July 2025 - cctalk - classiccmp.org

Comstar System 4 Intel 4004 based Industrial Computer Documentation

by Christian Liendo

I was able to obtain a number of documents that pertain to the Comstar System 4. I spoke about this computer in the past but I have scanned some documentation that should help explain this unique computer People who have been interested in the Intel 4004 might find this interesting The Comstar System 4 Reference Manual is rather detailed on the computer itself and it's applications This is the Complete Comstar System 4 Reference Manual https://archive.org/details/comstar-system-4-reference-manual_202507 Warner & Swasey Reference Manual https://archive.org/details/warner-swasey-comstar-star-system-reference Comstar System 4 Programming Manual https://archive.org/details/comstar-system-4-programming-manual Comstar System 4 Tester Manual https://archive.org/details/wscomstar-system-4-test-manual Comstar System 4 CPU Module Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-system-4-cpumodule Comstar System 4 Serial Communications Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-system-4-serial-communications Comstar Star System 4 RAM Module Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-star-system-4-rammodversion Comstar Star System 4 HTL I/O DATA Module Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-star-system-4-iodatamodule Comstar Star System 4 PROM Module Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-star-system-4-prommodule Comstar Star System 4 PROM 1k 2k Module Schematic https://archive.org/details/comstar-star-system-4-prom-1k-2k-module Warner & Swasey Comstar System 4 Process Control Language https://archive.org/details/wscomstar-system-4-pclref-manual Warner & Swasey Computer Division Comstar System 4 Machine Language / Assembly Language Reference Manual https://archive.org/details/wscomstar-system-4-assembly-language Comstar System 4 Program Analyzer Reference Manual https://archive.org/details/comstar-system-4-reference-manual Computer History Museum's Archive of the Manual https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102686568 Comstar Computer Systems Process Control Language Data Sheet https://archive.org/details/comstar-star-pclcompiler-data-sheet

6 days, 11 hours

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Video: Introduction to Chiptunes by Inversephase @ VCF East2025

by Jeffrey Brace

Introduction to Chiptunes by @inversephase video released today (7/14/2025): https://youtu.be/i0v712l2RWE Enjoy! Jeff Brace

1 week

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Interact One Message Center

by Steve Lewis

Hey all, I'm trying to track down a manual or instructions for the Message Center program on the Interact One (from 1978). I've run this in the MAME emulator, and it seems the program has a "partial" BASIC-like interpreter. You can do line numbers, like 10 HELLO 20 WORLD Then issue the command SCROLL, and it will start scrolling text in the numeric sequence they were specified. Then you can also do commands like FLASH, BUZZ, BEEP in its equivalent of "immediate mode" -but I don't know yet how to specify these commands in the numeric program. And in the emulator, I can't yet parse the commands PLOT, SOUND, SIZE - these "message center" program specific commands,not BASIC (BASIC on this system is loaded from tape). Anyway, a manual on a program for the Interact One called "Message Center" is what I'm trying to track down. Thanks, Steve

1 week, 2 days

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IBM System/23 Datamaster 5324 Towers and IBM 5247 HDD Tower Available

by Ali

Hello All, A long time ago I acquired a System/23 desktop unit and eventually a number of the tower units including the HDD tower unit. The plan was to setup a System/23 Muli-User system with multiple terminals connected together. Well, like many great plans real life got in the way and the units have been sitting in storage for a few years. I have accepted that this is one of the projects I will never get to and it is time to pass them on to someone else who can enjoy them. The systems are in SoCal (Upland, CA to be more exact). More info can be found at the following links: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/ibm-system-23-datamaster-5324-towe r-model-of-the-5322-with-original-clicky-keyboard.1253651/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/ibm-system-23-datamaster-5324-towe r-model-of-the-5322-with-one-floppy-drive.1253652/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/ibm-system-23-datamaster-5322-or-5 324-hdd-tower-model-5247.1253653/ I hate to part/scrap them as the towers rarely show up so I am hoping someone local would be interested in them. Feel free to email me directly or reach out through VCF. Thanks -Ali

