test-drb December 2014

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

179 participants
207 discussions

by roeapeterson＠gmail.com

I received a qbus board with a small pdp11/23 system recently, and I can't find any info about it with my best googling. It's made by data systems design, copyright 1980, appears to be model 804120-01. Dual-width qbus board, with a 34-pin ribbon cable connector on the top board edge, maybe floppy controller? The only real non-ttl non-rom chip is a AM2901BPC. This seems to be a four-bit bit slice micro... Anyone ever seen this beastie? Thanks.

10 years

HP LaserJet Font cartridges needed by anyone?

by mattislind＠gmail.com

With a nice HP85 computer I just got there were two HP 92286K MATH TMS font cartridges included. I have no idea why. Myself I have no compatible printer. Does anyone want the font cartridges? Free for cost of shipping from Sweden. I save them for a couple of months then I toss them if there is no interest.

10 years

22-bit ECO for REV11 [AKA TEV11] (M9400)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> Does anyone know if an ECO exists to convert a REV11 board (M9400) to > 22-bit BTW, it appears that that board (in some configurations) is also known as a TEV11. > in the same way that an ECO exists to convert BDV11's to 22-bit? (On > the BDV11, there's a resistor pack with 4 unused pull-up/down pairs So I located a set of prints for the TEV11 (which I must scan and get to Al, they don't appear to be available online), and on the M9400 there are four spare pull-up/down pairs, although not all in one package. They are: E6-1 E17-1 E17-12 E27-15 I have verified that these are free (looked at a board, no traces to those pins). (And yes, the 1 pin is usable - it's used in E27.) Not all in the same package, so the ECO will be a bit messy, but it can be done. Guess I should read out the ROMs, too (assuming they haven't already suffered bit rot). Noel

10 years

C, please die, and take Go with you - Re: Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

by commodorejohn＠gmail.com

> From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> > People traded safety for speed, and thanks to the net and cowboy > programming, that has turned out to be a bad decision. Pshaw. C is only as unsafe as you make it. It's not the language that has caused, for example, Internet security issues - it's programmers who refuse to learn well-known lessons like "always, always, *always* bounds-check network-facing buffers *no matter what*" that give us things like Heartbleed and any number of other overrun/underrun/etc. vulnerabilities. Blaming the language for the badness of bad programmers is like blaming the chainsaw for the actions of some nitwit who decapitated himself playing with one.

10 years

RUNOFF was Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

DEC sold WPS-8 which ran on PDP-8's, which was kinda WYSIWYG (rulers etc), but I don't know of anything quite up the WYSIWYG alley for the -11's. Most common on an -11 was a basic text editor plus DECUS runoff (which most often just formatted for a line or dot matrix printer). DECUS runoff for the PDP-11 (at least in late 70's was under the DECUS text processing SIG) is obviously a reimplementation of most common features of PDP-10-ish DSR . I don't know if DEC ever officially had DSR for the PDP-11. DSR = "Digital Standard Runoff". DECUS runoff has a lot in common with DSR and the other "classic" runoffs but I've never done an actual entymology to see what is unique and what is common between them for a lineage. I myself have re-implemented runoff in Perl a couple of times. It is completely trivial in Perl. Tim.

10 years

36bit still in use ?

by rhirst＠xkl.com

I'm Roy Hirst, a hobbyist new to the list - today is my day 1 - and I currently work for XKL LLC. I'd like to contribute where I can to this and other conversations on cctalk. XKL makes a line of optical networking systems, think 10x10GE in 1RU. A system has two planes, a (1) traffic plane where client equipment (e.g. "server") traffic gets aggregated to DWDM channels on a single optical fiber, and (2) a management plane that, er, manages remote config, real-time failover, OS field upgrades, etc. The planes are independent and you can reboot the OS after an upgrade without affecting packet traffic. The emphasis is on reliability, resilience, configurability,. We have had DWDM systems running 5 years without incident using these backplanes. The TOAD-2 is looked back on here with affection, some of the original architects and engineers are still around, and memory systems and interfaces have been under continuous development and extension since TOAD-2 days. I am not sure if you used to work here you would recognize it now. Is still 36-bit,? Yes. Roy -- *Roy Hirst* | 425-556-5773 | 425-324-0941 cell XKL LLC | 12020 113th Ave NE, Suite 100 | Kirkland, WA 98034 | USA The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please e-mail the sender at the above e-mail address.

10 years

No such thing as

by ak6dn＠mindspring.com

-----Original Message----- >From: Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> >Sent: Dec 4, 2014 3:43 PM >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Subject: Re: No such thing as "the PDP" [was RE: Typesafety versus Worse is Better - was Re: Fwd: is there any word processing software for the pdp11?] > >On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote: >> "Dale H. Cook" <radiotest at juno.com> wrote: >>> Speaking of that pioneering machine, does anyone know if there are >>> any plans by the CHM to try to make the MIT engineering prototype >>> operable? I last saw it in use at MIT about 45 years ago, when it was >>> housed adjacent to the TX-0 and the two were being used for speech >>> synthesis experiments. From what I understand the operable machine on >>> display at the CHM is a later C production version. > >> There are no current plans to restore another PDP-1 at the CHM... > >Nor is it likely that restoration of the prototype will ever be done. >Restoring something that is mostly documented was a big challenge. >Restoring something that is mostly undocumented is close enough to >impossible that I doubt that those of us who were on the PDP-1 >restoration team would ever seriously consider it, nor would anyone >else sensible. > >CHM has a second production PDP-1 that would be a much better >restoration candidate if the world needed a second operational PDP-1, >which it doesn't. I used that PDP-1 at MIT in 1972 or so for the 6.273 programming course. Still have my class notebook, with all my programs printed out on the Flexowriter terminals. That PDP-1 was not a 'virgin' PDP-1 any more even then, it had features added by eager grad students. As indicated above the second / backup that CHM has would be a better choice to restore.

10 years

Random DEC Questions

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I just collected a nice little "haul" of DEC gear yesterday and have some questions: One of the things I got was an RA60 drive. But it doesn't have any packs. Does anyone in the UK have any RA60 packs they would be willing to part with? I also got a VT320, but it looks to be a 100-120V model. Is it possible to convert these easily to 220-240V? I discovered that there is a little MMJ to RJ45 adapter called a H8584. I know I can make cables that would remove the need for these, but they look quite handy. Anyone in the UK have any of these spare? I got a DECserver 900TM (see earlier thread about WWEN2.SYS). Manx has an installation manual on it, but not a detailed operations manual. I don't have the Flash RAM card which I guess is needed to persist the boot image without having to boot off the network. Does anyone know what kind of card it needs? I am told it is a CF card, but it looks like it needs some kind of holder to hold the card, and I don't know how the image would get onto the CF card, unless it does that itself after loading from the network. Regards Rob

10 years

Current Status

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

Does anyone know the status and current e-mail address for Daniel T. Burrows (of RSX-11 fame)?

10 years

A classic Trivia Question

by dpi＠dustyoldcomputers.com

In days of old when knights were bold and computers barely invented... In the PDP-8 PAL assembler what is the purpose of the following character sequence accomplish? *.+1%2^2 If you know the answer good for you! You get a gold star. Please don't blurt out the answer. Let people think about it a bit. I'll post the answer in a couple of days. I came up with this sequence this morning for use in an emulator I am working on. Doug Ingraham

10 years

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test-drb December 2014