22 Jun
2007
22 Jun
'07
8 a.m.
I never cease to be amazed by the level and depth of knowledge of
obscure machines on this list. Knowledgeable discussions of machines
I've never even heard of in 20y in the business and a good while
longer as a hobbyist.
So I thought I'd ask a question on a slightly different tack.
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines
that folks have seen?
The basic von Neumann computer is well-established, but most of them
have a lot more common ground than that. Uniquely-identified disks, an
OS with a command line that lets you create, rename, execute, edit and
delete files on those disks. Maybe graphics. Maybe dumb terminals.
Maybe a teletype. But set aside the cosmetic differences, they are, to
a large degree, much of a muchness. From a PDP/11 to a VAX to MS-DOS,
the actual overall CLI experience is very similar. Unix is a bit
different - cryptic commands, one big virtual directory tree - but
it's really more of the same underneath.
The Mac was pretty different when it was new: no CLI at all, for
example. Otherwise, though, it's not that remarkable.
But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good general-purpose
introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never
seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they
sound unique.
The Canon Cat had a unique UI as well, from what I've seen.
What else was there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
--
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22 Jun
22 Jun
8:14 a.m.
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have a CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
I remember the spring/summer of 1985 while working in the computer lab
at college, they just got in a Mac 128 with a Laserwriter, nobody wanted
to go near the thing, I was the only brave soul to touch the unorthodox
little creature. I remember how unsettling it was to be separated from
being able to directly talk with the computer and only being able to
deal with things within windowed area's, it was a truly weird experience.
The lab got in a Fat Mac upgrade and a Laserwriter rom upgrade later and
I (being the officially unofficial caretaker of the beastie) performed
the upgrade. What floored me was how tiny and how little there really
was on the Mac motherboard, I couldn't believe so much power and
abilities came from so little. That first year was a bit of a bare,
the original Mac was so slow and having to deal with 2 400K floppy
drives and the constant swapping back and forth was a bit of an
annoyance, but well worth the end result.
Curt
Liam Proven wrote:
I never cease to be amazed by the level and depth of
knowledge of
obscure machines on this list. Knowledgeable discussions of machines
I've never even heard of in 20y in the business and a good while
longer as a hobbyist.
So I thought I'd ask a question on a slightly different tack.
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines
that folks have seen?
The basic von Neumann computer is well-established, but most of them
have a lot more common ground than that. Uniquely-identified disks, an
OS with a command line that lets you create, rename, execute, edit and
delete files on those disks. Maybe graphics. Maybe dumb terminals.
Maybe a teletype. But set aside the cosmetic differences, they are, to
a large degree, much of a muchness. From a PDP/11 to a VAX to MS-DOS,
the actual overall CLI experience is very similar. Unix is a bit
different - cryptic commands, one big virtual directory tree - but
it's really more of the same underneath.
The Mac was pretty different when it was new: no CLI at all, for
example. Otherwise, though, it's not that remarkable.
But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good general-purpose
introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never
seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they
sound unique.
The Canon Cat had a unique UI as well, from what I've seen.
What else was there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
8:36 a.m.
In article <467BE76B.1020709 at atarimuseum.com>,
"Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> writes:
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have a
CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
Are you *sure* the original Mac had a CLI?
This is the first I've heard of this and it was very much discussed at
the time the Mac was introduced. Jobs was totally against a CLI AFAIK.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
8:53 a.m.
At 10:36 AM 6/22/2007, Richard wrote:
Are you *sure* the original Mac had a CLI?
This is the first I've heard of this and it was very much discussed at
the time the Mac was introduced. Jobs was totally against a CLI AFAIK.
He's referring to the NMI debugger window, which isn't a CLI
in the usual sense of the word. There's also MacsBug, which
predated the Mac as a Motorola product:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/05118
Smart Mac users knew enough to enter 'g' to attempt to keep going.
- John
8:57 a.m.
On 22/06/07, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
In article <467BE76B.1020709 at atarimuseum.com>,
"Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> writes:
Exactly! Closest thing I can think of is MACSbug, the monitor window
that pops up when you press the Programmers' Button:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacsBug
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have
a CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
Are you *sure* the original Mac had a CLI?
This is the first I've heard of this and it was very much discussed at
the time the Mac was introduced. Jobs was totally against a CLI AFAIK.
9 a.m.
Well, I'm mis-stating that is was a full CLI window, I meant to say more
correctly it had the Debug/Monitor window - still a text based way of
communicating and commanding the Mac outside of point& click. Sorry
about the confusion.
Curt
Richard wrote:
In article <467BE76B.1020709 at
atarimuseum.com>,
"Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> writes:
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have
a CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
Are you *sure* the original Mac had a CLI?
This is the first I've heard of this and it was very much discussed at
the time the Mac was introduced. Jobs was totally against a CLI AFAIK.
9:51 a.m.
At 11:00 AM 6/22/2007, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Well, I'm mis-stating that is was a full CLI
window, I meant to say more correctly it had the Debug/Monitor window - still a text based
way of communicating and commanding the Mac outside of point& click. Sorry about the
confusion.
I do remember a true command-line environment for C program development
on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were probably others,
maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm not sure if
that's it. It was weird, to be sure. It was one place that revealed
that under the hood, the Mac filesystem functions could use ':' as
the path separator.
- John
10:07 a.m.
I need to be more careful when quoting from my rusted out memory of
something from 20 years ago ;-) You know how it goes...
Curt
John Foust wrote:
At 11:00 AM 6/22/2007, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Well, I'm mis-stating that is was a full CLI
window, I meant to say more correctly it had the Debug/Monitor window - still a text based
way of communicating and commanding the Mac outside of point& click. Sorry about the
confusion.
I do remember a true command-line environment for C program development
on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were probably others,
maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm not sure
if
that's it. It was weird, to be sure. It was one place that revealed
that under the hood, the Mac filesystem functions could use ':' as
the path separator.
- John
11:09 a.m.
On 6/22/07, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote:
I do remember a true command-line environment for C
program development
on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were probably others,
maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm not sure
if
that's it.
The full name was "Macintosh Programmer's Workshop" It let you use *nix
style development tools such as yacc, patch and grep, and gave you a CLI to
the compilers and linkers. Also, the colon *was* the internal path seperator
for the Mac, just like / in *nix and \ in MS-DOS.
Most of the "Classic" macs had a piece of plastic called the
"Programmer's
Switch." All it did was extend two micro switches hidden inside the bottom
side vents of the original all-in-one Macs, the interrupt and reset buttons.
Reset did a soft reset of the machine. Interrupt sent an interrupt telling
the Mac to bring up a debugger window, either the limited built-in debugger,
or the MacsBug extension if it was installed. There were some fun hacks you
could do modifying memory mid-stream, in a game, for example :)
The "General Purpose Computers" in the Space Shuttle have a somewhat strange
architecture, if I recall correctly.
I'm not sure I'd count them as computers, but the Soviet Union made some
sophisticated, oddball calculators, there's an online museum dedicated to
them somewhere.
There were a handful of Smalltalk machines built in the early 80's, cousins
in weirdness to the old LISP machines, I'm sure.
Most supercomputers had/have unique architectures. Check out the Connection
Machine and the nCube machines.
There was a project by some computer scientist in England to build a genetic
computer in silicon. There was a show on TechTV called Big Thinkers that
covered it. It ended up in a fiasco for some reason or another and the
company was dissolved, but a working machine was built. There's a java
simulator of the software online somewhere.
11:11 p.m.
> I do remember a true command-line environment for
C program development
> on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were probably others,
> maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm not
sure if
> that's it.
The full name was "Macintosh Programmer's
Workshop" It let you use *nix
style development tools such as yacc, patch and grep, and gave you a CLI to
the compilers and linkers. Also, the colon *was* the internal path seperator
for the Mac, just like / in *nix and \ in MS-DOS.
Also, don't forget that every PCI-based Power Macintosh could be forced into
OpenFirmware. People have designed elegant applications to run in this very
minimal but powerful environment.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- The only abnormality is the inability to love. -- Anais Nin ----------------
23 Jun
23 Jun
8:08 a.m.
From: Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>
Hi
It is too bad Windows and the PC group didn't continue the OpenFirmware
concept. This is the dominant reason why Windows takes so long to boot.
It basically has to hunt for hardware by timing out rather than not seeing
any boot configuration code. It was a bad move that has cost millions if
not billions of dollars worth of lost productive time.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
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> I do remember a true command-line
environment for C program
development
> on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with
one. There were probably
others,
> maybe Manx. "Programmer's
Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm not sure
if
> that's it.
The full name was "Macintosh
Programmer's Workshop" It let you use *nix
style development tools such as yacc, patch and grep, and gave you a CLI
to
the compilers and linkers. Also, the colon *was*
the internal path
seperator
for the Mac, just like / in *nix and \ in MS-DOS.
Also, don't forget that every PCI-based Power Macintosh could be forced
into
OpenFirmware. People have designed elegant applications to run in this very
minimal but powerful environment.
10:50 a.m.
It is too bad Windows and the PC group didn't
continue the
OpenFirmware concept. [...] It was a bad move that has cost
millions if not billions of dollars worth of lost productive time.
I think having an OS that crashes weekly - daily, or worse, in many
cases - and needs a complete ground-up reinstall at least annually has
cost their customers far more.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
24 Jun
24 Jun
12:13 p.m.
On Jun 23, 2007, at 1:50 PM, der Mouse wrote:
Well...Once crashed, shame on them. Twice (sixty-thrice?)
crashed, shame on YOU. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
It is too bad
Windows and the PC group didn't continue the
OpenFirmware concept. [...] It was a bad move that has cost
millions if not billions of dollars worth of lost productive time.
I think having an OS that crashes weekly - daily, or worse, in many
cases - and needs a complete ground-up reinstall at least annually has
cost their customers far more.
25 Jun
25 Jun
7:19 a.m.
I think having
an OS that crashes weekly - daily, or worse, in many
cases - and needs a complete ground-up reinstall at least annually
has cost their customers far more.
Well...Once crashed, shame on them. Twice
(sixty-thrice?) crashed,
shame on YOU. ;) 
23 Jun
23 Jun
2:24 p.m.
On Sat, 23 Jun 2007, dwight elvey wrote:
It is too bad Windows and the PC group didn't
continue the OpenFirmware
concept. This is the dominant reason why Windows takes so long to boot.
It basically has to hunt for hardware by timing out rather than not seeing
any boot configuration code. It was a bad move that has cost millions if
not billions of dollars worth of lost productive time.
I used to make my students calculate the total cumulative time taken up by
Windows bootstrapping. Then I made them divide it out into how many LIVES
it cost.
3:36 p.m.
I used to make my students calculate the total
cumulative time taken up by
Windows bootstrapping. Then I made them divide it out into how many LIVES
it cost.
How about this...
Make your students calculate the cumulative time spent learning the
ins and out of Unix. Then make them divide it out into how many LAYS
it cost.
--
Will
5:32 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
I had to read this about 4 times before I got the joke :-) I thought
LAYS was an acronym for something ;)
--
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/
I used to make
my students calculate the total cumulative time taken
up by
Windows bootstrapping. Then I made them divide it out into how many
LIVES
it cost.
How about this...
Make your students calculate the cumulative time spent learning the
ins and out of Unix. Then make them divide it out into how many LAYS
it cost. 
6:14 p.m.
On Saturday 23 June 2007 02:11, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Also, don't forget that every PCI-based Power Macintosh could be forced
into OpenFirmware. People have designed elegant applications to run in this
very minimal but powerful environment.
What is that? First I've read of it...
--
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 do remember a true command-line environment for C
program development
on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were probably
others, maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind, but I'm
not sure if that's it.
The full name was "Macintosh Programmer's Workshop" It let you use *nix
style development tools such as yacc, patch and grep, and gave you a CLI
to the compilers and linkers. Also, the colon *was* the internal path
seperator for the Mac, just like / in *nix and \ in MS-DOS.
7:13 p.m.
On Saturday 23 June 2007 21:14, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Saturday 23 June 2007 02:11, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Also, don't forget that every PCI-based Power Macintosh could be forced
into OpenFirmware. People have designed elegant applications to run in
this very minimal but powerful environment.
What is that? First I've read of it...
Never mind, google answered that 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
I do remember a true command-line environment for C
program
development on the Mac. I believe Apple's came with one. There were
probably others, maybe Manx. "Programmer's Workbench" comes to mind,
but I'm not sure if that's it.
The full name was "Macintosh Programmer's Workshop" It let you use *nix
style development tools such as yacc, patch and grep, and gave you a
CLI to the compilers and linkers. Also, the colon *was* the internal
path seperator for the Mac, just like / in *nix and \ in MS-DOS. 
22 Jun
22 Jun
9:31 a.m.
What I want to know is, what did they write the original mac os on.
And is that what they wrote the subsequent versions on? A copy of
the last version? Wholly Bootstraps Macman!
On 22 Jun 2007, at 16:36, Richard wrote:
In article <467BE76B.1020709 at atarimuseum.com>,
"Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com> writes:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed"
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have
a CLI, you just
needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop
up...
Are you *sure* the original Mac had a CLI?
This is the first I've heard of this and it was very much discussed at
the time the Mac was introduced. Jobs was totally against a CLI
AFAIK.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for
download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
9:47 a.m.
On 22/06/07, Mark Firestone <pdp11_70 at retrobbs.org> wrote:
What I want to know is, what did they write the
original mac os on.
The Lisa, in large parts, and prototype hardware. What the Mac was
going to be underwent a lot of changes in the early days, so by the
time that the OS was taking shape, they already had running
prototypes.
Go read http://folklore.org/index.py - it's a great site with some
wonderful stories. Not in any terribly coherent order, but that's the
only snag.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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11:34 a.m.
On 6/22/07, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
Go read http://folklore.org/index.py - it's a
great site with some
wonderful stories. Not in any terribly coherent order, but that's the
only snag.
Wow... thanks for that pointer. There's some interesting stories there.
-ethan
28 Jun
28 Jun
3:46 p.m.
Thank you for that. It's a highly addictive site.
On 22 Jun 2007, at 17:47, Liam Proven wrote:
On 22/06/07, Mark Firestone <pdp11_70 at
retrobbs.org> wrote:
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I
think it's more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and
I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had
already stolen it."
-Bill Gates to Steve Jobs On Windows
What I want to know is, what did they write the
original mac os on.
The Lisa, in large parts, and prototype hardware. What the Mac was
going to be underwent a lot of changes in the early days, so by the
time that the OS was taking shape, they already had running
prototypes.
Go read http://folklore.org/index.py - it's a great site with some
wonderful stories. Not in any terribly coherent order, but that's the
only snag.
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/
profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
4:12 p.m.
Its great content, but does anyone have photo's of the prototype Lisa
and/or Mac hardware, the OS being developed on the proto's and such,
thats the kind of eye candy to totally drool all over.
Curt
Mark Firestone wrote:
Thank you for that. It's a highly addictive
site.
On 22 Jun 2007, at 17:47, Liam Proven wrote:
On 22/06/07, Mark Firestone <pdp11_70 at
retrobbs.org> wrote:
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I
think it's more like we both had this rich neighbour named Xerox and I
broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had
already stolen it."
-Bill Gates to Steve Jobs On Windows
What I want to know is, what did they write the
original mac os on.
The Lisa, in large parts, and prototype hardware. What the Mac was
going to be underwent a lot of changes in the early days, so by the
time that the OS was taking shape, they already had running
prototypes.
Go read http://folklore.org/index.py - it's a great site with some
wonderful stories. Not in any terribly coherent order, but that's the
only snag.
-- Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c:
http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com
Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
23 Jun
23 Jun
3:24 a.m.
What I want to know is, what did they write the
original mac os on.
And is that what they wrote the subsequent versions on? A copy of
the last version? Wholly Bootstraps Macman!
www.folklore.org
22 Jun
22 Jun
8:37 a.m.
On 22/06/07, Curt @ Atari Museum <curt at atarimuseum.com> wrote:
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have a
CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
Eh? Got any pointers for info on this - it's news to me? I know there
was a monitor built in - I think every MC68k Mac had that; not sure
about later ones. It's not really a CLI and it's not an interface to
the OS, though.
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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9:01 a.m.
Right... my mistake, I should explained more then just saying it was a
plain old CLI window....
Liam Proven wrote:
On 22/06/07, Curt @ Atari Museum <curt at
atarimuseum.com> wrote:
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have
a CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
Eh? Got any pointers for info on this - it's news to me? I know there
was a monitor built in - I think every MC68k Mac had that; not sure
about later ones. It's not really a CLI and it's not an interface to
the OS, though.
9:13 a.m.
On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 11:14:51AM -0400, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Well, the Original Mac (and subsequents) did have a
CLI, you just needed
to know the sequence of buttons to push to get a CLI window to pop up...
To my knowledge, there was never any built-in CLI for Mac OS prior to
Mac OS X.
I suspect you're talking about either MacsBug, Apple's system debugger
for Classic Mac OS, or MicroBug, an extremely minimal debugger present
in the ROMs of all Classic Macs since the Mac Plus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacsBug
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn1136.html
Cheers,
Brian.
3:44 p.m.
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
What floored me was how tiny and how little there
really
was on the Mac motherboard, I couldn't believe so much power and
abilities came from so little.
The original Mac doesn't get enough "hacker" credit. A ton of tricks
went into the software that drove that thing. Pretty much everything
was done in software, even the sound generation (which is why you get a
variable answer every time you try to look up how many simultaneous
voices the machine could produce -- it was a single-voice DAC, but
various programs did varying levels of music synthesis or digital
channels through mixing).
--
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/
4:07 p.m.
On 22/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
Curt @ Atari Museum wrote:
Absolutely. The original Mac was an amazing bit of design and had a
number of elements that neither Windows nor Mac OS X manage to
capture. Some of the original design team were genuine computer genii.
Folklore.org has a lot on this topic.
--
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What floored me was how tiny and how little there
really
was on the Mac motherboard, I couldn't believe so much power and
abilities came from so little.
