[cctalk] Re: NRAO Data tapes

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

The LSSM is getting into the Modcomp world, so we are very interested in
the disposition of this media.

The OS tapes would be particularly valuable.

[cctalk] More ALGOL-68

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I remember circa 1977 CMU had a PDP-11 compiler for '68 with an extensive
runtime component.
I presume the sources are lost.

Peter Hibbard was the guy responsible if I recall.

[cctalk] Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 97, Issue 67

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

Let me add that Howard Sturgis' dissertation "Post-mortem for a
Time-sharing System" is great reading.  It's unusual that failures are
documented but this case study is worthy.



On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 1:00 PM  wrote:

> Send cctalk mailing list submissions to
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>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via email, send a message with subject or
> body 'help' to
> cctalk-requ...@classiccmp.org
>
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> cctalk-ow...@classiccmp.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..."Today's Topics:
>
>1. Re: CAL TSS information and source listings (p...@mcjones.org)
>2. ISO someone to refurbish two IBM 010 card punches (LJW cctech)
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: p...@mcjones.org
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2022 16:13:06 -
> Subject: [cctalk] Re: CAL TSS information and source listings
> Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> > Paul McJones posted this recently:
> > https://mcjones.org/CalTSS/
> >
> > There aren't a lot of machine readable media, but many listings:
> > https://mcjones.org/CalTSS/source/
>
> I hesitated to post here -- was the CDC 6400 a classic computer? :-) --
> but Lars broke the ice. The system ran on a 6400 with Extended Core Storage
> and Central Exchange Jump (most of the operating system ran on the CPU,
> counter to normal CDC 6000 practice). The project took place at UC Berkeley
> between 1968 and 1971 (although hardware acquisition began in 1966). What
> the university really wanted was simple interactive service (editing,
> BASIC, remote job submission, etc.) in conjunction with batch jobs running
> on SCOPE on the main, larger 6400, but what they got was a state-of-the-art
> research system offering capability-based protection, multiple protection
> domains per process, and more. Unfortunately, it couldn't support enough
> concurrent users to be economical.
>
> The technical ideas are well-described here:
>
> Butler W. Lampson and Howard E. Sturgis. Reflections on an operating
> system design. Communications of the ACM, 19(5):251-265, January 1976.
> https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/360051.360074 (open access)
>
> The project history is described here:
>
> Paul McJones and Dave Redell. History of the CAL Timesharing System.
> Submitted to: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.
> https://www.mcjones.org/CalTSS/paper/cal_tss_history.pdf
>
> Through heroic effort, Terry Heidelberg has managed to create an emulation
> environment and boot the system and run some programs, but it's not ready
> for prime time!
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> -- Forwarded message --
> From: LJW cctech 
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2022 18:05:58 +0200
> Subject: [cctalk] ISO someone to refurbish two IBM 010 card punches
> Hello all,
>
> Is there anyone out there that would be prepared to tackle restoring
> a couple of IBM 010 card punches functionally and cosmetically?
>
> This is a paying job!
>
> These are the small tabletop units.
>   One is manual: https://flic.kr/p/2nVAJeg
>   The other is motorised: https://flic.kr/p/2nVB8Pa
>
> They are apparently complete but will need cleaning, repainting and
> adjusting, and whatever you can do with the key-tops.
>
> The manual one was used by the current owner in 1962 so has some
> sentimental value!
>
> They are in the USA but we can get them to you wherever you are.
>
> If you know of anyone who might be interested then feel free to
> forward this email.
>
> --
> Lawrence Wilkinson lawre...@ljw.me.uk
> The IBM 360/30 page   http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360
>

Kinetic Systems 2920-Z2B.

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

Anyone have one of these haunting their Q bus board pile?  The LSSM would
deadly like one.

General Data? Computer Equipment Auction - GSA

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

The LSSM is very interested in this machine for public display.  It would
complement the museum's collection of PDP-11s and other 16 bit machines.

Re: VAX9000 unearthed

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I heard Butler Lampson once exclaim that ECL design was in some ways easier
than TTL.  If you terminated every line, you get controlled impedances with
controlled edges.  This was the design philosophy for the Dorado.

Varian 620/L backplane netlist?

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I realize this a rare bird indeed, but would anyone just happen to have a
Varian 620/L backplane netlist hanging around?

Unless I missed it, the schematics on bitsavers do *not* have it.

Re: Typing in lost code

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

No, OCR totally fails on olde line printer listing.  At least the ones I've
tried (tesseract, online, ...)



On Sat, Jan 22, 2022 at 8:06 PM Ethan O'Toole  wrote:

>
> Can the listings be OCR'ed?
>
> - Ethan
>
>
> > Has anyone ever used Amazon Mechanical Turk to employ typists to type in
> > old listings of lost code?
> >
> > Asking for a friend.
> >
>
> --
> : Ethan O'Toole
>
>
>

Typing in lost code

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

Has anyone ever used Amazon Mechanical Turk to employ typists to type in
old listings of lost code?

Asking for a friend.

MK11 box controller?

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

"Asking for a friend"...

Anyone have a spare MK11 box controller?  At LSSM, we're bringing up an
11/70 and we need a box controller for the new memory.

