- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Sorry to belabor the point, but... > >This is the part that I can't find in my C documentation. I get that there >are multiple assignments before the sequence point, whose order is >"unspecified". But can't find anything that says the result should be >"undefined", so I assume it should be one of the values (but which one would >still be "unspecified"). If it were just a matter of assignments, I might agree with you, however in this particular case, the code contains three read-modify-write operations on the same Lvalue all of which occur within the context of side effects within a single sequence interval. IIRC the behavior in this instance is undefined. >Then again, I am working from the lexical guide, rather than the standards >documents themselves. (Can you cite chapter and verse?) Sorry, I'm operating from memory - haven't got a clue where my copy is at the moment (haven't had to make major changes to my compiler in quite a long time). Here is a reference to a C faq page which cites an example exactly like the code in this discussion, with references to K&R, ANSI and ISO documents: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q3.2.html Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

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PDP series/DEC Prototyping cards

by wpileggi＠juno.com

I have a few PDP series/DEC Prototyping cards. Anybody interested? Will scan a picture for you. Bill ___________________________________________________________________ Get Juno Platinum for as low as $4.97/month! Unlimited Internet Access with 250MB of Email Storage. Visit http://www.juno.com/half to sign up today!

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> Although the nasal demon theory has been around for a long time, I >> am certain that this will not be the result here - not of my machines >> are fitted with appropriate I/O hardware to cause this - but as was > >Assuming you're running on machines more modern than the sort of stuff I >use, I can't believe you've got real technical and/or service manuals for >the hardware. In which case, you can't be _sure_ there's not a nasal >demon generator hidden in one of the ASICs. > >[:-) of course] While it's entirely possible that such a device exists in the "black boxes", my point is that all of my machines lack the physical delivery channel to conduct the demons to the nazal outlet, so I think the worst that ever happens is having them ejected from a ventalation opening or disk slot within the unit itself ... (sometimes when I've been coding long enough in one stretch I have observed this!) On the other hand, I am absolutely convinced that the microsloth software in these boxes has deeply embedded simulation and virtualization of demons of all kinds, nazal and otherwise - but thats a whole n'other discussion, and none of the truly possessed boxes are old enough to really qualify for discussion on this list. Cheers, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

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Looking for Palm Pilot parts (slightly OT)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

OK... now that I have the GPS issue squared away, I have one final Palm query - does anyone on the list have a box of dead Palms or Palm parts. I am specifically interested in the SIMMs from Palm IIIs and older. I have a U.S. Robotics 512K Palm w/PalmOS 2.0 in ROM, and a 1MB IBM WorkPad w/PalmOS 2.0.3 in ROM, and I would like to use them with more modern apps that depend on the serial port, thus I need at least a 3.0 SIMM. The ones in a Palm III are perfect - partially because they have 2MB of RAM, and partially because they typically have PalmOS 3.0 in FlashROM. Palms with dead screens would make nice donors, if anyone has such things lying around. If not, perhaps I'll find some bits at Dayton, but people usually only bring working ones, and I really am looking for parts to take presently working ones and make them into _useful_ ones. The three things I most need to run are a VT100 emulator, PalmORB, and a GPS app - all serial-dependent apps. Please write me off-list if you happen to have a small box of dead Palms of any variety. Thanks, -ethan

21 years, 3 months

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odd find

by kenziem＠sympatico.ca

Approximately 5' x 1' aluminum sides inside there are 5 sets of 16 fan folded plates, All the connectors come off the one end. pictures here http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/P1000165.JPG http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/P1000166.JPG http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/P1000167.JPG Is it of any use as one peice or should I separate out the fan folded plates?

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

>>> Is there any reason why the BASIC subroutine stack has >>> to be the processor hardware stack? >> There is no rule, just that it was fast so why not? > Because, IIRC, the 6502 stack is only 256 bytes long. You really have to try hard to get a 6502 BASIC interpreter to use more than 20 or so bytes of the stack purely for interpreter code calls, so why not use it for the interpreted code as well? Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos http://uk.photos.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

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Anyone playing with the 8x300

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Anyone playing with the 8x300 > From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com > Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 21:36:10 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> also must have done a bitslice designs at one time or another > >I always thought of the 8x300 as a near-bitslice processor... bipolar, >data port, etc. While it doesn't chain together to make bigger >wordsizes like AMD2901/Intel 3002, it really was a programmable >sequencer very much like those bitslice parts. > >Tim. think of it as two 2901s and a 2911 with fixed sequencing and instruction decode rom. Fast, but strange to program. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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Anyone playing with the 8x300

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Anyone playing with the 8x300 > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:57:09 -0700 (PDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >>Ah the classic first of the fast microcontrollers. >>I'd have to dig but I vaguely remember the 8x300 >>as a disk controller apnote. Nasty beast to program. >> >>Allison >> > >Hi > Don't know why you'd say this, it only has 8 instructions! >I've got the spec posted to Al's site. > This controller application is a little interesting in that >who ever designed this board, also must have done a bitslice >designs at one time or another. To save a machine cycle, all >I/O addresses are selected by a ROM tied to the instruction >addressing. Normally it would take two cycles, one to write >the I/O address and one to transfer the data. With the >ROM, the address is understood by the program's execution >address location. >Dwight It's more of a sequencer or state machine with a crude ALU. As to those 8 instructions, looks at what the fields are for each one. I've done horizontal microcode and that is similar. Due to it's very harvard design it's not one you will do constans in rom much. Also the IO devices are really IO specific as in the address of each is coded into the part. One use for it was an 8bit wide DSP. I have a real one here of the later 8x305 I2L that was a bit faster. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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HP 9000/300

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Since I dont' really know much about HP equipment, is > this a worthwhile system to play with? It can't be that good as I couldn't even give mine away. Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by marvin＠rain.org

> >> A lot of reaction against excessive GOTOs was from the horrible > >> things early FORTRANs made you do, and macho programmers who > >> stopped learning early. I have to wonder what the cultures of > >> optimization that sprung up around drum machines did too. > > On Fri, 13 May 2005, woodelf wrote: > > > Well it has come back to haunt us since random access memory > > has got replaced by cashe and deep pipelined cpu's. Try writing > > a loop and see what happens ... No wait a loop has the dreaded GOTO. One of my first programming projects in college was write a program to printout 26 hands of Bridge ... I was a Bridge major :). Not knowing enough, I exited one of the Fortran IV loops with a goto. Big mistake! Finally one of the professors found the problem on a second or third look after I had shown the code to almost everyone in the department with no success. I still like the goto ... just not to exit loops :).

21 years, 3 months

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Honeywell DSP-6 Last Call

by jpl15＠panix.com

In the next two weeks, we must dispose of the Honeywell DPS-6 mainframe - somehow. So far two possiblities have fallen through. Therefore, be it Known to All by these Presentments: There is a fee DPS-6 in Carson City, Nevada, that is going to have to be reduced to scrap, unless someone can step up to the plate, as they say, and speak those rare words: "I'll take that..." System will fit in a std-sized pick-up truck, forklift and loading assistance is provided. Sombody adopt this machine before we are forced to KILL it. Cheers (Hopefully Not The Grim Computer Reaper) John

21 years, 3 months

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Anybody know what this front panel is for?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

My guess is a Honeywell tape channel control. The stuff on the left is for a tape drive, and it sort of looks like the panels in the Computer Museum's Multics machine.

21 years, 3 months

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Anybody know what this front panel is for?

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I found this today <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/panels/all.jpg>. Anybody know what it's for? It's obviously for some kind of computer or computer based systems since it talks about ROM Address and the like. But it has some terms that I don't recognize, TU Status, Romar/Bromar, etc. This thing is almost three foot wide so I had to take three pictures in order to get closeups of the legends. See <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/panels/> for more pictures. BTW this is all of the system that I found and this is exactly the way that I found the panel except for wiping some dust and dirt off of it. The HP 700i isn't part of it, it's picture just happened to be on the same disk. Joe

21 years, 3 months

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Free 24 pin cardedge connectors

by swtpc6800＠comcast.net

I wanted 20 pin connectors for my Nixie tube project but ordered 24 pin ones.(It was late.) I have three that I don't need. I understand these are used for Commodore Pet I/O ports, does anyone want them? Edgeboard Connector, 24 contact, .156" pitch, solder-eye connectors, .200" gap. EDAC part number 307-024-500-202 The Digi-Key stock number is EDC307240-ND Here is a picture. http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/EDAC/Web%20Photo/307-024-500-202.jpg Michael Holley www.swtpc.com/mholley Here is the Nixie project. http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Dec1970/PE_Dec1970.htm

