7 Aug
2010
7 Aug
'10
3:40 p.m.
GET LAMP is here
=Dan
--
--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/
7 Aug
7 Aug
3:44 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
GET LAMP is here
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
4:08 p.m.
On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
GET LAMP is here
#948
don't lick it, the card says 'made in china' :)
=Dan
--
--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :)
4:24 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 3:44 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
Heheheh.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
GET LAMP is here
#948
don't lick it, the card says 'made in china' :)
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :)
4:39 p.m.
Okay, I get the reference to Colossal Cave, but what does this have
to do with microcomputers, as the introduction seems to imply? I
recall that the original was done on a DECSystem 10, not a micro. (A
DEC FE got me a tape of the source and database and I converted it to
run on a CDC 6000 series machine--I should have been fired for all
the lost company time that resulted, but somehow I escaped).
--Chuck
4:45 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Okay, I get the reference to Colossal Cave, but what
does this have
to do with microcomputers, as the introduction seems to imply? I
recall that the original was done on a DECSystem 10, not a micro. (A
DEC FE got me a tape of the source and database and I converted it to
run on a CDC 6000 series machine--I should have been fired for all
the lost company time that resulted, but somehow I escaped).
Chuck, Get Lamp is a documentary that covers adventure games. He even
went to the cave where the first Adventure was based on. It's done by the
same guy that did the BBS Documentary. It's been in the works for about 4
years or so.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
4:53 p.m.
On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 4:39 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Okay, I get the reference to Colossal Cave, but what
does this have
to do with microcomputers, as the introduction seems to imply? I
recall that the original was done on a DECSystem 10, not a micro. (A
DEC FE got me a tape of the source and database and I converted it to
run on a CDC 6000 series machine--I should have been fired for all
the lost company time that resulted, but somehow I escaped).
I think don't they neglect the origins. I would say that since the advent of
the microprocessor in the 70s, the market essentially bursted into a much
wider audience, since more home microcomputers were made than any other
category (mini's, big iron, etc) and allowed more people to have the text
adventure experience - more than just those of us in the industry.
=Dan
--
--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/
4:23 p.m.
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
http://www.getlamp.com - Before the first person shooter, there was the
second person thinker. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
Are the rest of us supposed to have a clue about this?
GET LAMP is here
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :) 
6:24 p.m.
I just ordered mine -- the double-pack with the BBS documentary.
On 8/7/10 4:23 PM, "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
http://www.getlamp.com - Before the first person shooter, there was the
second person thinker. :)
g.
Rich
--
Rich Cini
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master and lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator
http://www.altair32.com
http://www.classiccmp.org/cini
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Dan Roganti wrote:
Are the rest of us supposed to have a clue about this?
GET LAMP is here
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :) 
8 Aug
8 Aug
1:25 p.m.
Are the rest
of us supposed to have a clue about this?
http://www.getlamp.com - Before the first person shooter, there was the
second person thinker. :)
9 Aug
9 Aug
9:33 a.m.
On Sun, 8 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
If this habit of giving a URL as an asnwer with no explanation continues,
I am going to start answering questions with things like 'third page of
the 7th notebook on the top shelf in my workshop'...
Well it was that or a Let Me Google That For You link.
If that notebook has been scanned and is available via a URL equivalent to
its physical location, I'd be all for it. Otherwise, quit whining.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Are the rest of us supposed to have a clue about
this?
http://www.getlamp.com - Before the first person shooter, there was the
second person thinker. :)
4:49 p.m.
Are the rest
of us supposed to have a clue about this?
http://www.getlamp.com - Before the first person shooter, there was the
second person thinker. :)
If that notebook has been scanned and is available via a URL equivalent to
its physical location, I'd be all for it. Otherwise, quit whining.
The point is that not all of us read e-mail on line, not all of us have a
web browser (or more specifically a graphical web browser) on the machine
we use to read mail (or in my case on any of my machines). Which means to
follow such a URL involves almost as much work as you getting to see one
of my workshop notebooks. And I want to know if that effort is worthwhile.
-tony
5:14 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
I don't see why a comment of the form 'It's a documentary abotu the
heistory of text adventures, for more information see <URL>' is impossible.
Well frankly, if I had any idea that you'd go Old Man McClusky on me while
waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I just may
have. Unfortunately I constantly forget that you like to party like it's
1979.
I use Alpine to read email (text only) and have been known to use Lynx
(text only browser) on occasion. Both of which are likely available if
you're using pretty much any flavor of Unix, VMS, Linux or DOS.
Because we've pretty much already defined that I'm an asshole, it should
be added that I'm not terribly understanding of peoples' self-configured
difficulty. You could easily build a machine that does all these
new-fangled and modern webby things and yet you grump at ME because you
have no way to copy & paste a url into any kind of browser.
Yes, I like the trailing edge of computing, but you fell off of it and the
guy pushing the stone wheelbarrow behind us is going to grind you to paste
if you don't catch up. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
If this habit of giving a URL as an asnwer with no
explanation continues,
I am going to start answering questions with things like 'third page of
the 7th notebook on the top shelf in my workshop'...
Well it was that or a Let Me Google That For You link.
If that notebook has been scanned and is available via a URL equivalent to
its physical location, I'd be all for it. Otherwise, quit whining.
The point is that not all of us read e-mail on line, not all of us have a
web browser (or more specifically a graphical web browser) on the machine
we use to read mail (or in my case on any of my machines). Which means to
follow such a URL involves almost as much work as you getting to see one
of my workshop notebooks. And I want to know if that effort is worthwhile.
10 Aug
10 Aug
2:19 p.m.
I don't
see why a comment of the form 'It's a documentary abotu the
heistory of text adventures, for more information see <URL>' is impossible.
Well frankly, if I had any idea that you'd go Old Man McClusky on me while
waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I just may have. Unfortunately I constantly forget that you like
to party like it's
1979.
Oh comne on. I am not new here, I have not changed recently...
The point is
that not all of us read e-mail on line, not all of us have a
web browser (or more specifically a graphical web browser) on the machine
we use to read mail (or in my case on any of my machines). Which means to
follow such a URL involves almost as much work as you getting to see one
of my workshop notebooks. And I want to know if that effort is worthwhile.
I use Alpine to read email (text only) and have been known to use Lynx
(text only browser) on occasion. Both of which are likely available if
you're using pretty much any flavor of Unix, VMS, Linux or DOS.
Because we've pretty much already defined that I'm an asshole, it should
be added that I'm not terribly understanding of peoples' self-configured
difficulty. You could easily build a machine that does all these
I assume you also can't understand why people spend many hours making a
mechanical closk from scratch when a $10 quartz clock is much more
accurate. Or why people learn to play a musical instrument rather than
just listening to a record/tape/CD. Or why people paint pictures when
there are plenty of cameras around.
To be honest, it doesn't matter if you understand why people do these
things. They do, and that's all there is to it. You cna't understnad why
I run a classic computer (enven though this is classiccmp). I am sure
there are things that you do that I wouldn't want to do myself. So what?
new-fangled and modern webby things and yet you grump
at ME because you
have no way to copy & paste a url into any kind of browser.
I wasn;t expecting a transcript of the documentary, or anything like
that. Just a 1-line description of what 'GET LAMP' actually was.
Tomake this mildly on-topic, suppose you find a PCB with an HP logo and
the number 09810-66513 on it You ahve no idea what it is and ask on the
list. Which is more helpful :
1) $URL
2) It's the CPU control logic/microcode PCB from an HP 98x0 calcualtor.
You cna find schematics at $URL#
Yes, I like the trailing edge of computing, but you
fell off of it and the
guy pushing the stone wheelbarrow behind us is going to grind you to paste
if you don't catch up. :)
For $deity;s sake, this _is_ classiccmp, isn't it?
-tony
7:05 p.m.
From: Tony Duell
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 11:20 AM
> You could easily build a machine that does all
these
I assume you also can't understand why people
spend many hours making a
mechanical closk from scratch when a $10 quartz clock is much more
accurate. Or why people learn to play a musical instrument rather than
just listening to a record/tape/CD. Or why people paint pictures when
there are plenty of cameras around.
Tony,
I won't defend the lack of description on the URL. (I didn't bother to go
look until someone else said what it was about, and I'm on fast boradband.)
However, I took the comment you quoted to have an intrinsic "in addition"
rather than the intrinsic "instead" you saw.
However, the dial-up issue trumps everything else, and I don't blame you
in the least for your irritation.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
11 Aug
11 Aug
1:50 p.m.
> You could
easily build a machine that does all these=20
> I assume you also can't understand why people spend many hours making a=20
> mechanical closk from scratch when a $10 quartz clock is much more=20
> accurate. Or why people learn to play a musical instrument rather than=20
> just listening to a record/tape/CD. Or why people paint pictures when=20
> there are plenty of cameras around. However, I took the comment you quoted to have an
intrinsic "in addition"
rather than the intrinsic "instead" you saw.
