9 Jul
2012
9 Jul
'12
6:29 a.m.
Hi all,
I responded to a post on the SimH mailinglist, asking about why
there was no PDP-11 Wiki where bits and pieces or whole articles
and papers could be found, concerning the PDP-11.
I thought it was a good question, considering I love the Richard's
Terminal Wiki out there.
So I quickly installed one and it is in pristine vanilla state at
the moment. I can't be bothered with filling it with actual content,
as I am still a total and complete noob on PDP-11's but will
contribute whenever and where-ever I can.
My job will be moderating the stuff for the time being.
Have at it people!
http://pdp-11.ls-al.eu
re,
Sander
9 Jul
9 Jul
6:51 a.m.
Sander Reiche <reiche at ls-al.eu> wrote:
Hi all,
I responded to a post on the SimH mailinglist, asking about why
there was no PDP-11 Wiki where bits and pieces or whole articles
and papers could be found, concerning the PDP-11.
I thought it was a good question, considering I love the Richard's
Terminal Wiki out there.
So I quickly installed one and it is in pristine vanilla state at
the moment. I can't be bothered with filling it with actual content,
as I am still a total and complete noob on PDP-11's but will
contribute whenever and where-ever I can.
My job will be moderating the stuff for the time being.
Have at it people!
http://pdp-11.ls-al.eu
Seems I was too quick to rush to the conclusion that something like
this wasn't already setup somewhere. Mark Benson's http://wiki.dectec.info
seems to be the legitimate PDP-11 Wiki! :)
re,
Sander
7:31 a.m.
On 9 Jul 2012, at 14:55, Sander Reiche <reiche at ls-al.eu> wrote:
Sander Reiche <reiche at ls-al.eu> wrote:
Jeesh I wouldn't say 'legitimate', it's thus far empty! I am very keen
to centralise all the information about DEC hardware in one place
though, hence why I set it up.
I hadn't got around to publicising it uet as I didn't want to get
everyone's attention with what's basically an empty shell.
--
Mark Benson
http://markbenson.org/blog
http://twitter.com/MDBenson
Hi all,
I responded to a post on the SimH mailinglist, asking about why
there was no PDP-11 Wiki where bits and pieces or whole articles
and papers could be found, concerning the PDP-11.
I thought it was a good question, considering I love the Richard's
Terminal Wiki out there.
So I quickly installed one and it is in pristine vanilla state at
the moment. I can't be bothered with filling it with actual content,
as I am still a total and complete noob on PDP-11's but will
contribute whenever and where-ever I can.
My job will be moderating the stuff for the time being.
Have at it people!
http://pdp-11.ls-al.eu
Seems I was too quick to rush to the conclusion that something like
this wasn't already setup somewhere. Mark Benson's http://wiki.dectec.info
seems to be the legitimate PDP-11 Wiki! :) 
11:51 a.m.
Jeesh I wouldn't say 'legitimate',
it's thus far empty! I am
very keen to centralise all the information about DEC
hardware in one place though, hence why I set it up.
I hadn't got around to publicising it uet as I didn't want to
get everyone's attention with what's basically an empty shell.
I do have a bunch of data lying around that could be turned into wiki
text in tabular form (with some scripting).
So if you have a format you'd like, I could see if I can knock some
thing up and then your wiki (or wikis, I don't mind :-)) would be empty
no more.
(I'm sure I used to have something for PDP-8 and terminals too, but,
unless it's all in my imagination, it's not in the place I'd expect it
to be).
Antonio
arcarlini at iee.org
1:22 p.m.
On 9 Jul 2012, at 20:15, Al Kossow wrote:
On 7/9/12 11:51 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
Yes, an ACSIII file wouldn't be a bad idea.
So if you have a format you'd like
how about an ASCII TEXT FILE you know, those things we've been able to preserve
without a steaming
pile of php for the past 50 years.
Now, Al, you leave my steaming piles of PHP alone :P
I only feel that something database-oriented is better for search-ability and indexing
purposes.
--
Mark Benson
http://DECtec.info
Twitter: @DECtecInfo
HECnet: STAR69::MARK
Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.
2:19 p.m.
New subject: Kildall's
I'm in Pacific Grove (Asilomar) at an unrelated conference. On a whim, I
told the dash demon to take me to 801 Lighthouse - less than a mile away.
The current owner gave me a short tour!
I also snapped a couple of pictures of 716 and 734.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:27 p.m.
New subject: Kildall's
On 07/09/2012 05:19 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
I'm in Pacific Grove (Asilomar) at an unrelated
conference. On a whim, I
told the dash demon to take me to 801 Lighthouse - less than a mile away.
The current owner gave me a short tour!
