xerox 820. I don't know how to tell if it is a -II or not. It is marked as U05-013264 September 1984. It powers on and boots the monitor. Looking at the PROMs, they are labeled: U33 5.0, U34 5.0, U35 5.0, U36 5.0, U37 4.01, U38 4.01 At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... At least some of the ROMs appear to be available here (along with other info): http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/820-II/firmware/ --tom On 8/11/21 9:04 AM, Mark G Thomas via cctalk wrote: > Hi, > > I'm not prepared to lay out $200 for these Xerox ROMs, but if I do manage > to get them, I'll read and share them. I did not know there were 5.0 ROMs > for the 820-II, but it appears there were, and they are included. > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/184980603844 > > Mark > From lists at glitchwrks.com Wed Aug 11 09:42:12 2021 From: lists at glitchwrks.com (Jonathan Chapman) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 14:42:12 +0000 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> Message-ID: <-Z5SlHTR-ir-Ai8AowyUmVtcRDpFgjRKM3fK_TzA6WZmBPaiPGHbpJnHlcjQSQnzYTGd7sGC-tPNZUnzQLMdF98EPsselDfT7Bh7LF0GwHA=@glitchwrks.com> There are guides online, the differences are documented, I believe you can tell from the outside. Bezel color is not always a 100% indicator. Floppies are at least easy for them! If no one else can do it, ping me and I can run off a set. Thanks, Jonathan ??????? Original Message ??????? On Wednesday, August 11th, 2021 at 10:37, Tom Uban via cctalk wrote: > I have a Xerox 820. I don't know how to tell if it is a -II or not. It is marked as U05-013264 > > September 1984. It powers on and boots the monitor. Looking at the PROMs, they are labeled: > > U33 5.0, U34 5.0, U35 5.0, U36 5.0, U37 4.01, U38 4.01 > > At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to > > determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... > > At least some of the ROMs appear to be available here (along with other info): > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/820-II/firmware/ > > --tom > > On 8/11/21 9:04 AM, Mark G Thomas via cctalk wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I'm not prepared to lay out $200 for these Xerox ROMs, but if I do manage > > > > to get them, I'll read and share them. I did not know there were 5.0 ROMs > > > > for the 820-II, but it appears there were, and they are included. > > > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/184980603844 > > > > > > Mark From tom at figureeightbrewing.com Wed Aug 11 09:52:40 2021 From: tom at figureeightbrewing.com (Tom Uban) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 09:52:40 -0500 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: <-Z5SlHTR-ir-Ai8AowyUmVtcRDpFgjRKM3fK_TzA6WZmBPaiPGHbpJnHlcjQSQnzYTGd7sGC-tPNZUnzQLMdF98EPsselDfT7Bh7LF0GwHA=@glitchwrks.com> References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> <-Z5SlHTR-ir-Ai8AowyUmVtcRDpFgjRKM3fK_TzA6WZmBPaiPGHbpJnHlcjQSQnzYTGd7sGC-tPNZUnzQLMdF98EPsselDfT7Bh7LF0GwHA=@glitchwrks.com> Message-ID: <0b272204-b0ba-2979-fe45-207970f59857@figureeightbrewing.com> It appears that mine is an original 820. I need to look inside to see if it has the double density upgrade. I may take you up on your offer at some point. --tom On 8/11/21 9:42 AM, Jonathan Chapman wrote: > There are guides online, the differences are documented, I believe you can tell from the outside. Bezel color is not always a 100% indicator. > > Floppies are at least easy for them! If no one else can do it, ping me and I can run off a set. > > Thanks, > Jonathan > > ??????? Original Message ??????? > > On Wednesday, August 11th, 2021 at 10:37, Tom Uban via cctalk wrote: > >> I have a Xerox 820. I don't know how to tell if it is a -II or not. It is marked as U05-013264 >> >> September 1984. It powers on and boots the monitor. Looking at the PROMs, they are labeled: >> >> U33 5.0, U34 5.0, U35 5.0, U36 5.0, U37 4.01, U38 4.01 >> >> At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to >> >> determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... >> >> At least some of the ROMs appear to be available here (along with other info): >> >> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/820-II/firmware/ >> >> --tom >> >> On 8/11/21 9:04 AM, Mark G Thomas via cctalk wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I'm not prepared to lay out $200 for these Xerox ROMs, but if I do manage >>> >>> to get them, I'll read and share them. I did not know there were 5.0 ROMs >>> >>> for the 820-II, but it appears there were, and they are included. >>> >>> https://www.ebay.com/itm/184980603844 >>> >>> >>> Mark From Mark at Misty.com Wed Aug 11 10:18:04 2021 From: Mark at Misty.com (Mark G Thomas) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 11:18:04 -0400 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> Message-ID: <20210811151804.GA9700@allie.home.misty.com> Hi Tom, On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 09:37:24AM -0500, Tom Uban wrote: > I have a Xerox 820. I don't know how to tell if it is a -II or not. It is marked as U05-013264 September 1984. You have an 820-II; the original 820 only has two ROMs (U63, U64). > It powers on and boots the monitor. Looking at the PROMs, they are labeled: > U33 5.0, U34 5.0, U35 5.0, U36 5.0, U37 4.01, U38 4.01 ... > At least some of the ROMs appear to be available here (along with other info): > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/820-II/firmware/ I must have worked on mine right before someone put those files on bitsavers. I vaguely remember some alternate ROM version that supported a newer style keyboard, and was incompatible with my older setup, but I do not remember specifics. Labels in the e-bay photos also support that. > At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to > determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... I can able to help you with floppies. The floppies are standard IBM 3740 Single Density and easy to write with Imagedisk software and a PC-connected 8" drive. My 820-II currently boots and runs from disk images on SD cards, via a Lotharek HXC floppy emulator, with appropriate cable wiring. I used images found on the internet, and some I created from very old floppies of mine using Imagedisk on a PC with an 8" floppy connected. I highly recommend the Lotharek HXC floppy emulators. My only wish is the display on the floppy-form-factor version were easier to read. Both the swithing supply in my 820-II and it's external 8" drive box had failed. I replaced the supply in the 820-II case with a modern switching supply that easily fit. The HV bleeder resister for my CRT was arcing, so I replaced that. I replaced all the electrolytics on the monitor board. I also replaced the sockets for my ROMs, as some of their contacts "sprung" when I replaced the chips, but I do not recommend doing this unless it is absolutely necessary and you have good tools and practice. The 820-II restoration was a fun and rewarding project. It is well documented, easy to work on. It was also my first ever CP/M computer. When I was in high school, the 820 motherboards were readily available for $75. Mark -- Mark G. Thomas , KC3DRE From fritzm at fritzm.org Wed Aug 11 10:57:31 2021 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 08:57:31 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh Message-ID: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> Hi folks, Could anybody spare a clue or some suggestions on how to access the contents of: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx02/BASIC-11_V2.1_RX02.DSK.zip under simh? I haven't had any luck mounting the contained BASIC.DSK e.g. on simh RY under RT-11. Looking through a dump of the image, there seems to be an "RT11A" signature. Tried putr under dosbox as well, but it seems to hang mounting the image. Suggestions appreciated! --FritzM. From tom at figureeightbrewing.com Wed Aug 11 11:05:59 2021 From: tom at figureeightbrewing.com (Tom Uban) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 11:05:59 -0500 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: <20210811151804.GA9700@allie.home.misty.com> References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> <20210811151804.GA9700@allie.home.misty.com> Message-ID: <014c262d-29a2-d631-6979-3195d0a76bc2@figureeightbrewing.com> On 8/11/21 10:18 AM, Mark G Thomas wrote: > Hi Tom, > > On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 09:37:24AM -0500, Tom Uban wrote: >> I have a Xerox 820. I don't know how to tell if it is a -II or not. It is marked as U05-013264 September 1984. > You have an 820-II; the original 820 only has two ROMs (U63, U64). Ok, I was going by the appearance of my case being the older style. I had not considered the number of PROMs, but now that you mention it, my old Ferguson Big Board (which was an 820 clone) only had two PROMs. >> It powers on and boots the monitor. Looking at the PROMs, they are labeled: >> U33 5.0, U34 5.0, U35 5.0, U36 5.0, U37 4.01, U38 4.01 > ... >> At least some of the ROMs appear to be available here (along with other info): >> >> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/820-II/firmware/ > I must have worked on mine right before someone put those files on bitsavers. > > I vaguely remember some alternate ROM version that supported a newer style > keyboard, and was incompatible with my older setup, but I do not remember > specifics. Labels in the e-bay photos also support that. > >> At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to >> determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... > I can able to help you with floppies. The floppies are standard > IBM 3740 Single Density and easy to write with Imagedisk software > and a PC-connected 8" drive. What do you use to connect an 8" drive to a PC? > My 820-II currently boots and runs from disk images on SD cards, via > a Lotharek HXC floppy emulator, with appropriate cable wiring. I used > images found on the internet, and some I created from very old floppies > of mine using Imagedisk on a PC with an 8" floppy connected. I highly > recommend the Lotharek HXC floppy emulators. My only wish is the > display on the floppy-form-factor version were easier to read. The Lotharek emulators look nice, but I am partial to the real floppy drives. > Both the swithing supply in my 820-II and it's external 8" drive box > had failed. I replaced the supply in the 820-II case with a modern > switching supply that easily fit. The HV bleeder resister for my CRT > was arcing, so I replaced that. I replaced all the electrolytics on > the monitor board. I also replaced the sockets for my ROMs, as some > of their contacts "sprung" when I replaced the chips, but I do not > recommend doing this unless it is absolutely necessary and you have > good tools and practice. I had not turned on my box for a number of years, but when you posted, I decided to try it and it worked perfectly, which I suppose is just lucky. I do have the tools and skills to work on it if it were to fail, but won't likely make changes unless it does. > The 820-II restoration was a fun and rewarding project. It is well > documented, easy to work on. It was also my first ever CP/M computer. > When I was in high school, the 820 motherboards were readily available > for $75. > > Mark It sounds like you had a good time, which in my opinion is the main goal! --tom From Mark at Misty.com Wed Aug 11 11:41:31 2021 From: Mark at Misty.com (Mark G Thomas) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 12:41:31 -0400 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: <014c262d-29a2-d631-6979-3195d0a76bc2@figureeightbrewing.com> References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> <20210811151804.GA9700@allie.home.misty.com> <014c262d-29a2-d631-6979-3195d0a76bc2@figureeightbrewing.com> Message-ID: <20210811164130.GA14558@allie.home.misty.com> Tom, On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 11:05:59AM -0500, Tom Uban wrote: > Ok, I was going by the appearance of my case being the older style. I had not considered the number > of PROMs, but now that you mention it, my old Ferguson Big Board (which was an 820 clone) only had > two PROMs. If you still have any 8" floppies from your Big Board, these will probably boot and work in the 820 as well as 820-II. ... > >> At some point, I need to ask someone to make me bootable 8" floppies, but I suppose I need to > >> determine if it is 820 or 820-II first... > > I can able to help you with floppies. The floppies are standard > > IBM 3740 Single Density and easy to write with Imagedisk software > > and a PC-connected 8" drive. > What do you use to connect an 8" drive to a PC? This adapter is useful: http://www.dbit.com/fdadap.html But, if your floppy doesn't require a TG43 signal, you could just wire a custom cable with no logic needed, or get something like this on e-bay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/114924378003 Additionally, some PC floppy controllers do not work for some kinds of floppy encodings. Here is the article I used as a guide. I've been using an Adaptec AHA-1522A SCSI+Floppy interace, which has a good FDC chip for optimum floppy format support. https://retrocmp.de/fdd/general/disk-imaging.pdf > > Both the swithing supply in my 820-II and it's external 8" drive box > > had failed. I replaced the supply in the 820-II case with a modern > > switching supply that easily fit. The HV bleeder resister for my CRT > > was arcing, so I replaced that. I replaced all the electrolytics on > > the monitor board. I also replaced the sockets for my ROMs, as some > > of their contacts "sprung" when I replaced the chips, but I do not > > recommend doing this unless it is absolutely necessary and you have > > good tools and practice. > I had not turned on my box for a number of years, but when you posted, I decided to try it and it > worked perfectly, which I suppose is just lucky. I do have the tools and skills to work on it if it > were to fail, but won't likely make changes unless it does. I'm all for not fixing it if it's not broken. But, I do suggest careful inspection of the electrolytics on the motherboard and monitor, especially since the monitor board is right above the logic board, so if a cap phsically leaked, the corrosive stuff that comes out could drip onto the logic board. I see this mostly in SMD style electrolytics, but have seen those like the ones in my 820-II physically leak, and the damage can be serious. > > The 820-II restoration was a fun and rewarding project. It is well > > documented, easy to work on. It was also my first ever CP/M computer. > > When I was in high school, the 820 motherboards were readily available > > for $75. > > > > Mark > It sounds like you had a good time, which in my opinion is the main goal! > > --tom -- Mark G. Thomas , KC3DRE From lists at glitchwrks.com Wed Aug 11 11:58:02 2021 From: lists at glitchwrks.com (Jonathan Chapman) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:58:02 +0000 Subject: Xerox 820/II 8/16 Prom/Eproms ( Masters ) on e-bay In-Reply-To: <20210811164130.GA14558@allie.home.misty.com> References: <20210811140433.GA7813@allie.home.misty.com> <20210811151804.GA9700@allie.home.misty.com> <014c262d-29a2-d631-6979-3195d0a76bc2@figureeightbrewing.com> <20210811164130.GA14558@allie.home.misty.com> Message-ID: <-0Emfd2XJ0AVmvwu9MxWB0gIIXwwKr0hmLKApDaeoiW9N2fMUdeTWhisA07cnff9Mu8dXf9dP96_UL4HUHeMvZKja__30dt0ZEf1JiUkki0=@glitchwrks.com> > Additionally, some PC floppy controllers do not work for some kind > of floppy encodings. Here is the article I used as a guide. I've been > using an Adaptec AHA-1522A SCSI+Floppy interace, which has a good > FDC chip for optimum floppy format support. See also: https://services.glitchworks.net/ng/testfdc_results In plaintext: https://services.glitchworks.net/ng/testfdc_results.txt The HTML version also has a link to our submission form for new results. We typically approve them in a week or less. Thanks, Jonathan From kl at 2k.ca Wed Aug 11 14:51:52 2021 From: kl at 2k.ca (Kevin Lee) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:51:52 +0200 Subject: Atari 800 to C64 Message-ID: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> https://redd.it/p24fo8 Turns ur 800 in a c64. Cool From dkelvey at hotmail.com Wed Aug 11 14:57:14 2021 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 19:57:14 +0000 Subject: Atari 800 to C64 In-Reply-To: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> References: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> Message-ID: I wonder what would be needed to connect a C64 module. I have an 800 but no C64. I have a Forth module for the C64 that I'd like to fiddle with. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Kevin Lee via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2021 12:51 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Atari 800 to C64 https://redd.it/p24fo8 Turns ur 800 in a c64. Cool From healyzh at avanthar.com Wed Aug 11 14:59:39 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 12:59:39 -0700 Subject: Atari 800 to C64 In-Reply-To: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> References: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> Message-ID: I wonder what it would take to go the other way. I have plenty of C-64?s and no 8-bit Atari computers. Maybe I?ll finally get one at the next PRGE. Zane > On Aug 11, 2021, at 12:51 PM, Kevin Lee via cctalk wrote: > > https://redd.it/p24fo8 > > Turns ur 800 in a c64. > Cool From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Wed Aug 11 15:03:41 2021 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 13:03:41 -0700 Subject: Atari 800 to C64 In-Reply-To: <241DD880-1942-4A9E-86A9-FFCA23A75DA9@2k.ca> Message-ID: <0LvUd3-1nEVJi1egV-010d6E@mrelay.perfora.net> I am going to have to check that out!? Thanks. -------- Original message --------From: Kevin Lee via cctalk Date: 8/11/21 12:52 PM (GMT-08:00) To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Subject: Atari 800 to C64 https://redd.it/p24fo8Turns ur 800 in a c64. Cool From spectre at floodgap.com Wed Aug 11 15:10:12 2021 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 13:10:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Atari 800 to C64 In-Reply-To: from Zane Healy via cctalk at "Aug 11, 21 12:59:39 pm" Message-ID: <202108112010.17BKACIm7864356@floodgap.com> > I wonder what it would take to go the other way. I have plenty of C-64's > and no 8-bit Atari computers. Maybe I'll finally get one at the next PRGE. A lot more, I should think. This is just Commodore BASIC v2.0, which has just about zero special hardware support and was ported almost verbatim from the PET, whereas Atari BASIC gave you access to lots of Atari-specific graphic and audio features. As a result, this particular hack would fall over the minute someone tried POKEing to a critical memory range. There's no VIC-II at $d000, for example. Still, it's a fascinating facsimile. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Math according to Pentium: 2 / 2 = 1.037587439439485486372112039523781385 ... From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Aug 11 15:12:05 2021 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 13:12:05 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 8:57 AM Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > > Hi folks, > > Could anybody spare a clue or some suggestions on how to access the contents of: > > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx02/BASIC-11_V2.1_RX02.DSK.zip > > under simh? I haven't had any luck mounting the contained BASIC.DSK e.g. on simh RY under RT-11. Looking through a dump of the image, there seems to be an "RT11A" signature. Tried putr under dosbox as well, but it seems to hang mounting the image. > > Suggestions appreciated! > > --FritzM. > That BASIC.DSK image file has a size of 486,400 bytes. I don't know where that size would come from. A physical RX-02 floppy should have a sector size of 256 bytes, with 26 sectors per track, and 77 tracks, which would be a total of 512,512 bytes, or 505,856 bytes if the first physical track is ignored. Indeed, the other RX-02 floppy images available here do have a size of 505,856 bytes: http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx02/ Hmm, maybe that BASIC.DSK image file was created by something that only copied the initial allocated logical sectors and ignored unused logical sectors at the end of the floppy, and maybe PUTR doesn't handle disk image files that are not the expected full size? Example of padding the 486,400 byte BASIC.DSK image file to a size of 512,512 bytes on a Windows system: FSUTIL FILE CREATENEW BLANK 26112 COPY /B BASIC.DSK+BLANK TEST.DSK C:\PUTR>DIR TEST.DSK Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 14CE-1A29 Directory of C:\PUTR 08/11/2021 12:55p 512,512 TEST.DSK C:\PUTR>PUTR PUTR V2.01 Copyright (C) 1995-2001 by John Wilson . All rights reserved. See www.dbit.com for other DEC-related software. COPY mode is ASCII, SET COPY BINARY to change (C:\PUTR)>MOUNT RX: TEST.DSK /RX02 /RT11 /RONLY (C:\PUTR)>DIR RX: Volume in drive RX is RT11A Directory of RX:\*.* 11-Aug-2021 BSOT0D.EAE 12 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0S.EAE 10 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1D.EAE 9 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1S.EAE 6 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0D.EIS 12 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0S.EIS 9 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1D.EIS 9 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1S.EIS 6 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0S.FIS 7 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1S.FIS 6 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0D.FPU 7 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0S.FPU 7 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1D.FPU 4 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1S.FPU 3 04-Apr-1983 BSCLIN.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 BSCLLB.OBJ 5 04-Apr-1983 BSCLS .OBJ 6 04-Apr-1983 BSCLSN.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 BSCMP .OBJ 5 04-Apr-1983 BSERML.OBJ 8 04-Apr-1983 BSERMS.OBJ 5 04-Apr-1983 BSERR .OBJ 2 04-Apr-1983 BSE0 .OBJ 16 04-Apr-1983 BSE1 .OBJ 8 04-Apr-1983 BSFUNC.OBJ 9 04-Apr-1983 BSKEYS.OBJ 6 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0D.OBJ 12 04-Apr-1983 BSOT0S.OBJ 9 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1D.OBJ 9 04-Apr-1983 BSOT1S.OBJ 6 04-Apr-1983 BSPAT .OBJ 2 04-Apr-1983 BSPR0 .OBJ 3 04-Apr-1983 BSPR0N.OBJ 3 04-Apr-1983 BSPR1 .OBJ 7 04-Apr-1983 BSPR1N.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 BSPTRD.OBJ 6 04-Apr-1983 BSPTRS.OBJ 6 04-Apr-1983 BSRSQ .OBJ 2 04-Apr-1983 BSRSQN.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 BSR0D .OBJ 9 04-Apr-1983 BSR0S .OBJ 8 04-Apr-1983 BSR1D .OBJ 4 04-Apr-1983 BSR1S .OBJ 3 04-Apr-1983 BSSUB .OBJ 2 04-Apr-1983 BSSUBN.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 BSX0A .OBJ 11 04-Apr-1983 BSX0B .OBJ 8 04-Apr-1983 BSX1A .OBJ 8 04-Apr-1983 BSX1B .OBJ 7 04-Apr-1983 BSX2 .OBJ 7 04-Apr-1983 SUDTCM.OBJ 2 04-Apr-1983 SUEID .OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUE1ID.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUIMP .OBJ 3 04-Apr-1983 SUIOID.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUIOPO.OBJ 11 04-Apr-1983 SUIOPR.OBJ 4 04-Apr-1983 SUOPT .OBJ 5 04-Apr-1983 SUO1ID.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUR1ID.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUXID .OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUX2ID.OBJ 1 04-Apr-1983 SUCNFG.BAS 3 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF1.BAS 7 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF2.BAS 4 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF3.BAS 4 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF4.BAS 4 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF5.BAS 5 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF6.BAS 5 04-Apr-1983 SUCNF7.BAS 5 04-Apr-1983 SUCVT .BAS 6 04-Apr-1983 SUCVT1.BAS 14 04-Apr-1983 SUCNFG.DAT 7 04-Apr-1983 BSASM .MAC 5 04-Apr-1983 BSCLI .SAV 2 27-Mar-1987 BSMAC .MAC 10 04-Apr-1983 BASIC .SAV 53 04-Apr-1983 YSTART.OBJ 1 30-Mar-1987 ZSTART.OBJ 1 30-Mar-1987 BSASM .OLD 5 04-Apr-1983 BSCLI .OLD 5 04-Apr-1983 BSMAC .OLD 10 04-Apr-1983 BSCLIN.SAV 2 27-Mar-1987 BSASM .OBJ 1 27-Mar-1987 POSITI.LST 7 02-Apr-1987 XSTART.OBJ 1 30-Mar-1987 BSCLI .OK1 9 01-May-1987 JOYSTI.OK1 2 01-May-1987 CNC .OK1 1 01-May-1987 < UNUSED > 12 ACMOTO.MAC 2 13-May-1987 WINDOW.MAC 4 13-May-1987 POSITI.MAC 2 13-May-1987 JOYSTI.MAC 2 13-May-1987 SPEEDS.OLD 2 13-May-1987 < UNUSED > 1 XSTASP.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 YSTASP.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 ZSTASP.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 XDIREC.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 YDIREC.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 ZDIREC.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 ACMOTO.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 WINDOW.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 POSITI.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 STATUS.MAC 1 13-May-1987 STATUS.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 JOYSTI.OBJ 1 13-May-1987 CNC .SAV 58 30-Dec-1987 < UNUSED > 26 SPEEDS.OBJ 1 01-Aug-1987 < UNUSED > 55 VECTOR.MAC 18 30-Dec-1987 < UNUSED > 4 < UNUSED > 2 VECTOR.OBJ 2 30-Dec-1987 BSCLI .MAC 8 30-Dec-1987 CNC .COM 1 30-Dec-1987 XLINIE.MAC 13 30-Dec-1987 YLINIE.MAC 13 30-Dec-1987 ZLINIE.MAC 13 30-Dec-1987 XLINIE.OBJ 2 30-Dec-1987 YLINIE.OBJ 2 30-Dec-1987 ZLINIE.OBJ 2 30-Dec-1987 BSCLI .OBJ 2 30-Dec-1987 < UNUSED > 1 T .BAS 1 NULLPU.XYZ 1 31-Dec-1987 < UNUSED > 149 121 Files, 686 Blocks 250 Free blocks (C:\PUTR)>TYPE RX:STATUS.MAC STATUS.MAC ;+ ; Basic callable subroutine to receive the status of ; the CNC-machine in one integer word. ; Basic-Call: Call STATUS(S%) ;- ; .globl STATUS .globl $ARGER ; CSR = 167774 ; STATUS: cmpb #1,(r5)+ ; Number of arguments = 1 beq 10$ ; O.K. continue.. 5$: jmp $ARGER ; ARGUMENT error ; 10$: tstb (r5)+ ; skip type checking mov @#csr,r0 ; get status bic #100000,r0 ; and clear bit 15 ( inhib neg.Int.) mov r0,@(r5)+ ; save contens. abo: rts pc ; return to caller ; .END (C:\PUTR)>TYPE RX:T.BAS T .BAS 10 OPEN 'SY:NULLPU.XYZ' FOR INPUT AS FILE #1 20 INPUT #1,A1$,A2$,A3$ 30 INPUT #1,B1$,B2$,B3$ 40 CLOSE #1 50 PRINT A1$,A2$,A3$ 60 PRINT B1$,B2$,B3$ From fritzm at fritzm.org Wed Aug 11 18:06:33 2021 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:06:33 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> Message-ID: <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> > On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 8:57 AM Fritz Mueller via cctalk > Could anybody spare a clue or some suggestions on how to access the contents of: > http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx02/BASIC-11_V2.1_RX02.DSK.zip > On Aug 11, 2021, at 1:12 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: > > Hmm, maybe that BASIC.DSK image file was created by something that > only copied the initial allocated logical sectors and ignored unused > logical sectors at the end of the floppy, and maybe PUTR doesn't > handle disk image files that are not the expected full size? > > Example of padding the 486,400 byte BASIC.DSK image file to a size of > 512,512 bytes...[which works] Ah ha! Thanks much, Glen! simh is usually pretty good about padding out attached images, but maybe I'll try the same thing there and see if RT-11 can then read the disk directly itself. If not, I can extract/rewrite via PUTR. From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Aug 11 19:59:05 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 20:59:05 -0400 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> Message-ID: > On Aug 11, 2021, at 7:06 PM, Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > >> ... > > Ah ha! Thanks much, Glen! > > simh is usually pretty good about padding out attached images, No, I don't think that is true. What is true is that recent versions of SIMH will create full size container files for disk containers. But sufficiently old versions did not, so it is not too strange to run into, say, an RK05 image that's shorter than 4800 blocks. But those normally work; all that happens is that reading too far either gives you zeroes or a read error, I don't remember which. Since the blocks were never written they should be marked as unused in the file system and nothing will read them, so that's fine. If there's an unused track at the start of a SIMH image file and in your copy that was missing, that's a different case. Is that the issue? Or is the RX02 emulation different from regular disks? paul From elson at pico-systems.com Wed Aug 11 21:34:30 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:34:30 -0500 Subject: CPU Tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/10/21 4:59 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > On Aug 10, 2021, at 1:55 PM, David Coolbear via cctech wrote: >> My KA655 CPU is freezing during the power up sequence, after test number 04: >> >> KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 >> Performing normal system tests. >> 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. >> 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. >> 08..07..06..05..04.. >> >> Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? Is test 04 (or 03) the memory test?? Depending on the amount of memory in the system, the memory test can take a LONG time, MUCH longer than the previous tests. Jon From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 00:57:16 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:57:16 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware Message-ID: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME and I was wondering if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. It seems most have been scrapped. "nobody collects printers" From jwsmail at jwsss.com Thu Aug 12 01:12:56 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:12:56 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> On 8/11/2021 10:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > "nobody collects printers" Tossed a couple 2 years ago which were unloved.? I don't think I have any in my KC warehouse, but will have my friend there check. I mainly don't save the Laserjet because no parts and they don't run forever.? If there was a way to extend life I didn't practice it.? Such as recharging the cartridges, etc. Still have a 10 year old or so HP 2016 laser printer with about 50,000 pages, hardly broken in. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 01:23:02 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:23:02 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> On 8/11/21 11:12 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/11/2021 10:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> >> "nobody collects printers" > Tossed a couple 2 years ago which were unloved.? I don't think I have any in my KC warehouse, but will have my friend there check. > > I mainly don't save the Laserjet because no parts and they don't run forever. I've never been that interested either, but someone had a curiosity to plug the firmware into MAME and make it work. It seems like the early printers are prime targets for people looking for motors so I'm sure the electronics have been tossed in the trash. From jwsmail at jwsss.com Thu Aug 12 01:29:38 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:29:38 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <6785eaba-c6e4-99bd-d509-83803f2ef8a3@jwsss.com> On 8/11/2021 11:23 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/11/21 11:12 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: >> >> >> On 8/11/2021 10:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> "nobody collects printers" >> Tossed a couple 2 years ago which were unloved.? I don't think I have >> any in my KC warehouse, but will have my friend there check. >> >> I mainly don't save the Laserjet because no parts and they >> don't run forever. > > I've never been that interested either, but someone had a curiosity to > plug the firmware into MAME and make it work. > > It seems like the early printers are prime targets for people looking > for motors so I'm sure the electronics have > been tossed in the trash. > I'll look.? My main point was that the lifetime and usefulness was further limited most likely to those who can life extend those parts, which weren't that numerous among us. I might know where an Apple printer is, but not sure i we took it. The one with the Laserjet 2 Canon engine.? Not what you're after, but possibly interesting. There seems to be a lot of cartridges turning up though.? Those would probably be interesting as well if you had the emulated engine. thanks JIm From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 01:30:36 2021 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 02:30:36 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I believe I still have an LJ III and might still have parts from a scrapped LJ II; I'll have a look. m On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 1:57 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME and > I was wondering > if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. > > It seems most have been scrapped. > > "nobody collects printers" > > From couryhouse at aol.com Thu Aug 12 01:38:07 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 06:38:07 +0000 (UTC) Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <225205223.97040.1628750287460@mail.yahoo.com> We collect hp laser printers SMECC has? a? 2686a first laser? looking for a lasejet 500 (locally)?think we have first hp color laser propping up a? pile? of? stuff.,?WANTED LASERJET? 2P????In a message dated 8/11/2021 11:23:11 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes:? On 8/11/21 11:12 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/11/2021 10:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> >> "nobody collects printers" > Tossed a couple 2 years ago which were unloved.? I don't think I have any in my KC warehouse, but will have my friend there check. > > I mainly don't save the Laserjet because no parts and they don't run forever. I've never been that interested either, but someone had a curiosity to plug the firmware into MAME and make it work. It seems like the early printers are prime targets for people looking for motors so I'm sure the electronics have been tossed in the trash. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 01:42:46 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:42:46 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <6785eaba-c6e4-99bd-d509-83803f2ef8a3@jwsss.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> <6785eaba-c6e4-99bd-d509-83803f2ef8a3@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On 8/11/21 11:29 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: > I might know where an Apple printer is, but not sure i we took it. The one with the Laserjet 2 Canon engine.? Not what you're after, but > possibly interesting. I'm set on apple units, those are still around. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 01:43:56 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2021 23:43:56 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <225205223.97040.1628750287460@mail.yahoo.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> <225205223.97040.1628750287460@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2ce92551-754d-6c5c-562e-900e81873154@bitsavers.org> On 8/11/21 11:38 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote: > We collect hp laser printers SMECC Who cares. It's not like you're capable of ever going to do anything with them From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 02:10:38 2021 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 04:10:38 -0300 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <2ce92551-754d-6c5c-562e-900e81873154@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> <225205223.97040.1628750287460@mail.yahoo.com> <2ce92551-754d-6c5c-562e-900e81873154@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: At least here in Brazil you can find supplies for HP II and III printers. Probably for IIp and IIIp... ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com http://www.tabalabs.com.br ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- Em qui., 12 de ago. de 2021 ?s 04:02, Al Kossow via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> escreveu: > On 8/11/21 11:38 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote: > > We collect hp laser printers SMECC > > Who cares. > It's not like you're capable of ever going to do anything with them > > From couryhouse at aol.com Thu Aug 12 05:10:18 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:10:18 +0000 (UTC) Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <2ce92551-754d-6c5c-562e-900e81873154@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> <2d1a928b-59f9-d2eb-526a-d20dc405c84d@bitsavers.org> <225205223.97040.1628750287460@mail.yahoo.com> <2ce92551-754d-6c5c-562e-900e81873154@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <1286563636.121511.1628763018793@mail.yahoo.com> The early ones are in a HP product? display.It is good to have them? represented.?We do need? paper trays? for our? first HP 2686AHelp??Thanks? Ed Sharpe - Archivist for SMECC?In a message dated 8/12/2021 12:02:06 AM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes:? On 8/11/21 11:38 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote: > We collect hp laser printers SMECC Who cares. It's not like you're capable of ever going to do anything with them From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Thu Aug 12 09:18:33 2021 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:18:33 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> On Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:57:16 -0700 Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in > MAME and I was wondering if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps > from Laserjets. > > It seems most have been scrapped. > > "nobody collects printers" > I recently pulled out a LaserJet IIIp while cleaning up to make space for a bench to work on things like dumping roms, which I'm already behind on. Is there 4MV interest as well, btw? I have one of those also. From jfoust at threedee.com Thu Aug 12 09:25:04 2021 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 09:25:04 -0500 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> At 12:57 AM 8/12/2021, you wrote: >There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME and I was wondering >if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. >It seems most have been scrapped. There were software updates for the firmware and I imagine they were a complete image and not a patch. Did anyone save those? I saved a 4si PS, a QMS 420 and an Apple Laserwriter. Others were recycled perhaps only two years ago. One step behind the wrecking ball or the recycling dumpster as the case may be. - John From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 09:44:27 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 07:44:27 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <3f51a024-62ae-f651-0e24-00373f01f680@bitsavers.org> On 8/12/21 7:25 AM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > One step behind > the wrecking ball or the recycling dumpster as the case may be. Yup. I started saving Laserwriter bits when their was originally some interest in emulation a few years ago. HP used Canon formatters on the LW and LWII, then did their own on the LW III with more and more HP ASICs on them. They are all 68000 based. Looks like they switched to i960s or 29000's up through the VI. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 09:47:55 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 07:47:55 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: On 8/12/21 7:18 AM, James B DiGriz via cctalk wrote: > I recently pulled out a LaserJet IIIp while cleaning up to make space Someone gave me a IIIp yesterday. I think one sold at VCF-W over the weekend I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. From glitch at glitchwrks.com Thu Aug 12 09:10:39 2021 From: glitch at glitchwrks.com (Jonathan Chapman) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:10:39 +0000 Subject: MTI MXV22M Message-ID: Does anyone have experience running the MTI MXV22M? It's a dual-height QBus card that emulates RX02 but uses a 5.25" 96 TPI drive. I've got a small heap of them and we're trying to get them going. When trying to format diskettes using the process documented in the manual, the drive selects for maybe a second then deselects, and we get a drive not ready error. The controller isn't using the ready line, as the SA-460 for which it is designed doesn't supply it. No traces physically connect to pin 34. Since we're close to out of ideas, we've also plugged in a pair of Shugart SA-800s, on the idea that maybe the MXV22M is close enough to the MXV22 to show some signs of life. It doesn't give a drive not ready error, and it will step the heads like it's really formatting, but never loads the heads. Happy for any input on this one! Thanks, Jonathan From billdegnan at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 10:39:34 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:39:34 -0400 Subject: MTI MXV22M In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would think Herb would have some valuable input, but I do know with the SA800's there are a lot of jumpers, they vary based on the rev of the board, and you want to be sure that the loading of the heads is not jumper dependent. NOTING that I am only being logical not technical. I would only look to cross jumpering related to the drive head control off the list of possible causes. Bill On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 11:26 AM Jonathan Chapman via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Does anyone have experience running the MTI MXV22M? It's a dual-height > QBus card that emulates RX02 but uses a 5.25" 96 TPI drive. I've got a > small heap of them and we're trying to get them going. > > When trying to format diskettes using the process documented in the > manual, the drive selects for maybe a second then deselects, and we get a > drive not ready error. The controller isn't using the ready line, as the > SA-460 for which it is designed doesn't supply it. No traces physically > connect to pin 34. > > Since we're close to out of ideas, we've also plugged in a pair of Shugart > SA-800s, on the idea that maybe the MXV22M is close enough to the MXV22 to > show some signs of life. It doesn't give a drive not ready error, and it > will step the heads like it's really formatting, but never loads the heads. > > Happy for any input on this one! > > Thanks, > Jonathan > > > From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Thu Aug 12 10:51:13 2021 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:51:13 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <6951e314-2417-8b66-3c37-b35d7c0c3fea@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <001101d78f91$e1610220$a4230660$@net> > I mainly don't save the Laserjet because no parts and they > don't run forever. If there was a way to extend life I didn't practice > it. Such as recharging the cartridges, etc. > What? I have restored an maintained a number of early LJs. Check eBay for parts and ink. The newer ones are actually harder to maintain because of all the DRM in the toner cartridges and poor build quality. From cctalk at ibm51xx.net Thu Aug 12 10:51:15 2021 From: cctalk at ibm51xx.net (Ali) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 08:51:15 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <001201d78f91$e2663d20$a732b760$@net> > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME > and I was wondering > if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. > > It seems most have been scrapped. > > "nobody collects printers" I don't know about collect but I have a soft spot for early LaserJets. I have a 4SI and 4M+ and an original Color LJ. I also have a few Apple LaserWriters (IIgs, 600, maybe one more). I have tried to get my hands on an original LJ a couple of times but the deals fell through and I did get a IIID but before it could be shipped the seller moved warehouses and it got lost in the move. Frankly if you can't find it locally it is hard to get them. Sort of like CRTs. If anyone in the LA Area wants to get rid of the following I'd be interested in giving them a good home: LJ IIID LW 8500, Color LW, LW Pro 810 Compaq PageMarq 20 (or even a 15) IBM 4029 -Ali From healyzh at avanthar.com Thu Aug 12 11:09:23 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 09:09:23 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0CF50F5C-2312-4AE1-8377-D5ABB4F53128@avanthar.com> On Aug 11, 2021, at 10:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME and I was wondering > if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. > > It seems most have been scrapped. > > "nobody collects printers? I hope I know the answer, but having said that, I?m really curious as to why they?re working on the emulation. The only old Lasers I have are an HP 5mp I bought new, and finally retired this spring (though I just realized it?s probably still on), and a 5p I was given a few years ago. I was quite happy to get my VMS Cluster working with a modern HP LaserJet that is *WAY* faster, and supports duplexing. Zane From lars at nocrew.org Thu Aug 12 11:37:39 2021 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:37:39 +0000 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> (Al Kossow via cctalk's message of "Wed, 11 Aug 2021 22:57:16 -0700") References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <7wczqik4a4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Al Kossow wrote: > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME Maybe an emulator for Xerox's XGP could be piggybacked onto that. The "firmware" is PDP-11 or PDP-6 code from MIT and SAIL. It could be used to print classical memos written in PUB, TeX, TJ6, Scribe, Bolio, etc. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 12:10:43 2021 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 13:10:43 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. I may still have a II, and I definitely still have at least one (functional) III and a 4Si I still use my 4M/L all the time - Postscript + LocalTalk + IEEE1284. It's a great little printer. -ethan From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 12:34:14 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:34:14 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <0CF50F5C-2312-4AE1-8377-D5ABB4F53128@avanthar.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <0CF50F5C-2312-4AE1-8377-D5ABB4F53128@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On 8/12/21 9:09 AM, Zane Healy wrote: > I?m really curious as to why they?re working on the emulation. For the intellectual challenge, and to play with the Postscript interpreter. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 12:37:01 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 10:37:01 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <7wczqik4a4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <7wczqik4a4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: On 8/12/21 9:37 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: >> There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME > > Maybe an emulator for Xerox's XGP could be piggybacked onto that. Not really. MAME is a great tool for experimenting with the firmware from old microprocessor-based widgets because it has a fairly powerful debugger and it has a modular structure for assembling building blocks at the chip level. From lists at glitchwrks.com Thu Aug 12 13:03:58 2021 From: lists at glitchwrks.com (Jonathan Chapman) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 18:03:58 +0000 Subject: MTI MXV22M In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1wwNsP_mR7cr2KE7VVlYG6BmzajyjZvQu86jdrekRZOgK6JJmpGMq_cRBCckWUSI-B0Vn13adJs4BSmBtshNsf-lEMyooGqN0H6WfG4au0g=@glitchwrks.com> Pretty sure it's not a SA-800 problem, that was just something we tried in the course of running out of other ideas. These controllers are meant to talk to SA-460 or Tandon TM100-4 96tpi 300 RPM drives ("quad density"). I did of course force head loading on drive select, which does make the SA-800s load the heads when selected. Still nothing written to the diskette, though. I'm sure the SA-800s are good as they're my main test bench drives. They've been extra-special-exactly aligned so I can interchange media with Mike Douglas' FDC+ Altair compatible disk controller, which has very strict index timing demands. Coincidentally, these are the drives I bought from you, Bill, when you moved out of the Wilmington building! The ones that had the locked steppers. Thanks, Jonathan ??????? Original Message ??????? On Thursday, August 12th, 2021 at 11:39, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > I would think Herb would have some valuable input, but I do know with the > > SA800's there are a lot of jumpers, they vary based on the rev of the > > board, and you want to be sure that the loading of the heads is not jumper > > dependent. NOTING that I am only being logical not technical. I would > > only look to cross jumpering related to the drive head control off the list > > of possible causes. > > Bill > > On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 11:26 AM Jonathan Chapman via cctalk < > > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > Does anyone have experience running the MTI MXV22M? It's a dual-height > > > > QBus card that emulates RX02 but uses a 5.25" 96 TPI drive. I've got a > > > > small heap of them and we're trying to get them going. > > > > When trying to format diskettes using the process documented in the > > > > manual, the drive selects for maybe a second then deselects, and we get a > > > > drive not ready error. The controller isn't using the ready line, as the > > > > SA-460 for which it is designed doesn't supply it. No traces physically > > > > connect to pin 34. > > > > Since we're close to out of ideas, we've also plugged in a pair of Shugart > > > > SA-800s, on the idea that maybe the MXV22M is close enough to the MXV22 to > > > > show some signs of life. It doesn't give a drive not ready error, and it > > > > will step the heads like it's really formatting, but never loads the heads. > > > > Happy for any input on this one! > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jonathan From healyzh at avanthar.com Thu Aug 12 13:10:48 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:10:48 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <0CF50F5C-2312-4AE1-8377-D5ABB4F53128@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Aug 12, 2021, at 10:34 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/12/21 9:09 AM, Zane Healy wrote: >> I?m really curious as to why they?re working on the emulation. > > For the intellectual challenge, and to play with the Postscript interpreter. So they?re not implementing this as a way to enable printing from systems that only support ancient printer drivers? It looks like Lars was thinking about this the same as me, and hoping this was the case. Zane From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Aug 12 13:16:24 2021 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:16:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DQ11 prints needed Message-ID: <20210812181624.A587C18C0B9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Jay Jaeger > BTW, I have only the sales brochure for the DM11, near as I can tell. > 114X-00871-1715/J . If you want me to drag the box of sales lit from > the garage, and scan it, me know - could do it next week. No major need for it; I found the DM11-AA Tech Manual in my PDP-11 fiche set. So I doubt the brochure would answer any of the remaining questions; we'd probably need the Engineering Drawings for that. But there's so little on the DM11, it might be interesting to see the brochure. The big issue with the TM is that it has the same erroneous diagram for i) the boards in the DM11-A, and ii) their locations in the backplane, as the one in DEC-11-HDMBA-A-D, "DM11-BB modem control option manual", on pg. 1-5. The diagram there lists: M7245 Transmitter E M7244 Transmitter D M7245 Receiver M7242 Control C M7241 Control B M7240 Control A So two 'M7245's, with different functions listed! And no M7243... The DEC "Spare Module Handbook" shows: M7243 "DM11 transmitter D" M7244 "DM11 transmitter E" M7245 "DM11 receiver" so the M7245 probably _is_ the receiver; but this list shows that the 'transmitter E' card is the M7244, not the M7243 (as would be if the top line from the module diagram had a typo '5' for '3'. Hence my observation that it would probably take takethe ED tostraighten thins out. But as I said recently, no real need; the thing is a total canine, and I doubt very much that there are any left in the world. Noel From curiousmarc3 at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 13:19:06 2021 From: curiousmarc3 at gmail.com (Curious Marc) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:19:06 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My LaserJet 6MP is still going strong and is my main lab printer. I like it for retro work because it has AppleTalk capability. I plugged my Mac SE into the network and it automagically found it! Meanwhile Windows still doesn?t know it?s there unless you put its nose right on it ;-) Marc > On Aug 12, 2021, at 10:10 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > > ?On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: >> I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. > > I may still have a II, and I definitely still have at least one > (functional) III and a 4Si > > I still use my 4M/L all the time - Postscript + LocalTalk + IEEE1284. > It's a great little printer. > > -ethan From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Thu Aug 12 14:22:03 2021 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 15:22:03 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <3f51a024-62ae-f651-0e24-00373f01f680@bitsavers.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> <3f51a024-62ae-f651-0e24-00373f01f680@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210812152203.4e06de0e@dragonsweb.org> On Thu, 12 Aug 2021 07:44:27 -0700 Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/12/21 7:25 AM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > > One step behind > > the wrecking ball or the recycling dumpster as the case may be. > > Yup. I started saving Laserwriter bits when their was originally > some interest in emulation a few years ago. > > HP used Canon formatters on the LW and LWII, then did their own on > the LW III with more and more HP ASICs on them. They are all 68000 > based. Looks like they switched to i960s or 29000's up through the VI. > Yeah, the 4MV uses an i960. FWIW wrt to the earlier models, The Printer Works based in Hayward CA sold HP printer parts, including I/II/III items, and had a nice online catalog with lots of diagrams, photos, etc. Last visible in Stockton ca. 2018. Waybacking printerworks.com can be useful: https://web.archive.org/web/20041114025534/http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs/BX-Catalog/931BX_C3143-67901CloseUp.html Looks like they may be defunct now, but maybe carrying on under another name/new management? Or if not, someone else, hopefully, may have bought the inventory. Still a number of places selling parts for these, anyway. From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Thu Aug 12 14:27:42 2021 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 15:27:42 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: <20210812152742.3475a56e@dragonsweb.org> On Thu, 12 Aug 2021 13:10:43 -0400 Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: > > I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get > > past the 68000 models. > > I may still have a II, and I definitely still have at least one > (functional) III and a 4Si > > I still use my 4M/L all the time - Postscript + LocalTalk + IEEE1284. > It's a great little printer. > > -ethan > I don't keep it powered up 24/7, even though it has a powersave mode, but I do use this 4MV fairly regularly. It's needing a minor overhaul again after 12 or so years since the last one, but it's probably the most reliable printer I have. +postscript +11x17, +PC&Mac, etc. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 14:46:21 2021 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:46:21 -0300 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <20210812152203.4e06de0e@dragonsweb.org> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> <3f51a024-62ae-f651-0e24-00373f01f680@bitsavers.org> <20210812152203.4e06de0e@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: <0bae3dae-483a-00ad-2d72-7aed3fbd0f77@gmail.com> > On Thu, 12 Aug 2021 07:44:27 -0700 >> On 8/12/21 7:25 AM, John Foust via cctalk wrote: >> HP used Canon formatters on the LW and LWII, then did their own on >> the LW III with more and more HP ASICs on them. They are all 68000 >> based. Looks like they switched to i960s or 29000's up through the VI. AFAIK HP did the HPII and HPIII formatters -- ---8<---Corte Aqui---8<--- https://www.tabalabs.com.br https://tabajara-labs.blogspot.com From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 14:52:19 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 12:52:19 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <0bae3dae-483a-00ad-2d72-7aed3fbd0f77@gmail.com> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812142630.523C627415@mx1.ezwind.net> <3f51a024-62ae-f651-0e24-00373f01f680@bitsavers.org> <20210812152203.4e06de0e@dragonsweb.org> <0bae3dae-483a-00ad-2d72-7aed3fbd0f77@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9988db04-d208-dd4b-6ba0-239a26d6966f@bitsavers.org> On 8/12/21 12:46 PM, Alexandre Souza via cctalk wrote: > AFAIK HP did the HPII and HPIII formatters https://www.ebay.com/itm/143476807618 From couryhouse at aol.com Thu Aug 12 15:39:19 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 20:39:19 +0000 (UTC) Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <001201d78f91$e2663d20$a732b760$@net> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <001201d78f91$e2663d20$a732b760$@net> Message-ID: <400322445.32282.1628800759072@mail.yahoo.com> The 4si? my last large printer... ah I miss it!??Ed# Sent from the all new AOL app for Android On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 8:50 AM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME > and I was wondering > if anyone still has boards or firmware dumps from Laserjets. > > It seems most have been scrapped. > > "nobody collects printers" I don't know about collect but I have a soft spot for early LaserJets. I have a 4SI and 4M+ and an original Color LJ. I also have a few Apple LaserWriters (IIgs, 600, maybe one more). I have tried to get my hands on an original LJ a couple of times but the deals fell through and I did get a IIID but before it could be shipped the seller moved warehouses and it got lost in the move. Frankly if you can't find it locally it is hard to get them. Sort of like CRTs. If anyone in the LA Area wants to get rid of the following I'd be interested in giving them a good home: LJ IIID LW 8500, Color LW, LW Pro 810 Compaq PageMarq 20 (or even a 15) IBM 4029 -Ali From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 12 17:23:10 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 15:23:10 -0700 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <32135d02-4400-7837-d4b4-df62b3000d67@uid0.hu> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> <32135d02-4400-7837-d4b4-df62b3000d67@uid0.hu> Message-ID: <43d899e4-9375-103b-d6be-f0c64e6169ca@bitsavers.org> On 8/12/21 3:16 PM, Zoltan HERPAI wrote: > > > On 08/12/2021 16:47, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/12/21 7:18 AM, James B DiGriz via cctalk wrote: >> >>> I recently pulled out a LaserJet IIIp while cleaning up to make space >> >> Someone gave me a IIIp yesterday. I think one sold at VCF-W over the weekend >> >> I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. > > Is there any interest in the firmware dumps for the JetDirect cards? Some of them also use 68k's IIRC. > yes, and pictures of the boards as well From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Aug 12 17:24:32 2021 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 18:24:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My workhorse printer is an HP 5Si/MX. I use it mostly for music and schematics, since it will do up to double-sided 11x17. You can still find NIB toner cartridges on Epay, as well as fusers and other parts. It's a beast. On Thu, 12 Aug 2021, Curious Marc via cctalk wrote: > My LaserJet 6MP is still going strong and is my main lab printer. I like it for retro work because it has AppleTalk capability. I plugged my Mac SE into the network and it automagically found it! Meanwhile Windows still doesn?t know it?s there unless you put its nose right on it ;-) > Marc > >> On Aug 12, 2021, at 10:10 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: >> >> ?On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM Al Kossow via cctalk >> wrote: >>> I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. >> >> I may still have a II, and I definitely still have at least one >> (functional) III and a 4Si >> >> I still use my 4M/L all the time - Postscript + LocalTalk + IEEE1284. >> It's a great little printer. >> >> -ethan > Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 17:31:40 2021 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 15:31:40 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 5:59 PM Paul Koning wrote: > > > On Aug 11, 2021, at 7:06 PM, Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: > > > >> ... > > > > Ah ha! Thanks much, Glen! > > > > simh is usually pretty good about padding out attached images, > > No, I don't think that is true. What is true is that recent versions of SIMH will create full size container files for disk containers. But sufficiently old versions did not, so it is not too strange to run into, say, an RK05 image that's shorter than 4800 blocks. > > But those normally work; all that happens is that reading too far either gives you zeroes or a read error, I don't remember which. Since the blocks were never written they should be marked as unused in the file system and nothing will read them, so that's fine. > > If there's an unused track at the start of a SIMH image file and in your copy that was missing, that's a different case. Is that the issue? > > Or is the RX02 emulation different from regular disks? > > paul It's been a while since the last time I did anything with a SIMH PDP-11. I just fired up the simh-4.0-Current--2020-06-09-0912a927 version that I last used to take a look at these RX-02 disk images. As far as I can tell by default PUTR expects to work with logical sector order RX-02 disk images that are 512,512 bytes in size. The BASIC-11 RX-02 disk image available here is in logical sector order, but is less than 512,512 bytes in size: http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx02/ PUTR appears to be unhappy with the disk image unless it is padded to 512,512 bytes in size. On the other hand as far as I can tell by default SIMH expects to work with physical sector order RX-02 disk images. If I mount the logical sector order RX-02 disk image that works with PUTR in SIMH, then RT-11 gives a "?DIR-F-Invalid directory" error. If I translate the logical sector order RX-02 disk image back into a physical sector order disk image (dealing with track shifting, sector interleaving, and track to track sector skewing) then RT-11 on SIMH is happy with the disk image. From mhs.stein at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 18:17:56 2021 From: mhs.stein at gmail.com (Mike Stein) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 19:17:56 -0400 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <0CF50F5C-2312-4AE1-8377-D5ABB4F53128@avanthar.com> Message-ID: I've got a NEC board here with 8 x 27C010 1megabit EPROMs which AFAIK is the postscript firmware for a NEC laser printer; any interest? On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 1:34 PM Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/12/21 9:09 AM, Zane Healy wrote: > > I?m really curious as to why they?re working on the emulation. > > For the intellectual challenge, and to play with the Postscript > interpreter. > > > From fritzm at fritzm.org Thu Aug 12 19:29:33 2021 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 17:29:33 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> Message-ID: <6EF44ACD-DC9E-4A61-862F-581901D4B9AC@fritzm.org> > On Aug 12, 2021, at 3:31 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > If I translate the logical > sector order RX-02 disk image back into a physical sector order disk > image (dealing with track shifting, sector interleaving, and track to > track sector skewing) then RT-11 on SIMH is happy with the disk image. Ah, interesting... Where's the best place to look for more information in the RX02 RT-11 logical/physical mapping? Glen, if you wouldn't mind sending me a copy of your resulting simh-compatible image, I'd be happy to post it in an upcoming blog article for others who might find it useful as well... cheers, --FritzM. From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Aug 12 19:50:08 2021 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 17:50:08 -0700 Subject: howto bitsavers BASIC-11 v2 disk image under simh In-Reply-To: <6EF44ACD-DC9E-4A61-862F-581901D4B9AC@fritzm.org> References: <034A9C24-13A1-4646-9A2B-8169E04E0B0C@fritzm.org> <527F1EC8-E4B4-4135-AFDD-B2A81AA90C4D@fritzm.org> <6EF44ACD-DC9E-4A61-862F-581901D4B9AC@fritzm.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 5:29 PM Fritz Mueller wrote: > > > > On Aug 12, 2021, at 3:31 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > > If I translate the logical > > sector order RX-02 disk image back into a physical sector order disk > > image (dealing with track shifting, sector interleaving, and track to > > track sector skewing) then RT-11 on SIMH is happy with the disk image. > > Ah, interesting... Where's the best place to look for more information in the RX02 RT-11 logical/physical mapping? > > Glen, if you wouldn't mind sending me a copy of your resulting simh-compatible image, I'd be happy to post it in an upcoming blog article for others who might find it useful as well... > > cheers, > --FritzM. One bit of information that I found helpful as a reference when I looked at this quite a while ago was the 2.11BSD RX02 floppy disk device driver source code, which can be viewed online here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2.11BSD/sys/pdpuba/rx.c In particular, the routine rxfactr(), which as the comment says it calculates the physical sector and physical track on the disk for a given logical sector. I used that as a starting point to write a simple utility to read an RX-02 disk image file in logical sector order and output an RX-02 disk image file in physical sector order. /* * rxfactr -- calculates the physical sector and physical * track on the disk for a given logical sector. * call: * rxfactr(logical_sector,&p_sector,&p_track); * the logical sector number (0 - 2001) is converted * to a physical sector number (1 - 26) and a physical * track number (0 - 76). * the logical sectors specify physical sectors that * are interleaved with a factor of 2. thus the sectors * are read in the following order for increasing * logical sector numbers (1,3, ... 