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> Officially this type of code (that which modifies an Lvalue multiple times >> within the same sequence interval) invokes "undefined behaviour", which >> means that the compiler can do "anything" - although highly unlikely, the >> compiler can happily return 6 6 6 in this case, and leave the value of i >> at 31415 (or anything else) ... and be performing in a perfectly legal sense >> - undefined operation is exactly that. The function performed is not >> defined by the standard. > >I think the functions to be performed are defined, and only their order is >undefined. Thats is the expected result, however since we are performing multiple modifications to an Lvalue within one sequence interval, the behaviour is "undefined" according to the C standard - this means that "anything goes", and there is no guarantee that it will be the expected result, or even one of several expected results (although this will be almost always the case). Although highly unlikely that the compiler writer would go to lengths to detect this happening and produce non-intuitive results, other factors in the compilation process might cause results you didn't expect - for example, a compiler may defer the increments until the next sequence point, and just do a single addition of 3 - a simple optimization, allowed by the definition of the language, but it would cause the three intermediate results to be 0 0 0 - not what you expected (as described above), yet perfectly reasonable to a compiler writer. This is perfectly legal in this case because the effect of the '++' is a side effect, and does not have to be applied until the next sequence point. >> On other words, it's not valid 'C' (although it is syntactically correct, >> and most compilers will accept it without a diagnostic). > >Which would make this an overstatement. I think it is perfectly valid C, >and the compiler has (after much deliberation) been allowed to generate the >most efficient code. It is not a valid conforming C program (or fragment thereof). Any C program which relies on undefined behaviour is non-conforming. This does not mean that it doesn't work, or even that it does not happen to do what you expect - it does mean that it is not guaranteed by the C standard to do what you expect (or any particular thing). Sometimes a compiler may choose one particular approach over another for the sake of efficency, however often the exact ordering of operations performed within sequence points have more to do with details of the compiler architecture and not necessarily in a given case to do with efficiency. >> I think the OP's point has been completely missed (that a valid program is >> a inherently very definitive and detailed specification). > >I thought the point was that, at the margins, the "valid program" is *not* >as detailed a specification as was claimed/expected. (Though I still don't >know of anything more detailed. In fact, I think most programs are >over-specifications of the desired behavior. That is, they require a lot of >specific behavior that is actually unimportant to the correct result.) IIRC the original posters point was as I stated (more or less), and it was in a followup that someone contrived an example of how to use undefined behaviour to make a specific program which was non-deterministic (at least between various compilers). In any case, it doesn't matter - there is no reason to invoke undefined behaviour in your program. If you wish to print the value of i, i+1 and i+2 and leave i advance by three, use: printf("%d %d %d", i, i+1, i+2); i += 3; Your program will now be deterministic across all conforming implementations. Now, tell me what will be printed: int i = 0; i = i++; printf("%d\n", i); Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

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HP 9000/300

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Since I dont' really know much about HP equipment, is this a worthwhile system to play with? -- http://www.blobulent.com/hp300/FAQ/rossspon/hp300faq.htm is an interesting place to start indentifying what you have.

21 years, 3 months

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Anyone playing with the 8x300

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > >> >>Subject: Anyone playing with the 8x300 >> From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at AMD.com> >> Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:29:31 -0700 (PDT) >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> >>Hi >> I'm looking at an application of the 8X300 by >>Signetics. This is for a hard disk controller. >>Is anyone fiddling with simmulators for this processor. >>It seems like someone was a while back. >> My current application is on an Olivetti M20 not >>a TRS80. >>Dwight >> > >Ah the classic first of the fast microcontrollers. >I'd have to dig but I vaguely remember the 8x300 >as a disk controller apnote. Nasty beast to program. > >Allison > Hi Don't know why you'd say this, it only has 8 instructions! I've got the spec posted to Al's site. This controller application is a little interesting in that who ever designed this board, also must have done a bitslice designs at one time or another. To save a machine cycle, all I/O addresses are selected by a ROM tied to the instruction addressing. Normally it would take two cycles, one to write the I/O address and one to transfer the data. With the ROM, the address is understood by the program's execution address location. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning at equallogic.com> > >>>>>> "Dwight" == Dwight K Elvey <dwight.elvey at amd.com> writes: > > >> From: "Lyle Bickley" <lbickley at bickleywest.com> > Dwight> ---snip--- The first sentence in > >> the final paragraph reads: "The moral of this discussion is that > >> writing code which depends on order of evaluation is a bad > >> programming practice in any language." > >> > >> I'll buy that. > > Dwight> Hi Interesting! I've always considered order of execution to > Dwight> be one of the fundamentals of being able to predict what a > Dwight> computer does. I've always thought of it as an accentual part > Dwight> of programming with predictable results. > >That's true for a single CPU sequential computer without any >interrupts going on. It isn't true if you run things in parallel on >several CPUs. It may not be true in multi-issue computer (which is >most modern fast CPUs) if the architecture has sufficiently relaxed >ordering rules. > >But all that applies to the hardware. Many programming languages >don't specify a single order of doing everything in every possible >program, but instead leave things partially unspecified, so the >translation from source code to machine language has more >opportunities for optimization. So even if a machine is fully >sequential and fully ordered, the high level language programs you >feed it might not be. > > paul Hi The last place I worked, the processor was designed to be able to optimize by doing out of order execution ( HaL computer system, first Sparc64 ). They soon discovered the problem when dealing with I/O. They, luckily, had a sequential mode that they could switch to during I/O operations that made the order predictable. You'd have thought that someone in the design team might have realized the problem. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

At 18:33 13/05/2005 -0400, you wrote: >> Now, tell me what will be printed: > >> int i = 0; >> i = i++; >> printf("%d\n", i); > >Whatever the implementation feels like giving you. EXACTLY! - that is the only truly correct answer. Expected/likely answers are 0 and/or 1 ... but this is NOT guaranteed by the standard. >Again, i is being modified multiple times between sequence points, so >it's nasal demon time. Although the nasal demon theory has been around for a long time, I am certain that this will not be the result here - not of my machines are fitted with appropriate I/O hardware to cause this - but as was pointed out many years ago - it COULD be the result! Yes - this is essentually the same scenario - I just removed any doubt caused by order of execution of function parameters - this is an example of prime undefined behaviour. >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B PS: Sorry to be so brief on the phone (family movie in progress)... see you on sunday. Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk > >> Assuming the stack is cleared by RUN then you can nest 40 to >> 50 levels of GOSUBs in most 6502 BAISCs. > >Is there any reason why the BASIC subroutine stack has to be the >processor hardware stack? > >-tony > Hi There is no rule, just that it was fast so why not? Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Lyle Bickley" <lbickley at bickleywest.com> > >On Friday 13 May 2005 14:37, Dwight K. Elvey wrote: >> From: "Lyle Bickley" <lbickley at bickleywest.com> >> ---snip--- >> The first sentence in >> >> >the final paragraph reads: "The moral of this discussion is that writing >> > code which depends on order of evaluation is a bad programming practice >> > in any language." >> > >> >I'll buy that. >> >> Hi >> Interesting! I've always considered order of execution >> to be one of the fundamentals of being able to predict >> what a computer does. I've always thought of it as >> an accentual part of programming with predictable results. >> Each to their own I say. >> Dwight > >The section (and prior discussion) was related to writing code dependent on a >compilers interpretation of order - as opposed to the programmers purposeful >order. > >Lyle Sorry, I must have read it out of order :) My point was that the language should always have defined order, regardless of what the compiler was interpreting. Maybe there is something basically flawed in the concept of that method of interpreting! The basic concept of a computer language is to define the operations you'd like done in order! I know that one could break the sequence into several pieces to enforce order but I consider it a serious flaw that one has to be careful about how it interprets order. I consider order to be one of the most fundamental concepts of programming. Most everything else is just nice features. I repeat, there are languages that do not have ambiguous order issues. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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Hawley Mouse

by aek＠spies.com

> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5196808330 > He's right --- it's a Alto Hawley mouse. There are actually two there. The optical one uses the sensor designed by Dick Lyon. The wirewrapped Alto to Nova interface boards are something I hadn't seen before. I have a few ideas who the retired Apple engineer in Seattle would have been that would have had this stuff. If this actually sells for 2K, I may think about selling some of the boxes of Alto parts that I have.

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

>> Assuming the stack is cleared by RUN then you can nest 40 to >> 50 levels of GOSUBs in most 6502 BAISCs. > Is there any reason why the BASIC subroutine stack has to be > the processor hardware stack? No, it's just quicker and easier that way. Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Lyle Bickley" <lbickley at bickleywest.com> ---snip--- The first sentence in >the final paragraph reads: "The moral of this discussion is that writing code >which depends on order of evaluation is a bad programming practice in any >language." > >I'll buy that. Hi Interesting! I've always considered order of execution to be one of the fundamentals of being able to predict what a computer does. I've always thought of it as an accentual part of programming with predictable results. Each to their own I say. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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CGA monitor on eBay

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

ISTR someone looking for one of these 5153 IBM CGA Monitors. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5194458575 No connection with sale. -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

21 years, 3 months

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HP RTE (or A900) help?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I know an ex-HP field engineer that needs to read some data off 4mm DAT that was created on an HP A900 RTE-A system. The tapes are in either ASave or FC format. I have no A900's in my collection or I'd help him out myself. Does anyone know of a program that will read ASave or FC format tapes from RTE, and just dump the files on the local drive of a unix box? Or, in the absence of such a program, does anyone have an A900 with DAT, and LAN that they would loan/rent for a short period? Please reply off-list Kind regards, Jay West

