Paging Toby Thain [was RE: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]]

[Rich Alderson]

Hi, Toby,

I answered your private note, but Outlook/Exchange informed me this
morning that it would not send the message for 48 hours and so was
giving up.  I just don't want you to think I'm ignoring you.

My answer was that it's not for me to say, but the author is a friend.

Rich


Rich Alderson
Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Ave S
Seattle, WA 98134

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Warner Losh]

On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Robert Jarratt <robert.jarr...@ntlworld.com
> wrote:

>
>
> > -Original Message-
> > From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of william
> > degnan
> > Sent: 02 March 2016 03:30
> > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> > <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > Subject: Re: Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming
> [was
> > RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development
> > machine)]
> >
> > On Mar 1, 2016 8:19 PM, "Toby Thain" <t...@telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 2016-03-01 7:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
> > >>
> > >> It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded
> > >>> at
> > the
> > >>> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was
> > >>> asking nearly $1500 for a copy.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not
> > >> simple
> > greed.
> > >> I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party)
> > offered
> > >> the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such
> > >> books,
> > and
> > >> offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer)
> > >> will only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which
> > >> point they will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to
> > >> you for $6 and pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third
> > >> third-party seller sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as
> > >> the second one, only now they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for
> it and
> > pocket $1 profit.
> > >>
> > >>Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for
> > $1500.
> > >
> > >
> > > Or more:
> > > http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
> > > etc.
> > >
> > > Remind me why HFT is a great idea...
> > >
> > >>
> > >>-spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the
> original
> > >> seller selling it for $5 ... )
> > >>
> > >
> >
> > I would think pdp 10 original books / manuals are hard to find.
>
> I still have my copy of the book by Michael Singer:
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-DECsystem-10-assembler-language-programming/dp/B0007AJF54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8=1456948533=8-1=singer+decsystem.
> This is the book I used to program a DECSYSTEM20 in assembler, although I
> must have used other resources to help me along that I no longer recall.
> The book is available at a much more reasonable price than the Gorin book
> (which I don't have).
>

There's at least two others available from Amazon US for < US$15.

Warner

RE: Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Robert Jarratt]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of william
> degnan
> Sent: 02 March 2016 03:30
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming [was
> RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development
> machine)]
> 
> On Mar 1, 2016 8:19 PM, "Toby Thain" <t...@telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > On 2016-03-01 7:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
> >>
> >> It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded
> >>> at
> the
> >>> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was
> >>> asking nearly $1500 for a copy.
> >>
> >>
> >>I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not
> >> simple
> greed.
> >> I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party)
> offered
> >> the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such
> >> books,
> and
> >> offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer)
> >> will only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which
> >> point they will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to
> >> you for $6 and pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third
> >> third-party seller sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as
> >> the second one, only now they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and
> pocket $1 profit.
> >>
> >>Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for
> $1500.
> >
> >
> > Or more:
> > http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
> > etc.
> >
> > Remind me why HFT is a great idea...
> >
> >>
> >>-spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
> >> seller selling it for $5 ... )
> >>
> >
> 
> I would think pdp 10 original books / manuals are hard to find.

I still have my copy of the book by Michael Singer: 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-DECsystem-10-assembler-language-programming/dp/B0007AJF54/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8=1456948533=8-1=singer+decsystem.
 This is the book I used to program a DECSYSTEM20 in assembler, although I must 
have used other resources to help me along that I no longer recall. The book is 
available at a much more reasonable price than the Gorin book (which I don't 
have).

Regards

Rob

RE: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Rich Alderson]

From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alan Perry
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 7:22 PM

> I was one of the first outside people to get an account on LCM's Toad, but
> one day I found my account was gone, so I have been doing -20 work on SIMH
> since then.


 toad-2a at Living Computer Museum, TOPS-20 Monitor 7(110131)-1


WELCOME TO LIVING COMPUTER MUSEUM'S TOAD-2 SYSTEM RUNNING TOPS-20!


PLEASE NOTE that closing a terminal window or program DOES NOT log
you off of the system.  You must use the LOGOUT or KILL command at
the @ prompt before ending the terminal program to log out.


