Hi all,
Out of curiosity, did anybody on here subscribe to any of the newsletters published by a company called Aresco back in the late 70s and early 80s? These newsletters were VIPER (Cosmac VIP), Paper (Commodore PET), Source (Exidy Sorcerer), and Rainbow (Apple II). Aresco also published a series of books by Tom Swan titled PIPs for VIPs.
I own several issues of VIPER, but I'm still looking for copies of the others. Does anybody have these newsletters in their collection?
Matt
Hi everyone,
I've made tremendous progress on my 3B2 emulator. It's being
implemented under the SIMH simulator platform, which has been a huge
help.
My WE32100 core is getting closer to being complete. I'd consider it
alpha quality right now, but it has enough instruction coverage to
pass the 3B2's power-on self tests and to (barely) run some of the 3B2
firmware mode tools.
Implementing the WE32100 core has been thanks to the processor manual
and assembly language manuals that are available on BitSavers, but
outside of the CPU, virtually all of my understanding of the 3B2's
architecture has come from studying the ROMs and the SYSVR3 source
code. I've also been helped by having remote access to a running 3B2
so I can assemble and disassemble code using the real AT&T tools.
Beyond that, I have found precious little documentation.
I'm at the point now where I'm pretty well stuck until I can find more
information. I understand large chunks of the memory map now and
should be able to do things like simulate the floppy and hard disk
controller, but there are large gaps in my understanding. There are
many undocumented registers that are used by the firmware, but don't
appear in the SYSV source code anywhere. What they mean and what
they're for is anybody's guess. I've just stubbed them out for now.
If anybody has access to schematics, architecture docs, or other
memory map information, I'd be eternally grateful if you could share
it!
-Seth
+1-410-734-6804
New hobby thing. ;)
Wildcat! 4 running on it, stock out of box config. If you don't see all the
menus except for help and send to sysop, wait till I validate users. When I
get back home i'll set it to give non-validated users more permissions,
though.
--
Gary G. Sparkes Jr.
KB3HAG
Here's a new picture of "George" -- aka the Philbrick analog computer
that MARCH rescued two months ago. It was used at M.I.T. from 1958-1970.
http://snarc.net/george.jpg
After stating that I expected TSX Plus to be available generally to the
collector community this week, I have had a number of folks request
access to TSX plus via private FTP.
Please be a bit patient and wait for me to post it to a new website I'm
in the process of creating. I now have full agreement from S&H to
generally release TSX Plus, COBOL, etc., to the collector community via
a simple download.
BTW: I have converted all of the original documentation, which was in HP
print file format to PDFs for easier and more general use.
Over time I will likely be able to release some of the utilities, etc.
that S&H used internally with TSX plus. Some time ago S&H gave me all
of their RL02 packs and a SMD drive with everything they had related to
the PDP-11 version of TSX. (They have a current version of TSX for X86
systems which is NOT free and is NOT part of this release).
Over time, there may be a project to scan the source listings and
recreate TSX Plus source code. (The source listings are available on
bitsavers.org (pdf/dec/pdp11/tsxPlus/listings/). Unfortunately, we are
missing the MACRO definitions in the source listings. Some of us are
working on that issue. (Note: All of the original PDP-11 source code was
accidentally lost by S&H).
I will also make available any software that other folks submit to me
related to TSX on my website.
Regards.
Lyle
--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
I'm happy to announce a new release of TCP/IP for RSX-11M-PLUS.
Since I'm broadening the scope of the announcement slightly, a more
complete list of features is included, and not just what changed since
last. For anyone who is currently running TCP/IP for RSX, I strongly
encourage you to update to this latest version. Several improvements
have gone in in the last couple of weeks. Most important change is that
there now is telnet support, both client and server side.
The TCP/IP for RSX that I've written is sometimes referred to as
BQTCP/IP, just to make clear that it is a different product than Process
Software's TCPWARE, or JSA's TCP/IP.
BQTCP/IP is a rather feature rich TCP/IP implementation, which also
comes with libraries for various high level languages. The API is not
compatible, even at the source level, with Unix, but on the other hand,
if people write some code, they will see that it is a very easy API to
work with. The reasons for the incompatibilities are several, including
both resource concerns and differences between how RSX works and Unix
like operating systems.
BQTCP/IP has tried to comply with all relevant RFCs, but I'm sure there
are corners where it does not do things right. It also does not demand
much resources. It do require RSX-11M-PLUS with split I/D space, and it
has only been tested properly on RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6. It should work on
any version 4 release of RSX-11M-PLUS, but there might be a couple of
tweaks or fixes needed.
BQTCP/IP is distributed in binary form, so very little compilation is
required to get it up and running. However, pretty much all utilities do
come with sources. The actual TCP/IP stack sources are not included. I
do not have a good setup for distributing them in a sane way, and it has
had a low priority on my list of things to do. But I do not mind
distributing the sources as a general principle.
All that said, BQTCP/IP current supports the following protocols:
o Ethernet and loopback interfaces.
o ARP. BQTCP/IP can use Ethernet in co-existance with DECnet, or
standalone using the provided Unibus ethernet device driver.
o IP. The largest IP packets supported are approximately
8KB.
o ICMP.
o UDP. The largest UDP packets supported are approximately
8KB.
o TCP. The window is approximately 8KB in size, and TCP do
manage out of order packets in an efficient way.
