Hi, All,
A friend of mine just returned a modem he got from me decades ago, a
Ventel MD212-plus. It's an early-1980s non-AT-command-set
autodialling modem. The settings are adjusted via a pair of 10-pin
DIP switches accessible from the back. I've checked the web and
bitsavers. So far, all I've found is some old Usenet articles and a
couple of pictures, but no manual or jumper guide.
One "feature" is that it lacks a modular jack to plug into the phone
system. Fortunately, my friend kept the proprietary DA15 cable. I've
never seen that choice of connectors on any other modem.
Does anyone have any Ventel docs?
Thanks,
-ethan
Many of us maintain large collections of bits that we'd like to preserve over a long time, and distribute, replicate, and migrate via unreliable storage media and networks. As disk sizes (and archive sizes) have increased, the probability of corruption undetected or uncorrected by the mechanisms normally built into disk drives, network protocols, and filesystems has increased to a level that warrants great concern.
I would be interested to know if there exists an archive format that has the following desirable properties:
1) It is well-documented, and relatively simple, to facilitate its implementation on many platforms present and future.
2) It supports some degree of incremental updating, but need not be particularly efficient about it. An explicit compaction operation is preferable to an overly complex format. It is adequate to use append-only strategies appropriate for write-once media.
3) Insertion and extraction of files, copying of the archives, and other archive-manipulation utilities support end-to-end verification that identical bits have been stably recorded to the media, bypassing or defeating platform-level or hardware-level caching mechanisms. Where this is not possible, the limits must be carefully delineated, with some basis for determining the properties of the platform and certifying reliability
properties where possible.
4) The format should provide for superior error detection capability, designed to avoid common failure modes with mechanisms typically used in hardware. For example, use a document-level cryptographic checksum rather than a block-level CRC.
5) The format should include a high degree of internal redundancy and recoverability, say, along the lines of a virtual RAID-array.
Just as biological organisms constantly correct DNA transcription errors,
the idea is to have a format that is robust across long-term exposure to
imperfect copying and transmission channels.
Does anything like this exist?
--Bill
----- Original Message -----
> Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 22:56:32 -0500
> From: Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net>
> Subject: Re: Scraping DEC Equipment
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Message-ID: <C7A98127-DFF4-41B1-A6AF-5DFCA234D286 at lunar-tokyo.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> I need a tractor feed assembly for a LA100, are the ones on the 120
> compatible?
----- Reply:
Apparently not, but I might have one for an LA100.
mike
I would like to get a Tek 4404 computer going but lack any service
manuals. The system turns on but has no curser on the screen. Has
good power from the Power supply and heater is on in the CRT.
Has a row of LEDs on the mother board. Does anyone know how
to read these.
- Thanks, Jerry
On 7 May 2010, at 08:25, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 06 May 2010 16:06:37 -0700
> From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org>
> Subject: Re: Servant .953
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Message-ID: <4BE34B7D.6060902 at bitsavers.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 5/6/10 2:23 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
>>> Al Kossow wrote:
>>>> I am interviewing Andy Hertzfeld tomorrow, and had hoped to talk about
>>>> Servant, but I can't find a copy of it around anywhere tonight.
>
> A huge thank you to Nigel Williams who forwarded a working copy of .951 five
> minutes before Bill and Andy arrived. We spent an hour talking about MacPaint
> and Quickdraw (Apple has finally given CHM approval to make the sources available)
> then another hour on Alice, Dali Clock, Servant, Hypercard, and Magic Cap.
Could you please clarify, the QuickDraw source is available for what purpose? Could developers modify it any include it in heir commercial 64 bit Intel applications for instance?
Is the source Pascal, Assembler, C or something else?
Roger Holmes,
Director of Microspot who has a Carbon application which compiles with over 10,000 warnings about deprecated QuickDraw calls.
When Multics was officially released as free software a couple of
years ago, there was a flurry of activity aimed at getting some sort
of emulator up and running to run it. Did anything ever come of that
or did folks just lose interest (or find out that the needed
GE/Honeywell hardware was too poorly-documented to write an emulator
of)
Mike
Hi,
Who can help me with a source (not IBM) for logic probe tips
used with IBM MST and SLT backplanes.
See: http://home.hccnet.nl/h.j.stegeman/IBM_logic_probes.jpg
Prefably the lower one (P/N 453826).
Thanks for your replies.
Regards Henk
I have a monitor for a Stardent workstation. It's a re-badge Sony, model
number 130-0001-01.
Free for pickup, or 1.2 * cost of shipping to recoup time and trouble if
you want it shipped.
Please respond soon if you are interested as it will be going off for
scrap in a week if there are no takers.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
http://classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2010-January/282022.html
It always suprised me that hre BBC micro used the 6502 rather than the
6809. By the time the Beeb was designed, Acorn had made a 6809 processor
board for their System machines, so they must have had experience with
the chip. THe Beeb is nice, but a Beeb with a 6809 processor would have
been something else :-)
-tony
Hi! When I designed the N8VEM 6809 host processor it is loosely based on an
article I read for the BBC computer called "Dragon in the tube". I am not
very familiar with the UK microcomputers but apparently 6809 "coprocessors"
were fairly common peripherals on their Z80 and 6502 designs. I used a
similar concept for the N8VEM to allow its Z80 SBC to access the 6809 as a
"host processor" peripheral on the ECB.
One of the builders was able to get CUBIX running on the N8VEM 6809 host
processor using the Z80 as its "IO processor". However, I can see how the
implementation can get confusing because it is either a Z80 based system
with a 6809 coprocessor or a 6809 based system with a Z80 IO processor. In
reality it doesn't really matter but it's a matter of perspective.
