26 May
2010
26 May
'10
11:20 p.m.
Clay Archer wrote:
I have been fortunate in acquiring and restoring a Tek
4051 recently.
I had used one of these back in '77 to '82 and I still have some
documentation, and I found other manuals on bitsavers.org but have not
located any software. Do you know of any source on-line? I found
references on this site (Feb. 2009) from other users talking about
building an archive of software for the 4051.
I have keyed in a few short programs to test the vector graphics, but it
would be nice to have the original standard pack tape programs. Even
printouts would be helpful. I recall when I last used a 4051 back in
the early '80's we had the ability to dump & load programs using the
serial port, and the ability to un-secret the programs. If I can find
this information again I would be glad to provide it to help build a
software library for this fantastic system.
Thanks,
C. Archer
I was working on software to dump 4051 tapes over a serial port or the
GPIB bus, as well as an emulator. Both are still works in progress
(progress being very slow at the moment) based on disassembling the
system ROMs and going through the service manuals. I recently came into
possession of the actual source code for the 4051's ROMs on microfiche,
which I've passed on to Al for archiving. Looking forward to reading
through those once he's done!
I'm hoping that once I work out enough to write a basic emulation, I'll
know enough about the hardware to write some assembly code for the real
4051 to allow raw dumps of 4051 tapes (and hopefully writing them
back!). But I have a few other things stealing time from me at the
moment, so it won't be in the near future...
Josh