[cctalk] Bit numbering

2024-05-29 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Mike Katz wrote: > I want to add to this argument and ask Is bit 0 the high order bit > (like on the PDP-8) or the low order bit (like on the 6809)? It's the same across all PDPs... except maybe the 11, I'm sure someone will remind me. There are good arguments for numbering "bit N" such that its

[cctalk] Re: oscilloscopes

2024-04-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Phil Budne wrote: > I wrote and tuned the code twenty years ago, but haven't looked at > whether better results might be possible by wasting the capabilities > of current systems (SIMD libaries and/or multiple cores). I felt like > I only was able to give a slim impression, and I've also wondered

[cctalk] Re: recreating old computers [was: Paper tape in casettes...]

2024-02-27 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > Suppose you had schematics of, say, a KA-10. You could turn those > gates into VHDL or Verilog, and that should deliver an exact replica > of the original machine, bug for bug compatible. That assumes the > timing quirks are manageable The mapping from asynchronous pulses,

[cctalk] Re: recreating old computers [was: Paper tape in casettes...]

2024-02-27 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
CAREY SCHUG wrote: > What I wish somebody would create is an S-100 card (probably with a > raspberry pie daughter running simulation for future upgradeability) > that, initially emulates a complete Byte-8 or Imsai computer including > memory and disk images on sdc cards, 24x40 display on an HDMI

[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal Saturday

2024-02-09 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
jos wrote: >> I don't recall emulators for the early Datapoints.- > There now  is a Datapoint 2200 emulator > Be aware that it does not show the true Datapoint fonts. There is also an emulator for the 3300, with a font from an imaged ROM. It's in here: https://github.com/aap/vt05/ (The 3300 is

[cctalk] Re: RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

2024-01-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > Pascal is still around; the GCC compiler suite has it, and Modula-2 as > well. Speaking of which, GCC (or its first attempt) came from a Pascal compiler called Pastel.

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

2023-09-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > 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. It's not really a special exception because immediate mode is

[cctalk] Re: Emacs on v7

2023-08-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Adam Thornton wrote: > I finally got an Emacs running on v7--it's on misspiggy at LCML now as > "ue". It's Microemacs 3.6 As far as I know, the first Emacs on a PDP-11 was written by MIT alumnus Warren Montgomery at Bell labs.

[cctalk] Re: fredmacs?

2023-08-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
> I don't know if this is what you heard about, but Fred Fish wrote an > Emacs that ran on top of TECO-11. Another similar thing: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/decus/110737.html

[cctalk] Re: fredmacs?

2023-08-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Adam Thornton via cctalk writes: > I have heard rumors of one "fredmacs" which is a more-or-less emacs that > will run on PDP-11 v7 Unix. I don't know if this is what you heard about, but Fred Fish wrote an Emacs that ran on top of TECO-11.

[cctalk] Re: The World Wide Web

2023-05-04 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
geneb wrote: > Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> It seems like all of the good USENET providers are subscription >> services now. > You can get free access via http://www.eternal-september.org/ There's also news.dotsrc.org. (formerly sunsite.dk)

[cctalk] Re: MIT Lisp Machine and ucode recovered

2023-03-30 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Eric Moore wrote: > Here is a hello world: > (format t "Hello, World!") > It kinda works, need to throw maybe a \n on it, no idea what options format > takes. Do it like this: (format t "~, World!~%") Looks like Common Lisp documentation works for the System 100 FORMAT:

[cctalk] Re: mainframe vs mini

2023-03-17 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > I noticed the section on deferred interrupts, which mentions Cutler > and "fork" on RSX. It doesn't mention the similar mechanism, also > called fork, in RT-11. And, pray tell, what do these "fork" mean? I'm curious since Unix has fork as a verb, whereas Tenex has it as a

[cctalk] Re: mainframe vs mini

2023-03-09 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Steve Lewis wrote: > I always considered a mainframe to basically be a "fully decked out" > minicomputer. You may find people will disagree with that. I'm not sure what mainframe means either, but I'm asking around. Pysical size, I/O capacity, CPU offload to front ends, and users served seem to

[cctalk] Re: mainframe vs mini

2023-03-09 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Fred Cisin wrote: > So, what defines a "supercomputer"? FLOPS

[cctalk] Re: Stuff to go or it's off to the dumpster

2023-02-23 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
> Need to get rid of some things here that I am never going to use, > maybe someone else will: > > M7705 > M7706 > M7906 > M7907 > M7908 I think I heard a VAXstation 100 owner missing an M7452. Any spares?

