13 Jan
2005
13 Jan
'05
8:10 a.m.
Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its demise, so
I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general.
--
A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early version
of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info on the
really early days of the company.
13 Jan
13 Jan
8:42 a.m.
Neil Franklin has a good archive - essily googled but fairly complete;)
http://neil.franklin.ch/Usenet/alt.folklore.computers/20001107_Coherent
-heinz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Kossow" <aek(a)spies.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: How the Mac was born... supposedly...
Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its
demise, so
I'd be happy to answer any questions about
Coherent or MWC in general.
--
A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early
version
of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me
in on some info on
the
really early days of the company.
8:58 a.m.
At one point, there was a web site (in Europe, I believe) that had a
complete archive of the Coherent distribution. Unfortunately, Coherent
has very few drivers and those that exist don't play well with modern
hardware. For example, Coherent's disk utility for setting up file
systems absolutely has problems with drives of any reasonable size
today (I had problems getting it to work with an 8 GB IDE drive, for
example).
Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"...
it's "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams Company
wrote most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X
Windows before the company folded. Even the C compiler was theirs (and
if I remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips).
When Coherent first came out, it cost something like $500... later, the
price dropped to $99. Unfortunately for MWC, Coherent started becoming
popular right about the time Linux took off, and it was kind of hard
for them to compete. Because Coherent was a "look-alike", there were
many programs used that were rather difficult to port to Coherent. I
remember struggling to get UUCP working properly and having to bug MWC
to fix problems so I could use Coherent for news exchange (this was
back before NNTP).
I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back when
a "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry
to see it go.
Mark Davidson
On Jan 13, 2005, at 11:10 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the company up until its
demise, so
I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general.
--
A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very
early version
of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info
on the
really early days of the company.
9:12 a.m.
Mark Davidson wrote:
Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not
"Coherent Unix"... it's
"Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams Company wrote
most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X Windows
before the company folded. Even the C compiler was theirs (and if I
remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips).
You are absolutely right; it was indeed called just "Coherent". I added the
Unix as a reminder as to what Coherent was. As for no AT&T code, you are also
100% right, and in fact I believe either K or Ritchie himself (can't remember
which one) came to MWC offices to verify it.
I had many happy months working with Coherent in those
days (back when a
"real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry to
see it go.
Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably
should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation.
The manual, if you can grab a copy, remains one of the very best Unix manuals
in existence. It is extremely well-written by Fred Butzen, and is extremely
comprehensive in not only the options to various commands but (more
importantly) Unix design concepts. It was great for total beginners; in fact,
I remember toward the end that Linux users were ordering Coherent just to get
the manual, because Linux documentation in 1994 was nearly non-existent.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
9:31 a.m.
Hi Jim--
On Jan 13, 2005, at 12:12 PM, Jim Leonard wrote:
Ack... yep, I remember that. I had fond memories as well of learning
"elle", the editor that shipped with the system.
Mark Davidson wrote:
Yes, I remember hearing that... it was certified by AT&T to be
completely free of their code.
Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's
not "Coherent Unix"...
it's "Coherent". It has NO AT&T code in it. The Mark Williams
Company wrote most of the code themselves, and eventually added
support for X Windows before the company folded. Even the C compiler
was theirs (and if I remember correctly, they had a great C compiler
for Intel chips).
You are absolutely right; it was indeed called just "Coherent". I
added the Unix as a reminder as to what Coherent was. As for no AT&T
code, you are also 100% right, and in fact I believe either K or
Ritchie himself (can't remember which one) came to MWC offices to
verify it.
I had many
happy months working with Coherent in those days (back
when a "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was
sorry to see it go.
Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he
probably should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP
implementation.
The manual, if you can grab a copy, remains one of the
very best Unix
manuals in existence. It is extremely well-written by Fred Butzen,
and is extremely comprehensive in not only the options to various
commands but (more importantly) Unix design concepts. It was great
for total beginners; in fact, I remember toward the end that Linux
users were ordering Coherent just to get the manual, because Linux
documentation in 1994 was nearly non-existent.
Yes indeed... the manual was quite impressive. In fact, I just found a
copy on EBay and put in a bid for it.
