29 Sep
2020
29 Sep
'20
10:10 a.m.
Question for the group: I have a document set here from DEC that is the
"XT Hardware Handbook". It's basically the entire pre-release
documentation set for the "XT-100" terminal/computer which became the
Professional 325/350.
Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on
scanning this? Is there already a better copy of this information out
there, this seems to cover the whole internal bus, how the cards work,
and so forth...
Chris
29 Sep
29 Sep
10:15 a.m.
I have wanted to see that for my work on the Pro. It would be great to get it scanned and
posted, whether the copy lands on Bitsavers or elsewhere. As far as I know it is not
currently available.
Does it include the programming manual for the 4-line UART option board? I have such a
board and since I wrote a driver for it, decades ago, I must at one time have had a
programming manual, but I certainly don't have it any longer.
The internal bus and the boot ROM details are examples of stuff not covered in the
currently available manuals on Bitsavers; those details were not exposed to the outside
world for some reason.
paul
On Sep 29, 2020, at 10:10 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Question for the group: I have a document set here from DEC that is the "XT Hardware
Handbook". It's basically the entire pre-release documentation set for the
"XT-100" terminal/computer which became the Professional 325/350.
Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on scanning this? Is
there already a better copy of this information out there, this seems to cover the whole
internal bus, how the cards work, and so forth...
Chris
11:31 a.m.
I have broken 350s and would love to get hold of this information too...
Regards
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Paul Koning via
cctalk
Sent: 29 September 2020 15:16
To: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>; cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Thoughts on restricted distribution documents (Dec
Professional
350)
I have wanted to see that for my work on the Pro. It would be great to
get it
scanned and posted, whether the copy lands on
Bitsavers or elsewhere. As
far
as I know it is not currently available.
Does it include the programming manual for the 4-line UART option board?
I
have such a board and since I wrote a driver for it,
decades ago, I must
at one
time have had a programming manual, but I certainly
don't have it any
longer.
The internal bus and the boot ROM details are examples of stuff not
covered in
the currently available manuals on Bitsavers; those
details were not
exposed to
the outside world for some reason.
paul
> On Sep 29, 2020, at 10:10 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>
> Question for the group: I have a document set here from DEC that is the
"XT
Hardware Handbook". It's basically the entire
pre-release documentation
set
for the "XT-100" terminal/computer which
became the Professional 325/350.
>
> Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on
scanning
this? Is there already a better copy of this
information out there, this
seems to
cover the whole internal bus, how the cards work, and
so forth...
>
> Chris
1:56 p.m.
Ok, got a good starter scan. Did it at 600dpi, black/white, saving here
as Tiff and JPG formats in different directories. Will make a cheap-o
PDF version and put it on iguana.crystel.com in a bit.
I also have the 4 volume set of Professional Toolkit and a 4 volume set
of Ultrix/11 manuals. Have these already been uploaded somewhere?
C
On 9/29/2020 11:31 AM, Rob Jarratt wrote:
I have broken 350s and would love to get hold of this
information too...
Regards
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Paul Koning via
cctalk
Sent: 29 September 2020 15:16
To: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>; cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Thoughts on restricted distribution documents (Dec
Professional
350)
I have wanted to see that for my work on the Pro. It would be great to
get it
scanned and posted, whether the copy lands on
Bitsavers or elsewhere. As
far
as I know it is not currently available.
Does it include the programming manual for the 4-line UART option board?
I
have such a board and since I wrote a driver for
it, decades ago, I must
at one
time have had a programming manual, but I
certainly don't have it any
longer.
The internal bus and the boot ROM details are examples of stuff not
covered in
the currently available manuals on Bitsavers;
those details were not
exposed to
the outside world for some reason.
paul
> On Sep 29, 2020, at 10:10 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>
> Question for the group: I have a document set here from DEC that is the
"XT
Hardware Handbook". It's basically the
entire pre-release documentation
set
for the "XT-100" terminal/computer
which became the Professional 325/350.
>
> Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on
scanning
this? Is there already a better copy of this
information out there, this
seems to
cover the whole internal bus, how the cards work,
and so forth...
>
> Chris
3:06 p.m.
On 29/09/2020 18:56, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Ok, got a good starter scan. Did it at 600dpi,
black/white, saving
here as Tiff and JPG formats in different directories. Will make a
cheap-o PDF version and put it on iguana.crystel.com in a bit.
You don't want JPG for text. It'll have fuzzy edges, which isn't
(afaict) good for future OCR.
I also have the 4 volume set of Professional Toolkit and a 4 volume
set of Ultrix/11 manuals. Have these already been uploaded somewhere?
If you check titles or part #s on https://manx-docs.org/ you should
whether something has definitely been scanned (if there's a working
Online link). It's always possible that there's a copy somewhere that
no-one has told manx about, but that doesn't often happen in my experience.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio at acarlini.com
3:13 p.m.
On Sep 29, 2020, at 3:06 PM, Antonio Carlini via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 29/09/2020 18:56, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Right. JPEG is, as the name indicates, ONLY for photos. Not line art, not text, not
anything with edges. TIFF is always good. PNG is also generally a good choice.
paul
Ok, got a good starter scan. Did it at 600dpi,
black/white, saving here as Tiff and JPG formats in different directories. Will make a
cheap-o PDF version and put it on iguana.crystel.com in a bit.
