test-drb

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101090 discussions

Simulators (was: Re: To all with interest in IBM 7090)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 3:36 -0500 8/10/12, Jim wrote: >I think the dec >software is far more healthy today for the work of simh and others to >write simulators than if such didn't exist. ...RT-11? Thank you, Jerome! I don't use it but I certainly recognize the contribution you are making and appreciate it! More generally, SIMH, MESS, etc. which allow almost anyone to fire up their own PDP, Color Computer, etc. and immerse in the 1980 computing environment are *wonderful* things. The sole complaint I have with some of these is that it takes (longer than my attention span) to get them to do "hello world". In many cases they are written for a specific platform, by people who know what they are doing and who make reasonable, but sometimes inaccurate, assumptions that their users do as well. I can easily see great merit to a museum display with (say) a working, living, breathing Color Computer, and a box of paper chits with a URL (or barcode?) pointing to a website on which appears (1) executable binaries (MESS?) for most commodity OS's (iOS, Droid, MacOSX, Windows 98, Windows 7, Linux ELF x86, Linux ELF AMD-64, ...?), and (2) a very explicit list of instructions to configure the binary to do just what the user was doing at the display. Mom and daughter walk in, Mom lights up and says "Oh, I remember this! Check it out, I can make it print the squares of every number from 1 to 100 just like *this* <clicky clicky>..." Doughter grabs the chit, whips out her Droid, fumbles for a few minutes, "Mom, it's not working!" Mom looks, says, "Oh, you need to say FOR I= 1 TO 100, not 1 OT 100!" Ignition... We can't *all* have a Cray. But most of us can get the programming experience. The display is needed (and access to it, and maintenance of it!) but the simulator is also needed. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

13 years, 8 months

What tools do you use/recommend for content dumping of PALs/PLAs/GALs/EPROMs ?

by p.gebhardt＠ymail.com

I'd like to ask the list, what kind of tools/porgrams do you use in order to dump especially older device types as we can find it in older computer equipment? A couple of years back, I was lucky to use an old system at University in order to dump PAL and EPROM contents of my Onyx C8000 and from a DEC DELUA board. But since then, I've never had accessibility to such tools and I'l like to obtain/purchase one in order to go on with programmable device content saving. Any suggestions? Hints? Experiences? Kind regards, Pierre ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pierre's collection of classic computers : http://classic-computing.dyndns.org/

13 years, 8 months

IBM 7090 bits and pieces

by peter＠vanpeborgh.eu

Guys, Obviously a lot of interest in these 7090 artifacts! And an intetresting "discussion" has followed on the relative merits of museums and simulators. My friend Phil, who is local to the stash, is going to produce a list of what there is, or at least how much there is, as well as some photos. I will pass this info on when I get it. KInd regards, peter vp || | | | | | | | | Peter Van Peborgh 62 St Mary's Rise Writhlington Radstock Somerset BA3 3PD UK 01761 439 234 || | | | | | | | |

13 years, 8 months

C= lecture video from VCF East 8.0

by evan＠snarc.net

Video here: http://c128.com/vcf

13 years, 8 months

Subject: Re: [rescue] "bloated pig X11"

by saquinn624＠aol.com

There was the Sun SuperMerge (on the side - what software used the NeWS portion of that? Anyone here used the straight Sun NeWS? NeWS seems to be difficult to find information on besides the Don Hopkins site), there was also the 4Sight implementation for IRIX 4D1-3.x. In common with the later DOMAIN DM implementations it, too, came with an X server that could be run on top. NeWS is one of those things that is in my "interested to find more out about, but probably not interested in programming" because of the additional PostScript layer on top. Did they have any IDEs to help with that? I remember reading about a new "UNIXy" window system project that seemed to leverage many of the points discussed above, but the authors had completely ignored network transparency. That's the sort of thing that seems needless fluff until you start to use it, then the network features of X become very convenient. I can't remember the name right now, however. Seems that useless stylistic effects were amply provided for in it.

