test-drb September 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

256 participants
661 discussions

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Hello, all: I want to do something fun with the Altair Emulator. Does anyone have a binary for Adventure? I don't yet have the ability to complie programs in the emulator (because of problems booting CP/M), so I could use a memory image. If someone has one, please contact me off line. Thanks. Rich ========================== Richard A. Cini, Jr. Congress Financial Corporation 1133 Avenue of the Americas 30th Floor New York, NY 10036 (212) 545-4402 (212) 840-6259 (facsimile)

23 years, 1 month

Available: DG Eclipse S/140 Programmer's Reference

by mrbill＠mrbill.net

In my latest box of DEC docs came a "Programmer's Reference Series" manual for an Eclipse S/140, circa 1981 or so. useful to anyone? bill -- Bill Bradford mrbill(a)mrbill.net Austin, TX

23 years, 1 month

The new VAX is alive!

by rdd＠smart.net

This afternoon, I ordered, and then picked up, a cable with MMJ connectors on it from Control Cable (they're in Woodlawn, MD) - a nice place to deal with; they specialize in cabling and related products, and what they sell appears to be of very good quality. The cost of the assembled cable was only a few cents different from their cost for a cable and two MMJ connectors, and was under US$5; of course, I had to pay US$5 extra since the order was under US$50, but that was no worse than shipping would have been if I'd ordered them from elsewhere. After connecting the VT320 to the VAX, I reset the system password. Fortunately, this VAX has the "real VMS" (TM) for VAXen on it: VAX/VMS, and it's a reasonably recent version: 5.5, which was close to the lastest version of VMS back when I last worked with a VAX for an employer, back around 1992. :-) This far, I haven't noticed anything truly remarkable with regards to software, although at first glance, it looks like nothing is missing. Fortunately, someone installed kermit, so that will make things, such as installing TCP/IP, easier. :-) There appears to be a fair amount of audio software, which I think may all be for use with that DECVoice system; text to voice software, for example. Since I don't have a T1 telephone connection, alas, it appears that I'm not going to be able to use this DECVoice hardware, and the audio software on this machine. Also, there's a mention of SQL in one of the text files that I looked through, although I didn't notice any database software installed; of course, I don't know the names of databases using SQL for VAXen. DECnet is installed and apparently configured, so I guess this means that I can use my DEC terminal server with this machine... do I need to do anything other than connect the terminal server to the VAX and then use it? I know nothing about DECnet. Of course, there's still the little matter of no tape drive being installed in this system, which is not a good thing. I have a TK70 and a TK50, along with a TKQ70 board. -- Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.net beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

23 years, 1 month

Reading data from a CDC Hawk Drive

by kevin＠xpuppy.freeserve.co.uk

As part of an emulator project I need to read data from many CDC Hawk packs. I have a drive and I believe it is an SMD interface. The drive also seems to be known as a DD1600. Does anyone have any details on this drive? Two possible options occured to me:- 1. Obtain (?) an SMD controller card for a PC and try to access the drive using this - and an appropriate amount of C. 2. Use a QBUS SMD controller in my PDP11 and get at the data that way. Any thoughts gratefully received. (BTW The machine I am emulating is an old British minicomputer called the Molecular.) Kevin Murrell ------------- www.ps8computing.co.uk

23 years, 1 month

IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> > What's the deal with the BASIC in ROM on these machines? Any other early > > PeeCee's have this feature? > > It's standard Microsoft cassette BASIC. Similar to (say) TRS-80 CoCo > BASIC. > > The true-blue IBM PC. PC/XT (and therefore PortablePC), PC/AT, PCjr, etc > all have BASIC in ROM. I don't think it was ever licensed to clones, and > I don't think any clone company ever wrote a ROM BASIC from scratch. So > pretty much the only place you'll find it is in IBM machines. Tony, I think you are correct as I've never seen a clone mb with BASIC in ROM, but I *have* seen clone boards -- including early Pentium boards -- which would cough up "no rom basic" if they didn't find a bootable device. Oddly enough the text of this message is always displayed in 40-column low-res mode. Doesn't this suggest that part of the ROM BIOS code was "borrowed" from early IBM code? Glen 0/0

