19 Apr
2010
19 Apr
'10
3:21 a.m.
Hi,
what exactly is a Mohawk Data Sciences (MDS) Series 21? There's almost
nothing on the net about that system apart from one small article in the
July 1978 issue of Computer. Is it worth saving?
Christian
19 Apr
19 Apr
8:54 a.m.
On 4/19/10 3:21 AM, Christian Corti wrote:
Hi,
what exactly is a Mohawk Data Sciences (MDS) Series 21? There's almost
nothing on the net about that system apart from one small article in the
July 1978 issue of Computer. Is it worth saving?
Christian
There are a couple of interesting google hits on "mohawk data series 21"
21 appears to be a multi-terminal word processing system.
The facebook site has some interesting info on the early history of the company.
I had heard of them mainly as a supplier of key to tape systems.
If you do decide to scrap it, getting pics of the components/boards and noting
what the processor was would be of interest.
9 Jul
9 Jul
5:03 a.m.
On Mon, 19 Apr 2010, Al Kossow wrote:
If you do decide to scrap it, getting pics of the
components/boards and
noting what the processor was would be of interest.
Ok, so we've rescued the system. It is an MDS 21/40 (it was a 21/20,
built 1979, but has been upgraded around 1982) and came with a couple
of terminals. I expected an interesting CPU of some kind, but no, it's
"just" a Z80 system with currently 384(?) kB of RAM. BUT: the most
impressive thing is the Shugart 4008 hard disk with its clear plasic
cover, really nice to see!
The purpose of the system was data entry and processing. It can be
programmed in MOBOL, the Mohawk Business Oriented Language. It loosely
resembles COBOL but yet is very different.
I've scanned the MOBOL reference manual and the Series 21 operator's
guide. As always they can be found on our FTP server:
ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/cm/mds21/
(Al: you may pick up any of the documents on the FTP server for bitsavers)
BTW this system was still running until some months ago! It was used in a
bovine insemination institute (is that the correct term?)...
Christian
9:28 a.m.
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 08:55:16 -0700
From: aek at bitsavers.org
To:
Subject: Re: MDS Series 21
On 7/9/10 5:03 AM, Christian Corti wrote:
Hi
When ever I see MDS, the first thing I think of is the Intel
development systems. I realize these are not them but it always
catches my eye.
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
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(Al: you may pick up any of the documents on the
FTP server for bitsavers)
Thanks!
We received some documentation on the Goettingen G2 and G3 yesterday, which will be on
line soon.
9:41 a.m.
On 9 Jul 2010 at 9:28, dwight elvey wrote:
When ever I see MDS, the first thing I think of is
the Intel
development systems. I realize these are not them but it always
catches my eye.
I initially read the title as "MDS Series 2" and thought the same as
you initially. Then, when I read the body, I suspected that it might
mean a Mohawk system.
Even though I was acquainted with folks who worked at the Los Gatos
operation (curiously, a fair-sized Korean contingient), I knew very
little about the Mohawk systems. Did any use proprietary CPUs?
--Chuck
10:36 a.m.
Dwight wrote:
When ever I see MDS, the first thing I think of is
the Intel
development systems. I realize these are not them but it always
catches my eye.
A lot of Intel literature from the 80s had a disclaimer in fine print
about how MDS was *not* an Intel trademark, it was just an "ordering
code" or some such.
Of course, a lot of Intel literature from the 70s and 80s also claimed
that the instruction mnemonics for the 8080, 8085, 8086/8, etc. were
copyrighted. While I don't think they could have prevailed on that, it
may be a contributing factor to why Zilog invented an entirely different
set of mnemonics. (I always thought the Zilog ones made more sense
anyhow, e.g., "LD" for all instructions that load a register.)
Eric
12:28 p.m.
On 9 Jul 2010 at 10:36, Eric Smith wrote:
Of course, a lot of Intel literature from the 70s and
80s also claimed
that the instruction mnemonics for the 8080, 8085, 8086/8, etc. were
copyrighted. While I don't think they could have prevailed on that,
it may be a contributing factor to why Zilog invented an entirely
different set of mnemonics. (I always thought the Zilog ones made
more sense anyhow, e.g., "LD" for all instructions that load a
register.)
WYKIWYL. In 8086 parlance, the "LOAD" instruction went out of the
vocabulary but for a few instructions, such as LES or LEA.
Everything else became a MOVe. Perhaps that was necessary, as there
was no longer a one-to-one correspondence between the mnemonic form
and the code generated--there is often more than one way in machine
code to express an action. So you'll often see a discrepancy between
what MASM (or any other assembler) and what the DEBUG assembler
generates. C'est la vie.
--Chuck
10 Jul
10 Jul
7:27 a.m.
New subject: Apple II printer board
Hi
I just got a apple iie with what looks like a parallel printer
board. It has a connector to a push switch that I understand
was to print the current screen.
Waht I'm looking for is information on the setup switchs.
It is made by Texprint and has big letters "PRINT-IT!".
Any help?
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail.
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19 Apr
19 Apr
9:40 a.m.
On 19 Apr 2010 at 12:21, Christian Corti wrote:
what exactly is a Mohawk Data Sciences (MDS) Series
21? There's almost
nothing on the net about that system apart from one small article in
the July 1978 issue of Computer. Is it worth saving?
Didn't Mohawk have an outpost in Los Gatos during the 70's? I seem
to remember that they had a concentration of Korean programmers on
their staff.
--Chuck
5045
days inactive
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9 comments
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aek＠bitsavers.org -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com