21 years, 3 months

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Tek 4109 terminal

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Anyone out there have a Tek 4109 terminal, better still with manuals, and even better still with service info? Witchy chucked his one this way last night. It's powering up now, which is a start... ... sometimes it powers up to just a blank screen, sometimes to a screen with just a flashing cursor (possibly that's right behaviour :) and sometimes a blank screen along with a flashing caps-lock LED. On a reset, sometimes it gives a blank screen and two long beeps from the speaker. Anyone able to tell me what the beep codes mean, what the flashing caps LED means, and what the default power-up state should be? Possibly it's waiting for something from a host (yuck), or at least indication that it's connected to a host via serial port control lines - but the varying power up / reset states suggests that it's not entirely happy anyway... Oh, confirmation that it has all its ROMs would be nice. Of the two rows of four columns, the leftmost column is empty - is that OK, or has someone swiped those two chips for something else? Presumably the fact that it has 6 ROM chips in place (and they're externally accessible and obviously designed to be pluggable) hints that it has some sort of custom on-board app? There's a Tek tablet with it too (4197 IIRC) - no idea which of the two COM ports this should plug into, but I'd assume if the terminal was going to do anything it'd do it whether the tablet was present or not... anyone? :) cheers Jules

21 years, 3 months

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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

>> Even BASIC has a call stack that will eventually overflow. > On a 6502 (PET, Apple II...) it's not that deep because of > the 1-page stack. ISTR about 5 levels of GOSUBs were possible > before you ran the risk of stack overflow, but it might have > been as deep as 8. Assuming the stack is cleared by RUN then you can nest 40 to 50 levels of GOSUBs in most 6502 BAISCs. FOR ... NEXT is the stack hog, you can usually only nest that 15 deep or less. With C= BASIC you have lass room as the top 10 bytes or so of the stack are reserved for float to ASCII conversion. Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

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Stamps and epay auction

by kahrs＠caip.rutgers.edu

Whoa dude, how could you forget J. Willard Gibbs? I know, brain entropy. Available in post offices "nationwide" (offer only good in the US) Meanwhile, back at epay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=5196808330… He's right --- it's a Alto Hawley mouse. The boards I recognize are the Alto CRAM board and also the Alto MOS memory board. The rest of the boards are wirewrap prototypes of something, but what is the question. And, the price is only $2K-$1.01; what a bargain.

21 years, 3 months

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SASI to MFM boards available WD1002S-SHD

by CCTalk＠catcorner.org

I have quite a few of these. 3.5" form factor. If anyone needs them let me know. You just pay for shipping plus pay pal fees from New Jersey. Most are New In Box units. I also have the appnotes. Kelly

21 years, 3 months

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Free for pickup: hotrod kaypro [Austin, TX, USA]

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Free for pickup: hotrod kaypro [Austin, TX, USA] > From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> > Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 13:30:35 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Start with a Kaypro II. > >It has a modification to run at 5.0 MHz as well as the standard 2.5 MHz. > >One of the floppies has been replaced with a hard drive, partitioned as >drives A/B/C/D. The remaining floppy is drive E. I have the original >floppy that was displaced by the hard drive. > >It has been modified to have a fan. > >It has a RAM disk installed in it as well. > >It sports the Advent Turborom. Sounds like my 4/84! Rather than a hard disk I used a 3.5" floppy internal and one in the 5.25 slot via an adaptor along with the HH 5.25 48tpi for compatability. I alsohave the Advent turborom with the personality card so it knows 96tpi 80tr DSdd. Plus mine has the handyman rom/ piggyback board with RTC. Sweet machine to use and tote around for effect. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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Anyone playing with the 8x300

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Anyone playing with the 8x300 > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at AMD.com> > Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 14:29:31 -0700 (PDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Hi > I'm looking at an application of the 8X300 by >Signetics. This is for a hard disk controller. >Is anyone fiddling with simmulators for this processor. >It seems like someone was a while back. > My current application is on an Olivetti M20 not >a TRS80. >Dwight > Ah the classic first of the fast microcontrollers. I'd have to dig but I vaguely remember the 8x300 as a disk controller apnote. Nasty beast to program. Allison

21 years, 3 months

1
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'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi I can think of at least one that might do something funny in Forth. Example: : DoSomething 20 0 DO R> 1+ >R I . LOOP ; Still, execution order is well defined. This operation will do different things based on the Forth it was used with but the order of doing things is not under question. It might even crash the computer. This kind of thing is usually specified to not be covered by the specifications in most Forth standards. Usually, the release does specify the behavior in any case. Dwight >From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave04a at dunfield.com> > >>> I think the OP's point has been completely missed (that a valid program is a >>> inherently very definitive and detailed specification). >> >> What I was commenting on was this statement by John Hogerhuis: >> >>> I think the programming language is the most >>> succinct, clear, and unambiguous specification language imaginable. >>> Almost always each construct has one and only one interpretation. >> >> Which really depends upon the language. > >I agree with his statement - however in a public forum, one needs to add >some fire resistant padding like "programming language when properly used" >or "a valid program". C like many languages (including FORTH :-) has loopholes >where one can create program which invoke undefined behaviour, however these >constructs generally exist in the real world only at the hand of someone very >new to the language, or intentially contriving an "example". > >Generally speaking, a programming language is more succinct, clear and >unambiguous than many other forms of abstraction - the fact that it is possible >to abuse it to other ends in specific cases does not invalidate that claim. > > >> -spc (And C leaves some stuff underspecified like this to help compiler >> writers wring performance out of compiled code ... ) > >and for historical reasons. > >Regards, >Dave >-- >dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield >dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com >com Collector of vintage computing equipment: > http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html > > >

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Friday the 13th "General-ly" lucky (Nova rescue)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I have finally managed to schedule a rescue near my house, a Data General Nova 4 in a 5' blue DG rack. It's a one-owner system, bought 20+ years ago as a general purpose office computer for a machine shop north of town. Unfortunately, the owner pitched out everything except the rack and rack contents, several years ago. I haven't looked yet, but I suspect that there's stuff to be found on bitsavers. -ethan

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

At 12:42 13/05/2005 -0700, you wrote: >Point taken; my first guess was 0 0 0, but it is apparently left >ambiguous by the standards committee. I did use the term "almost >always" to hedge, but still, you're right. > >Nevertheless, for any given compiler there is only one interpretation. >So I hereby clarify my statement to say that programming languages as >implemented by actual compilers or interpreters are the most succinct, >clear and unambigious specification languages imaginable. Now I disagree with you - if you rely on a particular implementations handling of undefined behaviour, your abstraction is no longer clear or unambiguous - in fact, quite the opposite... The only correction to be made to your original statement, is that the programming language must be used correctly - an idea that I automatically assumed from the beginning, hence I originally had nothing to add to it. >To another poster's point about "overspecification," I guess that's >true. So? That's what comments and thoughtful use of identifiers is >for. ... and avoid undefined bahaviour ... >Sorry my first couple of posts on the list are to OT threads. I'll try >to do better in the future :-) [I've seen worst OT go on a lot longer :-] but yeah - this is getting to far away from where we should be - time to go down to the basement and blink some lights! Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> I think the OP's point has been completely missed (that a valid program is a >> inherently very definitive and detailed specification). > > What I was commenting on was this statement by John Hogerhuis: > >> I think the programming language is the most >> succinct, clear, and unambiguous specification language imaginable. >> Almost always each construct has one and only one interpretation. > > Which really depends upon the language. I agree with his statement - however in a public forum, one needs to add some fire resistant padding like "programming language when properly used" or "a valid program". C like many languages (including FORTH :-) has loopholes where one can create program which invoke undefined behaviour, however these constructs generally exist in the real world only at the hand of someone very new to the language, or intentially contriving an "example". Generally speaking, a programming language is more succinct, clear and unambiguous than many other forms of abstraction - the fact that it is possible to abuse it to other ends in specific cases does not invalidate that claim. > -spc (And C leaves some stuff underspecified like this to help compiler > writers wring performance out of compiled code ... ) and for historical reasons. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

"Pictures" via video capture and dot matrix printer

by mamcfadden＠cmh.edu

Robert Greenstreet asked about video capture software and then output on a dot matrix printer. I have seen this done in different ways. In 1976 during the MU engineers week we used a black and white vidicon TV scanner attached to our PDP-11/20 to scan visitors to the image analysis lab. We had the person sit in a chair, hold very still, and then scanned 3 times using a color wheel to filter the image. We then both displayed the image on a RAMTEK display and printed out the image on a continuous feed printer. We used 3 printers each with different color ribbons. Interesting image if the person moved between colors. There are Panasonic dot matrix printers that have a single ribbon that is 3 colors. I think they print a line with one color than reprint without advancing each of the other colors. I think it was slow and noisy. I've seen these used in the mall, some little kiosk. They were prints on t-shirts. I think there was a special version Printronix printer that was also sold by DEC that had multicolor ribbons that would print color. I think it had a wire thread in the ribbon that told the printer which color was being printed. Maybe DEC LXY11 or P300/P600. Mike

