Message text written by "Richard A. Cini, Jr."
> For the last two years, I have been working on making a
recompilable version of the VIC-20 Kernel ROM.<
OK, I'm not afraid to ask the amateur question:
Why?
I'd love to see someone with good programming skills write some
sophisticated software for the VIC-20, likely requiring at least a 16K
expander or something. If your project will help lead to that, I'm all for
it.
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
Message text written by Greg Mast
>On the other hand, I had a garage sale last weekend. Not one person
interested in the piles of Apple, Commodore, Atari stuff. I mean, if you
guys aren't going to garage sales to buy stuff, you're missing a lot of
deals. Most of the stuff at the Goodwill has an old garage sale sticker
on it.<
Heck, if you're dumping stuff at garage sale prices, post the list here
first! Probably nothing rare or particularly interesting, but you never
know what somebody might be looking for.
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com
Bruse Lane queried:
<The VS2000 is the little square 'cube,' is it not? If so, I have a pair.
<was planning on using one for a disk formatter.
Yep the 1cuft vax., Has MFM disk interface for hds and 5.25" 1.2meg
floppies and on the mainboard there is a 50 pin connector for SCSI.
Plug a cable with 50pin berg into it and bring it out the bottom. The only
SCSI device it will boot is TZK50 (TK50 with SCSI adaptor). However if you
can get ultrix or VMS on a disk it both can use the SCSI to access otehr
devices other tha boot. Also the printer port(9pin) if you pull pin 9to
ground and boot it becomes the console for a terminal.
FYI the disks that work with the vs2000 are st225/20meg HH, st251/40meg,
RD52(quantum q540 31mb), RD53(micropolus 1325/71meg) and
RD54(maxtor2190/150meg). Other drives with the same geometry can be used
if you want to use it with media the rom knows.
<??? How so? I've not worked enough with the stuff to guess at that one.
Boot the OS, build a single user system on disk and use that to build a
bootable tape.
<A! That's IT!! Yes, I can do this! I can build Ultrix onto one of my
<3100/M38's then, and use it for netbooting the VAXStation!
Yes you can as most of the vaxen will mop boot if the NI is there.
<Allison, if you were within range, you'd get a big hug! I even have an
<honest-to-DEC RRD42 SCSI CD drive just waiting to be used.
<If you could outline the steps for me, so I can have a printout to refer
<to, I'd appreciate it. Thanks again!
Wish I could. I know the outline only and that the capability is there.
<BTW, can I also do the remote boot with OpenVMS? I picked up a Ver. 6.2
<distribution kit while I was in the Bay Area.
Yes, and depending on the license you have with it(must have) you can also
cluster them using NI. The cluster host can be any vaxen, the higest
performing one you have is the logical choice. The alternate is booting
as a diskless workstation or remote boot(localdisk for swapfiles). Vs2000s
were commonly used as workstations with local swapdisks (rd52s or rd31s)
or as decwindows terminals. FYI: vms without the license pak for it is
marginally useful.
Brief explanation of MOP boot. This is a DEC protocal that goes back to
PDP-11s(they used serial lines for this!) and it was Maintenance Operations
Protocal. It allowed one system to push code into another. It's protocal
is fairly simple, the boot requestor puts a message on the NI that says
BOOT ME and it's Eithernet hardware ID. The host is tasked with recognizing
the address and feeding back the correct file usually a boot loader. The
boot loader is more sophisticated and will then respond back saying ok lets
use a better protocal and it then loads the one of three things, another
bigger loader, VMSboot or untrixboot. After that point the protocal is
usually either IP or DECnet though user selected protocals are possible.
The actual application loaded is up the the designer/user and examples I've
worked with were DIAGS, PrintServer (lps40/20/32), DECwindows,
VMSworkstation remote boot and VMS cluster.
Doing this on unix systems means you must have a operating host with
networking running. The boot process from the requestor is the same but
the host must have a daemon to handle the booting process. USually there
are config files to manage this.
