I'm sure this is not even an original thought, but the Year 2000 presents
a special opportunity for collectors like us.
Think of all the companies who are right now weighing whether or not those
old mainframes that have been chugging away in their data centers for
years, perhaps even decades, are worth one more upgrade to support 4-digit
years or whether it would make more sense to finally take the painful
route of scrapping their old iron and moving on to PCs or AS400s or
whatnot. I predict a tremendous flood of old mainframe and mini hardware
coming to market like so many cattle which will only peak on December 31,
1999.
This is a once in a millennium opportunity! So make sure you've got
plenty of space and plenty of petty cash to throw around cuz its gonna be
easy pickins.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame me...I voted for Satan.
Coming in September...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 04/23/98]
On 1998-04-24 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:> I have: 1802, SC/MP, 6800, 6809, NEC D78PG11, 8748/9, 8751,
:>8080/8085, z80, z180, z280, z8002, z8001, 808x, 8018x, 80286,
:>80386, 80486 and the micro version of minis 6100(pdp-8),
:>6120(PDP-8+EMA) TI9900, PDP11(T-11, F11, J-11).
:Showoff :-) No 8008? I always wanted a 4004 (anyone listening out
:there, that's a hint) and an SC/MP. Anybody remember Fairchild F8's?
remember, no. heard of, yes. the Great CPU list is a wonderful thing...
:> Now something with a MIPS chip, ARM, sparc or some such would be
:>a great addition of a real RISC processor.
:Well, I've got all of those, and my favourite is the ARM. I've had
:to write MIPS assembler, and it's not great fun.
most risc processors are not fun to program in assembler. some risc
chips - notably the novix and a few other forth cpus - look like murder
to program. however, one of the design criteria of the arm was that it
was to be easy to program in assembler - and the instruction set
certainly suggests that it should be.
(not having one, we can't say "it is", but hopefully that will be
remedied before too long.)
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
There's a big difference between a NUL string and a NULL pointer.
----------
From: Pete Turnbull[SMTP:pete@dunnington.u-net.com]
Sent: Friday, April 24, 1998 5:22 AM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Re: [getting old punched cards read]
On Apr 24, 1:35, Captain Napalm wrote:
> Well, I snagged a copy of it, compiled it, found a bug, and fixed it.
> strcpy() (at least on my compiler) will crash if any of the parameters
> are NULL pointers,
That's a compiler (or library, actually) bug. You should be able to copy a
null string.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Apr 24, 15:38, Hotze wrote:
> This is very off topic, but anyway: Write a letter to the government.
Writing to *my* government isn't likely to do much good against most spam,
which tends to originate from US sites. All the UK ISPs I know of have an
anti-spam policy anyway.
> Reply to the spammers,
Not often a good idea, since the consensus seems to be that responses
merely confirm that the address they used is (still) valid.
I hadn't thought about the free email account idea, but I'm not sure I want
yet another account.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Does anyone know if Ebay is a publicly traded stock?
If so I would like to buy a few hundred shares. It
has to be one of the most enormously successful
phenomena on the net.
Bob
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
On Apr 24, 1:35, Captain Napalm wrote:
> Well, I snagged a copy of it, compiled it, found a bug, and fixed it.
> strcpy() (at least on my compiler) will crash if any of the parameters
> are NULL pointers,
That's a compiler (or library, actually) bug. You should be able to copy a
null string.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On 1998-04-23 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:The PDP-11 architecture has only 7 GP registers (since you can't
:really use the PC for just anything) but that's good for the times,
:and they really are interchangable, so I'd be willing to argue that
:it wins on that.
and having the PC as part of the general register set - even if it is a
bit limited in what you can do with it - is a huge design win; you can
lose an awful lot of PC-specific instructions that way. the SOAR used
such an idea, if memory serves.
:Similar, but in many ways quite different. I just had this
:argument (from a somewhat different point of view) on another
:mailing list. The 68K is much more like a PDP-11 than anything
:else, but it has a lot of clutter added.
what about the CP1600?
:That's my third of a tanner.
hey! some of us are post-decimalisation, you know!
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
<I hadn't thought about the free email account idea, but I'm not sure I wa
<yet another account.
I haven't figured the use for that as an email account isn't want you need
to post to a USENET newsgroup or read from a newgroup.
Allison
>> This is very off topic, but anyway: Write a letter to the government.
>
>Writing to *my* government isn't likely to do much good against most spam,
>which tends to originate from US sites. All the UK ISPs I know of have an
>anti-spam policy anyway.
You're right, but still, if the UK could pass a law to make spam illegal, it
would at least cause ripples to the US and every where else in the world.
>Not often a good idea, since the consensus seems to be that responses
>merely confirm that the address they used is (still) valid.
Four letter words. They do wonders with spammers.
>I hadn't thought about the free email account idea, but I'm not sure I want
>yet another account.
Sorry... I've only got two right now. And usually, I have one, but I had to
get one at Geocities as it's not ISP-dependant, and I'm moving to Guyana, so
during travel, I'll be suffeirng withdrawel from the Internet.
Does anyone have a 386 portable somewhere stateside that I could buy?
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
>--
>
>Pete Peter Turnbull
> Dept. of Computer Science
> University of York
Tony Duell wrote:
>I'll stick to a card reader that outputs 12 TTL signals + a strobe for
>each column. I can understand that.
OK, Tony, send me a spare card reader and I'll stop foaming at the
mouth about this. :-) Leave the file formats to me; that's been
my speciality for the last fifteen years!
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
On Commodore Monitors for C128D.
If you can find one you would want to get a Commodore 1902/a, 1084, or 2002.
They support the RGBI (80 column video) as well as the split-composite (40
column video) the 128 produces. Magnavox produced much of the 1084 line and
had a Magnavox model available (something like professional 80 column monitor,
the front panel on mine is missing so I don't have the name). Regardless If
you want to use both 40 and 80 column video, best to get one of the
multi-function monitors, else you will need an RGBI and a composite montor
(which by the way the C= 128 can display to both simultaneously as they are
different video controllers at work.)
On CP/M 3.0+.
Really nice version; can read a variety of popular CP/M disk formats using
the 1571 disk drive. If you plan to use 3.5" disks I guggest you look for a
later version the the versoion supplied with the 128D, there are no support
drivers for the 1581 (can't boot of of it etc.)
Also "GO 64" gets you only to the Commodore 64 mode. you either place your
CP/M disk in the drive before power-up or after power-up type "BOOT" in 128
mode to boot the operating system disk. (note make sure the 40/80 column key
is down on power-up to ensure the 128 starts up in 80 column mode. :)
Larry Anderson
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363
Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at:
http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Exactly. I have the KoalaPaint program, but only for the commodore.
>
>No, I need the paint program itself -- or any apple paint program.
>
>Manney
>
>>>Does anyone have the disks for the paint program that came with the
Apple
>>>Koala pad?
>
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>> <I received the same spam. And I did not know that this list was
>> <being archived (other than by interested members).
>
>> Ah foo! Everytime I think I've plugged the source for spam I find
>> something like this.
>
>> Any suggestions on how to stop it?
>
>I include a little bit of junk in my "From: " lines when I post to usenet
>from this account, and it seems to work. All the spam I get goes to an
>account I rarely use now, and it's tailing off. I didn't used to mung the
>address I use for this list, but perhaps I better start. Oh, spit, as they
>say.
This is very off topic, but anyway: Write a letter to the government. Reply
to the spammers, say that you don't care about the shit that they're sending
you, you're not reading it, and you think that they're very disreputable and
that it's a wrong way of doing business. 2) Get a free e-mail account, such
as http://www.hotmail.com , http://www.rocketmail.com or a free one that you
can get with a web site, from a business or ISP, etc. or Yahoo! or the like.
Us that for Usenet, and if you get a private message there, talk to 'em that
way.
>--
>
>Pete Peter Turnbull
> Dept. of Computer Science
> University of York
Tim D. Hotze
On Apr 24, 8:11, Allison J Parent wrote:
> <Uncle Roger wrote:
>
> <I received the same spam. And I did not know that this list was
> <being archived (other than by interested members).
> Ah foo! Everytime I think I've plugged the source for spam I find
> something like this.
> Any suggestions on how to stop it?
I include a little bit of junk in my "From: " lines when I post to usenet
>from this account, and it seems to work. All the spam I get goes to an
account I rarely use now, and it's tailing off. I didn't used to mung the
address I use for this list, but perhaps I better start. Oh, spit, as they
say.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
<Uncle Roger wrote:
<I received the same spam. And I did not know that this list was
<being archived (other than by interested members). Will the standard
<X-archive directive prevent this? (Some so-called "archive" systems
<ignore it). I get enough junkmail as it is, due to my outspokenness
Ah foo! Everytime I think I've plugged the source for spam I find
something like this. This explains where the porno sex spammers that
use @earthlink.com are getting the address from.
That bunch is annoys me as I get that garbage 5-6 times a day.
Any suggestions on how to stop it?
Allison
Ethan Dicks <erd(a)infinet.com> wrote:
>Been there, done that. There's a commercial program to convert .WAV
>files of C-64 data tapes back into usable files. It also works if
>you hook a real C-64 datassete to the parallel port.
I know these programs exist. There are some for the Spectrum and ZX-81,
too. However, I could generalize and say they were all DOS-based,
written in Pascal or assembler, don't come with source code, have
poor documentation, etc. and I want to roll my own in straight portable C.
I'd rather make it general to handle old S-100 tapes, C-64 tapes, etc.
instead of just hard-coding one flavor. It should be ready in
the year 2010.
Tony Duell wrote:
>I personally think I'll have more luck finding spares for my M200 card
>reader, my Trend UDR700 paper tape reader, etc in 20 year time than
>you'll have finding parts for a quickcam.
No, my point is that it's more useful to have generic tools to help
rescue old data. Sure, QuickCams are nearly disposable now. Cheap
$1,500 PCs include them these days. Five years from now, they'll be
embedded in cheap monitors. Ten years from now, they'll be in cereal
boxes. Unless the hobby of collecting computer junk is adopted by
Hollywood stars, I humbly suggest that it will be at least *more difficult*
for you to find spares for your original equipment than it will be
for me to find something that could deliver a bitmap by looking
at my punched card. :-)
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
At 11:56 AM 4/19/98 +0100, you wrote:
>this is odd - we got exactly the same message chez communa. we're just
>wondering which address list they used, for sam's name to be on it as
>well as ours...
Well, you're both on the ClassicCmp list, which is echoed to a web site...
And yes, there are spambots that comb web pages looking for e-mail
addresses. I know, because I have gotten Spam on my alphapager, and I
*know* I've never posted to a usenet newsgroup from my pager. 8^)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
As I was saying there was no clue to who owns Commodore *-Bit technology I
received this message from the CBM-Hackers maillist:
> Subject: Copyrights Commodore
> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 98 20:47:52 GMT
> From: rbaltiss(a)worldaccess.nl
> Reply-To: cbm-hackers(a)dot.tcm.hut.fi
> To: cbm-hackers(a)dot.tcm.hut.fi (c64-maillist)
>
> Hallo allemaal,
>
> I just got some interesting news from my friend Wim. We both are members of the
> border (???) of the Commodore GG (= User Group). As largest Commodore group
> here in Holland and due to other reasons as well, we have established close
> contacts with Tulip ie. Commodore.
> Wim got an official letter of Tulip saying that they own all the rights of all
> Commodores through out of the world with exception of the Amiga. So now we know.
>
> Next question is if we can get permission to continue the activities we employ
> like placing ROMs, sourcelistings etc. on the net. I already had an unofficial
> answer ("We don't mind as long it is not commercial") but an official one would
> be better.
>
> Groetjes, ruud
So I guess there is hope for us classic computing fans after all! :)
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363
Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at:
http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
> From: Julian Richardson <JRichardson(a)softwright.co.uk>
> Subject: Schematics sites?
> Message-ID: <c=GB%a=_%p=SSA_Softwright%l=EXCH001-980422114123Z-2323(a)exch001.softwright.co.uk>
>
> Hi all,
>
> are there any good sites out there containing collections of schematics
> for old machines? I occasionally come across sites with a few schematics
> / info for specific machines, but has anyone collected stuff together
> for several different machines into one place?