1 week, 3 days

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Vax boxes, parts

by Paul Anderson

I did some digging and found one 3000-400 with no lid( It could be here somewhere) and I'll have to move it to look it over to see what's there. I had 6 or so 3000s and I guess I sold them, but more digging to do. MV3100 M76 MV3100s I can't get to the model number 4000-60 5000-25 5000-125 5000-133 5000-200 I had to pull some boards and made a small list. M7621 M7622 M7624 M7625 M7626 54-21149 KN15 If you need a board I have not listed, please email me off list. If I haven't replied, bug me. I did not list qtys- some items are more than one. Thanks, Paul

1 week, 3 days

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Q-bus, PDP8, VAX items

by Paul Anderson

As many of you know I have been trying to finish organizing my Unibus parts and finish building several systems for years. Other than time and my health I don't have enough space. I would like to sell, at reasonable prices, all of my q-bus parts which include 400 - 500 boards, about a dozen boxes, and a lot of spare parts. I have BA11-M, BA11-N, BA11-S and a few BA23 boxes left. If you have an original 11/03, I have a dozen or so H780 power supplies, which are very hard to find. They are also used in the Vax 11/780 front end, the RKV11-D and possibly a few other items. I can test them if I have time, but that might take awhile. I'm also taking offers on some of my 8-E and all of my 8-A items. I will entertain offers on the VT14 and all of the PDP 14 industrial controller parts. I have a few Vax 3000, 5000, and a few others along with parts including memory. Those of you who have been here know I have a ton of DEC and DEC-compatible parts, but no one has seen everything. I have brand new disk heads, tape drive heads, alignment packs, and literally tons more. I went through over 50 backplanes a few weeks ago looking for a few specific ones. Some Unibus items are also going. Probable some 11/05s, 11/34s, 11/83 and/or 84s and a lot of options and boards. So if you need or are thinking about DEC items, feel free to send me a wish list off list. I prefer phone calls and will send my number upon request. I was never great at typing and I'm getting worse. Oh- I also trade for US and foreign coins and currency. Thank, Paul

1 week, 3 days

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More equipment available in Upland, CA

by Ali

I also have the following available for whoever is interested: Sony StorStation AIT Library LIB-162 https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/sony-storstation-ait-library-lib-1 62.1253656/ HP SureStore SC10 https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/hp-surestore-sc10.1253657/ HP Impact Line Printer 2563C (this is one nice printer and if I had the room I would keep it but alas....) https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/hp-impact-line-printer-2563c.12536 54/ -Ali

1 week, 3 days

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Lee Felsenstein at VCF West August 1 at 4:30PM

by Jeffrey Brace

Lee Felsenstein at VCF West Friday, August 1 at 4:30PM. He will talk about the 50th Anniversary of The Homebrew Computer Club. Get tickets here: https://connect.computerhistory.org/.../1ffceb98-f556... <https://connect.computerhistory.org/events/1ffceb98-f556-df49-f011-42475680…> Info here: https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/ <https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZ…> Jeff Brace

1 week, 4 days

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Re: Burroughs backplane story, was Re: Another 780 backplane story

by Freek Heite

Ah, thank you Paul, for sharing this story. Postings like this make cctalk worth every penny, IMO! Regards, Freek. -----Original Message----- Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:30:36 -0000 From: paul.kimpel(a)digm.com Subject: [cctalk] Burroughs backplane story, was Re: Another 780 backplane story To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Message-ID: <175201023609.1228.2550589532797629102(a)classiccmp.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" In early 1971, I started working as an on-site software tech on a rather large (for the time), dual-processor Burroughs B6500. It was early days for that system, and we had a lot of problems with it in the field. We got those ironed out pretty well and eventually got the system up to an acceptable level of operation. <<< snip>>> We finally deduced that the problem had been present since the system left the factory floor. The original I/O software had been so poor that the system was seldom (if ever) able to initiate more than one I/O to disk at a time, but the new version we had recently installed was really good at initiating multiple I/Os. Mux 1 had a lower selection priority than Mux 0, so under the old software it was seldom selected, and perhaps never so for tag transfer I/Os, which are relatively rare. The new software allowed the system to get busy enough that Mux 1 started to be used a lot more often, and eventually it got busy enough that a paging I/O for that master PCW array got scheduled to Mux 1, and the system just didn't survive for very long after that.

