Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jerry Kemp]

I know its too much to wish for, but as I look at your Sun 2000E comment, I 
can't but hope and wonder if you are anywhere near the DFW metroplex area?



Jerry


On 03/30/16 06:11 PM, Michael Thompson wrote:





I brought the Sun 2000E home, and its still here. I have to thin the herd a
little so I can make room for some DEC equipment.

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[drlegendre .]

"Claiming that any MSFT product is "abandonware" is absurd. They DO very
much care."

You dang well know it. Do you even have any idea just how much of Windows
386 is still in the NT5 / Win10 codebase?! ;-)

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:

>
>
> On 3/30/16 6:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
>
>>
>>
> I have a few ideas of my own.. but for now, I'd like to hear other members
>>> thoughts on the matter. Ultimately, it might necessarily involve bringing
>>> the rights holders and/or publishers over on to "our side".
>>>
>>
>> Yes, that's precisely correct.  And doing so requires treating each
>> individually as the rightful owner of something we're interested in, and
>> treating that owner with respect rather than dismissal.  Fred made that
>> point quite clear also.
>>
>>
>>
> And that process, from personal experience with several large companies
> while working at CHM, takes time and most often someone sympathetic on the
> inside. It took personal lobbying of Steve Jobs by Andy Herztfeld and Bill
> Atkinson to get Apple to release the Macpaint and Quickdraw sources.
> Fortunately, that example has opened up other code from Apple (like the
> Apple DOS sources) that are being made available.
>
> There are also VERY few examples where we were able to get an agreement
> beyond non-commercial educational use.
>
> Claiming that any MSFT product is "abandonware" is absurd. They DO very
> much care.
>
>
>
>

Apple at 40

[Murray McCullough]

I wish to congratulate Apple on its 40 anniversary today. An early
pioneer in our cherished hobby.  Happy computing. Murray :)

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[Al Kossow]

On 3/30/16 6:26 PM, Paul Koning wrote:





I have a few ideas of my own.. but for now, I'd like to hear other members
thoughts on the matter. Ultimately, it might necessarily involve bringing
the rights holders and/or publishers over on to "our side".


Yes, that's precisely correct.  And doing so requires treating each 
individually as the rightful owner of something we're interested in, and 
treating that owner with respect rather than dismissal.  Fred made that point 
quite clear also.




And that process, from personal experience with several large companies 
while working at CHM, takes time and most often someone sympathetic on 
the inside. It took personal lobbying of Steve Jobs by Andy Herztfeld 
and Bill Atkinson to get Apple to release the Macpaint and Quickdraw 
sources. Fortunately, that example has opened up other code from Apple 
(like the Apple DOS sources) that are being made available.


There are also VERY few examples where we were able to get an agreement 
beyond non-commercial educational use.


Claiming that any MSFT product is "abandonware" is absurd. They DO very 
much care.

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 7:44 PM, drlegendre .  wrote:
> 
> It cannot be overemphasized, that this is one of those situations wherein
> it seriously behooves the enthusiast community to sort this one out on our
> own, before some heavy-handed lawyer types - with big dollar signs in their
> eyes - sorts all of it for us.. because we all know how that would most
> likely go. Hint: Not to _anyone's_ advantage.

Thank you.  That was precisely my point.  And this is why we need to be harsh 
about people who fling around those fake terms and misleading notions.

> ...
> Ultimately, though, there must be a reasonable way to deal with all of this
> - and in a way that preserves both the rights of copyright holders /
> authors - while offering essentially free and open access to this large
> catalog of nostalgic and classic titles.

Indeed.  But I think it is pointless to expect a single answer, because 
circumstances vary.  The only way a single answer could be reached is by laws 
(and even then it's only at best a single answer in any one country).  But 
obviously it is not likely that if laws were passed on this subject that we 
would like the result.

> I have a few ideas of my own.. but for now, I'd like to hear other members
> thoughts on the matter. Ultimately, it might necessarily involve bringing
> the rights holders and/or publishers over on to "our side".

Yes, that's precisely correct.  And doing so requires treating each 
individually as the rightful owner of something we're interested in, and 
treating that owner with respect rather than dismissal.  Fred made that point 
quite clear also.

paul

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[ethan]

(As as side-note, it's of interest that arcade and home video game console
ROMs, from roughly the same era, don't seem to fall into the abandonware
class.. at least not so far as I have seen. Is this because the copyright
holders are most often large, visible corporations? Perhaps, but it's also
clear that the rights to a number of canonical abandonware titles, such as
the Lucas Arts "SCUMM" point-and-click series, are likewise held by extant
corporate concerns..)


It's because the authors of the old games can keep reselling the same 
stuff every time a new platform comes out. Windows versions, mobile phone 
versions, etc. Or at least the corporations that own the titles do.


There are still issues with ownership though.


--
Ethan O'Toole

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[drlegendre .]

Give him another thirty years, he'll be as jaded and cranky as the best of
us. ;-)

(Kidding aside, it's all very heartwarming.)

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 6:11 PM, Michael Thompson <
michael.99.thomp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 22:07:37 -0400
> > From: Brian Marstella 
> > Subject: Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a
> > mainframe...
> >
> > I'm still kicking myself for passing up an IBM mainframe and a Sun 2000
> > that my previous employer no longer needed. I reasoned that I didn't have
> > space or power for them; never let logic and good sense dictate your
> > actions :)
> >
>
> I brought the Sun 2000E home, and its still here. I have to thin the herd a
> little so I can make room for some DEC equipment.
>
> --
> Michael Thompson
>

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[drlegendre .]