There is a growing one for Commodre 8-bit aficionados at:
http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/
This FTP site has various shematics ROM Images, etc.
Copyrights seem to be a mute issue for the 8-bits, as no one seems to really
know who holds the Copyrights on the 8-bit Commodores (Escom?, Tulip?,
Visicorp?, Gateway 2000?, the former MOS Technologies?) It is a popular
thread on comp.sys.cbm.
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363
Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at:
http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Tony Duell said:
>BTW, does anyone know the position on reverse-engineered schematics? >Who
owns the copyright on those?
Check out BOMARC SERVICES (http://w3.trib.com/~rollo/bomcat.htm)
Their catalog has 3,000 devices that they have reversed engineered and
sell the schematics for. They usually advertise in Nuts and Volts.
I remember when I was at Tengen in 91 or 92 and we were just getting
started on the Sega Genesis, we sent them one and they sent back the
schematics. It came in real handy, the only programming manual was
xeroxed, handwritten and translated from Japanese (badly).
=========================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com
Senior Software Engineer
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Museum of Personal Computing Machinery
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum
=========================================
<> Compared to maybe 6800 or 6502, the 8080 had 4 16bit registers (bc, de,
<> hl, sp). The z80 added a second set and IX/IY. But that was only one
<> aspect.
<
<Oh come on. The 16 bit registers in the Z80 were hardly general-purpose
<in the PDP11 or RISC sense. HL was almost a 16 bit accumulator.
My comment was to point out that most of the micros were not register
poor like the 6800 or 6502 only that they really didn't use them well.
<The ARM was developed as a 32 bit replacement for the 6502 according to
<one rumour (from Acorn, BTW). They didn't like any of the existing 16 or
<32 bit chips, so they designed their own...
I've looked briefly at that chip and it's real simple and straightforward.
Never had a chance to play with one.
<The one instruction per clock cycle definition is daft IMHO. It shouldn't
<matter whether you take a 64MHz clock and have 8 cycles per instruction
<or take an 8MHz clock and derrive other timing signals from it using gate
<delays or a delay line. The throughput is the same. And the critical
<paths have the same timing.
I agree mostly save for at the time that notion was in vogue the maximum
clock rate was circuit limited in NMOS and CMOS devices so fewer clocks
for a cycle equaled greater speed. Most of the RISC proponents of the
time were talking lower transistor counts, clock frequencies, lower
silicon cost and higher testability than their CISC counterparts for the
same overall system performance. The concept was really applicable to
microprocessors as no engineer at the time could even conceive of
injecting clock at 100mhz in to a micro at a time when gate propagation
delays at the silicon level were greater than 10ns. The concept was
appealing when z80s were hitting the wall at 6mhz and 8086s were fast at
10mhz. Of course as Hmos-III and sub 1micron CMOS started to show signs
of going much faster...
Allison
<FWIW, it's been my experience that on problems small enough to be tackle
<by the J-11, an 18MHz J-11 eats the VAX-11/780 for lunch.
The PDP-11 is no slouch. I've used the T-11 part for some things and
even using the pokey 7.5mhz clock some tasks are faster than most
anything contemporary to it like the z80/8mhz even though the numbers
say slower. It's that CISC with superior addressing modes that put it
out ahead.
I've found the same but it's task dependant and also the 780 is always
doing more than the J-11 due to OS. I did get a chance to try that
once and the 780 was running nothing more than the usual background
tasks and it was close but then both are about 1mips. Same was true in
1978 when the 11/70 was put up against the 11/780. The 2vup and faster
VAXen made it a no contest in favor of the VAX though. As soon as the
task exceeds 64k or the user/task load gets up there the differences
start to stretch out with the vax ahead. A faster PDP-11 will always
have that disadvantage.
Allison
Tony Duell wrote:
>The problem with solutions like the quickcam is that, if you're not
>careful, in 10 years time the new version will not work with the hardware
>or OS that you've chosen to run
Just to flog the horse, my point was that my C code will deal with
a bitmap. It doesn't care which technology produces the bitmap:
today's QuickCam, tomorrow's Java Ring, 2010's 3D scanner.
A friend of mine has a joke that goes something like "In ten years
we'll have a wrist computer with the horsepower of today's $5,000
workstation, voice recognition, holographic memory, etc. but there
will still be an obscure way to get back to the C: prompt."
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
On Apr 23, 14:31, Captain Napalm wrote:
> Subject: Re: Re[2]: Replies to various threads
> It was thus said that the Great Allison J Parent once stated:
> > Now something with a MIPS chip, ARM, sparc or some such would be a
great
> > addition of a real RISC processor.
>
> I think it's the Nintendo-64 that has a MIPS chip in it, and with the
> right peripherals, would make for one killer computer (it's basically an
SGI
> sans keyboard, harddrive and network connection).
The MIPS chip in a Nintendo is a cut-down version of the versions used in
SGI and the Nintendo is a long way from an SGI sans keyboard, harddrive,
etc. I can't remember all the differences now, but I discussed it with SGI
last year when I was looking for a fast CPU for an embedded application.
We have lots of SGIs (of different types) here, so MIPS devices were one
of the obvious things to look at. It's definitely RISC, though :-) The
eventual choice was StrongARM, though the project never got built.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I've added some new sections to the Vintage Computer Festival Web Page:
o The Recent Acquisitions Report lists the latest additions to the VCF
Archives
o You can now receive automatic notification via e-mail whenever a new VCF
announcement is made...be automatically notified when new speakers and
exhibitors are added to the event as well as when the web page is
updated
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't blame me...I voted for Satan.
Coming in September...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 04/23/98]
If you find out who buys it at this price I have another one I'm willing to
let go for $1000;)
Francois
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, April 23, 1998 2:55 PM
Subject: Osborne 1 for $1000?
>
>Anyone want to buy an Osborne 1 for $1000? Didn't think so. However, if
> Glad to have you back. (I was wondering where the heck you were.)
> Tim D. Hotze
Thanks. I had a buncha work, then both my desktop and laptop suffered
problems.
btw, did you still need those drives? I turned up a couple of ST-157's (40
MB), but I don't know of they work. Yet.
manney(a)lrbcg.com
No, I need the paint program itself -- or any apple paint program.
Manney
>>Does anyone have the disks for the paint program that came with the Apple
>>Koala pad?
In a message dated 98-04-23 19:19:31 EDT, you write:
<< At 12:53 4/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Anyone want to buy an Osborne 1 for $1000? Didn't think so. However, if
>you're interested in trying to talk this guy down to reality, I have the
>contact info.
One of the original demo/proto Oz Ones with a metal case (of which Gale
Rhoades once said there were about a dozen) went for $1000 -- IIRC -- on
Onsale a couple of years ago. Not an ordinary one, no, but we have to be
sure what the dude's got.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
>>
well, let's get the guy's email address. i'm willing to antagonize him about
the overhyped price, anyone else? >8->
david
Anyone have any info on a NEC PC-6001A? It has what looks like a
cartdrige or expansion port on the side and 2 joystick ports on the
other side. Along the rear are printer, tape, audio out, rf out,
video out and a volume control. Looks like it has a place for an
optional RS-232 port but this one doesn't have it.
Any info on this machine would be welcome; cpu, os, etc. Also, if
someone knows the pin outs for the printer and tape ports, that would
be helpful too.
Thanks.
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
<> The PDP-11 architecture has only 7 GP registers (since you can't really
<> the PC for just anything) but that's good for the times, and they reall
<> are interchangable, so I'd be willing to argue that it wins on that.
<
<I'm glad somebody agrees with me on that! IMHO the concept of a GP
<register is a RISC sort of thing. And, Allison, if you think RISC
<should be register-rich, I claim the PDP11 was for its date, and
<certainly was compared to micros of the 1970s.
Compared to maybe 6800 or 6502, the 8080 had 4 16bit registers (bc, de,
hl, sp). The z80 added a second set and IX/IY. But that was only one
aspect.
On the instructions RISC systems of the time and even later didn't have
the addressing modes and often had a distinct register load and store
instruction. The best example of that difference was an ADD (R1),@(r2)+.
Now compare that to the DG Nova and it is of a stark difference.
Of all the micros in my collection, none are RISC save for the PDP-8 and
6502 which in my mind come close.
I have: 1802, SC/MP, 6800, 6809, NEC D78PG11, 8748/9, 8751, 8080/8085,
z80, z180, z280, z8002, z8001, 808x, 8018x, 80286, 80386, 80486 and the
micro version of minis 6100(pdp-8), 6120(PDP-8+EMA) TI9900, PDP11(T-11,
F11, J-11).
Now something with a MIPS chip, ARM, sparc or some such would be a great
addition of a real RISC processor.
<I don't like the "one instruction per cycle" definition of RISC - for a s
<what is a cycle? I prefer to think of RISC as an "every cycle is sacred"
<philosophy - you don't waste cycles. I'd try to get _memory cycles_ as o
<as the hardware permits them - on the 6502, for example, one per cycle (a
<almost manages it!), on 8080/Z80/PDP one every two or three cycles - but
<wouldn't make them all instruction fetches!
Again the -11 fails on that definition. Typical instruction are several
clocks per cycle and several cycles per instruction. Now the Z280
approaches that at the bus level as it has a internal cache and pipline
but, the instruction set is non-risc.
<Except the early ones. Allison, are you sure it was the 11/05? I claim
<it was the 11/15 (I have an 05). However I will concede that 05 may
<have at one time been a name for an 11/20 variant.
It may have been the 15.
I'm not saying RISC is bad only that the PDP-11 is not RISC.
Allison
OK, Now I can make myself an rsx11m.sys, VMR is, BOOt it, but when I say
SAV, it runs for awhile, types "CAN'T FIND HOME BLOCK", and halts.
It also complains about having to reduce partitions to the soze of the
common area (?), and the TT: driver is bigger than 4K.
What've I done? I just switched DY and DL in the sysvmr.cmd file,
and removed DU (The driver is corrupted...)
-------
[PDP11 risc or cisc]
Pete Turnbull:
> I know that was directed at Allison, but I'd say that key features of RISC
> architectures include large numbers of general registers,
> one-instruction-per-cycle, and hardware decode rather than microcode, not
> just the obvious minimised instruction set.
>
> The PDP-11 architecture has only 7 GP registers (since you can't really use
> the PC for just anything) but that's good for the times, and they really
> are interchangable, so I'd be willing to argue that it wins on that.
I'm glad somebody agrees with me on that! IMHO the concept of a GP
register is a RISC sort of thing. And, Allison, if you think RISC
should be register-rich, I claim the PDP11 was for its date, and
certainly was compared to micros of the 1970s.
> It loses on the one-instruction-per-cycle, though. Instructions take vastly
> different amounts of time to execute, depending on what they are, and
> they're all several cycles long. Just think about the FP instructions, or
Yeeeeesss...
I don't like the "one instruction per cycle" definition of RISC - for a start,
what is a cycle? I prefer to think of RISC as an "every cycle is sacred"
philosophy - you don't waste cycles. I'd try to get _memory cycles_ as often
as the hardware permits them - on the 6502, for example, one per cycle (and it
almost manages it!), on 8080/Z80/PDP one every two or three cycles - but I
wouldn't make them all instruction fetches!
> the Commercial Instruction Set. That's not the most CISC thing you've ever
> seen? :-) At a more mundane level, the additions of instructions like ASH
Despite having a 11/44, I have never seen a Commercial instruction Set :-)
> is pretty CISC -- in fact the whole idea of extending the instruction set by
> altering or adding to microcode is the essence of CISC, and the antithesis
> of a Reduced Instruction Set Computer.
Agreed. Later PDPs were more CISC, and this reached its maximum in the
Vax. But the basic architecture is IMHO a risc one - very simple and
very powerful.
> And of course it loses on the microcode vs hardware decode.
Except the early ones. Allison, are you sure it was the 11/05? I claim
it was the 11/15 (I have an 05). However I will concede that 05 may
have at one time been a name for an 11/20 variant.
