test-drb February 2016

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

203 participants
239 discussions

by jules.richardson99＠gmail.com

Does anyone know the origins of the term 'motherboard'? I've always associated it with computers and assumed that it started appearing somewhere around 1980, with the fading out of passive backplane systems and arrival of machines which put more functionality onto a 'core' PCB into which other cards were plugged. I don't recall ever seeing it used when referencing earlier big iron, but maybe I've just missed it. I had the case lid off a Fluke digital multimeter which hails from 1972 earlier, and was surprised to see it written as part of a warning there ("ensure that all cards are securely plugged into the motherboard before applying power", or similar - unfortunately I didn't grab a photo at the time). cheers Jules

8 years, 7 months

R: CP/M version 2.1 found

by supervinx＠libero.it

Where do you live? I guess I'm too far to help, but I'd like to have that image and look into it... -------- Messaggio originale -------- Da: David Griffith <dave at 661.org> Data:29/02/2016 09:24 (GMT+01:00) A: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Oggetto: CP/M version 2.1 found I found an 8-inch floppy disk labeled with "CP/M V2.0 9/4/79" which is crossed out and replaced below with "CP/M V2.1 7/13/80".? I don't see mention of version 2.1 at http://www.cpm.z80.de.? Do I have something unique?? Who can I trust to image this and put the contents on the net? -- David Griffith dave at 661.org A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

8 years, 7 months

3B2 Diagnostics

by lists＠loomcom.com

Hi all, There's an image of a 3B2 Diagnostics disk floating around, but I'd like to try to confirm what model of 3B2 it was built for. I'm trying to run the "filledt" program from this diagnostics disk on my 3B2/400 emulator, and seeing some REALLY weird behavior. There are several ways to transfer control in the WE32100 CPU. You can CALL a procedure, which saves minimal state; you can GATE to a procedure, which is what interrupts to, and save more state; or you can CALLPS, which is a full process switch and saves the most state. My simulator can't run the "filledt" program because it is trying to CALL a ROM routine that expects to have been GATE-ed to. The procedure looks back in the stack for the last saved PSW, which isn't there. Sorry for the technical wall of text, but long story short: I don't know whether there is a bug in my simulator leading to this behavior (likely), or whether the 3B2 Diagnostics disk was built for the model 500 or 1000, which have totally different ROMs with different procedures at different vectors. Does anyone have a 3B2 diagnostics disk that is 100% verified to have come with a 3B2/300 or 3B2/400? -Seth -- Seth Morabito web at loomcom.com

8 years, 7 months

MM11-U/UP core memory backplanes

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Degnan > I will see what else I have available. As far as I have been able to determine, the only backplane that supports the MM11-UP is the MF11-U backplane. Does anyone know of anything else that does? Noel

8 years, 7 months

Fw: new important message

by julian＠twinax.org

Hello! New message, please read <http://hydrodevices.kiev.ua/means.php?4w0> julian at twinax.org

8 years, 7 months

CP/M version 2.1 found

by dave＠661.org

I found an 8-inch floppy disk labeled with "CP/M V2.0 9/4/79" which is crossed out and replaced below with "CP/M V2.1 7/13/80". I don't see mention of version 2.1 at http://www.cpm.z80.de. Do I have something unique? Who can I trust to image this and put the contents on the net? -- David Griffith dave at 661.org A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

8 years, 7 months

MM11-U/UP core memory backplanes

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Degnan > My thought is that with my PDP 11/05 with S chassis / BA11-K. Urr, if you're talking about the backplane the CPU is in (which can hold one MM11-U), I think you're out of luck: there's no slot for the M7259 parity controller to plug into (at least, one the one in the -11/05S-10S manual). Noel

8 years, 7 months

Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Richard Loken <rlloken at telus.net> wrote: > On Mon, 22 Feb 2016, Mouse wrote: > >>> Computer games require all you can give them [...] >> >> Only if your idea of "games" is "slick-looking realtime 3D-rendering >> games". There are lots of games that work perfectly well on 3100-class >> (and even slower) machines, such as roguelikes (rogue, larn, hack, >> etc), text adventures (ADVENT, DUNGEON, etc), phantasia, Seahaven, >> Klondike...the list is long. > > But those are Computer Games! Not computer games. It is a long time > since I have played rogue. I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up terminals this year... what are some favorites? Some of the obvious classics are: Adventure Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine) Scott Adams Adventures Wumpus Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games" Empire Star Trek rogue/hack Larn/Ularn But what are some other favorites? I've been running a monthly "retrogaming night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 8032 PET. I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11 box and/or VAX running VMS, though I have plenty of real DEC gear - it's a matter of transport and storage space). I have a VT220 and an IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) already on site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up). I have the Commodore end pretty well covered. I'm looking for suggestions for 80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100) terminal and especially non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11. So in general, anything that uses curses or direct ANSI sequences or just spews text to a glass tty. -ethan

8 years, 7 months

MM11-U/UP core memory backplanes

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Bill Degnan > Very useful, thanks. Eh, de nada - glad to help contibute to the knowledge base. > I will try this. With MM11-U gear, or MM11-L? I ask because, like I said, I still don't have 100% clarity on the MM11-L situation. I am pretty sure there are old MF11-L backplanes that can't be upgraded to parity this way (i.e. removing the jumper), and may not be upgradable to parity at all (i.e. it might take etch cuts that are 'impossible', if they are on the bottom side of the PCB). There's that jumper that should be there on non-parity units, but does not seem to be there on some older backplanes (so you can't remove it to make the backplane parity-capable); arguing that it's probably hard-wired in the etch on those older backplanes? And there seem to be a couple of pins that need to be bussed acros, for the MM11-L units to 'talk' to the parity controller. And if the parity jumper isn't there, logically those bussing etches might not be there either. So I have a little work ahead of me with an ohm-meter... Speaking of the jumper, and bussed signals: the parity board input pin that that jumper is connected to (when the parity board is not there) must be bussed to all three group locations in the MF11-L backplane, as a wired-OR of their proto-SSYN outputs. If it were daisy-chained among the three groups, you've have to put the board sets in in a specific order, no? (Otherwise a gap would lose the signal from the group(s) on the far side of the gap.) And there's nothing like that in the manual. Something else to check out on the prints and/or with a meter.. Anyway, please report back on your experiences, so if there's any useful info you pick up, we can learn from it. Noel

8 years, 7 months

Looking for a small fast VAX development machine

by stark＠mit.edu

I work on Postgres and we have always claimed to support VAX machines but have the caveat "Code support exists for M32R and VAX, but these architectures are not known to have been tested recently." in our documentation. Recently I started a project to get a member in our build farm building Postgres for VAX to fill this gap. So far I've been using simh but I would be really interested in getting a decently fast VAX that doesn't take too much space (or power) to run builds on. I am currently in Europe (Dublin) but will be visiting NYC, Florida, and Montreal in the upcoming months so this is a good chance for me to pick one up without paying exorbitant shipping if there's any around. -- greg

8 years, 7 months

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test-drb February 2016