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>> >> So, to tie this in with the Zen Koan threads, what is the result of >> >> >> >> int i = 0; >> >> printf("%d %d %d\n",i++,i++,i++); >> >> >> > >> > IIRC it should output: >> > >> > 2 1 0 >> >> Not on my system: >> >> 0 1 2 >> > >I checked after I sent the message and my system output "2 1 0"... I am >using Watcom C 10.6 under QNX 4.25. This is three modifications to the same Lvalue within the same sequence interval - it is therefore possible for the increment operations to be performed in any order, and even deferred to just before the next sequence point, so results could be: 2 1 0 0 1 2 (or any other ordering of these numbers) 0 0 0 The only thing you can be *reasonably certain of* (see below) is that at least one of the "results" must be < 1, at least two of the results must be < 2, and all three results must be < 3 (since each operation must return the value prior to the increment, and only one increment is associated with each operation). So, although unlikely that the compiler would defer two operations and not another, it is potentially possible that the "results" could also be 0 0 1, 0 0 2, 0 1 1 etc. (in any order). Officially this type of code (that which modifies an Lvalue multiple times within the same sequence interval) invokes "undefined behaviour", which means that the compiler can do "anything" - although highly unlikely, the compiler can happily return 6 6 6 in this case, and leave the value of i at 31415 (or anything else) ... and be performing in a perfectly legal sense - undefined operation is exactly that. The function performed is not defined by the standard. On other words, it's not valid 'C' (although it is syntactically correct, and most compilers will accept it without a diagnostic). I think the OP's point has been completely missed (that a valid program is a inherently very definitive and detailed specification). Regards, Dave (In a way this is topical for me since my compiler is 17 years old this year) -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning at equallogic.com> > >>>>>> "Bryan" == Bryan Pope <bpope at wordstock.com> writes: > > Bryan> And thusly Mike Loewen spake: > >> On Fri, 13 May 2005, Bryan Pope wrote: > >> > >> >> So, to tie this in with the Zen Koan threads, what is the > >> result of > >> >> > >> >> int i = 0; >> printf("%d %d %d\n",i++,i++,i++); > >> >> > >> > > >> > IIRC it should output: > >> > > >> > 2 1 0 > >> > >> Not on my system: > >> > >> 0 1 2 > >> > > Bryan> I checked after I sent the message and my system output "2 1 > Bryan> 0"... I am using Watcom C 10.6 under QNX 4.25. > >I think the answer is that it should display 3 numbers, each in the >range 0 to 2. > >GCC produces 2 1 0 on x86 and 0 1 2 on MIPS. Hi I can't help but put another plug in here. This is why I like languages like Forth and LISP that specify explicit execution order and don't leave it to some compiler writer to arbitrarily choose. It looks like spc's test is part of a compliance test. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Free for pickup: hotrod kaypro [Austin, TX, USA]

by frustum＠pacbell.net

A couple years ago I picked up a modified kaypro II at one of the monthly the livermore, california swap meets. Here is my best description of it. Start with a Kaypro II. It has a modification to run at 5.0 MHz as well as the standard 2.5 MHz. One of the floppies has been replaced with a hard drive, partitioned as drives A/B/C/D. The remaining floppy is drive E. I have the original floppy that was displaced by the hard drive. It has been modified to have a fan. It has a RAM disk installed in it as well. It sports the Advent Turborom. The only problem with it is that partition A has some bad sectors. I when you boot or any time you do a dir operation on drive A, you get a message about a bad sector. In fact, IIRC, you get it nine times. Then you get the A0> prompt and everything else is fine. Drives B/C/D are OK. Drive A, however, is missing any kind of program (such as the stock CP/M utilities like STAT, PIP, etc) since the dir is unreadable. Drives B/C/D have a few programs and files, but nothing very interesting. In those past two years, I've replaced the screetching fan (which cost me as much as the machine did originally!), and picked up a number of kaypro manuals here and there. Don Maslin, RIP, sent me a teledisk image of a kaypro boot disk, which I was able to regenerate and indeed, I can run programs off of the floppy. What I'm missing is the time and desire to figure out how to get the A drive in a runnable state. After two years of doing not much with it, it is time for it to find a more caring owner. The machine and the original 2nd floppy and the manuals and boot disk are free to anybody who cares to come and pick them up in Austin, Texas. I have pictures of it and its innards if you want to preview it.

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it! > From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> > Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:37:19 -0700 (PDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Hi > I'd suspect that most didn't like the goto >because it becomes hard to implement in a structured >language. Things like random nesting of subroutines and >then goto's to various points can make things really >messed up. There are also the problems of allocated >memory. Do you keep it or clean it? Often reading it is the challenge. Goto within a subroutine usually reads fine. Its when there are subs within Loop/whiles get mixed with gotos. It's more about readability. Old basic was bad as often people were also cramped for space (especially interpreted basics.). > Many think of goto as being similar to jmp in assembly. It is. >Actually in a high level language, it is more complicated >than that. The language tend to lead one to think they >can use it just anywhere. In assembly, you are more >conscious ( or should be ) of thing like stack depth >and allocated space, since you explicitly handle these >things. You seem to confuse JMP/Jump/goto with Call/JMS/GOSUB as only the latter affects the stack (in asm). In assembly you often have jumps as a result of branch conditions In some cpus the logic is actully skip next instuction on condition. in basic the conditional is IF xx then Goto YYYY (some allow operations.). The computed goto is only a replacement for SWITCH or IF THEN trees and a improvement over the latter. In the end GOTO is not bad, it is random stringy pasta code that can result from misuse. Allison

21 years, 3 months

4
3
0 0

CGA monitor on eBay

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> I'm almost certain that my Domesday setup (which only does > video overlay on RGB outputs) wouldn't work with my cheap > 14" TV via the SCART connector when I tried it. It could be it needs a signal on the switch input to select RGB as opposed to composite in. I remember having to do this on an Amiga RGB to scart lead for my brother's TV. Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

"Pictures" via video capture and dot matrix printer

by gstreet＠indy.net

In 1981, down by Fisherman's wharf (SFO), a friend and I got our "picture" taken via video capture software. The image was printed out via a "commercial" quality dot matrix printer (it was capable of fairly large sized print outs). From a distance, the "picture" quality was striking. What hardware and software were used for this process? Does anything similar currently exist? Thanks, Robert Greenstreet

21 years, 3 months

6
5
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by cmurray＠eagle.ca

I absolutely concur with John's conclusion: Academia, the elites or otherwise, saw the 'horrors' of goto and declared it an evil that was to be expunged from any language. The toolbox was diminished by this action in my humble opinion. Yet for us QBasic guys we still employ it. Boy does it get one out of a jam. Mimics real life doesn't it? Computing forever! Murray On Wed, 11 May 2005, John Foust wrote: >> Speaking as that voice from the future, reading ALGOL makes >> me say "You don't want to do it that way." GOTO had not yet >> been exorcised. Did I see a computed goto, where the expression >> calculates the label? Eeek. Certainly it was a step forward, >> but we've also learned a lot since then. When people complain >> that computer languages haven't changed much, remind them >> of the stuff that's fallen out of recommended practice. I miss GOTO. It was unnecessarily expunged from the programmmer's toolbox by elitist academics.

21 years, 3 months

9
9
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by leeedavison＠yahoo.co.uk

> Ya know, I gotta disagree... and this is coming from a programmer > who made liberal use of the GOTO statement. ... > Not that I look down on programmers who use it, not in the least. > But for me, I'm fairly happy it's less common nowdays. Programming mostly in assembler I couldn't avoid GOTO, relative or absolute, if I wanted to so it's fortunate that I don't. Computed GOTOs are not only 'not a bad thing' they are a very usefull tool at this level, condensing long lists of compares to a simple calculation and table. To proscribe the use of any particular construct within a language wastes effort when that constuct could provide a solution, it's up to the programmer to use all of a language appropriately. Lee. . ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - want a free and easy way to contact your friends online? http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

21 years, 3 months

5
4
0 0

Infocom on PDP-11

by GOOI＠oce.nl

No, I can not remember those quotes either. Must have been something else, Paul. For what I remember, BEATHE looked a bit like PASCAL; all the statements ended with a semicolon (;). Admitted, memories are vague after 30 years not using BEATHE :~) but I would certainly remember something as idiot as a quote for every letter of a reserved word of the language. - Henk, PA8PDP. On Wed, 11 May 2005, Paul Koning wrote: > I only used BEATHE briefly; my recollection is that it used quotes to > mark ALGOL keywords rather than reserved words, i.e., > 'i'f i=1 't'h'e'n ... > instead of > if i=1 then ... > > which added no real value but did use up a lot more cards and > finger-power... You have GOT to be kidding. Who's the genius that came up with that scheme? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival

21 years, 3 months

6
10
0 0

Infocom on PDP-11

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11 > From: Paul Koning <pkoning at equallogic.com> > Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 19:10:08 -0400 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Cc: > woodelf> The lack of local variables makes C very dificult. > >Huh? That is really just convention. I can't see why it's relevent. >You're confusing the lack of a hardware stack with the lack of local >variables. They are not at all related. Correct. But a stack makes some forms of programming easier. >The IBM 360/370 series doesn't have a stack, and some of its >restrictions are vaguely PDP-8 like. Nevertheless, GCC supports C >(and C++) quite nicely on those machines. IBM360 like a PDP-8???? Explain please. >For that matter, Algol had local variables long before C was invented, >and as you pointed out, there's an Algol for the PDP-8. (Then again, >that's not a true compiler -- it compiles to an intermediate form that >looks very much like a subset of the Burroughs 5500 instruction set.) Using an IL was a way of making the complier easier I'd guess. Compiler deign has become more sophisticated since. >And Unix originally appeared on the PDP-7, which you can describe >quite reasonably as an 18-bit superset of the PDP-8. (That's >historically nonsense, but as a description it fits.) In many ways it's pretty close. PDP-8 and PDP-7 had more similar than different. Same for The PDP-1 and 5 that preceded both. The PDP6 and 11 were departures as was VAX. The departures were PDP-6,11 and VAX are very CISC in the vax case, to the extreme. >Did C exist >back then, or did that wait until Unix was ported to the PDP-11? I >don't know. NO, PDP-11 was the first occurance for C. After that it was ported to Honeywell6000 and the Interdata 8/32 and even the IBM System/370. The native language for unix on PDP-7 was B and it's influence was from BCPL. The introduction of PDP-11 was early in the life of the machine to Bell Labs and K&R were quick to take the bare iron and endevor to put all their previous work on the -11 to make it useful. A lot of the register, local variable and addressing conventions directly reflect the PDP-11 hardware, instruction set and native addressing modes under C. >Finally, CDC 6000s don't have a stack either, but the first Pascal >compiler ran on that machine. Implementing a stack on a non-stack >machine (or non-stack language like Fortran-II) is a nice elementary >Exercise for the Student. Be very careful what you call a stack or not. The PDP-8 (Straight 8) has no hardware stack but, it has autoindex registers that are very handy for stack implmentation. It's also not hard to store a return address elsewhere to implement subroutine recursion. Later PDP-8a and the 6120 chip versions had a real hardware stack added. The stacks were implemented using IOTs so it was possible to add them to any -8. The lack of a return stack doesn't mean there isn't a set of addressing modes to implement a software stack from all the minis and micros I've seen. Allison

21 years, 3 months

16
33
0 0

"Pictures" via video capture and dot matrix printer

by drb＠msu.edu

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Mona Lisa prints. The I/O room at MSU's Computer Center had a large image generated by scanning a photo of the painting. A scheme was worked out of which characters (multiples in some cases) were drawn in any given cell to add up to the appropriate darkness. I believe it was actually output to a plotter which took a substantial amount of time to complete the job. I would have guessed most large centers would have had such things. On a more personal note, in the 1985-86 time frame I was working for a software outfit that did real estate systems. The R&D wizard there built hardware which went into standard serial terminals (Esprit 6310's; can't recall if there was ever a version in the TeleVideo 925's) to display 4 bit images of homes. The card worked by going into the video chain of the terminal to overlay images, and into the serial chain to grab bits. It was not intelligent; simply a marble machine which recognized a specific introductory escape sequence and then clocked nibbles into its video ram. The images were taken with Sony cameras which wrote them to 2" floppies. I think the storage may have been analog video, actually. They were then digitized using a video frame grabber board in a standard PC and uploaded to the host. In addition to screen display, we did MLS books with the images integrated, etc. The output was generally done on Printronix P-300 printers, which were dot-addressable. (For those who haven't met one of these machines, they had a shuttle with 132 "pixel" hammers. The shuttle would work from left to right stopping at 8 or so positions. The hammers would print the top row of dots in the characters of the current line, then the paper would move up one "raster" line and the shuttle would run right to left doing the next row. Eventually one row of characters would be completely printed. A P-300 could print about 300 lines per minute. The shuttle and the many print hammers gave the printers a distinctive sound. In addition to the all-points-addressable mode, you could build or buy custom ROMs with special characters in them.) A few of us went into the office one weekend evening shortly after the "Live Aid" concert with a video tape of the show, and grabbed and printed a fair number of images from the performances. The 4-bit graphics made interesting work of lens stars from the stage lighting. De

21 years, 3 months

2
1
0 0

GIGI questions

by witchy＠binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Hi folks, Having repaired my GIGI power supply and found my local copy of the user and techical manuals (big TIFs, I'm assuming there are tools available to let me convert these to PDFs?) I notice that while the manuals explicitly mention the Barco GD33 and 'monochrome monitors' they also mention 'other commercial color monitors. This begs questions that I can't try since I don't have the appropriate cables here yet, but has anyone used a GIGI on the likes of the VRT19 (19" RGB sync-on-green with 75 ohm switches like the GD33), VR262 (composite mono) and indeed the retro collector's friend the Philips CM8833 composite colour? TIA! -- Adrian/Witchy Creator/Curator of Binary Dinosaurs, quite probably the UK's biggest private home computer collection. www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online museum www.aaghverts.co.uk - *the* site for letting you moan about adverts! www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - former gothic shenanigans :(

21 years, 3 months

8
18
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it! > From: "Randy McLaughlin" <cctalk at randy482.com> > Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 22:04:53 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >Goto's can be bad if they make the code hard to follow but I find that most >people write such sloppy code that it's hard to follow anyway as well as >making code more complicated trying to avoid goto's. Basic is a language that is easy to code badly. I'm one of the few that was mostly BASIC and ASM until UCSD P-system and decided to learn a "structured" language. I was eye opening the difference coding learned. After that I tried writing basic using block structure and treating goto and return like Call and JUMP with better looking results. I can see the effect it had looking at some of my really old code. I agree with an earlier post. BASIC improperly can rot your mind, it's bad drugs for programmers. Allison

21 years, 3 months

10
11
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it! > From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> > Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 13:15:11 -0500 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >At 12:56 PM 5/12/2005, Allison wrote: >>Often reading it is the challenge. Goto within a subroutine >>usually reads fine. Its when there are subs within Loop/whiles >>get mixed with gotos. > >Even BASIC has a call stack that will eventually overflow. > However, GOTO is not a CALL. GOSUB can kill the stack. Allison

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Allison" <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> > >> >>Subject: Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it! >> From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com> >> Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:37:19 -0700 (PDT) >> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org >> >>Hi >> I'd suspect that most didn't like the goto >>because it becomes hard to implement in a structured >>language. Things like random nesting of subroutines and >>then goto's to various points can make things really >>messed up. There are also the problems of allocated >>memory. Do you keep it or clean it? > >Often reading it is the challenge. Goto within a subroutine >usually reads fine. Its when there are subs within Loop/whiles >get mixed with gotos. It's more about readability. Old basic >was bad as often people were also cramped for space (especially >interpreted basics.). > >> Many think of goto as being similar to jmp in assembly. > >It is. > >>Actually in a high level language, it is more complicated >>than that. The language tend to lead one to think they >>can use it just anywhere. In assembly, you are more >>conscious ( or should be ) of thing like stack depth >>and allocated space, since you explicitly handle these >>things. > >You seem to confuse JMP/Jump/goto with Call/JMS/GOSUB as only >the latter affects the stack (in asm). Hi I have no confusion, I meant that jmp instruction does not effect the stacks, for good or bad. It is that most high level languages hide the stack actions giving the false impression that one can goto anywhere. In assembly, one keeps track of such stuff themselves so they don't get into such trouble. > >In assembly you often have jumps as a result of branch conditions >In some cpus the logic is actully skip next instuction on condition. >in basic the conditional is IF xx then Goto YYYY (some allow operations.). >The computed goto is only a replacement for SWITCH or IF THEN trees >and a improvement over the latter. else is a jmp. A computed goto is usually done from a table lookup in assembly although I've seen it done directly for interupt vectors. Dwight > >In the end GOTO is not bad, it is random stringy pasta code that can >result from misuse. > > >Allison > >

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Manuals needed - S-100 cards

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

I recently picked up some memory boards for which I have no manuals. If anyone has documentation for these and will loan the hard copy to me, I will scan the manuals to PDF files and make them available on Howard's site, and return the originals. Of course if anyone has a scanned version in any format, that works also. There are two boards: -"Thinker Toys" (Morrow) 32K Superram S-100 memory board, (c)1978. Board has 64 type 4044 or 5257 4kx1 static memory chips -"Thinker Toys" (Morrow) 16K Superam S-100 memory board, (c) 1978. Board has 32 type 2114 memory chips (are these and the 4044/5257 all interchangeable?). Board has six 8-position dip switches on it, plus an 8 position jumper. Even allowing for both bank switching and 24-bit addressing, it seems like a lot. Thanks, Barry Watzman Watzman at neo.rr.com

21 years, 3 months

3
2
0 0

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it! > From: Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> > Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:26:41 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Again, I swore off Pascal because of the UCSD system. If I'd had Turbo >Pascal to learn on then things might've turned out much different. Of >course, Turbo Pascal required a CP/M card and a license. It was easier >for teacher to just copy UCSD Pascal ;) Depends on the boxen used and it's storage limits. I had a NS* with three 89k drives and that was adaquate to avoid swapping media. In the end it was ok. Though it beat the Univac1180, greatly. The reason was I was developing code infront of a H19 terminal with an anadex 80cps printer rather than submitting card decks. My intro to Pascal in '79 was a Data Structures course with asm and BASIC as a "what I had before". >Pascal is not a bad language to develop in. But I much prefer the >succinctness of C. Pascal is OK. C on the other hand I found had some syntax odditites that still trips me. I find C is like reading weather sequence reports for the first time. I'll repeat that in that form. I fnd C rd wx sq rpts trbl. It's often cryptic to the extreme and nearly as readable as uncommented ASM. The OO versions are plainly pain. Allison