It cannot be overemphasized, that this is one of those situations wherein
it seriously behooves the enthusiast community to sort this one out on our
own, before some heavy-handed lawyer types - with big dollar signs in their
eyes - sorts all of it for us.. because we all know how that would most
likely go. Hint: Not to _anyone's_ advantage.

Far as I see it, the vast majority of 'abandonware' in actual use, held in
collections or at least offered for download, seems to consist of system
ROMs, games and other entertainment titles from the home-computer / PC boom
of the 80s and 90s.

(As as side-note, it's of interest that arcade and home video game console
ROMs, from roughly the same era, don't seem to fall into the abandonware
class.. at least not so far as I have seen. Is this because the copyright
holders are most often large, visible corporations? Perhaps, but it's also
clear that the rights to a number of canonical abandonware titles, such as
the Lucas Arts "SCUMM" point-and-click series, are likewise held by extant
corporate concerns..)

The seven-year rule is highly optimistic, even cheeky, as is the concept of
an alleged right holder's refusal-to-acknowledge being deemed tacit
permission to distribute the title(s).

Ultimately, though, there must be a reasonable way to deal with all of this
- and in a way that preserves both the rights of copyright holders /
authors - while offering essentially free and open access to this large
catalog of nostalgic and classic titles.

I have a few ideas of my own.. but for now, I'd like to hear other members
thoughts on the matter. Ultimately, it might necessarily involve bringing
the rights holders and/or publishers over on to "our side".

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 1:08 PM, Fred Cisin  wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Mar 2016, Mouse wrote:
>
>> As I understand the term, the rights owner has to be nonexistent or to
>> have proved unidentifiable or uncontactable (re which see below).  The
>> case where the owner clearly exists but demonstrably does not care
>> about the software is, to my mind, a grey area.
>>
>
> Disunirregardless of whether it SHOULD be that way, most property changes
> ownership, rather than be "un-owned" when the original owner is gone.
>
> If the "legal owner" explicitly declares that they don't care, then it can
> become public domain.
> But, the legaal owner not responding to inquiries, not still having the
> same address as 30 years ago, and not even necessarily showing up on a
> simple Google search, does NOT take ownership away from them.  When I moved
> my office six blocks down the same street, one outfit declared my company
> to be out of business, and that therefore my work was up for grabs!
>
> Copyright law does NOT [...].
>>>
>> There is no single "copyright law". . . . That said, what you say is true
>> in almost all jursidictions today.
>>
>
> yes, I was speaking generaally, not the specifics, which do vary a lot.
>
>
> Q: To what extent are they making a "good faith" effort to contact
>>> the "prior" (actually current) owners of the intellectual property
>>> rights?
>>>
>> Yes.  That.
>> To my mind, this is the most critical missing piece of information.
>> Since their definition does not mention it, I would be inclined to
>> assume they haven't bothered; if so, I consider their abandonware
>> definition to be sophistry, rigged in an attempt to make what they
>> happen to feel like doing sound a bit less unjustified.
>>
>
> MANY copyright holders really don't care, and would sign off certain
> rights.  When Sellam contacted George Morrow's widow about rights to the
> little red book "Quotations From Chairman Morrow", she gladly signed them
> over.
>
> If a copyright owner doesn't respond to a demand to relinquish the rights,
> that does NOT constitute release, although many wouldn't bother to object.
>
> Of course, what relation any of this bears to what _should_ be is a
>> question for philosophy and much disagreement and has - or at least
>> should have! - little-to-nothing with how people handle any software.
>>
>
> A significant shortening of the term of copyright for items with short
> life, such as computer software would make sense.  However, the laws don't
> seem to be heading in that direction.  "Don't mess with the mouse."
>
>

Re: Random VGA question: 160x200 "high color" mode?

[Stephen Kitt]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2016 02:05:56 -0600, Ryan Eisworth 
wrote:
[...]
> On another note… a while back I read an article that said John Carmack (one
> of the Doom developers) is wrote Quake on a 28-inch 16:9 CRT made by
> Silicon Graphics/Intergraph that was capable of running at 2042x1152. See:
> 
> 
> The workstation next to the pictured monitor appears to be also by
> SGI/Intergraph, and looks similar to the Interserve 80, though the Pentium
> II was not out yet in 1995 so it is likely an older model:
> 
> 
> I’ve often wondered about computational power might be in that unit in
> mid/early 1995. The Pentium Pro had not been released yet, and I know
> Intergraph shipped multiprocessor Pentium Pro workstations, but prior to
> that if it is an x86-based machine, I don’t think it could have been faster
> than the 200 MHz P54CS.

Intergraph shipped multi-processor Pentium workstations in 1994 and 1995
(the TD-4 at least); the fastest Pentium available in 1995 was the 133MHz
P54CS. The March 1995 issue of Byte has a review of the Intergraph TD-4, and
http://www.ceu-inc.com/intergr_6d.html mentions that the 28" monitor was
intended to be used with the TD or TDZ workstations.

Back then of course the fastest workstations used Alphas...

Regards,

Stephen

Re: WinWorld

[Charles Anthony]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:

> Sure, and that makes sense.  This means, of course, that making a good faith 
> attempt to get permission and then use the Google approach :-) is reasonable. 
>  What isn't reasonable is a blanket assumption that anything that's even 
> mildly old is no longer something its owners care about.  Some software does 
> have a long business life; consider CDC NOS, which dates back to the 1960s 
> but still had real world customers in the 21st century.  In that case, when 
> the owner was asked politely, permission was given for hobbyist use under 
> certain restrictions, very much like we have seen with OpenVMS.  Come to 
> think of it, OpenVMS is another example of software substantially older than 
> 7 years.
>

And GCOS. It started in 1962 as GECOS (the General Electric
Comprehensive Operating Supervisor), and has an active user base,
including companies offering support services.

