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

ATTN: Nerds UK and Down Under: Television Program about 1980s Hackers (fwd)

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I am forwarding this to the list in the hopes that it reaches interested parties in the UK and/or Australia (not sure where this production is intended to take place). Here's an opportunity to claim your 15 minutes of fame. See below forwarded message. Reply-to: Janie Parker <janieparker at me.com> -- Sellam Ismail VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap...The truth is always simple. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:50:40 -0800 (PST) From: Janie Parker <janieparker at me.com> To: vcf at vintage.org Subject: Television Program about 1980s Hackers Hi, I am writing to tell you about a project that Matchbox Pictures is making for Channel 10 called Underground. It is based around the hackers working in Melbourne around 1988/89. To help tell the story , we need to accurately replicate the equipment that was used, Commodore 64, Amstrads etc and then the information that is on the screen. We are searching for people that may collect this equipment to loan, sell or hire to us. In our story the hackers get into various Organisations including the US Military/Police/University via the use of a modem. We will need to replicate this by programming codes to make these visuals. Also in the project we have a scene where we are recreating a Computer Market- we will be making up several tables of equipment from the period. This is a scene where we would like collectors to bring along their equipment and be an extra for the day. So there are essentially 3 areas where we would love to get some help from your organisation members. I was wondering if you might be able to put out a message to the group and we could offer you a souvenir from the film, a signed photograph or similar. We are very happy to hear about your organisation and realise that it can be a very valuable resource and i hope we can make it worthwhile and interesting for you. Please feel free to call me to discuss further, Cheers Janie P

14 years, 4 months

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Imaging OSI disks

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message: Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:04:13 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> On 1 Feb 2012 at 16:46, Fred Cisin wrote: > In XenoCopy, I did a few other formats besides CP/M, such as P-System, > "Stand-Alone-BASIC", Coco, etc. But, ONLY ones that could be done with > PC hardware. > > Alas, for the OSI, you will need to build some hardware to read them. > I do NOT know the details, but I've heard that that hardware can be > built around a UART! Could be done with a pulse-timer board, such as a Catweasel pretty easily. Or a small MCU with its built-in UART could also do the trick. Moving heads, etc. is simple. To see what OSI used for data separators and other interface, I believe that somone has a Sam's Photofact online for the C4P showing schematics and timings. --Chuck ------ Reply: Thanks, guys! Now that you've jogged the gray cells I seem to remember something about that 6850 kludge. I was trying to locate a boot disk image for someone and was told that you couldn't do it on a PC so, being from Missouri (Canada) I just wanted to confirm that is indeed the case.

14 years, 4 months

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Thanks to Jay West for all things classic computer

by legalize＠xmission.com

I'd like to thank Jay West publicly for graciously providing us with bandwidth, storage space, server setups and so-on to support our little endeavours. More importantly, Jay donates his personal time to maintain the infrastructure we have all come to depend on. You may wish to express your thanks, as I did, by making a donation to help cover costs and express your appreciation. Please note that Jay has not asked me for any help in this regard, but considering all he does for me (hosting bitsavers, manx and my computer graphics museum site) I felt it only proper. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

14 years, 4 months

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Fwd: Re: TRS-80 Model II floppy controller

by fjkraan＠xs4all.nl

Hi Eric, > [Also sent to cctalk, which appears to be down at the moment.] > > Fred Jan Kraan wrote: >> There are at least five different boot ROMs for the Model II. I posted >> them with some disassemblies and comment at: >> http://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/trs80m2/. If someone has knowledge of >> another version, please let me know. > I don't know of another ROM version, but I can explain I/O port EF. It > is used for drive select, density select, and side select. > > Bits 3 down to 0 are the drive select bits, which are active low. At > any given time, either all four should be high (no drive selected), or > one should be low and the other three high. > > Bit 6 is side select, which should be 1 for side 0, and 0 for side 1. A > single-sided drive will ignore this, but for a double-sided drive it > needs to be set to the correct value, even if the medium is single-sided. > > Bit 7 is 0 for FM (single density), and 1 for MFM (double density). > > The boot ROM appears to only ever write 4E or 4F (hex) to port EF. 4E > will select drive 0, FM mode, side 0, while 4F selects no drive. This > makes me wonder whether the documentation for bit 7 is correct; do Model > II boot floppies use a single-density boot sector? Yes, they do. Weird, but probably more 'standard'. > > If the selected drive is double-sided, Port E0 bit 1 should read 0 for a > single-sided diskette in the drive, and 1 for a double-sided diskette, > as sensed by the index sensor of the drive. (Double-sided diskettes > have the index hole in the jacket at a different angular position, and > double-sided drives have two sensors, to distinguish single-sided from > double-sided media.) > > Later versions of the FDC card also allow the WD1791 FDC chip to be > reset by writing to port E8. The data is ignored. > > Aside from some of my own comments that have been added, this > information is summarized from the Radio Shack "Technical Reference > Manual TRS-80 Model II Catalog Number 26-4921 Revised Floppy Disk > Controller Supplement". Any errors above are almost certainly mine. > > Eric > Thanks, I updated the comment in the disassemblies. Most of the information is also in the 1980 version of the Reference Manual, but not the E8 port. Fred Jan

14 years, 4 months

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testing testing

by halarewich＠gmail.com

hello all havent seen qanything from the list since feb 9th please piong back if you read this chris

14 years, 4 months

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Is Classiccmp Active?

by jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to

Is Classiccmp Active? Jerome Fine

14 years, 4 months

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testing testing

by rich.cini＠verizon.net

I'm seeing the messages. ------Original Message------ From: Chris Halarewich Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org To: CCTalk ReplyTo: CCTalk Subject: testing testing Sent: Feb 15, 2012 7:24 PM hello all havent seen qanything from the list since feb 9th please piong back if you read this chris Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

14 years, 4 months

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IBM keypunch needed in San Diego

by evan＠snarc.net

West-coasters -- check out the post by Dave Nuding here: http://www.nycresistor.com/2012/01/15/ibm-129-card-data-recorder/ Not affiliated with me, just passing it on.

14 years, 4 months

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Returned mail: see transcript for details (fwd)

by cisin＠xenosoft.com

Can somebody explain what happened? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:43:19 -0600 (CST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON at billy.ezwind.net> To: cisin at xenosoft.com Subject: Returned mail: see transcript for details The original message was received at Thu, 9 Feb 2012 16:35:35 -0600 (CST) >from shell.lmi.net [66.117.140.246] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- <cctalk at classiccmp.org> ----- Transcript of session follows ----- <cctalk at classiccmp.org>... Deferred: huey.classiccmp.org.: Host huey.classiccmp.org. is down Message could not be delivered for 5 days Message will be deleted from queue On Thu, 9 Feb 2012, Ray Arachelian wrote: > No, that was for a new, working Lisa 1, and it's around what a working > Lisa 1 would fetch today. I like the idea that a vintage computer is worth the same as its original new price! Apple I $666 TRS80 $599 5150 $1325 (bare) Who's got a complete pricelist?

