test-drb January 2012

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

201 participants
274 discussions

by evan＠snarc.net

Hi all -- this year's VCF East 8.0 keynote speaker is Tom Kurtz, who co-developed BASIC while at Dartmouth in the mid-1960s. There will (probably) be a second equally awesome speaker announced soon .... I wish I could reveal who, but he's not confirmed yet. ;) The show is May 5-6 this year, at our usual location in New Jersey. - Evan

12 years, 11 months

Cromemco FDC

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> James Attfield wrote: > > > > FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. > > I just double checked the schematics and this is not correct. > The 16FDC feeds address lines 15-12 through a 74ls30 to do a > specific decode for a 4K address range, normally set to $C000-$CFFF. > If the high four address bits do not match, the card will not > respond. > > Bill S. My sloppy work, apologies, I was referring to the top bank of the memory cards - the top 32K of a 64KZ will remain disabled until RDOS has relocated itself during boot or test sequences then it switches it back in. Ignore comment about port 40H - that is used for bank switching in 8-bit systems. Jim

12 years, 11 months

Cromemco FDC

by james＠attfield.co.uk

> Hi Jim, > Are you the same Jim I'm corresponding with elsewhere about a broken > 256/1024KZ? > If so, you and I can discuss the 64FDC off-list; I haven't heard from Jerry. > I do have some IMI drives, both the 8" 11MB and the 5" 5MB and 20MB units, > but I'm pretty sure at least some of them are non-functional.What > size/capacity are you looking for? > IMI drives were also used by Corvus; as a matter of fact the two companies > ultimately merged. The IMI 20MB mechanism was also available with a normal > ST412/506 interface card and used in XT clones etc., in case you have a > defective drive with a good IMI board and can find one of those drives. Hi Mike, yes I am - I'm about to start in on the 256KZ just now. Agreed we take this off-list - I'll drop you an email. Jim

12 years, 11 months

FORTRAN vs. BASIC [was RE: Right toolf for the job (Was: teaching programming to kids]

by RichA＠vulcan.com

From: Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:54 PM On Wed, 4 Jan 2012, allison wrote: >> Never used Fortran. > Think of it as an old-style version of BASIC. WRITE is like PRINTUSING, > with FORMAT being where you specify the print pattern. Any variable whose > name starts with the letters I J K L M or N (alphabetic letters between I > and N (which is the start of "INteger")) is assumed to be an int, unless > you tell it otherwise. Many brands of it require giving a line number to > every line. CALL instead of GOSUB, . . . There are so few differences > that you can list them! You corrected/clarified the statement regarding "line numbers", but it's still not correct. FORTRAN does not have line numbers, it has *statement* numbers, and they need not be sequential, nor increasing from beginning of program to end. Certain constructs, such as the DO loop and the FORMAT-driven I/O statements, *require* statement numbers: DO 10 I=1,10 WRITE (7,100) I 10 CONTINUE 100 FORMAT (1X,1I3) Statement numbers occur in the first 5 columns of the input card; a character other than a space in column 6 marks a card as a continuation of the preceding statement. Spacing within columns 1-5 is not significant. >> My first language was Darthmuth BASIC on GE Tymeshare. > I've always assumed that Kurtz and Kemeny's intent was just to make > getting started in FORTRAN a little easier for beginners. You don't have to assume. They state as much in the early documents. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

12 years, 11 months

Fwd: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX

by paulkoning＠comcast.net

One of my colleagues sent this; I figured the list might find it interesting. paul Begin forwarded message: > ... > Subject: IEEE Spectrum article about UNIX > > Thought you might find this interesting: > > http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-strange-birth-and-long-life… >

12 years, 11 months

Visiting the Cryptologic museum

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

Over the break I visited the NSA's museum (just a stone's throw from Ft. Meade). For those who like crypto machines, it is definitely, definitely worth a visit. The curators and staff are very enthusiastic (they even brought out a machine from the back vault) and of course you can buy an NSA t-shirt if your heart desires. They had a mix-up with the Y-MP processor board and memory board on display (I told them) but otherwise it's fun just to see a Cray I up-close-and-personal. They have the tape jukebox being run from a PC. And the CM is flashing lights, but that's about it. The modern crypto gear is shown but the commentary is sparse at best. (In case you're wondering, the boxes are empty -- so I was told). There is little mention of public key cryptosystems. Or controversial questions like key length or key escrow. But worth a detour? Definitely.

