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101090 discussions

QI Series M, episode 16, Misconceptions...

by wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net

To start with, I guess I should warn those who are not familiar with this program that the humor is not for everyone. It goes from very interesting and intellectual (the title "QI" stands for Quite Interesting) to the scatological and rather crass. Anyway, that said, in the episode referenced in the title, the host, Stephen Fry, explains Moore's Law. As he does so, he shows a number of vintage computer items borrowed from Bletchley Park. The episode is the latest one (aired last week I think) and is available on YouTube. Bill S.

9 years, 11 months

Searching a sparepart 82c42pc

by marco＠familie-rauhut.eu

Hello list I am trying to restore an Wandel and Golterman Spectrum Analyzer. In the Analyzer is a 486DX2 Computer. This Computer did not save some bios settings. So i think that the CMOS ram has a failure. Did some one have a 82c42pc in dil40 package as spare part? If yes, please contact me off list. Marco

9 years, 11 months

SIM4-01 and MP7 programmer cards

by dkelvey＠hotmail.com

I know this is kind of obscure but I thought I'd see if anyone was interested in the program I wrote. It is for the SIM4-01 and MP7 boards. Normally these two boards would plug into a mother board called the MCB4 but I've seen a few cases on the web that they'd been wired from socket to socket. Normally they'd be used with the A0540, A0541 and A0543 EPROMs to program 1702As on the MP7 cards. The data for the proms would be sent to the SIM4 board over a serial current loop at 110 baud. It was in what Intel called a BPNF format. Each bit of the byte would be sent as either a P or N for the 8 bit data width. This extends the programming time for a 1702A from a little over 2 minutes to over 7 minutes. I still use my SIM4 setup to occasionally program one or two 1702A for friends. Recently, I was given a large number to program. I did these slowly a 7 minutes each. I soon realized I could write some 4004 code to copy the EPROMs. I'd only need to down load the first one at 7 minutes and the reset at 2 minutes each. There were some issues, the SIM4-01 only has 256 nibbles of memory, unlike the SIM4-02 that has more. There was code for the larger board in one of the manuals on bitsavers but the code was written for the larger memory. I needed to make a two pass system and it expected there to be a copy from socket. This required a complete rewrite. The code in the manual did both the 1702 and the 1702A. I really only needed the 1702A part. Non-A parts are as rare as hen's teeth. I also wanted to add some code to do a RAM test since I would use 100% of the character RAM. I wanted to do a March C test but because of size had to settle for a simple data/data complement stuck at test. I wanted every thing to fit into a single 1702A. My first pass code was over 300+ bytes. I needed to reduce down to 256 bytes. I worked on the code for about a week and finally got it down to 252 bytes. I use a simple simulator that I wrote because I don't understand the simulators on the web enough to connect things to I/O actions. I needed to simulate a master EPROM and a copy to EPROM as well as the test switch for sequencing when to put each EPROM in the sockets. There were of course status lights so a person knew what stage they were at. Anyway, I created a program I call onecopy. If anyone is interested in it, I can send them a binary or intel hex file. Dwight

9 years, 11 months

PDP-11/20 vd one that just says pdp 11 what are the date differences?? OEM?

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > > Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 19:47:37 -0500 > From: william degnan <billdegnan at gmail.com> > Subject: Re: PDP-11/20 vd one that just says pdp 11 what are the date > differences?? OEM? > > are you sure its not H720 rather than 4720? H720 would be the type of > power supply from an original 11. M11 15 would seem like the OEM 11/20 > after they abandoned the 11/10 model. My hunch would be the date code is > late 1970 early 1971. > -- > @ BillDeg: > I looked at the picture of the metal serial number tag again. It is definitely 4720. The white paper tag for the system configuration says that it was configured on 3/3/73 with a KC11 processor, two DL11A serial ports, an MM11E memory, and a H720E power supply. -- Michael Thompson

9 years, 11 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 20, Issue 24

by mark＠markesystems.com

From: "GerardCJAT" <gerardcjat at free.fr> Subject: Who, on this list, Owns / Collects / Plays with an HP1000 A or L series ?? > Just curious. > It seems ( at first ) that most collections stops at 21MX ( M/E/F ) era. > Am I correct in my view ? Except for the time I spent as a system manager on a couple of 2000/Access systems, in college, the A-series was my introduction to the 1000 line. I spent several years programming that - all A600s, except at the end when the A400 came out, and all in Fortran-77 under RTE-A. Industrial control systems, mostly, although I did right for in-house use a terminal control package (similar in concept, but by no means execution, to termcap), a full-screen hex file editor, a little mail system, etc.. It really seemed like you could do almost anything you wanted as far as system calls, etc. >from the high level language - shared memory (SHEMA), inter-process communication (using Class-IO), etc. I never ventured in to assembly on it. I hated the full-screen editor (it would write a full screenful of data to the 26xx terminal, which you would then locally then cause it to read it back off the screen), which is why I wrote my own WordStar-like editor. I also ended up with a really nice fully decked-out A600 system, with a couple of terminals, the built-in disk plus a 7912, plenty of memory, and an 8-port mux. Of ourse, like an idiot, I gave all that away to the Salvation Army (the wife couldn't understand its intrinsic value like I did). ~~ Mark Moulding