The N8VEM 6809 CUBIX implementation allows the use of ECB peripherals like
IDE, video, floppy, serial, parallel, etc but it requires the Z80 to serve
all the IO based on 6809 commands. I added the 6809 IO mezzanine board
(power, ACIA, PTM, 2 VIAs, expansion bus) to give builders the option of
using the 6809 host processor as a stand alone computer or to add separate
IO to the N8VEM system when connected to the bus. The idea being to let the
6809 host processor interact with the outside world using its own IO and
only involve the Z80 when absolutely necessary.
The hardware seems to work OK but we'll see where the software goes. I
think with CUBIX the 6809 N8VEM system becomes a lot more practical. The IO
mezzanine fits on top of the 6809 host processor. You can see some photos
here. These are out of date but give a good idea. Recently I fitted an
improved serial cable and the nylon standoff hardware. Also the PTM seems
to be working and that's good.
http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=m6809
I have many 6809 host processor and IO mezzanine PCBs so if anyone is
interested please let me know. This would be a great opportunity for anyone
who would like to do some 6809 hardware and software hacking.
I think the N8VEM 6809 host processor is the only system I am aware of other
than Dave's homebrew that is running CUBIX. There maybe some other homebrew
systems out there too I can't find them after some searching.
Thanks and have nice day!
Andrew Lynch
>
>Subject: VT-180 (Robin) EPROM images?
> From: "Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com>
> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:23:04 -0800
> To: <cctech at classiccmp.org>
>
> Does anybody have images of the v2.1 Z-80 firmware for the VT-180 (aka
>Robin) ? At least, I think 2.1 was the last version ever released. They
>should be DEC part numbers 23-017E3-00 and 23-021E3-00.
>
>Thanks,
>Bob Armstrong
I have enough of them laying around I could supply the actual roms. I've
never imaged them as It's easier to replace the code outright.
Curious why are you looking for them?
Allison
Hello, folks!
Hope you all had a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, or whatever you
celebrated! Also, best wishes for the New Year, which will be... in
around two and a quarter hours in my neck of the woods :)
It's been a while since I posted anything related to DiscFerret. Rest
assured, I have not been resting on my laurels (Balrog and Lord
Nightmare have made certain of that!). In fact, I've just released a
shiny new toy for all you DiscFerret owners... Well, two actually!
Microcode Release 0026 and C-API 1.3!
New in these releases...:
- Microcode:
- Added a clock divider to the Data Acquisition core. Now you can
specify how much timing resolution you need -- 80ns (12.5MHz), 40ns
(25MHz), 20ns (50MHz) or the full 10ns (100MHz). When set to 40ns, the
DiscFerret matches the Kryoflux for read speed (84 tracks double-sided
in one minute and 45 seconds). At full resolution, it still only takes
three minutes and 25 seconds to image the same disc.
- Completely rewrote the data sync-word detector. All the ripple
clocks and clock-domain crossings are gone, and the data separator is
FAR more reliable. The capture and lock range is about 20% of the
nominal data rate (!), which is more than adequate for most disc drives.
The sync word may be up to 16 bits long, and can also include "don't
care" bits!
- Miscellaneous fixes to the data separator configuration (it was
set for a 16MHz clock, but provided with a 20MHz clock. Despite this, it
still worked fine!)
- C/C++ API
- Support added for the new clock divider register.
Files are all downloadable from the usual place --
http://www.discferret.com/
(or more specifically:)
http://www.discferret.com/wiki/DiscFerret:Downloads
And you can, as always, browse the source code here --
http://hg.discferret.com/
On the cards for the New Year --
- Work has started on a new, simplified API. This will make its grand
d?but some time in the new year.
- I'm working on improving the accuracy of the INDEX pulse storage
logic. When finished, this will improve the accuracy of INDEX timing
measurements to match the data timing measurements! (This is a minimum
of a factor of 8 improvement over the KryoFlux analyser, and a factor of
128 improvement over the current microcode release!)
Special thanks for this release are due to:
Rich Thomson,
Karsten Scheibler,
Sarayan,
Balrog,
Lord_Nightmare,
... and anyone else I've forgotten!
Thanks!
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
Like the Sanyo just yesterday, I have a Compaq SLT/286 portable computer
taking up space. Very nice condition, with power unit, dock, and bag. Any
interest CHEAP? I am located in New York, zip 10512.
Unlike the Sanyo, if there is no interest, I suppose I will just chop this
up.
I am desperately trying to clear out a bedroom to work on it - the bedroom
that ends up being the junk overflow containment chamber. It would
actually be nice to sleep in it sometime.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org
I have a PDP 11/03 that used to be part of the startup for an 11/780 at
the University of Arkansas at Fayettville. The 780 has long ago been
scrapped.
So, the 11/03 has the following boards:
M8017-AA : DLV11-E/EC Single-line async control module (Replaces
M8017,M8017-YB) Renamed DLVE1
M7940 : DLV11 Serial Line Unit (SLU, Async)
M7944 : MSV11-B 4-Kword 16-bit MOS RAM
M7946 : RXV11 RX01 8" floppy disk controller
M9400-YE : Bootstrap terminator
I also have the RX01 drive. So, other than media, what other options do
I need to get this running as an 11/03? Where is the best place to get
some basic media images? Is it possible to create boot media on the 8"
drives I have connected to my PC using IMAGEDISK, 22DISK or the
catweasel?
I know a lot of these questions are answered out there, but I've not
seen (yet) a simple step by step to get one of these running.