[cctalk] NeWS tapes in SF Bay area; rubber baby buggy bumpers

2023-02-20 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Some Sun 1/4" tapes with NeWS has turned up in the SF Bay area. However, the the tape drive available has bad rubber baby buggy bumpers. Is there anyone around there who can provide new bumpers, or has a working 1/4" tape drive and is willing to read the tapes? Best regards, Lars

[cctalk] Re: SDF had put a PDP-10 on the Internet

2023-02-11 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Tarek Hoteit wrote: > I still don’t know who runs [SDF] Stephen M. Jones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDF_Public_Access_Unix_System#History https://archive.org/details/bbs-20030526-sdf https://ia600903.us.archive.org/22/items/bsdtalk021/bsdtalk021.mp3

[cctalk] Re: Late '70s DEC manual covers [niche!]

2023-02-11 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Flo Williams wrote: > During lockdown I was having some fun redrawing old DEC manual covers > with Inkscape, specifically terminal and printer manuals from the late > 1970s. I've attached a montage of four that I printed out so I could > stick it on the wall. I'm aware I may be the only

[cctalk] Re: SDF had put a PDP-10 on the Internet

2023-02-09 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Mark Huffstutter via cctalk writes: > Christian Corti wrote: >> Interesting, but not really a beauty ;-) And BTW, who is SDF? They >> don't tell it on their site. > Short story on the welcome page. Long story: https://archive.org/details/bbs-20030526-sdf

[cctalk] Re: SDF had put a PDP-10 on the Internet

2023-02-08 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Jake Utley wrote: > Sellam Abraham >> "A new PDP-10 has been put in the INTERNET." >> "New" as in newly-built? Or "new" as in wasn't there before? >> The hardware looks modern, and not at all like what a PDP-10 should look >> like. > > I would say it is newly built as the pcb substrate looks

[cctalk] Re: Making sense of VAXstation 100 ROMs

2023-02-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > Given 16 bit wide ROMs, I would expect the microcode width to be > rounded up to a multiple of that, so 64 bits, which means the expected > ROM size is 64k bits. That matches two of the ROMs you mentioned. I don't know if they are 16 bits wide. The two 68000 ROMs are 8 bit

[cctalk] Making sense of VAXstation 100 ROMs

2023-02-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, I could use some help making sense of the VAXstation ROM images. A set is provided here: https://www.9track.net/roms/ The two .bin files are each one halfword of a 16-bit wide ROM for the 68000 display processor. I checked it, and it's fine. My problem is with the Bit Blit Accelator.

[cctalk] Re: loading vt220 fonts

2023-01-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Grant Taylor wrote: > I'm not that surprised that soft fonts are (re)using Sixel. Maybe the other way around. I don't really know what the timeline was, but it seems to me maybe soft fonts came first, with the VT220. The VT240 had sixel graphics, right? But I'm guessing it came later. As

[cctalk] Re: loading vt220 fonts

2023-01-06 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Grant Taylor wrote: >> https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/sixel > The naming of the git repository confused me a bit. I needed more > coffee and time to realize that this is more about soft fonts (the > thread subject) than it is about Sixel graphics. It started with an idea about sixel graphics,

[cctalk] Re: loading vt220 fonts

2023-01-06 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
David Griffith wrote: > I'm trying to figure out how to created and load a "soft character > set" into a vt220 terminal. I have successfully done that with a real VT220. Here are some .txt files with samples. They upload a custom font and arrange characters on screen to display a picture. The

[cctalk] Re: LC:M+L (Living Computer Museum)

2022-10-31 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > All that said, if I have to drive out to Seattle with a U-Haul I'll do > it. Again. But I would prefer them to be displayed, taken care of, > loved. AI is available right now from here: ssh i...@tty.livingcomputers.org It's running under the name LC ITS now, but it's the

[cctalk] CAL TSS information and source listings

2022-10-27 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
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/

[cctalk] Re: LCM news?

