28 Oct
2002
28 Oct
'02
7:58 a.m.
Anyone out there want to enlighten us poor slobs
stuck on the wrong side of the continent? Anyone
putting any pictures on the web?
Thanks
28 Oct
28 Oct
8:17 a.m.
It was a great event, thanks to Sellam and his help. I live in the Chicago
area, but happened to be in the San Jose area for VCF 5.0. The talks that
I went to were quite interesting and in talking to Bruce Damer, the founder
of http://www.digibarn.com , I was able to hook up with Howard Palmer,
the originator of mazewar on the Imlac. Druce has a nice story about the
history of mazewar on his site. Since I have a running Imlac (which I took
to VCF East 1.0, I was very interested in finding out if the source for mazewar
was still around, and I now have a copy. Hopefully, I will be able to make the
necessary additions to my Imlac assembler to allow me to assemble the
code and run it on my Imlac. If Bob Shannon were to build a long vector
board for his Imlac, then we might be able to play mazewar against each
other. When I finally finish my work on my Imlac emulator, others will
hopefully
be able to play it as well.
So, for me, VCF 5.0 was wonderful! I got to meet a number of interesting
people, etc.
Sorry, but I didn't take any pics of significance at the show. I'm sure that
some will show up on the http://www.vintage.org site in the not too distant
future.
--tom
At 04:59 PM 10/28/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Anyone out there want to enlighten us poor slobs
stuck on the wrong side of the continent? Anyone
putting any pictures on the web?
Thanks
11:17 a.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Tom Uban wrote:
It was a great event, thanks to Sellam and his help. I
live in the Chicago
area, but happened to be in the San Jose area for VCF 5.0. The talks that
I went to were quite interesting and in talking to Bruce Damer, the founder
of http://www.digibarn.com , I was able to hook up with Howard Palmer,
the originator of mazewar on the Imlac. Druce has a nice story about the
history of mazewar on his site. Since I have a running Imlac (which I took
to VCF East 1.0, I was very interested in finding out if the source for mazewar
was still around, and I now have a copy. Hopefully, I will be able to make the
necessary additions to my Imlac assembler to allow me to assemble the
code and run it on my Imlac. If Bob Shannon were to build a long vector
board for his Imlac, then we might be able to play mazewar against each
other. When I finally finish my work on my Imlac emulator, others will
hopefully
be able to play it as well.
I have a long vector option that was kludged into my Imlac. I also met *
and found out that he lives just a few minutes away from me. He was the
guy who wrote most of Maze. He brought plenty of Imlac and Maze docs to
the VCF. I'm going to be getting together with him in the next couple
weeks to get copies and talk to him more about it.
So, for me, VCF 5.0 was wonderful! I got to meet a
number of interesting
people, etc.
I'm glad you were able to make it. As I said, it was a nice surprise to
see you there!
Sorry, but I didn't take any pics of significance
at the show. I'm sure
that some will show up on the http://www.vintage.org site in the not too
distant future.
I didn't get to take my pictures either, but many people did for me.
If you have pictures of the VCF, I would like copies to post to the VCF
5.0 Gallery. I would prefer you e-mail me a link as to where they can be
downloaded (please send to <sellam(a)vintage.org>rg>, not here) but if you
don't have a way of hosting them then you can just e-mail a ZIP of them to
the same address.
I will post a more formal VCF 5.0 wrap up soon, including names and
descriptions of the VCF Exhibit awardees.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com
12:47 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
I have a long vector option that was kludged into my
Imlac. I also met *
and found out that he lives just a few minutes away from me. He was the
guy who wrote most of Maze. He brought plenty of Imlac and Maze docs to
Sorry :) * = Greg Thomson
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
11:20 p.m.
A long vector 'kludge'?
Is this installed into a PDS-1, or a PDS-1D?