> Similar, but in many ways quite different. I just had this argument (from
> a somewhat different point of view) on another mailing list. The 68K is
> much more like a PDP-11 than anything else, but it has a lot of clutter
> added.
Fair enough.
> That's my third of a tanner.
:-)
Philip.
PS I shall try and refrain from further comment on this issue - I don't
want to be the one who started a RISC versus CISC flame war!
<The PDP-11 architecture has only 7 GP registers (since you can't really u
<the PC for just anything) but that's good for the times, and they really
Really, you can do things to the PC that most micros don't even have
instructions for. there are four addressing modes of not for the PC
immediate, absolute, relative and relative defered which when applied
to a any other register are autoincrement, autoincrement defered,
indexed and indexed defered. That distinction is quite powerful and
only some of that is available in many micros and generally distinct
instructions. Most micros have a data follows instruction (immediate)
and an address follows instruction (absolute) but the other two are
far less commonly implemented.
The biggest non-risc is the addressing modes some are impossible for most
risc machines. The two operand addresses uncommon to RISC and most
micros. Add to it the defered mode (register contains the address of
a word in ram that contains the address of an operand). That impacts
compiler complexity and code density.
<And of course it loses on the microcode vs hardware decode.
Oops. The chip versions are microcoded as was the 11/60 but I believe
the 11/05 and 11/20 were hardware decode.
Allison
><>fits in the primary cache of an Alpha. If possible, you'd be using the
><Alpha
><>essentially as a programmable microengine and programming it to be
><PDP-11.
><>The reason to fit it in the primary cache is because of how the Alpha
><boots;
>
>Huh? a PDP11 emulator for alpha would be written as PAL to get the best
>results. Caching it is pointless as it's still a 16bit machine and
>would still flog itself to death trying to manage a data file greater
>than fits in ram (4mb max on PDP11 and some of that would be code!).
You misunderstand. I'm not talking about caching any PDP-11 code or data,
just the Alpha code which executes the emulator. Any memory fetch which
fetches Alpha code is overhead; a real PDP-11 wouldn't have to make that
memory fetch. If you can build a PDP-11 emulator small enough to fit in the
primary cache, all of your memory fetches can be payload.
It wouldn't really be PAL code because it would be executing in the chip's
boot environment; loaded from SROM into primary cache and staying there.
It owuld have a lot of the characteristics of PALcode; the extra registers
which Palcode depends upon would be visible, the MMU would be off, etc., but
it wouldn't really be PALcode because it wouldn't be called by a PAL trap.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
> Competing against the mostly 16bit 8088/6 and the 286 the PDP11 was out
> front. To match a 16bit cpu against a 32bitter... you must be inhaling!
FWIW, it's been my experience that on problems small enough to be tackled
by the J-11, an 18MHz J-11 eats the VAX-11/780 for lunch.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Can anyone here help them out? Please respond to them and not me.
Thanks.
-----
Date sent: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:37:31 -0400
From: Liz Huntley <lizh(a)cannet.com>
Subject: Laser, Pal286
A question if don't you mind?
I'm tinkering with a Laser, Pal286. A customer of mine uses it, it had
a HDD Controller Failure. It actually works pretty well when it's
working. I don't suppose you know where I could get a working
motherboard for it... which I'm guessing that it needs.
I appreciate any info.
Thanks, Liz Huntley
| o_ | \ _ _ o _ ._ _ Liz Huntley
|_|/_ |_/(/__> |(_|| |_> lizh(a)cannet.com
_| Canton, Ohio
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
On Apr 23, 13:14, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote:
> First, thanks to Pete, Allison and others for explaining the PDP11-23
> stuff. I stand corrected, I suppose.
I just like to show off :-)
> A long running discussion. Allison, I don't understand how you can say
> that the PDP11, with its very simple instruction set, is _more_ CISC
> than (say) the 80286, with which you compare it here. To my mind the
> only really CISC feature of the PDP11 is the MARK instruction. I fear
> we may be talking at cross purposes, and may mean different things by
> RISC and CISC - could you give some specific examples, please?
I know that was directed at Allison, but I'd say that key features of RISC
architectures include large numbers of general registers,
one-instruction-per-cycle, and hardware decode rather than microcode, not
just the obvious minimised instruction set.
The PDP-11 architecture has only 7 GP registers (since you can't really use
the PC for just anything) but that's good for the times, and they really
are interchangable, so I'd be willing to argue that it wins on that.
It loses on the one-instruction-per-cycle, though. Instructions take
vastly different amounts of time to execute, depending on what they are,
and they're all several cycles long. Just think about the FP instructions,
or the Commercial Instruction Set. That's not the most CISC thing you've
ever seen? :-) At a more mundane level, the additions of instructions
like ASH is pretty CISC -- in fact the whole idea of extending the
instruction set by altering or adding to microcode is the essence of CISC,
and the antithesis of a Reduced Instruction Set Computer.
And of course it loses on the microcode vs hardware decode.
> For those who think a souped up PDP11 could be a pentium killer, bear in
> mind that there was a 32 bit PDP11. I don't mean the VAX, and I don't
> mean the PDP11-68: I mean the Motorola 68000. AFAICT the two
> architectures are very, very similar. Is it a Pentium killer? The
> 68070 might have been but it's rather faded away now...
Similar, but in many ways quite different. I just had this argument (from
a somewhat different point of view) on another mailing list. The 68K is
much more like a PDP-11 than anything else, but it has a lot of clutter
added.
That's my third of a tanner.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
<Allison Parent wrote:
<
<> Competing against the mostly 16bit 8088/6 and the 286 the PDP11 was out
<> front. To match a 16bit cpu against a 32bitter... you must be inhaling
<
<A long running discussion. Allison, I don't understand how you can say
<that the PDP11, with its very simple instruction set, is _more_ CISC
<than (say) the 80286, with which you compare it here. To my mind the
<only really CISC feature of the PDP11 is the MARK instruction. I fear
<we may be talking at cross purposes, and may mean different things by
<RISC and CISC - could you give some specific examples, please?
The CISC features are in the use of general registers (no specific
accumulator) and a huge assortment of addressing modes in many cases
featuring two operand addresses. Most micros are either single address,
primary accumulator and loaded with specific registers. Think of one
micro that would permit PC relative addressing and stack relative. I
happen to know two but they are not common.
Compared to most RISC machines the PDP-11 is very CISC. Also at the
time of the PDP-11 RISC had a specific definition that the -11 clearly
didn't come close to. The definition of the era was all instruction
would execute in 1 to to clocks, register rich and very simple
instructions fast instructions compared to complex many clocks to execute
instructions. The idea of auto index deferred (*x++) is not a RISC concept
as it's far to complex to execute in one or two clocks(minimum of two to
three memory reads and one write).
Opinion: PDP-11 of all 16bit machines of wide spread use was the best
suited for C programming or FORTH due to it's stack archecture and
addressing modes. The only 16 bit machines that can beat it for code
density are a few of the byte instruction oriented machines using far
larger and more complex compilers.
<For those who think a souped up PDP11 could be a pentium killer, bear in
<mind that there was a 32 bit PDP11. I don't mean the VAX, and I don't
<mean the PDP11-68: I mean the Motorola 68000. AFAICT the two
<architectures are very, very similar. Is it a Pentium killer? The
<68070 might have been but it's rather faded away now...
Sorry, the moto is similar in that it borrows some concepts. It lacks
the general resgister archecture, misses the idea of orthoginality and
is a primary accumulator machine. It's at best PDP-11 on bad acid. It
could be a pentium killer as the 680xx was a 32bit machine from day 0.
The VAX is the closest machine to the PDP-11 in general archecture and
instruction set of the lot. I has has compete for years against the X86
machines for a number of years not by surperfast clock numbers but the
ability to manage memory and large numbers of users. The VAX 7000m7xx
series with the NVAX-5(circa 1994) chip was already killing anything
Intel would produce for a few years. People are not junking 7000series
machines over Pentium yet!
A far closer machine is the NS16032, still 32bits but borrows more on
PDP-11 and VAX then moto did.
Even the z8000 was more like PDP-11 than MOTO! It did keep the registers
more or less general, had most of the addressing modes and most all were
applicable to the general registers.
In the intel race there can be lots of competitors as some of the "big
box" systems have far better IO and DISK systems than are married to
most pentium class machines. In the end if you munging gigabyte data
bases raw cpu speed is only a partial solution if your waiting for the
disk!
Allison
On Apr 23, 5:52, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:
> Subject: More RSX weirdness...
> Last night I stared at the halted 83 for a while.
> RSX-11M V4.1 BL35C 256.K MAPPED
> SAV -- Cannot find home block
>
> Then it smacked me like a ton of bricks: The high 4K of a PDP-11 is I/O space!
> I had 252K or RAM! So, I rebuilt RSX11M.SYS that way. It worked.
> I was able to hardware-boot the RL02.
> So, I reinstalled my RQDX3, loaded RT-11, said COPY DL0:/device RSX11M.DSK/file
> to make an image, Kermitted it to the PC (2:30 transfer time!) and loaded it
> into the emulator. Now, with the Supnik emulator set for 2M or RAM (Just like
> the 83...), I'm staring at the same screen, while booting. SAV can't find
> the home block. Same thing for E-11. But everything works just fine from
> the hardware.
Well, I'm at a loss as far as the emulators are concerned. I've used them
precisely once, and that was only with RT-11. I'm glad you got the rest working,
though, and I hope my imperfect memories helped rather than confused.
> Oh, and it says most of the TTs and the DU don't exist while
> booting. Which makes sense, they don't...
That might mean you can't use them at all. For some devices, if RSX can't find
the hardware during the boot, it disables the driver. There may be some clever
way to persuade it to re-enable them if you need to, but I don't know. So I
hope you mean that those devices really aren't physically present!
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I haven't got time to type loads of messages. These are in a roughly
random order.
First, thanks to Pete, Allison and others for explaining the PDP11-23
stuff. I stand corrected, I suppose.
Tony Duell wrote:
> BTW, does anyone know the position on reverse-engineered schematics? Who
> owns the copyright on those? The original company, the person/company
> who drew them out, what? Or are they just plain illegal (I doubt the
> latter, as I've seen them advertised as such for devices where original
> manufacturer's manuals are not available).
AFAIK, you both do. You own the copyright in the diagram you've drawn
out, and the original designer/manufacturer owns the copyright in the
circuit it represents. So if I want to copy it I need permission both
>from you and from the designer. (It's like if I want to photocopy a
book I need permission from both the author and the publisher.)
Allison Parent wrote:
> Competing against the mostly 16bit 8088/6 and the 286 the PDP11 was out
> front. To match a 16bit cpu against a 32bitter... you must be inhaling!
A long running discussion. Allison, I don't understand how you can say
that the PDP11, with its very simple instruction set, is _more_ CISC
than (say) the 80286, with which you compare it here. To my mind the
only really CISC feature of the PDP11 is the MARK instruction. I fear
we may be talking at cross purposes, and may mean different things by
RISC and CISC - could you give some specific examples, please?
For those who think a souped up PDP11 could be a pentium killer, bear in
mind that there was a 32 bit PDP11. I don't mean the VAX, and I don't
mean the PDP11-68: I mean the Motorola 68000. AFAICT the two
architectures are very, very similar. Is it a Pentium killer? The
68070 might have been but it's rather faded away now...
Just my half groat's worth again!
(Yes, Tony, half a groat == tuppence == two pence == two pennies = (in
some sense) $0.02, which seems to be the value most people set on their
opinions here. About right in most cases (no offence intended))
Philip.
On Apr 22, 19:50, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:
> Subject: Another RSX good one,,,
> OK, Now I can make myself an rsx11m.sys, VMR is, BOOt it, but when I
say
> SAV, it runs for awhile, types "CAN'T FIND HOME BLOCK", and halts.
Hmmmm... What are you trying to SAV this onto? The message means just
what it says. Sounds like you have an unformatted disk, or a disk error,
which might be due to corruption, or a hardware fault, or the disk isn't
online and writable, or you mistyped the disk specifier. What was the
prompt you got just before you typed SAV?
