1 May
2006
1 May
'06
5:31 p.m.
I was just reading through the MSJ (May 1987) and it has an interesting article
called "Evolution and History of MS-DOS" and some of it is quoted below. Does
anyone know whatever happened to Tim Patterson? I never hear his name mentioned,
and am just curious.
From that article:
*********
January 1975: MITS introduces the $400 Altair computer; it has no keyboard, no
monitor, no disk, and no operating system.
February 1975: Paul Allen and Bill Gates develop and sell their own verion of
BASIC to MITS for the Altair:
February 1976: Paul Allen, now working for MITS, asks Bill Gates to write a
disk-based version of BASIC for the Altair. Bill Gates creates a working model
of his disk BASIC in 10 days. He designs a disk layout and file structure based
on a centralized File Directory and File Allocation Table (FAT). He also
includes a rudimentary set of file services in the disk BASIC he is developing.
1976-1978: Microsoft Disk BASIC is ported to all jmajor 8 bit personal
computers. An assembler and linker are developed for 8080 and Z80 based systems.
April 1978: Intel announces the 8086, a 16 bit processor.
January 1979: Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products begins work on a plug-in
8086 processor card to bring the power of the 8086 to the S-100 bus.
June 1979: Microsoft and Tim Patterson show Microsoft's BASIC running on
Paterson's 8086 card at the National Computer Conference in New York.
April 1980: Delays hold up the delivery of CP/M 86. Tim Paterson decides to
write his own "Quick and Dirty" OS, which becomes known as 86-DOS. He
incorporates the FAT structure first designed byt Bill Gates for Disk-BASIC, and
some features and techniques underlying MS-DOS.
August 1980: IBM takes its first stept owards producing the IBM PC, planning to
use readily availble, off-the-shelf 8 bit hardware. IBM visits Microsoft, asking
if Microsoft can write a ROM-based BASIC for the computer IBM is develop9ing.
Microsoft suggests that IBM consider the 16 bit architecture. IBM's "Project
Chess" goes on to become the 8088 (8086 based) IBM PC. The first working version
of 86-DOS runs on Tim Paterson's 8086 card. This is essentially the birth of
what will become known as MS-DOS.
September 1980: IBM asks Microsoft to provide COBOL, FORTRAN and PAscal for
their personal computer. Microsoft suggests to IBM that an operating system
would be necessary to develop the additional lnaguages.
October 1980: Microsoft submits a proposal to IBM that includes MS-DOS.
November 1980: The proposal is accepted by IBM. A prototype machine arrives at
Microsoft and a small DOS team begins a concentrated period of work.
February 1981: 86-DOS runs on the prototype for the first time. Over the next
half year the OS is refined and becomes MS-DOS 1.0.
August 1981:IBM introduces the IBM PC, and annoucnes three operating systems:
MS-DOS, CP/M 86, and the P System. For several months, MS-DOS is the only OS
available. It is also priced substantially lower than CP/M. ...
...
June 1982: MS-DOS, Version 1.1 is announced, providing support for double-sided,
eight sector diskettes on the IBM PC.
1 May
1 May
7:55 p.m.
You know, that writeup makes it sound as if Gates invented the linked list
for disk storage allocation. He didn't--it was in use many years before he
"thought" of it--and he didn't invent BASIC either...
Cheers,
Chuck
11:41 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
You know, that writeup makes it sound as if Gates
invented the linked list
for disk storage allocation. He didn't--it was in use many years before he
"thought" of it--and he didn't invent BASIC either...
He certainly did invent various marketing and anti-trust practices,
however... (ducking)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2 May
2 May
10:41 a.m.
On Tuesday 02 May 2006 02:41 am, Jim Leonard wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I guess it's not uncommon for a company being started up to include a lawyer
somewhere in there, whether they consult with one or have one directly
involved as a participant. OTOH, m$ is the only company I've ever heard of
that had _two_ lawyers in there right from the start.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
You know, that writeup makes it sound as if Gates
invented the linked
list for disk storage allocation. He didn't--it was in use many years
before he "thought" of it--and he didn't invent BASIC either...
He certainly did invent various marketing and anti-trust practices,
however... (ducking) 
11:07 a.m.
In article <200605021341.26729.rtellason at blazenet.net>,
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> writes:
I guess it's not uncommon for a company being
started up to include a lawyer
somewhere in there, whether they consult with one or have one directly
involved as a participant. OTOH, m$ is the only company I've ever heard of
that had _two_ lawyers in there right from the start.
