test-drb September 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

156 participants
405 discussions

Altair Emulator enhancements - progress report - questions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Dwight Elvey <elvey(a)hal.com> > There was no standard port used for serial I/O. and even if >there was, the device could have been a AY-3-1015, a 8251 or >a 8250. All of these would have different handshake and >setup information. I don't know how you'd be able to have >anything that you'd call standard. Wrong. The standard devices were usually AY-3-1015/COM2502 based and tended to use the MITS status bits and IO addresses. Mits never used the 8251, and the 8250 was later to the scene. MITS set a standard in as much as there were very few then by sticking to the 2sio standard or the SIOB standard for serial ports with the SIOB being a uart like ay-3-1015 and the 2sio using 6850s. Expereince says, the common usart like the 1015/com2502 was most widely use with the 8251(9551/2651) the 6850 running follow on. The only S100 board I've seen the 8250 on was the CCS. The 8250 was not a widely used part in the late 70s on S100. I'd be quick to point out that the mits era was 1975-1977ish with other players already emerging as new leaders (NS* horizon and friends) by late 1977 in the S100 space. From 77-80 that would again undergo major changes going from the MITS/IMASI front pannel style machines to the Northstar*, CCS, Compupro turnkey style front pannel less and disk based systems. It was also simple enough at the time to fix IO in most code as it was trivial in construction and easy to find in binaries. allison

24 years, 4 months

IBM Monitor

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Does anybody have the specs for an IBM POWERdisplay 20, p/n 09G3821? I searched all over IBM's website. It's like it is yesterday's model (which it is) and they only wanna tell you about the latest and greatest. TIA Mike

24 years, 4 months

VAX panic - buried models?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: John Allain <John.Allain(a)donnelley.infousa.com> >The HWID I speak of is a Unique ID per individual CPU. True. And it identifies the basic hardware and CPU. >Think relicence. Keep in mind the basic "kits" carry no license or other machine locked stuff. The license is applied during or after the install. Even then I've built and installed systems on my MVII and then carried the media to the MV2000 as both bootable and complete (even licensed if that is within the written license terms). That was how we cloned VMS sustems at DEC as it was faster than using TK50 tapes. I've put the VMS 7.2kit (cdrom) on everythingt from MVII and VS2000 through 3100m76 and would expect it to load and run on most any other VAX as well. The biggest problem of installing on older hardware is the minimum system (ram and disk) has grown during the years and early version coulld fit on 30mb disk and 1mb ram that has grown to over 150mb disk and 4mb ram. Though it is possible to shoehorn the latest version is to less than the specified disk and ram it is a exercise fort the experienced and will produce a system of limited utility. >So, Any old copy of VMS can be relicenced for a >matching or nearly matching architecture machine? Well since all VAX are by definition matching hardware there is little issue. However there are exceptions like the RTVAX which is not totally cpu compatable VAX and differs in the translate tables, it never ran VMS. >Tell me, is that through Montagar? The VMS7.2 Hobbiest version is available there. Note HOBBIEST version does not mean stripped or limited. It means it's packaged with many hobbiest desireable packages besides VMS itself. >P.S. Can users fo VMSbuilds? VMSbuild is a standard utility and is used often to configure custom installs once you have a configureation you want to standardize on. Anotehr useful VMS utility for small systems is VMStailor which allows trimming off or adding in libraries, fonts and other peices to tailor a system. Allison

24 years, 4 months

General Automation GA 3345

by Innfogra＠aol.com

I am not familiar with this model. Many GAs used the PICK operating system. I had a GA 5000 at one time and it was a Multibus machine with a 68000 CPU, 32 user ports, 150 Meg 14" Priam HD, 1/4" tape, 1/2" Cipher tape, all in a 5' high case. Top of the line in it's day. I may have some of the PICK manuals around if anyone is running one of these. I recommend trying to save it. Paxton Portland, OR, USA

24 years, 4 months

Altair Emulator enhancements - progress report - questions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Dwight Elvey <elvey(a)hal.com> >Hi > One of the other problems was that even which bits were use >to handshake the transmit and receive could change depending >on how one wired the board, so just knowing the port is still >no enough. Any commercial software that didn't go through >the BIOS was asking for troubles since there was no way >to determine how the console was done. On some systems it >went through a video board and not serial, at all. >Dwight Therein lies the problem, as back then the average MITS or IMSAI did not have any rom and no concept of a BIOS, it would be CP/M that originated that concept for small systems and called it that. Even then the CPM bios only hid the underlying IO with standard interface and the IO could litterally be anything on the map (often was). If anything the idea of canned IO was something unique to systems like the SOL and a few others and rare in the s100 world. Allison

24 years, 4 months

VAX panic - buried models?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: healyzh(a)aracnet.com <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> >It *might* run, however, V6.2 was the last version of VMS to support an >11/750. Just like V7.2 will be the last version to support the MV2 family. First a word from... When DEC says Support they mean assitance not it will not work. Support is a service they provided and if it's supported you could under your support contract call and expect help. If it was not supported it will likely run but don't call DEC support if it doesn't. So that means prior to MV2 is not "supported" but the drivers are likely there and work. I'd expect a 750 with RA81 and 8mb ram would run V7.2 just fine. But if you ask around older 6.2 and V5.5 kits arent that hard to find. Their owners will likely let you borrow them as it's up to you to get your own license pak which is not tied to the media. I have it on good word that V7.3 does still run on MVIIs. Allison

