I know this is off topic, but I think there are a number of hams here.
Looking to get back into it but have some questions.
Now that the a**holes have completely trashed all the USENET ham radio
groups where do hams go for the kinds of discussions that used to be there?
bill
Hi all,
maybe someone here is interested in the FOSBIC (FORTRAN Simulated BASIC Interpretive Compiler) system.
Background: This was developed, oder rather ported from UWBIC (University of Washington, Prog. W.H. Sharpe) in the mid 70s, by Prof Weber et al. at the German University of Gießen, for the purpose of teaching BASIC on their CDC3300 batch system.
It is written in FORTRAN IV, and knows most of Dartmouth BASIC, including MAT statements and basic sequential/ISAM file handling.
I have ported that, with the help to GNU gfortran, to modern Windows (mingw/cygwin) and Linux, so anyone may play with it. It is still a batch system, i.e. on has to provide the BASIC program as a file (formerly it had to be a card deck), and feed it into the program through stdin, as
in "./fosbic < hello.bas | ./asa"
The code with many examples is available at https://github.com/hveit01/FOSBIC, and has also found its way to bitsavers.org/pdf/uni-giessen.
--
Regards
Holger
Hi there - not sure how much overlap there is with vcfed's forum, but
thought I would reach out here in case. I have a terminal from 1974 (based
on date codes I've found on the motherboard). I'm unable to determine
manufacturer and that would be handy for diagnostic purposes. The terminal
casing is made out of foam, and although there are some serial numbers
stamped around, nothing really lines up. The fans inside have zero dust or
dirt, so I'm thinking this may not have seen much use, or may be a prototype
or pilot for something. It does have RS232 capability. Interestingly the
screen is set down below the keyboard so that only half of it is visible.
My main issue right now is the PSU - I am trying to determine if I'm safe to
attempt powering up the board (the PSU so far seems to be ok, although some
voltages on a couple of pins are mysterious).
Anyway, on the extremely off chance anyone has ever seen one of these or
something like it.. any tips would be appreciated. If I can find a manual
I'll feel a lot safer about turning it on.
Some pics here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-2uEFbi3OKBYr06y6yHnygDiLMtw2Qkj?usp
=sharing
Brad
brad(a)techtimetraveller.com
VCF SW was this past weekend near Dallas, Texas.
Here are some highlights from my perspective.
https://voidstar.blog/vcf-southwest-2023/
Most photos you can click to enlarge (Edge has bugs with WordPress, you may
need to scroll up/down a little bit to get the click thing working)
Cheers,
Steve
I doubt this will go thru either but other attempts to send to the list are
now getting rejected as SPAM. Doesn't the list check addresses to see if
the poster is a member?
bill
>Rob Jarratt <robert.jarratt(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
>Have you checked here: http://9track.net/roms/ ...
Hey, thank you! I didn't know about this particular collection, and he does have the ROM dumps for the VT180 Z80 board.
I'd still like to find a schematic, though!
Thanks again,
Bob
Does anybody have the maintenance prints for the DEC VT180? The VT180,
aka "Robin" was DEC's CP/M machine in a VT100 chassis. The terminal part is
just a standard VT100 and maintenance prints for that are easy to find, but
I need a schematic for the actual Z80 CP/M Robin option card. Can't seem to
find that anywhere. Bitsavers and Manx have the technical manual which has
some information (although it wastes way too many pages explaining how a
VT100 works!) but no actual schematics.
On the same topic, has anybody dumped the ROMs for this machine? Again,
not the VT100 ROMs, but the CP/M boot/POST ROMs that are on the VT180 Z80
card.
Thanks,
Bob
I assembled Dwight Elvey's KIM-1 debug board (thank you, Gary!) and have now
certified two of my KIMs with it, so I'm very confident the harness operates
properly.
Unfortunately, the one I *want* to repair, my original KIM-1, won't start up at
all after replacing the 2102 RAM I was pretty sure was bad. I checked my
soldering and found a couple spots without continuity that should according to
the schematic, but fixing those didn't fix it. I also buzzed out the socket and
found no obvious shorts, and a second 2102 equivalent from a second
manufacturer has the same symptoms.
I connected the debug harness and test 0, the initial "dead board" test, does
show CPU accesses on the red LED and slowly flashes the green LED, so the CPU
at least is alive and can access the test EPROM.
However, test 1, the RAM test, should show long flashes of the green LED if RAM
is bad. I was prepared to see all long flashes which might implicate the
buffers or address decoder, but instead it won't blink the LED at all in that
or any of the other tests. The red LED remains lit and appropriately
extinguishes when the RS button is down.
Again, the board works correctly and fully certifies the other two KIMs.
What would cause it to hang (?) in the RAM test on the defective one?
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- Roger Waters to moving crew: "Hey! Careful with those racks, Eugene!" ------
Hi everyone!
I'm having a horrible time trying to find ntpdate pre-compiled for
Irix 5.3 anywhere. Does anyone have a package/tardist?
--
-Jon
+44 7792 149029
I finally got an IBM 5120 earlier this month, to complement the 5100 and
5110 that I already have.
It had a few issues, but I did manage to get it to "boot" to BASIC.
I put together a few notes about it here. Nothing too exciting, but two
things I've learned: (1) the 5120 does actually still have the video
REVERSE feature. (2) the 5120 has both an external (red power switch) and
internal power switch (internal one is at rear below disk drives).
Notes here:
https://voidstar.blog/ibm-5120-aka-ibm-5110-3/
IBM 5120 (aka IBM 5110-3) — voidstar
<https://voidstar.blog/ibm-5120-aka-ibm-5110-3/>
My only question is: how "universal" are 8" disk? This 5120 only came with
a single IBM 8" Diagnostics disk. It looks to be in fine condition, but
I've no idea about the data.
So far I haven't been able to read it - it's probably more hardware/drive
issues, I'm still investigating. But I'm wondering if I had other 8"
disks (3M SS/SD), should I be able to format/MARK them?
I've used old tape decks and 5.25" drives - but 8" drives is all new
territory for me.
Also, I'll be talking about the 5100/5110 at VCF next Sunday on the 25th of
this month, June.