> It also complains about having to reduce partitions to the soze of the
> common area (?),
"VMR -- Partition reduced to executive common size", yes? This is just
for information. It's telling you that VMR has just installed an
executive common block in the appropriate partition, and eliminated some
unused space at the top of the partition. Executive is RSX-speak for
what unix buffs call the kernel, and what some other OSs refer to as the
monitor. A common block is a shared area, ie one that's not duplicated
for multiple instantiations of <whatever>.
> and the TT: driver is bigger than 4K.
That's just informative, not normally a problem. The RSX TT: driver is
quite big if it has many options enabled, and this is a common message.
> What've I done? I just switched DY and DL in the sysvmr.cmd file,
> and removed DU (The driver is corrupted...)
> -------
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Last night I stared at the halted 83 for a while.
RSX-11M V4.1 BL35C 256.K MAPPED
SAV -- Cannot find home block
Then it smacked me like a ton of bricks: The high 4K of a PDP-11 is I/O space!
I had 252K or RAM! So, I rebuilt RSX11M.SYS that way. It worked.
I was able to hardware-boot the RL02.
So, I reinstalled my RQDX3, loaded RT-11, said COPY DL0:/device RSX11M.DSK/file
to make an image, Kermitted it to the PC (2:30 transfer time!) and loaded it
into the emulator. Now, with the Supnik emulator set for 2M or RAM (Just like
the 83...), I'm staring at the same screen, while booting. SAV can't find
the home block. Same thing for E-11. But everything works just fine from
the hardware. Oh, and it says most of the TTs and the DU don't exist while
booting. Which makes sense, they don't...
-------
I received this email, if any one in Australia is interested contact
the party below, not me.
--------------------
Date sent: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 14:59:51 +1000
From: Alex Roche <alexr(a)amfac.com.au>
Organization: Amfac Pty Ltd
Subject: Honeywell Bull
Hi,
I have a Honeywell Bull X-Superstream.
Know any one in Sydney Australia (where I am) or elsewhere who wants
to buy one for a song?
Alex Roche
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
<> used to'. Now, admittedly you don't generally see the schematics of a
<> microprocesor (although I have understood minis to gate level), but
<> there's nothing magic about a CPU.
I have and they are really strange as many use dynamic storage cells
for registers and the like.
I did my EE training in the early 70s and computer meant the DEC-10,
PDP-8 or the S370s behind glass. I was doing mostly analog stuff in
the labs till I started squawking. They had be blinking neon lights
and to pay tuition I was designing 4cx250 pushpull amps at 460mhz and
my own UHF frequency counter. Before I'd left that I was doing 8008
designs and they were talking sequential logic.
To this day my favorite two programming languages are solder and
assembler.
Allison
At 05:56 PM 4/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
>I think I have other text convertors stashed that change a text file into
"jive",
>"valley girl" and yet another I can't think of right now for some reason.
It might
There is also chef-erizer (or something like that) that converts text into
"swedish" a la the Swedish Chef from the Muppets.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
Okay, I'm way behind, but...
At 01:46 PM 4/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
>As it is the plant that cranked out most of the red
>army's tubes is still in use as a commercial tube plant, named SovTek.
They do
>make a hell of a tube but I don't think it's of much use for a PC.
Yes, SovTek still makes a lot of tubes, and they're available here in teh
US if you really want to build yourself a Tube-based computer. However,
most people are using them music amplifiers these days.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
I picked up a C-128D this morning and need a monitor for it. As this is
my first Commodore, I have a couple of questions. Is the RGBI port on
the rear panel the same as RGB as in IMB CGA? Where might I find a CBM
1902 monitor? Were there any 1902 compatible monitors produced by
anyine else?
I only picked this one up because I wanted a machine that would rum
CP/M. It came with CP/M 3.0 boot disks and manuals.
Thanks'
James
I was wondering if anyone knew the particulars about the PS/2 SCSI
external connector on the model 80 server I have. It appears to be a
miniature high density 60 pin connector, This is totally different than
the standard SCSI 2 or 3 connections that I've seen. Is there an adapter
available to be able to hook it to a standard SCSI I, II or III
cable/connector? I want to be able to use my CDROM towers with it if
possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Russ Blakeman
RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144
Phone: (502) 756-1749 Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991
Email: rhblake(a)bbtel.com or rhblake(a)bigfoot.com
Website: http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/
ICQ UIN #1714857
AOL Instant Messenger "RHBLAKEMAN"
* Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On Apr 23, 0:57, Tony Duell wrote:
> Indeed. What's worrying is how few people spotted it :-)
>
> When I started in computing all those years ago, I was told 'Don't worry
> about the CPU. It's just a pile of gates and flip-flops like the one's you're
> used to'. Now, admittedly you don't generally see the schematics of a
> microprocesor (although I have understood minis to gate level), but
> there's nothing magic about a CPU.
Agreed. We don't have much on the innards of CPUs at gate level but there's a
1st year course on basic architectures (lots of PDP-11 and -10, IBM, and M68K
stuff), a 2nd year course that teaches about bigger building blocks (pipelines,
ALUs, register banks, cache, etc), and third year stuff on different
architectures (mostly parallel architectures). Everybody has to do the basic
electronic logic course which runs all year in 1st year.
> I hate to say this, but you can't learn this in a couple of practicals.
> Just as you can't learn programming that way. You have to _play_ - build
> circuits, write programs - and keep on at it..
True, but a lot of people just aren't interested. Nevertheless, our first year
course starts with basic gates and has something like 18 or 20 practical
exercises, from investigating glitches in a SPICE model of a NAND gate, to a
traffic light sequencer, a model RAM, a digital die using a PAL, and a few
other things I've forgotten. And everybody has to do it, not just the hardware
buffs.
One of the most popular courses is the 2nd-year follow-up, in which students
are given a problem to solve involving breadboarding a small Z80 system
(CPU/ROM/RAM/LCD/glue + whatever analogue stuff is required). The problem is
different every year, and there's no formal tuition. You can ask the lecturer
or demonstrators any questions you like, and you'll get the answers, but you
have to learn yourself. You don't get taught (in the conventional way).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Well, folks, it looks like I lied in my recent post about not having
a PDP-11.
Actually, I _do_ have one. I simply forgot that I had, stashed
away, an 11/23 CPU and some boards ("common as houseflies" was the
term Allison used? :> ) Since it was not in a rack, and since
the pieces have never been assembled, and since I have no disks for
it, I pretty much forgot about it, and I've never had it working.
But it appears I have a fairly nice, complete system, board-wise.
Here's what I have:
-----
Chassis: DBA11-N
Cards:
1. M8186 (KDF11-AA) 11/23 CPU with KTF11-AA (MMU), sockets for FP11
2. M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) 16-Kword RAM, 2 async EIA SLU, w/ 2 24-pin ROMs
3. M8047-CA (MXV11-AC) 16-Kword RAM, 2 async EIA SLU, sockets for ROMs
4. M8044-DB (MSV11-DD) 32-Kword 16-bit MOS RAM
5. M8044-DC (MSV11-DD) 32-Kword 16-bit MOS RAM
6. M7269 (RKV11) RK05 controller
7. Data Systems Design 818836-01 REV B -- RX01, RX02, or RX50 controller??
(25-pin ribbon-cable connector)
-----
So, in order to get this whole thing working again, I have a
WHOLE SLEW of questions to ask folks, in no particular order.
Here goes.
1) The M8047-CA boards need to be wire-wrapped to assign their
address vectors -- they're combination MOS RAM and Async EIA,
and I have no docs for them. Can anyone guide me to some info,
or tell me how to jumper one of them to be console serial
port, and the other to be next in line on the bus?
The wire-wrap pins have absolutely no markings on them, not
even any single-letter or number labels, so this one could
require ASCII-art to describe :)
2) Same as above, but for the M8044-DB boards. I could put one
of these in with the M8047's to get a full 64Kword of RAM, yes?
Does anyone know what the DIP-switch settings for these boards
are?
3) I'd love to have the RK05 controller in there, in the hopes
that someday I'll have an RK05 to play with. Just like the
above... How do I jumper it, and where (physically) in the
Bus should I put it?
4) Actually, that raises a good question. All of these boards
are single-height (1/2 the width of the Q-bus backplane).
I know there is some special physical layout the boards should
use when they populate the backplane, but what is it?
My best (probably wrong) guess right now is:
CPU in row 1, slot 1 (is that left or right?),
M8047's in row 2, slots 1 and 2,
M8044 in row 3, slot 1,
M7269 in row 4, slot 1, DSD controller in row 4, slot 2.
Does that make any sense? Should the CPU only live in the
first row, not RAM? I seem to remember something like this
from the darkest depths of my mind, but I don't remember
for sure.
5) OK, simple question, one I've wondered about but never bothered
getting answered because I felt like a complete idiot moron
asking it: Does the QBUS need to be terminated by a special
card in any way, in order to work?
6) What's the pin-out on the M8047 EIA ports? They're 9-pin Berg
connectors, and I need to build a cable for them to connect
either to 9-pin or 25-pin PC-style serial in order to set up
any kind of console terminal.
7) Anyone know what the Data Systems Design board is? It has
"RX" stensiled onto the board near the jumper block, among
other things like "BOOT", so I assume it's some sort of RX01
or RX50 controller or some such.
WHEW, that's _too_ many questions. Anyone who can tackle one of them
gets my respect, and you may award yourself one cookie.
I'd like to piece this system together and get it working to the
point where I can play with it and at least fiddle with the monitor
again, playing with Octal. And I'd dearly love to put it in a
proper DEC desk-side rack with an RK05, but that comes later...
Thanks much,
-Seth
<From: Captain Napalm <spc(a)armigeron.com>
< I think the PDP-11 has only three things in common with the Alpha:
<
< D E C
ROTFL-TB!!!
Sorta like my earlier answer about x86 VS PDP-11...
< If the PDP-11 is anything like the VAX in terms of instruction space, i
<might be possible. The only hitch is unaligned reads/writes to memory (I
Similar to vax. PDP11 is a word machine and instruction words must fall
on even addresses.
< I don't think so. The current trend in CPU design in away from comple
<instruction sets (which is something the VAX is) and more towards simplif
PDP-11 was a very CISC machine.
< Check bask issues of Byte (pre '88 - your local library or university
<library might have them). Full schematics for a slew of computers (mostl
<from Steve Ciarcia) and in the Sep/Oct '85 issues the schematic for a CPU
<Ah, if only I had the time and equipment ...
EGO, I have those issues. simple but not a good design as the sequencer
is really complex and microcoded would have been far far simpler and
easier to debug. Otherwise it tried to copy the two address scheme
PDP11 used but it's not orthogonal.
Allison
Yes it is in octal. If you noticed the keypad has numbers from 0 to 7 so the
whole system works in base 8.
The R key is a hardwired reset.
and the A, B, and C keys are not used by the KEX program.
By the way this kit was also called the Mini Micro Designer (MMD-1) and was
distributed by Circuit Design, inc. for $125 in kit form.
Francois
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, April 16, 1998 6:17 PM
Subject: Re: 8080 Trainer - more info
>>
>> This Trainer was called the Dyna-Micro
>> Here is the Memory allocation:
>
>Thanks for this info (and thanks to Glenn for posting the ROM listing).
>It looks like I'll be able to get it working...
>
>> Hi Lo
>> 000 000 \
>> > Key Prom
>> 000 377 /
>> 001 000 \
>> > Optional ROM
>> 002 377 /
>
>I now have to work out which socket is which. Shouldn't take long - I
>recognise all the chips, have data one them, and it's quite simple. Don't
>spoil it for me by posting the answer just yet ;-)
>
>> 002 000 \
>> > Optional R/W Memory
>> 003 377 /
>
>002 377 ? I think. I assume you're using an octal representation of each
>byte of the address here - something 8080 people often did. I think I
>have the option RAM on my machine. At least, there are no spare sockets
>in that area (4 RAM chips fitted).
