I've got to clear out some various backup tapes I've been keeping for
several years now. For starters, I have a bunch of QW5122F and QIC-3020 taumat
format tape carts available. pay for shipping and anything else you want to
add, and they are yours. Reply off list please.
> Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 12:55:59 -0500
> From: William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com>
>> ? That is not so hard, it is very common to build machines like this in
>> Brazil.
>
> Second hand Taigs are fairly plentiful and not horribly expensive.
> They are plenty capable of PC board drillwork, plus you can do all
> sortf os other fun things with them as well.
I did a search on Taig. Interesting machines and the prices look
comparatively good. I was considering a lathe a while back for my
rocketry hobby...
Which machine would one need for automated drilling? It looks like the
CNC Mill would be needed. It's new price is $2200+. It would have to be
discounted an awful lot on the used market before I would think that was a
better buy than just having boards professionally fabricated.
I think the Micro Mill is mechanically capable of the job, but it doesn't
seem to have any type of automated controls, but perhaps I just don't
understand what a mill is.
Which leads to the other issue. In order to make an intelligent decision
about buying a drilling machine, it seems that I must become moderately
educated about the art of machining. Which is an interesting topic, but
not the hobby I was setting out to practice.
This is what ultimately stopped me from buying a lathe for rocketry.
Toner transfer PCB fabrication is attractive because I already have a
laser printer that serves another purpose. A laminator takes up little
space and is easy to put away. The etching tank is a bit of a pain, but
not too bad.
The problem is when I start adding in a milling machine, learning enough
about machining to make intelligent purchases, or building a drilling
machine out of a plotter, and the same two issues for electroplating,
which also kind of leads to building one's own power supply (AKA plating
rectifier).
All of these are interesting topics/diversions, but enough of them and one
isn't practicing hobby electronics any more, one is practicing PCB making
as the primary hobby.
Of course, if enough of my hobbies lead to machining, maybe I should take
it up. I don't know where I'd make the space for the tools though.
Someone else mentioned using a drill press with jigs. How would that
work? Would that be like having a pre-drilled template? That might be
interesting. I could see using the toner transfer procedure on a piece of
steel, then drilling the steel and then pegging boards to the steel for
future drilling in stacks. Might be a little hard on the drills if they
aren't well centered though.
Jeff Walther
Ken Knowlton sent me a paper from AFIPS 1964 on his BEFLIX language
for creating animations (named from "Bell Flicks" as the work was done
at Bell Labs). The language uses "MACRO FAP" as its implementation
layer so to create a modern implementation of BEFLIX, I would need to
know some things about "MACRO FAP".
Google led me to this page:
<http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/source/ibsys/FORTRAN/9…>
Which seems to be the IBM 7090 assembly source code for the MACRO FAP
program, from which I glean that "FAP" is an acronym for "FORTRAN
ASSEMBLY PROGRAM". I don't know 7090 assembly, although I can guess
at the opcodes.
This leads me to the following questions:
1) How long has softwarepreservation.org been around? Its part of the
CHM, but I haven't stumbled on this web site before.
2) Does anyone have any experience with MACRO FAP that can help me
understand the semantics of MACRO FAP instructions?
3) Barring that, does anyone have any IBM 7090 assembly experience
that can help me understand the semantics of the implementation of
MACRO FAP so that I can understand the semantics of its command
language?
BEFLIX is actually quite interesting and could be fun in creating
animated movies today. Its got a combination of simple 2D graphics
primitives, turtle graphics and animation control in its command set.
I'd like to write a BEFLIX interpreter for modern experimentation.
Seeing as BEFLIX was created in 1964, its probably one of the oldest,
if not the oldest, domain specific language for creating computer
graphics animations.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
On 12/01/10 08:13, Rich Alderson<RichA at vulcan.com> wrote:
> From: Dennis Boone
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:57 PM
>
>>>> >>> I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA, CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
>>> >> In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm pretty sure I remember some
>>> >> COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
>>> >> my memory is 100% correct.
>> > Given the RSX heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if some BASIC code came
>> > across. I was actually almost surprised not to find MODULA, but a bit
>> > of googling suggests my memory of a DEC compiler is erroneous. I would
>> > only expect to find COBOL in some kind of reporting tool, where
>> > performance wouldn't so much.
