test-drb January 2019

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

149 participants
213 discussions

off topic - capatob - saratov2 computer Russsian pdp8? HELP

by iain＠csp-partnership.co.uk

Off topic, but looking for help and/or wisdom. If you visit https://www.scotnet.co.uk/iain/saratov <https://www.scotnet.co.uk/iain/saratov>/ <https://www.scotnet.co.uk/iain/> you will see some photos and wire-lists of work that I have started on the front panel of a Capatob 2. I plan to get the switches and lights running on a blinkenbone board with a PDP8 emulation behind it. (I already have an PDP11/70 front-panel running on the same infrastructure) I have been struggling for over a year to get much info about this saratov computer (circuit diagrams etc). So I have started the reverse engineering on the panel. Does anybody know anything about this computer? online or offline it would be much appreciated. Iain

5 years, 4 months

PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fritz Mueller > I've thought about that; Unix V6 is actually next on my list of OS's to > try. I think I have seen a fairly detailed set of instructions on > building an image from this from the commonly available distribution > tape. Yeah, one comes with the V6 distribution: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Setting_up_UNIX_-_Sixth_Edition (That's just a 'do this and then do that' list - if you want to know what it's actually _doing_, this: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Installing_UNIX_Sixth_Edition gives the technical details.) Alas, the instructions don't have a lot of detail on how to create the /45 version (it's quite simple - basically one just includes m45.s instead of m40.s in the linker command line :-); I guess I'll do up a cheat sheet. > But if you have an RK05 image already ready to go, go ahead and send it > over and I'll give it a try! Well, there are single-RK05 images up already: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Ken_Wellsch_v6/ but they only include binary for /40's (which will run on a /45 of course; they distributed only the lowest-common-denominator binary, to make their life simple; people have to build their own binary - system and commands - if they want to upgrade). But if you'd like me to make up an RK05 image with a /45 system on it too (one gets to specify what one wants to load at boot time); let me know, and I can whip it up - but really, it's drop-dead simple to build a /45 version if you have the /40 version running. Note: the pack images on the distribution tape _do not_ include the bootstrap in block 0; use the one I linked to above. > It wasn't clear to me last time I looked that I could build V6 to run > off a single pack without having a second RK05 drive and pack available > for swap? No, the image above is for a single RK drive machine; it will run that way, albeit things are a bit cramped. What it does is put a file system in blocks 1-4000, and it uses blocks 4000 and up as the swap area (I forget which one block 4000 itself goes with :-). > Day gig starts back up today after winter break, so less bandwidth for > PDP-11 hacking now unfortunately! :-( Well, at least you have something to go back to; the spousal unit works for NASA, and they're all getting an enforced extended break (much to her annoyance). Noel

5 years, 4 months

off topic - capatob - saratov2 computer Russsian pdp8? HELP

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Grant Taylor > Is "byte" the correct term for 6-bits? I thought a "byte" had always > been 8-bits. I don't claim wide familiary with architectural jargon from the early days, but the PDP-10 at least (I don't know about other prominent 36-bit machines such as the IBM 7094/etc, and the GE 635/645) supported 'bytes' of any size, with 'byte pointers' used in a couple of instructions which could extract and deposit 'bytes' from a word; the pointers specified the starting bit, and the width of the 'byte'. These were used for both SIXBIT (an early character encoding), and ASCII (7-bit bytes, 5 per word, with one bit left over). > I would have blindly substituted "word" in place of "byte" except for > the fact that you subsequently say "12-bit words". I don't know if > "words" is parallel on purpose, as in representing a quantity of two > 6-bit word. I think 'word' was usually used to describe the instruction size (although some machines also supported 'half-word' instructions), and also the machine's 'ordinary' length - e.g. for the accumulator(s), the quantum of data transfer to/from memory, etc. Not necessarily memory addresses, mind - on the PDP-10, those were 18 bits (i.e. half-word) - although the smallest thing _named_ by a memory addresses was usually a word. Noel

