test-drb May 2017

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

160 participants
179 discussions

by asc135＠gmail.com

Back in the 80's I had some archive disks (maybe SIG/M or CPM/UG or maybe something else?) which had files on the disk named like ZOSO.022 (for disk #22) which was the Star Trek basic game disk. I'm attaching below the text >from that file (best viewed with a monospace font). I seem to recall this person who went by the moniker of Zoso had written others as well, but I can't find them right now. Just curious if any of you had seen those and if anyone knows who this mysterious Zoso person was? If I find others I'll post them. Regards, Amardeep AC9MF * * * * * THIS DISK CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING FILES: STARTREK.TXT THIS IS THE ORIGINAL SOURCE FILE FROM WHICH THIS PACKAGE WAS DEVELOPED. IT IS PURPORTED TO RUN AS IS WITH MITS 8K BASIC. IT CONTAINS ALL THE REMARKS, AUTHOR CREDITS ETC. IF YOU HAVE THIS BASIC WITH ASCII-LOAD CAPABILITY, TRY IT !! BIGTREK.ASC THIS IS THE RESULT OF HAVING TRIED TO TRIM THE ABOVE SOURCE SO AS TO GET IT TO RUN (IN A 64K SYSTEM) WITH MICROSOFT'S MBASIC. IT PRESENTLY IS ALMOST SHORT ENOUGH, BUT NOT QUITE. BECAUSE OF THIS, THE OBJECTIVE BECAME TO MAKE IT SUITABLE FOR TDL'S DISK BASIC RUNNING IN 64K. IT RUNS QUITE NICELY THAT WAY. ALL OF THE FEATURES OF THE ABOVE PROGRAM ARE RETAINED, AND A COUPLE OF NEW ONES HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED. BIGTREK.BAS THIS IS THE COMPACTED MACHINE CODE OF THE ABOVE FILE WHICH LOADS ABOUT 50 TIMES FASTER THAN THE ASCII VERSION (TDL DISK BASIC ONLY). THE PROPER STEPS TO LOAD THIS ARE AS FOLLOWS : (ASSUME YOU HAVE LOADED TDL BASIC INTO A 64K SYSTEM)... 1 - OPEN#1,"I","BIGTREK.BAS" <CR> 2 - LOAD "B" <CR> 3 - CLOSE#1,"I" <CR> 4 - RUN <CR> TREKINFO.DOC A BRIEF TUTORIAL ON THE RULES FOR PLAYING THIS, CROSS-REFER- ENCED WHERE POSSIBLE WITH THE FAMILIAR COMMANDS OF THE MORE COMMONLY AVAILABLE 'STARTREKS'. TREKMOD.ASC SEE EXPLANATION (IN POST-SCRIPT). STRTRK/2.ASC THIS IS INCLUDED BECAUSE I LIKE THE 'COMMUNICATIONS' AND 'MIS- SION-PROGRESS-REPORTS' THAT HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED IN THIS MUCH SMALLER (STILL > 20K) VERSION. NO MATTER HOW YOU GO WITH THIS, IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL NEED 64K (PERHAPS 60K IF YOU USE 8K BASIC) TO RUN IT AT ALL. ONLY GUARANTEE IS THAT IT WILL RUN WITH TDL DISK BASIC/64K AS IS. SINCE I CAN RUN THIS, I LEAVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE TO GET IT WORKING WITH EITHER MICROSOFT DISK BASIC (OR BASIC-E). ONE SUGGESTION FOR THE FORMER PROJECT MIGHT BE TO PARTITION THIS PROGRAM INTO