Does anyone here have PC-DOS 1.1 docs scanned in and in PDF format? I
have the hardcopy and I'd like to make sure I don't need to scan it
myself.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Hi Dave,
thanks for your email. Given this information, I think
my stuff is not of use for your project...
> We have an IBM 1627 plotter which is really just a private-labelled CalComp
> 565 plotter. It has a 220mm width plot area and uses presurized ball point
> pens.
Yes, this is an early ancestor of the 1038/1039 I have got up and
running.
> We have the schematics for the IBM controller, but don't have one. We'll
> need to build our own to connect between the IBM 1620 computer and the
> plotter.
I do not know the details on this, but maybe it is easier to
rip an other plotter using stepper motors and connect the clock
and direction signals to the 565 directly. There should be quite
a lot plotter out there suitable for this.
What kind of processor does the IBM controller use? In somewhat
later Calcomp plotters (as mine from 1972) a OPC (online plotter
controller) was included. The original Calcomp PCB contains a
6800 processor which interprets signals from a RS232C interface.
This PCB generates the signals needed to drive the plotter (i.e.
step and direction pulses). Since this OPC was optional it might
be easier to obtain than the IBM part? Maybe they are identical?
For the Calcomp OPC I have got schematics and ROM dumps. It has
the same name as the language it understands "PCI906" and of
course includes a character generator...
> The information we are looking for is: 1) detailed descriptions of the
> CalComp HCBS [basic plot] library; 2) the algorithms used by CalComp to
> implement the plotting functions; and 3) the vector character font data
> that CalComp used.
Sorry, I do not have anything of the mentioned...
> We have no application programs for the IBM 1620 that do plotting [although
> we have 200,000 punched cards of programs and data]. We'll be writing the
> demo application in addtion to the basic plot library.
That sounds great - I wish you the very best for this
project,
best regards,
Erik.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Baigar [mailto:erik at baigar.de]
> Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 10:33 PM
> To: Sellam Ismail
> Cc: Classic Computers Mailing List; dave at kaleidosoft.com; Erik Baigar
> Subject: Re: Looking for "Programming CalComp Electromechanical Plotters"
> book
>
>
> Dear Sellam Ismail,
>
> I have got a 1039 plotter which I got from a engineering company years ago.
> They used it in the 90ies with DOS based software and they had certain
> libraries (I think it was fortran) from Calcomp to use the plotter. These
> libraries contained commands for e.g. drawing mathematial diagrams,
> characters and so on.
>
> Maybe I somewhere have got the documentation (a few
> pages) listing the commands which are implemented in the library.
>
> Is this the kind of stuff you are looking for? What type of plotter do you
> have got? Has this one got a digital interface (like e.g. PCI907 or PCI906)?
>
> Do you have got any application software on your 1620?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Erik.
>
>
> > The IBM 1620 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum needs a
> > copy for a project they are working on to interface a CalComp plotter
> > to the 1620.
> >
> > If you've got a copy you can provide (all they need is a photocopy or
> > scan) please contact Dave Babcock <dave at kaleidosoft.com>.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
> Festival
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> > International Man of Intrigue and Danger
> http://www.vintage.org
> >
> > [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers
> ]
> > [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at
> > http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
> >
>
Hi,
I am still working on Catweasel NorthStar project and making good progress.
The program can now make images of SSSD, SSDD, DSDD, and those troublesome
"mixed density" disks. There are still a few minor bugs to resolve and
another round of testing to go through. However, I am planning on soon
releasing the code for an initial round of testing.
Since the CWNS program is only going to appeal to a very limited audience,
the first rounds of code release and testing will be done on the
NorthStar_Computers Yahoo Group. If you would like to participate, please
join us at:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NorthStar_Computers/
I believe the CWNS program is finally coming together and I am considering
the next project. The Heath H89 computer using H-17 disk controller uses
the same media as the NorthStar (10 sector 5.25" hard sector floppy disks)
and in some superficial ways are similar to the NorthStar SSSD disk so this
seems like a logical next choice. I would like to extend the concept of
CWNS to include Heath hard sector disks (i.e. Catweasel Heath, CWH)
My theory is the main difference between CWNS and CWH will be the bit stream
decoding logic. The H-17 disk format is entirely different than the
NorthStar MDS-A series disks. However, the disk format is documented here:
http://davidwallace2000.home.comcast.net/h8/project8080_archive/design_h17.h
tml#format
A major problem with this plan is I do not have an H89 or any Heath
formatted disks. I am seeking a partner to collaborate on this project. If
someone would send me some Heath formatted hard sector disks, I will start
the investigating whether a Catweasel Heath program is feasible.
