Anybody got manuals or hints for the S-BUG and DELABS monitor ROMs?
I scored a SwTPC 69/A today that has both of these, but I only
sorta remember S-BUG from way-back-when, and have never even heard
of DELABS.
To jiggle your memories, here are some of the S-BUG commands that
I remember/figured-out today:
^A - set accumulator A
^B - " " B
etc. for other registers
G - go to address in PC
R - show registers
S - show stack
D - boot from disk (?)
E - examine memory
P - punch (motorola S19 format memory dump)
As for the DELABS ROM, it seems to be involved with the EPROM burner.
I suspect it can read & write EPROMs, and maybe up/download binaries
over one of the serial ports. But I've only figured out a few of its
commands:
D - memory hex dump
F - fill memory
I suppose I'll end up disassembling them both eventually, but hints
could make the job much easier, and maybe unnecessary.
Thanks!
Bill.
] You guys know that I agree with your sentiment 100%. That said, I'd
] rather see the systems melted down for scrap (assuming it's a reasonably
] efficient and environmentally safe process) than to see them go into a
] landfill. I can't imagine how many beautiful systems are rusting away
] under 3 million tons of garbage someplace. I don't want to see them
] scrapped either, mind you, but given the choice....
Imagine this, fifty years from now, a web of nanotech bots climbing
through and mapping a landfill, finding antique treasures, maybe getting
enough chemical data to reconstruct the things before decay set in...
I'd vote for the landfill over the slag heap any day. Of course, my
basement, when I get one, will be the best option.
] Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
Bill.
Until it fills up.
At 10:42 AM 1/3/98 -0800, you wrote:
>I have an Integral, but it's ROM just has the HP-UX kernel and PAM --
>just enough to boot and run things. So I have /usr/bin (Unix
>utilities, C compiler, &c) on a 9134 for when I actually want to do
>something with it.
Are you saying that there is no internal hard drive int the IPC? Wierd.
Okay, so since I'd love to have one, let me ask this in advance: Has anyone
come up with an HP-IB (IEEE-488?) to SCSI or IDE adapter? It would be great
to tack a little 3.5" (or even 2.5") hard drive on the side. Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Hi, I just picked up an Altair 8800a. It has a North Star disk drive
controller in it. I think it uses a Shugart Sa400 drive. Does anyone know
if it uses a hard sectored or soft sectored disk? Where can I find a SA
400? I know they were very common in the old computers. I have access to a
lot of old computers (old Tandys, Commodores and other stranger things.)
Can anyone tell me which ones migh t have a SA 400 drive? Yes, Yes, I know
you're all going to be PO'd that I would use one of those old machines for
parts, but I've offered them to people over and over and no one is
interested unless I PAY them to take them.
Joe
Qedit
> is an incredible editor while MPEX extends the capabilities of the OS.
Yeah, but they want something like $90 for it! I found another, that's free
(even has spell check). Will send to anyone on request.
manney(a)nwohio.com
John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> wrote:
> They run blindingly fast,
>making them utterly worthless unless you use one of those slowdown utils,
>but most of those only run right on 486s.
Again, there must be a market for better emulation / slowdown software.
There should be a way to put the Pentium in an 8008 compatibility mode. :-)
>>Three, that ancient games don't "hurt" today's software market. Doing what?
>
>Doing what? Being available for "free" (illegally) out there for people to
>get to them. The fact that people are still playing them doesn't affect
>today's game market at all.
Yes, the sales of old software might be a very small fraction of mainstream
games, so small as to have no effect - but I don't like to play fast-and-loose
with self-created and self-serving notions of "it's not hurting anyone" when
it comes to intellectual property issues.
>But repackaging the games and shipping them would up the price to at least
>$10.00 a piece,
Maybe the net and micropayments will help. Or in this case, a web site
with do-it-yourself downloading of $10 bundles of 20 old games might
satify both the developers and the funding of the site. Shareware is
a *sure* way to gather no cash, especially with a dusty product like this.
Being afflicted with entrepreneur's disease, I've toyed with the
idea of this as a business: collecting up the distribution rights
for old software, bundling them on CD, adding emulators, and selling
for reasonable prices, etc. to recreate the old computer experience.
As they say, they're not making any more "retro." :-)
The hard parts would be finding the rightful owners, forging
acceptable contracts with each, and without giving them the impression
that millions are to be made. Or in some cases, if the companies
that owned the products are truly *gone*, to be willing to take
the risk they wouldn't sue you if you assumed you could distribute.
Apropo the other thread about today's tendency to throw out 486s...
as-is, they still run yesterday's games, word processors, educational
apps, etc. for schools, libraries, senior centers, day care centers, etc.
It's such a shame this stuff isn't being reused. A 486/33 with
8 megs and Linux makes a perfectly acceptable firewall.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
<Apropo the other thread about today's tendency to throw out 486s...
<as-is, they still run yesterday's games, word processors, educational
<apps, etc. for schools, libraries, senior centers, day care centers, etc
<It's such a shame this stuff isn't being reused. A 486/33 with
<8 megs and Linux makes a perfectly acceptable firewall.
Sheesh,
I consider my good system with bells and whistles hot and it's a lowly
486DX2/50 with 8meg and 516mb disk! The next ones down from there is a
386dx/33(128k cache) and a 486sx/25(no cache). Scary that I consider
what I have pretty adaquate (I run Gcadd, Netscape3+, and a few other
heavies).
Allison
<>landfills. Badly yellowed board and plastic, crumbling at a touch,
<>all traces gone, thin parts eaten away, thick layer rust covering
<>seized up drives, riddled with rustout holes in cases, blackened
<>glass. Hard and darkened as soapstone that once was solder joints.
<>Mass of green strings with bits of faded colored platic material
Actually there are people that have looked into landfills that are in the
100-200 years old range and they have found things in an amazing state of
preservation. Some cases there were newspapers in the middle of the stack
that were as fresh as printed in appearance. Yet in another layer old
papers were completely composted. I'd suspect that old technology would
be found the same way, some just oxidized piles and others completly
intact.
Allison
> Roger Ivie wrote:
> >
> > >It'll be nice when Caldera follows up on their promise to release the
> > >source code for CP/M and DR-DOS (now OpenDOS). _That_ will definitely
> > >have some results on-topic for this mailing list.
> http://cdl.uta.edu/cpm/
>
> My ISP's nameserver can't track that down. And I tried filling it in as
> "utah" as well, knowing the approximate geography of Caldera.
This is the unofficial CP/M site; it's not run by Caldera, but by someone
who was willing to argue with Caldera long enough to get permission to put
the stuff up. It's being hosted by a machine at University of Texas at
Arlington: UTA.
Here's what my machine gives me when i nslookup cdl.uta.edu:
Name: dave.uta.edu
Address: 129.107.2.554
Aliases: cdl.uta.edu
> I'd post
> that private, but now that I _know_ that the OpenDOS kernel source is at
> the caldera.com site (and is only marginally within our charter), the
> CP/M source location becomes crucial to maintaining my self-respect in
> this forum. Or something like that.
IIRC, the CP/M 2.2 sources are available _somewhere_ on the caldera site,
but they're password protected and you have to find the right form to submit
to get the password, etc.
The unofficial site includes source to CP/M 2.2, 3.0, and 68K...
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Out of curiosity has anyone else with web pages dealing with classic
computers been contacted by someone that wants to dispose of your
collection as scrap? Talk about insulting!
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