@finger perry
ALANPAlan Perry   ALANP not logged in
Last login Thu 3-May-2012 1:20PM

No new mail, never read

[No plan]

@



Your account is right where you left it.  (OK, a year ago we migrated from
the Toad-1 to a Toad-2 to save wear and tear on the 20 year old SCSI disk,
but no accounts were lost.)



Rich Alderson
Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Ave S
Seattle, WA 98134

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[william degnan]

On Mar 1, 2016 8:19 PM, "Toby Thain"  wrote:
>
> On 2016-03-01 7:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
>>
>> It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
>>>
>>>
>>> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at
the
>>> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
>>> nearly $1500 for a copy.
>>
>>
>>I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple
greed.
>> I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party)
offered
>> the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books,
and
>> offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
>> only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
>> will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
>> pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
>> sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
>> they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.
>>
>>Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for
$1500.
>
>
> Or more:
> http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
> etc.
>
> Remind me why HFT is a great idea...
>
>>
>>-spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
>> seller selling it for $5 ... )
>>
>

I would think pdp 10 original books / manuals are hard to find.

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Alan Perry]

I loaned Rich my big bag of DECsystem-20 docs, including the Gorin book, from 
my days as a systems programmer on a couple of -20s in college. Guess I should 
have taken a deposit or some ID ;)

I had some time to kill in SoDo and went to LCM for the first since it opened 
to the public. I tried to say 'hi' to Rich and instead got my bag of DEC stuff 
back. Didn't really need it back then.

I had been asking Rich about the stuff because I had been trying to get some 
other docs back from another museum and they couldn't find them. I just wanted 
to make sure Rich knew where my -20 stuff was. Oh well.

I was one of the first outside people to get an account on LCM's Toad, but one 
day I found my account was gone, so I have been doing -20 work on SIMH since 
then.

alan

> On Mar 1, 2016, at 17:40, Ian S. King  wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2016-Mar-01, at 4:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
>>> It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
 
 For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at
>> the
 chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
 nearly $1500 for a copy.
>>> 
>>> I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple
>> greed.
>>> I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party)
>> offered
>>> the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books,
>> and
>>> offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
>>> only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
>>> will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
>>> pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
>>> sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
>>> they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.
>>> 
>>> Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for $1500.
>>> 
>>> -spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
>>>  seller selling it for $5 ... )
>> 
>> 
>> For example:
>> 
>> http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-did-amazon-charge-23698655-93-for-a-textbook/
>> I've come across other articles about this in the past. Don't know the
>> specifics of the book mentioned by Rich.
> On abebooks.com, the lowest price is right around $100 with shipping.  Yes,
> this sucks.  Yes, this is how capitalism works.  :-)  I've paid serious
> money for books that are relevant to my research that aren't available in
> libraries - one of them was no closer than Paris.  (I bought it from India
> for about $50, and I won't loan it out.)
> 
> -- 
> Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
> The Information School 
> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
> Narrative Through a Design Lens
> 
> Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 
> 
> University of Washington
> 
> There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Ian S. King]

On Tue, Mar 1, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:

> On 2016-Mar-01, at 4:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
> > It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
> >>
> >> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at
> the
> >> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
> >> nearly $1500 for a copy.
> >
> >  I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple
> greed.
> > I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party)
> offered
> > the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books,
> and
> > offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
> > only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
> > will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
> > pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
> > sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
> > they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.
> >
> >  Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for $1500.
> >
> >  -spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
> >   seller selling it for $5 ... )
>
>
> For example:
>
> http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-did-amazon-charge-23698655-93-for-a-textbook/
> I've come across other articles about this in the past. Don't know the
> specifics of the book mentioned by Rich.
>
>
On abebooks.com, the lowest price is right around $100 with shipping.  Yes,
this sucks.  Yes, this is how capitalism works.  :-)  I've paid serious
money for books that are relevant to my research that aren't available in
libraries - one of them was no closer than Paris.  (I bought it from India
for about $50, and I won't loan it out.)