I have the opportunity to get a couple of memory boards also:
M8044-DB 32K, 16-BIT RAM for LSI-11
M8044-DE 32K, 16-BIT RAM for LSI-11
So, will these work with this 11/03? It seems they will, but I was
looking for verification.
Thanks for any help, and of course the associated "have you tried
googling..." responses.
Kelly
Does anyone have the O/S, Applications, and Diagnostice disks for this
ancient IEEE 488 bus controller (Fluke 1720A)? It used a TI 9900
processor if I remember correctly. The operating system was called FDOS-
a custom effort too I think, distributed on three 5 1/4" floppies. This
is no longer available from anywhere or anyone, including Fluke.
Thanks for any help and/or leads.
Geoff
I have been fortunate to acquire a Kaypro system that appears to be in
great condition and looks to work.
It looks exactly like this:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Kaypro-I-Micro.htm
Thus, it says Kaypro 1 on the artwork
Still, the sticker on the rear says Kaypro 2, so I'm confused.
In any event, I have no system disks for it (There is a slight
possibility they are part of the stash with which the Kaypro was
bundled, but it's 100 sq ft of stuff). Thus, I'm wondering if there is
a kind soul who might be able to ship me a set of disks. (I'll pay
shipping, of course).
I also am the proud owner of 2 Obsorne machines (one works, the other
seems to have drive issues. They are the redesigned units, but (as I
suspected) the systems disks won't work on the Kaypro.
Jim
--
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X)
brain at jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
Home: http://www.jbrain.com
A while back, I mentioned that I'd found and potentially fixed the "bricking" problem with the CQD-220.
To recap, for those that werent following, the problem lies in the code for the on-board 8086 when you set the number of both disks and tapes to zero. The 8086, during its routine to load the values from the EEPROM, loads the total number of disks and tapes and executes a loop with a counter predecrement; if the counter is loaded as 0, it effectively runs through the loop 256 times instead of 7 (the max), which spins out of control and blows away some RAM somewhere before crashing.
Fortunately, through a compiler bug or some such, there are 5 bytes available from a totally redundant instruction (loading a value into a register where the same value is already loaded) in just the right place to test the total number of devices and jump to the "uninitialized device table in EEPROM" section of the routine if it is zero. With one byte to spare! (good thing NOP is only a byte in 8086)
This applies to the A7A revision of the ROM, anyway; I haven't gotten to the A8 version yet, though I know it exhibits the same bug. Hopefully it also has the same redundant instruction. In any case, I should be able to find and fix it quickly once I have the time, because I know where to look.
So, here's the thing; I've finally gotten the time to test the fixed ROM image (was temporarily short of 27256 chips, but that's been resolved) and I'd like to get the fixed images somewhere they'll be easy to find if anyone else runs into the same problem (this took me over a year of sporadic attention to fix). Does anyone know where I should post this? There's my own website, which is really not a thing anymore, but there are probably lots of places Google is more likely to find.
Also, are there copyright implications to consider? I know CMD is long gone, but I still worry about these things.
Last thing: does anyone know the difference between the A7A ROM and the A8? I've not found anything different; I assume it's probably an obscure bugfix.
The images are only 64K total, so I shouldn't imagine they'll be bandwidth intensive.
- Dave
Tom's Hardware - a popular site for PC hardware tweakers and
overclockers - has done an ambitious article on the development of the
mainframe:
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/508-mainframe-computer-history.html
It's a little American-centric but it's not at all bad.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
It's running! Telnet to 97.86.233.68 to take a look and help me test it.
You can use the standard Windows telnet program, Putty, Linux, or
whatever you have handy.
Around 10 users can be on at the same time. When you sign on (no
password required) there will be a little menu to help you waste some
time. Some things you can do are see who else is on the server, view the
machine type, ROM BIOS date and DOS version, check the TCP/IP statistics
to see how much traffic it is handling, etc.
There are some upgrades since the last time I ran this test (in Dec 2007):
- The TCP/IP stack is much better
- I'm doing 'telnet' negotiation to figure out the terminal type, turn
echoing on, etc
- Crude line editing has been added
Right now it is running on my PCjr using a Xircom PE3 10BT. I plan to
leave it up as long as it runs, or three days, whichever comes first. It
is a PCjr so if there is a momentary delay, don't panic - it's probably
just doing disk I/O.
Backspace is a little dodgy .. it really wants ASCII 8 and a lot of
terminals and emulators do ASCII 127 instead. Try variations with the
shift and control keys if it doesn't work.
Thanks,
Mike
I'm still digging. I found more 550 stuff. I think this is everything
that came with the 550. Here's a chance for you 550 owner's to get the
whole set at one shot!
Original DS-DOS box and invoice.
Original Sanyo Easywriter ver 1.3 disk
Original Sanyo disk box with 550 dos ver 2.11 and BASIC 1.25, two
original Sanyo disk for InfoStar (set B disk 2 and 3 of 4; disks 1 and 4
are below), original Sanyo disk for DOS 1.25 and BASIC ver 1.1
Original Sanyo disk box with all three original disk of set A, WordStar
and CalcStar and a backup copy of DS-DOS.
Two card board dummy disks used to protect the floppy drives duing shipment.
Joe
>
>A few weeks ago we were talking about the Sanyo 550 series and someone
mentioned one of the alternates operating systems that supported 80 track
drives in the 550. I said that was DS-DOS by Michtron.