-- Charles

Re: "Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2016, Mouse wrote:

As I understand the term, the rights owner has to be nonexistent or to
have proved unidentifiable or uncontactable (re which see below).  The
case where the owner clearly exists but demonstrably does not care
about the software is, to my mind, a grey area.


Disunirregardless of whether it SHOULD be that way, most property changes 
ownership, rather than be "un-owned" when the original owner is gone.


If the "legal owner" explicitly declares that they don't care, then it can 
become public domain.
But, the legaal owner not responding to inquiries, not still having the 
same address as 30 years ago, and not even necessarily showing up on a 
simple Google search, does NOT take ownership away from them.  When I 
moved my office six blocks down the same street, one outfit declared my 
company to be out of business, and that therefore my work was up for 
grabs!



Copyright law does NOT [...].
There is no single "copyright law". . . . 
That said, what you say is true in almost all jursidictions today.


yes, I was speaking generaally, not the specifics, which do vary a lot.



Q: To what extent are they making a "good faith" effort to contact
the "prior" (actually current) owners of the intellectual property
rights?

Yes.  That.
To my mind, this is the most critical missing piece of information.
Since their definition does not mention it, I would be inclined to
assume they haven't bothered; if so, I consider their abandonware
definition to be sophistry, rigged in an attempt to make what they
happen to feel like doing sound a bit less unjustified.


MANY copyright holders really don't care, and would sign off certain 
rights.  When Sellam contacted George Morrow's widow about rights to the 
little red book "Quotations From Chairman Morrow", she gladly signed them 
over.


If a copyright owner doesn't respond to a demand to relinquish the rights, 
that does NOT constitute release, although many wouldn't bother to object.



Of course, what relation any of this bears to what _should_ be is a
question for philosophy and much disagreement and has - or at least
should have! - little-to-nothing with how people handle any software.


A significant shortening of the term of copyright for items with short 
life, such as computer software would make sense.  However, the laws don't 
seem to be heading in that direction.  "Don't mess with the mouse."

Re: WinWorld

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Fred Cisin

> All this time, I thought that you had to be DEAD before they could take
> your work.

Actually, in most jurisdictions, it's death+N years. In the US, thanks to the
sleaziness of Congress, and the spinlessness of the US Supreme Court, N is
now 70.

Noel

Re: WinWorld

[Fred Cisin]

So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you did
over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it?

On Wed, 30 Mar 2016, Liam Proven wrote:

No, not the same thing.
I think the more important question is/are:
Will the original author still *sell* it to you? Or, if it's a
discontinued version of a still-current product, will it make it
available to you in some way, possibly very cheaply or even free of
charge?


not necessarily.  It is quite reasonable when a software company makes a 
policy that "If you buy the current version, then you automatically have 
right to use the older ones."  (Obviously not the other way around, due to 
the revenue stream of updates).  But, they are not legally obligated to be 
decent human beings.



I think it is entirely reasonable to ask software vendors to make
obsolete, discontinued, unsupported versions of products, versions
which no longer run on current hardware or operating systems,
available FOC. For instance, Microsoft offers Word 5.5 for DOS as a
free download, as it is Y2K compliant, which no earlier versions were.


It is entirely reasonable to ASK, but not reasonable to demand, nor 
ASSUME.




Actually, many vendors will not do this. If they don't, if they no
longer even possess the product in any form, then I do think it's fair
enough that others offer the service.


It's fair enough to produce a competing product.


them running today. I cannot legally obtain them; Digital Research no
longer exists. So, again, I think downloading an old one is legit.


DRI sold the rights.  It is up to the current owners to decide.
They seem to be OK with giving it out.

Re: WinWorld

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 1:26 PM, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> On 30 March 2016 at 18:58, Fred Cisin  wrote:
>> They define "abandonware" as:
>> "In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a general
>> guideline:
>> Be over 7 years old.
>> Be out of support by the manufacturer.
>> Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)"
>> 
>> So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you did
>> over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it?
> 
> No, not the same thing.
> 
> I think the more important question is/are:
> 
> ...
> I own real, licensed copies of OS/2 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5.
> However, due to the age and location of the media, and the fact that
> my current laptop and desktop machines do not possess optical drives,
> nor any place to fit optical drives, let alone floppy drives, it's
> considerably more convenient to download these ancient OSes and run
> them in VMs than it is to use my actual originals.
> 
> I am thus legally licensed to use them. I own them.
> ...
> So I run a downloaded copy of Word 97, under WINE. It understands the
> same file formats, is tiny and very fast even on my 2008-era laptop,
> as that machine is a decade newer than the kit it was designed for. I
> don't want any newer version, thanks; IMHO the product has degenerated
> since then.
> 
> I legally own it. I have licences. 

That's great.  And a lot of discussion on this list is about how to get proper 
licenses, such as "hobbyist licenses" either one by one, or as general 
dispensation for hobbyist purposes.  Or old software that is actually, legally, 
in the public domain.  So we have OpenVMS users, and RSX-11 users, and OS/360 
users, and CDC COS users...

Some licenses are tied to specific hardware, others are not.  I think PC type 
licenses typically are not, so for those you're clearly ok.  Minicomputer or 
mainframe licenses might be a different matter, strictly speaking.

In any case, the concern some of us have is that the "abandonware" site, by its 
definitions, clearly does not appear to care about licenses or copyright.  That 
should give those of us who DO take care to operate by the rules -- with proper 
licenses and all that -- concern, because it makes the community look like it 
doesn't care about property right, when in fact a lot of the community DOES 
care about these things and only some disingenuous types ignore the subject.

paul

Re: WinWorld

[ben]

On 3/30/2016 10:58 AM, Fred Cisin wrote:

They define "abandonware" as:
"In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a
general guideline:
Be over 7 years old.
Be out of support by the manufacturer.
Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)"

So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you
did over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it?