21 years, 3 months

1
0
0 0

Infocom on PDP-11

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11 > From: Eric J Korpela <korpela at gmail.com> > Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 15:50:02 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > >The C data types only have minimum sizes. Actual sizes are up to the >implementation. >The resulting C data types for a PDP-8 would be 12-bit char, 24 bit >short and int, 36 bit long. As long as limits.h contains the correct >values and the sizeof() operator correctly returns 1, 2 and 3 for the What about byte as in 6bits. Thats a valid item for PDP-8 as one intruction BSW swaps accumulator halfs. Also much of the character IO was 6bit. >Don't ask me to write the floating point library, though... Don't have to as there was a good asm one supplied with the machine. ;) Allison

21 years, 3 months

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Toshiba T100 Rampack 16

by dm561＠torfree.net

I've got a 16K Rampack for a Toshiba T100 here; anybody want it? mike dm561 at torfree dot net

21 years, 3 months

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What does PUSHJ do?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: What does PUSHJ do? > From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at Update.UU.SE> > Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:30:31 +0200 (CEST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >Not a good example. It should really be JMS FOO, and at the label FOO you >need to place a 0, which is overwritten by the return address. (What >assembler do you usually use, btw? Comments come after a slash... :-) ) Mindeye. Neumonics to octal on paper usually. My 8 doesn't have any mass store not even TTY. I plan to take some EEprom and make a RS08 or other disk equivelent. >Eh? No. The PDP-8/a don't have any stack IOT. Same set as the 8/e. The >only difference is how some illegal combinations of OPR instructions act. I've used one that did. Might have been a hack. The 6120 however does and the DEC purchase spec is clear on that too. It's still done with IOTs. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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What does PUSHJ do?

by bqt＠Update.UU.SE

On Wed, 11 May 2005 Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: > >Subject: What does PUSHJ do? (was Re: was "C on the PDP-8 ... ") > > From: spc at conman.org (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) > > Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 17:43:49 -0400 (EDT) > > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > > > >It was thus said that the Great Brad Parker once stated: > >> > >> heh. I remember puzzling at the the "pushj"'s and "popj"'s in the FOCAL > >> source code. This was before I had seen a pdp-11 or dec-10. > > > > What does PUSHJ actually do? I remember reading about it in Steven Levy's > >Hackers, but never got what was so special about it. > > > > It's a PAL macro for push and jump and there is a return and pop. Not to mention the fact that on the PDP-10 there actually was the instructions PUSHJ and POPJ, which probably was the inspiration for the macros on a PDP-8. The PDP-10 is a fun architecture. You can do subroutine calls in all the paradigms available. Stack? Sure. Return address at the start of the routine? Sure. Return address in a register? No problem. > Come from the fact that PDP-8 put the return address at the called location and the next > location is executed. > > MAIN ; do something > JMS I,FOO > ; more something > > > FOO ; return stored here > Add I,BLAH > JMP I,FOO > > In PDP-8 the I in the addressing is use the contents at the address > pointed to. Not a good example. It should really be JMS FOO, and at the label FOO you need to place a 0, which is overwritten by the return address. (What assembler do you usually use, btw? Comments come after a slash... :-) ) > Now if you want recursion > > You call a standard call and return routine (COSMAC 1802 requires this too). > > The routine gets the target address(work routine) and the return adddress > (caller) and saves the return and dispatches to the work routine. The > reverse is done to get back to the originating caller. Yup. > In the PDP-8A and 6120 there are IOTs to push/pop the ACC on the stack > and and also there are a set of push/pops for the PC register. Eh? No. The PDP-8/a don't have any stack IOT. Same set as the 8/e. The only difference is how some illegal combinations of OPR instructions act. The CPU deals with almost no IOTs itself. You then have the KK8A and DKC-8AA which handles most IOTs of the machine which are considered to be built in. > However the PDP-8 programmer is less likely to use a stack than a > flavor of computed jump or call. PDP-8 is good candidate for an > state machine coding. Of course, since there isn't any stack in hardware. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

21 years, 3 months

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3B2/MIPS/PPC/Cray Garage Sale Update

by dlinder＠uiuc.edu

The 3B2s, Motorola PPC 801, and Cray Amber terminal have been claimed. Still available: >A MIPS Magnum 4000PC.50 >(2) SCSI1 External DAT drives. >misc AT era PC cases/motherboards >borken laser printer >Epson LQ1100 dot matrix printer Once again, I don't have details, but can pass along questions, comments, or snyde remarks. Pickup in Champaign/Urbana, IL is preferred, or I can meet you at the Dayton Hamvention next week (!). The owner will also consider shipping if it's something you're interested in and you can pay a bit to cover packing, shipping, etc. Thanks, Dan

21 years, 3 months

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Anyone near Glasgow

by williams.dan＠gmail.com

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=96944&item=5192249… Looks like there could be some good stuff here. Dan

21 years, 3 months

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Infocom on PDP-11

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com> > >On Wed, 11 May 2005, John Foust wrote: > >> At 10:12 AM 5/11/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: >> >I miss GOTO. It was unnecessarily expunged from the programmmer's toolbox >> >by elitist academics. >> >> It's a tool. Why, I discussed this with a "Sam Ismail" back in 1999: > >This just goes to show how brainwashed I've become with regards to the use >of GOTO's ;) > >I'm going to stick a GOTO into some code at an inappropriate place today >just to spite the Man! > Hi It just doesn't fit nicely with things like memory allocation, scoping and pointers. It still has a place in error and exception handling. I guess one is suppose to handle such things in assembly. This is not a high level function? How can one make a system robust and not consider the need for such things? Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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TI-980B

by aek＠spies.com

> I've been half-heartedly looking for a programmers console. The 990 programmers panel is a serial peripheral to the CPU Quite different from the one on the 980.

21 years, 3 months

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TI-980B

by Tim＠rikers.org

In looking through some salvage equipment I came across a TI-980B (1974ish) in unknown condition. I don't have a use for it. Does someone else? It's in Dallas, TX. I don't yet know how much I'd have to pay for it, but I'll need to decide by tomorrow. Please contact me off list if interested. Feel free to reply to the list if you have other useful info on the system. http://rikers.org/gallery/hardware-20050511 Related Links: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ti/980/ http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ti990.html -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun!

21 years, 3 months

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Dec stuff

by KParker＠workcover.com

Can anyone help please - I'm looking for a keyboard and mouse for a DEC Station 5000/125 to complete my machine - I'm located in Australia but will gladly pay packing and shipping costs. ++++++++++ Kevin Parker Web Services Consultant WorkCover Corporation p: 08 8233 2548 m: 0418 806 166 e: kparker at workcover.com w: www.workcover.com ++++++++++ ************************************************************************ This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee only. It may contain information that is protected by legislated confidentiality and/or is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you are prohibited from disseminating, distributing or copying this e-mail. Any opinion expressed in this e-mail may not necessarily be that of the WorkCover Corporation of South Australia. Although precautions have been taken, the sender cannot warrant that this e-mail or any files transmitted with it are free of viruses or any other defect. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy the original e-mail and any copies. ************************************************************************

21 years, 3 months

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Floppy Sleeves

by birs23＠zeelandnet.nl

Seems I had some extra time on my hands for another useless thingie, this time its a collection of Floppy Sleeves. I know there is already one out there but it hasn't been maintained in ages so I thought I start it again. Check it out at http://www.oldcomputercollection.com/floppysleeves/ Cheers, Stefan. ------------------------------------------------------- http://www.oldcomputercollection.com

21 years, 3 months

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What does PUSHJ do? (was Re: was "C on the PDP-8 ... ")

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: What does PUSHJ do? (was Re: was "C on the PDP-8 ... ") > From: spc at conman.org (Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner) > Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 17:43:49 -0400 (EDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >It was thus said that the Great Brad Parker once stated: >> >> heh. I remember puzzling at the the "pushj"'s and "popj"'s in the FOCAL >> source code. This was before I had seen a pdp-11 or dec-10. > > What does PUSHJ actually do? I remember reading about it in Steven Levy's >Hackers, but never got what was so special about it. > It's a PAL macro for push and jump and there is a return and pop. Come from the fact that PDP-8 put the return address at the called location and the next location is executed. MAIN ; do something JMS I,FOO ; more something FOO ; return stored here Add I,BLAH JMP I,FOO In PDP-8 the I in the addressing is use the contents at the address pointed to. Now if you want recursion You call a standard call and return routine (COSMAC 1802 requires this too). The routine gets the target address(work routine) and the return adddress (caller) and saves the return and dispatches to the work routine. The reverse is done to get back to the originating caller. In the PDP-8A and 6120 there are IOTs to push/pop the ACC on the stack and and also there are a set of push/pops for the PC register. The general PDP-8 archetecture is very unique in that IOTs are really a handoff of the CPU core and registers to the device. So it's possible for IO hardware to get the PC save it and add a number to it and put it in the PC. The EMA is IO hardware. Oh, and they can also ouput/input from the ACC too. However the PDP-8 programmer is less likely to use a stack than a flavor of computed jump or call. PDP-8 is good candidate for an state machine coding. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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What does PUSHJ do? (was Re: was "C on the PDP-8 ... ")

by spc＠conman.org

It was thus said that the Great vrs once stated: > > > What does PUSHJ actually do? I remember reading about it in Steven Levy's > > Hackers, but never got what was so special about it. > > PUSHJ does a CALL, using a software implementation of a stack, which allows > the target subroutine to be recursive. JMS stores the return address in the > entry point, so it won't do (without help) for recursive routines. > (Similarly, POPJ is like RET.) Oh, PUSH-JUMP. -spc (Okay, that makes sense now ... )