If I was a dinky company that was about to sign a potentially very
lucrative deal with IBM, I think I'd have two lawyers as well.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ:
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/>
Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty
<http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
11:26 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard" <legalize at xmission.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: MS-DOS 1.0/1.1
Anytime a very small company signs a deal with a very large company you have
to make sure there is not a single word that will allow the larger company
to screw you out of business. For the most part Gates seems to get the
better end of deals, and can see an angle he can exploit. The reason MS is
where it is today is because of making consistently good deals that benefit
MS. You can argue that MS might have bent some arms once it locked up the
market, but most companies do that if/when they can. Being smart enough to
amass a $250B+ company when software is your main product is a big
accomplishment, most of the largest companies tend to be makers of hardware.
In article <200605021341.26729.rtellason at blazenet.net>,
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> writes:
> I guess it's not uncommon for a company being started up to include a
lawyer
> somewhere in there, whether they consult with
one or have one directly
> involved as a participant. OTOH, m$ is the only company I've ever
heard
of
that had _two_
lawyers in there right from the start.
If I was a dinky company that was about to sign a potentially very
lucrative deal with IBM, I think I'd have two lawyers as well.
--
12:26 p.m.
On 5/2/2006 at 2:26 PM Teo Zenios wrote:
> If I was a dinky company that was about to sign a
potentially very
> lucrative deal with IBM, I think I'd have two lawyers as well.
...and William Gates Sr. is a partner in Vogel & Gates--so Billy had some
high-powered talent in the family.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:15 p.m.
On Tuesday 02 May 2006 02:07 pm, Richard wrote:
In article <200605021341.26729.rtellason at
blazenet.net>,
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at blazenet.net> writes:
Sure, but that's not the context I was talking about, which no doubt came
about somewhat later on, I'm talking about when they started the company in
the first place. Or at least that's my recollection, anyhow, which could
perhaps be at fault here. I did have several books that covered that time
period and some other stuff, but loaned them out to my brother after I read
them and haven't gotten them all back yet.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
I guess it's not uncommon for a company being
started up to include a
lawyer somewhere in there, whether they consult with one or have one
directly involved as a participant. OTOH, m$ is the only company I've
ever heard of that had _two_ lawyers in there right from the start.
If I was a dinky company that was about to sign a potentially very
lucrative deal with IBM, I think I'd have two lawyers as well.
1 May
1 May
11:45 p.m.
Marvin Johnston wrote:
anyone know whatever happened to Tim Patterson? I
never hear his name mentioned,
He was hired by Microsoft sometime in the 1990s and worked well enough
there that he left with enough money and stock to retire. I can't help
but think that this was the result of a few influential people within
the company feeling guilty for how his $50,000 sale was turned into 50
billion dollars...
Of course, I feel bad for Gary Kildall's code getting ripped off too,
but his wife kind-of dug that grave for him, IIRC.
Anyway, last I heard of Tim, he was building robots and competing with
them for one of those battling robots shows (in the US, not Robot Wars
in the UK).
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2 May
2 May
10:21 a.m.
January 1979: Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer
Products begins work on a plug-in
8086 processor card to bring the power of the 8086
to the S-100 bus.
so did this very card get incorporated into the box
that became knows as the Seattle Gazelle? There's
information on the net that states he wrote DOS on the
Gazelle (often of dubious value...in case you weren't
aware ;).
IBM visits Microsoft, asking
if Microsoft can write a ROM-based BASIC for the
computer IBM is develop9ing.
Just how much use was made of IBMs ROM BASIC (or
BASICs for that matter - they were included in all the
PS/2s, and probably even later models. Yeah, schools
and stuph made use of built in BASICs, and even
utilized cassettes for storage (I learned, though I
use the term loosely, BASIC programming on the Atari
400, which sported a membrane keyboard...ugh). But I'm
not aware of too many early IBM branded PCs made their
way into schools (more so possibly by the PS/2
period). But who the heck made any serious use of ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and beyond?
September 1980: IBM asks Microsoft to provide COBOL,
FORTRAN and PAscal for
their personal computer. Microsoft suggests to IBM
that an operating system
would be necessary to develop the additional
lnaguages.
Though IBM utilized MS to write early compilers for
it's stuph, IBM's Professional FORTRAN was written by
Ryan-McFarland.
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22 May
22 May
1:58 a.m.