23,25,2,4, ... 24,26) * There is also a 6 sector slew between tracks. * Logical sectors start at track 1, sector 1; go to * track 76 and then to track 0. Thus, for example, unix block number * 498 starts at track 0, sector 25 and runs thru track 0, sector 2 * (or 6 depending on density). */ static rxfactr(sectr, psectr, ptrck) register int sectr; int *psectr, *ptrck; { register int p1, p2; p1 = sectr / 26; p2 = sectr % 26; /* 2 to 1 interleave */ p2 = (2 * p2 + (p2 >= 13 ? 1 : 0)) % 26; /* 6 sector per track slew */ *psectr = 1 + (p2 + 6 * p1) % 26; if (++p1 >= 77) p1 = 0; *ptrck = p1; } From wigyori at uid0.hu Thu Aug 12 17:16:15 2021 From: wigyori at uid0.hu (Zoltan HERPAI) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:16:15 +0200 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: <32135d02-4400-7837-d4b4-df62b3000d67@uid0.hu> On 08/12/2021 16:47, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/12/21 7:18 AM, James B DiGriz via cctalk wrote: > >> I recently pulled out a LaserJet IIIp while cleaning up to make space > > Someone gave me a IIIp yesterday. I think one sold at VCF-W over the > weekend > > I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past > the 68000 models. Is there any interest in the firmware dumps for the JetDirect cards? Some of them also use 68k's IIRC. From cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net Fri Aug 13 09:43:33 2021 From: cctalk at gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 08:43:33 -0600 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: <32135d02-4400-7837-d4b4-df62b3000d67@uid0.hu> References: <5d883299-808a-db55-fcab-f8cf511dfbd4@bitsavers.org> <20210812101833.544795ce@dragonsweb.org> <32135d02-4400-7837-d4b4-df62b3000d67@uid0.hu> Message-ID: <931e3dfe-815b-2699-2e5f-93f1af555730@spamtrap.tnetconsulting.net> On 8/12/21 4:16 PM, Zoltan HERPAI via cctalk wrote: > Is there any interest in the firmware dumps for the JetDirect cards? I have no idea what sort of effort it would take to do so, much less how usable the dumps would be. That being said, I can see some value in a virtual JetDirect. Especially if it could emulate an older more capable JetDirect (multi-protocol) that could be used by something to translate to more contemporary printing methods; e.g. IPP. It might be an option for older virtual machines to be able to talk to and print to contemporary printers. -- Grant. . . . unix || die From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 10:43:55 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 11:43:55 -0400 Subject: Early '80s Motorola Semiconductor Reference - anyone? In-Reply-To: <20210808093446.599bfdfc@dragonsweb.org> References: <1586C254-785A-4619-9529-316AB2EA28B6@typewritten.org> <733c6971-a75a-aed3-31fb-477c1b4dc3d6@sydex.com> <0F52E089-7CF9-45D3-A4DC-817BA23A9337@typewritten.org> <40d6187c-c08e-7b69-2e62-5297648932af@sydex.com> <3854BF6C-A2D5-4FFE-97CB-E8F1490C3EE3@typewritten.org> <292e26e6-1344-958c-cff3-4d19608ef571@bitsavers.org> <20210808093446.599bfdfc@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: I have Motorola's "linear circuits" and "interface circuits" from 1979, but actual Semiconductor Data Books I only have are from 1969-1973. On Sun, Aug 8, 2021 at 9:34 AM James B DiGriz via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Not directly useful for part number interchange, but schematic and > mechanicals for the 3T series switching regulators here: > http://www.rknorman.co.uk/Boschert%20PSU%20Circuit%20diagram.pdf > > On Sun, 8 Aug 2021 04:26:30 -0700 > Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/7/21 9:48 PM, r.stricklin via cctalk wrote: > > > > > Annoying, but I still appreciate the tip. I think I can get where I > > > need to go with the assorted Boschert manuals on Bitsavers, if I > > > put the effort into tracing mine out. > > > > Tony forwarded me some schematics which i've added to > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/boschert > > > > the OL400 from the PERQ was a nice find since their 1980's higher > > wattage supplies are very hard to find information on > > > > From healyzh at avanthar.com Fri Aug 13 13:43:15 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 11:43:15 -0700 Subject: How do CRT's age? Message-ID: <218E1415-14DB-428F-A1FB-D8947AB2A480@avanthar.com> Odd question, how well do CRT?s age? Just the CRT, if what I think exists, is actually there, they?ve never been in Oscilloscopes. Zane From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 13 13:47:40 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 14:47:40 -0400 Subject: How do CRT's age? In-Reply-To: <218E1415-14DB-428F-A1FB-D8947AB2A480@avanthar.com> References: <218E1415-14DB-428F-A1FB-D8947AB2A480@avanthar.com> Message-ID: I'm a bit confused by the wording. Is the question "how well do they age if not used"? I would say they should last pretty much indefinitely so long as the vacuum seal is correctly made and not cracked, and of course there is no other evidence of mechanical damage. paul > On Aug 13, 2021, at 2:43 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > Odd question, how well do CRT?s age? Just the CRT, if what I think exists, is actually there, they?ve never been in Oscilloscopes. > > Zane > > From charlesmorris800 at centurytel.net Fri Aug 13 14:18:19 2021 From: charlesmorris800 at centurytel.net (Charles) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 21:18:19 +0200 Subject: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/13/21 7:00 PM, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 1 > Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2021 13:10:43 -0400 > From: Ethan Dicks > To: Al Kossow, "General Discussion: On-Topic and > Off-Topic Posts" > Subject: Re: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM Al Kossow via cctalk > wrote: >> I suspect interest in emulating them will die out once they get past the 68000 models. > I may still have a II, and I definitely still have at least one > (functional) III and a 4Si > > I still use my 4M/L all the time - Postscript + LocalTalk + IEEE1284. > It's a great little printer. > > -ethan I have a IIp+ that I got for $2 at a hamfest around 15 years ago... I have repaired it several times (most recently, visibly bad electrolytics in the switching PS startup circuit). In fact that's the second time the power supply has failed - the first time was years ago and I just replaced the board. Now it's crinkling the bottom of pages... there used to be a kit to fix that. I love those old "bricks". Although mine is like my grandfather's axe (new head and new handle but it's still my grandpa's axe) :) The trick nowadays is finding toner cartridges that weren't just refilled, but actually rebuilt (with a new wiper blade). -Charles From healyzh at avanthar.com Fri Aug 13 14:23:26 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 12:23:26 -0700 Subject: How do CRT's age? In-Reply-To: References: <218E1415-14DB-428F-A1FB-D8947AB2A480@avanthar.com> Message-ID: <2980F019-3CDF-4B4C-9318-86090AA3797E@avanthar.com> Really, that?s what I thought. The ones I?m thinking of, should still be in the packaging, assuming my Dad didn?t drill them out to make lamps (at which point they?re an art object). At some point, my Mom wants me to get into where they?re stored. Zane > On Aug 13, 2021, at 11:47 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > I'm a bit confused by the wording. Is the question "how well do they age if not used"? > > I would say they should last pretty much indefinitely so long as the vacuum seal is correctly made and not cracked, and of course there is no other evidence of mechanical damage. > > paul > >> On Aug 13, 2021, at 2:43 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> >> Odd question, how well do CRT?s age? Just the CRT, if what I think exists, is actually there, they?ve never been in Oscilloscopes. >> >> Zane >> >> > From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 13 14:35:30 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 12:35:30 -0700 Subject: How do CRT's age? In-Reply-To: <2980F019-3CDF-4B4C-9318-86090AA3797E@avanthar.com> References: <218E1415-14DB-428F-A1FB-D8947AB2A480@avanthar.com> <2980F019-3CDF-4B4C-9318-86090AA3797E@avanthar.com> Message-ID: I vaguely remember this being discussed eons ago wrt correct storage orientation to keep cathode shed from hitting the phosphor. From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 20:14:04 2021 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 21:14:04 -0400 Subject: 30 yrs. ago Message-ID: 30 years ago this month the IBM PC debuted at $1565. Some say this began the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org is all about! For those interested in the OS world LINUX is 30 years old. Time has passed but this is what classic computing is all about. Happy computing. Murray ? From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 13 20:24:28 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:24:28 -0700 Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <19b06b9a-8dbc-ad9b-34f0-381547d402a8@bitsavers.org> On 8/13/21 6:14 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > this began > the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org > is all about wrong go play with the children on vogons or the VCF forum if you feel that way From barythrin at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 20:24:42 2021 From: barythrin at gmail.com (John Herron) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 20:24:42 -0500 Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 40* years ago? On Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 8:14 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > 30 years ago this month the IBM PC debuted at $1565. Some say this began > the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org > is all about! For those interested in the OS world > LINUX is 30 years old. Time has passed but this is what classic computing > is all about. > > > Happy computing. > > > Murray ? > From healyzh at avanthar.com Fri Aug 13 20:26:16 2021 From: healyzh at avanthar.com (Zane Healy) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:26:16 -0700 Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <473BCEA9-E2B5-4B9C-A1F9-E287DEFC8523@avanthar.com> Linux actually turns 30 in a couple months. In January, I?ll have used it for 30 years. Zane Sent from my iPod > On Aug 13, 2021, at 6:14 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > > 30 years ago this month the IBM PC debuted at $1565. Some say this began > the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org > is all about! For those interested in the OS world > LINUX is 30 years old. Time has passed but this is what classic computing > is all about. > > > Happy computing. > > > Murray ? From c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 20:36:16 2021 From: c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com (Murray McCullough) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 21:36:16 -0400 Subject: 30 yrs. ago Message-ID: My apologies. ? It was 40 years ago that the IBM PC became a retail computer this month. Murray ? From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Aug 13 20:38:19 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:38:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Aug 2021, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > 30 years ago this month the IBM PC debuted at $1565. Some say this began > the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org > is all about! For those interested in the OS world > LINUX is 30 years old. Time has passed but this is what classic computing > is all about. > Happy computing. > Murray ???? August 11, 1981, NOT 1991 It has been 40 years. There were many of us who said that it was the END of the era. And that in a few years, more that half of the personal computers would be PC, or imitations thereof. It has never been what classiccmp.org is all about! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From jdbryan at acm.org Fri Aug 13 15:20:39 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 16:20:39 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans Message-ID: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> Is it still useful to linearize PDFs? I've been scanning and PDFing manuals for 16 years, and I've been linearizing them regularly. My understanding is that this made them accessible on a page-by-page basis in Web browsers without requiring a complete file download first. But given the increase in typical bandwidth in 16 years, I wonder if this is still useful. It is an extra step, and it does make the files somewhat larger. Recommendations? Does linearizing confer any advantage locally once the entire file is downloaded? Thanks. -- Dave From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 15:23:56 2021 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 17:23:56 -0300 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: Hey Dave, I've been digitizing docs for free for years Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss the subject? All pdfs in www.tabalabs.com.br/esquemateca were scanned by me. I'm always open to critics and suggestions thanks Alexandre, PU2SEX ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com http://www.tabalabs.com.br ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- Em sex., 13 de ago. de 2021 ?s 17:20, J. David Bryan via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> escreveu: > Is it still useful to linearize PDFs? > > I've been scanning and PDFing manuals for 16 years, and I've been > linearizing them regularly. My understanding is that this made them > accessible on a page-by-page basis in Web browsers without requiring a > complete file download first. But given the increase in typical bandwidth > in 16 years, I wonder if this is still useful. It is an extra step, and > it > does make the files somewhat larger. > > Recommendations? Does linearizing confer any advantage locally once the > entire file is downloaded? > > Thanks. > > -- Dave > > From jdbryan at acm.org Fri Aug 13 17:15:21 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:15:21 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, Message-ID: <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss > the subject? I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, modified slightly: - scan at 600 dpi - use TIFF G4 where feasible - use tumble to convert to PDF I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based on the Leptonica image library: http://www.leptonica.org/ ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). They start with the raw scans and: - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) - remove random noise dots (despeckle) - rotate to straighten (deskew) - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF A good example PDF produced by these programs is: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and the rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original scan filenames. The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is still useful. -- Dave From tony.aiuto at gmail.com Fri Aug 13 17:23:29 2021 From: tony.aiuto at gmail.com (Tony Aiuto) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2021 18:23:29 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 6:15 PM J. David Bryan via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > > Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss > > the subject? > > I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, > modified slightly: > > - scan at 600 dpi > - use TIFF G4 where feasible > - use tumble to convert to PDF > > I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based > on > the Leptonica image library: > > http://www.leptonica.org/ > > ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). > They start with the raw scans and: > > - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. > - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) > - remove random noise dots (despeckle) > - rotate to straighten (deskew) > - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images > - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas > - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF > > A good example PDF produced by these programs is: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf > > The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and > 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and > the > rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF > bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original > scan filenames. > > The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is > still useful. > > -- Dave It is of negative value. Any single container for a document makes it easier to handle than a bunch of pages discrete files that must be managed as a unit. Bandwidth is cheaper than human labor. Don't optimize the wrong thing. > > > > From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Aug 14 06:39:25 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 07:39:25 -0400 Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This guy might be joking in his comments about 30 years and the IBM pc. On Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 10:21 PM John Herron via cctalk wrote: > 40* years ago? > > On Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 8:14 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > 30 years ago this month the IBM PC debuted at $1565. Some say this began > > the era of mass-computing and it is now what classiccmp.org > > is all about! For those interested in the OS > world > > LINUX is 30 years old. Time has passed but this is what classic computing > > is all about. > > > > > > Happy computing. > > > > > > Murray ? > > > From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Aug 14 11:18:53 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 12:18:53 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Message-ID: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH.? The fellow steps through the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape image. Anyone know where the tape image is located? Doug From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 14 12:54:07 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 11:54:07 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 > 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. > It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through > the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. > I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the > video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. > Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape > image. > Anyone know where the tape image is located? > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot tape (or its files) that you are looking for. Warner From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 14 13:04:10 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 11:04:10 -0700 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> On 8/13/21 3:15 PM, J. David Bryan via cctech wrote: > On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss >> the subject? > > I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, > modified slightly: > > - scan at 600 dpi > - use TIFF G4 where feasible > - use tumble to convert to PDF > > I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based on > the Leptonica image library: > > http://www.leptonica.org/ > > ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). > They start with the raw scans and: > > - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. > - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) > - remove random noise dots (despeckle) > - rotate to straighten (deskew) > - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images > - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas > - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF > > A good example PDF produced by these programs is: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf > > The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and > 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and the > rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF > bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original > scan filenames. > > The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is > still useful. > > -- Dave > Jay Jager is trying to deal with scanning manuals with colored text and backgrounds. Is your workflow for dealing with this around somewhere? From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 14 13:04:10 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 11:04:10 -0700 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> On 8/13/21 3:15 PM, J. David Bryan via cctech wrote: > On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > >> Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss >> the subject? > > I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, > modified slightly: > > - scan at 600 dpi > - use TIFF G4 where feasible > - use tumble to convert to PDF > > I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based on > the Leptonica image library: > > http://www.leptonica.org/ > > ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). > They start with the raw scans and: > > - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. > - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) > - remove random noise dots (despeckle) > - rotate to straighten (deskew) > - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images > - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas > - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF > > A good example PDF produced by these programs is: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf > > The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and > 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and the > rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF > bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original > scan filenames. > > The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is > still useful. > > -- Dave > Jay Jager is trying to deal with scanning manuals with colored text and backgrounds. Is your workflow for dealing with this around somewhere? From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Sat Aug 14 13:22:36 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 12:22:36 -0600 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 2021-08-14 12:04 p.m., Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/13/21 3:15 PM, J. David Bryan via cctech wrote: >> On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: >> >>> Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss >>> the subject? >> >> I am not aware of any.? I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, >> modified slightly: >> >> ?? - scan at 600 dpi >> ?? - use TIFF G4 where feasible >> ?? - use tumble to convert to PDF >> >> I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities >> based on >> the Leptonica image library: >> >> ?? http://www.leptonica.org/ >> >> ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). >> They start with the raw scans and: >> >> ?? - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. >> ?? - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) >> ?? - remove random noise dots (despeckle) >> ?? - rotate to straighten (deskew) >> ?? - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images >> ?? - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas >> ?? - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF >> >> A good example PDF produced by these programs is: >> >> >> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf >> >> The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and >> 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, >> and the >> rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images.? The PDF >> bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original >> scan filenames. >> >> The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is >> still useful. >> >> ?????????????????????????????????????? -- Dave I tend to have my PDF's on portable device, so PDF's need to be easy to use on those devices. Ben. From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Aug 14 15:08:32 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 16:08:32 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk > > wrote: > > I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 > 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. > It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH.? The fellow steps > through > the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. > I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used > in the > video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. > Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but > not the bootable tape > image. > Anyone know where the tape image is located? > > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ > > has?ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the > boot tape (or its files) that you are looking for. > > Warner I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it.? It is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that tape.? Have to do some more digging.? Its a learning experience. From invi at vivaldi.net Sat Aug 14 15:09:33 2021 From: invi at vivaldi.net (invi at vivaldi.net) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 20:09:33 +0000 Subject: VT101 free to good home, pick up in w. Oregon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8d90fe2b3cacec3511907d739d7359d7@vivaldi.net> Taken. On 2021-08-07 14:31, invi via cctalk wrote: > It was sitting in the trash. No keyboard, no power cord. Case was open > and some of the bundles of wires inside are disconnected, so I doubt > it's in working condition. > > I'm not much of a hardware collector, so I was hoping to put it in the > hands of someone who would like it. From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 14 15:36:07 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 14:36:07 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:08 PM Douglas Taylor wrote: > On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 >> 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. >> It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through >> the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. >> I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the >> video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. >> Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape >> image. >> Anyone know where the tape image is located? >> > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ > has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot > tape (or its files) that you are looking for. > > Warner > > I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it. It > is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that > tape. Have to do some more digging. Its a learning experience. > There are several prep programs that take the tape files and make a .tap file. Warner > From geneb at deltasoft.com Sat Aug 14 15:46:30 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 13:46:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Aug 2021, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > There were many of us who said that it was the END of the era. And that in a > few years, more that half of the personal computers would be PC, or > imitations thereof. > Yep. It ushered in the era of billions of identical x86 shitboxen. :( 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From jwsmail at jwsss.com Sat Aug 14 16:26:13 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 14:26:13 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> On 8/14/2021 1:36 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:08 PM Douglas Taylor wrote: > >> On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 >>> 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. >>> It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through >>> the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. >>> I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the >>> video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. >>> Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape >>> image. >>> Anyone know where the tape image is located? >>> >> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ >> has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot >> tape (or its files) that you are looking for. >> >> Warner >> >> I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it. It >> is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that >> tape. Have to do some more digging. Its a learning experience. >> > There are several prep programs that take the tape files and make a .tap > file. > > Warner > I unzipped all the cctalk images I have and in the 2000 time frame there's a discussion about running 3.x version and upgrading to 4.x. Fun to see digression into how Netscape is having trouble with java extensions to the Altavista search engine they were looking for image info with. This is the closest to the subject I found.? No references to any tape images of the 3.x version. From July 2008 archive (I think Jay has these online somewhere back that far) From richardlynch3 at tx.rr.com? Wed Jul 23 20:44:41 2008 From: richardlynch3 at tx.rr.com (Richard Lynch) Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:44:41 -0500 Subject: ultrix on simh On 7/23/08 7:09 AM, "Tom Manos" wrote: > Hi, > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple of goals > I don't know how to accomplish. I'm hoping someone here can help. ... snip ... I have an image of an Ultrix V3.1 upgrade tape I can send if you want to try it.? You should be able to mount it as a tape in the simh vax emulator and boot it.? If you want to go a little further, I also have V4.x images. Richard Lynch Thanks Jim From cym224 at gmail.com Sat Aug 14 16:31:15 2021 From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 17:31:15 -0400 Subject: 30 yrs. ago In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <150c5bac-a250-7872-0a75-3486c01cda8d@gmail.com> On 2021-08-14 16:46, geneb via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, 13 Aug 2021, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> There were many of us who said that it was the END of the era.? And >> that in a few years, more that half of the personal computers would >> be PC, or imitations thereof. >> > > Yep.? It ushered in the era of billions of identical x86 shitboxen. :( I recall attending a demo of the PC at IBM Toronto.? About 40 of us in the room.? Notable was that the presenter chose slides with a light-pen on his (non-PC) screen. N. From jdbryan at acm.org Sat Aug 14 17:36:17 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 18:36:17 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net>, <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210814223619.DEA334E70C@mx2.ezwind.net> On Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 11:04, Al Kossow via cctech wrote: > Jay Jager is trying to deal with scanning manuals with colored text > and backgrounds. Is your workflow for dealing with this around > somewhere? I'm still using the same set of programs that I sent to you in April 2016 (as image-utilities.zip). Have Jay contact me directly, and I'll see what I can do to help. Spot color (colored text being a specific case) is the most difficult issue to handle, in my experience, especially as the colors are usually screened from CMYK. Solidifying screened colored areas and quantizing into a small number of solid colors that can be rendered, e.g., as a four-color PNG page in a PDF, is not trivial, especially when text or line drawings touch or overlay the screened areas. -- Dave From jdbryan at acm.org Sat Aug 14 17:54:23 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 18:54:23 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org>, Message-ID: <20210814225424.8A52227333@mx1.ezwind.net> On Saturday, August 14, 2021 at 12:22, ben via cctech wrote: > I tend to have my PDF's on portable device, so PDF's need to be easy > to use on those devices. Linearizing keeps PDFs as complete files but rearranges (and expands) them internally so that individual pages can be rendered from a subrange of bytes sent by the server. Before linearization, the information necessary to render a given page is scattered around the PDF file, so typically the whole file must be downloaded before displaying the page. Once the whole file is present locally, there's no difference in access or display whether linearized or not. I guess the operative question is whether people tend to view PDF pages on a server or download files and view them locally. Thanks. -- Dave From als at thangorodrim.ch Sat Aug 14 18:20:05 2021 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:20:05 +0200 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <20210814232005.GA31331@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 06:15:21PM -0400, J. David Bryan via cctech wrote: > On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > > Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss > > the subject? > > I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, > modified slightly: > > - scan at 600 dpi > - use TIFF G4 where feasible > - use tumble to convert to PDF My current toolchain for that: - scans at 600 dpi grayscale - compresses the raw scans with zip for archival and possible reruns (yes, I got bit by overly aggressive compression optimization in djvu, ask me about it, *grr*) - runs them through gm convert input.tiff -normalize -despeckle +dither -type bilevel output.tiff - uses tiff_findskew and pnmrotate to deskew them - compresses the tiff files with G4 for feeding into tesseract - uses tesseract to create PDFs with overlaid OCRed text per page and separately dump the OCR text into a txt for later indexing - bundles the per-page PDFs into a single PDF with pdfunite - finally archives, as a single commit into a git repo - the zip compressed raw scans - the OCR overlaid PDF - the OCRed txt While tesseract isn't perfect, it does a pretty good job. Copy-pasting OCRed text from one of those PDFs opened in evince works remarkably well. It is mostly used to avoid piling up mountains of paper from stuff like invoices, tax bills as well as the occasional "I'm not sure if I'm ever going to look at this manual again, let's archive it just in case". I probably should bundle the whole mess of scripts up and put it on github some day. > > I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based on > the Leptonica image library: > > http://www.leptonica.org/ Thanks for the pointer, I'm going to take a look - apparently tesseract uses leptonica for some image processing work. > > ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). > They start with the raw scans and: > > - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. > - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) > - remove random noise dots (despeckle) > - rotate to straighten (deskew) > - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images > - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas > - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF > > A good example PDF produced by these programs is: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf That is a very nice and clean scan! > > The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and > 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and the > rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF > bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original > scan filenames. > > The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is > still useful. What is that? Never heard of linearizing PDF before, I've so far been concerned to eventually adjust my pipeline to properly support PDF/A (the archival version), but haven't gotten around to look into it. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From trash80 at internode.on.net Sat Aug 14 21:55:51 2021 From: trash80 at internode.on.net (Kevin Parker) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 12:55:51 +1000 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <0c3101d79181$100cec10$3026c430$@internode.on.net> Hi Dave - I think it used to be called Byte Range Serving i.e. it would only serve up the page requested so URL's like somewebsite.com/myfile.pdf#page=4 would only send page 4 to the browser - I think this is what you are talking about Back in my earlier PDF days and the web we were quite a**l about setting PDF's up for this due to much tighter bandwidth constraints but on my limited understanding it required support from the web server to actually give effect to this. I don't know if PDF's are optimised out of the box these days for this but if you optimise a PDF for web delivery it should have the markers in it for byte range serving. While the markers may add a bit to the file size, which I suspect would be negligible, the action of optimising it for web delivery should reduce file size quite noticeably anyway. If you have an option for optimising for web delivery in your PDF tool then try pumping out a PDF file both ways and compare file size. Is it useful these days - probably not so much because of better bandwidth in my view (although directing a browser to open to a specific page can still be useful) but that is conditional on having well prepared PDF files. I'm not aware of any local benefit in having files prepared this way other than having good quality PDF's that are well presented and therefore easier to use. Kevin Parker 0418 815 527 -----Original Message----- From: cctech On Behalf Of J. David Bryan via cctech Sent: Saturday, 14 August 2021 6:21 AM To: Classic Computing List Subject: Linearizing PDF scans Is it still useful to linearize PDFs? I've been scanning and PDFing manuals for 16 years, and I've been linearizing them regularly. My understanding is that this made them accessible on a page-by-page basis in Web browsers without requiring a complete file download first. But given the increase in typical bandwidth in 16 years, I wonder if this is still useful. It is an extra step, and it does make the files somewhat larger. Recommendations? Does linearizing confer any advantage locally once the entire file is downloaded? Thanks. -- Dave From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 14 23:45:03 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:45:03 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 2:36 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:08 PM Douglas Taylor > wrote: > >> On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: >> >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 >>> 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. >>> It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through >>> the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. >>> I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the >>> video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. >>> Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape >>> image. >>> Anyone know where the tape image is located? >>> >> >> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ >> has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot >> tape (or its files) that you are looking for. >> >> Warner >> >> I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it. It >> is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that >> tape. Have to do some more digging. Its a learning experience. >> > > There are several prep programs that take the tape files and make a .tap > file. > Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has complete instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes Warner > Warner > >> From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 14 23:53:44 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:53:44 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out in the interwebs... Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? Warner From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 14 23:55:53 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:55:53 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:53 PM Warner Losh wrote: n Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple >> > > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out in > the interwebs... > > Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? > Doh! No sooner did I send this that I found http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/magtapes/ultrix-11/BB-X302B-BC_ULTRIX-11_V2_16USR_BIN_1984.tap.gz so never mind. Of course Al has it. Warner From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Aug 15 00:31:26 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 22:31:26 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: <35b90975-480c-0a9a-d464-859b812be803@bitsavers.org> On 8/14/21 9:55 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > Of course Al has it. I have lots of things, unfortunately there are lots of other things out on the interwebs that I have no idea exist. From emu at e-bbes.com Sun Aug 15 07:32:57 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 08:32:57 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1f0c6bcc-a94b-a424-716d-1ddc45f24542@e-bbes.com> On 2021-08-14 12:18, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 > 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. > It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH.? The fellow steps through > the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. > I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the > video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. > Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape > image. > Anyone know where the tape image is located? The "install tape" was distributed as a series of files which have to be written to a real tape with different block sizes. So if you have a directory with more than one .tap file, look for a shell script to write those to a tape drive ... There you will see, which file made the real boot tape ... From cube1 at charter.net Sun Aug 15 10:05:15 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 10:05:15 -0500 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On 8/14/2021 11:53 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple >> > > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out in > the interwebs... > > Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? > > Warner > FYI, I have Images of the RX50 floppies for V7M. Al - let me know if you want them, and I will put them up for you to snag - 33 floppies worth. I have *not* tried to install from them. I also have *part* of version 1 of Ultrix 32 (Vax) - but only the first tape. (Version 1.1 is up on Bitsavers). If anyone wants it let me know. It is in AWS format, but it is trivial to make an image suitable for use with SimH. ID: CC0003 EXTERNAL-LABEL: BB-BG41A-BE DATE: 2000/07/23 SOURCE: SOURCE-DATE: DENSITY: 1600 BPI LABEL: NL DESCRIPTION: ULTRIX-32 V1 BIN 16MT9 1/2 FILE-COUNT: 5 PC-FILE-COUNT: 2 [FILE] NAME: FORMAT: 512 Byte Blocks ERRORS: NONE NAME: FORMAT: 10240 Byte Blocks ERRORS: NONE NAME: FORMAT: 10240 Byte Blocks ERRORS: NONE NAME: FORMAT: 10240 Byte Blocks ERRORS: NONE NAME: FORMAT: 10240 Byte Blocks ERRORS: NONE [PC-FILE] FILENAME: ultrix.aws FORMAT: AWS Tape image of tape JRJ From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sun Aug 15 10:08:10 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 11:08:10 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 2:36 PM Warner Losh wrote: > >> >> >> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:08 PM Douglas Taylor >> wrote: >> >>> On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < >>> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>> >>>> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 >>>> 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. >>>> It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through >>>> the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. >>>> I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the >>>> video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. >>>> Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape >>>> image. >>>> Anyone know where the tape image is located? >>>> >>> >>> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ >>> has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot >>> tape (or its files) that you are looking for. >>> >>> Warner >>> >>> I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it. It >>> is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that >>> tape. Have to do some more digging. Its a learning experience. >>> >> >> There are several prep programs that take the tape files and make a .tap >> file. >> > > Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has complete > instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image that works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any Ultrix-11 on real or simulated hardware. Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of 4M. Not sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially simple but I could provide that as well. I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do things like Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix stuff. bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sun Aug 15 10:10:54 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 11:10:54 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On 8/15/21 12:53 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple >> > > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out in > the interwebs... > > Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? > > Warner > With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? Someone mentioned a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. But I suspect anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as far as 4.5. bill From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Aug 15 10:44:38 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 08:44:38 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0490e95a-a6b5-e64f-50fb-729d34ec912a@bitsavers.org> On 8/15/21 8:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > It's just shy of 4M. Not > sure if it could be emailed. If your system will accept something that big, I can receive it. It isn't uncommon anymore for mail clients to accept 10mb attachments thanks to HTML mail bloat. From imp at bsdimp.com Sun Aug 15 11:29:33 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 10:29:33 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 15, 2021, 9:11 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/15/21 12:53 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < > > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > >> > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a couple > >> > > > > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out in > > the interwebs... > > > > Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? > > > > Warner > > > > > With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? Historical research. Warner Someone mentioned > a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, > but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. But I suspect > anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as > far as 4.5. > > bill > > From cube1 at charter.net Sun Aug 15 11:42:44 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 11:42:44 -0500 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Aug 15, 2021, at 10:08, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > ?On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 2:36 PM Warner Losh wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 2:08 PM Douglas Taylor >>> wrote: >>> >>>> On 8/14/2021 1:54 PM, Warner Losh wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 10:19 AM Douglas Taylor via cctalk < >>>> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >>>> >>>>> I ran into a YouTube video, that it is 5 years old, titled "Ultrix-11 >>>>> 3.1 on an emulated PDP-11/73" and I found it very interesting. >>>>> It shows installation of Ultrix-11 under SIMH. The fellow steps through >>>>> the installation process and appears to be quite knowable. >>>>> I wanted to replicate it but couldn't locate the *.tap file used in the >>>>> video that was an image of the bootable TK50 distribution. >>>>> Bitsavers and tuhs.org have Ultrix-11 files, but not the bootable tape >>>>> image. >>>>> Anyone know where the tape image is located? >>>>> >>>> >>>> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-3.1/ >>>> has ultrix-3.1-bootape.tar.gz and seems to be, at first blush, the boot >>>> tape (or its files) that you are looking for. >>>> >>>> Warner >>>> >>>> I took a look at that file and don't exactly know what to do with it. It >>>> is not a bootable image of a tape, but rather the files that are on that >>>> tape. Have to do some more digging. Its a learning experience. >>>> >>> >>> There are several prep programs that take the tape files and make a .tap >>> file. >>> >> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has complete >> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > > It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image that > works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and > two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any Ultrix-11 > on real or simulated hardware. > > Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of 4M. Not > sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially simple but > I could provide that as well. > > I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do things like > Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix stuff. > > bill > Would presumably be a lot smaller gzip?d? From jdbryan at acm.org Sun Aug 15 00:29:37 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:29:37 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <0c3101d79181$100cec10$3026c430$@internode.on.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <0c3101d79181$100cec10$3026c430$@internode.on.net> Message-ID: <20210815053441.934D04E74D@mx2.ezwind.net> On Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 12:55, Kevin Parker wrote: > I think it used to be called Byte Range Serving i.e. it would only > serve up the page requested so URL's like > somewebsite.com/myfile.pdf#page=4 would only send page 4 to the browser > - I think this is what you are talking about That's it exactly. > ...but on my limited understanding it required support from the web > server to actually give effect to this. I believe that's right. At least all of the servers I used seemed to support this option. > I don't know if PDF's are optimised out of the box these days for this > but if you optimise a PDF for web delivery it should have the markers > in it for byte range serving. While the markers may add a bit to the > file size, which I suspect would be negligible, the action of > optimising it for web delivery should reduce file size quite noticeably > anyway. I use Ghostscript to perform the linearization as a post-process of the tumble-produced PDFs. It seems to add about 5-10% in size to the dozen or so files I've produced in both formats. Assuming one only looks at a few pages, it would certainly reduce the amount of data served, though, of course, if one requested the entire file, it would actually be a slight disadvantage. > Is it useful these days - probably not so much because of better > bandwidth in my view (although directing a browser to open to a > specific page can still be useful) but that is conditional on having > well prepared PDF files. It's an extra, albeit automated, step in my process, so it requires a limited effort on my part. But for a version or two, GS linearization was broken, so I wound up with a mix of linearized and non-linearized files. Which had me wondering whether it was worth going back and linearizing the ones that weren't. I could see it being most useful for something like IC databooks, where one might only want a one-time look up of a couple of pages out of a several hundred page PDF. For something like a service manual, though, I'd anticipate that folks would want to download the whole manual rather than a page here and a page there. As you say, it requires server support, and to be honest I've not checked recently to see if servers bother byte-serving anymore. Maybe pipes are too big to worry about it. Anyway, I was wondering if I was a dinosaur to keep linearizing these things if no one else was. Thanks for your thoughts. -- Dave From abuse at cabal.org.uk Sun Aug 15 13:36:48 2021 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 20:36:48 +0200 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210815053441.934D04E74D@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <0c3101d79181$100cec10$3026c430$@internode.on.net> <20210815053441.934D04E74D@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 15, 2021 at 01:29:37AM -0400, J. David Bryan via cctalk wrote: > On Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 12:55, Kevin Parker wrote: [...] >> ...but on my limited understanding it required support from the web >> server to actually give effect to this. > I believe that's right. At least all of the servers I used seemed to > support this option. The option in question is called "range requests" and is documented in the original HTTP/1.1 standard from way back in 1997. Any web server worth its salt should support it automatically when serving static files. It's used for resuming downloads, for example. [...] > Assuming one only looks at a few pages, it would certainly reduce the > amount of data served, though, of course, if one requested the entire > file, it would actually be a slight disadvantage. A larger disadvantage is the pause to download the next page when leafing through a PDF, which can be quite distracting to people who can read without moving their lips. [...] > As you say, it requires server support, and to be honest I've not checked > recently to see if servers bother byte-serving anymore. [...] If a server lacks support for range requests, it is either very old or a small hobby project, and shouldn't be let anywhere near the public Internet. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sun Aug 15 17:23:03 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:23:03 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <0490e95a-a6b5-e64f-50fb-729d34ec912a@bitsavers.org> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <0490e95a-a6b5-e64f-50fb-729d34ec912a@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 8/15/21 11:44 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/15/21 8:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> It's just shy of 4M. Not >> sure if it could be emailed. > > If your system will accept something that big, I can receive it. > > It isn't uncommon anymore for mail clients to accept 10mb attachments > thanks to HTML mail bloat. > I use Gmail. Don't know if they have a limit or not. Want me to try to email it to you? bill From lists at glitchwrks.com Sun Aug 15 17:45:07 2021 From: lists at glitchwrks.com (Jonathan Chapman) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 22:45:07 +0000 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <0490e95a-a6b5-e64f-50fb-729d34ec912a@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: If you can't get it to transfer, I can give you a temporary account on filedump.glitchwrks.com to upload it. Thanks, Jonathan ??????? Original Message ??????? On Sunday, August 15th, 2021 at 18:23, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/15/21 11:44 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/15/21 8:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > > > > It's just shy of 4M. Not > > > > > > sure if it could be emailed. > > > > If your system will accept something that big, I can receive it. > > > > It isn't uncommon anymore for mail clients to accept 10mb attachments > > > > thanks to HTML mail bloat. > > I use Gmail. Don't know if they have a limit or not. Want me to > > try to email it to you? > > bill From rp at servium.ch Sun Aug 15 20:59:16 2021 From: rp at servium.ch (Rico Pajarola) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 18:59:16 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <5b79ac35-79e8-33d3-281f-a705258b7d0d@jwsss.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Aug 15, 2021 at 9:29 AM Warner Losh via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 15, 2021, 9:11 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On 8/15/21 12:53 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > > On Sat, Aug 14, 2021 at 3:26 PM jim stephens via cctalk < > > > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > > >> > I'm running Ultrix V2 on Simh quite happily today and have a > couple > > >> > > > > > > I did some quick searching and couldn't find a Ultrix-11 V2 image out > in > > > the interwebs... > > > > > > Anybody have better google fu than me that can hook me up? > I don't have a proper V2 distribution, but I did manage to compile it from the sources that are flying around and create a working installation. I could not figure out how to create installation media though, the process seems to require some kind of "prototype disk" which I don't have and didn't have the motivation to reverse engineer. Somebody (not me) helpfully uploaded it to archive.org: https://archive.org/details/vax-ultrix-2.0.tar > > > > > > Warner > > > > > > > > > With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? > > > Historical research. > > Warner > > Someone mentioned > > a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, > > but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. But I suspect > > anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as > > far as 4.5. > > > > bill > > > > > From ethan at 757.org Mon Aug 16 10:10:47 2021 From: ethan at 757.org (Ethan O'Toole) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:10:47 -0400 (EDT) Subject: WTB: Amiga 3000 front/floppy Message-ID: Scored an A3000. Prior owner cut a hole where the floppy goes and mounted a PC floppy in there. Looking for an original front plate and the matching floppy drive to restore machine to original look. - Ethan From abuse at cabal.org.uk Mon Aug 16 12:02:11 2021 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 19:02:11 +0200 Subject: WTB: Amiga 3000 front/floppy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 11:10:47AM -0400, Ethan O'Toole via cctalk wrote: > Scored an A3000. Prior owner cut a hole where the floppy goes and mounted > a PC floppy in there. Looking for an original front plate and the matching > floppy drive to restore machine to original look. Those funky 150RPM Amiga HD drives are made from unicorns. I have one. I may have even seen another at some point in the last 30 years, but couldn't say for sure. If you don't need HD support, I suggest just taking the front off that PC drive and 3D-printing a plausible-looking fascia for it. From ethan at 757.org Mon Aug 16 12:11:18 2021 From: ethan at 757.org (Ethan O'Toole) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 13:11:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: WTB: Amiga 3000 front/floppy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3ccdd637-df1-11d2-abc5-ee3074473016@757.org> > Those funky 150RPM Amiga HD drives are made from unicorns. I have one. I may > have even seen another at some point in the last 30 years, but couldn't say > for sure. > If you don't need HD support, I suggest just taking the front off that PC > drive and 3D-printing a plausible-looking fascia for it. I mostly don't care about disks at all other than archiving them, the issue is the prior owner after the machine was older... cut a giant hole where the left floppy drive was... and mounted a normal PC drive inside. So the front has a larger than the drive hole cut in it. I will get a picture. It's because the A3000 used custom form fitted drives that match the front plastic unlike the 2000 where it was just a normal drive in a 2.5" hole. I have a few external Amiga floppies, so maybe the A3000 drive is just one of those inside with a different eject button? First thing to solve is the plastic face, then I can worry about floppy. The right drive has a plastic thing over it still as I recall. On my A2500HD I just run a SCSI2SD with a bracket I 3d printed that holds the board against an expansion slot... so I can remove the SD card now without taking off the cover. I can boot the SD card in WinUAE, copy stuff over, eject it. - Ethan -- : Ethan O'Toole From js at cimmeri.com Mon Aug 16 13:55:16 2021 From: js at cimmeri.com (js at cimmeri.com) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 13:55:16 -0500 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> Message-ID: <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via > cctalk wrote: >> >> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 >> in the tuhs archive has complete >> instructions as well as a program to >> build the ultrix tapes >> > > It took a day because I wanted to test > it but I have a TK50 image that > works with SIMH. I did an install on > an 11/73 with 3M of memory and > two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a > while since I did any Ultrix-11 > on real or simulated hardware. > > Have no idea how to get this tape to > anyone. It's just shy of 4M. Not > sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH > ini file is trivially simple but > I could provide that as well. > > I have nowhere I could put it up for > download. I don't do things like > Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB > site or something for Ultrix stuff. > > bill Bill's file is at: http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ From jdbryan at acm.org Mon Aug 16 14:39:44 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 15:39:44 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210814232005.GA31331@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net>, <20210814232005.GA31331@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> Message-ID: <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net> On Sunday, August 15, 2021 at 1:20, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > My current toolchain for that: Thanks; that was quite helpful. One aspect that I find of great assistance in navigating large PDF manuals is original page numbers. Often a manual will contain references, e.g., to "page 4-13" or "Appendix B-23". Having just a set of ascending integers for PDF page numbers and having to guess where Section 4 page 13 might be in that list is difficult, especially when PDF page 1 doesn't correspond to manual page 1-1 and the sections are very large. Being able to enter a referenced page number directly into a PDF reader's "go to page" dialog is very convenient. > > http://www.leptonica.org/ > > Thanks for the pointer, I'm going to take a look - apparently > tesseract uses leptonica for some image processing work. You're welcome. Yes, tesseract is one of the major users of Leptonica. When I first started using the library about ten years ago, I found the documentation very reminiscent of those school mathematics textbooks that said, "The proof is left as an exercise for the reader." There were a couple of examples on the host site but no comprehensive index of the 2500+ library routines. The approach was, "read the source," which was fine if one was familiar with image processing terms, such as affine transformations, morphology, convolution, and octcube-based color quantization. It may be better now, but it was something of an intellectual challenge at the time. > What is that? Never heard of linearizing PDF before.... It's documented in the PDF Reference Manual from Adobe. Apparently, it's been around since PDF 1.2. The introduction to the chapter says: A linearized PDF file is one that has been organized in a special way to enable efficient incremental access in a network environment. The file is valid PDF in all respects, and it is compatible with all existing viewers and other PDF applications. Enhanced viewers can recognize that a PDF file has been linearized and can take advantage of that organization to enhance viewing performance. ...which, as others have mentioned, essentially is to allow page-at-a-time access via a browser without having to download the entire file first. -- Dave From imp at bsdimp.com Mon Aug 16 18:01:28 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 17:01:28 -0600 Subject: DEC Rainbow Ethernet Hardware Message-ID: Greetings I'm looking for any and all information I can find on the DEC Rainbow ethernet cards. I know for sure that two exist, both plugged into the communications slot that most rainbows have filled with a hard disk controller. DEC made one, and Univation made the other. Univation also advertised a ARCnet card, but I found that only in one issue of Digital Review and the next issue moved up to Ethernet. So far all I've been able to find is DECnet DOS/Rainbow 1.0 which might have drivers for the former on it. I've seen no trace of the latter. Also, is there a convenient way to extract teledisk disks these days to something like an image file on Linux/FreeBSD? MAME almost can do this (I can read it in with the Rainbow emulator and diskcopy to a flat file that I can then examine), but I was hoping there was a tar-like tool to do the deed. Warner From billdegnan at gmail.com Mon Aug 16 19:23:16 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 20:23:16 -0400 Subject: Kennett Classic Computing Event Sept 25th Message-ID: Tickets and News Here: https://www.kennettclassic.com/2nd-annual-kennett-classic-announced/ Located across the street from Kennett Classic's museum at the Garage Community Center in downtown Kennett Square, PA (btwn Philadelphia and Baltimore). Classic Computing Workshop Hack-a-thon If a day of vintage computer hacking sounds like fun, register to claim a workspace for your vintage computing project. The Kennett Square area has a lot of new hobbyists that would really benefit from the tutelage of experienced CCTalk members interested in sharing their knowledge. Exhibitors Show Their Stuff Exhibitors wanted! This is your chance to show off your favorite restoration project or your prized retro computer to the public. We have had many visitors to Kennett Classic this year who expressed interest in attending this event and are eager to experience how antique computers once operated. An Evening of Chiptunes and Computer Music This year for Kennett Classic?s evening entertainment we have three talented chiptune / waveform synthesizer music performers/bands. Thanks for your support of this event. Bill Degnan vintagecomputer.net kennettclassic.com From cube1 at charter.net Mon Aug 16 16:57:15 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 16:57:15 -0500 Subject: IBM PC diagnostics disks In-Reply-To: <7ce9be27-ecf0-f2ea-64ed-8dc357eba45a@charter.net> References: <11388420-20ac-46c3-9618-d5d68f600fe2.ref@frontier.com> <11388420-20ac-46c3-9618-d5d68f600fe2@frontier.com> <0ebd9e62-e5c6-ecc6-d32e-f596756e6725@bitsavers.org> <7ce9be27-ecf0-f2ea-64ed-8dc357eba45a@charter.net> Message-ID: <814bda2f-cbde-de1f-f26a-7fe30f9afdba@charter.net> On 8/10/2021 10:30 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > On 7/29/2021 1:22 PM, Mark Huffstutter via cctech wrote: >> Yes, I sadly, learned that important lesson years ago, after finding My >> "Original" Original PC DOS diskette set pretty much destroyed, left in >> The folders in storage for too long..... >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al >> Kossow via cctalk >> Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2021 10:15 AM >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> Subject: Re: IBM PC diagnostics disks >> >> On 7/29/21 10:08 AM, Mark Huffstutter via cctalk wrote: >>> Hi Richard, >>> ???????????????????? I could use them if they are still available, I >>> have the very nice binder manual for them, minus the disks! >>> >> >> Don't store diskettes in vinyl sleeves. >> The plasticiser leaches out of the vinyl onto the surface of the >> diskettes. >> >> > > Interesting. The IBM ones that I have had in the clear 5 x 8.5 vinyl > sleeves were in their paper-like material sleeves inside the vinyl. They > have been mostly just fine - just read them in this past week. > > On the other hand maybe 10% or so of my 3B2 floppies that were similarly > stored, but in a somewhat different form of vinyl had more sector > errors.? Fortunately I copied some of them (the most critical ones) some > time ago, and those were stored separately, so I expect those will be > fine, but I haven't yet read them in. > > JRJ Correction: Out of 49 AT&T floppies that were in their paper envelopes inside vinyl exactly ONE turned out to actually be bad - and it had been bad many years ago (1997) when I got them. So, to date I have not experienced any issues with vinyl holders - so long as the floppy is in its paper sleeve, at least. The problem I actually discovered this week that I was not reading the 3B2 floppies on a 96 TPI drive (they are 512 byte sectors, 80 tracks, two sides, 9 sectors "quad" density.) Once I figured that out, all but the one read just fine. On the other hand, several copies I made on a PC floppy drive (I think) back when were mostly bad (either that, or I made them on the 3B2, but used HD media, perhaps). One final note: why do I re-image stuff using different techniques? Well, here is a case in point. The images that (I believe) I had made of these floppies in 1997 - I think using dd on the 3b2 itself to files on the hard disk, and then transferred using zmodem to my PC - were all ONE TRACK SHORT. Now, there is a pretty good chance that that last track on most of those floppies didn't have any real data - but one never knows. I did verify that the first 79 tracks of those images, and those I made the past couple of days were the same. Using my new greaseweazle I have verified that images I made of PC floppies of various sorts (160, 360, 720, 1.2M (including RT/PC), 1.44M), RX50 were all just fine. Only the 3B2 images were off. JRJ From jdbryan at acm.org Mon Aug 16 17:16:36 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 18:16:36 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net>, Message-ID: <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 14:20, Wayne Sudol wrote: > Out of curiosity, is there a reason you do not use Acrobat for > creating pdfs? Primarily because I have not purchased a license for Acrobat. Also, when I started scanning manuals ten years ago, Al Kossow recommended tumble, which worked well. And with source available, I've been able to extend it to give me finer control over some aspects of PDF production. -- Dave From jdbryan at acm.org Mon Aug 16 17:58:26 2021 From: jdbryan at acm.org (J. David Bryan) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2021 18:58:26 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net>, <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net>, Message-ID: <20210816225822.E12604E776@mx2.ezwind.net> On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 22:46, Wayne S wrote: > I asked because i was curious if what you wanted to do could not be > done in Acrobat. Never having used Acrobat, I cannot say. -- Dave From lproven at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 06:32:57 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 13:32:57 +0200 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210813221523.4BA26274C6@mx1.ezwind.net> <20210814232005.GA31331@mordor.angband.thangorodrim.de> <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 16 Aug 2021 at 23:21, Wayne Sudol via cctech wrote: > > Out of curiosity, is there a reason you do not use Acrobat for creating > pdfs? I have been making PDFs for at least 20 years now, probably more. AFAIK I have _never_ used Acrobat to create them. I print from LibreOffice to its PDF generator, or I use any random Mac OS X app as under that OS all apps can output PDF -- PDF is the native rendering format of Mac OS X. I do not normally use Windows but I believe that most modern Win10 apps can save as PDF. I mostly use Linux and there is no Acrobat for Linux. The reader app was discontinued years ago and no longer works on most modern distros. With considerable effort I have managed to start it inside a Docker container but it's complex and difficult; normally I just use Xviewer or Okular. You ask as if Acrobat were the normal or default way to make PDF files. I don't think that's been true for decades now. P.S. Please bottom-post on mailing lists. Thunderbird, for instance, runs on all major OSes and talks to Hotmail/Outlook.com just fine. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From dennis.grevenstein at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 07:46:10 2021 From: dennis.grevenstein at gmail.com (Dennis Grevenstein) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:46:10 +0200 Subject: Ultrix-11 Message-ID: Bill Gunshannon wrote: > > With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? Someone mentioned > a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, > but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. But I suspect > anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as > far as 4.5. That seems likely, because AFAIR Ultrix-11 never got past 3.X. In any way I would like to point out that Ultrix-11 and Ultrix-32 are completely different: Ultrix-11 based on V7 (+addons) and Ultrix-32 based on 4.2BSD (+addons). I actually still have Ultrix-32 3.1 running on a DECstation. It really is nothing like running Ultrix-11 3.1, which I did many years ago. Dennis From couryhouse at aol.com Tue Aug 17 12:47:28 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 17:47:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net> <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <1604557388.1486768.1629222448900@mail.yahoo.com> but? does tumble OVER compress? things?a lot of what we have we like? to? go? back and pull nice? things? out? for? display...?In a message dated 8/16/2021 10:45:48 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes:? On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 14:20, Wayne Sudol wrote: > Out of curiosity, is there a reason you do not use Acrobat for > creating pdfs? Primarily because I have not purchased a license for Acrobat.? Also, when I started scanning manuals ten years ago, Al Kossow recommended tumble, which worked well.? And with source available, I've been able to extend it to give me finer control over some aspects of PDF production. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -- Dave From couryhouse at aol.com Tue Aug 17 12:47:28 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 17:47:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net> <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <1604557388.1486768.1629222448900@mail.yahoo.com> but? does tumble OVER compress? things?a lot of what we have we like? to? go? back and pull nice? things? out? for? display...?In a message dated 8/16/2021 10:45:48 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes:? On Monday, August 16, 2021 at 14:20, Wayne Sudol wrote: > Out of curiosity, is there a reason you do not use Acrobat for > creating pdfs? Primarily because I have not purchased a license for Acrobat.? Also, when I started scanning manuals ten years ago, Al Kossow recommended tumble, which worked well.? And with source available, I've been able to extend it to give me finer control over some aspects of PDF production. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -- Dave From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 17 13:38:13 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:38:13 -0400 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <1604557388.1486768.1629222448900@mail.yahoo.com> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <20210816193945.2504E2735A@mx1.ezwind.net> <20210816221637.7000C27364@mx1.ezwind.net> <1604557388.1486768.1629222448900@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8782D286-23E1-4E5B-9D3D-E58BF069BE8D@comcast.net> > On Aug 17, 2021, at 1:47 PM, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote: > > but does tumble OVER compress things? Over compress? The normal, and only really valid, practice with black & white documents is lossless compression, where that term has no meaning. There are those who don't understand that JPEG is intrinsically unfit for bitonal material and line graphics of any kind. If you're dealing with the output of such, then you may indeed have "overcompressed" material. But I believe the people here all know better paul From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Tue Aug 17 13:44:35 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 19:44:35 +0100 Subject: H7868 Power Supply Schematics In-Reply-To: <20210807181818.GA9550@cortexcerebri.geruempel.org> References: <20210807181818.GA9550.ref@cortexcerebri.geruempel.org> <20210807181818.GA9550@cortexcerebri.geruempel.org> Message-ID: <682ecdca-5e07-29cc-e01e-ffad1c8c1180@ntlworld.com> I have a non-functioning H7868 PSU. This is one of the two PSUs used in a BA214 chassis (and probably elsewhere). This one seems to be dead: the green LED doesn't come on at all, there is no sign of life and no +5V appears on the BA214 Qbus. (I did use a load board when testing, so that's not the issue). Does anyone have a set of schematics? I did try poking around in the various MicroVAX 3600/3800 schematics that I could find on bitsavers but nothing obvious leapt out at me. Of course, I could easily have missed something. Alternatively, does anyone have any experience of working on these PSUs? Any pointers for common failure modes would be helpful. Thanks Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From cmhanson at eschatologist.net Tue Aug 17 18:51:05 2021 From: cmhanson at eschatologist.net (Chris Hanson) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 16:51:05 -0700 Subject: Linearizing PDF scans In-Reply-To: <20210814225424.8A52227333@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210813202042.24CC24E834@mx2.ezwind.net> <4f859bf8-16d6-6530-ad4b-f0c0133366a3@bitsavers.org> <20210814225424.8A52227333@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <81B54B0B-BD1B-467D-9798-9B8DEC0AB834@eschatologist.net> On Aug 14, 2021, at 3:54 PM, J. David Bryan via cctalk wrote: > I guess the operative question is whether people tend to view PDF pages on > a server or download files and view them locally. Even when viewing files locally, linearization is important for not having to load too much of the file for basic operations like navigating and scrolling. PDF requires page independence so linearization isn't what puts the information for each page together; instead, linearization is what ensures the content in the PDF is in presentation order. You can jump around and scroll in a PDF by doing byte-range fetches even without linearization, but you may have to do more work (e.g. you can't load "the next few pages" for scrolling in just a single fetch, it may require one fetch per page). -- Chris From imp at bsdimp.com Tue Aug 17 10:40:11 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 09:40:11 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 6:46 AM Dennis Grevenstein via cctech < cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Bill Gunshannon wrote: > > > > With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? Someone mentioned > > a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, > > but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. Yea. I've not seen anything survive on any of the abandonware sites. But another way to ask: what is fixed between 2.0 and 3.1 that prompts Bill to ask me why I'd want 2.0 like it was nuts... But I suspect > > anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as > > far as 4.5. > > That seems likely, because AFAIR Ultrix-11 never got past 3.X. > In any way I would like to point out that Ultrix-11 and Ultrix-32 are > completely different: Ultrix-11 based on V7 (+addons) and Ultrix-32 > based on 4.2BSD (+addons). > Having looked at the sources to both and running diffs with tuhs, I can confirm this is the case. And ultrix-32 had different version numbers than ultrix-11. But the vax and mips versions shared the same sources as far as I can tell (though I don't know if it is common ancestor or operationally the same repo). Also, the addons to ultrix-11 include BSD networking. It has the feel of 2.9BSD with a more polished installer and sysgen (alien name in unix world, but common for DEC OSes). Warner I actually still have Ultrix-32 3.1 running on a DECstation. It really > is nothing like running Ultrix-11 3.1, which I did many years ago. > > Dennis > From dennis.grevenstein at gmail.com Tue Aug 17 11:02:26 2021 From: dennis.grevenstein at gmail.com (Dennis Grevenstein) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:02:26 +0200 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Am 17.08.2021 um 17:40 schrieb Warner Losh : > > Having looked at the sources to both and running diffs with tuhs, I can confirm this is the case. And ultrix-32 had different version numbers than ultrix-11. But the vax and mips versions shared the same sources as far as I can tell (though I don't know if it is common ancestor or operationally the same repo). Ultrix-32 for RISC (=MIPS) was developed based on the VAX version, which was also Ultrix-32. DEC dropped the ?-32? with Ultrix 4. The DECstation 3100 came out in 1989. I don?t have sources for Ultrix-32 version 3.X, but Ultrix versions 4.X just share sources. It is clear that Ultrix/RISC added a few bits and pieces from MIPS, but it?s nothing that would prevent a common source tree. As far as I remember, the name ?-32? came from the first Ultrix release, which was ?32m? version 1.0 or something like that. ?32? meaning 32bit VAX and ?m? meaning ?MicroVAX?. A bunch of RX50 floppy images from 1984 (or 85?) have been preserved, I think? AFAIR the first Ultrix-32 only ran on the MicroVAX I. Dennis From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Aug 17 13:16:17 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 11:16:17 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> images up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 17 13:39:49 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2021 14:39:49 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a release of the other. I forgot which came first, other than that the beta was really clunky. As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen updates... paul > On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech wrote: > > images up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Wed Aug 18 03:58:11 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 09:58:11 +0100 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <843951f4-5e03-a5b2-682d-540725ec4c4f@ntlworld.com> On 17/08/2021 19:39, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. > > At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a release of the other. I forgot which came first, other than that the beta was really clunky. As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen updates... > > paul > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/ultrix-11/2.0/AA-X342B-TC_ULTRIX-11_SoftwTechDescr_1984.pdf says on p1-1 that "ULTRIX-11 V2.0 software is the second version of DIGITAL's 16-bit UNIX product. The first version was V7M-11 V1.0 software." Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Aug 18 06:38:25 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 07:38:25 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/17/21 11:40 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Tue, Aug 17, 2021, 6:46 AM Dennis Grevenstein via cctech < > cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Bill Gunshannon wrote: >>> >>> With 3.1 available why would you want to run 2.0? Someone mentioned >>> a 4.0. I don't remember there ever being anything after 3.1 (promised, >>> but never saw it delivered) Would be fun to look at. > > > Yea. I've not seen anything survive on any of the abandonware sites. > > But another way to ask: what is fixed between 2.0 and 3.1 that prompts Bill > to ask me why I'd want 2.0 like it was nuts... As near as I can tell, it wasn't so much bug fixes (after all, Ultrix-11 is just V7M rebadged) as it was additional hardware support. > > But I suspect >>> anything beginning with 4 is actually Ultrix-32 which I think went as >>> far as 4.5. >> >> That seems likely, because AFAIR Ultrix-11 never got past 3.X. >> In any way I would like to point out that Ultrix-11 and Ultrix-32 are >> completely different: Ultrix-11 based on V7 (+addons) and Ultrix-32 >> based on 4.2BSD (+addons). >> > > Having looked at the sources to both and running diffs with tuhs, I can > confirm this is the case. And ultrix-32 had different version numbers than > ultrix-11. But the vax and mips versions shared the same sources as far as > I can tell (though I don't know if it is common ancestor or operationally > the same repo). I have looked on the web and many sites (not DEC) are calling the 4.x versions running on VAX and MIPS ULTRIX-11 instead of ULTRIX-32 which is what it actually was. > > Also, the addons to ultrix-11 include BSD networking. It has the feel of > 2.9BSD with a more polished installer and sysgen (alien name in unix world, > but common for DEC OSes). And it works quite well within the confines of the limited PDP-11 hardware. :-) bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Aug 18 19:11:29 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 20:11:29 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has >>> complete >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes >>> >> >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image that >> works with SIMH.? I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and >> two RD54's.? Worked fine.? It's been a while since I did any Ultrix-11 >> on real or simulated hardware. >> >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone.? It's just shy of 4M. Not >> sure if it could be emailed.? The SIMH ini file is trivially simple but >> I could provide that as well. >> >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download.? I don't do things like >> Google Drive.? Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix stuff. >> >> bill > > > Bill's file is at: > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? (Other than me :-) bill From imp at bsdimp.com Wed Aug 18 22:42:15 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 21:42:15 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:11 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > >>> > >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has > >>> complete > >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > >>> > >> > >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image that > >> works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and > >> two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any Ultrix-11 > >> on real or simulated hardware. > >> > >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of 4M. Not > >> sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially simple but > >> I could provide that as well. > >> > >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do things like > >> Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix > stuff. > >> > >> bill > > > > > > Bill's file is at: > > > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ > > > > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? > > (Other than me :-) > Does this count? I named it bill because I wasn't sure which version it was :) And I did it from tape, not RX-50s and swapping 31 of them in/out with simh... And I couldn't get 11/73 to work (I think my simh has a regression there), but 11/83 worked just fine. ULTRIX-11 System V3.1 (bill) login: root Welcome to the ULTRIX-11 System erase = delete, kill = ^U, intr = ^C bill# uname -a ULTRIX-11 bill 3 0 PDP-11/83 bill# df Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent node kbytes used free used Mounted on /dev/rd00 4654 3076 1578 66% / /dev/rd01 8302 7708 594 93% /usr bill# But I did something wrong... It prompts me for the load device on each reboot. sim> boot rq0 Sizing Memory... Boot: rd(0,0)unix (CTRL/C will abort auto-boot) Load device (? for help, if none) < ht tm ts tk rx rl rc > ? tk rd(0,0)unix: 14784+17024+8192+8000+8064+8000+8064+8128+8000+7808+7936+7936+7680+7360+1344 ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 ... (and I think my simh is a bit wonky because it doesn't quite work: it hangs from time to time, but only after a reset) Warner From billdegnan at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 23:07:02 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:07:02 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: pretty cool On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 11:42 PM Warner Losh via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:11 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > > > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > >>> > > >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has > > >>> complete > > >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > > >>> > > >> > > >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image that > > >> works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and > > >> two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any Ultrix-11 > > >> on real or simulated hardware. > > >> > > >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of 4M. Not > > >> sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially simple > but > > >> I could provide that as well. > > >> > > >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do things like > > >> Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix > > stuff. > > >> > > >> bill > > > > > > > > > Bill's file is at: > > > > > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ > > > > > > > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? > > > > (Other than me :-) > > > > Does this count? I named it bill because I wasn't sure which version it was > :) > And I did it from tape, not RX-50s and swapping 31 of them in/out with > simh... And I couldn't get 11/73 to work (I think my simh has a regression > there), but 11/83 worked just fine. > > ULTRIX-11 System V3.1 (bill) > > login: root > > Welcome to the ULTRIX-11 System > > erase = delete, kill = ^U, intr = ^C > bill# uname -a > ULTRIX-11 bill 3 0 PDP-11/83 > bill# df > Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent > node kbytes used free used Mounted on > /dev/rd00 4654 3076 1578 66% / > /dev/rd01 8302 7708 594 93% /usr > bill# > > But I did something wrong... It prompts me for the load device on each > reboot. > > sim> boot rq0 > > Sizing Memory... > > Boot: rd(0,0)unix (CTRL/C will abort auto-boot) > > Load device (? for help, if none) < ht tm ts tk rx rl rc > ? tk > > rd(0,0)unix: > > 14784+17024+8192+8000+8064+8000+8064+8128+8000+7808+7936+7936+7680+7360+1344 > > ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 > ... > > (and I think my simh is a bit wonky because it doesn't quite work: it hangs > from time to time, but only after a reset) > > Warner > From imp at bsdimp.com Wed Aug 18 23:23:07 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2021 22:23:07 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:07 PM Bill Degnan wrote: > pretty cool > Thanks! Looking at the boot source I figured out that I just needed to build a non-generic kernel to get rid of the load device prompt... I'd somehow omitted that during the install... Warner On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 11:42 PM Warner Losh via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:11 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >> > On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: >> > > >> > > >> > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> > >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >> > >>> >> > >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has >> > >>> complete >> > >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes >> > >>> >> > >> >> > >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 image >> that >> > >> works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and >> > >> two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any >> Ultrix-11 >> > >> on real or simulated hardware. >> > >> >> > >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of 4M. >> Not >> > >> sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially simple >> but >> > >> I could provide that as well. >> > >> >> > >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do things >> like >> > >> Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for Ultrix >> > stuff. >> > >> >> > >> bill >> > > >> > > >> > > Bill's file is at: >> > > >> > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ >> > > >> > >> > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? >> > >> > (Other than me :-) >> > >> >> Does this count? I named it bill because I wasn't sure which version it >> was >> :) >> And I did it from tape, not RX-50s and swapping 31 of them in/out with >> simh... And I couldn't get 11/73 to work (I think my simh has a regression >> there), but 11/83 worked just fine. >> >> ULTRIX-11 System V3.1 (bill) >> >> login: root >> >> Welcome to the ULTRIX-11 System >> >> erase = delete, kill = ^U, intr = ^C >> bill# uname -a >> ULTRIX-11 bill 3 0 PDP-11/83 >> bill# df >> Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent >> node kbytes used free used Mounted on >> /dev/rd00 4654 3076 1578 66% / >> /dev/rd01 8302 7708 594 93% /usr >> bill# >> >> But I did something wrong... It prompts me for the load device on each >> reboot. >> >> sim> boot rq0 >> >> Sizing Memory... >> >> Boot: rd(0,0)unix (CTRL/C will abort auto-boot) >> >> Load device (? for help, if none) < ht tm ts tk rx rl rc > ? tk >> >> rd(0,0)unix: >> >> 14784+17024+8192+8000+8064+8000+8064+8128+8000+7808+7936+7936+7680+7360+1344 >> >> ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 >> ... >> >> (and I think my simh is a bit wonky because it doesn't quite work: it >> hangs >> from time to time, but only after a reset) >> >> Warner >> > From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Aug 19 08:23:45 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 06:23:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) Message-ID: I have a CDC 9427H drive ( https://i.imgur.com/Wn87MRb.jpg ) that is absolutely desparate for a new home. It's quite likely over 80lbs, so shipping would be problematic. I'm in Graham, WA. It's free, it's lonely, and it's desparate for your gentle touch. Please won't you think of the disk drives? 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Thu Aug 19 08:33:29 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:33:29 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On 8/18/21 11:42 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:11 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > > wrote: > > On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > >>> > >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has > >>> complete > >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > >>> > >> > >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 > image that > >> works with SIMH.? I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory and > >> two RD54's.? Worked fine.? It's been a while since I did any > Ultrix-11 > >> on real or simulated hardware. > >> > >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone.? It's just shy of > 4M. Not > >> sure if it could be emailed.? The SIMH ini file is trivially > simple but > >> I could provide that as well. > >> > >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download.? I don't do > things like > >> Google Drive.? Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for > Ultrix stuff. > >> > >> bill > > > > > > Bill's file is at: > > > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ > > > > > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? > > (Other than me :-) > > > Does this count? I named it bill because I wasn't sure which version it > was :) > And I did it from tape, not RX-50s and swapping 31 of them in/out with > simh... And I couldn't get 11/73 to work (I think my simh has a regression > there), but 11/83 worked just fine. Interesting. In the last couple days I have done 11/73, 11/83 and 11/44. All worked fine. > > ULTRIX-11 System V3.1 (bill) > > login: root > > Welcome to the ULTRIX-11 System > > erase = delete, kill = ^U, intr = ^C > bill# uname -a > ULTRIX-11 bill 3 0 PDP-11/83 > bill# df > Filesystem ? ?total ? ?kbytes ?kbytes ?percent > ? ?node ? ? ? kbytes ? ?used ? ?free ? used ? ?Mounted on > /dev/rd00 ? ? ? 4654 ? ?3076 ? ?1578 ? ?66% ? ?/ > /dev/rd01 ? ? ? 8302 ? ?7708 ? ? 594 ? ?93% ? ?/usr > bill# > test1# uname -a ULTRIX-11 test1 3 0 PDP-11/44 test1# df Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent node kbytes used free used Mounted on /dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% / /dev/ra01 9598 2848 6750 30% /usr /dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1 /dev/ra17 440941 3678 437263 1% /user2 /dev/ra27 440941 2 440939 0% /user3 /dev/ra37 440941 6 440935 0% /user4 test1# dmesg Feb 14 09:00 ... ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 realmem = 3932160 buffers = 25600 clists = 1600 usermem = 3772992 maxumem = 212992 > But I did something wrong... It prompts me for the load device on each > reboot. Nothing wrong it does that. I don't think it goes away until after you build a new custom kernel. You will need that for networking anyway. Hope your good with overlays. :-) > > sim> boot rq0 > > Sizing Memory... > > Boot: rd(0,0)unix ? ?(CTRL/C will abort auto-boot) > > Load device (? for help, if none) < ht tm ts tk rx rl rc > ? tk > > rd(0,0)unix: > 14784+17024+8192+8000+8064+8000+8064+8128+8000+7808+7936+7936+7680+7360+1344 > > ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 > ... > > (and I think my simh is a bit wonky because it doesn't quite work: it > hangs from time to time, but only after a reset) > Mine has been stable so far. Doesn't really get unstable till you add networking. :-) I am running on this: PDP-11 simulator V3.8-1 Now that people have made me interested again I think it's time to get the source loaded and look into what it takes to build install kits on other media. I never really did much with Ultrix-11 on SIMH, mostly on real hardware. That's where I did all the testing when I first figured out how to take the files from the archive and build a tape. The original was TS02 but I later used Fred's setup to make the TK50. Being as this is the only OS that can legally be used I would expect more activity. First thing is to try and find my improved date command that lets you set dates after 1999. :-) Wish we had a list for Ultrix-11 specifically. Might be a lot of fun. bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Thu Aug 19 08:37:13 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:37:13 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On 8/19/21 12:23 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:07 PM Bill Degnan wrote: > >> pretty cool >> > > Thanks! Looking at the boot source I figured out that I just needed to > build a non-generic kernel > to get rid of the load device prompt... I'd somehow omitted that during the > install... > I always skip that during the install. Much safer to do it later when I am sure I have a stable system. Need to add serial devices and network device. I wonder if the DECNET daemon from Linux would back port to Ultrix-11? CLient side is provided, but no daemon that I am aware of. bill From cz at alembic.crystel.com Thu Aug 19 09:08:12 2021 From: cz at alembic.crystel.com (Chris Zach) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 09:08:12 -0500 Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> Wow, a Hawk drive. I have a pair of Wrens here (9457's), need to find the SMD power supply that's up in the attic somewhere. Hope it finds a home, does it have an SMD or other type of interface? C On 8/19/2021 8:23 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote: > I have a CDC 9427H drive ( https://i.imgur.com/Wn87MRb.jpg ) that is > absolutely desparate for a new home.? It's quite likely over 80lbs, so > shipping would be problematic.? I'm in Graham, WA. > > It's free, it's lonely, and it's desparate for your gentle touch. > Please won't you think of the disk drives? > > g. > > From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Aug 19 09:29:09 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 08:29:09 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 7:33 AM Bill Gunshannon wrote: > On 8/18/21 11:42 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 6:11 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > > > wrote: > > > > On 8/16/21 2:55 PM, js--- via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > > > > On 8/15/2021 10:08 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > >> On 8/15/21 12:45 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > >>> > > >>> Distributions/DEC/Ultrix-11/Fred-Ultrix3 in the tuhs archive has > > >>> complete > > >>> instructions as well as a program to build the ultrix tapes > > >>> > > >> > > >> It took a day because I wanted to test it but I have a TK50 > > image that > > >> works with SIMH. I did an install on an 11/73 with 3M of memory > and > > >> two RD54's. Worked fine. It's been a while since I did any > > Ultrix-11 > > >> on real or simulated hardware. > > >> > > >> Have no idea how to get this tape to anyone. It's just shy of > > 4M. Not > > >> sure if it could be emailed. The SIMH ini file is trivially > > simple but > > >> I could provide that as well. > > >> > > >> I have nowhere I could put it up for download. I don't do > > things like > > >> Google Drive. Maybe we need a GITHUB site or something for > > Ultrix stuff. > > >> > > >> bill > > > > > > > > > Bill's file is at: > > > > > > http://www.cimmeri.com/js/download/ultrix-11/ > > > > > > > > > So, anybody got a system running from that tape yet? > > > > (Other than me :-) > > > > > > Does this count? I named it bill because I wasn't sure which version it > > was :) > > And I did it from tape, not RX-50s and swapping 31 of them in/out with > > simh... And I couldn't get 11/73 to work (I think my simh has a > regression > > there), but 11/83 worked just fine. > > Interesting. In the last couple days I have done 11/73, 11/83 and > 11/44. All worked fine. > I'm using the latest from github, so maybe I've found a regression. > > > ULTRIX-11 System V3.1 (bill) > > > > login: root > > > > Welcome to the ULTRIX-11 System > > > > erase = delete, kill = ^U, intr = ^C > > bill# uname -a > > ULTRIX-11 bill 3 0 PDP-11/83 > > bill# df > > Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent > > node kbytes used free used Mounted on > > /dev/rd00 4654 3076 1578 66% / > > /dev/rd01 8302 7708 594 93% /usr > > bill# > > > > test1# uname -a > ULTRIX-11 test1 3 0 PDP-11/44 > test1# df > Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent > node kbytes used free used Mounted on > /dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% / > /dev/ra01 9598 2848 6750 30% /usr > /dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1 > /dev/ra17 440941 3678 437263 1% /user2 > /dev/ra27 440941 2 440939 0% /user3 > /dev/ra37 440941 6 440935 0% /user4 > test1# dmesg > > Feb 14 09:00 > ... > > ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 > > realmem = 3932160 > buffers = 25600 > clists = 1600 > usermem = 3772992 > maxumem = 212992 > > > > But I did something wrong... It prompts me for the load device on each > > reboot. > > Nothing wrong it does that. I don't think it goes away until after > you build a new custom kernel. You will need that for networking > anyway. Hope your good with overlays. :-) > > > > > > sim> boot rq0 > > > > Sizing Memory... > > > > Boot: rd(0,0)unix (CTRL/C will abort auto-boot) > > > > Load device (? for help, if none) < ht tm ts tk rx rl rc > ? tk > > > > rd(0,0)unix: > > > 14784+17024+8192+8000+8064+8000+8064+8128+8000+7808+7936+7936+7680+7360+1344 > > > > ULTRIX-11 Kernel V3.1 > > ... > > > > (and I think my simh is a bit wonky because it doesn't quite work: it > > hangs from time to time, but only after a reset) > > > > Mine has been stable so far. Doesn't really get unstable till you > add networking. :-) > > I am running on this: PDP-11 simulator V3.8-1 > > Now that people have made me interested again I think it's time > to get the source loaded and look into what it takes to build > install kits on other media. > > I never really did much with Ultrix-11 on SIMH, mostly on real > hardware. That's where I did all the testing when I first figured > out how to take the files from the archive and build a tape. The > original was TS02 but I later used Fred's setup to make the TK50. > Being as this is the only OS that can legally be used I would > expect more activity. First thing is to try and find my improved > date command that lets you set dates after 1999. :-) > Networking seems to have been added in 3.0 looking at the SPD. And I have patches to V7 date for this I've been using with Venix on my Rainbow. Wish we had a list for Ultrix-11 specifically. Might be a lot of fun. > Maybe :) Warner bill > From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Aug 19 09:59:40 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 07:59:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> References: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Aug 2021, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > Wow, a Hawk drive. I have a pair of Wrens here (9457's), need to find the SMD > power supply that's up in the attic somewhere. Hope it finds a home, does it > have an SMD or other type of interface? Chris, I don't know enough about it to answer that, sorry! 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 19 10:07:51 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 08:07:51 -0700 Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> References: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> Message-ID: <9060dc2d-319a-1159-86be-23ee2d25780f@bitsavers.org> On 8/19/21 7:08 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > home, does it have an SMD or other type of interface? They made many interfaces, but not SMD, afaik. One they did support was Diablo. It would help to know either what system it was attached to, or the full part number. I have lots of variations of Hawk drive manuals that I haven't uploaded. From cz at alembic.crystel.com Thu Aug 19 10:29:41 2021 From: cz at alembic.crystel.com (Chris Zach) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 10:29:41 -0500 Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: <9060dc2d-319a-1159-86be-23ee2d25780f@bitsavers.org> References: <719fdf1e-f880-3b71-e3fc-c23754f6d243@alembic.crystel.com> <9060dc2d-319a-1159-86be-23ee2d25780f@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <51EB56E5-1B11-48D4-A895-785E06972963@alembic.crystel.com> Interesting. Was it one of those 5mb fixed five removable types? On August 19, 2021 10:07:51 AM CDT, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >On 8/19/21 7:08 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > >> home, does it have an SMD or other type of interface? > >They made many interfaces, but not SMD, afaik. >One they did support was Diablo. > >It would help to know either what system it was attached >to, or the full part number. > >I have lots of variations of Hawk drive manuals that I >haven't uploaded. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Thu Aug 19 13:47:27 2021 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 14:47:27 -0400 Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20210819144727.4ea7fece@dragonsweb.org> On Thu, 19 Aug 2021 06:23:45 -0700 (PDT) geneb via cctalk wrote: > I have a CDC 9427H drive ( https://i.imgur.com/Wn87MRb.jpg ) that is > absolutely desparate for a new home. It's quite likely over 80lbs, > so shipping would be problematic. I'm in Graham, WA. > > It's free, it's lonely, and it's desparate for your gentle touch. > Please won't you think of the disk drives? > > g. > > I'm interested. The TI 990 DS10 drive is a re-badged 9427H as far as I can tell, and I have the controller for that, and half a dozen of the cartridges, so I can definitely use it. My guess is shipping would be prohibitive for me, but I'll look into it. From geneb at deltasoft.com Thu Aug 19 14:05:05 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:05:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CDC drive needs a home! (FTGH!) In-Reply-To: <20210819144727.4ea7fece@dragonsweb.org> References: <20210819144727.4ea7fece@dragonsweb.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Aug 2021, James B DiGriz wrote: > On Thu, 19 Aug 2021 06:23:45 -0700 (PDT) > geneb via cctalk wrote: > >> I have a CDC 9427H drive ( https://i.imgur.com/Wn87MRb.jpg ) that is >> absolutely desparate for a new home. It's quite likely over 80lbs, >> so shipping would be problematic. I'm in Graham, WA. >> >> It's free, it's lonely, and it's desparate for your gentle touch. >> Please won't you think of the disk drives? >> >> g. >> >> > > I'm interested. The TI 990 DS10 drive is a re-badged 9427H as far as I > can tell, and I have the controller for that, and half a dozen > of the cartridges, so I can definitely use it. My guess is shipping > would be prohibitive for me, but I'll look into it. If the shipping isn't well over $200 I would be astonished. Because of the size/weight of it this thing is pretty much in the "come get it" category. 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From john at forecast.name Thu Aug 19 15:37:39 2021 From: john at forecast.name (John Forecast) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 16:37:39 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: > On Aug 19, 2021, at 9:37 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/19/21 12:23 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:07 PM Bill Degnan wrote: >>> pretty cool >>> >> Thanks! Looking at the boot source I figured out that I just needed to >> build a non-generic kernel >> to get rid of the load device prompt... I'd somehow omitted that during the >> install... > > I always skip that during the install. Much safer to do it > later when I am sure I have a stable system. Need to add > serial devices and network device. I wonder if the DECNET > daemon from Linux would back port to Ultrix-11? CLient side > is provided, but no daemon that I am aware of. If by daemon you mean the kernel code supporting NSP and routing protocols then, no, it would not be an easy back port, that code makes heavy use of Linux-specific functions and capabilities. The user-level utilities would be much simpler but you would need to copy over the DECnet header files and implement the expected library routines (getnodebyname(), getobjent() etc). John. > > bill > From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 19 15:45:47 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 16:45:47 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> Message-ID: <305B0553-9B9C-43CB-840F-D817C682F90C@comcast.net> > On Aug 19, 2021, at 4:37 PM, John Forecast via cctalk wrote: > > >> On Aug 19, 2021, at 9:37 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> >> On 8/19/21 12:23 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >>> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:07 PM Bill Degnan wrote: >>>> pretty cool >>>> >>> Thanks! Looking at the boot source I figured out that I just needed to >>> build a non-generic kernel >>> to get rid of the load device prompt... I'd somehow omitted that during the >>> install... >> >> I always skip that during the install. Much safer to do it >> later when I am sure I have a stable system. Need to add >> serial devices and network device. I wonder if the DECNET >> daemon from Linux would back port to Ultrix-11? CLient side >> is provided, but no daemon that I am aware of. > > If by daemon you mean the kernel code supporting NSP and routing protocols then, no, it would not be an easy back port, that code makes heavy use of Linux-specific functions and capabilities. The user-level utilities would be much simpler but you would need to copy over the DECnet header files and implement the expected library routines (getnodebyname(), getobjent() etc). > > John. Does Linux follow the DECnet socket services of Ultrix, or are they different? I remember that Ultrix had socket operations matching the power of the DECnet application interface, stuff like connect data or packet-oriented data transmission. It also supported a basic stream service, which was mapped (somehow -- I'd like to find the details) onto the underlying DECnet packet service. I've been thinking it would be neat to have an httpd that answers DECnet connections (object number 80, of course). paul From chd at chdickman.com Thu Aug 19 18:39:10 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 19:39:10 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 Message-ID: There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that the M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For example, bit 10 of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled "Multiprocessor Slave" and indicates that the bus arbitrator is disabled. There is also section 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", that describes cache features that allow multiprocessor operation. Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding the proper software. Anybody ever heard of such a thing? Chuck From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 20 06:55:16 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 07:55:16 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Aug 19, 2021, at 7:39 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that the > M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For example, bit 10 > of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled "Multiprocessor Slave" > and indicates that the bus arbitrator is disabled. There is also section > 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", that describes cache features that > allow multiprocessor operation. Interesting. > Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding the > proper software. I would not think so. The processor is the bus controller, and you can't have a bus with two controllers. It would be a bit like trying to connect a pair of PCs with a PCI or PCIe jumper cable. To make these configurations work you need a device in between that arbitrates the actions of the multiple controllers (PCI people call that a "non-transparent bridge"). paul From petermallan at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 10:50:09 2021 From: petermallan at gmail.com (Peter Allan) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:50:09 +0100 Subject: Ultrix-11 Message-ID: I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on YouTube that I think started this thread. It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr. How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create /user1. I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional software? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers Peter Allan From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Aug 20 11:20:57 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 10:20:57 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 9:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create > /user1. > Ultrix-11 is old-school Unix. This means that it uses hard-wired partitions. It's based on the controller that you use. So for an RD54 connected to an RQDX3 would use the rq_sizes entry from dksizes.c: /* * Sizes for RD31/RD32/RD51/RD52/RD53/RD54/RX50/RX33 disks. */ struct rasize rq_sizes[8] = { /* RQDX1/RQDX2/RQDX3/RUX1 */ 9700, 0, /* RD31-32,51-54 root (swap+error log - rd51) */ 17300, 9700, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 /usr */ 3100, 27000, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 swap + error log */ -2, 30100, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 user files */ -2, 9700, /* RD51 /usr */ 3100, 9700, /* RD31 swap + error log */ -2, 12800, /* RD31 /usr */ -1, 0, /* RD31-32, RD51-54 entire disk */ }; * Note - nblocks has two values with special meaning: * * An nblocks value of -1 specifies a partition length of * the size of the entire disk minus the partition's starting * block number. In other words, the partition ends at the * end of the disk. * * An nblocks value of -2 specifies a partition length of * the size of the disk minus the size of the maintenance * area minus the starting block number of the partition. * In other words, the partition ends at the start of the * maintenance area. So a RD-54 is * RD54 * +-----------------------+ * | 0 9700 root | * | | * +-----------------------+ * | 1 17300 /usr | * | | * | | * +-----------------------+ * | 2 100 error log | * | 3000 swap | * +-----------------------+ * | 3 281068 user | * | | * | | * | | * +-----------------------+ * | 32 maintenance area | * +-----------------------+ * 7 311200 (user = 311168) * and that's what you get. You could change the rq_sizes array, but that's tricky to set up... It's a lot easier to use a RA81 instead. It's 450MB instead of the 150MB the RD54 in the example and gives plenty of room. You could also use a RA80 instead. It's a little smaller than the RD54 at 120MB, but it as a 20,000 block /usr instead of the kinda tiny 17,200 block area of the RD54. The RA60 is also an option at 200MB with the same 10MB /usr. Warner P.S. Kudos to the anonymous DEC employee that drew all the pictures for each of the supported disks in dksizes. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Aug 20 11:24:20 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 12:24:20 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/20/21 11:50 AM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on > YouTube that I think started this thread. > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr. > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create > /user1. > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional > software? That worked for me. > > Any help would be greatly appreciated. > > Cheers > > Peter Allan > bill From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 11:38:02 2021 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 12:38:02 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on > YouTube that I think started this thread. > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr. /usr was usually tight back in the day. > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create > /user1. In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was fine. When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy with this installer script. > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional > software? That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries available at the time. The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. -ethan From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Fri Aug 20 11:53:11 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 12:53:11 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ec7f8c0-706d-de8b-25f2-17822cd20740@comcast.net> Bill; I started this thread by asking what I thought was a simple question about Ultrix-11.? Yes, I am trying to install and learn about this fascinating piece of old software. Some of the folks who have posted know much more about Unix than I do and I am learning and enjoying this. I just tried using the f77 compiler to see how it works.? It is really outdated and wouldn't recognize some accepted f77 items.? Even under SIMH it is slow!? But the load libraries are there. There is a plot command in there that will drive a Tek 4014 graphics terminal.? Eager to find out how that works. In the long run I would like to see if it can run on real pdp11 hardware and support multiple terminals/users.? Just for fun! Doug On 8/20/2021 12:24 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/20/21 11:50 AM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: >> I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from >> https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en >> which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room >> video on >> YouTube that I think started this thread. >> >> It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space >> on /usr. >> >> How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at >> installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can >> it be >> done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a >> system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, >> especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create >> /user1. >> >> I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other >> locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional >> software? > > That worked for me. > >> >> Any help would be greatly appreciated. >> >> Cheers >> >> Peter Allan >> > > bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Aug 20 12:14:39 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 13:14:39 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/20/21 12:38 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk > wrote: >> I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from >> https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en >> which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on >> YouTube that I think started this thread. >> >> It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr. > > /usr was usually tight back in the day. > >> How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at >> installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be >> done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a >> system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, >> especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create >> /user1. > > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space > in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was > $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was > fine. > > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. test1# df Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent node kbytes used free used Mounted on /dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% / /dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr /dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1 /dev/ra17 440941 3678 437263 1% /user2 /dev/ra27 440941 2 440939 0% /user3 /dev/ra37 440941 6 440935 0% /user4 > > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... > > http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt > > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy > with this installer script. I think the intent of the Ultrix-11 3,x install is to make it as simple as possible to get a system up and running on the hardware available in the day and then with time and experience one could create more advanced systems. I hope, eventually, to make a system with four RA81 disks with root and usr occupying entire RA81's and two more for User files. > >> I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other >> locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional >> software? > > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional > devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, > /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there > before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries > available at the time. > > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. sadly, using an RA81 still only gives you: /dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr > > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install > 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. Those were the days. Sadly, most people in the business today know nothing about them. bill From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Aug 20 12:33:24 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 13:33:24 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <5ec7f8c0-706d-de8b-25f2-17822cd20740@comcast.net> References: <5ec7f8c0-706d-de8b-25f2-17822cd20740@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/20/21 12:53 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > Bill; > > I started this thread by asking what I thought was a simple question > about Ultrix-11.? Yes, I am trying to install and learn about this > fascinating piece of old software. > Some of the folks who have posted know much more about Unix than I do > and I am learning and enjoying this. The fun doesn't begin until you get to doing overlays. :-) > > I just tried using the f77 compiler to see how it works.? It is really > outdated and wouldn't recognize some accepted f77 items. Of course it is outdated, it comes from the late 70's. But I don't understand what F77 items it would not recognize. It was based on what was considered the most complete implementation of the then new F77 standard dated April 3, 1978. Are you sure you are not trying to use items from later standards? > Even under > SIMH it is slow!? But the load libraries are there. I am sure Ultrix-11 could be tuned to get more speed. As for SIMH, speed depends on what you run it on. Under SIMH I would expect it would be the same speed running on an 11/23 as on an 11/83. > > There is a plot command in there that will drive a Tek 4014 graphics > terminal.? Eager to find out how that works. > > In the long run I would like to see if it can run on real pdp11 hardware > and support multiple terminals/users.? Just for fun! I have run it on 11/23, 11/24, 11/73, 11/93 and 11/44 real hardware. Using RL, RD and RA disks, I still have some but it is usually easier to set up a SIMH entity than a real hardware machine, even though I still have a number of them. bill From john at forecast.name Fri Aug 20 14:16:49 2021 From: john at forecast.name (John Forecast) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 15:16:49 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <305B0553-9B9C-43CB-840F-D817C682F90C@comcast.net> References: <22228b6a-3ed6-d7c2-6915-e6db97da3e06@comcast.net> <0ac6d91f-9f57-2e7f-75c7-c84b4c042137@comcast.net> <611AB494.7000409@cimmeri.com> <305B0553-9B9C-43CB-840F-D817C682F90C@comcast.net> Message-ID: <18DBFE1D-345B-405A-A266-B3E586434F98@forecast.name> > On Aug 19, 2021, at 4:45 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > > > >> On Aug 19, 2021, at 4:37 PM, John Forecast via cctalk wrote: >> >> >>> On Aug 19, 2021, at 9:37 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> On 8/19/21 12:23 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: >>>> On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:07 PM Bill Degnan wrote: >>>>> pretty cool >>>>> >>>> Thanks! Looking at the boot source I figured out that I just needed to >>>> build a non-generic kernel >>>> to get rid of the load device prompt... I'd somehow omitted that during the >>>> install... >>> >>> I always skip that during the install. Much safer to do it >>> later when I am sure I have a stable system. Need to add >>> serial devices and network device. I wonder if the DECNET >>> daemon from Linux would back port to Ultrix-11? CLient side >>> is provided, but no daemon that I am aware of. >> >> If by daemon you mean the kernel code supporting NSP and routing protocols then, no, it would not be an easy back port, that code makes heavy use of Linux-specific functions and capabilities. The user-level utilities would be much simpler but you would need to copy over the DECnet header files and implement the expected library routines (getnodebyname(), getobjent() etc). >> >> John. > > Does Linux follow the DECnet socket services of Ultrix, or are they different? I remember that Ultrix had socket operations matching the power of the DECnet application interface, stuff like connect data or packet-oriented data transmission. It also supported a basic stream service, which was mapped (somehow -- I'd like to find the details) onto the underlying DECnet packet service. > As far as I can see they both implement the same socket level interfaces for I/O, there are some differences in some of the ioctl calls which are OS dependent. The base socket interface does not have the concept of optional data on connect/disconnect or even the difference between disconnect and abort so these are all implemented as ioctls and library routines are provided for common use cases. DECnet supports 2 types of socket; SOCK_SEQPACKET which maintains message boundaries just like other DECnet implementations and SOCK_STREAM which provides a TCP-like byte stream interface. All of the standard DEC utilities use SOCK_SEQPACKET and both ends of a link need to be of the same type for this to work correctly. SOCK_STREAM sockets transmit data as soon as it?s supplied (assuming flow control allows transmission) and a receive operation reads as much data as is available (subject to the user read request size) so, in this case, message boundaries can change from run to run. > I've been thinking it would be neat to have an httpd that answers DECnet connections (object number 80, of course). > That should be relatively easy depending on how you want to delineate message boundaries. SOCK_SEQPACKET would be the easiest and should work against all DECnet implementations. If you use SOCK_STREAM with embedded message lengths, you need to make sure that the last byte of a message is also the last byte of a user-level write operation so EOM is set correctly and the remote end will be able to read the message without getting stuck waiting for EOM to be set. In general, SOCK_STREAM communication is only useful when talking to other systems which also implement SOCK_STREAM semantics. John. > paul > > From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Fri Aug 20 14:41:09 2021 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 12:41:09 -0700 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Charles Dickman wrote: > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that > the M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For > example, bit 10 of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled > "Multiprocessor Slave" and indicates that the bus arbitrator is > disabled. There is also section 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", > that describes cache features that allow multiprocessor operation. > >Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding > the proper software. > > Anybody ever heard of such a thing? Such a system was put together and tested at DEC with the RSX group (who did the PDP-11/74 multiprocessor work). I'm told that while it worked, it wasn't terrible successful, and the project was abandoned. I was given a gift of one of the CPU modules that was used in the test and I might still have it around here. I can't recall for certain, but I think the module required some ECOs to make it work in a multi-processor configuration. The person to ask about this, Brian McCarthy, is unfortunately no longer with us. :-( Alan Frisbie From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 14:46:58 2021 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 15:46:58 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 1:14 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt > > > > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set > > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior > > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy > > with this installer script. > > I think the intent of the Ultrix-11 3,x install is to make it as > simple as possible to get a system up and running on the hardware > available in the day and then with time and experience one could > create more advanced systems. Yes. I was around in this era and learning to do a from-scratch install was an ordeal. DEC did package things up with a set of questions (vs knowing which lines of which files had to be hand-edited) and incorporated all the supported disks and tapes and serial muxes, etc. All DEC, of course, so if you had 3rd-party hardware you were out in the wilderness (we provide such a 3rd-party intelligent serial device into this environment so I know how hard it could be). If you had a standard DEC box, it was fairly push-button. That was part of their magic. It mostly worked. > I hope, eventually, to make a system > with four RA81 disks with root and usr occupying entire RA81's and > two more for User files. Wow! That's way bigger than our biggest machine at work in 1993. We had that 11/750 (that I upgraded to 8MB including adding the extra memory address line on the backplane) and it pinged back and forth between VMS 4.5 most of the time and Ultrix-32 3.something as needed for customers. It had a dedicated Fuji 160MB drive that mapped as two RM03s and a Fuji Eagle that used the RM05 device entry but patched for full capacity (400MB) plus that $26,000 RA81 - Total of just under 1GB on 3 spindles and two controllers (Unibus and CMI bus). When this box was running UNIX, I was the only user so I usually did that off-hours so everyone else could use VMS for workday tasks. > sadly, using an RA81 still only gives you: > /dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr Tiny! > Those were the days. Sadly, most people in the business today know > nothing about them. The forgetting of this environment is why recently there's a push to collapse all UNIX system binaries into one place because "kids today" have never been on a system where the operating system is spread across multiple spindles for space/cost/performance reasons. Everyone is used to massive drives where the OS takes up 1% or less of the entire disk and you only really worry about space for logfiles or /var/tmp so that userland programs that leave big messes don't crush the boot volume with endless spewage. With variable-zone disks (1990s tech) people stopped bothering to try to tweak performance on cylinder boundaries because you used to have 14 heads and track-to-track switching was 10X faster than stepping. Some parts of the old UNIX dance I do not miss. ;-) -ethan From ggs at shiresoft.com Fri Aug 20 15:07:41 2021 From: ggs at shiresoft.com (Guy Sotomayor) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 13:07:41 -0700 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2e98905b-8c31-3697-8cb1-3dd06f775dcd@shiresoft.com> There were a couple of other PDP-11 multiprocessors that I know of (and used): * C.MMP (eventually 16 PDP-11/40e's in an SMP configuration with a crosspoint switch accessing a large memory).? It ran a capability based OS called Hydra. * CM*? this was a cluster of LSI-11s (as I recall) that were hierachially interconnected to allow for distributed operation (I think it was potentially capable of running with 255 nodes). I don't recall what OS CM* used. Of course both of the above did not use off the shelf OS's or software. TTFN - Guy On 8/20/21 12:41 PM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: > Charles Dickman wrote: > > > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that > > the M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For > > example, bit 10 