BQTCP/IP supports the following applications:
o DHCP. DHCP can be used to configure interface addresses, network
masks, default gateways, DNS servers and NTP servers dynamically.
o NTP. NTP can be used to set the local time.
o TELNET. The TELNET server hooks in to the standard TT: terminal
driver, and the number of terminals to create is configurable.
The TELNET client can be used to connect to other systems.
o FTP. The FTP server can serve all kind of files to other RSX
systems, and can serve text and binary files to any system.
The FTP client can retrieve RSX format files from RSX servers,
and text, binary and block format files from any system.
o TFTP. The TFTP server and client can be used for simpler file
transfer operations.
o RWHOD. RWHOD is a program that reports current users and uptime
from RSX, for other systems to collect.
o IRC. IRC is a program to communicate with other users around
the world.
o IRCBOT. IRCBOT is a small example robot program connecting to IRC
and performing a service for IRC users.
o PCL. PCL is a protocol for printing, used by HP (and other) printers
over a network. The PCL implementation in BQTCP/IP appears as a
print symbiont, which you can create a printer queue for.
o WWW. WWW (or World Wide Web) is a service that can present hypertext
information to clients. The WWW server in BQTCP/IP also supports CGI,
which makes it possible to create dynamic content.
o DNS. BQTCP/IP have DNS implemented as an ACP, that anyone can query
to get translations between IP addresses and domain names. It also
supports different users using different name servers, or private
translations.
o SINK. A standard TCP service.
o ECHO. A standard TCP service.
o DAYTIME. A standard TCP service.
o QUOTD. A standard TCP service.
o IDENTD. A standard TCP service.
BQTCP/IP also have automatic IP spoof detection and prevention.
Additional tools are IFCONFIG, PING, TRACEROUTE, NETSTAT as well as two
new pages for RMD.
High level language libraries exists for BASIC+2, PDP-11 C and FORTRAN-77.
I'm sure I have forgotten a thing or three, but that's a fairly
comprehensive list.
The documentation is a weak point, but there is hopefully enough
documentation to get people running, and I am happy to answer any
questions, or give support if needed. BQTCP/IP is already running on the
internet, and have been for a while. People who are curious to check it
out can ether look at http://madame.update.uu.se/, or telnet to
telnet://madame.update.uu.se and login as user GUEST with password
GUEST, or use ftp against ftp://madame.update.uu.se. Anonymous ftp
account exist.
As usual, the distribution is available from:
ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.dsk
ftp://madame.update.uu.se/bqtcp.tap
ftp://ftp.update.uu.se/pub/pdp11/rsx/tcpip/tcpip.dsk
The .tap file is an RSX virtual tape. It is only possible to download
and use if you are using FTP from anther RSX system and fetch the file.
The .dsk files are virtual RL02 images that are useful both from within
RSX as well as through emulators.
The documentation is also available through ftp on Madame, or also at
http://madame.update.uu.se/tcpipdoc
Johnny
I have had an interest in the DEC VAX line of computers for some time now
and am trying to find a good place to get a system to start out with. The
main pourpose being to have a machine to use VMS on. I have been running
VMS on emulated hardware via SIMH, however i would like to move to running
on real hardware. What would be the best machine for a beginner to VAX
Hardware to start out with?
My main place for looking for hardware has been ebay, although most of what
im seeing is untested and expensive. Is there a better place to find older
machines like this?
Does anyone happen to have documentation, schematics, or software for the
Quay 900? It's a system based on the Quay 90F/MPS single-board Z80
computer and two MPI double-sided 8-inch floppy drives.
The drives are MPI part no. 77618022, apparently a 9406 variant but not
listed in the drive manual on Bitsavers. I suspect the pinout is close to
the SA800/850 pinout (industry standard), but I was surprised to find that
none of the variants in the 9406 manual have a pinout similar to that.
> From: Johnny Billquist
> All I can say is that I did a number of RSX SYSGENs on that 11/34, and
> it truly looked just like an 11/24 from a software point of view.
The thing that I wonder about it, for that to be true, is something that
someone (sorry, to lazy to look in the archive to give proper credit) pointed
out, which is that that CPU is only two boards, and the memory management,
including the PARs, is built into one of them. So how could one extend a PAR
>from 12 bits to 16, when there's already 12 bits buried deep inside the CPU?
That's the part that I can't work out...
> I'm hoping that Update ... still have the documentation around.
You and me both! :-)
I have this dream of one day having an 11/45, with the Enable and the optional
cache. Now that would be a sweeet machine: most of the capability of an 11/70,
but a lot less power draw. But I'd need the documentation to see how to
connect it up! :-)
> Every time this comes up I really want to go searching for manuals...
> :-)
Please do! :-)
Noel
> From: Johnny Billquist
> One more thing to check this summer...
OK, if you can, that would really be great; if either i) it's still together,
or ii) there are pictures, it would fill some of the key knowledge gaps.
In particular, i) what kind of backplane is it plugged into, and ii) what is
the UNIBUS edge connector on the card connected to...
Noel