Copyright law does NOT take ownership away from you, and permit others
ot distribute it without compensation, based on refusal to continue to
market or support your previous versions and products.
All this time, I thought that you had to be DEAD before they could take
your work.



Dead ... That is Easy in the USA.
Software can be re-written, now hardware DOC's are the problem.
I pirate books because the places that sell or print or loan
books believe anything after 3 years with computers is totally useless.
FPGA's after 2 years are to be scrapped. Spent the last few days
looking for a Oberon FPGA board,only 1 supplier has product.
Ben.

Re: WinWorld

[Liam Proven]

On 30 March 2016 at 18:58, Fred Cisin  wrote:
> They define "abandonware" as:
> "In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a general
> guideline:
> Be over 7 years old.
> Be out of support by the manufacturer.
> Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)"
>
> So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you did
> over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it?

No, not the same thing.

I think the more important question is/are:

Will the original author still *sell* it to you? Or, if it's a
discontinued version of a still-current product, will it make it
available to you in some way, possibly very cheaply or even free of
charge?

I think it is entirely reasonable to ask software vendors to make
obsolete, discontinued, unsupported versions of products, versions
which no longer run on current hardware or operating systems,
available FOC. For instance, Microsoft offers Word 5.5 for DOS as a
free download, as it is Y2K compliant, which no earlier versions were.

For decades, Apple offered MacOS 7.5.5 this way, for instance.

Actually, many vendors will not do this. If they don't, if they no
longer even possess the product in any form, then I do think it's fair
enough that others offer the service.

I own real, licensed copies of OS/2 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5.
However, due to the age and location of the media, and the fact that
my current laptop and desktop machines do not possess optical drives,
nor any place to fit optical drives, let alone floppy drives, it's
considerably more convenient to download these ancient OSes and run
them in VMs than it is to use my actual originals.

I am thus legally licensed to use them. I own them.

I am not licensed to run CCP/M or CDOS, although I worked with these
OSes in my first 2 jobs, back on the Isle of Man at the end of the
1980s and beginning of the 1990s. I am curious to see if I can get
them running today. I cannot legally obtain them; Digital Research no
longer exists. So, again, I think downloading an old one is legit.

Many companies would, I think, happily block distribution of old
versions, on the bases of protection of trade. I do not own Microsoft
Office 365, nor Office 2013, 2010 or 2007, as I hate the new UI. I do
not even like Office 2003 or XP as much as I liked older versions. I
do own Office 2000 and 1997, though.

So I run a downloaded copy of Word 97, under WINE. It understands the
same file formats, is tiny and very fast even on my 2008-era laptop,
as that machine is a decade newer than the kit it was designed for. I
don't want any newer version, thanks; IMHO the product has degenerated
since then.

I legally own it. I have licences. So I download it, because I can and
because Microsoft won't provide me with a copy of the version I
prefer. Microsoft would prefer me to buy a new copy and then, perhaps,
let me use my old media if I prefer. I don't want to. I own the
version I want. As it happens, though, it's in a storage unit 1000
miles away, with an inconvenient sea in the way.

So, I downloaded it.

Am I admitting to scandalous software piracy?

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

"Abandonware" and copyright [was Re: WinWorld]

[Mouse]

> They define "abandonware" as:
> "In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a
> general guideline:
> Be over 7 years old.
> Be out of support by the manufacturer.
> Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)"

That's...yes, a peculiar definition, I would say.

As I understand the term, the rights owner has to be nonexistent or to
have proved unidentifiable or uncontactable (re which see below).  The
case where the owner clearly exists but demonstrably does not care
about the software is, to my mind, a grey area.

> Copyright law does NOT [...].

There is no single "copyright law".  Not even the Berne convention is
worldwide; practically everything about copyright is
jurisdiction-specific, and I would be surprised if there weren't at
least a few jurisdictions that did this (or didn't support copyright
for software at all).

That said, what you say is true in almost all jursidictions today.

> Q: To what extent are they making a "good faith" effort to contact
> the "prior" (actually current) owners of the intellectual property
> rights?

Yes.  That.

To my mind, this is the most critical missing piece of information.
Since their definition does not mention it, I would be inclined to
assume they haven't bothered; if so, I consider their abandonware
definition to be sophistry, rigged in an attempt to make what they
happen to feel like doing sound a bit less unjustified.

Of course, what relation any of this bears to what _should_ be is a
question for philosophy and much disagreement and has - or at least
should have! - little-to-nothing with how people handle any software.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/30/2016 10:51 AM, William Donzelli wrote:

Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought
two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box,
in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)

I assume you mean 370/145s/

Yes.

  Whatever happened to them? In 1979, they
would have been still usable machines.


Well, the problem with the 370's were peripherals and power. 
Although the lower level 370's had integrated channels, you 
still needed control units and drives.  To do any real work, 
you'd need at least a DASD controller and drives and a com 
controller.  Probably at least a tape controller and one 
drive to do backups and load software.  That won't fit in 
the bedroom of a 2-bedroom house, which was where this thing 
was!


Second was the 370s used a motor alternator set to convert 
50/60 Hz power to 415 Hz power.  To keep compatibility, they 
used the same size MG set for a range of machines.  So, the 
145 had a 17 KVA output alternator with a 20 Hp 208V 3-phase 
motor.  We tried to build a phase converter to run the motor 
off the guy's 60 A 240 V service, but the reactive current 
was over 60 A and would blow the main breaker.  The main 
logic supply for the /145 was 390 A at +1.3 and -3 V, so 
about 1.5 KW.  We should have just got a bunch of big 5V 
switcher supplies and tuned them down to the appropriate 
voltage.  But, that would have likely cost more than he paid 
for the machines, maybe even surplus.


