From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
>
>without physically modifying the orignal boxes, though that's not always
>easy. I'm curious about whether a "real" Altair user has preference for
one
>or the other of the two modes of interfacing the clearly not original
MITS
My $0.02 is unless it's a 8800B a stock Altair unmodded is not something
I'd desire to run. To collect as static historical item unmodded is
fine.
Over the years it was rare I that I'd see a Altair 8800(A) that was pure
altair.
I knew of only one, it was one cranky beast!
Allison
All listmembers: It should be obvious that you do NOT, under ANY
conditions, want to execute the file that got spammed to the list. It
contains a fairly nasty virus. It should be deleted without hesitation.
I've tracked the spammer back to snip.net, and I just got off the phone
with their tech support center. The spam is already on its way to them with
a request to crater the account responsible.
You're welcome. ;-)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 (Extra class as of June-2K)
"I'll get a life when someone demonstrates to me that it would be
superior to what I have now..." (Gym Z. Quirk, aka Taki Kogoma).
Today, Snowhite was turning 18. The 7 Dwarfs always where very educated and
polite with Snowhite. When they go out work at mornign, they promissed a
*huge* surprise. Snowhite was anxious. Suddlently, the door open, and the Seven
Dwarfs enter...
Just in case there are members of this list living in The Netherlands
or Belgium that are not members of the Dutch Computer Collectors
mailing list (cvml at egroups dot com) I'd like to announce here that
the cvml list will have a meeting in Rotterdam on 17 february 2001.
If possible, bring some nice old computers. The meeting is organized
bij Stefan (stefan at softhome dot net) and Lino (pinoli at publishnet
dot nl). A web page (in Dutch) describing the event is at
http://www.xs4all.nl/~rimmer/cvml/cvml.html
--
Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl
http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/ My home page (old computers,music,photography)
http://www.vaxarchive.org/ Info on old DEC VAX computers
Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered
(This doesn't meet the 10-year rule, but I've looked everywhere else)
I'm in need of an AC adapter for a Hewlett-Packard OmniBook 4000CT laptop.
I don't know the model number, but the machine takes 21VDC.
(That's not a typo. It takes takes twenty one volts).
If you have one to sell, please contact me off list.
Thanks,
Andy
Richard:
The historically interesting thing about the ALTAIR has how insanely
primitive it was when it became the
sensation that sparked the PC revolution.
Putting a disk on an ALTAIR is kind of cool, but it misses the point of how
primitive they really were.
Yes, parallel logic is much more consistent with the Altair era.
My keyboard is 8-bit parallel, my paper tape reader is 8-bit parallel.
The only common serial devices were Teletype machines (because of their
evolution from the telegraph).
Teletypes were the most common "terminal" in use back then.
Not for me, though, I have a surplus, converted Friden Flexowriter, (or
boat anchor), that we modified to be parallel.
Do you even know what paper tape is ?
I think that every ALTAIR had to deal with paper tape at some point.
Magnetic media were too unreliable.
I have a cute little optical paper tape reader that has a row of 9 LEDs and
a corresponding row of photodiodes.
It sends data as eight bits in parallel.
There is a row of little holes in the third position that is normally
intended to tractor the paper tape through a teletype machine.
The optical paper tape reader uses this hole as a clock signal for software
handshaking with the ALTAIR through a parallel port.
To load BASIC, you entered a tiny loader program through the front panel
switches.
This program just looked for the tape reader's clock bit, delayed a little,
then read the rest of the byte and stored it in memory.
When you loaded Bill Gate's BASIC, the first data loaded was a more robust
checksum loader.
This loader quickly took control and if everything summed correctly after
then rest of the tape was read, BASIC was running when you were done.
By the way, in the beginning, ALTAIR BASIC WAS the "Operating System".
Through PEEKs and POKEs executed from your BASIC programs, you could
control all of your hardware.
I also have a "VDM-1" video display card. We converted an old TV work
with this.
After BASIC was loaded, we add a "patch" for this through the front panel
switches.
That was another interesting thing about the ALTAIR, you could always take
control of your computer through the front panel switches.
There was no "reset" button to hit when your system crashed, your just went
in and looked at what happened.
Usually, you went to location 0 and hit "run" to get out of a crash.
A "nasty" crash was when an loop overwrote your memory.
This happened fairly often too.
It was always kind of interesting to look at the patterns that appeared in
the memory when these crashes occurred.
I have always thought that if I wanted to be able to easily "boot" my
ALTAIR to show it off, I would construct
a box that would let me load and save my programs to a modern PC through
this parallel port.
Maybe just a BASIC stamp chip.
I never kept up with disk controller technology
I don't really know what a WD1002 is.