14 years, 4 months

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two more P112 kits left

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I have two more P112 kits left. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

14 years, 4 months

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Vintage DEC/SUN/HP/MACINTOSH workstations/servers for sale

by janprunk＠gmail.com

Hello ! I am releasing my collection of old computer stuff. I prefer personal pickup in Slovenia. Will ship to European countries, but the shipping wont be less than 40 EUR/piece. For USA or Asia shipping, you better forget it ! The equipment consists of : ### DEC ### 1 x DEC VAXstation 4000/200 - 300 EUR 1 x Digital DEC 3000 - 100 EUR 1 x Digital DEC 2000 Alpha - 100 EUR ### SUN ### 2 x SUN Sparcstation 4 - 50 EUR/each ### HP ### 3 x Hewlett Packard Appollo 9000 712/60 - 50 EUR/each 1 x Hewlett Packard PC 9000 PC-308 (XT) - 50 EUR 1 x Hewlett Packard 9000 E35 - 50 EUR ### Macintosh ### 1 x Power Macintosh 7500/100 - 50 EUR All computers were operational the last time, I checked them, but I am selling them in "AS-IS" condition, since many collect dust for some time now. So please DONT ask me either I can TEST the machines for you or provide any system/boot logs and other stuff, that requires my time. I am selling the equipment without any warranty. Its Vintage gear, what do you expect !? Please for any queries contact me directly to my E-mail address janprunk at gmail.com I don't follow the mailing list regularly. Regards, Jan

14 years, 4 months

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VAX for running old version of VMS

by tpresence＠hotmail.com

I have a license for VMS 5.2 and was considering buying a working system to run it on. My microvax I finally gave up the ghost, and I would rather spend time learning than going through repair at the moment.I have many of the parts below from the uvax 1, but who knows whats working and whats not, I need to test. I have a good configuration for the MicroVAX II to build on, but I was looking at the MicroVAX 3900 since the price disparity is not too significant. Unfortunately, I don't have a good hardware build plan for the 3900. I am hoping I can get some good guidance here. My largest concern is that the hardware is supported by the OS more than anything else.I want to stick with QBUS.I need to have more than 4 async serial ports with modem control (so I can hook it up to other systems) considering the DHV11I need ethernet, thinking DEQNAIm considering the TK50 tape (I would go tk70 if I knew it was backward compat, I'm just not sure)I dont know which disk controllers to get. I'm guessing it should be in the KDA50 with RA82 disks, but I have no idea, just guessing.The standard RX50 floppy.Looking at the VCB02 for video, just as a nicety.And then 64Mb ram. I have never dealt with the 3900 hardware at all, and I have the hobby funds to procure something that works.Guessing that I can do it for less than $2k even if I had to buy all "new" parts. Obviously I want to limit cost as much as possible, but I would also like to be able to run netbsd on the hardware at a later date if it was interesting to do so. I understand that the 3900 can be converted to a microvax III+ with some upgrades, but will it run VMS 5.2? Any recommendations?Kevin

14 years, 5 months

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Who is interested in double sized PDP11/QBUS universal boards?

by holm＠freibergnet.de

Since prices for origianl (old) double size QBUS Boards are exploding now and my friends and me wanting to play anyways, we decided to make our own Experimental Board now: http://www.robotrontechnik.de/html/forum/thwb/showtopic.php?threadid=8008 Prices are heavyly depending on the number of boards made, so I anyone want's one or mor, please mail me or my friend redhead.kc85 at t-online.de. Planned is gold plating and solder stop laquer and signal description on the Bus pins. Boards where mady in germany, not the lowest prices but quality is guaranteed. We don't have the DEC DC00* Chips, so here are on your own, sorry. Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

14 years, 5 months

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VAX for running old version of VMS

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-02-09 02:26, allison<ajp166 at verizon.net> wrote: > > Using a SCSI controller is the way out but watch for dives over 1GB for > the boot drive. > I forget if that affected only the older 3100s or also the uVAX-II boot > as well. The 1MB limit is a restriction in the SCSI commands of the boot monitor of the 3100. As such, this issue never have any bearing on any MSCP controller, since you don't speak SCSI commands to those. And since the uVAX-II talks MSCP, and not SCSI, it therefore is not a problem. Johnny -- Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

14 years, 5 months

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Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin , usr/sbin split Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin , usr/sbin split Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin , usr/sbin split

by lproven＠gmail.com

http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html For the HTTP-impaired: Rob Landley rob at landley.net Thu Dec 9 15:45:39 UTC 2010 Previous message: Applet for detecting the filesystem type. Next message: Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin , usr/sbin split Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] On Tuesday 30 November 2010 15:58:00 David Collier wrote: > I see that busybox spreads it's links over these 4 directories. > > Is there a simple rule which decides which directory each link lives > in..... > > For instance I see kill is in /bin and killall in /usr/bin.... I don't > have a grip on what might be the logic for that. You know how Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in 1969? Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05 disk packs (1.5 megabytes each) for storage. When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk pack (their root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which is where all the user home directories lived (which is why the mount was called /usr). They replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and wrote files to those new directories because their original disk was out of space. When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated all the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the space on both disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!). Of course they made rules about "when the system first boots, it has to come up enough to be able to mount the second disk on /usr, so don't put things like the mount command /usr/bin or we'll have a chicken and egg problem bringing the system up." Fairly straightforward. Also fairly specific to v6 unix of 35 years ago. The /bin vs /usr/bin split (and all the others) is an artifact of this, a 1970's implementation detail that got carried forward for decades by bureaucrats who never question _why_ they're doing things. It stopped making any sense before Linux was ever invented, for multiple reasons: 1) Early system bringup is the provice of initrd and initramfs, which deals with the "this file is needed before that file" issues. We've already _got_ a temporary system that boots the main system. 2) shared libraries (introduced by the Berkeley guys) prevent you from independently upgrading the /lib and /usr/bin parts. They two partitions have to _match_ or they won't work. This wasn't the case in 1974, back then they had a certain level of independence because everything was statically linked. 3) Cheap retail hard drives passed the 100 megabyte mark around 1990, and partition resizing software showed up somewhere around there (partition magic 3.0 shipped in 1997). Of course once the split existed, some people made other rules to justify it. Root was for the OS stuff you got from upstream and /usr was for your site- local files. Then / was for the stuff you got from AT&T and /usr was for the stuff that your distro like IBM AIX or Dec Ultrix or SGI Irix added to it, and /usr/local was for your specific installation's files. Then somebody decided /usr/local wasn't a good place to install new packages, so let's add /opt! I'm still waiting for /opt/local to show up... Of course given 30 years to fester, this split made some interesting distro- specific rules show up and go away again, such as "/tmp is cleared between reboots but /usr/tmp isn't". (Of course on Ubuntu /usr/tmp doesn't exist and on Gentoo /usr/tmp is a symlink to /var/tmp which now has the "not cleared between reboots" rule. Yes all this predated tmpfs. It has to do with read- only root filesystems, /usr is always going to be read only in that case and /var is where your writable space is, / is _mostly_ read only except for bits of /etc which they tried to move to /var but really symlinking /etc to /var/etc happens more often than not...) Standards bureaucracies like the Linux Foundation (which consumed the Free Standards Group in its' ever-growing accretion disk years ago) happily document and add to this sort of complexity without ever trying to understand why it was there in the first place. 'Ken and Dennis leaked their OS into the equivalent of home because an RK05 disk pack on the PDP-11 was too small" goes whoosh over their heads. I'm pretty sure the busybox install just puts binaries wherever other versions of those binaries have historically gone. There's no actual REASON for any of it anymore. Personally, I symlink /bin /sbin and /lib to their /usr equivalents on systems I put together. Embedded guys try to understand and simplify... Rob -- GPLv3: as worthy a successor as The Phantom Menace, as timely as Duke Nukem Forever, and as welcome as New Coke. -- 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

14 years, 5 months

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PDP-8 stuff

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-02-07 14.03, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: > On 2/6/2012 7:00 PM, David Griffith wrote: >> > On Mon, 6 Feb 2012, Eric Smith wrote: >> > >>> >> Ray Arachelian wrote: >>>> >>> (Waiting for the guys that ran real UNIX on a PDP-8 to show up and >>>> >>> say they rode T-Rex's to school.) >>> >> No, the PDP-8 Unix is one of the modern ones. Only the guys that ran >>> >> really early Unix rode T-Rexes. >> > > No No No ... that was T-nix followed later with U when the programers could > club meat, build fire and recite most of the Alphabet*. :-) There is no Unix for the PDP-8. There are, however, several timesharing OSes, and yes, people did use PDP-8s in such environments. > You seem to have a few 6502 unix style systems hacked together on the web. Crazy, if true. >> > So, does anyone have a record for oldest or weakest computer running >> > Unix? The Z80 definitely did it. Maybe the 8080 could. I don't think the >> > PDP-8 could. I've been trying to figure out if the PDP-8 could handle C, >> > and the answers I get range from "I don't know" to "Definitely not". >> > Something I'd really like to see is a Z-machine running on the PDP-8. > That came up a few years ago, the pdp8 does not have ample memory to handle > Z-code. > Ben. > * No, not in Octal. I'm sure I could do it. A Z-machine implementation really does not need *that* much memory. You'll need a field, possibly two, for the Z-machine itself. After that, the rest of the memory can be used for the storage inside the Z-machine, and then cache for the code, which needs to be paged from secondary storage. No different than any Z-machine for any micro in the 80s. As for PDP-8 handling C. I'm not sure I understand the question. You can definitely have a C compiler that generates code that will execute on a PDP-8. Having a C-compiler running on the PDP-8 would be quite an effort, however. But it can be done. You just need to split the process up into many passes, with careful design. And it might take a very long time to ever compile a single file. Johnny

