27 May
1997
27 May
'97
4:40 a.m.
Well, thanks to a mobile GPS, I managed to visit 30 thrifts in one day
this weekend, and ended up with:
- Atari 400
- IBM Portable PC 5155
- Two more Osborne 1's (for trade)
- An Indus GT floppy drive for Atari 8bit (this is the best Atari 8bit
drive ever made!)
- Apple Disk II new in box
- Another TRS-80 Model I (system unit only)
- Atari 1040ST and SC124 mono monitor (floppy wasn't working but I fixed
it--I think)
- Another Mac 128 (with bad floppy, I have the parts to fix)
- Pile of diskettes for the TRS-80 Model 4/4P, including original
TRSDOS, SCRIPSIT, ZORK I, etc.
- Manuals for my TRS-80 Model 4P
- Some shrink wrapped games for the Apple II, Atari 8bit, and C64
- TI 99/4A "P-Code Module", whatever the heck that is (goes in the
expansion bay)
- Atari 65XE game computer
- Atari 7800 ProSystem with PS, RF adapter and 3 joysticks
- Colecovision driving expansion module
Kai
27 May
27 May
5:20 a.m.
On Tue, 27 May 1997 09:40:48 -0700, someone said:
<snip>
- TI 99/4A "P-Code Module", whatever the heck
that is (goes in the
expansion bay)
The P-Code card allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly.
_______________
Barry Peterson bm_pete(a)ix.netcom.com
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
5:32 a.m.
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Barry Peterson said:
On Tue, 27 May 1997 09:40:48 -0700, someone said:
<snip>
Ummmm... you mean it never caught on *then*... Now we have Java, which is
similar to what the P-code concept is... P-code compliled under UCSD Pascal
on a Tandy Color Computer (MC6809) could run unmodified on a TI-99/4A
(TMS9900).
JAVM - Just Another Virtual Machine.
Hope this helps,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
- TI 99/4A "P-Code Module", whatever the
heck that is (goes in the
expansion bay)
The P-Code card allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly.
5:51 a.m.
On Tue, 27 May 1997 13:32:37 -0400, someone said:
Actually, I meant that the P-Code Card (TI's version) never caught on
then (or since).
Now, in addition to a spelling checker, I need an _idea checker_
which knows what I mean, rather than what I type!
_______________
Barry Peterson bm_pete(a)ix.netcom.com
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
The P-Code card
allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly.
Ummmm... you mean it never caught on *then*... 
3:06 p.m.
New subject: More p-code (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
On Tue, 27 May 1997, Barry Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 1997 13:32:37 -0400, someone said:
Actually, I meant that the P-Code Card (TI's version) never caught on
then (or since).
Since the thing cost at least $300 new, I'm not surprised. (Of course,
I don't remember TI really promoting the P-code card, at least not to
"home" users. . .)
Also, anyone remembers TI's videodisc controller card? I remember some of
the ads and catalogs saying something to the effect of "The Videodisc
controller is for industrial use only, it is not for use in the home"
The P-Code
card allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly.
Ummmm... you mean it never caught on *then*...
5:07 p.m.
New subject: More p-code (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
On Tue, 27 May 1997 20:06:29 -0700 (PDT), someone said:
<snip>
Also, anyone remembers TI's videodisc controller
card? I remember some of
the ads and catalogs saying something to the effect of "The Videodisc
controller is for industrial use only, it is not for use in the home"
It's PHP 2300 "Video Controller", and listed in 1982 for $699.95! (I
didn't buy one)
_______________
Barry Peterson bm_pete(a)ix.netcom.com
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
9:21 a.m.
At 05:20 PM 5/27/97 GMT, you wrote:
UCSD Pascal system compiled to an intermediate "P-Code" which required a
virtual machine (p-code interpreter) to run. this gives you platform
independence. it seems all good ideas come back to haunt us - this is
exactly how Java works of course (except we have Java virtual machines
instead of p-code interpreters). Since there were performance concerns
there actually was a "Pascal engine" which executed native P-code (again
like Sun's java-based processors of today). Now a pascal engine would seem
to be a real collectible! - i don't think many were sold.
unfortunately UCSD Pascal was wiped out along with CP/M and a lot of other
good stuff when DOS swept the world.
I used to run UCSD Pascal on a system called a "Terak" - anyone ever see
one of these? they were pretty cool (wish i had one now). It was LSI-11
based and could run DEC real time OSes as well (can't remember which ones).
I used to have 8" floppies for this with all the source code for UCSD
pascal and tools (it was all originally in the public domain I think since
it was university based). unfortunately i didn't have the foresight to
transfer to a more modern media and I have no idea where this all is now.
- glenn
+=========================================================+
| Glenn F. Roberts, Falls Church, VA
| Comments are my own and not the opinion of my employer
| groberts(a)mitre.org
- TI 99/4A
"P-Code Module", whatever the heck that is
The P-Code card allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly. 