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
I have a long vector option that was kludged into
my Imlac. I also met *
and found out that he lives just a few minutes away from me. He was the
guy who wrote most of Maze. He brought plenty of Imlac and Maze docs to
Sorry :) * = Greg Thomson
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
29 Oct
29 Oct
2:50 a.m.
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
A long vector 'kludge'?
Is this installed into a PDS-1, or a PDS-1D?
A PDS-1. Apparently it is a homebrew version of the long vector option.
It has been a couple years (at least) since I last looked at it or
discussed it with someone so I may be confusing myself.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
30 Oct
30 Oct
7:20 a.m.
I'd be really interested in learning more about this!
Also, I've got lots of parts to get your PDS-1 in running order.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
A long vector 'kludge'?
Is this installed into a PDS-1, or a PDS-1D?
A PDS-1. Apparently it is a homebrew version of the long vector option.
It has been a couple years (at least) since I last looked at it or
discussed it with someone so I may be confusing myself.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
11:14 a.m.
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
I'd be really interested in learning more about
this!
Here is a page about the Imlac I have (it was given to me by Doug Salot,
who developed this page):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/
It doesn't say anything about the long-vector option, although I could've
swore he did (maybe it's there and I just didn't see it in my quick
refresh perusal). You can see the board in the upper-right corner of this
picture (or maybe it's the middle right?):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/imlac6.jpg
Also, I've got lots of parts to get your PDS-1 in
running order.
Cool!
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
31 Oct
31 Oct
5:57 a.m.
New subject: Long vector Imlac's, was Re: Tales of VCF 5.0?
Ok, the corosion of the PCB etches does not scare me, I've got a full
set of spare boards. A few of them have bad chips, but in most cases
these have already been isolated to the failed component.
I've never seen the schematics for a long-vector Imlac, and I wonder how
much work would be envolved in adding this capability to a 'stock' PDS-1.
Does anyone (Tom U.) know what method the long vector hardware uses to
generate long vectors? I'd guess this is done with binary rate
multipliers in much the same way as the DEC VT-11.
Just how much circuitry is on this long-vector board? How different is
the vector processor circuitry on a PDS-1D versus a PDS-1?
And ae we sure that Mazewar needs long vectors?
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
I'd be really interested in learning more
about this!
Here is a page about the Imlac I have (it was given to me by Doug Salot,
who developed this page):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/
It doesn't say anything about the long-vector option, although I could've
swore he did (maybe it's there and I just didn't see it in my quick
refresh perusal). You can see the board in the upper-right corner of this
picture (or maybe it's the middle right?):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/imlac6.jpg
Also, I've got lots of parts to get your PDS-1
in running order.
Cool!
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
6:52 a.m.
New subject: Long vector Imlac's, was Re: Tales of VCF 5.0?
At 03:01 PM 10/31/2002 -0500, Bob Shannon wrote:
Ok, the corosion of the PCB etches does not scare me,
I've got a full set
of spare boards. A few of them have bad chips, but in most cases these
have already been isolated to the failed component.
I've never seen the schematics for a long-vector Imlac, and I wonder how
much work would be envolved in adding this capability to a 'stock' PDS-1.
A partial set of PDS-1D schematics (and other documentation) are available
here:
http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/imlac/
I say partial, because they don't contain the pages for the long vector
option, which
appear on sheets 853 and 854 and comprise boards 301, 302, and 303 of the
PDS-1D.
Does anyone (Tom U.) know what method the long vector
hardware uses to
generate long vectors? I'd guess this is done with binary rate
multipliers in much the same way as the DEC VT-11.
Yes. I think that you are correct in assuming that the long vector control
is built around
a BRM. Without some extensive research and comparison between the PDS-1 and
PDS-1D
schematics, I cannot estimate how much additional hook logic is required on
other boards
in order to support the addition of the long vector option.
Just how much circuitry is on this long-vector board?
How different is
the vector processor circuitry on a PDS-1D versus a PDS-1?
And ae we sure that Mazewar needs long vectors?