14 years, 5 months

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native code versus interpreters

by nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com

On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > That's precisely the point--the program starts out in 6502 native > mode. ?It calls (via JSR) a subroutine (SWEET16) that goes through > the argument list (follows the JSR) until the end. The PDP-11 FORTRAN-IV compiler generated code this way, it was called "threaded code", and the resultant binaries straddle the boundary between "native code" and interpreted code. RBK Dewar (ACM 1975) makes the distinction between indirect and direct threaded code, noting that the PDP-11 FORTRAN-IV compiler generated direct-threaded code - "linear list of addresses of routines to be executed". I feel a strict definition of native code is complicated since it is necessary to place it in time as well as extent; microcoding, writable control stores, extensible instruction sets complicate the definition.

14 years, 5 months

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PDP-8 Z-machine (was: PDP-8 Unix)

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-02-08 01.37, Ethan Dicks<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Cameron Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: >>> >> ?I've been trying to figure out if the PDP-8 could handle C, and >>> >> the answers I get range from "I don't know" to "Definitely not". > I am not aware of a C compiler for the PDP-8, but I think it would be > exceedingly difficult to write one if were possible at all (I've done > a lot of system and embedded code in C and debugged it in assembler, > so I know a bit about the syntactical mapping that goes on with C > abstractions to the instruction sets of MC68000s, VAXen, PDP-11s, > etc). Everything is possible. The main question is how slow it would be. >>> >> Something I'd really like to see is a Z-machine running on the PDP-8. > I would like that too. I've even thought a lot about it. IMHO, > anyone who does it will be writing the Z-machine in PDP-8 assembler, > just like what was done for the Z-80 and the 6502 for 1970s and 1980s > micros. I_think_ the Mac Z-machine was the first written in C, but I > could easily be mistaken on that. I know there were official > Z-machines written in C for the Mac and the Amiga, and probably the > later ones on the PC (not sure about the early v3 interpreters for > DOS). > > I like Frotz. Frotz is huge compared to the 6K-8K early 8-bit > interpreters. It gets more dicey trying to ask a 12-bit machine with > 4K pages to emulate a 16-bit virtual machine. I would consider it a > win if one could fit the Z-machine code in 2 fields with enough space > left over for a 2-page system handler and a 1-page line printer > (SCRIPT) handler, using any memory above 8K for object data and game > file buffers. Three fields seems plausible. A few years back, I > assisted with a modern from-scratch Z-machine effort for ElfOS on the > 1802 (that I was showing off at an early VCFmw). On a 32K Spare Time > Gizmos Elf2000, once the interpreter was loaded and the object tables > were loaded, there was very little room to buffer the game - I think > it was on the order of 1-3 512 byte disk blocks. You can fit a v3 > game and interpreter in 32K, but to do it in less would probably > require a read-write virtual memory scheme on the object data > (fortunately, a full boat on a PDP-8 is 32K 12-bit words not 32K 8-bit > bytes - that helps too). Frotz is nice in its way, but totally unusable if you want to look at doing something on a PDP-8. I think two fields for all the code of the Z-machine itself is possible. Including drivers, yes. Depending on the size of the game, you'll have different amount of memory to play with after that. I assume you by "object tables" mean the in-game read/write memory. I can tell that ZEMU on the PDP-11 can handle any V1 to V8 games dynamically, and takes about 32Kbyte of memory to do that. The rest is used/usable by the game itself. To write a V3-specific interpreter, as well as skipping some fancy screen handling that ZEMU do, it should need way less. > Strangely enough, I was just thinking about a 12-bit Z-machine this > week. Anyone out there have 12-bit coding experience and have time to > answer a few questions about OS/8 and file interchange from the 8-bit > outer world? Sure. Go ahead. And then allison <ajp166 at verizon.net> wrote: On 02/07/2012 05:39 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Cameron Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: >>>> I don't think the PDP-8 could. >> I gotta say that I don't think so either. >> > It's not impossible though you might have a hardware abstraction to > deal with recursion and addressing. But it will not be pretty. Right. You need to make some design decisions on how to implement some things in software that other machines do in hardware, but things like a stack is not really that hard to write. >>>> Something I'd really like to see is a Z-machine running on the PDP-8. >> I would like that too. I've even thought a lot about it. IMHO, >> anyone who does it will be writing the Z-machine in PDP-8 assembler, >> just like what was done for the Z-80 and the 6502 for 1970s and 1980s >> micros. I _think_ the Mac Z-machine was the first written in C, but I >> could easily be mistaken on that. I know there were official >> Z-machines written in C for the Mac and the Amiga, and probably the >> later ones on the PC (not sure about the early v3 interpreters for >> DOS). >> > Its likely doable but it would take work. Keep in mind that an -8 maxes > memory at 32Kwords. that means bigger will have to have a mechanism > for swapping to storage. > > Keep in mind the Z80 did not ahve many of the addressing modes of C. Right. A Z-machine for the PDP-8 is definitely doable. It might not be that fast, but it would work. >> A few years back, I >> assisted with a modern from-scratch Z-machine effort for ElfOS on the >> 1802 (that I was showing off at an early VCFmw). On a 32K Spare Time >> Gizmos Elf2000, once the interpreter was loaded and the object tables >> were loaded, there was very little room to buffer the game - I think >> it was on the order of 1-3 512 byte disk blocks. You can fit a v3 >> game and interpreter in 32K, but to do it in less would probably >> require a read-write virtual memory scheme on the object data >> (fortunately, a full boat on a PDP-8 is 32K 12-bit words not 32K 8-bit >> bytes - that helps too). > That and if you do text in six bit ascii you get two cars to a word. Right. But that is not much help for the Z-machine, which packs text inside the games in its own format anyway. There is very little text required in the Z-machine itself. >> Strangely enough, I was just thinking about a 12-bit Z-machine this >> week. Anyone out there have 12-bit coding experience and have time to >> answer a few questions about OS/8 and file interchange from the 8-bit >> outer world? >> > Some here, not a lot as I've not run OS/8 in a long time. FYI > a suitable dev system would be a DECmateII or III running OS278. If you have questions about OS/8 or PDP-8 issues, feel free to ask. I only read this list in digest mode, so please cc me directly as well. > The biggest thing to watch for in PDP8 code is recursion as you > need a software stack and handler to preserve data/addresses. Not really needed. The Z-machine implementation itself is more or less an abstract CPU, and does not really need to do any recursion. However, the Z-machine games themself can do recursion. But as a stack for this purpose is a part of the requirement of the Z-machine itself, it will just work, if you implement the Z-machine. > The DECmates had the 6120 and that implemented IOTs to create > a address and data stack( hardware can be built to do that in > any omnibus 8). The unique PDP-8 IO made doing things like that > more common than would be guessed. Right. But on an Omnibus machine, the easy way would be to instead have a small subroutine that push/pop on the stack, instead of having to built new hardware. Johnny

14 years, 5 months

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VAX for running old version of VMS