>
> Today I found an old Sanyo disk package with four disks for the 550. One
of them is DS DOS 2.11, one is InfoStar, one is MailMerge/SpellStar and the
other is a disk of misc utilities. The first three are original disks. In
additon, the InfoStar, MailMerge/SpellStar are Sanyo labeled disks that
came with the 550. If anyone wants them, trade me something I can use and
they're all your's.
>
> Joe
I have a limited number of IBM 5151 monitors for sale. This is the
classic green screen monitor that shipped with the basic IBM PC 5150.
Condition is adequate. They are dirty but I will clean them up before
shipping out. Will test for basic functionality. No burn-in or other
problems, but no warranty either.
The price is $30 each plus shipping.
First come, first served.
Please contact me directly via e-mail.
Thanks!
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
>
>Subject: Re: Gooey TU58 rollers
> From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:39:20 -0500
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>On 8/27/07, B M <iamvirtual at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am trying to get a Vax-11/750 machine up and running. It looks like the TU58 drive
>> is suffering from the 'gooey roller syndrome'.
>
>Unsurprising.
>
>> I see that people have successfully used 1/2 inch (ID) Tygon tubing to replace the
>> goo. Is there any specific type of Tygon tubing (eg. R3603, R2000, etc.) that is used?
>
>I don't know the particular variety I used in mine - I just went to
>the Lowe's down the street and bought a foot of 1/2" ID tubing -
>whatever they had on the shelf. I was unaware of a large amount of
>varieties of tubing, so I just used what they had in stock, and it
>worked perfectly.
>
>-ethan
I started that many years ago like 1995ish. I spec'd Tygon (brnad name)
as that was available to me. Most any generic Vinyl tubing works so long
as it fits tight and has enough wall thickness.
After about 10 years it tends to get hard, the fix is obvious.
Allison
I'm looking for more information on the Teleray series of terminals
>from Research, Inc. (Note: Teleray is the name of the terminal line,
not the name of the company! Although later they referred to
themselves as the "Teleray Division" of Research, Inc.)
In particular I'm looking for manuals and other documentation. If you
have a Teleray terminal and you're looking to get rid of it, I would
be interested in purchasing it from you.
I know of the following models:
Year Model
1971 Teleray 3300
1975 Teleray 3900
1976 Teleray 3811
<1977? Teleray 3541
<1977? Teleray 3741
1977 Teleray 3841
1977 Teleray 4041
1978 Teleray 1061
1979 Teleray 10
1979 Teleray 11
1979 Teleray 12
1980 Teleray 14
<1981? Teleray 100
1982 Teleray 16
1985 Teleray 20-7305
<1990? Teleray 30
Thanks!
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
> does anybody have bits for the TI 960B (not 960A) minicomputer, e.g.
> software, schematics etc. ?
I have some additional material on the 960 that isn't up yet on
bitsavers. The 960 and 980 share some peripheral interfaces.
Did you end up with the 990 system as well?
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:08:12 -0800
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: Service bureaus (Was: Tek 4051 firmware listing
<snip>
After that, I learned to drop by keypunch to occasionally chat with
the ladies (it was comprised entirely of women), and occasionally
drop off some munchies and other things. They knew me and I knew
them.
And I never had an issue with keypunch after that.
--Chuck
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As a matter of fact my very first job was also in a service bureau and
that's where I also learned the importance of being able to charm the
ladies, a skill that's served me well (and gotten me into considerable
trouble) in subsequent years...
mike
[I hope this is on-topic; I believe the machine is at least 20 years old]
I have a NEC Spinwriter 5525 printer that is available for the cost of
shipping (free if you pick it up). The printer is a wide carriage and
appears to have a RS232 serial interface. I do not know if the
printer works or not.
The machine is located in Langdon Alberta Canada (postal code is T0J
1X1) which is approximately 10 minutes east of Calgary.
The machine is rather heavy. I estimate 50 pounds or more. If there
is no interest, the machine is headed to the e-waste recycling.
I can send pictures upon request.
Contact by e mail:
i a m v i rt ihatespam u al @ @ @ g ma il . c om <-- remove
spaces and ihatespam
Thanks!
--barry
Hello everyone,
I just joined this mailing list today on the advice of more than one vintage
computing contact. I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about
the Protec Microsystems PRO-83 Z80 Single-Board Computer. I have conducted
an exhaustive search of the Internet and found only two sites (one from a
surplus store and a picture of it from a museum). I would appreciate any
information available, especially information regarding the power supply and
peripheral devices. Thank you very much.
Rob
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx
Any Hp Mpe folks left out there
I have non working 3000/37s with possibly good drives and a 3000 micro GX
that works but has a bad drive. I have tried to boot the micro GX from the
3000-37 drives and get this far.
----------------------------------------
Cold Boot >
HP 32033G.B2.02
Performing a Coldstart
Following Volumes not found
MH7957U1
List Volume tables ?
----------------------------
Seems to freeze after that. It does this on 2 different drives.
Is this even possible to do ???
Does anyone have a OS tape for one of these ??? and which manuals
cover the boot menu and/or startup.
I would like to get both going but the 3000-37's have dead mother boards.
Stan Sieler, are you still around. Seems like every search I do comes up with
your name and advice.
Thanks, Jerry
Jerry Wright
g-wright at att.net
I have a couple of HPIB cables available at $15 the pair, shipped.
They are:
1 HP10833A ~42"
1 HP92220R ~12"
The 92220R has a right-angle connector at one end and the usual
straight connector at the other. (I wonder if the 'R' indicates
a right hand connector?)
First come, first served.
