test-drb March 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

292 participants
932 discussions

by kenziem＠sympatico.ca

It looks like I'll be making a trip to Europe in late May or June. The flight is to Amsterdam. Are there any places of interest to visit with regards to vintage computers, swap meets, or collectors with surplus wishing a small trade (fit in carry on)?

24 years, 1 month

Data abstraction

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> > Consider three hypothetical forms of source code: > > A: MOV AH, 2 > MOV DL, 41h > INT 21h > > B: MOV AH, 2 ; character display function > MOV DL, 'B' > INT 21h ; DOS API > > C: MOV AH, DISPLAY > MOV DL, OURCHAR > INT DOSSERVICES > > I prefer B, but there were a few cases where I felt that he was tending > towards C. (and plenty of times when I slip into writing A) Yeah, the book is pretty much type 'C' code. > Abstraction is very useful and necessary for some types of portability. > But I don't like to have to go thorough a separate .H file to find out > what the code is that is being abstracted. Yeah, it's a hassle, but I think it's worth it to get easily-portable code. Only a few lines need to be changed to move the code to another machine. All in all I would recommend this book. Plus you, Fred Cisin, got double kudos ;>) Glen 0/0

24 years, 1 month

Far-Out Languages (was: Write only programming)

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)conman.org> > Then you haven't seen BrainFuck: > > http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/bf/ > > And yes, you *can* get a compiler for BrainFuck. Why you would, is > another question. Holy Cow! Why on Earth would *anyone* use such a language, or spend the time to dream it up? I'd rather write machine code! Masochists! Glen 0/0

24 years, 1 month

Need paper tape encoding format

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 28, 11:50, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: > > Is there info somewhere that shows how symbols are encoded onto paper > tape? > > Ideally it would include the actual hole positions like so: > > 8 4 2 1 > A: * > B: * > C: * * > > (Note: this is not an actual example but just an example of the format > I'm looking for. Of course.) Lots of unix (including many BSD/Linux) systems have a program called ppt (usually in /usr/bin/games or similar) which takes an ASCII string and outputs a facsimile of paper tape. The dormat is just ASCII in binary form, with columns arranged exactly as your little sample above, except there are 8 columns, and a hole represents a '1'. What you do with the 8th coulmn depends; on PDP-8 systems the top bit was often set for ASCII (but it has special significance to binary loaders), on some systems it would be unused, on others it would be the parity bit. Do a Google search for "ppt paper tape" and you'll find info about "ppt". -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years, 1 month

NYTimes: A Long Time Ago, in a Lab Far Away...

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> From New York Times > A Long Time Ago, in a Lab Far Away . . . The Stewart Brand-penned article for Rolling Stone may be found at: http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html -dq

24 years, 1 month

HP IPC (Integral PC) documentation / instructions needed

by vassilip＠dsl.cis.upenn.edu

Hi, I have just acquired an IPC with the basic ROM, a 1Mb ram board and a second HP-IB board. I have downloaded the IPC images from the Peter Johnson's site but I can't get the IPC to read them. So I want to check whether the floppy drive works (the mechanism was stuck and I have to take it apart and clean/oil the mechanism). I guess that PAM is more or less useless, so I am trying to access the floppy from Basic. Basic looks similar to that of the Series 80, but I had no luck with the MASS STORAGE IS command. Is there a list of commands somewhere. Also I tried connecting a 9122D external HP-IB dual floppy, the system didn't seem to notice it was there. Finally, anybody knows how to format a floppy on the IPC? Thanks **vp

