test-drb September 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

200 participants
374 discussions

by bqt＠softjar.se

joe heck <trash3 at splab.cas.neu.edu> wrote: > Folks, I asked similar questions directly and got the following answers. > So, don't know if it is RT, RSX, or RSTS, or even a flavor of Unix. > > Joe Heck Hmm. Noone seem to ask the most obvious questions... The original poster said it was a HP PDP 11/64. Now, HP never made any computers with a PDP moniker, Digital did. And Digital never made a PDP computer with the 11/64 designation. I would suggest that we start at that end. What machine is this *really*? As for questions about transferring the data... Is the machine still functional or not? If it is, then it would obviously be easiest to just type the file out (it's a text file after all). Size of disks (someone asked). If we're talking MSCP disks, the largest I know of is the RA73, which weights in at 2 GB. (Unless you want to count SCSI drives...) Copying to a Linux system? Sure you can do that, but I wouldn't. VMS would probably be way better if it's actually from some PDP system, since VMS can actually read some of the file systems it might be in then. But this might be something not at all related to DEC equipment after all... Johnny

17 years, 10 months

PDP8 and Z-machine engine

by bqt＠softjar.se

woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: > Johnny Billquist wrote: > >>> However, have you ever programmed on a PDP-8? >>> If so, you would realize that it really requires you to do things a bit >>> different from what people nowadays do. >>> You have 4K word pages. One word is 12 bits. The addressing style of >>> instructions really limit most routines to what you can fit into 128 >>> words. No stack... > > >Well 12 bits holds 2 6 bit chars nicely :) >I suspect the best way to do this is to convert Z-machine >data into something better suited for 12/24 bit processing. Hmm, I'm not sure how easy it would be to convert the game files in a way that would be good here... Text data would be nice to change, but other stuff you'd want to keep the way it is. But this would cause stuff to move around, so you'd really get into trouble. Nah, I suspect you'll want to leave the game files as they are... >>> Well, there are a lot of things to play around with. >>> Like I said, it wouldn't be difficult to write a Z-machine interpreter >>> for the PDP-8, but you'd better not base it on something written in C. >>> You might pick an idea or two from Frotz, for instance, but you'd have >>> to rewrite that as well to fit with the PDP-8. > > >Well the PDP-8 is easy to program in -- 8 instructions types. :) Depending on how you look at it, yes. You have six instructions that have an address argument, one I/O instruction, and one operator instruction. But the IOT leaves most of the bits free for interpretation by the device, and the OPR instruction is bit-coded, so it's really a lot of instructions. >>> And you have almost no OS to support you either, so you'd have to >>> implement the I/O as well, and figure out which, if any, clock you have, >>> if you want to implement timed input. > > >Oddly you have better OS support now with the emulators and >some new-ish hardware that uses ide drives. Huh? What are you talking about? You'll still have the emulator running OS/8, and nothing else. (Well, you could write it for RTS-8 for a different environment with support for more hardware, but I doubt anyone would to that.) OS/8 is a very limited OS. Whatever underlying hardware you use is irrelevant. It's all a question of what you're emulating, and I would recommend that your code works on atleast a few different combinations of hardware. Johnny

17 years, 10 months

Resistors

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

I have a vaguely sorted pile of 1/4 and 1/8 watt carbon comp and metal film resistors available for postage plus a token amount for my time. The pile is about two pounds. Any interest? Replies off list, please... -- Will

17 years, 10 months

SunOS Install docs

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Brad asked about SunOS2. I have no documents for that release, but SunOS 4s recommended install proceedure bypasses standalone copy in favor of MUNIX and dd. To load MUNIX you run >bst() Boot: st(,,4) which loads MUNIX into ram. From there, you make devices, if necessary, run format to label your disks, and then dd the miniroot off with mt -f /dev/nrst0 fsf3 dd if=/dev/nrst0 of=/dev/rsd0b bs=48k you boot the miniroot with b sd(,,1) -sw Standalone copy syntax is >b st() Boot: st(,,2) Copy from: st(,,3) Copy to: st(,,1) then reset and boot miniroot.

17 years, 10 months

HP 2934A Printer Manual Needed

by technobug＠comcast.net

Cleaning house and came across said printer. Appears to work great and has an RS232 interface. However I really need the owners/ programming manual to make use of it. CRC

17 years, 10 months

Stuff available in NH

by dbetz＠xlisper.com

I'm cleaning out my basement and am finally admitting to myself that I'm not going to have enough spare time to make use of all of the equipment I've accumulated over the years. I would like to offer the following list of equipment to the list. Some of the items are too large to pack and ship. I would like them picked up in Bedford, NH 03110. This includes all of the PDP-11 equipment and the Sun 386i workstation. Some of the other stuff could be packed shipped at the new owner's expense. I'm basically offering this stuff for free to anyone who wants it. The only thing I would be interested in acquiring in trade is an LK201 keyboard and a VR201 monitor to use with my DECmate III+. Even that might be available after I've had a change to play with it a little. Anyway, here is the list. Please contact me at dbetz at xlisper.com if you are interested in any of this equipment. Thanks, David Betz

