Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:43:31 -0700
From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
Subject: Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal
Richard wrote:
> Ack! Yes, the keyboard looks painful. I don't think they envisioned
> that people would actually type on this thing, more like hunt & peck.
That has to be the 2nd worst keyboard I have seen. The 1st is any keyboard
with 'windows' keys. Considering Videotex was ment as information setup
it was more like press 1 to display ... 9 to return to menu type stuff.
Ben alias woodelf
---------------
You're not really a big PC & Windows fan, are ya?
The 'windows' key's never bothered me; how does it disturb you?
m
Speaking of keyboards etc.:
Anybody have a use for a Falco VT5220e, as used by many DECcies
whose budgets couldn't afford a 'real' VT200?
Looks just like the picture of the Infinity (amber CRT) at:
http://williambader.com/museum/vax/vaxhistory.html
Might also have one of the older TS-100SPs somewhere (VT100).
And a L-S ADM-11...
Unfortunately, although I have boxes of Falco docs the 5220 manual
seems to have gone missing from the pile (at least I haven't found it yet),
although I do have docs for the ADM-11, and the TS-100 if I can find it.
m
Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal (Richard)
> http://steinbeck.ucs.indiana.edu/~mmeiss/sceptre/
Wow, those photos bring back memories!
I was just thinking about those: a friend had one and
google didn't help me. ebay lists Sceptre flat monitors
(totally unrelated but a source for confusion).
I have something similar: I think it's Zenith.
A thick keyboard with the terminal inside the keyboard,
it attaches to tv-as-monitor, phone line (internal modem).
My Olivetti PR2300 spark-jet printer has line-drawing characters
that I don't recognize. Was that intended for teletext/videotext?
Yes, I bought it from the DAK catalog after reading the glowing ad
how it was a wonderful printer for the low low price.
Nowhere did it mention it was a ONE PIN DOT MATRIX PRINTER!
It made the dots by creating sparks (ozone!)
that fused the powder to form ONE DOT on the paper.
Somewhere I have some floppy disks with teletext/videotext software
so one could use a PC instead of a dedicated terminal.
I remember the computer show around 1990 when several companies
/truly believed that Videotex would be the future in the USA/
so they were trying to get customers and data-suppliers/stores online.
Also being tried at that time: phones with built-in teeny terminals
for folks who didn't want the cost or responsibility of a PC.
Geez, those were re-invented how many times:
as the CIDCO email only terminal,
thin clients, Network appliances (I-opener), ...
------------Original Message:
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:00:19 -0700
From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
Subject: Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre Videotex terminal
Richard wrote:
>> Well, yes, obviously the location is the issue, but it is still just another
>> tedious MS-bash; I've got an APL keyboard here, and I think every
>> "classic" terminal or computer keyboard I have here is different in
>> some "improved" way but I don't hear complaints about that, or all the
>> different PC layouts, especially the enter, backspace and \ keys.
>
> Exactly.
I did ... see windows keyboards. But then I am cheap, I don't spend
money on a real keyboard. Not that I have seen a modern keyboard I did like.
-------------Reply:
Different keyboard layouts have been a fact of life since the very first one that
wasn't the same as a typewriter; deal with it.
Find yourself an old one that you *do* like (if such a thing exists) and spare
us your bitching and moaning.
Back to our regular programming...
m
----------Original Message:
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:57:37 -0800 (PST)
From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>
Subject: keyboard layouts was Re: Documentation for the AT&T Sceptre
Videotex terminal
> Don't you also have trouble switching from a C64 to a Mac?
Yup. Fortunately most of the emulators let you either use 64 or Mac layouts
and map the keys appropriately.
---------Reply:
There ya go.
Like most of the bitching about MS, Windows, keyboards, etc. here and
elsewhere, if you don't like it just shut up and use something else; lots of
alternatives like Linux & KBs w/o WIN keys out there and we've heard it
all K times.
(Meant for the OP, not you Cameron).
m
> From: tshoppa at wmata.com
> Chuck wrote:
>>Micropolis floppy drives were very well-made. I wish that modern
>>drives could be as well-built. All of mine are still operational.
>
> I think that like CDC/Imprimis, Seagate, Shugart, etc., Micropolis
> built drives to different price points for different markets.
>
> The ones built for the mini and mainframe market in the late
> 80's/very early 90's are true tanks and stand up very solidly
> here 15 or 20 years later.
>
> But by the mid-late-90's when capacity was the craze I think that
> some industrial-duty Micropolis drives were a little too bleeding
> edge.
>
> The MFM ones built for PC-clones, however, seem to simply be "above
> average", which is pretty good but not stellar.
