Re: LINCtape images
On Fri, 5 Nov 2021, David Gesswein wrote: Looks like your .BN isn't my sites BIN loader conversion. Did you try mine and it didn't work or you had already done your own before I added it? I made my own extraction from the image, but it is the same as yours. I had written my own little program just to learn understand the format of a DIAL tape and the data from your site. Christian
Re: LINCtape images
Some of it was research, the 12 had OSes like Dial and OS8V3D. Next time we get together I'll give you a couple to check as I don't have a DECTape transport anymore (I should, but I don't) On 11/5/2021 6:36 PM, David Gesswein via cctech wrote: On Fri, Nov 05, 2021 at 10:07:33AM -0400, Chris Zach wrote: Speaking of which I have a couple of boxes of Linctapes from a pdp12 system that was used in a college. Is there any value in getting the data off them? If you know they are all CS101 projects then may not be worth the time but I mostly just read the tapes to be sure. Does cause my archive to have a lot of marginal stuff to search through but hopefully the search will help find what you are looking for. Not everybody agrees on what is uninteresting.
Re: LINCtape images
On Fri, Nov 05, 2021 at 10:55:38AM +0100, Christian Corti wrote: > On Thu, 4 Nov 2021, David Gesswein wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 10:57:21AM -0500, Jay Jaeger wrote: > > > > > > I have some LINCTape images with diagnostics. Let me know if you need one > > > and I can send you the image. > > > > > I can add them to my browsble archive if you wish. > > http://www.pdp8online.com/images/index.shtml > > Thanks to you all, I've been able to do the first step in recreating > LINCtapes. I have successfully extracted the MARK12 binary [1] from the > dial.linc tape image and convert it into a BN that can be loaded with the > BINLDR. We testet it yesterday and guess what, we could mark new LINCtapes > on our PDP-12 without errors. > Good to hear your machine it working. Looks like your .BN isn't my sites BIN loader conversion. Did you try mine and it didn't work or you had already done your own before I added it?
Re: LINCtape images
On Fri, Nov 05, 2021 at 10:07:33AM -0400, Chris Zach wrote: > Speaking of which I have a couple of boxes of Linctapes from a pdp12 system > that was used in a college. Is there any value in getting the data off them? > If you know they are all CS101 projects then may not be worth the time but I mostly just read the tapes to be sure. Does cause my archive to have a lot of marginal stuff to search through but hopefully the search will help find what you are looking for. Not everybody agrees on what is uninteresting.
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/5/2021 7:07 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: Speaking of which I have a couple of boxes of Linctapes from a pdp12 system that was used in a college. Is there any value in getting the data off them? I'd say yes :-). It's a bit of a pain to do the imaging, but storing the images has gotten quite affordable. If you've got a working pdp12 you could try to curate the content, but that will likely be hard to do well. Just saving the content is easier. I maintain an archive of DEC software for the PDP8 and PDP12. So far, nearly every resource I've tapped into helps fill in something that was missing. Even so, the coverage is still sitting at less than half the known titles after quite a bit of hunting. Vince
Re: LINCtape images
Speaking of which I have a couple of boxes of Linctapes from a pdp12 system that was used in a college. Is there any value in getting the data off them? C On 11/5/2021 5:55 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: On Thu, 4 Nov 2021, David Gesswein wrote: On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 10:57:21AM -0500, Jay Jaeger wrote: I have some LINCTape images with diagnostics. Let me know if you need one and I can send you the image. I can add them to my browsble archive if you wish. http://www.pdp8online.com/images/index.shtml Thanks to you all, I've been able to do the first step in recreating LINCtapes. I have successfully extracted the MARK12 binary [1] from the dial.linc tape image and convert it into a BN that can be loaded with the BINLDR. We testet it yesterday and guess what, we could mark new LINCtapes on our PDP-12 without errors. Next step is bringing up SerialDisk. Christian [1] ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dec/pdp12/MARK12.BN
Re: LINCtape images
On Thu, 4 Nov 2021, David Gesswein wrote: On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 10:57:21AM -0500, Jay Jaeger wrote: I have some LINCTape images with diagnostics. Let me know if you need one and I can send you the image. I can add them to my browsble archive if you wish. http://www.pdp8online.com/images/index.shtml Thanks to you all, I've been able to do the first step in recreating LINCtapes. I have successfully extracted the MARK12 binary [1] from the dial.linc tape image and convert it into a BN that can be loaded with the BINLDR. We testet it yesterday and guess what, we could mark new LINCtapes on our PDP-12 without errors. Next step is bringing up SerialDisk. Christian [1] ftp://computermuseum.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/dec/pdp12/MARK12.BN
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/4/2021 5:46 PM, David Gesswein via cctech wrote: On Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 07:53:42PM -0700, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: On 11/2/2021 2:25 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes. Cool! I was able to recover the code and convert it into a more modern PAL dialect. Your listings also don't display the many literals that were generated on page zero (except sort of implicitly). Did you put them on your site? Probably not a bad idea. Here's a directory for my work on Jay's stuff, and also a snapshot of the SerialDisk stuff configured for PDP-12 and LINCtape: http://svn.so-much-stuff.com/svn/trunk/pdp8/src/pdp12/ It's not really a web page, but it is something you can fetch (and update) with SVN, which is much easier. Vince
Re: LINCtape images
On Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 07:53:42PM -0700, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > On 11/2/2021 2:25 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > > Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem > > protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes. > > Cool! I was able to recover the code and convert it into a more modern PAL > dialect. Your listings also don't display the many literals that were > generated on page zero (except sort of implicitly). > Did you put them on your site?