- don
Hi,
This is a belated response to a post you made here:
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctech/2003-February/010641.html I
happened upon it while doing a 'for fun' search on the net for anything
doing with good ol' Century Data, my employer when I was young. Couldn't
resist responding to the post, even if it was half a year late!
The exerciser that you have is/was for the Trident series of hard disk
drives (predecessor to the Marksman). I was the main (in fact, pretty much
the ONLY) technician at Century Data/Calcomp, for these exercisers back from
the late 1970's to the mid 1980's, when they were phased out. I retired in
1985.
Have fun! (BTW, where'd you find one of these dinosaurs??)
Take care,
Nasim
Every so often, a discussion of Tiny BASIC appears around here. I was curious about one of the very first versions of Tiny BASIC, the 8080 implementation done by Whipple and Arnold, as documented in the Vol. 1 No. 1 (Jan 1976) issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics and Orthodontia)
This issue contains an octal listing of a Tiny BASIC interpreter for the 8080, and I couldn't find this version available for download anywhere. So... I typed it in, and it works!
I documented my work, which is available at
http://oss.readytalk.com/tb/tinybasic.tar.gz
(Note - this location is temporary - I need a home for this if anyone is interested)
Included are the text file for the octal listing, a binary which can be loaded into memory, an attempt to extract the IL from the binary, and some instructions on bringing up Tiny BASIC. I was able to run some simple programs with a Z80 simulator that I've been running, and it appears to work correctly.
I found the PDF of the listing in the ACM digital library:
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/987491.987494
Typing in octal listings is error-prone enough, and typing them in from bad PDF scans of bad photocopies is even trickier. I have corrected many errors, but I'm sure there are more. If any kind soul would be willing to proofread / correct the listing, it would be **GREATLY** appreciated.
I hope this is of interest to people. I'm very interested in other versions of Tiny BASIC out there, if someone has ever typed this listing before, etc. I'm familiar with Tom Pittman's work, but other resources would be greatly appreciated.
-Eric
____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.
http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html
Does anyone have one of these animals? I am trying to reproduce an old
video game that was based on it and figured it might be easier with the
Eval. board.
Thanks,
John Robertson
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Cleaning out guys.. I got the following that needs homes- All prices are
plus shipping or Local Pickup from Flushing Michigan 48433. Folks who
do local pickup at my door get an even better deal.
Mac 512- Pretty Yellow missing floppy drive. Powers up to ? $30
dollars + Shipping
2 Quadra 610s 1 a 610CD, other a Regular 610.. 8MB RAM in both 80 and
160MB HDDs
$20 each plus shipping
Power Macintosh 6500/275 32MB RAM 2GB HDD. Has TV/Video System with
TV/Video System box, TV Tuner and Remote $40
Power Mac 8500/180 16MB RAM 1GB HDD $30
WorkGroup Server 8550 16MB RAM No HDDs or tape drive $20
Macintosh Plus- No keyboard or mouse.. Powers up, then drops to a
white line in screen $20
Tandy 486/33 system.. DX266 OverDrive in it. SCSI CD-ROM, SCSI Card,
1GB HDD $30
AST Advantage Adventure 4/33p 16MB RAM 170MB HDD, SB16, CD-ROM. $30
dollars
Apple Disk II Drives $20 each
Apple 800k External 3.5 Drives $20 each
Apple Extended Keyboard IIs- Lots of em $10 each
Dayna BlueStreak 10/100 LC Ethernet Cards New In Box $15 each
20 Apple IIGS RGB Monitors $25 each plus shipping
10 Apple Monitor //s $25 each plus shipping
10 Apple //e Systems $20 each without drives & monitor
Toshiba Satellite 220CDS- 133mhz Pentium 32MB RAM 1.2GB HDD No ac
adapter, comes with spare machine that needs backlight- $30
Toshiba Satellite 330CDS 266mhz Pentium 80MB RAM 4GB HDD, Ethernet Card $50
Zenith 9 inch Green Screen monitor- works Composite input. $10 dollars
Tandy 1400HD Laptop.. Will not power up.. Comes with AC Adapter which
tested good
Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 1 with original owners manuals,
cassette player and software $50 dollars
Gateway Solo 9500 Laptop- Has AC adapter, 64MB RAM 30GB HDD- Real
Serial Port, Floppy Drive and parallel port and usb $20
50 40GB IDE Hard drives $5 dollars each plus shipping
9 80GB IDE Hard Drives $10 dollars each plus shipping
I have a storage unit full as well.. Everything from Molar Macs, to
Apple //e's to compact macs.
Shoot me an email and lets make a deal so I can have my living room back :P
Steve Landon
Flushing Michigan- Which is 15 mins northwest of Flint Michigan
I recently acquired an HP Envizex II Netstation X-Terminal which I
would like to try out. I have a base HP-UX 10.20 OS running on an HP
B160L and I have an original set of HP-UX 10.20 install media CDs, but
apparently a Codeword is necessary to install the B4474FA HP
Netstation Software from the CD. I don't have any Codewords for this
set of install media CDs.
Is there any way to obtain a Codeword to install the Netstation
Software from the HP-UX 10.20 install media that I have?
http://www.hp.com/softwarereleases/releases-media2/media/3710366.htm
HP9000 Series 9000/700
HP-UX Application Software
CD Part Number - B3782-10366
B4474FA, HP Netstation Software, Codeword Required: Yes, Size: 115622777
-Glen
hello all,
yesterday my wife and I emptied our garage(25 years of diverse things
stocked inside).I found again my hp1000,I saw a vax8200,a a lot of things
that suddenly made me rich :-))etc...and I
found something I had totally forgotten ,bought a long time ago as a part of
lot bought at the near army base:a Tektronix microprocessor emulation
system,made of two (big!!!) racks a 8510 and a 8310.I opened them just to
see ,and immediately I saw the two purple dec handles in the 8510....
