[cctalk] Re: Walter Shawlee of Sphere, RIP

[John Ball via cctalk]

I had heard he was in poor health due to a bad diagnosis but it's tragic to
hear he's gone now.
It was because his annual Free Stuff Days I was able to build up most of my
lab equipment. Those were the days when you could still pull up and fill
your car with all sorts of goodies. I bought my first real EPROM programmer
(a 29B) from him.

-John

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Fritz Mueller via cctalk]

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 12:48 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> The weird case of the 11/05 is because the general registers are assigned 
> addresses 177700 through 177707 for R0 through PC, so R1 is at 177701 even 
> though it's a word wide.  On most models those addresses only work from the 
> operator console, but on the 11/05 they are also visible from the program.  
> And by special microcode hack ("just because they could", says ABC) if the PC 
> is in that range it increments by 1.


This was on the tip of my tongue because I was actually just debugging these 
very bits of microcode on a GT40 (which Scott Swazey will be demoing at VCFMW 
running “Lunar Lander” if it survives the journey there by car!)

The ALU B-leg input in the data paths on this CPU has a selection to generate 
constant +1.  In the usual cases, where the microcode needs +2 to be added to 
something, the additional +1 comes from a microcode field bit and is added in 
at the ALU least-significant-bit-slice carry input.  There is additional 
circuitry to inhibit this carry input in special cases like internal register 
address decodes, etc.

On our GT40, we had a microcode PROM failure which took out this very carry 
source bit.  Thus our GT40 PC was incrementing by just one _incorrectly_ in 
most cases where it should have been incrementing by two.  Quite a coincidence 
that your question came up soon after dealing with this :-)

—FritzM.

[cctalk] Re: NS32k software on Ebay

[Rick Bensene via cctalk]

Mattis Lind wrote:


>There have been a number of Ebay listings for various ns32k software, QIC 
>tapes and 1/2 inch tapes. >I thought I would buy them if there were no other 
>bids to try to recover the contents.



...



>But there was a buyer and I didn't want to fight over something where I don't 
>have the actual >hardware. Maybe someone here is the buyer? I am just curious 
>if this will end up on bitsavers in the >future?


I would certainly be interested in what's on the tapes, especially those that 
are specifically ns32k related. My difficulty at the moment is funding to buy 
the stuff due to illness that has severely curtailed my working hours, and 
thus, putting a squeeze on finances. So, I won't be bidding on the tapes. :-(



I have the ability to read ½” tapes (up to 6250 BPI) as well as QIC tapes.

My difficulty at the moment is funding to purchase the stuff due to illness 
that has severely curtailed my working hours, and thus, putting a squeeze on 
finances. So, I won't be bidding on any of the media, but certainly am 
interested in what's on the media.



I would volunteer to read the media and provide it in a form usable (e.g., 
provided external hard drive) if someone purchases the media but doesn’t have 
the tools to read/extract the data on the tapes, and is willing to send them to 
me.



After everything possible is extracted and archived into a usable form on more 
current hardware(disk, large thumb drive, or I could put it up on a private FTP 
for download), I'd return the tapes to their owner along with the extracted 
data in whatever form desired.



Hopefully Mattis or someone else with a preservationist mindset will end up 
winning the tapes.



Bottom line is that the most important thing is that these tapes don't 
disappear into some personal collection of stuff that will never again see the 
light of day (or worse, end up being used as media for overwriting with other 
stuff).  The best possible outcome in my mind would be for the contents to be 
put up on Bitsavers for anyone who has interest to peruse/download.



My concern is copyright.   With the laws the way they are, if the content on 
the tape has copyright notices (or the labels themselves do), it may not be 
legal to make the content public without obtaining some kind of legal release 
from National Semiconductor to publish this obsolete material, which could be a 
somewhat arduous process.   Definitely something to consider if the desire is 
to make the content of the tapes public.   I will still help anyone with 
extraction of the data from the tapes for their personal (non-public) use if 
copyright gets in the way of publishing it for public access.



Anyway, if I can be of assistance in reading/extracating the media, feel free 
to contact me via Email at 
xric...@ybenseney.comz  (remove the X's Y's, and 
Z's).



-Rick

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 3:32 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On 9/6/23 14:00, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:
>> Paul,
>> 
>> I'm not an 11 expert but don't most instruction fetches (or the last clock 
>> phase on an instruction) cause the pc to increment by one?
> PDP-11 instructions are 16-bit.  Since memory is byte-addressed, the 
> instruction counter should normally increment by 2, except where immediate  
> operands are used.

Even then it increments by 2, by special exception.  So 112700, 1 (movb #1,r0) 
fetches the instruction and increments PC by 2, then fetches the word where the 
PC points and increments by 2, not 1, again.

The weird case of the 11/05 is because the general registers are assigned 
addresses 177700 through 177707 for R0 through PC, so R1 is at 177701 even 
though it's a word wide.  On most models those addresses only work from the 
operator console, but on the 11/05 they are also visible from the program.  And 
by special microcode hack ("just because they could", says ABC) if the PC is in 
that range it increments by 1.

paul

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk]

And for a bonus point, which signal description had an asterisk beside 
it with a footnote, "add an extra 20 minutes on Saturday night" before 
marketing found out and scotched it?


cheers,

Nigel



Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591


On 2023-09-06 15:00, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:

Paul,

I'm not an 11 expert but don't most instruction fetches (or the last 
clock phase on an instruction) cause the pc to increment by one?