I am not sure we understnad each other...
My reply was to the comment that the OP couldn't understand why I
insisted on using a classic computer (text display, dialup connection,
whatever). I was commenting that plenty of other people do things that in
a sense make life difficult for them, but I assuem they have reasons for
doing that ('I enjoy it' is a perfectly good reason, BTW).
I have reasons for using my much-hacked IBM 5170, whcih I have mentioned
here many times before. You don;t have to agree with them, sure.
-tony
10 Aug
10 Aug
4:32 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Gene Buckle wrote:
Well frankly, if I had any idea that you'd go Old
Man McClusky on me while
waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I just may
have. Unfortunately I constantly forget that you like to party like it's
1979.
HELL, YES!! You damn kids today have no clue how to party.
Herpes was the worst incurable STD in those days.
I will gladly find and give John Titor a 5100 (with APL AND BASIC)
if he will just drop me off in 1979. I'll throw in a 360
for a one-way to the 1960s. That's for one-way.
For round-trip, all he gets is Valtrep.
Who is Old Man McClusky? Maybe he'd like to come along.
I use Alpine to read email (text only) and have been
known to use Lynx
(text only browser) on occasion. Both of which are likely available if
you're using pretty much any flavor of Unix, VMS, Linux or DOS.
I'm on PINE, but I have three modern browsers on this POS. At dial-up
speeds, it is still annoying to have to go somewhere just to find out what
it is. Click and WAIT.
Because we've pretty much already defined that
I'm an asshole,
S'alright, so am I
it should be added that I'm not terribly
understanding of peoples'
self-configured difficulty. You could easily build a machine that does
all these new-fangled and modern webby things and yet you grump at ME
because you have no way to copy & paste a url into any kind of browser.
That is s'posedly comparably easy to reading "it's a documentary about
Adventure"?
Besides, kids today won't play Adventure "cause it don't got pictures"
Yes, I like the trailing edge of computing, but you
fell off of it and
the guy pushing the stone wheelbarrow behind us is going to grind you to
paste if you don't catch up. :)
I haven't been on the bleeding edge in about 30 years.
Pioneers are the ones with arrows in the back.
Y'know, 1970 was kinda fun, too. FORTRAN and APL, Selectric terminals,
lining up the crosshairs on the Gerber "Etch-a-sketch" and stomping on the
pedal to get the modified 026 to punch two three digit numbers of the
coordinates, . . .
Don't worry about the guy behind us; I can still swing my cane.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5:23 p.m.
On 10/08/2010 21:32, Fred Cisin wrote:
I'm on PINE, but I have three modern browsers on
this POS. At dial-up
speeds, it is still annoying to have to go somewhere just to find out what
it is. Click and WAIT.
I'm with Tony and Fred, and probably a lot of others, on this. I have a
reasonably fast broadband line at home, and a decent browser, but
really, how much effort and consideration does it take to add a single
line of explanation when somebody asks?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
5:33 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
Y'know, 1970 was kinda fun, too. FORTRAN and APL,
Selectric terminals,
lining up the crosshairs on the Gerber "Etch-a-sketch" and stomping on the
pedal to get the modified 026 to punch two three digit numbers of the
coordinates, . . .
Don't worry about the guy behind us; I can still swing my cane.
I am more worried if you hit! :)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
7:39 p.m.
On 10 August 2010 21:32, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Gene Buckle wrote:
Ooooh oooh ooh! Can I come? Please? When the '60s ended, I was nearly
3. I missed all the fun.
Well frankly, if I had any idea that you'd go
Old Man McClusky on me while
waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I just may
have. ?Unfortunately I constantly forget that you like to party like it's
1979.
HELL, YES!! ? ? You damn kids today have no clue how to party.
Herpes was the worst incurable STD in those days.
I will gladly find and give John Titor a 5100 (with APL AND BASIC)
if he will just drop me off in 1979. ?I'll throw in a 360
for a one-way to the 1960s. ?That's for one-way. For round-trip, all he gets is Valtrep.
[Mirth] Oh, come on. We can give him a PDP/11 running OS/2, at least!
--
Liam Proven ? Profile & links: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
11 Aug
11 Aug
3:34 p.m.
New subject: GET LAMP was here
> > Unfortunately I constantly forget that you
like to party like it's
> > 1979.
> HELL, YES!! ? ? You damn kids today have no clue how to party.
> Herpes was the worst incurable STD in those days.
> I will gladly find and give John Titor a 5100 (with APL AND BASIC)
> if he will just drop me off in 1979. ?I'll throw in a 360
> for a one-way to the 1960s. ?That's for one-way.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Liam Proven wrote:
Ooooh oooh ooh! Can I come? Please? When the '60s
ended, I was nearly
3. I missed all the fun.
Sure! If Titor can take us, we can all go.
You also missed out on most of the "Cold War" - Kruschev being refused
access to Disneyland, the Cuban missile crisis, fallout shelters, the
constant fear of total annhilation, and the resulting "cutting loose" of
the younger generation.
For
round-trip, all he gets is Valtrep.
[Mirth] Oh, come on. We can give him a PDP/11
running OS/2, at least! 
3:46 p.m.
New subject: an old program, was Re: GET LAMP was here
On 8/11/10 3:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
'course even 1979 would be fun, to relive Apple,
TRS80, and PET. Z80,
8080, 6502. Source and Compuserve. Hard sector V Soft Sector! Much
better religious battles than the wimpy WINDOZE V LINUX squabbles that
we have today.
And someone apparently assumed I was talking about Linux! ;)
Does anyone here remember a program called "The Last One" that was
advertised in full-page ads in BYTE? I believe it was a code generator
of some sort. I'll go digging through magazines to see if I can find
it, but it popped into my head when I read the paragraph above. Does
anyone know anything about it?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
5:11 p.m.
New subject: an old program, was Re: GET LAMP was here
> 'course even 1979 would be fun, to relive
Apple, TRS80, and PET. Z80,
> 8080, 6502. Source and Compuserve. Hard sector V Soft Sector! Much
> better religious battles than the wimpy WINDOZE V LINUX squabbles that
> we have today.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Dave McGuire wrote:
And someone apparently assumed I was talking about
Linux! ;)
Not really. I just oversimplified to avoid offending some of the bigots
:-)
Does anyone here remember a program called "The
Last One" that was
advertised in full-page ads in BYTE? I believe it was a code generator
of some sort. I'll go digging through magazines to see if I can find
it, but it popped into my head when I read the paragraph above. Does
anyone know anything about it?
I don't know anything about it other than the thoroughly obnoxious hype
when it was introduced at about the fifth or sixth West Coast Compuer Faire.
My comment then was essentially, "They won't keep the promise in their
name, there will still be more of those. Too many people think that what
everybody else wants is just a trivial variant of what they want, and
think that they can handle everybody's needs by just making their program
a little more general. Most of them seem to be very limited database
programs, where a resulting "program" is just obfuscated code for your
query or report request. Will RPG never go away?"
Yeah, I was grumpy before I got old; or maybe I've always been old.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
12 Aug
12 Aug
2:49 p.m.
New subject: an old program, was Re: GET LAMP was here
Does anyone here remember a program called "The
Last One" that was
I rememebr the adverts, but nothing more. I've never seen the program itself.
advertised in full-page ads in BYTE? I believe it was
a code generator
of some sort. I'll go digging through magazines to see if I can find
I seem to revall the name came from the idea that this is the last
program you'd have to buy becuase you could write everything yourself. I
think it was OK for writing database type things, but not much else.
-tony
11 Aug
11 Aug
1:44 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Gene Buckle wrote:
If a 'party' is what I think it is, I'' jsut stick to fixing my classic
computers ;-)
Well frankly, if I had any idea that you'd go
Old Man McClusky on me while
waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I just may
have. Unfortunately I constantly forget that you like to party like it's
1979.
HELL, YES!! You damn kids today have no clue how to party. Herpes was the worst incurable STD in those days.
Oh no... back then 'STD' meant 'Subscriber Trunk Dialing' and nothing
mroe :-)
Who is Old Man McClusky? Maybe he'd like to come
along.
You know you've been hardware-hackign too long when all you can think of is
the Quine McClusky minimalisation method...
> it should be added that I'm not terribly
understanding of peoples'
> self-configured difficulty. You could easily build a machine that does
Actually,, could I _easily_ build such a macnine? Given that I don't have
one, or anything like it, I can't use CPLDs or FGPAs (the logic compilers
require such a machine to run on, and the chips are not fully docuemtned
so toy can't write your own for whatever machine you happen to have).
Building a machine that runs a graphical browser using only stock chips
doesnt sound totally tivial/.
all these
new-fangled and modern webby things and yet you grump at ME
because you have no way to copy & paste a url into any kind of browser.
