Thanks for the info. I thought it was because of the power requirements on
spin-up of the disks since they are not sequenced.
It is nice to know that it does work reliably however for the rare times I
might want to.
Thanks
Dan
>< Two full-height hard drives in a single BA23 was never officially suppor
>< (at least for the various microPDP-11 configurations), because
>< they refused to support a base box sold without removable media.
>
>Correct. The group in DEC that balked at that was Field Service as a
>microvax1/II was "...not adaquately diagnosable without removable media".
>Marketing VIA CSSE was forced to consider that an unsupportable
>configuration though electronically solid and desireable if used for
>LAVC member or with external removable media.
>
>Allison
>
No, not some strange thing with my 8th grade English teacher and a bucket
of whipped cream...
I finally got an ATR8000. Man, I dreamed of having one of these every
night, reading the SWP brochure until it literally fell apart. Every time
I went to buy one on ePay, someone would come along and push the price
*way* beyond what I wanted to pay. Anyway, I just got one for $60 (I know
many of you think that's still ridiculously high, but I've been waiting
~12 years for one of these things) that came with a giant stack of disks,
manuals, and cables. The usual CP/M stuff; Wordstar, Supercalc, etc.
Unfortunately, I'm at work and have to wait a few hours before I can try
it out.
Well, at least now I will stop harrassing everyone who posts to the list
about picking one of these things up for $5...
Aaron
Marvin,
Great lead! I just got ahold of John and purchase this equipment
>from him.
Thanks for the heads up.
Jon
============================================
>I received this message a while ago, and when I contacted him, he was not
>interested in shipping this stuff so it would need to be picked up. Perhaps
>someone back there can see if he is still interested in selling the stuff.
>I am just quoting the original message along with his first response.
>
>
>Subject: Old Heath Kit Computer that used paper tapes
>Date: Mon, Oct 19, 1998 16:21 EDT
>From: <A HREF="aol://3548:W1uki">W1uki</A>
>Message-id: <19981019162105.26749.00000032(a)ng150.aol.com>
>
>best offer over $50
> ( w1uki(a)aol.com )
>
>
>Hello Marvin,
>] Nice hearing from another Ham .
> Just checked to what i have on the Heath Kit.
> H9 Video Terminal
> H10 Paper System
> H11 Digital Computer
> Some Heath users Group Books
> Could not find any of the paper tapes at this time
> w1uki(a)aol.com
>
< - The manual is usually ambiguous, or doesn't tell you
< what happens in all cases under all conditions. I have
Ever read the Vt100 technical manual?
< a copy of the VT220 programmer's pocket guide, and I've seen
< the VT100 and VT220 user's manuals, and this is true of them
By time vt220 started manuals were being trimmed but there was a tech
manual for that one too.
< - The manual doesn't tell you about undocumented behavior.
< If you were writing a complete emulator, you would want all
< the undocumented behavior. (e.g., the VT100 "turn on the bell
< and never turn it off" sequence) Otherwise, you might want some
< of it.
Generally UDOCO is outside spec. forexample a line of 123 chars and what
happens when you switch to Dwide Dheight.
Then again why get mad if the pathological cases are handled wrong when
the basic stuff is poor at best?
To me while in EDT hitting Gold Command and getting the wrong action on
a PC terminal emulator is broken! or hitting ctrlZ to send an exit
to an app gets the procomm help screen. Or worse mapping those keys to
something unresonable for a vt220 (LK201/401 is similar to PC keyboard)
is bizzare.
< - The manual doesn't tell you how the terminal is implemented.
< How many pixels on the screen? How are video attributes stored?
< This isn't usually applicable to behavior, but it could be
< (in some rare circumstance which I don't know about). And it is
< important if you want to write a complete emulator.
Considering the prints for Vt100, technical specs and all were available
NONE of those were secret! If all else fails you could crank up the
Vheight and Hwidth and count them!
< It's easy to claim that your emulator emulates a particular terminal. T
< vtWeb plug-in supposedly emulates VT125. Well, sheesh, they simply see
< VT125 as a slight variation on the VT100, while my reason for getting a
< emulator is to see ReGIS graphics. (No, the plug-in doesn't do ReGIS.
< still looking for a VT125 or Gigi emulator!) But only a description wil
< me find out for certain.
Vt125 is a big variation. The board to do it was a seperate 8085 and
ran it's video in parallel with VT100 base logic (yes chars and graphics).
The GIGI was obscure and uncommon enough to not be a viable reference.
most of the later terminals (Vt330/340) did however do regis.
Allison
Greetings again folks,
Well, I've been working at checking out the bunch of DEC machines for some
brief times that I can take from working on the two houses.
This time it's the PDP-11/34A system. I was able to get it checked out and
lit up okay. It has the Programmers Console (KY11-LB) and an M9312
Bootstrap/Terminator module plus RK611 and UDA50 drive interfaces.
Switch 2 is OFF on the 9312 therefore, registers printout onscreen and the
system prompt (@ in this case) appears after CNTL/BOOT keys are
simultaneously pressed. Seems okay so far. However, the 11/34-11/34A user's
manual says the prompt should be a '$' (?).
The system was said to have two RK07's which of course aree controlled by
the RK611. There was no mention of what hung on the UDA50. I surmised the
RA60 that was in the pile of equipment was the device as there's an old
handwritten note taped to the front giving instructions as to what channel
(A or B) to attach to an 11/34A. Both drive types figure okay as the
appropriate boot ROMs are in positions 1 and 2, respectively, on the 9312.
Seems okay again so far except the RA60 doesn't spinup.
I cabled everything up except for just one RK07 is hooked up. I took the
terminator off the #1 RK and put it on the #0 device. The 'A' switch is
depressed, 'B' is not as this is not a dual-access drive system.