2022-10-25 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Paul Koning wrote: > When I did some looking it appeared to me that essentially all of > what's online is simulators, not real machines. That's right, but at least ITS is running on a real PDP-10 now.

[cctalk] Re: VAXstation 100 ROM image

2022-09-06 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: >> My idea is to make a VS100 emulator and have it run the firmware >> uploaded by early X versions. > > What kind of emulator are you planing? A completely new thing? Or do > you want to use SIMH as a basis? It's just a vague idea. It's much too early to say I have any

[cctalk] Re: VAXstation 100 ROM image

2022-09-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Matt Burke wrote: > I dumped the ROMs from my VAXstation 100 some time ago (along with many > other DEC devices): > > http://www.9track.net/roms/ > > 23-288E4.bin and 23-289E4.bin are probably the two main ones you are > looking for. Do you just need the ROMs or are you looking for technical >

[cctalk] Re: VAXstation 100 ROM image

2022-09-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Lee Gleason wrote: > I gave my VAXstation 100 system unit to Dave McGuire last year (I > didn't need it since I lost interest in UNIBUS sized hobby equipment). > Perhaps he could make a copy of its ROMs. Thanks! I asked, and he said he's willing to dump the ROM.

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

2022-04-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Grant Taylor wrote: > My understanding is that 4.3BSD that ran on VAXes had support for NCP. 4.3BSD released in 1986 was long after ARPANET switched from NCP to TCP/IP. Apparently early TCP/IP support was added to 4.1a in 1981. I'm going out on a limb to claim BSD never had NCP support.

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

2022-04-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Grant Taylor wrote: > I think of Tymnet as a service and not as much as a protocol. Though > maybe it implies a protocol and I'm unaware of it. Tymshare was a service, but the computers talked to each over over a vast network. The network was spun off as a separate business. There is code

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

2022-04-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Cameron Kaiser wrote: > If we're going to do Tymnet, we should definitely do Telenet. Telenet is BBN's commercial network based on their IMP technology, right? How would you go about making a Telenet network?

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

2022-04-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Warner Losh wrote: > NCP was the forerunner of TCP/IP. Net Unix had it as its supported > protocol and that was old enough that BSD had at least one > implementation. Are you saying there's a BSD Unix with Arpanet NCP? If so, where?

Re: Retro networking / WAN communities

2022-04-11 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Grant Taylor wrote: > I find myself interested in (at least) the following and would like to > find others with similar (dis)interests to chat about things. > > - 10Base5 / 10Base2 / 10BaseT > - ISDN > - DSL / ADSL / SDSL / HDSL > - T1 / E1 > - ATM > - Frame Relay > - ARCnet > - PSTN / PBX

Re: UNIBUS powoer on/off spec

2022-04-06 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Noel Chiappa wrote: > I have been told that at one point Google was 'downgrading' results > that used plain HTTP, instead of HTTPS, because they were trying to > push people to switch to HTTPS (this was when everyone was > hyperventilating over the Snowden revelations). Given the > near-ubiquitous

Re: Typing in lost code

2022-01-23 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Noel Chiappa wrote: > https://walden-family.com/impcode/imp-code.pdf > Someone's already done the specialist OCR to deal with faded program > listings. I tried to contact the author about converting some of the other IMP listings, but got no reply.

Re: The precarious state of classic software and hardware preservation

2021-11-19 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Michael Kerpan wrote: > (See the sad fate of the Living Computer Museum, which was killed by > its new owners as soon as COVID gave them an excuse to do so) It's not killed. It's still there, but not open to the public. They continue to offer remote access to vintage systems. Some are now

Re: What happened to control-data.info and controlfreaks.org?

2021-11-19 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Some ARPANET hosts were running SCOPE. Is there any ARPANET software that has been preserved?