That is s'posedly comparably easy to reading "it's a documentary about
Adventure"? 
4:17 p.m.
Dan Roganti wrote:
and whether P?NP :)
Funny you should mention that. I just got this link today:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/code-analysis/computer-science-breakthrough-the-…
In case the URL gets munged, here's the short version:
http://tinyurl.com/2cz4bet
Barry
4:58 p.m.
On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Barry L. Kline <blkline at attglobal.net>wrote:
Dan Roganti wrote:
yes, I saw that too. I just had to bring it up :)
But it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet.
=Dan
--
--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/
and whether P?NP :)
Funny you should mention that. I just got this link today:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/code-analysis/computer-science-breakthrough-the-…
In case the URL gets munged, here's the short version:
http://tinyurl.com/2cz4bet
12 Aug
12 Aug
6:57 a.m.
On 11 August 2010 20:45, Dan Roganti <ragooman at gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 1:44 PM, Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Indeed!
Charlie Stross wrote an excellent short story about this once, called
/Antibodies./ It's on Scribd here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23396346/Charles-Stross-Antibodies
After that, it's kind of a *relief* that apparently P<>NP. (Although
also a disappointment.)
OTOH, there are many issues with the proof:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/08/11/0239209/Possible-Issues-With-the…
--
Liam Proven ? Profile & links: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
You know you've been hardware-hackign too long when all you can think of is
the Quine McClusky minimalisation method...
and whether ?P?NP ? ?:)
6:53 p.m.
New subject: GOT LAMP
There was some discussion earlier about the nature of the fuel for the
lamp. Although it is explicitly battery operated (see vending machine!),
It was generally assumed not to be a conventional torch/flashlight.
Well, a friend knew that I was in need of a better power failure light,
and gave me a lamp. It looks like an ordinary "hurricane lantern". But,
instead of combustion, it has more than a dozen LEDs! The "fuel tank"
has a door on the bottom for batteries. What appears to be
a liquid fuel tank cap rotates, and is actually an ON/OFF switch and
dimmer control! I'm not used to seeing reasonably smooth dimming with
LEDs.
13 Aug
13 Aug
2:13 p.m.
New subject: GOT LAMP
There was some discussion earlier about the nature of the fuel for the
lamp. Although it is explicitly battery operated (see vending machine!),
It was generally assumed not to be a conventional torch/flashlight.
I always assumed it was an electrically powered lantern (one game
described it as a 'brass lantern' IIRC. In other words electrically
identical to a nromal torch/flashlight, but mechancially different.
Well, a friend knew that I was in need of a better power failure light,
and gave me a lamp. It looks like an ordinary "hurricane lantern". But,
instead of combustion, it has more than a dozen LEDs! The "fuel tank"
Colossal Cave and Zork long poredate whtie LEDs :-)
has a door on the bottom for batteries. What appears
to be
a liquid fuel tank cap rotates, and is actually an ON/OFF switch and
They should have had a little rod coming out the side below the glass
part for that, like the wick adjustment on a real huricane lamp.
dimmer control! I'm not used to seeing
reasonably smooth dimming with
LEDs.
I would assume it varies the mark:space ration of a drive waveform. Have
you dismantled it to see what's inside?
-tony
11 Aug
11 Aug
4:59 p.m.
> > Well frankly, if I had any idea that
you'd go Old Man McClusky on me while
> > waving your cane in my face and raving about these damn kids, I
just may
> > have. Unfortunately I constantly forget
that you like to party like it's
> > 1979.
> HELL, YES!! You damn kids today have no clue how to party.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
If a 'party' is what I think it is,
I'' jsut stick to fixing my classic
computers ;-)
In those days, parties were much more varied than they are now.
The first time that I played Adventure (see! we don't know how to stay
off-topic!), the first time that I saw an 8080 or Z80, my first hands-on
with S100, flight simulator (pre-release?) on an Apple, were all at
parties in the San Francisco area in the mid to late 1970s.
Herpes was the
worst incurable STD in those days.
Oh no... back then 'STD' meant
'Subscriber Trunk Dialing' and nothing
mroe :-) Who is Old Man
McClusky? Maybe he'd like to come along.
You know you've been
hardware-hackign too long when all you can think of is
the Quine McClusky minimalisation method... Building a machine that runs a graphical browser using
only stock chips
doesnt sound totally tivial/.
Surely a graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
Even thoguh I am pretty fast with a soldering iron,
Isuspect I could
read that centence rather quicker htan I could solder in a 40 pin DIL chip...
I'm not as good with soldering. I could read that sentence in less time
than a single pin of the 40 pin DIP. But, I could finish soldering the 40
pin socket (marginal soldering skills) before this dial-up would be
displaying the page.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
6:29 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Fred Cisin wrote:
I don't know about that... Google is not what I'd call a
graphics-intensive site, but a single page of results is 64k html, and
about as much again in images. You can eat up 640k real fast that way, and
that doesn't include any of the code you need for a TCP/IP stack, stub DNS
resolver, parsing HTML (and let's not forget the memory cost of
intermediate representations, unless you want to pay for a full reparse
every time there's an exposure event) applying CSS, layout, rendering any
number of image formats, input handling, forms, cookies... Let's not even
think about supporting ECMA script, without which you won't be able to use
any web 2.0 sites, and I shudder to think of what you'd have to do to try
to run flash on an on-topic machine.
I've got 2 text-mostly pages open ATM, and Firefox has an RSS of 100M;
even if that's 90% wasted (which I very much doubt) then you still need
10M to hold the useful bits (not counting the filesystem and IP stack bits
that live in the kernel and aren't counted against Firefox's RSS).
Alexey
Building a
machine that runs a graphical browser using only stock chips
doesnt sound totally tivial/.
Surely a graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA. 
8:58 p.m.
> Surely a
graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
> be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
There is a HTML browser that runs on MSX computers (!!!) called
FUDEBROWSER, look for it and his creator (Ricardo Bittencourt) 
13 Aug
13 Aug
10:30 a.m.
Alexey Toptygin wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Fred Cisin wrote:
Now you have me thinking about how fun it'd be to try if you hada few
5150s... maybe one for the network stack, one for display, and one for
intermediate processing, all linked together via some homebrew parallel link :-)
Surely a graphical browser, (if NOT done in a
High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
I don't know about that... Google is not what I'd call a
graphics-intensive site, but a single page of results is 64k html, and
about as much again in images. You can eat up 640k real fast that way,
and that doesn't include any of the code you need for a TCP/IP stack,
stub DNS resolver, parsing HTML (and let's not forget the memory cost of
intermediate representations, unless you want to pay for a full reparse
every time there's an exposure event) applying CSS, layout, rendering
any number of image formats, input handling, forms, cookies... Let's not
even think about supporting ECMA script, without which you won't be able
to use any web 2.0 sites, and I shudder to think of what you'd have to
do to try to run flash on an on-topic machine. 
12:50 p.m.
In article <4C655710.2050904 at gmail.com>,
Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> writes:
Now you have me thinking about how fun it'd be to
try if you hada few
5150s... maybe one for the network stack, one for display, and one for
intermediate processing, all linked together via some homebrew parallel link
:-)
The easier approach IMO is to treat the 5150 as a smart terminal and
put all the web browser smarts on another machine. The 5150 interacts
with the browser through a serial port connection.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
4:30 p.m.
Now you have
me thinking about how fun it'd be to try if you hada few
5150s... maybe one for the network stack, one for display, and one for
intermediate processing, all linked together via some homebrew parallel
link :-)
The easier approach IMO is to treat the 5150 as a smart terminal and
put all the web browser smarts on another machine. The 5150 interacts
with the browser through a serial port connection. 
12 Aug
12 Aug
1:20 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
There were many 'STD' abreviations. Such as "standard", "SeT
Direction",
"State Transition Diagram". But sexually transmitted diseases were not,
and didn't need to be, a major worry in those days.
You didn't mention my favorite! STD-BUS. "Simple-to-design".
Peace... Sridhar
Herpes was the worst incurable STD in those days.
Oh no... back then 'STD' meant 'Subscriber Trunk Dialing' and
nothing
mroe :-)
7:41 p.m.
On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
You didn't mention my favorite! STD-BUS.
"Simple-to-design".
I apologize for leaving out a truly important STD.
"party like it's 1979"?
Hell, yes. The world has reassigned the most prevalent use of STD from
STD-BUS to Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Is THAT an improvement?
13 Aug
13 Aug
12:45 a.m.
You didn't
mention my favorite! STD-BUS. "Simple-to-design".
I apologize for leaving out a truly important STD.
"party like it's 1979"?
Hell, yes. The world has reassigned the most prevalent use of STD from
STD-BUS to Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Is THAT an improvement?
12 Aug
12 Aug
3 p.m.