5 years, 4 months

PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fritz Mueller > Thanks, Noel -- I'll give that a try! Sure - always glad to help with anything V6 related - that's my chief technical amusement, now that I'm retired! :-) Any questions/issues, let me know, and I'll try and get right back. When booting UNIX, remember make sure the switches on your /45 are set to 0173030, so it comes up single-user! (Might we worth checking to see if all the bits in the SR are working, but you've probably already done that as part of bringing the machine up? I wonder if a failure there could cause the RSTS issue? It's so cool that you have a working /45! I have yet to start on mine...) And do icheck/dcheck every time you bring it up, and make sure to 'sync' before halting... These old systems are not as robust in terms of the file system! And when it gets to putting together a /45 version of the OS, that new page I just did should help. Noel

5 years, 4 months

VueSCAN

by cctalk＠ibm51xx.net

Does anyone know if old versions of VueSCAN worked on anything below XP (e.g. Win 9x, 2K or even gasp 3.x)? Thanks. -Ali

5 years, 4 months

PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> I guess I'll do up a cheat sheet. OK, first crack here: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Upgrading_UNIX_Sixth_Edition If there are any improvement I can/should make, please let me know. Thanks! Noel

5 years, 4 months

VueSCAN

by couryhouse＠aol.com

no only hp scan jets no other brands and only the first few models.? thanks though. Sent from AOL Mobile Mail On Monday, January 7, 2019 Fred Cisin via cctalk <cisin at xenosoft.com; cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On Mon, 7 Jan 2019, ED SHARPE via cctalk wrote: > my foggy? brain? remembers them? as? I retied? ?the biz? end of > things? before? ? win 95? ?came out. About 1992. After Windoze 3.00 (I got "beta" Windoze 3.10 in August 1991, public release soon after?), and about the time of 3.11 I have a couple of parallel/SCSI scanners new? in box to get rid of.? I don't know if their drivers were TWAIN.

5 years, 4 months

VueSCAN

by couryhouse＠aol.com

my foggy? brain? remembers them? as? I retied? ?the biz? end of things? before? ? win 95? ?came out. and? I? seem to remember? twain? as a term? used? with hp scanjets? before retirement.\ when i? ?left? ?scanjet? ?2c? was? current? color? product.]anyone? coming thou? az? ?with a? scanjet iic? in the? car...? it? would? be? welcome here..we? have? an orig? ?hpscanjet? b/w? ?but? can use another one? for an offsite? display also. ed sharpe archivist for smecc In a message dated 1/7/2019 2:11:37 PM US Mountain Standard Time, cctalk at classiccmp.org writes: > On Thu, 20 Dec 2018 at 02:39, Ali via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:>>? I wonder if there were ever any TWAIN drivers for Win 3.x..... Yes, but I think that you needed WIN32S installed. On Mon, 7 Jan 2019, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:> This is stretching my powers of recollection -- and in my world, back> then, if you could afford (and wanted) a scanner, you used a Mac --> but I think so, yes. 1) some could not afford Mac? (rarely any in the skip)2) some did not have control over employer's purchasing decisions3) depending on what was being scanned, other factors influenced platform > We are all aware of what that acronym means, yes? But few pay any attention to any technology without an interesting name.And of those who do and the rest, never the twain shall meet. --Grumpy Ol' Fred? ? ??? ??? cisin at xenosoft.com

5 years, 4 months

PDP-11/45 RSTS/E boot problem

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Fritz Mueller > All the CPU, FPU, KT11, KW11, and RK11 MAINDECS are passing just fine. Don't forget Vonada Maxim #12: "Diagnostics are highly efficient in finding solved problems." :-) Noel

5 years, 4 months

off topic - capatob - saratov2 computer Russsian pdp8

by technoid6502＠gmail.com

On Sun, 2019-01-06 at 12:00 -0600, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Re: off topic - capatob - saratov2 computer Russsian pdp8 Nothing has changed as regards the number of bits in a byte, a nybble is 4 bits, 8 to the byte, and x to the word - this last varies widely depending on architecture. Still, in Spirit, on an octal processor a whole number is a six bit 'byte', so the term is appropriate, especially to avoid confusion with the word size of two six bit 'bytes'. Fun. Jeff

5 years, 4 months

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test-drb January 2019