test-drb May 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

248 participants
723 discussions

Trying to resurrect old Apple ][ cassette program

by vcf＠siconic.com

I'm having trouble trying to get running an old Apple ][ cassette program. I managed to successfully load the program into the Apple's memory, but it won't run. Here are the details: The program is 3-D Docking by Programma International circa 1978. The program's load address is $200 (hex) and it ranges to $2000 (the load command is 200.2000R). It somewhat cleverly is auto-running in that it loads directly into the Apple ][ keyboard buffer (which resides at $200), and at the exact spot where the load command "200.2000R" would normally end in the keyboard buffer, the command "220G" is "inserted" (overlaid really) by the load into the keyboard buffer. So when the ROM is done reading the program, it finds the next command in the keyboard buffer is "220G", so it will jump to the code at $220. This is where it is presumably supposed to initialize some stuff and then presumably run the game. This code first calls a routine in the BASIC ROM and then sets some zero page addresses, and then jumps into the BASIC ROM. However, it crashes with an "OVERFLOW ERROR" at the JSR to $F000 at $220. Here's the "init" code at $220: 0220- JSR $F000 0223- LDA #$AF 0225- STA $4A 0227- LDA #$0C 0229- STA $4B 022B- LDA #$00 022D- STA $4C 022F- LDA #$20 0231- STA $4D 0233- LDA #$9C 0235- STA $CA 0237- LDA #$11 0239- STA $CB 023B- LDA #$8F 023D- STA $CC 023F- LDA #$0D 0241- STA $CD 0243- JSR $FC58 0246- JMP $EFEC I have no idea what this is supposed to do. I've tried skipping the first JSR but that doesn't fix things. The actual code starts at $800. Starting at $800 sets graphics mode and clears hi-res page 1, but that's it. I so far haven't been able to find any other start address. And I so far haven't been able to figure out how it gets from $220 to the actual game code. I've tried this on an enhanced Apple //e as well as a stock Apple ][+ but get the same results. I also tried it in an emulator (AppleWin) under both //e and ][+ emulation and get the same results. If anyone wants to play with this, I put it up for download here: http://www.siconic.com/download/images/3DDOCK.DSK So if you're counting, that's: Cassette -> Apple //e -serial-> PC -network-> PC Server -internet-> Web server -> You! ;) Mount this volume into your emulator and boot from it. Then BLOAD the program THREE-D DOCKING ($200). The binary loads at $6000 (for obvious reasons, if you're an Apple nerd) so you must move it to its expected location: 200<6000.7E00M You can then examine the code at $220 and $800-$1FFF. If anyone figures out how to get this to run, please let me know ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

18 years, 11 months

MPF-IP items needed

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

I got an email from someone looking for scans/copies of the three manuals that come with the MPF-IP does anyone have either of these that I can point this person to? For myself I'm looking for the thermo printer model PRT-MPF-IP to hookup to the computer that I have. Anyone have a source or extra one? Thanks John

18 years, 11 months

Remembering RAMAC

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Remembering RAMAC > From: Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic.com> > Date: Fri, 27 May 2005 14:59:11 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > Allison> Of course late in the game was the 32kW RS08 disk for the > Allison> PDP8 systems. Small but very fast word wide storage. > >Not fast at all, because that one is NOT parallel -- the RS08 (and its >PDP11 successor RS64, as well as the RF11/RS11) are all serial fixed >head drives. The doc says the RS08 takes 32 microseconds per (12 bit) >word; the RF11 was slightly faster at 15 microseconds per (16 bit) >word. > > paul Yep, but to a PDP8 that was fairly fast. ;) I did see a parallel head drum hooked to an 8 once, no idea of the details but it was for time sharing system and was very fast. Allison