If a
'party' is what I think it is, I'll jsut stick to fixing my classic
computers ;-)
In those days, parties were much more varied than they are now.
The first time that I played Adventure (see! we don't know how to stay
off-topic!), the first time that I saw an 8080 or Z80, my first hands-on
with S100, flight simulator (pre-release?) on an Apple, were all at
parties in the San Francisco area in the mid to late 1970s. Building a
machine that runs a graphical browser using only stock chips
doesnt sound totally tivial/.
Surely a graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA. Even thoguh I am pretty fast with a soldering
iron, Isuspect I could
read that centence rather quicker htan I could solder in a 40 pin DIL chip...
I'm not as good with soldering. I could read that sentence in less time
than a single pin of the 40 pin DIP. But, I could finish soldering the 40
pin socket (marginal soldering skills) before this dial-up would be
displaying the page.
3:59 p.m.
On 12 Aug 2010 at 20:00, Tony Duell wrote:
IIRC the origianl 5150 couldn't take a hard disk.
So with a maximum,
of 640K or RAM and 4 360K disk drives (which I suppose you oculd use
for buffering data), I think it's going to be hard to handle
multi-megabyte web pages...
There were many third-party hard drives. I rigged up my own with an
SA-1000, WD1001 and a little interface board. 4MB, granted wasn't
much, but it worked. Ampex and others had similar setups.
And one could always use LIM (EMS) memory on a 5150.
Lynx is available for DOS, but is severely memory-constrained and
slow as a Dell customer service representative.
Arachne will run on a 286, but you don't want to endure waiting for a
page to load.
--Chuck
6:42 p.m.
On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
More useless than they are on this POS with VGA?
Surely a
graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
I think most graphical web pages would be
pretty much useless at 320*200
in 4 pre-chosen colours... IIRC the origianl 5150 couldn't take a hard disk.
Could be done, using a floppy boot disk with certain startup code.
Did any of them use the "extra" ROM socket on the 5150?
So with a maximum, of 640K or RAM
EMS (LIM?)
Although MOST expanded memory systems were 16 bit, and written
with 286 code, there WERE 8 bit EMS boards, and 808x software.
and 4 360K disk drives (which I suppose you oculd use
for
buffering data), I think it's going to be hard to handle multi-megabyte
web pages...
I ran 8" DSDD on a 5150, with an aftermarket FDC board.
I saw 8 bit hard drives running on PCs, and even on Apple][, and TRS80
model 3!
I never bought one, because they were a few hundred to a thousand dollars
per megabyte!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
13 Aug
13 Aug
2:10 p.m.
On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
More useless than they are on this POS with VGA?
You are running POS (or P/OS) on a machine with a VGA display? (Sorry,
couldn't resist)...
I can't comment... I've nto seen your machine. But considering much of
the web does seem to be useless, I doubt it matters what displays it.
Surely a
graphical browser, (if NOT done in a High Level Language) could
be written to run on a 5150 with CGA.
I think most graphical web pages would be
pretty much useless at 320*200
in 4 pre-chosen colours... IIRC the origianl 5150 couldn't take a hard
disk.
Could be done, using a floppy boot disk with certain startup code.
Did any of them use the "extra" ROM socket on the 5150?
So with a maximum, of 640K or RAM
EMS
(LIM?) Although MOST expanded memory systems were 16 bit, and written
with 286 code, there WERE 8 bit EMS boards, and 808x software. I saw 8 bit hard drives running on PCs, and even on
Apple][, and TRS80
I wonder what an '8 bit ahrd drive' is. A cotnroller with an 8 bit data
bus on the host interface?
model 3!
I hve one on my Model 4 (same interface as the M3, of course). It's a 3rd
party one made by Cumana, who are better known for their floppy drive
units for the BBC micro. This hard disk unit contains an ST612 (IIRC), a
WD controler board, an SMPSU and a little bus interface (3 or 4 TTL
chips).
Of course there were also hard disks for the BBC micro. The Acorn one is
not too hard to find, the Torch one is very rare in my experience...
But this doesn't make displaying graphical web pages any easier, nor does
it solve the download time problem
-tony
4:47 p.m.
> More useless than they are on this POS with VGA?
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
I can't comment... I've nto seen your machine.
But considering much of
the web does seem to be useless, I doubt it matters what displays it.
exactly
This started as 'an easy project to make a machine
to display graphic web
pages'.Doesn;t sound all that easy to me. I think it would eb less work
to design the machine (and processor :-)) from scratch...
"less work"?
certainly more fun
I saw 8 bit
hard drives running on PCs, and even on Apple][, and TRS80
I wonder what an '8
bit ahrd drive' is. A cotnroller with an 8 bit data
bus on the host interface? 
27 Aug
27 Aug
2:17 a.m.
Hi
I just got the CDROM drive on my Sparcbook s1 running.
The directory called /usr/games was empty on my machine.
I looked on the CDROM and found a pile of games that I
immediately copied to my harddrive on the sparcbook.
Among the games was of course adventure ;)
Dwight
2:36 a.m.
On 8/27/10 2:17 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
I just got the CDROM drive on my Sparcbook s1
running.
The directory called /usr/games was empty on my machine.
I looked on the CDROM and found a pile of games that I
immediately copied to my harddrive on the sparcbook.
Among the games was of course adventure ;)
Most excellent. :)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
12 Aug
12 Aug
8:13 p.m.
> In those days, parties were much more varied than
they are now.
> The first time that I played Adventure (see! we don't know how to stay
> off-topic!), the first time that I saw an 8080 or Z80, my first hands-on
> with S100, flight simulator (pre-release?) on an Apple, were all at
> parties in the San Francisco area in the mid to late 1970s.
On Thu, 12 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
Ah, right... Souns a bit like a certain event I attend
once a month.
In the 60s, and even the 70s, there were such parties every night, if you
were so inclined.
9 Aug
9 Aug
7:48 p.m.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
I don't see why a comment of the form
'It's a documentary abotu the
heistory of text adventures, for more information see <URL>' is impossible.
I agree. I often need to read several messages further on in a thread to
figure out what is being talked about.
"XYZZY" or "PLUGH" would be more recognizable. But, like many puzzles
in
Colossal Cave, it's obvious AFTER you know it, but not before.
follow such a URL involves almost as much work as you
getting to see one
of my workshop notebooks. And I want to know if that effort is worthwhile.
If we could scan the entire existing collection, then the effort probably
would be worthwhile.
I'm on dial-up right now. A URL with no explanation just seems rather
inconsiderate.
Oh, well. But, it's not just here. The college adminiatrators tend to
send a 4 line paragraph as a MICROS~1 WEIRD attachment with no explanation
other than "FYI" or "read the attachment". Meanwhile, the "Help
Desk"
sends out several announcements per week saying, "Please stop opening
attachments that come with email, and please stop replying to messages
that ask what your password is!"
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
10:37 p.m.
get flame
ok
flame duell
The flames engulf the poor adventurer and leave him writhing in agony
as his crispy torso falls to a heap on the ground.
You are at the door to the SAGE command center.
There is a corpse here.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
10 Aug
10 Aug
1:25 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
I agree. I often need to read several messages
further on in a thread to
figure out what is being talked about.
"XYZZY" or "PLUGH" would be more recognizable. But, like many
puzzles in
Colossal Cave, it's obvious AFTER you know it, but not before.
Well I got "THE LAMP". Now to find the cave... and buy the proper
9 pin null modem cable if they still make them. I can't keep stealing
from the PC here.
I am just finding playing
ADVENTURE on the PDP-8 (SBC6120)
with a IDE drive just playable for a text game. Did most of the
people play ADVENTURE on a classic machine or wait for PC version
or clone of the game. I remember playing a similar game on the COCO II
but I think it was from Cassette rather than mini-floppy.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
Ben.
1:46 a.m.
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Ben wrote:
Well I got "THE LAMP". Now to find the
cave... and buy the proper
9 pin null modem cable if they still make them. I can't keep stealing
from the PC here.
I am just finding playing ADVENTURE on the PDP-8 (SBC6120)
with a IDE drive just playable for a text game. Did most of the
people play ADVENTURE on a classic machine or wait for PC version
or clone of the game. I remember playing a similar game on the COCO II
but I think it was from Cassette rather than mini-floppy.
Well, I am far from an expert.
I played it a few times on terminals, with no real idea of what (or WHO)
was at the other end of the connection.
(Isn't that the "reverse Turing Test"? where you see whether a human can
convince the party at the other end of the line that it is a machine?)
Then MICROS~1 put out a licensed version of Crowther and Wood's
Adventure, on TRS80 diskette.
It was copy-protected, and some people literally wore through some tracks
of the disk (such as at the 2" slit, or at the snake, or at one of the
mazes)
Later, Scott Adams created his own version of the same thing, and came out
with dozens? of different games with the same program.
