test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

expansion differences (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> Chippewa??? I don't remember that one. I remember SCOPE > and, later, KRONOS. SCOPE and Kronos were based on Chippewa. COS was largely written by Seymour Cray; in particular, MTR is known by programmers who worked on it later to have been written completely by Cray. He and one or perhaps two others did it between June and December 1964. It was not meant to be a product. The *product* operating system to be bundled with the machine was SIPROS. SIPROS used an assembler named ASCENT that used different mnemonics thsn COMPASS, which was the assembler under SCOPE and Kronos. COS was written in octal. The source consists of two octal numbers, a load address, two spaces, and the value at that address. Further to the left in the traditional "comment field" area is indeed a comment field, so the COS octal source at least has some comments. There is a CP program named APRAB that assembles these octal sources to binary. COS also included Garner McCrossen's RUN compiler, which handled both FORTRAN II and FORTRAN IV, as well as embedded assembly language. The first versions of the display console programs DSD and DIS come from Chippewa, as well as the control cards COPY COPYCR COPYCF COPYBR COPYBF COPYSBF REWIND VERIFY LBC LOC PBC DMP plus concepts like the dayfile, control points, combined input & output (CIO), and the RUN compiler continued to be available in the later SCOPE and Kronos. You can read all about it at http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/cdc/60124500_ChippewaOSref.pdf -dq

22 years, 8 months

Serendipity (Was: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format))

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> From: "Richard Erlacher" <edick(a)idcomm.com> > > Lots of perfectly useable computers started out as little > more than toys. [..snip..] > Nevertheless, Ed Roberts has gone on record as saying he didn't intend the > thing to grow into a computer, which suggests that he didn't originally view > it as one. The Processor Technology SOL likewise was not intended to be a stand-alone computer. Lee had in mind a terminal for use with connecting to real computers. I can't recall if he and Bob Marsh just looked at each other one day and realized it could be more, or if the stand-alone concept originated with Les Solomon. Bob Stek? Jim Battle? What do you recall? -dq

22 years, 8 months

"Windows V1.0"

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Eric J. Korpela" <korpela(a)ssl.berkeley.edu> wrote: > Windows didn't really have 386 support until 3.0 Um, I think the Windows Virtual Machine Manager (and the notion of using multiple V86-mode VMs and virtual device drivers to run multiple DOS windows concurrently) first turned up in Windows/386. ObClassiccmp: this was long enough ago to be on topic. Hey Fred, is there any room over there on the Group Grumpy bench? -Frank McConnell

22 years, 8 months

expansion differences (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mhstein＠canada.com

Fred, you're my man! All the same printers, among others, that I used with my CBM PETs (except the LJ which came later, and my Diablo was the model without the 4004), and they were all FINE printers, especially the 101 (a substantial piece of hardware indeed); still have the 40 foot (!) parallel ribbon cable so I could keep the printer in the basement & close the door to keep the noise reasonable upstairs in the office... mike ----------------Original Message------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 10:53:04 -0700 (PDT) From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: expansion differences (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers) > The only printers for the coco really was the RS ones and really crappy > at that too! ANY "RS-232" printer that was switchable to "AUTO LF" would work just fine. And, with a serial/parallel converter (reaily available, and which quite a few people here are capable of building), parallel "centronics" printers worked. I used a Coco with DTC-300 (HiType I daisy wheel, with 4004 processor), Centronics 101 (weighed 4 zillion times what the computer did), silly radio shack pen plotter/printer, Epson MX-100, and HP Laserjet! Which of those is the crappiest?

22 years, 8 months

expansion differences (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] > When you opened the box with your COCO, what useful work > would it do with the > $399 you had just spent? Could you write a letter? Could As with any computer, you'd need software. Let's take that into account, and say that you could certainly get software on ROM cartridges, and that you could plug a normal household tape recorder in and store data on cassette. Sure, it's not the greatest thing in the world, but it will "balance the checkbook" that way. > you write and > compile a Fortran program? Could you save your work in any I'm not sure whether there were any compilers available that didn't require disk drives. It would have been possible (not fun) given the proper programs. > meaningful way? > Given that you had a printer, could you attach it and use it? Yes, if it was a serial printer. Most software that used a printer depended on having a serial printer plugged into that port on the back of the system. If it was parallel, you'd need a converter. > What software > was there, that you could install and use? How and where > would you install Cartridge slot or cassette tape. Again, there was some available. I'm not sure that it would be enough to constitute "lots," but there was certainly some of most types of software. > it? When you finally decided you had to build your own > hardware and write > your own software, wouldn't it have been easier to use a > wirewrap card and a > CPU chip and start from scratch rather than having to work I'm sure it depends on what you're doing. It seemed to me that the bus slot in the side would have been simple enough to use for hardware add-ons, and you could certainly program the thing in machine code, if nothing else. > hardware didn't cost less if you used one of the "toy"-based > systems, and the > software wasn't any more available than if you'd used a > "real" computer. It Home computers have never been in the same class as "real computers". I'll be the first one to suggest that; they probably never will, either. I would say that it depends on whether you wanted to do "home computer" things, or something more. Certainly it would cost quite a bit of money to make them do something they weren't designed to do, but if your needs fit the design, they were probably fine. Even adding disks would have still been less expensive than the "real computers" of the day. > near the bottom. For something equal to, say, and Apple][,. > I'd say you'd pay > nearly twice what a well-purchased Apple][ would have cost > for a RS product of > nearly similar actual capabilities. RS never did build > something genuinely > intended for expansion though, did they? That was a complaint of mine too. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