of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled > > "Multiprocessor Slave" and indicates that the bus arbitrator is > > disabled. There is also section 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", > > that describes cache features that allow multiprocessor operation. > > > >Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding > > the proper software. > > > > Anybody ever heard of such a thing? > > Such a system was put together and tested at DEC with the RSX group > (who did the PDP-11/74 multiprocessor work).? I'm told that while it > worked, it wasn't terrible successful, and the project was abandoned. > > I was given a gift of one of the CPU modules that was used in the test > and I might still have it around here.? I can't recall for certain, > but I think the module required some ECOs to make it work in a > multi-processor configuration. > > The person to ask about this, Brian McCarthy, is unfortunately no > longer with us.? :-( > > Alan Frisbie -- TTFN - Guy From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 20 15:14:49 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:14:49 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <2e98905b-8c31-3697-8cb1-3dd06f775dcd@shiresoft.com> References: <2e98905b-8c31-3697-8cb1-3dd06f775dcd@shiresoft.com> Message-ID: > On Aug 20, 2021, at 4:07 PM, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote: > > There were a couple of other PDP-11 multiprocessors that I know of (and used): > > * C.MMP (eventually 16 PDP-11/40e's in an SMP configuration with a > crosspoint switch accessing a large memory). It ran a capability > based OS called Hydra. > * CM* this was a cluster of LSI-11s (as I recall) that were > hierachially interconnected to allow for distributed operation (I > think it was potentially capable of running with 255 nodes). I don't > recall what OS CM* used. > > Of course both of the above did not use off the shelf OS's or software. > > TTFN - Guy Did you ever run across an ALGOL-68 compiler for either of these? At one time (while at the U of Illinois I think, late 1970s, or perhaps a few years later at DEC) I had a set of DECtapes that contained the run time libraries for that compiler. I think they were in Bliss, and PDP-10 format DECtapes. I lost them at some point, unfortunately, and I never had the compiler itself. Some vague memory says it was an ALGOL-68 subset; most compilers were, ALGOL-68 is a rather difficult language to compile if you want to support the whole thing. paul From petermallan at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 15:25:43 2021 From: petermallan at gmail.com (Peter Allan) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 21:25:43 +0100 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at least) /user1. I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. Cheers Peter Allan On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk > wrote: > > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from > > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en > > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video > on > > YouTube that I think started this thread. > > > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on > /usr. > > /usr was usually tight back in the day. > > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be > > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a > > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create > > /user1. > > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space > in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was > $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was > fine. > > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. > > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... > > > http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt > > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy > with this installer script. > > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other > > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional > > software? > > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional > devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, > /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there > before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries > available at the time. > > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. > > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install > 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. > > -ethan > From john at forecast.name Fri Aug 20 15:31:16 2021 From: john at forecast.name (John Forecast) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:31:16 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52562ED6-B483-4E06-8530-D3C346696BCF@forecast.name> > On Aug 19, 2021, at 7:39 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that the > M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For example, bit 10 > of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled "Multiprocessor Slave" > and indicates that the bus arbitrator is disabled. There is also section > 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", that describes cache features that > allow multiprocessor operation. > > Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding the > proper software. > > Anybody ever heard of such a thing? > > Chuck See: > for more info on multi-processor PDP-11s including KDJ11-B?s. John. From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 20 15:39:39 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:39:39 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <52562ED6-B483-4E06-8530-D3C346696BCF@forecast.name> References: <52562ED6-B483-4E06-8530-D3C346696BCF@forecast.name> Message-ID: <227BB537-E848-458D-AC4D-F0DFE135DB56@comcast.net> > On Aug 20, 2021, at 4:31 PM, John Forecast via cctalk wrote: > > See: > > > > > for more info on multi-processor PDP-11s including KDJ11-B?s. > > John. Nice. Interestingly enough, I remember another machine that was also called 11/74; it existed in the RSTS/E lab in Merrimack (NH). That one wasn't an MP machine; instead, it was an 11/70 with additional microcode to add the CIS (strings and decimal arithmetic) instruction set. COBOL-11 could use this, and indeed CIS was a supported product in some later machines. But the 11/74 CIS machine never saw the light of day. I don't know why not. Perhaps it was not cost-effective given that it was a physically large machine, no longer a state of the art architecture for the time (around 1980). One comment I heard is that it was forced to be canceled because it could run COBOL faster than a VAX-11/780. No idea if that was true (either the speed claim or the cancelation claim). It has a faint ring of plausibility to it; when the 780 came out, DEC made some noises that PDP-11 would disappear within just a handful of years. It didn't take them all that long to realize the absurdity of that notion. paul From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Aug 20 16:02:46 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 15:02:46 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple > solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an > RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition > plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at > least) /user1. > > I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. > I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I wanted to check.... Warner Cheers > > Peter Allan > > On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk > > wrote: > > > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from > > > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en > > > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video > > on > > > YouTube that I think started this thread. > > > > > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on > > /usr. > > > > /usr was usually tight back in the day. > > > > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > > > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it > be > > > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what > a > > > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > > > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to > create > > > /user1. > > > > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple > > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user > > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space > > in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper > > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together > > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single > > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was > > $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main > > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It > > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU > > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a > > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was > > fine. > > > > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was > > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. > > > > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to > > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... > > > > > > > http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt > > > > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set > > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior > > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy > > with this installer script. > > > > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other > > > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional > > > software? > > > > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of > > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the > > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional > > devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, > > /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there > > before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were > > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries > > available at the time. > > > > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where > > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft > > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. > > > > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install > > 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an > > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial > > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. > > > > -ethan > > > From healyzh at me.com Fri Aug 20 09:49:34 2021 From: healyzh at me.com (Zane Healy) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 07:49:34 -0700 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Aug 19, 2021, at 4:39 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that the > M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For example, bit 10 > of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled "Multiprocessor Slave" > and indicates that the bus arbitrator is disabled. There is also section > 6.6, "Cache Multi-Processor Hooks", that describes cache features that > allow multiprocessor operation. > > Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding the > proper software. > > Anybody ever heard of such a thing? > > Chuck Have you looked at the Falcon PDP-11/21 boards? Perhaps this is for them? I?ve never had a Falcon board, so haven?t really read up on them. Zane From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Aug 20 17:30:14 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 18:30:14 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple > solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? By default, no. /dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% / /dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr /dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1 I used partition 3 which is the rest of the disk not used by Ultrix-11 and then did the symbolic link thing in the installs. > Even though an > RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition > plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at > least) /user1. That is true, but I seem to remember that even then it is not enough space for a full install. And I plan to put the sources on as well. > > I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. > It's all good fun. But, as I said, the real fun doesn't begin until you go to build a new kernel with more features in it. bill From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Aug 20 17:45:48 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:45:48 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 4:30 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > > The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple > > solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? > > By default, no. > > /dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% / > /dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr > /dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1 > Which controller did you use for the ra81? Warner From steven at malikoff.com Fri Aug 20 18:04:40 2021 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 09:04:40 +1000 Subject: DEC ME11 Memory Expansion on eBay Message-ID: I just saw there is an ME11 Memory Expansion unit on eBay (not mine), stamped 'M11'. https://www.ebay.com/itm/114941479208 Until seeing this one I had not heard of any other units out there apart from the one I recovered (ex-BHP steelworks) a few years ago. Mine was connected by a flexprint cable to a rebadged PDP-11/15. If anyone here ends up with it, I have an OpenSCAD model of the Mazak bracket p/n 1211221 that holds the regular 5-1/4" DEC fascia panel onto the front of the H-909 cabinet this unit uses. This is the same cabinet as the slimline PDP-11/05 and to be honest when I found the ME11 that's what I thought it was, and that the console and CPU boards were missing. I then found the fascia panel with the original brackets close by, and it fitted exactly. I've printed a few from PET and they work as well as the originals (including the threaded hole), so I could do a few more for whoever gets the eBay one should they want them. I am slowly scanning the ME11 print set too as I've not found any online copy out there so far. Steve. From derschjo at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 18:08:46 2021 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 16:08:46 -0700 Subject: ISO: DEC H317-B (DH11) bulkhead panel Message-ID: Hi all -- Recently picked up a DH11-AD and now I just need to track down an appropriate bulkhead panel to go with it. Originally this would have been the H317-B, I'm not sure if there were others that are directly compatible, but if anyone has one lying around drop me a line! Thanks! - Josh From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Fri Aug 20 18:17:27 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 19:17:27 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/20/21 6:45 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 4:30 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > > wrote: > > On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote: > > The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple > > solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? > > By default, no. > > /dev/ra00? ? ? ?4606? ? 3080? ? 1526? ? 67%? ? / > /dev/ra01? ? ? ?9598? ? 2849? ? 6749? ? 30%? ? /usr > /dev/ra03? ? ?423041? ? 8773? 414268? ? ?2%? ? /user1 > > > > Which controller did you use for the ra81? Because it's an 11/44 it defaults to UDA50. I could not figure out how to make it a KDA50 on a Qbus machine. test1# newfs ULTRIX-11 New File System Program For help, type ? or help, then press . Command < exit help newfs table >: table ULTRIX-11 System's Disk Configuration: X = disk not configured, NED = disk configured but not present. Disk Cntlr Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Cntlr # 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ----- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- UDA50A 0 RA81 RA81 RA81 RA81 X X X X Command < exit help newfs table >: exit test1# bill From jwsmail at jwsss.com Fri Aug 20 23:09:24 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 21:09:24 -0700 Subject: DEC ME11 Memory Expansion on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <45bf7279-5ff8-090b-b158-4a96359fef2f@jwsss.com> I had an 11/15 with one of these, no memory in the main box. Both stolen along with an 8/M Wondering if anyone saw such for sale in the last 5 years.?? Private email if so. thanks Jim On 8/20/2021 4:04 PM, Steve Malikoff via cctalk wrote: > I just saw there is an ME11 Memory Expansion unit on eBay (not mine), stamped 'M11'. > https://www.ebay.com/itm/114941479208 > Until seeing this one I had not heard of any other units out there apart from the one I recovered > (ex-BHP steelworks) a few years ago. Mine was connected by a flexprint cable to a rebadged PDP-11/15. > > If anyone here ends up with it, I have an OpenSCAD model of the Mazak bracket p/n 1211221 that holds > the regular 5-1/4" DEC fascia panel onto the front of the H-909 cabinet this unit uses. > > This is the same cabinet as the slimline PDP-11/05 and to be honest when I found the ME11 that's > what I thought it was, and that the console and CPU boards were missing. I then found the fascia panel > with the original brackets close by, and it fitted exactly. > > I've printed a few from PET and they work as well as the originals (including the threaded hole), so > I could do a few more for whoever gets the eBay one should they want them. > > I am slowly scanning the ME11 print set too as I've not found any online copy out there so far. > > Steve. > From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 23:12:36 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 00:12:36 -0400 Subject: DEC ME11 Memory Expansion on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This seller just had that kind of cruddy 11/05 for sale recently, this item is in nicer shape, but I would not expect it to work "out of the box". It may have been the companion RAM to the 11/05. I have a similar set up for my 11/40 (in full sized chassis, etc. but same principle). On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 7:04 PM Steve Malikoff via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I just saw there is an ME11 Memory Expansion unit on eBay (not mine), > stamped 'M11'. > https://www.ebay.com/itm/114941479208 > Until seeing this one I had not heard of any other units out there apart > from the one I recovered > (ex-BHP steelworks) a few years ago. Mine was connected by a flexprint > cable to a rebadged PDP-11/15. > > If anyone here ends up with it, I have an OpenSCAD model of the Mazak > bracket p/n 1211221 that holds > the regular 5-1/4" DEC fascia panel onto the front of the H-909 cabinet > this unit uses. > > This is the same cabinet as the slimline PDP-11/05 and to be honest when I > found the ME11 that's > what I thought it was, and that the console and CPU boards were missing. I > then found the fascia panel > with the original brackets close by, and it fitted exactly. > > I've printed a few from PET and they work as well as the originals > (including the threaded hole), so > I could do a few more for whoever gets the eBay one should they want them. > > I am slowly scanning the ME11 print set too as I've not found any online > copy out there so far. > > Steve. > > From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 19:58:54 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 20:58:54 -0400 Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks Message-ID: Is there a simh for the otrona attache? I have some.disk images created with Dunfield's utility..if not I will try to read them by using the Zorba portable, which is pretty good with varied formats. Bill From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Aug 20 20:08:55 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 18:08:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Aug 2021, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote: > Is there a simh for the otrona attache? I have some.disk images created > with Dunfield's utility..if not I will try to read them by using the Zorba > portable, which is pretty good with varied formats. > Bill Otrona is fairly straightforward for format conversion. CP/M and MS-DOS. There might have been other operating systems for them, but I didn't run into any. They had 40 track and 80 track drives. 512 bytes per sector, so they can be done using Int13h, without even needing Int1Eh. 10 sectors per track; inter-sector gaps were tight but not unreasonable. I don't remember whether they were numbered 0 - 9 or 1 - 10 From healyzh at me.com Fri Aug 20 20:55:07 2021 From: healyzh at me.com (Zane Healy) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 18:55:07 -0700 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: <227BB537-E848-458D-AC4D-F0DFE135DB56@comcast.net> References: <52562ED6-B483-4E06-8530-D3C346696BCF@forecast.name> <227BB537-E848-458D-AC4D-F0DFE135DB56@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Aug 20, 2021, at 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > Interestingly enough, I remember another machine that was also called 11/74; it existed in the RSTS/E lab in Merrimack (NH). That one wasn't an MP machine; instead, it was an 11/70 with additional microcode to add the CIS (strings and decimal arithmetic) instruction set. COBOL-11 could use this, and indeed CIS was a supported product in some later machines. But the 11/74 CIS machine never saw the light of day. > > I don't know why not. Perhaps it was not cost-effective given that it was a physically large machine, no longer a state of the art architecture for the time (around 1980). One comment I heard is that it was forced to be canceled because it could run COBOL faster than a VAX-11/780. No idea if that was true (either the speed claim or the cancelation claim). It has a faint ring of plausibility to it; when the 780 came out, DEC made some noises that PDP-11 would disappear within just a handful of years. It didn't take them all that long to realize the absurdity of that notion. > > paul Given what happened with the PDP-10, it seems very plausible that it was canceled due to the VAX-11/780. Zane From billdegnan at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 23:23:50 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 00:23:50 -0400 Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette Message-ID: Was there a UNIBUS storage system that used a cassette player as the storage device (like an old Panasonic or RadioShack cassette player), rigged to send receive signals via a serial card connection. I.e. the system would have one serial card for the terminal and another serial card on a different port for the cassette player? It might have to load as if it was a high-speed papertape but it in theory would work. Bill From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 21 05:48:37 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 06:48:37 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6345be36-805f-1de9-bea0-81d58bfdbfd6@e-bbes.com> On 2021-08-20 13:14, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/20/21 12:38 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: >> Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install >> 2.9BSD on an 11/24.? Two RK07s would have been a luxury.? I had an >> RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01.? I could get the initial >> restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. > > Those were the days.? Sadly, most people in the business today know > nothing about them. Yeah, tell those kids, which have now 1/2 TB on their phones ;-) I was musing about it, when I noticed few days ago, that a picture file of a decent camera this days is larger, than my RL02 was back then :( From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 21 05:55:24 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 06:55:24 -0400 Subject: Ian Hirschsohn - DISSPLA, Superset Inc. and sad news In-Reply-To: <20210731144048.3D72F4E6EF@mx2.ezwind.net> References: <20210731144048.3D72F4E6EF@mx2.ezwind.net> Message-ID: <303f8c9b-d483-f571-d62f-e1be3cb2b389@e-bbes.com> On 2021-07-31 10:36, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > At 12:56 AM 7/31/2021, Randy Dawson via cctalk wrote: >> As some here know, I collect some dusty deck fortran graphics. We have MOVIE.BYU up and running! (Thanks Douglas Taylor and Emanuel Steibler). > > Once I was in the business of making 3D file format translators, > and I still have code that runs under Windows that can read > and write Movie.BYU format. So, what formats did you import/export to Movie.BYU? From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 12:30:09 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 13:30:09 -0400 Subject: VENIX DISKS Message-ID: Warner https://www.vintagecomputer.net/temp/venix/ ...contains photos of the disks I have relating to VENIX for the Rainbow. Bill From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sat Aug 21 12:49:23 2021 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 13:49:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette Message-ID: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Bill Degnan > Was there a UNIBUS storage system that used a cassette player as the > storage device .., rigged to send receive signals via a serial card > connection. Yes and no. There is the TA11 Magnetic Tape Cassette System, which used the TU60 Dual DECasette Transport (I need to create a page for that in the CHWiki), but it uses a special controller card, the TA11 Magnetic Tape Cassette controller: https://gunkies.org/wiki/TA11_Magnetic_Tape_Cassette_controller There is a small cheap tape system which used a stock serial interface to talk to the computer, the TU58, but those used DECtpe-II cartridges, not standard casettes. Noel From count.arthur.strong.666 at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 08:06:20 2021 From: count.arthur.strong.666 at gmail.com (Arthur Strong) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 16:06:20 +0300 Subject: John Nash Message-ID: Hi all! The book about John Nash ("Beautiful Mind'")[1] mentioned that he wrote computer programs: "Edward G. Nilges, a programmer who worked in Princeton University?s computer center from 1987 to 1992, recalled that Nash ?acted frightened and silent? at first. In Nilges?s last year or two in Princeton, however, Nash was asking him questions about the Internet and about programs he was working on. Nilges was impressed: ?Nash?s computer programs were startlingly elegant.?" Has anybody seen them? Are they available somewhere for downloading? Wondering... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(book) From count.arthur.strong.666 at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 08:06:20 2021 From: count.arthur.strong.666 at gmail.com (Arthur Strong) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 16:06:20 +0300 Subject: John Nash Message-ID: Hi all! The book about John Nash ("Beautiful Mind'")[1] mentioned that he wrote computer programs: "Edward G. Nilges, a programmer who worked in Princeton University?s computer center from 1987 to 1992, recalled that Nash ?acted frightened and silent? at first. In Nilges?s last year or two in Princeton, however, Nash was asking him questions about the Internet and about programs he was working on. Nilges was impressed: ?Nash?s computer programs were startlingly elegant.?" Has anybody seen them? Are they available somewhere for downloading? Wondering... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beautiful_Mind_(book) From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Sat Aug 21 13:59:34 2021 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 11:59:34 -0700 Subject: Punched card file wanted In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> Now that I am finally getting my vintage computer accumulation in order, I need a punched card file cabinet. Does anyone know of one that might be available for purchase or trade? I am willing to pick up anywhere in the western US. In an ideal world, I would love to find one of the ones with a slanted front on each drawer that holds a single card for a label. I have an old wooden library catalog file cabinet (60 drawers) that I would be willing to trade, as well as some DEC Q-bus chassis. Any leads would be appreciated. Alan Frisbie From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Aug 21 14:53:22 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 19:53:22 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Punched card file wanted In-Reply-To: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> References: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <348968082.224435.1629575602945@mail.yahoo.com> Library card not same size as purchased cards? beware!? We would love to find a nice wood library card catalog here in Arizona both a large and some desktop ones During the tossing of punchcards many of the metal card cabs were avail at 25 bucks each... wish we had bought more.? Most people repurchased them as tool cabinets? thecdrawers would hold lots if weight.Ed# Sent from the all new AOL app for Android On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 11:59 AM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: Now that I am finally getting my vintage computer accumulation in order, I need a punched card file cabinet.? Does anyone know of one that might be available for purchase or trade?? I am willing to pick up anywhere in the western US. In an ideal world, I would love to find one of the ones with a slanted front on each drawer that holds a single card for a label. I have an old wooden library catalog file cabinet (60 drawers) that I would be willing to trade, as well as some DEC Q-bus chassis. Any leads would be appreciated. Alan Frisbie From couryhouse at aol.com Sat Aug 21 15:14:10 2021 From: couryhouse at aol.com (ED SHARPE) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 20:14:10 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Punched card file wanted In-Reply-To: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> References: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <1875759007.227663.1629576850122@mail.yahoo.com> Email me your direct email address this list serve does not provide it Sent from the all new AOL app for Android On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 11:59 AM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: Now that I am finally getting my vintage computer accumulation in order, I need a punched card file cabinet.? Does anyone know of one that might be available for purchase or trade?? I am willing to pick up anywhere in the western US. In an ideal world, I would love to find one of the ones with a slanted front on each drawer that holds a single card for a label. I have an old wooden library catalog file cabinet (60 drawers) that I would be willing to trade, as well as some DEC Q-bus chassis. Any leads would be appreciated. Alan Frisbie From billdegnan at gmail.com Sat Aug 21 15:44:03 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 16:44:03 -0400 Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette In-Reply-To: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 1:49 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > From: Bill Degnan > > > Was there a UNIBUS storage system that used a cassette player as the > > storage device .., rigged to send receive signals via a serial card > > connection. > > Yes and no. There is the TA11 Magnetic Tape Cassette System, which used the > TU60 Dual DECasette Transport (I need to create a page for that in the > CHWiki), but it uses a special controller card, the TA11 Magnetic Tape > Cassette controller: > > https://gunkies.org/wiki/TA11_Magnetic_Tape_Cassette_controller > > There is a small cheap tape system which used a stock serial interface to > talk > to the computer, the TU58, but those used DECtpe-II cartridges, not > standard > casettes. > > Noel > Thanks Noel. I suppose if it was done it was a hack/not official system. Bill From steven at malikoff.com Sat Aug 21 19:12:34 2021 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 10:12:34 +1000 Subject: ME11-L 3U fascia panel attachment Re: DEC ME11 Memory Expansion on eBay In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ef522936a8fbf6713be0dd3de35bd69.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> I've been asked about the ME11 3U fascia panel bracket and how it attaches to the H-909 (slimline 11/05) cabinet, here is what it looks like. The metal originals are at front and my PET repops installed on the panel. There is not a lot of thread depth through the flanges but it seems to hold on well enough. http://www.surfacezero.com/g503/data/500/DEC_pn_211221_3U_fascia_to_H-909_slimline_cabinet_ME11-L_memory_expansion.png Steve From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 21 22:48:21 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 22:48:21 -0500 Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette In-Reply-To: References: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: On 8/21/2021 3:44 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 1:49 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > From: Bill Degnan >> >> > Was there a UNIBUS storage system that used a cassette player as the >> > storage device .., rigged to send receive signals via a serial card >> > connection. >> >> Yes and no. There is the TA11 Magnetic Tape Cassette System, which used the >> TU60 Dual DECasette Transport (I need to create a page for that in the >> CHWiki), but it uses a special controller card, the TA11 Magnetic Tape >> Cassette controller: >> >> https://gunkies.org/wiki/TA11_Magnetic_Tape_Cassette_controller >> >> There is a small cheap tape system which used a stock serial interface to >> talk >> to the computer, the TU58, but those used DECtpe-II cartridges, not >> standard >> casettes. >> >> Noel >> > > Thanks Noel. I suppose if it was done it was a hack/not official system. > Bill > There were third party cassette systems, typically using some kind of digital cassette format, that you could hook up with a terminal. One was made by Sykes that I played with once upon a time: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sykes/brochures/Sykes_3000_Cassete_Brochure.pdf But not UNIBUS - it was just a standard serial port thing, not tied to any particular computer system. From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 21 22:50:25 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 22:50:25 -0500 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. > > At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a release of the other. I forgot which came first, other than that the beta was really clunky. As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen updates... > > paul > >> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech wrote: >> >> images up under http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip > They are indeed different. V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. JRJ From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 21 22:58:43 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 22:58:43 -0500 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> Message-ID: On 8/21/2021 10:50 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. >> >> At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I >> tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a >> release of the other.? I forgot which came first, other than that the >> beta was really clunky.? As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen >> updates... >> >> ????paul >> >>> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech >>> wrote: >>> >>> images up under >>> http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip >>> >> > > They are indeed different.? V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, > whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. > > JRJ OOOPS. Belay that. Further reading of the SPD seems to imply that Ultrix-11 was simply an evolutionary step from V7m to support more hardware - notably the 11.73. JRJ From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 21 23:09:39 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2021 22:09:39 -0600 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 9:50 PM Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. > > > > At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I > tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a release > of the other. I forgot which came first, other than that the beta was > really clunky. As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen updates... > > > > paul > > > >> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech < > cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > >> images up under > http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip > > > > They are indeed different. V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, > whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. > Ultrix32 was based on 4BSD, but Ultrix-11 is very definitely v7m rebranded. Ultrix--11 2.0 did pull in some improvements from 2.9BSD, System III and System V, at least according to the SPD. Ultrix-11 3.0 pulled in networking from 2.10BSD (or 2.10BSD got it from Ultrix) at least based on source inspection. Warner JRJ > From huw.davies at me.com Sun Aug 22 01:00:44 2021 From: huw.davies at me.com (Huw Davies) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 16:00:44 +1000 Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette In-Reply-To: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: > On 22 Aug 2021, at 03:49, cctalk at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Yes and no. There is the TA11 Magnetic Tape Cassette System, which used the > TU60 Dual DECasette Transport (I need to create a page for that in the > CHWiki), but it uses a special controller card, the TA11 Magnetic Tape > Cassette controller: CAPS-11 was the OS for this IIRC. Huw From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sun Aug 22 07:21:17 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 08:21:17 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> Message-ID: On 8/21/21 11:50 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. >> >> At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which I >> tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a >> release of the other.? I forgot which came first, other than that the >> beta was really clunky.? As in, a "vi" that didn't do real screen >> updates... >> >> ????paul >> >>> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech >>> wrote: >>> >>> images up under >>> http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip >>> >> > > They are indeed different.? V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, > whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. > > JRJ Actually, Ultrix-11 is based on V7m and Ultrix032 is based on BSD 4.x. bill From paulkoning at comcast.net Sun Aug 22 08:56:40 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 09:56:40 -0400 Subject: DEC UNIBUS and use of cassette In-Reply-To: References: <20210821174923.9188B18C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <1A55D702-F832-4D38-8194-EB7A163E3724@comcast.net> > On Aug 21, 2021, at 11:48 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > > ... > There were third party cassette systems, typically using some kind of digital cassette format, that you could hook up with a terminal. One was made by Sykes that I played with once upon a time: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sykes/brochures/Sykes_3000_Cassete_Brochure.pdf And of course some were built right into the terminal; the TI Silent 733 comes to mind. That was around 1974. My guess is that it was intended to replace paper tape that was a popular terminal capability at the time (on the Teletype 33 and 35). Those things actually had an API of sorts; I remember playing with it a bit but it was never interesting enough to do serious work. The fact that it was limited (by the comm line) to 30 cps was not a whole lot of motivation. paul From stepleton at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 10:31:13 2021 From: stepleton at gmail.com (Tom Stepleton) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 16:31:13 +0100 Subject: Replicating IBM SLT/MST card interconnect In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There wasn't much advice to be had on making modern connectors that interoperate with the header-like connectors used by IBM SLT cards, so I did my best to come up with some on my own. This design appears to be functional, but I've only ohmed it out so far, not put it to any kind of extended use: https://github.com/stepleton/SLT_interconnect The hard part now will be getting my hands on 18 AWG flat ribbon cable that doesn't cost a fortune. Anyhow, I hope this might be of use to some folks out there. --Tom On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 1:21 PM Tom Stepleton wrote: > Hi cctalk, > > I'm looking to replicate the 24-contact connector system that IBM used on > SLT and MST cards for many years. Has anyone done this before? > > The best photos of this connector that I can find online are on this page: > > http://techandtrouble.blogspot.com/2014/04/happy-50th-system360-pt5-anatomy-of-slt.html > I haven't searched Bitsavers documentation extensively for IBM > specifications, but I've seen some details around page 54 of this document: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/logic/SY22-2798-2_LogicBlocks_AutomatedLogicDiagrams_SLT,SLD,ASLT,MST_TO_Oct71.pdf > > I'm interested in reproducing both polarities of this connector: plug and > socket. Also, even though the most familiar use of this connector is for > board-to-board interconnect, I'm most interested in wire-to-board > interconnect. IBM used this method for DC power connectors in its 5100, > 5110, and 5120 computers. Here are images of this specific connector: > http://stepleton.com/connector/ > taken as still images from a YouTube video on the IBM 5120 by Jerry Walker > (https://www.youtube.com/c/JerryWalker-JMPrecision/videos). > > I've designed and built a device that monitors DC power supply voltages > for overvoltage and undervoltage excursions and cuts off all power rails if > any voltage goes out of spec. I hope to use it to protect my own IBM 5100 > from major power supply faults like the one CuriousMarc encountered with > his 9825T: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-eN93L6yX8 > > In order to put my device between my 5100's power supply and the logic > card backplane, I need to recreate a plug and a socket so that I can > fashion a cable that goes out to my device. If anyone has created > dependable modern versions of these connectors, would you mind sharing any > pointers? > > Thanks for any help, > --Tom > From mark.kahrs at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 10:53:25 2021 From: mark.kahrs at gmail.com (Mark Kahrs) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 11:53:25 -0400 Subject: C.mmp OS Message-ID: The answer to the question is Hydra I believe. From lproven at gmail.com Sun Aug 22 10:56:59 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 17:56:59 +0200 Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 17:53, Mark Kahrs via cctech wrote: > > The answer to the question is Hydra I believe. But since you are not replying to anything, we don't know what the question _was_ ... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Aug 22 16:41:58 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 14:41:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> The answer to the question is Hydra I believe. On Sun, 22 Aug 2021, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > But since you are not replying to anything, we don't know what the > question _was_ ... If "drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll" is not the answer, then you are asking the wrong question. From spectre at floodgap.com Sun Aug 22 19:16:49 2021 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 17:16:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 Message-ID: <202108230016.17N0Gn3c16973864@floodgap.com> Bitsavers has 6.3 (thank you Al) but I'm trying to push my luck and find 8.1 for this XP421CH Xterm. Anyone know of where it can be found? -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- FOOLS! I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL! ASK ME HOW! -- "Girl Genius" 8/29/07 -------- From doc at vaxen.net Sun Aug 22 21:08:21 2021 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 21:08:21 -0500 Subject: Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 In-Reply-To: <202108230016.17N0Gn3c16973864@floodgap.com> References: <202108230016.17N0Gn3c16973864@floodgap.com> Message-ID: <8c287f5c-4ad8-1002-570c-1c671c689494@vaxen.net> On 8/22/21 19:16, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote: > Bitsavers has 6.3 (thank you Al) but I'm trying to push my luck and find > 8.1 for this XP421CH Xterm. Anyone know of where it can be found? > Well.... There's this: http://bio.gsi.de/DOCS/NCD/www.technogoths.demon.co.uk/tekxp400/node3.html and there's this: http://www.docsbox.net/V81106.tgz Please don't kill my server. It's been a long long time since I had the XP400D, and I don't think I ever tried connecting from Windows, so you're kind of on your own. Good luck! Doc From lars at nocrew.org Mon Aug 23 00:22:58 2021 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 05:22:58 +0000 Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: (Fred Cisin via cctalk's message of "Sun, 22 Aug 2021 14:41:58 -0700 (PDT)") References: Message-ID: <7wczq47n0t.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Fred Cisin wrote: > If "drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll" is not the answer, > then you are asking the wrong question. I'm not very interested in drugs or rock'n'roll, but I would very much like to see the software for the UCLA Simgma-7! From petermallan at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 04:11:26 2021 From: petermallan at gmail.com (Peter Allan) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:11:26 +0100 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks Warner and Ethan. That is very helpful. I had not realised that the partition sizes were REALLY hard wired - as in set in the code. That explains why there is no option to set the size at installation time. I will redo the installation with that in mind. Cheers Peter On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 22:03, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple >> solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though >> an >> RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition >> plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at >> least) /user1. >> >> I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. >> > > I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB > instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I > wanted to check.... > > Warner > > > Cheers >> >> Peter Allan >> >> On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> >> > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk >> > wrote: >> > > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from >> > > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en >> > > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room >> video >> > on >> > > YouTube that I think started this thread. >> > > >> > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on >> > /usr. >> > >> > /usr was usually tight back in the day. >> > >> > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at >> > > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can >> it be >> > > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not >> what a >> > > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, >> > > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to >> create >> > > /user1. >> > >> > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple >> > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user >> > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space >> > in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper >> > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together >> > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single >> > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was >> > $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main >> > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It >> > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU >> > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a >> > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was >> > fine. >> > >> > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was >> > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. >> > >> > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to >> > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... >> > >> > >> > >> http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt >> > >> > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set >> > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior >> > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy >> > with this installer script. >> > >> > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other >> > > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional >> > > software? >> > >> > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of >> > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the >> > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional >> > devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, >> > /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there >> > before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were >> > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries >> > available at the time. >> > >> > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where >> > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft >> > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. >> > >> > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install >> > 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an >> > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial >> > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. >> > >> > -ethan >> > >> > From lproven at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 04:15:08 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 11:15:08 +0200 Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 23:42, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > >> The answer to the question is Hydra I believe. > > On Sun, 22 Aug 2021, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > But since you are not replying to anything, we don't know what the > > question _was_ ... > > If "drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll" is not the answer, > then you are asking the wrong question. While I cannot disagree with my learned friend's proposition, I increasingly find that my drug of choice is ibuprofen these days. :-/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Aug 23 09:57:44 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 07:57:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Need Spectravideo SVI-328 parts.... Message-ID: I've got a very nice SV-328 that's had the sad misfortune of having the "K" key rather violently removed. (https://i.imgur.com/IxBIQTj.jpg) Can someone point me to where I could obtain a replacement key top and post? Thanks! 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com Mon Aug 23 11:29:08 2021 From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Rob Jarratt) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:29:08 +0100 Subject: 3d modelling software Message-ID: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for a novice? Preferably free! Thanks Rob From aperry at snowmoose.com Mon Aug 23 11:39:51 2021 From: aperry at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 09:39:51 -0700 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <20DF5031-BEA4-47F7-B310-FF0843AD658D@snowmoose.com> I use Fusion360. It is free for hobbyists and students. alan > On Aug 23, 2021, at 09:34, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: > > ?I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob > From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 23 11:59:39 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 12:59:39 -0400 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <3B62AA90-9953-4EF1-A405-3513BE5A36A1@comcast.net> I haven't used it for 3d printing work, but from other use I can recommend FreeCAD3d. That is open source software, so free for everyone, not just for "students". It has a GUI, and it can also be scripted using Python, which is a great way to construct very complex models. I've used it to model a SF spaceship. paul > On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:29 PM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: > > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob > From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Aug 23 12:31:02 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:31:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <20DF5031-BEA4-47F7-B310-FF0843AD658D@snowmoose.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> <20DF5031-BEA4-47F7-B310-FF0843AD658D@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Aug 2021, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote: > I use Fusion360. It is free for hobbyists and students. > ...for now. Pray Autodesk doesn't alter the deal further. Again. For a true, completely offline, free parametric design package, take a look at Solid Edge 2020 Community Edition. The only in-built restriction is the inability of the commercial edition of Solid Edge from opening native format files created by the Community Edition. It's a perpetual license too - you don't even enter a license key. Download and go. It only works under Windows however. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From tingox at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 12:47:49 2021 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:47:49 +0200 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> <20DF5031-BEA4-47F7-B310-FF0843AD658D@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: If you prefer programming, OpenSCAD https://openscad.org/ might be the 3D modeling software for you. HTH -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen From ethan at 757.org Mon Aug 23 12:53:33 2021 From: ethan at 757.org (Ethan O'Toole) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 13:53:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! > Thanks > Rob I use the web version of Sketchup 3D. It's now owned by Trimble. It gets me by for making project boxes and parts. -- : Ethan O'Toole From aperry at snowmoose.com Mon Aug 23 13:19:34 2021 From: aperry at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 11:19:34 -0700 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <3B62AA90-9953-4EF1-A405-3513BE5A36A1@comcast.net> References: <3B62AA90-9953-4EF1-A405-3513BE5A36A1@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1481B7FE-F500-4D02-B8E6-6BC9A720F8B1@snowmoose.com> What OS were you running it on? When I first started trying to use it a couple years ago on a Mac, it didn?t work so well. I started trying to make it work better and then realized that I was spending most of my time trying to make the tool work and not so much time modeling the part that I was trying replicate and threw in the towel and started using Fusion 360. Using Fusion 360 has had some advantages when getting the part made (there is a common language for tweaking the model). alan > On Aug 23, 2021, at 09:59, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > ?I haven't used it for 3d printing work, but from other use I can recommend FreeCAD3d. That is open source software, so free for everyone, not just for "students". > > It has a GUI, and it can also be scripted using Python, which is a great way to construct very complex models. I've used it to model a SF spaceship. > > paul > >> On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:29 PM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: >> >> I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board >> mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for >> a novice? Preferably free! >> >> >> >> Thanks >> >> >> >> Rob >> > From pete at dunnington.plus.com Mon Aug 23 13:35:13 2021 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:35:13 +0100 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On 23/08/2021 17:29, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! The hobbyist version of Fusion 360 is free. It's what I use. I've tried FreeCAD more than once but it still has some serious bugs. Tinkercad is also free but more limited and although it might be easier to get started with, it's more difficult to do some operations in. I'd avoid Sketchup because it's renowned for producing faulty STL files unless you're careful. If you want some help, you know I'm not very far away. I can certainly I can test STL files out for you, and possibly even print some, depending on what they are. -- Pete Pete Turnbull From commodorejohn at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 13:17:48 2021 From: commodorejohn at gmail.com (John Ames) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 11:17:48 -0700 Subject: 3d modelling software Message-ID: The quick-'n-easy solution I found when I needed to model some parts for a keyboard was https://www.tinkercad.com/ - needs a modern-ish web browser and a modestly beefy system tho. From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 23 14:35:21 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 15:35:21 -0400 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <1481B7FE-F500-4D02-B8E6-6BC9A720F8B1@snowmoose.com> References: <3B62AA90-9953-4EF1-A405-3513BE5A36A1@comcast.net> <1481B7FE-F500-4D02-B8E6-6BC9A720F8B1@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: <5F3FF620-F305-407B-A906-00C67F792CED@comcast.net> Mac OS, 64 bit Intel until recently, Arm64 right now. It's still the Intel build, that works impressively well through Rosetta 2. The current version is 0.19. I haven't run into significant issues with it for quite a while. It's been pretty solid since 0.14 in my usage. That's a bit off the beaten track, perhaps; I mostly do my modeling in a 5000 line Python script, and use my own export to PovRAY rather than the FreeCAD Render workbench. But I did use that a bit, in some experiments with the KiCAD importer. That's pretty slick, converting a PCB layout to a 3d CAD model. paul > On Aug 23, 2021, at 2:19 PM, Alan Perry wrote: > > What OS were you running it on? When I first started trying to use it a couple years ago on a Mac, it didn?t work so well. I started trying to make it work better and then realized that I was spending most of my time trying to make the tool work and not so much time modeling the part that I was trying replicate and threw in the towel and started using Fusion 360. Using Fusion 360 has had some advantages when getting the part made (there is a common language for tweaking the model). > > alan > >> On Aug 23, 2021, at 09:59, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> >> ?I haven't used it for 3d printing work, but from other use I can recommend FreeCAD3d. That is open source software, so free for everyone, not just for "students". >> >> It has a GUI, and it can also be scripted using Python, which is a great way to construct very complex models. I've used it to model a SF spaceship. >> >> paul >> >>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:29 PM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board >>> mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for >>> a novice? Preferably free! >>> >>> >>> >>> Thanks >>> >>> >>> >>> Rob >>> >> From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 16:12:58 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 22:12:58 +0100 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <0bde01d79863$a6721e80$f3565b80$@gmail.com> Rob, I asked on the Radio Club net. The other program mentioned RS Design Spark https://www.rs-online.com/designspark Dave G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Rob Jarratt via > cctalk > Sent: 23 August 2021 17:29 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > > Subject: 3d modelling software > > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board mounting > guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for a novice? > Preferably free! > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob From elson at pico-systems.com Mon Aug 23 17:02:46 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:02:46 -0500 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <1481B7FE-F500-4D02-B8E6-6BC9A720F8B1@snowmoose.com> References: <3B62AA90-9953-4EF1-A405-3513BE5A36A1@comcast.net> <1481B7FE-F500-4D02-B8E6-6BC9A720F8B1@snowmoose.com> Message-ID: <0a877b68-1b61-2095-38c0-b928345b73c7@pico-systems.com> On 8/23/21 1:19 PM, Alan Perry via cctalk wrote: > What OS were you running it on? When I first started trying to use it a couple years ago on a Mac, it didn?t work so well. I started trying to make it work better and then realized that I was spending most of my time trying to make the tool work and not so much time modeling the part that I was trying replicate and threw in the towel and started using Fusion 360. Using Fusion 360 has had some advantages when getting the part made (there is a common language for tweaking the model). > I recently got a free 3D printer tossed out at work.? I use Linux pretty exclusively, and so downloaded FreeCad.? The problem is the developers are changing things so fast the docs and on-line tutorials are having trouble keeping up to date.? It is a very complex software package, but it DOES work if you can learn the mindset of it.? There are sketches, extrusions, solids of revolution, etc.? So, this is a mixed recommendation, but if you have a complex part to design, it is probably worth the effort to learn the basics.? As far as I can tell, it will do everything Inventor will do. Jon From aperry at snowmoose.com Mon Aug 23 18:18:19 2021 From: aperry at snowmoose.com (Alan Perry) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 16:18:19 -0700 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <5F3FF620-F305-407B-A906-00C67F792CED@comcast.net> References: <5F3FF620-F305-407B-A906-00C67F792CED@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7BE804E0-BF03-404C-B08A-51A3C070BB0E@snowmoose.com> Cool. It wasn?t working that well when I tried. > On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:35, Paul Koning wrote: > > ?Mac OS, 64 bit Intel until recently, Arm64 right now. It's still the Intel build, that works impressively well through Rosetta 2. The current version is 0.19. I haven't run into significant issues with it for quite a while. It's been pretty solid since 0.14 in my usage. That's a bit off the beaten track, perhaps; I mostly do my modeling in a 5000 line Python script, and use my own export to PovRAY rather than the FreeCAD Render workbench. But I did use that a bit, in some experiments with the KiCAD importer. That's pretty slick, converting a PCB layout to a 3d CAD model. > > paul > >> On Aug 23, 2021, at 2:19 PM, Alan Perry wrote: >> >> What OS were you running it on? When I first started trying to use it a couple years ago on a Mac, it didn?t work so well. I started trying to make it work better and then realized that I was spending most of my time trying to make the tool work and not so much time modeling the part that I was trying replicate and threw in the towel and started using Fusion 360. Using Fusion 360 has had some advantages when getting the part made (there is a common language for tweaking the model). >> >> alan >> >>>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 09:59, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> ?I haven't used it for 3d printing work, but from other use I can recommend FreeCAD3d. That is open source software, so free for everyone, not just for "students". >>> >>> It has a GUI, and it can also be scripted using Python, which is a great way to construct very complex models. I've used it to model a SF spaceship. >>> >>> paul >>> >>>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 12:29 PM, Rob Jarratt via cctalk wrote: >>>> >>>> I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board >>>> mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for >>>> a novice? Preferably free! >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Thanks >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Rob >>>> >>> > From stepleton at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 19:38:33 2021 From: stepleton at gmail.com (Tom Stepleton) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 01:38:33 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions Message-ID: Hello, For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine what counts as "interesting" here. Perhaps a whole lot of different kinds of work or lots of different resources accessed is what I'm after. I expect these kinds of "busy" instructions were more common in architectures that are now less common, so perhaps this list is a good place to ask. For example, if we're thinking "number of times an item is retrieved from RAM", then any application of the x86 string instructions that could walk over memory for a while perhaps aren't so interesting. By contrast, by my count, the NS32000 series instruction "addw ext(4), ext(7)" requires at least five separate noncontiguous retrievals just to fetch the arguments into the ALU. (Note that I'm not differentiating between different sizes of data here: loading a 16-bit item and loading a 32-bit address both count as a "retrieval" in this example.) Instructions that are simply lengthy might be interesting, but not always: long literals or lots of redundant prefixes on x86 aren't that impressive, for example. Number of registers read or modified might be good too, but just saving or loading for the sake of subroutine calls (e.g. "movem.l r0-r7/a0-a6,-(sp)" on the 68k) seems pretty pedestrian. Other criteria may seem worthwhile; I trust peoples' judgement on this. Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or another. But to give an example of a candidate instruction that's prolific in a way I find more noteworthy, I'll go back to the NS32k and offer addw ext(4)+6[r1:w], ext(7)+12[r2:w] which in order to get its arguments (I think) requires the five retrievals already mentioned and adds two shifts and four additions to the bill. I think this statement reads: "Add the r1'th word counting from 6 bytes past the fourth address in the current module's link table to the r2'th word counting from 12 bytes past the seventh address in the current module's link table". That's a mouthful --- it takes a lot of work to describe what that one line does! Maybe that's what I'm hoping to share with people. I hope this is interesting to discuss, --Tom From paulkoning at comcast.net Mon Aug 23 20:09:55 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 21:09:55 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> > On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. > ... > Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or > another. Indeed. Just its addressing modes, with indirection and two separate register indexing operations, are hairy enough. Then consider the decimal arithmetic instructions that might have up to 6 operands. It also has instructions whose encoding isn't so exotic but what they do is. The CRC instruction is one example, the POLY ones another. Then there are the save and load process context instructions, which copy a rather large data structure full of different items between memory and the CPU privileged state. Going back a decade or two we have the IBM 1620, in which arithmetic and I/O operations operate on variable length data. That includes floating point (with variable length mantissa). Want to use 40 digit float precision? No problem, you're still just dealing with a single instruction to do the operation. It might take a while, of course... Not quite so extreme is the Exchange instruction on the CDC 6000 series machines, analogous to the VAX save/load process context instruction but with the two operations done together. That is a big win in that era with core memory, because the whole operation is just one pass through the data structure, doing read of the new state and write back of the old state, 100 nanoseconds per word of state. Unlike the VAX the state struct ("exchange packet") is relatively small, just 16 words. paul From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Aug 23 20:32:15 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:32:15 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 2021-08-23 7:09 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > >> On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >> thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested >> in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that >> are unusually prolific in one way or another. >> ... >> Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or >> another. > > Indeed. Just its addressing modes, with indirection and two separate register indexing operations, are hairy enough. Then consider the decimal arithmetic instructions that might have up to 6 operands. > > It also has instructions whose encoding isn't so exotic but what they do is. The CRC instruction is one example, the POLY ones another. Then there are the save and load process context instructions, which copy a rather large data structure full of different items between memory and the CPU privileged state. > > Going back a decade or two we have the IBM 1620, in which arithmetic and I/O operations operate on variable length data. That includes floating point (with variable length mantissa). Want to use 40 digit float precision? No problem, you're still just dealing with a single instruction to do the operation. It might take a while, of course... > > Not quite so extreme is the Exchange instruction on the CDC 6000 series machines, analogous to the VAX save/load process context instruction but with the two operations done together. That is a big win in that era with core memory, because the whole operation is just one pass through the data structure, doing read of the new state and write back of the old state, 100 nanoseconds per word of state. Unlike the VAX the state struct ("exchange packet") is relatively small, just 16 words. > > paul > What about the few experimental machines, that could hardware compile a program? From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Mon Aug 23 20:51:52 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 18:51:52 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 2021-08-24 at 01:38 +0100, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm > interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU > architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. IBM 1401 was a character-by-character machine, so most operations had costs proportional to field length. One especially expensive (but very useful) operation was "move characters and edit." Assuming a 17-character control word has been loaded to the destination, e.g. "$ ? , ?0. &CR&**" to edit a data field "00257426" with a "negative" zone bit on the low- order digit, producing "$ ?2,574.26 CR **" requires 41 memory accesses (including seven to fetch the instruction) -- 0.4715 milliseconds. See pages 41-43 at?http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1401/A24-1403-5_1401_Reference_Apr62.pdf On a machine where ?the "Expanded Print Edit Feature" was added, the instruction cost even more. For example, the "Floating Dollar Sign" moves the dollar sign to immediately to the left of the most significant digit. This (and asterisk protection) was to prevent somebody from adding digits between a left-justified dollar sign and leading digits on printed checks. The above edit would cost two more memory cycles. If the datum had had more leading zeroes, even more cycles would have been required. See pages 82-84. Another expensive instruction was the simpler "move characters and suppress zeros" instruction. See page 38. From guykd at optusnet.com.au Mon Aug 23 21:21:27 2021 From: guykd at optusnet.com.au (Guy Dunphy) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 12:21:27 +1000 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20210824122127.010e7dc8@mail.optusnet.com.au> >Hello, > >For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested >in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that >are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly >underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine >what counts as "interesting" here. This is perhaps outside even the vague bounds you were thinking of, but it probably wins the 'unusually prolific' prize by a gigabyte-mile. Behold, the hidden, secret and heinous X86 2-byte 'launch instruction' 0x0F, 0x3F. See this talk about the discovery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmTwlEh8L7g DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - GOD MODE UNLOCKED Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86 46:03 DEFCON Conference Oct 23, 2018 Complexity is increasing. Trust eroding. In the wake of Spectre and Meltdown, when it seems that things cannot get any darker for processor security, the last light goes out. This talk will demonstrate what everyone has long feared but never proven: there are hardware backdoors in some x86 processors, and they're buried deeper than we ever imagined possible. While this research specifically examines a third-party processor, we use this as a stepping stone to explore the feasibility of more widespread hardware backdoors. After which you will never trust your Intel-based PC, ever again. Guy From drb at msu.edu Mon Aug 23 21:29:45 2021 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 22:29:45 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 24 Aug 2021 01:38:33 +0100.) References: Message-ID: <20210824022945.6F20C2D7081@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I'm interested in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU > architecture that are unusually prolific in one way or another. The Prime 50 Series has a few candidates: 1. The procedure call instruction allocates a stack frame, saves the calling procedure's state, then calculates the effective address of the called procedure's Entry Control Block, from which it loads various register values. It then follows a chain of argument pointer assembly words following the instruction opcode to compute the locations of any arguments, storing those into the stack frame. In the process, it may follow chains of address indirection, perform ring weakening, and extend the stack into a new segment. The process of transferring argument addresses is interruptible, and will be resumed if necessary when the called procedure begins running. 2. A series of semaphore instructions manage serialization. A semaphore consists of a count field and a list of PCB addresses. The wait instruction increments the count and adds the PCB address to the list. A notify decrements the count and schedules the next winner. 3. Instructions related to interrupt handling and process exchange, and stack management. On 50 Series, the operating system sets up various scheduling and process control structures, and then the microode is responsible for selecting entries from scheduling queues, fetching needed state from a process control block, and starting execution of the new process. A process PCB is "on" one queue at a time, whether it be the idle list, or one of various priority level queues. First level interrupt handlers are responsible for notifying second level responders, which entails the microcode manipulating queues and other process control structures. 4. Register save and restore instructions may read or write up to 27 words from main RAM, depending on the save mask. 5. Decimal arithmetic, numeric edit, character string copy / fill / move / compare / translate / edit operations which may read or write up to 64k words of memory. The edit instructions run subprograms of somewhat arbitrary length, and opcodes including conditional copy, fill, insert, etc. De From elson at pico-systems.com Mon Aug 23 21:43:57 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 21:43:57 -0500 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1c4d400a-ccde-d341-c844-9bca5505a0df@pico-systems.com> On 8/23/21 7:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly > underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine > what counts as "interesting" here. Perhaps a whole lot of different kinds > of work or lots of different resources accessed is what I'm after. I expect > these kinds of "busy" instructions were more common in architectures that > are now less common, so perhaps this list is a good place to ask. Well, you really need to look at VLIW architectures.? Very Long Instruction Word. See the Trace Multiflow for an example.? Every instruction had a load/store field, an integer arithmetic field (for address calculations) and a floating point field.? For more money, you added boards and there were more of these fields in the instruction.? There was no cache, the compiler moved the address calculation and the data fetch sufficiently far up the code so the data would be available when needed. Jon From cclist at sydex.com Mon Aug 23 22:25:20 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 20:25:20 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <701bc3b9-5d91-7260-f89f-c8cb279b562c@sydex.com> On 8/23/21 5:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: Have a look at the instruction set for the STAR-100: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/cyber/cyber_200/60256000_STAR-100hw_Dec75.pdf I'm not quite sure if I've ever used a system with more instructions+variations. --Chuck From shadoooo at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 15:29:41 2021 From: shadoooo at gmail.com (shadoooo) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 20:29:41 +0000 (UTC) Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> Hello Rob, FreeCAD is nice for modeling 3D shapes. For 3D printing, depending on the technology of 3D printer, you need to process original model to convert compact sections into hollow honeycomb structure, and add small plastic bars into empty volumes to support the model while it's printed. I'm not expert of this latter procedure and tools. Andrea Aug 23, 2021 19:07:55 cctech-request at classiccmp.org: > Send cctech mailing list submissions to > ? cctech at classiccmp.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > ? http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctech > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > ? cctech-request at classiccmp.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > ? cctech-owner at classiccmp.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cctech digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > ?? 1. Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 (Cameron Kaiser) > ?? 2. Re: Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 (Doc Shipley) > ?? 3. Re: Ultrix-11 (Peter Allan) > ?? 4. Need Spectravideo SVI-328 parts.... (geneb) > ?? 5. 3d modelling software (Rob Jarratt) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 17:16:49 -0700 (PDT) > From: Cameron Kaiser > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Cc: Cameron Kaiser > Subject: Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 > Message-ID: <202108230016.17N0Gn3c16973864 at floodgap.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > Bitsavers has 6.3 (thank you Al) but I'm trying to push my luck and find > 8.1 for this XP421CH Xterm. Anyone know of where it can be found? > > -- > ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- > ? Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com > -- FOOLS! I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL! ASK ME HOW! -- "Girl Genius" 8/29/07 -------- > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2021 21:08:21 -0500 > From: Doc Shipley > To: Cameron Kaiser via cctalk > Subject: Re: Tektronix XpressWare 8.1 > Message-ID: <8c287f5c-4ad8-1002-570c-1c671c689494 at vaxen.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed > > On 8/22/21 19:16, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote: >> Bitsavers has 6.3 (thank you Al) but I'm trying to push my luck and find >> 8.1 for this XP421CH Xterm. Anyone know of where it can be found? >> > > Well.... > > There's this: > > http://bio.gsi.de/DOCS/NCD/www.technogoths.demon.co.uk/tekxp400/node3.html > > and there's this: > > http://www.docsbox.net/V81106.tgz > > Please don't kill my server. > > ? It's been a long long time since I had the XP400D, and I don't think I > ever tried connecting from Windows, so you're kind of on your own.? Good > luck! > > > ? Doc > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 10:11:26 +0100 > From: Peter Allan > To: Warner Losh > Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > ? , Ethan Dicks > Subject: Re: Ultrix-11 > Message-ID: > ? > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > Thanks Warner and Ethan. That is very helpful. > > I had not realised that the partition sizes were REALLY hard wired - as in > set in the code. That explains why there is no option to set the size at > installation time. > > I will redo the installation with that in mind. > > Cheers > > Peter > > On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 22:03, Warner Losh wrote: > >> >> >> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk < >> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: >> >>> The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple >>> solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though >>> an >>> RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition >>> plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at >>> least) /user1. >>> >>> I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. >>> >> >> I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB >> instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I >> wanted to check.... >> >> Warner >> >> >> Cheers >>> >>> Peter Allan >>> >>> On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks wrote: >>> >>>> On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk >>>> wrote: >>>>> I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from >>>>> https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en >>>>> which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room >>> video >>>> on >>>>> YouTube that I think started this thread. >>>>> >>>>> It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on >>>> /usr. >>>> >>>> /usr was usually tight back in the day. >>>> >>>>> How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at >>>>> installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can >>> it be >>>>> done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not >>> what a >>>>> system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, >>>>> especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to >>> create >>>>> /user1. >>>> >>>> In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple >>>> disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user >>>> files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space >>>> in the system areas.? Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper >>>> than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together >>>> from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new.? For a single >>>> data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984.? For 424MB it was >>>> $24,000.? Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days.? Our main >>>> UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each).? It >>>> was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80.? The CPU >>>> was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a >>>> machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was >>>> fine. >>>> >>>> When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was >>>> totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. >>>> >>>> All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to >>>> assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt >>>> >>>> I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set >>>> up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions).? Prior >>>> to restoring the contents from tape.? That didn't appear to be as easy >>>> with this installer script. >>>> >>>>> I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other >>>>> locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional >>>>> software? >>>> >>>> That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr.? One of >>>> the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the >>>> boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional >>>> devices.? This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, >>>> /usr/bin, etc.? You could depend on the contents of /bin being there >>>> before /usr was mounted.? Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were >>>> statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries >>>> available at the time. >>>> >>>> The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where >>>> that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft >>>> links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. >>>> >>>> Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install >>>> 2.9BSD on an 11/24.? Two RK07s would have been a luxury.? I had an >>>> RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01.? I could get the initial >>>> restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. >>>> >>>> -ethan >>>> >>> >> > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 07:57:44 -0700 (PDT) > From: geneb > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Need Spectravideo SVI-328 parts.... > Message-ID: > ? > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII > > > I've got a very nice SV-328 that's had the sad misfortune of having the > "K" key rather violently removed. (https://i.imgur.com/IxBIQTj.jpg) > > Can someone point me to where I could obtain a replacement key top and > post? > > Thanks! > > 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:29:08 +0100 > From: "Rob Jarratt" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > ? > Subject: 3d modelling software > Message-ID: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! > > > > Thanks > > > > Rob > > > > End of cctech Digest, Vol 83, Issue 23 > ************************************** From geneb at deltasoft.com Mon Aug 23 15:39:39 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 13:39:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> References: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Aug 2021, shadoooo via cctech wrote: > Hello Rob, > FreeCAD is nice for modeling 3D shapes. > Not if you've ever used a commercial product that does the same job. ;) > For 3D printing, depending on the technology of 3D printer, you need to > process original model to convert compact sections into hollow honeycomb > structure, and add small plastic bars into empty volumes to support the > model while it's printed. I'm not expert of this latter procedure and > tools. Dictating the infill pattern of a STL file is *never* the job of the drawing tool, it's the job of the slicer being used to turn the STL file into gcode. 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From tingox at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 15:51:58 2021 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 22:51:58 +0200 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> References: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 10:29 PM shadoooo via cctech wrote: > > > For 3D printing, depending on the technology of 3D printer, you need to process original model to convert compact sections into hollow honeycomb structure, and add small plastic bars into empty volumes to support the model while it's printed. > I'm not expert of this latter procedure and tools. > With FDM ("plastic glue gun") printers, this process typically involves a program called a "slicer". You export the model from the 3D modeling program (.amf, .wmf and .stl are the most common formats) and input that into the slicer program, which "slices" the model into layers, and outputs commands to the printer (commonly G-code) into a text file. The text file is then transported to the printer (via network, or modern sneakernet aka SDcard) where you load it and start the printing process. Common slicer programs are Cura https://ultimaker.com/software/ultimaker-cura and PrusaSlicer https://www.prusa3d.com/prusaslicer/ In general, it is easier to start with the slicer program recommended / supplied by the 3D printer manufacturer - they have taken the guesswork out of the settings, which gives you better printing results from the start. If I have to choose between Cura and PrusaSlicer, I prefer PrusaSlicer because it has an easier user interface. HTH -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen From elson at pico-systems.com Mon Aug 23 21:37:33 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 21:37:33 -0500 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> References: <92a7be51-6cc2-4645-b282-a2736a7cbe6f@gmail.com> Message-ID: <69db816b-00f2-f5dd-1d00-94c3f6b7230b@pico-systems.com> On 8/23/21 3:29 PM, shadoooo via cctech wrote: > Hello Rob, > FreeCAD is nice for modeling 3D shapes. > > For 3D printing, depending on the technology of 3D printer, you need to process original model to convert compact sections into hollow honeycomb structure, and add small plastic bars into empty volumes to support the model while it's printed. > I'm not expert of this latter procedure and tools. > Cura does a great job of slicing the .stl model and computing the infill, support, etc. Jon From steven at malikoff.com Tue Aug 24 03:29:41 2021 From: steven at malikoff.com (steven at malikoff.com) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 18:29:41 +1000 Subject: 3d modelling software In-Reply-To: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> References: <00b401d7983b$ff929d50$feb7d7f0$@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <44834010f81fdb2a34aa1f3155b91bdd.squirrel@webmail04.register.com> Rob asked > I think I may need to get a small part 3d printed (some plastic board > mounting guide rails from a PDP 11/24 H7140 PSU). What software is best for > a novice? Preferably free! I've found OpenSCAD to be perfect for things like brackets, machine parts and so on. It's no good for figurines and other complex curved objects, perhaps use Blender for those. It also has its quirks and limitations such as being notoriously crappy at fillets, but even passable versions of those can be achieved now (see https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4932117). I like being able to model solids from first principles, where the model's source is literally just that, a piece of source code. Easy to email or print. And I know that my model is always going to be around and not beholden to the cloud. You can get the program at http://openscad.org/ Being code I think anyone here on cctalk could pick up the gist of it in only one or two clock cycles. Some public models of mine at https://www.thingiverse.com/1944gpw/designs feel free to look at the source which I provide with all my public designs. An STL file is not a source file, but a .scad file is, and is naturally parametric. And only three consecutive keypresses required to generate an STL file ready for slicing: F5 (preview) then F6 (render) and then F7 (save STL). That's fantastically simple. Other free CAD apps I've used include FreeCAD but I found it crashed when trying to import machine-generated DXF files of involute gears with line segments that weren't properly closed. OpenSCAD imported them no problem. Why not give it a try, I'm sure it would be ideal for your guide rails. Steve. From abuse at cabal.org.uk Tue Aug 24 04:13:37 2021 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 11:13:37 +0200 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 01:38:33AM +0100, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture > that are unusually prolific in one way or another. [...] The one that immediately comes to mind is the kitchen-sink MOVE in the 68020 which comes in at 22 bytes: 2 for the instruction itself, then two full-size "full extension words" (one each for the source and destination) which themselves are 2 for the flags, and 4 each for the base and outer displacement. So that'd be something like: move.b ([0x12345678, %pc, %d0.w*8], 0x9abcdef0), ([0x87654321, %sp], %a0*4, 0x0fedcba9) Which does something like this: * Compute 0x12345678 + %pc + %d0.w * 8 * Fetch 4 bytes from that address and add 0x9abcdef0 to that. * Fetch a byte from that address. * Compute 0x87654321 + %sp * Fetch 4 bytes from that address and add %a0*4 + 0x0fedcba9 to that. * Store the previously-fetched byte to that address. (Yet Amiga owners used to poke fun at PC owners with their excessively complex x86, which has simpler addressing modes.) Unsurprisingly, when NXP tried to make m68k a bit more RISCy so it could go faster and compete with ARM in the embedded sphere, one of the things which were tossed out were these mad addressing modes, along with any other encoding which took more than 6 bytes. From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 24 08:12:18 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 09:12:18 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <22B5F14C-5AD8-4CD8-B67F-A7ED4BEF8828@comcast.net> > On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. > ... > Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or > another. Thinking some more about addressing modes, there are a couple of examples that are, if not extra complex, at least extra unusual. The strangest addressing mode I ever saw is found on the Electrologica X1. It has the familiar indexed addressing mode called "B" mode, which uses the contents of B1 plus the address field of the instruction as the effective address. So far so good. But then there is C mode, which is like B mode except that the computed effective address is written back into the address field of the instruction. It's used very rarely; one example is in the equivalent of "bzero" in the ALGOL compiler run-time code. With this mode, the address field is set to buffer address - n and the B register to n, for a stride of n. You can find a short example here: http://helloworldcollection.de/#Assembler%C2%A0(X1) Its successor, the X8, drops this addressing mode, but it has some interesting quirks as well. There is a stack addressing mode, related to the indexed mode. In stack mode, if the displacement is negative the stack pointer is decremented by one, if positive it is incremented. So push and pop are not two modes, but happen depending on the specified offset. "MC[0]=A" pushes A onto the stack; "A=MC[-1]" pops that value. paul From jfoust at threedee.com Tue Aug 24 08:47:33 2021 From: jfoust at threedee.com (John Foust) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 08:47:33 -0500 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20210824134748.6040E273DC@mx1.ezwind.net> At 04:13 AM 8/24/2021, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: >move.b ([0x12345678, %pc, %d0.w*8], 0x9abcdef0), ([0x87654321, %sp], %a0*4, 0x0fedcba9) And which language and compiler case was this aimed at? Wasn't that a primary driver for complex CISC instructions? That if it happened often enough, it would be faster or smaller as a single instruction? >(Yet Amiga owners used to poke fun at PC owners with their excessively >complex x86, which has simpler addressing modes.) I dunno, 68000 seemed like PDP-11 to me, and I often say one of the big reasons I quit a particular job was the prospect of my role changing to having to write 80x86 assembler all day. And yes I quit that job to become an Amiga magazine writer. :-) - John From db at db.net Tue Aug 24 05:34:25 2021 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 06:34:25 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 09:09:55PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > > are unusually prolific in one way or another. > > ... > > Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or > > another. > > Indeed. Just its addressing modes, with indirection and two separate register indexing operations, are hairy enough. Then consider the decimal arithmetic instructions that might have up to 6 operands. And who can ever forget the built in CRC instruction? Amusingly it was demonstrated that many of the CISC instructions were faster if one just did them with the 'normal' instruction set. -- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 24 10:16:47 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 08:16:47 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> Message-ID: <74197d89-3d53-3464-797b-33a35cc82f65@sydex.com> On 8/24/21 3:34 AM, Diane Bruce via cctalk wrote: > Indeed. Just its addressing modes, with indirection and two separate register indexing operations, are hairy enough. Then consider the decimal arithmetic instructions that might have up to 6 operands. > > And who can ever forget the built in CRC instruction? > > Amusingly it was demonstrated that many of the CISC instructions were > faster if one just did them with the 'normal' instruction set. Feh, many ARM Cortex MCUs have a hardware CRC generator. Where's the vector dot product instruction or the transpose instruction? How about the search masked masked key? If CPU doesn't have a variable-length decimal divide it isn't really CISC in the grand sense. --Chuck From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 24 10:38:42 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 11:38:42 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> Message-ID: <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> > On Aug 24, 2021, at 6:34 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 09:09:55PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> >> >>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> Hello, >>> >>> For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >>> thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested >>> in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that >>> are unusually prolific in one way or another. >>> ... >>> Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or >>> another. >> >> Indeed. Just its addressing modes, with indirection and two separate register indexing operations, are hairy enough. Then consider the decimal arithmetic instructions that might have up to 6 operands. > > And who can ever forget the built in CRC instruction? > > Amusingly it was demonstrated that many of the CISC instructions were > faster if one just did them with the 'normal' instruction set. Not too surprising given that the instruction worked 4 bits at a time while a reasonable software implementation goes 8 bits at a time. The more general point is one I learned on the Moto 68040. The task was to write a fast packet forwarding module (for an FDDI -> Ethernet switch, wihch ended up being the DECswitch 900). When I studied the instruction timings I realized the "RISC subset" of the 68040 instruction set and addressing modes runs in one or two cycles per instruction, while all the other cases take a great deal more. So I wrote it in the RISC subset, and ended up processing 60k packets per second, in a 25 MHz processor. paul From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Aug 24 10:55:14 2021 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:55:14 +0000 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: DSP processors, like the 2100 series of Analog Devices, one single instruction that would take value from one array and multiply it by a value from another array and then add it to another array, while incrementing the indexes. I'd say that was CISC like. Dwight From abuse at cabal.org.uk Tue Aug 24 10:57:14 2021 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 17:57:14 +0200 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <20210824134748.6040E273DC@mx1.ezwind.net> References: <20210824134748.6040E273DC@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 08:47:33AM -0500, John Foust via cctalk wrote: > At 04:13 AM 8/24/2021, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: >> move.b ([0x12345678, %pc, %d0.w*8], 0x9abcdef0), ([0x87654321, %sp], %a0*4, 0x0fedcba9) > And which language and compiler case was this aimed at? I have no idea and dread to think, although I chose a worst-case example which doesn't actually make much sense. Those scary-looking double-indirections in the instructions are just the result of a generalised EA calculation mode which combines an inner offset (which may be 0), base register, optional shifted index register, optional indirection (before or after indexing), and an outer offset (which may also be 0), to which the MOVE instruction itself adds indirection. Combining a few of these is normal even on RISC machines: PC-plus-offset and SP-plus-offset are used to get constants and stack-based variables. Adding a shifted index is useful for array lookups. If it's an array of pointers, indirection makes sense. And finally, if it's a pointer to a structure and we want something other than the first field, a constant needs adding. So it's easy to see how one can occasionally end up using this addressing mode and enabling much of its functionality. I suspect this addressing mode is used much more often with address-calculating instructions such as LEA than those which operate directly on the address like MOVE. If the 68000 didn't have a split register file, this could also be (mis)used like it is on x86 to do cheap arithmetic and multiplication by 3, 5, and 9. > Wasn't that a primary driver for complex CISC instructions? That if it > happened often enough, it would be faster or smaller as a single > instruction? You can get a lot of simpler m68k instructions in 22 bytes :) >> (Yet Amiga owners used to poke fun at PC owners with their excessively >> complex x86, which has simpler addressing modes.) > I dunno, 68000 seemed like PDP-11 to me, and I often say one of the big > reasons I quit a particular job was the prospect of my role changing to > having to write 80x86 assembler all day. I encountered the 68000 first, and when I eventually saw the PDP-11 instruction coding a few decades later, the lineage seemed obvious. From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 24 11:13:00 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 12:13:00 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <20210824134748.6040E273DC@mx1.ezwind.net> Message-ID: > On Aug 24, 2021, at 11:57 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 08:47:33AM -0500, John Foust via cctalk wrote: >> At 04:13 AM 8/24/2021, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: >>> move.b ([0x12345678, %pc, %d0.w*8], 0x9abcdef0), ([0x87654321, %sp], %a0*4, 0x0fedcba9) >> And which language and compiler case was this aimed at? > > I have no idea and dread to think, although I chose a worst-case example > which doesn't actually make much sense. Might be block structured languages. The Electrologica X8 has a complex addressing mode that was, I think, designed by E.W.Dijkstra, and intended specifically to support the addressing of variables local to outer blocks. There is a term for this, "display" I think. The basic idea is to have a vector of pointers indexed by the static block number (nesting level), pointing to the newest frame among all the invocations of that block. Then a variable reference translates into a reference to that display (using the static block number) along with the frame offset of the particular variable. In the X8, that's handled in a specific addressing mode. For example "M3[12]" means the effective address is the value found in entry 3 of the display table (pointed at by memory location 63), plus 12. paul From db at db.net Tue Aug 24 07:50:22 2021 From: db at db.net (Diane Bruce) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 08:50:22 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 11:38:42AM -0400, Paul Koning wrote: > > > > On Aug 24, 2021, at 6:34 AM, Diane Bruce wrote: > > > > On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 09:09:55PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> > >> > >>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 8:38 PM, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > >>> ... > > faster if one just did them with the 'normal' instruction set. > > Not too surprising given that the instruction worked 4 bits at a time while a reasonable software implementation goes 8 bits at a time. > > The more general point is one I learned on the Moto 68040. The task was to write a fast packet forwarding module (for an FDDI -> Ethernet switch, wihch ended up being the DECswitch 900). When I studied the instruction timings I realized the "RISC subset" of the 68040 instruction set and addressing modes runs in one or two cycles per instruction, while all the other cases take a great deal more. So I wrote it in the RISC subset, and ended up processing 60k packets per second, in a 25 MHz processor. > Not at all surpised. That was later done formally in the ColdFire processor. They removed all the CISCy instructions replacing them with macros and left the RISCy instruction set. > paul > > > Diane -- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db From chd at chdickman.com Tue Aug 24 12:00:01 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:00:01 -0400 Subject: Multiprocessor Qbus PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 7:55 AM Paul Koning wrote: > > > > On Aug 19, 2021, at 7:39 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > There are indications in the KDJ11-B processor spec on bitsavers that the > > M8190 could be used in a multiprocessor configuration. For example, bit > 10 > > of the Maintenance Register (17 777 750) is labeled "Multiprocessor > Slave" > > and indicates that the bus arbitrator is disabled. > > Interesting. > > > Would it be as simple as connecting to 11/83 qbus together? And adding > the > > proper software. > > I would not think so. The processor is the bus controller, and you can't > have a bus with two controllers. It would be a bit like trying to connect > a pair of PCs with a PCI or PCIe jumper cable. > > To make these configurations work you need a device in between that > arbitrates the actions of the multiple controllers (PCI people call that a > "non-transparent bridge"). > Understood, but the processor spec indicates that it should be possible to turn off the local arbitrator, so the processor at one end would have its arbitrator on and the processor at the other end would have the arbitrator turned off. > paul > > From gordon+cctalk at drogon.net Tue Aug 24 09:28:40 2021 From: gordon+cctalk at drogon.net (Gordon Henderson) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:28:40 +0100 (BST) Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Aug 2021, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly > underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine > what counts as "interesting" here. Perhaps a whole lot of different kinds > of work or lots of different resources accessed is what I'm after. I expect > these kinds of "busy" instructions were more common in architectures that > are now less common, so perhaps this list is a good place to ask. Does a virtual machine count? The BCPL compiler outputs code in few formats, one is called CINTCODE - Compact Intermediate Code. This is a bytecode designed to be interpreted by a suitable interpreter running on real hardware - in the way other bytecode systems work. It has a switch instruction. Actually, it has 2 - one is a linear search and one a binary chop. This is the definition of the binary chop one (because linear is too easy) SWB filler n dlab K1 L1 . . . Kn Ln This instruction is used when the range of case constants is too large for SWL to be economical. It performs the jump using a binary chop strategy. The quantities n, dlab, K1 to Kn and L1 to Ln are 16 bit half words aligned on 16 bit boundaries by the option filler byte. This instruction successively tests A with the case constants in the balanced binary tree given in the instruction. The tree is structured in a way similar to that used in heapsort with the children of the node at position i at positions 2i and 2i + 1. References to nodes beyond n are treated as null pointers. Within this tree, Ki is greater than all case constants in the tree rooted at position 2i, and less than those in the tree at 2i + 1. The search starts at position 1 and continues until a matching case constant is found or a null pointer is reached. If A is equal to some Ki then PC is set using the resolving half word Li , otherwise it uses the resolving half word dlab to jump to the default label. See Section 9.1.3 for details on how resolving half words are interpreted. Obviously it needs the compiler to output the right stuff, but there it is and I won't embarass myself with my implementation of it in 65c816 assembly code.. Gordon From dave.g4ugm at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 12:04:36 2021 From: dave.g4ugm at gmail.com (dave.g4ugm at gmail.com) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 18:04:36 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01e601d7990a$1e976540$5bc62fc0$@gmail.com> Hi Tom, Well for me the VAX has some of the most interesting instructions, so the POLY instruction will evaluate a polynomial and EMOD will multiply and separate the integer and fractional parts. I also find it interesting that some architectures will only allow the privilege state to be examined if you are in supervisor/privileged state which allows software virtualization. The IBM 370 has this feature but the later machines so XA, 390, and the various flavours of "Z" do not. So the 370 hypervisors VM/370 and VM/SP do software virtualization VM/XA, VM/ESA and zVM need to have the "SIE" instruction, Start Interpretive Execution which runs a virtual machine from microcode. A similar feature exists in modern Intel/AMD chips which greatly improve the performance of hypervisors such as VMWARE, HyperV and VirtualBox Dave G4UGM > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of Tom Stepleton > via cctalk > Sent: 24 August 2021 01:39 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Extremely CISC instructions > > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to thinking > about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested in > collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that are > unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly > underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine > what counts as "interesting" here. Perhaps a whole lot of different kinds of > work or lots of different resources accessed is what I'm after. I expect these > kinds of "busy" instructions were more common in architectures that are > now less common, so perhaps this list is a good place to ask. > > For example, if we're thinking "number of times an item is retrieved from > RAM", then any application of the x86 string instructions that could walk over > memory for a while perhaps aren't so interesting. By contrast, by my count, > the NS32000 series instruction "addw ext(4), ext(7)" requires at least five > separate noncontiguous retrievals just to fetch the arguments into the ALU. > (Note that I'm not differentiating between different sizes of data here: > loading a 16-bit item and loading a 32-bit address both count as a "retrieval" > in this example.) > > Instructions that are simply lengthy might be interesting, but not always: > long literals or lots of redundant prefixes on x86 aren't that impressive, for > example. > > Number of registers read or modified might be good too, but just saving or > loading for the sake of subroutine calls (e.g. "movem.l r0-r7/a0-a6,-(sp)" > on the 68k) seems pretty pedestrian. > > Other criteria may seem worthwhile; I trust peoples' judgement on this. > Although I don't know it well, I suspect VAX will place well in one way or > another. But to give an example of a candidate instruction that's prolific in a > way I find more noteworthy, I'll go back to the NS32k and offer > > addw ext(4)+6[r1:w], ext(7)+12[r2:w] > > which in order to get its arguments (I think) requires the five retrievals > already mentioned and adds two shifts and four additions to the bill. I think > this statement reads: "Add the r1'th word counting from 6 bytes past the > fourth address in the current module's link table to the r2'th word counting > from 12 bytes past the seventh address in the current module's link table". > That's a mouthful --- it takes a lot of work to describe what that one line > does! Maybe that's what I'm hoping to share with people. > > I hope this is interesting to discuss, > --Tom From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Tue Aug 24 12:40:40 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 10:40:40 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 2021-08-24 at 15:55 +0000, dwight via cctalk wrote: > DSP processors, like the 2100 series of Analog Devices, one single > instruction that would take value from one array and multiply it by a > value from another array and then add it to another array, while > incrementing the indexes. That's the BLAS SAXPY (or DAXPY) routine, a fundamental step in Gaussian elimination. > I'd say that was CISC like. > Dwight > > From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 24 13:11:35 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 11:11:35 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/24/21 10:40 AM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > That's the BLAS SAXPY (or DAXPY) routine, a fundamental step in > Gaussian elimination. Speaking of which, do any specimens of the Saxpy Matrix-1 still exist? Saxpy Computer was a brief flash in the supercomputing universe; fell onto bad times when a former employee was caught selling secrets to the Soviets. Afterward, the company went into bankruptcy, if memory serves, sometime in the 1980s. SAXPY was a program in the LINPACK suite, and well known to FORTRAN benchmarkers. Ref: http://www.netlib.org/lapack/explore-3.1.1-html/saxpy.f.html Since LINPACK could well mean the difference between a sale and a "thanks for trying", it received a lot of attention. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Aug 24 13:12:57 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 11:12:57 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: <51d232ad-e02e-30fb-2c3e-1147bdfa7f45@sydex.com> As a followup, I did find the following article about the Saxpy Matrix-1: https://techmonitor.ai/techonology/the_saxpy_affair_and_why_we_all_have_to_worry_about_the_theft_of_its_secrets --Chuck From billdegnan at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 14:22:51 2021 From: billdegnan at gmail.com (Bill Degnan) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:22:51 -0400 Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Fred, Just for the purpose of imaging the disks, is there any reason I cant treat these disks like any other 5 1/4" cpm 360k disk? Bill On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 9:09 PM Fred Cisin via cctech wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 2021, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote: > > Is there a simh for the otrona attache? I have some.disk images created > > with Dunfield's utility..if not I will try to read them by using the > Zorba > > portable, which is pretty good with varied formats. > > Bill > > Otrona is fairly straightforward for format conversion. > CP/M and MS-DOS. There might have been other operating systems for them, > but I didn't run into any. > They had 40 track and 80 track drives. > 512 bytes per sector, so they can be done using Int13h, without even > needing Int1Eh. > 10 sectors per track; inter-sector gaps were tight but not unreasonable. > I don't remember whether they were numbered 0 - 9 or 1 - 10 > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Aug 24 15:07:47 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:07:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Aug 2021, Bill Degnan wrote: > Fred, > Just for the purpose of imaging the disks, is there any reason I cant treat > these disks like any other 5 1/4" cpm 360k disk? > Bill Treat them just like any other 5.25" MFM CP/M disk. IIRC, the 48TPI ones are 400K, with 512 bytes per sector, 10 sectors per track. The 96tpi ones are 800K, and should be treated like any other "Quad Density" CP/M disk. They also had a 96tpi MS-DOS format. Same thing, but obviously, with an MS-DOS, rather than CP/M file system. For those who may not remember the Otrona Attache, it was smaller and lighter than the other luggables. They had an advertisement with a Charlie Chaplin look-alike, comparing carrying it VS a 5150 (on a card table) down a broad set of stairs (in front of a capitol building?). IBM had been using the "Little Tramp" in their advertising, and asserted OWNERSHIP of the Charlie Chaplin "Little Tramp" character and image, and made them cease and desist. I can't find an image, nor even a mention, with GOOGLE. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From geneb at deltasoft.com Tue Aug 24 15:14:29 2021 From: geneb at deltasoft.com (geneb) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:14:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Aug 2021, Fred Cisin via cctech wrote: > The 96tpi ones are 800K, and should be treated like any other "Quad Density" > CP/M disk. > > Just for my own curiosity, can a "typical" high-density 5.25" drive correctly image a 96tpi disk? Thanks Fred! 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://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_! From seefriek at gmail.com Tue Aug 24 15:59:24 2021 From: seefriek at gmail.com (Ken Seefried) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 16:59:24 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Hitachi SH4 has a set of pipelineable vector instructions that work on 4x4 and 4x1 length vectors (implemented as 2 sets of 16 FP registers). Nothing compared to MMX/SSE/AVX, but relatively complex. From cube1 at charter.net Tue Aug 24 16:11:57 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 16:11:57 -0500 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16088923-22e9-3161-f223-83333600d7e8@charter.net> On 8/23/2021 8:51 PM, Van Snyder via cctech wrote: > On Tue, 2021-08-24 at 01:38 +0100, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: >> For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >> thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm >> interested >> in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU >> architecture that >> are unusually prolific in one way or another. > > IBM 1401 was a character-by-character machine, so most operations had > costs proportional to field length. > > One especially expensive (but very useful) operation was "move > characters and edit." > > Assuming a 17-character control word has been loaded to the > destination, e.g. > > "$ ? , ?0. &CR&**" > > to edit a data field "00257426" with a "negative" zone bit on the low- > order digit, producing > "$ ?2,574.26 CR **" > > requires 41 memory accesses (including seven to fetch the instruction) > -- 0.4715 milliseconds. > > See pages 41-43 > at?http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1401/A24-1403-5_1401_Reference_Apr62.pdf > > On a machine where ?the "Expanded Print Edit Feature" was added, the > instruction cost even more. For example, the "Floating Dollar Sign" > moves the dollar sign to immediately to the left of the most > significant digit. This (and asterisk protection) was to prevent > somebody from adding digits between a left-justified dollar sign and > leading digits on printed checks. The above edit would cost two more > memory cycles. If the datum had had more leading zeroes, even more > cycles would have been required. Useful for COBOL. ;) > > See pages 82-84. > > Another expensive instruction was the simpler "move characters and > suppress zeros" instruction. See page 38. > Along those same lines, the IBM 1410 had what the 1401 had, plus: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1410/A22-0526-3_1410_princOps.pdf - A very useful table lookup instruction (pp 29-31) - At least 56 ways to move data, depending upon the "d" character (op modifier) specified (pp 25-28) - A scan that could stop at various terminators without moving data (pp 26-27) JRJ From cube1 at charter.net Tue Aug 24 16:11:57 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 16:11:57 -0500 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16088923-22e9-3161-f223-83333600d7e8@charter.net> On 8/23/2021 8:51 PM, Van Snyder via cctech wrote: > On Tue, 2021-08-24 at 01:38 +0100, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote: >> For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >> thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm >> interested >> in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU >> architecture that >> are unusually prolific in one way or another. > > IBM 1401 was a character-by-character machine, so most operations had > costs proportional to field length. > > One especially expensive (but very useful) operation was "move > characters and edit." > > Assuming a 17-character control word has been loaded to the > destination, e.g. > > "$ ? , ?0. &CR&**" > > to edit a data field "00257426" with a "negative" zone bit on the low- > order digit, producing > "$ ?2,574.26 CR **" > > requires 41 memory accesses (including seven to fetch the instruction) > -- 0.4715 milliseconds. > > See pages 41-43 > at?http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1401/A24-1403-5_1401_Reference_Apr62.pdf > > On a machine where ?the "Expanded Print Edit Feature" was added, the > instruction cost even more. For example, the "Floating Dollar Sign" > moves the dollar sign to immediately to the left of the most > significant digit. This (and asterisk protection) was to prevent > somebody from adding digits between a left-justified dollar sign and > leading digits on printed checks. The above edit would cost two more > memory cycles. If the datum had had more leading zeroes, even more > cycles would have been required. Useful for COBOL. ;) > > See pages 82-84. > > Another expensive instruction was the simpler "move characters and > suppress zeros" instruction. See page 38. > Along those same lines, the IBM 1410 had what the 1401 had, plus: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1410/A22-0526-3_1410_princOps.pdf - A very useful table lookup instruction (pp 29-31) - At least 56 ways to move data, depending upon the "d" character (op modifier) specified (pp 25-28) - A scan that could stop at various terminators without moving data (pp 26-27) JRJ From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Tue Aug 24 17:27:15 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:27:15 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <303D7E6C-49F9-4D09-A02D-059E15ECF6F0@comcast.net> <554BC1DD-A48D-49DB-B6FB-666CD99C42F8@comcast.net> Message-ID: <58d9f4f1b25beeed22d347091d34a4150c8ecc0e.camel@sbcglobal.net> On Tue, 2021-08-24 at 11:11 -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 8/24/21 10:40 AM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > > That's the BLAS SAXPY (or DAXPY) routine, a fundamental step in > > Gaussian elimination. > > Speaking of which, do any specimens of the Saxpy Matrix-1 still > exist? > Saxpy Computer was a brief flash in the supercomputing universe; fell > onto bad times when a former employee was caught selling secrets to > the > Soviets.?? Afterward, the company went into bankruptcy, if memory > serves, sometime in the 1980s. > > SAXPY was a program in the LINPACK suite, and well known to FORTRAN > benchmarkers.? Ref: > http://www.netlib.org/lapack/explore-3.1.1-html/saxpy.f.html? Since > LINPACK could well mean the difference between a sale and a "thanks > for > trying", it received a lot of attention. I was at the first Supercomputing conference at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, with two of the four authors of the first BLAS paper -- Charles Lawson and Fred Krogh. Fred asked the PR flack for SAXPY whether he knew the origin of his company's name. He did not. Richard Hanson had recently moved from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque. I lost track of Dave Kincaid. Sadly, Lawson and Hanson have passed away. > > --Chuck > > From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Tue Aug 24 18:00:22 2021 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 19:00:22 -0400 (EDT) Subject: CWVG Message-ID: Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to read Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From paulkoning at comcast.net Tue Aug 24 18:41:31 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 19:41:31 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20210824122127.010e7dc8@mail.optusnet.com.au> References: <3.0.6.32.20210824122127.010e7dc8@mail.optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <95813940-7939-49F9-91F9-21D51A15F79C@comcast.net> Another interesting architecture, not sure if it quite fits your question: the orthogonal computer. You could think of that as vector processor with serial arithmetic -- a cross of a Cray-1 and a PDP-8/S :-) It was invented in the 1960s by William Shooman, and sold for a time by Sanders Associates. The Goodyear STARAN is somewhat different but inspired by that machine. paul From cisin at xenosoft.com Tue Aug 24 15:30:01 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:30:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Archiving otrona attache disks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> The 96tpi ones are 800K, and should be treated like any other "Quad >> Density" CP/M disk. On Tue, 24 Aug 2021, geneb via cctech wrote: > Just for my own curiosity, can a "typical" high-density 5.25" drive correctly > image a 96tpi disk? USUALLY. Either the drive needs to be able to switch to 300 RPM, OR the FDC needs to support 300bit per second data transfer rate, (same as what was required for routine reading of 360K disks in the 1.2M drive.) BUT, it needs to NOT automagically engage a double-step "feature". One of my primary test machines was a "REAL" 5170. It worked OK for "720K" 96tpi disks (what some companies called "quad density") 'Course, use of a 5150/5160 with a "low density" 96tpi drive, such as Shugart/Panasonic/Matsushita 465, Mitsubishi 4853, Teac 55F, Tandon TM100-4, or similar avoids that particular potential (but not common) BIOS issue. From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 02:25:14 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 01:25:14 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 6:38 PM Tom Stepleton via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. > The Intel iAPX 432 General Data Processor was, for its time (1981), one of the CISCiest processors, though these days the x86 has far outpaced it for sheer architectural complexity. A single GDP instruction could allocate a new object, which required dealing with a two-level object table as well as a storage resource object (SRO) and memory claim object (MCO). Another instruction could send a message object to a port object. The latter, in particular, could result in an arbitrary number of additional message sends, because each time a message is sent to a port, it could unblock a processor or a surrogate waiting to receive from that port, which would then cause a send of that object to its dispatching or forwarding port, which could cause another send, etc. Each send could only cause one additional send, so it was tail recursion and didn't require a stack or consume additional storage. 432 GDP instructions were bit-aligned in an instruction object, and occupied anywhere from 6 to 344 bits. The 432 GDP was too complex to be implemented on a single chip using ~1979 fab technology, so it was split into two chips, the 43201 Instruction Unit and the 43202 Execution Unit. In the 432's timeframe (1981-1985), I think only the IBM System/38 processor and perhaps the Fairchild Symbol might reasonably have been considered CISCier than the 432. The Fairchild Symbol was a one-off system that implemented a high level language compiler in HARDWARE (not microcode!). The 432 was a dismal failure. The P7 (code name) processor was to some degree a successor to the 432, though it was much different. The P7 processor became the BiiN processor, which was mostly a RISC but with some microcoded object instructions similar to those of the 432, and with tagged memory to provide a capability architecture. BiiN failed as well, but stripped of the object operations and memory tagging, the processor became the i960, which was successful as an embedded processor. (Later there were a few i960 variants that added back the memory tagging, and perhaps the object operations, and were sold for military use.) Although there are many reasons for the failures of both the 432 and the P7/BiiN processor, one they had in common was that their advanced architectural features were especially suited to high level languages, such as Ada, and very poorly suited to low level languages, such as C. As everyone knows, the world chose to standardize on C. The P7, and later the i960, could run C code perfectly well, but C code couldn't easily take advantage of the advanced architectural capabilities of the P7/BiiN processor. From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 02:29:50 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 01:29:50 -0600 Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? Message-ID: When I worked at Apparat around 1981, we used a lot of *male* IDC edge card connectors. I've almost never seen any since, and I couldn't remember the name of the vendor. I just found out that it was Kel-Am, but the internet knows almost nothing about them. Here's an example: https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/connectors/card-edge/male-card-edge-idc-connector-34-position-kel-am-idc34m.html That photo doesn't show the Kel-Am logo, which is just a stylized "KEL-AM". There are some eBay auctions of the corresponding female connector (which other vendors did make), some of which show the logo. I wonder what happened to Kel-Am. Maybe they were acquired, maybe they went under. It would be nice to find a copy of their catalog. Speaking of which, it would also be nice to see some Robinson Nugent connector catalogs from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I am especially interested in seeing specs for their bottom-entry square-pin receptacles, which I think _might_ be the ones used on Apple /// memory boards. From cube1 at charter.net Wed Aug 25 08:39:58 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 08:39:58 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't have that code, however a couple of points: First of all, I think Vector Graphic actually used Micropolis drives (and I suspect yours are because of the hard sectoring). I have Micropolis drives on my Altair. Back in 2006 I imaged my floppies - by reading the sectors on my Altair and transferring the data over to my PC and saving an image file. Note that at least for the 100 TPI Mod II model you'd have to use an actual Micropolis drive or the tracks won't line up. I don't know if that is also true of the Mod I drives which have a more standard tracks per inch. Back in 2006 I modified some existing catweasel code I got from Jim Battle to handle Data General hard sector floppies, and if I remember correctly - this was all back in 2006 - also changed the code so that more stuff was in tables. You can find a link to download the code at: https://www.computercollection.net/index.php/specialized-interfaces/ It would require source code changes to read Micropolis floppies directly. Another option might be the open-source fluxengine, which has dead-simple hardware that plugs into USB, and can also process catweasel cell capture files. (Greaseweazle can't handle hard sector floppies yet) http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/disk-micropolis.html I am actually looking to re-image my Micropolis floppies (single sided, both Mod I and Mod II) to confirm my existing images, and have the requisite hardware on order from DigiKey which should arrive this week. Fluxengine already has support for hard sectoring, so I will give that a try and report back in a few days. JRJ On 8/24/2021 6:00 PM, Mike Loewen via cctech wrote: > > ?? Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to > read Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called > "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? > > > Mike Loewen??????????????? mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us > Old Technology??????????????? http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From cube1 at charter.net Wed Aug 25 08:39:58 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 08:39:58 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't have that code, however a couple of points: First of all, I think Vector Graphic actually used Micropolis drives (and I suspect yours are because of the hard sectoring). I have Micropolis drives on my Altair. Back in 2006 I imaged my floppies - by reading the sectors on my Altair and transferring the data over to my PC and saving an image file. Note that at least for the 100 TPI Mod II model you'd have to use an actual Micropolis drive or the tracks won't line up. I don't know if that is also true of the Mod I drives which have a more standard tracks per inch. Back in 2006 I modified some existing catweasel code I got from Jim Battle to handle Data General hard sector floppies, and if I remember correctly - this was all back in 2006 - also changed the code so that more stuff was in tables. You can find a link to download the code at: https://www.computercollection.net/index.php/specialized-interfaces/ It would require source code changes to read Micropolis floppies directly. Another option might be the open-source fluxengine, which has dead-simple hardware that plugs into USB, and can also process catweasel cell capture files. (Greaseweazle can't handle hard sector floppies yet) http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.html http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/doc/disk-micropolis.html I am actually looking to re-image my Micropolis floppies (single sided, both Mod I and Mod II) to confirm my existing images, and have the requisite hardware on order from DigiKey which should arrive this week. Fluxengine already has support for hard sectoring, so I will give that a try and report back in a few days. JRJ On 8/24/2021 6:00 PM, Mike Loewen via cctech wrote: > > ?? Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to > read Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called > "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? > > > Mike Loewen??????????????? mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us > Old Technology??????????????? http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Aug 25 10:19:19 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 08:19:19 -0700 Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/25/21 12:29 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > Speaking of which, it would also be nice to see some Robinson Nugent > connector catalogs from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I am especially > interested in seeing specs for their bottom-entry square-pin receptacles, > which I think _might_ be the ones used on Apple /// memory boards. > I have one catalog from 1981 under http://bitsavers.org/components/robinsonNugent because I was trying to find info on wire-wrap sockets where the pins came up on the component side. From drb at msu.edu Wed Aug 25 10:49:50 2021 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:49:50 -0400 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 24 Aug 2021 19:00:22 -0400.) References: Message-ID: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to read > Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called > "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? The program doesn't appear to have made it onto vector-archive.org. I'll add to Jay's comment about 100 tpi floppies: there was a Tandon model (100-4M?) that did 100 tpi also. Of both the M and T models are scarce. De From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 10:49:57 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 09:49:57 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2021-08-25 1:25 a.m., Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > > 432 GDP instructions were bit-aligned in an instruction object, and > occupied anywhere from 6 to 344 bits. Did not the IBM 7030 try a similar idea. All this work to replace a punched card. Funny how records where simple on decimal computers and are mess on binary ones. > Although there are many reasons for the failures of both the 432 and the > P7/BiiN processor, one they had in common was that their advanced > architectural features were especially suited to high level languages, such > as Ada, and very poorly suited to low level languages, such as C. As > everyone knows, the world chose to standardize on C. The P7, and later the > i960, could run C code perfectly well, but C code couldn't easily take > advantage of the advanced architectural capabilities of the P7/BiiN > processor. > C uses cheap tricks for speed. 8 bit bytes, 32 bit integers, taken from B. I have 21 bit CPU, with 3 7 bit bytes/word. Algol would have a PACK/UPACK function, and be fairly portable. C on the other hand a mess. Ok. I don't have 21 bit cpu, but I have this spare FPGA card ... > world chose to standardize on C. More like the same 32 bit/ 8 bit bytes vanilla cpu, with push and pop on the stack. Can't have near/far pointers with some intel products so we need new standard for the non PDP/11 or VAX computers, and again and again... Ben. From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Aug 25 10:58:05 2021 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:58:05 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> On 2021-08-25 11:49 a.m., ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2021-08-25 1:25 a.m., Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: >> >> 432 GDP instructions were bit-aligned in an instruction object, and >> occupied anywhere from 6 to 344 bits. > > Did not the IBM 7030 try a similar idea. > All this work to replace a punched card. > Funny how records where simple on decimal computers > and are mess on binary ones. > >> Although there are many reasons for the failures of both the 432 and the >> P7/BiiN processor, one they had in common was that their advanced >> architectural features were especially suited to high level languages, >> such >> as Ada, and very poorly suited to low level languages, such as C. As >> everyone knows, the world chose to standardize on C. The P7, and later >> the >> i960, could run C code perfectly well, but C code couldn't easily take >> advantage of the advanced architectural capabilities of the P7/BiiN >> processor. >> > > C uses cheap tricks for speed. 8 bit bytes, 32 bit integers, taken from That is not how C defines bytes or ints, fyi. > B. I have 21 bit CPU, with 3 7 bit bytes/word. Algol would have a > PACK/UPACK function, and be fairly portable. C on the other hand a mess. > Ok. I don't have 21 bit cpu, but I have this spare FPGA card ... > >> world chose to standardize on C. > More like the same 32 bit/ 8 bit bytes vanilla cpu, with push and pop > on the stack. Can't have near/far pointers with some intel products > so we need new standard for the non PDP/11 or VAX computers, and again > and again... > > Ben. > From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 11:04:34 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:04:34 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> Message-ID: <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> On 8/22/2021 8:21 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/21/21 11:50 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>> I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. >>> >>> At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which >>> I tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a >>> release of the other.? I forgot which came first, other than that >>> the beta was really clunky.? As in, a "vi" that didn't do real >>> screen updates... >>> >>> ????paul >>> >>>> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> images up under >>>> http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip >>>> >>> >> >> They are indeed different.? V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, >> whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. >> >> JRJ > > Actually, Ultrix-11 is based on V7m and Ultrix032 is based on BSD 4.x. > > bill > In the video on youtube and in my experience the screen formating codes seem to be incorrect.? You can see this in the video when a man page is brought up.? The bolding does not occur.? I get the same result after installing.? The same with vi, it doesn't work in the video and doesn't work after installation.? I've tried Teraterm, putty, xterm all with the same result.? Haven't tried an actual terminal yet.? What was your experience? Doug From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 11:14:02 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 10:14:02 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> References: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> Message-ID: <4955e36f-097a-6cbf-fe58-55d8c6f431ac@jetnet.ab.ca> On 2021-08-25 9:58 a.m., Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > That is not how C defines bytes or ints, fyi. > I suspect the standard says a byte is at least 7 bits. Thus 8 bit data is NOT PORTABLE. Ben. From tsg at bonedaddy.net Wed Aug 25 11:27:05 2021 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:27:05 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> On 8/25/2021 11:49 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: > [..SNIP..] > C uses cheap tricks for speed. 8 bit bytes, 32 bit integers, taken > from B. I have 21 bit CPU, with 3 7 bit bytes/word. Algol would have a > PACK/UPACK function, and be fairly portable. C on the other hand a mess. > Ok. I don't have 21 bit cpu, but I have this spare FPGA card ... Nope, the standard doesn't specify those bit sizes. Back in the 80s I was using the BBN C Machine with 10-bit bytes and happily building from source I picked up on the newsgroups with little issue > > > world chose to standardize on C. > More like the same 32 bit/ 8 bit bytes vanilla cpu, with push and pop > on the stack. Can't have near/far pointers with some intel products > so we need new standard for the non PDP/11 or VAX computers, and again > and again... > No, the same standard works with different architectures.? Have you looked into GCC in the past 20 years or so? From cclist at sydex.com Wed Aug 25 11:45:50 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 09:45:50 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: On 8/25/21 9:27 AM, Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: > > Nope, the standard doesn't specify those bit sizes. > > Back in the 80s I was using the BBN C Machine with 10-bit bytes and > happily building from source I picked up on the newsgroups with little > issue > Or, you could simply be bit-addressable, like the aforementioned STAR-100. This works to great advantage on vector machines, where control vectors are usually bit arrays. The downside is that when reading dumps, you had to do a lot of mental shifting to convert from addresses to indices. We had an SR-22 in the machine room to help out. There were many word-addressable machines also. A byte was whatever your shifting or masking made of it. The UNIVAC 1100 series was interesting in that a 36-bit word could be divided up by the hardware in 6, 9 or 12 bit parcels. --Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 11:46:37 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 10:46:37 -0600 Subject: Replica computers PDP 8/11/10 Message-ID: As reminder "Obsolescence Guaranteed" is building replica computers using simh with a pi all in a thin front panel. https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence https://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.com/2020/02/inevitaby-pidp-10.html PDP 8's and 11's are selling like hot cakes. Ben. From derschjo at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 12:08:04 2021 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 10:08:04 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 5:38 PM Tom Stepleton via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Hello, > > For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to > thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested > in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that > are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly > underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine > what counts as "interesting" here. > I'll submit the Xerox Alto, with its extensions to the base DG Nova instruction set. It included "CONVERT", used to render font glyphs to the screen, and of course the legendary "BITBLT" for transferring bitmaps across arbitrary bit boundaries. Both of these were complicated operationst, and the latter revolutionized computer graphics... See p. 18 and 22 of http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/AltoHWRef.part1.pdf. (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its repertoire, which was similar to BITBLT but also allowed for various logical operations to be applied to the source and destination.) - Josh From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 12:16:38 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:16:38 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0AC62444-C6AA-4259-B574-8441518DC0BE@comcast.net> > On Aug 25, 2021, at 12:04 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >> > In the video on youtube and in my experience the screen formating codes seem to be incorrect. You can see this in the video when a man page is brought up. The bolding does not occur. I get the same result after installing. The same with vi, it doesn't work in the video and doesn't work after installation. I've tried Teraterm, putty, xterm all with the same result. Haven't tried an actual terminal yet. What was your experience? I have near zero PDP-11 Unix experience, but I remember one flavor (BSD 2.11 ?) which set the top bit in its alleged ASCII output, which of course would break any terminal expecting actual 8 bit coding. In particular, code points in the range 128-159 have a very different meaning from those in the range 0-31, and a terminal correctly implementing ANSI controls (such as a VT220) would show this clearly. You can tell SIMH to force the top bit to zero in terminal output; that will restore normal behavior with current terminals or terminal emulators. No idea if that's the reason for the problem you were seeing, but it's a possibility that's easy to test. paul From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Wed Aug 25 12:23:55 2021 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:23:55 +0200 Subject: FTGH: Atari Portfolio HPC-004 Message-ID: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> Hi! I'm offering an Atari Portfolio HPC-004 along with a 64 KB Memory Card for the cost of shipping (located in Germany.) It boots / works (using batteries), but I'm missing its original wall wart. Is anybody interested? Thanks, Jan-Benedict -- From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 12:58:34 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:58:34 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> On 2021-08-25 10:27 a.m., Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/25/2021 11:49 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: >> [..SNIP..] >> C uses cheap tricks for speed. 8 bit bytes, 32 bit integers, taken >> from B. I have 21 bit CPU, with 3 7 bit bytes/word. Algol would have a >> PACK/UPACK function, and be fairly portable. C on the other hand a mess. >> Ok. I don't have 21 bit cpu, but I have this spare FPGA card ... > > Nope, the standard doesn't specify those bit sizes. > Back in the 80s I was using the BBN C Machine with 10-bit bytes and > happily building from source I picked up on the newsgroups with little > issue > What is the BBN C Machine? >> >> > world chose to standardize on C. >> More like the same 32 bit/ 8 bit bytes vanilla cpu, with push and pop >> on the stack. Can't have near/far pointers with some intel products >> so we need new standard for the non PDP/11 or VAX computers, and again >> and again... > No, the same standard works with different architectures.? Have you > looked into GCC in the past 20 years or so? I looked at it 20 years ago, I did not like it then. Why . Read all the source into memory. A memory HOG! ONE PASS COMPILE! About the mid 70's every new compiler C/PASCAL/ALGOL/ASM wished be a 1 pass compiler for speed. Slow compile times are from a floppy or a overloaded time sharing system or too small a memory. Hardware not software issues. Recursive decent compilers, are good at parsing but evaluate ()'s wrong in code generation. The PDP 11 compiler is a 3 pass compiler, macro, recursive decent,tree evaluation. Clean and simple and small. For all the gripes I have about C, it is best of all the languages I can think of from the 1970's. Ben. PS: How about C to FORTRAN IV compiler. :) From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 13:07:04 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:07:04 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> On 2021-08-25 11:08 a.m., Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its > repertoire, which was similar to BITBLT but also allowed for various > logical operations to be applied to the source and destination.) All rendered useless if you move to gray or color. Sadly almost all monitors are landscape rather than portrait, so we may never see a good emulation of them. > - Josh > From pat at vax11.net Wed Aug 25 13:17:10 2021 From: pat at vax11.net (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:17:10 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 2:07 PM ben via cctalk wrote: > All rendered useless if you move to gray or color. Sadly almost > all monitors are landscape rather than portrait, so we may never see > a good emulation of them. > Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their side. Pat From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 13:19:25 2021 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:19:25 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:07 PM ben via cctalk wrote: > > On 2021-08-25 11:08 a.m., Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > > > (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its Well, it might do.There is no requirement for the PERQ machine code instruction set to include that, or any other particular instruction. The PERQ loads its microcode from disk when it boots. The hardware that the microcode runs on is pretty much RISC, for example all but one class of instruction [1] execute in one microcycle. You can have just about any machine code instruction defined in the microcode, yuu could have the CRC or POLY instructions if you wanted them. I remember a 'competiton' some years back for the shortest machine code ROT13 encoder/decoder, somebody submitted a 1-instruction solution for the ERQ, the catch being tht of course it needed an extra bit of mcrocode to implement that instruction. [1] Those being the instructions that load the microcode control store. These take 2 microcycles. > > repertoire, which was similar to BITBLT but also allowed for various > > logical operations to be applied to the source and destination.) That was pretty much done in the hardware (the 'combiner PROMs'). The microcode handled generating the memory addresses and starting the appropriate overlapped memory cycles, the hardware aligned the words (barrel shifter) and combined them with the appropriate logical operation. > > All rendered useless if you move to gray or color. Sadly almost > all monitors are landscape rather than portrait, so we may never see > a good emulation of them. Most PERQ2T2s were actually landscape (1280*1024 pixels) But I'l skip the emulation. After all there are 3 classic PERQs and an AGW3300 rather close to me here... -tony From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 13:21:29 2021 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:21:29 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:17 PM Patrick Finnegan via cctalk wrote: > > Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their > side. You may have problems converging a colour CRT, particularly an in-line gun type, if you do that. They are designed for the earth's magnetic field to come in a particular direction. Not to mention the fact that the cooling may expect the hot air to rise in a particular direction relative to the chassis. -tony From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Aug 25 13:26:15 2021 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:26:15 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 2021-08-25 2:17 p.m., Patrick Finnegan via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 2:07 PM ben via cctalk > wrote: > >> All rendered useless if you move to gray or color. Sadly almost >> all monitors are landscape rather than portrait, so we may never see >> a good emulation of them. >> > > Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their > side. > > Pat > You can't do that!! The electrons leak out From derschjo at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 13:32:59 2021 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 11:32:59 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 11:19 AM Tony Duell via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:07 PM ben via cctalk > wrote: > > > > On 2021-08-25 11:08 a.m., Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > > > > > (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its > > Well, it might do.There is no requirement for the PERQ machine code > instruction set to include that, or any other particular instruction. > Sure there is -- if it was left out, all of the user code that depended on it would stop functioning :). I can remove instructions from the 11/780's microcode as well, but then it'd cease to be a VAX... - Josh From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 13:46:53 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:46:53 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: > On Aug 25, 2021, at 2:21 PM, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:17 PM Patrick Finnegan via cctalk > wrote: >> >> Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their >> side. > > You may have problems converging a colour CRT, particularly an in-line > gun type, if you do that. They are designed for the earth's magnetic > field to come in a particular direction. No they aren't. If that were true they would mess up if you turn them (horizontally) 90 degrees, or move from Canada to Equador. If you're in a place where the magnetic inclination (dip) is 45 degrees -- say, FLorida or Israel, and your monitor is oriented east/west, turning it between landscape and portrait affects the applied field direction in exactly the same way as swiveling it 180 degrees does. It if't a particularly sensitive monitor you may need to redo the convergence adjustment if you do any of these motions, but it certainly should not be a problem to make it work. paul From mhertling007 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 13:45:03 2021 From: mhertling007 at gmail.com (mike hertling) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:45:03 -0600 Subject: FTGH: Atari Portfolio HPC-004 In-Reply-To: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> References: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: Hey Jan-Bendict, I love Atari stuff. What are you asking for it and how much to ship to Redwood Meadows, Alberta Canada. Postal code is T3Z 1A3 On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 11:24 AM Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Hi! > > I'm offering an Atari Portfolio HPC-004 along with a 64 KB Memory Card > for the cost of shipping (located in Germany.) It boots / works (using > batteries), but I'm missing its original wall wart. > > Is anybody interested? > > Thanks, > Jan-Benedict > > -- > From tsg at bonedaddy.net Wed Aug 25 13:58:02 2021 From: tsg at bonedaddy.net (Todd Goodman) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:58:02 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> On 8/25/2021 1:58 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2021-08-25 10:27 a.m., Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: >> >> On 8/25/2021 11:49 AM, ben via cctalk wrote: >>> [..SNIP..] >>> C uses cheap tricks for speed. 8 bit bytes, 32 bit integers, taken >>> from B. I have 21 bit CPU, with 3 7 bit bytes/word. Algol would have >>> a PACK/UPACK function, and be fairly portable. C on the other hand a >>> mess. >>> Ok. I don't have 21 bit cpu, but I have this spare FPGA card ... >> >> Nope, the standard doesn't specify those bit sizes. > >> Back in the 80s I was using the BBN C Machine with 10-bit bytes and >> happily building from source I picked up on the newsgroups with >> little issue >> > What is the BBN C Machine? P.110 of https://walden-family.com/bbn/bbn-print2.pdf has some slight information. It was advertised by Bolt, Beranek and Newman as the first computer to be designed around the C language. It had 10-bit bytes and 20-bit words. At the time I was working there it was used to run all the Network Monitoring utilities to manage their commercial networks as well as Ingres. It's amazing how much was running in 2MB and two "walking washing-machine" multiplatter disk pack drives (CDC if I remember right, but could be wrong). Unfortunately all my marketing and engineering materials from my time at BBN Communications are gone now. One of the most memorable moments there was when the Morris worm was discovered and someone was sprinting down the hallway and yelling to shut down the gateway between the ARPAnet and MILnet That was also the place where support was having a hard time determining why an IMP kept shutting down around the same time every night.? So the support guy working the problem decided to set up a video camera at the customer site to record the front panel lights to see if he could figure out what happened right before it went down. The camera caught the cleaning crew coming in and unplugging the IMP so they could plug in their vacuum From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 14:22:09 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 15:22:09 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: > On Aug 25, 2021, at 2:58 PM, Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: > > ... > P.110 of https://walden-family.com/bbn/bbn-print2.pdf has some slight information. > > It was advertised by Bolt, Beranek and Newman as the first computer to be designed around the C language. > > It had 10-bit bytes and 20-bit words. > > At the time I was working there it was used to run all the Network Monitoring utilities to manage their commercial networks as well as Ingres. > > It's amazing how much was running in 2MB and two "walking washing-machine" multiplatter disk pack drives (CDC if I remember right, but could be wrong). By my standards that's a large system -- I got started on a PDP-11 timesharing system with 28 kwords of memory and a pair of RK05 (2.4 MB) drives, supporting 16 terminals. Some years ago when I was learning GCC internals I did a silly small training exercise: I constructed a very basic GCC "back end" for the CDC 6000 machines. 60 bit int, 18 bit short, 6 bit char, 18 bit pointers... It could compile not too horrible code for "memcpy", among other things. A messy machine with 4 or 5 register classes, plus fun constraints like memory loads only go into registers X1 through X5, while stores can only be done from X6 or X7. Yes, you can actually get the GCC register allocator to cope with stuff like that. It's few enough registers that it isn't really happy, but it can manage. This is a "dancing bear" exercise, of course ("The amazing thing is not how well the bear dances, but that it can dance at all"). paul From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 25 14:23:15 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:23:15 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 2021-08-25 at 14:58 -0400, Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: > P.110 of https://walden-family.com/bbn/bbn-print2.pdf?has some slight > information. > > It was advertised by Bolt, Beranek and Newman as the first computer > to > be designed around the C language. This says the computer was introduced "a year later" (i.e., a year after March 1980). AT&T had 3B20 computers in service in the 1970's. Were they "designed around the C language" or was the C language shoe- horned into them? The C language appears to have been designed as a high-level assembler for machines like the PDP-11, which first appeared ca 1970. At least that's what the Wikipedioa article about the B language appears to say. From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 14:43:45 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:43:45 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 09:50 ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2021-08-25 1:25 a.m., Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > > > > 432 GDP instructions were bit-aligned in an instruction object, and > > occupied anywhere from 6 to 344 bits. > > Did not the IBM 7030 try a similar idea. > All this work to replace a punched card. > Funny how records where simple on decimal computers > and are mess on binary ones. > The IBM 7030 "Stretch" and the TI TMS34010 and 34020 processors support integer data on arbitrary (unaligned) bit boundaries, but instructions and floating point data are required to be aligned. The 432 GDP uses unaligned, variable bit length instructions, but requires data to be byte-aligned, and access descriptors (which are object pointers and capabilities) to be 32-bit aligned From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 14:48:22 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:48:22 -0600 Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 03:15 Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 23:42, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > If "drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll" is not the answer, > > then you are asking the wrong question. > > While I cannot disagree with my learned friend's proposition, I > increasingly find that my drug of choice is ibuprofen these days. :-/ > At USENIX conferences, at some point the "sex, drugs, and Unix" buttons gave way to "condoms, aspirin, and POSIX" buttons. :-( > From spacewar at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 15:28:15 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:28:15 -0600 Subject: Prototype new Apple /// memory board Message-ID: I've been working on a new memory board for the Apple ///, using (somewhat) modern and still-in-production components, especially CMOS static RAM rather than DRAM. Last night I soldered the connectors, sockets, and passives of my first prototype: https://flickr.com/photos/_brouhaha_/albums/72157719738576267 I need to do some testing for shorts, etc. before I attempt to actually use it in an Apple ///. I expect that some debugging of the design will be required. The Apple /// design is _much_ more complex that the Apple II and IIe. I intended this board to provide 512KiB of RAM, but I've already determined that some design changes will be required for that, so this prototype will only support 256KiB. The early Apple /// design, as documented in US patents, would have supported up to 512KiB of RAM, but the actual shipped design reduced that to 256KiB. There was a third-party 512Kib emory board from "On Three", which required pulling various chips from the motherboard and running cables from those to the memory board. The SOS operating system, as shipped, only supported 256KiB. On Three modified the SOS bootloader to detect and use 512KiB. Some Apple /// application software also had trouble with 512KiB, and On Three patched some of those. From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 15:30:40 2021 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 17:30:40 -0300 Subject: Prototype new Apple /// memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Eric, you could have used the 512KB sram chip instead of 4 128KB ones... ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com http://www.tabalabs.com.br ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- Em qua., 25 de ago. de 2021 ?s 17:28, Eric Smith via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> escreveu: > I've been working on a new memory board for the Apple ///, using (somewhat) > modern and still-in-production components, especially CMOS static RAM > rather than DRAM. Last night I soldered the connectors, sockets, and > passives of my first prototype: > > https://flickr.com/photos/_brouhaha_/albums/72157719738576267 > > I need to do some testing for shorts, etc. before I attempt to actually use > it in an Apple ///. I expect that some debugging of the design will be > required. > > The Apple /// design is _much_ more complex that the Apple II and IIe. I > intended this board to provide 512KiB of RAM, but I've already determined > that some design changes will be required for that, so this prototype will > only support 256KiB. > > The early Apple /// design, as documented in US patents, would have > supported up to 512KiB of RAM, but the actual shipped design reduced that > to 256KiB. There was a third-party 512Kib emory board from "On Three", > which required pulling various chips from the motherboard and running > cables from those to the memory board. > > The SOS operating system, as shipped, only supported 256KiB. On Three > modified the SOS bootloader to detect and use 512KiB. Some Apple /// > application software also had trouble with 512KiB, and On Three patched > some of those. > From raywjewhurst at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 15:45:08 2021 From: raywjewhurst at gmail.com (Ray Jewhurst) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 20:45:08 +0000 Subject: Prototype new Apple /// memory board In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What are the two larger sockets used for? Ray Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone Get Outlook for Android ________________________________ From: cctalk on behalf of Alexandre Souza via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2021 4:30:40 PM To: Eric Smith ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Prototype new Apple /// memory board Eric, you could have used the 512KB sram chip instead of 4 128KB ones... ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com http://www.tabalabs.com.br ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- Em qua., 25 de ago. de 2021 ?s 17:28, Eric Smith via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> escreveu: > I've been working on a new memory board for the Apple ///, using (somewhat) > modern and still-in-production components, especially CMOS static RAM > rather than DRAM. Last night I soldered the connectors, sockets, and > passives of my first prototype: > > https://flickr.com/photos/_brouhaha_/albums/72157719738576267 > > I need to do some testing for shorts, etc. before I attempt to actually use > it in an Apple ///. I expect that some debugging of the design will be > required. > > The Apple /// design is _much_ more complex that the Apple II and IIe. I > intended this board to provide 512KiB of RAM, but I've already determined > that some design changes will be required for that, so this prototype will > only support 256KiB. > > The early Apple /// design, as documented in US patents, would have > supported up to 512KiB of RAM, but the actual shipped design reduced that > to 256KiB. There was a third-party 512Kib emory board from "On Three", > which required pulling various chips from the motherboard and running > cables from those to the memory board. > > The SOS operating system, as shipped, only supported 256KiB. On Three > modified the SOS bootloader to detect and use 512KiB. Some Apple /// > application software also had trouble with 512KiB, and On Three patched > some of those. > From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Wed Aug 25 15:47:24 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:47:24 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/25/21 12:04 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > On 8/22/2021 8:21 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/21/21 11:50 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >>> On 8/17/2021 1:39 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>>> I thought V7M and Ultrix were entirely diferent and unrelated things. >>>> >>>> At least on the Pro, DEC released a betal version of the one (which >>>> I tried when it came out) and then canceled it and replaced it by a >>>> release of the other.? I forgot which came first, other than that >>>> the beta was really clunky.? As in, a "vi" that didn't do real >>>> screen updates... >>>> >>>> ????paul >>>> >>>>> On Aug 17, 2021, at 2:16 PM, Al Kossow via cctech >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> images up under >>>>> http://bitsavers.org/bits/DEC/pdp11/floppyimages/rx50/V7M-11-V1.0_6_USR_RX50-QJ083-H3.zip >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> They are indeed different.? V7m is based on 7th edition A&T UNIX, >>> whereas Ultrix was based in BSD. >>> >>> JRJ >> >> Actually, Ultrix-11 is based on V7m and Ultrix032 is based on BSD 4.x. >> >> bill >> > In the video on youtube and in my experience the screen formating codes > seem to be incorrect.? You can see this in the video when a man page is > brought up.? The bolding does not occur.? I get the same result after > installing.? The same with vi, it doesn't work in the video and doesn't > work after installation.? I've tried Teraterm, putty, xterm all with the > same result.? Haven't tried an actual terminal yet.? What was your > experience? Same thing at the moment. I really don't remember much from the past as I haven't used Ultrix-11 in several years. I suspect it has something to do with number of bits and parity. May be another thing that works once you have a non-generic kernel. I seem to remember RS232 character characteristics changing during the boot process. I think BSD211 has the same quirk. Of course, once you have a custom kernel you can use a better serial card and login to that. :-) I am hoping top get back to this soon, but at the moment I have a house full of sick people and I am pretty much the only one still able to moitivate. bill From paulkoning at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 15:53:58 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:53:58 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> Message-ID: <666FC6F9-7265-4016-817C-3561F9933D63@comcast.net> > On Aug 25, 2021, at 4:47 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > Same thing at the moment. I really don't remember much from the past > as I haven't used Ultrix-11 in several years. I suspect it has > something to do with number of bits and parity. Could be. Since parity always was rather silly it isn't normally used; I'm surprised DEC didn't delete it from Ultrix the way they did for all the other operating systems. If you have a real terminal you can configure it for 7 bits and the matching parity, but terminal emulators may not have that ability. In any case, for that the simh command for 7 bit terminal output is a simple fix. paul From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Aug 25 15:57:02 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:57:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > I don't have that code, however a couple of points: > First of all, I think Vector Graphic actually used Micropolis drives (and I > suspect yours are because of the hard sectoring). I have Micropolis drives > on my Altair. Back in 2006 I imaged my floppies - by reading the sectors on > my Altair and transferring the data over to my PC and saving an image file. > Note that at least for the 100 TPI Mod II model you'd have to use an actual > Micropolis drive or the tracks won't line up. I don't know if that is also > true of the Mod I drives which have a more standard tracks per inch. Important points! Yes, Vector Graphics was 100tpi. That was not the only unusual aspect to their format. Yes, Micropolis ALSO made 48tpi single sided drives. I don't remember whether they were 35 track or 40 track; I used one for years on a TRS80 (which wass 35 track); it was an exceptionally reliable, albeit heavy and slow-steppping drive. For 100tpi, there also existed Tandon TM100-4M drives. The M stood for "Micropolis". One of the TM100-4M drives that I had did not have the 'M' on the label. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Aug 25 16:08:18 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:08:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: <4955e36f-097a-6cbf-fe58-55d8c6f431ac@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> <4955e36f-097a-6cbf-fe58-55d8c6f431ac@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: >> That is not how C defines bytes or ints, fyi. On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, ben via cctalk wrote: > I suspect the standard says a byte is at least 7 bits. > Thus 8 bit data is NOT PORTABLE. I don't know from "the standard", but, K&R said that an "int" could be whatever size was most convenient for the processor, BUT, that an "int" could not be shorter than a "short", nor longer than a "long" Several of the early MS-DOS C compilers used a 16 bit "int" (defaulting to 2's complement signed), with an 8 bit "char", 8 bit "short" (although sometimes 16 bit), and a 32 bit "long" (defaulting to 2's complement signed). Some later compilers made "int" 32 bit. From wrcooke at wrcooke.net Wed Aug 25 16:10:51 2021 From: wrcooke at wrcooke.net (wrcooke at wrcooke.net) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:10:51 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <1047871748.198029.1629925851617@email.ionos.com> > On 08/25/2021 2:23 PM Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > > The C language appears to have been designed as a high-level assembler > for machines like the PDP-11, which first appeared ca 1970. At least > that's what the Wikipedioa article about the B language appears to say. Dennis Richie's "History of C" explains why much of that can't possibly be true: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html Will There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. John von Neumann From cclist at sydex.com Wed Aug 25 16:37:12 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:37:12 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2c62fd05-5eb5-9737-895d-b8c49e42ea73@sydex.com> On 8/25/21 1:57 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > For 100tpi, there also existed Tandon TM100-4M drives.? The M stood for > "Micropolis".?? One of the TM100-4M drives that I had did not have the > 'M' on the label. The early Micropolis 48 tpi drives (1015 Mod I) were spec-ed at 35 tracks. The 100 TPI models (mod II) were 77 tracks. Later drives included both 100 TPI and 96 TPI (e.g. 1115-5 and -6). For a 5.25" drive, a beast of one. No wonder they quit making floppy drives. Tandon was pretty sloppy with their labeling. I've got a TM-100-4M that's identified as such on the body label, but the door latch handle has a "96 tpi" sticker. Whatthehell, a bezel's a bezel, right? --Chuck From toby at telegraphics.com.au Wed Aug 25 16:37:58 2021 From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 17:37:58 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions- C compilers. In-Reply-To: References: <46bd318b-ef76-ac33-04ec-6c196d41a5af@bonedaddy.net> <315cbe5e-3c15-5255-9f30-58cefa8d4623@jetnet.ab.ca> <701347f0-5b41-7c98-4fd2-7f7711666a2d@bonedaddy.net> Message-ID: <15ee5ac8-71c3-060a-9108-ff69996aa627@telegraphics.com.au> On 2021-08-25 3:23 p.m., Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 2021-08-25 at 14:58 -0400, Todd Goodman via cctalk wrote: >> P.110 of https://walden-family.com/bbn/bbn-print2.pdf?has some slight >> information. >> >> It was advertised by Bolt, Beranek and Newman as the first computer >> to >> be designed around the C language. > > This says the computer was introduced "a year later" (i.e., a year > after March 1980). > > AT&T had 3B20 computers in service in the 1970's. > > Were they "designed around the C language" or was the C language shoe- > horned into them? During the 1980s many processors used this marketing claim, including Fairchild Clipper. Some may have even tried. > > The C language appears to have been designed as a high-level assembler > for machines like the PDP-11, which first appeared ca 1970. At least > that's what the Wikipedioa article about the B language appears to say. > From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 25 16:40:19 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:40:19 -0700 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> <4955e36f-097a-6cbf-fe58-55d8c6f431ac@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, 2021-08-25 at 14:08 -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > >> That is not how C defines bytes or ints, fyi. > > On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, ben via cctalk wrote: > > I suspect the standard says a byte is at least 7 bits. > > Thus 8 bit data is NOT PORTABLE. > > I don't know from "the standard", but, K&R said that > an "int" could be whatever size was most convenient for the > processor, > BUT, that an "int" could not be shorter than a "short", nor longer > than a > "long" The C 2011 standard (ISO/IEC 9980-2011) subclause 6.2.5 paragraphs 4-9 say There are five standard signed integer types, designated as signed char, short int, int, long int, and long long int. (These and other types may be designated in several additional ways, as described in 6.7.2.) There may also be implementation-defined extended signed integer types.38) The standard and extended signed integer types are collectively called signed integer types. An object declared as type signed char occupies the same amount of storage as??plain?? char object. A ??plain?? int object has the natural size suggested by the architecture of the execution environment (large enough to contain any value in the range INT_MIN to INT_MAX as defined in the header ). For each of the signed integer types, there is a corresponding (but different) unsigned integer type (designated with the keyword unsigned) that uses the same amount of storage (including sign information) and has the same alignment requirements. The type _Bool and the unsigned integer types that correspond to the standard signed integer types are the standard unsigned integer types. The unsigned integer types that correspond to the extended signed integer types are the extended unsigned integer types. The standard and extended unsigned integer types are collectively called unsigned integer types. The standard signed integer types and standard unsigned integer types are collectively called the standard integer types; the extended signed integer types and extended unsigned integer types are collectively called the extended integer types. For any two integer types with the same signedness and different integer conversion rank (see 6.3.1.1), the range of values of the type with smaller integer conversion rank issubrange of the values of the other type. The range of nonnegative values of a signed integer type is a subrange of the corresponding unsigned integer type, and the representation of the same value in each type is the same.41) A computation involving unsigned operands can never overflow, because a result that cannot be represented by the resulting unsigned integer type is reduced modulo the number that is one greater than the largest value that can be represented by the resulting type. 41) The same representation and alignment requirements are meant to imply interchangeability as arguments to functions, return values from functions, and members of unions. From fritzm at fritzm.org Wed Aug 25 16:45:04 2021 From: fritzm at fritzm.org (Fritz Mueller) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:45:04 -0700 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <0AC62444-C6AA-4259-B574-8441518DC0BE@comcast.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> <0AC62444-C6AA-4259-B574-8441518DC0BE@comcast.net> Message-ID: > On Aug 25, 2021, at 10:16 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > I have near zero PDP-11 Unix experience, but I remember one flavor (BSD 2.11 ?) which set the top bit in its alleged ASCII output, which of course would break any terminal expecting actual 8 bit coding. I discovered working with Unix V6 on my '11/45 that its tty output driver is hard coded to always cook bit 8 as a parity bit, for any character where bit 8 is not already set (see Lions, line 8522). --FritzM. From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Wed Aug 25 16:58:30 2021 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (ben) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 15:58:30 -0600 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <3956c0b4-1b90-b3c4-7317-354a5dbe08a4@telegraphics.com.au> <4955e36f-097a-6cbf-fe58-55d8c6f431ac@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On 2021-08-25 3:40 p.m., Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 2021-08-25 at 14:08 -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >>>> That is not how C defines bytes or ints, fyi. >> >> On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, ben via cctalk wrote: >>> I suspect the standard says a byte is at least 7 bits. >>> Thus 8 bit data is NOT PORTABLE. >> >> I don't know from "the standard", but, K&R said that >> an "int" could be whatever size was most convenient for the >> processor, >> BUT, that an "int" could not be shorter than a "short", nor longer >> than a >> "long" > > The C 2011 standard (ISO/IEC 9980-2011) subclause 6.2.5 paragraphs 4-9 > say > > There are five standard signed integer types, designated as signed > char, short int, int, long int, and long long int. (These and other > types may be designated in several additional ways, as described in > 6.7.2.) There may also be implementation-defined extended signed > integer types.38) The standard and extended signed integer types are > collectively called signed integer types. > > An object declared as type signed char occupies the same amount of > storage as??plain?? char object. A ??plain?? int object has the natural > size suggested by the architecture of the execution environment (large > enough to contain any value in the range INT_MIN to INT_MAX as defined > in the header ). > > For each of the signed integer types, there is a corresponding (but > different) unsigned integer type (designated with the keyword unsigned) > that uses the same amount of storage (including sign information) and > has the same alignment requirements. The type _Bool and the unsigned > integer types that correspond to the standard signed integer types are > the standard unsigned integer types. The unsigned integer types that > correspond to the extended signed integer types are the extended > unsigned integer types. The standard and extended unsigned integer > types are collectively called unsigned integer types. > > The standard signed integer types and standard unsigned integer types > are collectively called the standard integer types; the extended signed > integer types and extended unsigned integer types are collectively > called the extended integer types. > > For any two integer types with the same signedness and different > integer conversion rank (see 6.3.1.1), the range of values of the type > with smaller integer conversion rank issubrange of the values of the > other type. > > The range of nonnegative values of a signed integer type is a subrange > of the corresponding unsigned integer type, and the representation of > the same value in each type is the same.41) A computation involving > unsigned operands can never overflow, because a result that cannot be > represented by the resulting unsigned integer type is reduced modulo > the number that is one greater than the largest value that can be > represented by the resulting type. > > 41) The same representation and alignment requirements are meant to > imply interchangeability as arguments to functions, return values from > functions, and members of unions. > What did C for the PDP 10 do? From mi at fritscholyt.de Wed Aug 25 17:17:42 2021 From: mi at fritscholyt.de (Michael Fritsch) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:17:42 +0200 Subject: FTGH: Atari Portfolio HPC-004 In-Reply-To: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> References: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: Hi Jan, I'm really interested in this little computer. I already sent you a PN. Micha Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctalk wrote: > Hi! > > I'm offering an Atari Portfolio HPC-004 along with a 64 KB Memory Card > for the cost of shipping (located in Germany.) It boots / works (using > batteries), but I'm missing its original wall wart. > > Is anybody interested? > > Thanks, > Jan-Benedict > From alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 17:19:57 2021 From: alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:19:57 -0300 Subject: FTGH: Atari Portfolio HPC-004 In-Reply-To: References: <20210825172355.hiwzfpzl5e6td22e@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: Second in line =) And remember there are mostly no portifolios in Brazil =D ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- http://www.tabajara-labs.blogspot.com http://www.tabalabs.com.br ---8<---Corte aqui---8<--- Em qua., 25 de ago. de 2021 ?s 19:17, Michael Fritsch via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> escreveu: > Hi Jan, > I'm really interested in this little computer. I already sent you a PN. > Micha > > Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctalk wrote: > > Hi! > > > > I'm offering an Atari Portfolio HPC-004 along with a 64 KB Memory Card > > for the cost of shipping (located in Germany.) It boots / works (using > > batteries), but I'm missing its original wall wart. > > > > Is anybody interested? > > > > Thanks, > > Jan-Benedict > > > > From cisin at xenosoft.com Wed Aug 25 17:31:17 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 15:31:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <2c62fd05-5eb5-9737-895d-b8c49e42ea73@sydex.com> References: <2c62fd05-5eb5-9737-895d-b8c49e42ea73@sydex.com> Message-ID: >> For 100tpi, there also existed Tandon TM100-4M drives.? The M stood for >> "Micropolis".?? One of the TM100-4M drives that I had did not have the >> 'M' on the label. On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > The early Micropolis 48 tpi drives (1015 Mod I) were spec-ed at 35 tracks. That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Thank you. > The 100 TPI models (mod II) were 77 tracks. Yes. I had forgotten that. Thank you. > Later drives included both 100 TPI and 96 TPI (e.g. 1115-5 and -6). > For a 5.25" drive, a beast of one. No wonder they quit making floppy > drives. My 35 track Micropolis drive outlasted every other drive (shugart SA400 had radial alignment issues, others had speed control, etc.) and the machine itself. The lead screw positioner was kinda slow, but so was the spiral "record" of the SA400. > Tandon was pretty sloppy with their labeling. I've got a TM-100-4M > that's identified as such on the body label, but the door latch handle > has a "96 tpi" sticker. Whatthehell, a bezel's a bezel, right? So, that's TWO mislabels within a tiny sample. > The 100 TPI models (mod II) were 77 tracks. The first "1.2M" drive that I got was from a computer swap and was among projects and prototypes. It looked like a production model, with no obvious board re-work nor jumper wires. It had a 50 pin header, instead of a 34 pin card edge connector! I tested it, and it did go to 80 tracks, but I heard that when IBM was developing the 1.2M drive, some at Microsoft wondered whether IBM was re-introducing 8 inch drives! From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Aug 25 17:58:07 2021 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 18:58:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 24 Aug 2021, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: > > > > Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to read > > Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called > > "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? > > The program doesn't appear to have made it onto vector-archive.org. > > I'll add to Jay's comment about 100 tpi floppies: there was a Tandon > model (100-4M?) that did 100 tpi also. Of both the M and T models are > scarce. Indeed, the two Micropolis drives on my Vector 1 are the 1043-2 (master) and 1023-II (slave). Both are 100tpi, single-sided. The S100 controller is the Micropolis FDC. I haven't had time to find out if they work. As a few of the signals on the 34-pin connector are different than the Shugart layout, I'm considering making up a custom cable and connecting it to my Catweasel MK4+. I have a utility from Andrew Lynch called "cwns", which is a modified version of "cw2dmk" to read Northstar hard-sector (10 SPT) diskettes. I might be able to modify that to read the VG 16 SPT diskettes, if the 1043-2 will work with the Catweasel. It's been pointed out that I could write something for the Vector 1 to read diskettes and transfer the contents out the serial port. I'd rather attack it from the point of my media imaging system, and there is a literal shoebox full of diskettes to image. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From cclist at sydex.com Wed Aug 25 18:23:39 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:23:39 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: <2c62fd05-5eb5-9737-895d-b8c49e42ea73@sydex.com> Message-ID: <44d63b21-ae36-49e4-ad75-e62d7cb7ea6d@sydex.com> On 8/25/21 3:31 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> Later drives included both 100 TPI and 96 TPI (e.g. 1115-5 and -6). >> For a 5.25" drive, a beast of one.? No wonder they quit making floppy >> drives. The 1115/16 series was Micropolis' last gasp at floppy drives, I think. Not the steel plate construction of the earlier drives, but cast (zamac, I think) both body and diskette carrier. The worm-drive positioner pivots with the diskette carrier, just like the originals. I suspect that this contributes much to the accuracy of the track positioning. The 1115 uses a MOS MCU (6502-based perhaps?)to implement buffered seeking, which ameliorates the slower positioning times and allows for some measure of "ballistic seek". We had a problem finding suitable alignment disks for 100 tpi, so a couple of the engineers got a 3/4" aluminum plate and an external stepper coupled through a 100:1 right-angle precision drive coupled to the floppy drive. It took about 3 minutes to step from one end of the disk to the other, but the setup worked. Early on, with the 100 tpi units (about 1976-77, we had a problem with the disk clamping. Everyone was new to the 5.25" drive with its DC motor, so naturally, one turned on the motor only when needed (much like the later IBM PCs). What happened when the spindle was stopped was that the clamping was off-center frequently. The hub area of the floppy would get wrinkled and then it became a craps shoot to get the mangled floppy to read correctly. Our primary vendor was Dysan for floppies. Initially, they introduced a kit that enabled one to attach an adhesive-backed reinforcing ring. It seemed to work, and Dysan began supplying floppies with the ring installed. Eventually, Micropolis determined that adding a microswitch to the drive that detected when the drive door was being closed, turning on the motor for a couple of seconds allowed for accurate clamping and centering of the diskette on the clamping "cone". By the time the 1.2M 5.25" drives came out, everyone was doing this, so rings on high-density floppies were unnecessary. Although there are some exceptions (obviously), a good rule of thumb is if the ring is present, the disk is DD; if absent, HD. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Wed Aug 25 18:45:31 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:45:31 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <127732fa-962f-37b3-e327-e83928e48ff9@sydex.com> On 8/25/21 3:58 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: On Wed, 24 Aug 2021, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: > > Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to read > Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board.? Called > "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program? Some years ago, I received a batch of Vector 4 memorite floppies. Using a catweasel, I did a conversion to RTF (Memorite has a lot of features not suited to straight ASCII conversion; e.g. footnoting). It was a multi-step process. First was capturing the flux transition data using a catweasel and writing to a file. Next was interpreting the data and converting to a diskette image. Extraction of the files using 22Disk was next and finally conversion of the files to RTF. This was not Andrew's program, but one rolled from scratch here. I doubt that it will suffice for most people. --Chuck From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Wed Aug 25 18:51:32 2021 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:51:32 -0700 Subject: Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser In-Reply-To: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> References: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <099727e2-c04c-3522-4d1b-23528b121355@flying-disk.com> I recently acquired a Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser for SMD interface disk drives. Unfortunately, it did not come with a manual. Does anyone out there have a copy they could make available? Yes, Bitsavers was the first place I checked. :-) Yes, I still have some SMD drives in working condition -- at least they were before I moved. One is a Century Data Systems T-302, and another is a Fujitsu Eagle. The T-302 is wonderful for impressing younger people who aren't familiar with older technology like 12-platter removable disk packs. :-) 220 volt, 30 amps starting, 6 amps running, all for a whole 256 megabytes (formatted). Thanks, Alan From stepleton at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 19:44:28 2021 From: stepleton at gmail.com (Tom Stepleton) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 01:44:28 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the suggestions, all --- more than I was expecting! I have plenty of reading waiting for me now, but I hope people won't let that stop them from sharing other examples. Cheers, --Tom On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 6:08 PM Josh Dersch wrote: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 5:38 PM Tom Stepleton via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> Hello, >> >> For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to >> thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested >> in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture >> that >> are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly >> underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine >> what counts as "interesting" here. >> > > I'll submit the Xerox Alto, with its extensions to the base DG Nova > instruction set. It included "CONVERT", used to render font glyphs to the > screen, and of course the legendary "BITBLT" for transferring bitmaps > across arbitrary bit boundaries. Both of these were complicated > operationst, and the latter revolutionized computer graphics... > > See p. 18 and 22 of > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/alto/AltoHWRef.part1.pdf. > > (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its > repertoire, which was similar to BITBLT but also allowed for various > logical operations to be applied to the source and destination.) > > - Josh > > > From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Aug 25 19:48:00 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 17:48:00 -0700 Subject: Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser In-Reply-To: <099727e2-c04c-3522-4d1b-23528b121355@flying-disk.com> References: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> <099727e2-c04c-3522-4d1b-23528b121355@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <82ae99c1-0636-5462-71f5-73cda4b15023@bitsavers.org> On 8/25/21 4:51 PM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: > I recently acquired a Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser > for SMD interface disk drives.? Unfortunately, it did not come > with a manual.? Does anyone out there have a copy they could > make available?? Yes, Bitsavers was the first place I checked.? :-) it's up now under test equipment do you happen to have any service manuals for century data winchesters? i have a bunch of manuals for the removable drives From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Wed Aug 25 20:26:37 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2021 21:26:37 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> <0AC62444-C6AA-4259-B574-8441518DC0BE@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0dd502a9-a6c7-b123-5384-0d3e798fe838@comcast.net> On 8/25/2021 5:45 PM, Fritz Mueller via cctalk wrote: >> On Aug 25, 2021, at 10:16 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> I have near zero PDP-11 Unix experience, but I remember one flavor (BSD 2.11 ?) which set the top bit in its alleged ASCII output, which of course would break any terminal expecting actual 8 bit coding. > I discovered working with Unix V6 on my '11/45 that its tty output driver is hard coded to always cook bit 8 as a parity bit, for any character where bit 8 is not already set (see Lions, line 8522). > > --FritzM. > > My earlier reply didn't make it to the list.? Here it is: In simh I am using an 11/53 cpu which has 2 serial ports and you do this : ?? sim> set tti 7b which clears the higher order bit.? In my configuration tti is the console.? With this set vi and man pages work as expected, more also. Doug From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 22:34:51 2021 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:34:51 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:33 PM Josh Dersch wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 11:19 AM Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: >> >> On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:07 PM ben via cctalk wrote: >> > >> > On 2021-08-25 11:08 a.m., Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: >> > >> > > (The Three Rivers PERQ included a similar "RASTEROP" instruction in its >> >> Well, it might do.There is no requirement for the PERQ machine code >> instruction set to include that, or any other particular instruction. > > > Sure there is -- if it was left out, all of the user code that depended on it would stop functioning :). I can remove instructions from the 11/780's microcode as well, but then it'd cease to be a VAX... On the PERQ, different operating systems (POS, Accent, PNX) have different microcodes and different machine code instruction sets. There is no machine code that is 'PERQ'. So it would be quite possible to produce an OS/microcode that dd not include rasterop instructions. -tony From ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com Wed Aug 25 22:41:13 2021 From: ard.p850ug1 at gmail.com (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 04:41:13 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:47 PM Paul Koning wrote: > > > > > On Aug 25, 2021, at 2:21 PM, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:17 PM Patrick Finnegan via cctalk > > wrote: > >> > >> Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their > >> side. > > > > You may have problems converging a colour CRT, particularly an in-line > > gun type, if you do that. They are designed for the earth's magnetic > > field to come in a particular direction. > > No they aren't. If that were true they would mess up if you turn them (horizontally) 90 degrees, or move from Canada to Equador. > With a delta gun tube, you most definitely mess up the convergence if you turn the monitor around. Colour TVs/monitors using such CRTs had to be set up in the position they were to be used. With an in-line gun tube, the thing that really matters is the vertical component of the earth's magnetic field. This does not change if you turn the set round. That was one great advantage of such CRTs . If you tip it on its side then the horizontal component becomes the important one. Which firstly will be different to the vertical component and secondly will change when you turn the monitor round. And yes there were CRTs set up at the factory for the northern and southern hemispheres. I remember Bang and Olufsen made a TV where the CRT was effectively mounted upside-down (so that the EHT connector was far enough from the cabinet to meet safety requirements) and the CRT had to be the one for the 'wrong' hemisphere as a result. -tony From lars at nocrew.org Thu Aug 26 00:56:35 2021 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 05:56:35 +0000 Subject: PDP-10 CLU language now available Message-ID: <7wpmu03g18.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Hello, I found files for Barnara Liskov's programming language CLU on PDP-10 backup tapes. MIT has made them available here: https://github.com/MITDDC/clu-1976-1989 See also: http://pmg.csail.mit.edu/CLU.html From lars at nocrew.org Thu Aug 26 00:57:13 2021 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 05:57:13 +0000 Subject: PDP-10 CLU language now available In-Reply-To: <7wpmu03g18.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> (Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk's message of "Thu, 26 Aug 2021 05:56:35 +0000") References: <7wpmu03g18.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <7wk0k83g06.