1 Jun
2000
1 Jun
'00
12:18 a.m.
Right-o...
teletypes with the reader/punch used rolls of paper tape.
I have a copy of DEC Monopoly on papertape that I punched myself, as
well as a copy of Intel's INTERP-80 (8080a simulator) and a
Star Trek
game called BIGMES (from an HP 2000).
What machine did INTERP-80 run on? Was it written in BASIC? I'm currently writing a simulation of the hardware
that HP 2000 TSB ran
on (a pair of HP 21xx minicomputers with a pair of bidirectional parallel
interfaces between them). I've typed in most of the source code to
2000C' from a printed listing, and have written an assembler in Perl.
I must say, that's pretty cool. I used to have some other HP2000
programs, but the only one I found the other day was a listing that
I'd printed on a Silent 700 terminal. Environmental effects have
darkened the thermal paper to make it nearly unreadable. A bit of
squinting for a day or two might surmount that problem.
I'd be interested in getting copies of those paper
tapes, and anything
else you might have that could be run on a 2000. Naturally I'm willing
to pay copying and postage costs.
As I consider the paper tapes priceless, you'd have to be willing to
put up a serious chunk of change in escrow in case anything happened
to them. Better that you wait for me stage them to a newer format.
I'll make accounts on the simulated 2000 available
once it's running.
If you need BASIC programs to run on your simulator, keep a close watch
on E-Bay for books of BASIC games. I saw David Ahl's book 101 BAsic Games
the other day; that's for DEC-10 BASIC, but I recall there were some books
on HP BASIC back way back when, so one of those books will doubtlessly
surface.
Another resource for HP 2000 programs would be old issues of Creative
Computing (another wonderful magazine killed by the evil Ziff-Davis
empire).
Good luck; I'll file your message to me in my hobby folder so that
I'll have your e-mail address, and once I finally get BIGMES on disk,
I'll let you know.
-doug q