test-drb July 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

154 participants
898 discussions

by cfandt＠servtech.com

Hi folks, Still busy rummaging through the truckload of PDPs and VAXen and peripherals and manuals, etc. I'm looking for any info sources to learn more about a VAX 11/730. FAQs are what I need. Web searches using Metacrawler and DejaNews yield rather meager results. Sites like the excellent PDP site: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/ are what I really would like to find. I know I have probably found a good home for the 11/750 but I am considering keeping the 730. First I need to do a heap of studying to check the completeness of the box and to more fully understand what peripherals and accessories I that should keep (which are already setting in the garage) or to search for. Could any of you folks help point me in the proper directions? Thanks for all your help and support so far. --Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/

26 years, 5 months

Looking for VAX FAQs

by mbg＠world.std.com

>On Wed, 8 Jul 1998, J. Buck Caldwell wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >[...] >> >> > It will also run Ultrix (BSD UNIX). I recommend an old version, say, >> >1.1. >> >> Um... Ultrix is NOT BSD Unix. You may only have been saying that >>they're similar, however.... > >It is almost completely 4.2 BSD with some exceptions. And those exceptions are the 4.3BSD code which was ported... :-) Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry(a)zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg(a)world.std.com | | Digital Equipment Corporation | | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

26 years, 5 months

Amiga Software.

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Workbench is the Amiga Graphical Operating System, the synonym of Windows on a PC or Finder on a Mac. Kickstart is a low-level piece of software, that could be on ROM or floppy. I'm sure you can guess what Amiga BasiC is. I don't know about TV/Text. Were there any books? BTW, don't put them on the web, the copyrights still hold. I mean, go ahead if you want to, but Amiga has not made the stuff PD and doesn't intend to (Workbench is still in development and 5.0 is coming up) > I ran across a box of 300 disks that were used on a classroom of Amigas >(for an art school.) there's alot of unlabeled stuff, but also cryptic >things like "TV/Text" etc. also, 4 disks that are as follows: > >Amiga Workbench v1.2 >Amiga Kickstart v1.1 >Amiga Extras / Amiga BasiC v1.2 >Amiga Kickstart v1.2 > >can someone give me an idea as to what these are? especially the TV/text >program. if anyone is interested, i could create disk images of these and >dump them someplace on the web. > >-Eric > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 5 months

VM/SP

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

This started as a joke, but turned into something interesting. Someone posted on alt.os.multics about setting a UNIX to pop up the VM/SP logo from /etc/issue. I did one better and crocked up a way to make UNIX actually act like VM/SP at the logon (Mutilated copy of telnetd and a new login program). The question is, what was VM/SP? I know it was IBMs, and it ran on large mainframes. Where can I find information about it? Oh, if you want to see the results of my screwing around (And my first hackery in C that ever worked!) telnet at ubani.umtec.com. -------

