test-drb April 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

257 participants
560 discussions

by ken＠seefried.com

From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > >> Does somebody know of a modern Unix system which truly focuses on >> resources consumption, which is lean and fast? > >I'd like to hear if you find one. It seems that you could take a fork of NetBSD 1.x and have something useful to build on. > Especially, I'd like to hear about an open-source C compiler that (a) > supports at least sparc, i386, mips, and arm - those being the CPUs I > care about at the moment - and (b) is not a resource pig. Old GCC (1.x or 2.x)? Not a not-pig, but compared to 3.x or 4.x, it's lightweight. Couldn't you build NetBSD 1.6 with 2.95.3?

17 years, 9 months

TRS-80 "Eight Meg Disk System" questions...

by kelly＠catcorner.org

> 1. The proper host interface board (this is the card that goes in the > Model II/16/etc. cardcage) The 8meg controller had large red heat sinks under the TTL chips. > > From the responses I've received I get the impression it's > possible to > substitute a hard drive controller for a 5mb TRS-80 hard > drive for #2 -- I don't think the newer card will work in the older units. please see: http://nemesis.lonestar.org/computers/tandy/hardware/storage/mfm.html for a very complete discussion. Kelly -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.4.0/762 - Release Date: 4/15/2007 4:22 PM

17 years, 9 months

Fortune 32:16

by g-wright＠att.net

-------------- Original message from "James A. Markevitch" <jam at magic.com>: -------------- > I did much of the port of V7 UNIX for the Fortune Systems 32:16 computer > in 1981. > > It was a 6 MHz 68000 (not 68010!) designed specifically to run the UNIX > operating system with business applications on top of it. It could > run with 256KB of memory and two floppies (although it was really > a lot more useful with a 5MB hard drive). That was the sole operating > system intended for it. > > The 68000 did not have proper instruction restart after taking a trap, > so we had to do some tricks to support traps due to stack growth. > It had a real (and simple) MMU that supported text, data/bss, stack, > and u_page, all built using MSI TTL and maybe a PAL -- no LSI MMU. > > The box was still rock solid when I last had it powered on, probably about > 10 years ago. Mine is maxed out with 1MB of memory and four 68MB disk > drives (if I am recalling the max supported disk size correctly). > > James Markevitch Jim Do you recall anything about how they coded the machine ID to the software disks. I believe I have some add on programs that have not been installed. Most though have machine ID numbers written on the floppy disks. I have a couple of these machines here one has an bad Motherboard. Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net

17 years, 9 months

HP "calculators" (was Re: World's first computer on ebay!)

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:29:52 -0700 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: HP "calculators" (was Re: World's first computer on ebay!) On 14 Apr 2007 at 15:59, M H Stein wrote: > Maybe what's missing in my blathering is that when BASIC does a > conditional test it's actually looking for a non-zero number in whatever > its argument is, which could be a logical expression (which returns 0 or -1) > or simply a variable. > > So instead of IF A <> 0 THEN... you can just say IF A THEN..., > something you'll see throughout my sloppy code ;-). I tried it again this afternoon and it works as you said. But last night, I tried it over and over again in my GWBASIC and got the results that I mentioned. No mistake--I'm certain of it--I had to repeat it about 5 times to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. Either that or I need to have my ginger ale tested for hallucinogens. It DOES point out the obvious need for LET in some cases. LET X=Y=7 is different from X=Y=7. Cheers, Chuck --------------Reply: Well, Chuck, as one old geezer to another, either one of us needs to be tested for Alzheimer's, you are indeed drinking or smoking some funny stuff, or you're using some obscure beta version of GWBASIC from the old days. AFAIK there is no difference whatsoever whether you use LET or not; what do you get that makes you believe otherwise? Perhaps there IS some particular set of circumstances where what you say happens, but I doubt that Bill would be interested in fixing it at this point in time... ------- Tony: >I beleive there was at least one BASIC where you could write A=B=0 (and >it meant assinge 0 to A and to B, not set A to the boolean value of the >compariston between B and 0, which it meant in some other BASICs) We were talking about GWBASIC, but you're probably quite right, and thank you for putting it more succinctly than my convoluted explanation. >A lot of BASICs would take a line like IF X=0 THEN Y=SIN(D):Z=D*D+2 >and do both assingments iff X equalled 0 GWBASIC included; in fact, it's because of the way IF/THEN works that the technique of avoiding it by using a boolean as a numeric variable is so useful at times. -------- Fred: >So, apparently it is parsing it as x = (Y==7); Exactly; thank you too for a much clearer explanation than mine. >An alternative to LET is to have different symbols for assignment v >comparison. == , .EQ. etc >I always liked the APL X <- 3, >which also avoids the beginner mistake of 3 = x Makes much more sense to me too, but let's not get into one of those BASIC-bashing language comparion threads; it's too easy a target... ;) m

17 years, 9 months

*nix on "classic" systems

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Steven wrote >> SPARC is better, indeed for C++ or ANSI C on SunOS4 you will probably >> have to >> use gcc, since Sun's ANSI and C++ compilers are both hard to come by >> and >> nodelocked. > > Are you talking about the SUNWspro tools? Those are available for free > download from Sun. I think they call it Studio 11, or something like > that. > > Sun Studio 11 has fairly high system requirements (Solaris 8+ and an Ultra (listed as 450MHz U60 but probably will work with less). The older compilers (for SunOS4.1 through Solaris 7) are nodelocked (and go by many names: SPARCompilers, Forte, and WorkShop).