At 18:16 02/05/2006, Chris M wrote:
Just how much use was made of IBMs ROM BASIC (or
BASICs for that matter - they were included in all the
PS/2s, and probably even later models. Yeah, schools
and stuph made use of built in BASICs, and even
utilized cassettes for storage (I learned, though I
use the term loosely, BASIC programming on the Atari
400, which sported a membrane keyboard...ugh). But I'm
not aware of too many early IBM branded PCs made their
way into schools (more so possibly by the PS/2
period). But who the heck made any serious use of ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and beyond?
An early PC clone over here was made by Ferranti - complete with ROM
based Basic and cassette interface, in the base model. It was sold
by WH Smith (local high-street stationary store) alongside ZX
Spectrums and other home micros. There seemed to be some big
hoo-hah at one point, though, as I was working for Ferranti at the
time (in an unrelated division) and we suddenly got lots and lots of
EPROMs to erase and re-program after there was some issue with the
BIOS and copyright ....
I /might/ have a lead on some early Ferranti PCs if anybody wants
one; bloke I picked a Dragon 32 up off works for what's left of them
and said they had loads of old stuff still about. (I'm not
interested enough in them myself..)
Rob
3:03 p.m.
period). But who the heck made any serious use of ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and beyond?
Depends on what you mean by 'serious use', but I was certainly glad of
ROM basic when my 5160 XT wouldn't boot. I used it to write values to
output ports on the disk controller card while probing signals with a
logic probe. Found a defective inverter chip very quickly.
Sure a machine code monitor would have been even nicer, but...
-tony
5:26 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I wasn't suggesting it didn't have any uses. I for
one always looked fondly upon rom based languages. I
was just curious if, besides an example like you
cited, was anything substantive ever done with them.
The Vesta OEM-188 board, aka the Radio Electronics RE
Robot brain/board thing, has not only BASIC, but FORTH
built in. My Canon Cat also has a FORTH interpreter.
Who used them? And for what? The BASICs were built
into IBM pc's until possibly 1990 or so. One might get
the impression that they were there for a reason.
Years ago, while they still had a production facility
on Long Island, I had heard that Symbol made use of
QBasic (probably because they were thrifty). No, no
longer a rom based implementation, but came with it
for nothing.
period). But
who the heck made any serious use of
ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and
beyond?
Depends on what you mean by 'serious use', but I was
certainly glad of
ROM basic when my 5160 XT wouldn't boot. I used it
to write values to
output ports on the disk controller card while
probing signals with a
logic probe. Found a defective inverter chip very
quickly. Sure a machine code monitor would have been even
nicer, but...
Agreed. One of the dandiest features of puters like
the C64. But come to think of it maybe that was on a
separate cartridge. It's been a while...
-tony
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23 May
23 May
11:12 p.m.
On 5/22/2006 at 5:26 PM Chris M wrote:
The BASICs were built
into IBM pc's until possibly 1990 or so. One might get
the impression that they were there for a reason.
Uh, to make PC-DOS BASICA work?
Well, I suppose the original intention was to make the diskless PC
work--you know, with the cassette tape interface. After that, who knows?
I still use GWBASIC on my Windoze system here.
Cheers,
Chuck
25 May
25 May
5:50 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Don't laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else would
one preserve this? A WAV file?
Mike
6:09 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Don't laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else would
one preserve this? A WAV file?
Mike
Might be worth seeing what the 8-bit Micro folks use. My thought is hook a
good cassette deck up to a PC soundcard. Obviously MP3 would be a bad file
choice :^)
Zane
8:48 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Zane H. Healy wrote:
:-) But that's exactly what I've done and seen others done. If you're
a purist, you capture the tape at 24-bit/48KHz so that you can feed it
without quality loss to the target machine. If you're more limited by
space, or want to do some "free cleanup" at the same time, you digitize
at 16-bit 32KHz and that also works.
I know of at least one person who has repaired bad tapes by grabbing the
file at 24/48 and then quantizing to an extreme level (like, 8-bit
22KHz) and also increases the volume a bit, both of which more clearly
"presses" the waveform closer to the digital signal that created it. He
writes that to a tape copy, and where the original won't load, the copy
loads just fine.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
Don't
laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else would
one preserve this? A WAV file?