Re: SIMH KL10 usage guide? Hints? and

2021-09-30 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Bob Smith via cctalk writes: > I am hoping someone here knows Richard Cornwell, driving force behind > KL10B SimH and associated forks. Yes, I do. I would suggest you contact Richard directly, either by posting an issue to his GitHub repository, or by email. https://github.com/rcornwell/sims/

Re: VAXstation 100 ROM image

2021-09-22 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
> Does anyone have a (set of) ROM image(s) for the VAXstation 100? > It might be interesting to attempt an emulator. I think the machine has some historical interest. Barbara Liskov's CLU group received a number of VS100 terminals for their VAX. This prompted Bob Scheifler to create X. CLU

VAXstation 100 ROM image

2021-09-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Does anyone have a (set of) ROM image(s) for the VAXstation 100? It might be interesting to attempt an emulator.

Re: PDP-10 CLU language now available

2021-08-25 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
> I found files for Barnara Liskov's programming language CLU on PDP-10 Sorry, it's BARBARA Liskov.

PDP-10 CLU language now available

2021-08-25 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, I found files for Barnara Liskov's programming language CLU on PDP-10 backup tapes. MIT has made them available here: https://github.com/MITDDC/clu-1976-1989 See also: http://pmg.csail.mit.edu/CLU.html

Re: C.mmp OS

2021-08-22 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Fred Cisin wrote: > If "drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll" is not the answer, > then you are asking the wrong question. I'm not very interested in drugs or rock'n'roll, but I would very much like to see the software for the UCLA Simgma-7!

Re: ISO Laserjet I/II/III firmware

2021-08-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Al Kossow wrote: > There has been some work going on emulating early Laserwriters in MAME Maybe an emulator for Xerox's XGP could be piggybacked onto that. The "firmware" is PDP-11 or PDP-6 code from MIT and SAIL. It could be used to print classical memos written in PUB, TeX, TJ6, Scribe,

Re: LCM Accounts?

2021-07-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
>>> Bill Gunshannon wrote: What would you use it for if everything is shut down? LCM isn't completely shut down. Zane Healy wrote: > I can’t speak for that, but the VAX 7000 is still online. Someone is > obviously paying the electric bills at a minimum, as that’s got to > chew through some

Re: Writings on AI from 17 years ago....

2021-07-16 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > Anyone know if the LCM will be open this summer? I'm going to be in > Seattle for a day in August, wouldn't mind stopping by and seeing how > it was doing Still closed for on site visitors: https://livingcomputers.org/Closure.aspx But they haven't shut down all

Re: ARDS was Re: VT340 Emulation

2021-06-23 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Steve Malikoff wrote: > Douglas said >> Someone already did this with a TEK4010 emulation:  See >> https://github.com/rricharz/Tek4010 >> Hmmm... You could use a Raspberry Pi to emulate a number of terminals. > > Interesting that that emulator covers the ARDS. I collected some notes about ARDS as

Re: VT100 colors

2021-06-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Many replies. Thank you all! I have 3D printed Michael Gardi's VT100 model, and I'll try to find some pleasing colors for painting it. https://hackaday.io/project/177596-23-scale-vt100-terminal-reproduction

VT100 colors

2021-06-20 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Does anyone know what colors a VT100 is? Most photos online has it looking yellowish, but I expect that's from aging. Some people I have asked claim it was a light cream color. This bitsavers picture has it looking neutral grey:

Re: LCM and AI

2021-05-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > The switches are still set, so we should be able to figure out which > system it came from if anyone still had the documentation on that > thing. These are the Chaosnet addresses of the four KS10 ITS machines: AI 3130 MC 3131 MD 3132 ML 3133

Re: LCM

2021-05-24 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > That is good news. Ok, hopefully it will be open by August in which > case I'll drop by and see which CHAOSNet card it has. It may have been removed when we worked on getting ITS booted.

Re: Writings on AI from 17 years ago....

2021-05-23 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > She's lonely. And although I have been looking after her for a long > time, she needs help. I think you did well. AI got a few more logins, and let's hope there will be more in the future.

Re: VT100 dot stretching in reverse video

2021-05-20 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Bill Degnan wrote: > I already let Lars know, but if anyone wants to see what I came up with: > https://www.vintagecomputer.net/temp/VT102/ Thank you very much! This is interesting because it shows VT100 dot stretching is done first, and other attributes on top of that. The VT220 does character

Re: VT100 dot stretching in reverse video

2021-05-20 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Peter Coghlan wrote: > Would a photograph of a VT220 be any use? Thanks, but no. I already have one myself.