He also tried to get Randy Cook to finish VTOS (TRS-DOS) 4.0
Getting Randy Cook to finish ANY project was extremely difficult.
When you get REALLY stuck, speak up and we'll sell you hints.
2:05 a.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
On Mon, 9 Aug 2010, Ben wrote:
Later, Scott
Adams created his own version of the same thing, and came out
with dozens? of different games with the same
program.
He also tried to get Randy Cook to finish VTOS (TRS-DOS) 4.0
Getting Randy Cook to finish ANY project was extremely difficult.
When you get REALLY stuck, speak up and we'll sell you hints.
While everybody is getting $COIN$ you'll be getting the $DOLLARS$.
Ben.
PS. I wish they kept hours in the PDP-8 version. 12 am is not the time
be playing ADVENTURE... Reading email is another story. :)
10:38 a.m.
I played it a few times on terminals, with no real
idea of what (or WHO)
was at the other end of the connection.
(Isn't that the "reverse Turing Test"? where you see whether a human can
convince the party at the other end of the line that it is a machine?)
Unrelated piece of fun info:
Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend (I'm hosting two
ladies on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them).
When we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Very interesting view :D
11:15 a.m.
On 10 Aug 2010 at 11:38, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend
(I'm hosting two
ladies on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for
them). When we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with
your bill and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix
system, everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!!
I wish the public in general would follow the maxim "If it ain't
broke, don't fix it!". Our landfills might not be overflowing.
--Chuck
11:36 a.m.
Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend
(I'm hosting two
ladies on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them).
...
When we were checking out, there was a monitor on the
out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Very interesting view :D
Up until a few years ago Kaiser Permanente was still using 3270 terminals.
A couple weeks ago, I went to a Pizza Hut in Lake Havasu City and on my way
out noticed that the terminal at the cashier was showing a Linux login
prompt. It took a lot of willpower not to surreptitously try to login as
root.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- TRUE HEADLINE: Morning-After Pill Decision Delayed -------------------------
11:51 a.m.
Up until a few
years ago Kaiser Permanente was still using 3270 terminals.
Real 3278s? They are getting very thin on the ground. 
6:15 p.m.
New subject: GET LAMP is here (3278's)
My last scrounge on 3278's was when I heard some crashing sounds behind
the Irvine, Ca Sam's club one saturday. A couple of guys were lobbing
3278's into an empty dumpster. I took the ones which had not been
lobbed, along with 5 that had, and all of them worked. There were dents
on the cases of the ones from the dumpster, but clear displays.
Truely boat anchors, but well built boat anchors.
On 8/10/2010 8:39 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
Up until a few
years ago Kaiser Permanente was still using 3270 terminals.
Real 3278s? They are getting very thin on the ground.
--
Will
11:37 a.m.
? Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend
(I'm hosting two ladies
on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them). When
we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Wow, you were using Unix, and still managed to get laid?
Oh wait, you were checking out.
--
Will
3:59 p.m.
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:37:38AM -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
hehe
About 3 years ago I saw plenty of vt520s in the local IKEA as terminals
for the staff (here == near Zurich, Switzerland).
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
? Sunday I
went to a local motel with my girlfriend (I'm hosting two ladies
on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them). When
we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Wow, you were using Unix, and still managed to get laid?
4:09 p.m.
On 8/10/10 3:59 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
hehe
About 3 years ago I saw plenty of vt520s in the local IKEA as terminals
for the staff (here == near Zurich, Switzerland).
IKEA here uses very small Linux machines.
And in my experience, *only* UNIX people tend to get laid, because
they're the only ones with any sense of style.
Windows people seem to go after really skanky women. No standards
across the board, ya know.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend
(I'm hosting two ladies
on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them). When
we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Wow, you were using Unix, and still managed to get laid?
6:54 p.m.
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 04:09:38PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 8/10/10 3:59 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote:
hehe
About 3 years ago I saw plenty of vt520s in the local IKEA as terminals
for the staff (here == near Zurich, Switzerland).
IKEA here uses very small Linux machines.
They probably found the price of (replacement) vt520s going up a bit too
much for the size of their company. And a small Linux capable box for
terminal like jobs can be had _very_ cheap - the alix3d3 sells for
around USD 125 including systemboard, case and powerbrick. Thats a
AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can do
1280x1024), audio on board. Very low power draw as well, boots from CF.
The case is about 15x15x3 cm, you could just stick that behind the monitor.
Sunday I went to a local motel with my girlfriend
(I'm hosting two ladies
on my home and primitive noises may not be too comfortable for them). When
we were checking out, there was a monitor on the out with your bill
and...wow, it was a terminal, connected to some kind of *nix system,
everything was serial-based!!! I felt myself in 1980!!! :oD
Wow, you were using Unix, and still managed to get laid? And in my experience, *only* UNIX people tend to get
laid, because
they're the only ones with any sense of style.
*ogles the wife* Well, yes, I definitely have to agree ;-)
Windows people seem to go after really skanky women.
No standards
across the board, ya know.
Does that surprise you?
SCNR,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
11:15 p.m.
They probably found the price of (replacement) vt520s
going up a bit too
much for the size of their company. And a small Linux capable box for
terminal like jobs can be had _very_ cheap - the alix3d3 sells for
around USD 125 including systemboard, case and powerbrick. Thats a
AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can do
1280x1024), audio on board. Very low power draw as well, boots from CF.
The case is about 15x15x3 cm, you could just stick that behind the monitor.
An AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can
do1280x1024), audio on board, just to be a dumb terminal.
Bloat? What bloat?
--
Will
11:27 p.m.
On 8/10/10 11:15 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Yeah, it's pretty disgusting. Amazingly though, it's actually cheaper
to do it that way than to buy a VT520. Scary stuff.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
They probably
found the price of (replacement) vt520s going up a bit too
much for the size of their company. And a small Linux capable box for
terminal like jobs can be had _very_ cheap - the alix3d3 sells for
around USD 125 including systemboard, case and powerbrick. Thats a
AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can do
1280x1024), audio on board. Very low power draw as well, boots from CF.
The case is about 15x15x3 cm, you could just stick that behind the monitor.
An AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can
do1280x1024), audio on board, just to be a dumb terminal.
Bloat? What bloat?
11 Aug
11 Aug
3:02 a.m.
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 11:15:37PM -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
Of course it's bloat - but it is a machine that one can easily get new
and in quantity and that will probably will remain so for a while. I'd
guess getting vt520 im numbers would be a) more expensive b) harder to
aquire unless someone is still making them ...
And while we are at it: quite a few _cellphones_ these days have more
computing power than that. For a cellphone ...
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
They probably
found the price of (replacement) vt520s going up a bit too
much for the size of their company. And a small Linux capable box for
terminal like jobs can be had _very_ cheap - the alix3d3 sells for
around USD 125 including systemboard, case and powerbrick. Thats a
AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can do
1280x1024), audio on board. Very low power draw as well, boots from CF.
The case is about 15x15x3 cm, you could just stick that behind the monitor.
An AMD Geode 500 Mhz with 256 MB of memory, network, USB, VGA (can
do1280x1024), audio on board, just to be a dumb terminal.
Bloat? What bloat?
8:55 a.m.
Of course it's bloat - but it is a machine that
one can easily get new
and in quantity and that will probably will remain so for a while. I'd
guess getting vt520 im numbers would be a) more expensive b) harder to
aquire unless someone is still making them ...
Depending on the numbers needed - maybe or maybe not. There are a
*lot* of late model dumb terminals on the surplus and reseller market
right now. Given the glut, coupled with the vanishing number of
applications, they can be purchased pretty cheap in quantity.
--
Will
12:54 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of William Donzelli
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 5:56 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: GET LAMP is here
Of course, shipping for, say a hundred VT520s is significantly higher than for those
modern replacements - even when you add in the (now LCD) screen. Oh that's right, you
can just go down to Best Buy (which rarely is) to buy the screens....
That's not to say I don't have a personal preference for the originals - I have
mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a bunch of VT100s and VT52s here at
work. -- Ian
Of course it's bloat - but it is a machine
that one can easily get
new
and in quantity and that will probably will
remain so for a while.
I'd
guess getting vt520 im numbers would be a) more
expensive b) harder
to
aquire unless someone is still making them ...
Depending on the numbers needed - maybe or maybe not. There are a
*lot* of late model dumb terminals on the surplus and reseller market
right now. Given the glut, coupled with the vanishing number of
applications, they can be purchased pretty cheap in quantity.
--
Will
3:08 p.m.
> > Of course it's bloat - but it is a
machine that one can easily get
And I thought the terminal in bits on my bench at the meoment was
over-comples, what with a Z80A, 40K ROM, 24 16K*1 DRAMs, and around 150
TTL parts, but anyway...