I also snapped a couple of pictures of 716 and 734.
PICS!!
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
2:51 p.m.
New subject: Kildall's
On 07/09/2012 05:19 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
> I'm in Pacific Grove (Asilomar) at an unrelated conference. On a whim, I
> told the dash demon to take me to 801 Lighthouse - less than a mile away.
> The current owner gave me a short tour!
On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Dave McGuire
wrote:
I also snapped
a couple of pictures of 716 and 734.
PICS!! 
3:06 p.m.
New subject: Kildall's
At 04:51 PM 7/9/2012, Fred Cisin wrote:
> On 07/09/2012 05:19 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
> > I'm in Pacific Grove (Asilomar) at an unrelated conference. On a whim, I
> > told the dash demon to take me to 801 Lighthouse - less than a mile away.
> > The current owner gave me a short tour!
<http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2011/jul/21/history-house/>http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2011/jul/21/history-house/
- John
2:06 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Al Kossow
Sent: 09 July 2012 20:15
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: PDP-11 Wiki
On 7/9/12 11:51 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
It *is* a text file: a bunch of entries that look something like this:
start-system ALPHA AS1000 AS1000-4-233
announcement = [1 May 1995][CU-V6-5A]
bus_eisa = [7 slots][CU-V6-5A]
bus_pci = [2 slots][CU-V6-5A]
bus_pci_or_eisa = [1 slot][CU-V6-5A]
cpu_clock = [233MHz][CU-V6-5A]
max_memory = [512MB][CU-V6-5A]
mem_checking = [ECC][CU-V6-5A]
num_proc = [1][CU-V6-5A]
os_support_vms = [OpenVMS V6.1-1H2][]
specfp92 = [222.9][CU-V6-5A]
specint92 = [165.3][CU-V6-5A]
sys_name = [AlphaServer 1000 4/233][]
tpc_a = [300:(e)][CU-V6-5A]
end-system AS1000-4-233
But that's not going to look too nice in a wiki, so I presumed that it
would need to be massaged (by script) into some other text format (media
wiki) , in which case it should probably match the look and feel of the
other pages. Since there are (almost) no other pages I didn't want to
end up defining the look of the page by fiat.
Antonio
So if you have a format you'd like
how about an ASCII TEXT FILE
you know, those things we've been able to preserve without a
steaming pile of php for the past 50 years. 
2:53 p.m.
In article <E0DBA5FF2423479199330872ECF1126C at ANTONIOPC>,
<arcarlini at iee.org> writes:
It *is* a text file: a bunch of entries that look
something like this:
start-system ALPHA AS1000 AS1000-4-233
announcement = [1 May 1995][CU-V6-5A]
bus_eisa = [7 slots][CU-V6-5A]
bus_pci = [2 slots][CU-V6-5A]
bus_pci_or_eisa = [1 slot][CU-V6-5A]
cpu_clock = [233MHz][CU-V6-5A]
max_memory = [512MB][CU-V6-5A]
mem_checking = [ECC][CU-V6-5A]
num_proc = [1][CU-V6-5A]
os_support_vms = [OpenVMS V6.1-1H2][]
specfp92 = [222.9][CU-V6-5A]
specint92 = [165.3][CU-V6-5A]
sys_name = [AlphaServer 1000 4/233][]
tpc_a = [300:(e)][CU-V6-5A]
end-system AS1000-4-233
I would turn that into a mediawiki template invocation, something
like:
{{system
| name = ALPHA AS1000 AS1000-4-233
| announcement = [1 May 1995][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_eisa = [7 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci = [2 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci_or_eisa = [1 slot][CU-V6-5A]
| cpu_clock = [233MHz][CU-V6-5A]
| max_memory = [512MB][CU-V6-5A]
| mem_checking = [ECC][CU-V6-5A]
| num_proc = [1][CU-V6-5A]
| os_support_vms = [OpenVMS V6.1-1H2][]
| specfp92 = [222.9][CU-V6-5A]
| specint92 = [165.3][CU-V6-5A]
| sys_name = [AlphaServer 1000 4/233][]
| tpc_a = [300:(e)][CU-V6-5A]
}}
...and then let the template do all the formatting.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
11:23 p.m.
On 9 Jul 2012, at 22:53, Richard wrote:
I would turn that into a mediawiki template
invocation, something
like:
{{system
| name = ALPHA AS1000 AS1000-4-233
| announcement = [1 May 1995][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_eisa = [7 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci = [2 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci_or_eisa = [1 slot][CU-V6-5A]
| cpu_clock = [233MHz][CU-V6-5A]
| max_memory = [512MB][CU-V6-5A]
| mem_checking = [ECC][CU-V6-5A]
| num_proc = [1][CU-V6-5A]
| os_support_vms = [OpenVMS V6.1-1H2][]
| specfp92 = [222.9][CU-V6-5A]
| specint92 = [165.3][CU-V6-5A]
| sys_name = [AlphaServer 1000 4/233][]
| tpc_a = [300:(e)][CU-V6-5A]
}}
...and then let the template do all the formatting.
