From: joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>I may be wrong but didn't the use of Control and a key begin with
teletypes
>and long before the arrival of computers? I know the control something
was
>used to ring the bell on the recieving system. Control something else
Ding ding ding, you win. ^G rings the bell. However the original
question
was the notion of "Control and G" keys contracted to CTRL-G (tty
nomenclature)
to ^G.
>generated the DC 1 and DC 2 codes that could be used to switch off and
on
>special devices on the recieving system.
That too. Actually there were some 32 possible control codes, many were
used.
FYI that PDP-8 was an i version and the console was a tty!
Allison
First, I'd like to say hi, as I've just joined this list after researching
my old Telex 1186 and coming across archives that were almost exactly two
years old. I've always had an affinity for classic systems, so I decided it
made a lot of sense to join up, eh? Too bad I didn't realize how much I
liked them earlier... I might've been able to stop my parents from junking
an old CBM 4032 I used to play with.
Anyways, the 1186 in question was the first computer I ever had, bought used
for me when I was in third grade or so. A recent bout of nostalgia hit me,
and I've been wondering if anyone else has had any luck finding one, or even
some pictures of one on the Net... searches for "Telex 1186" only give me
the aforementioned ClassicCmp archives, perusing the VCF's links list has
proved fruitless, and looking for "MAD Computer" only gets me a bunch of
sci-fi links.
I would *love* to get one of those in my possession again; it holds a lot of
great memories for me. Unfortunately, my dad sold it when we upgraded to a
286. *grumble* If I had known then that it was an 80186 machine, I
might've been more inclined to keep it... but probably not, as I was about
ten...
Finally, would anyone be able to give me a general idea of the rarity of the
Laser 128 Apple II clone? The info I've found has led me to believe it's
not a particularly rare system...
Thanks a lot for any help you might be able to give! I really appreciate
it!
GSL
*****
Gregory S. Lindsey
SSI Embedded Systems Programming
On August 9, Arthur E. Clark wrote:
> Well, I checked out my local Goodwill stores. What a waste. When I asked
> about old Apples, the computer supervisor said "we refuse those." When I
> asked about Sun and DEC, they looked at me like I was speaking an alien
> language. A few extremely overpriced 486 & Pentium 75 systems, that's it.
Here's an idea. Maybe it would be useful for some of us to leave
our contact info with these places, so when they "refuse" decent
stuff, they can say "but there's this person here who might be
interested..." What do you think?
(They refuse (or don't know anything about) the real computers and
redistribute the crappy ones. Go figure.)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
In a message dated 8/10/01 12:50:33 AM Eastern Daylight Time, foo(a)siconic.com
writes:
>
> Goodwills and Salvation Army's are really only good for old (and cheap)
> computer books.
>
Actually the Salvation Army stores that I have found around PA have been
quite good! One can usually find Apple, Tandy, Commodore, and the usual misc
PC stuff there. A lot of it is over priced (Commodore 1541 $100???) but
there are times when you can find a good deal like the Apple //e I picked up
with a color monitor and 2 drives for $9.99.. Never had any luck with
Goodwill either.
-Linc Fessenden
In The Beginning there was nothing, which exploded - Yeah right...
Calculating in binary code is as easy as 01,10,11.
>I finally found time to start opening up the 3 boxes of DEC docs
>that were awaiting me (3 more on the way, the guy tells me), and
>found a treasure trove (well, thats what I called it) of PDP-12
>documentation. Looks like a fairly complete set of marketing
>brochures, specs and options lists, promotional materials, etc.
>All in that nice green color. Even the DEC warranty/service card that
>was supposed to be stuck on the back of the machine. Looks like
>almost-complete (I havent had time to go through them thoroughly)
>sets of users and system manuals as well.
>
>(this is all formerly from the U. of Arizona Medical Center)
>
>Once I get this scanned, I'll definitely want these docs to go
>somewhere that has a (preferrably operational) PDP-12 and will
>give these docs a good home alongside a machine..
>
>Also have VR14 manual (Megan, i think this was already marked for
>you? I've got multiple copies now) and a VT50 manual. Two more
>boxes on my porch to go through, and three more on the way...
>
>Will completely catalog and post a list on decdocs.org this weekend.
>
>Bill
>
>--
>Bill Bradford
>mrbill(a)mrbill.net
>Austin, TX
>
The Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island ( www.osfn.org/rcs ) has an
operational PDP-12 - it was running Spacewar at the Vintage Computer
Festival East 1.0 a couple of week ago - and we'd be delighted to make a
home for those docs. I've copied this message to Mike Umbricht
mikeu(a)shrimp.osfn.org ) and Carl Friend ( mikeu(a)shrimp.osfn.org ) of
the RCS/RI, as they are the folks there most intimately involved with
the PDP-12. For scanning the docs, consider Al Kossow's Bitsavers
Project ( aek(a)spies.com , www.spies.com/~aek ), wherein he is scanning
all manner of computer documentation to preserve it. If you are
interested, I can coordinate the finding of the new home at the RCS/RI
with scanning through Bitsavers, having done so for other things in the
past.
> On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
>
> > > >There was a Zenith MS-DOS 3.31+ that ran on the Z-150/Z-151;
> > > >I can probably scare it up...
> > >
> > > Thanks for the offer but the 150 and higher models are completely
> > > different machines from the Z-100. They use the ISA buss and are 100%
IBM
> > > compatible so the OS is basicly PC DOS.
> >
> > They're not *quite* 100% IBM compatible, e.g. power supply, and non-
> > Zenith keyboard use eventually causes the CPU board to no longer
> > recognize a Zenith keyboard.