-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School 
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Algorithmic pricing gone critical - Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Toby Thain]

On 2016-03-01 7:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:

It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:


For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at the
chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
nearly $1500 for a copy.


   I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple greed.
I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party) offered
the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books, and
offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.

   Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for $1500.


Or more:
http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
etc.

Remind me why HFT is a great idea...



   -spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
seller selling it for $5 ... )

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Mar-01, at 4:36 PM, Sean Conner wrote:
> It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
>> 
>> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at the
>> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
>> nearly $1500 for a copy.
> 
>  I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple greed.
> I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party) offered
> the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books, and
> offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
> only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
> will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
> pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
> sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
> they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.
> 
>  Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for $1500.
> 
>  -spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
>   seller selling it for $5 ... )


For example:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/why-did-amazon-charge-23698655-93-for-a-textbook/
I've come across other articles about this in the past. Don't know the 
specifics of the book mentioned by Rich.

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Rich Alderson once stated:
> 
> For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at the
> chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
> nearly $1500 for a copy.

  I think that comes from an unchecked computer algorithm, not simple greed.
I think what's happening here is someone (some Amazon third party) offered
the book for, say, $5.  Another third party scans Amazon for such books, and
offers it for say, $6, with the hope that you (the potential buyer) will
only see their their offer for $6 and buy from them, at which point they
will buy it for $5 from the original seller, sell it to you for $6 and
pocket the $1 profit.  The problem comes when a third third-party seller
sees the offer for $6 and does the same thing as the second one, only now
they're offering it for $7, will pay $6 for it and pocket $1 profit.

  Keep repeating that process and you end up with books selling for $1500.

  -spc (Who knows?  If you keep searching, you might find the original
seller selling it for $5 ... )

RE: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Rich Alderson]

From: Glen Slick
Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 7:43 PM

> On Feb 29, 2016 5:07 PM, "Rich Alderson" 
> wrote:

>> From: David Griffith
>> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 4:05 PM

>>> One of my ongoing wish projects is to learn to program a pdp-10 so I can
>>> port Frotz to it.

>> The canonical textbook is Ralph Gorin's _Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20
>> Assembly Language Programming_ (Digital Press, 1981).  Lots of examples,
>> well thought out presentation.

>> It's a shame that Ralph's book has become so rare.  (Seriously, who
>> does the seller asking $1,441.25 for a copy think he's talking to???)
>> Probably remaindered in the 1990s at any library that had a copy.

> FWIW Amazon lists used copies of ISBN-13 978-0932376121 around $100. I
> bought a used copy a couple of years ago that turned out to be an
> ex-library copy. Don't think I paid too much at the time. Still haven't
> gotten around to looking at it much.

For most hobbyists, even $100 is too much.  I was simply astounded at the
chutzpah of the seller--right there on the Amazon list--who was asking
nearly $1500 for a copy.


From: Mark Wickens
Sent: Monday, February 29, 2016 11:32 PM

> There is a copy on archive.org: 
> https://archive.org/details/introductiontode00step

Well, I was going to point that out to my friend Ralph, but I see that
it is a different book with the same title, by one Stephen Longo, which
has been stolen.


From: John H. Reinhardt
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 5:03 AM

> There is a similar document online at Columbia with parts written by
> Ralph Gorin

> 

Rather, adapted from Ralph's early course notes (he was teaching the
class at Stanford for a few years before the book was published) by
Frank da Cruz and Chris Ryland.  I know that Frank and Ralph were
friendly, so I'm not surprised that Ralph shared his notes.


From: Pontus Pihlgren
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 5:13 AM

On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 08:02:47AM -0500, John H. Reinhardt wrote:

>> 

> I think this is the same file, but in HTML-formatted with one page per
> chapter:

> http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/instruction-set/pdp-10.html

No, that's an HTMLized version of the INFO file that accompanies the
original EMACS (the one written in MIT AI Lab TECO for the PDP-10).


So David, there are alternatives to the Gorin textbook.  I simply prefer
it for paedogogical reasons.