Re: LINCtape images
On Wed, Nov 03, 2021 at 10:57:21AM -0500, Jay Jaeger wrote: > > I have some LINCTape images with diagnostics. Let me know if you need one > and I can send you the image. > I can add them to my browsble archive if you wish. http://www.pdp8online.com/images/index.shtml
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/3/2021 12:25 PM, Christian Corti via cctech wrote: On Wed, 3 Nov 2021, Jay Jaeger wrote: It seems you didn't notice that I included two separate programs in my previous post: XMTAPE and CMPTAP ;) I did, and I have found an error ;-) 0275 0361 7300 #WDFLSH CLA CLL 0276 0362 1073 0073 TAD XMCNT [ IF COUNT==128. 0277 0363 1176 7600 TAD (0-128. 0300 0364 7450 SNA 0301 0365 5761 0361 JMP;WDFLSH [ THEN JUST RETURN The space for the return address is missing at the beginning of WDFLSH Christian Yes, in XMTAPE it looks like 0275 0361 7300 #WDFLSH CLA CLL It should read #WDFLSH 0 CLA CLL I *thought* I had tested it. ;) But, as it turns out, WDFLSH is only called from one place, and is only called when the accumulator is 0 (and probably the link bit is zero two), so while this is definitely an error in coding, at first blush I don't think it affects operation of the program. JRJ
Re: SerialDisk (Re: LINCtape images)
On Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 03:12:05PM +0100, Christian Corti wrote: > On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: > > Another option would be to spin the data onto LINCtape with a TD8E, then > > mount the result on the PDP-12. I think Dave is creating the images in > > the first place with either a TD8E, or possibly a custom controller. > > I think he used a custom controller. > I have several TD8E controllers, but the TU56s are wired for the TC08, and > one unit for the TC11. > The TD8E can't read LINCtapes without putting an inverter in the clock line. With it still wasn't great. Code I used depended on the databreak interface board I made for formerly online PDP-8. Being slowly reworked to get rid of the obsolete java front end and dependance on a parallel port which my new server didn't have so will be back online at some point. Currently I use a beaglebone that connects in place of the TD8E. Works better but code gets confused at times with errors. Really needs a rewrite. Also doesn't like most of the LINC-8 tapes I have. Haven't had time to figure out why. http://www.pdp8online.com/dectape/
Re: LINCtape images
On Wed, 3 Nov 2021, Jay Jaeger wrote: It seems you didn't notice that I included two separate programs in my previous post: XMTAPE and CMPTAP ;) I did, and I have found an error ;-) 0275 0361 7300 #WDFLSH CLA CLL 0276 0362 1073 0073 TAD XMCNT [ IF COUNT==128. 0277 0363 1176 7600 TAD (0-128. 0300 0364 7450 SNA 0301 0365 5761 0361 JMP;WDFLSH [ THEN JUST RETURN The space for the return address is missing at the beginning of WDFLSH Christian
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/3/2021 9:13 AM, Jay Jaeger wrote: On 11/2/2021 9:53 PM, Vincent Slyngstad via cctalk wrote: In making the page zero literals line up (so that the code matches the originals), I found two locations in xmtape which are coded as TAD (16. but the code references a new literal at location 0161, instead of the previously generated one at location 0166. This is at location 0567 and again at 0666. I probably used LAP-6 or DIAL to do the assembly - I don't recall right now. It seems you didn't notice that I included two separate programs in my previous post: XMTAPE and CMPTAP ;) In XMTAPE we see: 0215 0315 1161 0020 TAD (16. 0540 0567 1161 0020 TAD (16. 