A lsi 11/2 was here.I brought the rack inside ,removed the dust and spiders,
connected to the terminal line labeled 'auxilliary' a VT320 and powered it
up,after a few tests,I found the correct speed (2400 bauds) and got the odt,
using the run/halt switch of the front panel.
I has 32k of ram,the console is at correct place,but the fdc is not at
177170,so I doubt it can boot standart rt11.Unfortunately I found an error
in the memory:bit 9 of the first 16k bank is stucked to 1,it may be only a
ram chip (4116)to change,the 2nd bank is correct,a few test programs were
ok.
So if you see such a machine it can be useful.
I'd like to find maintenance informations about the Tektronix boards.
I'try to repair the mem board,and will continue to play with it.
Best regards to all.
Alain Nierveze
492 all?e Montesquieu
33290 Le Pian Medoc
France
nierveze at radio-astronomie.comwww.radio-astronomie.com
A company has made some replica 8/E handles and has excess they are
willing to sell at $1.50 per handle. I think they have around 25 of each
color left. Due to the company not wanting to deal with a bunch of small
orders I may need to be an intermediary.
Pictures of the switch handles next to my 8/E handles and two 8/M handles
sitting on top at URL below. It also has a picture of the panel they made.
They said ok to share the picture but I can't say why they made them.
http://www.pdp8online.com/ftp/misc/switches/
The color of one matches my 8/E pretty well but the other doesn't. You can
also see for one of the colors my 8/E doesn't match my 8/M that well either.
If interested email me with how many you are wanting of which color.
http://www.tiffe.de/images/Unbenannt.JPG
This is one of the things in Dortmund, anyone know what this could be?
Regards,
Holm
--
Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe,
Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583
www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741
Well, I did the bit reversal TWICE, so of course the end result was wrong!
Fixed that, fixed up a little bug in resetting the file mark detection
flag in
the wrong place, and I now have a rough program that maps the files
structure
of a tape.
here's a snip of what I got.
VOL1RT1101
DD%% 1
HDR1SAMBR .CTL RT110100010001000100 00000 00000
000000RT11
file 0 had 2 blocks 0 errors 0 timeouts blocksize was 512
HDR1SAMBR .BAK RT110100010001000100 00000 00000
000000RT11
file 1 had 2 blocks 0 errors 0 timeouts blocksize was 512
HDR1SAMBR .FOR RT110100010001000100 00000 00000
000000RT11
file 2 had 4 blocks 0 errors 0 timeouts blocksize was 512
and so on.
(Note the RT11 header labels above. I sort of thought this tape would
have been
>from RSX-11M, but it must have been made before we switched. Whew,
that's going
BACK a ways, about 1976 or 77 when we went to RSX. The actual tape I'm
reading
was a 6250 BPI copy of the original tape (probably 1600 BPI) from back
then. This copy
was probably made 15 years ago, though.)
I'm now working on a program to move the entire tape to a single disk file
with pretty much verbatim bytes from the tape. It will have a 32-bit
header for each record of file mark, showing the record size or file mark.
Then I can write programs at my leisure to extract files without having to
listen to the wail of the Gast vane pump in the keystone tape drive.
Oh, the performance seems to be pretty good. it was streaming fairly well
at either 25 or 75 IPS in 6250, I suspect it will certainly stream at 75 IPS
with a 1600 BPI tape.
Jon
*Dear Rod,*
**
*Feeling nostaligic, I googled 'Arcturus Minicomputer', and your letter
below was the only reference I found. I know the letter is from 2007. I
hope the email address is still in use.*
**
*I programmed an Arcturus minicomputer at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in
Wimbledon from 1973 to 1976. It was used to do image processing on pictures
>from the first CT scanner in the world, which was located in that hospital.*
**
*All the programming I did on the machine was in assembler. The computer
did not have a disk operating system. Every action involved first loading
the program you need from paper tape, then the data, etc.*
**
*The first thing I did was to write a very rudimentary disk operating
system. It took 6 weeks, but it worked.*
**
*I knew that Arcturus had installed the monitor system in Gatwick.*
**
*Best Wishes,*
**
**
*Jon Griver*
**
**
**
*Fri Mar 30 02:45:49 CDT 2007*
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------------------------------
Hi All
Whilst sitting on the plane on the way back from Newcastle
yesterday. It reminded me of a system I saw at Gatwick airport in the
early 1970's. I'm pretty sure it was run by a mini computer called an
'Arcturus'. I can clearly remember the grey rack mounted box with its
row of toggle switches and lamps. I was there to install a VDU
(sometimes referred to as a glass teletype). The big teletype they drove
it from made the whole place shake and the VDU I fitted of course did
not.
It drove the departure / arrival TV monitors. The way it generated the
characters was curious to say the least. It had a large number of
circuits which generated parts of characters. One did a vertical bar,
another produced a whole circle whilst others output parts of a circle,
forty-five degree bars and so on. For each character cell the component
parts of the required character were selected summed and added to a TV
raster. Does anybody remember the Arcturus?
Rod Smallwood
Google Maps will release a version for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment
System. http://www.youtube.com/googlemaps
It appears that the NES has a problem with the cartridge connector.