Are your Altairs original or "B" models ?
I hate to think that as an "original" Altair owner, I am, myself, a museum
piece :-)
I am only 39 years old.
When I listen to the war stories of 80 year olds, I might think of THEM as
museum pieces.
-Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher [SMTP:edick@idcomm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 6:16 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Altair Owners ...
Yeah ... I've got a copy of that MITS DISK BASIC lying about somewhere,
though there's no documentation on hand.
The deal is that (1) with one of my scrap S-100 PCB's hacked into a WD1K
channel, the Altair can then talk to a WD1002-05 HD/FD Controller, as I'm
putting in the MITS HDC box, and use that to operate the mix of 5-1/4" hard
and floppy disks in the second box. It requires no S-100 FDC of any sort.
Since BIOS code abounds for the WD controllers, I'd say it's not only a
cool
set of hardware, but a slick way to get the OS running if it's not already,
and I do have HD drives in the form of a "back-end" driver, for the WD1K
series, that can be autoloaded on boot if CP/M is already running.
However, using a parallel port board would be more consisitent with what
was
done with the original Altair system: the one with the small desk built on
the table-high rack with a desk extending to one side. It used a parallel
port sort of thingie to talk to the SMD interface in the HDC box, and that,
in turn, talked to the CDC HAWK drive in the top portion of the rack
pedestal onto which the desktop was fitted.
I could put in some sort of parallel port thingie, and 8255, or perhaps a
pair of input ports and a pair of output ports, to provide the bits
necessary to do the job. The channel interface is a lot slicker and
faster,
though, and TTL will drive the cable a lot better than an 8255.
Either one will work, but I've no "feel" for what would be preferred by the
typical Altair owner. Of course I'm particularly interested in placing
this
stuff with someone to whom an Altair isn't an Altair if any of the hardware
doesn't say MITS on it, though only the boxes in this set are original
MITS.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "ajp166" <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2001 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: Altair Owners ...
> From: Rob Kapteyn <kapteynr(a)cboe.com>
>
>
> >Hey wait a minute ...
> >A BIOS on an Altair ?
> >
> >Sure there were add-ons (years later) that did this, but if you really
> want authenticity this is what we did --
> >
> >I always had to "boot" my Altair with a simple paper tape loader program
> entered from the switches on
> >front panel. I did this so many times, I had the 30 octal codes
> memorized.
>
>
> Often several times until it read the cassette correctly! Saving stuff
> was easy though bets were
> off if you could read it later.
>
> First homebrew board 8223 (x2 for 64 bytes plus 2 7489s for 16bytes of
> scratch ram) prom boot!
>
> >Once I had Altair BASIC loaded, I generally kept the machine powered up
> as long as possible.
>
>
> Or until it crashed!
>
> >I never knew anyone who actually had a actual floppy for their Altair.
> >I seem to remember that they cost more than the computer itself, and the
> computer was quite >expensive --($2,000 1974 dollars).
>
>
> I built and debugged two of them for others.
>
> Allison
>
>
Ok, interesting question here, I now have both a Dilog 703 and a Dilog 706.
The 703 is a TMSCP tape controller and the 706 is a MSCP disk controller.
(at work I have a 736 that does both, but I don't think they are the same)
The circuits are of course identical and I'm trying to figure out if Dilog
used a PAL change like Viking did or just a firmware change between the two
of them? If it is just firmware then perhaps I can help Ben turn his
controller into a disk controller.
--Chuck
I just got some further info on the VAX, and the PDP-11 that's available.
I'd not mentioned the PDP-11 earlier as I was interested :^)
VAX-11/750 w/4MB RAM and 134MB Drive
LSI-11/23 w/Cypher Tape drive, two 8" floppies, and RL02
Turns out her Dad was the author of "Planet" (not sure on the spelling).
It was some kind of computer based instruction software.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
On 2001-01-04 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org said to kees.stravers(a)iae.nl
>I just found out about a VAX-11/750 that is apparently in the
>Portland area that is in desparate need of Rescue. From talking to
>the woman that's trying to take care of this for her parents, it
>sounds like they'd like to get money or at least a tax credit for
>this. It apparently includes software and documentation, and it is
>supposed to be fully working.
If you can't find anyone who ran rescue the entire machine, I would be
very much interested in the cards that are in it. I want to revive my
own 11/750, but it has only 5MB of memory so I am in need of more
memory cards. The latest version of NetBSD doesn't really work well
in 5MB anymore. Unfortunately I live in The Netherlands, so I can't
come over to collect them :(
Regards,
Kees.
--
Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl
http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/ My home page (old computers,music,photography)
http://www.vaxarchive.org/ Info on old DEC VAX computers
Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered
