5 Sep
2002
5 Sep
'02
7:42 a.m.
Hello,
I'm a student interested in retrocomputing. That's why I started
programming PDP-8 assembly a few days ago (Debian basically delivers all
you need to do that, i.e. simh and palbart). One problem I have is the
documentation. All that I found is either only a reference for the
PDP-8 instructions or the documentation of PAL III assembler. The third
thing I had as reference was the source code of OS/278. All in all, very
incomplete. Now I learned about the "Introduction to Programming" by
DEC, written for and about the PDP-8. Unfortunately I was unable to find
a copy of it on the internet. Now I ask whether anybody of you has a
copy of it (machine-readable preferred). In Austria, DEC hardware
doesn't seem to have been very popular at that time, so documentation
isn't easily available, either (it's even quite hard to get VAXen,
fortunately I did).
Thanks in advance,
Andreas Krennmair
--
"I treat [women] like compilers. They take simple statements and make
them into big productions."
-- Pitr
5 Sep
5 Sep
8:32 a.m.
Andreas Krennmair wrote:
Hello,
I'm a student interested in retrocomputing. That's why I started
programming PDP-8 assembly a few days ago (Debian basically delivers all
you need to do that, i.e. simh and palbart). One problem I have is the
documentation. All that I found is either only a reference for the
PDP-8 instructions or the documentation of PAL III assembler. The third
thing I had as reference was the source code of OS/278. All in all, very
incomplete. Now I learned about the "Introduction to Programming" by
DEC, written for and about the PDP-8. Unfortunately I was unable to find
a copy of it on the internet. Now I ask whether anybody of you has a
copy of it (machine-readable preferred). In Austria, DEC hardware
doesn't seem to have been very popular at that time, so documentation
isn't easily available, either (it's even quite hard to get VAXen,
fortunately I did).
Thanks in advance,
Andreas Krennmair
I have a very ratty paper coverless copy here.:)
I have not seen any thing
on the internet as well. The book covers mostly using a PDP-8 with paper
tape/TTY or a DECtape (TC08 controler) and the paper tape floating point
package. However programing the PDP-8 is fairly straight forward as you
only few instructions. The biggest problem is the memory limitation of the
PDP-8 -- 128 word pages. A two good 8 links are:
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/ basic programing
http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/pdp8/ software, hardware docs
Downloading the PDP-5 manual may be usefull as the PDP-8 is a similar
product.
11:22 a.m.
There are two on eBay right now, of variable (but low) rattiness.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1560100494
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2050017071
John A.
12:57 p.m.
John Allain wrote:
There are two on eBay right now, of variable (but low)
rattiness.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1560100494
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2050017071
John A.
How ever since I hate E-bay I will make my copy free for the asking.
I suspect somebody needs to do a scan of one as the original copy
was not the great.
6 Sep
6 Sep
2 p.m.
Just in case someone's interested:
http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/dec/pdp8/IntroToProgramming1969.pdf
I read about it in alt.sys.pdp8.
Regards,
Andreas Krennmair
--
Wie, ESR war in Deutschland und ist _nicht_ wegen Verbrechen gegen die
Menschlichkeit (fetchmail, das python-basierte linux-built-system, ...)
angeklagt und lebensl?nglich interniert worden!? Schei?e!1!!
-- Felix von Leitner in dasr
5:42 p.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
Does someone know of a low-cost solution for scanning documents to PDF
format? I'd like to start scanning some docs with my handy sheet-fed
flatbed scanner (HP G85), but what's the best way to get a stack of pages
into a single document?
Please forgive me if there's a really simple solution to this staring me in
the face, but I haven't found it yet.
-- Tony
9:18 p.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Tony Eros wrote:
Does someone know of a low-cost solution for scanning
documents to PDF
format? I'd like to start scanning some docs with my handy sheet-fed
flatbed scanner (HP G85), but what's the best way to get a stack of pages
into a single document?
What platform? If it's Linux or a Unix that prints to PostScript and
supports ghostview, you can print your scans to a file (mumble.ps), and
use the oh-so-originally-named ps2pdf to convert. ps2pdf uses ghostview
to do the translation.
Doc
7 Sep
7 Sep
1:58 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
The platform is Windows (he said sheepishly). I think ghostview runs under
Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
Thanks!
-- Tony
At 01:18 AM 9/7/2002 -0500, you wrote:
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Tony Eros wrote:
Does someone know of a low-cost solution for
scanning documents to PDF
format? I'd like to start scanning some docs with my handy sheet-fed
flatbed scanner (HP G85), but what's the best way to get a stack of pages
into a single document?
What platform? If it's Linux or a Unix that prints to PostScript and
supports ghostview, you can print your scans to a file (mumble.ps), and
use the oh-so-originally-named ps2pdf to convert. ps2pdf uses ghostview
to do the translation.
Doc 
2:40 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
Doc Shipley wrote:
On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Tony Eros wrote:
>The platform is Windows (he said sheepishly). I
think ghostview runs under
>Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
The trick in Windows is going to be printing to a
PostScript file.