On 9/6/2023 12:08 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
Reminds me of the "PDP-11 trivia contest" that was held at DECUS, I 
think on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the PDP-11.  If so 
that would have been 2000.  I still have the poster that went with it 
somewhere.  And I remember the question I contributed: "On what model 
and under what circumstances will the PC increment by 1?"


paul

On Sep 6, 2023, at 12:36 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk 
 wrote:


Do you understand "Stop this RIM RAM or I will DEC you"?

Do you know what PDP is an acronym for?

Do you think in PDP-11 Assembler.

Do you know the difference between OS/8 and RTS/8.

Is EMACS your friend?

Can you discuss the advantages of Tops 10 over Tops 20.

Have you ever programmed a DEC 18 bit machine?

Does VAX have nothing to do with vacuum cleaners?

If you can answer yes to any of these I am hosting a "DECnut" pizza 
party, at my house, Saturday, September 9th at 7PM with pizza to be 
delivered sometime after that.


If you are interested please stop by my table (first 2 tables to the 
left of the door in the "big iron" room).  Look for the PDP-8/E with 
an RX02 attached.


Please feel free to pass this email on to any DEC fan.

Thanks,

  Mike



--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype:  TILBURY2591

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 3:00 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Paul,
> 
> I'm not an 11 expert but don't most instruction fetches (or the last clock 
> phase on an instruction) cause the pc to increment by one?

No, by 2 because memory addresses are byte addresses but instructions are 
2-byte words and word aligned.

I just remembered two other PDP-11 trivia questions, not model dependent.

1. Describes a one-word program that executes backward in memory.
2. Describe a one-word program that clears the entire 16-bit address space, 
halting on completion.

paul

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 9/6/23 14:00, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:

Paul,

I'm not an 11 expert but don't most instruction fetches 
(or the last clock phase on an instruction) cause the pc 
to increment by one?
PDP-11 instructions are 16-bit.  Since memory is 
byte-addressed, the instruction counter should normally 
increment by 2, except where immediate  operands are used.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 9/6/23 12:08, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:

Reminds me of the "PDP-11 trivia contest" that was held at DECUS, I think on the occasion 
of the 20th anniversary of the PDP-11.  If so that would have been 2000.  I still have the poster 
that went with it somewhere.  And I remember the question I contributed: "On what model and 
under what circumstances will the PC increment by 1?"

The PDP-11 was introduced in 1970, so the 20th anniversary 
would have been 1990, or 2000 would have been the 30th.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Mike Katz via cctalk]

Paul,

I'm not an 11 expert but don't most instruction fetches (or the last 
clock phase on an instruction) cause the pc to increment by one?


On 9/6/2023 12:08 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:

Reminds me of the "PDP-11 trivia contest" that was held at DECUS, I think on the occasion 
of the 20th anniversary of the PDP-11.  If so that would have been 2000.  I still have the poster 
that went with it somewhere.  And I remember the question I contributed: "On what model and 
under what circumstances will the PC increment by 1?"

paul


On Sep 6, 2023, at 12:36 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk  wrote:

Do you understand "Stop this RIM RAM or I will DEC you"?

Do you know what PDP is an acronym for?

Do you think in PDP-11 Assembler.

Do you know the difference between OS/8 and RTS/8.

Is EMACS your friend?

Can you discuss the advantages of Tops 10 over Tops 20.

Have you ever programmed a DEC 18 bit machine?

Does VAX have nothing to do with vacuum cleaners?

If you can answer yes to any of these I am hosting a "DECnut" pizza party, at 
my house, Saturday, September 9th at 7PM with pizza to be delivered sometime after that.

If you are interested please stop by my table (first 2 tables to the left of the door in 
the "big iron" room).  Look for the PDP-8/E with an RX02 attached.

Please feel free to pass this email on to any DEC fan.

Thanks,

  Mike

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 1:14 PM, Fritz Mueller  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Sep 6, 2023, at 10:08 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk  
>> wrote:
>> "On what model and under what circumstances will the PC increment by 1?"
> 
> At least true on a KD11-B when executing code out of the memory-mapped 
> register file :-)

Correct... PDP11/05 and /10.

paul

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Fritz Mueller via cctalk]

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 10:08 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk  
> wrote:
> "On what model and under what circumstances will the PC increment by 1?"

At least true on a KD11-B when executing code out of the memory-mapped register 
file :-)

(I just happen to have been wading through one of these a couple weeks back…)

—FritzM.