Please do not send irreplaceable originals or critical data disks. I need
working disks you can afford to either lose or be damaged as a result of
testing the software. Please contact me offline or reply to this message if
you are willing to help out.
Thanks!
Andrew Lynch
> Were these the tapes that were in Ohio? I have a need
> for a bunch of tapes, but they're bloody heavy
Bulk freight on a pallet would be the cheapest transport.
About the only used tape I would trust is Scotch 7xx, though.
Absolutely, positively avoid BASF and Memorex. I'm cursing at
a huge pile of MRX V (silver label) I'm trying to process. Total
crap. 24+ hours bake time and it still sticks.
> Randy, I would love to see both Versaplot and MOVIE.BYU!
I have an original movie.byu distrib tape as well as mini-movie.
Fighting with bit rot on it, though. I may have to wait for the analog tape reader.
>
>Subject: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
> From: "Dan Snyder" <ddsnyder at zoominternet.net>
> Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2007 20:32:23 -0400
> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>To all,
>
>I have monitored the postings and know of a few collectors of VAXen, all types it seems. The
>PDP family is popular too. What about Alphaservers? some are by classic definition at least
>10 years old such as the 1000/1000A and 1200 series. Alphastations definitely qualify like the
>200/250/255/500 series. I collect most of the Alpha family as I use them frequently. OpenVMS
>and Digital Unix is the OS of choice.
I collect Qbus PDP-11s and MicroVAX and also have a selection
of 3100 series machines (VAXserver and microVAX).
OS for the Vaxen are OVMS5.4, V7.3 and also Ultrix4.2. OS for the
PDP-11s is RT11, RSTS and unixV6.
Never considered Alpha as they are too recent for me. If I had
one it would be in daily service.
Allison
> I missd that, Who was looking for writeline tape seals?
> I currently have several hundred along with several wrightlint tape racks I plan to put on ebay next week fro
> a friend.
I (actually CHM) has an urgent need for several hundred
> I threw out close to 1,000 9 track tapes with
> seals last week.
And, as I recall, I had asked if you couldn't find anyone to take
the tapes if I could get the seals from you.
I seem to rember that people on this list ( Tony ?) have extended a
512K memory expansion for the HP integral.
<<was it sufficient to stuff the open places on the PCB ?
Jos
Al made a comment about looking for Wright Line tape seals.
A story of mine:
In the 90's I got to spend a lot of time sitting in tape libraries
filled with tens of thousands of tapes hanging on racks from the
hook on the tape seal.
During a typical stretch (say 8 hours nominal) one or two
tape seals would break and the tape would get dumped
to the floor. Sometimes the seal would break in response
to some kind of vibration in the room (after all, there were
several tape drives getting loaded/unloaded etc. as
well as me rummaging through the racks looking for tapes) but
other times they seemed to break with absolutely no reason.
Sometimes the black plastic hanger would break but more
typically the white plastic seal would break near the hanger.
I'd say from this that out of a library of 30,000 tapes
with several tape seals breaking every day, that the expected
MTBF of those Wright-line tape seal is probably 30 years.
That's not necessarily the same as lifetime. As the plasticizers
dry out I'd expect them to break more often. Sunlight and ozone+
heat can really do a doozy on plastics.
The hard-plastic IBM tape seals seemed to be very much
more vulnerable to breaking in transport than the Wright
lines, and they'd also occasionally fail just hanging there on
the tape rack, but I'm reluctant to make any statistical
statements about them because so many were obviously
broken in transport.
This request is actually more than on topic since the software in
question was written in 1995. Specifically, John Wilson wrote
HD.MAC in 1995 as a temporary substitute for DU(X).SYS
to use large (up to 32 MB) disk drives under Ersatz-11.