The original Mac doesn't get enough "hacker" credit. A ton of tricks
went into the software that drove that thing. Pretty much everything
was done in software, even the sound generation (which is why you get a
variable answer every time you try to look up how many simultaneous
voices the machine could produce -- it was a single-voice DAC, but
various programs did varying levels of music synthesis or digital
channels through mixing). 
8:18 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
I never cease to be amazed by the level and depth of
knowledge of
obscure machines on this list. Knowledgeable discussions of machines
I've never even heard of in 20y in the business and a good while
longer as a hobbyist.
So I thought I'd ask a question on a slightly different tack.
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines
that folks have seen?
The basic von Neumann computer is well-established, but most of them
have a lot more common ground than that. Uniquely-identified disks, an
OS with a command line that lets you create, rename, execute, edit and
delete files on those disks. Maybe graphics. Maybe dumb terminals.
Maybe a teletype. But set aside the cosmetic differences, they are, to
a large degree, much of a muchness. From a PDP/11 to a VAX to MS-DOS,
the actual overall CLI experience is very similar. Unix is a bit
different - cryptic commands, one big virtual directory tree - but
it's really more of the same underneath.
The Mac was pretty different when it was new: no CLI at all, for
example. Otherwise, though, it's not that remarkable.
But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good general-purpose
introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never
seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they
sound unique.
The Canon Cat had a unique UI as well, from what I've seen.
What else was there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
How about the Timex TM100M? It never got past the prototype-stage, but
it executes BASIC in hardware.
Peace... Sridhar
8:37 a.m.
On 22/06/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
Liam Proven wrote:
> What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines
> that folks have seen?
How about the Timex TM100M? It never got past the
prototype-stage, but
it executes BASIC in hardware.
Sounds interesting, but Google draws a complete blank. Tell me more...?
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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10:55 a.m.
Christian Corti wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Not really -- the basic interpreter is written in microcode, but I
wouldn't call that execution in hardware.
Also, I'd argue that the microcode is really nearly an ISA -- there are
no pipeline hazards, the uword is very narrow (20b in the 2200A/B/C/S/T,
23b in the VP/MVP). The only thing that makes it ucode like is that
some instruction formats have control fields to manipulate independent
behaviors, and that jumps are within ucode page. Long jumps take a bit
of extra work.
The power of the first generation 2200 (A/B/C/S/T) was roughly the same
as a 4 MHz Z80, I'd estimate. The VP umachine was effectively about
5x-8x faster, and it was a lot nicer to program too. A factor of 2.7
was due to a faster cycle time (1.6 us vs 600 ns per uinst); a factor of
two was due to the 1st gen being a nibble machine, while the VP could do
8b and 16b ops; the rest was a collection of other improvements.
How about the Timex TM100M? It never got past
the prototype-stage,
but it executes BASIC in hardware.
Well, so does the Wang 2200.
Christian
11:20 a.m.
On Jun 22, 2007, at 11:18 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
How about the Timex TM100M? It never got past the prototype-stage,
but it executes BASIC in hardware.
Peace... Sridhar
I've tried googling and can't find it. Do you have a link about this
beast?
Rob Borsuk
email: rborsuk at colourfull.com
Colourfull Creations
Web: http://www.colourfull.com
9:51 a.m.
On 22 Jun 2007 at 16:00, Liam Proven wrote:
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain
*different* machines
that folks have seen?
The basic von Neumann computer is well-established, but most of them
have a lot more common ground than that.
NEC marketed a dataflow MPU back in the 80's. I believe it was
targeted at the DSP market. To my knowledge, it's the only
commercial dataflow design.
A more conventional, but still strange micro design was the
SMS/Signetics 8X300/305 microcontroller. Bipolar, 16-bit and
remarkably brain-dead. Western Digital used it on its early hard
disk controllers.
Many of the 1950's systems were what we'd consider to be strange.
Consider, for example, the Univac SS80.
Cheers,
Chuck
10:30 a.m.
Many of the
1950's systems were what we'd consider to be strange.
Some day, I'd
love to a build a machine that executes befunge in
hardware. I don't know whether or not it's been done before.
10:16 a.m.
NEC marketed a dataflow MPU back in the 80's. I
believe it was
targeted at the DSP market. To my knowledge, it's the only
commercial dataflow design.
Multiflow Trace series, as well.
The good ol' AS/400s (with yesterday's S/38 and today's iSeries) are
probably the weirdest machines in the last twenty years that actually
made a mark in history.
--
Will
10:39 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's nothing that weird about
the hardware, is there?
Peace... Sridhar
NEC marketed a
dataflow MPU back in the 80's. I believe it was
targeted at the DSP market. To my knowledge, it's the only
commercial dataflow design.
Multiflow Trace series, as well.
The good ol' AS/400s (with yesterday's S/38 and today's iSeries) are
probably the weirdest machines in the last twenty years that actually
made a mark in history. 
11:03 a.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Well, the price....
Doc
William Donzelli wrote:
The good
ol' AS/400s (with yesterday's S/38 and today's iSeries) are
probably the weirdest machines in the last twenty years that actually
made a mark in history.
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's nothing that weird about
the hardware, is there?
11:23 a.m.
On 6/22/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's nothing that weird about
the hardware, is there?
Peace... Sridhar
System/38 had some unique hardware features that carreied over to the
original AS/400 series (they used modified S/370 chipsets I think) until
they moved to the standard POWER Architecture in the mid 90's, where all the
unique features were probably added-on or emulated in a hypervisor
environment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System/38#Distinctions
23 Jun
23 Jun
3:13 p.m.
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's
nothing that weird about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back. The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works at all.
--
Will
6:05 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
Even the current PPC hardware is not 'standard' .. there are some
extensions to support the single level store. 'Tagged pointers' (ie:
pointers marked as trusted by the OS) are the single biggest oddity that
I can think of, and that requires hardware support.
Sadly, the AS/400 line (iSeries) is slowly dying off ... IBM can't
market it's way out of a paper bag, and the 'cash cow' status the
machine has had has caused it to fall too far behind.
Mike
Their software
is pretty unusual, but there's nothing that weird about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back. The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works at all.
--
Will
24 Jun
24 Jun
11:32 a.m.
On Jun 23, 2007, at 9:05 PM, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
Even the current PPC hardware is not 'standard' .. there are some
extensions to support the single level store. 'Tagged
pointers' (ie: pointers marked as trusted by the OS) are the single
biggest oddity that I can think of, and that requires hardware
support.
Sadly, the AS/400 line (iSeries) is slowly dying off ... IBM can't
market it's way out of a paper bag, and the 'cash cow' status the
machine has had has caused it to fall too far behind.
Last year I found myself digging around in the job market. As
most people know, there's just not much technical work in Florida
compared to other areas, so I was running scared for a while. One
thing I noticed is that all the AS/400-related jobs in the whole damn
world seem to be here. I figured that was because of their extensive
use in the health care industry, and while Florida's reputation for
being filled to overflowing with retirees is inaccurate, it's not
entirely unfounded.
I wonder how quick those types of places will be to abandon their
AS/400 gear once IBM EOLs it.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's
nothing that weird
about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back.
The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works
at all. 
noon
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On Jun 23, 2007, at 9:05 PM, Michael B. Brutman
wrote:
Even the current PPC hardware is not 'standard' .. there are some
extensions to support the single level store. 'Tagged
pointers' (ie: pointers marked as trusted by the OS) are the single
biggest oddity that I can think of, and that requires hardware
support.
Sadly, the AS/400 line (iSeries) is slowly dying off ... IBM can't
market it's way out of a paper bag, and the 'cash cow' status the
machine has had has caused it to fall too far behind.
Last year I found myself digging around in the job market. As
most people know, there's just not much technical work in Florida
compared to other areas, so I was running scared for a while. One
thing I noticed is that all the AS/400-related jobs in the whole damn
world seem to be here. I figured that was because of their extensive
use in the health care industry, and while Florida's reputation for
being filled to overflowing with retirees is inaccurate, it's not
entirely unfounded.
I wonder how quick those types of places will be to abandon their
AS/400 gear once IBM EOLs it.
Well, almost all of them have probably been migrating the same code
Their software is pretty unusual, but there's
nothing that weird
about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back.
The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works
at all. from hardware to hardware for two decades already now.
I have
some appreciation for how the abstractions were done to make this
possible. But:
Literally, you could drop an AS/400 into my basement, along with all the
software and all the manuals, and I would find myself unable to use it.
I am that completely incapable of working in that architecture or
(even worse) corporate mindset. Obviously lots of people do useful
work in it all the time, but my quote-highly-trained-mind-unquote
is simply unable to adjust to that mindset.
I have written useful assembly code for 1802's, where any register
can be the program counter. I have microcoded for AMD bit-slice.
I have built my own logic devices out of vacuum tubes and relays.
I have rewritten hairy device driver modules for hardware with bizarre
undocumented side-effects on real-time OS's running $10Billion peripherals.
I eventually figured out that to shut down a Windows box, you click on Start
(that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
Yet I cannot, and probably will never be able to, use an AS/400
application succesfully. The stumbling blocks for me are really
that enormous.
Tim.
1:18 p.m.
Tim Shoppa wrote:
Well, almost all of them have probably been migrating
the same code
from hardware to hardware for two decades already now. I have
some appreciation for how the abstractions were done to make this
possible. But:
Literally, you could drop an AS/400 into my basement, along with all the
software and all the manuals, and I would find myself unable to use it.
I am that completely incapable of working in that architecture or
(even worse) corporate mindset. Obviously lots of people do useful
work in it all the time, but my quote-highly-trained-mind-unquote
is simply unable to adjust to that mindset.
I have written useful assembly code for 1802's, where any register
can be the program counter. I have microcoded for AMD bit-slice.
I have built my own logic devices out of vacuum tubes and relays.
I have rewritten hairy device driver modules for hardware with bizarre
undocumented side-effects on real-time OS's running $10Billion peripherals.
I eventually figured out that to shut down a Windows box, you click on Start
(that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
Yet I cannot, and probably will never be able to, use an AS/400
application succesfully. The stumbling blocks for me are really
that enormous.
Tim.
I think that your brethern in the computer world who need to process
customer data would find your world incomprehensible as well. But I
don't see what pointing out your inability to use this particular system
adds to the discussion. You would be lost on any system with a user
interface!
5 p.m.
From: "Michael B. Brutman" <mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com>
I think that your brethern in the computer world who
need to process
customer data would find your world incomprehensible as well. But I
don't see what pointing out your inability to use this particular system
adds to the discussion. You would be lost on any system with a user
interface!
Don't be brut, man :o)
7:49 p.m.
Alexandre Souza wrote:
But not everyone calls it a "start key". I think it's typically
referred to as the ignition key. Even cars with start buttons are
turned off by "turning off the ignition" vs "pressing the start button
while the car is running".
Have to admit though, there are a gazillion metaphors in gui's today
that make no sense (like the vast majority of items in the "file" menu
of many applications) that M$ is not directly responsible for.
I eventually
figured out that to shut down a Windows box, you click
on Start
(that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
The start key on your car is also used to shutdown ;o) 
25 Jun
25 Jun
6:11 a.m.
dont forget you can also shutdown windows by pressing Control+Alt+Delete and selecting
"shut down". Not sure how long that feature has been in windows, but its
definately in Windows 2K. - Andrew B (via mobile phone)
Alexandre Souza wrote:
I eventually
figured out that to shut down a Windows box, you click on
Start
(that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
The start key
on your car is also used to shutdown ;o) 
9:40 a.m.
Andrew Burton wrote:
dont forget you can also shutdown windows by pressing
Control+Alt+Delete and selecting "shut down". Not sure how long that
feature has been in windows, but its definately in Windows 2K. - Andrew B (via mobile
phone)
Alexandre Souza wrote:
If I push the start button on floorboard of my car to shut it down (I
don't see any "Start key" anywhere), I'd expect a lot of ground gear
metal in return, plus the need to replace the starter.
I
eventually figured out that to shut down a Windows box, you click on
Start
(that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
The start key on your car is also used to shutdown ;o)
10:14 a.m.
On 25/06/07, Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net> wrote:
If I push the start button on floorboard of my car to
shut it down (I
don't see any "Start key" anywhere), I'd expect a lot of ground gear
metal in return, plus the need to replace the starter.
It's on the *floor*? Coo.
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both - and don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
But that's a side issue.
The real point is that the Windows "start button" is not analagous or
homologous to a mechanical start button on an engine. You may as well
compare a button on Windows to a button on your cardigan. They're both
"buttons" but they have nothing in common.
Personally, if people expressed confusion, I told them "amongst other
things, you can start the shutdown process from here". That seems
perfectly logical to me.
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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11:17 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
On 25/06/07, Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net>
wrote:
Many high-end luxury cars are coming with them nowadays, because they're
coming with keys that work over radio, meaning you don't have to take
them out of your pocket to unlock the door or start the engine.
Peace... Sridhar
If I push the start button on floorboard of my
car to shut it down (I
don't see any "Start key" anywhere), I'd expect a lot of ground gear
metal in return, plus the need to replace the starter.
It's on the *floor*? Coo.
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both - and don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum. 
12:11 p.m.
>> If I push the start button on floorboard of my
car to shut it down (I
>> don't see any "Start key" anywhere), I'd expect a lot of ground
gear
>> metal in return, plus the need to replace the starter.
>
Many high-end luxury cars are coming with them
nowadays, because they're
coming with keys that work over radio, meaning you don't have to take
them out of your pocket to unlock the door or start the engine.
I have to turn the key and push in the clutch to start my car. I often have the key turned
long before my
akie old knee gets the clutch to the floor engageing the starter in my 13 year old saturn.
And I know that
improper use of the clutch can stop the car.
But in an attempt to put this back close to the origional topic, the best way to shut down
a computer that
does not have a big red button, right now, no delay, is to pull the quick disconnect power
cord from the
back of the case with a swift movement of the hand or foot. There are a number of Web and
telnet
enabled switch boxes that allow one to greatly entend the length of ones foot to kick the
power cord on a
system from many miles away, and plug it back in when desired. I use an APC masterswitch
as a
reminder to my systems downtown just who is in control of their electrons should one start
spewing.
later
Bob
11:53 a.m.
On 25/6/07 18:14, "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both - and
don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
<pedant>
My VX220 Turbo had a starter button (manufactured 2003).
</pedant>
I do understand your point though, just being silly.
-Austin.
1:02 p.m.
On 25 Jun 2007 at 18:14, Liam Proven wrote:
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both - and
don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
Liam, you must not be old enough. Most cars made before 1951 or so
had one--I clearly recall the one on my aunt's 1950 Hudson.
The real point is that the Windows "start
button" is not analagous or
homologous to a mechanical start button on an engine. You may as well
compare a button on Windows to a button on your cardigan. They're both
"buttons" but they have nothing in common.
An unfortunate labeling. It really should be notated "Main Menu" or
something similar. But that's just nitpicking. I never use "Start"
to initiate a system shutdown--I prefer Alt-F4 with the focus on the
desktop.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:15 p.m.
On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:02:17 -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote:
An unfortunate labeling. It really should be notated
"Main Menu" or
something similar. But that's just nitpicking. I never use "Start"
to initiate a system shutdown--I prefer Alt-F4 with the focus on the
desktop.
Cheers,
Chuck
Oh .. a clean non destructive shutdown :-) I use the CAD reset (control alt delete) when
at the console and
a CAE alt (control alt end) if logged in using terminal services. This is often refered to
as the Mickeysoft
three fingered salute. Everything else are just menu entries and alternative exits.
later
bob
2:10 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 25 Jun 2007 at 18:14, Liam Proven wrote:
Just got the image of turning the "main menu" key to
start my car. I hope it's just my cold acting up. ;)
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both
- and don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
Liam, you must not be old enough. Most cars made before 1951 or so
had one--I clearly recall the one on my aunt's 1950 Hudson.
The real point is that the Windows "start
button" is not analagous or
homologous to a mechanical start button on an engine. You may as well
compare a button on Windows to a button on your cardigan. They're both
"buttons" but they have nothing in common.
An unfortunate labeling. It really should be notated "Main Menu" or
something similar. But that's just nitpicking. I
never use "Start"
to initiate a system shutdown--I prefer Alt-F4 with the focus on the
desktop.
4:07 p.m.
On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Just wait. 20 years ago, the notion of a portable
telephone with a
menu would have seemed a bit peculiar.
It still does.
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone;
my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my
telephone. - Bjarne Stroustrup
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
6:36 p.m.
At 06:07 PM 6/25/2007, Fred Cisin wrote:
I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to
use as my telephone;
my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my
telephone. - Bjarne Stroustrup
A friend of mine from the computer graphics world maintained that
no matter how small and powerful they make a computer, even one
that you wear on your wrist, that in the future there will always
still be a way to get to a DOS prompt. :-)
- John
4:20 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 25 Jun 2007 at 15:10, Kevin Handy wrote:
Just wait. 20 years ago, the notion of a portable
telephone with a
menu would have seemed a bit peculiar.
I still chuckle over Smart's shoe phone.
Most of Si-Fi or James Bond type ideas seem to have
made to the real world now days. The only thing *never* predicted
was a small computer.
Cheers,
Chuck
PS. They banned Cell phones from where I work part time.
Too many people talking rather than working.
5:31 p.m.
On 25 Jun 2007 at 17:20, woodelf wrote:
Most of Si-Fi or James Bond type ideas seem to have
made to the real world now days. The only thing *never* predicted
was a small computer.
So when did Wal Mart start selling phasers? And no one can tell me
where to find the transporter around here. And where does one buy a
HAL-9000? Seems like true AI is just like controlled fusion--about
30 years out, no matter when the question is asked.
I still love those old sci-fi "B" movies where a computer is shown as
some piece of industrial control gear--chart recorders and all.
Cheers,
Chuck
7:26 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
So when did Wal Mart start selling phasers?
Some
Time in the 23 rd century.
And no one can tell me where to find the transporter
around here.