You don't want JPG for text. It'll have fuzzy edges, which isn't (afaict)
good for future OCR.
4:29 p.m.
Makes sense. Still it's uncompressed so pretty big. I'll need to work on
cleaning up the scans a bit, then I'll put the Tiffs up for
download/whatever. Just don't want a lot of copies, consider that pdf as
a proof of concept to review.
C
Right. JPEG is, as the name indicates, ONLY for
photos. Not line art, not text, not anything with edges. TIFF is always good. PNG is
also generally a good choice.
paul
4:48 p.m.
On Sep 29, 2020, at 4:29 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Makes sense. Still it's uncompressed so pretty big. I'll need to work on cleaning
up the scans a bit, then I'll put the Tiffs up for download/whatever. Just don't
want a lot of copies, consider that pdf as a proof of concept to review.
TIFF supports compression, in a number of different schemes. LZW tends to work well for
gray and RGB; the CCITT schemes are for bitonal (black/white bitmap). All TIFF
compressions are lossless so they are all safe for material of all types.
Is what you posted the whole document you have, or are there others? I was really hoping
for the "CT bus manual". I did see interesting stuff in this one, though; for
example, the first documentation I've seen of the hard drive FORMAT command.
paul
5:34 p.m.
If it helps, I bought a copy of the DEC Professional 350 Field
Maintenance Print Set (MP-01394) on eBay a few months back.
I've scanned it but I've been waffling about where to post it. Scanned
@600DPI with lossless compression it's huge: 1 GB.? Saved as an
"optimized" PDF (with very little visible difference) it's 94 MB.
In the short term I've temporarily thrown up the optimized copy onto
Google drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BHpaneWpvWTO4UXUhLRgNV09rIiWTf3P/view
I'd love to be able to contribute this to something like bitsavers.
Thanks.
--Bjoren Davis
On 9/29/2020 4:48 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
On Sep 29, 2020, at 4:29 PM, Chris Zach via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Makes sense. Still it's uncompressed so pretty big. I'll need to work on cleaning
up the scans a bit, then I'll put the Tiffs up for download/whatever. Just don't
want a lot of copies, consider that pdf as a proof of concept to review.
TIFF
supports compression, in a number of different schemes. LZW tends to work well for gray
and RGB; the CCITT schemes are for bitonal (black/white bitmap). All TIFF compressions
are lossless so they are all safe for material of all types.
Is what you posted the whole document you have, or are there others? I was really hoping
for the "CT bus manual". I did see interesting stuff in this one, though; for
example, the first documentation I've seen of the hard drive FORMAT command.
paul
5:39 p.m.
That's neat! Thanks! I always liked the Pro/350: When you get into the
OS command prompt it's a really nice system and Synergy wasn't a bad
windowing system either. I used it a lot in the day and it worked pretty
well with a mouse.
Also venix wasn't bad, for awhile my Venix equipped 350 was on the
internet via uucico. Those were the days...
C
On 9/29/2020 5:34 PM, Bjoren Davis via cctalk wrote:
If it helps, I bought a copy of the DEC Professional
350 Field
Maintenance Print Set (MP-01394) on eBay a few months back.
I've scanned it but I've been waffling about where to post it. Scanned
@600DPI with lossless compression it's huge: 1 GB.? Saved as an
"optimized" PDF (with very little visible difference) it's 94 MB.
In the short term I've temporarily thrown up the optimized copy onto
Google drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BHpaneWpvWTO4UXUhLRgNV09rIiWTf3P/view
I'd love to be able to contribute this to something like bitsavers.
Thanks.
--Bjoren Davis
On 9/29/2020 4:48 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>
>> On Sep 29, 2020, at 4:29 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
>> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>
>> Makes sense. Still it's uncompressed so pretty big. I'll need to work
>> on cleaning up the scans a bit, then I'll put the Tiffs up for
>> download/whatever. Just don't want a lot of copies, consider that pdf
>> as a proof of concept to review.
> TIFF supports compression, in a number of different schemes.? LZW
> tends to work well for gray and RGB; the CCITT schemes are for bitonal
> (black/white bitmap).? All TIFF compressions are lossless so they are
> all safe for material of all types.
>
> Is what you posted the whole document you have, or are there others?
> I was really hoping for the "CT bus manual".? I did see interesting
> stuff in this one, though; for example, the first documentation I've
> seen of the hard drive FORMAT command.
>
> ????paul
>
>
6:35 p.m.
That's neat! Thanks! I always liked the Pro/350:
When you get into the
OS command prompt it's a really nice system and Synergy wasn't a bad
windowing system either. I used it a lot in the day and it worked pretty
well with a mouse.
Also venix wasn't bad, for awhile my Venix equipped 350 was on the
internet via uucico. Those were the days...
I rather like Venix (I have it on a PRO/380). Too bad there's no SLIP
capability.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- FORTUNE: You will be hit with a lot of money. Avoid armoured trucks. -------
6:25 p.m.