Being a bit of an RT-11 nut (OK a lot of an RT-11 nut, addict),
I finally enhanced HDX.SYS to use 22 bit addresses under the
Qbus so that I could replace VMX.SYS after I noticed that using
HDX.SYS was so much faster than both VMX.SYS (3 times as
fast) and DUX.SYS (twice as fast). PLUS, my minimum version
of the LOADed code for HDX.SYS is smaller than VMX.SYS,
supports a full 65536 block RT-11 partition (sort of obvious vs
less than 8192 blocks for VM: on the PDP-11) and also supports
the commands:
SET HD: NAME (allows an RT-11 user to COPY HD.SYS VM.SYS)
SET HD: UNIT=nn (n = 0 to15) (allows the RT-11 user to specify the
Ersatz-11 unit)
SET HD: [NO]WRITE (allows the RT-11 user to make the disk RONLY)
In addition, I have written code which executes at the user level
which, under Ersatz-11, avoids the overhead associated with
an EMT request and is twice as fast again as using the HDX.SYS
device driver. Whereas:
COPY/DEVICE/NOQUERY DU0: DU1:
takes over 2 seconds,
COPY/DEVICE/NOQUERY HD0: HD1:
takes just about 1 second
and my user subroutines take about 0.5 seconds to copy the same
32 MB RT-11 partition. Compare that with about 5 minutes for an
RD53 to RD53 copy and about 4 minutes for an ESDI to ESDI
copy (using either Maxtor or Hitachi drives) on a PDP-11/83. The
comparison figures are for a 750 MHz Pentium III. I imagine that
a 3+ GH Pentium 4 will be about 4 times as fast, maybe even faster
using SATA 2 hard drives of (1 TB?).
Well, no good effort goes unpunished and one thing led to another.
I am testing other versions including support for 64 units under
RT-11 and I have a solution looking for a problem. I know that
a few people have discussed a Qbus controller for the PDP-11
to use the current large disk drives. Well, MSCP emulation might
be the final goal, however, I would be VERY pleased to support
the HD(X).SYS code for anyone who might want to develop the
hardware to interface this almost trivial example of an interface to
the PDP-11 which uses 8 IOPAGE registers as detailed by John
Wilson in his hobby version of E11 in the source file HD.MAC,
although there are 2 essential details omitted in the documentation
concerning 22 bit Qbus operation and size requests. The key point
is that John Wilson's interface (based on a Russian idea which used
only 4 IOPAGE registers) is a simple as any concept might be needing
only the byte count, block number and user buffer address for each
read or write request.
Finally, I will also suggest to Bob Supnik or anyone else who may be
interested that SIMH might also make use of HD(X).SYS since the
interface should be just as efficient under that emulator as Ersatz-11.
Does anyone reading this agree and if so, is Bob Supnik the best person
to make this suggestion to? Does anyone reading this have both the
interest and the ability to write the interface code for SIMH to handle
an HD: type of disk drive? Can you suggest who might be interested
or have that ability. For myself, while I also use SIMH, it lacks two
essential features:
(a) Built in VT100 emulation
(b) Is only about 1/10 the speed of Ersatz-11
Can anyone help with a contact address for Bob Supnik and anyone else
who may wish to consider my request?
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
A friend of mine dropped a screwdriver into an open chassis and dinged two
very tiny traces that are beyond his ability to fix. Is there someone in
or around Portland, Oregon who could possibly fix this?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
I have finally managed to extract the contents of my one remaining
usable disk for the ETH Lilith.
WIth this upper layer programs and the micrcode stuff I extracted
earlier a Lilith emulator should become possible.
Sadly the Lara wordprocessor resided on a bad spot on the disk and could
not be rescued.
I had to use Kermit on a 9600 baud serial line, this 5 MB took forever,
certainly if you forget to set file type to binary and have to restart
everything....
Jos
> I have finally managed to extract the contents of my one remaining
> usable disk for the ETH Lilith.
That's wonderful news!
I was able to locate the sources for the Modula-2 release that was
distributed
in 1981, which appears to have a Lilith back end.
CalComp published a book entitled, "Programming CalComp Electromechanical
Plotters" in the 1970s era that contained documentation for software
libraries for using the CalComp plotters. It's relatively obscure.
The IBM 1620 Restoration Team at the Computer History Museum needs a copy
for a project they are working on to interface a CalComp plotter to the
1620.
If you've got a copy you can provide (all they need is a photocopy or
scan) please contact Dave Babcock <dave at kaleidosoft.com>.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
How well has TI-99/4A software on floppies been preserved? We just
received a very large donation. As part of the donation is what
appears to be a complete TI-99/4A system complete with the expansion
box, and a couple other expansions. There is documentation for at
least some of the hardware and software.
