Thanks for all of the responces. They're very much appreciated. At any
rate, while attempting to keep my first message short I left out some
important info. So we'll see if this clarifies any? I have a 4863 monitor
(which does not use the RCA plug). This computer has two floppy drives and
two cartidge slots. Which slot is primary? The left I assume. With the
machine I got a BASIC cartridge, three DOS 2.1 disks, and a couple DOS 3.21
disks. However, I don't think the computer is trying to boot. That is,
it's not reading the drive (red LED doesn't light). I didn't get any
manuals with it, although I'm sure I have the monitor plugged in right. It
only can go in one plug, one way. The keyboard however, can go in a lot of
places, but which one? It came w/ two power supplies and the computer acts
the same with either one. (I have not had a chance to check them with the
info I've got so far). I do not have a logic analyser (but I do have a RCA
signal generator used to work on t.v.'s if that can be used i
n any way). Again, thanks for the help and I hope this info helps too.
Aaron
> From: "D. Peschel" <dpeschel(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Robot Odyssey?
>
> I hope I didn't mention this before...
>
> I'm looking for any versions of a game called "Robot Odyssey". It was written
> by The Learning Company and is a very unusual combination of an electronics
> simulator and a 2-D adventure game.
A two minute search on Yahoo have me this archive directory:
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/mac/apple_II/images/educational/robot_odyssey/
> The Apple ][ version sold especially well; there were three versions (1.0,
> 1.1, 2.0). I own an original copy of 1.0. I _had_ an original copy of 2.0
> and sold it, and still feel really stupid. The only pirated copies are 1.0.
>
> However, there were also versions for: the IBM PC (definitely exists), the
> Tandy CoCo (almost definitely exists), and the Commodore 64 (probably exists).
> TLC may have promised others (Atari?) which were never released.
>
> I'm posting here because:
>
> - The kind of geeks on this list would probably love this game. :)
>
> - The Apple newsgroups are a waste of time.
>
> - No one at the VCF had any idea what I was talking about.
When I went to school they had PETs...
> - Maybe someone knows the authors of the program? The receptionists
> at TLC are (obviously) clueless, but I've heard that even talking
> to higher-up people there is a waste of time. (This is from a Web
> site I found.) So if there's any chance of getting "inside" info
> on the program, the authors are it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Derek
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363
Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at:
http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
>of my parts and tapes. I discovered that I've got two ESDI controllers,
>instead of the one that I knew about, one is a Emulex QD21 which I found
>the manual online for, the other a "Webster WQESD" which I have the manual
>for.
Which version of WOMBAT is on your WQESD? You can identify this by either
looking at the sticker over the firmware EPROM, or if this doesn't tell
you, by starting up the on-board diagnostics. Certain versions of Wombat
do not interact well with RSX-11M's DU driver. Very often, older versions
will work better than certain newer versions. Most of my systems are running
WOMBAT V2.3, which works fine for me with the PDP-11 OS's (but *not*
with later VMS versions.) WOMBAT V2.3 does work a little strangely with
2.11BSD's MSCP driver when you do a "shutdown -r", having something to
do with the CPU doing a bus reset while the controller is still doing a write.
I've never attempted to compile a list of which versions of the PDP-11 OS's
do and do not work with various WOMBAT versions, but perhaps it would
be worthwhile to build such a table. As it is, I just pop in different
firmware EPROM's until it works.
It's also worth checking that the WQESD really does respond to the CSR
you think you've set it to. The table in your manual is probably correct
for the most common address configuration PAL, but there are several
dozen different address configuration PAL's that were made for special
applications. If you have one of these non-standard PAL's, you'll
probably be much better off to put the WQESD at 17772150 and the floppy
controller at some other CSR.
---
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology Voice: 301-767-5917
7328 Bradley Blvd Fax: 301-767-5927
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817
Available immediately:
Two computer racks. One is a ~7foot tall Sun rack, regular 19" rail spacing,
vented top, and nice side panels. The other is a System Industries
rack, about 5 feet tall, with regular 19" rail spacing and an additional
area to the right holding the power distribution system. The SI rack
has a bank of 120VAC fans on top for cooling, too.
You pick up in Bethesda, MD. I'll help load them onto your truck.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology Voice: 301-767-5917
7328 Bradley Blvd Fax: 301-767-5927
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817
Allow me to introduce you to my vanity:
http://www.vintage.org/vcf/press.htm
VCF press clippings for the past year or so.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 09/21/98]
Came close to finding the cable for my laptop by instead found some audio
cables that probably belong to either Rax or Roger. I'll be in SF next so
I'll try to bring them and drop them off with Roger since I know about
where he lives.
Can Rax and Roger please check their audio gear and see if my laptop cable
got mixed in with some of theirs? You'll know it when you see it: normal
wall plug on one end (three-prong) and a funky three-prong on the other
that looks like it can't belong to anything but a stupid Compaq laptop.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 09/21/98]
Here's the Guardian article for those who were interested in reading it.
Copyright 1998 Guardian Newspapers Limited
The Guardian (London)
October 1, 1998
SECTION: The Guardian Online Page; Pg. 4
LENGTH: 739 words
HEADLINE: Not just any old iron;A festival of vintage computers threatens to
rewrite computing history. Karlin Lillington reports
BYLINE: Karlin Lillington
BODY:
Computing history is clear - microprocessors were invented by three engineers
at Intel in 1971. Or were they? That notion was disputed in a press conference
at the Vintage Computer Festival in Santa Clara, California on Saturday, when
an obscure computer consultant from San Jose revealed that he initiated work
on a secret onboard computer for the US Navy's F-14A TomCat fighter jet that
contained a chipset comprising three microprocessors and three support chips -
in 1968 (and completed in 1969).