>
>> 003 000 \
>> > R/W Memory
>> 003 377 /
>> 004 000 \
>> > Available for user expansion
>> 377 377 /
>>
>> Will post more later
>> Does anyone knows where I can find a 1702 programmed with KEX?
>
>Well, if I get my machine working, I'll probably have to program a 1702
>on the old Intellec. In which case I'd be able to make a few for other
>people if they send me blanks.
>
>But it might just be easier to put it into a 2716 or 2764 and make up a
>kludge board (or if you're building a machine from scratch, just design
>the board to take one).
>
>> Francois
>
>-tony
>
<But, since Alphas must share SOMETHING in common with the PDP-11,
<wouldn't it be possible to write a normal program for the Alpha,
<running under NT or Linux, that would give PDP emulation at P-II-like
Not even close. Alpha isn't even like vax. PDP-11 and VAX were lighly
CISC machines where the alpha is vary RISC like. I'm sure PAL code
in the alpha could emulate PDP11 instructions and it would be very fast
but it would still be 16bit and to munge a large array the system would
have to map it into the 4mb max using MMU emulation.
<Now, making a VAX that would do that is a bit more interesting, though
<probably already done. VAX is much more useful these days than PDP-11.
Emulating PDP-11 on a 11/780 vax was a compatability bit and ran it
directly. For later vaxen RTEM ran PDP-11 programs on vax and generally
faster than the PDP11 (assuming the vax was faster itself).
<More on this subject: I have long thought that some computers that
<are now mostly PD, like the C-64, should be rebuilt in kit form and
<sold to kids for $20 each. Now THAT would be nice. Oh, and make them
<make their own kernel, and hold a contest for the best one. The
Get real, few if any are PD. The design is copyrighted or at least
the vendor specific portions(PROMS, PALS, custom LSI) are.
<>fits in the primary cache of an Alpha. If possible, you'd be using the
<Alpha
<>essentially as a programmable microengine and programming it to be
<PDP-11.
<>The reason to fit it in the primary cache is because of how the Alpha
<boots;
Huh? a PDP11 emulator for alpha would be written as PAL to get the best
results. Caching it is pointless as it's still a 16bit machine and
would still flog itself to death trying to manage a data file greater
than fits in ram (4mb max on PDP11 and some of that would be code!).
The point being, going to VAX(32bits) and later alpha(64bits) was not
raw speed but the limits of having enough bits to address really huge data
arrays in RAM and to express disk data addresses in values that fit in one
register. PDP-11 was 16bits and the MMU allowed it to may that 16bits
into 22bit address space. The however of that was at any time you could
only reach 16bit address worth of data or you had to remap the MMU.
That later step was a limiting factor if your data file was 32mb in size.
PDP-11s were fast and good but the limits of 16bit addressing were well
known by the late 1970s and that was why DEC moved to 32bit VAX in 1978.
Even then a really fast 11/70 could nearly outrun it unless the data file
operated on was say several megabytes in size and the VAX would leave the
11 behind everytime. If that weren't true we'd be running 500mhz PDP-8s!
Allison
On Apr 22, 23:01, Tony Duell wrote:
> > I thought of that too. Then you might be able to do it with an AOI
package,
>
> Oh, AOIs are fun, but not general enough for this...
You tend to need more than one small package to anything very useful
> > but I'd use a 156, which is a demultiplexer/decoder but with open-collector
> > outputs, which I'd wire-AND.
>
> Good guess. What you need is a fixed AND matrix to get all the possible
> product terms and then a programmable OR matrix to combine the right ones
> to form the desired output.
>
> That's _exactly_ what a PROM is, of course.
>
> It's also what a multiplexer is.
A neat solution. Of course, anything you can do with minterms can also be done
with maxterms.
> What worries me is that the above seems not the taught any more. And
> people don't seem to have grown up fiddling with TTL chips (or
> equivalent).
Here, 1st Year CompScis do a series of practical problem exercises with TTL,
one of which ends up building a multiplexer from basic gates. The next (or
maybe next but one) involves something that's complex to do with normal minterm
techniques, and often involves using a multiplexer as a building block.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Apr 22, 19:12, Allison J Parent wrote:
> LSI-11/03 cpu and box. The backplane was wired for only 16bit addesses.
> Also that particular CPU put some of the microcode signals on what would
> have ben the A16-21 lines.
Nitpick: Actually, it's wired for 18-bit (it has to be, for parity), and the
extra microcode signals are only on the A18-21 lines.
You can have fun with General Robotics backplanes/PSUs. Some of these put 24V
AC on the lines normaly used for A20 and A21.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
But, since Alphas must share SOMETHING in common with the PDP-11,
wouldn't it be possible to write a normal program for the Alpha,
running under NT or Linux, that would give PDP emulation at P-II-like
performance? Of course, I'm assuming that some of the PDP instructions
can go unchanged directly into the Alpha. Also, I would guess that a
G3 with an emulator could outperform the slower pentiums. But, then
again, why not emulate a Whirlwind or a Mark I for the same? It would
be much easier. I don't really see how an emulated PDP-11 outper-
forming a pentium would mean anything at all.
Now, making a VAX that would do that is a bit more interesting, though
probably already done. VAX is much more useful these days than PDP-11.
More on this subject: I have long thought that some computers that
are now mostly PD, like the C-64, should be rebuilt in kit form and
sold to kids for $20 each. Now THAT would be nice. Oh, and make them
make their own kernel, and hold a contest for the best one. The
winner gets an emulated PDP-11.
I really must stop eating sugar as well.
>incremented value) and three for JSR I Z 10 (fetch 10, write
incremented
>value, stash return address at location pointed to by incremented
value),
>so I could be wrong) each of which depend on the previous one. You're
not
>going to get hot performance out of that unless you decide that the
main
>memory can be built using a 5-port register file on the chip.
>
>I've occasionally wondered about doing a tight hand-coded PDP-11
emulator that
>fits in the primary cache of an Alpha. If possible, you'd be using the
Alpha
>essentially as a programmable microengine and programming it to be
PDP-11.
>The reason to fit it in the primary cache is because of how the Alpha
boots;
>at reset, it loads its primary cache from an external serial ROM and
begins
>executing it. If you could fit the emulator in the primary cache, you
could
>think of the Alpha+SROM as a PDP-11 microprocessor.
>
>Roger Ivie
>ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
>
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What would happen if we made a PC-sized PDP-11 processor using the Alpha
technology? (On a single chip, clock it at ~300-400 MHz)
As the PDP-11 instruction set is MUCH better than 80x86, would it outrun
a PC? Could this be a Pentium Killer?
-------
<>As the PDP-11 instruction set is MUCH better than 80x86, would it
<outrun
<>a PC? Could this be a Pentium Killer?
as it was in 1982-3 the PCversion of the PDP-11 aka PRO350 could eat
the XT and turbo XT for a snack. When the AT came around DEC popped
out the pro380 with the J-11 cpu...gulp, burp! ATs are tasty.
Competing against the mostly 16bit 8088/6 and the 286 the PDP11 was out
front. To match a 16bit cpu against a 32bitter... you must be inhaling!
Allison
After your done laughing remember this...
At the time the VAX was new in the market the PDP-11 group took most of
their standard 11/70 peices and cooked up the 11/74 which was a 4cpu SMP
11/70 and could eat vaxen(11/780) for snacks. That was it's demise...
there were only four working 11/74s built before that was crushed.
<Hmm, refresh my memory, now what were the PDP-11 instructions to
<directly address 4GB of memory? I can't seem to recall any 32 bit
<address registers.
Look in the VAX archectecture book.
<Darn. I've really lost it...how did the virtual memory hardware work in
<a PDP-11?
Nicely (again the vax is a mostly stretched 11).
<Seriously, if you mean the sorta RISC like instruction set in the 11 is
RISC?????? PDP-11 is the most CISC machine in the 16bit realm. What
other 16bitter is a two address orthoginal machine?
<better than the x86 set, then DEC probably would have come up with
<something like that. Course, with extra silicon, they could have gone
<to 64 bits, and put more cache onboard, then clock it really fast. Then
<come up with some catchy marketing name, like Gamma, or Beta, or ....
They did called it VAX and when it came time to outvax VAX then comes
alpha.
Allison
<Um... Am I way out here? Doesn't the 23 support 22 bit addressing? And
The basic M8186 early revs are 18bit but most work as 22bit, the later
revs were 22bit. That's assuming the backplane is wired for 22bit as
well.
<I never before heard of a 16 bit Qbus! ISTRT the F11 processor is
LSI-11/03 cpu and box. The backplane was wired for only 16bit addesses.
Also that particular CPU put some of the microcode signals on what would
have ben the A16-21 lines.
<settable between 18 and 22 bit (128KW, 256KB and 2MW, 4MB respectively).
<The 18 bit setting is used in the 23 on 18 bit Qbuses and in the 24 on
<unibuses. The 22 bit setting is used on 22 bit Qbuses, but you need
<extra hardware to use it in the 24 (i.e. on unibus).
Your thinking of latter machines with specific backplanes.
Allison
> What would happen if we made a PC-sized PDP-11 processor using the Alpha
> technology? (On a single chip, clock it at ~300-400 MHz)
> As the PDP-11 instruction set is MUCH better than 80x86, would it outrun
> a PC? Could this be a Pentium Killer?
I doubt it could be a Pentium killer, but I could be wrong. The RISC
machines get performance by making it difficult to go to memory; on the
PDP-11, it's much to easy to go to memory.
Take, for example, the PDP-8. The worst-case instruction on the PDP-8
could require as many as five memory accesses (hmm; I forget which one
took five. I only count four for ISZ I Z 10 (fetch 10, write incremented
value, fetch from incremented value, write incremented value pointed to by
incremented value) and three for JSR I Z 10 (fetch 10, write incremented
value, stash return address at location pointed to by incremented value),
so I could be wrong) each of which depend on the previous one. You're not
going to get hot performance out of that unless you decide that the main
memory can be built using a 5-port register file on the chip.
I've occasionally wondered about doing a tight hand-coded PDP-11 emulator that
fits in the primary cache of an Alpha. If possible, you'd be using the Alpha
essentially as a programmable microengine and programming it to be PDP-11.
The reason to fit it in the primary cache is because of how the Alpha boots;
at reset, it loads its primary cache from an external serial ROM and begins
executing it. If you could fit the emulator in the primary cache, you could
think of the Alpha+SROM as a PDP-11 microprocessor.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Seth and Pete were discussing the PDP11-23...
>> 2) Same as above, but for the M8044-DB boards. I could put one
>> of these in with the M8047's to get a full 64Kword of RAM, yes?
>> Does anyone know what the DIP-switch settings for these boards
>> are?
>
> Yes, but I'm not sure why you say "full" and 64Kword" together :-)
> 32KW (64KB) is the limit for 16-bit addressing, or 128KW (256KB) for 18-bit
> addressing. Ignoring the I/O page, that is.
Um... Am I way out here? Doesn't the 23 support 22 bit addressing? And
I never before heard of a 16 bit Qbus! ISTRT the F11 processor is
settable between 18 and 22 bit (128KW, 256KB and 2MW, 4MB respectively).
The 18 bit setting is used in the 23 on 18 bit Qbuses and in the 24 on
unibuses. The 22 bit setting is used on 22 bit Qbuses, but you need
extra hardware to use it in the 24 (i.e. on unibus).
Just my half groat's worth.
Philip.
On Apr 22, 1:57, Tony Duell wrote:
> Jack Peacock wrote:
> > 'No, I can do it with a normal 16 pin TTL chip that doesn't have to go
> > in a programmer first'. So, what was the chip ?
> >
> > 74LS138, 1 of 8 decoder, the three inputs go to A, B, C, all 8
> > possibilities decoded on the outputs.
>
> Alas not.. I didn't want the 8 separate combinations of the 3 input
> variables - I wanted a single output that was a complex function of them
> - something like A.C + A.B/ + A/.C/.B or something...
I thought of that too. Then you might be able to do it with an AOI package,
but I'd use a 156, which is a demultiplexer/decoder but with open-collector
outputs, which I'd wire-AND.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Sure. And then Apple would show our mascot, Barney, in flames.