17 years, 9 months

*nix on "classic" systems

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Pete writes: >> FBOFW, modern "free" *nix ports tend to use gcc, and gcc is >> such a resource hog for anything smaller than a VAX. Even on >> a VAX it's colossaly slow. > > Augh....any idea how it fares on, say, Sun or SGI machines? GCC runs OK on SGIs, provided that you have a version that coexists with the version of IRIX that you're running (later (3.2+) versions don't like pre-5 IRIXes. GCC will likely be quite unsatisfactory, though, because the optimization on MIPS machines is not very good, and especially bad with 2.x versions. Pre 3.4 versions don't play nicely with MIPSpro/MIPSCC object code, either. SPARC is better, indeed for C++ or ANSI C on SunOS4 you will probably have to use gcc, since Sun's ANSI and C++ compilers are both hard to come by and nodelocked. POWER/PowerPC is probably the best of the RISCs as far as GCC support goes. Apple's adoption of gcc for System 10 led to a number of improvements in the code generator for PPC.

17 years, 9 months

Configuring an EV-833 QIC controller

by ballsandy＠msn.com

I looked through bitsavers and saw the articles you mentioned and I'm still a little lost. I'm looking over the jumper and dip switch settings and I'm not seeing any solid matches. I also don't trust going off other components that use the same design and try their jumpers. I tried that with an MFM card and it turns out that there were some changes between revisions and The card has never worked right since. Anyways, as for debugging, havn't used that command in years. _________________________________________________________________ Check Out Our List Of Trendy Restaurants. You'll Eat It Up! http://local.live.com/?mkt=en-ca/?v=2&cid=A6D6BDB4586E357F!378

17 years, 9 months

HP "calculators" (was Re: World's first computer on ebay!)

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Message: From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: HP "calculators" (was Re: World's first computer on ebay!) On 14 Apr 2007 at 1:34, der Mouse wrote: > Well, and, this is an expression rather than a statement; you could do > things like R(X+(1->C))->A (somewhat akin to the way C lets you write > a=r[x+(c=1)]) - did any BASICs do that? AFAIK, none of the usual suspects permit multiple assignments in a statement. The odd thing is that GWBASIC will pass a statement of the form X=Y=7, but Y will be 0 and X will be -1 at the conclusion of execution, regardless of the value of y or x at the beginning. OTOH, LET X=Y=3 will set both X and Y to 0. GWBASIC is full of stuff like this. ------------Reply: Eh???? Did I miss something? Those are not multiple assignments but very useful logical tests. If a logical argument is true, it has the numeric value of -1, else 0, thus, if Y=7 then x= -1 else x= 0, whether you LET it or not, at least in the BASICs I work in (and even GWBASIC ;-). When you add and multiply with it, it can be very handy in certain situations. That's one of the reasons for LET, to avoid the ambiguity of X=Y being either an assignment or a numeric value. mike

17 years, 9 months

TRS-80 "Eight Meg Disk System" questions...

by derschjo＠msu.edu

Hi all -- Recently picked up a TRS-80 "Eight Meg Disk System" (model 26-4151) and the associated interface board, with the intent of hooking this up to my TRS-80 Model 16. On further investigation, it appears that the 26-4151 is a Secondary drive, which makes me curious as to whether this effort is going to be ultimately fruitless. So, without further ado, here's the questions I have: 1. Is it possible to get this secondary drive working as a primary, or am I up a creek without having a primary drive (or extra magic hardware in the drive I have.) 2. If I can work around #1, I need to know the pinouts of the drive and the controller board since I do not have a cable to connect the two. The controller has a 50-pin edge connector and the drive has three connectors -- 2 50-pin (labeled "Control") and one 20-pin (labeled "Data"). a. And as a follow on to #2, where would you suggest getting the parts and tools necessary to build the aforementioned cable? I've never constructed such a cable, and I'll have need to do so again in the future (need to assemble some long-ish ESDI cables for my PDP 11/73...) Thanks for any suggestions, Josh

17 years, 9 months

govliq: SAIC Digital Computer (Fort Jackson, SC)

by legalize＠xmission.com

SAIC DIGITAL COMPUTER, MODEL CP-2112C(V)I/ U, HARD DRIVE REMOVED, P/ N 50308, INCLUDES ACCESSORIES, OPERATING CONDITION UNKNOWN. <http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?id=1187674&convertTo=USD> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

17 years, 9 months

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test-drb April 2007