Of course, shipping for, say a hundred VT520s is
significantly higher than =
for those modern replacements - even when you add in the (now LCD) screen. =
Which reminds me... Somewhere I have a VT100 clone -- a clone right down
the setup screens -- using an LCD display. It's fairly old (simple mono
LCD), I bought it about 10 years ago and it wasnt' new then. I must dig
it out
Oh that's right, you can just go down to Best Buy
(which rarely is) to buy=
the screens.... =20
That's not to say I don't have a personal preference for the originals - I =
have mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a bunch of VT100s and VT=
52s here at work. -- Ian=20
I wish I had a job where poeple refurbished classic terminals...
-tony
11:21 p.m.
Of course, shipping for, say a hundred VT520s is
significantly higher than for those modern replacements - even when you add in the (now
LCD) screen. ?Oh that's right, you can just go down to Best Buy (which rarely is) to
buy the screens....
I doubt shipping costs would be so much of an issue - VT520s, if they
are anything like VT420s, are not very heavy. If company X needs
several hundred dumb terminals spread around in their system, I bet
they would have enough of their own shipping going on, and the VTs
could hang on the sides of the trucks for free.
That's not to say I don't have a personal
preference for the originals - I have mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a
bunch of VT100s and VT52s here at work. ?-- Ian
OK, I will say it - VT420s suck.
--
Will
11:23 p.m.
On 8/11/10 11:21 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
What don't you like about VT420s? They're my favorite of the line,
followed closely by VT320 then VT220. I don't like VT520s at all.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Of course,
shipping for, say a hundred VT520s is significantly higher than for those modern
replacements - even when you add in the (now LCD) screen. Oh that's right, you can
just go down to Best Buy (which rarely is) to buy the screens....
I doubt shipping costs would be so much of an issue - VT520s, if they
are anything like VT420s, are not very heavy. If company X needs
several hundred dumb terminals spread around in their system, I bet
they would have enough of their own shipping going on, and the VTs
could hang on the sides of the trucks for free.
That's not to say I don't have a personal
preference for the originals - I have mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a
bunch of VT100s and VT52s here at work. -- Ian
OK, I will say it - VT420s suck.
12 Aug
12 Aug
3:01 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 8:24 PM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: GET LAMP is here
On 8/11/10 11:21 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Relabeled for your enjoyment -- Ian
> Of course, shipping for, say a hundred VT520s
is significantly
higher than for those modern replacements - even when you add in
the
(now LCD) screen. Oh that's right, you can just go down to Best Buy
(which rarely is) to buy the screens....
I doubt shipping costs would be so much of an issue - VT520s, if they
are anything like VT420s, are not very heavy. If company X needs
several hundred dumb terminals spread around in their system, I bet
they would have enough of their own shipping going on, and the VTs
could hang on the sides of the trucks for free.
> That's not to say I don't have a personal preference for the
originals
- I have mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a
bunch of VT100s and VT52s here at work. -- Ian
OK, I will say it - VT420s suck.
What don't you like about VT420s? They're my favorite of the line,
followed closely by VT320 then VT220. I don't like VT520s at all.
-Dave
3:19 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
On 8/12/10 3:05 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Not quite. The VT420 was introduced in 1990, and the terminal
business was sold to Boundless in 1995. This is from dusty memory,
corrections welcome, but I believe this to be correct. This makes the
VT420 most definitely a "DEC inside" device.
This also seems consistent with the major design differences between
the VT420 and the (Boundless-manufactured) VT510.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Relabeled for
your enjoyment -- Ian
Come to think of it, VT420s are relabeled for your enjoyment, as well.
They are not DEC inside.
5:41 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
In article <AANLkTindsx1j5LzKT_R3uL5rncWwbzuX1Z84AnW0UE2R at mail.gmail.com>,
William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
Come to think of it, VT420s are relabeled for your
enjoyment, as well.
They are not DEC inside.
What's in them? I have some and haven't cracked open the case.
<http://vt100.net/vt_history> doesn't mention anything about them not
actually being DEC inside.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
7:42 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
What's in them? ?I have some and haven't
cracked open the case.
<http://vt100.net/vt_history> doesn't mention anything about them not
actually being DEC inside.
I have heard that the engineering was farmed out.
DEC's terminal business was a shell of its former self back when the
VT420 was introduced, so it may be true.
--
Will
9:39 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
In article <AANLkTikDJFY2OqQWPa4-E3wxfdnBxS1XDQvEgoJwOObx at mail.gmail.com>,
William Donzelli <wdonzelli at gmail.com> writes:
DEC's terminal business was a shell of its former
self back when the
VT420 was introduced, so it may be true.
Maybe I'm thinking of the 240 instead? Does the 420 do graphics?
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
13 Aug
13 Aug
12:21 a.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
On 8/12/10 9:39 PM, Richard wrote:
AFAIK the VT420 supports Sixel, but not ReGIS.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
DEC's
terminal business was a shell of its former self back when the
VT420 was introduced, so it may be true.
Maybe I'm thinking of the 240 instead? Does the 420 do graphics?
2:16 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
Maybe I'm thinking of the 240 instead? Does the
420 do graphics?
They look totally differnt. The VT240 is a box about half the height of n
IBM 5150 PC with a serate mono (VR201) or colour (VR241) monitor. The
VT420 is built into the same case that cotnains the CRT.
-tony
12 Aug
12 Aug
3:08 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
On 8/12/10 3:01 PM, Ian King wrote:
Relabeled for your enjoyment -- Ian
Not at all, I just wanted to know what he didn't like about them. The
only thing I dislike about VT420s is the non-removable power cables.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
> Of course, shipping for, say a hundred VT520s is
significantly
higher than for those modern replacements - even when you add in the
(now LCD) screen. Oh that's right, you can just go down to Best Buy
(which rarely is) to buy the screens....
I doubt shipping costs would be so much of an issue - VT520s, if they
are anything like VT420s, are not very heavy. If company X needs
several hundred dumb terminals spread around in their system, I bet
they would have enough of their own shipping going on, and the VTs
could hang on the sides of the trucks for free.
> That's not to say I don't have a personal preference for the
originals
- I have mostly VT420s at home, and we're refurbishing a
bunch of VT100s and VT52s here at work. -- Ian
OK, I will say it - VT420s suck.
What don't you like about VT420s? They're my favorite of the line,
followed closely by VT320 then VT220. I don't like VT520s at all.
3:29 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
Dave McGuire wrote:
Not at all, I just wanted to know what he didn't like about them. The
only thing I dislike about VT420s is the non-removable power cables.
I mostly use my two VT340s nowadays (thanks, Dave), but I have to say my
favorite ASCII RS-232 serial terminal is the IBM 3153. Excellent
keyboards. Can't say the same for the LK201 or LK401.
Peace... Sridhar
What don't you like about VT420s? They're
my favorite of the line,
followed closely by VT320 then VT220. I don't like VT520s at all.
Relabeled for your enjoyment -- Ian
3:34 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
I mostly use my two VT340s nowadays (thanks, Dave),
but I have to say my
favorite ASCII RS-232 serial terminal is the IBM 3153. ?Excellent keyboards.
?Can't say the same for the LK201 or LK401.
Yes, those 315x terminals are nice. Especially the ones with keyboards
that actually fit inside a rack.
I do not like the VT420 due to MMJ, the relatively low reliability,
and that CRAP power switch on the front. The keyboards are nothing to
write home about either, but DEC keyboards rarely are.
--
Will
13 Aug
13 Aug
2:20 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
On 8/12/10 3:34 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
I have to agree about the power switch design, it sucks. I'm
accustomed to LK201s so I don't mind them so much, but I can see how
people would dislike them, especially due to the placement of the
control key.
The MMJ, though...I don't see that as a big limitation. MMJ cables
are readily available, as are crimp tools and connectors. I guess in my
mostly DEC-centric world MMJs are so common that I don't really have a
problem with them. Of course standard DB25s would have been a better
design choice though.
And let's hear it for keyboards that fit between the posts of a rack!
The world needs more of those.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I mostly use
my two VT340s nowadays (thanks, Dave), but I have to say my
favorite ASCII RS-232 serial terminal is the IBM 3153. Excellent keyboards.
Can't say the same for the LK201 or LK401.
Yes, those 315x terminals are nice. Especially the ones with keyboards
that actually fit inside a rack.
I do not like the VT420 due to MMJ, the relatively low reliability,
and that CRAP power switch on the front. The keyboards are nothing to
write home about either, but DEC keyboards rarely are.
12 Aug
12 Aug
3:44 p.m.
New subject: Yet another food fight? (was RE: GET LAMP is here)
What don't you like about VT420s? They're
my favorite of the line,
followed closely by VT320 then VT220. I don't like VT520s at all.
Relabeled for your enjoyment -- Ian only thing I dislike about VT420s is the non-removable
power cables.