Mark
9:41 a.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just
dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari
that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800
system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible
to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator.
-Tom
--
Thomas Hudson
http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website
http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More
http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club
http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration
http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects
11:43 a.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Tom Hudson wrote:
Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari
8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not aware of
any programs to do it.
(update) Try looking here:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
12:07 p.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Cool! Thanks for the link, I guess it's time to roll out my MS-DOS
antique and slap a 5.25 drive into it...
-Tom
Jim Leonard wrote:
While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not
aware of any programs to do it.
(update) Try looking here:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html
--
Thomas Hudson
http://portdistrict5.org -- 5th District Aldermanic Website
http://portev.org -- Electric Vehicles, Solar Power & More
http://portgardenclub.org -- Port Washington Garden Club
http://portlightstation.org -- Light Station Restoration
http://klanky.com -- Animation Projects
3:53 p.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
Tom Hudson wrote:
Has no one ever heard of APE?
http://www.atarimax.com/
It's been around for a while now.
"APE is an astounding new product that unleashes the POWER of your Atari
8 Bit computer, by making all the resources of your PC available for its
use!
Using only an inexpensive PC to Atari interface cable, APE provides super
enhanced disk drive, modem, printer, ApeLoader Interactive Menu, PC MIRROR
services, AND MORE!"
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
Anybody know if it's possible to read old
Atari 8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
While Atari 8-bit disks are FM and MFM (compatible with PC), I am not aware of
any programs to do it.
(update) Try looking here:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/section-76.html 
15 Jan
15 Jan
8:04 a.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Has no one ever heard of APE?
Yes, I used there stuff some time ago. They sell ( or you can roll your
own ) an interface cable that goes between an ATARI disk drive and your PC.
All I can say is it does work. Their software also lets you connect an ATARI
computer to your PC but I think the interface cable is slightly modified. At
least this way you can get your code into your PC using an ATARI drive. Good
luck !
Best regards, Steven C
16 Jan
16 Jan
6:06 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the
Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868#
From the review: "If you look at today?s boring
beige boxes, or the sleek
design of the Mac, it?s hard to believe that personal
computers once had
personality. Where homogeneity is now the norm, 20 years ago everyone
marched to his own drummer, producing machines that looked, felt and worked
differently, and whose data and software was totally incompatible. Digital
Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer, by Gordon Laing,
celebrates those pioneering days in words and pictures, telling the tales of
44 early machines ranging from the MITS Altair to the NeXT Cube."
Arlen Michaels
6:15 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
I own this, it's a nice coffee table book with many colorful photos, but don't
look to it as a serious history text.
--- Arlen Michaels <arlen(a)acm.org> wrote:
There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The
Evolution and Design of the
Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868#
=====
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From the review: "If you look at today¹s
boring beige boxes, or the sleek
design of the Mac, it¹s hard to believe that
personal computers once had
personality. Where homogeneity is now the norm, 20 years ago everyone
marched to his own drummer, producing machines that looked, felt and worked
differently, and whose data and software was totally incompatible. Digital
Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer, by Gordon Laing,
celebrates those pioneering days in words and pictures, telling the tales of
44 early machines ranging from the MITS Altair to the NeXT Cube."
Arlen Michaels
6:40 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 12:06 -0500, Arlen Michaels wrote:
There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The
Evolution and Design of the
Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868#
Heh, that's my IBM PC in there - as I recall I gave up trying to find
all of its case screws, blanking plates and second floppy that morning,
so it ended up with an assortment of plates and two non-IBM clone drives
from my parts shelf... :-)
Looking at the website (www.digitalretro.co.uk) I had wondered about the
following: "Some of the machines had scratches or marks which were
digitally retouched."
The hardware we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty good condition, but
still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering
that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from
what I've seen of the book photos.
cheers
Jules
6:42 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
The hardware we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty
good condition, but
still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering
that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from
what I've seen of the book photos.
I heard they did have to cheat, of a sort, on some of the rarer models where
no pristine example was at their disposal. I think the original Mac 128K was
one of those, but I haven't seen the book yet.
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- So what's my point? I don't know, it's fun to talk about. -- Judy
Blackburn
6:21 p.m.