TWO MODULES. THE FIRST WOULD CONTAIN ALL OF THE LINES RELATING TO GALAXY INITIALIZATION, DIMENSIONING STATEMENTS, DATA- TABLES AND ALL BEGINNING OF GAME DIALOGUE - IN OTHER WORDS, LINES NOT REFER- ENCED AFTER GAME IS IN PROGRESS. THIS FILE MIGHT BE CALLED 'STARMOD1.ASC'. THE OTHER MODULE, 'STARMOD2.ASC' WOULD CONTAIN EVERYTHING ELSE. THE LAST COMMAND (TO BASIC) IN 'STARMOD1.ASC' WOULD BE: MERGE"STARMOD2.ASC". BOTH MODULES WOULD HAVE TO BE RENUMBERED IN SUCH A WAY THAT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'MERGE', EACH NEW LINE OF 'STARMOD2' WOULD WIPE OUT A LINE OF 'STARMOD1' WHICH HAD THE SAME LINE NUMBER (UNTIL EVERY LINE OF FIRST MODULE WAS OVERWRITTEN BY A NEW LINE >FROM SECOND MODULE). ONE CHANGE WOULD BE NECESSITATED IN THE SECOND MODULE: IF A PLAYER REPLIED 'Y' TO THE QUESTION, 'ANOTHER GAME ?' A BRANCH WOULD NEED TO BE MADE TO A LINE WITH THE FOLLOWING COMMAND, - RUN "STARMOD1.ASC". THIS SOL- UTION IS A BIT 'KLUGEY', BUT PERHAPS PREFERABLE TO FURTHER TRIMMING. SEE THE 'P.S.' BELOW; THE MICROSOFT MANUAL IMPLYS (BY NO PROHIBITION) THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUCH (ABOVE-MENTIONED) ARTIFICES BEING EFFECTIVE. THE DISAPPOINTMENT THAT MR. DOGGE ENCOUNTERED SHOULD BE ATTRIBUTED TO HONEST EXPERIMENTATION COMBINED WITH (THE TYPICALLY) INADEQUATE DOCUMENTATION. HAVE FUN !!! - ZOSO LATE NOTE: THE EXPERIMENT WITH MERGING TWO OR MORE MODULES HAS BEEN TRIED. I AM SAD TO REPORT THAT THIS APPROACH APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK. IT SEEMS THAT THE EFFECT OF THE 'MERGE' FUNCTION IS TO DESTROY DATA (IN ADDITION TO CERTAIN LINE NUMBERS). MY THANKS TO MR. E. DOGGE FOR THIS INFO. E.D. ALSO SENT A 'TRIM- JOB' OF 'BIGTREK' CALLED 'TREKMOD'; IT PLAYS THE SAME GAME, BUT LACKS THE 'SCO- RING' AND 'VISUAL' FUNCTIONS. NOT TO DEMEAN MR. DOGGE'S EFFORT, I CAN'T PER- SONALLY SEE HOW THIS PARTICULAR 'STARTREK' CAN BE MEANINGFUL WITHOUT THE SCO- RING ROUTINE. IF THIS WERE MY 'BABY', I WOULD (IF NECESSARY) REDUCE EVERY BIT OF (TEXTUAL) CONSOLE OUTPUT TO A 2 DIGIT CODE SO AS TO RETAIN 'SCORING'; THE 'VISUALS' ARE CUTE BUT NON-ESSENTIAL. SEE WHAT YOU THINK. ALSO !!! THERE ARE (IN THE 'BIGTREK' FILES ONLY) SOME CRUCIAL ERROR TRAPS WHICH I INSERTED. LOOK FOR THESE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 'NAVIGATE' AND 'IMPULSE' SUBROUTINES. THE COMMON STARTREK PRACTISE OF INPUTTING A '0' WARP-FACTOR (DISTANCE) TO ABORT AN IMPROPERLY ENTERED NAVIGATION ROUTINE WILL, WITHOUT THESE TRAPS, GIVE YOU A 'SUBSCRIPT OUT OF BOUNDS' ERROR, AND THE GAME WILL HAVE BEEN (LITERALLY) LOST. I SUGGEST COPYING THESE EXACTLY IF YOU WILL BE TRYING THE 'TREKMOD' IM- PLEMENTATION.