For things with fixed power cables that I am going to be moving around a
lot, I have been known to cut the power cable about 6" from the device
and fit an IEC plug (the sort of thing that goes into the power outlet
socket on a PC). Then I can use a normal 'kettle lead' to power it. Of
course if there's space on the cabient for a chassis-mount IEC plug I fit
that (and for some reason, a number of devices with fixed power cables
have them held in my a strain-relief bush fitted to a blanking plate
which happens to cover a hole just the right size for such a plug).
Getting back to termianls, The VT5xx and VT4xx are too modern for me to
have ever used... But I dislike VT3xx's. My expeirence of thsoe is that
they eat flyback transfomers, and replacement transformeres are hard to
get and expensive. Whereas VT220s don't (I think I've only ever repaled
one flyback in a VT220). The ony porblem with the VT220 is the horizonal
hold preset, pulliing the case and turning it back and forth a few times
cures that.
-tony
11 Aug
11 Aug
1:05 p.m.
On 8/11/10 8:55 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
Absolutely. But getting customers to buy "used" equipment ("eeeew,
it's USED!") is damn near impossible much of the time. I don't
understand that mentality at all, but it's way too common.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Of course
it's bloat - but it is a machine that one can easily get new
and in quantity and that will probably will remain so for a while. I'd
guess getting vt520 im numbers would be a) more expensive b) harder to
aquire unless someone is still making them ...
Depending on the numbers needed - maybe or maybe not. There are a
*lot* of late model dumb terminals on the surplus and reseller market
right now. Given the glut, coupled with the vanishing number of
applications, they can be purchased pretty cheap in quantity.
10 Aug
10 Aug
10:13 p.m.
[100% entirely predictable linux/windows bigotry from Dave McGuire.]
Dude, you really need to get some new material.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
11:33 p.m.
On 8/10/10 10:13 PM, Richard wrote:
[100% entirely predictable linux/windows bigotry from
Dave McGuire.]
Dude, you really need to get some new material.
I wish I had the time to come up with some actual bigotry, because
that can be fun. For now I'll just stick to getting rid of the damn
things as quickly as I can. Twenty six so far this year, two in the
past week! I won't get them all, but I'll do my part to undo the
twenty-year backrolling of technology pushed upon the inexperienced by
Microsoft.
Since you choose to brand my comments as bigotry, something for which
we both seem to be known, perhaps you'd like to hear the actual
business-robbing, soul-killing sob stories that resulted in those
customers jumping off of the Windows ship. Somehow I doubt it, but I'll
tell you if you like. I don't think you'll be left in much of a
defensible position.
(Hey, all I did was say slicked-back, suit-wearing,
advertisement-obeying Windows fanboys rarely get laid! ;))
-Dave, not feeling particularly hospitable today
PS, and on-topic: You never replied to my off-list messages about that
Unibus video subsystem I offered you a year or two ago. I assume
they've been caught in a spam trap or something. Do you want it? If
so, it's yours for the cost of shipping, let me know.
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
12:55 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alexandre Souza - Listas
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 3:08 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: GET LAMP is here
What a great piece of advice! I wonder if I can expense that. :-)
-Dave, not feeling particularly hospitable
today
Get a rubber duck and one of that baseball bats made of foam. It is
nice
to make a bad day in a funny day :)
1:11 p.m.
-Dave,
not feeling particularly hospitable today
Get a rubber duck and one of that
baseball bats made of foam. It is
nice
to make a bad day in a funny day :)
What a great piece of advice! I wonder if I can expense that. :-)
1:28 p.m.
On 8/11/10 1:11 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
I remember some years ago there was a baseball bat made of foam, you
coud use to slam your television if you see something you don't like.
Since it was connected to the power outlet of the TV set, and if I'm not
mistaken to the video input, it flashed the tv and turned it off for
some seconds. Man, it was FUN! :o)
YES! I remember those! Where did they go? Not that I watch TV
anyway, but that could be useful for other things as well.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
-Dave, not feeling particularly hospitable today
Get a rubber duck and one of that baseball bats made of foam. It is
nice
to make a bad day in a funny day :)
What a great piece of advice! I wonder if I can expense that. :-)
1:50 p.m.
I remember
some years ago there was a baseball bat made of foam, you
coud use to slam your television if you see something you don't like.
Since it was connected to the power outlet of the TV set, and if I'm not
mistaken to the video input, it flashed the tv and turned it off for
some seconds. Man, it was FUN! :o)
YES! I remember those! Where did they go?
Not that I watch TV
anyway, but that could be useful for other things as well.
12:28 p.m.
In article <4C621A1C.3040800 at neurotica.com>,
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:
Since you choose to brand my comments as bigotry,
something for which
we both seem to be known, [...]
Actually its just you.
I don't particularly care about your sob stories or your endless
whinging about Windows.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
12:38 p.m.
On 8/11/10 12:28 PM, Richard wrote:
Not so much, actually. I'm usually the one who pops up complaining
about Windows, and you're usually the one who pops up contradicting it.
But hey, it's all in good fun.
Speaking of good fun...the first release of Windows I was exposed to
was 1.03. Any idea if it'll run under VMware?
Since you
choose to brand my comments as bigotry, something for which
we both seem to be known, [...]
Actually its just you. I don't particularly care about your sob stories
or your endless
whinging about Windows.
They're not MY sob stories, because I don't use Windows. They're my
customers', and fortunately I can usually get rid of the garbage.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
12:52 p.m.
In article <4C62D20C.10407 at neurotica.com>,
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:
Not so much, actually. I'm usually the one who
pops up complaining
about Windows, and you're usually the one who pops up contradicting it.
No, you're the one constantly complaining about Windows and I'm just
the one asking you to give it a rest.
Me saying I've never had problems with Windows is not the same thing
as being bigoted about it.
I actually don't care what OS people use and if people ask me for a
recommendation, I tell them to try different ones and use what works
best for them.
You constantly whinge on about Windows, even when its not relevant and
even when we've heard you whinge on about it a billion times already.
You're a broken record.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
1:04 p.m.
On 8/11/10 12:52 PM, Richard wrote:
I agreed. But just the same, my saying "it sucks" isn't bigotry
either. I speak from facts (well-known ones, I might add) and
experience. In other words, I don't say "Windows sucks" because I
don't
like it...I don't like it because it sucks. You're assuming the
causality relationship is the opposite of what it really is, which, I'm
sorry to say, is extremely common amongst the "Microsoft can do no
wrong" crowd.
Not so much,
actually. I'm usually the one who pops up complaining
about Windows, and you're usually the one who pops up contradicting it.
No, you're the one constantly complaining about Windows and I'm just
the one asking you to give it a rest.
Me saying I've never had problems with Windows is not the same thing
as being bigoted about it. I actually don't care what OS people use and if
people ask me for a
recommendation, I tell them to try different ones and use what works
best for them.
You constantly whinge on about Windows, even when its not relevant and
even when we've heard you whinge on about it a billion times already.
I'll admit that I started it this time, but I usually don't. I chime
in with commiseration when someone poo-poos it, and then you pounce on
me with Microsoft fanboy-ism. THAT crap really gets old. As I told a
friend in private email not five minutes ago, I have a *great deal* of
respect for you in the areas in which you know what you're talking about
(graphics) but not so much for the areas you don't (modern operating
systems). Fortunately, the latter isn't really the topic here.
You're a broken record.
Pot, kettle. ;)
At any rate, it was not my intention to drag this even further
off-topic (honestly) and I certainly didn't mean to "get into it" with
you once again. For that I apologize. We're not going to convince each
other.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
1:12 p.m.
*plonk*
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
6:03 a.m.
And in my experience, *only* UNIX people tend to get
laid, because
they're the only ones with any sense of style.
Windows people seem to go after really skanky women. No standards
across the board, ya know.
Even in Sweden? :o)
Greetings from Brazil, blah blah blah :)
Alexandre Souza, PU1BZZ
10 Aug
10 Aug
1:48 a.m.
On 9 Aug 2010 at 23:25, Ben wrote:
Well I got "THE LAMP". Now to find the
cave... and buy the proper 9
pin null modem cable if they still make them. I can't keep stealing
from the PC here. I am just finding playing ADVENTURE on the PDP-8
(SBC6120) with a IDE drive just playable for a text game. Did most of
the people play ADVENTURE on a classic machine or wait for PC version
or clone of the game. I remember playing a similar game on the COCO II
but I think it was from Cassette rather than mini-floppy.
You mean other than playing it on big iron? Heck, pretty early on,
there was a CP/M version of it--I've got it here on a floppy with
MP/M on it (a good multi-terminal demo).
Wonder if Chess 3.0 will run on a PDP-8?
--Chuck
2:37 a.m.
I played it for two years on a 300 or 1200 baud dialup from california
to Louisiana on a Silent 700. I come across pages of adventure in boxes
from time to time.
It was very playable, and I don't know what one would need. Every
system I ever had as fast a response to my inputs as I required from the
above to the CPM ones on glass, and later PC versions.