> I think you've confused RSX-11M (the basis of VMS) with RSTS/E (the version
> in existence by the time VMS came to be written). RSX-11{A,B,C,D,M,S} is
> very much Macro-11 oriented; I'm not sure that there is a BASIC available.
Late to the thread... (as usual) :-)
Yes, there exists BASIC for RSX. It's called BASIC+2. But no part of RSX
proper have anything to do with this layered product.
RSX-11M(+) is mostly written in MACRO-11, with some BLISS-11 in there.
Johnny
On 12/01/10 08:13, Dennis Boone<drb at msu.edu> wrote:
> > > I can't find any COBOL, BASIC, MODULA, CORAL, DIBOL, etc.
>
> > In 7.3, I'm sure that's now true. I'm pretty sure I remember some
> > COBOL and BASIC back in the 4.x and 5.x days, but I can't promise that
> > my memory is 100% correct.
>
> Given the RSX heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if some BASIC code came
> across. I was actually almost surprised not to find MODULA, but a bit
> of googling suggests my memory of a DEC compiler is erroneous. I would
> only expect to find COBOL in some kind of reporting tool, where
> performance wouldn't so much.
??? What made you connect RSX with BASIC? There is not a single piece of
RSX that has anything to do with BASIC, as far as I know.
You'll have to go to some layered products before you find any BASIC at
all in relation to RSX.
Were you perhaps thinking of RSTS/E?
Johnny
Hi guys,
Does anyone have any details on the control protocol for the keyboard on
the AT&T 3B1?
A command list and/or scan code list would be most useful... or even
actual driver source code :)
I'm about a third of the way there with my emulator -- it's running the
BootPROM, passes the MAPRAM, VRAM and Base RAM self tests, and I'm well
on the way to implementing memory mapping/protection and the UI
interfaces (keyboard, mouse and video)... I'm not sure how to go about
emulating the telephony hardware though; I might just leave that
"unemulated" for now.
Thanks,
--
Phil.
philpem at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 8:01 AM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> At 7:30 AM -0800 12/1/10, Gene Buckle wrote:
>>
>> I'd love to have another VAX, but I can't afford to feed it. Emulation
>> would be nice. :)
>
> Replacement HW costs are definitely going up. ?I managed to score a pair of
> Compaq XP1000's (Alpha 21264 500Mhz & 667Mhz) at the low point in their
> value. ?One now has a dead power supply, and last I checked XP1000's go for
> big bucks (not sure about the PS's). ?I assume drives are getting harder to
> find, but I have a large stash. I have several older Alpha's dating back to
> a DEC3000/300LX. ?My VAX hardware is a lot sparser, flakier, and my drive
> options more limited (plus I don't want to run a Q-bus system 24x7 which
> limits me even more).
>
> Still the biggest roadblock on keeping the stuff running is the cost of
> electricity and cooling. ?That's what caused me to power down MONK, which
> had been running for over a decade in one form or another.
>
> There are several emulation solutions, I'd recommend looking at SIMH first.
> ?I'm thinking of trying it on a Mini-ITX box.
>
> Zane
What are people's opinions of Personal Alpha
(http://www.stromasys.ch/hardware-virtualization-solutions/charon-axp/downlo…
Mark
On PersonalAlpha, Zane Healy wrote:
> I have two major issues with it. One is it requires
> Windows, the other is
> that it is restricted to 128MB of RAM.
Stromasys actually has an AlphaStation 400 emulator that runs on Linux,
and allows at least 512 MB.
You have to register on their site, but it's free.
There's an also ES40 emulator that I think will allow several GB.
The AS400 runs Tru64 reasonably on my 2.X GHz AMD PC.
PersonalAlpha emulates a 3000/400 but won't boot prehistoric OSF/1
versions like 2.0, last time I tried. Not that I can blame them.
I wonder if 2.0 is still in use anywhere?
John Finigan
I haven't been following this thread too closely so I may have missed
something, but it seems to me that the proposed solutions are overly
complex. One simple solution that comes to mind is to define a set of
vendor unique SCSI commands, one for each of the registers in the IDE
command stack and then do all the emulation in the device driver on the host
side. The interface card is just then a simple state machine; really simple
if u make it a non arbitrating protocol implementation and use PIO for data
transfers (SCSI-1 lives :-).
Tom