Yup I can do a template to fit that as long as I have a comprehensive list of every field
that the filed uses throughout the entries.
--
Mark Benson
http://DECtec.info
Twitter: @DECtecInfo
HECnet: STAR69::MARK
Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.
10 Jul
10 Jul
1:20 a.m.
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of
Mark Benson
Sent: 10 July 2012 07:24
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: PDP-11 Wiki
On 9 Jul 2012, at 22:53, Richard wrote:
I can no doubt find some simple way of coming up with all the fields.
I gathered this stuff over a number of years. As it's a bunch of mildly
formatted text files, it's not terribly consistent. Plus many fields for
(say) VAX are not applicable to (say) disks. My 20s spent looking at
media wiki templates suggests that you feed each template a bunch of
parameters, the same set everywhere a template is used. How does that
work if you want people to come along and edit an entry later? For
example, if you have data for 20 or so different VAX systems and only
then realise that you've completely forgotten about the "Compatibility
mode" property. You can add it to the template, but do you need to go
back and change every template invocation to add the new parameter?
I should point out that the [CU-V6-5A] part is a "reference" field. That
one happens to be "Customer Update. Volume 6 Issue 5A. 1st May 1995".
When I turned some of this into webpages then that ended up as "[1]",
"[2]" etc. and the references were spelled out at the foot of the page.
You might want to make provision for that so that future page editors
have some guidelines to follow.
Anyway, it's currently text and I can turn it into whatever text you
think is suitable.
Antonio
I would turn that into a mediawiki template
invocation, something
like:
{{system
| name = ALPHA AS1000 AS1000-4-233
| announcement = [1 May 1995][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_eisa = [7 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci = [2 slots][CU-V6-5A]
| bus_pci_or_eisa = [1 slot][CU-V6-5A]
| cpu_clock = [233MHz][CU-V6-5A]
| max_memory = [512MB][CU-V6-5A]
| mem_checking = [ECC][CU-V6-5A]
| num_proc = [1][CU-V6-5A]
| os_support_vms = [OpenVMS V6.1-1H2][]
| specfp92 = [222.9][CU-V6-5A]
| specint92 = [165.3][CU-V6-5A]
| sys_name = [AlphaServer 1000 4/233][]
| tpc_a = [300:(e)][CU-V6-5A]
}}
...and then let the template do all the formatting.
Yup I can do a template to fit that as long as I have a
comprehensive list of every field that the filed uses
throughout the entries.
7:43 a.m.
In article <C44EE7B289BF4C3D90EC146B0B9529C2 at ANTONIOPC>,
<arcarlini at iee.org> writes:
I can no doubt find some simple way of coming up with
all the fields.
A simple awk script should be able to it. (Or pick your poison if you
don't like awk.)
I gathered this stuff over a number of years. As
it's a bunch of mildly
formatted text files, it's not terribly consistent. Plus many fields for
(say) VAX are not applicable to (say) disks.
There are a number of ways you can handle that in mediawiki.
You can create specialized templates for VAX (my preference), or you
can add conditional logic in the template "if this field present, then
these other fields are relevant".
My 20s spent looking at
media wiki templates suggests that you feed each template a bunch of
parameters, the same set everywhere a template is used. How does that
work if you want people to come along and edit an entry later?
The template only handles formatting, not content. The content is the
set of supplied arguments to the template. For instance, on the
terminals wiki, I have templates that create the summary infobox on
the right hand side for each terminal. When you edit the page, you
see the template call in the page with all the arguments that define
the content.
If you want to edit the presentation of the content, you edit the
definition of the template itself.
For fancy things like infoboxes, there is a small amount of CSS you
also have to edit in wikimedia.
For
example, if you have data for 20 or so different VAX systems and only
then realise that you've completely forgotten about the "Compatibility
mode" property. You can add it to the template, but do you need to go
back and change every template invocation to add the new parameter?
There are two ways of handling this. One is to supply a reasonable
default (usually empty) for the template parameter in the definition
of the template. You only create presentation for parameters that are
non-empty when the template is called. Old calls to the template that
don't supply this new parameter render the same. New content appears
for any calls to the template that supply the new parameter.
If you've decided that the new parameter must be supplied, and there
is no reasonable default, then you do a search for all the existing
uses of the template and add the parameter first. (Unused parameters
are ignored when the template is processed.)