9 years, 11 months

AIX Dev CD

by BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu

By any strange chance, does anyone have a really old 2-CD set called "Software Development Solutions for AIX Version 4", Fifth Edition? I guess they were fairly common at one point. If anyone has one they can spare, I'll pay... Thanks! -Ben

9 years, 11 months

OK, one more question about sending email TO an old VAX

by billdegnan＠gmail.com

Assuming I want to send an email message to an older VAX server (Process Software MultiNet V4.1 Rev A, MicroVAX 3100, VAX/VMS V5.5-2 ) that requires one to format their OUTBOUND emails like this: To: SMTP%"bill at myemail.net" How does one send mail INBOUND to this kind of VAX mail from a modern email like gmail? Is it possible to format the header somehow to get the message through? You can't simply send a message to system at microvax3100.vintagecomputer.net how would I format the email address? I could write a PHP program to format the header "wrong" for normal purposes but "right" for the VAX inbound I suppose. Any tips that don't involve creating a gateway nor changing the target VAX itself? Thanks b -- @ BillDeg: Web: vintagecomputer.net Twitter: @billdeg <https://twitter.com/billdeg> Youtube: @billdeg <https://www.youtube.com/user/billdeg> Unauthorized Bio <http://www.vintagecomputer.net/readme.cfm>

9 years, 11 months

Best name for PDP-11/05-10

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Koning > FWIW, I have always heard 11/05 and 11/40 respectively. Good to know that others have the same vibe that I do. > From: Bill Degnan > putting all of that original 11/10 stuff aside :-) :-) > There is a version of the processor handbook with all 4, and there is a > version with just 11/40. I have never seen a processor handbook for > just the 11/35, 11/05, or 11/10 by itself. Good point. BTW, there's often some confusion; some people think the 11/05-10 was the second PDP-11. It wasn't, it's the fourth, and those processor handbooks confirm that. The first 11/45 one is dated 1971, the 11/40 one is 1972, and the one with the four is 1973. > I always treated the 11/05 and 11/10 as separate machines, just as much > as the 11/05 S and 11/05 NC. Can you please remind me again what the differences with the 11/05NC are? I remembered we discussed it, but I'm too lazy to dig through the list archives for it. As far as I know, the original 11/05 and original 11/10 differ only in i) the number on the front, and ii) what options were standard/offered in each; the hardware is entirely identical. > Not sure if there is an 11/10 model S or NC. There is definitely an 11/10S (again, identical internally, AFAIK, to the 05S - the DEC manual for the 05S-10S says exactly that). > From: Paul Anderson > The 11/05 and 11/10 .. use about 6 different backplanes, most of then > listed in the Unibus Troubleshooting Guide. I know of 3, will have to look there to see what else it says. > A lot of people have gotten into trouble thinking all the backplanes > were the same. Yes! I know of two for the 11/05-10: one holds one MM11-L, with four SPC slots; one holds two MM11-L's, with only a single SPC slot. The 11/05S-10S have a different backplane which holds a single MM11-U, and has 3 SPC slots. Needless to say, trying to plug an SPC board into a memory slot, etc will lead to tears (and probably smoke, too... :-) Noel

9 years, 11 months

Helpful Features in a Debugger

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

While the debugger in question will be for the PDP-11 set of instructions executing under RT-11 (what else would I be asking about), the features needed are the same for most other environments. I am looking for helpful suggestions as to what has been found useful. Obviously, single stepping through a program is really helpful as is the display of each instruction that is executed in a manner similar to what is seen in the assembler listing. Also essential is the ability to display the values of all registers and anywhere in memory while stopped at any given instruction. A number of other ideas are as follows: (a) During a multi-step sequence, stop the sequence when the stack has more then a specified number of words of increase or decrease - each specified separately (b) Set the address range within which the stack must remain or a multi-step sequence is stopped which is similar to (a), but expressed differently (c) Set the address range within which the program counter must remain or a multi-step sequence s stopped Also possible to be checked are specified values that registers have, or don't have, which stop a multi-step sequence. Checks on memory locations can also be included. And a record of which instructions were executed by saving the program counter addresses in a circular buffer allows the user to check for unexpected execution of certain parts of the code. An evaluation of all of the above would be appreciated, especially the last two paragraphs in respect of how useful each might be since the overhead is quite CPU intensive when included any implementation. On the other hand, any time the user single steps through the code, the CPU overhead from the debugger is extremely CPU intensive in the first place. All suggestions and comments are much appreciated!!!!!!!!! Jerome Fine

9 years, 11 months

QNX - was Re: Minix 3 vs portability

by johnwallace4＠yahoo.co.uk

[snippage for brevity, sorry] Some readers may remember (but most won't) that in 1999, QNX released a freely distributable demo containing their QNX kernel, their Photon MicroGui, an IP stack including Internet connectivity capability, and a graphical web browser which even does JavaScript. So what. Well the so what is that it all fitted on a 1.44MB floppy to run on a PC of that era. Words and pictures: e.g. http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html A movie (again from toastytech): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_VlI6IBEJ0 Never used it myself, other than the demo, but it always sounded interesting. Maybe like VAXELN, a well kept secret. have a lot of fun John Wallace ps QNX doesn't have HELP ADVANCED WOMBAT or a newsletter called The Wombat Examiner.

9 years, 11 months

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