Upon trying to boot the thing I am instructed to simply type DM onto the
terminal and the 11/34A will boot off the RK07 #0. Well, nothing happens.
The RK 'Ready' light is on but the 'A' light stays off and no other action
occurs except for a new register printout is displayed onscreen and the '@'
prompt is back.
Simply stated: Now what? The non-running RA60 should not cause this I feel.
The documents I have are an old version of the PDP-11/34 system user's
manual (does have early 11/34A stuff in there but several things don't
match to what should be expected), an M9312 tech manual, RK611 controller
tech manual, UDA50 User Guide, RK07 operators manual, an RA60 disk drive
user guide, an 11/34 *non-A* central processor maint. manual (no 11/34*A*
manual of this type in my collection, just the 11/34A Users Manual),
printsets for most of this hardware *except* for the RK07s and RA60, plus
other related docs. So, I have a little bit to go from but no direction to
aim.
Any thoughts?
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
< differences, etc), and incomplete specs. No spec is ever complete. Th
It must have been complete enough for dec to make the vt100. ;)
Specs are usually complete, my expereince it understanding them is
incomplete. It pays to read then spec once or twice completely.
< hardest part of emulating another machine is testing all of the possibl
< cases (sometimes unbounded) and emulating the incorrect behavior as wel
< as the correct.
True, but then testing if done at two levels bounded basic functional
and then edge of the envelope tends to make it far more manageable.
After all if broken at the basic level then its far to broke.
< Having said that, I don't recall having many problems using VT100
< emulators with VMS as long as you SET TERM/NOWRAP and maybe another
< setting which now eludes me.
VMS is a) tolerent, b) uses a minimal subset. Some apps can be badly
broken by poor emulations.
Allison
>Unfortunately, I have two specific programs I want to see. One of them is
>DECRITE from DECUS (a ReGIS text editor -- runs on VMS). The other is Empire
>(The Wargame of the Century), version 5.0 (?) which is on magica.update.uu.se.
>As for Empire, the source (and binaries?) were actually commercial, I think.
I've been playing Empire under VMS for over a decade now
(now on an Alpha), and I see no indication that it's commercial at the
comments at the top of the source:
C PROGRAM EMPIRE
C
C This program is a war game simulation for video terminals.
C The game was originally written outside of Digital, probably a university.
C This version of the game was made runnable on Digital Equipment VAX/VMS
C FORTRAN by conversion from the TOPS-10/20 sources available around fall 1979.
C After debugging it, numerous changes have been made.
C
C Now that you are the proud owner of the source and you are all gung ho
C to do things right, there are a few things you should be aware of.
C There are many magic numbers controlling how many different kinds of
C units can exist and how many of each, so it is unfortunately not easy
C to add another unit type. Also, "slight changes" to the way the units
C work will typically have a fairly devastating affect on the computers
C strategy. If you are interested in really hacking this, there is a plenty
C of room for enhanced computer strategy. As you'll see, there are some
C very good debugging tools tucked inside, and you will soon discover weak
C points and bugs, that up until you, have remained problems (all the previous
C programmers got lazy or lost interest). Finally, please be careful with
C the version number and identification at start up to avoid confusion of
C ongoing versions with private copies. If you make a change don't remove
C the major version id, but rather add something like (V4.0 site.1 20-JUL-80).
> And the source I've seen is for the previous version. The new version has
> two modes (VT125 and Gigi) neither of which works very well. I think the code
> uses nonstandard ReGIS, since (as a magica person told me) even a real VT340
> won't work with the program.
Yep, you need a real Gigi. But the source is reasonably commented
and I'm sure that you could produce V5.1 which'll work on a VT340 :-)
What is a little confusing is that my sources identify themselves
as 4.7, 18-Oct-1981, while the documents are for V5.0. They seem
to be completely consistent with each other, though.
Very likely, like Super Star Trek, there were hundreds of localized
versions at various DEC sites and colleges/universities.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
For any interested collectors and/or gear-heads in the SoCal area
this upcoming weekend: the TRW swapmeet will be on Saturday, the
28th November, from 7:30 to 11:30 AM.
It is held at the TRW El Segundo plant, corner of Aviation and
Marine avenues....
Take 405 (San Diego) FWY to Rosecrans Ave, exit and go West about
1 mile to Aviation (Under the railroad bridge), turn left (South) on
Aviation about 1/4 mile.. the parking lots will be on your right,
the Meet itself is in the southern-most lots along Marine Ave.. you
can't possibly miss it.
NOTICE:
I will be happy to coordinate/host an apre-swap lunch-type get
together of anyone who wants to meet me there this Saturday..
e-mail me privately and we'll hook up. Marvin will be there,
possibly Aaron C. Finney... anyone else...? Might be fun!
Otherwise, I'll get all the Good Stuff and then brag about it.
;}
Cheers
John
< In a BA23, you use the same cables (a 2nd set obviously) for the
< second DUA1: drive as the first drive. DON'T FORGET TO
< SET THE DUA1: DRIVE AS DS4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The cables
Correct.
< The I/O distribution panel in a BA23 allows for 2 hard drives
< and is intended for a dual RX50. I have never tried a dual RX33
< in a BA23 on an RQDX3, but I presume it would work. I don't
it does if the RQDX3 is the correct rev.
< know if the 2nd hard drive must be connected into the READY
< and WRITE PROTECT buttons. I have heard that the 2nd
< drive can float and that the default is READY and NOT
< WRITE PROTECTED.
Also correct. I happen to prefer to writelock the disk and make it not
ready before power off to avoid the risk of accidental writes(during power
up or down).
Allison