>
>
In the late 90's, we were using Micropolis drives in our HaL
computers. Many wouldn't even finish our 24 Hour burn-in.
When they were making choices as to which drive to use,
I was surprised when I was told that they'd go with the Micropolis
drive. By that time, they'd already earned a bad name.
I was told that the decision was made, based on that fact
that they would give us any engineering support we needed.
I saw this as a red flag but the upper people didn't. I couldn't
understand why we would need any support for something
as mature as hard drives of the time.
I suspect that bad marketing decisions were made at Micropolis,
like the ones that were made at HaL. Engineering didn't have there
act to gether before the products were in production. I've
seen it happen at otherplaces. Schedule is king and at some
point the engineers will just stand and nod their heads ( as
they get their resumes ready ).
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
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> So the boy (9yr. old) was asking last night about how
> computers work... any recommendations for good books for
> learning the basics from? I think I started out with a
> Sinclair Spectrum and its BASIC manual, but I really don't
> recall now where I found out about the fundamental building
> blocks of [typical] computers and how a CPU worked. There
> must be a good 'classic' "how computers work" type of book
> which avoids going on about PCs and Xboxen...
One weekend my parents wanted to get away from the kids so I went to
work with my older brother. I was in a lab at P.R. Mallory Corp. with a
supply of chips and a few books. Worked for me. At 12 I built an 8080a
based something or another (I wouldn't call it a computer, but it had a
bit of memory, a numeric keypad and 6 A/N LEDs for display). After that
I had accounts on about 6 minis of the DEC and DG variety.
Are you sure the kid is interested in computers or just trying to keep
up with the alphageeks at school?
>Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:17:18 -0500
>From: "Jerome H. Fine" <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to>
...
>I doubt that RSX-11 or RSTS/E allow a user access to the IOPAGE
>even via PREVIOUS DATA space. Can anyone confirm this assumption?
>Is there any fast method (only a few extra instructions) that would
allow
>a user to reference a specific IOPAGE register from a user program?
Are
>VIRTUAL arrays allowed in FORTRAN under RSX-11? If so, how
>is access to the MMU registers controlled and allowed?
>
...
>Sincerely yours,
>Jerome Fine
>--
Ouch, you're straining dead neurons....
As the KMC-11 Development Tools developer for RSX-11M and VMS, I know
it's possible.
I just don't remember the all the hoops we jumped through to do it.
(this was circa 1978/79)
The basic approach required us to map the IO registers and peek and
poke values in the registers to control execution. Of course this was
all written in MACRO-11, not un-manly FORTRAN. ;^)
You probably had to be an RSX admin user ( UID below [10,*] ) to run
the tools (loader and debugger).
On VMS I had to learn the very new facility (I don't think it was in
V1.0) of Page Frame Mapping and allocate a page map to get to UNIBUS IO
space. This required a specific privilege too.
I ported the tools code from Macro-11 to VAX Macro by doing semi-
mechanical find/replace on the opcodes, and other tweaks. I even
created a few macros to mimic the missing PDP-11 instructions, like
SWAB. It needed very little needed rewriting to get working.
Dave.
There is a good book called "The Chip" by T.R. Reid. Mostly it's the story of Noyce and Kilby (which is well-told and worth reading on its own), but there's a chapter for laypeople about how a chip actually adds two numbers together. Way too simple for cctalk'ers, but great for a 9-year-old.
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Quinn <compoobah at valleyimplants.com>
Subj: Re: Teaching kids about computers...
Date: Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:09 am
Size: 1K
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Perhaps not right now, but the biggest "leap forward" I had from books
was looking at the 8080/Z80 microcomputer design and operation books
(such as Ciarcia's "How to Build Your Own Z-80 Computer" and
"Microcomputers and Microprocessors" (8080, 8085 and Z-80) from the
hardware standpoint. Probably not a good book until Junior High or High
School, though.
When I was learning S/W, I remember starting with Logo in 4th grade and
using Brainpower ChipWits at home. the ChipWits manual had a small
section on programming theory, perhaps I can find it. That's a good
game if you have an older Macintosh around (I had issues on machines
with over 1MB of RAM - it was written for the 128K, 512K and XL per the
disk. Some other people don't seem to have the issues, perhaps there
was a revision). In middle school we moved on to BASIC (because it was
in the ROMs of Apples). Perhaps not the ideal progression, but nowadays
students in the elementary schools don't seem to be learning
programming at all- it's more "how you use application software on the
computer".
In the early '90s Macworld had a 3-part article on how computers work
that wasn't too in depth. If you want I can find it and scan it., but
it's probably not too much more in depth than David Macaulay's "The Way
Things Work" in the new edition. (actually it is)