Mike
Might be worth seeing what the 8-bit Micro folks use. My thought is hook a
good cassette deck up to a PC soundcard. Obviously MP3 would be a bad file
choice :^) 
26 May
26 May
3:31 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 22:48 -0500, Jim Leonard wrote:
I know of at least one person who has repaired bad
tapes by grabbing the
file at 24/48 and then quantizing to an extreme level (like, 8-bit
22KHz) and also increases the volume a bit, both of which more clearly
"presses" the waveform closer to the digital signal that created it. He
writes that to a tape copy, and where the original won't load, the copy
loads just fine.
Way way back, when I used ZX Spectrums a lot, I used to play dodgy tapes
through a guitar fuzzbox to bring up the level and square off the peaks
a bit. It worked, sometimes.
Gordon.
27 May
27 May
3:21 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Way way back, when I used ZX Spectrums a lot, I used
to play dodgy tapes
through a guitar fuzzbox to bring up the level and square off the peaks
a bit. It worked, sometimes.
I seem to remember at least one circuit in the UK electronics magazines
that did something like this to improve the reliability of loading of
cassettes into home computers. IIRC it was a few op-amps and not a lot more.
-tony
25 May
25 May
6:38 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On 5/25/2006 at 7:50 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote:
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for
an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else would
one preserve this? A WAV file?
A plain audio copy (tape-to-tape) should be fine--the format of these
things is fairly well documented, so there's no mystery. You might,
however, make a copy of the tape using a 5150 to read it and save the data
in each tape block as a file (since there's no standard for saving 5150
tapes that I know of).
With the data, the original tape can easily be recreated, if desired.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:47 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Don't laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else would
one preserve this? A WAV file?
Sorry, I'm not sure whether you are saying this is an *audio*
cassette or a *data* cassette. Data cassettes had servo/clock
tracks recorded on them to retrieve the data -- i.e. I doubt
you will be able to read such a cassette without a data cassette
drive.
7:12 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Don Y wrote:
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Ok, I need some education. On other home type machines, a standard
shoebox cassette player was used. I assume this is the same on the
PC5150. (This is the cassette interface on the motherboard.)
What would be an example of a different setup?
Don't laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else
would one preserve this? A WAV file?
Sorry, I'm not sure whether you are saying this is an *audio*
cassette or a *data* cassette. Data cassettes had servo/clock
tracks recorded on them to retrieve the data -- i.e. I doubt
you will be able to read such a cassette without a data cassette
drive.
7:44 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Don Y wrote:
Yes, this is just a simple FM scheme for storing data *as* audio.
I am unfamiliar with the PC5150 so couldn't comment on that...
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Ok, I need some education. On other home type machines, a standard
shoebox cassette player was used. I assume this is the same on the
PC5150. (This is the cassette interface on the motherboard.) Don't laugh - I'm serious.
I ran across a Advanced Diagnostics cassette tape for an IBM PC 5150.
I've never seen such a thing before. Besides the obvious
cassette-to-cassette copy (which I'm not equipped to do), how else
would one preserve this? A WAV file?
Sorry, I'm not sure whether you are saying this is an *audio*
cassette or a *data* cassette. Data cassettes had servo/clock
tracks recorded on them to retrieve the data -- i.e. I doubt
you will be able to read such a cassette without a data cassette
drive.
What would be an example of a different setup?
There are (were?) cassette tape drives that used special
cassettes (that looked just like the traditional
"Compact Cassette" used for audio). These had a special
servo/clock track recorded on the media. This track
was essential to the proper operation of the media in
the drive.
E.g., BULK erase an audio cassette and you can still use
it in the first scenario; in the second scenario, you have
rendered the tape completely useless (you can't rerecord
the clock track with the drive that is used to read/write
the tape)
8:14 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Don Y wrote:
Yes, this is just a simple FM scheme for storing data
*as* audio.
I am unfamiliar with the PC5150 so couldn't comment on that...
That is as I understood it .. it's just an audio tape with data encoded
as tones. (I believe the data rate for the cassette interface on a 5150
is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear would work.
Ah, now where to find a classic shoebox recorder ... :-)
8:25 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Don Y wrote:
I think this was once called the "Kansas City Standard" (??)
Yes, this is just a simple FM scheme for storing
data *as* audio.
I am unfamiliar with the PC5150 so couldn't comment on that...
That is as I understood it .. it's just an audio tape with data encoded
as tones. (I believe the data rate for the cassette interface on a 5150
is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear would work. Ah, now where to find a classic shoebox recorder ...