Rich


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Pontus Pihlgren]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 08:02:47AM -0500, John H. Reinhardt wrote:
> 
> On 2/29/2016 8:07 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
> >From: David Griffith
> >Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 4:05 PM
> >
> >>One of my ongoing wish projects is to learn to program a pdp-10 so I can
> >>port Frotz to it.
> >
> >The canonical textbook is Ralph Gorin's _Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20
> >Assembly Language Programming_ (Digital Press, 1981).  Lots of examples,
> >well thought out presentation.
> >
> 
> There is a similar document online at Columbia with parts written by Ralph 
> Gorin
> 

I think this is the same file, but in HTML-formatted with one page per 
chapter:

http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/instruction-set/pdp-10.html

/P

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Mark Wickens]

There is a copy on archive.org: 
https://archive.org/details/introductiontode00step


Regards, Mark.

On 01/03/16 01:07, Rich Alderson wrote:

From: David Griffith
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 4:05 PM


One of my ongoing wish projects is to learn to program a pdp-10 so I can
port Frotz to it.

The canonical textbook is Ralph Gorin's _Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20
Assembly Language Programming_ (Digital Press, 1981).  Lots of examples,
well thought out presentation.

It's a shame that Ralph's book has become so rare.  (Seriously, who
does the seller asking $1,441.25 for a copy think he's talking to???)
Probably remaindered in the 1990s at any library that had a copy.

If you were near Seattle, I'd say make an appointment and I'd give you
an afternoon's worth of overview.

 Rich


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: PDP-10 programming [was RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)]

[Glen Slick]

On Feb 29, 2016 5:07 PM, "Rich Alderson" 
wrote:
>
> From: David Griffith
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 2016 4:05 PM
>
> > One of my ongoing wish projects is to learn to program a pdp-10 so I can
> > port Frotz to it.
>
> The canonical textbook is Ralph Gorin's _Introduction to DECSYSTEM-20
> Assembly Language Programming_ (Digital Press, 1981).  Lots of examples,
> well thought out presentation.
>
> It's a shame that Ralph's book has become so rare.  (Seriously, who
> does the seller asking $1,441.25 for a copy think he's talking to???)
> Probably remaindered in the 1990s at any library that had a copy.
>

FWIW Amazon lists used copies of ISBN-13 978-0932376121 around $100. I
bought a used copy a couple of years ago that turned out to be an
ex-library copy. Don't think I paid too much at the time. Still haven't
gotten around to looking at it much.

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Jules Richardson]

On 02/26/2016 05:46 AM, Mattis Lind wrote:

When at Retrogathering in Västerås (Sweden) a month a ago we demonstrated
ASCII Mandelbrot (BASIC) on a VT100 generated by a PDP-11/03 . Takes quite
a while for it to do it.

http://i.imgur.com/v6FI5Cd.jpg


I like that. I just unearthed an ASCII Mandelbrot program I'd written as a 
Unix shell script the other day.

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Feb-27, at 8:23 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 02/27/2016 08:11 PM, David Griffith wrote:
> 
>>> I can think of lots of character art, but not one single game.
>> 
>> I'm pretty sure someone has done chess that way.
> 
> Dunno, my first encounter with Chess was Chess 3.0--it interacted using the 
> operator's console.  But I suppose a game state could have been filed away 
> and resurrected for the next move.  It's been too long.

 Bernstein's chess (1957) for the IBM 704 used front-panel switch input with 
printer output.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT_Un3xo1qE

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 02/27/2016 08:11 PM, David Griffith wrote:


I can think of lots of character art, but not one single game.


I'm pretty sure someone has done chess that way.


Dunno, my first encounter with Chess was Chess 3.0--it interacted using 
the operator's console.  But I suppose a game state could have been 
filed away and resurrected for the next move.  It's been too long.


I do recall a maze generator that could create mazes of any size.

--Chuck

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Charles Anthony]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 8:11 PM, David Griffith  wrote:

> On Sat, 27 Feb 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
> Okay, so "dumb terminal games" do require a terminal of some sort.  Back
>> in the day of punched cards, however, terminals were expensive and not
>> frequently encountered, but for the operator's console.
>>
>> Given that, how many games can one think of that were played with card
>> input and printer output?
>>
>> I can think of lots of character art, but not one single game.
>>
>
> I'm pretty sure someone has done chess that way.
>
>
I remember seeing someone in the mid '70s working on a Monopoly game using
punch cards and printout on a CDC 6000 class machine.