The 145 was not a real high performance machine.  Although 
the memory was 64 bits+parity wide (for ECC) the main data 
path was only 16-bits wide, and the microcode word was 
rather vertical, so while 360/50 and 360/65 could execute 
simple instructions in about 4 microcode cycles, the /145 
took something like 7+.  A 32 bit add register to register 
was 1.4 us, add memory to register was 2.4 us. Floating 
point divide was 28 us (short) or 88 us (long).


Jon

Re: 11/23+ going cheap on eBay

[Glen Slick]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> So here's an 11/23+ in a nice BA11 box:
>
>   http://www.ebay.com/itm/322046582015
>
> If I wasn't _already_ knee deep in the blasted things, I'd buy it myself! ;-)
>
> The other cards aren't too interesting - an MXV11-A, MRV11-C (I think), a 64KB
> memory card, and what looks like an off-brand DLV11-J; and some sort of disk.
>
> Still, not a bad price (so far) for the CPU, box, and a handfull of boards.

Now up to $380. How high will it go?

Are there docs and drivers available for the DTC-11-2?

There is a manual for the DTC-11-1 here:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dtc/DTC11-1.pdf

If the DTC-11-2 has the same programming interface the driver has to
build SCSI CDBs which the controller sends to the device so it
wouldn't be compatible with any standard DEC storage interfaces.

If the SCSI drive included with this item listing isn't bootable into
some OS and doesn't contain a driver for the DTC-11-2 the DTC-11-2
might not be of too much use for the average buyer.

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Pete Lancashire]

First access was when I was 16 and used the remains of 3 Teletype 33's to
make one working unit, the same neighbor who got me the machines help get
and fix a modem, I had access to the the HP 2000C at the local college from
home. (guess the year).

First oldie computer was a then not oldie Burroughs B720, I worked at the
plant where they were made and got one that was freight damaged. About
1,000 14+16 pin DIP 7400 TTL packages and ran at 2 Mhz.

Next was a Data General Nova (no suffix the original) with a Teletype 33
ASR, And a  high speed tape reader. Still wish I had it now. Love being
able to turn it off and back one without loosing data other then what was
in the registers.

One day I got a call, "do you want some minicomputers ?". Stupid question.
"Come down to Veterans Stadium (Philly) with a truck", the caller was a
friend who was an electrician. The company that won the bid to replace the
game board at the stadium had the remains of the old setup piled up ready
to go out for scrap. I filled the truck with General Automation SPC-16's
and I/O boards, cables, etc. enough to control over 100 individual 120V
lights.

The big regret .. 1975, get a call "do you want an IBM mainframe" .. but
was moving 3,000 west thee weeks after the call. Was a whole computer room
360/45, disks, tapes, etc. everything except the 1403 Model 5, but the
Model 2 was in the offer. If I had not accepted the job and was not moving
I actually had free use of a warehouse.

After moving, 1981 I paid $100 for a 4 Racks of DEC, Rack 1 PDP 11/45, Rack
2, RP03 controller, Rack 3 4 x RK05s, Rack 4 a TU?? two RP03's, VT100's,
etc, etc. Filled 1/2 of the basement. I ran RSX11M on it.

The last big box at home was a  SUN M5000, but its now gone to a good home.
The last offers I've turned down are a Sun/Fujitsu M9000 and a V890,
My employer would not let me or anyone have the IBM Z/?? and it went out as
E-scrap a couple months ago.

In storage there are twp DEC Alpha DS20E's and a older DS20 that I'll do
something with or find a home for.








On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:16 AM,  wrote:

> I started getting serious about collecting vintage computers when I was
>> about 20, so not much older. That was in 1993, and I was scrounging
>> PDP-11/23s and VT100s and VT220s, so most of what I was finding was
>> 10-15 years old at that point. The more things change, the more they
>> stay the same!
>> -Seth
>>
>
> IIRC My first large home computer (220v) was a SGI 4d/480VGX.
>
> It had the LED CPU usage meters on the front.
>
> Eventually I ended up with two Challenge XLs and four L's to replace it,
> and two Onyx's and a Origin 2000 full rack. SGI hardware was so cool.
>
>
> --
> Ethan O'Toole
>
>
>

R: Re: RSX-11 trouble

[supervinx]

Well...
REM ...AT. worked since an AT entry was present in the TAL output
INS $BIGIND not
INS -- File not found

Disk (RD51) has 850 blocks free after some cleaning up. It had 738 before.

Re: WinWorld

[Fred Cisin]

They define "abandonware" as:
"In order for a piece of software to be abandonware, it must, as a general 
guideline:

Be over 7 years old.
Be out of support by the manufacturer.
Be mostly out of use by the general populace (abandoned)"

So, if you are a software author, if you won't SUPPORT stuff that you did 
over 7 years ago, they believe that they have a right to distribute it?


Copyright law does NOT take ownership away from you, and permit others ot 
distribute it without compensation, based on refusal to continue to 
market or support your previous versions and products.
All this time, I thought that you had to be DEAD before they could take 
your work.



Q: To what extent are they making a "good faith" effort to contact the 
"prior" (actually current) owners of the intellectual property rights?

