2 Jan
2021
2 Jan
'21
4:11 p.m.
This may be old news -- it was new to me, though.
https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as
well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
the time.
Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was
interested in boxes with graphics. :-)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lproven at gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven ? Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 ? ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
2 Jan
2 Jan
5:44 p.m.
On Sat, Jan 2, 2021, 7:11 PM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org wrote:
This may be old news -- it was new to me, though.
https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as
well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
the time.
Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was
interested in boxes with graphics. :-)
There is a SAGE II at Kennett Classic. When I give tours I like to compare
and contrast the SAGE with the IBM PC, Motorola 68000 vs Intel 8086.
If anyone is in the Philadelphia area stop by and we can fire them up.
Pascal.
Bill
6:08 p.m.
For one exciting moment there I thought that you were talking about the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - which a friend of mine was a tech on
in North Bay, ON, part of the DEW line!
I was getting ready to up stakes and hop off to Philadelphia!
cheers,
Nigel
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591 nw.johnson at ieee.org
On 2021-01-02 8:44 p.m., Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
On Sat, Jan 2, 2021, 7:11 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
This may be old news -- it was new to me,
though.
https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as
well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
the time.
Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was
interested in boxes with graphics. :-)
There is a SAGE II at Kennett Classic. When I give tours I like to compare
and contrast the SAGE with the IBM PC, Motorola 68000 vs Intel 8086.
If anyone is in the Philadelphia area stop by and we can fire them up.
Pascal.
Bill
6:23 p.m.
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote:
For one exciting moment there I thought that you were
talking about the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - which a friend of mine was a tech on
in North Bay, ON, part of the DEW line!
I was getting ready to up stakes and hop off to Philadelphia!
Well, perhaps somebody could entertain us by telling us, what differences
we might see between the two machines :-)
7:41 p.m.
On 1/2/2021 7:23 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote:
Better blinking lights is my guess for the Original. :)
A 32?/36? bit transistor mainframe often only had 15 bits of addressing,
the same as 128KB for early 68000 computer's.
Who was faster is open for debate, a main frame with mag tape
or a 68000 running floppies and 3 users.
Ben.
For one exciting moment there I thought that you
were talking about the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - which a friend of mine was a tech on
in North Bay, ON, part of the DEW line!
I was getting ready to up stakes and hop off to Philadelphia!
Well, perhaps somebody could entertain us by telling us, what
differences we might see between the two machines :-)
7:02 p.m.
North Bay is not on the DEW line the DEW line is above the arctic circle
and while North Bay may seem like the far north to some it is a long way
below the arctic circle is actually at about the level of the Pine Tree
Line.? CFB North Bay was the SAGE site for the 22nd NORAD region.? The
SAGE site was 600 ft under ground in a cavern carved out of solid rock.?
I had the good fortune of going on a tour of the underground while the
AN/FSQ-7 computers where still operating.
Paul.
On 2021-01-02 10:08 p.m., Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote:
For one exciting moment there I thought that you were
talking about the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - which a friend of mine was a tech on
in North Bay, ON, part of the DEW line!
I was getting ready to up stakes and hop off to Philadelphia!
cheers,
Nigel
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591 nw.johnson at ieee.org
On 2021-01-02 8:44 p.m., Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 2, 2021, 7:11 PM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>> This may be old news -- it was new to me, though.
>>
>>
>> https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
>>
>> I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as
>> well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
>> IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
>> the time.
>>
>> Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was
>> interested in boxes with graphics. :-)
>>
> There is a SAGE II at Kennett Classic. When I give tours I like to compare
> and contrast the SAGE with the IBM PC, Motorola 68000 vs Intel 8086.
>
> If anyone is in the Philadelphia area stop by and we can fire them up.
> Pascal.
>
> Bill
>
7:24 p.m.
I also had the opportunity to visit the UGC, but after operations had moved
aboveground. The followup to SAGE, the AN/FYQ93 (ROCC, SOCC, JSS) equipment
was still in place, but powered down. This was in 2007. I had previously
worked on both SAGE and the ROCC at McChord AFB as a computer maintenance
tech.
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
North Bay is not on the DEW line the DEW line is above
the arctic circle and
while North Bay may seem like the far north to some it is a long way below
the arctic circle is actually at about the level of the Pine Tree Line.? CFB
North Bay was the SAGE site for the 22nd NORAD region.? The SAGE site was 600
ft under ground in a cavern carved out of solid rock.? I had the good fortune
of going on a tour of the underground while the AN/FSQ-7 computers where
still operating.
Paul.
On 2021-01-02 10:08 p.m., Nigel Johnson via cctalk wrote:
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
For one exciting moment there I thought that you
were talking about the
Semi-Automatic Ground Environment - which a friend of mine was a tech on
in North Bay, ON, part of the DEW line!
I was getting ready to up stakes and hop off to Philadelphia!
cheers,
Nigel
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591 nw.johnson at ieee.org
On 2021-01-02 8:44 p.m., Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 2, 2021, 7:11 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>> This may be old news -- it was new to me, though.
>>
>>
>> https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
>>
>> I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as
>> well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
>> IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
>> the time.
>>
>> Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was
>> interested in boxes with graphics. :-)
>>
> There is a SAGE II at Kennett Classic. When I give tours I like to
> compare
> and contrast the SAGE with the IBM PC, Motorola 68000 vs Intel 8086.