26 years, 5 months

PET 2001

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

Right. Lets hope my mail software (Lotus Cack-Mail) doesn't crash just as I get near the end of this reply, as it did last time. First, all concerned should glance at Larry A's PET faq, the address of which he posted a few messages ago. Pete Turnbull wrote: > On Jul 7, 6:29, Doug Spence wrote: >> On Mon, 6 Jul 1998, Olminkhof wrote: >> > 8" screen >> >> Or is it 9"? I can't check mine because they are both locked in my >> father's bedroom at this hour. > > 9". All the ones I've seen were 9". I agree with Pete, not that it makes much difference. >> Supposedly the 2001N and 2001B came with 12" screens, but I've never seen >> one. No. Never. 12 inch screen on 4032 (or possibly 4016) and above only. >> I'm looking at an old copy (don't have a recent one on file) of Jim >> Brain's "Canonical List of Commodore Products" and notice that one of my >> PETs doesn't match any model on the list. From this list: >> >> PET 2001-4K 4kB, Chiclet Keys, Built-In Cassette, Black Trim. >> PET 2001-8K 8kB, Chiclet Keys, Built-In Cassette, Blue Trim, 9" screen >> PET 2001-16K 16kB, Chiclet Keys, Built-In Cassette, Blue Trim, 9" screen >> PET 2001-32K 32kB, Chiclet Keys, Built-In Cassette, Blue Trim, 9" screen First PETS: 2001-4 and 2001-8 (also called 4k PET and 8k PET). Blue trim, blue-white phosphor, mangled and rebadged cassette (I can't remember whose) that you open by lifting the lid. Then: 2001-4 and 2001-8 get Black trim and C2N cassette deck Then: Green screen. Next was the ROM upgrade. Usual models were 2001-8N, 2001-16N, 2001-32N, 2001-8B, 2001-16B and 2001-32B. These had full-sized keyboards and external C2N decks. In the UK, 2001-8N with tiny keyboard and built in C2N was common. This was not a new motherboard in an old case - the case was a different shape (slightly less tall). Larry has suggested that these might be the 2001-8K, K standing for Calculator (-style keyboard) (sic). All of these had small screens. >> PET 2001B-8 8kB, Business Style, no Graphics on Keys, 12" screen >> PET 2001B-16 16kB, Business Style, no Graphics on Keys, 12" screen >> PET 2001B-32 32kB, Business Style, no Graphics on Keys, 12" screen >> PET 2001N-8 8kB, Home Computer, Graphics on Keys, 12" screen, Num. Keys >> PET 2001N-16 16kB, Home Computer, Graphics on Keys, 12" screen, Num. Keys >> PET 2001N-32 32kB, Home Computer, Graphics on Keys, BASIC 4.0, Num. Keys. >> PET 2001NT Teacher's PET. Same as 2001N, just rebadged I've never heard of 2001NT. AFAIK, N = Non business keyboard. The top row of keys was !"#$%^&'() like the tiny keyboard machines - numbers were only on the number pad. B = Business keyboard. Top row of keys was 1234567890, shift gave you !"# etc. This meant you couldn't get some of the "graphics" characters that came from shift-! etc. Hence the reference to "Num. Keys" above. > Mine is just labeled "PET 2001-8K" I think, with no 'N' or 'B' anywhere, > but mine has a 9" screen and a full-size keyboard with graphics symbols. Strange. Full size keyboard with graphics symbols should be 2001-8N > I don't think Jim's list is quite correct. For a start, there were lots > of 2001 PETs with 9" screen and the graphics keyboard, without the Nor do I. All 2001 PETs had 9 inch screens. > cassette-beside-the-keyboard. I've got one here. And the /B and /N series > were called 3000's not 2001 everywhere except the USA. The 12" versions Are you sure? I thought the 2001-8N and 2001-8B got renamed 3008 a bit later. > didn't appear in the UK until later. According to my (USA) manual, the > 2001/B (aka 3000 here) was a 9" screen too. IIRC, the 4000 was the first > with a 12" screen, at least in the UK (USA might easily be different, of > course), and that's borne out by my manuals. The 12" screen version was > eventually called the 8000 series here, and had different firmware (and > up to 96K RAM I think, bank-switched). Um. The first with the 12 inch screen was the 8032. Different firmware and re-done video circuitry. Later some of that was put into 4032, making the "fat 40" Bank switched RAM made an 8096... > One of the differences between the business and home versions (apart from > graphics symbols on the keytops) was whether the machine powered up in > upper- or lower-case. Was it? That's weird! Even weirder, though, was the lower case implementation. Take a couple of steps back and get a wider view: PET had two internal character codes. Screen codes and "ASCII". Screen codes went from 0 to 127, and didn't include control codes; they then went from 128 to 255 in "reverse field" (inverse video). Bit 6 (the 64s bit) told you whether it was a shifted character or not. 0 to 31 were @, ABC...Z, [\], up arrow, left arrow. 