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/30/2016 10:40 AM, Jon Elson wrote:

On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A 
friend of mine bought two 770/145s


Ugh, 370/145

Jon

RC2014 homebrew computer

[Liam Proven]

I confess it is in no way a classic machine, but I thought that this
might be of interest to some people here. I had not heard of it before
until a chance retweet from a ZX Spectrum-related account today:

http://rc2014.co.uk/

«
RC2014 is a simple 8 bit Z80 based modular computer.  It is inspired
by the home built computers of the late 70s and computer revolution of
the early 80s.  It is not a clone of anything specific, but there are
ideas of the ZX81, UK101, S100 and Apple I in here.  Built mainly with
parts donated to Nottingham Hackspace and components salvaged from
random bits of equipment, it uses modern PCBs.

It runs on a backplane that hosts the individual modules.  This has
standard 0.1″ header sockets meaning new modules are simple and cheap
to design and can use Veroboard or even jumper wires to breadboard.
For resilience, most of the modules have been designed on to dedicated
PCBs.

In it’s typical basic form it has;

32k RAM,
8k ROM (running Microsoft BASIC),
3.7628Mhz Z80 processor
serial communication at 115200 baud.

Other modules include 8k x 8 bank switchable EPROM, SD card
bootloader, ZX Printer interface, Blinkenlights, LED dot matrix
display driver, LCD display driver
»

(Errors in the source material.)

More info and purchasing sources:
https://www.tindie.com/products/Semachthemonkey/rc2014-homebrew-z80-computer/

And a (for my money, insane, but) interesting peripheral:

https://hackaday.io/project/9567-5-graphics-card-for-homebrew-z80


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Liam Proven]

On 29 March 2016 at 21:34, geneb  wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
>
> It's pretty entertaining. :)


I just Tweeted this. Great story, and a great presentation.

This is the link to the Share Songbook, BTW:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot79z78u3zd6vxs/SHARE%20Songbook.pdf?dl=0

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: WinWorld

[ben]

On 3/30/2016 9:12 AM, et...@757.org wrote:

Sigh.  It's unfortunate to see people pushing the nonexistent and
legally farcical notion of "abandonware".  The "definition" given on
the site creates the pretense that the term is actually meaningful,
but this is flat out wrong and misleading.
paul


Situation A: Lost forever

Situation B: "Pirated"

Take your pick.



C: online but MIRRORED

MiST - Amiga ST FPGA + intro

[Swift Griggs]

http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96

I recently picked up one of these devices. I'll apologize in advance if 
you folks have already had a discussion about the MiST. Basically, it's an 
FPGA that's capable of emulation (for lack of a better term) of many 
platforms on a hardware level. I only got mine about two weeks ago, and 
I'm still sifting through a ton of material and focused mainly on the 
Amiga and ST platforms (stuff I played with as a pre-teen and teen). I 
have to say, so far it's pretty awesome.


The coolest feature in my opinion is the standard joystick ports on the 
side that "just work" with all the emulation targets. I always favored 
using Sega Genesis controllers in those (rather than the rinky-dink little 
"red joystick" of the time). They work oh-so-great with this rig.


The only issue is finding a monitor that doesn't have a fit over 15Khz 
refresh rates. I use an NEC MultiSync with sync-on-green and all that fun 
stuff. I'm still busy getting AROS running on "my Amiga" (which is 
represented by an SD card with my ROM image from my A3000 and a metric 
crapton of floppy images).


You basically hit a keystroke or joystick combo and you can swap floppies, 
reboot, etc.. If you are into any of these, I can recommend the MiST:


* ST/STE (also on SCART 15KHz)
* Amiga 500/600/1200 ( AGA CORE BETA core)
* C64 (partially - still developed)
* Atari 8bit ( 96%)
* Collecovision
* ZX81
* Atari 2600
* ZX Spectrum with AY, aslo with DIVMMC and ESXDOS
* SEGA GENESIS
* Apple II(x)
* MSX
* AMSTRAD CPC (BETA)
* A few others, you'll want to check.


   BTW, I'm new to the list (1st post). So, I'll introduce myself. I'm 
just another IT worker with a background in Unix systems. I'm 41 and I 
started with HP-UX 10.x (high school) and branched out to every kind of 
Unix box I could get my hands on (Yes. I'm one of those Unix zealots, but 
that might be too gentle a description). I spent the 90's with SGIs (which 
I still collect, I have an O2+, two Indys, and a bruzin' Tezro fully built 
out). I spent the early 2k's coding for supper as a "security engineer" 
(read: writing exploits which I don't much care for now) and some stints 
as a Tru64 admin. On the in between gigs and contracts I've touched just 
about everything (and in the last 10 years a lot of new Unix hardware). 
I've professionally admin'd or coded for IRIX, Solaris, Linux, Tru64 
(OSF/1 or Digital Unix for some), FreeBSD, HP-UX, UNICOS, and AIX. As a 
hobbyist, I've also tinkered greatly with NetBSD (maybe my favorite), 
OpenBSD, and Minix. Then of course there is the spacey or rare stuff I've 
put hands on. I'm talking about things like UnixWare, Xenix, SCO, SunOS, 
BSDi, DG/UX, NeXTStep/OpenStep, A/UX, and even non-Unix stuff like Sprite, 
L4, QNX, HURD, BeOS, Haiku, AROS, Genode, and others. I code fairly well 
in C, shell script, and TCL. I code not-as-well in AREXX, Python, Ruby, 
PHP, Lua, and a few other scripting languages. I'm pleased to be on this 
list, and to make your myriad acquaintances.


-Swift

PS: My spell checker needs and ex-lax after going insane over this email 
full of Unix variants and ancient platforms.

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[William Donzelli]

> Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought
> two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box,
> in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)

I assume you mean 370/145s/ Whatever happened to them? In 1979, they
would have been still usable machines.

While Connor's mainframe move is very impressive -try removing
something from a derelict ship. There is a certain beauty seeing an
800 pound box doing a slow ballet in three dimension using chain
hoists.