13 years, 8 months

Current license holder of DEC PDP-11 operating systems

by bqt＠update.uu.se

On 2012-08-08 23:17, Mouse<mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG> wrote: > >> >The rights were bought from Mentec by XX2247, LLC > With a name like that it's clearly someone who actually has some DEC > clue, not just a random holding company. I'd call that good. As Al Kossov alluded to, the "someone" is Dave Carroll. Ex. DEC, ex Mentec, and the last person around at Mentec who did the development of this software. Yes, it is a good sign. However, don't anyone hold their breath. The age old problem of HP still have a controlling interest in all this is still around and just as unsolved as ever before. Johnny

13 years, 8 months

"Re: Fwd: RE: IBM 7090 documents and tapes- follow on"

by prp＠teleport.com

Susan, Peter, I have an IBM 7094 in my collection, the model after the 7090. See http://www.piercefuller.com/collect/main.html My 7094-I is complete with peripherals (tape drives, card reader and printer) cables and spares, along with full hardware documentation and extensive software including diagnostics and IBSYS. It is in storage and until recently has been on view, but now the entire collection is packed to tight for viewing. It is not unreasonable to expect that it could be made to run again; Jay Jaeger, Richard Smith and I brought up a 7094-II in similar shape many years ago. Susan, does your 7090 have its cables? I am not aware of any other 7090/7094 systems in existence except for IBM's own collection. IBM only kept the cabinets, and in some cases only the consoles, not the cables or documentation. There is/was a small trove of 7094 bits and pieces in Ohio, including several consoles and much valuable software, but no cabinets. Jay Jaeger and I have raided the tapes and documents a couple of times, that is where the SHARE tapes on my web site came from. SHARE was the IBM user's group for the 709x series. I have a working setup to read the 7-track tapes that were used with the 1401 and 7000 series computers. I've read most of the tapes in my collection and several other interesting tapes people have sent to me. I wrote special decoding software to extract the data despite dropouts caused by specks of dirt on the tape, and I've found that nearly all tapes no matter how old or how well or poorly stored can be read easily. Once I've read a tape I put the bits up on my web site, and several people have used them to get the old software running again on simulators they have written for these old computers. Peter - We are still missing several interesting pieces of software and software documentation. Its possible the stash you are responsible for contains some of these. Regardless of the eventual disposition, it would be very helpful if I could at least borrow anything I don't already have to read it and make the data available. Nearly all the tapes I have in my collection are already read in and can be found here and at the next link below: http://www.piercefuller.com/library/magtape7.html A little of the software documentation I have has been scanned and can be found here (drill down to individual systems): http://www.piercefuller.com/library/ibm709x.html More can be found at bitsavers: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/7090/ http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/share/ If you already have a detailed list of the tapes, cards and documents I would like to look it over to see if there is anything interesting. Alternatively, you might compare what you have available to the lists above and note anything different. We are particularly looking for some of the larger SHARE programs that were distributed seperately from the regular compilation tapes, such as the SOS operating system. I am also particularly interested in the APT application, and it would be great to find copies of famous old programs such as LISP. Paul Pierce

13 years, 8 months

HP 98xx series cassette EOT-sensor fix : war story

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

Lately I acquired some HP 9865 cassette units and a HP 9821A three cassette drives suffered from 'slow running' I found out the LDR's used in the EOT sensor are causing this behavior, the used LDR's are from the NSL314 type which is practically unobtainable. The NSL314 is a IR-sensitive CDSe type LDR, replacing it with a standard low resistance LDR doesn't do the trick, the LDR needs to have a resistance lower then ~5k at low light. The most of the cassette drives also suffer from bad sensor bulb, replacing the bulb by a white LED doesn't give enough light to do the trick. The combination white LED and new LDR isn't working because the LDR resistance isn't getting low enough. The sensor amplifier circuit needs to be modified to work correct, I did this by creating Wheatstone's bridge by adding a grounding resistor to the LDR input. Adding a series resistor of 10k to LDR input and changing the feedback resistor from 18k2 to 100k made the amplifier work correct with the combination white LED and 'normal' CDS type LDR. I made some pictures from this fix which can be found at my flickr page : http://www.flickr.com/photos/hp-fix/sets/72157630819381098/ -Rik