Al:
Would you want the uncompressed Tiffs? I'd like to make mine OCRed and
searchable if there is software to do so, but 140 pages comes out to 14
gigabytes uncompressed.
On 9/29/2020 5:57 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 9/29/20 2:34 PM, Bjoren Davis via cctalk wrote:
I'd love to be able to contribute this to
something like bitsavers.
i'll upload it today. 100mb is beleivable for a compressed
color/grayscale 600dpi scan 
7:34 p.m.
On 9/29/20 3:45 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
On 9/29/20 3:25 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
it's under 60mb, so I uploaded it
Al:
Would you want the uncompressed Tiffs? I'd like to make mine OCRed and searchable if
there is software to do so, but 140 pages comes out
to 14 gigabytes uncompressed.
let me see what happens if I OCR the 90mb file
8:11 p.m.
On Sep 29, 2020, at 6:25 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Al:
Would you want the uncompressed Tiffs?
TIFF compression is lossless. Leaving them uncompressed might save a small amount of
processing time on opening, at the expense of much more time taken transmitting and
reading them. I can't see a reason ever to use the uncompressed TIFF option.
paul
30 Sep
30 Sep
5:44 p.m.
On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 6:11 PM Paul Koning via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
TIFF compression is lossless.
TIFF is only a container format ("Tagged Image File Format"). TIFF does not
define any one compression. It in fact can contain either lossy or lossless
compression, or even uncompressed images.
For black-and-white documents (text and line art, no grey scale), it used
to be somewhat common to use TIFF Class F Group 3 or Group 4 fax format,
which is lossless, but TIFF can also contain DCT-compressed images
(equivalent to JPEG).
10:42 a.m.
On 2020-09-29 17:34, Bjoren Davis via cctalk wrote:
If it helps, I bought a copy of the DEC Professional
350 Field
Maintenance Print Set (MP-01394) on eBay a few months back.
EXCELLENT!
I've scanned it but I've been waffling about where to post it. Scanned
@600DPI with lossless compression it's huge: 1 GB.? Saved as an
"optimized" PDF (with very little visible difference) it's 94 MB.
In the short term I've temporarily thrown up the optimized copy onto
Google drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BHpaneWpvWTO4UXUhLRgNV09rIiWTf3P/view
I'd love to be able to contribute this to something like bitsavers.
Personally, I prefer file names to start with the DEC designator, like
MP.......
But I'm happy already to see this ;-)
29 Sep
29 Sep
2:29 p.m.
Ok, it's scanned and a compressed PDF is up at:
http://iguana.crystel.com/pro350/xt100.pdf
Some of the pages are slightly skewed, I'll see about correcting those
before putting the whole .tiff set up there (that's over 14gb). Not much
difference between 300dpi (the first 20 pages) and 600dpi (the rest) so
I might just scan at 300dpi going forward.
CZ
On 9/29/2020 11:31 AM, Rob Jarratt wrote:
I have broken 350s and would love to get hold of this
information too...
Regards
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Paul Koning via
cctalk
Sent: 29 September 2020 15:16
To: Chris Zach <cz at alembic.crystel.com>; cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Thoughts on restricted distribution documents (Dec
Professional
350)
I have wanted to see that for my work on the Pro. It would be great to
get it
scanned and posted, whether the copy lands on
Bitsavers or elsewhere. As
far
as I know it is not currently available.
Does it include the programming manual for the 4-line UART option board?
I
have such a board and since I wrote a driver for
it, decades ago, I must
at one
time have had a programming manual, but I
certainly don't have it any
longer.
The internal bus and the boot ROM details are examples of stuff not
covered in
the currently available manuals on Bitsavers;
those details were not
exposed to
the outside world for some reason.
paul
> On Sep 29, 2020, at 10:10 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
>
> Question for the group: I have a document set here from DEC that is the
"XT
Hardware Handbook". It's basically the
entire pre-release documentation
set
for the "XT-100" terminal/computer
which became the Professional 325/350.
>
> Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on
scanning
this? Is there already a better copy of this
information out there, this
seems to
cover the whole internal bus, how the cards work,
and so forth...
>
> Chris
3:09 p.m.
On 29/09/2020 19:29, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Some of the pages are slightly skewed, I'll see about correcting those
before putting the whole .tiff set up there (that's over 14gb). Not
much difference between 300dpi (the first 20 pages) and 600dpi (the
rest) so I might just scan at 300dpi going forward.
I think bitsavers sets a minimum of 400 dpi to allow for certain
post-processing work, so I'd suggest sticking with 600 dpi. Unless of
course, you really meant 14GiB (and not 14MiB) in which case it must be
quite a document :-)
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio at acarlini.com
11:18 a.m.
On 29/09/2020 15:10, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote:
Is there a copy of this on the internet, and what are the thoughts on
scanning this?
If it helps you decide, multiple DEC "restricted" docs are already on
bitsavers (the VAXBI SRM, the VAX SRM, various chips specs). Yours won't
be the first "restricted" document on there.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio at acarlini.com
1432
days inactive
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20 comments
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a.carlini＠ntlworld.com -
aek＠bitsavers.org -
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spectre＠floodgap.com