23 Apr
2005
23 Apr
'05
10:22 a.m.
Hey guys,
Last year at a local hamfest I bought some DEC microfiche source code
for $5 just as a vintage computer curiosity. Only last week did I pull
it out of the closet and realized that it says, "VAX/VMS v2.0 SRC LST
MCRF/226" -- and it occurred to me that it might be rare and somebody
might want to see it for historical reasons. But I know nearly nothing
about VAX stuff. Does that mean that I've got the source to the
VAX/VMS 2.0 operating system itself? I do have a hefty little stack of
fiche here. How common is this, and is it important that I archive it
in some other medium while I have the chance? A few other things it
says on the label are "AH-H159B-SE" and "Copyright 1980 Digital
Equipment Corporation" and a printed "NR" up in the right corner of the
label. Each fiche "slide" is numbered and they go up to about 192.
Come to think of it, maybe it's the source for "AH-H159B-SE," whatever
that is -- the more I think about how it's written on here, the more
likely that seems.
Thanks for your help,
Benj
On Apr 23, 2005, at 11:47 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Message: 8
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:36:20 +0100
From: "Antonio Carlini" <a.carlini at ntlworld.com>
Subject: RE: Microfiche scanning
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <001b01c5476a$2f3ed6c0$5b01a8c0 at flexpc>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
DEC sold software listings on fiche, but not on
paper. A lot of that
software was either not available in machine readable form, or
ridiculously expensive. For example, RSTS or VMS listing fiche can
probably be found, but source kits of either are hard to come by. The
same only more so is likely to be true for "layered products"
(compilers etc.)
The VMS listings switched from fiche to CD when the fiche had
grown to nearly two boxes per release. AFAICT the CD source
listings kit has the same stuff that went into the fiche: the
.LST files.
There was a source kit, from which you could produce your
own VMS, but I believe that rather than being a $1K/annum
subscription, it was a $200K per release cost. I don't know
when the last one was done, but I do remember someone with
Engineering saying that they'll do another one when someone
actually asks.
I don't know if all layered product groups used fiche as
an archival medium, but I know that PSI, DECnet-RSX and
ALL-IN-1 did on at least some oocasions. Just as well really,
because I'm willing to bet that most of the archived source
tapes have ended up in the bit-bucker. I remember hearing
(probably via Bob Supnik) that DEC had a big clear out of
the archives that they were paying someone (Iron Mountain?)
to maintain.
Pity really, as I'd bet that the entirety of the sources
(and build tools etc.) for everything up to and including
the PDP-11 would have fit on a single CD, or at most, a
single DVD.
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini at iee.org