21 years, 3 months

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Infocom on PDP-11

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11 > From: Philip Pemberton <philpem at dsl.pipex.com> > Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 22:06:15 +0100 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >In message <f4eb766f05050813432f2d277a at mail.gmail.com> > Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > >> One of the events in the timeline mentions a ZIP (Zork Implementaton >> Program - the game engine) for the DECmate. If anyone has ever seen >> an Infocom title for the DECmate, I'd love to play with it. I'd >> expect that it was for an optional 8-bit coprocessor board, not for >> the primary 12-bit 6100 processor, but I'd like to know for sure. It was for either the Z80 apu running CP/M making its a terminal/media thing rather than new version. >I'm not sure just how powerful the 6100 is, but I doubt it would be too >difficult to port one of the simpler Z-machine engines from Linux or BSD to >whatever the DECmate runs (VMS?) Decmate II/III uses 6120 (PDP-8 with EMA). There is no *nix for the PDP-8 and OS278 is common. FYI: VMS runs on VAX(32bit) and Alpha(64bit). If you can fit the game format into a 32Kword 12bit machine it's possible. Generally speaking there isn't a C compiler for PDP-8 I know of and the 4k paged addressing and very minimalist instruction set would be an interesting challenge. I've seen Fortan, Focal, Basic and even algol on an 8 but never C. There is also the VAXmate, a flavor of a 286 clone. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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Floppy Sleeves

by birs23＠mail.zeelandnet.nl

Seems I had some extra time on my hands for another useless thingie, this time its a collection of Floppy Sleeves. I know there is already one out there but it hasn't been maintained in ages so I thought I start it again. Check it out at http://www.oldcomputercollection.com/floppysleeves/ Cheers, Stefan. ------------------------------------------------------- http://www.oldcomputercollection.com

21 years, 3 months

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Moore's Law/Byte magazine

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi Anyway, it wasn't a Byte magazine. It was one of the trade magazines ( forget the name ). Dwight >From: "John Hogerhuis" <jhoger at gmail.com> > >"No Angela, I cannot throw it out!!! One day all of this crap will be >more valuable than we can possibly imagine." > >Yeah, that will work for me... > >-- John. > >On 5/11/05, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: >> Apparently, after years of giving him grief, his wife has somewhat >> relented when one of them make him rather more than ?5,000. :?) > >

21 years, 3 months

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focal stuff on bitsavers

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Jeff Russ' archives had ascii and binary versions go to ../Ascii for text versions

21 years, 3 months

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non PC 8086's

by mamcfadden＠cmh.edu

I have two x-bus machines that run CTOS/BTOS. A series of book sized modules that plug together along the bottom. Box1 CPU Box2 hard disk Box3 tape drive Box4 floppy Each box has its own external power supply. I'll see if I can take some pictures. Mike

21 years, 3 months

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Infocom on PDP-11

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11 > From: Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> > Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 22:10:08 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> >As far as sophistication goes -- a better measure than simply how >clever or nifty a thing is -- how far did it advance the state of >the art? Good Algol's in the early 1960's look like stuff robbed >from the far-flung future. A lot of the "compilers" from that era >we'd today call p-code interpreters (terminology changes) but man, >Algol60 is neat stuff. (Not the bloated monster Algol68 (I think >it was) became. Having programmed in algol on the PDP-8 back when it was a real eye opener for a new basic programmer. The PDP-8 Timeshare didn't know strings. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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MIPS, 3B2, PPC available Central Illinois

by dlinder＠uiuc.edu

<delurk> A fellow had a garage sale recently with a lot of classic hardware, and we got to talking about classic computer resources online, and I offered to post whatever he might have left-over to the list in case anyone is interested. He's got: >A MIPS Magnum 4000PC.50 >(2) AT&T 3B2/310 with many (!) boxes of documentation >Motorola PPC 801 >A Cray Amber terminal >(2) SCSI1 External DAT drives. >misc AT era PC cases/motherboards >borken laser printer >Epson LQ1100 dot matrix printer I don't know any further details about this stuff, and he's mostly looking to just get rid of it. If you have serious inquiries and really want one or more items, I can pass along questions. He'd rather see this stuff go to a nice home rather than to the recycler, but he's under some pressure to get rid of it this week. If you'd like something off the list, here's my preference list: 1. Pick up in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. If you want something and can pick it up over the Summer, I can store it at my storage place until you can stop by, before August please. Make an offer, no reasonable offer refused. He's looking for garage sale money here, nothing over $20. I'm justmiddle-manning for the sake of the community and preservation. 2. Meet me at the Dayton Hamvention. I'll drag items to the Hamvention and you take them from me Thursday night or Friday. Hey, if you want something off his list, you get a guaranteed good bargain at the Hamvention without even scrounging! 3. We could ship if you're really interested in an time. We'll fix pricing at 125% of the packing/shipping costs, which should work out about the same as shipping + what he was asking at the garage sale. Like I said, I'll be passing all the money back to him; I'm just acting as a go-between to save some nifty machines that I just don't have time to work on. Thanks, Dan

21 years, 3 months

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Infocom on PDP-11

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Infocom on PDP-11 > From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> > Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 07:49:09 -0500 > To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >At 12:10 AM 5/11/2005, Tom Jennings wrote: >>As far as sophistication goes -- a better measure than simply how >>clever or nifty a thing is -- how far did it advance the state of >>the art? Good Algol's in the early 1960's look like stuff robbed >>from the far-flung future. [...] >>Algol had it's share of horrors, but man it is the basis for >>nearly all modern languages. > >Links for the intrigued... the report: > >http://www.masswerk.at/algol60/report.htm > >and an implementation for MS-DOS and CP/M, with source examples: > >http://www.angelfire.com/biz/rhaminisys/algol60.html > >Speaking as that voice from the future, reading ALGOL makes >me say "You don't want to do it that way." GOTO had not yet >been exorcised. Did I see a computed goto, where the expression >calculates the label? Eeek. Certainly it was a step forward, >but we've also learned a lot since then. When people complain >that computer languages haven't changed much, remind them >of the stuff that's fallen out of recommended practice. > >- John Humm, Computed goto.. Sorta like Cs pointer to function. GOTOs are just another things that can be handy if not abused. There nothing worse than QB45/dos using nicely structured data and then littering it with gotos. I've found most languages that can do something useful contain cruft. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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HP 21mx on epay

by jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu

in penciltucky (aka Marietta, Pa) too far for me >from the auction description: Model 21MX E series The price is for the lot. Includes 2 ea Model 7970E digital tape units, 1600 CPI read after write; General Electric TermiNet 340 pin feed printer; 3 ea Model 7920 disk drives; 6 ea Model 7925 disk drives here's the auction in case you can't get the following to play as a link 5193795534 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5193795534&ssPageName=AD…

21 years, 3 months

5
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INS8073 interface?

by holger.veit＠ais.fraunhofer.de

Hi all, I recently found several INS8073 (aka SC/MP III, with Tiny Basic in ROM) which I want to build a complete system for. I have the datasheet for the 8070 which is the ROMless version. This gives of course hints how to add RAM. The question is how to talk to the BASIC interpreter. From the 8060 (the SC/MP II) with NIBL BASIC I know that the CPU itself uses two pins to implement a 1200Bd serial line which just needs some additional RS232 drivers to work; serial I/O is done by software in the NIBL ROM. I assume this works the same for the 8073. Unfortunately, the SC/MP III does not have these specific pins. So: how does the interface look like for the 8073? Does anyone have a specific application note for this processor? Regards & THX in advance Holger

21 years, 3 months

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ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC

by James＠jdfogg.com

> I just got a Dell Pocket PC last week and I want to > start seeking out some "classic" stuff for it. For starters, > I've done some Googling for the adventure game interpreter > ScottFree for thr PocketPC but I've come up empty. > > Does anyone have a pointer to one? Also, I'd appreciate > any links to other classic stuff for the PocketPC. Classic? PocketPC? Kinda new for "classic". I can help you out with Adventure for the Palm, and the palm is 10 years old now (or more).