Then you add the presentation for the new parameter in the template.
The new content will just show up for the existing calls to the
template. You can go further and add error handling to the template
to call out missing required arguments. I do this for the terminals
wiki infobox -- if required parameters are missing, or have the wrong
values, then the entire infobox is omitted and you just get a big red
error message on the page. It's pretty obvious when the template
isn't used correctly that way.
I should point out that the [CU-V6-5A] part is a
"reference" field. That
one happens to be "Customer Update. Volume 6 Issue 5A. 1st May 1995".
When I turned some of this into webpages then that ended up as "[1]",
"[2]" etc. and the references were spelled out at the foot of the page.
You might want to make provision for that so that future page editors
have some guidelines to follow.
I believe this references mechanism can also be handled in mediawiki markup.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
7:51 a.m.
I don't know if you want to pull in anything from the VAX Hardware
reference page at
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/Hardware/Machines/DEC/vax/full.html
Its source data is also in a simple text format :)
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/Hardware/Machines/DEC/vax/vax-data
9 Jul
9 Jul
2:51 p.m.
In article <4FFB2DCC.8090407 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
On 7/9/12 11:51 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
PHP is just another text file. :-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
So if you have a format you'd like
how about an ASCII TEXT FILE
you know, those things we've been able to preserve without a steaming pile
of php for the past 50 years. 
10 Jul
10 Jul
6:08 a.m.
On 09/07/12 5:51 PM, Richard wrote:
In article<4FFB2DCC.8090407 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow<aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
Wish it would stay that way. Preferably behind glass in a museum.
--T
On 7/9/12 11:51 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
PHP is just another text file. :-) So if you have a format you'd like
how about an ASCII TEXT FILE
you know, those things we've been able to preserve without a steaming pile
of php for the past 50 years.
6:12 a.m.
On 10 July 2012 14:08, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
On 09/07/12 5:51 PM, Richard wrote:
One day the letters "PHP" will be as familiar to mainstream computer
users as "PDP".
I keep telling myself that...
In article<4FFB2DCC.8090407 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow<aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
Wish it would stay that way. Preferably behind glass in a museum. On 7/9/12 11:51 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
PHP is just another text file. :-) So if you have a format you'd like
how about an ASCII TEXT FILE
you know, those things we've been able to preserve without a steaming
pile
of php for the past 50 years. 
6:35 a.m.
On Jul 10, 2012, at 8:12 AM, David Brownlee wrote:
One day the letters "PHP" will be as
familiar to mainstream computer
users as "PDP".
I keep telling myself that...
It could be worse. PHP could have never happened, and IIS/ASP could have filled that niche
instead.
(Disclaimer: PHP pays my bills)
7:46 a.m.
New subject: web app programming languages (Re: PDP-11 Wiki)
In article <604B584B-FC4F-4BD2-9B1C-1BC94CC79280 at lunar-tokyo.net>,
Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net> writes:
ASP (not ASP.NET) is over a decade deprecated by now. Having
programmed in all 3 (PHP, ASP, ASP.NET), ASP.NET is *much* more
productive and has *much* better development tools.
The only people I know that express the same opinion as yourself are
people who are either i) anti-MS bigots like Dave McGuire, so there's
no point in attempting to have a rational discussion with them, ii)
make their living from PHP, or iii) have never actually used ASP.NET
and they are just /. "me too" types.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
One day the
letters "PHP" will be as familiar to mainstream computer
users as "PDP".
I keep telling myself that...
It could be worse. PHP could have never happened, and IIS/ASP could have
filled that niche instead.
1:20 p.m.
New subject: web app programming languages (Re: PDP-11 Wiki)
On 07/10/2012 10:46 AM, Richard wrote:
Hey, it's not MY fault you don't recognize vendor lock-in when you see
it. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
It could be
worse. PHP could have never happened, and IIS/ASP could have
filled that niche instead.
ASP (not ASP.NET) is over a decade deprecated by now. Having
programmed in all 3 (PHP, ASP, ASP.NET), ASP.NET is *much* more
productive and has *much* better development tools.
The only people I know that express the same opinion as yourself are
people who are either i) anti-MS bigots like Dave McGuire, so there's
no point in attempting to have a rational discussion with them, ii)
make their living from PHP, or iii) have never actually used ASP.NET
and they are just /. "me too" types.
4547
days inactive
4548
days old
22 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
abs＠absd.org -
aek＠bitsavers.org -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dseagrav＠lunar-tokyo.net -
iamcamiel＠gmail.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
md.benson＠gmail.com -
reiche＠ls-al.eu -
toby＠telegraphics.com.au