Michael Holley
Hi. Brand new to this list. I joined because based on your past posts I believe you guys might be able to help me with my problem. I just acquired an old Heathkit system consisting of an H19 terminal, an H11 computer, and an H27 disk drive. I have managed to get the H19 and H11 talking to each other (see my short video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZ3HHd1V3o&feature=youtu.be but I don't have any documentation for the H27 so I don't know how to use it with the H11. I have two floppies that came with it (actually I have a bunch that came with it as shown in my photo gallery http://gallery.me.com/rbarline#100619), one titled "Softech UCSD H11 System Disk" and one titled "Softech UCSD System H11 Utilities".
Can anyone help me figure out what to type on the terminal in order to get the disk drive to start the boot process? Thanks in advance.
I've got my OSI C2-4P into a basically working state, to the point where the boot code seeks to track 0 and tries to load the OS boot code.? I know I had a couple of plastic disk-boxes with my OSI boot disks and some software, but I cannot find it anywhere.? I do have some C1 Boot disks, but these won't work with a C2.? If anyone with a working OS65D boot disk (and hopefully the tutorial disks) for a C2/4/8 would be willing to make some copies for me, I'd be most grateful.
I believe it's possible to reconstruct a boot disk over a serial port, but I'd rather keep that as a last resort.? That would be an exercise much like building a ship in a bottle.
Thanks,
Dave
It looks like the developers of TRS-80 Model II TRSDOS were very
paranoid that someone might be able to bypass the filesystem and access
data on a floppy directly. I'm not sure if their primary concern was
file password protection, or if they had other reasons. Obviously you
could write a program that accesses the floppy directly, by talking to
the FDC and DMAC chips yourself, and there's not really anything that
can be done to prevent that.
Oddly enough, this was exactly *opposite* to what Apple did in Apple
DOS. Apple published the APIs to read and write sectors (RWTS), but
never published the "File Manager" APIs that allowed access to the file
system through means other than passing commands through the character
output vector (e.g., the BASIC statement PRINT CHR$(4);"OPEN FOO").
I'll mostly describe how things work in Model II TRSDOS 1.2, the
earliest version I've been able to obtain. I haven't studied 2.0 nearly
as much yet. The TRSDOS 1.2 "kernel" consists of three parts, while
later versions are more monolithic.
The Model II boot ROM loads all of drive 0 track 0 (single density, 26
sectors of 128 bytes) into memory starting at 0e00. First it looks for
the four characters "DIAG" at 1400 and "BOOT" at 1000. If either are
missing, it refuses to proceed. It calls the code at 1404, which in
TRSDOS is a simple hardware diagnostic. When that returns, it jumps to
the first stage boot loader code at 1004. Some other operating systems
don't bother with a diagnostic, and just start their boot code at 1404,
never returning to the ROM.
The first stage boot loader actually understands the TRSDOS filesystem
enough to find the directory entries of files in TRSDOS load module
format, and load them into memory. In 1.2, it loads "IODVRS/SYS" and
then "TRSDOS/SYS", and jumps into the latter. The Model II TRSDOS
filesystem is similar in many regards to that of Model I TRSDOS, but not
enough to actually be compatible. Unsurprisingly, it looks like an
intermediate step in the evolution from Model I TRSDOS to Model III
TRSDOS. As in Model III TRSDOS, files can only have a single directory
entry, with a limited number of extents.
IODVRS/SYS contains, as the name implies, the low level I/O drivers for
the system, including the keyboard, display, printer, and floppy drives,
the dispatching for system (SVC) calls, and a few utility SVCs.
However, it only contains the SVC handlers for services 0-28, the I/O
functions and basic utility SVCs. Note in particular that it contains
no file system code. IODVRS/SYS is conceptually similar to the CP/M
BIOS, though lacking CP/Ms charming simplicity. IODVRS/SYS provides
several undocumented SVCs for internal use by TRSDOS, including floppy
subsystem initialization (13), floppy sector read (14), and floppy
sector write (16). Note that at the time IODVRS/SYS is loaded, no call
is made into it to initialize it.
TRSDOS/SYS, however, is called after being loaded. It basically
performs the TRSDOS initialization that only has to happen at boot
time. It has another implementation of filesystem reading and load
module format handling, very similar to what is present in the stage 1
boot, but now instead of talking to the FDC and DMAC directly, it uses
the undocumented floppy SVCs described previously. After various
initialization, it loads SYSRES/SYS and jumps into it.
SYSRES/SYS contains the filesystem code and other relatively high-level
TRSDOS infrastructure code. It generally relies on SVC calls into
IODVRS/SYS to perform all I/O, and has very little other dependence on
IODVRS/SYS internals. This is conceptually similar to the CP/M BDOS.
It loads system overlays to handle some SVCs and user commands.
Overlays SYS0/SYS through SYS9/SYS are small overlays, occupying one
disk granule (five sectors) and loading into 2200-26ff. Other overlays
may be larger, and load at 2800 or higher. Many of the overlays *do*
depend on knowledge of the internals of SYSRES/SYS, directly accessing
subroutines and data structures without the use of vector tables or the
like. This means that SYSRES/SYS and the overlays must have been built
at the same time, and would generally not be interchangeable with
earlier or later releases.
Anyhow, getting back to the paranoia part. Someone apparently decided
that simply not documenting the SVCs that provide sector-level access to
the floppy was not sufficient to thwart those that might want to bypass
the filesystem. After TRSDOS/SYS uses those SVCs for its part in the
boot process, it actually *removes* them from the SVC vector table, and
sets up jumps to them at undocumented internal TRSDOS locations 1130
(read sector) and 1133 (write sector).
In TRSDOS 1.2, access to all of the system files, including overlays, is
done through the file system. The system files have normal file system
entries. Unlike Model I TRSDOS, neither the system file directory
entries nor the file contents need to be in any special location on the
disk.