12 years, 11 months

teaching programming to kids - Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC

by dm561＠torfree.net

------- Original Message: Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:09:54 -0500 From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> On 01/05/2012 10:52 AM, Liam Proven wrote: ... >> I have read the first few pages of The Little Schemer, generally hailed >> as the best introduction to Scheme there is, and I found it completely >> incomprehensible - and I am a skilled computer professional with around a >> quarter century of experience. --- > It is my opinion that you should not feel it's unusual that you don't > "get" that stuff even though you are "a computer professional". ... > The only reason *I* see the difference is because I do both...otherwise > I'd probably not get it either. -------- Reply: Well! I guess he told you! Too funny...

12 years, 11 months

Cromemco FDC

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------------------- Original Message: Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:38:16 -0000 From: "James Attfield" <james at attfield.co.uk> Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:02:11 -0800 (PST) From: Jerry Wright <g-wright at att.net> Subject: Re: Looking for 8080/Z80 BASIC >> Josh, I would love to get your 64FDC for my Cromemco 68020 machine that >> is missing one. I have 16 FDC and other Croemeco Z-80 Boards to go along >> with it. > Which model 68020 Cromemco is it? I might be able to find a spare 64FDC... > mike Long shot, but if you have another or Josh doesn't take it I'd love to give it a home. I have a complete Cromemco board set here in an IMS-5000 chassis and a pair of TM848's but have consistently failed to get the 16-FDC to talk to them reliably. I'd dearly love to get a 64-FDC for it to go with the ZPU and/or an STD hard disk controller (or an IMI drive to go with the WDI-II controller I have). Anyone? FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. During boot RDOS ensures that the top 32K flips in and RDOS then flips out giving a clean 64K map. All done through port 40H. Jim -----------------------Reply: Hi Jim, Are you the same Jim I'm corresponding with elsewhere about a broken 256/1024KZ? If so, you and I can discuss the 64FDC off-list; I haven't heard from Jerry. I do have some IMI drives, both the 8" 11MB and the 5" 5MB and 20MB units, but I'm pretty sure at least some of them are non-functional.What size/capacity are you looking for? IMI drives were also used by Corvus; as a matter of fact the two companies ultimately merged. The IMI 20MB mechanism was also available with a normal ST412/506 interface card and used in XT clones etc., in case you have a defective drive with a good IMI board and can find one of those drives. m

12 years, 11 months

Cromemco FDC

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message: Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:10:08 -0500 From: "Bill Sudbrink" <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net> James Attfield wrote: > >> FYI the ROM on the 'FDC flips in and out the entire top 32K bank. > I just double checked the schematics and this is not correct. > The 16FDC feeds address lines 15-12 through a 74ls30 to do a > specific decode for a 4K address range, normally set to $C000-$CFFF. > If the high four address bits do not match, the card will not > respond. > Bill S. -------------------------------------------------- The 16FDC does indeed have a set of jumpers to select a 4kB block, normally at $C000, but the 64FDC that we were talking about only uses A15, i.e. the upper 32kB; also, the 64FDC's RDOS ROM is 8kB vs. the 16FDC's 4kB. In any case, the memory boards are usually configured to map out the upper 32kB.

12 years, 11 months

Right toolf for the job

by vintagecoder＠aol.com

If you look at the November, 1972 paper Wirth put out called "The Programming Language Pascal (Revised Report) you will find both "Pascal" and "PASCAL" in the text. The canonical "PASCAL User Manual and Report" (Springer-Verlag, 1974) uses all caps in the title and then in a few places such as "PASCAL 6000". Just because it's a proper name doesn't mean it's incorrect to capitalize it. After all, wasn't Blaise Pascal a Frenchman, and don't the French capitalize last names to this very day? ;-) ------Original Message------ From: Mouse Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: cctalk at classiccmp.org ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Right toolf for the job Sent: 5 Jan 2012 15:00 > they tell me it's not "FORTRAN" it's "Fortran" when I know damn well > it's an acronym! Not in the usual sense of `acronym', though. But... > PASCAL as delivered was pretty unusable. ...if you're going to draw the distinction between "Fortran" and "FORTRAN", you might at least get Pascal's name right. :) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

12 years, 11 months

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test-drb January 2012