At this time I've no idea how much TI software is in there, as the TI
floppies are mixed in with hundreds if not thousands of floppies. I
know the 5 1/4 floppies include TI, C64/128, Apple ][, and PC
floppies. There are 8" Tandy, and possibly IBM Displaywriter
floppies, tons of 3.5" floppies, and at least one 3" Amstrad floppy.
There is obvious commercial software for the TI on floppy (including
a boxed Infocom game), as well as what appears to be a lot of
floppies from what I suspect was a TI club (these might not be TI
floppies).
I thought I had a lot of floppies until I saw this pile.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Chuck wrote: > On 26 Sep 2007 at 17:13, Richard wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <000f01c8008d$38c89f80$6400a8c0 at BILLING>,
> > > "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> writes:
> > >
>
>> > > > Two drive motors from Calcomp 8" floppy drives are available.
>>
> > >
> > > Calcomp made floppies?!?! I thought they just made plotters!
>
> Nope--my first drives were Calcomp 104's. Miserable things. I
> believe they were also the stock drive for the Imsai 8080 floppy box.
I just finished resurrecting an old PDP-11/03, racked in some
old-timer, 1950s-style radio gear cabinet that looks like it
came right out of an old NWS monitoring station. Anyway, the
system has two RX01 subsystems.
As I disassembled everything for thorough cleaning, I, like
Richard, was a little surprised to see that one drive of each
RX01 pair was really a CalComp drive. In both cases the mate
was a DEC branded drive.
The construction of CalComp and the mated DEC drives are
essentially identical, with only a few minor changes to some
of the plastic parts. I wonder if the CalComp line was actually
acquired by DEC (or vice-versa?). These RX01s both date from
1978.
- Jared
Is anyone else seeing duplicate messages every once in a while? I got two from
Jay (about the IBM terminal) spaced 55 minutes apart but with otherwise
identical content. I think there was a pair like this yesterday from someone,
and two or three pairs last week.
Looking at the headers of these latest two, there are differences in timing,
and one of them references 'billy.ezwind.net' in connection with some
Spam-Assassin lines, whereas the other doesn't.
Yeah, I know this is really an off-list admin thing - I was just curious
whether others had seen it happen too.
(Jay, if it's useful and might be something happening at your end, I can try
and save any more I see like this and see if there's any pattern to which ones
it happens with... prod me off-list if needs be)
cheers
Jules
>
>Subject: Re: 8-bitters and multi-whatever
> From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
> Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:24:01 -0400
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>On Sunday 09 September 2007 16:04, Allison wrote:
>> >A while back I *almost* got a hold of one of those "z80 network in a box"
>> >systems, it wasn't S-100 but something else I can't recall, I think
>> > that's the one I have the book on, but I never did snag it.
>>
>> Multibus, very nice bus and expensive cards. I have a few multibus cards.
>> Intel used it in their MDS800 and a few otehrs as well.
>
>I remember seeing that in some sales literature and it always did strike me as
>being more spendy than I wanted or could afford to get into. :-)
It cost more because it was industrial strength, larger boards, regulated power
and so on.
>> >Unfortunately instead of RS232 Televideo has something else going there
>> >(RS422?), not easy to interface too, and they distribute their "network"
>> >out amongst what other Televideo boxes you have, which in my case is
>> > none. I guess with an S-100-based system you could always add more cards,
>> > and somehow or other make it work.
>> >
>> >And speaking of the networking aspect of it, do any of you guys know how
>> > they did it? I recall one time getting a glimpse of some system or other
>> > that was S-100 but also had a set of connectors at thet op of each card,
>> > which is what they used for their inter-processor linking rather than
>> > trying to push it through the bus. The reason for this is not apparent
>> > to me.
>>
>> Many ways to do it, using a commmon port or a pool of common memory for
>> in box networking and serial ports as well. There were also ARCnet, pre
>> Ethernet and even Ethernet.
>
>I know of ARCnet, went to a short seminar on that once at a trade show, and
>in fact even have a couple of ISA cards around here someplace, though I
>don't forsee me ever using them.
ARCnet and most of the 'nets were in the price range of a hard disk then.
Also the whole idea of networking was new. For example in 1982 the two
largest networks I knew of were DEC (internal) and Dupont(internal) and
they were around 50 nodes!
There were a few simple schemes but excluding myself how many hobbiests
back then had two or more systems?
>> >I've also seen some "CP/M networking" stuff referred to that was supposed
>> > to work through serial ports, which pretty many machines had, althogh
>> > they appeared in at least one case to be using diodes to wire-OR RS232
>> > signals, which doesn't strike me as too terribly robust. And what
>> > software support there was for this wasn't real apparent.
