test-drb February 2015

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

203 participants
261 discussions

by h.j.stegeman＠hccnet.nl

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

9 years, 1 month

11/23+ Console cables

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

This may be common knowledge here, but I was unaware of it (and, AFAIK, the DEC documentation doesn't point this out), so here goes... It turns out one doesn't need the fancy cab-kit to connect up to an 11/23+'s console. The headers on the card are completely compatible with standard DLV11-J connectors, and a DLV11-J cable can be used to connect up to an 11/23+ card. (One has to select the desired baud rate with the DIP switches on the card, of course.) I have verified this by trying it, and it worked. The cabkits merely allow one to select the baud rate at the console connector (via a clock generator on the cabkit, and the 'external clock' input on the serial interface). This implies that one should be able to plug a cabkit into an appropriately configured DLV11-J (external serial clock select), and select the baud rate via the switch on the cabkit. I haven't tried that, though. Noel

9 years, 1 month

San Diego, CA: 1991 ERA AS400

by mstaunton＠roadrunner.com

Sorry got really sick. Below is the model numbers. I will supply more info if anybody is interested Pricing is open due to shipping weight is included CRT monitors working with cables HP A4033A 65lbs HP A45764 75lbs servers/workstations HP Visualize C180 30lbs HP Apollo 400 MOD#A2193A 90lbs Mentor Graphics HLN5065W 100lbs I clan also be contacted via cell 7607030986

9 years, 1 month

Ceiling Apples

by terry＠webweavers.co.nz

An account of a small vintage computer rescue. Not uncommon machines but I'm glad I saved them from the scrapheap. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2014-12-23-xmas-apple-salvage.htm

9 years, 1 month

Rich kids are into COBOL

by shawn-gordon＠cox.net

This was a screen driver I'd written to do pseudo windowing on green screen terminals. I thought it would have made more sense and been cleaner in C, but it wasn't. On 2/17/2015 9:27 PM, Mouse wrote: >> I've rewritten cobol into C a few times when I was a big enthusiast >> of C and the C code was longer and harder to maintain. >> > That is no surprise to me. If you were to take code written in C and > translate it into COBOL, I'd generally expect the COBOL code to be > longer and harder to maintain, too. > > Indeed, I'd expect that for pretty much any pair of languages; > translating code out of the idiom it was written for generally makes it > larger and harder to understand. > > /~\ 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 > >

9 years, 1 month

GNT-4601 punch cable help

by mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us

I have a box of old HP paper tapes to read, and am having an awful time trying to build the right serial cable to connect a GNT-4601 reader/punch to a Linux PC. Does anyone have a known good cable diagram and stty settings that will work? Thank. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

9 years, 1 month

Patching vs. new code (was Re: Pascal not considered harmful)

by isking＠uw.edu

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 7:22 AM, Shiresoft <ggs at shiresoft.com> wrote: > > > > On Feb 19, 2015, at 11:35 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > > > >> On 02/19/2015 08:23 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > >> > >> Nope. It was (and still is) how I write code (sit down and compose at > >> the keyboard). One of my old bosses at IBM once said "Yea, Guy just > >> waves his hands over the keyboard and programs come out". > > > > That would have been impossible in my case, unless I had the most > prodigious eidetic memory in history. > > > > Writing code almost always involved using an on-disk or -tape source > code library. Even if it was new code, there were significant advantages > to creating a library then modifying it as one progressed. > > > > One would typically work with a bound listing or listings and work out > the control system directives to update the existing code base. Remember, > this was in the day of batch processing with almost no access to > terminals. Everything happened on the keypunch. > > > > So for one to remember all of the correction set IDs and sequence > numbers for a group of programs or system programs would be more than > impressive--it'd probably merit a vivisection. > > ;-) > > I never said that I didn't / don't use references while I write code. > It's just that I don't write my code down first. Of course most of what I > do is new (from scratch) rather than modifying existing code. > > When I first started at IBM because build time for our software was about > a week, we'd fix bugs and such with patches. Folks in the lab would stop > looking up the instruction encodings and would just ask me...I could do the > assembly in my head...I'm sorely out of practice now. :-/ > > > My first (paid) programming job was in 6800 assembler, using the Motorola EXORCISER system. It took hours (as in a major part of a day, longer than the work day) to reassemble the entire code base, so we would patch the program in the PROM programmer. We would, of course, back port the changes in symbolic assembler to the source, and every few days just take the downtime hit to rebuild the code base. Keep in mind that this was natively hosted on a 6800 system. Another interesting tidbit: its simple filesystem did not segment files and reuse blocks, so you had to purge old versions of files, preferably before a dozen or so files were lined up after it. In that case, it would tie up the system for way too long while an old file was purged and all the new files were packed into the recovered space, block by block. It was barely a step above magtape. One other note: there was a bug in certain mask sets that required a NOP before you could set the interrupt mask. Since the ENTIRE memory/IO space was 64k bytes, every byte was sacred, every byte was great, and if a byte was wasted?. -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS Ph.D. Candidate The Information School University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

9 years, 1 month

HP 7970E mag tape brackets

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I was just informed that the "new manufacture" mounting brackets for the 7970E are ready. I saw them at about 90% of the fabrication process being complete and they looked really good. Today I'm going to stop at the hardware store and buy a set of bolts/nuts/washers that match the originals (got them there before so I know they have the right ones) so that I can ship each one with a baggie of the "right stuff". I will probably have them shipped out to the people that wanted one by the end of next week-ish. If you were one of those people that confirmed you needed one or two, please email me your shipping address. Best, J

9 years, 1 month

DEC handbooks at LA estate sale

by brendan＠bslabs.net

Just a heads up for anyone around Los Angeles, I was browsing some local estate sale listings and saw one that had a big collection of DEC handbooks from the late-70s/80s: logic, software, microcomputer, peripherals, VAX software source book, VAX Architecture/Hardware/Software. It?s the last two pictures at: http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/CA/Los-Angeles/90049/823725 <http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/CA/Los-Angeles/90049/823725> Brendan

9 years, 1 month

MEM11 Status Update

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Guy Sotomayor > I'm using FRAM. They have unlimited write cycles Although I hear the latest flash have very, very large numbers of write cycles. But if you can get large enough FRAMs, yeah, they seem like a better alternative. > I didn't want to have any sort of removable media as that bring its own > sets of challenges. Oh well, back to loading all the bits in over a serial line (although I suppose if one has some other removable media drive, e.g. a RX02, one could get the bits in that way). >> (Or perhaps even a front-end running on a PC which is connected to >> the MEM11 over the serial line.) > That was my original thought (command front end) but that would mean > writing/supporting a bunch of different programs for different > OS/platforms Well, probably only at most two (Windoze and Linux), and maybe only one (since there are Windows emulation packages for Linux). Although if one stuck to a line-oriented interface, something like CygWin would allow one to have only one version. > and I want the MEM11 to pretty much stand on its own Oh, I agree that that's a worthy goal - the front-end would only be to make it 'user-friendly', instead of cryptic and terse. > the realistic limit will be on the Unibus interface ICs. I have (at > last inventory) enough for ~25 boards. After that I'll have to see if I > can either source additional parts or re-design that part of the board > to use something else. Yes, that _is_ a problem... Noel

9 years, 1 month

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test-drb February 2015