I still like the recollection of playing it on the Silent 700's
personally, but that is just because of having the experience of doing
it that way.
I know of some others (statute of limitations are expired) that played
from Puerto Rico by dialing from a hotel phone
(acoustic coupler) to
Miami, into Tymnet. connected to Multics in Phoenix to run
the Colossal
Cave adventure there. I think at one time that system had maybe 1000
copies running at once as well via various networks from around the
world. I'll leave you to guess the company, but the sources were ported
by the authors in Massachusetts to Multics after the PDP10 version.
Still had the session control logic in, but in Multics it could be
easily circumvented and you could play anytime. And network time didn't
get cheap no matter what time you logged in.
(Silent 700 is excuse for being on topic here :-)
Jim
On 8/9/2010 10:48 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 9 Aug 2010 at 23:25, Ben wrote:
Well I got "THE LAMP". Now to find the
cave... and buy the proper 9
pin null modem cable if they still make them. I can't keep stealing
from the PC here. I am just finding playing ADVENTURE on the PDP-8
(SBC6120) with a IDE drive just playable for a text game. Did most of
the people play ADVENTURE on a classic machine or wait for PC version
or clone of the game. I remember playing a similar game on the COCO II
but I think it was from Cassette rather than mini-floppy.
You mean other than playing it on big iron? Heck, pretty early on,
there was a CP/M version of it--I've got it here on a floppy with
MP/M on it (a good multi-terminal demo).
Wonder if Chess 3.0 will run on a PDP-8?
--Chuck
11 Aug
11 Aug
8:28 p.m.
On 9 Aug 2010 at 23:37, jim s wrote:
I still like the recollection of playing it on the
Silent 700's
personally, but that is just because of having the experience of doing
it that way.
I recall getting the binary DECSystem10 tapes with the odd packing of
5 7-bit characters in a 36-bit word. I don't recall how the words
were packed onto a 9 track tape, but it required some headscratching.
I do recall writing a bunch of code to unpack and translate to 6-bit
CDC display code. The DEC FORTRAN was close, but a lot of it was 36-
bit dependent, so there was a certain amount of rework there.
You didn't have to play it interactively. You could punch up all of
your moves on cards and collect the printed output to see where you
went wrong. But running it interactively on INTERCOM was a lot more
fun, even if it was a resource hog.
--Chuck
9:35 p.m.
New subject: PDP-10 vs. the world [was RE: GET LAMP is here]
From: Chuck Guzis
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 5:28 PM
I recall getting the binary DECSystem10 tapes with the
odd packing of
5 7-bit characters in a 36-bit word. I don't recall how the words
were packed onto a 9 track tape, but it required some headscratching.
I do recall writing a bunch of code to unpack and translate to 6-bit
CDC display code. The DEC FORTRAN was close, but a lot of it was 36-
bit dependent, so there was a certain amount of rework there.
What's odd about it? ASCII is a 7-bit code, and if you have 36-bit words
at 5 characters per word you have a maximal use of memory. (There was also
a SIXBIT subset of ASCII which dropped the low 32 and high 32 characters
and packed 6 to a word, but it wasn't used for general computing.)
Depending on what mode tapes were written in, data got mapped into tape
frame differently, but the most common mode, again based on economy of
storage, went as follows:
B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 P
B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 P
B16 B17 B18 B19 B20 B21 B22 B23 P
B24 B25 B26 B27 B28 B29 B30 B31 P
0 0 0 0 B32 B33 B34 B35 P
There was even support for editor line numbers: In the editor, line
numbers are stored as ASCII strings of digits, with bit 35 turned on in
the word. It is set to 0 in each word (5 chars) of text. *On tape*,
the parity bit is forced to the wrong value in the 5th frame of a word
that contains a line number!
FIELDATA, now, *that's* odd. ;-)
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.PDPplanet.org/
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
9:55 p.m.
New subject: PDP-10 vs. the world [was RE: GET LAMP is here]
On 11 Aug 2010 at 18:35, Rich Alderson wrote:
What's odd about it? ASCII is a 7-bit code, and
if you have 36-bit
words at 5 characters per word you have a maximal use of memory.
(There was also a SIXBIT subset of ASCII which dropped the low 32 and
high 32 characters and packed 6 to a word, but it wasn't used for
general computing.)
So what does DECSystem 10 packed character data look like on 7 track
tape?
CDC used it on occasion--6 bit characters in a 60 bit word was much
easier to deal with than 7.5 8-bit characters or 8.571428571...
characters per word. 12 and 10 bit characters were also proposed as
well as using only the low-order 48 bits of a word. When the 7.5-per-
word was proposed, the author proposed a new term for 7.5 characters--
a "snaque" (get it? nibble, byte snaque...)
FIELDATA, now, *that's* odd. ;-)
No--RAD50 is odd.
--Chuck
10 Aug
10 Aug
3:01 p.m.
Well I got "THE LAMP". Now to find the cave... and buy the proper
9 pin null modem cable if they still make them. I can't keep stealing
DE9 connectors are sill made. Multicre cable is still made. Soldering
irons are still made....
[If people are going to flame me for my choice of computers, I feel
justified in postiing messages like that. Making such a cable would be
triival for me, I realsie it's not trivial for everybody, but I will bet
that anyone who really needs one could learn to solder well enough to
make one.]
from the PC here.
I am just finding playing ADVENTURE on the PDP-8 (SBC6120)
with a IDE drive just playable for a text game. Did most of the
people play ADVENTURE on a classic machine or wait for PC version
Depenmds on what you mean by 'classic machine'. I certainly played text
adventures on my TRS-80s M1 and M3 and on VAXen (not my VAXen, though).
There's even one for (IIRC) the HP75 handheld, and that is rather too
slow to be playable. Heck, there seemes to be a text adventure for the
HP41 calcualtor -- maybe that's the one that'd far too slow to be
playable....
or clone of the game. I remember playing a similar
game on the COCO II
but I think it was from Cassette rather than mini-floppy.
I think there were text adventues for virtually all the classic micros...
-tony
10:31 p.m.
At 08:15 PM 8/7/2010 -0300, you wrote:
Are
the rest of us supposed to have a clue about this?
Ditto?!
Oooh! ooh! This looks so cool. I placed my order 5 minutes ago.
-----
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB: http://www.mixcom.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531
GET LAMP is
here
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What coin# did you get? :)
11:16 p.m.
I am still trying to get into the CAVE... :)
I guess I better power up the 8, and try my hand at adventure again
this weekend.
Ben.
PS. The site looks nice too.
1:02 a.m.
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Jason T wrote:
On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Gene Buckle <geneb
at deltasoft.com> wrote:
0. :)
The coins were custom made just for the documentary.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. ?What
coin# did you get? :)
I wasn't going to bother checking the mail today...but there it is! Coin #642.
Any idea what # he started with?
2:05 a.m.
There was a story on some page that there are 1000 coins, first few
reserved for the club that funded him and 1-10 reserved for him (1,2
went to Don Wood).
On 8/7/2010 10:02 PM, Gene Buckle wrote:
On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, Jason T wrote:
On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Gene Buckle
<geneb at deltasoft.com> wrote:
0. :)
The coins were custom made just for the documentary.
g.
I'm hoping my copy will be here today. What
coin# did you get? :)
I wasn't going to bother checking the mail today...but there it is!
Coin #642.
Any idea what # he started with?
1:21 p.m.
On 08/08/10 13:45, Alexandre Souza - Listas wrote:
And #42 for some guy, which I don't know nor
understand its meaning,
since I'm so far away from text adventures ;)
Don't panic! That's a Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference.
42 = The Meaning of Life, The Universe And Everything.
The actual question which leads to the answer of the Meaning of Life The
Universe And Everything is still up for debate :)
"So long and thanks for all the fish,"
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/
11:37 a.m.
jim s <jws at jwsss.com> writes:
There was a story on some page that there are 1000
coins, first few
reserved for the club that funded him and 1-10 reserved for him (1,2
went to Don Wood).
That'd be this page:
http://inventory.getlamp.com/2010/04/19/coins-and-numbering-and-how-that-go…
The blog is well worth reading (as Jason Scott's writing usually is), if
you're interested in seeing what goes into making and selling a
documentary like this.
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
5043
days inactive
5063
days old
121 comments
27 participants
participants (27)
-
alexeyt＠freeshell.org -
als＠thangorodrim.de -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
ats＠offog.org -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
blkline＠attglobal.net -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠philpem.me.uk -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
jules.richardson99＠gmail.com -
jws＠jwsss.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
pete＠dunnington.plus.com -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
pu1bzz.listas＠gmail.com -
ragooman＠gmail.com -
rich.cini＠verizon.net -
RichA＠vulcan.com -
silent700＠gmail.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tpeters＠mixcom.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com