--------------Original Message: Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:20:14 -0400 From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> Subject: re: B-1700 (was Re: MLP-900) "Al Kossow" wrote: yes, I remember that :-) I remember looking at s-machine docs too. I seem to remember lots of BNF like diagrams. I was young and not-well-educated at the time. I used COBOL and thought I remembered fortran and algol as well. I remember the machine had a card reader/punch and disks which looked like RP06's. Booting it was a little odd but not too painful. I didn't want to mention the cassettes, mostly due to the terror of thinking about reading them. But now I've said the words and wondering whats on them - microcode? How would you read them? (isn't this how you always find your victims? :-) "sure, just try and disassemble the micrcode, how hard could it be?" :-) hmmm... they're just cassettes. how hard could it be? :-) I'm willing to try if you have any extra tapes. -brad ------------------Reply: If it helps, AFAIK they used separate clock and data tracks; one or more transitions within a clock pulse denotes a 1, no transitions a 0. I think I have a cassette drive somewhere with tech docs (schematics & interface signal description). Don't know if it's compatible with B17 tapes though (I believe there were several different recording methods used). mike