VT100 dot stretching in reverse video

2021-05-20 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Is there anyone with a VT100 (or any VT1xx, if so please specify which) that can make a photo displaying text in reverse video? I'm making a detailed simulation of the VT100 hardware, and I'd like to see what, if any, effect dot streching has. I searched the "VT100 Technical Manual", but

Re: PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

2021-05-12 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Ethan Dicks wrote: >> There are also at least two GT40 implementations of Spacewar. > > Is there a web page I could check that would include the hardware > requirements? I don't have a GT40, but I have a VT11 (4-slot > backplane and cards) and an assortment of Unibus PDP-11 processors > (11/04 or

Re: PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

2021-05-11 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
There are also at least two GT40 implementations of Spacewar. One from MIT, by Dick Waters, and another from SAIL, by Bo Eross. They run fine on SIMH, but it would be nice to see them on real hardware too.

Re: PDP-11 SPACEWAR running again!

2021-05-10 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Mattis Lind wrote: > Today I finally got the SPACEWAR version for PDP-11/10 running again > on my PDP-11/05 with AR11 board. Congratulations! It's great to watch your video. > But the lines mostly confused the OCR process so a lot of errors was > introduced. It turned out that it was easier to

Re: DECtape ancestry (Kyle Owen)

2021-03-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Michael Thompson wrote: > Kyle Owen wrote: >> What systems took advantage of the bidirectional nature? > > ADSS on the PDP-9 does an interleave of 6 when reading/writing to the > DECtape. If it runs off the end it reverses direction and keeps going. MIT's MACDMP (and by extension, ITS) does this

Re: PDP-10 I/O notes

2021-03-16 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Don Stalkowski wrote: > For what it's worth I've posted some notes on PDP-10 I/O from a course > taught by Mike Bennett at UWO in the early 1970s. Thank you! Interesting to see the DECtape file structure format.

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-08 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Tony Aiuto wrote: > It's a buffer overrun. sixbit_to_ascii writes 7 bytes. The extension was > declared as 4. Changing to 7 is required. Thanks, good catch!

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-08 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Jim Carpenter wrote: > If it makes you feel any better, I can't figure out how to get back10 > to extract all files. :) I have to give the file names to extract. It does have some quirk. The names are matched exactly, or as regexp. I think an '' empty string works, or maybe '.*'. And it's best

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
The tapes are now hosted here: http://vtda.org/bits/software/DEC/PDP-10/tymshare/

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-07 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Jim Carpenter wrote: > Tony Aiuto wrote: >> I think that is an artifact of the files being created with the wrong >> names. For example, with tape 169249, after you skip the UFDs, tito >> -t prints >> >>(SYS).SHR1977-01-26 22:22 [1,4] >> [...] >> >> All the file names are

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-06 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Tony Aiuto wrote: >> I'm not sure what to do with the file checksum yet. > That is useful to verify that we reassembled the pieces correctly. I phrased that poorly. What I meant was the checksum that is stored on the tape along with each file. Or at least that's what the documentation says.

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Tony Aiuto wrote: >> What problem do you have with my tito tool? > > $ ./tito -x -f 169249.tape > fopen: Is a directory This appears to be because creating an output file was attempted, but there was already a directory there with the same name. I'm updating the program to print better error

Re: Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Tony Aiuto wrote: > that gets lots of files with names like 'dsk:[1,4]specdf525].mic' > That just seems wrong. Correct, back10 does get some things wrong. It also puts some data at the beginning of files which should be part of the file header. TITO uses the "*FAILSAFE" magic number which fools

Tymshare PDP-10 tapes

2021-03-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Someone sent me these magtape images from Tymshare and said "they fell off the back of a truck on route 62 in Hudson, MASS." I don't know their provenance. Sorry, I don't have any good hosting. For now they are here: https://gitlab.com/larsbrinkhoff/tymshare The download.sh script will

Re: Massbus - was: Re: VAX 11/750

2021-02-26 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Toby Thain wrote: > Rich Alderson wrote: >> You could ask our friends Keith Perez (Massbus Disk Emulator v1) and >> Bruce Sherry (MDE v2) about it, or even ask me. ... produced, and >> we had to do something. My brilliant friend Keith sat down with a >> logic analyzer and an RP06 attached to a