18 years, 11 months

Apple's first scanner (available in Tuscon, Arizona)

by vcf＠siconic.com

If anyone is interested in this, please reply to the original sender (see below). Reply-to: gmt at CS.Arizona.EDU ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 17:04:41 -0700 From: Gregg Townsend <gmt at CS.Arizona.EDU> Subject: Apple's first scanner Would you be interested in this? It seems a shame to recycle it. 1987 Apple Scanner, model A9M0337, s/n 0030253. This is not the more common OneScanner, but instead its rarer 4-bit predecessor, which was marketed simply as the Apple Scanner. This is a legal-size flatbed scanner, 300 dpi, 4-bit grayscale. It has two SCSI connectors and ADB connector, and has two SCSI cables, a terminator, and a power cord. The scanner is in excellent condition; it was functioning perfectly when disconnected about five years ago. From above, it looks like new. Underneath, three rubber feet are missing, and there is a security plate attached by adhesive. You're welcome to have it if you think it's worth the shipping costs >from Tucson. Gregg Townsend gmt at cs.arizona.edu -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

18 years, 11 months

Inventory for handling scanned documents (was: Better indexing on bitsavers)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

We've now named quite a lot of applications and concepts about how to handle scanned documents. I'd like to get the big picture: -- here is the current workflow that I'm using Ricoh IS520 30page/minute duplex B&W scanner that can handle up to 11 x 17 with crappy Windows scan app (under vmware) generates even / odd pages into two separate directories. Since it turned out that scanning wide-edge first results in straighter scans, I need to postprocess front and back separately since the backs are flipped 180 deg. The tiffs are on a shared file system with my Mac. I do all of the cleanup on there with Graphic Converter. I have a bunch of scripts I run over the files to produce a single directory with the pages brought to size and the boarders cleaned up. I then cull the dups/bad scans, check that I didn't miss any pages then save the files with the page number as the file name. Then I squirt the dir back over to the linux box (since tumble is little-endian only) and say: tumble -b %F * ../file.pdf Copy it back over to the Mac, add it to the postprocessed scans and put the whole thing in a 'to be archived' dir where it is saved to DVD-R If there are pages that can't be scanned on the Ricoh, I do those separately on a Mustek 11x17 flatbed. Then, ftp the pdf to bitsavers, and update the index files.

18 years, 11 months

look ing for Mag Tape Hinges pertec

by g-wright＠worldnet.att.net

I have few different Mag tapes that don't have the Rack Hinges that they hang on. I would guess they are different from model to model ??? The one is a Pertec T8X60A T8000 series pn 103338-01 Any one know of a Source or have a stash. - Jerry

18 years, 11 months

300mb disc drives

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> I can't remember any hard disks greater then 50MB being available even > into the late 1980's. CDC 9766's (300mb also sold as DEC RM05s) came out in 1979 Similar size drives were being made by IBM and Burroughs Sperry, Memorex, etc.

18 years, 11 months

Neon logic

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

Reading would actually be the easy part- drop a phototransistor in (optical) line with the NE - pricy but doesn't affect the stored data. Scott Quinn

18 years, 11 months

Cycle Computer Corporation Sun clone board...

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Just picked one of these up, lurking in a SPARCStation 1 case. I gether it's a SPARC 5 clone board. It seems to have 30 pin SIMM memory, but also a couple of 72 pin sockets (both of these and all 16 30 pin sockets are filled). Anyone able to tell me if there's anything special about the 72 pin sockets? I'm assuming both types of socket are used as main memory and this was just done for flexibility, but it'd be nice to know (just in case the 72 pin ones are for disk cache or something equally strange) It seems Tadpole bought Cycle a number of years back, so I'll give them a poke just on the offchance they have a manual kicking around (their European base is only just down the road from me) cheers Jules