New subject: Mac 128, was Re: Desktops then and now (book review)
The hardware
we assembled at Bletchley was in pretty good condition, but
still not without years worth of general handling wear. Considering
that, the photographers and graphics team did a pretty good job from
what I've seen of the book photos.
I heard they did have to cheat, of a sort,
on some of the rarer models no pristine example was at their disposal. I think the
original Mac 128K
was
one of those, but I haven't seen the book yet.
Are these really that rare? I have a very nice one, as-new, with original
carry bag, printer, external floppy, manuals, etc, but didn't think it was
overly rare. I'll be happy enough if I'm wrong...
Mike.
17 Jan
17 Jan
11:01 a.m.
New subject: Mac 128, was Re: Desktops then and now (book review)
I heard they
did have to cheat, of a sort, on some of the rarer models
where
no pristine example was at their disposal. I
think the original Mac 128K
was
one of those, but I haven't seen the book
yet.
Are these really that rare? I have a very nice one, as-new, with original
carry bag, printer, external floppy, manuals, etc, but didn't think it was
overly rare. I'll be happy enough if I'm wrong... 
16 Jan
16 Jan
7:36 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
A more 'coffee table' type of book is the Taschen one:
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/design/all/facts/02976.htm
Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but concentrates on
the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the
photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a
fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that):
http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg
(Don't get too excited Sellam)
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 17:06, Arlen Michaels wrote:
There's a brief review of "Digital Retro: The
Evolution and Design of the
Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868#
(review snipped)
Arlen Michaels
--
Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence(a)ljw.me.uk
The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360
7:49 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
Half Price Books was selling this book for $9 and Amazon was at $12. john
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Wilkinson" <ljw-cctech(a)ljw.me.uk>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: Desktops then and now (book review)
A more 'coffee table' type of book is the
Taschen one:
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/design/all/facts/02976.htm
Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but concentrates on
the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the
photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a
fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that):
http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg
(Don't get too excited Sellam)
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 17:06, Arlen Michaels wrote:
There's a brief review of "Digital
Retro: The Evolution and Design of the
Personal Computer" by the British author Gordon Laing (Sybex, 2004) here:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57868#
(review snipped)
Arlen Michaels
--
Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence(a)ljw.me.uk
The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360
8:21 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On 16 Jan 2005, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote:
Lots of nice photos of mainframes, minis, micros, but
concentrates on
the 'design' (i.e. their appearance). It has a few basic errors but the
photos make up for it. In particular, the only time I have ever seen a
fashion model posing with an IBM mainframe (and a 360/30 at that):
http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360/photos/t360-30-4d2.jpg
(Don't get too excited Sellam)
That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
10:59 a.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
That's tame compared to some of the marketing
literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true?
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- BOND THEME NOW PLAYING: "Live and Let Die" ---------------------------------
1:13 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Are you being facetious?
At any rate, no, in this rare case I am not kidding. The brochures and
ads from the 1960s and 1970s were amazingly mysoginistic. If the editors
of FHM were alive back then, they'd be doing computer industry ads.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
That's
tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true? 
1:33 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Are you being facetious?
At any rate, no, in this rare case I am not kidding. The brochures and
ads from the 1960s and 1970s were amazingly mysoginistic. If the editors
of FHM were alive back then, they'd be doing computer industry ads.
You say that like there's something bad about it.
--- begin forwarded article ---
From: Crash Johnson <crashj(a)ezonline.spam.com>
Subject: Re: old ads (was Card...)
Date: 1998/11/21
Message-ID: <365775B2.C29595CC(a)ezonline.nospam.com>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
References: <7379ef$ckf(a)netaxs.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: Snow Crash Crew
Mime-Version: 1.0
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Lisa or Jeff wrote:
That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true?
> And a slightly off-topic question inspired by the comment upthread
> about sexist terms: back in the 1960s there was a DP company that
> ran a series of ads in _Datamation_ bragging that its (computer?
> editor? whatever?) was "able to understand COBOL, FORTRAN, and
> dumb blonde".
<>
If you were to look at business publications (ie trade
journals and
advertisements) from the 1960s you'd be shocked at the blatant sexism.