expansion differences (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> Christopher Smith wrote: > > you write and > > > compile a Fortran program? Could you save your work in any > > > > I'm not sure whether there were any compilers available that > > didn't require disk drives. It would have been possible (not > > fun) given the proper programs. > > Fortran II could compile from paper tape on the IBM 1620. > The PDP-8 had I think a paper tape version of fortran too, > but not sure what version, II or IV. I think this might be an articial distinction... All the operating systems for the CDC 6600 and its kin required some kind of disk or drum drive, where parts of the operating system would reside. However, the compiler itself could just as easily have been loaded and run from tape in the Chippewa OS. The FORTRAN programs it processed could be on magtape or on cards; Chippewa doesn't seem to have any papertape support. There does not appear to be any support for the user or even the operator to have disk-resident files, as there was no filesystem to speak of in Chippewa. -dq

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mythtech＠mac.com

>Well, OK. I didn't explicitly mention that they made floppies for the >floppy port. Bu "exactly one", I meant "hard disks" to show that it >wasn't commonly done. Ah yes... beyond floppies, the Apple HD20 is the only other device by ANYONE that I am aware of for the Mac floppy port (their might be other stuff... I'm just not aware of them). But floppy drives were available >from a number of vendors. >I do not >recall if a FDHD drive will work, even at 800K, in a Mac that isn't >expecting it. I have one FDHD SE and several 800K SEs; I suppose if >I were ever curious enough, I could test the theory. I don't think it could be done with Apple branded drives unless you had the newer ROM that allowed the FDHD. However, there were some 3rd party external drives that worked with 1.44 3.5 disks, and even with 5.25 and PC disks. And those worked with older Macs (at least back to the Mac Plus, and I think as far back as the 512k or kE). I think Dayna was an example of a company that made a high density external drive for the Plus... and they had a model that had a 5.25 drive in the same case (only R/W pc format IIRC). But I assume such drives had an init and didn't "just work". I will be sure to test the AE drive I am getting from Dave tonight on my Mac Plus to see if it could read a 1.44 disk. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] > Hey! I did say the mass storage interface had to be internal to the > "computer" and not necessarily the mass storage devices. Sure, but my point was, for instance, the C64 had drives that used what basically amounts to a straight serial (or is that parallel?) interface, and that is in the computer. But they're "toys," right? > campus is the enclosure, while if it's a desktop, it's pretty Is that like "the network is the computer?" :) > Besides, though I didn't originally point this out, some of > you guys have, as > toys, some of those very machines that you're pointing out > aren't really toys. > Are you guys trying to have it both ways? Just because they're not toys doesn't make it impossible to play with them like toys. We could just define anything that's not necessary for survival to be a toy, and be done with it. :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mythtech＠mac.com

>my PS/2 is a 'real' computer? err... change all my refs of PS/2 to PS2 (ie: Sony Playstation 2). Sorry, spent the day looking at IBM PS/2's (ie: the computer), so the slash just jumped its way in there. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

IBM PC 5150

by mhstein＠canada.com

>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 19:16:58 -0700 (PDT) >From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> >Subject: RE: Period pricing references (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers) >Did yours have the extra DB blockoff plate on the back panel? Yup! >Did it have a drive mounting screw coming up from the bottom? Yup! >My first 5150 came from IBM with a WHITE (NOT RED!) power switch, and a >BLACK power supply (63.5W?) Mine too! With very few, very stiff and very short connecting cables. >These days, I hardly EVER even see the 16K-64K motherboard ones. Well, I threw out the case a while ago, but still have the motherboard, some keyboards and maybe even the black PSU, as well as some IBM TM100 faceplates, if anybody's interested. mike

22 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2002