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.
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/
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
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.
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
> 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
> 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
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.
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
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