Why? Just install a HP laserjet PS driver and have te output sent to a
file. All standard options.
-- hbp
1:11 p.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
At 01:40 PM 9/7/02 +0200, you wrote:
No, no standard options (I do this all the time): Click
"Print to a file". Then choose Laserjet properties.
( I use the HP Laserjet 4/4M driver).
In the postscript tab, choose "ADSC for portability"
as opposed to "Optimize for speed", the default.
Then, after the postscript file is produced, remove
the first few lines until the first line in the document starts with
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
Then remove the last few lines until the last line is
%%EOF
Only then you have a true postscript document.
These are easy to convert to pdf using ps2pdf.
By the way, this script comes with Ghostscript,
not Ghostview; Ghostview is just a graphics
front end for Ghostscript.
carlos.
carlos.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org
The trick in
Windows is going to be printing to a PostScript file.
Why? Just install a HP laserjet PS driver and have te output sent to a
file. All standard options.
-- hbp
5:42 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
Doc Shipley wrote:
On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Tony Eros wrote:
True but easy to do. You add a PS printer and print to that
but writing to a file instead.
I have ps2pdf but for the life of me I can't remember where
I got it. PS2PDF is a command line only program.I also zip
my PDF file as it is smaller and my ISP does not permit *.pdf
files for some reason.
The platform is Windows (he said sheepishly). I
think ghostview runs under
Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
The trick in Windows is going to be printing to a PostScript file.
Doc 
6:24 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Doc Shipley wrote:
If you don't mind crappy algorithmically created Postscript, just
"install" a Postscript printer. Then "print to file", instead of to
the
non-existent printer.
The platform
is Windows (he said sheepishly). I think ghostview runs under
Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
The trick in
Windows is going to be printing to a PostScript file. 
8:39 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
If you're running Windows, you want Cygwin (http://cygwin.com) which is
a unix environment foe Windows, GCC, bash shell & everything (even a
port of XFree86). It has a port of ps2pdf.
Tony Eros wrote:
The platform is Windows (he said sheepishly). I think
ghostview runs
under Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
9 Sep
9 Sep
6:15 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Tony Eros wrote:
The platform is Windows (he said sheepishly). I think
ghostview runs under
Windows, but I'll have to take a look around for ps2pdf.
Thanks!
-- Tony
That's ok, if it'll run windows it's easy enough to upgrade to
Linux/NetBSD/FreeBSD/OpenBSD... It'll make your PC run many times better
as well :-)
--
-Linc Fessenden
In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded - Yeah right...
7 Sep
7 Sep
3:33 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
I don't think you can scan them directly into a PDF format. AFIK PDF is propriatary to
Adobe and I think you have to have their software to convert your image files to PDF.
Their software also probably combines the individula files into one PDF file. Again this
shows up on E-bay occasionally so you might look there and see what's available and/or
check Adobe's website.
Joe
At 10:42 PM 9/6/02 -0400, you wrote:
Does someone know of a low-cost solution for scanning
documents to PDF
format? I'd like to start scanning some docs with my handy sheet-fed
flatbed scanner (HP G85), but what's the best way to get a stack of pages
into a single document?
Please forgive me if there's a really simple solution to this staring me in
the face, but I haven't found it yet.
-- Tony
4:06 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
From: "Joe" <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com>
I don't think you can scan them directly into a PDF format. AFIK PDF is
propriatary to Adobe and I
think you have to have their software to convert your
image files to PDF.
Their software also
There are some other vendors than Adobe's rather expensive Distiller. I use
PDF Factory from FinePrint (www.fineprint.com), and a search at download.com
shows a number of other tools. I can highly recommend PDF Factory, it's
worked flawlessly for me, and the Pro version supports links and bookmarks.
Jim
8 Sep
8 Sep
8:27 a.m.
New subject: HP ET8855 - Logic Analyzer Demonstration System
I recently picked one of these up. It's a flat panel with a pair of
boards, one marked 8080 and the other marked 6800. Both boards have ZIF
processor sockets (the one on the 8080 board is empty). There's a set of
four seven-segment LEDs on the 6800 board. The panel includes a pair of
toggle switches (run/hold below the 8080 board, run/reset below the
6800) There's a bnc plug marked 'logic probe' and a set of switches marked
"reset", "cnt up", "cnt dn", "clear" and
"stop".
Does anyone have any idea what it's for?
-- Tony
1:42 p.m.
New subject: HP ET8855 - Logic Analyzer Demonstration System
Tony,
I've seen stuff like that for logic analyzers. They're just small scale
computers and are used to teach/demonstrate how to use a logic analyzer. I have
instructions for one here somewhere (from Gould I think). I don't have the device but
the docs show the schematic and contain the listing of the EPROM on it and it's VERY
simple. You can make it "run" a short program that's in EPROM and you use
that to demonstrate how to setup the LA to trigger when certain data appears and also set
to trigger on the Nth appearance of certain data. The EPROM also has some sections with
all 0s and alternating 1s and 0s and that's used for some other demo but I don't
recall exactly what they were for.
