22 Dec
2006
22 Dec
'06
6:23 p.m.
At 09:11 PM 12/21/2006 -0500, you wrote:
Yup.
OMG,
that's about exactly the same arrangement we had at my
high school- a buncha ASR-33's timesharing on the Globe Union
machine (before we bought their PDP-8).
We discovered that you could deposit about 3 words from the
console, one of which might have been the WHO IOT, and lo!
the user's ID and password (!) would be dumped into memory in
RAD50 (I think??) where you could easily read them back and
decode to ASCII at your leisure.
When I got to UWM, I discovered that the trick had been
foiled by Dick Bartlein (or was it Sam Milosevich??)
rewriting parts of TSS/8 to make it much more secure.
Wow, Tom, are you a Nicolet HS alumnus? From looking in my yearbooks I'm guessing class of '78? I was class of '76 and
spent both semesters of my
Class of 78 is exactly right.
senior year in computer independent study so I spent a
lot of time on that
8/e (ex-Globe Union that was purchased by Nicolet in the summer of '75).
Almost finished a PAL-D decomplier before I graduated. I then also went to
UWM and got to work on their Edusystem 50 too. I remember renting a table
The Edusystem was gone by the time I got there. I worked on the PDP/8e and
later the VAX.
top ASR33 and dialing into the UWM system from home.
I did something similar, but I heisted a hazeltine terminal from the lab
(Dr. Levine said I could.)
One of these days I need to post an introduction of
myself to this list. I
have conversed with several DECies on here so some have seen pictures of my
project. I am working on assembling all of the pieces to duplicate the
Nicolet HS Edusystem 50 and hope to get TSS/8 running on it someday. I want
to do a website documenting my project but for now everyone can see it here:
http://www.frappr.com/?a=myfrappr&id=844769
Everything in this system has been accumulated separately. It appears my
biggest stumbling block to getting TSS/8 running is finding a working
RF08/RS08. That's why I have the two RK05Js. I'm hoping I can somehow
re-write TSS/8 to run off of an RK05. I've got a lot of studying and
relearning to do before that happens. I'm still working on the
cleaning/cosmetic restoration right now. The bay above the 8/e is waiting
for the PC04 on my workbench. Then it will be time to reform caps, configure
boards, start powering things up and get OS/8 running as a start.
Don't let the smoke out!
Tom, if you have any original pictures of the Nicolet
system I would love to
see them. I have written the HS and they have been no help in finding any
pictures of it. I visited there last year for their 50th anniversary and saw
the 'closet' (rather small room) it used to live in down in the F wing
library. I remember its configuration was a little different than DEC would
have normally done. The TU56s/TC08 were in the left rack with the RF08/RS08
in the center.
I have my DECTape from the PDP/8e at UWM. I have no idea if it's still
readable. All I had on it were BASIC programs and one or two assembler
programs I cobbled up. I may have a photo from NHS somewhere.
I can't remember how the racks were arranged. That was a LONG time ago.
I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the UWM
TSS/8 Users Guide on
bitsavers recently.
I must have some of that stuff in my storage locker. I'll have to check.
Jon Miles
Any relation to Mary Miles, and her younger (?) sister?
[Philosophy] Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the
test first and the instruction afterward.
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