0646 0666 1161 0020 TAD (16. In CMPTAP - a separate program - we see: 0216 0336 1166 0020 TAD (16. I had noticed the two programs, and have translated them both. The grep-like output you include does help clarify the confusion I was suffering when I wrote. I later figured out that what was actually confusing my PAL code was that I had messed up translating the instance at 0215. The PAL style assembler assembled that line as if it read TAD [16 . which says to OR 0016 and the current location counter, then make a literal, then make a TAD instruction referencing the literal. Which basically filled the slot at 0161 with rubbish, but generates the correct "1161" instruction. The two later references generated a literal elsewhere, and their code was therefore flagged as incorrect when the binary diff was done. The binary diff was against the assembled octal from column 3, and therefore is missing the literals (and thus always flags them all as different). Anyway, the short version is there was never anything wrong with your LAP/DIAL output, but I was confused for a bit. Thanks again! Vince
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/2/2021 9:53 PM, Vincent Slyngstad via cctalk wrote:
On 11/2/2021 2:25 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote:
Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem
protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes.
Cool! I was able to recover the code and convert it into a more modern
PAL dialect. Your listings also don't display the many literals that
were generated on page zero (except sort of implicitly).
In making the page zero literals line up (so that the code matches the
originals), I found two locations in xmtape which are coded as
TAD (16.
but the code references a new literal at location 0161, instead of the
previously generated one at location 0166. This is at location 0567 and
again at 0666.
(In the PAL assemblers, the "(" must be a "[", you can't use "." to
change radix, etc. etc.)
Vince
I probably used LAP-6 or DIAL to do the assembly - I don't recall right
now.
It seems you didn't notice that I included two separate programs in my
previous post: XMTAPE and CMPTAP ;)
In XMTAPE we see:
0215 0315 1161 0020 TAD (16.
0540 0567 1161 0020 TAD (16.
0646 0666 1161 0020 TAD (16.
In CMPTAP - a separate program - we see:
0216 0336 1166 0020 TAD (16.
JRJ
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/3/2021 3:27 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Jay Jaeger wrote: Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes. This is fantastic, thanks :-) I hope this will help us in bootstrapping the PDP-12. At least I would like to have a tape with all the diagnostics. For now, we are at least able to load programs with the BIN loader over the serial line with currently 9600 Baud. We need to get the second line working for SerialDisk. Christian I have some LINCTape images with diagnostics. Let me know if you need one and I can send you the image. JRJ
Re: LINCtape images
On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Jay Jaeger wrote: Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes. This is fantastic, thanks :-) I hope this will help us in bootstrapping the PDP-12. At least I would like to have a tape with all the diagnostics. For now, we are at least able to load programs with the BIN loader over the serial line with currently 9600 Baud. We need to get the second line working for SerialDisk. Christian
Re: LINCtape images
On 11/2/2021 2:25 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote:
Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem
protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes.
Cool! I was able to recover the code and convert it into a more modern
PAL dialect. Your listings also don't display the many literals that
were generated on page zero (except sort of implicitly).
In making the page zero literals line up (so that the code matches the
originals), I found two locations in xmtape which are coded as
TAD (16.
but the code references a new literal at location 0161, instead of the
previously generated one at location 0166. This is at location 0567 and
again at 0666.
(In the PAL assemblers, the "(" must be a "[", you can't use "." to
change radix, etc. etc.)