Umm they still have one BUG err FLY problem with that system.
And where does one buy a HAL-9000?
You can get
it in LEGO. :)
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/30215
I was looking if the had joke about planting high
explosives under the CPU as a note in the 2nd edition
of mantance manual but found this instead on the web.
Seems like true AI is just like controlled fusion--about
30 years out, no matter when the question is asked.
That I still wonder about ... What is AI good for?
I suspect had the $$$ been spent towards a 2001 future we would
have something close the 1960's movies in space and computer err
life modeling hardware since I suspect brain capacity information
could handled today.
I still love those old sci-fi "B" movies
where a computer is shown as
some piece of industrial control gear--chart recorders and all.
And weird sound effects ...
Cheers,
Chuck
26 Jun
26 Jun
12:34 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I still love those old sci-fi "B" movies
where a
computer is shown as
some piece of industrial control gear--chart
recorders and all.
Off topic I'm sure, but I just received a
complimentary copy of "Science Fiction of the 30's"
from my local library. I've seen and perused it
when I
was much younger. Reprints from various pulp
magazines. Don't know when I'd find time to do it any
justice, but I can't help but wonder to what degree
computers/AI found a place in stories of that era.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Get your own web address.
Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL
25 Jun
25 Jun
5:33 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
PS. They banned Cell phones from where I work part
time.
Too many people talking rather than working.
Same here, but not because of talking -- because the built-in camera (!)
in most modern cell phones poses a security risk.
--
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/
26 Jun
26 Jun
8:36 a.m.
On 25/06/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
It's too fiddly that way, but then, I mainly drive Windows with the
keyboard anyway. And since I prefer and use 20yo IBM Model M
keyboards, I don't have a Windows key, either - so it's Ctrl-Esc, up,
return, return. :?)
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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On 25 Jun 2007 at 18:14, Liam Proven wrote:
I turn 40 in about 5 months, so I'm not that young any more!
But American cars are /weird/ compared to the rest of the world. (I
live in Europe and have travelled extensively there, grew up in Africa
and have visited Asia as well as N America.)
Automatic transmission seems ubiquitous, which AFAICT is pretty much
unique to N America, /but/ most people still drive these huge,
tank-like petrol-guzzling monsters, whereas the rest of the world
(that can afford new cars at all) prefers smaller, lighter, more
efficient machines which cope better with traffic and produce less
waste and environmental damage - though that's incidental to their
owners for the large part, what matters is that they are cheaper.)
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both
- and don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
Liam, you must not be old enough. Most cars made before 1951 or so
had one--I clearly recall the one on my aunt's 1950 Hudson. The real point
is that the Windows "start button" is not analagous or
homologous to a mechanical start button on an engine. You may as well
compare a button on Windows to a button on your cardigan. They're both
"buttons" but they have nothing in common.
An unfortunate labeling. It really should be notated "Main Menu" or
something similar. But that's just nitpicking. I never use "Start"
to initiate a system shutdown--I prefer Alt-F4 with the focus on the
desktop.
25 Jun
25 Jun
9:37 p.m.
On Monday 25 June 2007 13:14, Liam Proven wrote:
On 25/06/07, Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net>
wrote:
I forget where I ran across one on the floor. My grandfather had a 1950 Ford
that had a starter button on the dash, though.
--
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
If I push the start button on floorboard of my
car to shut it down (I
don't see any "Start key" anywhere), I'd expect a lot of ground gear
metal in return, plus the need to replace the starter.
It's on the *floor*? Coo.
I am a biker myself - pedal and motorcycles both - and don't know much
about cars, but I don't believe I've ever seen a car with a starter
button. Maybe in a museum.
1:34 p.m.
>> I eventually figured out that to shut down a
Windows box, you click on
>> Start
>> (that was a very tough hurdle for me - you'd be surprised!)
> The start key on your car is also used to shutdown ;o)
On Mon, 25 Jun 2007, Andrew Burton wrote:
dont forget you can also shutdown windows by pressing
Control+Alt+Delete and selecting "shut down". Not sure how long that
feature has been in windows, but its definately in Windows 2K. - Andrew B (via mobile
phone)
. . . or press Alt+F4 until all active windows are closed, and then once
more
. . . or press the power button
OB_OT: My 1959 Willys FC170 had a starter button, although most that I've
seen had the starter wired to the ignition switch
OB_OT: because of issues of matching starter voltage, bushing size, and
flywheel teeth (109 v 130?), for a few years, I started my 1958 VW pickup
with a crank (which came off of an early 1950s VW)
24 Jun
24 Jun
11:25 a.m.
On Jun 23, 2007, at 6:13 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
I've heard little tidbits about it, but nothing very
detailed...can you describe it when you have a moment?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Their software
is pretty unusual, but there's nothing that weird
about
the hardware, is there?
Not anymore, with the change to PowerAS some years back. The original
AS/400s were more odd in the hardware sense.
The whole concept of single level storage is amazing in that works
at all.
1:37 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
I've heard little tidbits about it, but nothing
very detailed...can
you describe it when you have a moment?
-Dave
Single Level Store:
- The operating system and all user processes share a single large
address space.
- There is no filesystem: every database table, user profile, etc. is
addressed by a pointer in this very large address space.
This seems insane, but it works. There are a few things that make it
work better:
- database tables, user profiles, etc. are all well defined data
structures. They are referred to 'objects', although I don't really
think it is object oriented.
- There is a lot of pointer checking going on to prevent overruns and
accessing data that isn't yours.
- Pointers are 'tagged' by the operating system to indicate if they are
legitimate (ie: blessed by the OS and secure). If a user somehow
manages to change a pointer in a non-blessed way, the 'tag' is lost.
The old 48 bit CISC architecture (IMPI) was quite a weirdy compared to
modern architectures. The current 64 bit PowerPC based processors are
much more 'normal' looking.
The 'Advanced/36' was the first use of a 64 bit PowerPC based AS/400.
Kind of funny to think about. :-)
Mike
2:12 p.m.
On 24 Jun 2007 at 14:37, Michael B. Brutman wrote:
- The operating system and all user processes share a
single large
address space.
- There is no filesystem: every database table, user profile, etc. is
addressed by a pointer in this very large address space.
I assume that along with this go the usual virtual-memory features as
well as address-space protection. I couldn't imagine this being done
in unprotected non-paged non-virtual memory hardware, but there's a
first time for everything.
OTOH, CDC was doing this on the STAR operating system in the late
60's/early 70's. There's a certain luxury to having a 48-bit
addressing space. Running file I/O through the pager, although easy
to program seemed to me to be less than optimal; fortunately, we also
had traditional double-buffered I/O calls available.
Cheers,
Chuck
This seems insane, but it works. There are a few things that make it
work better:
- database tables, user profiles, etc. are all well defined data
structures. They are referred to 'objects', although I don't really
think it is object oriented.
- There is a lot of pointer checking going on to prevent overruns and
accessing data that isn't yours.
- Pointers are 'tagged' by the operating system to indicate if they are
legitimate (ie: blessed by the OS and secure). If a user somehow
manages to change a pointer in a non-blessed way, the 'tag' is lost.
The old 48 bit CISC architecture (IMPI) was quite a weirdy compared to
modern architectures. The current 64 bit PowerPC based processors are
much more 'normal' looking.
The 'Advanced/36' was the first use of a 64 bit PowerPC based AS/400.
Kind of funny to think about. :-)
Mike
2:59 p.m.
> - The operating system and all user processes
share a single large
> address space.
> - There is no filesystem: every database table,
user profile, etc.
> is addressed by a pointer in this very large address space.
I assume that along with this go the usual
virtual-memory features as
well as address-space protection. I couldn't imagine this being done
in unprotected non-paged non-virtual memory hardware, but there's a
first time for everything.
I can. Consider something like a Lisp Machine: a strongly typed
language that doesn't have any way to construct arbitrary
hardware-level objects. (If you were to use a real Lisp Machine, you'd
have to do away with, or at least make privileged, the subprimtives
that allow constructing arbitrary lispvals.)
I'd prefer a paged VM environment for doing general-purpose work in,
but it's certainly not necessary.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
4:31 p.m.
New subject: Wanted: IBM PC Engineering Change documentation
I'm looking for the "IBM Personal Computer Family Service Information
Manual". This gem is supposed to have engineering changes for all of
the products in the family, but my 2nd revision version seems to be
missing 100 or so pages of Chapter 19, where those changes are described.
I ordered a new one from IBM directly, which had the same problem. I
suspect that the 2nd revision document excised a lot of them due to to
them not being relevant/current.
If you have an earlier version of this document, please drop me a line -
I'd like to find out how complete your version is. If you have ECs
documented in another documented, I'd love to hear about that too.
Thanks,
Mike
6:17 p.m.
New subject: Wanted: IBM PC Engineering Change documentation
Not for anything, but isn't the proper nomenclature
"engineering change order", or ECO?
____________________________________________________________________________________
Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to
get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting
6:22 p.m.
New subject: IBM CursorPad 6093-011
This is an old RS/6000 attachment. I'm looking for a pinout and a
protocol description, hopefully to make use of it again.
If it's undocumented and unusable except on an RS/6000 I'll make it
available on VCM.
Thanks,
Mike
25 Jun
25 Jun
9:53 a.m.
On 24/06/07, Michael B. Brutman <mbbrutman-cctalk at brutman.com> wrote:
Single Level Store:
- The operating system and all user processes share a single large
address space.
- There is no filesystem: every database table, user profile, etc. is
addressed by a pointer in this very large address space.
This seems insane, but it works. There are a few things that make it
work better:
- database tables, user profiles, etc. are all well defined data
structures. They are referred to 'objects', although I don't really
think it is object oriented.
- There is a lot of pointer checking going on to prevent overruns and
accessing data that isn't yours.
- Pointers are 'tagged' by the operating system to indicate if they are
legitimate (ie: blessed by the OS and secure). If a user somehow
manages to change a pointer in a non-blessed way, the 'tag' is lost.
The old 48 bit CISC architecture (IMPI) was quite a weirdy compared to
modern architectures.
Whooo! Now that is odd.
Are there any emulators for these things knocking around, or are they
still too commercial?
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
10:27 a.m.
New subject: [BULK]Re: What are the really unusual or weird computers?
Liam Proven wrote:
On 24/06/07, Michael B. Brutman <mbbrutman-cctalk
at brutman.com> wrote:
Sounds a lot like Palm/OS
Single Level Store:
- The operating system and all user processes share a single large
address space.
- There is no filesystem: every database table, user profile, etc. is
addressed by a pointer in this very large address space.
This seems insane, but it works. There are a few things that make it
work better:
- database tables, user profiles, etc. are all well defined data
structures. They are referred to 'objects', although I don't really
think it is object oriented.
- There is a lot of pointer checking going on to prevent overruns and
accessing data that isn't yours.
- Pointers are 'tagged' by the operating system to indicate if they are
legitimate (ie: blessed by the OS and secure). If a user somehow
manages to change a pointer in a non-blessed way, the 'tag' is lost.
The old 48 bit CISC architecture (IMPI) was quite a weirdy compared to
modern architectures.
Whooo! Now that is odd.
Are there any emulators for these things knocking around, or are they
still too commercial?
22 Jun
22 Jun
10:32 a.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Chuck Guzis wrote:
A more conventional, but still strange micro design
was the
SMS/Signetics 8X300/305 microcontroller. Bipolar, 16-bit and
remarkably brain-dead. Western Digital used it on its early hard
disk controllers.
BTI used one as the heart of the SCP in the BTI8000. You could fry an
egg on the thing, and yes, it was truly brain-dead.
Cheers,
Chris.
- --
Chris Kennedy
chris at mainecoon.com AF6AP
http://www.mainecoon.com PGP KeyID 108DAB97
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
"Mr. McKittrick, after careful consideration..."
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFGfAeOVeEgoxCNq5cRAhTcAJ9wLfgIINJrKCcOEki9TqOjI+JcCgCgs/nO
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1:30 p.m.
In the area of "strange architecture", I'm surprised that no one
mentioned the Intel iAPX-432. For its time, very unusual.
The GI CP-1600 16-bit CPU had an architecture very similar to the PDP-
11, but used a 10-bit instruction word. I think GI even marketed 10
bit ROMs. These were used in various incarnations as the CPU in many
Activision consoles.
The I2L version of the TI 9900 (SBP 9989?). Not in the architecture
or the instruction set, but the logic family--Silicon Bipolar
Integrated Injection Logic. Like the Fairchild 9440 "micro-Nova sort-
of CPU", virtually unobtainium if you weren't in military aerospace.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:25 p.m.
Hi,
The GI CP-1600 16-bit CPU had an architecture very
similar
to the PDP-11, but used a 10-bit instruction word. I think
GI even marketed 10 bit ROMs. These were used in various
incarnations as the CPU in many Activision consoles.
They were used in the various "Intellivision" consoles....
That's a machine I'd like to have a play around with (as in programming),
but I'm having too much fun with the Vectrex right now. ;-)
TTFN - Pete.
9:34 p.m.
Ensor wrote:
Hi,
I wrote code for the CP-1610 at some point in the past, but I don't
remember where or when.
Peace... Sridhar
The GI CP-1600 16-bit CPU had an architecture
very similar
to the PDP-11, but used a 10-bit instruction word. I think
GI even marketed 10 bit ROMs. These were used in various
incarnations as the CPU in many Activision consoles.
They were used in the various "Intellivision" consoles....
That's a machine I'd like to have a play around with (as in
programming), but I'm having too much fun with the Vectrex right now. ;-)
3:48 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
The GI CP-1600 16-bit CPU had an architecture very
similar to the PDP-
11, but used a 10-bit instruction word. I think GI even marketed 10
bit ROMs. These were used in various incarnations as the CPU in many
Activision consoles.
I think you meant to write "Mattel Intellivision". (Unless Activision
got into the hardware business that I'm not aware of)
--
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/
4:24 p.m.
On 22 Jun 2007 at 17:48, Jim Leonard wrote:
I think you meant to write "Mattel
Intellivision". (Unless Activision
got into the hardware business that I'm not aware of)
Yeah, *something*-vision. I don't pay much attention to the games
market. Did GI ever market their own game console?
Cheers,
Chuck
25 Jun
25 Jun
9:52 a.m.
On 22/06/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
The GI CP-1600 16-bit CPU had an architecture very
similar to the PDP-
11, but used a 10-bit instruction word. I think GI even marketed 10
bit ROMs. These were used in various incarnations as the CPU in many
Activision consoles.
Since a few people have picked up on this, I've done a bit of
Googling. Everywhere seems to say that it was a fairly vanilla 16-bit
CPU, it just had 10-bit opcodes, so Intellivision used 10-bit memory
in the cartridges. 10 bits is a "deckle", apparently.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellivision
<<
Intellivision was the first 16-bit game console, though some people
have mistakenly referred to it as a 10-bit system because the CPU's
instruction set and game cartridges are 10 bits wide. A 10-bit chunk
of data is called a "decle". The registers in the microprocessor,
where the mathematical logic is processed, were 16 bits wide.
>
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/hardware/intelli_tech.html#cpu
<<
CPU
The CPU is the General Instruments CP1610. This is a general purpose
16-bit microprocessor which has 1024 separate op-codes, and can
equally well use 8-bit, 10-bit, 14-bit, and 16-bit RAM or ROM. The
CP1610 in the Intellivision uses a machine cycle rate of 894.886 KHz.
Individual operations on the 1610 take between 4 and 12 microcycles
(Note: the CP1600 is the prototypical or conventional form of the
microprocessor; the CP1610 used in the Intellivision is precisely the
same in all respects except for a differing clock rate.)
Since most 1610 instructions are 10-bits wide, game programs are
stored in 10-bit wide ROMs. This 10-bit "byte" is referred to as a
decle (rhymes with "heckle"). Some instructions require 16 bits; these
are stored in two successive 10-bit locations, referred to as a
bidecle. (For prototyping, dual 8-bit EPROMs are used, with the low 8
bits of each decle stored in one EPROM and the top 2 bits stored in
the other.)
>
And the fairly detailed overview at:
http://intelliwiki.kylesblog.com/index.php/CP1610
--
Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com
Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
11:06 a.m.
New subject: GI CP1600; was: What are the really unusual or weird computers?
On 25 Jun 2007 at 17:52, Liam Proven wrote:
Since most 1610 instructions are 10-bits wide, game
programs are
stored in 10-bit wide ROMs. This 10-bit "byte" is referred to as a
decle (rhymes with "heckle"). Some instructions require 16 bits; these
are stored in two successive 10-bit locations, referred to as a
bidecle. (For prototyping, dual 8-bit EPROMs are used, with the low 8
bits of each decle stored in one EPROM and the top 2 bits stored in
the other.)
Much of this is misleading. First off, only the first word of an
instruction is 10 bits wide--the remaining 6 bits in my GI book is
labeled "Reserved for future expansion"--that's the first time I've
seen that actually spelled out. The second word of each instruction
(usually an immediate value) is 16 bits; but there is an instruction
(SDBD) that tells the processor to fetch two 8 bit values out of
succeeding words instead. So you could get by with a 10 bit ROM,
though it wasn't the most efficient.
Since the processor identified M1 fetches, one could have used 16-bit
ROM and dedicated the unused 6 bits for use by other devices, such as
a coprocessor. There was a pin on the CP1600 that seemed to be made
for this--PCIT--when asserted, it inhibited the P-counter from
incrementing on an instruction fetch, so the CP1600 could be forced
to "stall" until some external device had completed its function.
There were some clever ideas in the architecture. 8 16-bit
registers, with R7 being the P-counter and R6 being the (upward-
growing) stack pointer. R6 post-incremented when referenced for a
memory write and pre-decremented for a memory read. R4 and R5 were
auto-increment registers. The opcode for JUMP and CALL was the same--
the instruction saved the current PC in a register before loading the
new value. An unconditional jump was signified by specifying this
register as R7--which caused the old PC to be overwritten without
saving.
The I/O was miserably slow, however.
Pricing was very good for the time--the 1K price in 1975 was $40.