If not, we'll get by, but just in case someone has one propping a door
open...

DEC KL11

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

A few details for the curious:

It's housed in a BA-11 box with 3 controller cards.
The Massbus paddles fit into that box and terminate in flat ribbon cable,
not the massive cables.
The DRAM chips are 4116s.

manx tells me that these documents were known to exist:

PartTitleStatus
EK-0ML11-TD *ML11 Technical Description
*
EK-0ML11-TM *ML11 Technical Manual
*
EK-0ML11-UG *ML11 User's Guide
*

But they are not online.

So I can't say whether they are 18 bit compatible.

DEC ML11

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I've been working on a newly donated PDP 11/70 at the LSSM.  I just
discovered it has a ML11 --- an early Solid State Disk.  Does anyone know
of any schematics, user guides, etc?

Thanks!

C.mmp OS

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

The answer to the question is Hydra I believe.

SAIL (was ALGOL-W)

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

As a past occasional maintainer of SAIL, I'll add my version of history:

I believe the compiler originated as a class assignment for Jerry Feldman's
compiler writing class.  As noted, Dan Swinehart was one of the principal
contributors.  The addition of LEAP to SAIL was a direct result of
Feldman's past work at Lincoln Labs.

SAIL was used by everyone for everything at the AI Lab because of it's
"kitchen sink" philosophy  including the link to assembly language inside
the language.

Eventually, a source language debugger called BAIL was written by John
Reiser.  With the slow and steady decline of the PDP-10 and the ascent of
Unix, SAIL went off into the sunset.

[MWK,AIL]

AT DSPs

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I have various TI DSP documentation but also have AT DSPs, in particular,
the DSP16.  The DSP32C was much more popular however.

LISP implementations on small machines

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

The first implementation was done for the 7090 by McCarthy (hence CAR and
CDR --- Contents of Address Register and Contents of Decrement Register).

If you want to see a tiny implementation then look for the PDP-1
implementation done by L Peter Deutsch.  There's a book chapter and then I
found this report:

http://s3data.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/DEC.pdp_1.1964.102650371.pdf

ALGOL-60 obit

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

For those who like that sort of thing, here's more on the author of the
PDP-8 ALGOL:

https://ouscr.org.uk/index.php/obituaries?id=54

Manual sources

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

Well, as I am sure many of you know, ManualsPlus was "acquired" by the
Internet Archive.
This story captures the effort:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/introducing-the-archive-corps/403135/

Jim Tucker is still selling things on ebay.

When we'll see the manuals from the archive, who knows?

Ethernet names...

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I was there and it was always called "The Ethernet".  When the 10 Mb
standard came into being, it was then referred to as "The Experimental
Ethernet".  If you want to be *really* pedantic, you could refer to it as
the "2.94 MHz Ethernet" --- but that would be silly.

If you'd like to see how Aloha inspired Metcalfe, read this:

http://www.historyofcomputercommunications.info/Book/6/6.7-EthernetRobertMetcalfeXeroxPARC71-75.html

More Alto remarks

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

I had forgotten about OrBit.  According to this very nice document:

http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/Indigo/Spruce/documents/.orbitguide.press!1.pdf

... the Orbit hardware was 4 cards in the Alto II backplane.  As I recall,
the SLOT interface was only 1 card; it was connected to a slower speed
printer.  The only modification to the Alto: wire wrapping the task signals
(don't ask me how I know...)

And yes, I agree, only the high bandwidth I/O used tasks.  The use of tasks
and "time sharing" the Alto processor innards is one of the Alto's real
treats.

Experimental Ethernet, XGP, etc.

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

A few notes:

The experimental Ethernet speed was in fact 2.94 MHz: It's the Alto clock
divided by 2.

The Alto based printer was called "SLOT" -- Scanning Laser Output
Terminal.  It was plugged into the Alto backplane and presented itself as a
hardware peripheral controlled by microcode (as was the case for all Alto
I/O).  It was an Alto task, of course.

The vampire tap transceiver used RG-8 cable originally.  That's before they
added the lines around the cable and added additional shielding.

The XGP was used at the Stanford AI Lab and was, as mentioned early, a dry
process.  And it did use a roll of paper.

DEC archives

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

In case you hadn't heard, the DEC archives at CHM are available and here's
the PDF:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/finding-aids/102733963-DEC/102733963-DEC.pdf

Now, I wonder if it has Firefly docs...

Firefly dual processor card

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

Against my better judgement, I obtained a DEC SRC Firefly dual processor
card.  If i read this* correctly, then this card is interfaced to the
shared memory bus (MBUS) as opposed to the QBUS (the card uses a Q bus
format).

I realize it's probably hopeless, but I'll ask anyway: Are there any
schematics or specifications on the connectors anywhere?

*IEEE Computer, also available on Bitsavers as a technical report.

Re: Ethernet 1973/1974

[Mark Kahrs via cctalk]

The early ethernet schematics are best read with the a copy of  the
original patent (US 4,073,220) in hand.  In particular, you can match up
figure 5 and the explanation in the text with the schematic from Xerox.  I
wrote such a document decades ago but it has vanished along with many other
bits.

Has anyone interviewed Tat Lam about the transceiver?