6 years, 11 months

Any PDP11s for sale in the UK?

by aaron＠aaronsplace.co.uk

Hi everyone, I am very interested in DEC stuff and I would love a PDP11 to play with and have in my (small) collection. If anyone has one in the UK that they would be interested in selling, please contact me off list. I'm interested in both Q-bus and Unibus models. Pretty unlikely but I thought I'd ask. Thanks! -- Aaron Jackson PhD Student, Computer Vision Laboratory, Uni of Nottingham http://aaronsplace.co.uk/

6 years, 11 months

The Mysterious Zoso

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

Al struck a memory cell I haven't used in at least a quarter century. No, I do not know who The Mysterious Zoso actually was but he was legendary. His flaming just barely crosses the line into early trench industry journalism I guess. Certainly not the shine of Charlie Matco or Ted Dziuba, but maybe the first step in that direction? >From CPMUG 21: BITCH, BITCH, BITCH !!! SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST INCAPABLE OF BEING CONTENT. NO SOONER THAN I HAD FINISHED MY REPLY TO ALL OF THE TTY PEOPLE (VOLUME 13.21), TONY INFORMED ME THAT SOME VDM OWNERS HAD TROUBLE READING MY 80 CHARACTER LINES ON THEIR QUAINT I/O DEVICES. I WILL NOT ACCOMODATE YOU, AND HERE'S WHY: I PAID GOOD BUCKS FOR THE TOOLS I USE, AND I CHOOSE TO USE THEM. FRANKLY, I CAN'T FATHOM WHY ANYONE WOULD ADMIT TO OWNING ONE OF THOSE THINGS AT ALL. I'VE SEEN WHAT YOU GUYS ARE UP TO: THOSE HORRID, NARROW LITTLE PROGRAMS WRITTEN IN PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGY'S 5K BASIC (YOU KNOW THE ONES WITH A LINE FOR EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING - 15 DECWRITER PAGES JUST TO PRINT YOUR VERSION OF WUMPUS [ABOUT WHICH I SHALL BE HEARD FROM LATER]). YOU GUYS HAVE EXPOSED YOURSELVES TO CAT- ARACTS AND MYOPIA BY LOOKING AT YOUR VDM'ED TVS. LEAVE ME OUT OF IT !!! THE COMPANY WHO SUPPLIED THOSE B & W CRAYON BOXES TO YOU IS A PLACE TO SUSPECT... SEMI-KITS, 8K BASIC THAT WILL BE READY IN 1976 AND ENOUGH ADVERTISING TO EN- SURE YOU WILL HAVE PAID TOO MUCH FOR YOUR 'SOL'; ANOTHER MITS I THINK... ZOSO

6 years, 11 months

(Mostly Sun) Hardware and Docs in Arlington MA

by phil＠ultimate.com

The following would like to find new homes: Not ESPECIALLY interested in boxing/shipping (the docs would be easy, and would love to see them preserved for posterity). BOXED SunOS 4.0 doc set with 4.0.1 update 2 lg , 1 medium, 2 small boxes Also have SunOS 4.1.2 install manual Sun Hardware (specs from stickers, not validated) 2 SPARCstation IPC 2 SPARCstation IPX (1 w/ PowerUp 80Mhz CPU, which stopped working?) any all of the above may have bad power supplies 2 SPARCstation LX (one marked 32MB, no floppy) 1 SPARCstation Classic (no floppy) 3 SPARCstation 10 (10/30 w/ 16MB, 10/41 w/ 80MB, 10/41 w/ 64MB) 1 SPARCstation 4 (bad P/S) 1 SPARCstation 5 SUN QIC (150?) drive in box SCSI CD-ROM in enclosure Many 50 pin SCSI cables AT&T "UNIX PC" (7300?) w/ mobo, monitor, keyboard & mouse No hard drive. The owner got bored when the grounding on the HD started making noise. I think he yanked the 68000 chip, and perhaps others.

6 years, 11 months

KL10 backplane on eBay

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Another eBait wonder: http://www.ebay.com/itm/182597510806 The listing says "Local pick-up only", and it's in Denver, Colorado. Someone should really save this (although the chances of finding all the boards to go with it is pretty slim). Noel

6 years, 11 months

KL10 backplane on eBay

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warner Losh > Will it fit in a pickup truck? Should fit into most 4-wheeled transport devices (except a new Ford GT, those supposedly only have 2 cubic feet or so of storage :-). Noel

6 years, 11 months

FTGH clear-out at Mesa Electronics, Richmond, CA, USA

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > For some definition of "standard". ... other machines of that time or earlier > numbered bits according to the power of 2 they represent, i.e., the "current > standard". Well, the vast majority of computers 'back then' numbered bits (and byes) >from left to right - which is why in numbers in TCP and IP, the bytes go from left to right (necessitating byte swaps on most current architectures before sending a packet out into the network). The majority of computers being attached to the network when TCP/IP was being defined used that byte order (I think PDP-11's were the only exception, but I'm too lazy to check a copy of HOSTS.TXT to make sure), and so that's what we're stuck with now. So, I can see, centuries in the future, the bytes in a word on the Internet (and it _is_ capitalized) still being in an order set by long-dead computers. Kind of like how rail gauge today still mimics the width of Roman carts (yes, I know the story is only half-true, but it's not wholly wrong). Noel

