test-drb October 2019

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

137 participants
118 discussions

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

Hi, does anyone out there have any DM11 documentation? The only thing I could find online is the "DM11-BB model control option manual" (DEC-11-HDMBA-A-D) - and it's the impetus for this request, actually. One page 1-5, pg. 15 of the PDF, it has a diagram of which boards go into which slots on the DM11 backplane - and ir has _two_ boards marked M7245! So something's clearly wrong. The DM11 is a fascinating oddball of an interface, BTW. (It's in the 1972 edition of the "peripherals and interfacing handbook".) A lot of its internal state is kept in main memory, and accessed via DMA! This includes the incoming data shift registers!!! So it can really chew up a bus - probably why it was dropped ASAP. I guess when it was done, memory in chips must have been expensive and/or not very dense; and it must have been before the first UART chips. Noel

3 years, 11 months

VCF Midwest 14 Videos

by silent700＠gmail.com

The videos are up! The last of the VCF Midwest 14 Talks videos, shot in glorious 4K and lovingly edited by the intrepid Trixter, have been rendered and posted to our YouTube channel: http://youtube.com/vcfmidwest Check out the Talks you missed this year and in years past, as well as select attendees' videos that we've linked from our page. If you'd like, click the Subscribe button on our profile to let us know you want to see more. Thanks to all those who presented at VCFMW this year and to all that shot video when we were too busy to document our own show. For some of us, it's the only way we see it. 'Til next year... -j

3 years, 11 months

Course materials for MIT 6.031 (c. 1974) scanned

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Thought someone here might find this interesting; I have a binder of materials describing the entire course (descriptions of the PDP-11/45 DELPHI system, readings, coursework, quizzes, exams (with answers)) for MIT 6.031 "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Languages", 1974. http://yahozna.dyndns.org/scratch/scans/mit/MIT%206.031%20Structure%20And%2… It starts with PDP-11 assembly language, moves on to Algol and LISP and is over a thousand pages of material. Get studying! - Josh

3 years, 11 months

Looking for S100 SCP-500C, Disk Master, Seattle Computer Products

by ethan＠757.org

Looking for a SCP-500C Disk Controller to go with my CPU Support and 8086 boards.

3 years, 11 months

phone systems, old and less-old

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I know some peeps here are phone pholks?..See www.ezwind.net/phonestuff <http://www.ezwind.net/phonestuff> One is an old ?bell system western electric?. It seems to have a few 66 blocks just under the cover, a power supply, and some kind of modules that plug in. The other is a Nortel Networks ICS. It feels way too light, not sure if anything is in it. There is another piece of Nortel gear on the wall, seems to be some kind of wireless? thingy called Nortel Networks Call Pilot 100. I know zilch about phone systems, and don?t want to know anything about phone systems ? They were on the wall of a warehouse telco closet that my client just rented and we need the space on the dmarc wall for a rack. If someone wants them, and is willing to pay ship/pack (ups) from 63146 let me know within 2 days or they go to the skip. J

3 years, 11 months

Course materials for MIT 6.031 (c. 1974) scanned

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Josh Dersch > Any idea what ultimately happened to that 11/45? MIT offered it to me as a gift, but I was a total idiot (and also didn't have future vision), and as I was so busy with the IETF/IESG at the time (which might have been the right call, given how the Internet - note the correct capitalization - has changed the world) I didn't have time to arrange the shipping, and it was given to FTP Software. I recently tried to track it down, to find all the software on it (before I discovered a couple of sets of dump tapes I had made BITD in my basement), and they gave it to one of their employees and it was apparently scrapped. > Are the Algol and LISP available anywhere? Not up yet, but if anyone wants either, I can try and find time to get them up. For the Algol interpreter, all I have is the binary (runs under the MIT-hacked PWB1 - not sure if it would run until vanilla V6) and the manual; the source was unfortunately not saved when the drives were moved from DSSR/RTS (the DELPHI group) to my group, CSR. (Although there may at one point have been a copy retained on a now long-lost pack, along with a lot of other 6.031 stuff, like problem sets sources; I do have a file which is a listing of the disk contents.) For the LISP interpreter, we do have the source (in MACRO) too. Alas, to build it, one needs the 'bind' binder (which groks .REL files, which are based on DEC's relocatable binary format), which was i) written in BCPL, and ii) the current binary can't rebuild itself (I forget the details, whether it's the BCPL compiler, the MACRO assembler, or 'bind' which can't be re-built; it was a couple of years back I was playing with all that). Luckily, we do have some older binaries which can probably be used to work around the issue. Of course, if one just wants to use the existing interpreter binary, one can avoid all that. Noel

3 years, 11 months

HP vintage boards being sold as scrap - WON

by guykd＠optusnet.com.au

Yesterday: >These will go up on my site at http://everist.org/pics/pcbs Then promptly the web hosting server goes down, since this morning of 20190930 Tue in Australia. I don't yet know why, or have any estimate of when it will come back up. Guy

3 years, 11 months

Course materials for MIT 6.031 (c. 1974) scanned

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Josh Dersch > descriptions of the PDP-11/45 DELPHI system > ... > moves on to Algol and LISP I later became the 'owner' of that PDP-11/45 (our group at LCS traded an -11/40, which EECS wanted for their DECSystem-20, for it). That Algol and LISP were later moved to Unix V6 when the group that had done DELPHI converted to Unix. I have both - alas, the source for the Algol has been lost. :-( Noel

3 years, 11 months

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb October 2019