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

On Feb 8, 2012, at 1:21 PM, David Riley wrote: > >On Feb 8, 2012, at 1:14 PM, Glen Slick wrote: > >> On Feb 8, 2012 8:49 AM, "Kevin Reynolds" <tpresence at hotmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Can I put in a SCSI controller on the QBUS of a microvax II or III? I >> really want to keep the QBUS as it is entirely different than everything >> else I have. Do you know if there is SCSI support inVMS 5.2? >>> Kevin >> >> You are not really concerned about native SCSI support but rather MSCP >> (disk) and TMSCP (tape). If the OS supports an RQDX controller it should >> support an MSCP SCSI controller such as the usual CMD CQD Q-bus SCSI >> controllers. > >To my knowledge, VMS doesn't really even see past the MSCP at all; there's >not much way it could distinguish between a SCSI disk on a CQD-220 and an >MFM disk on an RDQX3. > > Perhaps some confusion arises due to VMS having native support for SCSI controllers in later machines such as the Microvax 3100? Lack of this native support in early versions of VMS would cause difficulties using the SCSI controllers in a 3100 but would not be an issue for a QBUS SCSI controller which emulates an MSCP controller. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

14 years, 5 months

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WTD: Acorn or similar 3-button quadrature mouse

by classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk

Hi all, Does anyone have a spare Acorn mouse, either RISC PC/A5000 (rounded profile) or Archimedes (angular brick) style? I can live with broken switches (got a bag of those!) and "it needs a good clean", but the motion sensors need to work, and it must have a mouse ball and the cover for the "ball pit". For anyone who doesn't know what these look like -- they're usually branded either Logitech or CPC, and have a nine-pin Mini-DIN plug on the end of the wire. Colour is almost always cream (or murky yellow if they've been in the sun) or white for the CPC ones. Basically I need one for my A3000... the blasted PS2Mouse adapter doesn't fit! Alternatively if anyone has a chassis-mount 9-pin mini-DIN socket in their spares box, that'll do just as well (the A3000 has pads on the motherboard for an 'alternate' mouse port.. I just need the connector) Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

14 years, 5 months

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Fun with Lisp: Programming the NES

by lproven＠gmail.com

http://ahefner.livejournal.com/20528.html Writing a demo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (6502 CPU at 1.79 MHz, 2 Kilobytes of RAM for the CPU, 2 Kilobytes of RAM for the PPU (video)) - in Common Lisp. -- 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

14 years, 5 months

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PDP-8 Unix

by bqt＠softjar.se

On 2012-02-07 14.03, Cameron Kaiser<spectre at floodgap.com> wrote: > >> > So, does anyone have a record for oldest or weakest computer running Unix? >> > The Z80 definitely did it. Maybe the 8080 could. I don't think the PDP-8 >> > could. I've been trying to figure out if the PDP-8 could handle C, and >> > the answers I get range from "I don't know" to "Definitely not". >> > Something I'd really like to see is a Z-machine running on the PDP-8. > A while back I asked about PDP-8 Unices. I don't remember any replies, though > I seem to remember some existed. I very much doubt Unix ever could run on a PDP-8. The biggest reason being the shortage of memory. However, C have nothing to do with this question, as Unix was not written in C initially. I suspect the answer to the question could be the PDP-7, on which Unix was initially implemented (in assembler). However, many would probably hardly recognize it as Unix by todays standards. Unix was rewritten in C after it had moved to the PDP-11. The PDP-7 was an 18-bit machine, so memory space was somewhat acceptable. The original PDP-11 didn't have an MMU, and Unix on that was probably a tight fit, as well as being somewhat restricted. Johnny

14 years, 5 months

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Does anyone want to buy an Elf 2000 ???

by popeye＠p-t-b.com

If you would like the opportunity to build your very own Elf 2000, please join the waiting list! If enough people join Bob might make up another batch! Scroll down to the bottom of this webpage to where it says "Sold Out!" and then click on the "Join the waiting list" link below it: http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Hardware/Elf2K.htm -- Quinn

14 years, 5 months

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[blog] Recent Additions to BitSavers

by legalize＠xmission.com

Based on our recent discussion of ISC and Intecolor terminals and noticing some recent additions to BitSavers prompted me to write this blog post for the Computer Graphics Museum blog: <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org/2012/02/07/recent-additions-to-bitsavers/> -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

14 years, 5 months

1
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Unknown IC on a TMS1000 board

by cclist＠sydex.com

I've got a board out of an old microwave oven here that I'm curious about. There are two ICs on the board--an MP1009ANLP (28 pin 0.600" wide DIP), which appears to be a TMS1000 MCU. I know that it's factory-programmed and PMOS (-15V Vdd), and that's a lost cause since I don't know what's in the ROM and there's no way to find out. However, there's one other DIP on the board--a 14 pin SN99324. I'm not certain, but it appears to be part of the LED driver circuitry (7 segment+decimal). Does anyone have a clue as to what a SN99324 is? --Chuck

14 years, 5 months

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VCF East t-shirt news ....

by evan＠snarc.net

Here's something neat: the VCF East 8.0 t-shirt art is being designed by George Beker, who did all the robot art for Creative Computing magazine and their "BASIC Computer Games" books. He's drawing a special "VCF Bot" for us -- and the ONLY way to get one is to attend the show.

14 years, 5 months

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Restoration of a Zenith/Heathkit Z-100

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

I recently acquired a Zenith/Heathkit Z-100. I almost didn't buy it because I have a number of S-100 bus systems, including an Intel 8080. But I was curious about its "dual processor" capabilities. So pack-rat that I am, I bought it. Here's the process I followed in my restoration: I checked out Herb Johnson's website which has a lot of good information on this system (http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/z100.html). I especially checked out his description of how to strip a Z-100 down to its motherboard (http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/z_repair.html). I did just that - removed the floppy disk and hard disk unit from the Z-100. I then removed the outer case and keyboard. Next came the video board. I also removed the Floppy Disk controller and the Hard Disk controller from the S-100 bus on the motherboard. Next I disconnected the power connections from the motherboard and removed the keyboard and found the foam mounting material gooey and disintegrating (not unusual for vintage systems). Finally I removed the video controller from the motherboard. Stripping the system gave me the opportunity to check out the motherboard - both in terms of integrity and making sure that all the chips (which are socketed) were seated correctly. It also allowed me to document all of the jumper and switch settings on the motherboard. I found that the motherboard had been upgraded to the full 786KB of RAM. I examined the video daughter card - and found it had the full 64K of video RAM. I also found that the motherboard had been upgraded with a "UCI - ZSM 8Mhz" daughter card. I also noted that U146 had been modified with a 74L257 "stacked" on top of whatever chip was originally there. I have no Idea what that was for (if any of you do, please let me know!). I cleaned up the gooey foam and installed some Scotch two sided foam to replace it. I then put a dummy load on the power supply (switching supplies "like" loads). I used an old disk drive for the load (which I didn't care if it got destroyed by an aberrant voltage). I powered the system on - and the disk drive came up normally. I checked out all the power supply voltages: +16 was +15.98; +8 was +7.75; -16 was -16; +5 was +5.01 with 2mv of AC; +12 was 11.82 with 7mv of AC. Given these good readings, I was ready to re-install all the systems components - which I did. (BTW, while I was disassembling the system, I had made extensive notes on what cables went where, etc., so putting it back together was an easy task.) I then cleaned the contacts of the S-100 Floppy Disk Controller and Hard Disk Controller with DeoxIT Gold (formerly ProGold). I've found the stuff is terrific in making sure contacts have great conductivity - and stay that way. I then re-inserted both into the S-100 bus. I connected a video monitor to the system - turned it on - and then powered up the system. To my great (and pleasant) surprise, the screen indicated that the system tried to boot but found a hardware problem. Fortunately, the system's ROM has a number of built-in diagnostics. The "startup" diags passed, as did the memory and keyboard. However, the HDD could not be read. Before I jumped to the conclusion that the HDD was bad (it was spinning happily) - I decided to re-check my re-cabling. Sure enough, I had forgot to re-attach a power connector to the HDD separator board. After fixing my goof, I power up the system again - and to my super pleasure, it booted up to a prompt! I had hoped it would be CP/M - but instead it was Zenith DOS 2.11. I've played with the system a bit - including testing out the floppy disk drive - and backing up the DOS system. Everything seems to work well. Here's the Z-100's hardware configuration: Dual CPU 8085, 8088 RAM 768K Video RAM 64K, Color HDD 10MB FDD 320K (double side, dual density) 8MHz upgrade Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley, AF6WS Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

14 years, 5 months

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Xerox IC house number cross-reference?

