test-drb

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101090 discussions

by chd＠chdickman.com

Back in 2007 Stan Barr posted a comment about a book that was pure computer geek porn: "Core Memory" by Mark Richards & John Alderman. I thought it would be a good stocking stuffer for myself from someone in the family. I went looking on Amazon for it. The price is $172 for a new hardcover and $78 for a used hardcover. This is ridiculous. I thought it was only school books that were at totally unreasonable prices. Now, I can get the nook electronic version for $13.99 but this is a *coffee table book*, something to be displayed. It's geek porn. So then I went and looked at some other books that are niche. I enjoy analog design and a Jim Williams book is always good. "The Art and Science of Analog Design" which is about 15 years old is $50 in paperback. I guess the printed page is dead. Gutenberg RIP.

11 years, 7 months

Favourite text based word processing software

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Hello group I'm toying with the idea of writing a simple word processing package along the lines of Wordstar for my Retrochallenge 2015/01 entry. I have used many word processing packages over the years on many machines >from 8-bit machines to mainframes. Within the following bounds I'd love to know the packages that have been the favourite of list members over the years and why. If I implement this I'd be looking to keep within the following bounds: * text only - ideally support VT terminal 80x24 or 132x24/36/48 or DOS 80x25 display size. * two printer drivers - text only and Epson LQ (or possibly IBM Proprinter) * support small range of printer specific fonts * support proportional text So a little more than a text-editor but only enough to support simple formatting and styles (bold, italic, underline for example). Ideally I'd like to implement a clean, logical design without many 'bells and whistles' concentrating on the core functionality. Kind regards, Mark.

11 years, 7 months

Wanted: SIMH VMS quick test

by cclist＠sydex.com

Okay, I've been working with my SCSI tape stuff and I'd like someone to check a .TAP image on a VAX VMS SIMH setup. Less than a meg, but verification would mean that I've got things right (or wrong). Tape image (zipped) linked via Box. --Chuck I've linked 1 file to this email: * sample.zip (345 KB) hosted on Box: https://app.box.com/s/dy51vto78437bjciaaec

11 years, 7 months

NatSemi QBUS 256KB memory card

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So there is a National Semiconfuctor 256KB QBUS memory card which has a number of examples floating around for sale (e.g. eBay #370953707487), but which has heretofore been un-identified: the only numbers/names/etc on it are "PWB 551103882" and "PWA 980103882", which is what one usually finds them listed under. Well, it turns out that it's called an "NS23M", and a manual and print set for it, previously un-available online, are now available here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/NS23M.pdf Can people who maintain repositories (e.g. BitSavers) please include this in their sites? Sorry about the size of the file; the original scans were 300 dpi, which in retrospect was probably a bit more than needed, but rather than throw away resolution, I've left them in like that; repository maintainers may wish to reduce the page images in resolution somewhat, to make the file a bit smaller. And a very big 'Thank You' to Mr. Steve Burgess, who was nice enough to make scans of a manual in his possession, and send them to me. If anyone finds this manual useful, please make a small donation to a local animal charity! Noel

11 years, 7 months

confirm [...]

by abuse＠cabal.org.uk

On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 03:49:03AM -0600, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Your membership in the mailing list cctalk has been disabled due to excessive > bounces The last bounce received from you was dated 14-Dec-2014. You will > not get any more messages from this list until you re-enable your membership. > You will receive 3 more reminders like this before your membership in the > list is deleted. Is anybody else getting these messages? I've had a furkle through the mail server logs and see no evidence of cctalk bounces. I do hoever see bounces to *cctech*. I never subscribed to that list, the list server ignores unsubscription requests, and so I instituted the reject policy in a hope that the bounces would eventually cause unsubscription in the manner described above and thus achieve the desired effect without further fuss. Unfortunately, it wants to unsubscribe me from cctalk instead! Jay, would you like me to take a look at your mail server configuration to find out how the two lists have become intertwined in this broken manner? It's probably just a trivial cut-and-paste error or dodgy symlink somewhere.