1 week, 5 days

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Burroughs backplane story, was Re: Another 780 backplane story

by paul.kimpel＠digm.com

In early 1971, I started working as an on-site software tech on a rather large (for the time), dual-processor Burroughs B6500. It was early days for that system, and we had a lot of problems with it in the field. We got those ironed out pretty well and eventually got the system up to an acceptable level of operation. About a year later, a major upgrade to the MCP (the OS) was released. A major component of that release was a completely rewritten I/O subsystem with much higher reliability and much, much better performance, especially in "Logical I/O," the interface between user programs and the memory buffers and physical I/O mechanism. Soon after installing this release, we started to get fatal system crashes in Logical I/O. Describing what was happening requires a little background on the system architecture. The B6500, like its predecessor the B5500, is known as an ALGOL-oriented stack machine, but it is less well-known as a type of capability system. To support that, it used a segmented memory model and tagged memory. Each word had an extra three bits, not accessible to user programs, that identified the type of data in a word. For example, tag 0 was ordinary data, tag 2 indicated a double-precision word, tag 5 was a data descriptor through which data segments were addressed, and tag 7 was a Program Control Word (PCW) that effectively addressed a location in an object-code segment. It was used primarily as a procedure (subroutine) entry-point address. In reading the dumps from the crashes and the MCP source code, we started to learn how the new Logical I/O mechanism worked. It cleverly used the stack addressing of the system to implement a very object-oriented interface. The "methods" of this interface were small procedures that were customized to handle very specific cases of record handling -- random vs. sequential I/O, blocked vs. unblocked I/O, translation or no translation, etc. There were scores of these methods. The idea was do a little as possible for each user request and to avoid making as many decisions as possible and to optimize the buffer handling in each case. There were about a half-dozen different types of user requests, and the methods for those were accessed through a branch table in the FIB (control block) for each open file. That branch table contained PCWs for the appropriate methods needed by that file. The table was set up during file open, but could be changed as the nature of the user program's requests changed, e.g., from sequential to random access. We discovered that the crash was caused by some PCWs in the file-level branch tables having tags of 5 instead of tags of 7. Attempting to call a procedure using a tag-5 word was a no-no that was trapped by the hardware, hence the fatal dump. Then we discovered that the branch tables were loaded from a master array of PCWs for all of the possible methods, and when we looked at that array in the dump, ALL of the PCWs in the array had tags of 5! We know that array initially had to have had words with tags of 7, because the system had run for quite a while before crashing, so how could all of the words in the array suddenly have changed to tags of 5? There wasn't any straightforward way to do that in software. That master array was loaded from from the OS image on disk at the initial boot, but then we found out the array was overlayable -- it could be paged out and back in by the virtual memory mechanism. So we began to suspect there was an issue with I/O. Normally, a disk read stored words in memory with a constant tag of 0, but there was a special I/O mode, termed "tag transfer," that would read and write the tag bits along with the regular data bits. Fortunately, the other tech on the site had worked in the MCP group for a while and knew the I/O hardware pretty well, so he started writing some standalone programs to exercise the hardware in specific ways. This system had two I/O Multiplexors (multi-channel DMA units) numbered 0 and 1, and the disk drives were dual-ported so that either Mux could address any of them. My colleague's programs tried doing I/Os with various combinations of Mux and channel assignments. And as you might expect by now, he discovered that doing a tag transfer read through Mux 1 always dropped the middle tag bit. We turned that finding over to the on-site Field Engineers, who pulled out their schematics and started tracing signals. It took several hours, but eventually they discovered not a loose wire, but that Mux 1 was completely missing a wire. Of course, it was the wire that carried the middle bit of the tag during tag transfer. We finally deduced that the problem had been present since the system left the factory floor. The original I/O software had been so poor that the system was seldom (if ever) able to initiate more than one I/O to disk at a time, but the new version we had recently installed was really good at initiating multiple I/Os. Mux 1 had a lower selection priority than Mux 0, so under the old software it was seldom selected, and perhaps never so for tag transfer I/Os, which are relatively rare. The new software allowed the system to get busy enough that Mux 1 started to be used a lot more often, and eventually it got busy enough that a paging I/O for that master PCW array got scheduled to Mux 1, and the system just didn't survive for very long after that.

1 week, 6 days

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