6 years, 11 months

Firefly dual processor card

by mark.kahrs＠gmail.com

Against my better judgement, I obtained a DEC SRC Firefly dual processor card. If i read this* correctly, then this card is interfaced to the shared memory bus (MBUS) as opposed to the QBUS (the card uses a Q bus format). I realize it's probably hopeless, but I'll ask anyway: Are there any schematics or specifications on the connectors anywhere? *IEEE Computer, also available on Bitsavers as a technical report.

6 years, 11 months

Teletype 43

by COURYHOUSE＠aol.com

We need to find a source of the pin feed paper for the 43! Also a great thing to round out the display would be to have the aux. tape reader punch that was marketed for it- non working is ok visually - working would be a wonderful thing! Ed# _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org) In a message dated 5/24/2017 8:26:28 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: On Tue, May 23, 2017 at 7:20 PM, Jim Brain via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org > wrote: > On 5/23/2017 1:07 AM, dave.g4ugm at gmail.com wrote: > >> You probably need a null modem cable. >> > I had one (and used it), but not all null modem cables are evidently the > same :-) I soldered up a loopback as you suggested, and the unit dropped > into DATA MODE on startup. I then played with the signals. The unit > really does want DCD to be active, as just doing CTS/RTS, DTR/DSR, and > RX/TX did not do the trick. Evidently, my null modem cable I had tested > with previously does not connect DCD. Swapped out for a null modem adapter > (from our old now deceased friend Radio Shack) and the unit works with a > new Dell M4800 laptop (so "newer" style +-10V RS232 levels must be OK. > The minimum legit voltage swing for RS-232 is supposed to be plus and minus 5 volts and the maximum allowed voltage swing is plus and minus 25 volts. The problems occur when gear didn't bother to do the negative swing to minus 5 volts. Plus and Minus 10 volts is more than adequate. The printer ribbon has less life left in it than I anticipated, but a list > member is helping me, so it should be good to go after a deep cleaning and > a light oiling. I did notice the printhead starts to stutter at times on > long lines, but I *think* it's a function of the damage to the ribbon, so > we'll troubleshoot that only if it continues after ribbon fixes. > The ribbon on my 43 is a reinking type. The ribbon loop is maybe 18 inches? I have a new in bag ribbon which I am sure is also dried out. I used a drop of thin oil on the reinking roller the last time I messed with it and that seemed to work. You probably want to use something that will lubricate because the pins on the dot matrix print heads do need that to keep them >from rusting and wearing out. The "stutter" you mention is normal. The printer electronics buffers a few characters during the slow carriage return and prints slightly faster than 30cps so when a new line is started it goes at full speed until the buffer is empty at which point it goes into the stutter mode. This eliminated the need to send nulls after a carriage return that was necessary on the earlier purely mechanical printers. -- Doug Ingraham PDP-8 SN 1175

6 years, 11 months

DEC rack-mount AlphaServer 2100A

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

If there's anyone out there with a rack-mount DEC AlphaServer 2100A - the one with the underslung pair of power supplies -- I'd appreciate your help in determining the 15-pin control-cable configuration for J3. It may require examining the other end of the "power supply control cable assembly" P#17-04014-01, which is 24-pin (to handle the dual/redundant power supply configuration). Available hardware documentation is pretty sparse. Physical examination of an AlphaServer 2100A system backplane (54-24129-01) would certainly help! While I'm pretty sure that I've figured out the +5V +- sense lines (pins 3-4), and the +3.3V +- sense lines (pins 15-14), I've failed to determine the purpose of other control lines - most particularly which one(s) turn it on. Pins 10 is suspect, but there's no obvious reference point for voltage measurement or evidence whether it should be shorted to another pin, or . something else. There's no control relay or other obvious mechanism. The PCB is dense-packed with surface-mount components on one side and power components on the other; tracing circuits is a bear. Applying AC starts up the 24VDC fans, but none of the four switchers kick in :-<. Thanks for any clues! paul

6 years, 11 months

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test-drb May 2017