Re: TU-58 in simh

[allison via cctalk]

On 04/21/2017 10:13 PM, Don North via cctalk wrote:
> On 4/21/2017 6:55 PM, allison wrote:
>> On 04/21/2017 09:34 PM, Don North via cctalk wrote:
>>> On 4/21/2017 4:25 PM, Brian L. Stuart via cctalk wrote:
 I've seen suggestion that TU-58s are emulated in simh on
 PDP-11s.  However, I'm not seeing it in a show dev and my
 google-fu is failing me to find any info on how to use it.  Any
 pointers on how to boot from a TU-58 image?

 TIA,
 BLS

>>> Using simh v4.0 from github, in the PDP11 simh ini file:
>>>
>>> *set tdc enable**
>>> **attach tdc0 tu58.dsk*
>>>
>>> then assuming tu58.dsk is a bootable image:
>>>
>>> *boot tdc0*
>>>
>>> Only two units 0,1 are supported (just like a real dual drive) and the
>>> images must be 262,144 bytes in size (like a real tu58 cartridge).
>>>
>> I remember TDC was DECcassette (TU-60).
>>
>> The boot for RT-11 would be BOOT DD:  the tape image should be built
>> with a DD driver or DDX for RT11XM.
>> Least that how it works for my physical PDP-11/23 RT11 system.
>> Generally all the files that should be on
>> a RT11 floppy needs to be on the tape.
>>
>> For other OSs it first has to fit on the device and have a suitable
>> driver for TU58.
>>
>> Allison
>>
> TU58 is really not much useful for running any real DEC OS other than
> XXDP, to run diagnostics; that is what I use it for on my 34 and 44
> (real hardware). I don't use TU58 at all under SIMH (does not make
> much sense).
>
> RT-11SJ works running from TU58, but just barely, and it is not really
> usable. RT11 is barely usable once you move up to a dual drive RX02.
>

Actually maybe

IF you set up RT-11 XM and have an 11/23 or larger the memory over 32KW
can be used as a virtual disk.
The process boots using Tu58 and copies to VM and set the boot device as
XM and then boots XM.  The
com file basically copies the tape to VM then configures the boot for XM
and the boots it.  Then the tu58
is free for use as storage and to add programs to VM.  The down side is
a boot is about 5-8 minutes but
once VM is up and booted very fast and useful.

I've done this in a BA-11VA 4slot with 11/23cpu, 256K ram, MRV11, DLV11J
and the TU58 stacked above it.
The result si 192K of VM and two drives.  Its compact as PDP-11s go and
actually runs useful programs.

An enlarged system is a DEC 12 slot dual width Q22 cage with 11/23 cpu
(M8156), 2mb of ram (M8059),
and a MRV11 (Carries boot roms) plus DLV11J.  The roms are copies of
11/23+.  I enjoy playing with real
hardware.

I have larger BA11S boxes with 11/23, 11/23+, 11/73 and a ba23
microPDP11 as test systems and working
systems with a full array of disks, floppies and the only tape that
seems to work the TU58 (don't mention
the TK50, please).

The only PDP-11 sim I've used is John Wilson's Ersatz-11, its very good.


Allison

>
> test[991] pdp11
>
> PDP-11 simulator V4.0-0 Betagit commit id: 17903827
> sim> set tdc enable
> sim> att tdc0 11xxdp.dsk
> TDC: buffering file in memory
> sim> boot tdc0
>
> BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR
>
> XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5
> REVISION: F0
> BOOTED FROM DD0
> 124KW OF MEMORY
> NON-UNIBUS SYSTEM
>
> RESTART ADDRESS: 152000
> TYPE "H" FOR HELP !
>
> .DIR
>
> ENTRY# FILNAM.EXTDATE  LENGTH  START VERSION
>
> 1  XXDPSM.SYS   1-MAR-89 2947 E.0
> 2  XXDPXM.SYS   1-MAR-89 39000104 F.0
> 3  DRSSM .SYS   1-MAR-89 24000153 G.2
> 4  DRSXM .SYS   1-MAR-89 48000203 C.0
> 5  DATE  .SYS   1-MAR-89  2000263 B.0
> 6  DB.SYS   1-MAR-89  2000265 C.0
> 7  DD.SYS   1-MAR-89  3000267 D.0
> 8  DIR   .SYS   1-MAR-89  7000272 D.0
> 9  DL.SYS   1-MAR-89  4000301 D.0
>10  DM.SYS   1-MAR-89  4000305 C.0
>11  DR.SYS   1-MAR-89  3000311 C.0
>12  DU.SYS   1-MAR-89  4000314 E.0
>13  DUSZ  .SYS   1-MAR-89  2000320 C.0
>14  DY.SYS   1-MAR-89  3000322 D.0
>15  LP.SYS   1-MAR-89  1000325 B.0
>16  MM.SYS   1-MAR-89  3000326 C.0
>17  MS.SYS   1-MAR-89  4000331 C.0
>18  MU.SYS   1-MAR-89  4000335 E.0
>19  HELP  .TXT   1-MAR-89 29000341
>20  PATCH .BIC   1-MAR-89 31000376
>21  SETUP .BIC   1-MAR-89 27000435
>22  UPDAT .BIC   1-MAR-89 29000470
>23  XTECO .BIC   1-MAR-89 26000525
>24  FLOAT .BIN   1-MAR-89 18000557
>
> FREE BLOCKS:   126
>
> .
>
>

SWTPC Tape files

[Brad via cctalk]

Hi there,

 