I like this already!
>
>What would happen if we made a PC-sized PDP-11 processor using the
Alpha
>technology? (On a single chip, clock it at ~300-400 MHz)
>As the PDP-11 instruction set is MUCH better than 80x86, would it
outrun
>a PC? Could this be a Pentium Killer?
>-------
>
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<are there any good sites out there containing collections of schematics
<for old machines? I occasionally come across sites with a few schematics
No.
<interest in this? I was thinking more along the lines of some of the
<more obscure hardware out there though, as there's probably plenty of
<places to get details on common machines such as the popular 8-bit
<micros of the early 80's. Would be nice to have copies of ROM/Disk
<images where possible too...)
There is the problem of copyrights and permission. Not as easy as you'd
think as the copyright live past the companies demise so you have to
track where or who still holds it.
Allison
As the PDP-11 instruction set is MUCH better than 80x86, would it outrun
a PC?
-------
Hmm, refresh my memory, now what were the PDP-11 instructions to
directly address 4GB of memory? I can't seem to recall any 32 bit
address registers.
Darn. I've really lost it...how did the virtual memory hardware work in
a PDP-11?
Seriously, if you mean the sorta RISC like instruction set in the 11 is
better than the x86 set, then DEC probably would have come up with
something like that. Course, with extra silicon, they could have gone
to 64 bits, and put more cache onboard, then clock it really fast. Then
come up with some catchy marketing name, like Gamma, or Beta, or ....
Jack Peacock
I have C-64 ones. You could attach a gender changer to the koala
pad if it has an Apple plug, and use it on a Commodore.
>Does anyone have the disks for the paint program that came with the
Apple
>Koala pad?
>
>Thanks
>
>manney(a)lrbcg.com
>
>
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<PROM, or maybe one of those TI PALs with the 74-series numbers'. I said
<'No, I can do it with a normal 16 pin TTL chip that doesn't have to go
<in
<a programmer first'. So, what was the chip ?
<
<74LS138, 1 of 8 decoder, the three inputs go to A, B, C, all 8
<possibilities decoded on the outputs.
< Jack Peacock
How about 74153 or 74155 real handy for creating complex miniterms that
a small prom or pal might be used for.
Allison
<> =============================================================guide rai
<> +
<> +
<> +
<> +
<> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <<<<<<<direction of motion (96 needed)
<> ^ +
<> | +
<> / +
<> | +
<> |=============================================================guide rai
<> ^optos to read the leading edge of the card for column clock, spacing
<> is such that each one is obscured as the column is over the column
<> leds making it self indexing. It's possible to go very fast.
<
<Now that I like!. I wonder where I can find some cheap photodiodes.
<
<What about one of the CCD (or similar) linear image sensor chips? They're
<quite cheap in surplus shops now, I think... A bit of optics to focus the
<image onto the sensor, and a bit of electronics to drive it (which is not
<that hard to design).
CCD needs a fair amount of electronics, photo transistors are cheaper and
simpler. Jade, JAMCO, JDR and BG micro list phototransistors pretty
cheap.
Allison
>(Cautiously, looking around). Is all the nastiness over, now?
Been over for weeks. It seemed to merely be 'growing pains.'
>Does anyone have the disks for the paint program that came with the Apple
>Koala pad?
I remember hearing that it should work with any app that supports mice.
Glad to have you back. (I was wondering where the heck you were.)
Tim D. Hotze
(Cautiously, looking around). Is all the nastiness over, now?
Does anyone have the disks for the paint program that came with the Apple
Koala pad?
Thanks
manney(a)lrbcg.com
> > panel monitor used an octal keypad & display, and the octal thinking
carried
> > over to the assembler package. Heath also used "split octal" in the
fashion
> >
> Actually I think Octal is a dumb idea for 8 or 16 bit processors :-) -
A side note...on the IMSAI front panel the address/data switches came in
two colors, red and blue, so you could group them for hex or octal
inputs. (Obscure trivia, the prototype IMSAI used black switches.) You
could tell just by looking at someone's front panel if they preferred
hex or octal. Mine is in hex, S/360 Assembler was the first assembly
language I learned, and it was in hex.
If I recall correctly, Microsoft was an early user of split octal. Soon
after the 4K/8K BASIC, MS came up with an editor/debugger package for
Assembler that used the split octal notation (fuzzy here, does anyone
else remember that package, it was short-lived).
Octal proved useful in suprising ways. On Seymour Cray's CDC 6000
series, with a 60 bit word, you might think that a dump using 15 hex
digits per word would be the most useful, but in fact that was never
done, because the 60 bit word was broken down into 15 and 30 bit
instructions (multiple instructions per word, a Cray innovation I
believe), easy to see in octal but not a good fit in hex. Plus, the
character set normally used was 6 bit, not 7 or 8 bit ANSI.
Jack Peacock
-Matt Pritchard
Graphics Engine and Optimization Specialist
MS Age of Empires & Age of Empires ][
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Kaneko [SMTP:Jeff.Kaneko@ifrsys.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 9:37 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: RE: The PC's Soviet?
>
>
> >
> > There were all kinds of small Apple cloners around, with various
> Apple
> > variety and fruit names ("Granny Smith", "McIntosh", "Pear", etc.).
> The
> > only obvious differences between most of these machines and an
> actual
> > Apple ][+ was the lack of the Apple logo, and usually the presence
> of
> > lower case display (though not necessarily the shift-key mod, which
> my
> > machine lacks). Some had additional stuff, though, like function
> keys and
> > slightly differently shaped cases. Or maybe a different colour of
> > plastic.
>
> I fondly remember an issue of BYTE from long ago, that was the April
> 1st edition, that had a phoney advertisement in it for a 'Lemon
> Computer' that looked suspiciously like an Apple ][ (with a rather
> distressed and dissheveled user scratching his head . .).
>
> Wasn't that Creative Computing?. Back in the late 70's they would do
> an "April fools" section of their magazine. One year they printed it
> upside down at the back of the magazine so if you flipped it over, it
> looked like a different magazine.
Have you considered doing this for acoustic delay lines?
Actually, I was thinking about making an emulator that would use
.WAV files instead of .T64 or whatever.
>too. However, I could generalize and say they were all DOS-based,
>written in Pascal or assembler, don't come with source code, have
>poor documentation, etc. and I want to roll my own in straight portable
C.
>I'd rather make it general to handle old S-100 tapes, C-64 tapes, etc.
>instead of just hard-coding one flavor. It should be ready in
>the year 2010.
>
Don't bet on it. I have a book that predicted quality software by
1990. Seriously, though, I don't think collectors are in danger of
making their hobby worthless by saving too much. I doubt you will see
an "extra" C-64 in 2010. They will all be in the hands of collectors
or landfills.
>rescue old data. Sure, QuickCams are nearly disposable now. Cheap
>$1,500 PCs include them these days. Five years from now, they'll be
>embedded in cheap monitors. Ten years from now, they'll be in cereal
>boxes. Unless the hobby of collecting computer junk is adopted by
>Hollywood stars, I humbly suggest that it will be at least *more
difficult*
>for you to find spares for your original equipment than it will be
>for me to find something that could deliver a bitmap by looking
>at my punched card. :-)
>
>- John
>Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>
>
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>> If not the schematics themselves, then how about a database indicating who
>> has what? Users could submit a list of what they have, and others could
>> search it for needed contacts.
That's a pretty good idea... maybe store machines, related hardware,
whether the user has manuals for the machine or not, other notes etc...
It's a shame though about the copyright situation; I try to store binary
images of everything that I can in the hope that I can recreate boot
disks etc. in the event of problems, but it would be nice to be able to
share those freely with others...
(I suppose the danger with this, as with anything on the 'net, is that
we end up with thousands of people all trying to do the same thing and
end up with the current situation of knowing that the information is
probably there *somewhere* but spending years finding it...)
cheers
Jules
>
On Apr 22, 16:08, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote:
> Subject: Re[2]: PDP 11/23 help needed
> Seth and Pete were discussing the PDP11-23...
> ISTRT the F11 processor is settable between 18 and 22 bit
I forgot -- there's a bit in SSR3 that sets 18/22. You're quite correct about
that.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Apr 22, 16:08, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote:
> Subject: Re[2]: PDP 11/23 help needed
> Seth and Pete were discussing the PDP11-23...
>
> >> 2) Same as above, but for the M8044-DB boards. I could put one
> >> of these in with the M8047's to get a full 64Kword of RAM, yes?
> >> Does anyone know what the DIP-switch settings for these boards
> >> are?
> >
> > Yes, but I'm not sure why you say "full" and 64Kword" together :-)
> > 32KW (64KB) is the limit for 16-bit addressing, or 128KW (256KB) for 18-bit
> > addressing. Ignoring the I/O page, that is.
>
> Um... Am I way out here? Doesn't the 23 support 22 bit addressing? And
> I never before heard of a 16 bit Qbus! ISTRT the F11 processor is
> settable between 18 and 22 bit (128KW, 256KB and 2MW, 4MB respectively).
> The 18 bit setting is used in the 23 on 18 bit Qbuses and in the 24 on
> unibuses. The 22 bit setting is used on 22 bit Qbuses, but you need
> extra hardware to use it in the 24 (i.e. on unibus).
An 11/23 only supports 18/22-bit addressing if it has the MMU chip fitted,
which
almost all do, though it was, strictly speaking, an option (at least, for most
of the 23's life).
Early KDF11-A's (Rev.A) only support 18-bit, most (Rev.C) support 22-bit
addressing -- iff they have the MMU. Otherwise, they can only access 16-bits
of
address space. I don't recall any setting to change that, you just only get 18
bits in an 18-bit backplane. If you try to access beyond that range, you get a
bus error. ISTR that the ODT still works (always 18-bit) without the MMU,
though. I can't easily check as the only one I have running ATM is a 22-bit
system.
A number of KDF11-A's were fitted to 11/03's as upgrades, and those had 18-bit
backplanes. The 11/03, however, only had a 16-bit address range, as did early
core, MOS RAM, and ROM boards. I wasn't referring to the bus as 16-bit, but to
the address range.
For slightly different reasons, you can't use an MSV11-D (or several other
options) in a 22-bit system. It will fit in the backplane, and work fine, but
it effectively turns the whole system into 18-bit, because it doesn't decode
BAL18-21, and therefore responds to sixteen blocks of addresses.
For similar reasons, the RKV11-D is not often used in 18-bit or 22-bit systems,
since it can only perform DMA with 16-bit addressing (you can access the
registers in an 18- or 22-bit system, of course, because it responds to the
BBS7 signal). There are lots of other I/O options with similar restrictions.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Hi all,
are there any good sites out there containing collections of schematics
for old machines? I occasionally come across sites with a few schematics
/ info for specific machines, but has anyone collected stuff together
for several different machines into one place?
(It's something I keep on meaning to do myself - would there be much
interest in this? I was thinking more along the lines of some of the
more obscure hardware out there though, as there's probably plenty of
places to get details on common machines such as the popular 8-bit
micros of the early 80's. Would be nice to have copies of ROM/Disk
images where possible too...)
cheers
Jules
On Apr 22, 14:25, Julian Richardson wrote:
> >> There is the problem of copyrights and permission. Not as easy as you'd
> >> think as the copyright live past the companies demise so you have to
> >> track where or who still holds it.
>
> I think roms/disks for some machines are no longer copyrighted though,
> no? (or at least freely distributable) - I think Acron's BBC machines
> fall under this category.
That's VERY manufacturer-specific, and doesn't apply to Acorn code. As Allison
pointed out, you need some dispensation, either individually or to the public
at large.
> There seemed to be a lot of people a few years
> back who took to putting rom/disk images up on public sites until
> somebody complained - presumably there's been a crackdown on that sort
> of thing recently though...
Well, Motorola had a go at somebody a year or two ago, as I recall, and ISTR
that ended after a bit of a row with the website in question being closed.