13 years, 8 months

Forward Delay of posts?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

I received the post from Johnny at around 7:19 P.M. EDT in Toronto. The time stamp was 7:11 P.M. EDT in Toronto which I thought corresponds to when Johnny sent the post from Sweden? which would have been no more than an 8 minute delay. In any case, I send my reply to classiccmp at 7:37 P.M. EDT and received the copy back at my computer about 20 minutes later at about 7:57 P.M. EDT. What I am curious about is the 20 minute delay from when my reply was sent to classiccmp vs the time the reply was received back from classiccmp? Is a 20 minute delay normal? I know that classiccmp has a delay of at least 5 minutes whereas another list I monitor responds almost immediately. Any comments? Jerome Fine

13 years, 8 months

slowest supercomputer still in operation

by jonas＠otter.se

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:53:48 -0700 (PDT), Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > He was > well-regarded by his colleagues, and displeased when I suggested that > a > TEACHER of FORTRAN should surely be ably to debug such an obvious > error, > for his was too highly evolved a mind to concern itself with whether > it > should be a comma or a full-stop between the device number and the > FORMAT > statement number in a WRITE statement (such being the ways of the > Grand > Academy of Lagado, and most of the rest of Academia). When he moved > to a > different university a few years later, I was given his job, starting > with > teaching FORTRAN, now on 5150 with MS-FORTRAN. http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2012-08-05/ /Jonas

13 years, 8 months

HP Visualize C8000

by spectre＠floodgap.com

Just landed a nice C8000 with a dual-core PA-8900 CPU for playing with at a nice price, the last and most powerful of the Visualize workstations. I have a CD set of 11i v1 in my stock closet which should do nicely. Any other PA-RISC users onlist? Any gotchas? The last Visualize I worked on was a C3750, so that was a little behind this generation. I just don't have the space for a K-class, tho. 8) -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Xerox never comes up with anything original. -------------------------------

13 years, 8 months

[rescue] "bloated pig X11"

by feldman.r＠comcast.net

>Message: 7 >Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:12:38 -0400 >From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > <snip> > > I heard about CDE the other day too. That could be interesting. Many >people hated CDE, but I thought it was ok. (not great, but ok) I will >probably try to build it soon. > > -Dave > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/09/cde_goes_opensource/

13 years, 8 months

To all with interest in IBM 7090

by feldman.r＠comcast.net

>Message: 13 >Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:31:22 -0400 >From: Paul Anderson < wackyvorlon at me.com > > >I'm at university right now, studying classics(ancient rome and greece), and this reminds me of something my prof told me. He was participating in one dig where they >ended up uncovering a grand total of about ten *tons* of potsherds. That's about nine thousand kilograms for the metric inclined. > >The problem is that most of them had no real diagnostic value - no markings, nothing unusual. Not really much to be learned from them. Of course, you couldn't put them in >a museum. All the museums in the world put together don't have space for ten tons of random, unmarked potsherds. I had thought they should see about selling them, lots >of people would love to have a piece of ancient greece - but, no, my prof pointed out that they would then become fodder for forgers. So, what to do? Fortunately, at the >time, Athens Airport was building a new runway - and needed fill. Those potsherds are buried under the runway. > >Sometimes, there's just too much *stuff*. I used to do archaeological field work in Peru, and have personally reburied pot sherds and shells after the analysis was completed. I would include some indication that the material was reburied, but in one instance that did not prevent a later project at the same site from ignoring my note as intrusive and thinking they had found a large quantity of one type of marine shell buried in a grave pit . As to museums having much more material in storage than on display, my experience comes from a natural history museum, where the collections try to encompass as much variation in a species as possible. You might display one example of a bird or snail, but have 40 or 50 (or hundreds) more in storage. For cultural artifacts, storage is more dense than the exhibit galleries, and space is limited, so that is one reason most of the collection is kept in storage. Another reason is that even a good exhibit is more damaging to an artifact than good storage. The museum is committed to preserving the artifact for an indefinite period of time and is (or should be) very concerned about protecting the artifact from damage. As a curator, I was fairly broad in allowing access to the stored collections. You could not just walk in off the street, but if you could give a good reason why you should be allowed to see the collections (not just the desire to see more examples, however), you could get an appointment. Other curators were stricter, but they were the ones who had the legal responsibility for their collections. The Conservators were the strictest -- even curators had to bow to them over questions about whether or how an artifact could be displayed. Bob