11 years, 7 months

PDP-11/84 SLU problem?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: John Rollins > it doesn't appear to transmit data from the console port on the back. I > have tried ... every conceivable switch setting on the PDP with nothing > ... > So when I power up, the LED display on the front counts down through > the numbers and stops at 4. As near as I can tell, this is something of a > good sign. Should be; my User's+Maint Guide says that means "Dialog Mode: Waiting for input". > Short of spending an entire day disassembling half the machine and > tracing every wire hoping to find something out of place, does anyone > have any ideas on what may be happening here, or what to look for? I asssume you've tried setting the baud rate with the switches on the CPU card (in case the cable to the back panel is damaged - or, more likely, the rotary baud select switch has a bad contact due to corrosion over time)? If you have the parts, fabricating a substitute serial interface cable would also be something to try. The next step would normally be to disable the on-board serial interface, and provide a substitute console interface, out on the bus. _Alas_, as far as I can tell from reading the KDB11-B User's Guide (EK-KDJ1B-UG-001), there is no way to disable the on-board serial interface. AFAIK, the prints for the 11/84 (MP-02536/MP-01955) don't seem to be online. I can't locate prints for the 11/83 (uses the same CPU board, I think) either. So I can't check to make sure that it is in fact impossible to disable the on-board serial interface. And the other next step, to look at the serial output and see if it looks OK, will be a little tricky without prints, although the KDB11-B User's Guide does contain something about it, on pp. 5-38 to 5-41 (165-168 of the PDF). Noel

11 years, 7 months

PDP-11/84 SLU problem?

by kd7bcy＠kd7bcy.com

So in function checking the PDP-11 now that the Series/1 is out of the basement and I have room to move the unit around and plug it in, I have discovered that it doesn't appear to transmit data from the console port on the back. I have tried two terminals(WY99) and two different PC's(Windows laptop with hardware serial port and a Mac with a USB adapter) with various software, a half dozen different cables, and every conceivable switch setting on the PDP with nothing to show for it aside from a lot of time spent the last couple of weekends. So when I power up, the LED display on the front counts down through the numbers and stops at 4. As near as I can tell, this is something of a good sign. But nothing ever comes up on a connected terminal. Sometimes pressing keys on the terminal results in the RUN light turning off, other times it does nothing. This would seem to indicate that the PDP knows that something is trying to talk to it, but it is not sending data out. Short of spending an entire day disassembling half the machine and tracing every wire hoping to find something out of place, does anyone have any ideas on what may be happening here, or what to look for? ------------ John Rollins | KD7BCY | http://www.kd7bcy.com Ham-Mac mailing list http://mailman.qth.net ------------

11 years, 7 months

SCSI tape question

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've been playing around with some SCSI tape drives and noticed something peculiar--or not intuitive. Perhaps someone can explain it. I'm doing a READ_6 (6 byte CDB) with the fixed bit 0 and a 65KB buffer. So the sense data coming back returns the residual byte count, as it should with the ILI bit set in the sense key. So far, so good. Now, when I come to a filenark, I'm expecting that the filemark bit (bit 7) will be set in the sense key. It doesn't happen, the result just comes back as 0 bytes read and a normal (NO_SENSE) sense result. The additional sense code and sense qualifier bytes are also 0. Is this normal behavior? I'dve thought that the filemark bit would be set in every case of a filemark being read. My X3T9 documents don't mention this behavior, but maybe I missed something. --Chuck

11 years, 7 months

missing key on DEC Correspondent

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

When I put my DEC Correspondent in storage, I'm sure it had all its keys. When I pulled it out today, I found that it's missing the key in the far bottom left. Does anyone have a wrecked Correspondent from which that key can be extracted? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

11 years, 7 months

Nice LSI-11 brochure

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Ben Sinclair > It's now mine! Well, you didn't have a lot of competetion... :-) Noel

11 years, 7 months

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