OTOH, there's a site with old Sun boot roms and a note to the effect that if
anyone from Sun objects, the site will remove them immediately on official
request.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Apr 22, 0:16, Seth J. Morabito wrote:
> 1) The M8047-CA boards need to be wire-wrapped to assign their
> address vectors -- they're combination MOS RAM and Async EIA,
> and I have no docs for them. Can anyone guide me to some info,
> or tell me how to jumper one of them to be console serial
> port, and the other to be next in line on the bus?
> The wire-wrap pins have absolutely no markings on them, not
> even any single-letter or number labels, so this one could
> require ASCII-art to describe :)
There are umpteen pages of link settings in the manual. I'm not keen to type
all that in ATM, but if no-one else answers in a few days, I might scan the
pages and accidentally store them on my website (copyright? wassat?)
> 2) Same as above, but for the M8044-DB boards. I could put one
> of these in with the M8047's to get a full 64Kword of RAM, yes?
> Does anyone know what the DIP-switch settings for these boards
> are?
Yes, but I'm not sure why you say "full" and 64Kword" together :-)
32KW (64KB) is the limit for 16-bit addressing, or 128KW (256KB) for 18-bit
addressing. Ignoring the I/O page, that is.
The MSV11-D addresses memeory on any 4KW boundary, set by the switches.
SW1-5 = A13, SW1-1 = A17. Right under Sw1-5 are 2 wrapped links (6 posts) that
set the memory *size* which you shouldn't need to change. There are 3 posts
labelled 6,5,7 which set parity/no-parity; they should be jumpered 5-7 to set
no parity for the -Dx. There are 3 posts labeled 2,1,3 near the B
edge-connector which enable/disable use of the bottom 2K of Bank7; 1-3 to
disable that. Lastly, there are two sets of power jumpers just above the notch
between the connectors; these are used to set battery/no-battery option.
> 3) I'd love to have the RK05 controller in there, in the hopes
> that someday I'll have an RK05 to play with. Just like the
> above... How do I jumper it, and where (physically) in the
> Bus should I put it?
Usually after the other IO/memory options.
> 4) Actually, that raises a good question. All of these boards
> are single-height (1/2 the width of the Q-bus backplane).
> I know there is some special physical layout the boards should
> use when they populate the backplane, but what is it?
> My best (probably wrong) guess right now is:
> CPU in row 1, slot 1 (is that left or right?),
> M8047's in row 2, slots 1 and 2,
> M8044 in row 3, slot 1,
> M7269 in row 4, slot 1, DSD controller in row 4, slot 2.
>
> Does that make any sense? Should the CPU only live in the
> first row, not RAM? I seem to remember something like this
> from the darkest depths of my mind, but I don't remember
> for sure.
The processor should go in slot 1 (top) because that's the only one with
connections to the RUN signal (used for the front panel light), though it will
work elsewhere apart from that. Except in BA23/BA123 cabinets with H
backplanes (see below).
Normally you'd put the memory next, then the I/O, starting with the options
that need the best CPU response (which is often the SLUs, not the disks).
As to which side, that depends on the type of backplane. There are two main
types; "serpentine" (aka "zigzag") which have Qbus in both A-B and C-D slots
(A-B are the left side as you look into the card cage from outside, with slot 1
at the top), and "straight", which have QBus in the A-B slots, and C-D
interconnect in, surprise surprise, C-D. In serpentine backplanes, the slots
are wired in the order 1A/B, 1C/D, 2C/D, 2A/B, 3A/B, 3C/D....
There are variations in microPDP-11 backplanes, where the first 3 (BA23
cabinet, H9278-A backplane) or 4 (BA123 cabinet) slots are wired straight (Qbus
in A-B, interconnect in C-D) and the rest are serpentine. That's to allow PMI
memory in the top, and lots of dual-width options below.
H9273, H9276 are straight. H9270 and H9275 are serpentine. You probably have
an H9273, if it's an early 11/23. Later ones had H9276's (22-bit instead of
18-bit). There should be a label somewhere on it. That means you probably
want all the cards in the left side, and none on the right.
There are also odd ones like the various H9281-x which are only dual-wide, and
the DDV-11 backplane which is hex wide, with Qbus in A/B and C/D, and
interconnect in E/F.
> 5) OK, simple question, one I've wondered about but never bothered
> getting answered because I felt like a complete idiot moron
> asking it: Does the QBUS need to be terminated by a special
> card in any way, in order to work?
Usually, yes. H9275 and H9278 backplanes have built-in terminator options.
Others need a terminator card, such as a BDV11. The normal termination is a
nominal 120 ohms, usually as 180/390-ohm resistor packs.
> 6) What's the pin-out on the M8047 EIA ports? They're 9-pin Berg
> connectors, and I need to build a cable for them to connect
> either to 9-pin or 25-pin PC-style serial in order to set up
> any kind of console terminal.
Looking at the back of the card, components uppermost:
____________________
| |
| 9 7 5 3 1 |
| |
| 10 8 6 4 2 |
|___________________|
1 UART clock in/out (depending on a link, not all SLUs have this)
2 signal ground
3 transmit +
4 transmit -
5 signal ground
6 index - no pin
7 receive -
8 receive +
9 signal ground
10 some SLUs have +12V here, from a current-limiting resistor or a fuse, to
supply a converter. I use it with a 1K series resistor to provide a
pseudo-DTR signal for some terminals.
For normal RS232, link 7-9, and use 3 as XMIT, 8 as RCV, 5 as SG, and ignore
pin 4.
> 7) Anyone know what the Data Systems Design board is? It has
> "RX" stensiled onto the board near the jumper block, among
> other things like "BOOT", so I assume it's some sort of RX01
> or RX50 controller or some such.
Much more likely to be RX01 or RX02 than RX50. What kind of connector does it
have? If 34-pin, it might be RX50 but could be like the Baydel units that use
a 34-pin connector but are actually an SA800 interface. If 50-pin, probably an
SA800/801 interface for 8" drives.
> WHEW, that's _too_ many questions. Anyone who can tackle one of them
> gets my respect, and you may award yourself one cookie.
I prefer flapjacks :-)
> I'd like to piece this system together and get it working to the
> point where I can play with it and at least fiddle with the monitor
> again, playing with Octal. And I'd dearly love to put it in a
> proper DEC desk-side rack with an RK05, but that comes later...
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
"Doug Coward" <dcoward(a)pressstart.com> wrote:
>Now I just have to order some new paper tape.
>It came with 3 rolls but the tape is so old that it breaks when an entire
>row of holes are punched and the sprocket keeps ripping the sprocket
>holes even with no tension on the tape.
I just got 21 rolls of original yellow Teletype 1" tape from
someone on the RTTY mailing list for the cost of shipping, and I
promised to share the wealth, so ...
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>> No.
the simple answers are always the best :)
>
>> There is the problem of copyrights and permission. Not as easy as you'd
>> think as the copyright live past the companies demise so you have to
>> track where or who still holds it.
I think roms/disks for some machines are no longer copyrighted though,
no? (or at least freely distributable) - I think Acron's BBC machines
fall under this category. There seemed to be a lot of people a few years
back who took to putting rom/disk images up on public sites until
somebody complained - presumably there's been a crackdown on that sort
of thing recently though...
(always seems a pity that the information is out there... somewhere...
but almost impossible to get to!!)
ta
Jules
>
>
From: Max Eskin [mailto:maxeskin@hotmail.com]
<< I'm curious about the various home/small business computer standards.
I know about the PC standard *sigh*. There was also the MSX standard
which involved a Z80 and 64K ram, I think. What other ones were there?
>>
Quite a few. from memory....the S-100, probably the earliest micro bus
to become popular. A standard business configuration for 8-bit would be
a Z-80, 64K RAM, 5.25" floppies, serial ports to a CRT terminal and
printer, and CP/M-80, running applications written in CBASIC. For
16-bit systems it would be an 80286, 1MB RAM, hard drive in the 40MB
range, 4 to 16 serial ports to CRT terminals and printers, maybe even a
modem, running MP/M or Concurrent DOS, again with applications written
in BASIC. A lot of single board Z80, 8086, and 80286 systems (like
Altos) built this same basic configuration, but without an expansion
bus.
The SS-50, a competitor for the S-100 but using Motorola 6800 CPU, never
really caught on. VME, an industrial bus still alive today, lots of
different CPUs supported over the years, but it started with an Intel
8080. Motorola came up with a competing bus that looked very similar to
S-100 except it used 86 pin bus, called Exor, something like that, never
caught on either, though Motorola did their best to promote it for a
while.
There were some holdovers from the mini makers. Q-bus, DEC's bus for
the PDP-11 micros and later the MicroVAX. A typical PDP would be a
PDP-11/03 CPU, 64K RAM, 2.5MB hard drive (RK05), 4 port serial to a
VT-100 terminal, and a DECwriter II for a printer. Business apps were
written in FORTRAN, DIBOL, or BASIC, usually running on the RT-11
operating system. BTW the Q-bus wasn't strictly DEC proprietary, DEC
sold PDP-11 CPU chips for a while, Plessey made their own PDP-11 systems
with them. DEC later dropped CPU sales when they found out the other
manufacturers were just taking away DEC customers, not expanding into
new markets. Sort of like MAC clones... <s>
VAX Q-bus configurations are still around in sizeable numbers (we have
some in the office). The machines aren't fast, but very reliable (as in
years per hardware failure). It's not unheard of for VMS systems to run
for a year or more between boots. A common setup in the late 80's was
the MicroVAX II (roughly equivalent to a 386), a 32-bit CPU with up to
16MB of RAM. An 8 slot chassis, holding the CPU board, 2 memory boards,
disk controller (RQDX3, MFM), tape controller (TK50), Ethernet
controller, and an 8-port serial card (DHV11). Drives would be either
70MB or 160MB. The tape drive could hold about 95MB. It ran VMS (still
in use today), or less commonly Ultrix (DEC Unix). Several languages
are available, including C, FORTRAN, COBOL, and BASIC. DEC has
discontinued new VAX Q-bus machines, and new VAXes in general, but they
have large stocks of VAX CPU chips, enough to last a few more years.
Intersil made the IM6100, a microprocessor version of the 12-bit PDP-8,
but I don't recall if a bus was ever associated with it. Data General
had a bus for the NOVA minis and I believe Fairchild made a micro
version based on the 9440 microprocessor (NOVA instruction set). Texas
Instruments made the 9900, a micro version of their minis, and it had
some kind of proprietary TI bus.
Jack Peacock
Hi,
I just got back.
The Channel F is the first programmable color cartidge based video console.
It predates the Atari 2600 by about 1 year (1976). The controllers have 8
degrees of freedom: normal joystic directions plus twisting plus pushing up
or down.
The ISBN fo the Haddock is: 0-89689-098-8
Copyright 1993
The publisher is:
Books Americana, Inc.
P.O. Box 2326
Florence, Alabama 35630
And I still can't believe that the COCO had a 6899E for a processor :)
Francois
-------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://www.pclink.com/fauradon
-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Troutman <mor(a)crl.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, April 20, 1998 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Week-end finds
>Max Eskin wrote:
>>
>> Two questions: a) what is a channel F?
>
>It's a video game console. Older than the Atari 2600, I think it was
>the first programmable home system introduced.
>
>--
>mor(a)crl.com
>http://www.crl.com/~mor/
>
Sorry to post a partially less-than-on-topic message:
Brian, recently you posted concerning a book you were interested
in, and I e-mailed you (privately) concerning it... did you recieve
the e-mail? I only ask this way because my ISP seems to be getting,
shall we say, slightly less 'vigilant' when it comes to %100
delivery rates. Now, spam, on the other hand....... ;}
Anyway, if any interest in Korn and Korn still, write me back. If
not, accept my apologies for this.
ObClassiccmp: Southern Cal collectors... the TRW swap meet is
this Saturday, the 25th, at the TRW plant in El Segundo, CA from 7:00
to 11:30 am. I will have some DEC PDP and Plessey items for sale or
trade... and also I have heard from my spies that Marvin (of this
list) will once again mis-appropriate one of my two precious spaces,
where he will try to foist^H^H^H^H^H sell some of his Very Good Stuff
to any unsuspecti^H^H^H^H^H discriminating buyers. I get first pick.
