The university I attend, University of Windsor, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada has an IBM 3494 tape library they are planning to get rid of. I was wondering if anyone on this list would be interested, if it doesn't find a new home it'll be going to the electronics recyclers.
The machine is very big, and is in working condition. It won't be coming with any tapes, the tapes that are in it right now will be destroyed. If you're interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch with the relevant people.
--------
Paul Anderson -- VE3HOP
I managed to get RSTS-11 (circa 1974) installed on an RK05 drive for my
PDP-11/10. The M873-YA bootstrap loader does not seem to be able to boot
the disk.
I can boot the drive via a manual bootstrap routine.
I saw on a site that some bootloaders will refuse to boot a drive unless
the first byte is 240(8). On RSTS-11, the first byte is 300(8).
Any ideas why the bootstrap card is picky?
Thanks!
--barrym
> Joachim writes:
>> The R? has gotten a mixed reception 'round here
Al writes:
> The problem I see with the Cambridge examples is students don't LEARN anything
> about what they're programming on. They're given a bunch of magic recipes and
> don't learn what they're for. What you end up with is what you
> could have done with 10 lines of Z80 assembly talking to a terminal through a
> UART, but in the example you have to make your own terminal, talking to a big
> blob of USB stack and graphics coprocessor glue.
It's ironic that it seems increasingly hard to do anything "bare metal" without a graphical UI IDE on a desktop and a USB stack on the "bare metal".
I ran across this (probably inadvertent, possibly sly, but still funny and relevant) quote on Wikipedia:
"By the late 1960s change was coming: as operating systems and programming
language compilers evolved, software production costs were dramatically increasing."
Are you still lookin for thaat manual ?
I have copy of manual of Interview Comstate 2 and
Interview 4600.
I can copy it and sent to you if you pay the cost.
But they are much more sophisticated than Comstate 1
You should be capable to use it without manual is rather simple. If it
works correctly.
The manuals I mentioned are almost 1" thick each so cost may be
significant.
Let me know
Regards
Greg Szymsiak
--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Three weeks to go until the seventh annual Vintage Computer Festival
Midwest! I am told there are still a few rooms left at the hotel for
those coming in from out of town. Mention "Commodore Expo" for the
$69/night convention rate. And of course, the show is free of charge
whether you're there to shop, show or sell.
September 22-23, 2012 in Lombard, IL (Western suburbs of Chicago,
right off a major highway I-355)
More information and updates at http://vcfmw.org
I am sure I've found reference to this in the past, but my Google-fu
is failing me.
IIRC in the fairly early stages of the GNU OS project, they looked at
and considered using the kernel from BSD - 4.3 Net/1 or thereabouts, I
think. I'm looking for more detail or a web reference.
I've even found mention of them considering and discarding the UZI
kernel, which is what Allison was mentioning in the thread about
CP/M-compatible OSs the other day.
Could anyone give me a pointer, at all?
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
The R? has gotten a mixed reception 'round here, but here is something
interesting: a tutorial of programming the thing (which makes this
sort-of kinda on-topic) in bare-metal Assembly; including talking to
the graphics chip as a plain bitmapped framebuffer and input from the
USB port (the latter using a library, I think).
I haven't received mine yet, but I really want to try that out...
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/freshers/raspberrypi/tutorials/os/
--
Joachim Thiemann :: http://jthiem.bitbucket.org ::
http://signalsprocessed.blogspot.com
> Any more CP/M-compatible Z80 OSs?
ZCN on the Amstrad NC100 portable. Notable because the NC100 used the Z80
NMI, which you can't normally use on a CP/M system what with it being in
the middle of the default File Control Block at 5Ch. So ZCN has to go
through some elaborate gymnastics involving saving that byte of the FCB and
sticking a RST instruction there instead.
--
John Elliott
Every so often, since the beginning of the "interweb," I've wasted a few
hours scouring the vast stores of information for a glimmer of data on the
Motorola SC80951S chip. All I find are the part pimps peddling them for
sums which they'll only disclose if you file a formal RFQ. No datasheets
or even a simple description of the part's function can be found anywhere.
I amuse myself by wondering if I had somehow acquired some super secret
component that played a crucial part in the downfall of the Eastern Bloc.
Eventually reality kicks in and I realize it wouldn't have a Motorola logo
on it if that was the case. So here I am, before what probably amounts to
the most comprehensive brain trust in vintage compute technology, to ask if
any of you folks know what this thing is. Here is a link to a photograph:
http://www.aximel.com/files/SC80951S.jpg
Though I could not focus close enough to get a picture of the wafer, it
appears to have some regions that suggest an EPROM memory array, some
smaller regions that might be SRAM, and various other complicated looking
shapes that may just be a CPU of some sort.
I'm mostly interested in learning what it is. But if you can find me a
data sheet I'll gladly share half a dozen of them with you. :-)
Does anyone know if Motorola ever made 6809s that could function
either as 6809 or 6809E depending on some external signal, or perhaps
depending on how they were bonded out?
The reason I ask is that I've been playing with an SBC designed around
a 6809E. While working on writing the monitor on the first prototype,
it died with what looked like a bad CPU. So I ordered a replacement,
and while I was at it, ordered the parts to populate another board.
Both the board with the replacement CPU and the other freshly
populated board behaved the same way. After a little digging it
appeared that the E and Q clock signals that should be externally
driven for a 6809E were being driven by the CPU like for a 6809. I
took a chance and rewired it like a 6809 and sure enough it's working
now. But after numerous double checks, the chips definitely say
MC68B09E/00TA6/HEQB0014. Has anyone seen anything like this? Did I
end up getting a couple of chips that were mismarked? Is there a way
to make them behave as 6809Es?
Thanks in advance,
BLS
