test-drb

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101090 discussions

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

Was googling for something else and came across this... thought I'd post for the wang people here... http://home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/boards_and_manuals.htm --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

21 years, 1 month

todays auction finds:A motorola qbus cpu ??

by aek＠spies.com

> So is this a motorola 68K Qbus board?? -- There were a few companies that made Qbus 68k systems, including Cadmus and Integrated Solutions, mostly running some version of Unix. The ISI board used a DART and CTC, and has a SUN style mmu.

21 years, 1 month

HP-110 Plus laptop power supply specs?

by dr.ido＠bigpond.net.au

I picked a HP-110 Plus (the German version, if it matters) recently, but the power supply was nowhere to be found. Does anybody have the pinout and voltage/current requirements? Failing that, would it be safe to remove the battery and connect a 6VDC power supply to the battery terminals?

21 years, 1 month

RK05 format program

by aek＠spies.com

http://home.t-online.de/home/bernhard.baehr/pdp8e/MAINDECs/MAINDEC-08-DHRKD… the writup is atŠ http://www.pdp8.net/pdp8cgi/query_docs/view.pl?id=82

21 years, 1 month

RK05 format program

by tradde＠excite.com

Thanks for the info on formatting an RK05 disk. I guess I did not know this was possible. Does anyone happen to have the program to do the actual format? I use Dave Gesswein's dumprest to load code from a PC to my 8f. That program is not part of the package. I don't think I have ever seen it, but may have overlooked it while browsing the main pdp-8 sites. Thanks. It would be great if that's all I had to do to make the disks useful again. Tim R. _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!

21 years, 1 month

todays auction finds: A motorola qbus cpu ??

by tponsford＠theriver.com

Interesting day at the auction. The Data General Aviion 9500+ went for a whopping $17.00. The pallet of ultrasparc's went for $300, (way over my budget), but I walked out with a pdp11/73 in a BA11 case. And the mystery box. A black DEC BA11-m case with a dark camo-green panel and 3 qbus cards, a DRV11-b, a dual qbus card with two 20 pin berg connectors. No I.D. except for the stencil EXTREL 500869 C-81, I have no idea maybe a floppy controller or a serial card. And finally A Quad height Qbus board with a Motorolla MC68000l12 processor and a paper label at the bottom of the board that says: 590139 BUS CPU REV A EXTREL 2MHZ It also has 2 Zilog Z80 chips a Z80B CTC and a Z80 UART So is this a motorola 68K Qbus board?? Can Anybody enlighten me. Any documentation, a quick google search found very little .It probably was part of a instrument that was sold in another lot. I picked this one up as I spotted the ba-11 qbus box. Cheers Tom -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning.

21 years, 1 month

Teaching assembler

by hansp＠citem.org

I just received a copy of Introduction to DECsystem-10 Assembler Language Programming by Michael Singer, published in 1978 by John Wiley ISBN : 0-471-03458-4 I would like to share some excerpts from the preface which resonate with the recent (long) discussion on teaching assembler language programming : With the widespread availability of higher level languages (such as ALGOL, COBOL FORTRAN, PL/1) for computer programming, as well as packages put out by the major computer manufacturers that, almost at the touch of a button, will perform a variety of complex tasks, it is reasonable to ask why any other than a relatively small number of specialists should trouble to learn assembler language programming at all. There are good practical, theoretical and aesthetic reasons for doing so. ... In our opinion, however, the most useful function served by a knowledge of assembler language programming is to give the user a much closer awareness of how the computer works, as well as inestimably greater control over its workings, than is feasible with a higher level language. In our experience, the higher level language user who is familiar with assembler language is a more efficient - even happier - programmer than one who is not. .... The notion that assembler language programming is esoteric and inherently difficult is, in our experience, very much mistaken. On the contrary, for many people it seems to be the natural way to start off with computers. ... All computers have a great deal in common, and much of what is said here applies equally well, with only minor changes, to many other machines. ... Octal and binary numbers must be introduced, and indeed a programmer should ideally be able to think with numbers in any base. Such a facility, however, may be acquired gradually, and so in Section 1.3 we go no further than is necessary to understand what follows. At no stage do we encourage the reader to gain skill in performing calculations in various bases, or in base conversion; in our experience, once the principles are understood, the student's time is better spent in learning how to pass such drudgery to the computer. .... Those readers who want to proceed further, particularly into systems programming, will be ready after reading this book to refer to the manuals. A warning should be given that much less care goes into [the] preparation of the descriptive literature than into the machine itself and its software, and the manuals contain many obscurities and errors. -- HansP