As quoted from the Mazewar source:
; THIS VERSION REQUIRES A GRAPHICS IMLAC WITH LONG VECTOR HARDWARE
; MULTI-LEVEL SUBROUTINING, AND 8K DISPLAY ADDRESSING MOD.
I think that the 8K display addressing assumes an 8K machine, so Bob needs
to get the
other 4k of memory working on his machine before working on the 8K display
addressing
mod.
The comment also indicates that the Multi-nested Display Subroutine feature
is required.
This is the 8 Level DT register stack option, which if it were present in
the document on
Al's site would be on sheet 858 (board 304) for the PDS-1D. I have all of
these prints, but
when I made the copy for Al, I made it from an incomplete set which did not
include these
options. I will put together the missing pages and send them to Al for
scanning... Again,
without some research, I don't know the level of difficulty and support by
other boards to
allow the addition of the 8 Level DT stack option.
If these options were to be added to Bob's machine, there might be a
question of space
in which to plug the additional hardware. It is less of a question of the
density of the logic
and more one of connector pin count. Also, I'm not sure that Bob want's to
modify his
machine to this extent.
It should be noted that Sellam has both a PDS-1 and a PDS-1D in his
collection (or at
least I think that this is the case -- further pictures of his two machines
would confirm
or deny this).
--tom
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
I'd be really interested in learning more
about this!
Here is a page about the Imlac I have (it was given to me by Doug Salot,
who developed this page):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/
It doesn't say anything about the long-vector option, although I could've
swore he did (maybe it's there and I just didn't see it in my quick
refresh perusal). You can see the board in the upper-right corner of this
picture (or maybe it's the middle right?):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/imlac6.jpg
Also, I've got lots of parts to get your PDS-1
in running order.
Cool!
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and
Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
6 a.m.
New subject: more long vector Imlac stuff, was Re: Tales of VCF 5.0?
Sellam,
The board in the center row, right-hand side is the TTY interface board.
The long vector hardware is most probably that odd board added in the
core memory section, top right in the picture.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Wed, 30 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
I'd be really interested in learning more
about this!
Here is a page about the Imlac I have (it was given to me by Doug Salot,
who developed this page):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/
It doesn't say anything about the long-vector option, although I could've
swore he did (maybe it's there and I just didn't see it in my quick
refresh perusal). You can see the board in the upper-right corner of this
picture (or maybe it's the middle right?):
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/imlac/imlac6.jpg
Also, I've got lots of parts to get your PDS-1
in running order.
Cool!
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
2 Nov
2 Nov
4:54 a.m.
New subject: more long vector Imlac stuff, was Re: Tales of VCF 5.0?
On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
The board in the center row, right-hand side is the
TTY interface board.
The long vector hardware is most probably that odd board added in the
core memory section, top right in the picture.
I'll try to get more and better pictures (Tom requested them too) so we
can get a better look. Trouble is the machines are tucked away in a tight
area. It'll be a few days before I can get out to the warehouse and pull
them out.
In the meantime, here's a link to pictures I took when I first brought
home my PDS-1D:
http://siconic.com/computers/Imlac/
The idea is to get them working at some point. I'm hoping Greg Thomson
(Maze author referenced previously) will take an interest in helping me
out. It'd be really cool to have a real game of Maze in my garage with
the original author ;)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
7:52 a.m.
New subject: more long vector Imlac stuff, was Re: Tales of VCF 5.0?
At 10:55 AM 11/2/2002 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Bob Shannon wrote:
Ok. So the things that I notice from those pics are that there seems to be some
sort of board mounted on the back, which I've never seen on another
mathine. The
tube is mounted in a horizontal fashion instead of vertically, the
programmer's console
is a different style than any of the ones Bob or I have in that it has a
selector knob.
The photo here
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.radio-active.net.au/web/history/…
also seems to have that knob. The next time that you get the chance, could
you take
a couple of closeup pics of the console for me. I would like to see what
all is on it that
ours do not have. Lastly, it looks like there is a wire wrap board in the
long vector
section of the machine (300-304).