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> > I found files for Barnara Liskov's programming language CLU on PDP-10 Sorry, it's BARBARA Liskov. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Thu Aug 26 02:30:19 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 08:30:19 +0100 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <26e0fcee-a298-c323-8a75-2e48e3243d68@ntlworld.com> On 26/08/2021 04:41, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > And yes there were CRTs set up at the factory for the northern and > southern hemispheres. I remember Bang and Olufsen made a TV where the > CRT was effectively mounted upside-down (so that the EHT connector was > far enough from the cabinet to meet safety requirements) and the CRT > had to be the one for the 'wrong' hemisphere as a result. DEC too had different part numbers for various monitors for different hemispheres. Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From lproven at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 06:16:54 2021 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:16:54 +0200 Subject: C.mmp OS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Aug 2021 at 21:48, Eric Smith wrote: > > At USENIX conferences, at some point the "sex, drugs, and Unix" buttons gave way to "condoms, aspirin, and POSIX" buttons. > :-( ? -- Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053 From abuse at cabal.org.uk Thu Aug 26 06:24:50 2021 From: abuse at cabal.org.uk (Peter Corlett) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:24:50 +0200 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 12:04:34PM -0400, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: [...] > In the video on youtube and in my experience the screen formating codes > seem to be incorrect.? You can see this in the video when a man page is > brought up.? The bolding does not occur.? I get the same result after > installing.? The same with vi, it doesn't work in the video and doesn't > work after installation.? I've tried Teraterm, putty, xterm all with the > same result.? Haven't tried an actual terminal yet.? What was your > experience? Terminal styling control codes are hit-and-miss even when exclusively using modern tools. These days, I pretty much exclusively use iTerm2 as my terminal emulator, which has a bewildering array of compatibility-tweaking controls to fiddle with, because everything seems to interpret the alleged standards differently. When I was relatively new to Linux I just put teminal oddities down to me not knowing what I was doing and configuring it wrong, but then had the opportunity to connect a real VT100 to it. "export TERM=vt100" is all that's needed, right? There were *loads* of rendering errors, and I got my first lesson into how well-tested Linux's termcap/terminfo database was. Fast-forward a quarter-century and our terminal emulators are expected to handle Unicode, which brings variable-width characters to our fixed-grid terminal emulators, yet not break too badly if the endpoint is not Unicode-aware and sends something like Latin-1 instead. Bold and so on are set via SGR ("Select Graphic Rendition") sequences, and Wikipedia gives a summary at . Here's a quick bash one-liner to display them on your terminal: for i in $(seq 1 127) ; do printf '\033[%dm SGR %d \033[0m\n' $i $i ; done (Progressively reduce that 127 if your terminal doesn't have scrollback and you can't see the earlier entries.) My *terminal* (i.e. iTerm2) supports 1-5, 7, 9, 30-39, 40-49, 90-97 and 100-107, i.e. bold, dim, italic, underline, blink, inverse, strikethrough, and all of the colours. However, a lot of useful software includes its own nested terminal emulator, and support is less good: connecting to a remote server using mosh(1) loses dim and strikethrough; tmux(1) turns italic into inverse, except on FreeBSD where it also loses dim, blink and strikethrough and mysteriously gives me another underline at 21 (probably due to it knowing about double-underline, but doing a substitution for the benefit of my terminal which doesn't). And if I use "watch -dc" to run a command repeatedly and highlight the changes, it only supports the 8 basic colours. If you test your own systems you may well come up with different results, because this nested emulation relies on termcap/terminfo databases knowing about the full capabilities of your terminal (MacOS doesn't include sitm/ritm for italic, for example) and TERM being set correctly at each level of nesting, so good luck with that. From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 26 08:12:32 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 09:12:32 -0400 Subject: Extremely CISC instructions In-Reply-To: References: <2b6720f6-5877-df72-6c77-f77bb493a06e@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <8DFE5CA4-8B51-445C-9776-576B6A1B0FA1@comcast.net> > On Aug 25, 2021, at 11:41 PM, Tony Duell wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:47 PM Paul Koning wrote: >> >> >> >>> On Aug 25, 2021, at 2:21 PM, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: >>> >>> On Wed, Aug 25, 2021 at 7:17 PM Patrick Finnegan via cctalk >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Landscape monitors work fine as portrait for me when I turn them on their >>>> side. >>> >>> You may have problems converging a colour CRT, particularly an in-line >>> gun type, if you do that. They are designed for the earth's magnetic >>> field to come in a particular direction. >> >> No they aren't. If that were true they would mess up if you turn them (horizontally) 90 degrees, or move from Canada to Equador. >> > > With a delta gun tube, you most definitely mess up the convergence if > you turn the monitor around. Colour TVs/monitors using such CRTs had > to be set up in the position they were to be used. Certainly, but your comment suggested that it wouldn't be possible to make that adjustment. That's what I disagreed with. paul From paulkoning at comcast.net Thu Aug 26 08:17:52 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 09:17:52 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 In-Reply-To: References: <4b5770ff-e42b-f73c-3ae3-5b6e0f6b51dd@bitsavers.org> <20b1917d-53a5-2a52-0645-eec056f06877@charter.net> <9ef6aa03-987e-56eb-5a24-f4f76fb5e3d9@comcast.net> Message-ID: > On Aug 26, 2021, at 7:24 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > > Terminal styling control codes are hit-and-miss even when exclusively using > modern tools. These days, I pretty much exclusively use iTerm2 as my > terminal emulator, which has a bewildering array of compatibility-tweaking > controls to fiddle with, because everything seems to interpret the alleged > standards differently. > > When I was relatively new to Linux I just put teminal oddities down to me > not knowing what I was doing and configuring it wrong, but then had the > opportunity to connect a real VT100 to it. "export TERM=vt100" is all that's > needed, right? There were *loads* of rendering errors, and I got my first > lesson into how well-tested Linux's termcap/terminfo database was. This is probably why DEC spent a significant amount of effort creating DEC Std 070, the Video terminal SRM. It's a full formal specification of all the terminal controls, and everyone was required to conform to that spec. As is common with DEC standards, it's sufficiently well written that you can simply do what it says and end up with a interoperable implementation. That's what I did in the video driver for RSTS on the Pro. (By the way, I like to mention the DDCMP spec as another example of this "conformance implies interoperability" property; my experience with that spec was the same.) Unfortunately, too few specs in the larger world are written to that level of quality. paul From elson at pico-systems.com Thu Aug 26 10:37:35 2021 From: elson at pico-systems.com (Jon Elson) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 10:37:35 -0500 Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/25/21 2:29 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > When I worked at Apparat around 1981, we used a lot of *male* IDC edge card > connectors. I've almost never seen any since, and I couldn't remember the > name of the vendor. I just found out that it was Kel-Am, but the internet > knows almost nothing about them. > > Here's an example: > https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/connectors/card-edge/male-card-edge-idc-connector-34-position-kel-am-idc34m.html > > T We still use a lot of KEL connectors, originally sold in the US under the Robinson-Nugent brand, then acquired by 3M.? Here's the right-angle board-mount connector : https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P50E-068P1-SR1-EA/1802260 Here's the IDC crimp cable end. https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P25E-068S-EA/1802218 I assume this is the same company. Jon From Flash688 at flying-disk.com Thu Aug 26 13:30:31 2021 From: Flash688 at flying-disk.com (Alan Frisbie) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 11:30:31 -0700 Subject: Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <38baaf5b-8baf-3493-7d6b-3e7dcc99fb42@flying-disk.com> Al Kossow wrote: > On 8/25/21 4:51 PM, Alan Frisbie via cctalk wrote: > > I recently acquired a Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser > > for SMD interface disk drives.? Unfortunately, it did not come > > with a manual.? Does anyone out there have a copy they could > > make available?? Yes, Bitsavers was the first place I checked.? > it's up now under test equipment Thank you very much! I've already downloaded it. I really appreciate all the work you do to keep this information available. > do you happen to have any service manuals for century data > winchesters? i have a bunch of manuals for the removable drives No, I do not. The only Century Data manuals I have are for the T-302, which I believe you already have. Alan Frisbie From spacewar at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 13:52:00 2021 From: spacewar at gmail.com (Eric Smith) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 12:52:00 -0600 Subject: DEC DHU11 (M3105) wanted Message-ID: A friend and I are trying to get a PDP-11/70 running, and we'd like to get a DHU11 async mux board. Anyone have an extra? There's an Ebay listing claimed to be a DHU11, but that one is actually a Qbus M3104. From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Aug 26 14:40:07 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 12:40:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On 8/25/21 2:29 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: >> When I worked at Apparat around 1981, we used a lot of *male* IDC edge card >> connectors. I've almost never seen any since, and I couldn't remember the >> name of the vendor. I just found out that it was Kel-Am, but the internet >> knows almost nothing about them. >> >> Here's an example: >> https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/connectors/card-edge/male-card-edge-idc-connector-34-position-kel-am-idc34m.html >> >> T > On Thu, 26 Aug 2021, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > We still use a lot of KEL connectors, originally sold in the US under the > Robinson-Nugent brand, then acquired by 3M.? Here's the right-angle > board-mount connector : > > https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P50E-068P1-SR1-EA/1802260 > > Here's the IDC crimp cable end. > > https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P25E-068S-EA/1802218 > > I assume this is the same company. It may be a lead on where Kel-Am went to, . . . But what Eric was asking about was a MALE card edge connector, and those are FEMALE. In his time at Apparat, floppy drives (5.25") had a 34 pin card edge connector. If the drive was in a case, it meant opening the case every time for connecting. So, Kel-Am made a MALE IDC 34 pin card edge connector that could go on a short ribbon cable to a FEMALE IDC 34 pin card edge connector to act as a short extension, to bring the connection out of the case. IDC MALE card edge is a R at RE connector type. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 26 14:46:57 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:46:57 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <34485211-db93-c6b8-3c37-23c4138f7e96@charter.net> On 8/25/2021 3:57 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> I don't have that code, however a couple of points: >> First of all, I think Vector Graphic actually used Micropolis drives >> (and I suspect yours are because of the hard sectoring).? I have >> Micropolis drives on my Altair.? Back in 2006 I imaged my floppies - >> by reading the sectors on my Altair and transferring the data over to >> my PC and saving an image file. >> Note that at least for the 100 TPI Mod II model you'd have to use an >> actual Micropolis drive or the tracks won't line up.? I don't know if >> that is also true of the Mod I drives which have a more standard >> tracks per inch. > > Important points! > Yes, Vector Graphics was 100tpi.? That was not the only unusual aspect > to their format. > > Yes, Micropolis ALSO made 48tpi single sided drives.? I don't remember > whether they were 35 track or 40 track; I used one for years on a TRS80 > (which wass 35 track); it was an exceptionally reliable, albeit heavy > and slow-steppping drive. > 35 track. The aforementioned "Mod I" models. > > For 100tpi, there also existed Tandon TM100-4M drives.? The M stood for > "Micropolis".?? One of the TM100-4M drives that I had did not have the > 'M' on the label. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred???????????? cisin at xenosoft.com JRJ From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 26 14:51:36 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:51:36 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> On 8/25/2021 5:58 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: > On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: > > ?? As a few of the signals on the 34-pin connector are different than > the Shugart layout, I'm considering making up a custom cable and > connecting it to my Catweasel MK4+. I have a utility from Andrew Lynch > called "cwns", which is a modified version of "cw2dmk" to read Northstar > hard-sector (10 SPT) diskettes. I might be able to modify that to read > the VG 16 SPT diskettes, if the 1043-2 will work with the Catweasel. > It will not - but it has nothing to do with the cabling. I already tried with my catweasel. I was able to read flux, but between the hard sectoring and (possibly) different meta markers for the floppy sectors, the .scp file is useless. I just got my Cypress board for a fluxengine in the mail yesterday, but haven't set it up yet - maybe tomorrow. The website for fluxengine indicates it ought to work. > ?? It's been pointed out that I could write something for the Vector 1 > to read diskettes and transfer the contents out the serial port. I'd > rather attack it from the point of my media imaging system, and there is > a literal shoebox full of diskettes to image. > That was what I did back years ago. > > Mike Loewen??????????????? mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us > Old Technology??????????????? http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ JRJ From doug at doughq.com Thu Aug 26 18:30:53 2021 From: doug at doughq.com (Doug Jackson) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 09:30:53 +1000 Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We can synthesise those with a Female edge connector and a nice Gold Plated set of long fingers. I agree - those connectors were beautiful and very useful in the days of barely adequately buffered signals slapped onto a tin plated PCB edge connector. Kindest regards, Doug Jackson em: doug at doughq.com ph: 0414 986878 On Fri, 27 Aug 2021 at 05:40, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/25/21 2:29 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: > >> When I worked at Apparat around 1981, we used a lot of *male* IDC edge > card > >> connectors. I've almost never seen any since, and I couldn't remember > the > >> name of the vendor. I just found out that it was Kel-Am, but the > internet > >> knows almost nothing about them. > >> > >> Here's an example: > >> > https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/connectors/card-edge/male-card-edge-idc-connector-34-position-kel-am-idc34m.html > >> > >> T > > > On Thu, 26 Aug 2021, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > > We still use a lot of KEL connectors, originally sold in the US under > the > > Robinson-Nugent brand, then acquired by 3M. Here's the right-angle > > board-mount connector : > > > > https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P50E-068P1-SR1-EA/1802260 > > > > Here's the IDC crimp cable end. > > > > https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/P25E-068S-EA/1802218 > > > > I assume this is the same company. > > It may be a lead on where Kel-Am went to, . . . > But what Eric was asking about was a MALE card edge connector, and those > are FEMALE. > > In his time at Apparat, floppy drives (5.25") had a 34 pin card edge > connector. If the drive was in a case, it meant opening the case every > time for connecting. So, Kel-Am made a MALE IDC 34 pin card edge > connector that could go on a short ribbon cable to a FEMALE IDC 34 pin > card edge connector to act as a short extension, to bring the connection > out of the case. > > IDC MALE card edge is a R at RE connector type. > > -- > Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Aug 26 19:03:29 2021 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 17:03:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Anyone remember Kel-Am connectors? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/connectors/card-edge/male-card-edge-idc-connector-34-position-kel-am-idc34m.html On Fri, 27 Aug 2021, Doug Jackson wrote: > We can synthesise those with a Female edge connector and a nice Gold Plated > set of long fingers. > I agree - those connectors were beautiful and very useful in the days of > barely adequately buffered signals slapped onto a tin plated PCB edge > connector. There was another variant, or maybe it was the same one with the IDC pins smushed, that was sold in a kit to slide onto the tin card edge connectors of the Expansion Interface, or whatever else, and solder on to have a gold surface where you slid the cable connector on and off. From raywjewhurst at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 19:14:41 2021 From: raywjewhurst at gmail.com (Ray Jewhurst) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 20:14:41 -0400 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation Message-ID: Hello all, Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there is a simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any card-driven machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I don't know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to boot Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. My final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be both welcome and greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance Ray From chd at chdickman.com Thu Aug 26 19:22:34 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 20:22:34 -0400 Subject: RQDX3 firmware sources Message-ID: Has anyone tried to compile the sources? succeeded? I'm not even going to try, but I think the actual low-level formatter code is missing. Was curious if anyone else noticed that too. -chuck From leec2124 at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 20:08:06 2021 From: leec2124 at gmail.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 18:08:06 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: https://github.com/IBM-1620/Junior On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 5:15 PM Ray Jewhurst via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > Hello all, > Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia > article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there is a > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any card-driven > machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file > from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to > try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. > I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I don't > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to boot > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. My > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my > teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be > both welcome and greatly appreciated. > > Thanks in advance > > Ray > -- Lee Courtney +1-650-704-3934 cell From cclist at sydex.com Thu Aug 26 20:46:08 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 18:46:08 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> On 8/26/21 5:14 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > Hello all, > Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia > article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there is a > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any card-driven > machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file > from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to > try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. > I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I don't > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to boot > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. My > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my > teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be > both welcome and greatly appreciated. > Cards are just ASCII lines separated by newlines> For more information, see: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/3610586/ibm-1620-simulator-usage-01-dec-2008-simh It's been years since I used the SIMH 1620 simulator, so I can't even claim to be remotely current. I used it to check out some sample code back then. My reaction: It's just not the same. I guess you had to be there. Did anyone manage to snag a copy of Monitor IID? Or is the only extant version Monitor I? The differences were significant. Also, don't forget SPS! If you're new to the 1620, I recommend the following book: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1620/Basic_Programming_Concepts_and_the_IBM_1620_Computer_1962.pdf If you want to use a totally (i.e. no disk) card-driven version of the 1620, I'd recommend that you start with simple machine language programs. I (dimly) recall that using the card-only FORTRAN compiler was a bit of a chore: read pass 1, read your program, while punching an intermediate deck, read pass 2 and the intermediate deck, read the subroutine library and wind up with an executable deck. --Chuck From raywjewhurst at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 21:07:56 2021 From: raywjewhurst at gmail.com (Ray Jewhurst) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 22:07:56 -0400 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 9:46 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/26/21 5:14 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > > Hello all, > > Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia > > article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there > is a > > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any > card-driven > > machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file > > from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to > > try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. > > I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I > don't > > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to > boot > > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. > My > > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my > > teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be > > both welcome and greatly appreciated. > > > > Cards are just ASCII lines separated by newlines> > > > For more information, see: > > https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/3610586/ibm-1620-simulator-usage-01-dec-2008-simh I have already read that document. The thing that stuck with me most was the fact that you can not boot off the hard drive (or were they already calling them DASDs?) > It's been years since I used the SIMH 1620 simulator, so I can't even > claim to be remotely current. I used it to check out some sample code > back then. > > My reaction: It's just not the same. I guess you had to be there. > > Did anyone manage to snag a copy of Monitor IID? Or is the only extant > version Monitor I? The differences were significant. I only saw Monitor I. Will it even run on a 1620-II? > Also, don't forget SPS! > SPS is included both standalone and in the Monitor I distro, so is Fortran-II > If you're new to the 1620, I recommend the following book: > > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1620/Basic_Programming_Concepts_and_the_IBM_1620_Computer_1962.pdf Thank you. I will check it out starting tonight. > If you want to use a totally (i.e. no disk) card-driven version of the > 1620, I'd recommend that you start with simple machine language > programs. I (dimly) recall that using the card-only FORTRAN compiler > was a bit of a chore: read pass 1, read your program, while punching an > intermediate deck, read pass 2 and the intermediate deck, read the > subroutine library and wind up with an executable deck. > I will try the card-driven version first I think as an intro to cards. > --Chuck > > Thanks Ray From jwsmail at jwsss.com Thu Aug 26 21:16:27 2021 From: jwsmail at jwsss.com (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 19:16:27 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/26/2021 5:14 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > Hello all, > Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia > article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there is a > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any card-driven > machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file > from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to > try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. > I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I don't > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to boot > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. My > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my > teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be > both welcome and greatly appreciated. > > Thanks in advance > > Ray To run from cards, you probably will need to look up the exact keys, but basically you insert a boot instruction in memory with the machine halted then run it. You prepare one of the decks in the card reader prior to that (keep the SIMH console hand). The Fortran compiler will need a punch file specified where you can find it, as each pass will punch cards that need to be successively read in on future passes. I've not run one with a disk or paper tape or other facilities, but the reader / punch / printer / cpu setup wasn't too hard to run. Run assembler if you want to study for a while. thanks Jim From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Thu Aug 26 21:43:04 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 19:43:04 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> Message-ID: There was a professor at Purdue who had two 20-drawer card cabinets full of 1620 software. I think his name was Maniotis. I think the Computer History Museum in Mountain View has it now. Maybe it's online. On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 22:07 -0400, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 9:46 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < > cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On 8/26/21 5:14 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > > > Hello all,Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading > > > the Wikipediaarticle on the IBM 1620 and became quite > > > intrigued. I know that there > > is a > > > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any > > card-driven > > > machines before. I have all the documentation and the > > > ibm1620.zip filefrom bitsavers but I am not sure what to do > > > next. I know I would like totry Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly > > > GOTRAN but I have so many questions.I read the SimH documentation > > > which gave me some understanding but I > > don't > > > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or > > > how to > > boot > > > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a > > > deck. > > My > > > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to > > > cut myteeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM > > > computers would beboth welcome and greatly appreciated. > > > > Cards are just ASCII lines separated by newlines> > > > > For more information, see: > > https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/3610586/ibm-1620-simulator-usage-01-dec-2008-simh > > I have already read that document. The thing that stuck with me most > wasthe fact that you can not boot off the hard drive (or were they > alreadycalling them DASDs?) > > > It's been years since I used the SIMH 1620 simulator, so I can't > > evenclaim to be remotely current. I used it to check out some > > sample codeback then. > > My reaction: It's just not the same. I guess you had to be there. > > Did anyone manage to snag a copy of Monitor IID? Or is the only > > extantversion Monitor I? The differences were significant. > > I only saw Monitor I. Will it even run on a 1620-II? > > > Also, don't forget SPS! > SPS is included both standalone and in the Monitor I distro, so > isFortran-II > > > If you're new to the 1620, I recommend the following book: > > > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1620/Basic_Programming_Concepts_and_the_IBM_1620_Computer_1962.pdf > > Thank you. I will check it out starting tonight. > > > If you want to use a totally (i.e. no disk) card-driven version of > > the1620, I'd recommend that you start with simple machine > > languageprograms. I (dimly) recall that using the card-only > > FORTRAN compilerwas a bit of a chore: read pass 1, read your > > program, while punching anintermediate deck, read pass 2 and the > > intermediate deck, read thesubroutine library and wind up with an > > executable deck. > I will try the card-driven version first I think as an intro to > cards. > > > --Chuck > > > ThanksRay From doc at vaxen.net Thu Aug 26 21:49:03 2021 From: doc at vaxen.net (Doc Shipley) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 21:49:03 -0500 Subject: RQDX3 firmware sources In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ad0ac75-b549-fc03-3d8b-4f83bfaf15e9@vaxen.net> On 8/26/21 19:22, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > Has anyone tried to compile the sources? succeeded? > > I'm not even going to try, but I think the actual low-level formatter code > is missing. Was curious if anyone else noticed that too. I always thought that the service diagnostics were the only formatting code available for the RQDX3? Doc From cclist at sydex.com Thu Aug 26 21:53:57 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 19:53:57 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4f1b164d-3cba-21e5-11fc-8b8584caa8f8@sydex.com> On 8/26/21 7:16 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: / printer / cpu setup wasn't too hard to run. > > Run assembler if you want to study for a while. Back in the day, you knew that you'd arrived when you could mentally assemble a one-liner console program and type it in without resorting to pencil and paper... But yes, IIRC, there's a one-card/one-line boot loader for Monitor--you can't boot directly from disk. The loader specifies where Monitor is and where input will be coming from (card, paper tape, console). One thing that throws a lot of folks is how primitive the disk monitor system is--there are no files, per se--just permanently-assigned disk locations for various things. Back in the day, I used to store some of my work on the last couple of cylinders in the work cylinders. Very often, in spite of the system being used by others most of the time I could recover my data. Like I said, it's not the same under simulation. But that can be said for just about any old machine. I doubt that running an LGP-30 simulation is anything like running on a real LGP-30. --Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Aug 26 22:17:17 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 20:17:17 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 8/26/21 7:43 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > There was a professor at Purdue who had two 20-drawer card cabinets > full of 1620 software. I think his name was Maniotis. I think the > Computer History Museum in Mountain View has it now. Maybe it's online. https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102710141 The 1620 restoration crew read them it they are in http://bitsavers.org/bits/1620/1620.zip From cube1 at charter.net Thu Aug 26 16:48:29 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 16:48:29 -0500 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 Message-ID: My next project once I finish my IBM 1410 FPGA implementation (so, a couple of years out, probably) would be to write an emulator for the boat anchor known as the IBM 8100. I had exposure to these things back in the 1980s. The project was not really a success: the DPPX operating system was way overkill for the underpowered machine, and wasn't reliable enough or capable enough to run them at remote locations with central administration. The machine had some fairly sophisticated features: Two groups of 64 sets of registers with 8 32 bit registers each Auto increment and auto decrement indexed addressing Address translation - but not paging A primitive form of I/O channel I have a set of install floppies for the DPPX operating system and some of the associated software (but, sadly, not COBOL or Assembler), imaged, and verified to contain what the labels say (via dd conv=ascii), but am short on information. (Of course, if someone else has floppies, all the better. I can image them - they are 8" DSDD, with the first track single density, kinda like an RX02). I do have the Principles of Operation GA23-0031 and the DASD devices (including floppy) Description GA23-0053 But in order to manage an emulator and actually install DPPX I would need just a bit more hardware info - or I would be flying blind to some degree as far as the operator panel I/O interaction.) Hardware Manuals: 8130 Processor Description GA27-3196 and/or 8140 Processor Description GA27-2880 (There was also an 8150, but I doubt the releases I have would run on it.) 8140 Processor Operators Guide GA27-3197 and GA27-2879 (Expanded front panel) 8101/8102 Storage / I/O Unit GA27-2882 Communications: Loop, Display, Printer: GA27-2883 (The "Loop" was a LAN like thing - kind of akin to the Apollo Domain ring, off of which one hung local terminals, such as the IBM 8775). Distributed Processing Programming Executive (DPPX) Manuals Installation Primer: G320-6048 Installation Guide: SC27-0401 IPO Planning Guide: GC20-1883 Assembler: SC27-0412 Assembler Messages: SC27-0416 (The machine also supported APL, PL/I, COBOL (which we used), FORTRAN... But I don't have floppies for those - heck, if the assembler wasn't standard (I doubt it was), I don't even have that, even though we had it at our installation, along with COBOL) DTMS (database, transaction mgmt.) Messages: SC26-3918 Customization Guide (SC26-3937) Application Development Guide (SC26-3938) Administration Guide (SC26-3939) Operation Guide (SC26-3940) Reference (SC26-3941) True story: The early releases of DPPX were just awful buggy. We ended up dedicating 3 conference rooms (with the dividers open) for a "warm room" for something like 3 months, housing our personnel and IBM personnel up from Texas. At one point one of the IBM'ers was overheard on a public phone in the hallway of our public building telling someone he was there "to help the hicks from Wisconsin". That got reported to our management and to IBM's management, and he was on the next flight back to Texas. ;) On the flip side, I was testing database recovery (it was my thing, back in the day - though we did not end up using the database / transaction manager). I found some bugs in the database log journal recovery process. I mentioned it to one of the IBM'ers in passing, also pointing out it wasn't urgent since we were not going to use DTMS anyway, at least not soon. He pretty much begged me to report it - and anything else I found wrong. Completely polar opposite attitude of the guy in the previous paragraph. JRJ From phb.hfx at gmail.com Thu Aug 26 19:54:12 2021 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 21:54:12 -0300 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <207f02ac-7c78-c62d-2b2b-b19ea76235f5@gmail.com> On 2021-08-26 6:48 p.m., Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > My next project once I finish my IBM 1410 FPGA implementation (so, a > couple of years out, probably) would be to write an emulator for the > boat anchor known as the IBM 8100.? I had exposure to these things > back in the 1980s.? The project was not really a success: the DPPX > operating system was way overkill for the underpowered machine, and > wasn't reliable enough or capable enough to run them at remote > locations with central administration. > > The machine had some fairly sophisticated features: > ?? Two groups of 64 sets of registers with 8 32 bit registers each > ?? Auto increment and auto decrement indexed addressing > ?? Address translation - but not paging > ?? A primitive form of I/O channel > > > True story:? The early releases of DPPX were just awful buggy.? We > ended up dedicating 3 conference rooms (with the dividers open) for a > "warm room" for something like 3 months, housing our personnel and IBM > personnel up from Texas.? At one point one of the IBM'ers was > overheard on a public phone in the hallway of our public building > telling someone he was there "to help the hicks from Wisconsin".? That > got reported to our management and to IBM's management, and he was on > the next flight back to Texas.? ;) > > On the flip side, I was testing database recovery (it was my thing, > back in the day - though we did not end up using the database / > transaction manager).? I found some bugs in the database log journal > recovery process.? I mentioned it to one of the IBM'ers in passing, > also pointing out it wasn't urgent since we were not going to use DTMS > anyway, at least not soon.? He pretty much begged me to report it - > and anything else I found wrong.? Completely polar opposite attitude > of the guy in the previous paragraph. > > JRJ The 8100 came out during my first stint in field service, most of the machines we saw where 8130s that ran the DPCX operating system and they where purchased to replace 3790 distributed processors. We had one customer who bought an 8140 and I helped with a model upgrade on it, which involved removing all the logic gates as one unit and replacing them with the upgraded one.? It would have been quicker and probably cheaper to ship an entire new machine, but they where advertised as field upgradeable so..... ? A few years later when I saw the inside of a S/38 I recognized the packaging of the system as being identical to the 8140 except the 8140 did not have the built in CRT console or magazine diskette drive. This 8140 was running DPPX but I don't know how the customer got on with it as it was not my account.? It is said that the 8100 processor is the Universal Controller (UC), but I am hoping it was a beefed up on from the UC engine that ran several of the "Industry Systems" controllers such as 3274 (NDS), 3601 (Banking), and 3651 (retail store systems). Paul. From p.gebhardt at ymail.com Fri Aug 27 03:06:43 2021 From: p.gebhardt at ymail.com (P Gebhardt) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 08:06:43 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser In-Reply-To: <099727e2-c04c-3522-4d1b-23528b121355@flying-disk.com> References: <35692809-2351-79ec-be92-0271abc337b0@flying-disk.com> <099727e2-c04c-3522-4d1b-23528b121355@flying-disk.com> Message-ID: <2032141014.1669597.1630051603362@mail.yahoo.com> Hello Alan, I am not at home right now, but when I will be back next week, I will see if I have the manual for that exerciser. If so, then I will scan it to upload it on bitsavers. Best regards, Pierre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.digitalheritage.de Am Donnerstag, 26. August 2021, 01:51:48 MESZ hat Alan Frisbie via cctalk Folgendes geschrieben: I recently acquired a Wilson Laboratories SX-530 disk exerciser for SMD interface disk drives.? Unfortunately, it did not come with a manual.? Does anyone out there have a copy they could make available?? Yes, Bitsavers was the first place I checked.? :-) Yes, I still have some SMD drives in working condition -- at least they were before I moved.? One is a Century Data Systems T-302, and another is a Fujitsu Eagle.? The T-302 is wonderful for impressing younger people who aren't familiar with older technology like 12-platter removable disk packs.? :-) 220 volt, 30 amps starting, 6 amps running, all for a whole 256 megabytes (formatted). Thanks, Alan From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Fri Aug 27 11:50:29 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 09:50:29 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> Message-ID: <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 20:17 -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > On 8/26/21 7:43 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > There was a professor at Purdue who had two 20-drawer card cabinets > > full of 1620 software. I think his name was Maniotis. I think the > > Computer History Museum in Mountain View has it now. Maybe it's > > online. > > https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102710141 > > The 1620 restoration crew read them it > they are in > http://bitsavers.org/bits/1620/1620.zip Should be?http://bitsavers.org/bits/IBM/1620/1620.zip > From leec2124 at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 13:23:49 2021 From: leec2124 at gmail.com (Lee Courtney) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 11:23:49 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: Video interview I made with John (Maniotes) in preparation for donation of the 1620 program library to CHM - https://youtu.be/N12pQBiRd7A Lee Courtney On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 9:50 AM Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 2021-08-26 at 20:17 -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > On 8/26/21 7:43 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > > There was a professor at Purdue who had two 20-drawer card cabinets > > > full of 1620 software. I think his name was Maniotis. I think the > > > Computer History Museum in Mountain View has it now. Maybe it's > > > online. > > > > https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102710141 > > > > The 1620 restoration crew read them it > > they are in > > http://bitsavers.org/bits/1620/1620.zip > > Should be http://bitsavers.org/bits/IBM/1620/1620.zip > > > > > -- Lee Courtney +1-650-704-3934 cell From cclist at sydex.com Fri Aug 27 14:30:09 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 12:30:09 -0700 Subject: IBM 1620 Simulation In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <0504b0ee-5c04-1f06-6557-26506a4720ba@sydex.com> On 8/27/21 11:23 AM, Lee Courtney via cctalk wrote: > Video interview I made with John (Maniotes) in preparation for donation of > the 1620 program library to CHM - https://youtu.be/N12pQBiRd7A I remember that name--he was at Purdue Calumet Campus. I probably even met and talked to him 50+ years ago. --Chuck From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Aug 27 15:50:14 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 21:50:14 +0100 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> I have a few manuals to scan and I'm looking for suggestions, about how to add bookmarks and how to handle colour. Bookmarks should be easier, so lets start with that. I want to add bookmarks (or whatever they are called) so that it is easy to navigate to page "2-48" or "C-17" in a document. Many of the PDFs on bitsavers have that and I've found it very useful so I'd like to do that for my future scans. I've tried with pdftk (the Java port as the original is no longer available on my distro) but that failed. So I tried GhostScript and that also failed, while also rewriting the PDF to be considerably larger. Is there simple way to achieve this (ideally from the CLI)? Now for the scanning itself. For manuals that are simple monochrome, I plan to scan at 600dpi bilevel G4 encoded, wrapped in PDF. For photographs or shaded areas that don't necessarily come out well under those settings, I plan to use 8-bit greyscale. I'd prefer to use 600dpi but I may have to fall back to 300dpi if the per-page fiile size shoots up too much. The real issue is colour. I know that various people have looked at the issue of how to efficiently scan pages that are mostly black and white but have some coloured text (RSX-11 manuals and early VMS manuals did this to highlight terminal input, for example). I don't think this is a solved problem and I'm not expecting a solution, what I'm really looking for is to check that what I'm about to produce will have all the information that a future efficient algorithm is likely to need. I'm going to start by scanning the whole manual as though it had no colour (so 600 dpi bilevel G4 encoded, except for pages with photos and shading and so on). Then I'm going to go back and rescan the pages that have colour and scan those at 600 dpi and save as a JPG. Then I'll produce a final PDF with the colour pages inserted. I'll also produce a PDF with the B&W pages that were replaced by colour pages (I assume OCR will be better served by non-jaggy scans). So the final outputs will be: manual.pdf? - the whole manual, including whole pages scanned as colour if any colour is present on them manual_BW.pdf? - the G4-encoded bilevel pages that were replaced by colour pages Thanks Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 27 16:05:47 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:05:47 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: > On Aug 27, 2021, at 4:50 PM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > > I have a few manuals to scan and I'm looking for suggestions, about how to add bookmarks and how to handle colour. > ... > For photographs or shaded areas that don't necessarily come out well under those settings, I plan to use 8-bit greyscale. I'd prefer to use 600dpi but I may have to fall back to 300dpi if the per-page fiile size shoots up too much. Depending on the resolution used, given that the photos are printed as halftone (black dots of various sizes), you may get weird scan artifacts. Some scan programs may have tools to convert a halftone image to the equivalent grayscale image, such a thing is likely to be helpful. > The real issue is colour. I know that various people have looked at the issue of how to efficiently scan pages that are mostly black and white but have some coloured text (RSX-11 manuals and early VMS manuals did this to highlight terminal input, for example). I don't think this is a solved problem and I'm not expecting a solution, what I'm really looking for is to check that what I'm about to produce will have all the information that a future efficient algorithm is likely to need. > > I'm going to start by scanning the whole manual as though it had no colour (so 600 dpi bilevel G4 encoded, except for pages with photos and shading and so on). Then I'm going to go back and rescan the pages that have colour and scan those at 600 dpi and save as a JPG. JPG is the wrong tool for pages with color text or color line art. As I've mentioned before, JPG is fit ONLY for photos, not for any image with hard edges. Text compressed with JPG will suffer badly. For material such as the RSX manuals you mentioned, the tool needed is a compression algorithm that handles color with hard edges faithfully. Basically that means a lossless compression scheme. That should be fine, since pages like that should compress very well, at least if the scan has been touched up just a bit to make the page background reasonably pure white. With more effort it would be possible to reconstruct the original three-color material (white, black, red or whatever), but that's a fair amound harder and probably not necessary for adequate compression. But please, make it a practice to avoid JPG except in those cases (rare or non-existent in document scanning work) where you're actually dealing with a continuous tone photograph). paul From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 27 16:10:32 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:10:32 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> On 8/27/21 2:05 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > For material such as the RSX manuals you mentioned, the tool needed is a compression algorithm that handles color with hard edges faithfully. Basically that means a lossless compression scheme. That should be fine, since pages like that should compress very well, at least if the scan has been touched up just a bit to make the page background reasonably pure white. Ethan worked on a filter a long time ago for DEC manuals. J David Bryan's work was mentioned recently. It is trivial to add page bookmarks with Eric Smith's tumble with the -b %F option From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 27 16:19:24 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 14:19:24 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Probably the way to deal with DEC tri-color would be to define rectangular regions and have three separate bitonal layers colored black red and blue, and a third JPEG-2 for grayscale or color images. Doing the layer separations would be the non-fun part. From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Aug 27 16:36:28 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 22:36:28 +0100 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On 27/08/2021 22:05, Paul Koning wrote: > JPG is the wrong tool for pages with color text or color line art. As > I've mentioned before, JPG is fit ONLY for photos, not for any image > with hard edges. Text compressed with JPG will suffer badly. Yes, true. I thought that for colour, all I could get was JPEG. It certainly seems to be the case that the HP PhotoSmart I have scans everything as JPEG 300 dpi when you use the front panel to scan to a memory stick. Post processing wouldn't make that any better, which is why I thought I was stuck with JPEG. It turns out though that if you drive it with a computer then you also get the choice of TIFF or PNG as additional choices. TIFF is likely to be quite a bit too big. I'll try PNG and see how big the files it generates are. I've no idea what the default compression is straight out of the software but as long as it's lossless I can hopefully post-process to squeeze things down if possible. If this turns out to work without ballooning file sizes, then I can just not bother preserving the B&W pages, as lossless colour PNG should OCR as well as B&W (I would think). I have a few pages in the scanner now at 600dpi PNG so I'll soon know how that compares to JPG or B&W. Thanks Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Fri Aug 27 17:05:24 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 23:05:24 +0100 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 27/08/2021 22:10, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/27/21 2:05 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> For material such as the RSX manuals you mentioned, the tool needed >> is a compression algorithm that handles color with hard edges >> faithfully.? Basically that means a lossless compression scheme.? >> That should be fine, since pages like that should compress very well, >> at least if the scan has been touched up just a bit to make the page >> background reasonably pure white. > > Ethan worked on a filter a long time ago for DEC manuals. J David > Bryan's work was mentioned recently. I did see it, but it didn't look like a cookie-cutter recipe. I'd be happy to be proved wrong though. What I don't want to have to do is manually process each page (beyond having to decide which to scan in colour). I would be looking for an algorithm or process that I can just point at scanner data for a page and have it spit out the optimised PDF page. I'm sure that will appear at some stage, but I don't think it exists yet. The RSX-11M/M-PLUS Error Logging Manual, for example, has somewhere between 20 and 50 pages with colour present. I can pick those out and re-scan them and I can relatively easily merge those pages with the original B&W scan, but if I have to manually examine each page, I'll never make it to whatever manual is in my list after that one :-) > > It is trivial to add page bookmarks with Eric Smith's tumble with the > -b %F option > Thanks, I'll look into tumble. Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From sieler at allegro.com Fri Aug 27 17:38:15 2021 From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 15:38:15 -0700 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 Message-ID: Re: "My next project once I finish my IBM 1410 FPGA implementation (so, a couple of years out, probably) would be to write an emulator for the boat anchor known as the IBM 8100. I had exposure to these things back in the 1980s." I encountered one, once. Probably 1979, in a small conference room in building 47U of Hewlett-Packard's Cupertino site. Sitting all alone in the room. I was looking at it, and an HP engineer came in and explained that they were waiting for IBM service to fix the memory board ... the board HP had removed to look at closely :) From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Fri Aug 27 17:43:24 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 15:43:24 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <4a15c05582da2643df5d6e891a790dabb5008924.camel@sbcglobal.net> On Fri, 2021-08-27 at 14:10 -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > It is trivial to add page bookmarks with Eric Smith's tumble with the > -b %F option This isn't a default part of Debian distributions, and apt-get can't find it. I found it on github https://github.com/brouhaha/tumble I had to install several packages that are not default parts of Debian "Buster" 10, such as bison, flex, libtiff-dev libjpeg-dev libnetpbm11- dev I wasn't able to compile it on Debian "Buster" 10. ?Ultimately, "make" gave up: # make clean; make ... bison and flex... ... a bunch of successful cc compiles to get .o files cc tumble.o semantics.o tumble_input.o tumble_tiff.o tumble_jpeg.o tumble_pbm.o tumble_png.o tumble_blank.o bitblt.o bitblt_g4.o bitblt_tables.o g4_tables.o pdf.o pdf_util.o pdf_prim.o pdf_name_tree.o pdf_bookmark.o pdf_page_label.o pdf_text.o pdf_g4.o pdf_jpeg.o pdf_png.o scanner.o parser.tab.o -ltiff -ljpeg -lnetpbm -lz -lm -o tumble /usr/bin/ld: tumble_input.o:(.bss+0x0): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: tumble_tiff.o:(.bss+0x20): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: tumble_jpeg.o:(.bss+0x0): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: tumble_pbm.o:(.bss+0x0): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: tumble_png.o:(.bss+0x0): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: tumble_blank.o:(.data.rel.local+0x0): multiple definition of `blank_handler'; tumble.o:(.bss+0x20): first defined here /usr/bin/ld: scanner.o:(.bss+0x18): multiple definition of `yyin'; semantics.o:(.bss+0x50): first defined here collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status make: *** [Makefile:127: tumble] Error 1 Is it available as a statically-linked executable, or only as source from github? From tingox at gmail.com Fri Aug 27 18:40:31 2021 From: tingox at gmail.com (Torfinn Ingolfsen) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 01:40:31 +0200 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <4a15c05582da2643df5d6e891a790dabb5008924.camel@sbcglobal.net> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> <4a15c05582da2643df5d6e891a790dabb5008924.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 12:43 AM Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > > This isn't a default part of Debian distributions, and apt-get can't > find it. > > I found it on github > > https://github.com/brouhaha/tumble > > I had to install several packages that are not default parts of Debian > "Buster" 10, such as bison, flex, libtiff-dev libjpeg-dev libnetpbm11- > dev > > I wasn't able to compile it on Debian "Buster" 10. Ultimately, "make" > gave up: FWIW, I got it to compile on Debian 11 by applying the fixes in pull request 7 https://github.com/brouhaha/tumble/pull/7 Unfortunately, I no longer have any Debian 10 machines to test on. HTH -- Regards, Torfinn Ingolfsen From chd at chdickman.com Fri Aug 27 18:52:36 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 19:52:36 -0400 Subject: RQDX3 firmware sources In-Reply-To: <5ad0ac75-b549-fc03-3d8b-4f83bfaf15e9@vaxen.net> References: <5ad0ac75-b549-fc03-3d8b-4f83bfaf15e9@vaxen.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Aug 26, 2021 at 10:49 PM Doc Shipley via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 8/26/21 19:22, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > > I'm not even going to try, but I think the actual low-level formatter > code > > is missing. Was curious if anyone else noticed that too. > > I always thought that the service diagnostics were the only > formatting code available for the RQDX3? > > The diagnostic ZRQC actually invokes a program internal to the RQDX3 to do the formatting. That internal program is missing. > > Doc > From van.snyder at sbcglobal.net Fri Aug 27 19:02:46 2021 From: van.snyder at sbcglobal.net (Van Snyder) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:02:46 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> <4a15c05582da2643df5d6e891a790dabb5008924.camel@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <9343bb94e58e57481996127530073d727a2a6383.camel@sbcglobal.net> On Sat, 2021-08-28 at 01:40 +0200, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 12:43 AM Van Snyder via cctalk > wrote: > > > > > > This isn't a default part of Debian distributions, and apt-get > > can't > > find it. > > > > I found it on github > > > > https://github.com/brouhaha/tumble > > > > I had to install several packages that are not default parts of > > Debian > > "Buster" 10, such as bison, flex, libtiff-dev libjpeg-dev > > libnetpbm11- > > dev > > > > I wasn't able to compile it on Debian "Buster" 10.? Ultimately, > > "make" > > gave up: > > FWIW, I got it to compile on Debian 11? by applying the fixes in pull > request 7 > https://github.com/brouhaha/tumble/pull/7 > Unfortunately, I no longer have any Debian 10 machines to test on. Thanks for the tip. That did the trick. Compile worked. Haven't tested the executable yet. Van > > HTH From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 27 19:25:25 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 20:25:25 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <309F5159-38DE-4EDB-A07E-A4BFEB658B93@comcast.net> > On Aug 27, 2021, at 5:19 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > Probably the way to deal with DEC tri-color would be to define rectangular regions and have > three separate bitonal layers colored black red and blue, and a third JPEG-2 for grayscale > or color images. Doing the layer separations would be the non-fun part. I haven't looked at tools in, say, GIMP to create spot-color layers from RGB images. If it can do that, a good way to do what you describe is to give it a spot color definition that matches what the color print looks like. Then the black layer and the red (or whatever) layer are the two you want, and you could run each through a threshold operation to make them bitonal. Then the image converted back to RGB would compress really well with TIFF. paul From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 27 19:32:25 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 20:32:25 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> > On Aug 27, 2021, at 5:36 PM, Antonio Carlini wrote: > > On 27/08/2021 22:05, Paul Koning wrote: >> JPG is the wrong tool for pages with color text or color line art. As I've mentioned before, JPG is fit ONLY for photos, not for any image with hard edges. Text compressed with JPG will suffer badly. > > > Yes, true. I thought that for colour, all I could get was JPEG. It certainly seems to be the case that the HP PhotoSmart I have scans everything as JPEG 300 dpi when you use the front panel to scan to a memory stick. Post processing wouldn't make that any better, which is why I thought I was stuck with JPEG. Wow, that's crazy. Perhaps they thought the product was only going to be used by consumers who have no clue. > It turns out though that if you drive it with a computer then you also get the choice of TIFF or PNG as additional choices. TIFF is likely to be quite a bit too big. I'll try PNG and see how big the files it generates are. I've no idea what the default compression is straight out of the software but as long as it's lossless I can hopefully post-process to squeeze things down if possible. TIFF is (normally) lossless. I think PNG also, or at least can be, but I don't understand it as well. TIFF is actually a container and inside it can be any number of encodings. Compression schemes can be simple ones like run length coding, or more complex ones like LZ. Either way, if there are patterns, especially significant areas of the same color, the compression works very well indeeed. A raw scan probably won't compress well. But something as simple as a white point adjustment to make the bulk of the background be full white will make the file very much smaller. If you tweak the black point some as well, so areas meant to be black are in fact full black rather than slightly-varying grays, you will gain still more. As a bonus, the resulting image will also be much crisper and easier to read. The other day there was a mention of open souce tools at leptonica.org: from the examples given in the intro, for example here: http://www.leptonica.org/binarization.html it looks like a very nice tool kit to clean up images very well and easily. While I don't see it mentioned, the cleaned up images will certainly compress very effectively in TIFF. paul From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 27 19:47:13 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 20:47:13 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> Message-ID: > On Aug 27, 2021, at 8:32 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > ... > >> It turns out though that if you drive it with a computer then you also get the choice of TIFF or PNG as additional choices. TIFF is likely to be quite a bit too big. I'll try PNG and see how big the files it generates are. I've no idea what the default compression is straight out of the software but as long as it's lossless I can hopefully post-process to squeeze things down if possible. > > TIFF is (normally) lossless. I think PNG also, or at least can be, but I don't understand it as well. I should have checked first, but at least now I know: yes, PNG is lossless, it uses Deflate compression. And TIFF is also lossless, with a variety of compression schemes. In particular, it is the way to go for bitonal images with the CCITT compression scheme, which is specifically optimized for that case. paul From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 27 19:55:44 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:55:44 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> Message-ID: <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> I was also just thinking you would probably have to have a layer (black) with all of the stuff to OCR including the stuff in red and blue, then overlay the color on that after the pass through whatever you're using to do the OCR. The one bottleneck I would really like to fix is getting the 24 cores on my machine doing OCR on 24 different pages at the same time. From paulkoning at comcast.net Fri Aug 27 20:01:09 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 21:01:09 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: > On Aug 27, 2021, at 8:55 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > I was also just thinking you would probably have to have a layer (black) with all of the > stuff to OCR including the stuff in red and blue, then overlay the color on that > after the pass through whatever you're using to do the OCR. > > The one bottleneck I would really like to fix is getting the 24 cores on my machine doing > OCR on 24 different pages at the same time. What OCR do you use? It's been a while, but I've been using ABBYY FineReader. I once looked for open source OCR, and found one (an obscure GNU project I think) but it didn't do much. paul From dstalkowski at ody.ca Fri Aug 27 20:43:12 2021 From: dstalkowski at ody.ca (Don Stalkowski) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 21:43:12 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> References: <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <20210828014312.GA31516@cel2> On Fri, Aug 27, 2021 at 05:55:44PM -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > I was also just thinking you would probably have to have a layer (black) with all of the > stuff to OCR including the stuff in red and blue, then overlay the color on that > after the pass through whatever you're using to do the OCR. > > The one bottleneck I would really like to fix is getting the 24 cores on my machine doing > OCR on 24 different pages at the same time. > > The documentation for ocrmypdf describes how to do that. https://ocrmypdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ and https://ocrmypdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/batch.html Don From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Aug 27 20:52:58 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 18:52:58 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On 8/27/21 6:01 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > I once looked for open source OCR, and found one (an obscure GNU project I think) but it didn't do much. |Most of the world uses tesseract, including ocrmypdf I didn't see an obvious example of ocrmypdf doing OCR in parallel on a single document | From chd at chdickman.com Fri Aug 27 21:26:04 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 22:26:04 -0400 Subject: OMNIBUS board handle spacers Message-ID: I just printed some board handles for a 32k OMNIBUS board (thanks Vince Slyngstad, et al.) I now notice that all the OMNIBUS boards have an extra 0.1in spacer between the board and the handle. UNIBUS and QBus boards and logic flip chips don't have the spacer. Anyone else notice this and understand why? The only thing I can see is that it might adjust for the over the top connectors used on a lot of OMNIBUS boards. -chuck From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Sat Aug 28 00:22:13 2021 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 01:22:13 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Tandon Track 0 adjustment Message-ID: What's the recommended method for adjusting the track 0 switch and track 0 stop on a Tandon TM100-2, if you don't have an alignment disk? I do have a scope. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ From Michael at jongleur.co.uk Fri Aug 27 17:17:05 2021 From: Michael at jongleur.co.uk (Michael Mulhern) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:17:05 +1000 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <2a5da7d0-5f38-dbd7-0329-87fcbcba5580@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: I have been scanning to 400 and 600 dpi TIFF and using scantailor-advanced to post-process. Where manuals have had colour highlighting I?ve had good results selecting indexed colour as the output type for those pages. Unfortunately pathetic rural internet connection means I?ve only been pushing optimised PDFs to the internet archive, but all original and processed scans are kept and backed up. I?m not just doing manuals, but whatever I find interesting in my library at them time. So far I?ve only done 500+ in the last 12 months, but it?s also therapeutic for me as well as for sharing. For your education and/or reading pleasure https://archive.org/details/@jongleur Cheers Michael. On Sat, 28 Aug 2021 at 8:05 am, Antonio Carlini via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 27/08/2021 22:10, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/27/21 2:05 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > >> For material such as the RSX manuals you mentioned, the tool needed > >> is a compression algorithm that handles color with hard edges > >> faithfully. Basically that means a lossless compression scheme. > >> That should be fine, since pages like that should compress very well, > >> at least if the scan has been touched up just a bit to make the page > >> background reasonably pure white. > > > > Ethan worked on a filter a long time ago for DEC manuals. J David > > Bryan's work was mentioned recently. > > I did see it, but it didn't look like a cookie-cutter recipe. I'd be > happy to be proved wrong though. What I don't want to have to do is > manually process each page (beyond having to decide which to scan in > colour). I would be looking for an algorithm or process that I can just > point at scanner data for a page and have it spit out the optimised PDF > page. I'm sure that will appear at some stage, but I don't think it > exists yet. The RSX-11M/M-PLUS Error Logging Manual, for example, has > somewhere between 20 and 50 pages with colour present. I can pick those > out and re-scan them and I can relatively easily merge those pages with > the original B&W scan, but if I have to manually examine each page, I'll > never make it to whatever manual is in my list after that one :-) > > > > > It is trivial to add page bookmarks with Eric Smith's tumble with the > > -b %F option > > > Thanks, I'll look into tumble. > > > Antonio > > -- > Antonio Carlini > antonio at acarlini.com > > -- *Blog: RetroRetrospective ? Fun today with yesterday's gear??.. * *Podcast*: *Retro Computing Roundtable * (Co-Host) From cube1 at charter.net Fri Aug 27 22:08:48 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 22:08:48 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> Message-ID: <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> On 8/26/2021 2:51 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: > > > On 8/25/2021 5:58 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: >> On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: >> > >> ??? As a few of the signals on the 34-pin connector are different than >> the Shugart layout, I'm considering making up a custom cable and >> connecting it to my Catweasel MK4+. I have a utility from Andrew Lynch >> called "cwns", which is a modified version of "cw2dmk" to read >> Northstar hard-sector (10 SPT) diskettes. I might be able to modify >> that to read the VG 16 SPT diskettes, if the 1043-2 will work with the >> Catweasel. >>> > It will not - but it has nothing to do with the cabling.? I already > tried with my catweasel.? I was able to read flux, but between the hard > sectoring and (possibly) different meta markers for the floppy sectors, > the .scp file is useless.? I just got my Cypress board for a fluxengine > in the mail yesterday, but haven't set it up yet - maybe tomorrow.? The > website for fluxengine indicates it ought to work. > The fluxengine almost works with my Micropolis drives - but there are some problems. 1) The drive select pins are different. I am having *some* luck access one driver of my daisy-chained pair, but not the other. The fluxengine setup and/or the drive also seem to get confused when I try to access the other drive. I submitted an issue on github for more flexible drive selection / motor control capability. One could work around this with suitable cabing / jumpering. 2) So far I have not been able to read an entire Mod II disk successfully - lots of good sectors on two, but not all without errors on either one. But I have not tried cleaning the heads on my drives, or trying the Mod I with different select jumpering. 3) The Micropolis drives are slow stepping, so I added multiple commands to seek to cylinder 0 to my script - not sure if that is actually working right. > >> >> Mike Loewen??????????????? mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us >> Old Technology??????????????? http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ > > JRJ JRJ From Astrid at xrtc.net Sat Aug 28 03:21:06 2021 From: Astrid at xrtc.net (=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=A6strid_smith?=) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 01:21:06 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <24b7620c-b4d6-4055-a8ef-24d308c22996@www.fastmail.com> i've achieved satisfactory results paletteizing scans of low-color-depth material using a tool called 'noteshrink': https://mzucker.github.io/2016/09/20/noteshrink.html -- ?strid smith (she/her) =<[ c y b e r ]>= antique telephone collectors association member #4870 On Fri, Aug 27, 2021, at 13:50, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > I have a few manuals to scan and I'm looking for suggestions, about how > to add bookmarks and how to handle colour. > > Bookmarks should be easier, so lets start with that. I want to add > bookmarks (or whatever they are called) so that it is easy to navigate > to page "2-48" or "C-17" in a document. Many of the PDFs on bitsavers > have that and I've found it very useful so I'd like to do that for my > future scans. I've tried with pdftk (the Java port as the original is no > longer available on my distro) but that failed. So I tried GhostScript > and that also failed, while also rewriting the PDF to be considerably > larger. Is there simple way to achieve this (ideally from the CLI)? > > > Now for the scanning itself. > > For manuals that are simple monochrome, I plan to scan at 600dpi bilevel > G4 encoded, wrapped in PDF. > For photographs or shaded areas that don't necessarily come out well > under those settings, I plan to use 8-bit greyscale. I'd prefer to use > 600dpi but I may have to fall back to 300dpi if the per-page fiile size > shoots up too much. > > The real issue is colour. I know that various people have looked at the > issue of how to efficiently scan pages that are mostly black and white > but have some coloured text (RSX-11 manuals and early VMS manuals did > this to highlight terminal input, for example). I don't think this is a > solved problem and I'm not expecting a solution, what I'm really looking > for is to check that what I'm about to produce will have all the > information that a future efficient algorithm is likely to need. > > I'm going to start by scanning the whole manual as though it had no > colour (so 600 dpi bilevel G4 encoded, except for pages with photos and > shading and so on). Then I'm going to go back and rescan the pages that > have colour and scan those at 600 dpi and save as a JPG. Then I'll > produce a final PDF with the colour pages inserted. I'll also produce a > PDF with the B&W pages that were replaced by colour pages (I assume OCR > will be better served by non-jaggy scans). > > So the final outputs will be: > manual.pdf? - the whole manual, including whole pages scanned as colour > if any colour is present on them > manual_BW.pdf? - the G4-encoded bilevel pages that were replaced by > colour pages > > Thanks > > > Antonio > > > -- > > Antonio Carlini > antonio at acarlini.com > > From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 28 06:44:49 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 07:44:49 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On 2021-08-27 16:50, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > For photographs or shaded areas that don't necessarily come out well > under those settings, I plan to use 8-bit greyscale. I'd prefer to use > 600dpi but I may have to fall back to 300dpi if the per-page fiile size > shoots up too much. I always fail to understand this ... With prices for hard drives like they are, and comparing to the amount of work, it really is to scan a manual, I would recommend to scan with the best resolution you have, and have those files as you "original scans" Than, you apply whatever tricks you have in your bin, to "publish" those scans. Probably, one day there will be a nice tool, to do whatever you expected, and you have the scan already on your drive, and the original manual is digitized and preserved already. Just my .001 cents ;-) And I was talking about pictures/hafltone etc. The recommendations for b/w & text/line drawings are clear ... From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 28 06:59:19 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 07:59:19 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <24b7620c-b4d6-4055-a8ef-24d308c22996@www.fastmail.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <24b7620c-b4d6-4055-a8ef-24d308c22996@www.fastmail.com> Message-ID: On 2021-08-28 04:21, ?strid smith via cctalk wrote: > i've achieved satisfactory results paletteizing scans of low-color-depth material using a tool called 'noteshrink': > > https://mzucker.github.io/2016/09/20/noteshrink.html Even if you don't use the tool, it is worth reading ;-) From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 28 07:01:17 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:01:17 -0400 Subject: RQDX3 firmware sources In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 2021-08-26 20:22, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > Has anyone tried to compile the sources? succeeded? Where did you find the sources? From stark at mit.edu Sat Aug 28 10:17:56 2021 From: stark at mit.edu (Greg Stark) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 11:17:56 -0400 Subject: VAX4000 VLC diagnostics/console In-Reply-To: <4DC5E27F-FA3B-42C4-9E82-A642CDEC018E@avanthar.com> References: <4DC5E27F-FA3B-42C4-9E82-A642CDEC018E@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On Tue., Jul. 13, 2021, 15:39 Zane Healy via cctalk, wrote: > > When I did all my testing about a month and a half ago, I used a VT320. > I?m not sure if I?ve ever tried to talk to a VAXstation with anything other > than a DEC terminal. > I had the serial console on a model 60 working connected to a Sparc 5 but never got it to work with any PC USB adapters of any sort. > From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 28 10:22:11 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:22:11 -0700 Subject: Tandon Track 0 adjustment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8/27/21 10:22 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: > > ?? What's the recommended method for adjusting the track 0 switch and > track 0 stop on a Tandon TM100-2, if you don't have an alignment disk? I > do have a scope. Just use a known-good disk and adjust for best results. That's about all you can do without a calibrated reference floppy. There were also non-scope digital alignment disks with sectors recorded at various offsets and azimuths from ideal. Those could be handled by simple code that read sector IDs. --Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 28 10:24:09 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:24:09 -0700 Subject: Tandon Track 0 adjustment In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6cd19d79-4f02-2d3f-10c1-4ede32bccb82@sydex.com> On 8/27/21 10:22 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: > > ?? What's the recommended method for adjusting the track 0 switch and > track 0 stop on a Tandon TM100-2, if you don't have an alignment disk? I > do have a scope. I'll also add that too many people go into the business of re-alignment without first cleaning the track 0 sensor. Since everything is keyed off of the track 0 reference, this can lead to grief later on. Clean the sensor first and see if that doesn't clear up your alignment issues. --Chuck From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Sat Aug 28 10:48:42 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:48:42 +0100 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <24b7620c-b4d6-4055-a8ef-24d308c22996@www.fastmail.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <24b7620c-b4d6-4055-a8ef-24d308c22996@www.fastmail.com> Message-ID: On 28/08/2021 09:21, ?strid smith via cctalk wrote: > i've achieved satisfactory results paletteizing scans of low-color-depth material using a tool called 'noteshrink': > > https://mzucker.github.io/2016/09/20/noteshrink.html > Well as a guide the 66 page AA-CJ39A-TE (VAX-11 RSX Installation Guide and Release Notes) is 8.8MB. That's with the front and rear cover scanned as 300 dpi JPG and also 12 colour pages as 300 dpi JPG. Each of the 600dpi PNG pages comes out at 26MB. I tried optipng first. Even "-o 7" (which I ran overnight but I forgot to time ...) only dropped a page down to 19MB. So completely impractical for even this small number of pages. Noteshrink (which I've seen before but never bothered to try!) knocked a 26MB PNG down to 700kB. The only issue is that the red looks quite a bit more brown than it should. I'll look into it a bit more as it looks good. Thanks Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From a.carlini at ntlworld.com Sat Aug 28 10:57:02 2021 From: a.carlini at ntlworld.com (Antonio Carlini) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:57:02 +0100 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <66ea751b-e372-28da-a203-d7e47e2e3261@ntlworld.com> On 28/08/2021 12:44, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > > I always fail to understand this ... > With prices for hard drives like they are, and comparing to the amount > of work, it really is to scan a manual, I would recommend to scan with > the best resolution you have, and have those files as you "original scans" > Than, you apply whatever tricks you have in your bin, to "publish" those > scans. Well the scanner claims 4800 dpi optical, so that's 1.6GiB per page. (Actually the scanner claims 4800 x 9600 dpi optical? but I can't see how to ask it to do that). So there's a question of what's practical. I only have about 4Tib of free space, so that's 2500 colour pages at most. It's also incredibly inefficient: that same information, if it had been born digital, would take 100kB per page or so. I've not tried opening a 100GiB document lately but I assume that any PDF reader will some issues. > > Probably, one day there will be a nice tool, to do whatever you > expected, and you have the scan already on your drive, and the original > manual is digitized and preserved already. > Neatly solved in the document's future (but our past and present) by having documents that are born digital. That just leaves a few hundred years of printed matter to deal with. Luckily noteshrink seems to do a good job. Antonio -- Antonio Carlini antonio at acarlini.com From emu at e-bbes.com Sat Aug 28 11:01:53 2021 From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 12:01:53 -0400 Subject: VAX4000 VLC diagnostics/console In-Reply-To: <4DC5E27F-FA3B-42C4-9E82-A642CDEC018E@avanthar.com> References: <4DC5E27F-FA3B-42C4-9E82-A642CDEC018E@avanthar.com> Message-ID: On 2021-07-13 15:39, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > When I did all my testing about a month and a half ago, I used a VT320. I?m not sure if I?ve ever tried to talk to a VAXstation with anything other than a DEC terminal. I don't have any problems with USB-Serial adapters, on most DEC equipment. I have most VT***, but not always like to move them. So a laptop is easier. Just don't forget to switch of HW handshake on the USB side, and get XON/XOFF ... yes, sometimes one has tp play with 7/8 bits, parities etc., but it usually works ... From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 28 11:22:45 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 09:22:45 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: <66ea751b-e372-28da-a203-d7e47e2e3261@ntlworld.com> References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <66ea751b-e372-28da-a203-d7e47e2e3261@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: On 8/28/21 8:57 AM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > Neatly solved in the document's future (but our past and present) by having documents that are born digital. Good luck translating documents that HP, DEC and IBM produced in their proprietary "bookreader" formats so they don't look like crap. I have the source tapes with the files for hundreds of HP manuals created with Interleaf. I've not been able to recreate their workflow. "Born Digital" is no panacea From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 28 11:43:10 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 09:43:10 -0700 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <66ea751b-e372-28da-a203-d7e47e2e3261@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: Re: scanning resolution I've never seen a perceivable difference beyond 600-800dpi in the material I work with You have to consider the media you are working with. Even 600 is overkill for a DEC pulp handbook from the 60's, while a high clay litho magazine may have half-toning to that level. From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Aug 28 11:43:28 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 12:43:28 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking Message-ID: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> Its been fun? working with Ultrix-11 and have had success with the help of the list.? Thanks.? The tape file from Bill Gunshannon will create a working system.? Yay! I'm at the point of trying to network the SIMH pdp11 Ultrix-11 system. I have a few observations: 1. The youtube video 'Ultrix-11' shows connecting to sunOS systems. OK, he did this by simply issuing a single ifconfig command.? That didn't work for me. 2. Instead, I used the netsetup script supplied with the system, and had to reboot to get networking up.? I did seem to come up OK. 3. The SIMH FAQ suggests using a 2nd ethernet port, I was able to do this.? The linux computer I am running SIMH on has 2 ports. 4. The Ultrix-11 telnet ftp are old, unsecure versions, how do you connect to a modern Linux machine?? The Linux machines refuse the connections. 5. I also looked at the tuhs archive.? The Fred build script that generates a tk50 bootable tape image didn't work for me.? I substituted a file for the tape device and it caused SIMH to Halt. Doug From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sat Aug 28 11:54:08 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 12:54:08 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/28/21 12:43 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > Its been fun? working with Ultrix-11 and have had success with the help > of the list.? Thanks.? The tape file from Bill Gunshannon will create a > working system.? Yay! > > I'm at the point of trying to network the SIMH pdp11 Ultrix-11 system. > > I have a few observations: > > 1. The youtube video 'Ultrix-11' shows connecting to sunOS systems. OK, > he did this by simply issuing a single ifconfig command.? That didn't > work for me. I assume you built a new kernel with the right networking interface in it? :-) > > 2. Instead, I used the netsetup script supplied with the system, and had > to reboot to get networking up.? I did seem to come up OK. > > 3. The SIMH FAQ suggests using a 2nd ethernet port, I was able to do > this.? The linux computer I am running SIMH on has 2 ports. > > 4. The Ultrix-11 telnet ftp are old, unsecure versions, how do you > connect to a modern Linux machine?? The Linux machines refuse the > connections. All telnet and ftp connectionms are old and insecure. There is no such thing as secure telnet or ftp (or rsh or finger, you get the picture). If you wish to go from the Ultrix-11 system to the Linux system you will need to explicitly turn on telnetd and/or ftpd. Or, do the same on Ultrix-11 and go the other way. There is no ssh for Ultrix-11 and I seriously doubt there ever could be. > > 5. I also looked at the tuhs archive.? The Fred build script that > generates a tk50 bootable tape image didn't work for me.? I substituted > a file for the tape device and it caused SIMH to Halt. Don't remember what system I bult the tape on but I doubt it was an Ultrix-11 system. Probably a VAX runnning netbbsd under SIMH. bill From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Aug 28 12:03:13 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 13:03:13 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> Message-ID: <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Yes, I did create a new kernel and copy it to the correct place and chmod 644 the new unix file. On my Debian system I can install ftpd and telnetd (they are still in the Debian package list) which are the unsecure ones, but I don't know how to configure them or start them.? As in, # systemctl? restart ftpd It turns out to not be a hot topic: "How do I make my Liinux system less secure?",? but for us that noodle around with old computers with obsolete operating systems it is exactly what we need.? In the past I remember using Filezilla to go from a Windows7 machine into a Vax without any problem. Doug On 8/28/2021 12:54 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 12:43 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >> Its been fun? working with Ultrix-11 and have had success with the >> help of the list.? Thanks.? The tape file from Bill Gunshannon will >> create a working system.? Yay! >> >> I'm at the point of trying to network the SIMH pdp11 Ultrix-11 system. >> >> I have a few observations: >> >> 1. The youtube video 'Ultrix-11' shows connecting to sunOS systems. >> OK, he did this by simply issuing a single ifconfig command.? That >> didn't work for me. > > I assume you built a new kernel with the right networking interface > in it?? :-) > >> >> 2. Instead, I used the netsetup script supplied with the system, and >> had to reboot to get networking up.? I did seem to come up OK. >> >> 3. The SIMH FAQ suggests using a 2nd ethernet port, I was able to do >> this.? The linux computer I am running SIMH on has 2 ports. >> >> 4. The Ultrix-11 telnet ftp are old, unsecure versions, how do you >> connect to a modern Linux machine?? The Linux machines refuse the >> connections. > > All telnet and ftp connectionms are old and insecure. There is no such > thing as secure telnet or ftp (or rsh or finger, you get the picture). > If you wish to go from the Ultrix-11 system to the Linux system you > will need to explicitly turn on telnetd and/or ftpd.? Or, do the same > on Ultrix-11 and go the other way.? There is no ssh for Ultrix-11 and > I seriously doubt there ever could be. > >> >> 5. I also looked at the tuhs archive.? The Fred build script that >> generates a tk50 bootable tape image didn't work for me.? I >> substituted a file for the tape device and it caused SIMH to Halt. > > Don't remember what system I bult the tape on but I doubt it was > an Ultrix-11 system.? Probably a VAX runnning netbbsd under SIMH. > > bill > From kiwi_jonathan at yahoo.com Sat Aug 28 12:09:16 2021 From: kiwi_jonathan at yahoo.com (Jonathan Stone) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 17:09:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1579728979.527824.1630170556900@mail.yahoo.com> The old-school way to do this is to install inetd, ensure it gets started up, and uncomment the line in its config-file (/etc/inetd.conf ?) for telnet. Setting up an ftp chroot area is painful. If you're using cleartext passwords (telnet) anyway, I'd set up rlogin/rsh, and use rcp. Same story: /etc/inetd.conf, or whatever Debian replaced that with. Assuming Ultrix-11 has rsh/rcp, that is. From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sat Aug 28 12:15:47 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 13:15:47 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/28/21 1:03 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > Yes, I did create a new kernel and copy it to the correct place and > chmod 644 the new unix file. Did yo have fun playing with the overlays? :-) > On my Debian system I can install ftpd and telnetd (they are still in > the Debian package list) which are the unsecure ones, but I don't know > how to configure them or start them.? As in, # systemctl? restart ftpd Probably easier to turn them on on Ultrix-11. Just modify inetd.conf. Actually, I just looked and ftp is on by default. Telnet is not. > > It turns out to not be a hot topic: "How do I make my Liinux system less > secure?",? but for us that noodle around with old computers with > obsolete operating systems it is exactly what we need.? In the past I > remember using Filezilla to go from a Windows7 machine into a Vax > without any problem. I suspect you will be somewhat disappointed with networking in Ultrix-11. Not that there is something wrong with it, just that the hardware is nothing like you are used to. In the early days of networking it was not unusual for systems like the PDP-11 to crash just because of the traffic passing by on their network connection. The advent of switches helped alleviate that but it is still common to crash a system by pushing data at it from a modern ftp. I expect FileZila will do it. To be honest, I always preferred Kermit for moving files. It is possible to keep packet sizes down and even slow down the transfer rate to give the PDP time to handle it. bill From paulkoning at comcast.net Sat Aug 28 12:49:20 2021 From: paulkoning at comcast.net (Paul Koning) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 13:49:20 -0400 Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <66ea751b-e372-28da-a203-d7e47e2e3261@ntlworld.com> Message-ID: <4E5AB5F8-8176-469D-8B8D-DC3F4C2E5D32@comcast.net> > On Aug 28, 2021, at 12:22 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > On 8/28/21 8:57 AM, Antonio Carlini via cctalk wrote: > >> Neatly solved in the document's future (but our past and present) by having documents that are born digital. > > Good luck translating documents that HP, DEC and IBM produced in their proprietary "bookreader" formats so > they don't look like crap. The same goes for PDF, in many cases. But I have found that running a PDF document through an OCR program that handles page formatting (like FineReader) can work quite well. The OCR function itself of course works very nicely when you have input like that -- no variability in the letter shapes. So you're really dealing with the conversion from page geometry to text flow that those programs also offer. paul From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 14:11:07 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 14:11:07 -0500 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 In-Reply-To: <207f02ac-7c78-c62d-2b2b-b19ea76235f5@gmail.com> References: <207f02ac-7c78-c62d-2b2b-b19ea76235f5@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 8/26/2021 7:54 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > > On 2021-08-26 6:48 p.m., Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >> My next project once I finish my IBM 1410 FPGA implementation (so, a >> couple of years out, probably) would be to write an emulator for the >> boat anchor known as the IBM 8100.? I had exposure to these things >> back in the 1980s.? The project was not really a success: the DPPX >> operating system was way overkill for the underpowered machine, and >> wasn't reliable enough or capable enough to run them at remote >> locations with central administration. >> >> The machine had some fairly sophisticated features: >> ?? Two groups of 64 sets of registers with 8 32 bit registers each >> ?? Auto increment and auto decrement indexed addressing >> ?? Address translation - but not paging >> ?? A primitive form of I/O channel >> >> >> True story:? The early releases of DPPX were just awful buggy.? We >> ended up dedicating 3 conference rooms (with the dividers open) for a >> "warm room" for something like 3 months, housing our personnel and IBM >> personnel up from Texas.? At one point one of the IBM'ers was >> overheard on a public phone in the hallway of our public building >> telling someone he was there "to help the hicks from Wisconsin".? That >> got reported to our management and to IBM's management, and he was on >> the next flight back to Texas.? ;) >> >> On the flip side, I was testing database recovery (it was my thing, >> back in the day - though we did not end up using the database / >> transaction manager).? I found some bugs in the database log journal >> recovery process.? I mentioned it to one of the IBM'ers in passing, >> also pointing out it wasn't urgent since we were not going to use DTMS >> anyway, at least not soon.? He pretty much begged me to report it - >> and anything else I found wrong.? Completely polar opposite attitude >> of the guy in the previous paragraph. >> >> JRJ > > The 8100 came out during my first stint in field service, most of the > machines we saw where 8130s that ran the DPCX operating system and they > where purchased to replace 3790 distributed processors. We had one > customer who bought an 8140 and I helped with a model upgrade on it, > which involved removing all the logic gates as one unit and replacing > them with the upgraded one.? It would have been quicker and probably > cheaper to ship an entire new machine, but they where advertised as > field upgradeable so..... ? A few years later when I saw the inside of a > S/38 I recognized the packaging of the system as being identical to the > 8140 except the 8140 did not have the built in CRT console or magazine > diskette drive. This 8140 was running DPPX but I don't know how the > customer got on with it as it was not my account.? It is said that the > 8100 processor is the Universal Controller (UC), but I am hoping it was > a beefed up on from the UC engine that ran several of the "Industry > Systems" controllers such as 3274 (NDS), 3601 (Banking), and 3651 > (retail store systems). > > Paul. > > I had a look at the UC information on bitsavers.org/pdf/IBM/microcontrollers, and also looked at some field service material available on archive.org. The CPU comprises several boards, so it wasn't UC per se. There was a ROS-driven micro controller that handled instruction fetch and branching, but it had 56 bit words per that field service material. It may have had a similar software architecture to the UCs, but at present from what I have seen the similarity seems to end their. JRJ From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 14:12:22 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 14:12:22 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> Message-ID: <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> On 8/27/2021 10:08 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > On 8/26/2021 2:51 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctech wrote: >> >> >> On 8/25/2021 5:58 PM, Mike Loewen via cctalk wrote: >>> On Wed, 25 Aug 2021, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: >>> >> >>> ??? As a few of the signals on the 34-pin connector are different >>> than the Shugart layout, I'm considering making up a custom cable and >>> connecting it to my Catweasel MK4+. I have a utility from Andrew >>> Lynch called "cwns", which is a modified version of "cw2dmk" to read >>> Northstar hard-sector (10 SPT) diskettes. I might be able to modify >>> that to read the VG 16 SPT diskettes, if the 1043-2 will work with >>> the Catweasel. >>>> >> It will not - but it has nothing to do with the cabling.? I already >> tried with my catweasel.? I was able to read flux, but between the >> hard sectoring and (possibly) different meta markers for the floppy >> sectors, the .scp file is useless.? I just got my Cypress board for a >> fluxengine in the mail yesterday, but haven't set it up yet - maybe >> tomorrow.? The website for fluxengine indicates it ought to work. >> > > The fluxengine almost works with my Micropolis drives - but there are > some problems. > > 1)? The drive select pins are different.? I am having *some* luck access > one driver of my daisy-chained pair, but not the other.? The fluxengine > setup and/or the drive also seem to get confused when I try to access > the other drive.? I submitted an issue on github for more flexible drive > selection / motor control capability.? One could work around this with > suitable cabing / jumpering. > > 2)? So far I have not been able to read an entire Mod II disk > successfully - lots of good sectors on two, but not all without errors > on either one.? But I have not tried cleaning the heads on my drives, or > trying the Mod I with different select jumpering. > > 3) The Micropolis drives are slow stepping, so I added multiple commands > to seek to cylinder 0 to my script - not sure if that is actually > working right. > Another update. Without messing with the cable pinouts the fluxengine will only support a Micropolis drive strapped for DS2 (as fluxengine drive 0). I have successfully read a couple of Mod I disks (143KB). But some have not read very well. Sometimes it goes "off the rails" and says there are 77 tracks, even when the input config specifies 35. My guess is that at the least the decoder could probably need some improvement - a task I am not up for, at present. >> >>> >>> Mike Loewen??????????????? mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us >>> Old Technology??????????????? http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ >> >> JRJ > > JRJ JRJ From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 28 14:25:48 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 12:25:48 -0700 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 In-Reply-To: References: <207f02ac-7c78-c62d-2b2b-b19ea76235f5@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8e8bf1ec-a99a-1a3a-3180-e3d1ed1fad8d@bitsavers.org> On 8/28/21 12:11 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > > > also looked at some field service material available on > archive.org. > Was this different from the docs I have on bitsavers? They have all of bitsavers, but changed the filenames and screwed up the directory heirarchy. IA is a nightmare to search. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Aug 28 14:27:31 2021 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 12:27:31 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> Message-ID: <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> On 8/28/21 12:12 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > I have successfully read a couple of Mod I disks (143KB).? But some have not read very well. I played with one when they came out. The software wasn't ready for prime time. I had hoped it had gotten better since then. Even something basic like ^C out of a transfer locked the board up. From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 14:51:01 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 14:51:01 -0500 Subject: Call for manuals and maybe floppies: IBM 8100 In-Reply-To: <8e8bf1ec-a99a-1a3a-3180-e3d1ed1fad8d@bitsavers.org> References: <207f02ac-7c78-c62d-2b2b-b19ea76235f5@gmail.com> <8e8bf1ec-a99a-1a3a-3180-e3d1ed1fad8d@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <95f3d57a-9c14-f126-4698-7508570dd0a5@charter.net> On 8/28/2021 2:25 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 12:11 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> >> >> ?also looked at some field service material available on archive.org. >> > > Was this different from the docs I have on bitsavers? > They have all of bitsavers, but changed the filenames and screwed up the > directory heirarchy. > > IA is a nightmare to search. > The are indeed the same - I missed them because I only searched my own mirror for the manual numbers when I went searching for 8100 stuff last week. Should have looked in IndexByDate.txt (blush) BTW, I have scanned the PoO and storage manuals yesterday, and they are in the usual hierarchy I put stuff to contribute within. JRJ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 28 15:06:32 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 13:06:32 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <0982e647-ef0f-28ce-87a2-0a3a063127c0@sydex.com> On 8/28/21 12:27 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 12:12 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > >> I have successfully read a couple of Mod I disks (143KB).? But some >> have not read very well. > > I played with one when they came out. The software wasn't ready for > prime time. > > I had hoped it had gotten better since then. Even something basic like > ^C out of a transfer > locked the board up. I believe that I used an MPI 100 tpi drive when I processed the Vector 4 images. Came off without a hitch using a Catweasel. Raw decoded image was about 600K. One of the first jobs was to decode the memorite disk itself. Here's the disk image dump, if you're curious. https://app.box.com/s/mw9pk2xmrcr8ageu2ueuutvk4b6iw721 --Chuck From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sat Aug 28 15:13:36 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:13:36 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/28/2021 1:15 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 1:03 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >> Yes, I did create a new kernel and copy it to the correct place and >> chmod 644 the new unix file. > > Did yo have fun playing with the overlays?? :-) I don't know what this means.? The kernel creation was automatic, it seemed to check for enough room. > >> On my Debian system I can install ftpd and telnetd (they are still in >> the Debian package list) which are the unsecure ones, but I don't >> know how to configure them or start them.? As in, # systemctl? >> restart ftpd > > Probably easier to turn them on on Ultrix-11.? Just modify inetd.conf. > Actually, I just looked and ftp is on by default. Telnet is not. I edited inetd.conf to uncomment telnet.? It helped. > >> >> It turns out to not be a hot topic: "How do I make my Liinux system >> less secure?",? but for us that noodle around with old computers with >> obsolete operating systems it is exactly what we need.? In the past I >> remember using Filezilla to go from a Windows7 machine into a Vax >> without any problem. > > I suspect you will be somewhat disappointed with networking in > Ultrix-11.? Not that there is something wrong with it, just that > the hardware is nothing like you are used to.? In the early days > of networking it was not unusual for systems like the PDP-11 to > crash just because of the traffic passing by on their network > connection.? The advent of switches helped alleviate that but it > is still common to crash a system by pushing data at it from a > modern ftp.? I expect FileZila will do it.? To be honest, I always > preferred Kermit for moving files.? It is possible to keep packet > sizes down and even slow down the transfer rate to give the PDP > time to handle it. > > bill > > > I brought up a Vax Alpha 3000-300 and tried interacting with the Ultrix-11 simulation: Starting in Ultrix-11 I could log into the vax via telnet. Ultrix-11 ftp was able to transfer a short ascii file from the Vax to the Ultrix-11 sim. Going the other way, Ultrix-11 would reject an ftp request from the vax, here is the error message - $ ftp 192.169.0.52 %TCPIP-E-FTP_NETERR, I/O error on network device -SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable $ Ultrix-11 would allow a telnet connection (after the change to inetd.conf) and I could do an ls, but when I asked for a man page it hung up.? Nothing after that, had to kill it. I got the same result whether I was telneting in from the Vax or Linux computer.? Probably not news to you.? I wonder if real hardware works just like this.... It was good to find out that you can get things in/out of the Ultrix-11 simulation. Doug From chd at chdickman.com Sat Aug 28 16:13:11 2021 From: chd at chdickman.com (Charles Dickman) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 17:13:11 -0400 Subject: RQDX3 firmware sources In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Aug 28, 2021 at 8:01 AM emanuel stiebler via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2021-08-26 20:22, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > Has anyone tried to compile the sources? succeeded? > > Where did you find the sources? > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/qbus/rqdxx/rqdx3_src.zip From deramp5113 at yahoo.com Sat Aug 28 08:33:16 2021 From: deramp5113 at yahoo.com (Mike Douglas) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:33:16 -0500 Subject: CWVG References: <79F41821-ED35-45BF-80B3-FAFE31100261.ref@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <79F41821-ED35-45BF-80B3-FAFE31100261@yahoo.com> I can archive your disk content if you end up needing some assistance. I have a few Vector Graphic machines with 100tpi Micropolis and Tandon 100-4M drives as well as Mod-I drives at 48tpi. I also have utilities to archive and recreate disks on these drives by exchanging the disk image with a PC via XMODEM (FLOP2PC and PC2FLOP). Note that these disk images can also be mounted and run under SIMH. Mike From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 16:59:09 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 16:59:09 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <6332eb98-92d6-4446-672c-8cf83b3fb0ed@charter.net> On 8/28/2021 2:27 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 12:12 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > >> I have successfully read a couple of Mod I disks (143KB).? But some >> have not read very well. > > I played with one when they came out. The software wasn't ready for > prime time. > > I had hoped it had gotten better since then. Even something basic like > ^C out of a transfer > locked the board up. > And, still does, unfortunately. I opened a ticket for that. ;) From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 17:01:12 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 17:01:12 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <0982e647-ef0f-28ce-87a2-0a3a063127c0@sydex.com> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> <0982e647-ef0f-28ce-87a2-0a3a063127c0@sydex.com> Message-ID: <6e3b7122-dff6-0963-284d-19d990de9a20@charter.net> On 8/28/2021 3:06 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 12:27 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/28/21 12:12 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> >>> I have successfully read a couple of Mod I disks (143KB).? But some >>> have not read very well. >> >> I played with one when they came out. The software wasn't ready for >> prime time. >> >> I had hoped it had gotten better since then. Even something basic like >> ^C out of a transfer >> locked the board up. > > I believe that I used an MPI 100 tpi drive when I processed the Vector 4 > images. Came off without a hitch using a Catweasel. > > Raw decoded image was about 600K. > > One of the first jobs was to decode the memorite disk itself. > > Here's the disk image dump, if you're curious. > > https://app.box.com/s/mw9pk2xmrcr8ageu2ueuutvk4b6iw721 > > --Chuck > > > Back in 2005 I imaged both my Mod I and Mod II floppies using my Altair and a program I wrote way way wayyyyyy back when for transferring floppy images called "XMT". But I like to image floppies two different ways, and the Greaseweazle cannot (yet) deal with hard sectoring. Of course, I could also use my catweasel with these drives directly - but kind of a pain to do. JRJ From cclist at sydex.com Sat Aug 28 17:14:25 2021 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 15:14:25 -0700 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <6e3b7122-dff6-0963-284d-19d990de9a20@charter.net> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> <0982e647-ef0f-28ce-87a2-0a3a063127c0@sydex.com> <6e3b7122-dff6-0963-284d-19d990de9a20@charter.net> Message-ID: <54e59e1b-6413-73db-9dcc-cbb6f5169fc3@sydex.com> On 8/28/21 3:01 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > > Back in 2005 I imaged both my Mod I and Mod II floppies using my Altair > and a program I wrote way way wayyyyyy back when for transferring floppy > images called "XMT".? But I like to image floppies two different ways, > and the Greaseweazle cannot (yet) deal with hard sectoring. It can't---that's a surprise to me. I used a MK III by the way--the image is from 2007. Nowadays, I use an STM32F4 microcontroller. MOre than capable enough for anything I can throw at it. --Chuck From bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com Sat Aug 28 17:19:49 2021 From: bill.gunshannon at hotmail.com (Bill Gunshannon) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 18:19:49 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 8/28/21 4:13 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/2021 1:15 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/28/21 1:03 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >>> Yes, I did create a new kernel and copy it to the correct place and >>> chmod 644 the new unix file. >> >> Did yo have fun playing with the overlays?? :-) > > I don't know what this means.? The kernel creation was automatic, it > seemed to check for enough room. I guess you did the bare minimum to get the network up. When I buld a new kernel I tend to add all the devices (like multiple network cards and serial cards) that I may want in the future. I have often had to manually shift things around and usually create one or two additional overlays to get it all to fit. I actually enjoy doing it. :-) > >> >>> On my Debian system I can install ftpd and telnetd (they are still in >>> the Debian package list) which are the unsecure ones, but I don't >>> know how to configure them or start them.? As in, # systemctl restart >>> ftpd >> >> Probably easier to turn them on on Ultrix-11.? Just modify inetd.conf. >> Actually, I just looked and ftp is on by default. Telnet is not. > I edited inetd.conf to uncomment telnet.? It helped. >> >>> >>> It turns out to not be a hot topic: "How do I make my Liinux system >>> less secure?",? but for us that noodle around with old computers with >>> obsolete operating systems it is exactly what we need.? In the past I >>> remember using Filezilla to go from a Windows7 machine into a Vax >>> without any problem. >> >> I suspect you will be somewhat disappointed with networking in >> Ultrix-11.? Not that there is something wrong with it, just that >> the hardware is nothing like you are used to.? In the early days >> of networking it was not unusual for systems like the PDP-11 to >> crash just because of the traffic passing by on their network >> connection.? The advent of switches helped alleviate that but it >> is still common to crash a system by pushing data at it from a >> modern ftp.? I expect FileZila will do it.? To be honest, I always >> preferred Kermit for moving files.? It is possible to keep packet >> sizes down and even slow down the transfer rate to give the PDP >> time to handle it. >> >> bill >> >> >> > I brought up a Vax Alpha 3000-300 and tried interacting with the > Ultrix-11 simulation: > > Starting in Ultrix-11 I could log into the vax via telnet. Ultrix-11 ftp > was able to transfer a short ascii file from the Vax to the Ultrix-11 sim. Just another note. remember that ulimit is only 1024 on Ultrix-11 by default. That means no file larger than 10M. Unless you raise ulimit. > > Going the other way, Ultrix-11 would reject an ftp request from the vax, > here is the error message - > > $ ftp 192.169.0.52 > %TCPIP-E-FTP_NETERR, I/O error on network device > -SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable > $ Been a long time. Could have to do with PTYs. Remember, FTP takes two open connection and the number of possible connection on Ultrix-11 is very limited. > > Ultrix-11 would allow a telnet connection (after the change to > inetd.conf) and I could do an ls, but when I asked for a man page it > hung up.? Nothing after that, had to kill it. I told you it was very unstable. :-) > > I got the same result whether I was telneting in from the Vax or Linux > computer.? Probably not news to you.? I wonder if real hardware works > just like this.... Sometimes, but I always found SIMH less reliable with my limited use of it. I always preferred real hardware. > > It was good to find out that you can get things in/out of the Ultrix-11 > simulation. Like I said, I usually find Kermit over emulated serial lines to be more efficient at moving stuff on and off. The network may be faster but failures after 4 hours of a transfer can be very frustrating. Better to let kkermit have it over night and then get a fresh start in the morning. bill From cube1 at charter.net Sat Aug 28 21:04:24 2021 From: cube1 at charter.net (Jay Jaeger) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 21:04:24 -0500 Subject: CWVG In-Reply-To: <54e59e1b-6413-73db-9dcc-cbb6f5169fc3@sydex.com> References: <20210825154950.A37A02D76B7@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <892f21ea-40d0-f81c-c339-836fbf5e4b00@charter.net> <06f37ef8-5c77-b46a-af0c-cbe9df4d7c2d@charter.net> <24cfe951-62b0-c861-5f22-10d06bf57096@charter.net> <1aed0e42-9622-a9f4-2df1-78fd286e95ce@bitsavers.org> <0982e647-ef0f-28ce-87a2-0a3a063127c0@sydex.com> <6e3b7122-dff6-0963-284d-19d990de9a20@charter.net> <54e59e1b-6413-73db-9dcc-cbb6f5169fc3@sydex.com> Message-ID: On 8/28/2021 5:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 8/28/21 3:01 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: >> >> Back in 2005 I imaged both my Mod I and Mod II floppies using my Altair >> and a program I wrote way way wayyyyyy back when for transferring floppy >> images called "XMT".? But I like to image floppies two different ways, >> and the Greaseweazle cannot (yet) deal with hard sectoring. > > It can't---that's a surprise to me. I used a MK III by the way--the > image is from 2007. > That is correct. It can't. I expect it is just a matter of software and firmware. You can get a .scp file out of it by telling it to read, oh, 60 revolutions, but the .scp file is pretty useless. JRJ From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Aug 28 21:10:31 2021 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 20:10:31 -0600 Subject: Speaking of emulators... I have a userland Venix/86 executive... Message-ID: I've written a Venix/86 userland emulator. It uses FreeBSD's vm86 to run binaries natively and intercepts traps for things like system calls. I finally have it to the point where it can run the compiler via cc (which forks and execs c0, copt, cpp, as, ld, etc). My plans to try to recreate the sources for the binaries for Venix/86 from V7 and other extant sources have taken a step forward. Don't know if I'll ever get there, but at least I don't need a working Rainbow and can run the compiler at ~4GHz rather than ~4MHz.... http://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-new-path-vm86-based-venix-emulator.html has my latest blog entry on it. The code lives in tools/vm86venix in my https://github.com/bsdimp/venix repo for those that want to take a look. It uses vm86 mode of 32-bit intel processors and traps all INT xx and other privileged instructions and provides appropriate emulation... And the compiled binary is smaller than the venix kernel (but it does less). Warner From cz at alembic.crystel.com Sat Aug 28 21:24:43 2021 From: cz at alembic.crystel.com (Chris Zach) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 22:24:43 -0400 Subject: Anyone need a Kaypro 4? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3c1f7e8f-87b0-d6b5-c448-27cd6a768077@alembic.crystel.com> I have a pair of them now and CP/M is not my cup of tea. Anyone want to trade them for something Q-Bus or Unibussy? Or beer? Located in MD. C From spectre at floodgap.com Sat Aug 28 21:28:22 2021 From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser) Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2021 19:28:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Speaking of emulators... I have a userland Venix/86 executive... In-Reply-To: from Warner Losh via cctalk at "Aug 28, 21 08:10:31 pm" Message-ID: <202108290228.17T2SMd714287030@floodgap.com> > I've written a Venix/86 userland emulator. It uses FreeBSD's vm86 to run > binaries natively and intercepts traps for things like system calls. I > finally have it to the point where it can run the compiler via cc (which > forks and execs c0, copt, cpp, as, ld, etc). My plans to try to recreate > the sources for the binaries for Venix/86 from V7 and other extant sources > have taken a step forward. Don't know if I'll ever get there, but at least > I don't need a working Rainbow and can run the compiler at ~4GHz rather > than ~4MHz.... > http://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-new-path-vm86-based-venix-emulator.html I wonder if an approach like this could work for Venix/PRO. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Flat text is just *never* what you want. -- stephen p spackman ------------- From dj.taylor4 at comcast.net Sun Aug 29 12:41:28 2021 From: dj.taylor4 at comcast.net (Douglas Taylor) Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2021 13:41:28 -0400 Subject: Ultrix-11 Networking In-Reply-To: References: <1c02120c-abcd-2f39-b146-5839b242d1f1@comcast.net> <109c93cd-2d75-ed34-9620-da279f909e28@comcast.net> Message-ID: <6a534589-60d7-8aa7-1d97-9b2b10b4737e@comcast.net> On 8/28/2021 6:19 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctech wrote: > On 8/28/21 4:13 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >> On 8/28/2021 1:15 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: >>> On 8/28/21 1:03 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: >>>> Yes, I did create a new kernel and copy it to the correct place and >>>> chmod 644 the new unix file. >>> >>> Did yo have fun playing with the overlays?? :-) >> >> I don't know what this means.? The kernel creation was automatic, it >> seemed to check for enough room. > > I guess you did the bare minimum to get the network up.? When I buld > a new kernel I tend to add all the devices (like multiple network cards > and serial cards) that I may want in the future.? I have often had to > manually shift things around and usually create one or two additional > overlays to get it all to fit.? I actually enjoy doing it.? :-) I had only toyed with the idea of adding a dzv11 so real terminals could be connected to a real pdp11 Ultrix-11 system.? I guess I'll find out once I get there. > >> >>> >>>> On my Debian system I can install ftpd and telnetd (they are still >>>> in the Debian package list) which are the unsecure ones, but I >>>> don't know how to configure them or start them.? As in, # systemctl >>>> restart ftpd >>> >>> Probably easier to turn them on on Ultrix-11.? Just modify inetd.conf. >>> Actually, I just looked and ftp is on by default. Telnet is not. >> I edited inetd.conf to uncomment telnet.? It helped. >>> >>>> >>>> It turns out to not be a hot topic: "How do I make my Liinux system >>>> less secure?",? but for us that noodle around with old computers >>>> with obsolete operating systems it is exactly what we need.? In the >>>> past I remember using Filezilla to go from a Windows7 machine into >>>> a Vax without any problem. >>> >>> I suspect you will be somewhat disappointed with networking in >>> Ultrix-11.? Not that there is something wrong with it, just that >>> the hardware is nothing like you are used to.? In the early days >>> of networking it was not unusual for systems like the PDP-11 to >>> crash just because of the traffic passing by on their network >>> connection.? The advent of switches helped alleviate that but it >>> is still common to crash a system by pushing data at it from a >>> modern ftp.? I expect FileZila will do it.? To be honest, I always >>> preferred Kermit for moving files.? It is possible to keep packet >>> sizes down and even slow down the transfer rate to give the PDP >>> time to handle it. >>> >>> bill >>> >>> >>> >> I brought up a Vax Alpha 3000-300 and tried interacting with the >> Ultrix-11 simulation: >> >> Starting in Ultrix-11 I could log into the vax via telnet. Ultrix-11 >> ftp was able to transfer a short ascii file from the Vax to the >> Ultrix-11 sim. > > Just another note. remember that ulimit is only 1024 on Ultrix-11 by > default.? That means no file larger than 10M.? Unless you raise ulimit. > > >> >> Going the other way, Ultrix-11 would reject an ftp request from the >> vax, here is the error message - >> >> $ ftp 192.169.0.52 >> %TCPIP-E-FTP_NETERR, I/O error on network device >> -SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable >> $ > > Been a long time.? Could have to do with PTYs.? Remember, FTP takes two > open connection and the number of possible connection on Ultrix-11 is > very limited. I think I noticed that I only had 2 PTY's during the install/kernel process.? Glad you mentioned this, it had gone over my head. Ignore the VAX error, the error was mine.? I typed the ip wrong, should have been 192.168.0.52, not 192.169.0.52.? Blame it on bad eyes, old age, small font, clumsy fingers. > >> >> Ultrix-11 would allow a telnet connection (after the change to >> inetd.conf) and I could do an ls, but when I asked for a man page it >> hung up.? Nothing after that, had to kill it. > > I told you it was very unstable.? :-) > >> >> I got the same result whether I was telneting in from the Vax or >> Linux computer.? Probably not news to you.? I wonder if real hardware >> works just like this.... > > Sometimes, but I always found SIMH less reliable with my limited use > of it.? I always preferred real hardware. > >> >> It was good to find out that you can get things in/out of the >> Ultrix-11 simulation. > > Like I said, I usually find Kermit over emulated serial lines to be more > efficient at moving stuff on and off.? The network may be faster but > failures after 4 hours of a transfer can be very frustrating. Better > to let kkermit have it over night and then get a fresh start in the > morning. > > bill > From cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de Mon Aug 30 01:43:24 2021 From: cc at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Christian Corti) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2021 08:43:24 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Scanning Suggestions (Bookmarks & Colour) In-Reply-To: References: <8b43914a-66b0-84e3-0909-b283ec504a0c@sydex.com> <85a7910efe39e607fd0a0eb0e43e9dee64e94726.camel@sbcglobal.net> <56dddabf-2463-daa7-3fdb-f8c7be1e3ba0@ntlworld.com> <55F90B76-3FCB-4109-B93C-67A1CFF56016@comcast.net> <67acf92c-cea4-346f-cc64-e0de2369e688@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <125eb2fe-9b1-996d-bd6e-7db746cc33b@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de> On Fri, 27 Aug 2021, Al Kossow wrote: > I didn't see an obvious example of ocrmypdf doing OCR in parallel on a > single document It does that by default. At least, it always uses all cores when I process a document with ocrmypdf. Christian From jules.richardson99 at gmail.com Mon Aug 30 17:36:06 2021 From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2021 17:36:06 -0500 Subject: unknown rack PSU ("PPI 1247-000-91 ADDS") Message-ID: I found a vintage rackable linear PSU at a sale over the weekend, appears to be late '70s vintage going by date codes on some of the high-power components inside. Front panel is plain black with just a power switch and telltale lamp. Back has a ratings sticker which says "PPI 1247-000-91 ADDS". Outputs are +24V at 3A, +12V at 2A, +5V at 30A, -12V at 4A. Ring a bell with anyone? I'm familiar with ADDS in a terminal context, of course, but this lump is obviously for something larger - perhaps a "washing machine size" fixed/removable drive unit or similar, but I'm surprised there's not obvious branding on it if so. cheers Jules From plamenspam at afterpeople.com Tue Aug 31 13:58:20 2021 From: plamenspam at afterpeople.com (Plamen Mihaylov) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 21:58:20 +0300 Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series Message-ID: Hello, Does anyone have HP 9000/200 series running HP-UX instead of HP Basic ? The 5.1 image from hpmuseum.net can be booted only on 300 series with 68010. Best regards, Plamen From turing at shaw.ca Tue Aug 31 14:19:57 2021 From: turing at shaw.ca (Norman Jaffe) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 13:19:57 -0600 (MDT) Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <758086187.504439716.1630437597095.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Hi: According to this ( [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX ] ) only version 2.0 will run on MC68000 systems - you need (at least) a MC68010 to run versions newer than that. From: "cctalk" To: "cctalk" Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 11:58:20 AM Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series Hello, Does anyone have HP 9000/200 series running HP-UX instead of HP Basic ? The 5.1 image from hpmuseum.net can be booted only on 300 series with 68010. Best regards, Plamen From plamenspam at afterpeople.com Tue Aug 31 14:34:41 2021 From: plamenspam at afterpeople.com (Plamen Mihaylov) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 22:34:41 +0300 Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series In-Reply-To: <758086187.504439716.1630437597095.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> References: <758086187.504439716.1630437597095.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Message-ID: Hi, I forgot to mention that I have 9000/217 which has 68010 On Tuesday, August 31, 2021, Norman Jaffe via cctalk wrote: > Hi: > According to this ( [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX | > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX ] ) only version 2.0 will run on > MC68000 systems - you need (at least) a MC68010 to run versions newer than > that. > > From: "cctalk" > To: "cctalk" > Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 11:58:20 AM > Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series > > Hello, > > Does anyone have HP 9000/200 series running HP-UX instead of HP Basic ? > The 5.1 image from hpmuseum.net can be booted only on 300 series with > 68010. > > Best regards, > Plamen > From phb.hfx at gmail.com Tue Aug 31 22:09:46 2021 From: phb.hfx at gmail.com (Paul Berger) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2021 00:09:46 -0300 Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series In-Reply-To: References: <758086187.504439716.1630437597095.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> Message-ID: <58bb4580-1e4f-2965-6048-eab6a1fb435a@gmail.com> I have a couple of those CPU cards too, and they should fit a a 9826 or 9836 as well, but looking at the pictures of that CPU card as posted on hpmuseum.net the part number of the processor on the card is a 12MHz 68000.? Since all the enhancements between 68000 and 68010 are internal and they have identical pinouts, it would seem at some point HP started putting 68010 processors on them. The ones I have with 68010 processors came out of a 4972A which is a network trace tool that is built around hardware similar to a 9920.? This processor card does have some memory management hardware on it, but it seems odd that they would build a processor with memory management and use a processor that cannot recover from a page fault, however is they have a 68010 installed it can handle page faults.? I don't know if this processor card can support 5.1 I don't think I tried it when I first stumbled onto the diskette images, I believe I only ever tried it on a 310 and found that it was hopelessly slow, so I moved onto a 380 with maxed out memory and a later version of HP-UX.? On the hpmuseum.net site they tried it on a 9817 and it did not work, which may suggest it will also be an issue for these processor cards with a 68010 on them. Paul. On 2021-08-31 4:34 p.m., Plamen Mihaylov via cctalk wrote: > Hi, > > I forgot to mention that I have 9000/217 which has 68010 > > On Tuesday, August 31, 2021, Norman Jaffe via cctalk > wrote: > >> Hi: >> According to this ( [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX | >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-UX ] ) only version 2.0 will run on >> MC68000 systems - you need (at least) a MC68010 to run versions newer than >> that. >> >> From: "cctalk" >> To: "cctalk" >> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2021 11:58:20 AM >> Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series >> >> Hello, >> >> Does anyone have HP 9000/200 series running HP-UX instead of HP Basic ? >> The 5.1 image from hpmuseum.net can be booted only on 300 series with >> 68010. >> >> Best regards, >> Plamen >> From derschjo at gmail.com Tue Aug 31 22:15:18 2021 From: derschjo at gmail.com (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2021 20:15:18 -0700 Subject: HP-UX on 9000/200 series In-Reply-To: <58bb4580-1e4f-2965-6048-eab6a1fb435a@gmail.com> References: <758086187.504439716.1630437597095.JavaMail.zimbra@shaw.ca> <58bb4580-1e4f-2965-6048-eab6a1fb435a@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 8:09 PM Paul Berger via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: > I have a couple of those CPU cards too, and they should fit a a 9826 or > 9836 as well, but looking at the pictures of that CPU card as posted on > hpmuseum.net the part number of the processor on the card is a 12MHz > 68000. Since all the enhancements between 68000 and 68010 are internal > and they have identical pinouts, it would seem at some point HP started > putting 68010 processors on them. The ones I have with 68010 processors > came out of a 4972A which is a network trace tool that is built around > hardware similar to a 9920. This processor card does have some memory > management hardware on it, but it seems odd that they would build a > processor with memory management and use a processor that cannot recover > from a page fault, however is they have a 68010 installed it can handle > page faults. I don't know if this processor card can support 5.1 I > don't think I tried it when I first stumbled onto the diskette images, I > believe I only ever tried it on a 310 and found that it was hopelessly > slow, so I moved onto a 380 with maxed out memory and a later version of > HP-UX. On the hpmuseum.net site they tried it on a 9817 and it did not > work, which may suggest it will also be an issue for these processor > cards with a 68010 on them. > I had a brief saga with this same issue a few years back, with my 9836CU. There was some discussion on the list: http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2017-November/035725.html Long story short: I tried a 68010 (and 68012) in the socket and while the system was functional, it didn't magically give it the ability to boot HP-UX 5.1, at least in my experience. If you give it a try I'd love to know the results. I don't know if there was a later revision CPU board that supported 5.1, or if only HP-UX 2.1 was officially supported, or what. The available information is very thin. - Josh