<>
In my sexist youth I kept notebook called "The Role of Women in
Engineering" which consisted of clippings from ads which featured
naked/seminaked/shapely women used to draw attention to products in
Mechanical Engineering, Design News, and Product Engineering from 1970
on. Many of these photos were shots by noted fashion photographers which
were used over & over again for different products. By 1985 these had
virtually disappeared from the technical magazines.
So since then I have had to subscribe to People Magazine.
--
Crash 'I'm so ashamed' Johnson
--- end forwarded article ---
-Frank McConnell
1:34 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
That's tame compared to some of the marketing
literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true? 
19 Jan
19 Jan
12:22 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 13:59 -0800, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
I feel that this should have been brought to my attention previously.
After so much work with the PDP-7 based solely on the hope that once I
got the CPU stepping through instructions, attractive women would flock
to both the computer and me...
You sure ruined this teenager's day.
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
That's
tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true? 
12:37 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
You sure ruined this teenager's day.
Hey - could be worse! The ad could have featured buck-toothed Geeks
with black-taped glasses sprawled out across the console - dressed in
skimpy tiger-print Speedos...
aaawwuuugghhhhh!!!
Some I disgust even *me*!!
Cheers
John
12:49 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
Thanks VERY much for that vivid image. I just had a TERRIBLE mental
overlay with that Bill Gates picture that's been making the rounds....
/me buys some MindWash(TM)
?rinse?
?lather?
?repeat?
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 18:37:57 -0500 (EST), John Lawson <jpl15(a)panix.com> wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
You sure ruined this teenager's day.
Hey - could be worse! The ad could have featured buck-toothed Geeks
with black-taped glasses sprawled out across the console - dressed in
skimpy tiger-print Speedos...
aaawwuuugghhhhh!!!
Some I disgust even *me*!!
Cheers
John
4:19 p.m.
New subject: Desktops then and now (book review)
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 13:59 -0800, Cameron Kaiser
wrote:
I feel that this should have been brought to my attention previously.
After so much work with the PDP-7 based solely on the hope that once I
got the CPU stepping through instructions, attractive women would flock
to both the computer and me...
You sure ruined this teenager's day.
Hey, as long as you got an 8" floppy disk then all options are open.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
That's tame compared to some of the marketing literature and
advertisements I've seen from the 1960s and 1970s. The basic message
could have been interpreted as, "this gorgeous woman loves this computer,
and so by extension she will love you too if you buy it", or, "woman make
good computer ornaments".
You're kidding! That isn't true? 
18 Jan
18 Jan
1:19 p.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi/
Coming in late on this one but in some of the docs on this site, the
Atari 800 is mentioned. I found it while looking for Apple readers but
it might work for the Atari. Documentation is pretty tough to
decipher, at least for me. Might work though.
BM
13 Jan
13 Jan
7:27 p.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
From: "Tom Hudson" <tomhudson(a)execpc.com>
Subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari
8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
Hi Tom
I've got a format in my conversion system saying "Atari 800 XL". You are
welcome to send me the floppies, and I'll see if it works (I've never tried
that format!)
Nico
15 Jan
15 Jan
6:23 a.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari
8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just
dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari
that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800
system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible
to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator.
-Tom
Hi Tom, I'm assuming you want to pull the data off the disks? There's
two options, the SIO2PC and the 10502PC. The SIO2PC is a SIO->PC Serial
interface that lets you hook up an Atari 8 bit, as well as chained drives
to a PC. the 10502PC lets you just hook up a floppy drive to your PC.
You can buy already made SIOTOPC kits here:
http://www.atariage.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=45_56&products_id=…
and here (including the required software):
http://www.atarimax.com/
AtariMax also sells the 10502PC setup (refered to as ProSystem).
Hope that help.
Marty
ClassicGaming.Com
Museum of Home Video Gaming And Computing
www.classicgaming.com/gamingmuseum
Atari Gaming Headquarters
www.atarihq.com
6:27 a.m.
New subject: Reading Atari 800 floppies?
Anybody know if it's possible to read old Atari
8-bit 5.25" floppies
with some sort of PC-based software?
I used to develop software for the Ataris and some co-workers just
dredged up some floppies with source code from projects I did for Atari
that were never released. We're trying to dig up a functional 800
system to read them but it would save a lot of hassle if it was possible
to read them directly into a PC, where we have a good emulator.