The board in the center row, right-hand side is
the TTY interface board.
The long vector hardware is most probably that odd board added in the
core memory section, top right in the picture.
I'll try to get more and better pictures (Tom requested them too) so we
can get a better look. Trouble is the machines are tucked away in a tight
area. It'll be a few days before I can get out to the warehouse and pull
them out.
In the meantime, here's a link to pictures I took when I first brought
home my PDS-1D:
http://siconic.com/computers/Imlac/ 
The idea is to get them working at some point. I'm
hoping Greg Thomson
(Maze author referenced previously) will take an interest in helping me
out. It'd be really cool to have a real game of Maze in my garage with
the original author ;)
Indeed!
--tom
Sellam Ismail
Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
11:09 a.m.
New subject: Paging Sellam
Sellam, Your DNS seems to be down for both vintage.org and siconic.com.
I've not been able to resolve either of them for several days. I would
send this via email directly, but if your DNS is having issues, I don't
know if this would make it there (although you do seem to be able to
receive emails from classiccmp).
-Toth
28 Oct
28 Oct
6:01 p.m.
I will post a more formal VCF 5.0 wrap up soon,
including names and
descriptions of the VCF Exhibit awardees.
What were the vote standings? I want to know how well I did with just
*one* day of stumping. ;-)
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- What happens when you get scared half-to-death twice? ----------------------
8:30 a.m.
Funny you should ask. I was just uploading some quick snapshots and
thumbnails.
Take a look at:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/VCF5/ImageMap1.htm
and
http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/VCF5/ImageMap2.htm
I'll be cleaning those up later, I hope.
Erik S. Klein
www.vintage-computer.com
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Bill Sudbrink
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 2:00 PM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Tales of VCF 5.0?
Anyone out there want to enlighten us poor slobs
stuck on the wrong side of the continent? Anyone
putting any pictures on the web?
Thanks
8:25 p.m.
New subject: Drives? (was: RE: Tales of VCF 5.0?)
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Erik S. Klein wrote:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/VCF5/Tony%20Cole%20Vendor.jpg
http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/VCF5/MemoryBillia2.jpg
Does anyone recognize the drive with the numeric pad and LCD on the far
right of the above two photos? It looks nearly identical to the 4 drives
in my SGI 210S, and I'm still not exactly sure what type they are.
-Toth
29 Oct
29 Oct
5:58 a.m.
New subject: Drives? (was: RE: Tales of VCF 5.0?)
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
Does anyone recognize the drive with the numeric pad
and LCD on the far
right of the above two photos? It looks nearly identical to the 4 drives
in my SGI 210S, and I'm still not exactly sure what type they are.
Seagate (nee CDC) Sabre. Available in a variety of capacities from 300 MB
to 1.2 GB.
ok
r.
5:43 p.m.
New subject: Drives? (was: RE: Tales of VCF 5.0?)
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, r. 'bear' stricklin wrote:
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
That sounds about right. I think I remember reading somewhere on the
drives in the 210S that they were at least 1GB in capacity.
The current that they may draw still worries me too...
-Toth
Does anyone recognize the drive with the numeric
pad and LCD on the
far right of the above two photos? It looks nearly identical to the 4
drives in my SGI 210S, and I'm still not exactly sure what type they
are.
Seagate (nee CDC) Sabre. Available in a variety of capacities from 300
MB to 1.2 GB. 
30 Oct
30 Oct
4:49 a.m.
New subject: Drives? (was: RE: Tales of VCF 5.0?)
That sounds about right. I think I remember reading
somewhere on the
drives in the 210S that they were at least 1GB in capacity.
The current that they may draw still worries me too...
If you're talking about the ones in the pictures of Tony Cole's booth,...
he bought my amprobe ammeter. (so he may also be worried about their
current draw)
28 Oct
28 Oct
11:12 a.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
Anyone out there want to enlighten us poor slobs stuck
on the wrong side
of the continent? Anyone putting any pictures on the web?