The GIMINI development system could be had for $3500.
At the time, GI billed the 1600 as "The World's Most Powerful Single-
Chip Microprocessor".
Cheers,
Chuck
22 Jun
22 Jun
11:01 a.m.
Hi,
Liam Proven said:
I never cease to be amazed by the level and depth of
knowledge of
obscure machines on this list. Knowledgeable discussions of machines
I've never even heard of in 20y in the business and a good while
longer as a hobbyist.
So I thought I'd ask a question on a slightly different tack.
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different* machines
that folks have seen?
[Snip]
What else was there? What other machines -
general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
Forth machines, sometimes with Forth implemented in hardware. Source
and object code in 1K blocks paged from blocks on disk, no other OS.
I think Forth Inc. have some history on their site:
http://www.forth.com
The Rekursiv. "Everything is an object" managed by a tagged object
manager in hardware. Virtual address space with objects paged in and out
of single-level storage as required. Google for Harland, Gunn, Pringle
& Beloff's original paper from 1986, it's online somewhere.
Lisp machines of course.
Smalltalk?
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
3:48 p.m.
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Stan Barr wrote:
Smalltalk?
S.O.A.R.
(Smalltalk On A Risc)
Howcome we never notice just how weird the 5150 is?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
4:20 p.m.
>> Smalltalk?
> S.O.A.R.
> (Smalltalk On A Risc)
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Dave McGuire wrote:
Mmmmmmmmm. URL?
http://www.amazon.com/Evaluation-Performance-Smalltalk-Distinguished-Disser…
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=36192
Ungar & Patterson, UCBerkeley
I got a chance to play with a pre-release Lisa there
4:10 p.m.
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Fred Cisin wrote:
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:48:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: What are the really unusual or weird computers?
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Stan Barr wrote:
S.P.U.R
(Symbolic Processing Using RISCs)
Smalltalk?
S.O.A.R.
(Smalltalk On A Risc)
Howcome we never notice just how weird the 5150 is?
Too depressing to think about?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
Peter Wallace
11:13 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good
general-purpose
introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never
seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they
sound unique.
Somebody as research project built a lisp cpu on chip. It can't
add but
but can run a simple lisp quite well. I read about this years ago
so I can't say more.
3:45 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
Liam Proven wrote:
This by any chance ?
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-514.pdf
But I keep reading about Lisp machines. No good
general-purpose
introduction for the interested computer-literate reader who's never
seen one and doesn't speak Lisp, though, but from what I've read, they
sound unique.
Somebody as research project built a lisp cpu on chip. It can't
add but
but can run a simple lisp quite well. I read about this years ago
so I can't say more.
4:58 p.m.
e.stiebler wrote:
This by any chance ?
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-514.pdf
No. Now if I knew
Lisp ... :)
Looking at the references " The CONS microprocessor " is what I believe I read.
Still a nice chip.
11:58 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain *different*
machines that folks have seen?
Ohio Scientific OS65D...
The basic von Neumann computer is well-established,
but most
of them have a lot more common ground than that.
Uniquely-identified disks,
Yup...
an OS with a command line that lets you create,
rename, execute,
edit and delete files on those disks.
Nope, there are directory tracks that are more of a "good idea" than
a real part of the OS. You can put a name and track/sector info in
the "directory". The BASIC interpreter will load and store programs
from/into those tracks if they fit (Oh, didn't I mention that? You
define how big the file is when you "create" it. Once created,
that's how big it is and how big it stays. Of course, only BASIC
cares). The OS level command line is more like a monitor. You can
tell it to load a track/sector into memory at an address, multiple
tracks require multiple commands. Then, you can jump to that address.
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.4/860 - Release Date: 6/21/2007
5:53 PM
3:42 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain
*different* machines
that folks have seen?
One of the most "common" oddball machines you can actually still pick up
in a lot of places is the PCjr.
I've always been partial to "luggables" that include more than they
should, like the Panasonic Sr. Partner which has a printer behind the
CRT. A friend told me he used to lug that thing onto planes and through
airport terminals and lost weight doing it. The printer used a roll of
fax paper, so all of your printouts looked like faxes.
--
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/
4:04 p.m.
On 22/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
Liam Proven wrote:
I don't think that a PC in an unusual form factor counts as genuinely
weird, different or interesting!
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What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain
*different* machines
that folks have seen?
One of the most "common" oddball machines you can actually still pick up
in a lot of places is the PCjr.
I've always been partial to "luggables" that include more than they
should, like the Panasonic Sr. Partner which has a printer behind the
CRT. A friend told me he used to lug that thing onto planes and through
airport terminals and lost weight doing it. The printer used a roll of
fax paper, so all of your printouts looked like faxes.
8:59 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
On 22/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at
oldskool.org> wrote:
I don't think that unusual form factor is the only issue with a PCjr.
- Plastic case instead of metal (ok, unusual form factor)
- 'Sidecar' expansion bus (ok, unusual form factor)
- Memory expansions provide their own DRAM refresh controllers
- Cartridge slots ... never to be seen again
- Onboard video that shared memory with main
memory (first use of term VGA for Video Gate Array)
- Onboard diagnostics; no need for a diskette
- Compatible, but not compatible, by design.
- Crippled enough in BIOS and hardware to require some really cool hacks
For a computer, not too weird. For a PC from Big Blue, it's like an
acid trip.
Mike
One of the most "common" oddball
machines you can actually still pick up
in a lot of places is the PCjr.
I've always been partial to "luggables" that include more than they
should, like the Panasonic Sr. Partner which has a printer behind the
CRT. A friend told me he used to lug that thing onto planes and through
airport terminals and lost weight doing it. The printer used a roll of
fax paper, so all of your printouts looked like faxes.
I don't think that a PC in an unusual form factor counts as genuinely
weird, different or interesting!
23 Jun
23 Jun
1:26 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
On 22/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at
oldskool.org> wrote:
A "portable" computer with everything-and-the-kitchen-sink included
isn't different or interesting? The thing had an embedded CRT and
printer. The manufacturer calling it portable was an oxymoron.
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Liam Proven wrote:
I don't think that a PC in an unusual form factor counts as genuinely
weird, different or interesting! What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain
*different* machines
that folks have seen?
One of the most "common" oddball machines you can actually still pick up
in a lot of places is the PCjr.
I've always been partial to "luggables" that include more than they
should, like the Panasonic Sr. Partner which has a printer behind the
CRT. A friend told me he used to lug that thing onto planes and through
airport terminals and lost weight doing it. The printer used a roll of
fax paper, so all of your printouts looked like faxes.
8:28 a.m.
On 23/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
Liam Proven wrote:
> On 22/06/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
>> One of the most "common" oddball
machines you can actually still pick up
>> in a lot of places is the PCjr.
>>
>> I've always been partial to "luggables" that include more than
they
>> should, like the Panasonic Sr. Partner which has a printer behind the
>> CRT. A friend told me he used to lug that thing onto planes and through
>> airport terminals and lost weight doing it. The printer used a roll of
>> fax paper, so all of your printouts looked like faxes.
>
> I don't think that a PC in an unusual form factor counts as genuinely
> weird, different or interesting!
A "portable" computer with
everything-and-the-kitchen-sink included
isn't different or interesting? The thing had an embedded CRT and
printer. The manufacturer calling it portable was an oxymoron.
Well, to be honest, no!
I was thinking of weirdness in terms of logic, architecture or OS. Any
variant on the PC design that's sold by the hundreds of millions is
pretty vanilla compared to any early IBM mainframe, for instance...
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5:33 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
I was thinking of weirdness in terms of logic,
architecture or OS. Any
variant on the PC design that's sold by the hundreds of millions is
pretty vanilla compared to any early IBM mainframe, for instance...
In that case, I second GI's 10-bit processor, already mentioned as being
notable as the guts of a Mattel Intellivision.
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Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
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7:44 p.m.
Hi,
>> I don't think that a PC in an unusual form
factor counts as
>>genuinely weird, different or interesting!
> A "portable" computer with
everything-and-the-kitchen-sink included
>isn't different or interesting?....
Well, to be honest, no!
I have to agree. A PC is a PC no matter how it's packaged....and therefore
pretty uninteresting.
TTFN - Pete.
8:09 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Hi,
26 years after *it's* inception, I guess that's often
the consensus. But what was so *interesting* about a
TRS-80 model 1 for that matter? Or so many other items
found in people's collections. And what exactly is the
definition of "PC". Is a Victor 9000 a "PC"? What
about a Mindset? Or even a Peanut? It isn't fair or
even logical to run down or exclude items with
significant Intel makeups simply because it's become
the dominant platform these days. Is a Lisa or a Mac
so totally interesting due to the fact that it's
captured a significantly smaller portion of the
market? What if Macs or any number of other units had
"taken over". Wouldn't we then look upon them as
disinteresting? So few have any clue as to the weirder
dual processor boxes that were offered in only in Japan.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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>> I don't think that a PC in an unusual
form
factor counts as
>>genuinely weird, different or interesting!
> A "portable" computer with
everything-and-the-kitchen-sink included
>isn't different or interesting?....
Well, to be honest, no!
I have to agree. A PC is a PC no matter how it's
packaged....and therefore
pretty uninteresting.
10:38 p.m.
Hi,
26 years after *it's* inception, I guess
that's often
the consensus. But what was so *interesting* about a
TRS-80 model 1 for that matter?
The fact that it's "different/unique", which is probably true of the
majority of interesting machines in most people's collections.
The problem with PCs/clones, for me at least, is that they're all pretty
much the same - seen one, seen them all....
....And what exactly is the definition of
"PC"....
I think it was pretty clear that the OP and I were using "PC" to refer to
the IBM PC and it's clones.
....What if Macs or any number of other units had
"taken
over". Wouldn't we then look upon them as disinteresting?
Well, quite frankly, yes.
One of the main reasons I collect computers is to learn about about
different architectures and operating systems, etc. There's nothing
different or interesting about the umpteenth identical PC clone....
TTFN - Pete.
8:32 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 10:44 PM
Subject: Re: What are the really unusual or weird computers?
I have to agree. A PC is a PC no matter how it's packaged....and therefore
pretty uninteresting.
TTFN - Pete.
Seen one mainframe you seen them all, sound the same to you?
10:05 p.m.
Hi,
> I have to agree. A PC is a PC no matter how
it's packaged....and
>therefore pretty uninteresting.
Seen one mainframe you seen them all, sound the same
to you?
OK, I thought I'd quoted enough of the original message...?
If I said "An IBM PC/clone is an IBM PC/clone no matter...." would that be
any clearer? :-)
And yes, with precious few exceptions, seen one IBM PC/clone seen them all!
TTFN - Pete.
25 Jun
25 Jun
10:10 a.m.
On 25/06/07, Teo Zenios <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ensor" <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk>
Not a valid comparison. That's like comparing all microcomputers and
ignoring their vast diversity.
If it runs IBM PC programs of its time period - whether that's Windows
or Lotus 1-2-3 or whatever - then it's a PC. About the only time a PC
compatible is interesting in architectural or design terms is if it's
something like a BBC Master 512 - a 2nd processor in an alien computer
connected over a CPU-to-CPU bus. Thus, there's some interest in
hardware PC cards for the various Macs, in the add-in boards for the
Acorn RISC PC (I have one here, if I ever get it working) and so
forth.
But basically, a PC compatible is a PC compatible. We've all seen a
thousand of them. Who cares any more?
They get marginally more fun to use if they're running an interesting
OS. Me, I run Linux, because I have work to do and it networks with
anything, drives almost any peripheral and so on. But I find BeOS and
Syllable and QNX and AROS and so on much more *interesting*, simply
because they are different.
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I have to agree. A PC is a PC no matter how
it's packaged....and therefore
pretty uninteresting.
Seen one mainframe you seen them all, sound the same to you?
26 Jun
26 Jun
12:59 p.m.
--- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
If it runs IBM PC programs of its time period -
whether that's Windows
or Lotus 1-2-3 or whatever - then it's a PC.
Many pseudo-compatibles had to have PC programs
ported to their particular architecture. So the
criteria for uninteresting has become whether or not
it can run a particular program/s?
About
the only time a PC
compatible is interesting in architectural or design
terms is if it's
something like a BBC Master 512 - a 2nd processor in
an alien computer
connected over a CPU-to-CPU bus. Thus, there's some
interest in
hardware PC cards for the various Macs, in the
add-in boards for the
Acorn RISC PC (I have one here, if I ever get it
working) and so
forth.
What about dual or triple processor machines that
just happent to have an 80x86? Are they immediately
deemed uninteresting? It seems that some boxes w/an
Intel processor can often be some of the rarest pieces
around. I can give you a list if you like and
challenge you to find 2 or 3 others on this list with
one, sometimes their won't even be another single
person.
But basically, a PC compatible is a PC compatible.
We've all seen a
thousand of them. Who cares any more?
The problem is when people utter those words it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
They get marginally more fun to use if they're
running an interesting
OS. Me, I run Linux, because I have work to do and
it networks with
anything, drives almost any peripheral and so on.
But I find BeOS and
Syllable and QNX and AROS and so on much more
*interesting*, simply
because they are different.
Linux? We seem to be diving off topic there. And I'll
grant there are many OS' more interesting then DOS.
But if you're rendering all DOS based machines
uninteresting, you may as well throw CP/M, TRS-DOS and
a number of others in with it. Remember this is a
vintage forum. If you want real *interesting* stuff,
you'd typicall fare better somewhere else, interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Keep in mind there are at least a few Intel based
boxes that won't even run DOS at all.
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1:43 p.m.
Chris M wrote:
Remember this is a vintage forum. If you want real
*interesting*
stuff, you'd typicall fare better somewhere else, interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Careful there - lots of things can be vintage and cutting edge - they're just
not cutting edge *now* :-)
3:04 p.m.
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
Chris M wrote:
I did say typically. Of course there are designs that
fell by the wayside (never to be repeated in any
form?). But to exclude something as *disinteresting*
is at best subjective. It's often said newer computers
are bland and lack character. Who's to say
*interesting* stops at something as trifling as the
design of the case for instance? Being "pc's" were so
plentiful, there was lots of room to experiment with
elements of design, and some are nice to look at (if
nothing else LOL). My Leading Edge Model M (not the
later and much more common Model D) is pretty, so
nyeh. And I tend to shy away from *true* compatibles,
but this one was too *intrustin* to pass up.
But again I do have to question why a person would go
on a quest for vintage stuph to find interesting
designs. Again, they exist, but I think the vast
majority of the time that person enjoys tinkering,
something that is less practical w/today's machines.
And if anyone is going to suggest an Intel based unit
doesn't give you ample room to tinker, it simply ain't so.
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Remember this is a vintage forum. If you want
real
*interesting*
stuff, you'd typicall fare better somewhere
else,
interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Careful there - lots of things can be vintage and
cutting edge - they're just
not cutting edge *now* :-)
1:50 p.m.
On 26 Jun 2007 at 12:59, Chris M wrote:
Keep in mind there are at least a few Intel based
boxes that won't even run DOS at all.
They may not run MS-DOS as configured for the "standard IBM PC"
platform, but Microsoft offered OEM versions that could be configured
with the customer's own I/O routines. This was very common between
versions 1.x (1.25 was a common version) through 2.1. I have at
least one such here, complete with Microsoft's own "How to write an
I/O subsystem for DOS" documentation.
I believe that Bill Godbout offered PC-DOS for his 85/88 and 86 CPU
cards, where IBMBIO.COM had been replaced with drivers specific to
the Computro line. Microsoft was not interested in licensing small
numbers of MS-DOS, so Godbout started with a standard $40 IBM PC-DOS
package.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:48 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 26 Jun 2007 at 12:59, Chris M wrote:
We all know about those ;)
Keep in mind there are at least a few Intel
based
boxes that won't even run DOS at all.
They may not run MS-DOS as configured for the
"standard IBM PC"
platform, but Microsoft offered OEM versions that
could be configured
with the customer's own I/O routines. This was very
common between
versions 1.x (1.25 was a common version) through
2.1. I have at
least one such here, complete with Microsoft's own
"How to write an
I/O subsystem for DOS" documentation.
There were a few Unisys '286 boxes that UIM don't run
DOS. The Televideo Personal Mini PM/4t/PM/16t don't
run DOS (not natively anyway). I'm sure the Northstar
Dimension don't neither. There are others. Burroughs
ICON? UK/French/Japanese boxes??? Granted such a DOS
could be configured to run on these machines, but
ultimately that goes w/o saying, and that's besides
the point and cheating.
I believe that Bill Godbout offered PC-DOS for his
85/88 and 86 CPU
cards, where IBMBIO.COM had been replaced with
drivers specific to
the Computro line. Microsoft was not interested in
licensing small
numbers of MS-DOS, so Godbout started with a
standard $40 IBM PC-DOS
package.
Compupro? Yeah, whenever I get offered one, amongst
other things, the hoser backs out.
FWIW, I was in contact w/a dude in the Chicago area
some time ago who had been working on a mod for the
Tandy 2000 that would make it 100% PC compatible. It
involved an extensive rewrite of IO.sys, which I had
thought would be a big no-no, but from what you're
saying, not really. I do believe he was hacking
Tandy's specific DOS though. Never finished it sadly.
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5:13 p.m.
On 26 Jun 2007 at 14:48, Chris M wrote:
FWIW, I was in contact w/a dude in the Chicago area
some time ago who had been working on a mod for the
Tandy 2000 that would make it 100% PC compatible. It
involved an extensive rewrite of IO.sys, which I had
thought would be a big no-no, but from what you're
saying, not really. I do believe he was hacking
Tandy's specific DOS though. Never finished it sadly.
Not possible, unless you mean by "100% compatible", compatible on a
BIOS level. That might well be possible, but it's small comfort,
given the number of old DOS programs that twiddle the hardware
directly.
I wonder if the 80186 in the 2K might also cause some programs to
mistakenly assume that it's running on a 286, as the 186 has a number
of the 286 instructions not present on an 8086.