:-)
8:32 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On 5/25/2006 at 8:25 PM Don Y wrote:
> That is as I understood it .. it's just an
audio tape with data encoded
> as tones. (I believe the data rate for the
cassette interface on a 5150
> is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear
would work.
The IBM format is pretty well defined in the Tech Ref for the 5150 (and in
the BIOS listing). It was also discussed here a few months ago, so it's in
the archives.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:56 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 5/25/2006 at 8:25 PM Don Y wrote:
The format isn't in question .. the question is the proper way to
preserve it digitally.
Nobody seems to have recoiled in horror yet, so I guess a WAV file
(mono, not stereo) with a sufficient sample rate should cover it.
Mike
> That is as I understood it .. it's just
an audio tape with data encoded
> as tones. (I believe the data rate for the
cassette interface on a 5150
> is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio
gear would work.
The IBM format is pretty well defined in the Tech Ref for the 5150 (and in
the BIOS listing). It was also discussed here a few months ago, so it's in
the archives.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:04 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Patch data for a synth is a similar format, normally supplied (on older
gear) as audio tapes. I have many times sampled those tapes as a wav file
with a soundblaster card, played the files back - and the synth "reads" them
just fine.
Jay
26 May
26 May
3:28 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 23:04 -0500, Jay West wrote:
Patch data for a synth is a similar format, normally
supplied (on older
gear) as audio tapes. I have many times sampled those tapes as a wav file
with a soundblaster card, played the files back - and the synth "reads" them
just fine.
And then rhythmbox indexes them and they crop up in random shuffle
play...
Gordon (the tones sound better if they've been played into a Poly-800
first)
25 May
25 May
10:34 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On 5/25/2006 at 10:56 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote:
The format isn't in question .. the question is
the proper way to
preserve it digitally.
I'm kind of new at this "preservation" thing, so allow me to ask--is the
object to preserve the tape in audio form, or the data contained thereon?
Cheers,
Chuck
26 May
26 May
10:11 a.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 5/25/2006 at 10:56 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote:
By preserving the first, you preserve the second.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
The format isn't in question .. the question
is the proper way to
preserve it digitally.
I'm kind of new at this "preservation" thing, so allow me to ask--is the
object to preserve the tape in audio form, or the data contained thereon?
11 a.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On 5/26/2006 at 12:11 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
By preserving the first, you preserve the second.
This follows only if (1) your preservation of the analog audio is perfect
and (2) the knowledge to use the information remains. The digital
information, whether printed on paper or burned on CD is the essence of
what was on the tape, regardless of whatever the medium was.
So, I'd think that the digital preservation is the important thing and that
the audio is just a detail. The audio's the bottle; the data's the wine.
The bottle really imparts (other than the printing on the label) nothing
useful to the contents.
Or so I think.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:05 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
I'm kind of new at this "preservation"
thing, so allow me to ask--is the
object to preserve the tape in audio form, or the data contained thereon?
Well, since you can create one from the other (given the audio singal,
you can load it into a 5150 and turn it into data, given the data you
could create the audio signal), does it really matter which you preserve?
-tony
9:39 a.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On Thursday 25 May 2006 11:25 pm, Don Y wrote:
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
I thought KSC was a 300-baud standard...?
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Don Y wrote:
I think this was once called the "Kansas City Standard" (??) Yes, this is just a simple FM scheme for storing
data *as* audio.
I am unfamiliar with the PC5150 so couldn't comment on that...
That is as I understood it .. it's just an audio tape with data encoded
as tones. (I believe the data rate for the cassette interface on a 5150
is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear would work. 
2:01 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
> > That is as I understood it .. it's just
an audio tape with data encoded
> > as tones. (I believe the data rate for the cassette interface on a 5150
> > is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear would work.
> I think this was once called the "Kansas City Standard" (??)
I doubt that the 5150 is Kansas City Standard.
3:34 p.m.
New subject: various terminals & printers available
I received this message today from an acquaintance who hates to see things
destroyed....
........
Those old printers/terminals are now gradually being stripped and recycled.
Best Regards,..........
Wang wide carriage line printer 2235 GONE
Volker-Craig #vc-410 video terminal / keyboard
NCR #1101-1098 video terminal
Anderson-Jacobsen AJ510 video terminal
ADDS Regent 40 video terminal
ADDS Envoy portable video terminal with internal acoustic modem
Centronics 353 line printer GOING
Centronics 704 line printer
Control Data 353 line printer
Anderson Jacobsen AJ860 printing terminal
(end)
Is there any interest in any of this stuff?