Re: Massbus - was: Re: VAX 11/750

2021-02-25 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Rich Alderson wrote: > As for operating system support, the only DEC operating system which > could put tapes and disks on the same Massbus was TOPS-20. Tops-10 > explicitly tells you in the SYSGEN process that disks and tapes must > reside on different channels; I believe that ITS follows that

Re: Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-17 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
> I heard back from Fred Wright: > > "Although I wasn't at SC in 1972, I'm pretty sure I would have heard of > the SC-4 if it had ever existed. The document you linked was just a > proposal, and I imagine that that's as far as it ever got. AFAIK, SC > didn't create any full-fledged

Re: Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-16 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Phil Budne wrote: > From: Lyle Bickley via cctalk >> >> I contacted Peter Samson regarding a "SC-4" and this was his response: >> "There was an SC-40 (made after my time there) which was a fast >> PDP-10-compatible system. I don’t know of any SC-4 though." > > The document that raised the

Re: Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-16 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Lyle Bickley wrote: > I contacted Peter Samson regarding a "SC-4" and this was his response: > > "There was an SC-40 (made after my time there) which was a fast > PDP-10-compatible system. I don’t know of any SC-4 though." Thanks for asking! I'm turning next to Fred Wright, another former

Re: Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-15 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Noel Chiappa wrote: > One oddity: the cover letter is dated 1972, but it talks of "the main > G.E. computer". GE's computer business was sold to Honeywell in 1970, > though? The letter was directed to Project MAC. I suppose that main computer could be the GE-645 on which Multics was developed?

Re: Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-15 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > > Anyone ever heard of the Systems Concepts SC-4 computer? > > "This is an two's-complement 18-bit machine, with 16 general registers > and a 16 level priority interrupt system. Its programming ascpects > are explained in great detail in the SC-4 Reference Manual, of which

Systems Concepts SC-4 computer

2021-02-15 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Anyone ever heard of the Systems Concepts SC-4 computer? "This is an two's-complement 18-bit machine, with 16 general registers and a 16 level priority interrupt system. Its programming ascpects are explained in great detail in the SC-4 Reference Manual, of which a draft is enclosed.

Re: KL11 asynchronous serial line interface on eBay

2021-01-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Always jarring to see KL... and then not 10 after!

Re: The weird stuff I keep finding: 19 bit core memory?

2020-10-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Doug Jackson wrote: > Those of us late to the party may like to know: > 1. What was AL > 2. Why was it famous? Not AL, but AI. Also known as MIT-AI on the ARPANET. It was the PDP-10 used by the MIT AI lab, hence the name. The Incompatible Timesharing System was developed on their PDP-6, later

Re: The weird stuff I keep finding: 19 bit core memory?

2020-10-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Chris Zach wrote: > Did AI use MA10 memory boxes? No. It had the original 256K "moby" from Fabri-Tek, and another 256K from Ampex. The associated PDP-6 had an older DEC Type 16x-something 16K memory. > Did any of that stuff survive? Maybe bits and pieces here and there. The AI KA10 went to

Thompson's Space Travel running

2020-10-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Ken Thompson's space exploration simulation Space Travel will now run on the SIMH PDP-7 simulator: http://sebras.se/space-travel-2.mp4

General Turtle TT2500

2020-10-03 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, I'm making a software emulator for the General Turtle TT2500. Does anyone have any information about it? It's hard to come by. Here's what I have learned: It's a custom TTL design by Marvin Minsky et al, with 64K 16-bit memory and 4K 16-bit control store. It has two displays attached,

Re: Exploring early GUIs

2020-09-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Noel Chiappa wrote: > > it was AI rather than MC. As I'm sure you know, AI had the Rubin > > 10-11 interface > > Really? (I expect you're correct, mind.) I just remember one day MC > wasn't running as normal, and I was told it was because CHEOPS was in > some tournament, and MC had been taken

Re: Exploring early GUIs

2020-09-19 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Noel Chiappa wrote: > I'm not sure CONS ever ran as a stand-alone system; I suspect (but > don't recall for sure; RG, TK or Moon or someone could confirm one way > or the other) that it ran as a loosely-coupled co-processor to MC, the > way the Chess Machine did. I believe you are entirely

Re: 9 track tapes and block sizes

2020-09-18 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Al Kossow wrote: >> I'm kind of maintaining that. > where? Here: https://github.com/brouhaha/tapeutils > and since your fscking around inside of it, have you added the > Bordynuik extensions in the ToTS tape images? No, but I certainly will if yout tell me what it is.