13 years, 8 months

Modern computers with docs (was: Re: PM 6100/60, was: Powermac...)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 19:48 -0500 7/1/12, ARD wrote (more or less): >More seriously, can you name a present-day computer where the >manufactuers do supply schematics, data on ASICs, and the like? N8VEM. Pretty sure that's not what you meant, though. Seriously, I love the idea but see no good way to market it to the average user. Imbedded systems, "educational" systems, etc. could maybe develop a market size that would make it possible to produce, but the cost of providing good service info (much more to produce good "educational" material to accompany the system if that's the route you are going) ... ouch. It looks to me like the market has fragmented into a) N8VEM class systems - *truly* niche market, open architecture but tiny numbers sold b) Rpi class systems - incomplete docs and SMI/unserviceable construction, moderate numbers sold c) Commodity boxes, iPad/ThinkBook/etc - serviceable only with specialized tools or not at all, the vast majority of the market. d) Server boxes more serviceable, but at the fast, board-swap-to-get-it-running level. Expensive. Small fraction of market. Anyone have ideas on how to break out of those categories? I think whatever it is will need a powerful enough CPU to run a *big* fraction of modern hardware (recent Linux -> web browser + self-hosted development environment?), be easy enough to assemble to require minimal tool acquisition, and use commodity peripherals (flash card storage, HDMI output, bluetooth or USB KB/mouse, microphone?). Complexity is already an issue at that point; trying to "educate" a new user across that whole array of components is pretty daunting. -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

13 years, 8 months

Sun 100U video display Issues

by nick.allen＠comcast.net

Hey everyone, I ma repairing a Sun 100U computer, and am having some issues I would love some help with. I am using a bwtwo video card with the Sun 100U CRT (its a 17" HD B&W phillips CRT). I am getting an image showing a successful boot, but I am getting a split double image (like split screen but the same image on both sides). Any ideas what is causing this, a frequency issue? Any jumpers/settings on the video card which may inadvertently cause this? Could it be a CRT issue?

13 years, 8 months

Vintage SCSI drives for sale

by lproven＠gmail.com

Starting the big clearout... Thought these might be of interest hereabouts: IBM WDS-3160S 160MB SCSI hard drive http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271033047930 IBM type 661 330MB SCSI hard disk http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271033050365 Quantum Prodrive 210s vintage 210MB SCSI hard drive http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=271033044140 Also a vintage Mac but that's probably less interesting. ;-) -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

13 years, 8 months

anyone else w/an NEC PC-8001A?

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

I just need some moral support, as my unit currently doesn't work. Probably an easy fix. I do have the whole deck out though, floppy cabinet, expansion cabinet. Monitor.

13 years, 8 months

Current license holder of DEC PDP-11 operating systems

by gerhard.kreuzer＠liftoff.at

Check out this link .. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-carroll/13/791/a07 Best regards Gerhard

13 years, 8 months

HP 98xx series cassette EOT-sensor fix : war story

by elson＠pico-systems.com

> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 23:22:20 +0200 > From: "Rik Bos" <hp-fix at xs4all.nl> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Subject: HP 98xx series cassette EOT-sensor fix : war story > Message-ID: <001001cd75ab$e8416670$b8c43350$(a)xs4all.nl> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Lately I acquired some HP 9865 cassette units and a HP 9821A three cassette > drives suffered from 'slow running' > > I found out the LDR's used in the EOT sensor are causing this behavior, the > used LDR's are from the NSL314 type which is practically unobtainable. > > The NSL314 is a IR-sensitive CDSe type LDR, replacing it with a standard low > resistance LDR doesn't do the trick, the LDR needs to have a resistance > lower then ~5k at low light. > > The most of the cassette drives also suffer from bad sensor bulb, replacing > the bulb by a white LED doesn't give enough light to do the trick. > > The combination white LED and new LDR isn't working because the LDR > resistance isn't getting low enough. > > The sensor amplifier circuit needs to be modified to work correct, I did > this by creating Wheatstone's bridge by adding a grounding resistor to the > LDR input. > > Adding a series resistor of 10k to LDR input and changing the feedback > resistor from 18k2 to 100k made the amplifier work correct with the > combination white LED and 'normal' CDS type LDR. > Why wouldn't you use an IR LED? Jon