24 years, 1 month

My last VMS question: %INIT-F-VOLINV, volume is not software enabled

by gunther＠aurora.regenstrief.org

Hi, last night was supposed to be the last time I was going to boot VMS before it will be forever banished from my house (because we finally have an Ultrix 4.5 tape and my uVAX-II runs NetBSD and Ultrix and can write to TK50 :-). The only reason I had to boot VMS once more was to write myself a uVAX diagnostic tape. And of course, whenever you start VMS you're in for trouble :-) I'll cut it short and ask your help for the following matter. Part of the diagnostics tape procedure is to initialize a file system on the TK50 with this command (I didn't invent this, it comes right from a DEC supplied DCL script.) $ INITIALIZE MUC6: ELAN When that runs the tape scrunches and spins happily until suddenly: %PBC0, Port is Reinitializing ( 45 Retries Left). Check the Error Log. %INIT-F-VOLINV, volume is not software enabled What the heck does that mean? Yes I have VOLPRO privilleges and I think the tape writes fine, as I have used it for other reads and writes. It happens with both VMS 7.1 and VMS 5.4. There is probably some "obvious" thing you have to do, but what? Here is the error log, if it tells you anything: ****** ENTRY 3677., ERROR SEQUENCE 110. LOGGED ON SID 0B000006 ERL$LOGSTATUS ENTRY KA64A CPU FW REV# 6. CONSOLE FW REV# 4.0 XMI NODE # 1. I/O SUB-SYSTEM, UNIT _MUC6: MSLG$L_CMD_REF 61F60004 ORB$L_OWNER 00000000 OWNER UIC [000,000] UCB$L_CHAR 0CC44038 DIRECTORY STRUCTURED SINGLE DIRECTORY "SEQUENTIAL BLOCK" ORIENTED FILE ORIENTED AVAILABLE ERROR LOGGING ALLOCATED CAPABLE OF INPUT CAPABLE OF OUTPUT UCB$L_OPCNT 00000029 41. QIO'S THIS UNIT UCB$W_ERRCNT 0003 3. ERRORS THIS UNIT UCB$W_STS 0810 ONLINE SOFTWARE VALID CDRP$L_MEDIA 00000000 CDRP$W_FUNC 000C READ PHYSICAL BLOCK CDRP$L_BCNT 00000050 TRANSFER SIZE 80. BYTE(S) CDRP$W_BOFF 0170 368. BYTE PAGE OFFSET CDRP$L_PID 0001000D REQUESTOR "PID" CDRP$Q_IOSB 000001F4 00000000 IOSB, 0. BYTE(S) TRANSFERRED I think it's got something to do with this "SOFTWARE VALID" status, but what is that and how can I convince this thing to go ahead? thanks for your help, this is just about the last time I'm going to bother you with my silly VMS questions. regards, -Gunther -- Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. gschadow(a)regenstrief.org Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org

24 years, 1 month

Apple SCSI TermPWR; Was Re: This is funny (ebay)

by cdl＠proxima.ucsd.edu

> Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 02:18:26 -0600 (CST) > From: Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Apple SCSI TermPWR; Was Re: This is funny (ebay) > In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.21.0202231908120.394-100000(a)lanshark.lmi.net> > > OK, maybe my deal is related to that, maybe not. It's been bugging me > for a while, though. > I have a number of older Seagate Hawk narrow SCSI 1G-2G drives. I have > a couple of LC 475s, the SE/30, and a IIci. I've never gotten one of > the Seagates to work as the internal drive on any of the older Macs > without using a cable terminator. I've tried term power to drive, to > bus, from bus, and IIRC, one of the 1G Hawks allows term power both to > the drive and from the bus. Never works. Terminated cable always > works. > "Somebody 'splain this wonderment to me!" Easy. Some computers with internal SCSI drives do not have a separate terminator at the source (host adapter) end of the SCSI bus. They depend on a terminator being present in/on the first drive. With no terminator at all, the resting signal level on the SCSI bus is not pulled up (to about +3V) so the open-collector bus drivers on the host adapter or on the hard drive can't produce any detectable signal by pulling the bus lines down to ground. Computers that are built like this include some Macs, all NeXTs, and probably others that I don't know about. Not SparcStations, they have internal bus termination built onto the motherboard. < http:www.scsifaq.org> carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu

24 years, 1 month

Write only programming

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > > Edward Yourdon recounts an episode in one of his textbooks about a > > large assembly language program that was comment-free, except for > > a single line (don't know the real processor so I'm faking the > > instruction): > > Edward Yourdon. Isn't he the idiot that played Chicken Little before the > new "millennium" and screamed that everything run by computer was going > to break and we were all doomed as a species and we should all buy > thousands of gallons of water and tons of food and bury them along with > ourselves in a plastic bin somewhere out in the desert? perhaps, although that sounds more like james martin's style... Ken Olsen also said that no one would ever want a computer in their home, nonetheless the products created during his tenure remain very important, especially to people here. Hindsight's 20-20, and lots of people get stuck in their paradigms... > I don't think anything he says (or has ever said) has much relevance > anymore. No, like Brooks, he made points about the development of large-scale projects which remain valid. Yourdon certainly wasn't alone in the Y2K chiken-little mentality... and I don't feel inclined to consign them, lock, stock, and barrel, to perdition, not quite yet, anyway... :) -dq

24 years, 1 month

Write only programming

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > > > I don't think anything he says (or has ever said) has much relevance > > > anymore. > > > > No, like Brooks, he made points about the development of large-scale > > projects which remain valid. Yourdon certainly wasn't alone in the > > Y2K chiken-little mentality... and I don't feel inclined to consign > > them, lock, stock, and barrel, to perdition, not quite yet, anyway... > > Look, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who thought the world would end > after the clocks turned to the year 2000 are idiots and deserve to be > ignored. Ah, c'mon... if a flat-earther suggests wearing seat belts is a Good Idea, you aren't going to stop wearing them, are you? ;) -dq

24 years, 1 month

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test-drb March 2002