Did anyone here watch the original livestream, anyway? The idea was to
try install Minecraft on the thing. Not enough horsepower! That, or
shitty Mojang code.

--
Will

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 11:40 AM, Jon Elson  wrote:
> 
> On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
> Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought 
> two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box, 
> in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)
> 
> I am amazed we did not collapse the floor in his house!

Compared to waterbeds or pianos, computers aren't all that heavy.  Not even 
mainframes.

DEC's old headquarters (the "Mill" in Maynard) had prominent signs everywhere 
saying the floor load limit was 100 pounds per square foot, or something like 
that (perhaps less).  But they just planted their computers all over anyway, 
and I don't remember ever seeing floor reinforcements for that.  The stated 
limit was probably quite conservative.  After all, that building used to 
contain spinning and weaving machinery -- big hunks of cast iron.

paul

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend 
of mine bought two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  
(I bought the other memory box, in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of 
memory was a big deal!)


I am amazed we did not collapse the floor in his house!

There used to be a picture online, but his page seems to 
have gone away.


Jon

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[ethan]

I started getting serious about collecting vintage computers when I was
about 20, so not much older. That was in 1993, and I was scrounging
PDP-11/23s and VT100s and VT220s, so most of what I was finding was
10-15 years old at that point. The more things change, the more they
stay the same!
-Seth


IIRC My first large home computer (220v) was a SGI 4d/480VGX.

It had the LED CPU usage meters on the front.

Eventually I ended up with two Challenge XLs and four L's to replace it, 
and two Onyx's and a Origin 2000 full rack. SGI hardware was so cool.



--
Ethan O'Toole

Re: WinWorld

[Mouse]

>> WinWorld is an online museum dedicated to the preservation and
>> sharing of abandonware ...
> Sigh.  It's unfortunate to see people pushing the nonexistent and legally fa$

Well, it _is_ a meaningful term (albeit with a fuzzier than usual
meaning); if people write of "abandonware" most readers will have at
least a general idea of what is being referred to.

It's true that (at least in most jursidictions) it does not have the
legal status that people seem to act as though they thought it did,
but, heck, that's true of a whole lot of terms in wide use, some of
which even _do_ have relatively precise legal meanings - my own
favourite of these is "public domain".

And, unlike misused technical terms like "public domain", "abandonware"
fills a gap in the language; there is - as far as I know - no other
term nearly as good for its referent.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: WinWorld

[ethan]

Sigh.  It's unfortunate to see people pushing the nonexistent and legally farcical notion of 
"abandonware".  The "definition" given on the site creates the pretense that 
the term is actually meaningful, but this is flat out wrong and misleading.
paul


Situation A: Lost forever

Situation B: "Pirated"

Take your pick.

Re: WinWorld

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 10:28 AM, Liam Proven  wrote:
> 
> Quote:
> 
> «
> WinWorld from the past, to the present, for the future
> 
> WinWorld is an online museum dedicated to the preservation and sharing
> of abandonware ...

Sigh.  It's unfortunate to see people pushing the nonexistent and legally 
farcical notion of "abandonware".  The "definition" given on the site creates 
the pretense that the term is actually meaningful, but this is flat out wrong 
and misleading.

paul

RE: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jay West]

John wrote
-
There's an IRC channel? What IRC network is it on?
-

Freenode, #classiccmp

It tends to be more of a hangout "water cooler talk" for us than a technical 
forum, but I'm there most every evening from 8pmCST onward.

J

WinWorld

[Liam Proven]

Quote:

«
WinWorld from the past, to the present, for the future

WinWorld is an online museum dedicated to the preservation and sharing
of abandonware and pre-release software, as well as any and all
knowledge associated with such works. We offer information, media and
downloads for a wide variety of computers and operating systems. Our
collection includes abandonware operating systems (like Windows 3.1 or
95), beta operating systems (like Chicago, Whistler, and Longhorn),
abandonware applications (like AfterDark, the epic screensaver
software we all grew up with) and more.

We offer all of our content free of charge to any interested party.
Whether you're doing looking to go down memory lane and re-visit
Windows 3.1, do some research on computing history, or repurpose an
old system that can't run the latest and greatest, WinWorld is here to
help by providing unrestricted access to our entire library at no
charge. We do not accept donations, just download and enjoy. WinWorld
provides you with large amounts of downloads and high quality
information that BetaArchive FTP and Vetusware can't compare with! Get
Windows Abandonware, Games, Macintosh old software and more from our
software library right here at WinWorld!

For news, support and discussion visit WinBoards. No registration is
required to post, so why not drop in and say hi?
»

Impressive assortment of OSes and apps for older PCs, Macs and broadly
related systems -- CP/M etc.

https://winworldpc.com/

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

OT: was: Re: AT Uverse IPv6 vs. Mac OS X 10.(old)

[Noel Chiappa]

Apologies all for the OT; just a few _brief_ replies. If anyone wants a
serious discussion about this, the internet-history list would be the place
to start it.


> From: Charles Anthony

> What they did was 'NAT plus IPV6 will solve everything.'

Yes, but not explicitly; the 'official' IETF position was 'IPv6 will replace
IPv4', and they pretty consistently refused to acknowledge that NAT would
likely play a major role.

I 'sort of' understand the second part - NAT is, architecturaly, very grubby
(for a long list of reasons this is not the place to go into) - but it soon
got the point of ostrich-like refusal to recognize reality - which meant that
instead of an _architected_ approac to using NAT, it mostly got an utterly
'ad hoc' adoption.