13 years, 8 months

SGI IRIS 1400 mkboot and Ideal III tape images

by lawrence＠ljw.me.uk

[Forwarded by lawrence at ljw.me.uk with links obfuscated] From: Tothwolf <tothwolf at concentric.net> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: SGI IRIS 1400 mkboot and Ideal III tape images Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 17:39:24 -0500 (CDT) [2nd attempt to send this to the list.] I just found these tape images again while sorting out files and thought I'd post links here so these can be mirrored. I dumped both tapes about 10 years ago when I got them with the SGI IRIS 1400. These will probably only be of use to someone with one of these machines, but no one else I spoke with back when I got the machine had this software. I'm not sure if the mkboot tape is usable or not but I don't remember having any trouble reading either of the tapes. The tape.0 and tape.2 files both read as valid cpio archives, but tape.1 doesn't. These three tape.x files were separate partitions on the QIC tape. http://strudel (dot) ignorelist (dot) com/~tothwolf/classiccmp/SGI-IRIS-1400/MKBOOT-IRIS-1400.tar.gz MKBOOT TAPE INCLUDING /USR PARTITION FOR THE IRIS 1400 DATE 4/1/88 TAPE NO. 063/SG/005 http://strudel (dot) ignorelist (dot) com/~tothwolf/classiccmp/SGI-IRIS-1400/IDEAL-III.tar.gz IMAGE VISUAL SYSTEM SINGER Link-Miles 27 NOV 1987 IDEAL III CUSTOMER RELEASE TAPE FOR IRIS 1400 64 COLOR INCLUDING:- RUN FILES, MENUS, HELD FILES, KERMIT UTILITY FILES AND COMSEG D/BASES TAPE NO. 063/SG/004

13 years, 8 months

MEK6800

by wackyvorlon＠me.com

A number of years ago now, I ran across a bit of a find at a computer recycler's. It's an old Motorola evaluation kit for the 6800. I thought I had the CPU board, an interface board and a couple memory boards - it turns out I had two pairs of the processor board and interface board. I've fired up at least the one pair, and they work perfectly. I loaded some code into memory using the hex keypad and it ran fine. Anybody else run across these?

13 years, 8 months

Looking for a vintage S100 power supply

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

I just posted the MITS Altair 8800 Power supply specs with a link to the schematic on my web site, if you went the sensible route and bought something new with the same characteristics the original. http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=486 Bill

13 years, 8 months

slowest supercomputer still in operation

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

After looking at nice computers at Ames and the Computer History Museum, a though occurred to me: What is the slowest/oldest supercomputer still in operation? -- 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?

13 years, 8 months

potter pens.

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

I just noticed this ad about space pens. Will the same cartridges fit on the older plotter? http://www.spacepen.com/

13 years, 8 months

Current license holder of DEC PDP-11 operating systems

by bqt＠update.uu.se

On 2012-08-08 19:00, Al Kossow<aek at bitsavers.org> wrote: > On 8/7/12 11:20 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote: >> >It's a mystery .. no one seems to know. >> > > Quite a few people on this list know, and they have said it several times on this > list. The rights were bought from Mentec by XX2247, LLC > > I think Dave has been busy with other things, though. Indeed. I know it's been said a few times by now. I'm almost thinking that some people just don't want to hear that answer... So, to repeat, the PDP-11 software is still owned, and it is not Mentec anymore. Oh, and I saw the other confused discussion about Mentec vs Mentec US. The Mentec that had the PDP-11 software was not found under mentec.com, but under mentec-inc.com - how fast people forget... This is from Jan 6, 2006: http://web.archive.org/web/20060106160717/http://www.mentec-inc.com/ Johnny

13 years, 8 months

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