I might be able to bring items to VCF Midwest or hold on to them until some
good shipment plan could be worked out. They are in Hamilton, Ontario, but I
could get them to Buffalo for shipment. Cost is zero + shipping & packing.
Dan
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
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3 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
That is as I understood it .. it's just an audio
tape with data encoded
as tones. (I believe the data rate for the cassette interface on a 5150
is 1200 bps.) So in that case, normal audio gear would work.
From what I remember (and I'll dig out the Techref
if anyone needs to
know for sure), the 5150 used an encoding scheme where a
'1' is recorded
as 1 cycle of a particular frequency, and a '0' is recorded as 1 cycle of
a different frequency. This means the bit rate is not constant. I think
it's around 1500 bps on average, though.
Ah, now where to find a classic shoebox recorder ... :-)
Are they rare, or something? Heck, I found _both_ of the Philips portable
upright reel-to-reel machines I'd been looking for in a couple of months on
E-overpay. Surely cassette recorders turn up there too (I've never looked...)
-tony
5:46 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Tony Duell wrote:
Are they rare, or something? Heck, I found _both_ of
the Philips portable
upright reel-to-reel machines I'd been looking for in a couple of months on
E-overpay. Surely cassette recorders turn up there too (I've never looked...)
-tony
I don't know. I haven't started looking. But I'm quite sure that I
haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very,
very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays
cassettes.
All I need is one good playback, so I'm not too concerned, But in the
last 20 years CD has supplanted cassette, and I can't say that I'm upset.
10:02 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Michael B. Brutman wrote:
All I need is one good playback, so I'm not too
concerned, But in the
last 20 years CD has supplanted cassette, and I can't say that I'm upset.
What about the LP!!!!
What I find with the CD's it is hard to find the Odd CD's anymore that
came out when CD's were first introduced.
When I had a Coco I found cassete tapes where very unrelable but then
the Coco cassete recorder was not great quality.
27 May
27 May
12:58 a.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On Fri, 2006-05-26 at 19:46 -0500, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
All I need is one good playback, so I'm not too
concerned, But in the
last 20 years CD has supplanted cassette, and I can't say that I'm upset.
I do remember *years* ago, when the ZX Spectrum was a current machine,
that one software house (Codemasters, possibly) released games on CD.
The improvement in bandwidth and speed stability allowed them to write
really really fast speedloaders. With cassette, as the data rate went
up reliability went down.
Of course the Spectrum used a weird 1800bps-ish format - each bit was
two cycles of the appropriate frequency, with zeros being 2400Hz and
ones being 1200Hz. So, for average data it came out about even, but
long sequences of zeros went past quickly. I tried writing a four-tone
tape routine with two bits per symbol, with variable degrees of success.
Gordon.
1 Jun
1 Jun
9:21 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
I don't know. I haven't started looking. But
I'm quite sure that I
haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very,
very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo
equipment that plays
cassettes.
They are still being manufactured believe it or not, largely for the
educational market.
This seems fairly close:
http://www.schooloutfitters.com/catalog/product_info/cPath/CAT1_CAT14/pf
am_id/PFAM608/products_id/PRO3793
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Michael B. Brutman
Sent: Friday, May 26, 2006 8:46 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Preserving cassette tapes
Tony Duell wrote:
Are they rare, or something? Heck, I found _both_ of
the Philips
portable
upright reel-to-reel machines I'd been looking for
in a couple of
months on
E-overpay. Surely cassette recorders turn up there too
(I've never
looked...)
-tony
I don't know. I haven't started looking. But I'm quite sure that I
haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very,
very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays
cassettes.
All I need is one good playback, so I'm not too concerned, But in the
last 20 years CD has supplanted cassette, and I can't say that I'm
upset.
10:56 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On Friday 02 June 2006 12:21 am, Ben Ackerman wrote:
>I don't know. I haven't started looking.
But I'm quite sure that I
>haven't seen a new mono (not stereo) shoebox player/recorder in a very,
>
>very long time. Heck, I don't even have stereo equipment that plays
>cassettes.
I have _three_ dual-cassette decks here, if anybody is looking for one...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
25 May
25 May
8:01 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
On 5/25/2006 at 9:12 PM Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Ok, I need some education. On other home type
machines, a standard
shoebox cassette player was used. I assume this is the same on the
PC5150. (This is the cassette interface on the motherboard.)