32 to 63 were conventional ASCII. 64 to 127 were the graphics characters you got from shifting these. First problem - nowhere for lower case. PET, in translating ASCII (or PETSCII as it became known) into screen codes, didn't bother to implement lower case. First it checked for control codes (0 to 31 and 128 to 159) and then it ANDed the ASCII code with 63 and stuck it on the screen. Well, sort of. The ASCII codes for the shifted characters were displaced from the unshifted ones by 128 instead of 64. Now, lower case mode. Early PETs kept the bottom 128 ASCII codes exactly as they were. Lower case went in the top 128 - NOT where you'd conventionally put it (those who followed the algorithm above will have worked out that the conventional ASCII codes for lower case would display space, !"#$ etc.). Since lower case was implemented in the character generator only - an I/O pin went to an address line on the character ROM - you had to use SHIFT to get LOWER case. And that was the second problem. Later PETS swapped lower and upper case letters. So now ASCII codes 65 and up, which still mapped onto screen codes 1 and up, gave LOWER case letters, but you pressed SHIFT for upper case. However the OS and BASIC (one and the same, really) treated unshifted as letters, and shifted as meaningless graphics characters, whichever mode you were in. Confused? It is, isn't it! >> Note that at least the early PET 2001 machines came with a white display. >> I think some of the 'newer' ones came with green phosphor instead.(?) > > My 2001-8K is white phosphor. The full-size-keyboard ones were green. The common arrangement. But the colour change predated the ROM and Keyboard Size changes. Just. >> But there's a lot more to 'features' than outward appearance. The machine >> uses a 1.0MHz 6502. It has an 80-pin memory expansion port on the right >> side (the 40 pins on the top side are all ground). There's an external >> cassette interface at the back, for TAPE #2. > > On the later models, that's TAPE#1 and the TAPE#2 is an internal connector. > >> There's an IEEE-488 aka GPIB, HPIB >> interface on the back that was used for printers, disk drives, modems, and >> probably other stuff. There's a user port on the back which is similar to >> the user port on the VIC-20/C64. IEEE-488 to RS232 converters were very popular here, since PET had no serial port. Alternatively, software could be written to drive a pin on the user port serially. I know. I've done it. >> The original ROMs don't have a monitor or support a disk drive, but ugrade "Don't support a disk drive" is a euphemism for so many bugs you can't use it at all! >> ROMs (which I think came out in 1979?) fix both of those things. About then. The monitor - hex only - replaced diagnostic routines in the original ROMs. A listing was actually given in the original PET manual, but I couldn't get it to work whenever I typed it in... >> I don't have a machine with BASIC 4.0, so I don't know how that starts It says "COMMODORE BASIC 4.0" but I can't remember whether between *** or ###. >> up. Upgrade ROM machines also have a Microsoft easter egg in them >> whcih is missing from the original ROMs.) Indeed. Type WAIT 6502,100 > There was a very-short-lived BASIC-2, and BASIC-3 (more-or-less the upgrade > ROM set) was around for a while before 4. 4 has extra commands for the > disk, instead of having to use the generic IEEE channel commands, but > otherwise it's almost the same as 3. I have heard all sorts of numbering schemes for BASIC versions. The only thing they agree on is 4. AFAIK, the BASIC in 3008 and friends was identical to the upgrade ROMs that went in original PETs. > Only the original ROMs start up with ***; all of the later ones used ###. That clears up my mystery above. Thank you. >> It might also be important to mention that the PET has a timer that >> operates in real time. And it has the same character set(s) as the VIC-20 >> and C64, but you can't switch between the upper/lower-case text character >> set and the upper-case/graphics set without issuing a POKE command. (Was >> it 49512,12 and 49512,14? My memory is rusty.) > > All those POKEs are ROM-version-dependent. Wrong, I'm afraid. POKE 59468, 12 (UC/graphics) and POKE 59486,14 (LC) are INDEPENDENT of ROM version. On 8032/8096, 8296 and Fat 40 you can use PRINT CHR$(14) and PRINT CHR$(142) (CTRL-N and CTRL-SHIFT-N except that PET never had a control key) to change between the modes. These codes also change to wide line spacing in LC mode, which the pokes don't. Hope this clears up some misconceptions. Philip.