-Tom
Just to add to my previous post (after rereading your message), no,
there's no way to read an Atari 8 bit floppy directly on a pc floppy. The
methods I mentioned are the most common among Atari 8 bit hobbyists for
transfering data back and forth. 1050 drives are cheap enough on Ebay, as
are Atari 8 bits in general.
Marty
ClassicGaming.Com
Museum of Home Video Gaming And Computing
www.classicgaming.com/gamingmuseum
Atari Gaming Headquarters
www.atarihq.com
13 Jan
13 Jan
11:57 a.m.
Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing
in X when he probably
should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation.
Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams is to have Secret Weapons
of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran
Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all?
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- Out of my mind (back in an hour). ------------------------------------------
3:10 p.m.
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
None whatsoever. Coherent may still have been killed by Linux, but it was
killed at least 2-3 years early by the lack of TCP/IP networking (even PPP or
SL/IP!)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
Yes, our
founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably
should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation.
Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams is to have Secret Weapons
of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran
Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all? 
18 Jan
18 Jan
11:19 p.m.
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:57:57 -0800 (PST), Cameron Kaiser
<spectre(a)floodgap.com> wrote:
Now that's a real shame, because one of my dreams
is to have Secret Weapons
of Commodore running on a Secret Weapon: the Commodore 900, which ran
Coherent on a Z8001. Was there any kind of networking support at all?
Dunno, but even if you could whip up SL/IP or PPP on it, that'd be
something. It would probably have UUCP on it, but that's not helpful
for HTTP and/or NFS.
-ethan
13 Jan
13 Jan
11:21 a.m.
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005, Mark Davidson wrote:
I remember it, though I never used it.
Didn't Mark WIlliams Co make some good-quality CP/M-80 software
too? I seem to recall they were real stand-out in quality.
18 Jan
18 Jan
1:04 p.m.
On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:58:01 -0800, Mark Davidson <medavidson(a)mac.com> wrote:
At one point, there was a web site (in Europe, I
believe) that had a
complete archive of the Coherent distribution. Unfortunately, Coherent
has very few drivers and those that exist don't play well with modern
hardware. For example, Coherent's disk utility for setting up file
systems absolutely has problems with drives of any reasonable size
today (I had problems getting it to work with an 8 GB IDE drive, for
example).
The question is, does anyone have a copy of the original (8086)
version of Coherent. The closest I've seen is the 286 version. Did
the 8086 version really exist, or was it just vaporware?
Eric
19 Jan
19 Jan
6:19 a.m.
Eric J Korpela wrote:
The question is, does anyone have a copy of the original (8086)
version of Coherent. The closest I've seen is the 286 version. Did
the 8086 version really exist, or was it just vaporware?
It definitely wasn't vaporware because I saw it on the shelf when I was working
there (long after it had been discontinued). I am still kicking myself to this
day for not grabbing a copy.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
13 Jan
13 Jan
9:07 a.m.
Neil Franklin's archive (see other message in this thread) can give you a
better complete history than I can. I'd be happy to answer individual
questions, though :-)
Al Kossow wrote:
Anyone remember Coherent Unix? I worked at the
company up until its demise, so
I'd be happy to answer any questions about Coherent or MWC in general.
--
A rundown of the history would be interesting. I recovered a very early version
of the C compiler that DGC worked on, and he filled me in on some info on the
really early days of the company.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter(a)oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
7159
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aek＠spies.com -
arlen＠acm.org -
cannings＠earthlink.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dhbarr＠gmail.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
fmc＠reanimators.org -
h.wolter＠sympatico.ca -
jpl15＠panix.com -
jrkeys＠concentric.net -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
korpela＠gmail.com -
ljw-cctech＠ljw.me.uk -
mapleleafman＠gmail.com -
medavidson＠mac.com -
mike＠ambientdesign.com -
news＠computercollector.com -
nico＠farumdata.dk -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tomhudson＠execpc.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
toresbe＠ifi.uio.no -
trixter＠oldskool.org -
vcf＠siconic.com -
wgungfu＠csd.uwm.edu