What would be an example of a different setup?
F'rinstance, there were cassette replacements made for paper tape gear,
which recorded NRZ data digitally on a cassette tape. These things usually
had extra functionality, such as high-speed search. In these, a steady
tape velocity isn't particularly important, unlike an audio recorder.
Cheers,
Chuck
26 May
26 May
2:56 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
What would be
an example of a different setup?
F'rinstance, there were cassette replacements made for paper tape gear,
which recorded NRZ data digitally on a cassette tape. These things usually
had extra functionality, such as high-speed search. In these, a steady
tape velocity isn't particularly important, unlike an audio recorder.
2:54 p.m.
New subject: Preserving cassette tapes
Ok, I need some education. On other home type
machines, a standard
shoebox cassette player was used. I assume this is the same on the
PC5150. (This is the cassette interface on the motherboard.)
Yes. On the 5150, there was another 5 pin DIN socket next to the keyboard
connector. The pinout was the same as a TRS-80 (M1, M3, M4, Coco)
cassette connecotr, and you were, apparently, supposed to buy a cable and
recorder from the local Radio Shack.
The data format is in the techref (I've typed it into this list several
times, it should be in the archives!). At the bit level it's very similar
to the TRS-80 1500 baud scheeme (!).
What would be an example of a different setup?
Well, the HP9830 for one. It uses a Compact Cassette containing a tape
with a higher (I think) coercivity. The whole width of the tape is used
in one direction (you don't flip the tape over to record the other side).
Two tracks are recorded on the tape -- a flux transition on one of them
is a '1' bit, a flux transtion on the other is a '0' bit, and transitions
on both tracks simultaneously is a byte marker.
Some machines used similar tapes, but recorded a clock and data track in
each direction.
Amongst other devices to use 'digital' cassettes are the Facit 4208 (an
RS232-interefaced tape drive), DEC TU60, Some Philips thing that I forget
the number of (P830????), and an option for the Texas Silent 700
terminal. The latter was a chassis that mounted on top of the Silent 700
and contianed 2 cassette drives and control electronics. They were
intended as a replacement for paper tape -- you could record onto either
tape from the line or from the keyboard, play either tape back to the
line or printer, copy from one tape to the other, etc.
-tony
24 May
24 May
3:49 a.m.
At 05:26 PM 5/22/06 -0700, you wrote:
--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I wasn't suggesting it didn't have any uses. I for
one always looked fondly upon rom based languages. I
was just curious if, besides an example like you
cited, was anything substantive ever done with them.
The Vesta OEM-188 board, aka the Radio Electronics RE
Robot brain/board thing, has not only BASIC, but FORTH
built in. My Canon Cat also has a FORTH interpreter.
Who used them? And for what?
Just FWIW the IBM APL used the builtin ROM BASIC and it wouldn't run on
a machine without it. AFIK none of the other IBM PC programming langauses
used it
Joe
The BASICs were built
period).
But who the heck made any serious use of
ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and
beyond?
Depends on what you mean by 'serious use', but I was
certainly glad of
ROM basic when my 5160 XT wouldn't boot. I used it
to write values to
output ports on the disk controller card while
probing signals with a
logic probe. Found a defective inverter chip very
quickly. into IBM pc's until possibly 1990 or so. One might
get
the impression that they were there for a reason.
Years ago, while they still had a production facility
on Long Island, I had heard that Symbol made use of
QBasic (probably because they were thrifty). No, no
longer a rom based implementation, but came with it
for nothing.
Sure a machine code monitor would have been even
nicer, but...
Agreed. One of the dandiest features of puters like
the C64. But come to think of it maybe that was on a
separate cartridge. It's been a while...
-tony
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23 May
23 May
2:29 a.m.
On Tue, 23 May 2006 00:03:28 +0200, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
A rather serious use was that the COBOL compiler used the IBM BASIC to
perform string handling and decimal arithmetic.
Maybe not what most users did, but there were a substantial number of
aplications made with that compiler.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
period). But
who the heck made any serious use of ROM
based BASIC in the *pseudo* 16 bit era and beyond?
Depends on what you mean by 'serious use', but I was certainly glad of
ROM basic when my 5160 XT wouldn't boot. I used it to write values to
output ports on the disk controller card while probing signals with a
logic probe. Found a defective inverter chip very quickly.
6549
days inactive
6580
days old
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