Re: 9 track tapes and block sizes

2020-09-18 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Al Kossow wrote: >> I usually use tapeutils: >> https://github.com/brouhaha/tapeutils > > I should bug Eric about this, but the .tap files that library creates > doesn't have the Supnik SIMH extensions In case Eric doesn't have time to make updates, bug me instead. I'm kind of maintaining that.

Re: Exploring early GUIs

2020-09-18 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Michael Kerpan wrote: > Something in another recent thread about LISP machines got me > wondering: how many early graphical systems are well emulated (or > emulated at all)? I know that there are more or less functional > emulations of Alto, Star, and Lisa out there, but what about the > various

Re: Computer History

2020-09-17 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Murray McCullough wrote: > We in the classic computer community need to know the history of our > hobby I for bigger iron history, I suggest "Dream Machine" by Waldrop. It's not just about Licklider, though his is a very interesting story by itself.

Re: Care and feeding of some Lisp machines (TI Explorer and Xerox Star)

2020-09-17 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Josh Dersch wrote: > Not a ton to see, lisp-wise, it's just a port of Franz Lisp to > Uniflex. I can try to benchmark fibonacci later this week if you want. Thanks! I wasn't expecting a benchmark, just a little defun. For the record, I have a Maclisp over here that will do (fib 40) in less than

Re: 9 track tapes and block sizes

2020-09-17 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Dave Wade wrote: > The docs for SIMH .TAP files are here:- > > http://simh.trailing-edge.com/docs/simh_magtape.pdf > > be careful as there are also non-SIMH .tap formats Haha, yes very much so. For the fun of it, people like to mix and match these options: - Records padded to even length or

Re: Care and feeding of some Lisp machines (TI Explorer and Xerox Star)

2020-09-15 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Josh Dersch wrote: > I did recently get my 4404 running, at last. Any Lisp screenshots? I believe fibonacci is a required exercise for occations like this.

Re: CMU Andrew system (and wm) preservation

2020-09-08 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Michael Kerpan wrote: > AFS is also cool, but it's a separate project that's still actively > maintained and (presumably) used. MIT uses it, as does the student organization Stacken.

Re: ISO: DEC VR100 and early X releases

2020-09-05 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Josh Dersch via cctalk writes: > I'm also looking for earlier releases of X to run on this -- the VS100 > was the development platform for X (and W ran on it at one point as > well). I haven't been able to track down anything prior to X10R3. I asked the usual suspects (Reid, Asente, Kantarjiev)

Zork from ITS tapes

2020-09-01 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Hello, Early Zork source and binary files have been found on ITS backup tapes. MIT previously released some December 1977 files here: https://github.com/MITDDC/zork Recently discovered files from January 1978 will appear soon.

Re: ITS version 671 from 1971 found

2020-08-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Warner Losh wrote: >> A rather complete full dump of the MIT-AI PDP-10 from 1971 has been >> found. > > Where? How? Will it be made available? Where: In the "ToTS" archives, see https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/resources/1265 How: MIT has given me access to the archives, for research

ITS version 671 from 1971 found

2020-08-21 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
>From the incompatible department of classic computement: A rather complete full dump of the MIT-AI PDP-10 from 1971 has been found. It includes full source code and documentation for the system, including ITS version 671, DDT, TECO, MIDAS, (MAC)LISP, CHESS (MacHack), MUDDLE, LOGO, MACSYMA, etc.

Re: UniSys ClearPath OS/2200 Express?

2020-08-18 Thread Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
Kevin Monceaux wrote: > The first emulator is web based, and the second fails to build. I'm > not a fan of web interfaces. Are there any other B5500 emulators > and/or software that Bing missed? Richard Cornwell added one to SIMH: https://github.com/simh/simh/tree/master/B5500

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