test-drb March 2012

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

189 participants
239 discussions

FORTH chips (was: Re: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 1:40 -0500 3/20/12, Dave wrote: > Forth chips are awesome, as is Forth. I've never messed with the >Novix chips (NC4000 series?) but I have a couple of Harris RTX2010 chips >here, as well as one of Chuck Moore's new GA144s. 144 hly simple cores >on a chip! Great stuff. I'll have that on a board soon. Several of the instruments on payloads we have flown (including 2 instruments going to Pluto) use RTX2010's for the instrument controllers. (JHU-APL built those instruments (LORRI and PEPSSI) and did a great job with them and their FORTH software.) So in the category of out-of-this-world performance and reliability, RTX2010 is one of my favorite CPU's too. Let us know when you do something cool with yours! -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

12 years, 9 months

cctech Digest, Vol 103, Issue 26

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> From:?Richard <legalize at xmission.com> > Date:?Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:36:25 -0600 > Subject:?Re: Computer Graphics Museum collection pics > >> I didn't see any Calcomp System 25 Workstations in your collection. >> The RICM has LOTS of them. > > I wasn't aware of these systems. ?According to Computerworld, Calcomp > sold off the division after having an installed base of only 800 units > in order to avoid competing with its own peripherals customers. > <http://books.google.com/books?id=3KBPxFKTY6kC&lpg=PA118&dq=calcomp%20%22sys…> > > This seems to be a workstation introduced in 1984. ?What kind of > graphics environment did it have? ?1984 is too early for X11 and also > I think too early for X10. The page for the Calcomps is here: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/calcomp-system-25 The RICM has LOTs of documentation on the systems, but have not powered one on yet. -- Michael Thompson

12 years, 9 months

FS: p-Source book

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

FS: Randall Hyde's 1983 "p-Source: A Guide to the Apple Pascal System". Paperback. Very good condition. Originally cost $24.95! Yours for just $5 plus postage from US zip 65775. thanks Charles

12 years, 9 months

Good OS-X programmers out here ?

by jdr_use＠bluewin.ch

....that could help me out understanding why the exact same program, on the exact same machine, runs 10 times slower under OS-X than it does under either Ubuntu or Windows ? ( Programmed in C with GCC toolchain and using the FLTK toolset. ) Classicmp link : the program is my new release of Emulith, the ETH Lilith emulator. Jos Dreesen

12 years, 9 months

Preferred image format for HP single-sided 3.5" floppies?

by dave12＠dunfield.com

>> Which was the cause of a bug in the RS232 driver of the original IBM >> 5150 BIOS... However, I as going to be more charitable in the case of >> the FDC chip and wonder if it was duw to the fact that IIRC the >> origianl IBM 3740 format used a sector as the equivalent of a punched >> card, so only the first 80 chracters were used. > >Your charity might be misplaced. The 765 works just fine with 128 >byte sectors in FM mode. So Chuck ... do you know exactly how this works (as opposed to how it is documented)? 128 bytes/sector is a special case in the 765 (at least it is documented as such). According to the NEC documents, for the sector read and write commands, if you give it a value of 0 for 'n' (6th byte of the command = Number of bytes/sector), the actual number of bytes read/written is determined by the 9th byte written 'DTL' (DaTa Length). The docs don't go into much detail, and I haven't fooled with it much - I just set DTL to 128 when I am reading or writing 128 byte sectors (n=0). A few questions which are not clearly answered by the docs: under "READ DATA" "When N=0, then DTL defines the data length which the FDC must treat as a sector. If DTL is smaller than the actual data length in a sector, the data beyond DTL in the sector is not sent to the data bus. The FDC reads (internally) the complete Sector performing the CRC check, and depending upon the manner of the command termination, may perform a multi-sector read operatiohn. When 'N' is non-zero, then DTL has no meaning and should be set to FF hexidecimal" under "WRITE DATA" there is mention of N=0 or DTL ... but DTL is shown as a part of the write commands, and generally described as "DTL - Data Length - when N is defined as 00, DTL stands for the data length which users are going to read out or write into the sector". The read description seems to imply that the FDC "knows" the actual length of a sector, and only reads the number of bytes specified, while calculating the CRC over the whole sector. - How does it "know" the sector size ... the 'n' field in the ID header is the only place in the sector data that defines the size. - Does it assume the sector is 128 bytes? - or Does it actually read (and check CRC) on a smaller sector? -What is the actual behaviour during write? - Does it fill the remainder of a 128 byte sector with some value? - or Does it actually write a smaller sector? under "FORMAT TRACK" (in the chart notes) "(3) In MFM mode the FDC cannot perform a read/write/format operation with 128 bytes/sector (N = 00)" This implies that 128/MFM simply doesn't work - not even for format (which you indicated earlier actually does work). Is this a fairly reliable assumption? Does DTL have any effect on 128/MFM reads or writes? You mentioned that 80 bytes get transferred instead of 128. Does changing DTL make a difference? Or is it always 80 bytes? Dave -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/