>
> If anyone is in the Philadelphia area stop by and we can fire them up.
> Pascal.
>
> Bill
>
7:34 p.m.
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Liam via cctalk wrote:
I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They
were not as
well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
the time.
Possibly, they weren't aimed at the same target audience.
Perhaps they were intended more to compete with machines such as PDP-11,
rather than Apple][ and IBM PC.
I don't think that they were aimed at kids (of all ages) scrounging some
money to get a home computer.
They were out of my price range, as well.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
4 Jan
4 Jan
8 a.m.
On 2021-01-02 22:34, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Liam via cctalk wrote:
I was working 1981 with pdp11s and VAX780. Then I heard/read about the
68000, had to have one of those. Simple programming model, flat address
space and really good performance. Signed up at a startup in Germany in
1982, had a lot of fun with all of them(68000, '10, '20, '30, '40). We
basically only sold to research/labs.
Every time, somebody told us the PC is better, we asked them to run
their code on the 68000 and compare themselves. That's how easy it was
back than ;-)
We ran our own OS, own compilers, and also UCSD Pascal, CPM/68k, APL,
coherent Unix ...
Was a lot of fun. When I saw the Sage II on a fair, I thought it is a
pretty cool machine, but lacking graphics. Still was impressed with
their marketing ...
Cheers
?I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines.
They were not as
?well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
?IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
?the time.
Possibly, they weren't aimed at the same target audience.
Perhaps they were intended more to compete with machines such as PDP-11,
rather than Apple][ and IBM PC. 
10:18 a.m.
On Jan 4, 2021, at 11:00 AM, emanuel stiebler via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 2021-01-02 22:34, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
I was at DEC at the time, and I remember discussions around the office saying "this
is a VAX on a chip". The instruction set made it feel that way.
Not long after that, Apollo Computer was founded to build workstations using the 68000.
They found out the hard way it is NOT a VAX on a chip. The key design error is that the
68000 had page access aborts, not page faults -- they weren't restartable so you could
not create virtual memory using its page access flags. That mistake was fixed in the
68010. I vaguely remember that Apollo worked around the issue by using a pair of 68000
chips running one cycle apart, so when the abort hit on the lead one you could stop the
trailing one and fake a restartable page fault.
Some years later I wrote the fast packet handling code of the DECbridge 900 (?) -- FDDI to
6 Ethernet ports. That used a 68040 at 25 MHz, and with careful design it could process a
packet every 8 microseconds (12 microseconds if the destination address wasn't in the
address cache CAM). One trick was a memory system that did some operations on the rising
edge and some on the falling edge, i.e., effectively a "2.5 cycle" access. The
other (mine) was to use the fact that the 68040 had a "RISC subset" of
instructions and addressing modes that would run in one or two cycles, while the other
instructions took MUCH longer. By sticking to handwritten assembly language in the RISC
subset I could make it go very fast. It also required awareness of oddities like the fact
that branch-taken is faster than branch-not-taken, the opposite of pretty much every other
computer.
paul
On Sat, 2 Jan 2021, Liam via cctalk wrote:
I was working 1981 with pdp11s and VAX780. Then I heard/read about the
68000, had to have one of those. Simple programming model, flat address
space and really good performance. Signed up at a startup in Germany in
1982, had a lot of fun with all of them(68000, '10, '20, '30, '40). We
basically only sold to research/labs. I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines.
They were not as
well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and
IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of
the time.
Possibly, they weren't aimed at the same target audience.
Perhaps they were intended more to compete with machines such as PDP-11,
rather than Apple][ and IBM PC. 
3 Jan
3 Jan
2:18 a.m.
New subject: Stride computers, was Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On 03.01.21 01:11, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
This may be old news -- it was new to me, though.
https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
The story is around for several years already, but yes : interesting read indeed.
Speaking of which :
I am currently restoring 3 Stride 420 machines, the follow-up to the Sage machines.
Anyone has CP/M or PSystem IV.2.2? disks for these, and would like to share ?
( I have PSystem IV.2.1 and PDOS )
Also a copy of UniStride, the UNIX-V for the Stride 440 / 460 would be welcome.
I would need top reconstruct the MFM controller for UNIX use, but that would not be
unsurmountable.
Jos
6:27 a.m.
New subject: Stride computers, was Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On 2021-01-03 05:18, Jos Dreesen via cctalk wrote:
On 03.01.21 01:11, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
Just like to rise my hand, in case anybody likes to get rid of his SAGE
II or IV ... or even at a decent price. Have one, but never got it
really working :(
Cheers
This may be old news -- it was new to me,
though.
https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer
The story is around for several years already, but yes : interesting
read indeed.
Speaking of which :
9 Jan
9 Jan
12:39 p.m.
New subject: Stride computers, was Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On 2021-01-03 05:18, Jos Dreesen via cctalk wrote:
Hello Jos,
I saw on a German web, that you're planing on a SAGE II remake?
Still toying with it?
Cheers
1205
days inactive
1211
days old
12 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
billdegnan＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
emu＠e-bbes.com -
jos.dreesen＠bluewin.ch -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us -
nw.johnson＠ieee.org -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
phb.hfx＠gmail.com