>
> Eventually? I don't really know anything about these systems, but it seems
> strange that something like that would happen only after a while of such
> use. Maybe it draws more power and eventually burns out components? Please
> elaborate. :-)
Hey, I'm a programmer, that's a hardware question, ask Tony...
Seriously, I don't know, I assumed precisely what you suggest.
-dq
Hi,
I am working on a CF-18 simulator which is based on a VAX (No need to
mention that the sim is old!). I am developing some hardware to allow some
automatic testing of MC (mission Computer) OFP (Operational Flight Program)
software.
Anyway, I am working with a DRV11 card (DMA interface for the VAX), to
communicate to an FPGA (APEX20K) board which I have built. The setup is
shown below.
|------------------| |-----------------------|
|-----------------------|
| Keypad | | |
| |
| & |--------------------------------------| My board
|-----------------------| Serial |
| display | | |
| Controller |
|------------------| |-----------------------|
|-----------------------|
|
|
|
|-----------------------|
| |
| VAX |
| |
|-----------------------|
Normally the keypad and display would be connected directly, but now I can
contol the data via my board. What the board does depends on the VAX
commands sent to it. This way, the board can become transparent, pump data
in 1 direction or the other, or just plain monitor the data. The vax can
then validate that everything that is supposed to happen does, and it will
become possible to write scripts to press buttons on the keypad rather than
having someone push the actual button!
Anyway, my problem is with the DRV11 card. (Actually I am using a DRV1-SF)
I have taken the DEC supplied example driver for this card and modified it
for my needs. (this works fine... I think!)
The problem is that if I send several QIO calls back to back, there is a
huge amount of time between the DMA transfers. What makes this even
wierder, is that the delay between transfers seems to follow a pattern as
follows:
-- xfer data -- wait 200 us -- xfer data -- wait 1 ms -- xfer data -- wait
200 us -- xfer data -- wait 1 ms --xfer data -- wait 200 us -- ...
Another quirk I seem to have is that if I pulse the ATTN line at some random
time, I enter the ISR and everything runs smoothly. However, if I pulse the
ATTN line just after a transfer ( within a few micro seconds) I enter the
ISR for the completion interrupt, but I seem to miss the interrupt from the
ATTN line if the transfer was smaller than 3 words!! I have no idea why it
works for larger transfers and not for small transfers...
Further if I examine the saved CSR value after an ATTN pulse was sent, I
should see th ATTN bit latched, but it is not! can anyone explain this? I
tried 2 cards and they both do the same thing.
Anyway, any help at all would be appreciated...
Eric Everton
Avionics Simulation Specialist
Dept. 49
Eric.Everton(a)cae.com
(450) 476-4484
> -kb, the Kent who also once opened a comment before column 76 and
> didn't close another comment before column 76 for many lines, causing
> the intervening lines to be silently dropped.
>
>
> P.S. Circa 1980 we even did one assignment on a punch card machine.
> The physical reader was a relatively svelt machine (at least compared
> to the central beasts we students could not touch), and it talked to
> an impressive looking, floppy-equipped PDP-11/34, bootstrapped via the
> front panel and everything. (Did they call the whole thing a Remote
> Job Entry Station?) What *was* that record separator card? A 6-7-8
> overpunch? What was the job separator card??
On the Cybers, 6/7/8 was EOR (end-of-record), and 6/7/8/9 was EOI
(end-of-information). I suppose that's what you mean by "job
separator").
-dq
In a message dated 8/10/01 12:59:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time, foo(a)siconic.com
writes:
<< On Thu, 9 Aug 2001, Tom Owad wrote:
> About three years ago I got a really nice TI-99/4a with the expansion
> box and several boxes of books, software, and accessories at the
> Goodwill in York for around $30, but that was all I ever got there.
>
> The Salvation Army in York used to get Apple and 8 bit micro stuff
> pretty regularly, but now have absolutely nothing worth looking at.
>
> There are two Goodwills in Harrisburg that I've been to (both only
> once).
> One was pretty poor, but the other might be worth looking at as they
> had a good shelf of computer books and manuals. (I wish I could
> remember which store was which.)
In my experience, the only thrift stores worth going to for hardware are
the chains, like Thrift Town, Thrift Center, etc. At least that is the
case here in California and also in Raleigh, NC, where I spent a lot of
time a couple years ago.
Sellam Ismail >>
Unfortunately, here in raleigh, things have pretty much dried up as well. I
remember I used to find neat stuff, like my PCRT and platinum apple //e
system. I did find an atari 1200xl in the box some time ago that I hid, and
was going to get later, but somehow someone beat me to it. My latest addition
was my IBM S/36 pc and 5150 controller but that was in the spring. Even my
favourite IBM PS/2s are getting hard to find.
--
DB Young Team OS/2
old computers, hot rod pinto and more at:
www.nothingtodo.org
Bill,
I have a tape reader and if you don't mind it taking a little while, I
would run those through. I am swamped and may take a couple of weeks to a
month to get done.
Phil
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Bill Bradford
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 2:55 AM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: overwhelmed with paper tapes
Couldnt sleep, so I dug into the other two boxes. Looks like a
complete doc set for at least one version of RSX-11, more MAINDECs,
and lots more paper tapes.
I've got at least five full translucent blue trays full of various
paper tapes at this point.
Anybody out there have a paper tape reader, and would be willing to
run these through and produce some kind of binary file that would be
usable with various software emulators (or useful to someone who
wanted to punch their own copies of these tapes)? I dont want them
to languish around in my garage when someone somewhere could be putting
them to use.
Bill
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