In TRSDOS 2.0, things are much more monolithic. The stage 1 boot code
only loads and jumps into a single file, SYSRES/SYS. The boot code does
not care where this file is located, but other parts of the system do.
All of the overlays, small and large, are stored in a single file,
SYSTEM/SYS, which is required to start on the track after the primary
directory. The first sector of SYSTEM/SYS contains a kind of overlay
directory that gives the track and sector numbers at which each overlay
starts.
There is perhaps some advantage to putting all of the overlays in a
single file, since the number of directory entries on the diskette is
limited to 96. However, the need for a second, special directory
mechanism for overlays is ugly, even if it is only a simple one.
Requiring the system files to be at fixed locations on the disk (at
least relative to the primary directory) might be a reasonable
requirement if it yielded some performance gain, but it generally
doesn't. (With 1.2, the system files are set up when the disk is
formatted, so even though they *could* be anywhere, in practice they are
grouped together.)
TRSDOS 2.0 introduced changes to the disk organization, such that TRSDOS
1.2 and 2.0 diskettes are not interchangeable, except that the 2.0
XFERSYS utility can convert a 1.2 diskette to 2.0 format. The disk
organization changes are basically gratuitous, and don't provide any
benefit to the user, while obviously being a great inconvenience to
users with TRSDOS 1.2. They mashed the GAT (granule allocation table)
and HIT (hash index table), which were sectors 1 and 2 of the directory
track in 1.2, into just sector 1 in 2.0. In 1.2, the directory occupied
sectors 3-26, while in 2.0 it occupies sectors 2-25. The only apparent
rationale for doing this is to free up sector 26 on the directory
track. In TRSDOS 1.2, sector 26 was not used on any track but the
directory track, for any purpose. In TRSDOS 2.0, sector 26 of *every*
track is used to store five bytes of unique disk ID, to better detect
disk changes. (it has been suggested that those bytes might also have
been used for software copy protection.) However, rather than mashing
the GAT and HIT together, which made it impossible to support larger
disks such as double-sided disks, they easily could have special cased
the directory track(s) and stored the disk ID in either the GAT or HIT
sector.
TRSDOS 4.0 introduced much larger changes to the disk organization, in
order to support double-sided disks and hard disks. I haven't yet begun
to dig into the 4.0 code.
Eric
Hi
I have ten (10) remaining S-100 MS DOS Support board PCBs left in case
anyone would like one or more.
http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/MSDOS%20Board/MSDOS%20Board.htm
This board should dramatically improve MS DOS compatibility on the S-100 bus
using an S-100 8086 CPU board.
It can be used by any 8 or 16 bit CPU. Basically it is the guts of a PC/AT
motherboard minus the CPU, RAM, and ISA slots.
Thanks and have a nice day!
Andrew Lynch
{revision of first CCTalk post on 3/22/12}
Thanks to those who have been inquiring on these items,
I can now render a more helpful post.
Location: Washington, D.C., or near Frederick, Maryland.
For trade (preferred) or best offers:
- 1974 DG Nova 2 rackmount (untested, unrestored) top cover missing
.Front panel (cosmetics very good condition)
.Nova 2 CPU
.Standard Memories 16k core
.Basic I/O
-- all electronics working condition unknown, but appear
undamaged in very good condition.
- 1971 DG Nova 1200 rackmount (untested, unrestored) w/ all covers.
.Front panel (cosmetics -- fair condition)
.Nova 1200 CPU
.DG 4k core
.Basic I/O
-- all electronics working condition unknown, but appear
undamaged in very good condition.
- 1984 DG Desktop Generation R20 (untested, unrestored) w/ D461 terminal
.dual power supply unit
.R20 SPU unit with SPU, 256k ram, USAM, and asynch modules --
(note: no terminal cables or adapters.)
.single drive diskette unit
.hard drive unit
.tape drive unit
.manuals (setting up, testing, users in 2 encased binders) and
3 diskettes.
-- all electronics working condition unknown, but appear undamaged
in excellent condition.
-- cosmetics, very good to excellent.
PM me with trades, offers, questions, corrections.
Looking for (in order of priority):
- PDP 11/04 or 11/34 half-height (only) chassis, complete with PSU,
covers, backplane, cables. No CPU or other logic boards needed.
- HP 35721A monochrome monitor
- Emulex TC12 tape controller or similar: Unibus->Pertec interface
which emulates a "TS" device
- ribbon cables for above -- controller -> Pertec-formatter tape drive.
- Unibus ESDI controller
- Pro/Venix docs (I'm using version 1.0 on a DEC Pro 350).
- MFM drives:
. CDC Wren II 9415-*
. CMI CM-5412
. IMI 5012H
. Maxstor XT-2085
. Micropolis 1324A
. Priam V170 or V185
Thank you,
John Singleton
p.s. to check my reputation, see my ebay handle "MdntTrain".
On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 19:57:58 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
> Which has just suggestesd a totally OT queestion to me. Some cultures
> prohibit the drinking of alcohol. This is normally taken to mean drinks
> containing ethanol. But how do they handle other -OH molecules in foods?
Those cultures, and their rules prohibiting the drinking of alcohol, are
quite old AFAIK. Without knowing any details of their history, it would
seem logical to me to assume that they would not be aware of the
presence of other -OH molecules, so they would have no special rules
about them. I suppose the rules are religious? If so, some of them may
well be reasonable for health reasons, but others would be illogical or
based on misconceptions of physical facts.
/Jonas