-- Charles

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Chuck Guzis]

Okay, so "dumb terminal games" do require a terminal of some sort.  Back 
in the day of punched cards, however, terminals were expensive and not 
frequently encountered, but for the operator's console.


Given that, how many games can one think of that were played with card 
input and printer output?


I can think of lots of character art, but not one single game.

--Chuck

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Mattis Lind wrote:


2016-02-26 4:01 GMT+01:00 Chuck Guzis :



A few more (I have source):

Hockey
Fleet (sort of battleship game)
Football
Lunar Lander (of course!)
Blackjack
Lots and lots of printer art

--Chuck


When at Retrogathering in Västerås (Sweden) a month a ago we demonstrated
ASCII Mandelbrot (BASIC) on a VT100 generated by a PDP-11/03 . Takes quite
a while for it to do it.

http://i.imgur.com/v6FI5Cd.jpg

There is also a poker game that's work well under RT-11 BASIC and
CAPS-11/BASIC.

/Mattis

Do you have the source code for the Mandelbrot demonstration and can you 
make it available?


Jerome Fine

RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[David Griffith]

On February 23, 2016 10:41:08 AM PST, Rich Alderson 
 wrote:
>From: Ethan Dicks
>Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 8:23 AM
>
>> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
>
>Ethan,
>
>You should know better.  Zork originated on a PDP-10 running ITS.  I
>first
>encountered it on a TOPS-20 system, since the folks at the Dynamic
>Modeling
>Lab ported their variant of Lisp to TENEX and TOPS-20.
>
>It's publicly available to play on the Toad-2 at LCM, and I removed the
>office hours check from the startup program years and years and year
>ago.
One of my ongoing wish projects is to learn to program a pdp-10 so I can port 
Frotz to it.
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Mattis Lind]

2016-02-26 4:01 GMT+01:00 Chuck Guzis :

> A few more (I have source):
>
> Hockey
> Fleet (sort of battleship game)
> Football
> Lunar Lander (of course!)
> Blackjack
> Lots and lots of printer art
>
> --Chuck
>
>
When at Retrogathering in Västerås (Sweden) a month a ago we demonstrated
ASCII Mandelbrot (BASIC) on a VT100 generated by a PDP-11/03 . Takes quite
a while for it to do it.

http://i.imgur.com/v6FI5Cd.jpg

There is also a poker game that's work well under RT-11 BASIC and
CAPS-11/BASIC.

/Mattis

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Chuck Guzis]

A few more (I have source):

Hockey
Fleet (sort of battleship game)
Football
Lunar Lander (of course!)
Blackjack
Lots and lots of printer art

--Chuck

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Pete Lancashire]

I use to play a version of Star Trek on an HP2000. Not a dumb terminal but
a Teletype 35. Having the paper roll came in very handy.

-pete

On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 8:21 AM, Jerome H. Fine 
wrote:

> >Ethan Dicks wrote:
>
> I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up
>> terminals this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious
>> classics are:
>>
>> Adventure
>> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
>> Scott Adams Adventures
>> Wumpus
>> Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
>> Empire
>> Star Trek
>> rogue/hack
>> Larn/Ularn
>>
>> But what are some other favorites?  I've been running a monthly
>> "retrogaming night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a
>> C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 8032 PET.  I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via
>> Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11
>> box and/or VAX running VMS, though I have plenty of real DEC gear -
>> it's a matter of transport and storage space).  I have a VT220 and an
>> IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) already on
>> site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may
>> drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up).
>>
>> I have the Commodore end pretty well covered.  I'm looking for
>> suggestions for 80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100)
>> terminal and especially non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on
>> Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11.  So in general, anything that uses curses
>> or direct ANSI sequences or just spews text to a glass tty.
>>
>> The only game I ever played consistently was the RT-11 SST (Super Start
> Trek)
> version of Star Trek which is still available at:
>
> http://www.dbit.com/pub/pdp11/rt11/games/
>
> Jerome Fine
>
>