23 years, 1 month

Archiving floppies?

by zaft＠azstarnet.com

Does anyone have any recommendations on software (preferably free) for archiving old DOS floppies? What I'd like to do is to be able to make disk images of all (okay, maybe just 'many') of the old DOS floppies I have so that if they disks get trashed or the bits fall off I can remake 'em. I'm assuming I'd probably be making these archives from a Windoze box although DOS or even FreeBSD or Linux is a possibility. Thanks in advance. GZ

23 years, 2 months

Are office people really that, umm shall we say...slow?

by fernande＠internet1.net

I just went to a local computer show today. I was happy to find that a few vendors had components available from disassembled computers or whatever. I picked up a 3com 3C905-TX PCI ethernet card, an ATI Mach64 video card, and a very nice Sound Blaster 16, all used of course. The Mach64 had "Monitor" written in marker on the slot cover. Do office people really need to remind themselves where to plug the monitor in? I have also seen a 3.5" floppy drives marked "hard drive a:" and the 5.25" floppy, marked, "floppy drive b:". What's the deal? I also picked up a new AMD K6-II 500 to replace my IBM 6x86 233, and a nice new heatsink/fan for it too. Hopefully I'll have my re-made socket 7 setup, up and running Linux soon :-) Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA

23 years, 2 months

"Early" 3.5" diskettes (was: Wired covers VCF east

by mbg＠world.std.com

Allison, I'll have to show you the machine... maybe you could identify the drive right off without having to open the case. For a preview, check out the wired.com article pictures... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 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 KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

23 years, 2 months

RS6000 7012-320H

by cmurillo＠emtelsa.multi.net.co

Today I came by an RS6000 7012-320H (Powerserver 320). On topic, since it was introduced in '91. It seems to have 16MB RAM, a SCSI card, an 800MB HD, 25MHZ cpu and a 8-port serial card. No framebuffer. There was an 8mm tape unit that came with it. Oh, and, >from what I can gather from the IBM web site, it is missing some sort of "ethernet riser card" which seems to provide the means to drive enet starting from a network header on the mainboard. I should be getting some of the terminals that were hooked to this beast. However, I have neither keys nor AIX install media. So I have several questions: 1) Which OS' (besides some old version of AIX) run on this box? Or, if I am stuck with AIX, in addition to praying that the HD is still alive, how could I break in and change the root password? 2) What exactly is this "ethernet riser card"? Do I have a network-less system? 3) Late last year, I posted a message to this list about some SIMMs that I grabbed off an AS400 system; they look like 72pin SIMMs but have a slightly different form factor and won't fit in a standard 72 pin socket. The thing is, they seem to fit the sockets in this system. And, that AS400 was equipped with exactly the same model of HD that this RS6000 has. So I am wondering if those 4MB SIMMS will fit this system, which is filled with 2MB SIMMS... carlos. -------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org

23 years, 2 months

Apple ][ disk controller state machine

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Until I get my hands on a copy of the venerable "Beneath Apple Dos" > is there anyone who can point me to an online resource describing the > Apple ][ disk controller P6 ROM state machine? The exact uses > for the Q6 and Q7 switches ($C0EC-$C0EF)? Or would be willing to > summarize from the mighty tome for me? From: http://www.mac.linux-m68k.org/devel/iwm.php : ======================= : Accessing IWM Registers : ======================= : The IWM chip has several internal registers available to programs. : Access to these registers is controlled by the Q6 and Q7 switches. : : +=====+=====+=======================================+ : | Q6 | Q7 | Register | : +=====+=====+=======================================+ : | off | off | Read data register | : +-----+-----+---------------------------------------+ : | off | on | Read handshake register | : +-----+-----+---------------------------------------+ : | on | off | Read status register | : +-----+-----+---------------------------------------+ : | on | on | Write mode register (if drive is off) | : | | | data register (if drive is on) | : +-----+-----+---------------------------------------+ : : The mode register is a write-only register containing several flag bits : which control various features if the IWM. To access it, turn off the : drive (by accessing ENABLE), turn on Q6 and Q7, and write to any : odd-numbered address in the $C0E0...$C0EF range. hth, -dq

23 years, 2 months

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test-drb September 2001