The BNC connector on your's is almost certainly to supply 5 VDC for a HP logic
probe. HP built all (or some) of their probes to get power from a BNC connector and
included the BNC power point on many of their instruments.
"reset", "cnt up", "cnt
dn", "clear" and "stop".
Sounds like the SW on the board just has a simple counter program. Reset the CPU so
that it restarts at address 0. Make it count up or down, clear the counter without
resetting and stop the counter.
If you don't need it. I'd like to play with it.
Joe
At 01:27 PM 9/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
I recently picked one of these up. It's a flat
panel with a pair of
boards, one marked 8080 and the other marked 6800. Both boards have ZIF
processor sockets (the one on the 8080 board is empty). There's a set of
four seven-segment LEDs on the 6800 board. The panel includes a pair of
toggle switches (run/hold below the 8080 board, run/reset below the
6800) There's a bnc plug marked 'logic probe' and a set of switches marked
"reset", "cnt up", "cnt
dn", "clear" and "stop".
>
>Does anyone have any idea what it's for?
>
>-- Tony
>
>
3:37 p.m.
New subject: HP ET8855 - Logic Analyzer Demonstration System
Joe -
Ahh, that makes sense -- thanks for the info. It sounds kind of cool, but
I don't think I'll have much use for it so it's yours for the cost of
shipping if you'd like.
I'll box it up and drop you a note with the total.
-- Tony
At 05:49 PM 9/8/2002 +0000, you wrote:
Tony,
I've seen stuff like that for logic analyzers. They're just small
scale computers and are used to teach/demonstrate how to use a logic
analyzer. I have instructions for one here somewhere (from Gould I
think). I don't have the device but the docs show the schematic and
contain the listing of the EPROM on it and it's VERY simple. You can
make it "run" a short program that's in EPROM and you use that to
demonstrate how to setup the LA to trigger when certain data appears and
also set to trigger on the Nth appearance of certain data. The EPROM also
has some sections with all 0s and alternating 1s and 0s and that's used
for some other demo but I don't recall exactly what they were for.
The BNC connector on your's is almost certainly to supply 5 VDC for a
HP logic probe. HP built all (or some) of their probes to get power from
a BNC connector and included the BNC power point on many of their instruments.
"reset", "cnt up", "cnt
dn", "clear" and "stop".
Sounds like the SW on the board just has a simple counter
program. Reset the CPU so that it restarts at address 0. Make it count
up or down, clear the counter without resetting and stop the counter.
If you don't need it. I'd like to play with it.
Joe
At 01:27 PM 9/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
I recently picked one of these up. It's a
flat panel with a pair of
boards, one marked 8080 and the other marked 6800. Both boards have ZIF
processor sockets (the one on the 8080 board is empty). There's a set of
four seven-segment LEDs on the 6800 board. The panel includes a pair of
toggle switches (run/hold below the 8080 board, run/reset below the
6800) There's a bnc plug marked 'logic probe' and a set of switches marked
"reset", "cnt up", "cnt
dn", "clear" and "stop".
>
>Does anyone have any idea what it's for?
>
>-- Tony
>
>
5:03 p.m.
New subject: HP ET8855 - Logic Analyzer Demonstration System
At 08:37 PM 9/8/02 -0400, you wrote:
Joe -
Ahh, that makes sense -- thanks for the info. It sounds kind of cool, but
I don't think I'll have much use for it so it's yours for the cost of
shipping if you'd like.
I'll box it up and drop you a note with the total.
-- Tony
OK that sounds good. You have my address. I guess those sort of things aren't much
good unless you like to tinker with Logic Analyzers.
Joe
7 Sep
7 Sep
3:57 a.m.
New subject: Scanning documents to PDF
Tony Eros wrote:
Does someone know of a low-cost solution for scanning documents to
PDF format? I'd like to start scanning some docs with my handy
sheet-fed flatbed scanner (HP G85), but what's the best way to get a
stack of pages into a single document?
My current route, which is due to David Gesswein (http://pdp8.net/)
1. Scan at 600dpi B/W and save to individual TIFF files.
2. Clean up scans (crop, removing blotches, etc.) This is the
time-consuming bit!
3. Combine the TIFFs and convert to Group 4 compression at the same time
with tiffcp command from the tools provided with libtiff
(http://www.libtiff.org). Binaries are available for Windows as well.
4. PDF supports this format natively, so you just have to run some
wrapper software, c42pdf. The website for this is
http://c42pdf.ffii.org, but I got my copy from David Gesswein, because I
think he has made some mods to it. This program is so fast that David
uses it in a CGI script to allow page ranges to be selected from the
TIFF file and served up as PDF on the fly.
Libtiff and c42pdf are free. I can't imagine why you'd want to go
through PS to get to PDF!
- Paul
7965
days inactive
7969
days old
22 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
a.krennmair＠aon.at -
allain＠panix.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
carlos_murillo＠epm.net.co -
celigne＠celigne.freeserve.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
hansp＠aconit.org -
jamesl＠bestweb.net -
jim＠jkearney.com -
lincoln.fessenden＠verizon.net -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
tony.eros＠machm.org