> From: "Mike Stein" <mhs.stein at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Reasonable price for a complete SOL-20 system?
> Message-ID: <B1054C1D081C4DB9881083349D0D5B64 at 310e2>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> Any chance you still have a copy of that CP/M port buried somewhere?
> We're sort of collecting the various Cromemco ports and emulators.
>
Sorry Mike, I didn't think so but went through my diskettes anyway and no go
- all CDOS. I do believe that there was a Cromemco CP/M in the Don Maslim
archives and another in the classicmp Dave Dunfield archives here
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/system.htm. If all else fails, I
have found a CROMCPM.TD0 file in my archives which is Teledisk format and is
607Kb but I don't have a functional Teledisk at the moment so can't tell
what it represents. I'm not sure of the source but would be happy to forward
it to someone with a functional Teledisk, or Dave Dunfield's converter from
TD0 to his IMD ImageDisk format.
James
Out of curiosity, since I've never done this either but have heard most folks suggest it. How do you seal the newly made jacket? Is it not necessary or folks using scotch tape??
> I suppose I should try and round up images of 19" x 5-1/4" PDP-10
> panels, too
So there are quite a few, although I'm not sure they are exactly the same as
the ones used in the PDP-11's, PDP-15's, etc. Those use a plastic bezel which
is the same as the blank panels in the H960 racks, into which the inlay is set
>from the front, and glued down to the lip inside the bezel. The PDP-10 ones,
>from the pictures, and my vague memory, use metal bezels which cover the
panels from the front, holding them on, so the shape of the inlay may be
subtly different.
Anyway, I found images (not great - all B+W illustrations in manuals) of the
following PDP-1 panels:
DF10
DA10
RC10
BA10
TD10
TM10
DS10
RM10B
DC10
RP10-C
MB10
MD10
I'll add them to the page at some point. If any has actual images of any of
these, they'd be appreciated. (And no, none of them is the mystery panel in
the RSTS manual.)
Noel
> I'm curious what the Systems 32/77 is..
>Wasn't Gould SEL? maybe an SEL system?
The 32/77-series was a 32-bit machine implemented in ECL, based on
earlier SEL designs, but is definitely Gould in design/manufacture.
Some of the machines in the series had a very powerful (for the time)
floating point unit (known as the IPU) that operated in tandem with the
main CPU that vastly increased the number-crunching power available
The machines were mainly intended for real-time control applications (as
used in the flight sim applications in the auction)
The machine ran a real-time executive called MPX-32.
More information: http://www.encore-support.com/htmls/32_77.htm
Years ago, I had some experience with these machines. They were quite
powerful for their time, and were also workhorses that just ran and ran.
Very robust design.
These are neat machines, and I hope that they end up in the hands of
someone that can care for them rather than ending up scrap.
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
I've heard Modula-3 (from DEC SRC and Olivetti Research Center) called
"the Ada regular programmers would adopt". They never did, of course,
because Olivetti decided research wasn't that important and DEC got
bought and a lot of other reasons that are documented elsewhere. Not
to get into a language pissing contest, but IMO it's an awfully nice
way to program, with threading built in, type safety, generics, a
reasonable GC, exceptions, etc. I really enjoyed it, but then I think
Ada brings a lot to the table.
What might have been, indeed.
Over the years I've played around with a few old CAMAC (*) modules, by
today's standard they pretty much have zero value, anyway that's another
story. Recently
I've been offered a CAMAC to Unibus board. A Kinetic 3912 Unibus Crate
Controller .
A Crate in CAMAC speak is just a chassis with a backplane.
The problem with CAMAC is there is almost no information out there,
Since I don't YET have a Unibus system, it more of a curiosity then
anything.
So .. anyone have the manual ?
(*) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Automated_Measurement_and_Control
Hello, all,
Question of the day:
Will an Emulex MT-02 SCSI->QIC tape controller work with a Wangtek 5150EQ (QIC-150) Tape Drive?
I am trying to resurrect an old Tektronix 4132 Unix workstation. The 1/4" Wangtek 5099EQ drive that was in the machine was toast, something on the drive's electronics went POP when it powered on the first time, and it is no longer being recognized by the MT-02 controller. I have documentation on the drive, and will probably look into seeing if I can fix whatever fried, but in the short-term, I have a Wangtek 5150EQ with a good drive wheel, and was wondering if this drive would function with the MT-02 and be useful on the machine. I have a bunch of old (1980's) QIC-24 tapes written with the old 5099EQ drive that I want to look through and archive in a different form.
And yes...I know about the tension band issues with old 1/4" QIC media...I've got a bunch of new tension bands and have become quite adept at replacing them and assuring the proper tension on the tape.
Wishing all a peaceful day,
-Rick
--
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculator Museum
http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
I recently discovered the very excellent website
http://pascal.hansotten.com devoted to all things Wirth.
I sent a message to the author, as detailed below, but I would encourage
anyone to visit the website - you will surely learn something?
Greetings from Windermere in the Lake District, England!
I read with interest your interview with John Reagan. His efforts on the
VAX Pascal Compiler, and more recently (well, in the last few years or
so) my discovery of the very excellent Theo De Klerk book on VAX Pascal
and it's excellent integration with the VMS operating system have
rekindled my love of this excellent implementation of Pascal.
I am the organiser of declegacy.org.uk - a 'mostly' annual event here in
Windermere where collectors of DEC equipment and ex-employees gather to
immerse themselves once again in the excellence of product that was the
result of DEC Engineering. I have tried a couple of times to 'entice'
John to provide a video narrative of his time at DEC - but, thankfully,
he is still a very busy man.
At DEC Legacy this time around for example I was very fortunate to find
myself in the 'programming zone' for a couple of hours - sat at a VT
terminal, trying to determine why my VAX Macro-32 fractal generation
programme would not run successfully on a DEC Alpha via the VAX Macro
Compiler. For those precious moments I could have been sat at a piece of
DEC equipment anywhere in the world. For a programmer this is just
intoxicating and all too rare these days.
I have a long standing interest in the legacy of Wirth - and indeed DEC,
as could be expected. When I was considering a programming language for
my PhD efforts on a DEC 3000/600 AXP running Digital Unix 3.2C in 1994 I
would have been better using Modula-3 and ignoring the C-based Khoros
framework which was the path I eventual took (C was a 'better the devil
you know' option at that point).
On Tue, 11/1/16, Jon Elson <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote:
>? Also, some IBM publications (where I'm more
> familiar with their models) had some photos
> of machines that probably were in-house
> prototypes that were quite different than the
> production version.
Along the same lines, the picture in the original PDP-8
manual was of a machine that had a front panel that
looked more like the PDP-5 panel than the one shipped
on the 8s. Given how close the machines were in
architecture, it wouldn't be surprising for a prototype.
As it turns out, I saw the picture in the manual a few
years before I ever saw a real straight-8. To this day,
the real straight-8s look a little "wrong" to me.
BLS