It was a wholly awesome event. The most well-run VCF in the history of
the VCF (all talks on time and recorded and video taped). Nearly a
perfect exhibit (one problem with a circuit breaker on Sunday that was
promptly fixed) with Kraftwerk playing in the background, not to mention
the excellent exhibits themselves. We had broadband Internet access
in the Exhibit Hall plus a WAP. Plenty of good stuff in the vendor
area (much stuff for which I had to quell my impulse to buy, though I
did get a lot of keen donations). Lots of great literature at the
Propaganda Zone. Tours to the Computer History Museum, the California Air
and Space Center (which were only a short walk away) and an excursion to
the DigiBarn (http://www.digibarn.com). And the attendance was way
higher than expected (right up around 300).
In my opinion it was one of the best VCF's yet. Next year it will be even
bigger and better.
I will now turn my sights to VCF East 2.0.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
11:27 a.m.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
It was a wholly awesome event. The most well-run VCF
in the history of
the VCF (all talks on time and recorded and video taped).
Hear, hear!!! Well done, Sellam, and everyone else involved!
Plenty of good stuff in the vendor area
(much stuff for which I had to quell my impulse to buy, though I did get
a lot of keen donations).
Don't worry, Hans bought all the good stuff for you. :-)
In my opinion it was one of the best VCF's yet.
Yes!
Eric
noon
Sellam Ismail wrote:
It was a wholly awesome event. The most well-run VCF
in the history of
the VCF (all talks on time and recorded and video taped).
Sellam put on one hell of an event!
just wish that we didn't have to wait so long for the next one!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
12:51 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Eric Smith wrote:
I know, it's currently taking up valuable space in my garage and warehouse
:(
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Plenty of good
stuff in the vendor area (much stuff for which I had to
quell my impulse to buy, though I did get a lot of keen donations).
Don't worry, Hans bought all the good stuff for you. :-)
3:58 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Eric Smith wrote:
Actually, the deal that has been open to Hans for the past couple years is
that Hans can have my whole entire collection as long as he carries it
away in one day (one 24 hour period), by himself, with no help.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
I know,
it's currently taking up valuable space in my garage and
warehouse :(
You did tell him that every month you'll charge him rent in the form
of 10% of the items initially stored, right? 
2:21 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Eric Smith wrote:
I know, it's currently taking up valuable space in my garage and warehouse
:(
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
I hope someone bought the Terak.
-Lawrence LeMay
lemay(a)cs.umn.edu
Plenty of
good stuff in the vendor area (much stuff for which I had to
quell my impulse to buy, though I did get a lot of keen donations).
Don't worry, Hans bought all the good stuff for you. :-)
4 p.m.
On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, Lawrence LeMay wrote:
I hope someone bought the Terak.
?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
4:24 p.m.
Sellam Ismail wrote:
Seconds to that. Great show, superbly organized, well attended, tremendous
venue and, on top of that, even some free food! Thanks for all your hard work!
The attendance was great as well, and didn't show any drop-off on Sunday. The
place was rockin'!
It was a wholly awesome event. The most well-run
VCF in the history of
the VCF (all talks on time and recorded and video taped).
Hear, hear!!! Well done, Sellam, and everyone else involved!
Plenty of good
stuff in the vendor area
(much stuff for which I had to quell my impulse to buy, though I did get
a lot of keen donations).
Don't worry, Hans bought all the good stuff for you. :-)
In my opinion it was one of the best VCF's
yet.
Yes!
Eric
-W
7854
days inactive
7859
days old
28 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
bshannon＠tiac.net -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
lemay＠cs.umn.edu -
red＠bears.org -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu -
tothwolf＠concentric.net -
uban＠ubanproductions.com -
wh.sudbrink＠verizon.net -
wmsmith＠earthlink.net