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

Does anyone have a cross-refernece list for Xerox house-numbered ICs? The particular one I am looking for is 733W21L1 It's an 8 pin DIL package. Pins 1,5,8 are not used on the PCB. The others are the conventional op-amp pinout (2 = -ve input, 3 = +ve input, 4 = 0ve supply, 6 = output, 7 = +ve supply). I've replaced it with the obvious 741, and am getting rather better results than with the original (the output of which was stuck at 6V), but I'd like ot know if the original has any odd characteristics. -tony

14 years, 5 months

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any interest in 3D printed DEC front panel toggle switches?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I know we can get the DEC board handles from Douglas. I seem to recall that there isn't a good supplier for the front panel toggle switches of various colors. Recently the Pocket Factory guys visited our make space and they were asking for ideas for little things they could print that could supply a market demand. <http://pocketfactory.org/> The only thing I could think of were the plastic toggle switches and board handles. I'd forgotten about Douglas supplying the board handles until our recent thread about Qbus prototying boards. Is there a supplier for the toggle switches? Obviously printed parts aren't molded so they are obvious replicas, but they can be cheaply made in small quantities if a design file is available. If this is something you'd like to try out, I suggest you contact the pocket factory folks directly at hello at pocketfactory.org. I discussed the idea with them last week, so if you reply relatively soon, they should remember the conversation. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

14 years, 5 months

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ISC history

by dm561＠torfree.net

------ Original Message: Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:00:55 -0800 From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> Richard wrote: >> If so many InteColor terminals were sold, where did they all end up? > In the landfill, just like everything else that was made in the 1970s. Even in the 80s ;-) We scrapped several hundred of several later models that had been sitting on bond traders' desks; might still have some manuals somewhere if anyone's interested. m

14 years, 5 months

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Computer Language magazine 1986

by d_cymbal＠hotmail.com

I am trying to find reprints of "Interpreter Design and Construction" (parts I and II) by Dave Taylor in Computer Language July and September 1986. If anyone can help please drop me a message. Thanks.

14 years, 5 months

2
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IC Pulls

by jws＠jwsss.com

I have a come into an opportunity which people here might help with. The opportunity is a 75 to 100# box of Eproms. So far w/o any major skimming yielded 2732's 2764's 27128's 27512's and the 1mb 27 series (don't recall the # right now)> I also found a couple of parts that traced back to an HP inhouse 27128 part from AMD. These were recently pulled from a warehouse full of printer material, and are were just packed loose in a 12" x 12" x 12" box for gold scrap. Since there was not manpower or time to sort, this what I got. There are other boxes of NOS which I will deal with later. Any ideas on what to do, what the chances are that they will work? I don't have the means or time to do testing, though recent discussion suggest there might be some cheap eprom programmer which might do that. I have never blown up a prom from normal handling, w/o antistat but with the shear number of parts here, the odds are that some are blown. I am handling these now with antistat, but the prior situation is what it is. Should I sort them by part, list them with a "if it doesn't work I'll send you another", sell them as untested pull lots (I will sort and tube them by type a and PN as my contribution to this project), or some other way? I'm guessing 10000 or more parts, don't know for now. also there could be other parts at lower layers, for now w/o pulling them and risk physical or electrical damage all I see are eproms and some junk pals which will go back into the stew for gold recycle. thanks Jim

14 years, 5 months

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OT : Strange production method

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

This has nothign to do with vintage computers, really. It related to a telepone, and not a particularly old one... But since some of you have knoweldge of production methods, I wonder if you have any thoughs on this. I have a basic 2-piece landline telephone here. Inside is a PCB with qutie a few discrete components (transsitors diodes, passives) and a single IC, which is clearly the dialer. Now the PCB has pads for an 18 pin DIL pacakge, but that's not waht's fitted. Instead there are 1 9-pin headers osldered to the main PCB. On tol fo those is an other little PCB connecting to the 'top 16' pins -- pins 8 and 9 of the origianl DIL position are not connected -- but then they go nowhere o nthe main PCB either. On this litle PCB which is fitted track-side up is a single epoxy-capped IC. I traced out the connections to the dialer keypad, ceramin resonator, poerr and ground in the hope I could identify the device. I then desoldered the header pins from the pin PCB and pulled the assembly out. On the underside (plain side) of this little IC-carrier is silk-screened 'SC91710A'. I ahve typed that into datsheetarchive. It exists as an IC. An 18 pin DIL IC that's a telephone dialer circuit. And all the pins I'd traced match up perfectly. Pins 8 and 9 are for a handsfree function that's not implemented here. So this telephone was clearly designed to use that dialer IC in the DIL package. My question is why was this subassembly made and fitted? I can understand that a driect-on-board IC is cheaper than fitting a DIL pacakge in many cases (for all I find such things objectionable!). But I can't beelive making up this daughterboard and fittign it with the header strips is cheaper than a DIL packaged IC -- is it? -tony