26 years, 5 months

VM/SP

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> This started as a joke, but turned into something interesting. > Someone posted on alt.os.multics about setting a UNIX to pop up the VM/SP > logo from /etc/issue. I did one better and crocked up a way to make UNIX > actually act like VM/SP at the logon (Mutilated copy of telnetd and a new > login program). Fun! Now you need to write cmsh. > The question is, what was VM/SP? I know it was IBMs, and it ran on large > mainframes. Where can I find information about it? Virtual Machine System Product. I'll have a look thro' my IBM junk at home this evening, but I don't think I've got much on it. IBM draw boundaries in different places, but under VM operating system (CP, Control Program) usually ran CMS Conversational Monitor System - a bit like a shell, hence my pun above... The first scripting language for VM/CMS was CMS EXEC. I never used it but I understand it was awful. Later came EXEC2 - lots of & characters (I think - or were they % characters?) to identify names, or reserved words, or something. This was still the official scripting language when I encountered VM, but I, like everyone else, used REXX. This has exhausted my memory - I'm off home. Philip.

26 years, 5 months

PET 2001

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jul 8, 19:01, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote: > I've never heard of 2001NT. I have, but I don't think I've seen one. Unless it's actually identical to another model :-) > AFAIK, N = Non business keyboard. The top row of keys was !"#$%^&'() > like the tiny keyboard machines - numbers were only on the number pad. > > B = Business keyboard. Top row of keys was 1234567890, shift gave you > !"# etc. This meant you couldn't get some of the "graphics" characters > that came from shift-! etc. That refreshes my memory. There's a POKE to get the graophics but the default is as described. > Nor do I. All 2001 PETs had 9 inch screens. That's what I thought, but I didn't want to be to dogmatic (just for a change :-)) > > cassette-beside-the-keyboard. I've got one here. And the /B and /N series > > were called 3000's not 2001 everywhere except the USA. The 12" versions > > Are you sure? I thought the 2001-8N and 2001-8B got renamed 3008 a bit > later. Not absolutely sure, but around that time the local authority was buying a lot of PETs and I never saw a 3000 less than 16K, and never saw a business-keyboard 2001. > > didn't appear in the UK until later. According to my (USA) manual, the > > 2001/B (aka 3000 here) was a 9" screen too. IIRC, the 4000 was the first > > with a 12" screen, at least in the UK (USA might easily be different, of > > course), and that's borne out by my manuals. The 12" screen version was > > eventually called the 8000 series here, and had different firmware (and > > up to 96K RAM I think, bank-switched). > > Um. The first with the 12 inch screen was the 8032. Different firmware > and re-done video circuitry. Later some of that was put into 4032, > making the "fat 40" Bank switched RAM made an 8096... Hmm, that does sound more likely. Come to think of it, the 8000 were the fiorst I saw with a 12" screen as well. > > One of the differences between the business and home versions (apart from > > graphics symbols on the keytops) was whether the machine powered up in > > upper- or lower-case. > > Was it? That's weird! Yes :-) > Even weirder, though, was the lower case implementation. [ snip ] > Confused? It is, isn't it! I remember it caused som amusement with non_PET printers. > IEEE-488 to RS232 converters were very popular here, since PET had no serial > port. Alternatively, software could be written to drive a pin on the user port > serially. I know. I've done it. I've done that too. And there were a few serial converters, as Philip says. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 5 months

Amiga 2000

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Well, thank you, but here is a question that wasn't answered by the pinout: how do I double the frequency to 30hz, which is the lowest my monitor can do, according to the manual? >It would take less bandwidth to actually answer the question, so here you >are. > >1 XCLK* (External video clock) >2 XCLKEN* (External video clock enable) >3 Red (Analogue red video output) >4 Green >5 Blue >6 DI (Digital (TTL) intensity output) >7 DB (TTL blue output) >8 DG (TTL green) >9 DR (TTL Red) >10 CSync* (Composite sync) >11 HSync* (Horizontal sync) >12 VSync* (Vertical sync) >13 GNDRTN (Digital ground) >14 ZD* >15 C1* (Clock output) >16-20 Ground >21 -12V @ 50mA >22 +12V @ 100mA >23 +5V @ 100mA > >-tony > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 5 months

FW: Auctioning Timex/Sinclair ZX-80,81 1000 w/RTTY&CW

by franke＠sbs.de

>>> Ahh, there goes my bid! >> This lot includes some real nice parts and collectiv >> parts .... and the bid already reached 76 USD. >> Shoud we start a bidding war ? :(( > Please don't, that's my bid! :) So, lets see how far I could push the price for you. 150 ? 200 ? ... :( H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

26 years, 5 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by tomowad＠earthlink.net

>Apart from the ST, which has already been mentioned : >BBC Micro, Acorn Archimedes, many older portables (Tandy 100, HP110, HP71 >and HP75 (almost), EPSON PX4 and PX8), there was a model of the Tandy >1000 with MS-DOS in ROM, one of the Torch machines had a CP/M a-like in >ROM, HP IPC, Tandy CoCo + disk controller (maybe this only counts as >Basic in ROM), and plenty more that I've forgotten about I belive Apple's Newtons have the OSes in ROM. They certainly do boot quickly and a chip swap is need to upgrade the OS. Tom Owad Sysop of Caesarville Online Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>

26 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 1998