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Jerome H. Fine]

>Ethan Dicks wrote:


I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up
terminals this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious
classics are:

Adventure
Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
Scott Adams Adventures
Wumpus
Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
Empire
Star Trek
rogue/hack
Larn/Ularn

But what are some other favorites?  I've been running a monthly
"retrogaming night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a
C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 8032 PET.  I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via
Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11
box and/or VAX running VMS, though I have plenty of real DEC gear -
it's a matter of transport and storage space).  I have a VT220 and an
IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) already on
site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may
drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up).

I have the Commodore end pretty well covered.  I'm looking for
suggestions for 80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100)
terminal and especially non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on
Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11.  So in general, anything that uses curses
or direct ANSI sequences or just spews text to a glass tty.

The only game I ever played consistently was the RT-11 SST (Super Start 
Trek)

version of Star Trek which is still available at:

http://www.dbit.com/pub/pdp11/rt11/games/

Jerome Fine

RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Bob Brown]

A big favorite around our campus was Conquest (multi player space battle) on a 
vax.
-Bob

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 10:23 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development 
machine)

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Richard Loken <rllo...@telus.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Feb 2016, Mouse wrote:
>
>>> Computer games require all you can give them [...]
>>
>> Only if your idea of "games" is "slick-looking realtime 3D-rendering 
>> games".  There are lots of games that work perfectly well on 
>> 3100-class (and even slower) machines, such as roguelikes (rogue, 
>> larn, hack, etc), text adventures (ADVENT, DUNGEON, etc), phantasia, 
>> Seahaven, Klondike...the list is long.
>
> But those are Computer Games!  Not computer games.  It is a long time 
> since I have played rogue.

I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up terminals 
this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious classics are:

Adventure
Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
Scott Adams Adventures
Wumpus
Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
Empire
Star Trek
rogue/hack
Larn/Ularn

But what are some other favorites?  I've been running a monthly "retrogaming 
night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 
8032 PET.  I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for 
portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11 box and/or VAX running VMS, though I 
have plenty of real DEC gear - it's a matter of transport and storage space).  
I have a VT220 and an IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) 
already on site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may 
drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up).

I have the Commodore end pretty well covered.  I'm looking for suggestions for 
80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100) terminal and especially 
non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11.  So in general, 
anything that uses curses or direct ANSI sequences or just spews text to a 
glass tty.

-ethan

RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Rich Alderson]

From: Glen Slick
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 12:04 PM

> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 10:41 AM, Rich Alderson
>  wrote:

>>  publicly available to play on the Toad-2 at LCM, and I removed the
>> office hours check from the startup program years and years and year ago.

> Do you have Haunt running there? I'll have to figure out how to get
> that running on emulation or real hardware sometime.

I've never gotten HAUNT to run (well, maybe once, c. 1982).  It's a Tops-10
program that doesn't play well with PA1050, that OS emulation package that
maps Tops-10 I/O to TENEX/TOPS-20.  I should try putting it on the Dec-10
here.  In my copious spare time.

Rich



Rich Alderson
Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Ave S
Seattle, WA 98134

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Glen Slick]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 10:41 AM, Rich Alderson
 wrote:
> From: Ethan Dicks
> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 8:23 AM
>
>> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
>
> Ethan,
>
> You should know better.  Zork originated on a PDP-10 running ITS.  I first
> encountered it on a TOPS-20 system, since the folks at the Dynamic Modeling
> Lab ported their variant of Lisp to TENEX and TOPS-20.
>
> It's publicly available to play on the Toad-2 at LCM, and I removed the
> office hours check from the startup program years and years and year ago.
>

Do you have Haunt running there? I'll have to figure out how to get
that running on emulation or real hardware sometime.