:)
Further details posted if any interest in the Group, otherwise
e-mail me privately. There *is* some room for a few other items,
should someone wish to also participate; free of charge, you just
have to get your stuff down there. A Note to collectors: there are
frequently some nice finds... Kaypro II, IV, 10... $5, an IBM sys36
complete, $25 *delivered* (!) S100 things, etc, etc. And it's always
fun to meet other folks on this list in person, as well...
Cheers
John
From: Tony Duell [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk]
I was once involved with a design when we needed a nasty function of 3
TTL level signals. There wasn't space for a lot of extra gate packages.
I
immediately said that I could do it in one single TTL package. One of
the
other designers (who is very clueful) said 'Oh, I suppose you want a TTL
PROM, or maybe one of those TI PALs with the 74-series numbers'. I said
'No, I can do it with a normal 16 pin TTL chip that doesn't have to go
in
a programmer first'. So, what was the chip ?
74LS138, 1 of 8 decoder, the three inputs go to A, B, C, all 8
possibilities decoded on the outputs.
Jack Peacock
A few hours ago, I rescued from the trash a Data General
commemorative 5-year anniversary serving tray. It is a shallow
wooden box, 1' X 1.25' X 1", with handles on the narrow sides.
The inside bottom of the box, on which you would put the teapot
and so on, it says,"Data General Five Years of Service 1983".
Surrounding that text is a timeline of 1977-1978, with photos.
It starts with, "Corporate Quality Logo Chosen", and ends with
"Data General Weathers the Blizzard -Data General employees in the
northeast, particularly those in Massachusetts, have weathered what
is now being called 'The Blizzard of '78'.
Many Employees were stranded at DG plants that were surrounded by
more than 20 inches of snow. In true DG fashion, everyone joined
together to make the best of it. DG sheltered many motorists who
found themselves stranded." -My abbreviations.
______________________________________________________
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I got a Data General One laptop that someone was using as a wheel-
chock at a flea market. It has a smashed LCD, and won't start.
Now,
a)Does anyone have an extra LCD that would work?
b)What type of power does it use?
c)Does anyone want any parts? It's in good physical condition.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
<Quite a few. from memory....the S-100, probably the earliest micro bus
<to become popular. A standard business configuration for 8-bit would be
It was preceeded by at least three others. L-bus from Control Systems
of natick MA for 8008. Intel had the MCS bus and later multibus.
<16-bit systems it would be an 80286, 1MB RAM, hard drive in the 40MB
<range, 4 to 16 serial ports to CRT terminals and printers, maybe even a
<modem, running MP/M or Concurrent DOS, again with applications written
More likely 8088 or 8086 with 1meg. The 286 s100 crates could carry at
least 16meg and 4meg would not be out of line.
<in BASIC. A lot of single board Z80, 8086, and 80286 systems (like
<Altos) built this same basic configuration, but without an expansion
<bus.
AmproLB and xerox820 were pretty well known.
<The SS-50, a competitor for the S-100 but using Motorola 6800 CPU, never
<really caught on. VME, an industrial bus still alive today, lots of
IT did but it was exclusively 6800/6809.
<S-100 except it used 86 pin bus, called Exor, something like that, never
<caught on either, though Motorola did their best to promote it for a
It was processor specific, if you weren't using MOTO cpu it was
inappropriate.
<There were some holdovers from the mini makers. Q-bus, DEC's bus for
<the PDP-11 micros and later the MicroVAX. A typical PDP would be a
<PDP-11/03 CPU, 64K RAM, 2.5MB hard drive (RK05), 4 port serial to a
<VT-100 terminal, and a DECwriter II for a printer. Business apps were
Only the very earliest LSI-11 system ised the RK05 series as they were
replaced very quickly by the RL01 and later RL02. An 11V03 was 32kb ram,
two DL serial lines and RX01 floppy in the 30" short cab. The 11T03 added
a pair of RK05 disks.
By the early to mid 80s the 11/23 cpu had replaced the slow 11/03 cpu and
memory was typically 128-256k.
<written in FORTRAN, DIBOL, or BASIC, usually running on the RT-11
RSTS and RSX-11 timesharing and multitasking OSs were available as well
as Ultrix-11(dec unix) by the mid 80s.
<operating system. BTW the Q-bus wasn't strictly DEC proprietary, DEC
<sold PDP-11 CPU chips for a while, Plessey made their own PDP-11 systems
DEC owned the license there were at least three that were licensed for
it, Heath/schulmber/zenith, plessy and one of the military aircraft guys.
DEC also sold raw chips, the T-11 and J-11 being notable.
Most of the volume production of chips was by AMD and Harris to DEC spec.
Also CTbus (pro350/380), UNIBUS 11/24, 11/74, 11/84 are two more examples
of DEC PDP-11 buses used for micros.
<Intersil made the IM6100, a microprocessor version of the 12-bit PDP-8,
<but I don't recall if a bus was ever associated with it. Data General
Omnibus was the real PDP-8(E,F,M,A series) and intersil had a bus that
was also used by harris. The 6120 was supplanted by the faster 6120
that had the EMA integrated into it. The DECMATE-II/III used the 6120.
Harris was the second source. However they out produced intersil on the
raw parts.
DECs first 32bit micro that was complete on one chip was the 78032 (aka
microvax-II). It is still a popular cpu for those that like a good
performing system that runs as DEC would advertize 24x7x365. The ones I
have did and still do exactly that save for power failures.
<had a bus for the NOVA minis and I believe Fairchild made a micro
<version based on the 9440 microprocessor (NOVA instruction set). Texas
Microflame. It was supposed to be a faster version of the micronova. I
have specs in my collection.
TI had no less than many different busses depending on model and the group
that originated the system.
Allison
There's an interesting one. I only have two floppy drives. Where
would the hard drive go? There's an extra ribbon plug on the MB,
same as for the display and keyboard, what's that for?
>
>I'd like the hard drive if it still works.
>
>James L. Rice
>
>Max Eskin wrote:
>>
>> I got a Data General One laptop that someone was using as a wheel-
>> chock at a flea market. It has a smashed LCD, and won't start.
>> Now,
>> a)Does anyone have an extra LCD that would work?
>> b)What type of power does it use?
>> c)Does anyone want any parts? It's in good physical condition.
>>
>> ______________________________________________________
>> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
I don't have much room, but thankfully, manuals are pretty rare.
But I think I wouldn't be able to tolerate having hundreds of manuals
for incredible machinery and never even seeing the machine.
>I grab any/all manuals (and data books, general computing books) that
are
>being thrown out, of course. I also buy just about any I see in
>second-hand bookshops.
>
>But I also buy a lot new. The IBM Techrefs, for example. I've probably
>spent more on manuals than on hardware over the years. Having complete
>and accurate documentation is very important.
>
The boston public library probably has more books on writing
computer manuals than any other single thing about computers.
>
>Hmm.. I'd rather have a schematic and a ROM listing with a brief
>description, however badly written to a lot of English prose that tells
>me nothing. Alas a lot of manuals and books are in the latter category.
>
>
>> Possibly the rare good ones become Sci-Fi writers :^)
So that's why the stories never make sense and have tiny chapters :)
>> ciao larry
>> lwalker(a)interlog.com
>>
>
>-tony
>
>
______________________________________________________
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Thanks to everyone that responded about archiving documents. I printed
out all the replies and I'm in the process of experimenting.
IT'S ALIVE
About two months ago I picked up a package deal that included an H-8
computer, H-17 dual (hard sector) floppy drive unit, a couple of boxes
of 5 1/4 diskettes (HDOS), a 4K Altair Basic paper tape and manual, and
a H-10 paper tape reader/punch with all the manuals. I had the boxes sent
to work so as soon as I unpacked everything I connected the H-8 up. I used
my Pentium as the terminal and the H-8 fired right up into HDOS.
Anyway...
The H-10 had been nonfunctioning for years because the owner had
arc tested the electronics board with a screwdriver. Last week I took
a break from scanning manuals to take the H-10 apart on the kitchen
table. It turned out to be 2 1N4002 diodes in the 5 volt supply that had
both shorted. It works. Now I just have to order some new paper tape.
It came with 3 rolls but the tape is so old that it breaks when an entire
row of holes are punched and the sprocket keeps ripping the sprocket
holes even with no tension on the tape.
I'll try to get some pictures of the insides to put up. It's beautiful. Nine
large solenoids connect to the punch head by rods about 6-7 inches long.
The read head uses a lamp that looks like an automobile tail lamp.
The cool part is that the H-10 can copy tapes stand-alone (without being
connected to the computer).
Well, I'm excited.
By the way.
Question:
If I made the claim on my ELF page that the 32 byte prom based monitor
on the SUPER ELF was the "smallest manufacturer installed firmware
operating system for a digital microcomputer" would anyone here
disagree? (I'm trying to add more infomation to this page of my museum)
Later
=========================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com
Senior Software Engineer
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Museum of Personal Computing Machinery
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum
=========================================
Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Punched cards have one major design bug IMHO that's not shared by paper
>tape. There's no 'column reference' on a card.
>It's therefore almost impossible to make a hand-pulled card reader.
Come to think of it, perhaps a sub-$50 B/W QuickCam would make a
cheaper reader than a scanner. You could aim it at the card, in a
frame, and drive it by hand. Front-lighting and scanning can put
a non-card color behind the holes. Or you could back-light with
infrared LEDs and take advantage of chip-cam IR sensing. Unlike
phototransistor or mechanical solutions, it's not dependent on
particular card geometry.
I know the video/scanning route sounds like technological overkill.
What's wrong with that? :-) It reminds me of my day-dream to
rescue audio cassette data using PC sound card digitizing.
I like these novel solutions because they are less dependent on
esoteric hardware, and the core - the software - is more portable
and transportable into the future and to users who need it.
Sounds like Ethan has more spare time than I do, though!
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>>
>> Could someone tell me what the configuration of individual gates
>> is (one of them, at least) for binary addition (or provide an EASY
>> TO FIND reference)?
> I'll give you the equations, you can draw the gates yourself (it's
> getting late...)
> lots of stuff about adders
There is a much easier one chip solution, the brute force approach.
Take a TTL PROM, size dependent on how big an adder you need, use the
address lines as terms A and B, and use the outputs as the result. For
instance, for a 4 bit adder, use a 256x8 TTL PROM, lower 4 address bits
are A, upper 4 are B, and the 8 output lines are the result (only 5
used, 4 plus carry). Program the PROM with all the possible results.
You can also make a poor man's multiplier or divider the same way. For
a multiplier all 8 output lines would be used.
Jack Peacock
I'm curious about the various home/small business computer standards.
I know about the PC standard *sigh*. There was also the MSX standard
which involved a Z80 and 64K ram, I think. What other ones were there?
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<True. If you write the program to keep careful time (and reject cards wi
<fewer than 80 chars), it _might_work. There is, of course, a brute-forc
<approach - 960 phototransistors. Additionally, one could build a 4 dpi
<scanner (12 pixels and a stepper motor). With the steppper from a 5.25"
<drive and either a mechanical amplifier (lever) to pull the 7" stroke or
<either a) multiple 12-bit sensors or b) one 80-bit sensor w/3" stroke,
<it wouldn't be that hard to make, not that I have the time to make a
<contraption of that complexity.
Ah gads you guys do it the hard way. Take a stepper from something and
put a roller on it with a diameter such that one step will move the card
forward one column. Then all you need is one rows worth of
phototransistors. I forget the punched card orgainization but a parallel
port (printer) off a PC should be enough bits.
For hand pulled it's a row of phototransistors for reading the column and
one phototransistor for each row.
V--to read column
=============================================================guide rail
+
+
+
+
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ <<<<<<<direction of motion (96 needed)
^ +
| +
/ +
| +
|=============================================================guide rail
^optos to read the leading edge of the card for column clock, spacing
is such that each one is obscured as the column is over the column
leds making it self indexing. It's possible to go very fast.
Oh the only difference with hole vs mark sense is transmittance or
reflective sensing.
Allison