1:48 a.m.
Glenn Roberts wrote:
unfortunately UCSD Pascal was wiped out along with
CP/M and a lot of other
good stuff when DOS swept the world.
I have copies of the UCSD p-System, IV2.1 R3.4, dated 1985 for the IBM
PC, both the boot and utilities disk. I also have a book titled
something like 'Introduction to UCSD Pascal', though it's not handy at
the moment. I do know it was authored by the programmer that originated
the system. I've booted this system recently on the 5155, along with
every other early PC OS I have here, but have yet to get deep into it.
On a slightly different note, I finally found a Commodore C-16 today!!
To make the find even nicer was the fact that it was boxed with manual,
warranty registration card, and the C-16 Tutorial Catrtridge, which was
also still boxed. I've yet to plug it up, but am quite looking forward
to it.
Jeff
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Collector of Classic Computers: Amiga 1000, Atari 800, 800XL, MegaST-2,
Commodore C-128D, C-16, Plus/4, VIC-20, Kaypro 2X, Mattel Aquarius,
Osbourne Executive, Radofin Aquarius, Timex-Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 Color
Computer 3, and Model IV. Also Atari SuperPong and Atari 2600VCS game
consoles
3:10 p.m.
New subject: Terak's (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
On Tue, 27 May 1997, Glenn Roberts wrote:
unfortunately UCSD Pascal was wiped out along with CP/M and a lot of other
good stuff when DOS swept the world.
Hey, DOS *is* CP/M as far as I'm concerned (look how long it took to
kick that 8.3 filename habit! :-)
I used to run UCSD Pascal on a system called a "Terak" - anyone ever see
one of these? they were pretty cool (wish i had one now). It was LSI-11
based and could run DEC real time OSes as well (can't remember which ones).
I used to have 8" floppies for this with all the source code for UCSD
pascal and tools (it was all originally in the public domain I think since
it was university based). unfortunately i didn't have the foresight to
transfer to a more modern media and I have no idea where this all is now.
I remember using a Terak in undergrad school, around 1984 or so. There's
a page out on the web dedicated to preserving these beasts; you might
try typing in "Terak" to one of the searchengines. . .
4:11 p.m.
New subject: Terak's (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
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2:59 p.m.
New subject: P-code (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
On Tue, 27 May 1997, Barry Peterson wrote:
On Tue, 27 May 1997 09:40:48 -0700, someone said:
<snip>
It was to be a machine-independent interpreted pseudo-machine code
(hmmm...), much
the same as Java is today. I remember versions of the P-code
intepreter for IBM-PC and Apple II, as well as TI. (There were also
versions for non-consumer machines such as Teraks)
Theoretically, a p-code compiled program would run on any of these
systems (of course, differences in screen size and disk format made
things a little more involved. . .)
- TI 99/4A "P-Code Module", whatever the
heck that is (goes in the
expansion bay)
The P-Code card allows you to run "universal" software. It never
really caught on. I have the software, UCSD Pascal stuff mainly. 
28 May
28 May
1:49 a.m.
New subject: P-code (was: Re: Another weekend haul story
[p-code, etc]
It was to be a machine-independent interpreted
pseudo-machine code
(hmmm...), much
the same as Java is today. I remember versions of the P-code
intepreter for IBM-PC and Apple II, as well as TI. (There were also
versions for non-consumer machines such as Teraks)
There was also a thing called a Sage II (anyone else remember them) that
was a single-board 68000-based computer. The standard OS on that was the
p-system, although I am told that CP/M-68K was also available at some
point.
The Sage II was a nice machine to repair - one big flat board instantly
visible when you pulled the cover, all chips in sockets, and the
schematics in the user manual. They don't make 'em like that any more :-).
It was a fairly standard design - 68000 + 512K RAM + floppy controller
(Western Digital I think) + 2 serial ports + 8255 parallel port + GPIB +
glue logic.
Also, the first PERQ microcode implemented something called 'Q-code' which
was (I believe) an enhanced p-code - enhanced with things like raster-op
(bitblit) instructions. PERQ, of course, stood for 'Pascal Evaluation Real
Quick', and the machine was (in part) designed to run p-code - there's a
256-way branch operation to make it easy to do an instruction dispatch on
a bytecode.
A few months ago, there was a comment doing the rounds between a few
serious PERQ-fanatics that the PERQ should be renamed the 'jerq' (Java...)
and was essentially sold 17 years too early.
--
-tony
ard12(a)eng.cam.ac.uk
The gates in my computer are AND,OR and NOT, not Bill
10021
days inactive
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11 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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ard12＠eng.cam.ac.uk -
bm_pete＠ix.netcom.com -
groberts＠mitre.org -
jeffh＠unix.aardvarkol.com -
kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com -
shoppa＠alph02.triumf.ca -
transit＠primenet.com -
zmerch＠northernway.net