17 years, 10 months

z180, z2780, z380 was: Re: Modern CP/M machine classic?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: z180, z2780, z380 was: Re: Modern CP/M machine classic? > From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com> > Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 17:38:17 -0600 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >David Griffith wrote: >> I was wondering if a recently made machine intended to be used as a >> "classic" computer qualifies as a "classic" here. Here are some examples: >> >> P112: A Z180 single board computer still available brand-new which runs >> ZSDOS and probably straight CP/M too. > >Were there any SBCs with the later z280 & z380 chips ? >A short google search didn't find anything. So, anybody here knows of >any SBC with the z280, z380 (or similar ?) chips ? Never saw a real Z380. However I have several Jrev Z280s in CP/M based projects. The Z280 was used on the YASBEC (Yet Another Single Board Computer) and a few others that slip my mind. Allison

17 years, 10 months

Modern CP/M machine classic?

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I was wondering if a recently made machine intended to be used as a "classic" computer qualifies as a "classic" here. Here are some examples: P112: A Z180 single board computer still available brand-new which runs ZSDOS and probably straight CP/M too. Replica I: An Apple I clone with modern parts replacing the discontinued parts of the original SBC1620: Uses the Harris 1620 CPU to create something roughly equivalent to a PDP8e. An optional near clone of the PDP8e front panel is/was also available. Has an IDE port to use modern hard drives or CF cards for storage. Other machines to consider are completely new, but are designed and built with classic computing in mind. Specifically I mean the half-dozen or so machines built from discrete TTL chips. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

17 years, 10 months

z180, z2780, z380 was: Re: Modern CP/M machine classic?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: z180, z2780, z380 was: Re: Modern CP/M machine classic? > From: David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> > Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2006 17:03:50 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On Mon, 4 Sep 2006, e.stiebler wrote: > >> David Griffith wrote: >> > I was wondering if a recently made machine intended to be used as a >> > "classic" computer qualifies as a "classic" here. Here are some examples: >> > >> > P112: A Z180 single board computer still available brand-new which runs >> > ZSDOS and probably straight CP/M too. >> >> Were there any SBCs with the later z280 & z380 chips ? >> A short google search didn't find anything. So, anybody here knows of >> any SBC with the z280, z380 (or similar ?) chips ? > >I've been pondering a redesign of the P112 for a while. I'll probably >investigate using a z280 or z380 for a brand-new design. The biggest problem doing a Z280 design is finding enough late rev Z280s. The z280 in it's early revs had a number of bugs that impacted the MMU and cache. However, if you find enough parts it's a interesting varient of the z80 line with a 16bit wide data bus, 24bit addressing, MMU and I&D space. It's instruction set is enhanced as well. Despite all that it's fully Z80 upward compatable and will run most z80 binaries found in the Z80 CP/M world. FYI: fast parts are in the 12.5 to 16mhz range. Allison

17 years, 10 months

PDP8 and Z-machine engine

by bqt＠softjar.se

Christian Corti <cc at corti-net.de> skrev: On Sun, 3 Sep 2006, Johnny Billquist wrote: > > > No, you'd just have to write it from scratch. Nothing strange about that, and > > > doing something about V4 and V5 games isn't that difficult either. Given a > > > little time I sure could whip one together, but for now I'll leave the > > > exercise to someone else. > > > I've already written one Z-machine interpreter in MACRO-11. It deals with > > > anything V1 to V8, except for obvious limitations (no sounds, no graphics, no > > > mouse...) > > There I completely disagree! I've ported the Z-machine interpreter from > InterTaskForce (written in C, and really good if you want to understand > how the interpreter works) to the IBM 5110 (written in PALM assembler), > including paging etc. But until now nobody else has ever wanted to try it > on his 5110/5120... Seems all 5110 owners don't want to use their machines. :-) However, have you ever programmed on a PDP-8? If so, you would realize that it really requires you to do things a bit different from what people nowadays do. You have 4K word pages. One word is 12 bits. The addressing style of instructions really limit most routines to what you can fit into 128 words. No stack... Well, there are a lot of things to play around with. Like I said, it wouldn't be difficult to write a Z-machine interpreter for the PDP-8, but you'd better not base it on something written in C. You might pick an idea or two from Frotz, for instance, but you'd have to rewrite that as well to fit with the PDP-8. And you have almost no OS to support you either, so you'd have to implement the I/O as well, and figure out which, if any, clock you have, if you want to implement timed input. Johnny

17 years, 10 months

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test-drb September 2006