Cheers,
Chuck
27 Jun
27 Jun
11:10 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 26 Jun 2007 at 14:48, Chris M wrote:
It's debatable whether the IBM PC was ever even compatible with itself, never
mind what the clone lot were doing :-)
FWIW, I was in contact w/a dude in the Chicago
area
some time ago who had been working on a mod for the
Tandy 2000 that would make it 100% PC compatible. It
involved an extensive rewrite of IO.sys, which I had
thought would be a big no-no, but from what you're
saying, not really. I do believe he was hacking
Tandy's specific DOS though. Never finished it sadly.
Not possible, unless you mean by "100% compatible", compatible on a
BIOS level.
6:17 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Could you elaborate? I've never found a single program that will work
on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
--
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Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
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Not possible,
unless you mean by "100% compatible", compatible on a
BIOS level.
It's debatable whether the IBM PC was ever even compatible with itself,
never mind what the clone lot were doing :-)
7:38 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 27 Jun 2007 at 20:17, Jim Leonard wrote:
You're being pedantic :-) I've never come across an IBM PC program on
cassette tape, and I'm betting 99% of the list hasn't either :)
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Could you elaborate? I've never found a
single program that will work
on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
Including ROM BASIC that writes and reads cassette tapes?
7:57 p.m.
> Including ROM BASIC that writes and reads
cassette tapes?
On Wed, 27 Jun 2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
You're being pedantic :-) I've never come
across an IBM PC program on
cassette tape, and I'm betting 99% of the list hasn't either :)
The IBM Diagnostics, and a few others were available on cassette.
Right before the XT came out, there was an outfit peddling a crude network
using the cassette port! It disappeared immediately when the XT came out.
There were a very few programs that relied on specific addresses in the
BASIC ROMs!
But, admittedly, th incompataibilities between the 5150 and 5160 were
negligible.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
9:20 p.m.
On 27 Jun 2007 at 21:38, Jim Leonard wrote:
You're being pedantic :-) I've never come
across an IBM PC program on
cassette tape, and I'm betting 99% of the list hasn't either :)
Sure, but you asked! :)
There were some neat programs that used the casette port relay for on-
off control of devices. I seem to recall a method for cross-
connecting the audio lines on two 5150s for PC-to-PC data transfer.
I did record a data tape on a 5150--once.
Cheers,
Chuck
29 Jun
29 Jun
8:12 a.m.
Jim Leonard wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Count me out of that 99%.
Add me to the list that ran across (and used) programs on audio cassette for HP,
DG and DEC minis. And to the list that had to reprogram a cassette after someone
accidentally pressed RECORD instead of PLAY while booting. On the front panel,
of course. 3 programs, 16K+ instructions each over 9 days... the panel 20inches
above the floor... (@_@)
I think I still have a "word processor" for the 5150 on disk that will not run
on anything but a 5150 with _one_ original IBM floppy, 64K, ROM BASIC, and the
original mono display. PCDOS1 only, of course.
==
jd
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
On 27 Jun 2007 at 20:17, Jim Leonard wrote:
You're being pedantic :-) I've never come across an IBM PC program on
cassette tape, and I'm betting 99% of the list hasn't either :) Could you elaborate? I've never found a
single program that will
work on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
Including ROM BASIC that writes and reads cassette tapes? 
28 Jun
28 Jun
3:06 p.m.
On 27 Jun 2007 at 20:17, Jim Leonard wrote:
ROM BASIC is present on the PC, XT/Portanble and AT at least. I have no
idea if it was fitted to any PS/2 machines.
IIRC, cassette I/O went via a software interrupt (INT 15????). The
routines in later BIOSes (XT, AT, etc) returned without doing anything,
bnt since all said BIOSes supported extension ROMs, I see no good reason
why you couldn't have a BIOS extension and a little hardware to add
cassette I/O to the later machines, if you were insane enough to want it.
-tony
Could you elaborate? I've never found a
single program that will work
on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
Including ROM BASIC that writes and reads cassette tapes?
4:24 p.m.
On Jun 28, 2007, at 6:06 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Are you sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't remember that at all.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Including ROM
BASIC that writes and reads cassette tapes?
ROM BASIC is present on the PC, XT/Portanble and AT at least. I
have no
idea if it was fitted to any PS/2 machines.
5:44 p.m.
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
Are you sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't
remember that at all.
Yep. Question is what IBMer was the last to feature
it...
Another trivia question: did any other non-IBM *pc
compatibles* have a rom based BASIC...
And...what was the first computer *any* to have a
rom-BASIC
FURTHERMORE...what was the last computer *any* to
have it?
Don't ask me the answers though, frankly I haven't a clue.
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8:36 p.m.
--- woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
Chris M wrote:
I had read many years ago that the first thing Jobs
did was in fact write the BASIC interpreter. This
totally mussed my brain up. Turns out that in the
"time sharing" days it was common to hand code
assembly, and present the work Friday afternoon to
the, I don't know, job guy.
And frankly, I hadn't until now contemplated that the
A1's BASIC was written in binary. Lordy
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And...what was the first computer *any* to have
a
rom-BASIC
The Apple (1?) must come fairly close the mark.
I remember (from the web) there there was no source
for the integer
basic , it was all hand coded.
8:44 p.m.
ok, I TOLD you it mussed my brain up. To the extent
that I'm able to misspell Wozniak to such a distorted
degree. LOL LOL. Not that anyone picked it up...
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30 Jun
30 Jun
3:22 p.m.
From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com>
--- woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
It was a cost thing. They were really running on a shoe string
then. The thought that you could actually run micro
computers with assemblers and compilers hadn't caught
on yet. People still believed that it took a mini or larger
to convert source to code. There were a few tape based
assemblers out there but not for free.
Dwight
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Chris M wrote:
I had read many years ago that the first thing Jobs
did was in fact write the BASIC interpreter. This
totally mussed my brain up. Turns out that in the
"time sharing" days it was common to hand code
assembly, and present the work Friday afternoon to
the, I don't know, job guy.
And frankly, I hadn't until now contemplated that the
A1's BASIC was written in binary. Lordy
And...what was the first computer *any* to have
a
rom-BASIC
The Apple (1?) must come fairly close the mark.
I remember (from the web) there there was no source
for the integer
basic , it was all hand coded. 
30 Jun
30 Jun
3:57 p.m.
[ROM BASIC]
You can get later than that, even sticking with the ARM chip. I am pretty
sure the Bush internet set-top box has BBC BASIC In ROM (I forget the key
combination to get the '*' prompt, but it'll be on the web somewhere).
-tony
FURTHERMORE...what was the last computer *any* to
have it?
I'm going to guess Acorn Archimedes here. 
1 Jul
1 Jul
2:35 a.m.
On Sat, 2007-06-30 at 23:57 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
[ROM BASIC]
You can get later than that, even sticking with the ARM chip. I am pretty
sure the Bush internet set-top box has BBC BASIC In ROM (I forget the key
combination to get the '*' prompt, but it'll be on the web somewhere).
It does; I have one and I've had BBC Basic out of it. Apparently if
you've got a parallel-port Zip disk you can boot plain ordinary RiscOS
on it. Good fun. Internally it's basically an Arm development board
with a few unpopulated sockets.
Gordon
FURTHERMORE...what was the last computer *any* to
have it?
I'm going to guess Acorn Archimedes here. 
3:01 p.m.
On 01/07/07, Gordon JC Pearce <gordon at gjcp.net> wrote:
Ooh. I never knew that - the number of those I've ignored as
uninteresting... I'll have to snag the next one (and the next zip
drive) I see...
So.. How do I add an econet interface to it? ;-)
Rob
On Sat, 2007-06-30 at 23:57 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
You can get
later than that, even sticking with the ARM chip. I am pretty
sure the Bush internet set-top box has BBC BASIC In ROM (I forget the key
combination to get the '*' prompt, but it'll be on the web somewhere).
It does; I have one and I've had BBC Basic out of it. Apparently if
you've got a parallel-port Zip disk you can boot plain ordinary RiscOS
on it. Good fun. Internally it's basically an Arm development board
with a few unpopulated sockets.
29 Jun
29 Jun
4 p.m.
Yep. Question is what IBMer was the last to feature
it...
No idea
Another trivia question: did any other non-IBM *pc
compatibles* have a rom based BASIC...
I thought one clone had a pirate copy of the IBM ROMs inside (including
Microsoft BASIC) until IBM/Microsoft (wuite rightly) came down on them.
Wasn't there at least one other PC clone to have a legal ROM BASIC?
And...what was the first computer *any* to have a
rom-BASIC
HP9830? (end of 1972). Maybe some Wang machine?
FURTHERMORE...what was the last computer *any* to
have it?
Does anyone (Casio?) still make handheld BASIC programmable 'calculators'?
-tony
6:53 p.m.
...
The first Wang machine with BASIC in ROM was the 2200. Wang had a
history of preannouncing products, so it is a bit unclear what date to
use, but spring 1973 seems to be when they were really shipping units.
The 2200 used about 200 TTL parts for the main CPU, plus a lot of low
density ROMS and DRAM for the BASIC ROM and program memories, another 80
chips or so to generate video out. All of it fit into a small metal
"suitcase."
I'd be curious to know how fast the 9830 was in comparison. This small
program:
10 T=0
20 FOR I=1 TO 10000
30 T=T+I
40 NEXT I
50 PRINT T
60 END
takes about 90 seconds to run on the 2200T (btw, everything is double
precision BCD). You can see more detailed timing on each BASIC
operation here:
http://www.wang2200.org/performance.html
The 2200 was preceded by the 3300. Wang started accepting orders for it
in 1970, but machines didn't ship until sometime in 1971. The 3300
loaded BASIC from paper tape, and later cassette. I believe they
eventually offered a ROM BASIC for the 3300, but it was too late to do
any good.
And...what
was the first computer *any* to have a
rom-BASIC
HP9830? (end of 1972). Maybe some Wang machine?
11:41 a.m.
The 2200 used about 200 TTL parts for the main CPU, plus a lot of low
density ROMS and DRAM for the BASIC ROM and program memories, another 80
The HP9830 has about 80 chips in the bit-serial CPU (mostly TTL and 9 256
nybble PROMs) + memory control (more TTL, perhaps another 40 chips there)
+ BASIC ROMs (30 512 byte chips) + RAM (16 1103s for each kiloword) +
cassette contorl (30 more chips) + display (20 more) + keyboard (another
dozen)? I've not counted them all,
I'd be curious to know how fast the 9830 was in
comparison. This small
program:
10 T=0
20 FOR I=1 TO 10000
30 T=T+I
40 NEXT I
50 PRINT T
60 END
I've just tried it on my 9830 (yes, it still works). The only change I
made was line 50 DISP T (to display it on the LED display rather than
print it on the 9866 printer).
The 9830 is a little slower than the Wang, but not much. It took about 2
minutes to run.
takes about 90 seconds to run on the 2200T (btw, everything is double
precision BCD). You can see more detailed timing on each BASIC
operation here:
http://www.wang2200.org/performance.html
-tony
30 Jun
30 Jun
3:44 p.m.
From: Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org>
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:
Hi
Most 286 AT's had ROM BASIC but it was mostly gone by the
time the 386 machines started.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
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Are you sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't
remember that at all.
Mine does (although I don't know if *all* of them had it).
29 Jun
29 Jun
3:27 p.m.
Are you sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't remember that at all.
Yes I am 100% sure my AT has ROM BASIC (that's the machine I am typing
this on, BTW). It's the later (8MHz) model, so I assume the older ones
had it too, certainly the manuals I have imply that.
It's pretty hard to get to in most AT ystems because it'll boot from the
floppy or hard drives rather than run ROM BASIC. But I suspect you could
pull the disk cotnroller card and it'll go into BASIC.
Another way to see it's got the ROM BASIC is that the same disk BASIC
runs on the PC/XT?AT machines _but not on the compatibles_. The IBM disk
BASIC is much shorter than the BASIC for compatibles becasue much of the
BASIC is in ROM
-tony
4:43 p.m.
On Jun 29, 2007, at 6:27 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
Neat! I used one for years, at a fairly technical level, and
never knew that.
Are you
sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't remember that at all.
Yes I am 100% sure my AT has ROM BASIC (that's the machine I am typing
this on, BTW). It's the later (8MHz) model, so I assume the older ones
had it too, certainly the manuals I have imply that. It's pretty hard to get to in most AT ystems
because it'll boot
from the
floppy or hard drives rather than run ROM BASIC. But I suspect you
could
pull the disk cotnroller card and it'll go into BASIC.
...and that's probably why I never knew it. ;)
Another way to see it's got the ROM BASIC is that
the same disk BASIC
runs on the PC/XT?AT machines _but not on the compatibles_. The IBM
disk
BASIC is much shorter than the BASIC for compatibles becasue much
of the
BASIC is in ROM
Ahh yes I remember that...I had an XT clone for a while (an 8MHz
V20; quite the screamer at the time!) and I managed to find copies of
the IBM BIOS w/BASIC, and ran those in the board...worked nicely. As
I recall, the BIOS was one EPROM and the BASIC interpreter was the
other four, and they were optional.
I recall something about BASIC.COM (or was it BASICA.COM?) being
basically a wrapper around the stuff in the ROMs...Did it add any
routines like disk I/O or anything like that?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
6:23 p.m.
On 29 Jun 2007 at 19:43, Dave McGuire wrote:
> Yes I am 100% sure my AT has ROM BASIC
(that's the machine I am typing
> this on, BTW). It's the later (8MHz) model, so I assume the older ones
> had it too, certainly the manuals I have imply that.
My first 80286 AT system was based around a Faraday "A Tease" board
that I bought sans BIOS ROMs. I copied the BIOS code using DEBUG
from a genuine PC-AT onto a floppy and burned my own
ROMs for the
Faraday. Worked fine and had 2 serial and 1 parallel port already on
the mobo. I used it until I upgraded to a 386 board. I still have
the schematics for it.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:35 p.m.
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007, Dave McGuire wrote:
Ahh yes I remember that...I had an XT clone for a
while (an 8MHz
V20; quite the screamer at the time!) and I managed to find copies of
the IBM BIOS w/BASIC, and ran those in the board...worked nicely. As
I recall, the BIOS was one EPROM and the BASIC interpreter was the
other four, and they were optional.
ahh, but do you know WHY the 5150 had those 5 ROMs, but 6 ROM sockets?
I recall something about BASIC.COM (or was it
BASICA.COM?) being
basically a wrapper around the stuff in the ROMs...Did it add any
routines like disk I/O or anything like that?
YES.
It even replaced a few routines that didn't work right
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7:19 p.m.
On Jun 29, 2007, at 9:35 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
No, but I'm betting you do. Care to share? ;)
It's nice that the original interpreter was designed to
accommodate such enhancements!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Ahh yes I
remember that...I had an XT clone for a while (an 8MHz
V20; quite the screamer at the time!) and I managed to find copies of
the IBM BIOS w/BASIC, and ran those in the board...worked nicely. As
I recall, the BIOS was one EPROM and the BASIC interpreter was the
other four, and they were optional.
ahh, but do you know WHY the 5150 had those 5 ROMs, but 6 ROM sockets? I recall
something about BASIC.COM (or was it BASICA.COM?)
beingbasically a wrapper around the stuff in the ROMs...Did it add
any
routines like disk I/O or anything like that?
YES.
It even replaced a few routines that didn't work right
8:16 p.m.
> ahh, but do you know WHY the 5150 had those 5
ROMs, but 6 ROM sockets?
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007, Dave McGuire wrote:
No, but I'm betting you do. Care to share? ;)
UNCONFIRMED MS story:
IBM asked MS how much room they would need for the BASIC. (not counting
BIOS)
MS said "32K"
IBM's engineers felt that they had to allow for some overrun, and put in 6
ROM sockets instead of 5, to permit the BASIC to go over up to 40K.
Some programmers at MS were offended by the "lack of trust"; so, when the
BASIC ended up smaller than 32K, they padded it out with incomplete
enhancements to bring it up to EXACTLY 32K.
The guy from MS who told me that is dead, so I have no way to confirm it.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
30 Jun
30 Jun
6:12 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
The first hard disk I saw in a 5150 used a controller with a ROM installed
in that
socket. I'm pretty sure that it was 3rd party, don't remember the company.
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.9.14/880 - Release Date: 6/29/2007
2:15 PM
> ahh, but
do you know WHY the 5150 had those 5 ROMs, but 6 ROM sockets?
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007, Dave McGuire wrote:
No, but I'm betting you do. Care to
share? ;)
UNCONFIRMED MS story:
IBM asked MS how much room they would need for the BASIC. (not counting
BIOS)
MS said "32K"
IBM's engineers felt that they had to allow for some overrun, and put in 6
ROM sockets instead of 5, to permit the BASIC to go over up to 40K.
Some programmers at MS were offended by the "lack of trust"; so, when the
BASIC ended up smaller than 32K, they padded it out with incomplete
enhancements to bring it up to EXACTLY 32K.
The guy from MS who told me that is dead, so I have no way to confirm it.
12:40 p.m.
On Sat, 30 Jun 2007, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
The first hard disk I saw in a 5150 used a controller
with a ROM installed
in that
socket. I'm pretty sure that it was 3rd party, don't remember the company.
"MBI" sold an expansion ROM for that socket. I don't remember what it
did; maybe CGA graphics screen print? I should dig it out and dump it.
29 Jun
29 Jun
7:51 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
The other way to do it is to remove IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS (or IBMBIO.COM
and IBMDOS.COM) from your hard drive and leave both floppy drives empty.
If memory serves, it will tell give you the non-system disk error
message a couple of times before dumping you to ROM BASIC.
Peace... Sridhar
Are you
sure the AT has ROM BASIC? I don't remember that at all.
Yes I am 100% sure my AT has ROM BASIC (that's the machine I am typing
this on, BTW). It's the later (8MHz) model, so I assume the older ones
had it too, certainly the manuals I have imply that.