24 years, 4 months

Altair Emulator enhancements - progress report - questions

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

>>Dwight wrote >There was no standard port used for serial I/O. and even if >there was, the device could have been a AY-3-1015, a 8251 or >a 8250. All of these would have different handshake and >setup information. I don't know how you'd be able to have >anything that you'd call standard. >Dwight I guess that my question was partially answered by Jim. Using Altair BASIC, BASIC polled the switches (at port FF) in order to determine which ports to use for various I/O. Disk BASIC was the choice (running over CP/M), the BIOS would have to be recompiled with the proper port locations for the hardware one was using. What I was kind of getting at was as follows. If I wanted to provide emulated console I/O, what port would I virtualize so that any software I loaded would run? I guess that my PeeCee-centricity was showing a bit in that in the PeeCee certain hardware ports were always at the same location. So, the conclusion is that if I want to emulate a single console port, I have to select which serial board to emulate (the 2-SIO for example) and virtualize ports 20Q and 21Q. It also sounds like that I need to trap input port 0xff as the "sense switch" port. This may be done in the emulator already; I have to check. Rich -----Original Message----- From: Dwight Elvey [mailto:elvey@hal.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2000 12:35 PM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Altair Emulator enhancements - progress report - questions "Cini, Richard" <RCini(a)congressfinancial.com> wrote: > > I also have some questions of actual users of the Altair. I wanted > to use a copy of Palo Alto Tiny BASIC on the emulator (because that's the > BASIC that I have), but TB relies on CP/M for console I/O. Regarding the > original Altair BASIC, did the BASIC code provide its own I/O services or > did it use CP/M also? What port locations were generally used to service > serial ports used for console I/O? Does anyone have a working set of CP/M > binaries that I can load into the emulator? Hi There was no standard port used for serial I/O. and even if there was, the device could have been a AY-3-1015, a 8251 or a 8250. All of these would have different handshake and setup information. I don't know how you'd be able to have anything that you'd call standard. Dwight

24 years, 4 months

Palasm?

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

In einer eMail vom 8/9/100 3:17:33AM, schreiben Sie: << I've used it since the early '80's but my work has hovered over the low-end capabilities of the language. Now that it's obsolete, I'm trying to make up for all the stuff I didn't learn when it was mainstream. I've had people tell me about features I've never even read about, and there are plenty of them that I haven't used and HAVE read about. It's pretty simple if not compact, to do everything with logic equations, and that's what I've always done. Now I'm trying to catch up on the built-in state-machine dialects. They use several constructs which have carried forward, somewhat, into Verilog and VHDL, but not in the same way or with the same syntax as PALASM. >> It occured to me that the quite modern and today mainstream language Abel has somewhat similar constructs, and is part of most modern electronic CAD systems. While having retained quite some similarity with PALASM, it may be closer to today's tools like VHDL. Regards John G. Zabolitzky

24 years, 4 months

Metcal Soldering stations

by nerdware＠laidbak.com

As Zane mentioned, he's getting a used Metcal SP-200 station to play with. I also know this because he got it from me..... For those of you who don't know, these are professional-grade induction-heating systems with extremely light handpieces and dozens of interchangeable tips. Heat is practically instantaneous, and they are also static-free. They also run about $400 new. The surplus shop where I work during a goodly portion of my free time has a limited number of power supplies and handpieces available, unfortunately, no tips or stands. We got them from an electronics plant that shut down. Tips range from about $15 up to $30 new, I think, depending on the tip. If you're interested in one, email me off-list and I'll let you know what we have. These are great irons -- I have two (one at home and one at work) and absolutely love both of 'em. I hung up my Weller and my Ungar when I got the Metcal. Thanks. Paul Braun WD9GCO Cygnus Productions nerdware_nospam(a)laidbak.com

24 years, 4 months

Altair Emulator enhancements - progress report - questions

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Hello, all: Just a quick update on my progress with enhancing the Altair Emulator. I also have an activity log on my Web site which all can view. Most of what will go on over the next few weeks is code testing as a complete recompiled "altair.exe". A few notes: - The emulated paper tape punch code works on a standalone basis and has been integrated into the overall emulator. This is the code I need to bang on. - I wrote a bus I/O emulation Windows DLL to handle actual I/O through the PeeCee's parallel port. I still have to build a little test jig to connect to the port (an inverter, a latch, and a bus transceiver). This gives the emulator 8-bits of external address space and 8-bits of I/O with *ALE (latch control) and *R/*W signals. The way this is setup, the parallel port is still shared with other Win32 processes. If this doesn't work for the emulator, I'll have to write a dynamic virtual device driver to gain exclusive access to the port so long as the Altair is "on." - In a few weeks, I'm going to tinker with console emulation either through capturing a physical communications port that has no underlying hardware (like COM5:) so that a Windows terminal program can "connect" to the Altair Emulator. Alternately, I may try just building a virtual-VDT into the emulator. - Other enhancements will hopefully include a virtual floppy drive and the ability to "install" ROM. One I have the base code stable (it now compiles/links with no errors), I plan to make the binary available for testing and the source available for review. Some of the punch code could benefit from optimization, no doubt. I also have some questions of actual users of the Altair. I wanted to use a copy of Palo Alto Tiny BASIC on the emulator (because that's the BASIC that I have), but TB relies on CP/M for console I/O. Regarding the original Altair BASIC, did the BASIC code provide its own I/O services or did it use CP/M also? What port locations were generally used to service serial ports used for console I/O? Does anyone have a working set of CP/M binaries that I can load into the emulator? Again, any help is greatly appreciated. Rich http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/

24 years, 4 months

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test-drb September 2000