14 years, 5 months

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ISC history

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://peripheralexchange.com/aboutus/aboutus2.htm Detailed History Of ISC / Intecolor In 1973, Mr. Charles A. Muench formed a new company called Intelligent Systems Corporation (ISC). The ISC "basement team" designed a new color terminal product and began light product manufacturing in a prominent northeastern Atlanta neighborhood in the Riverview subdivision in Duluth, Georgia. The initial goal was to design an "intelligent" and affordable "color" cathode ray tube (CRT) terminal. Until this time, most computer terminals were "dumb" (text only) and only monochrome (black and white, green, or amber). ISC's new design was a breakthrough in terminal design since it offered an 8-color display with character graphics capability. The product was based on Intel Corporation's newest microprocessor product releases. At this point in time, Intel Corporation itself was not not much more out of the garage as a company than ISC. Although the Intel 4004 and 8008 products looked promising, ISC ultimately focused on the 8080 8-bit microprocessor from Intel. The Intel 8080 microprocessor married with additional integrated circuit chips from Texas Instruments (TI) made it possible to create the product. TI manufactured a support set of IC's such as the TMS5501 (multi-function I/O), TMS8224 (Clock/Divider), TMS8828 (Bus Controller), and TMS1702/2708/2716 family of Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory(s) (EPROMs). Once this collimation of IC products became generally available, it was the birth of many products with intelligence well beyond a simple four function calculator design. As the demand expanded and licensing to other chip manufacturers began, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), National Semiconductor (NS), and a few others began cloning the TI chip designs. ISC's first product design used the Intel 8080 processor operating at slightly under 2Mhz along with 8KB of dynamic RAM for use as screen display memory, and about 1-3KB of operating system ROM. The unique design of ISC's "custom" display generator coupled with the Intel and TI chipsets was all that was needed to bring a new product to market. The ISC display generator used the latest IC technology with customized fuse-link ni-chrome devices. Essentially, this display generator used "lattice logic" to create text, color, and graphics. The "Compucolor 1" was the first intelligent color terminal product based on the 8080 microcomputer architecture. This product evolved rapidly and later was re-branded the name "Intecolor". The product name was derived from the founder's notion for the contracted words "Intelligent" and "Color" to come up with "Inte" and "color", or simply "Intecolor". On a parallel path, a consumer home computer product known as the Compucolor II was created by the same design team, and operated as an independent company called Compucolor Corporation. The Compucolor II was positioned as one of the early full featured home computer products selling in the $1,395 to $1,795 range. This product was considered to be the standard in home computing products years before Apple or IBM PC-based products. However, the history depicted here is not concentrated on the Compucolor II, but on the Intecolor brand of products. Why Develop Such A Product? The primary purpose for developing such a product was to fill a rising need from within the petrochemical, paper, electrical, and process control industry. The Intecolor terminal was the first of it's type in a market which was otherwise based on monochrome terminals with either no graphics or limited graphics ability. The Original 8001 Series In 1977, ISC's manufacturing operations relocated to a small warehouse and office space located at 5965A Peachtree Corners East in Norcross, Georgia. The first commercially available terminal product was the 8001 Series. Based on an RCA 19-inch delta-gun cathode ray tube (CRT) design, thousands of these terminals were sold. As newer CRT designs became available, the 8001 used a pre-converged in-line (PIL) CRT designs from Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Panasonic. This product series lasted for 20 years. F8001G Industrial Terminal. The 8050/8060 Series In 1978, additional options were designed to extend terminal operations into one of the first standalone microcomputers. Operating systems incorporated within the product had included the BASIC language (in EPROM) which was based on Microsoft BASIC (at the time). Options for floppy disk drives (made by Wangco, Shugart, or Seimens), light pens (ICC), printer drivers (Centronics, Daisywriter, Okidata, Qume, Printronix), programming languages (BASIC, 8080 ASM, FORTRAN IV), and developer tools were added to the product line. During this time, there were fewer than three companies manufacturing color microcomputer based products with a robust peripheral offering. The 8050 Series was a self-contained microcomputer system having a proprietary file control system known as FCS. It was a precursor to today's DOS based systems. The 8060 Series was also a self-contained microcomputer system but designed on the CP/M operating system licensed from Digital Research Corporation which was founded by Gary Alan Kildall. Both the 8050 and 8060 Series products filled a niche until about 1988, at which point newer PC competitive products became the new platform of choice. More Manufacturing Space Required By 1979, sales of Intecolor terminal and microcomputer products had increased dramatically. With an immediate need for more manufacturing floor space, the sales and manufacturing portion of the company relocated to 225 Technology Park/Atlanta in Norcross, Georgia. The engineering, inventory, and board level manufacturing portions of the company remained in Peachtree Corners East until late 1987. As a side note: Technology Park/Atlanta was "the" place to have facilities since the office park was comprised of the "who's who" of high tech companies of that time. It was often termed as "Silicon Hill" (Georgia), patterned after Silicon Gulch (Texas), and Silicon Valley (California). Initial Public Offering (IPO) ... Going Public! By late 1980, Intelligent Systems Corporation prepared an initial public offering (IPO), and successfully went public on the NASDAQ market creating the necessary capital to expand sales and manufacturing. At this point in time, practically all industrial control integrators, were purchasing ISC terminals for their control systems. In the early 1980's, ISC created a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) for favorable corporate income tax purposes and acquired additional hardware and software products from other companies. The overall company effectively became known as "Intecolor an Intelligent Systems Company". The product name Intecolor became the new corporate name for this operating division of ISC. Other companies owned were Quadram Corporation, Princeton Graphics Systems, Peachtree Software, Datavue Corporation, and a few other less notable start-up companies. By 1981, the world was looking forward to the debut of IBM's "PC" architecture. At this point , the proprietary design of the 8001 terminal seemed to be in jeopardy, but PC or not, it remained in production until 1993. Cloning the Data And Graphics Terminal Markets In the 1982-1985 timeframe, Intecolor began manufacturing color terminal products to address the data management and scientific graphics markets hugely dominated by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Tektronix Corporation. Most notable were the Intecolor "ColorTrend" and Advanced Graphics Systems (AGS) terminal series. ColorTrend Series Models designed to compete for the DEC data terminal segment. The ColorTrend series targeted the DEC customer base since it was VT52/100/220 compatible. The AGS Series targeted the Tektronix customer base since it was 4010/4014/4105A compatible. The ColorTrend Series was moderately successful in the markets served by Northern Telecom and Baxter Health Care. Other customers also used the product since DEC had yet to release a color terminal product till the late 1980's. The same cannot be said for the AGS Series, since this market had many other competitive products from other vendors. It could be best described as low volume to a "write-off". Another later design based on "X" technology was designed, but failed due to competitive pressure from other vendors. By this time, Intecolor could not "pull another rabbit out of the hat" in custom terminal design. Time To Sell Off The Assets By 1986, Intelligent Systems Corporation MLP, realized that there was more profit to be made by selling individual business units since the stock price had peaked. Essentially, the marketable inventory, trademark, and patent rights, were sold to create profits. Individually, and in fairly rapid order, Quadram Corporation was sold to National Semiconductor. Princeton Graphics Systems was sold to Worldwide Technologies. Datavue Corporation was sold to a private entity. Peachtree Software was sold back to it's management/employee group (which is now owned by Sage Software). Intecolor Corporation was purchased by it's management/employee group with the help from it's founder. Intecolor, again reverted back to a privately held company owned by it's management team, employees (as 401K holders), and outside venture capitalists. New Manufacturing Location Needed Intecolor was paying for prime corporate office space along with remote warehouse spaces, which led to daily transportation of manufacturing goods from one location to another. Although, assembly operations at the Peachtree Corners East location were only a few miles away from the Technology Park/Atlanta corporate office, it became clear that the daily company truck routine was outgrowing itself. A centralized space was needed badly, and at an overall lower cost per square foot. By 1988, Intecolor decided to relocate to a new facility in the Gwinnett Forest complex at 2150 Boggs Road, Building 100, in Duluth, Georgia. This new 60,000 square foot facility allowed all operations under one roof. This new location was about 8 miles north of Norcross, Georgia and became the all-in-one facility for manufacturing, engineering, marketing, and sales. Since the distance >from the original offices to the new location were under 8 miles away, most employees were retained. For once, all aspects of the company resided in a central place making it much easier to conduct daily business. MegaTrend Monitors Monitor products addressing generic PC markets and custom monitors for OEM applications continued to evolve rapidly in the mid 1980's. Market conditions showed that large format color monitors were needed for the PC marketplace. The MegaTrend product line began it's humble beginnings as one of the first 19-inch CGA/EGA monitors available in the PC marketplace. So the "Mega" meaning big, and "Trend" meaning the trend towards larger displays, led to the product line name. As PC video standards evolved, many versions of the product line were manufactured to address standard video interfaces as well as custom "proprietary" interfaces. The MegaTrend was produced from 1985 till 1991. By this time, many OEM companies had settled on their own specific graphics generator and many other monitor manufacturers entered the marketplace. As time passed, many monitor designs were designed but not related to the MegaTrend Series. Future monitor designs took on a product nomenclature such as E01954-20x, or E20Hxxxxx. See Archived Monitors. New Terminal Product Offerings The original 8001 terminal series was showing it's age which led to the development and manufacture of the 8800 and 3800 series product lines. The 8001 product line utilized three independent logic boards to achieve a working product. Given advances in technology, the 8800 and 3800 series product lines were designed to have one logic board rather than three. Another major factor was an emphasis on customized enclosures and harsh environment designs. This added additional life to the specialized terminal market. The 8800 Series proved to be successful as the upgrade path from the 8001 series as well as the smaller 3800 series. Both the 3800 and 8800 series terminal product lines flourished until late 1993. What Happened To Intelligent Systems Corporation (ISC) MLP? After the sell-off of most of it's divisions, Intelligent Systems MLP evolved into a high-tech incubator company helping high technology start-up companies develop products or services. ISC still exists today but has no corporate or financial relationship to Intecolor. Visit www.intelsys.com to learn more about the modern day workings of ISC. 8001 Intecolor Terminal Emulation Software In 1991, Intecolor began offering a terminal emulation software product bundled with an industrial PC workstation product to address the terminal replacement market. However, the combined cost of emulation software and the PC workstation product was significantly more in cost than the terminal product. At this point in time, terminals were still being manufactured, and the emulation software could not generate the equivalent gross revenue, so the emulation solution remained in the background. Leaping forward to 2001 till today, the Intecolor terminal emulation software (ITE8001) is marketed as a software only product and also bundled with a variety of low cost, highly reliable industrialized PC based computers. Terminals Destined For Obsolesce By 1992, Intecolor partnered with several OEM companies to build custom color monitor products and rack mount computer products. A PC-based "workstation" product line referred to the "WS" series was created as a combination of an Intecolor monitor with PC compatible hardware. At the same time, custom color monitor products were being made for Allen-Bradley, Honeywell, Westinghouse, and Bailey Controls (now ABB). The classic product lines including the 8001, 8800, 3800, ColorTrend, AGS, and numerous other terminal models were rapidly discontinued due to accelerating product obsolescence. By mid 1993, these product lines were no longer in production. Custom engineering of PC based computers and further broadening of color monitor designs became Intecolor's new product line direction. Peripheral Exchange Provides Intecolor Product Services In July 1993, the classic Intecolor product line had come to an end. The major thrust had become primarily based on color monitor technology (CRT based), along with industrialized PC-based products, and the beginnings of TFT LCD flat panel display product offerings. Intecolor was positioning itself to manufacture newer product designs to stay ahead of a growing number of competitors. As a result, support for the classic product lines was left behind and became non-existent at best. Peripheral Exchange, (PE) was formed at this time as a service company to continue the service and support of Intecolor classic products for OEM's and the end-user customer base. Rockwell Automation Buys Intecolor For Cash In May 1996, Rockwell Automation completed a total cash buyout of Intecolor Corporation for an undisclosed amount, but was rumored to be about $27 million dollars. Upon this acquisition, Intecolor became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rockwell Automation and took on the name "Intecolor/Rockwell Automation". Rockwell Automation needed a small company like Intecolor, to fulfill their need for color CRT monitors, TFT LCD flat panel displays, and industrialized PC products for their Allen-Bradley division. As part of the purchasing arrangement, the top Intecolor management agreed to stay intact for a specified term (around 4 years) to keep the new acquisition running smoothly. Meanwhile, Rockwell management bolstered it's management team presence within the Intecolor offices in Duluth, Georgia. By 2001 (or slightly earlier), the entire original Intecolor management team had been retired or replaced. Changes in Business Activity By 1998, Intecolor/Rockwell Automation had discontinued repair and support services on the classic terminal product lines. Repair and support services continued on color monitor products, PC based workstations, and flat-panel monitors. By Fall 2000, Intecolor/Rockwell Automation had ceased production of CRT-based monitors altogether. A stockpile of CRT monitors were built and warehoused as the last production run took place. All efforts were placed on industrialized color TFT LCD flat panel display systems. The ever decreasing cost of flat panel technology and market research showed that flat panel products were the new display technology of choice. The sales of CRT-based products were on a steep decline. Say Goodbye to Intecolor as a Name Brand By 2001, Rockwell Automation decided to dismantle and cease the use of the Intecolor brand product and product name. Effectively the name Intecolor would disappear from the marketplace. The Intecolor flat panel products would continue to be manufactured and sold under the Allen-Bradley name and marketed through AB distribution channels. On September 25, 2001, the Intecolor corporate web site described Rockwell's management decision to close facilities in Duluth, Georgia, and encouraged customers to contact Allen-Bradley's new support facilities. Over 200 Intecolor employees, (many having 15 to 25 years experience), lost their jobs as part of the shut down process. For all practical purposes, the support of the original Intecolor product ceased to exist as did the wealth of technical knowledge. Although, the AB site offers support for "all" Intecolor products, it is strongly advised to contact Peripheral Exchange for product support. The Intecolor/Rockwell Automation operations in Duluth, Georgia closed it's operations in October 2001. A needle roller bearing manufacturer now occupies this location. Who Services Intecolor Terminal Products Today? Peripheral Exchange (PE) acquired the inventory of several Intecolor service centers throughout the 1990's. In addition, a significant amount of Intecolor/Rockwell Automation's inventory was purchased prior to the Duluth Georgia factory closing in 2001. By specializing primarily on Intecolor brand repairs and refurbishments, many other multi-line service providers use our company on a subcontractor basis. We are dedicated to provide service and support of Intecolor products as a service arm to former OEM's and the end-user customer base.