21 years, 1 month

NorthStar Double Density - DOS low level DCOM function

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Hi Dave Hi Dwight - seems we have several interests/machines in common. > I have a couple of Horizons and a older style box ( no wood ). I used to have an early Horizon in the blue metal (no wood) box - gave it away years ago, which I regret - would love to be able to build up another one, so if at some point you decide you have too many boxes (metal or wood) - please think of me - I still have a spare SD controller and a few other N* parts. >I've not had time to fiddle with these but I think the Horizons >use the double density controllers. Right now, I'm still fiddling >with the H8 machines but the N* was on my list of machines >to create a transfer program for. It sounds like you have already >done the work here. I wrote a transfer program for the N* SD controller in order to extract the disk images for my Altair simulator (I'm running the N* SD controller in the Altair) - All it needs is a bit of tweaking to allow it to handle DD disks. I've got tons of native software that I wrote for the N* system, and a few other utilities (the PC->N* binary input program I mentioned in previous post, as well as utilities to transfer files directly into and out of N* disk images) - I have no idea how many people are still into N*, but perhaps we should think about creating a pool of resources such as we have for the H8 - If enough people are interested. > None of my machine have been powered on since I got them ( at >least 2 or 3 years ). It'll be fun turning them on and watching >the smoke. I assume you know the right (and wrong) things to do - if not, contact me off-list and I can provide some pointers. > I think I have some disk with these but I've not looked to >see what I got. Projects, projects and more projects. I've got tons of SD software (much of it my own) - and I know a few people running DD horisons - I'm sure we can get you setup with usable software. Btw, in doing my Altair project, I contacted Dr. Charles Grant - the surviving founder of NorthStar, and he granted permission to distrubute and use all of the NorthStar material - I have the SD software and many of the N* manuals posted on my web site. It would be a fairly simple matter to tweak my Altair simulator into a Horizon simulator - mainly removing the front panel support and modifying the I/O map... Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Vintage computing equipment collector. http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 1 month

HARD SECTORS on a PC? (was: NorthStar Double Density - DOS low level DCOM function

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave04a(a)dunfield.com> > >At 11:40 29/06/2004 -0700, you wrote: >>On Tue, 29 Jun 2004, Dave Dunfield wrote: >>> Hi Guys, >>> I am trying to help someone with a NorthStar Horizon that has the double >>> density controller obtain a copy of CP/M for his system. I have located >>> someone with the software - not it's just a matter of figuring out how to >>> move it. >>> My plan is to write a little utility that will allow the one person to read >>> the disk image into a file on a PC which can be transferred by email, and >>> then the other guy can write it out to a diskette - this is somewhat complicated >>> by the fact that NorthStar allows mixed single/double density on a diskette >>> (I don't know if CP/M does this or not) - my idea is to read it a sector at a ---snip--- Hi Dave I have a couple of Horizons and a older style box ( no wood ). I've not had time to fiddle with these but I think the Horizons use the double density controllers. Right now, I'm still fiddling with the H8 machines but the N* was on my list of machines to create a transfer program for. It sounds like you have already done the work here. None of my machine have been powered on since I got them ( at least 2 or 3 years ). It'll be fun turning them on and watching the smoke. I think I have some disk with these but I've not looked to see what I got. Projects, projects and more projects. Dwight

21 years, 1 month

not HARD SECTORS on a PC (was: NorthStar Double Density - DOS low level DCOM function

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Sorry for the misinterpretation. >"read the disk image into a file on a PC . . . >then the other guy can write it out to a diskette" >is easily misread as reading/writing on the PC. >... and since you inquired in terms of transferring >OS, it implied that the target system was NOT bootable/suitable >for file transfer. [Repeated 1/2 dozen times] Perhaps I should repost my question regarding DCOM (the N* OS means of accessing the disk) 1/2 dozen times! As for "transferring OS" - perhaps if YOU had READ that I was interested in transferring CP/M - and was asking about N* disk system calls.... [Shall I repeat that 1/2 dozen times] Do you have any clairification on my original questions regarding the N* DCOM call when used with double density? Don't bother - I already know your answers(s) - and It doesn't look like meaningful discussion will be forthcoming. Cheers, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Vintage computing equipment collector. http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

21 years, 1 month

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