>>
>> That was a poor mans networking. Basically the serial ports were used as
>> CD/CSMA bus and there was some protocal like Ethernet but slower and could
>> use the usually common async chips. I have such a net going for my CP/M
>> crates and all.
>
>What does that take on the software side of things?
Not a whole lot, CPnet could be used but it was easy enough to use plain
vanilla CP/M2.2 and add your own BIOS drivers for "networked functions".
defineatly home grown.
>> >I dunno, I've just got this fascination for assorted 8-bit parts talking
>> > to each other through some smallish number of wires, I guess it's easier
>> > to deal with than some of the big iron you guys handle regularly, which
>> > I can't afford to go get never mind housing. And I've seen multiple
>> > processors used in stuff already, as in some musical equipment that
>> > passed "event information" from one chip to the next with only a couple
>> > of pins, or the daisywheel printer that had _four_ 804x procesors in it
>> > for different functions.
>>
>> This is not a new thing.
>
>Nope. It's just my particular fascination these days. And probably a lot
>easier to deal with than lots of big iron. :-)
>
>> >TurboDOS is neat, and has some good design aspects in it, but there's
>> > too much legacy stuff in there for being able to run CP/M software,
>> > stuff I'd leave out if it were me and too much emphasis on the same old
>> > Console / Printer / Disk Drives in the system, as opposed to something
>> > different or unique. I found the same thing to be the case when I looked
>> > at FORTH, too much of the usual stuff, and that was supposed to have
>> > been used in some control applications? I must've missed something
>> > there...
>>
>> ???? Whats the question or point?
>
>Just that I'd like to see some stuff that isn't oriented that way. You have a
>SBC, you obviously need some way to talk to it, but the standard "console"
>stuff gets a little old, I probably don't want to hook a printer up to it,
>and may not even want a disk drive of any sort, depending on what I wanna do
>with it. I'm up for exploring some alternative approaches to doing things.
>Unfortunately the embedded stuff that's out there doesn't satisfy too often,
>the design being too specific to the app, source code not available, etc.
>I'm thinking that it should be possible to have some sort of a more
>generalized framework to hang things on, and then you could optimize it for
>specific uses, or expand it in different directions. Even from the earliest
>days "personal" computers all seemed to take pretty much the same approach to
>things...
Well by hook or by grook the average PC still has a serial port, some have two
or atleast a USB port for a USB to serial. It's not that hard to write software
to use that serial as a access from the SBC for things like a remote printer
or disk and people have and are doing it. It's not "networking" in the full
blown sense but none of the IO of a SBC is required to direct connection
to a printer or terminal (ignoring rom based stuff).
>I realized in other messaging a while back that it's been well over a year
>since I fired up a soldering iron, and this is a bad thing. :-) And even
>then, it was a matter of scrapping stuff, not building anything new and
>interesting. I need to get out of that particular rut and get back to it,
>or there's no point to all those parts I've been scrounging for decades.
>Maybe one of these days I will...
When you do tell us about it. Seems these days I get to maybe one
of the major computer construction based projects maybe two per year.
But I split my time between RF projects and digital projects.
Allison
>
>--
>Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
>ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
>be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
>-
>Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
>M Dakin
I just acquired an old IBM 3279 mainframe terminal. I used one of
these back in the early '80s. Anyone know of any kits or technology
or techniques to hook this up to something useful (perhaps an RS-232
or S100 interface or PCI interface) or is this just a boat anchor (I
don't happen to have an old IBM mainframe handy)?
Paul
How about 'museum pieces on loan for exhibition.'
Rod Smallwood
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
Sent: 25 September 2007 23:08
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: US imports (was: Re: Old mini computer (B80))
jim s wrote:
> If you are bringing in something made in the USA then locate the "Made
> in USA" badges and show them to any interested customs agents. There
> are no duties on US made goods. If the unit was not primarily
> assembled in the US then show them a reciept showing how much you paid
> for it, and the age, and I doubt there would be any duty on it.
Hmm, I can see I'm going to have fun if I try to bring 10-15 UK machines
in (which are all 80s or older, but receipts? - haha!)
Unless of course it's different because it's stuff I've owned for years
(just not kept in the US) rather than items I've just acquired. Maybe
"personal belongings" is a different case...
I need to give a few shipping companies a prod I suppose and see what
their experiences are.