14 years, 5 months

3
2
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First commercially available color RASTER graphics terminal?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I saw something on someone's web site the other day claiming that the Tektronix 4027 was the first commercially available color raster graphics terminal. The 4027 first appears in the 1979 Tektronix catalog. I know there were vector based systems that were displaying color before that, but the question here is about raster based systems (i.e. pixel, not vector based). So the question becomes: was anyone else selling a raster color graphics terminal before Tektronix in 1979? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

14 years, 5 months

8
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early raster display systems

by aek＠bitsavers.org

Bob said: Data Disc made a large graphics system meant to connect to mainframes around 1972. -- Data Disc goes back well into the 60's with video disk display systems. Hazeltine is even earlier. Disks and drums were used as frame stores along with recirculating magnetorestrictive delay lines in the days before semiconductor shift register memories. RAM replaced the shift registers in the 70's. But this all is getting well off the subject of raster display terminals. There were lots and lots of people making expensive frame stores (Ramtek, Genesco, etc.) Not so many were making things small/cheap enough to be used as terminals. Ramtek and others (trying to remember when Chromerics started) eventually got into that business. PCs and Workstations wiped out the graphics terminal market by the early 80's. Was interesting to find out ISC goes back to 1973.

14 years, 5 months

1
0
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ROI BSB-11 Card for PDP11?

by holm＠freibergnet.de

Hi, I got an PDP11 board, labeled BSB11 from ROI. There are some diag LEDsi for Power and some BUS Signals, something that looks like an connector for an front paneel, an hughe field of soldering points for placing own circuits, an 5.0688Mhz Crytal oscillator, an GAL, and some 74xx ICs on board. Does someone know what that circuity on the board should do? Regards, Holm -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Stra?e 42, 09600 Obersch?na, USt-Id: DE253710583 www.tsht.de, info at tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

14 years, 5 months

3
5
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IBM 360/30 on display in Terrassa (Barcelona)

by ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk

Anyone wanting to see an IBM 360 Model 30, and not able to get to the CHM, can see the one on display at the Science and Technology Museum in Terrassa (immediately west of Barcelona.) This links shows what is on display, and where they came from: http://ordinadors.mnactec.cat/ibm-system360.html This is the exhibition catalogue: http://issuu.com/mnactec/docs/dossier-premsa-expo-historia-ordinador?mode=w… (Note - in Spanish, and Google translate doesn't help much with the first link, but you can work most of it out.) After a bit of a gap I have been busy on my 360/30 project, working on the 1050 (console typewriter) interface so that programs can have a sensible way of doing input and output (via a serial port.) -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360

14 years, 5 months

5
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Assistance in reading old Tapes needing

by oe5ewl＠gmail.com

Hi all, I'd need assistance (hardware or actually reading in the tape) in reading some old 1600bpi PDP11 Tapes - containing an old operating System. If you can help, I'd appreciate if you contact me off list. Regards, Wolfgang PS: I have a tape drive but the unit is completely dead. Two local contacts which had working drives told me a sad story: Drives decomissioned, scrapped etc...... -- Wolfgang Eichberger - OE5EWL Operating System Collector Blog: 5ewl.blogspot.com Homepage: www.eichberger.org