It's pretty hard to get to in most AT ystems because it'll boot from the
floppy or hard drives rather than run ROM BASIC. But I suspect you could
pull the disk cotnroller card and it'll go into BASIC.
8:05 p.m.
On 29 Jun 2007 at 22:51, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> It's pretty hard to get to in most AT ystems
because it'll boot from the
> floppy or hard drives rather than run ROM BASIC. But I suspect you could
> pull the disk cotnroller card and it'll go into BASIC.
...So my not write a little file called, oh, GOBASIC.COM that
contains the following 4 bytes?
CD 18 CD 20
If there's a BASIC in ROM, that should get to it, no? The extra two
bytes are there just to catch things if there's no BASIC ROM.
Cheers,
Chuck
30 Jun
30 Jun
11:11 a.m.
--- Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
Couldn't you just G XXXX:XXXX (don't ask me the
specific memory location) in debug and get their that
way?
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It's
pretty hard to get to in most AT ystems
because it'll boot from the
floppy or hard drives rather than run ROM BASIC.
But I suspect you could
pull the disk cotnroller card and it'll go
into
BASIC.
The other way to do it is to remove IO.SYS and
MSDOS.SYS (or IBMBIO.COM
and IBMDOS.COM) from your hard drive and leave both
floppy drives empty.
If memory serves, it will tell give you the
non-system disk error
message a couple of times before dumping you to ROM
BASIC.
1:37 p.m.
On Sat, 30 Jun 2007, Chris M wrote:
Certainly. But it might not be the same address on all, so it's more
reliable to do an INT 18h which should have the current entry point.
message a
couple of times before dumping you to ROM
BASIC.
Couldn't you just G XXXX:XXXX (don't ask me the
specific memory location) in debug and get their that
way?
28 Jun
28 Jun
4:45 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Most PS/2 machines have it. Only the absolute latest ones, like the 85
and 95 don't. It was even included in some post-PS/2 machines. I think
it only disappeared completely when IBM stopped using BIOS that were
written specifically for each machine and moved to something "standardized".
They don't have the cassette port, though, of course.
Peace... Sridhar
On 27 Jun 2007
at 20:17, Jim Leonard wrote:
ROM BASIC is present on the PC, XT/Portanble and AT at least. I have no
idea if it was fitted to any PS/2 machines. Could you elaborate? I've never found a
single program that will work
on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
Including ROM BASIC that writes and
reads cassette tapes?
29 Jun
29 Jun
6:57 a.m.
I only saw the cassette ports (next to the keyboard ports) on the very
early IBM PC's which were generally the ones that were shipping I think
with only 64K installed. Then the later shipped IBM PC's with fully
installed memory no longer had the cassette ports (some of the cases had
a plastic cover over the port, then the cases completed had the cassette
port hole omitted completely and that was it on those...
Curt
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
Most PS/2 machines have it. Only the absolute latest ones, like the
85 and 95 don't. It was even included in some post-PS/2 machines. I
think it only disappeared completely when IBM stopped using BIOS that
were written specifically for each machine and moved to something
"standardized".
They don't have the cassette port, though, of course.
Peace... Sridhar
On 27 Jun
2007 at 20:17, Jim Leonard wrote:
ROM BASIC is present on the PC, XT/Portanble and AT at least. I have
no idea if it was fitted to any PS/2 machines. Could you elaborate? I've never found a
single program that will
work on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
Including ROM BASIC that writes
and reads cassette tapes?
28 Jun
28 Jun
4:57 p.m.
On 28 Jun 2007 at 23:06, Tony Duell wrote:
IIRC, cassette I/O went via a software interrupt (INT
15????). The
routines in later BIOSes (XT, AT, etc) returned without doing anything,
bnt since all said BIOSes supported extension ROMs, I see no good reason
why you couldn't have a BIOS extension and a little hardware to add
cassette I/O to the later machines, if you were insane enough to want it.
Now you're being pedantic, Tony! i'm not aware of any stock plug-in
adapter that gives one 5150-style cassette I/O on a 5160. I might as
well claim that I could run Windows XP on a 5160, given the right
hardware and software additions.
I stand by my answer.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:30 p.m.
On 28 Jun 2007 at 23:06, Tony Duell wrote:
> why you couldn't have a BIOS extension and a little hardware to add
> cassette I/O to the later machines, if you were insane enough to want it.
On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
well claim that I could run Windows XP on a 5160,
given the right
hardware and software additions.
Ahhh.
But Tony qualified it with "if you were insane enough to want it".
I had a 386 board in an XT. But, in an uncharacteristic bout of sanity, I
didn't try to run Windoze.
I stand by my answer.
I don't think that
there is any real disagreement.
It isn't likely to occur, but it is POSSIBLE to create hardware or
software that is specific to any exact configuration.
My former publisher wanted to negotiate an "exclusive" deal with IBM, so
they demanded that I create a version of Xeno-Copy that would refuse to
run on anything other than OEM IBM. An inadequately labelled copy of that
"limited edition" ended up in the hands of PC-World, who used it as "the
acid test of compatibility". Sales were seriously hurt by the incorrect
statements that Xeno-Copy would not run on clones and compatibles.
But, ... later on, I created "XenoPhobe : The acid test"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
29 Jun
29 Jun
3:36 p.m.
On 28 Jun 2007 at 23:06, Tony Duell wrote:
You;'ve been on this list long enough to know that I'm often pedantic ;-)
IIRC, cassette I/O went via a software interrupt
(INT 15????). The
routines in later BIOSes (XT, AT, etc) returned without doing anything,
bnt since all said BIOSes supported extension ROMs, I see no good reason
why you couldn't have a BIOS extension and a little hardware to add
cassette I/O to the later machines, if you were insane enough to want it.
Now you're being pedantic, Tony! i'm not aware of any stock plug-in adapter that gives one 5150-style cassette I/O on a
5160. I might as
Nor am I. I was just saying it's possible, using documented software
interfaces.
well claim that I could run Windows XP on a 5160,
given the right
hardware and software additions.
Oh come on. There's a big difference between writing an extension ROM,
which follows a well-docuemtned pattern, to implement a well-documented
function and replacing the procesosr, memory system (I doubt you'll get
anywhere with XP in 640K), expanding the address bus, replacing the video
system (XP won't run on nn MDA or CGA card), etc, etc, etc.
-tony
6:14 p.m.
On 29 Jun 2007 at 23:36, Tony Duell wrote:
Oh come on. There's a big difference between
writing an extension ROM,
which follows a well-docuemtned pattern, to implement a well-documented
function and replacing the procesosr, memory system (I doubt you'll get
anywhere with XP in 640K), expanding the address bus, replacing the video
system (XP won't run on nn MDA or CGA card), etc, etc, etc.
And yet, that's pretty close to what some folks were doing. ;)
Witness the Microsoft Mach 20 (80286, memory, floppy (HD support)) or
the Intel Inboard 386 PC/XT. Folks were willing to spend a lot to
keep that funky 5160 case! :)
Cheers,
Chuck
30 Jun
30 Jun
11:02 a.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 29 Jun 2007 at 23:36, Tony Duell wrote:
So I guess Big Blue wasn't reponsible for the "use
and toss" era of personal computering after all.
You're right, having dumped a considerable amount of
money into one, they were quick to let it go. Those
are some of the most curious collectible attachments
these days, though I'm sure they caused their original
owners more then a few headaches...
____________________________________________________________________________________
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Oh come on. There's a big difference between
writing an extension ROM,
which follows a well-docuemtned pattern, to
implement a well-documented
function and replacing the procesosr, memory
system (I doubt you'll get
anywhere with XP in 640K), expanding the address
bus, replacing the video
system (XP won't run on nn MDA or CGA card),
etc,
etc, etc.
And yet, that's pretty close to what some folks were
doing. ;)
Witness the Microsoft Mach 20 (80286, memory, floppy
(HD support)) or
the Intel Inboard 386 PC/XT. Folks were willing to
spend a lot to
keep that funky 5160 case! :)
28 Jun
28 Jun
5:35 p.m.
--- Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
Could you elaborate? I've never found a single
program that will work
on, say, my 5150 but not my 5155 or 5160...
There were BIOS revisions. Was that likely to provide
any kinks regarding compatibility?
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See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.
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6:43 p.m.
On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Chris M wrote:
There were BIOS revisions. Was that likely to
provide
any kinks regarding compatibility?
Of course!
The documented BIOS function calls were kept pretty closely alike.
But, for example, what was the content of BP after an Int10h call?
Joe Campbell ("C Programmer's Guide To Serial Communication", etc.) was
once commissioned by Hayes to work out what "Hayes compatible" was.
Many Hayes modems were not.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7:58 p.m.
On 28 Jun 2007 at 18:43, Fred Cisin wrote:
Of course!
The documented BIOS function calls were kept pretty closely alike.
But, for example, what was the content of BP after an Int10h call?
One of the more useful things to have around in this respect are the
Phoenix BIOS books. Not only do they call out what gozinta and
gozouta each BIOS routine, but the memory cells used by each routine
and what they contained--as well as the entry point address of each
routine (some early code simply did a far CALL to the BIOS routine
entry point). But even that wasn't perfect.
Way back whne in the PC-AT days, I wrote a little program called
AT720K or something like that that allowed one to use a 96 tpi 5.25"
720K diskettes in the 5.25" 1.2MB drive under DOS without loading any
drivers. It simply intercepted the BIOS INT 13H vector and reset the
"double step" bit in low BIOS RAM for a particular drive.
Problen was that it worked for a *lot* of "AT-compatible" BIOSes, but
not all. Seems that some vendors decided to define their flags
differently.
BIOSes were hell back them--I still have a whole load of BIOS
snapshots somewhere as debugging detritus. I used to send a customer
with a BIOS problem a boot disk that grabbed the BIOS image and wrote
it to floppy. The customer sent the diskette back and I had my
sample to scratch my head over.
Cheers,
Chuck
5:07 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 26 Jun 2007 at 14:48, Chris M wrote:
umm, well I posted some of the correspondence right
here on the list some time ago. I'll do it again as
the mood strikes me (and I'm able to locate it). The
scheme relied on a scant bit of logic that would ring
bells whenever certain IO or memory locations were
accessed, and divert to a handler that could, well,
handle it. I know what you're saying, the differences
in the serial ports and k/b and whatnot, but the guy
seemed to believe he could manage all of that. It
seems at least partially credible, but I had some
questions myself.
Maybe it would produce only 82.5% compatibility. All
I know I wanted some friggin games to run on my old
T2K, and I would have been happy. Anyone remember
Starflight? First thing I had loaded on my ITT Xtra XP
(hybrid '286). OI Except for DOS that is!
FWIW, I was in contact w/a dude in the Chicago
area
some time ago who had been working on a mod for
the
Tandy 2000 that would make it 100% PC compatible.
It
involved an extensive rewrite of IO.sys, which I
had
thought would be a big no-no, but from what
you're
saying, not really. I do believe he was hacking
Tandy's specific DOS though. Never finished it
sadly.
Not possible, unless you mean by "100% compatible",
compatible on a
BIOS level. That might well be possible, but it's
small comfort,
given the number of old DOS programs that twiddle
the hardware
directly. I wonder if the 80186 in the 2K might also cause
some programs to
mistakenly assume that it's running on a 286, as the
186 has a number
of the 286 instructions not present on an 8086.
What programs determine which uP they're running on
"on the fly"? Isn't that usually determined at the
beginning?
There was some discussion on a Usenet group regarding
*slight differences* between *identical* instructions
on the 8086 and 80186, causing some s/w to
malfunction. This didn't have to do w/the '186's
integral peripherals, but rather subtle differences in
the way instructions executed on the 186 (?). As to
what the problem was, or what they were even talking
about, nah, I haven't a clue.
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27 Jun
27 Jun
11:41 a.m.
On 6/26/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote:
There were a few Unisys '286 boxes that UIM don't run
DOS. The Televideo Personal Mini PM/4t/PM/16t don't
run DOS (not natively anyway). I'm sure the Northstar
Dimension don't neither. There are others.
I have a beastly 80386 based Banyan VNS100 server that, I'm pretty sure,
only runs VINES. I haven't fired it up yet, but seeing as how it only does
serial terminal connections for direct I/O, I'm pretty sure it won't want to
run DOS.
2:19 p.m.
Hi,
I have a beastly 80386 based Banyan VNS100 server
that, I'm
pretty sure, only runs VINES....
....serial terminal connections for direct I/O, I'm pretty sure
it won't want to run DOS.
I can't get at my copy right now, but it might be worth investigating DR's
"Concurrent" DOS?
ISTR running it on a '386, with a multi-port serial card, sometime in the
early-mid 90's....it worked pretty well from what I remember.
TTFN - Pete.
28 Jun
28 Jun
5:32 p.m.
--- Jason McBrien <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> wrote:
I have a beastly 80386 based Banyan VNS100 server
that, I'm pretty sure,
only runs VINES. I haven't fired it up yet, but
seeing as how it only does
serial terminal connections for direct I/O, I'm
pretty sure it won't want to
run DOS.
Well I guess it's a far gone conclusion that if the
box doesn't have an IBM 5150 style BIOS, it's not
going to run DOS.
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6:44 p.m.
On 28 Jun 2007 at 17:32, Chris M wrote:
Well I guess it's a far gone conclusion that if
the
box doesn't have an IBM 5150 style BIOS, it's not
going to run DOS.
I've got a fax-capture box that hooks between a PC printer port and a
printer. It uses an 80c188, has 256K of DRAM and a 37C65-driven
1.44M floppy and, when I last looked, a PC-style BIOS. I haven't
looked to see where the INT 10H and INT 16H vectors go, but if I
could figure out how to do simple I/O via the parallel port, I
suspect that I could make it run MS-DOS of some flavor. It uses
FAT12-formatted diskettes.
Runs from a 9VAC wall wart.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:31 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
I've got a fax-capture box ...
I want one
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29 Jun
29 Jun
6:48 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
> I've got a fax-capture box ...
On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Chris M wrote:
I want one
I have a "Printer Pal" from HP that interrupts the cable between PC and
Deskjet (not sure which models) and to phone line to do incoming faxes on
the printer
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
30 Jun
30 Jun
2:22 a.m.
On 30/06/07, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Ohh takes me back. One of my first tasks in my first full time
programming job (circa 1990) was to work with two devices called
"telexbox" and "faxbox". These acted a little like serial printers,
but 'printing' to telex and telephone lines respectively. You dropped
a file of text into them, and they would queue up messages for
sending. They'd also receive them and hand them back to you. They had
a unique command set, to allow you to manage the queues, etc.
(I think they were actually designed so they could be used as "dumb
ascii" serial printers if needed - the dial/addressing commands could
be placed in the first line of text sent when printing your
word-processed document.)
My job was writing a front end on a multi-user BOS system (in COBOL!)
to let each user send and receive messages independantly, manage their
own queues, etc, but not see other users' activity (unless they were
supervisor level).
It was also about the only time I ever used the telex->Prestel gateway
- it helped to have somewhere to send test messages to and receive
them from!
Rob
--- Chuck
Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
> I've got a fax-capture box ...
I have a "Printer Pal" from HP that interrupts the cable between PC and
Deskjet (not sure which models) and to phone line to do incoming faxes on
the printer
11:07 a.m.
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
I want that too. What's inside (regardless I still
want it!) :)
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--- Chuck
Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
> I've got a fax-capture box ...
On Thu, 28 Jun 2007, Chris M wrote:
I want one
I have a "Printer Pal" from HP that interrupts the
cable between PC and
Deskjet (not sure which models) and to phone line to
do incoming faxes on
the printer
11:45 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
care to share an example?
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....far gone conclusion that if the box
doesn't
have an
IBM 5150 style BIOS, it's not going to run
DOS.
You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
MS-DOS....
29 Jun
29 Jun
9:59 a.m.
In article <900916.41812.qm at web61015.mail.yahoo.com>,
Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> writes:
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Apricot PCs. They were MS-DOS compatible, but not BIOS compatible.
Its the thing that effectively killed them as competitors in the US
marketplace, even if they had some good ideas compared to other PC
clones at the time. The lack of BIOS compatability is what prevented
them from running lots of PC software (particularly games, thus
killing it for being a "home computer"). They were not 100% IBM PC
compatible as a result.
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You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
MS-DOS....
care to share an example?
1:04 p.m.
On 29/06/07, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
In article <900916.41812.qm at web61015.mail.yahoo.com>,
Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> writes:
Well, true, but you're indulging in some sophistry there. For one, the
ACT Apricots didn't run /the IBM version/ of MS-DOS - they had their
own special edition, AFAIK. For a second, they did I believe have a
BIOS, again, their own one, not an IBM or compatible BIOS.
If the question were rephrased more specifically and precisely: can
one run the PC edition of MS-DOS on a machine with no BIOS at all or
with a non-PC-compatible BIOS?
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--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Apricot PCs. They were MS-DOS compatible, but not BIOS compatible.
Its the thing that effectively killed them as competitors in the US
marketplace, even if they had some good ideas compared to other PC
clones at the time. The lack of BIOS compatability is what prevented
them from running lots of PC software (particularly games, thus
killing it for being a "home computer"). They were not 100% IBM PC
compatible as a result. You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
MS-DOS....
care to share an example?
5:45 p.m.
Hi,
....the ACT Apricots didn't run /the IBM version/
of MS-DOS -
they had their own special edition, AFAIK....
Their own special version in as much as each CP/M system having it's "own
version" of CP/M.
MS-DOS was such a blatant copy of CP/M, that you could tailor it to your
target hardware in much the same way you did with CP/M. You pretty much just
needed to produce a custom "IO.SYS" for your hardware and you were away - in
the early days at least.
....they did I believe have a BIOS, again, their own
one, not
an IBM or compatible BIOS.
Correct, the BIOS was very much their of their own design.
In terms of their architecture, about the only similarity between the IBM PC
and the Apricot is that they use the i8088. Other than that....
....can one run the PC edition of MS-DOS on a machine
with no BIOS
at all....
I don't believe so; even if you could somehow coax the machine to boot
without a BIOS, I believe MS-DOS requires its presence.
....with a non-PC-compatible BIOS?
Depends which version of MS-DOS, I believe that at some point (MS-DOS 4?) M$
made it IBM only.
You'd also have to produce your own custom "IO.SYS", and I'm not sure if
"MSDOS.SYS" isn't involved here too.
TTFN - Pete.
6:02 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
You'd also have to produce your own custom
"IO.SYS",
and I'm not sure if
"MSDOS.SYS" isn't involved here too.
MSDOS.SYS is the basis for making DOS function calls,
no? So therefore if your hardware differed from a
5150s, you'd have to also rewrite that I suppose.
IO.SYS likewise provides the basis for making BIOS
calls.
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5:53 p.m.
--- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
On 29/06/07, Richard <legalize at xmission.com>
wrote:
Apricot PCs. They were MS-DOS compatible, but not BIOS compatible.
What do you mean by MS-DOS compatible (specifically)?
Think about it.
In article
<900916.41812.qm at web61015.mail.yahoo.com>,
Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com>
writes:
>
> --- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk>
wrote:
You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
MS-DOS....
care to share an example? Well, true, but you're indulging in some
sophistry
there. For one, the
ACT Apricots didn't run /the IBM version/ of MS-DOS
- they had their
own special edition, AFAIK. For a second, they did I
believe have a
BIOS, again, their own one, not an IBM or compatible
BIOS.
Remember, I didn't originally state "IBM compatible"
bios, but rather IBM style BIOS. In essence I guess
they could be thought of as saying the same thing - if
a program accesses hardware through a particular call
present in the 5150's bios, and it doesn't crash, it
could be said that the computer has an IBM compatible
bios. The Tandy 2000s bios is largely "IBM compatible"
in that sense, but the hardware varies significantly
from a 5150.
If the question were rephrased more specifically and
precisely: can
one run the PC edition of MS-DOS on a machine with
no BIOS at all or
with a non-PC-compatible BIOS?
The question comes down to this: does DOS in a more
or less stock configuration (whatever that entails)
calls the hardware through BIOS calls (loading a
register, generating and INT ?). How hacked up dos DOS
have to be in order to run on a puter w/no BIOS at all
(and I have to wonder if there are such machines. I
could stand to learn something, but I'm skeptical at
this point).
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7:23 p.m.
In article <759735.99156.qm at web61024.mail.yahoo.com>,
Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> writes:
What do you mean by MS-DOS compatible (specifically)?
Think about it.
I can tell you that software that talked to the system through MS-DOS
and BIOS interrupts worked properly, but software that depended on
entry points in the BIOS at specific addresses, or hardware located at
specific addresses failed.
In other words if you "stuck to the API", your application would run.
If you "accessed the hardware directly", your application would most
likely not run.
I've got an Apricot "Microsoft Pack" manual sitting right here in
front of me. It included MS-DOS, "various utilities" (edlin, etc.)
and GW-BASIC. It *is* MS-DOS from Microsoft, not from someone else.
It *isn't* an IBM PC compatible BIOS.
I don't have any detailed specifications on how the hardware differed
other than the BIOS. The earlier assertion that it was miles away
Apricot PCs. They were MS-DOS compatible, but not
BIOS compatible. from an IBM PC just isn't true. Peripherals and
drivers from 3rd
party manufacturers worked just fine in all the configurations we
sold
at the store where I worked (the only Apricot dealer in Delaware).
It was the software that was always the problem -- software that
didn't go through the BIOS or MS-DOS software interrupts but instead
accessed BIOS routines through specific addresses.
--
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Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
7:39 p.m.
In article <E1I4Sc0-0007uP-00 at xmission.xmission.com>,
Richard <legalize at xmission.com> writes:
I don't have any detailed specifications on how
the hardware differed
other than the BIOS. The earlier assertion that it was miles away
from an IBM PC just isn't true. Peripherals and drivers from 3rd
party manufacturers worked just fine in all the configurations we sold
at the store where I worked (the only Apricot dealer in Delaware).
Thinking about it more, my statement about peripherals might be
stretching it. I don't *recall* any problems with 3rd party
peripherals like modems and whatnot, but I am not 100% certain. The
F1 doesn't look like it has compatible connectors for standard IBM PC
peripherals, but ISTR that the Xi *did* have ISA slots. The F1 wasn't
intended to be expanded very much -- if you wanted expansion, it was
expected you would buy the Xi. At least that's how our store pitched
it.
--
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Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
30 Jun
30 Jun
5:04 p.m.
Thinking about it more, my statement about peripherals
might be
stretching it. I don't *recall* any problems with 3rd party
peripherals like modems and whatnot, but I am not 100% certain. The
I think the Apricots had pretty standard RS232 and Centronics ports, so
there shouldn't have been much problem
F1 doesn't look like it has compatible connectors
for standard IBM PC
peripherals, but ISTR that the Xi *did* have ISA slots. The F1 wasn't
intended to be expanded very much -- if you wanted expansion, it was
expected you would buy the Xi. At least that's how our store pitched
it.
At least some of the early Apricots had DIN41612 connectors (64 pin in a
2-row hosuing) for the expansion slots -- 2 or 3 slots depending on which
version of the mainboard you had. The signals were pretty much the 8086
bus, and thus similar to ISA.
Somewhere I have a 16 bit ISA card that has a DIN41612 connector on it,
and which lets you use an Apricot expansion board in a PC/AT machine. The
reverse would not be possible, since the Apricot case was too small to
fit ISA boards in.
-tony
29 Jun
29 Jun
12:57 p.m.
> You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
>MS-DOS....
care to share an example?
Victor 9000/Sirius 1
ACT Apricot PC series/ "F" series / "Xen" series (prior to
"Xen-i")
DEC Rainbow
Sanyo MBC-555
and many, *many* more....I.E. MS-DOS<>IBM compatible!
Oh, and there's also the "Gazelle" from "Seattle Computer" circa
1979; an
8088 based S-100(!) machine, and the machine which MS-DOS was actually
developed on!
5:43 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Loads bios from disk like a Tandy 2000. And the T2K
is one of the most compatible of the pseudos at the
BIOS/DOS level
> You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to
run
>MS-DOS....
care to share an example?
Victor 9000/Sirius 1 ACT Apricot PC series/ "F" series /
"Xen" series
(prior to "Xen-i")
Not sure.
DEC Rainbow
Doesn't have bios calls at all?
Sanyo MBC-555
I'd be real surprised if it was true of this one.
and many, *many* more....I.E. MS-DOS<>IBM
compatible!
Name them. I think you're totally *totally*
exaggerating.
Oh, and there's also the "Gazelle" from
"Seattle
Computer" circa 1979; an
8088 based S-100(!) machine, and the machine which
MS-DOS was actually
developed on!
True, but that was pre-DOS 1.0. I guess there are
exceptions (there are always a few scant exceptions)
but I'd be surprised to learn that most versions of
MS-DOS don't rely on BIOS code at all. But I could
stand to learn something there I guess.
I want to hear from Chuck and Fred on this one.
Anyone can quote from wikipedia (often of dubious value).
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6:18 p.m.
On 29 Jun 2007 at 17:43, Chris M wrote:
I want to hear from Chuck and Fred on this one.
Anyone can quote from wikipedia (often of dubious value).
There should be plenty of literature still kicking around for the NEC
9801 series. Ran a special (Microsoft-sanctioned) version of MS-DOS
and even Windows NT.
...and at least for DOS, I/O was performed through BIOS ROM calls.
The video was wildly different; I/O port assignments were different;
even diskette formats were different. But it was MS-DOS--and NEC had
almost 70% of the Japanese PC market.
I think some 9801 models even used the NEC V-series (e.g. V70)
processors.
Cheers,
Chuck
3 Jul
3 Jul
7:37 p.m.
Hi,
Loads bios from disk like a Tandy 2000....
Now I start to see the cause of your confusion.
Most (all?) non-IBM PC compatible MS-DOS machines load a BIOS from disc at
boot time. The IBM is fairly unusual in having it all in ROM.
Yes, MS-DOS needs *A* BIOS to operate, but that BIOS has to be "MS-DOS
compatible" for want of a better phrase (and tailored to that particular
hardware) rather than "IBM compatible".
I am, I've owned, used, hacked and programmed all of them....
Then look it up on the 'net and prepare to be surprised.... :-)
And I think, that rather than taking the lazy option you should find a
couple of on-line computer museums and see for yourself....there is *plenty*
of information about this out there if you actually bother to look.
> You don't need an IBM compatible BIOS to run
>MS-DOS....
care to share an example?
Victor 9000/Sirius 1 ....And the T2K is one of the most compatible of the
pseudos at
the BIOS/DOS level
There's nothing preventing a manufacturer from writing a BIOS for their
machine which has the same functions, entry points etc as IBM's BIOS if
that's what they want as long as they have the appropriate permissions.
That only became an issue when the PC rose to the top of the pile and "IBM
compatability" became desirable; whereupon the non-compatibles faded into
obscurity.
ACT Apricot PC
series/ "F" series / "Xen" series
(prior to "Xen-i")
Not sure. Sanyo MBC-555
I'd be real surprised if it was true of this one. ....and many,
*many* more....I.E. MS-DOS<>IBM
compatible!
Name them. I think you're totally *totally*
exaggerating.
8:36 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
You needed permissions simply to utilize the same
entry points? I can imagine that being an issue today,
but as long as you weren't mimicking their code too
closely, you were ok.
one.
Then look it up on the 'net and prepare to be
surprised.... :-)
The Sanyo was pretty much PC compatible, not totally
of course, but I'm not so sure I'd classify it as a
pseudo-compatible. So right there we know it had a
*somewhat* IBM compatible BIOS, rom or disk based I
don't know.
Bill Sudbrink wrote the review in BYTE many moons
ago. If he's listening in, he'd be able to answer
right off the bat I suppose. HEY BILL!! You there.
All I have is dial-up access at the moment, and it's
generally painful to do anything more then check
e-mails and whatnot. I will look into it though.
And I think, that rather than taking the lazy option
you should find a
couple of on-line computer museums and see for
yourself....there is *plenty*
of information about this out there if you actually
bother to look.
The majority of PC's were IBM compatible to a large
degree and had onboard BIOS roms. If we're solely
talking about strictly about pseudo-compatibles -
there just weren't that *many*...
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Now I start to see the cause of your confusion.
Most (all?) non-IBM PC compatible MS-DOS machines
load a BIOS from disc at
boot time. The IBM is fairly unusual in having it
all in ROM.
And this amounts to confusion? If there's a BIOS
present, it's irrelevant whether it resides in a chip
or gets loaded from disk.
Yes, MS-DOS needs *A* BIOS to operate, but that BIOS
has to be "MS-DOS
compatible" for want of a better phrase (and
tailored to that particular
hardware) rather than "IBM compatible".
Remember, I never used the term "IBM compatible", but
rather "IBM style". To clarify, I guess what I meant
was that DOS itself utilizes BIOS routines for
hardware access - my guess. Not necessarily
exclusively, but it seemed unlikely any version of
MS-DOS would run on an 80x86 based computer -
regardless of how close or not it's architecture was
to the 5150's - you weren't running or even porting a
version of DOS to it.
....And the T2K
is one of the most compatible of
the pseudos at
the BIOS/DOS level
There's nothing preventing a manufacturer from
writing a BIOS for their
machine which has the same functions, entry points
etc as IBM's BIOS if
that's what they want as long as they have the
appropriate permissions. That only became an issue when the PC rose to the
top of the pile and "IBM
compatability" became desirable; whereupon the
non-compatibles faded into
obscurity.
I am, I've owned, used, hacked and programmed all of
them....
But did it load a BIOS from disk? I'm assuming by
this that it didn't reside in a rom.
> ACT Apricot PC series/ "F" series /
"Xen"
series
(prior to
"Xen-i")
Not sure. Sanyo MBC-555
I'd be real surprised if it was true of this ....and many, *many* more....I.E. MS-DOS<>IBM
compatible!
Name them. I think you're totally *totally*
exaggerating.
3:42 p.m.
Well I guess it's a far gone conclusion that if
the
box doesn't have an IBM 5150 style BIOS, it's not
going to run DOS.
The HP110 and HP150 don't have an IBM style BIOS -- the techncial manuals
make the point that they are not bios-function cmpatible with the PC. But
they run (a customised version of) MS-DOS. There was even a Microsoft
Windows 1.x for the HP150.
-tony
26 Jun
26 Jun
3:15 p.m.
On 26/06/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Depends. A Compaq SystemPro (really early SMP PC) is still a PC, it's
just a PC that could do interesting things running Unix. A Sequent
multi-proc server isn't a PC, 'cos it won't run PC OSs or apps, so
it's marginally more interesting, but it's still relatively mainstream
compared to some of the exotica that people have been suggesting here.
So would a Sun 386i be.
--- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
It's one. If it runs all the programs from PCs, it's a PC. PCs are a
commonplace, mass-market item and therefore, to the sorts of
collectors who hang out here, for example, not that interesting.
I'm curious as to why you're becoming so exercised over this?
If it runs IBM PC programs of its time period -
whether that's Windows
or Lotus 1-2-3 or whatever - then it's a PC.
Many pseudo-compatibles had to have PC programs
ported to their particular architecture. So the
criteria for uninteresting has become whether or not
it can run a particular program/s? About
the only time a PC
compatible is interesting in architectural or design
terms is if it's
something like a BBC Master 512 - a 2nd processor in
an alien computer
connected over a CPU-to-CPU bus. Thus, there's some
interest in
hardware PC cards for the various Macs, in the
add-in boards for the
Acorn RISC PC (I have one here, if I ever get it
working) and so
forth.
What about dual or triple processor machines that
just happent to have an 80x86? Are they immediately
deemed uninteresting? It seems that some boxes w/an
Intel processor can often be some of the rarest pieces
around. I can give you a list if you like and
challenge you to find 2 or 3 others on this list with
one, sometimes their won't even be another single
person. The problem is when people utter those words
it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
Not really, no. I've seen lots of non-PC-compatible x86 kit; I even
wrote an article about it for Wikipedia before some little idiot
deleted it, which I'm not happy about.
Linux? We seem to be diving off topic there. And
I'll
grant there are many OS' more interesting then DOS.
But if you're rendering all DOS based machines
uninteresting, you may as well throw CP/M, TRS-DOS and
a number of others in with it. Remember this is a
vintage forum. If you want real *interesting* stuff,
you'd typicall fare better somewhere else, interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Why would you discard pre-PC machines? You're throwing the baby out
with the bathwater. Ancestors of PCs need not be PCs themselves.
Keep in mind there are at least a few Intel based
boxes that won't even run DOS at all.
You're repeating yourself...
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3:30 p.m.
On 26/06/07, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
Not really, no. I've seen lots of
non-PC-compatible x86 kit; I even
wrote an article about it for Wikipedia before some little idiot
deleted it, which I'm not happy about.
Pardon me for commenting to myself, but I decided to go and so some
digging and a copy of the article still exists on Search.com. It may
be of some interest to people hereabouts.
http://www.search.com/reference/Non-PC_compatible_x86_computers
I've also copied it for posterity (ha!) on my blog.
http://lproven.livejournal.com/189791.html
--
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28 Jun
28 Jun
4:53 p.m.
--- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
It's one thing to run *a* program, quite another to
run *all*. *The* PC and Apples, Commodores, etc.
actually share a few if you've never noticed.
immediately
What's irrelevant to the thread may not be irrelevant
to all discussion on this list. And most of what you
mentioned in the preceding is seemingly too new to be
relevant at all.
Please forward it.
?. I wasn't the one discarding anything. It just
follows that if talk of pcish/dosish stuff is
off-topic due to it's uninterestingishness, other
*uninteresting* topics would by necessity follow. Now,
I don't find talk of Trs-dos/CP/M uninteresting. If I
had, I'd simply ignore it, and keep my trap shut.
Sadly it's often necessary, albeit often futile...
____________________________________________________________________________________
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> --- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
wrote:
So the
criteria for uninteresting has become whether or
not
it can run a particular program/s?
It's one. If it runs all the programs from PCs, it's
a PC. PCs are a
commonplace, mass-market item and therefore, to the
sorts of
collectors who hang out here, for example, not that
interesting.
Congratulations on your promotion as spokesperson for
all of us.
I'm curious as to why you're becoming so
exercised
over this?
I haven't even broken a sweat. If you're wondering
why I reply to such rhetoric, dunno, guess it kills
the day.
> About
> the only time a PC
> compatible is interesting in architectural or
design
> terms is if it's
> something like a BBC Master 512 - a 2nd
processor in
> an alien computer
> connected over a CPU-to-CPU bus. Thus, there's
some
interest
in
hardware PC cards for the various Macs, in the
add-in boards for the
Acorn RISC PC (I have one here, if I ever get it
working) and so
forth.
What about dual or triple processor machines that
just happent to have an 80x86? Are they deemed uninteresting? It seems that some boxes
w/an
Intel processor can often be some of the rarest
pieces
around. I can give you a list if you like and
challenge you to find 2 or 3 others on this list
with
one, sometimes their won't even be another
single
person.
Depends. A Compaq SystemPro (really early SMP PC) is
still a PC, it's
just a PC that could do interesting things running
Unix. A Sequent
multi-proc server isn't a PC, 'cos it won't run PC
OSs or apps, so
it's marginally more interesting, but it's still
relatively mainstream
compared to some of the exotica that people have
been suggesting here.
So would a Sun 386i be. The problem
is when people utter those words it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
Not really, no. I've seen lots of non-PC-compatible
x86 kit; I even
wrote an article about it for Wikipedia before some
little idiot
deleted it, which I'm not happy about. Linux? We
seem to be diving off topic there. And
I'll
grant there are many OS' more interesting
then
DOS.
But if you're rendering all DOS based
machines
uninteresting, you may as well throw CP/M, TRS-DOS
and
a number of others in with it. Remember this is
a
vintage forum. If you want real *interesting*
stuff,
you'd typicall fare better somewhere else,
interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Why would you discard pre-PC machines? You're
throwing the baby out
with the bathwater. Ancestors of PCs need not be PCs
themselves. Keep in mind
there are at least a few Intel based
boxes that won't even run DOS at all.