18 years, 11 months

The Don Maslin Software Archive - 2

by vern4wright＠yahoo.com

Since I posted my last message regarding Don Maslin's Software Archive on 5-14, I have followed the discussion here without contributing. I mailed a copy of that last message to Winnie Maslin on 5-16 with a pleasant cover letter. I have heard nothing from her. I have however heard through another source that she has asked a lawyer friend of Don's to "do something" - that something is undefined, though it is said that this man (whom I knew slightly some years ago) feels he can locate the software archive without difficulty. I hope that he can and will do so; obviously, I will not be involved. I don't know whether or when this will happen, or that it will. So I'm going to address some of the issues brought up in the discussion, give my take, and retire to my usual indolence. 1. Tom Jennings brought up the packrat v. collector issue - I don't know why, but it did bring about interesting exchanges. I considered writing to explain why collectors are almost always also packrats or accumulators, and how accumulators often become collectors, from my view as a life-long book collector. But I decided that essay would be non-productive. However, here in San Diego we did have a man who accumulated tens of thousands of books and stored them in his room in a hotel; the accumulation did fall on him and if memory serves, kill him. 2. Several suggested that I talk to others in the family - as though I hadn't thought of that. There was only one person available, and he had no influence. Felt he had been told by Winnie to butt out, that she would deal only with me directly. 3. The Computer Museum was suggested. David Weil was one of the first people I talked to about the situation back in September, after I had posted that initial message. The Museum is undergoing the agony of having to move (ah, how well I know that feeling!), as Coleman College (where it is now housed) is going to sell their building. David is looking for a new venue. Anyone with access to big bucks is encouraged to contact him. 4. Barry Watzman stated that Winnie had made no 'agreement' with me. While the agreement that we had (which was memorialized in a letter I wrote her directly after the September posting and never, in letter or in word, disavowed) may not stand the legal scrutiny of the elements of offer, acceptance, consideration, and the rest that go into a contract - it's been a long time since I took Kingsfield's course in Contracts :) - it was an agreement that she did not keep. REGARDLESS - understand, all I wanted to do was - TO CLEAN UP A MESS A FRIEND LEFT - AND SAVE A PRICELESS RESOURCE FOR THOSE OF US WHO CARE FOR OLD COMPUTERS I don't give a hoot for the old computers that Don left - they're probably worth about ten thousand _in toto_, and that might cover the cost of disposing of all the many things (monitors, etc.) which cost big bucks to dispose of in California. 5. Why didn't Don make a backup? For that, you have to understand something about Don. HE HATED WINDOZE - passionately. He tried OS/2 and gave up on it. He watched me install Linux from scratch (back in the early days of Linux, before the modern "stick a disc in and let it do its thing" times), and I think it scarred him for life. (It did me!) He used PC-DOS, not Microsoft (I'll not go into his remarks about that company). So he kept his backups on tape. Somewhere, about 2001 or so, he got a burner; I recall, because I spent an afternoon showing him how to burn discs. He was going to go home and hold his nose and boot Win98 and burn a copy of his archive. I don't know whether he did. At some point one has to stand back and let a friend do what he pleases. Yes, I wanted him to make copies. But twist his arm I would not. When his ISP finally took away shell accounts, and Don HAD to log on through Windoze, we suggested he put a little PuTTY between himself and Win98. He did. 6. Where do we go from here? Well, the informal consensus, judging from the messages until a week ago (I haven't read the last week), was that the archive should be replaced _de novo_. And then the discussion devolved into the deficiencies of Teledisk, what ought to be the format of a new archive, etc. >From something Don said some years ago, Teledisk is now in the public domain. He kept up a desultory correspondence with the author of the *disk programs, who has moved into another field, and then asked me if I would make some additions to Teledisk. I looked at the problem and concluded that what he wanted wasn't plausible in the existing program. I would suggest that the group take the list of OS's that is on gaby's site, and see if it can be duplicated. And THEN DUPLICATE that list, find every OS on that list, and put them on ClassicCmp's website - in WHATEVER FORMAT IS POSSIBLE. As time passes, perhaps a fairly general storage/ transfer format may be found. I don't believe that there ever will be a fully general format, but that's not the issue. Doc Shipley wants a Kaypro boot disk! We don't know whether Don's archive ever will be found, or made available, or .... If we are serious lovers of these machines and want them to do more than sit in our workshops, it behooves us to assume the worst and act accordingly. We can always hope for the best. Vern Wright vern4wright at yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

18 years, 11 months

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test-drb May 2005