14 years, 5 months

1
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SuperBrain Disks

by dave12＠dunfield.com

Hi everybody, I've had delivery turned off for a long time - seems I'm no longer subscribed as my password does not work ... hopefully this will make it to the list, however I will not receive replies sent to the list except by checking the archives (which I don't do very often). I checked the archives today to see if a chap I had directed to the list got help with SuperBrain disks. I see several comments that I "should have them". I've never been able to read the diskettes from my original SuperBrain. I can read the first two tracks, then errors on every track - missing address marks. I cannot read them with ImageDisk nor TeleDisk. I've tried multiple different drives and types of drives - I simply cannot read the SuperBrain disks on anything except the SuperBrain. Every so often this comes up, and several people say "but SuperBrain disks are bog standard and easy to read" - so apparently I am the only one on the planet who can't read them. After explaining the above (that I simply cannot read them, and that I have in fact tried really hard) - I always get several offers to send me images or disks that can be read ... but nobody has every followed through, which is why I do not have SuperBrain disks on my site. I do have another system called a "CompuStar" which is a rebadged SuperBrain - and most of the disk from that system ARE readable on a PC ... BUT... the guy who owned it really liked APL, and created his own character generator ROM and custom BIOS to support APL characters on the machine ... All of his disks are "hand made" (not originals) and although his disks boot, they display incomprehensible garbage on a normal SuperBrain. Therefore I see little point in posting them as SuperBrain disks. I've only found one disk from his collection which boots and displays on the normal Brain - and it has the missing address mark problem. I've tried booting the Compustar disks on the SuperBrain and blind- formatting a disk --- but the created disk is still unreadable. I am assuming that the Z80 based disk controller in my SuperBrain makes disks which are not readable on a PC (the SB reads them fine). It can boot and read the CompuStar disks, however it does not appear to be able to format a readable disk. Unfortunately the Compustar is not currently working, and will need significant work to repair - so I cannot try formatting disks on it. And I am unable to create anything on the SuperBrain which I can read on the PC. Which is why I cannot provide disk images for the SuperBrain. I've tried - I simply cannot make it happen. Dave -- dave12 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/

14 years, 5 months

14
53
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C compilers and non-ASCII systems

by spc＠conman.org

A friend recently raised an issue with some code I wrote (a hex dump routine) saying it depended upon ASCII and thus, would break on non-ASCII based systems (and proposed a solution, but that's beside the issue here). I wrote back, saying the code in question was non-portable to begin with (since it depended upon read() and write()---it was targetted at Posix based systems) and besides, I've never encountered a non-ASCII system in the nearly 30 years I've been using computers. So now I'm wondering---besides Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, is there any other encoding scheme used? And of Baudot, 6-bit BCD and EBCDIC, are there any systems using those encoding schemes *AND* have a C compiler available? -spc (Or can I safely assume ASCII and derivatives these days?)

14 years, 5 months

31
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mail client evilness, was Re: architectural diversity, gcc - Re: C compilers and non-ASCII systems

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> The problem with format=flowed, is that it just doesn't work well with > older mail clients. It doesn't work particularly well for anyone reading the mailing list archive via the web interface either. However, I can't tell whether the correct header is present or not in the affected messages as the web interface does not reveal the headers. (It works fine if reading messages in VMS mail, until an attempt to reply is made and everything turns out to be on one line...) Regards, Peter Coghlan.

14 years, 5 months

3
2
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Apple II SPI

by brain＠jbrain.com

Barring implementation of 65SPI on a CPLD, is there a quick-n-dirty way to wire up a SPI-based module to an Apple II/II+/IIe? I'm looking for a temp solution, while I design a Apple II board with a correct interface. Something that doesn't require any soldering would be grand (bit banging the SPI via some IO pins, Using the DSR/DTR/RTS pins on the RS232 (if that can be done...), etc. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

14 years, 5 months

7
11
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Commordore 64 character color cycling

by tpresence＠hotmail.com

>> I'm not familiar with BG Micro (yet), but I know Unicorn has a hefty >> minimum, which Jameco does not (while you're there, though, you might as >> well pick up the socket as well and maybe some spare parts (like more >> 6502s). >Not long ago, Jameco had commodore PLAs for a song (something like a >dollar or less). I know a brazilian that bought 50 :o) >But remembering - You can put a 27C512 EPROM with a special bin in place >of a PLA! Google is your (best) friend! :D Any idea what part number you saw for the PLAs from Jameco? Although I have all the other ICs I need, I don't have a properly programmed N82S100. I am going to buy the sockets there anyway...I really wouldn't mind buying a programmer, especially if I could get a USB model that was reliable (the sparkfun model I saw did not rate well, but its $50).Is there a programmer that is less than $100 and will do the job?Kevin

14 years, 5 months

1
0
0 0

Imaging OSI disks

by dm561＠torfree.net

A question for Chuck, Fred and anyone else with relevant experience/knowledge: can OSI disks (specifically Challenger 4P disks) be read by a PC and imaged/recreated ? If so, how? If not, why not? Don't see 'em in either 22disk or Xenocopy, but then they're not CP/M. It's a question from a third party and I don't have any disks or I'd try some imaging programs myself. TIA, m

14 years, 5 months

4
4
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Wanted: Parallel DB25 Microswitch ASCII Keyboard

by nick.allen＠comcast.net

Anyone have a Parallel Microswitch ASCII Keyboard they are willing to part with?

14 years, 5 months

2
1
0 0

OT: HP signature analyzer

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hey folks. I have a short-term need for an HP signature analyzer. I don't need one of these very often, so I'm not really keen on buying one. (I know...those here who have seen my lab may be astonished to learn that there's a piece of test equipment that I do not have...but this particular one is rather boring, and not one of HP's better ideas) Does anyone in the US have one that I'd be able to borrow for a few days? Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire New Kensington, PA

14 years, 5 months

7
28
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68000 CPUs available + others (MAC, multiplier)

by legalize＠xmission.com

A local guy Abraham Barker has some 68000 chips for sale: 68000 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor: 1x MC68000P8 (Motorola Plastic...) 2x MC68000L8 (Motorola Ceramic) 1x MC68000P10 (Motorola Plastic) 3x MC68000L10 (Motorola Ceramic) 4x MC68000L12 (Motorola Ceramic) 1x SCN68000 CAI64 B (Signetics Ceramic gold plated leads) 16x16 Parallel Multiplier-Accumulator: 1x TDC 1010J (TRW Ceramic/Aluminium gold plated) 3x 1010J1C (TRW Ceramic/Aluminium gold plated) 2x WLT1010 JC (Weitek Ceramic gold plated) 16x16 Parallel Multiplier: 1x MPY 016H (TRW Ceramic/Aluminium gold plated) 1x 016HJ1C (TRW Ceramic/Aluminium gold plated) He didn't post what he was asking for them, but I will pass it along when I know. He was going to list them on ebay in a few days, but I thought someone here might be interested in a first crack. Email me and I will forward any messages to him and he can reply to you directly. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

14 years, 5 months

1
0
0 0

cobalt qube

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

It might not be THAT old, but it certainly is a cute little oddity. I'm thinking that maybe HP used the Cobalt Qube for inspiration for the new Proliant Microserver. Though... needs an LCD panel with buttons. -- 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?

14 years, 5 months

5
9
0 0

Debugging CRT monitors (Philips CM8833 Mk2 / Acorn AKF17)

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> >With anything over about ten years you start by replacing electrolytic >capacitors. If you want to test instead of shotgun then pick up an ESR >meter, but it usually shows more than a few are failing. If the monitor >is over twenty years old, then just replace all the electrolytics and >then troubleshoot - it there is still a problem that is. > I don't think I've got anything less than ten years old. I can't remember having cause to replace more than an occasional electrolytic here and there except in the case of a television from the 1970's which has required about five or six over years of heavy use. I'm sure if I checked everything with an ESR meter it would show up a bunch that are below par. However, many applications for electrolytic capacitors can tolerate very large variations and they may well have years of usable life left in them even though the meter condemns them. There may be a case for checking critical capacitors in power supplies etc which may be at risk of overheating or leaking, however there is no reason to check every electrolytic. I think replacing large numbers of electrolytics is likely to be be more trouble than it is worth and may even introduce new problems that weren't there before, particularly on old pcbs where the print was never well stuck to the board, even when new. Far better to look for a schematic if available and wade in with the scope looking for the problem with deductive reasoning. > >Do take care to match the caps to the job they do - low ESR caps for the >horizontal, and caps that handle AC ripple for the linear power supplies. > I will agree there. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

14 years, 5 months

4
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