You're repeating yourself...
29 Jun
29 Jun
1:11 p.m.
On 29/06/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote:
Er, right.
immediately
What's irrelevant to the thread may not be irrelevant
to all discussion on this list. And most of what you
mentioned in the preceding is seemingly too new to be
relevant at all.
SystemPros are too new? They're nearly 20y ago!
Please forward it.
I did, in a follow-up message.
There's a version of it here:
http://www.search.com/reference/Non-PC_compatible_x86_computers
?. I wasn't the one discarding anything. It just
follows that if talk of pcish/dosish stuff is
off-topic due to it's uninterestingishness, other
*uninteresting* topics would by necessity follow. Now,
I don't find talk of Trs-dos/CP/M uninteresting. If I
had, I'd simply ignore it, and keep my trap shut.
The thread - which I think has been a pretty successful, wide-ranging
discussion; I've certainly found it very entertaining - was about
weird and unusual /computers/ in general. Not micros, not PCs. I
submit that by the standards of diversity that the world's seen in the
last 70-odd years of computing, the PC is a very vanilla machine
indeed. Indeed, it's arguably /the/ most vanilla, because it is
probably the single architecture with the largest number of OSs, the
largest number of apps, the largest number of individual units, the
largest number of users and the largest number of 3rd-party binary and
plug-compatible versions. The PC is, I suspect, the baseline, that to
which all others ultimately will be compared. It is the very
/definition/ of the "ordinary computer".
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--- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
It's one thing to run *a* program, quite another to
run *all*. *The* PC and Apples, Commodores, etc.
actually share a few if you've never noticed.
I don't follow. I know of no single binary that'll run on all of them,
except in a VM of some form, such as the UCSD p-System or the Infocom
runtime.
> --- Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>
wrote:
So the
criteria for uninteresting has become whether or
not
it can run a particular program/s?
It's one. If it runs all the programs from PCs, it's
a PC. Congratulations on your promotion as spokesperson
for
all of us.
Oh, come /on./ Even the spinoff thread on rare & interesting PC
compatibles has been marked as offtopic!
I'm
curious as to why you're becoming so exercised
over this?
I haven't even broken a sweat. If you're wondering
why I reply to such rhetoric, dunno, guess it kills
the day. > About
> the only time a PC
> compatible is interesting in architectural or
design
> terms is if it's
> something like a BBC Master 512 - a 2nd
processor in
> an alien computer
> connected over a CPU-to-CPU bus. Thus, there's
some
interest
in
hardware PC cards for the various Macs, in the
add-in boards for the
Acorn RISC PC (I have one here, if I ever get it
working) and so
forth.
What about dual or triple processor machines that
just happent to have an 80x86? Are they deemed uninteresting? It seems that some boxes
w/an
Intel processor can often be some of the rarest
pieces
around. I can give you a list if you like and
challenge you to find 2 or 3 others on this list
with
one, sometimes their won't even be another
single
person.
Depends. A Compaq SystemPro (really early SMP PC) is
still a PC, it's
just a PC that could do interesting things running
Unix. A Sequent
multi-proc server isn't a PC, 'cos it won't run PC
OSs or apps, so
it's marginally more interesting, but it's still
relatively mainstream
compared to some of the exotica that people have
been suggesting here.
So would a Sun 386i be. The problem is when people utter those words
it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
Not really, no. I've seen lots of non-PC-compatible
x86 kit; I even
wrote an article about it for Wikipedia before some
little idiot
deleted it, which I'm not happy about. Linux? We seem to be diving off topic there. And
I'll
grant there are many OS' more interesting
then
DOS.
But if you're rendering all DOS based
machines
uninteresting, you may as well throw CP/M, TRS-DOS
and
a number of others in with it. Remember this is
a
vintage forum. If you want real *interesting*
stuff,
you'd typicall fare better somewhere else,
interesting
typically signifying cutting-edge.
Why would you discard pre-PC machines? You're
throwing the baby out
with the bathwater. Ancestors of PCs need not be PCs
themselves.
26 Jun
26 Jun
10:11 p.m.
Hi,
OK, it's blatantly obvious from that comment to Liam that you're determined
to misconstrue what he's saying at all costs.
Goodbye, I'm not wasting any more breath....
TTFN - Pete.
....So the criteria for uninteresting has become
whether
or not it can run a particular program/s?
Nope, the criteria for "uninteresting" is whatever the individual collector
deems those criteria to be for himself....
But basically,
a PC compatible is a PC compatible.
We've all seen a thousand of them. Who cares any more?
The problem is when people utter those words it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
28 Jun
28 Jun
5:20 p.m.
--- Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Yeah I'm real bad that way huh? So prattling on about
what a *specific* individual finds interesting or not
is appropriate for the list?
Hi,
Agreed. But you and he are in significant
disagreement on this point it seems.
....So the criteria for uninteresting has become
whether
or not it can run a particular program/s?
Nope, the criteria for "uninteresting" is whatever
the individual collector
deems those criteria to be for himself.... > But
basically, a PC compatible is a PC
compatible.
>We've all seen a thousand of them. Who
cares any
more?
The problem is when people utter those words
it's
really indicative of a unit with an 80x86.
OK, it's blatantly obvious from that comment to Liam
that you're determined
to misconstrue what he's saying at all costs. Goodbye, I'm not wasting any more breath....
Hey take care. A bit of advice for you on your
journey though. You can get sooo much more done if you
press the keys w/your fingers rather then blow on
them. You must be worn out!
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers
- Check it out.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469
29 Jun
29 Jun
3:46 p.m.
Goodbye, I'm not wasting any more breath....
Hey take care. A bit of advice for you on your
journey though. You can get sooo much more done if you
press the keys w/your fingers rather then blow on
them. You must be worn out!
30 Jun
30 Jun
2:01 a.m.
On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 23:46 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
e possible input device was a pressure switch operated
by blowing or
sucking.
Yup. I had the guts of such a device lying around for a long time, from
a project started and abandoned by the medical electronics company my
Dad worked for. The idea was that by sucking or blowing you could move
a cursor to select a letter and then "click" it. I actually got it to
work quite well, but by that point the investors had moved onto another
shiny thing.
Gordon
22 Jun
22 Jun
4:37 p.m.
How many MPUs had no provision for interrupts? The Rockwell PPS-8 is
one that comes to mind. What's surprising is that it was used in the
Diablo dot-matrix printer--something you'd think that was a very good
candidate for an interrupt-driven architecture.
Cheers,
Chuck
5:05 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
How many MPUs had no provision for interrupts? The
Rockwell PPS-8 is
one that comes to mind. What's surprising is that it was used in the
Diablo dot-matrix printer--something you'd think that was a very good
candidate for an interrupt-driven architecture.
I don't think Motorola's 1 bit processer had that feature.
Cheers,
Chuck
9:25 p.m.
On 22 Jun 2007 at 18:05, woodelf wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
You'd actually call the MC14500 a processor? Golly, can't add, no
program counter, basically a 1 bit logic unit.
Speaking of 1 bit oddities, does anyone on the list collect PDP-14s
or even PDP-16s? Just curious.
Cheers,
Chuck
How many MPUs had no provision for interrupts?
The Rockwell PPS-8 is
one that comes to mind. What's surprising is that it was used in the
Diablo dot-matrix printer--something you'd think that was a very good
candidate for an interrupt-driven architecture.
I don't think Motorola's 1 bit processer had that feature.
9:40 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
You'd actually call the MC14500 a processor? Golly, can't add, no
program counter, basically a 1 bit logic unit.
How does one implement a 1-bit program counter? Seems to me being able
to distinguish between two program instructions doesn't seem *all* that
useful. 8-)
Peace... Sridhar
How many MPUs had no provision for interrupts? The
Rockwell PPS-8 is
one that comes to mind. What's surprising is that it was used in the
Diablo dot-matrix printer--something you'd think that was a very good
candidate for an interrupt-driven architecture.
I don't think Motorola's 1
bit processer had that feature.
10:02 p.m.
On 23 Jun 2007 at 0:40, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
How does one implement a 1-bit program counter? Seems
to me being able
to distinguish between two program instructions doesn't seem *all* that
useful. 8-)
The program counter (like memory and its addressing as well as
registers to hold a jump target) was to be provided externally. The
MC14500 handled data in 1-bit chunks, but had a 4-bit instruction
word. But the exact meaning of the JMP instruction was left up to
the customer.
When I first saw the datasheet for that silly chip, I thought one
could do considerably more with a sequencer consisting of a ROM and a
latch.
Cheers,
Chuck
23 Jun
23 Jun
3:44 a.m.
"Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 23 Jun 2007 at 0:40, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Some of the more clever designs avoided a program counter by having
the program cycle around sequentially and repeatedly. Why put the
concept of a PC into the engine if the engine doesn't need the concept
of a PC?
And the most clever designs avoided jump targets too by never having
the program take a branch. They would use the conditional-skip
codes to skip the instructions they didn't want, in the never ending
repeating instruction stream.
For industrial controllers, the above is really a very good match.
If you want to be really really sure you can't smash the stack or
start executing data, not only not having a stack but not having a
PC in the traditional sense was a huge advantage.
Now the minimalist industrial-controller mindset is not out there
very much today. Everyone carries around ipods and cellphones and all sorts
of junk sold by having a bazillion features and submenus.
Tim.
How does one implement a 1-bit program counter?
Seems to me being able
to distinguish between two program instructions doesn't seem *all* that
useful. 8-)
The program counter (like memory and its addressing as well as
registers to hold a jump target) was to be provided externally.
22 Jun
22 Jun
10:06 p.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
How does one implement a 1-bit program counter? Seems
to me being able
to distinguish between two program instructions doesn't seem *all* that
useful. 8-)
Well the same logic is used with "Press any key to format drive C:
Press any other key to Abort".
Peace... Sridhar
24 Jun
24 Jun
7:59 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Speaking of 1 bit oddities, does anyone on the list
collect PDP-14s
or even PDP-16s? Just curious.
I have the processor boards and some I/O from a PDP-14, but alas no
chassis or backplane. I also have the documentation and paper tapes of
the development environment for the PDP-8: BOOL-14, PAL-14, and SIM-14.
23 Jun
23 Jun
12:10 a.m.
On Jun 22, 2007, at 7:37 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
How many MPUs had no provision for interrupts? The
Rockwell PPS-8 is
one that comes to mind. What's surprising is that it was used in the
Diablo dot-matrix printer--something you'd think that was a very good
candidate for an interrupt-driven architecture.
Some of the lower-end PIC microcontrollers lack interrupts. Dunno
if microcontrollers fall under the OP's definition of "computers"
though.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10:09 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Jun 22, 2007, at 7:37 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Some of the lower-end PIC microcontrollers lack interrupts. Dunno if
microcontrollers fall under the OP's definition of "computers" though.
That reminds me that a very fast cpu chip was designed for very fast
multi-tasking.Poiled I/O is faster than a IRQ could be because you
can change threads very quickly.
-Dave
22 Jun
22 Jun
4:55 p.m.
What else was there? What other machines -
general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
How about , the 3 Rivers PERQ. OK, it _could_ be a unix box (but with a GUI
before such things were at all common). It also ran an OS called POS
written in Pascal. The user interface is somewhat similar to, say, RT11,
though.
What makes the PERQ odd is the processor. Yes, it's von Neumann. It has
256 general-pupose registers, with (in later versions) an index register
to address the registers (!). The microcode which determines the
instruction set is not stored in ROM, but in RAM, and is loaded from disk
when the machine boots. Difference OSes had different microcode, and you
(the user) were expected to write your own microcode, at least under POS.
Oh, and the CPU registers/ALU are 20 bits wide (24 bits in the T4), which
is unusual.
Another odd thing for the time is that there was no text mode on the
display. Only a bitmapped graphics mode. There was a graphics accelerator
on the CPU board (the so-called 'rasterop machine') to move bitmaps
around, and which caued this machine to have a text display rate much
faster than the typical serial terminals of the time. That was, I am
told, a design spec
They're not that rare (in that several people here have them, I think),
but they're interesting. I should perhapc qualifiy that by saying the T4
(24 bit model) _is_ seriously rare.
-tony
5:14 p.m.
On 23/06/07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Fascinating - thanks for that, Tony!
I've read about PERQs but I've never seen one; I don't believe I know
anyone who has one.
--
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What else was
there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
How about , the 3 Rivers PERQ. [...]
23 Jun
23 Jun
2:29 p.m.
I've read about PERQs but I've never seen one;
I don't believe I know
anyone who has one.
They can't be that rare, I've got 4 of them. OK, the AGW3300 (PERQ 3a) is
a PERQ in name only -- it's a 68020-based unix box, albeit with a
graphics processor using a pair of 29116s. But the other 3 are
classic-PERQs with the soft-microcoded CPU, etc.
I don;t know how manyo other PERQ owners are here, but I would be
suprised if there were none.
There are a number of PERQ manuals on bitsavers if you want to find out
more about these interesting machines.
-tony
24 Jun
24 Jun
1:03 p.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
On 23/06/07, Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Fascinating - thanks for that, Tony!
I've read about PERQs but I've never seen one; I don't believe I know
anyone who has one.
They seem "reasonably" common in the UK, in that I'd guesstimate at 30-40
survivors (but it's hard to get a handle on how many 3a's might be lurking -
but then they're not really a PERQ anyway :-)
Not sure what the picture's like elsewhere in the world, but those sorts of
numbers aren't bad for a system that's reasonably bulky and (to my knowledge)
never sold in huge numbers anyway.
What else
was there? What other machines - general-purpose desktop (or
desk-side or whatever) computers were there that Thought Differently?
I'm not really thinking of embedded systems and the like here, but
thinks you sat in front of and worked upon.
How about , the 3 Rivers PERQ. [...]
1:50 p.m.
Hi
The Nicolet 1080 is a core memory machine with a 20 bit data word.
It can address 64Kx20 but can only have program in the first 32K.
They were only know to come in 12Kx20 and 24Kx20 that I know
of.
I doubt that even a thousand were made because it was a specialized
lab machine, very few remain today. I only know of 4 still in existance
today. 3 here on the west coast and one in the UK. Of these, only
mine and the one in the UK are know to be operational. The two
others could most likely be made to run but they are future projects
for their owners.
They had one nice feature to their BASIC and that is that it had
built in matrix operations. Things like cross multiply and such.
Collecting documents and software has been an experience. I
got some paper tape software from Austria and some good manuals
with schematics from Australia. Salam Ismail, that also has one, had
a nice pile of paper tapes and some early documents that helped
to get it debugged.
There is still a chance that there may be more out there. I
keep an eye out.
Dwight
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23 Jun
23 Jun
1:28 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
It also ran an OS called POS
Funny, I call many OSes "POS" nowadays...
--
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/
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2:39 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Not to be confused wht P/OS, which really is a PoS :-)
[For the unitiated :
POS = PERQ Operating Suystem (or Pascal Operating System, depending on
which manual you read. Runs on classic PERQs.
P/OS = Professional Operating System, an RSX-like thing with the most
lusing front end it has ever been my misfortune to use. Runs on DEC
Pro3xx machines,
PoS = Piece of Sh*t :-) ]
-tony
It also ran an OS called POS
Funny, I call many OSes "POS" nowadays...
24 Jun
24 Jun
9:58 a.m.
Liam Proven wrote:
What are the most bizarre, way-out or just plain
*different* machines
that folks have seen?
In terms of architecture, I suppose systems in which the guts were essentially
serial in nature (such as the Elliott 803) seem quite alien these days - and
weren't there a few Russian systems around way back which worked with trinary
rather than binary logic at the core?
Parallel systems in any form are probably worth a mention, too, even if the
users' perspective is usually just bashing out some code to run on them via a
more conventional system (Sun, PC, whatever).
In terms of cosmetic design, I'd have to give credit to systems which were
completely integral to the desk at which the user sat (HP 250, BCL SUSIE etc.)
In more recent times, did Sun ever manage to get a CPU running which directly
executed JAVA bytecode? (by recent I mean ten or so years ago now probably...
I remember futzing around with one of their Javastations back then, but I
believe they were just a conventional CPU and the true "Java chip" was still
in the design phase - I'm not sure if it ever left)
The various set-top boxes that I've seen have been pretty darn quirky too, at
least in terms of HCI (and as a demonstration in cost-cutting!). I'm yet to
see a good one. At least some of the Acorn models would actually boot a full
OS though given a bit of hacking (I seem to recall being able to kludge a Zip
drive onto them for storage)
10:40 a.m.
Hi,
Jules Richardson said:
serial in nature (such as the Elliott 803) seem quite
alien these days - and
weren't there a few Russian systems around way back which worked with trinary
rather than binary logic at the core?
SETUN, prototype 1957, about 50 produced. The original one was finally taken
out of service in 1975 after 17 years reliable use. The design was followed
by the SETUN-70 of which one survives, apparently.
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
6333
days inactive
6345
days old
220 comments
48 participants
participants (48)
-
alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
ats＠offog.org -
austin＠ozpass.co.uk -
bfoley＠compsoc.nuigalway.ie -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
caveguy＠sbcglobal.net -
cc＠corti-net.de -
cclist＠sydex.com -
chd_1＠nktelco.net -
chris＠mainecoon.com -
chrism3667＠yahoo.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠memory-alpha.org.uk -
curt＠atarimuseum.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
emu＠e-bbes.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
frustum＠pacbell.net -
g＠kurico.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
gpearce＠curiousgroup.co.uk -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
jbmcb1＠gmail.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
kth＠srv.net -
legalize＠xmission.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
onymouse＠garlic.com -
pcw＠mesanet.com -
pdp11_70＠retrobbs.org -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
rborsuk＠colourfull.com -
robert＠irrelevant.com -
rtellason＠verizon.net -
shoppa_classiccmp＠trailing-edge.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com -
teoz＠neo.rr.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com -
wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net