12 years, 9 months

Reducing my DEC collection (UK)

by toby＠coreware.co.uk

Hi, I've decided I'd like to reduce down my collection of PDP-11 and PDP-8s and so I have the following that I may be prepared to part with. All the machines and parts are located in the UK and at this stage I'm interested in expressions of interest. Please bare in mind that the machines are for pickup from the UK and would probably be impactical to ship. PDP-11/05 - 5.25" form factor PDP-11/10 PDP-11/15 PDP-11/34 PDP-11/34A PDP-11/35 PDP-11/40 PDP-11/44 PDP-11/70 PDP-8/E, 3 rack setup with 2 x RK05s, 2 x magtape PDP-8/L (missing its core memory card) Various qbus machines (PDP-11/03,11/23,11/73) Various TU56 drives PC04 paper tape drive PC05 paper tape drive Lots of RL01/02 drives RK05 drives All the best, Toby

12 years, 9 months

PDP 8L

by cfox1＠cogeco.ca

We are trying to revive a PDP 8L, and wonder if anyone can advise us of the equivalent of the DEC1008 transistor, npn germanium, and also where we might track down any of the following boards: G228, G826, G624, G221. Thanks Charlie Fox Charles E. Fox 793 Argyle Rd. Windsor Ont. 519-254-4991 N8Y3j8 www.chasfoxvideo.com

12 years, 9 months

Finally running with new software Apple IIe

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:14 AM, dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote: > ?The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple is really > slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put > up with it I don't know. Apple Integer Basic was decently fast for the time. Check out say Little Brick Out or Apple Trek. Yeah Applesoft was mostly a step backwards :-) Beagle Bros did a lot of cool things in nominal Applesoft BASIC but you know they were peeking and poking and calling machine language routines for most of the cool stuff :-) If you ever get a chance... Beagle Bag rules :-). "Card Scanner" and "Plenty Questions" were (and are!) my favorite! Tim.

12 years, 9 months

BitSavers DEC Archive Stuff Missing?

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I was looking through some RSS feeds of stuff posted to BitSavers, like the following: dec <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec> :: dec archive <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive> :: 21383578 <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive/21383578> :: 94-006 003 01 1984-1987 <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive/21383578/94-006_003_01_1984-1987> :: 19850910 Business Entities My Definition <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive/21383578/94-006_003_01_1984-1987/1 9850910_Business_Entities_My_Definition.pdf> Enclosures: 19850910_Business_Entities_My_Definition.pdf <http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive/21383578/94-006_003_01_1984-1987/1 9850910_Business_Entities_My_Definition.pdf> (31 KB) http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dec_archive/21383578/94-006_003_01_1984-1987/19 850910_Business_Entities_My_Definition.pdf But this link is dead, as are many others. Has this material been moved elsewhere? Regards Rob

12 years, 9 months

Computer Graphics Museum collection pics

by legalize＠xmission.com

After much work organizing and moving things around, I've got a photo gallery page showing the museum's collection as of March 15th, 2012: <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org/the-collection/> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

12 years, 9 months

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test-drb March 2012