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Adrian Graham]

On 23/02/2016 16:23, "Ethan Dicks"  wrote:

> I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up
> terminals this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious
> classics are:
> 
> Adventure
> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
> Scott Adams Adventures
> Wumpus
> Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
> Empire
> Star Trek
> rogue/hack
> Larn/Ularn

ADVENT on RT11 and I remember a VMS game that I might still have kicking
around on one of my VAXen called MONSTA which had a slightly more difficult
variant as MONSTB. Oh and WUMPUS of course.

-- 
Adrian/Witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer
collection?

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 1:41 PM, Rich Alderson
 wrote:
> From: Ethan Dicks
> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 8:23 AM
>
>> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
>
> Ethan,
>
> You should know better.

Of course I do.

>  Zork originated on a PDP-10 running ITS.

Of course it did.

> I first
> encountered it on a TOPS-20 system, since the folks at the Dynamic Modeling
> Lab ported their variant of Lisp to TENEX and TOPS-20.

I didn't get to play it on 36-bit hardware until you gave me an
account.  I've also run it on the klh10/Panda distro.

> It's publicly available to play on the Toad-2 at LCM, and I removed the
> office hours check from the startup program years and years and year ago.

I can easily set people up in front of a real tube on a Linux box and
telnet through to the Toad-2.

> P.S. There is also a copy of EMPIRE, though I think there's a problem under
> the modern monitor.  Probably would work fine on a KS running 4.1.

I'm sure I have EMPIRE for VMS on pretty much any VAX I have ever set
up.  I was just reading up that there's a modern re-implementation in
C but it looks extended from the game I remember (satellites, in
particular, I don't recall from 1986).

-ethan

RE: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Rich Alderson]

From: Ethan Dicks
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 8:23 AM

> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)

Ethan,

You should know better.  Zork originated on a PDP-10 running ITS.  I first
encountered it on a TOPS-20 system, since the folks at the Dynamic Modeling
Lab ported their variant of Lisp to TENEX and TOPS-20.

It's publicly available to play on the Toad-2 at LCM, and I removed the
office hours check from the startup program years and years and year ago.

:-) :-) :-) :-) <-- for the humor-impaired.

Rich

P.S. There is also a copy of EMPIRE, though I think there's a problem under
the modern monitor.  Probably would work fine on a KS running 4.1.


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org

http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Feb 23, 2016, at 08:37, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
> 
> Back in the day when I used VAXen and terminals all day, every day, we
> had a variety of exectutable games for VMS (and we never had BASIC on
> that machine).  One of the most popular was EMPIRE (to disambiguate,
> this EMPIRE was a single-player, random world with armies, planes and
> ships where you captured a city, changed its production and took over
> the world - binary only, source never released).

Is the VAX/VMS binary for this game archived anywhere? I'd love to try playing 
it on my 11/730 sometime!

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X 
http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[David Brownlee]

On 23 February 2016 at 16:23, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Richard Loken  wrote:
>> On Mon, 22 Feb 2016, Mouse wrote:
>>
 Computer games require all you can give them [...]
>>>
>>> Only if your idea of "games" is "slick-looking realtime 3D-rendering
>>> games".  There are lots of games that work perfectly well on 3100-class
>>> (and even slower) machines, such as roguelikes (rogue, larn, hack,
>>> etc), text adventures (ADVENT, DUNGEON, etc), phantasia, Seahaven,
>>> Klondike...the list is long.
>>
>> But those are Computer Games!  Not computer games.  It is a long time
>> since I have played rogue.
>
> I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up
> terminals this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious
> classics are:
>
> Adventure
> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
> Scott Adams Adventures
> Wumpus
> Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
> Empire
> Star Trek
> rogue/hack
> Larn/Ularn
>
> But what are some other favorites?  I've been running a monthly
> "retrogaming night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a
> C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 8032 PET.  I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via
> Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11
> box and/or VAX running VMS, though I have plenty of real DEC gear -
> it's a matter of transport and storage space).  I have a VT220 and an
> IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) already on
> site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may
> drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up).

>From the old BSD games there were a couple of multiplayer games I
remember playing - sail ("wooden ships and iron men"), and hunt
(possibly the original unix deathmatch)

I remember dialing in on an 1200/75 modem to play hunt against other
students on hardwired terminals and sun workstations. I could normally
stay at the top of the scoreboard until a volcano erupted (just too
many screen updates swamped the link :).