21 years, 3 months

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Honeywell DPS6 rescue in Nevada

by jpl15＠panix.com

Due to the inability of more one individual to follow up on 'firm' commitments, I must now dispose of a Honeywell DPS-6 mainframe and matching 9Trk tape drive. This is "free, come and get it" - and there are loading facilities on-site to do this. It will easily fit in the bed of most full-sized pickup trucks. We just need it to go away, fast. This gear is located in the Carson City area of northern Nevada - about a 5 hour (beautiful!) drive from the Silicon Valley. It wieghs all up about 600 pounds. For the right amount of bribe-money, I'd even consider delivering it myself. OTHERWISE, this equipment will be broken up for scrap and the cabinets taken to the junk yard - it is in storage at a friend's and he needs the space the computer is currently taking. If there is no interest by this time next week, we're going to get out the torches and the chainsaws - there are no other options. Speak up, Folks! Don't make me have to kill a rare machine!!! Cheers John

21 years, 3 months

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Non PC x86s

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

In the "not-quite" category there is always the TI Professional Around 1990 there were, AFAIK, several "superservers" that were supposed to de-VAX the buisiness world, running XENIX/UNIX on multiple 3/486s Mitac? made some, and NetFrame. Same period as the CPQ SystemPro. I think they were serial-terminal console. Remember reading about it in PC magazine back-issues. I suppose we should *like* PCs-a bit- so much of the underlying contortions are ca-1985 hacks, so it's not like we're running POWER, Alpha or PA-WideWord based machines with modified Open Firmware (add touches of SRM and SGI ARCS), extensible windowing system . . . -Scott Quinn

21 years, 3 months

1
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ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "der Mouse" <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> > >> I have an Altos 586, an 8086 machine that is completely NOT a >> pee-cee. > >Hm, that might be an interesting question. What machines are there >built around x86 CPUs but which are definitely not peecees? Hi Convergent Technologies made a 8086 based machine that was not PeeCee. It had some expansion slots that were Multi-Bus but the processor board was not Multi-Bus. I wish I had save one from a company that I worked for that folded. Rats! Dwight > >I suspect there are more of them with the earlier CPUs (8086) than with >the later ('386, '486, Pentium, etc). The latest one that comes to my >mind immediately is Sun's 386i (the "Road Runner"). > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B >

21 years, 3 months

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Hitachi/Todd Engineering 4CD tower for free

by CCTalk＠catcorner.org

Last chance. If anyone wants this, shipping would be from New Jersey USA (or you pick up). It is a case with 4 Hitachi interface (proprietary, not IDE), 8-bit (PEECEE) controller card, cable and some of the driver software (I think it is a complete set). As is. You pay shipping if you want it. Next step (if no one wants it) is to gut it and install the 8" tandon floppy drive in it that I just got working with my catweasel and linux. Kelly

21 years, 3 months

1
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ebay encryption?

by wmaddox＠pacbell.net

eBay had a *major* outage last night for several hours, beginning around 7:30PM. Several of my snipes failed with strange error reports. I also noticed that these auctions had been extended for another day after eBay had come back up. For several hours, eBay was artially functional, but some categories were missing, and "My Ebay" was reporting that much information was unavailable. A status notice on eBay claimed there had been a power failure at an eBay datacenter. --Bill

21 years, 3 months

1
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Musings on drive form factors

by shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com

14" drives - full rack width, with room for some casting on either side. 8" drives - two side-by-side in a rack width. (Perfect fit, in fact.) 5.25" drives - probably completely unconstrained by rack widths. I think a recent document on bitsavers details the IBM DemiDiskette, which was something like 4" :-). Height of a FH 5.25" drive is the same as an 8" drive. 3.5" drives - ???? No idea There was a joke in BYTE in the early 80's about diskette manufacturers keeping the punched out "holes" from each size of floppy for use as future floppy sizes :-). Tim.

21 years, 3 months

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2
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RK05J vs RK05F

by wacarder＠usit.net

Is there any difference in the cartridges for an RK05F drive vs. an RK05J (or plain RK05)? I just acquired an RK05F and am getting ready to hook it up to my system along with my RK05J drives so I can test it out. I know the pack holds twice as much data as the RK05/RK05J, but is there any physical difference in the packs? I suppose I'll have to reconfigure my existing RK05J drives so that the RK05F is either drives 0/1 or 2/3 (or 4/5). Thanks, Ashley

21 years, 3 months

6
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Looking for Magazine

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Anyone have a copy of Robotic Age May 1981 I need a article from it. Thanks John

21 years, 3 months

1
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ebay encryption?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi They could be getting them form just about anywhere. It could be from a post here, a friend that has had his mail box scanned or a newsgroup post. You most likely got the same ones I did. I look at the source and if there is a new address, I forward it to spoof at ebay.com. They follow up on these when they can ( contry that really cares and has laws enforces ). From other post, I suspect they were taking advantage of ebays problems. It is a good time to send out such stuff when ebay can't imediately respond. Dwight >From: "Dan Williams" <williams.dan at gmail.com> > >On 5/10/05, Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey at amd.com> wrote: >> Hi >> I think it is someone flooding their input. There >> have been a burst of phishing emails to my hotmail >> account. When people see ebay not responding they >> may think there is a problem with their account and fall >> for the phishing email. >> Dwight >> >I have had 7 emails today, which hasn't happened before. I was >wondering where they got my email address from. But I suppose they >could be sending them out without knowing I have an ebay account. > >Dan > >

21 years, 3 months

1
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ebay encryption?

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi I think it is someone flooding their input. There have been a burst of phishing emails to my hotmail account. When people see ebay not responding they may think there is a problem with their account and fall for the phishing email. Dwight >From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning at equallogic.com> > >>>>>> "Brad" == Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> writes: > > Brad> I hate to ask an ebay question *here*, but I know some people > Brad> here use ebay. > > Brad> Two different browsers in the past 24 hours have complained > Brad> about ebay's server and being unable to match the security > Brad> protocol (I'm guessing the SSL negotiation failed to converge) > > Brad> Has anyone else seen this? Just curious. Any idea what it is? > >Weird. > >I see the message pop up but then Mozilla does display the "locked" >icon at the bottom, and clicking that produces a page that claims >AES-256 is being used. > >This is rather disturbing. How about asking Ebay? Either we're being >pharmed, or Ebay has broken its crypto setup; either way they need to >do something about it. > > paul > >

21 years, 3 months

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ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

At 12:41 10/05/2005 -0400, you wrote: >> I have an Altos 586, an 8086 machine that is completely NOT a >> pee-cee. > >Hm, that might be an interesting question. What machines are there >built around x86 CPUs but which are definitely not peecees? Nabu 1600 - Ran Xenix and later QNX. I also have CP/M-86 for it. I have photos and more info on my site. Definately not a PC (serial terminals only, different disk system, proprietary memory management unit etc.) Icon - ran Qnx. It think most of these were 186 based. I just scanned the technical manual if anyone wants it. Compupro 8086 S-100 system. NEX APC, a bit PC compatible, but I think the 8" drive make it qualify as a non-PC (and it ain't THAT compatible). DEC Rainbow - dual mode, the 8086 side would probably have been considered as a "PC compatible" before people figured out that just running a port of the same OS didn't make it so. I'm sure there are lots more ... Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 3 months

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x86 non-PeeCees.

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Roger Merchberger" <zmerch at 30below.com> ---snip--- > >CompuGraphic PowerView 5 & 10. Computerized typesetting machines; ---snip--- Hi There were a number of CAD machines as well but I just can't recall the names. Dwight

21 years, 3 months

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ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC

by david_comley＠yahoo.com

Don't forget the Wang Professional Computer. The Wang 'Classic' was 8086-based IIRC. It ran MSDOS but could not run PC software by default (because the BIOS was 'special', I believe). Dave > der Mouse wrote: > > Hm, that might be an interesting question. What > machines are there > > built around x86 CPUs but which are definitely not > peecees? __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/learn/mail

21 years, 3 months

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need info RE: Dataram DR118A core

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: need info RE: Dataram DR118A core > From: Lawrence LeMay <lemay at cs.umn.edu> > Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 10:17:10 -0500 (CDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> > >There is a plastic 16 pin DIP box on the top circuit board, in >the middle of the board near the bottom. It is socketed. If you >are careful, you cal remove the top of the box without pulling >the entire thing out of the socket. This will reveal the 4 >jumper wires you need to move in order to configure it. > >If I recall correctly, the 8 pins on the left correspond to >the 8 possible 4K memory fields, and the middle 4 pins on the >right correspond to the actual memory fields on the DR-118. > >-Larry LeMay Not enough info. The core I have has the DIP socket but nothing in it. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: ScottFree interpreter for Pocket PC > From: der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca> > Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 12:41:12 -0400 (EDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >> I have an Altos 586, an 8086 machine that is completely NOT a >> pee-cee. > >Hm, that might be an interesting question. What machines are there >built around x86 CPUs but which are definitely not peecees? There were many multibus systems that used the 8086 (or 88) even before the PC. I used one in summer of '81 with 4 NEC 8" DSDD drives for 4mb online floppy and just under 1mb ram (the top 128K had ram and rom mixed). Ran at 8mhz too. Compupro had an 8085/8088 hybrid, and later there were 286 and even 386 cpus for S100. So there were a fair number of non-PC 8086/88 and even later systems. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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BDS C

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> It should be on a short list of historically significant software. Indeed.. Leor released the sources to it a year or two ago as well.

21 years, 3 months

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need info RE: Dataram DR118A core

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Real simple one but lacking data... I have a Dataram DR-118A 16KWx12bit core for PDP-8 omnibus. what I need is the setup to configure it as the first 16k in the system. This way my PDP-8f will have 24k of operating core. The points for this on the board are P1 and TB1, I think. Allison

21 years, 3 months

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test-drb