1 Feb
2018
1 Feb
'18
9:19 a.m.
Hi Guys,
I am new to the group, so let me know if this post is inappropriate.
I have a SuperTerm Maintenance Manual that I am about to put in the bin.
I am prepared to scan it if any one is interested, I could not find it on bitsavers.org,
but I guess there may be one in the backlog?
The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data Systems c. 1978, it was a 180 CPS dot
matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer in place of a LA36, Intertec
also did a speed up board for the LA36 (I may have details on that when I get through
clearing out my loft), to make it a 150 CPS printer, although it was prone to carriage
slams initially, same was true of the SuperTerm for a while, which also resulted in the
carriage driver transistors burning out. The company I worked for produced a separate
driver board to get around the problem, typical patch at the time.
Regards Mike Norris
1 Feb
1 Feb
9:51 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data
Systems c. 1978, it was a
180 CPS dot matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer
in place of a LA36,
I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
I saw Intertec Intertube CRT terminals and SuperBrain microcomputers a fair
bit outside the machine rooms, but never saw a SuperTerm, though I'd seen
advertising for it. Given that it cost slightly more than an LA120, if I'd
had to make the choice, I'd have bought an LA120. Also typically DEC
offered good deals on buying a complete system, at least for the sort of
large systems you'd find in a machine room, so substituting another
vendor's console terminal would cost more than just the delta in price
between the DEC terminal and the other vendor's terminal.
It's possible that some of the console terminals I saw could have had LA36
internal upgrades produced by Intertec or other companies. The only
advantage was that an LA36 could be upgraded to higher speed. The various
third-party graphics upgrades for the LA36 obviously weren't worthwhile for
a console terminal except in so far as they included the speed upgrade.
However, a scan of the SuperTerm maintenance manual definitely would be
good to archive for posterity.
9:56 a.m.
On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
My college experience (1973-1975) with consoles started with a ASR-33, then an LA30, and
finally an LA36. The LA30 was, amazingly enough, even less reliable than the ASR-33. The
LA36, on the other hand, was rock solid (as was the LA120, which I didn't see until
after I went to DEC).
As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions. Lots of operating system console
interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy consoles, and if so a CRT is a
bad idea. But you can certainly make CRT consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC
6000 series.
paul
The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data
Systems c. 1978, it was a
180 CPS dot matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer
in place of a LA36,
I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
10:01 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:56 AM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
Just a wild-ass guess, but I suspect that a typical CDC 6600 system would
have had a printer that logged console interaction? I'm only suggesting
that a CRT console with no logging was a bad idea.
Of course, in principle the logging could be to disk or tape, but I don't
think most "machine-room" people would have trusted that nearly as much for
a console log. One wants a log of what happened on the console even when
the system was not working well.
On Feb 1,
2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
console terminal [...] VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions. Lots of operating
system console interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy
consoles, and if so a CRT is a bad idea. But you can certainly make CRT
consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC 6000 series.
10:42 a.m.
On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:01 PM, Eric Smith <spacewar at
gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:56 AM, Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net> wrote:
True. The CDC OS would log anything interesting to a "dayfile", essentially a
running log of system events including operator actions. Those go to disk. Dayfile
messages related to a particular job would also be printed with that job output.
On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
console terminal [...] VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions. Lots of operating system console
interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy consoles, and if so a CRT is a
bad idea. But you can certainly make CRT consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC
6000 series.
Just a wild-ass guess, but I suspect that a typical CDC 6600 system would have had a
printer that logged console interaction? I'm only suggesting that a CRT console with
no logging was a bad idea. Of course, in principle the logging could be to disk
or tape, but I don't think most "machine-room" people would have trusted
that nearly as much for a console log. One wants a log of what happened on the console
even when the system was not working well.
I guess they trusted the disk enough. Normal practice would be to save the dayfile to a
regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part of daily maintenance), at which point you
could print it, or archive it to tape, or whatever else comes to mind.
There was also the "accounting log", a second dayfile with accounting related
messages coded in a fashion that made it straightforward to extract the data for billing.
And an "error log" with messages related to hardware problems (I/O errors with
the hardware error detail data).
paul
10:56 a.m.
On Thu, 1 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I guess they trusted the disk enough. Normal practice
would be to save
the dayfile to a regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part of
daily maintenance), at which point you could print it, or archive it to
tape, or whatever else comes to mind.
Was there typically any other way to access the disk file, such as if the
system were down?
It could be useful in troubleshooting, such as if the system were down.
. . .
At least they would not have had "Help" to suggest, "If the system will
not IPL/Boot, then run Troubleshooting Wizard"
11:11 a.m.
On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:56 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Thu, 1 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
Not that I know of. The file system structure was quite trivial so it would be easy to
write a standalone inspect tool but I don't remember any such thing.
I guess they trusted the disk enough. Normal
practice would be to save the dayfile to a regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part
of daily maintenance), at which point you could print it, or archive it to tape, or
whatever else comes to mind.
Was there typically any other way to access the disk file, such as if the system were
down?
It could be useful in troubleshooting, such as if the system were down. At least they would not have had "Help" to
suggest, "If the system will not IPL/Boot, then run Troubleshooting Wizard"
That at least isn't an issue, since deadstart (CDC for "IPL") was
traditionally done from magnetic tape, and could also load from other media if needed.
paul
10:01 a.m.
Hi Eric,
I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size
is small, but it
seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
I worked in the Multivendor Environment so DEC (OEM 11's) so DEC terminals weren't
that common there and when we first started using it I don't think we had access the
LA120 (here in the UK at least!)
However, a scan of the SuperTerm maintenance manual
definitely would be
good to archive for posterity.
Do you know were or how is the best place to send the scan (sorry this is my first post)?
Regards Mike Norris
11:47 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:01 PM, Mike Norris via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Do you know were or how is the best place to send the
scan (sorry this is my first post)?
First post and already bottom-posting - off to a fine start!
Please do scan the manual if you can't find an example of it online.
Email me directly if you need hosting for it
(http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs).
-j
2515
days inactive
2515
days old
8 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
mike_t_norris＠hotmail.com -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
silent700＠gmail.com -
spacewar＠gmail.com