Vince
Re: LINCtape images
On 10/29/2021 7:22 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: Short question: How do I transfer LINCtape images back to tape on a PDP-12? Ideally there is some binary program to load via papertape to format a tape and recreate it with data transfer over the console serial line. Christian Here is a program I wrote for reading/writing tape images via XModem protocol for my PDP-12, and another for comparing two linctapes. JRJ 8L OF XMTAPE PAGE 01 LN=0001 0001 [ PROGRAM TO SEND A 0002 [ TAPE ON UNIT 1 TO 0003 [ A PC VIA XMODEM 0004 [ 0005 [ CONSTANTS 0006 [ 0007 XSOH=1 0010 XNAK=25 0011 XCAN=30 0012 XACK=6 0013 XEOT=4 0014 SRTAPE=1[ SR11 1 FOR OS/12 TAPE 0015 SRCMP=2 [ SR10 1 FOR COMPARE 0016 SRWRIT=4[ SR9 1 FOR WRITE 0017 [ 0020 [ SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS 0021 [ 0022 AXO=1 0023 PDP=2 0024 TMA=23 0025 RDC=700 0026 WDE=706 0027 DKSF=6401 0030 DKCC=6402 0031 DKRB=6406 0032 DTLS=6416 0033 DTSF=6411 0034 [ 0035 [ DATA 0036 [ 0037 $70 0040 0070 #XMPTR 0 [ PTR INTO XMBUF 0041 0071 #XMBLK 0 [ XMODEM BLOCK # 0042 0072 #XMCKSM 0 [ XMODEM CHECKSUM 0043 0073 #XMCNT 0 [ WORK COUNTER 0044 0074 #XMACK 0 [ ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CHAR 0045 0075 #ROTCNT 0 [ WORK COUNTER FOR RAR 0046 0076 #WDCNTI 0 [ WORDS PER BLOCK 0047 0077 #BLKCNT 0 [ BLOCKS PER TAPE 0050 0100 #WDCNT 0 [ WORK COUNTER 0051 0101 #HNKCNT 0 [ WORK COUNTER 0052 0102 #HNKMEM 0 [ ADDRESS OF BLOCK 0053 0103 #XMWORD 0 [ XMODEM INCOMING WORD 0054 0104 #XMPROT 0 [ XMODEM PROTOCOL CHAR 0055 [ 0056 [ INITIALIZATION 0057 [ 0060 $200 0061 0200 7402 #START HLT 0062 0201 7301 CLA CLL IAC [ XMODEM BLOCK=1 0063 0202 3071 0071 DCA XMBLK 0064 0203 1177 1155 TAD (XMBUF [ XMPTR = ADDR(XMBUF) 0065 0204 3070 0070 DCA XMPTR 0066 0205 1176 7600 TAD (0-128. [ XMCNT = -128 0067 0206 3073 0073 DCA XMCNT 8L OF XMTAPE PAGE 02 LN=0070 0070 0207 7404 OSR [ IF SR11 == 0 THEN 0071 0210 0175 0001 AND (SRTAPE 0072 0211 7440 SZA 0073 0212 5220 0220 JMP INITP 0074 0213 1174 7400 TAD (0-256. [ WDCNTI= -256. 0075 0214 3076 0076 DCA WDCNTI 0076 0215 1173 7000 TAD (0-1000 [ BLKCNT = -01000 0077 0216 3077 0077 DCA BLKCNT 0100 0217 5225 0225 JMP INIT1 [ ELSE 0101 0220 7300 #INITP CLA CLL 0102 0221 1172 7577 TAD (0-129. [ WDCNTI = -129. 0103 0222 3076 0076 DCA WDCNTI 0104 0223 1171 5000 TAD (0-3000 [ BLKCNT = - 03000 0105 0224 3077 0077 DCA BLKCNT 0106 0225 3254 0254 #INIT1 DCA BLOCK [ BLOCK = 0 0107 0226 7404 OSR [ IF SR10==1 THEN COMPARE 0110 0227 0170 0002 AND (SRCMP 0111 0230 7440 SZA 0112 0231 5567 0500 JMP CMPINI [ GO COMPARE 0113 0232 7404 OSR [ IF SR9==1 THEN WRITE 0114 0233 0166 0004 AND (SRWRIT 0115 0234 7440 SZA 0116 0235 5565 0603 JMP WTINI [ GO WRITE 0117 [ 0120 [ READ NEXT HUNK (1 FIELD) 0121 [ (16 BLOCKS) INTO MEM. 0122 [ 0123 0236 7300 #RDHNK CLA CLL 0124 0237 1164 7760 TAD (0-16. [ HNKCNT = -16. 0125 0240 3101 0101 DCA HNKCNT 0126 0241 3102 0102 DCA HNKMEM [ HNKMEM = 0 0127 0242 7300 #RDBLK CLA CLL 0130 0243 1102 0102 TAD HNKMEM [ TMA MEMORY ADDRESS 0131 0244 6141 LINC 0132 0245 0023 TMA 0133 0246 0002 PDP 0134 0247 7300 CLA CLL [ EXTENDED, FIELD 1 0135 0250 1163 1020 TAD (1020 0136 0251 6141 LINC 0137 0252 0001 AXO 0140 0253 0710 RDC 10 [ READ UNIT 1 0141 0254 #BLOCK 0 0142
Re: SerialDisk (Re: LINCtape images)
On 11/2/2021 7:12 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: https://github.com/drovak/os8diskserver The current version should have no problems with the 8/I or with the PDP-12. (Maybe even the straight-8, but I can't remember checking if it is "increment and rotate" clean. Doug might know.) Thanks. I've seen this, but the doc/comments apparently don't reflect the changes and modifications so I was thinking that this is the unpatched version. The edit history in the handlers/*.pal reflect the driver changes, and there's also a pile of useful changes to the installer, etc. The github per-file check-in comments aren't always that helpful. The "history" button in the upper right gives perhaps the best synopsis of the changes on a "per commit" level. If "RES/E" doesn't report version "I", you aren't running the latest. (Kyle's code was through "E", Bob's code was "F", CJL's code was "G" and "H", and my KIE fix is "I".) I also have lying around somewhere a bootable SerialDisk image I made with LINCtape drivers, which I hope to actually run on my -12 someday. CJL had some ideas about a SerialDisk for PQS?8 and other non-OS/8 operating systems, but I haven't seen any code for that. (I also disagree with his ideas about the need to switch to 128-word blocks.) Vince