Allison
> On the other hand, I had a garage sale last weekend. Not one person
> interested in the piles of Apple, Commodore, Atari stuff. I mean, if you
> guys aren't going to garage sales to buy stuff, you're missing a lot of
> deals. Most of the stuff at the Goodwill has an old garage sale sticker
> on it.
I don't see many garage sales around here. Sometimes I get to radio
rallies (hamfests, I think is the US term). But there is a car boot sale
most Sunday mornings in the summer where I call in on the way home from
church. Sometimes there is good stuff; sometimes there is awful stuff;
last Sunday I saw (in the way of computers) a late model Commodore 64
(which I already have) without a price tag, and next to it a card
advertising a Commodore PET (model unspecified) + disk drive + lots of
disks, working but needs new cable (also unspecified) hence "low" price of
L30 [delete] [delete] 25.
Since I have five PETs already, I didn't bite. But even if it's a fat 40
(which I don't have yet) I'd be reluctant to pay as much as L25 (over $40)
even in full working order, and certainly not without the disk drive cable
(replacement easily obtainable _only_ on the 8032SK AFAIK).
Still, enough moaning. I agree, this sort of sale is always worth a visit
- you never know what interesting little goodies you might find there...
Philip.
Does anyone know where Commodore was actually started? I've seen the
Bronx and Toronto given as the site of the first Commodore shop, but the
Bronx references have been made more recently. Apparently the official
Commodore history at the World of Commodore show in Toronto (forget
which year - 10th anniversary of the show I think, so 1993?) had a picture
of the first little Commodore shop... in Toronto.
Also, does anyone know where Commodore had production facilities in
Canada? I have a VIC-20 with "Made in Canada" stamped on it, and I didn't
realize that Commodore actually _made_ computers here.
As another note of interest, both of my "Made in U.S.A." VIC-20s have
serial numbers starting with "P". The "Made in Canada" VIC has "CC"
instead. Did the letters record what plant the machine was manufactured
or assembled in? CC = Canadian plant, P = Philadelphia or something?
Heck, while I'm at it, does anyone know the exact date (or even the exact
year) that Commodore purchased MOS Technology? I figured it would've been
1976, but I've seen documents referenced as from "Commodore/MOS
Technology, Norristown, PA, 1975".
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
Just on the off chance that there's a different mix of people here now
than when I first enquired some months ago...
Does anyone here have disk drives, CP/M module, or documentation
(especially the tech manual) for the Laser 3000 computer from Video
Technology?
How about the RS232 adapter, or the RGB cable?
Computer Direct also sold these as the "Aplus 3000" (they used a marker to
cover over the "Laser 3000" nameplate for the picture in the ad).
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
One final word on the Panasonic hand-helds...
I should have mentioned that in a couple months when the remaining units
are liberated, they will be up for grabs. I don't want to get anyone's
hopes up, but Mike mentioned that he would see if we could just get them
for free if we pick up the shipping from Canada, since the company didn't
seem interested in making a buck on them anyway. When the time arrives
I'll bring it up.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Does anyone have a Commodore Plus/4 video cable for sale or trade?
Please e-mail me directly if you do. Thanks.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Message text written by Sam:
>I should have mentioned that in a couple months when the remaining units
are liberated, they will be up for grabs.<
A suggestion. Why don't you start with the existing list of people who
were willing to pay for the units, and allocate one to each. If there
aren't enough to go around, then delete names in some random manner. If
there are units left over, then take the list of folks who requested more
than one and allocate them to those folks in some sort of random manner,
and so on.
Anybody will take a "freebie", but the folks who committed to make this
deal work ought to have the first shot at them. I'm just sorry the deal
didn't work out as anticipated. And by the way-- if these aren't
new-in-the-box units, I assume they won't be coming with an instruction
manual?
Gil Parrish
107765.1161(a)compuserve.com