12 Jan
2012
12 Jan
'12
4:55 p.m.
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a number
of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, including a
six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System.
The report is available in PDF at
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_Syst…
Cheers,
Dan
dan at decodesystems.com
www.decodesystems.com
13 Jan
13 Jan
3:58 a.m.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Dan Veeneman <dan at decodesystems.com> wrote:
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently
declassified a number
of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication, including a
six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System.
The report is available in PDF at
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_Syst…
I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //.
Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small?
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want.
So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I
won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken
glass."
-Stephen Colbert
14 Jan
14 Jan
3:23 a.m.
On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote:
I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //.
Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small?
Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000,
and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice.
As soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make
changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back
then, and the adaption was very easy.
Cheers
5:31 a.m.
On 14/01/2012 08:23, emanuel stiebler wrote:
On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote:
That menu brings back some memories! I worked for Pecan/Cabot back in
the day who continued selling P-system based products well in to the
90's. Very popular with the Open University but ultimately lost out to
Borland TP (I recall at the time writing a bunch of libraries to emulate
those shipped with TP whcih looking back was a sure sign things were
wrong). The VM gained another 16 bits and was ported to lots of
different chips, including the ST20 (Transputer derived CPU). The 'C'
compiler was a total fudge though.
James
I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //.
Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that
small?
Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a
mc68000, and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the
architecture was nice. As soon as you got it working at all, it was
very easy and fast to make changes to the system. We had lots of
different graphic display back then, and the adaption was very easy.
Cheers
6:45 a.m.
On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 8:23 AM, emanuel stiebler <emu at e-bbes.com> wrote:
Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000,
and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice. As
soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make
changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back then,
and the adaption was very easy.
Thinking back, the main problems were:
* the disk system, which required files to always be contiguous. You
therefore had to k)runch drives if there wasn't enough space to store
things.
* the system used lots of memory, meaning you had to write things in little
pieces and chain them together
* the system used substantial amounts of floppy drive space, leaving very
little for the actual data. I was going to buy a 5 meg hard drive.
* I think the IO system (talking to the modem) was the last straw. (; I
don't remember why...
When I got my hands on Turbo Pascal 3 on a Tandy 1000, I was in heaven...
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"Yes, Obama duped young people by not doing every single thing they want.
So now, they'll all vote Republican. It's like when I want some bread, I
won't settle for half a loaf. Instead, I will have a muffin made of broken
glass."
-Stephen Colbert
10:21 a.m.
On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote:
Used it on LSI-11 and NS*, still have both hardware but only the NS*
version.
I still run it on occasion. The biggest complaint was no assembler supplied
and it was slow being compiled to pcode. It was a good system for learning
the language and and taking a data structures course.
Allison
I tried to
write a BBS in that for an Apple //.
Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that
small?
7:17 p.m.
On 01/14/2012 03:23 AM, emanuel stiebler wrote:
On 2012-01-13 09:58, John Many Jars wrote:
I used it very briefly on a PC "back in the day", but have only
gotten into it more in-depth on my Sage II system. I like it just fine,
but the I/O is a bit primitive.
The NSA document is an interesting and amusing read, but the
reference to "Nicholas Worth" (Niklaus Wirth) gave me a big chuckle.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
I tried to write a BBS in that for an Apple //.
Key word -tried-. Horrible. How did I ever live in anything that small?
Weird, I liked it even on the Apple II. We had it running on a mc68000,
and that was zippy! I thought back then, that the architecture was nice.
As soon as you got it working at all, it was very easy and fast to make
changes to the system. We had lots of different graphic display back
then, and the adaption was very easy. 
16 Jan
16 Jan
7:15 p.m.
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) recently
declassified a
number of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication,
including a six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System.
The report is available in PDF at
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_Syst…
After reading it, I really have to wonder why it even needed
declassifying, that is, why it was classified at all. And, indeed, I
see "UNCLASSIFIED" on all pages but the last (which has no content, or
at least no obvious-to-me content), and it looks to me like part of the
scan, not a later add-on.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
8:06 p.m.
On 01/16/2012 07:15 PM, Mouse wrote:
Welcome to the unbelievable waste of the US Gov't.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
The U.S.
National Security Agency (NSA) recently declassified a
number of articles from their _Cryptologic Quarterly_ publication,
including a six-page review from 1985 of the UCSD p-System.
The report is available in PDF at
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/The_UCSD_p_Syst…
After reading it, I really have to wonder why it even needed
declassifying, that is, why it was classified at all. And, indeed, I
see "UNCLASSIFIED" on all pages but the last (which has no content, or
at least no obvious-to-me content), and it looks to me like part of the
scan, not a later add-on. 
17 Jan
17 Jan
1:37 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0
2:30 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
On 2012 Jan 17, at 10:37 AM, David Clark wrote:
Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0
Nice clips of RAMAC in action.
8:37 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
Short but, sweet little clip of some old
computers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0
Nice clips of RAMAC in action.
9 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
On 1/17/2012 5:37 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN.
Was just that particular machine named Moby Dick ?
Short but, sweet little clip of some old
computers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0
Nice clips of RAMAC in action.
9:20 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
That video is
clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN.
Was just that particular machine named Moby Dick ?
9:05 p.m.
New subject: Short clip of some old systems
On 2012 Jan 17, at 5:37 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
That video is clipped from this longer one: http://bit.ly/wDNnvN.
The computers that are mentioned -- MOBIDC, BASICPAC, and COMPAC --
are all part of the Army's FIELDATA program, which was the
predecessor to ASCII. FIELDATA (and MOBIDIC, and some others) were
all developed at the Army Signal Corps' Evans Signal Lab, in
Belmar, N.J. -- which is today the InfoAge Science Center,
containing the MARCH computer museum! We even have a very little
piece of a MOBIDIC ("Mobile Digital Computer" -- "mobile" meant it
fit into two 30-foot trailers.)
Come to VCF East at our museum this spring and see it. :)
It keeps getting pointlessly chopped up, there's a third video on
there with just the RAMAC scene. ..!?..
Short but, sweet little clip of some old computers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaFHrGjy7w0
Nice clips of RAMAC in action.
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14 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
ajp166＠verizon.net -
dan＠decodesystems.com -
emu＠e-bbes.com -
evan＠snarc.net -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
james＠machineroom.info -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
mc68010＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
mouse＠Rodents-Montreal.ORG