I even wrote a BBC terminal emulator and matching termcap entry to
optimise the speed and number of characters required for update, to
eke every character out of that bandwidth :-p

For a later fun terminal based game, sokoban consumed a few hours

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[Ethan Dicks]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 11:29 AM, william degnan  wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
>> ... 80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100)
>> terminal and especially non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on
>> Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11.
>
> I never checked, I did not know there were VAX games that you could
> download/compile and run locally.  One of my VAXen has BASIC installed, but
> most are mostly file servers.  I'd like to learn more myself.

Back in the day when I used VAXen and terminals all day, every day, we
had a variety of exectutable games for VMS (and we never had BASIC on
that machine).  One of the most popular was EMPIRE (to disambiguate,
this EMPIRE was a single-player, random world with armies, planes and
ships where you captured a city, changed its production and took over
the world - binary only, source never released).  I also ported a
number of UNIX games acquired from comp.sources.games and
comp.games.unix to VMS with a VMS curses library and a C compiler
(Whitesmith's C, which we used for our own development, and later,
VAX-C) including rogue and Larn.  I had the Infotaskforce "pinfocom"
Z-machine when it was _the_ 3rd-party Z-machine.  In the FORTRAN
realm, there's ADVENT and DUNGEON (Bob Supnik's port of Zork) and I'm
sure plenty more.  These I have on old backup images (and probably on
the 8300 in the basement).  I'm looking for stuff I might not have
known of 25-30 years ago.

-ethan

Re: Dumb Terminal games (was Re: Looking for a small fast VAX development machine)

[william degnan]

On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Ethan Dicks  wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Richard Loken  wrote:
> > On Mon, 22 Feb 2016, Mouse wrote:
> >
> >>> Computer games require all you can give them [...]
> >>
> >> Only if your idea of "games" is "slick-looking realtime 3D-rendering
> >> games".  There are lots of games that work perfectly well on 3100-class
> >> (and even slower) machines, such as roguelikes (rogue, larn, hack,
> >> etc), text adventures (ADVENT, DUNGEON, etc), phantasia, Seahaven,
> >> Klondike...the list is long.
> >
> > But those are Computer Games!  Not computer games.  It is a long time
> > since I have played rogue.
>
> I've been meaning to ask this question since I started cleaning up
> terminals this year... what are some favorites?  Some of the obvious
> classics are:
>
> Adventure
> Zork (and anything else on a Zmachine)
> Scott Adams Adventures
> Wumpus
> Anything in Dave Ahl's "101 BASIC Computing Games"
> Empire
> Star Trek
> rogue/hack
> Larn/Ularn
>
> But what are some other favorites?  I've been running a monthly
> "retrogaming night" at our Makerspace and so far have brought out a
> C-64, a PPC Mac, and an 8032 PET.  I'm looking to add a PDP-8 (via
> Oscar Vermuelen's PiDP-8, for portability) and (at first) a simh RT-11
> box and/or VAX running VMS, though I have plenty of real DEC gear -
> it's a matter of transport and storage space).  I have a VT220 and an
> IBM 3101 (very VT52-like with a working terminfo entry) already on
> site and can add additional terminals if this becomes popular (I may
> drag in a VT52 just for the excuse to clean one up).
>
> I have the Commodore end pretty well covered.  I'm looking for
> suggestions for 80x24 text games that can be played on an ANSI (VT100)
> terminal and especially non-ANSI (VT52 or that IBM 3101) on
> Unix/Linux, VMS, and RT-11.  So in general, anything that uses curses
> or direct ANSI sequences or just spews text to a glass tty.
>
> -ethan
>


I never checked, I did not know there were VAX games that you could
download/compile and run locally.  One of my VAXen has BASIC installed, but
most are mostly file servers.  I'd like to learn more myself.
-- 
@ BillDeg:
Web: vintagecomputer.net
Twitter: @billdeg 
Youtube: @billdeg 
Unauthorized Bio