[cctalk] Re: Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

Reminds me of the "PDP-11 trivia contest" that was held at DECUS, I think on 
the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the PDP-11.  If so that would have been 
2000.  I still have the poster that went with it somewhere.  And I remember the 
question I contributed: "On what model and under what circumstances will the PC 
increment by 1?"

paul

> On Sep 6, 2023, at 12:36 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Do you understand "Stop this RIM RAM or I will DEC you"?
> 
> Do you know what PDP is an acronym for?
> 
> Do you think in PDP-11 Assembler.
> 
> Do you know the difference between OS/8 and RTS/8.
> 
> Is EMACS your friend?
> 
> Can you discuss the advantages of Tops 10 over Tops 20.
> 
> Have you ever programmed a DEC 18 bit machine?
> 
> Does VAX have nothing to do with vacuum cleaners?
> 
> If you can answer yes to any of these I am hosting a "DECnut" pizza party, at 
> my house, Saturday, September 9th at 7PM with pizza to be delivered sometime 
> after that.
> 
> If you are interested please stop by my table (first 2 tables to the left of 
> the door in the "big iron" room).  Look for the PDP-8/E with an RX02 attached.
> 
> Please feel free to pass this email on to any DEC fan.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
>  Mike

[cctalk] Vintage Computer Fest Midwest "DECnut" pizza party

[Mike Katz via cctalk]

Do you understand "Stop this RIM RAM or I will DEC you"?

Do you know what PDP is an acronym for?

Do you think in PDP-11 Assembler.

Do you know the difference between OS/8 and RTS/8.

Is EMACS your friend?

Can you discuss the advantages of Tops 10 over Tops 20.

Have you ever programmed a DEC 18 bit machine?

Does VAX have nothing to do with vacuum cleaners?

If you can answer yes to any of these I am hosting a "DECnut" pizza 
party, at my house, Saturday, September 9th at 7PM with pizza to be 
delivered sometime after that.


If you are interested please stop by my table (first 2 tables to the 
left of the door in the "big iron" room).  Look for the PDP-8/E with an 
RX02 attached.


Please feel free to pass this email on to any DEC fan.

Thanks,

 Mike

[cctalk] Re: NS32k software on Ebay

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 9/6/23 06:19, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote:

There have been a number of Ebay listings for various ns32k software, QIC
tapes and 1/2 inch tapes. I thought I would buy them if there were no other
bids to try to recover the contents.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225759541222
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225759543101
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225750706891

But there was a buyer and I didn't want to fight over something where I
don't have the actual hardware. Maybe someone here is the buyer? I am just
curious if this will end up on bitsavers in the future?

Oh, yes, first one is the VAX cross-compiler for Pascal, 
cross-asm and debugger.  I had all of these at one time.  I 
still have the Pascal manual and maybe some other stuff, as 
well as a bunch of the development boards.  I'll be hauling 
all of that to the VCF-MW this weekend.


Jon

[cctalk] NS32k software on Ebay

[Mattis Lind via cctalk]

There have been a number of Ebay listings for various ns32k software, QIC
tapes and 1/2 inch tapes. I thought I would buy them if there were no other
bids to try to recover the contents.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225759541222
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225759543101
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225750706891

But there was a buyer and I didn't want to fight over something where I
don't have the actual hardware. Maybe someone here is the buyer? I am just
curious if this will end up on bitsavers in the future?

/Mattis

[cctalk] Re: TI 960

[Gordon Henderson via cctalk]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2023, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:


On Tue, 5 Sep 2023, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:

James B DiGriz via cctalk  writes:


Oh, I've always been interested in them, just that opportunity and
means never converged when I wasn't distracted by other things, and
then they became yesterday's news and hard to find. If yours turn up,
I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one who'd want some, either.


I know what you mean.  Transputer stuff does turn up from time to time,
though.  I play with Perihelion's Helios on a Transputer array myself -
here's the story of how I finally got started (with some useful links to
more Transputer information): https://hamartun.priv.no/b004.html


Ok, I do have tons of transputer staff here. For example a transputer board 
from Meico for SUN VME machines. And Inmos development systems etc.

But I don't see any relation of that to the subject... ;-)


It was Meiko I worked for. I don't recall an in-Sun transputer board but 
we had boards for PCs, Suns and VAXes that had the transuter link-chip on 
them that then allowed them to front-end a "Computing Surface" - aka big 
box full of transputers and other peripherals. You'd develop the code on 
the PC/Sun/VAX then use the tools to load up the transputer array and off 
you went...


I've only ever seen one Meiko system in a museum since then - Jim Austins 
private collection and while it might power-up, it's missing all the SCSI 
drives with all the software on - which appears to have been lost to time, 
sadly.


Gordon

[cctalk] Re: TI 960

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023, Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:

James B DiGriz via cctalk  writes:


Oh, I've always been interested in them, just that opportunity and
means never converged when I wasn't distracted by other things, and
then they became yesterday's news and hard to find. If yours turn up,
I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one who'd want some, either.


I know what you mean.  Transputer stuff does turn up from time to time,
though.  I play with Perihelion's Helios on a Transputer array myself -
here's the story of how I finally got started (with some useful links to
more Transputer information): https://hamartun.priv.no/b004.html


Ok, I do have tons of transputer staff here. For example a transputer 
board from Meico for SUN VME machines. And Inmos development systems 
etc.

But I don't see any relation of that to the subject... ;-)

Christian