> From: Robert Johnson

> So, I'm curious what your objections to v6 are

It's different from IPv4 (i.e. old code can't understand it), but not
different enough (i.e. it doesn't have enough new capabilities to make it
worth switching to - IPv4 has many architectural issues, but that topic is
too complex to go into here).

> how would you solve the shortage of IP addresses?

You have to start by realizing that IPv4 addresses serve at least three
functions: i) identify the communicating device (in the sense that 'Noel
Chiappa' identifies me), ii) says _where_ the thing is in the Internet (like
a street address does IRL), and iii) is used by intermediate switching nodes
to forward traffic. So the first step is to pull out ii) and iii), which can
be done without modifying the hosts, and there are many designs that did so.

Alas, a fuller discussion of this complex topic is not really appropriate
here... Ask on internet-history, if you want to know more.

Noel

Re: PDP-11 M873 ROM card info?

[Noel Chiappa]

> Does anyone have a -YB we can dump?

Can I repeat my plea for this? (And also a -YC?)


> I have a -YA, and will dump that in a few moments

OK, I'm mostly done with the disassembly; available here:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/pdp11/M873-YA.mac

I haven't fully understood the TA11 code (and don't plan to), nor the
DECtape/magtape code (might get to that some day), but the disk and paper
tape code is completely done. (I'm currently loading over serial lines, for
getting the machines running, etc.) The paper tape code is 'interesting'; it
took me a while to figure out _exactly_ how it worked.

It appears (to me, at least) that that code will not function correctly
unless the abs-loader has at least one byte of '0' pad on the end of it, for
two reasons. (See the comments on the listing.) Luckily, my copy of the abs
loader binary has such; although real .LDA tapes have blank leader, of
course, the .LDA files I'm generating don't.

The serial line code in the M9301 (-YA at least, and probably the others too)
uses the identical code, so it has the identical issue.

Noel

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Camiel Vanderhoeven]

Yes, we're talking address space here. The 390 had 31-bit addresses.
Op 30 mrt. 2016 10:49 a.m. schreef "Mark Linimon" :

> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 08:34:00PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon 
> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> > >> they were strictly 31-bit only.
> > >
> > > Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.
>
> I guess I didn't highlight the joke.  Thirty-*one* bits?
>
> mcl
>

Re: RSX-11 trouble

[Veit, Holger]

Does
   REM ...AT.
   INS $BIGIND/PRI=10.
work? The first cmd may cause an error, if there is no AT loaded at all. 
The second will install larger the 12K version of IND if present, a 
prerequisite for a sysgen that may be also used in normal operation. It 
is IIRC rather uncommon to discard IND for space issues; there are other 
less frequently used tasks to be removed for a turnkey system. Is the 
disk rather full anyway?


Holger


Am 29.03.2016 um 19:30 schrieb supervinx:

Il giorno sab, 26/03/2016 alle 11.54 +, Veit, Holger ha scritto:

Looks as if the @ task, the indirect command processor, is either defective, or 
was not linked correctly for this system. Check the system generation manual; 
there are hints on how to replace it. This is for instance necessary for a 
sysgen (INS a /BIG version of it). If this fails, the TSK is broken. The sysgen 
rebuilds IND from an OLB regularly; there is a BLD file for this. You don't 
need to run a full sysgen for it (infact, with a broken @ processor, you can't).
Regards Holger

Mit TouchDown von meinem Android-Telefon gesendet (www.nitrodesk.com)

-Original Message-
From: supervinx [superv...@libero.it]
Received: Donnerstag, 24 März 2016, 23:30
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Subject: RSX-11 trouble

Hi!
Got a MicroPDP 11 plus.
It seems to be misconfigured.
It can't execute .CMD files, reporting
Task "...AT." terminated
Load failure. Read error

No disk errors are reported with ELI DU0:/SH

Disk seems to work: I can run .TSK files.
The file STARTUP.CMD isn't read at all.

Any hints? Which file is executed right before STARTUP.CMD?
I see two RED commands and a MOU before it tries to read [1,2]STARTUP.CMD and 
reports the aforementioned error.

Thanks


Well... no IND.TSK is present :(
May be they had space issues?

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mark Linimon]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 08:34:00PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon  wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> >> they were strictly 31-bit only.
> >
> > Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.

I guess I didn't highlight the joke.  Thirty-*one* bits?

mcl

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mike Ross]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon  wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
>> they were strictly 31-bit only.
>
> Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.
>
> mcl

Not in the least; when they were designed and built Z-Architecture
wasn't even a twinkle in a hardware engineers eye. Nothing hobbled
about them.

And by the time Z-Architecture did come alone it was no longer
necessary to use custom hardware to implement a usable mainframe CPU;
it could be emulated entirely in software - Hercules; Flex/ES; z/PDT
etc. - hence no 64-bit *hardware* successor to the P/390 was ever
built or seriously contemplated.

Mike

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mark Linimon]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> they were strictly 31-bit only.

Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.

mcl

Re: MEM11A update

[Vincent Slyngstad]

From: Guy Sotomayor: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 8:27 PM

These 3 wires were *really* short.  Nothing I did found them until I came
across a “trick” which is to zoom out so the board is tiny and then with
the route tool active, just “click” on spot on the board.  In short order I
found all 3 remaining wires.  Using that technique, I found the 3 remaining
wires in less than 5 minutes (vs the over an hour looking for them last
night).


Cool tip!

Have you tried the "zoom-unrouted" ULP?  That should center the
display on one of the unrouted traces.  From there you can turn
off the routed layers, pads, etc and zoom in more until you find it.
Repeat as needed for additional unrouted wires.

A good choice of placement and routing grids should minimize these
problems, but of course picking a proper routing grid is non-trivial
when a variety of odd (metric and imperial mixed?) spacing is involved.

   Vince