Re: SerialDisk (Re: LINCtape images)
On Tue, 2 Nov 2021, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: Another option would be to spin the data onto LINCtape with a TD8E, then mount the result on the PDP-12. I think Dave is creating the images in the first place with either a TD8E, or possibly a custom controller. I think he used a custom controller. I have several TD8E controllers, but the TU56s are wired for the TC08, and one unit for the TC11. https://github.com/drovak/os8diskserver The current version should have no problems with the 8/I or with the PDP-12. (Maybe even the straight-8, but I can't remember checking if it is "increment and rotate" clean. Doug might know.) Thanks. I've seen this, but the doc/comments apparently don't reflect the changes and modifications so I was thinking that this is the unpatched version. Christian
Re: SerialDisk (Re: LINCtape images)
On 11/2/2021 2:42 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: On Fri, 29 Oct 2021, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: There seem to be a couple of formats that were frequently used, and a third lesser used format. One of the issues is that you have to go into maintenance mode, as far as I can tell, to determine the size of the block you just read into memory. It seems so. But I would need just a restore version of the program, capable of formatting the tape first. I'm wondering if I am the first who wants to create LINCtapes from an image. There is a mention of using SerialDisk with the PDP-12 (a modified version by cjl), but I can't locate it :-( Another option would be to spin the data onto LINCtape with a TD8E, then mount the result on the PDP-12. I think Dave is creating the images in the first place with either a TD8E, or possibly a custom controller. I folded in the SerialDisk changes from Bob and from CJL back in January, as well as the new boot loader from Doug and various other fixes in February, including support for systems without the KIE instruction. Kyle approved and merged my pull requests, so that should all be there for you at Kyle's github: https://github.com/drovak/os8diskserver The current version should have no problems with the 8/I or with the PDP-12. (Maybe even the straight-8, but I can't remember checking if it is "increment and rotate" clean. Doug might know.) Vince
SerialDisk (Re: LINCtape images)
On Fri, 29 Oct 2021, Vincent Slyngstad wrote: There seem to be a couple of formats that were frequently used, and a third lesser used format. One of the issues is that you have to go into maintenance mode, as far as I can tell, to determine the size of the block you just read into memory. It seems so. But I would need just a restore version of the program, capable of formatting the tape first. I'm wondering if I am the first who wants to create LINCtapes from an image. There is a mention of using SerialDisk with the PDP-12 (a modified version by cjl), but I can't locate it :-( Christian
Re: LINCtape images
On 10/29/2021 5:22 AM, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: Short question: How do I transfer LINCtape images back to tape on a PDP-12? Ideally there is some binary program to load via papertape to format a tape and recreate it with data transfer over the console serial line. I was thinking to write a version of dumprest for my LINCtape drives, but since my PDP-12 isn't that far along yet, I haven't gotten to it. There seem to be a couple of formats that were frequently used, and a third lesser used format. One of the issues is that you have to go into maintenance mode, as far as I can tell, to determine the size of the block you just read into memory. Vince
LINCtape images
Short question: How do I transfer LINCtape images back to tape on a PDP-12? Ideally there is some binary program to load via papertape to format a tape and recreate it with data transfer over the console serial line. Christian