According to 53-year-old Ray Holt, the Navy has only now released documents
allowing him to publish the details of his work. Holt read out an analysis
>from a former chip designer for Motorola, Russell Fish, which stated his
belief that, had the microprocessor design been made public in 1969, it would
have advanced the industry by five years. However, two of the Intel engineers
involved with the creation of the 1971 microprocessor, Ted Hoff and Federico
Faggin, have already disputed the claim in a Wall Street Journal article,
centring on the correct definition of a microprocessor (six chips should not
qualify, according to the two).
Whoever deserves the laurels, the achievement of Holt and his small team was
astonishing for its time. In today's world of finicky microprocessors, which
overheat easily, the chips in Holt's F-14 could function at the temperature of
boiling water - in a range of -55C to +125C. Because of size and weight
restrictions for the F-14, the circuit board was an extraordinary 6 by 4
inches for a highly sophisticated flight computer that analysed and controlled
altitude, angle, speed, missile systems, positioning of the movable wings, and
other functions. Machines of similar power at the time weighed 300-400 pounds.
'I think as computer designers and people interested in history, we need to
know this happened,' says Holt. 'That back then, we could do this.' Other
hardware at the show at least enjoyed a moment of fame - however fleeting. Who
now remembers the MAD Computer, the Sol, the Exidy Sorcerer or the Czech
-designed Tesla 780, which used a TV set as its monitor? Most people might see
the machines as just back-of-the-garage dust magnets, but hardcore computer
buffs were entranced by these footnotes to the history of computing, lovingly
displayed at the show.
Organised by a Sam Ismail, a goateed, hyperactive young programmer who started
his own collection of 200 machines 11 years ago at age 17, the festival
attracted several hundred devotees. The kind of person who thrills at the
mention of the Altair, the kit-built, embryonic personal computer from 1975.
Some came for the computer flea market, others to hear such speakers as
computer designer turned Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell (who admitted during
his talk on the prehistory of personal computers that he proposed to his wife
using a program he created at DEC). But the festival's soul lay in the
impromptu museum of geriatric hardware.
Sitting among neat rows of his Commodore PCs, exhibitor Larry Anderson
explained the motivation for collecting what others send to the landfill:
'Nostalgia. This is the type of computer I went to school and used,' he says,
caressing the metal casing of a 1977 Commodore 2001 series PC. The machine
boasts 4 kilobytes of memory - in comparison, computers today routinely come
with 4,000 times as much. 'Chips were so unreliable that the Commodore came
with a spare,' says Anderson, pointing to an extra chip taped into one corner
of the box, like an extra coat button. The manufacturer warned that chips
frequently came loose and needed to be pushed back down. The Atari manual, he
says, actually recommended dropping the machine from three to four inches if
it wasn't working properly.
Nearly every species of computer basked in visitors' attention: the 1975
prototype Apple I, screwed onto a piece of plywood by Apple founders Steve
Wozniak and Steve Jobs; the first IBM PC, and the first Sun micro computer.
The crowning event was the Super Nerd computer quiz, covering such categories
as computing acronyms, computers in the movies and 'Nerdpourri'. Ismail
conducted the entire quiz - to much general admiration - from behind the green
-screen glow of an Apple III from his collection.
Ray Holt's paper on the F-14A computer's architecture is at
www.microcomputerhistory.com The Vintage Computer festival is at
www.vintage.org/vcf/
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 09/21/98]
On Wednesday I got a IBM AS/400 model 9404 for free, it is just the CPU unit
with the front cover missing. It had two keys with it along a 5 1/4 FD and a
tape backup unit installed. I've been trying to get some information about
>from IBM's web site but not much luck. Hope to fire it up soon. John
>< IIRC the Pro 325 uses an F11 as well, although I've not seen one.
>
>The pro325 and 350 are the same machine save for the 325 is floppy only
>and the 350 had floppy and hard disk.
Right...
>< I am not suprised. Although there's a PDP11 CPU in there, the I/O
><system and interrupt structure is nothing like any other PDP11...
>
>the primary thing was the memory mapped video. the PDT-11 also had
>strange IO.
The PDT-130 and -150 both used the same device driver (PD), though
they would display as different device codes, if I remember. The
interesting thing about them was the fact that the firmware knew
about RT-11 queue elements, so all the driver had to do was take the
queue element and pass it to the ROM, which handled the IO, returning
if there was an error, or when the request was satisfied. The driver
then returned to the monitor the completed queue element.
The PDTs were also interesting in that they used an 8085 (later an
8085A) to handle the IO page. Word accesses were about 90ms, byte
accesses were about 180ms if I remember correctly, and we had to
avoid any read-modify-write instructions (BIS/BIC) otherwise it would
take twice as long as the 90ms/180ms...
Finally, an interesting point, the PDT-11/110, which had no storage
devices, had code in ROM which understood the same protocol as the
GT40 for downloading code...
Somewhere I have a program I wrote for use at a science fiction
convention (worldcon-1980, in boston) where I used a PDT-11/150
to download a GT40 with various programs like lunar lander or
roses, or bowling, etc... (The favorite, of course, was lunar
lander)
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
I was a member of this list for quite a while but the mail load got to
be too much for my school account.
I have placed an Apple Lisa 7/7 on the eBay auction recently. The
bidding ends on Sunday the 4th of October. It's a nice system and I
posted a ton of pictures at my page:
http://www.calpoly.edu/~gmast/sfs/lisa/lisa.html
The bidding hasn't been that great so I think this system will go for a
good price. It will sell regardless. If this post offends anyone, I
apologize but I know some people here might want one of these for their
collection and this might be a good opportunity.
For more info, check out the auction listing at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=32694351
and check out the pictures at the link above.
The bidding must take place through the auction now that I've listed it.
Bidding is free but you must register with the auction.
Thanks,
Greg