I was wondering if anyone knew of a repository that had SWTPC tape files
archived (as .WAV, .TAP, etc).  The 6800 system I am presently using is
wired according to original SWTPC specs and does not have a DB25.. so I
cannot simply switch cables from CT1024 to PC terminal like I could with my
other unit.  I'd really like to make use of the AC30 also for a more
authentic experience and was hoping someone had wavs archived somewhere so I
could play them into the AC30 with my phone or something and then record to
actual tape.  For the last couple of evenings I have been manually entering
in the data for TSC BASIC from a txt file Bill Degnan was kind enough to
post.. just doing as much as I can stand to and then saving progress to
tape.  Eventually when it's finished I'll make a wav archive and just use
tape to load it.  Obviously I wouldn't want to do that for every program
though.  Anyway, I know someone on vcfed at one point was talking of setting
up an archive and even had made copies of Tic Tac Toe and 680 BASIC.  Hoping
someone out there knows where those and/or more might be found, or if
there's another way (say using two MP-C/S cards) to pull in S19 files and
then record via AC-30 to tape.

 

Thanks muchly!


B

 

 

 

SWTPC WAV or TAP files?

[Brad H via cctalk]

Hi there,

 

I was wondering if anyone knew of a repository that had SWTPC tape files
archived (as .WAV, .TAP, etc).  The 6800 system I am presently using is
wired according to original SWTPC specs and does not have a DB25.. so I
cannot simply switch cables from CT1024 to PC terminal like I could with my
other unit.  I'd really like to make use of the AC30 also for a more
authentic experience and was hoping someone had wavs archived somewhere so I
could play them into the AC30 with my phone or something and then record to
actual tape.  For the last couple of evenings I have been manually entering
in the data for TSC BASIC from a txt file Bill Degnan was kind enough to
post.. just doing as much as I can stand to and then saving progress to
tape.  Eventually when it's finished I'll make a wav archive and just use
tape to load it.  Obviously I wouldn't want to do that for every program
though.  Anyway, I know someone on vcfed at one point was talking of setting
up an archive and even had made copies of Tic Tac Toe and 680 BASIC.  Hoping
someone out there knows where those and/or more might be found, or if
there's another way (say using two MP-C/S cards) to pull in S19 files and
then record via AC-30 to tape.

 

Thanks muchly!


B

 

 

 

Re: Bitsavers size

[Sam O'nella via cctalk]

Lol that quote. I guess i can google it but was this from one of his books? 
"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling 
down the highway."–Andrew Tanenbaum, 1981
 Original message From: Fred Cisin via cctalk 
 Date: 4/22/17  12:13 PM  (GMT-06:00) To: "General 
Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"  Subject: Re: 
Bitsavers size 
https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

internet V Fedex

Unfortunately, their 2040 number is based on an assumption that bandwidth 
will continue to increase, but that media capacity won't.

Re: Bitsavers size

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/

internet V Fedex

Unfortunately, their 2040 number is based on an assumption that bandwidth 
will continue to increase, but that media capacity won't.

Re: Bitsavers size

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

But wouldn't a nice tape be a much more appropriate distribution
medium?


On Sat, 22 Apr 2017, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

For the record, I have no intention of creating these "more appropriate"
distribution media for anyone.


OK, we'll cancel the project of getting you a farm of ultra-durable card 
punches.  :-)
It was already looking as though there might be difficulty locating 2 
million boxes of blank punch cards. (288G)   Per copy.


Even the just over a million 8" SSSD floppies were back-ordered.

And paper tape would have required opening a new factory.


. . . and we'd have had to build up a fleet of station wagons to hurtle 
down the highway.

Re: Bitsavers size

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 4/22/17 8:22 AM, Joseph Zatarski via cctalk wrote:

> But wouldn't a nice tape be a much more appropriate distribution
> medium?

For the record, I have no intention of creating these "more appropriate"
distribution media for anyone.

Re: LambdaDelta 0.98.1 released!

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

yay!

I also sent a note to richard that the RSS seems to have stopped updating 
mid-march


On 4/22/17 9:21 AM, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote:
> Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages - I present to
> you LambdaDelta, my decidedly average LMI Lambda emulator.
> 
> See https://github.com/dseagrav/ld for the source repository and release
> tarball. So far we have been able to run full-speed on a 2.3 GHz i7 and a
> 2.5 GHz i5, but the i5 was pushing it. The i7 gets a bit warm.
> 
> Bitsavers now has the LMI software, so there's no reason to hold off on a
> release other than I would have liked to get fetch working properly at
> least. I'm going to keep working at it in the meantime.

LambdaDelta 0.98.1 released!

[Daniel Seagraves via cctalk]

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages - I present to
you LambdaDelta, my decidedly average LMI Lambda emulator.

See https://github.com/dseagrav/ld for the source repository and release
tarball. So far we have been able to run full-speed on a 2.3 GHz i7 and a
2.5 GHz i5, but the i5 was pushing it. The i7 gets a bit warm.

Bitsavers now has the LMI software, so there's no reason to hold off on a
release other than I would have liked to get fetch working properly at
least. I'm going to keep working at it in the meantime.

Bitsavers size

[Joseph Zatarski via cctalk]

>Just how big is the server?
>As a wish list, I've always wanted that as a offline set of DVD's
>for the common stuff.
>Ben.

But wouldn't a nice tape be a much more appropriate distribution
medium? I've got an LTO-3 drive here, and that's 400GB/tape. It'd only
take one tape to hold bitsavers. :)

Re: How to refurbish plotter pens?

[David Gesswein via cctalk]

On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 07:37:43PM +0200, Philipp Hachtmann wrote:
> I know the following configs:
> 
> Outer shell (always same), narrow inlay, narrow top cap --> for the
> pen you pictured,
> 
> Outer shell, wide inlay, wide top cap --> For the Fisher pen
> 
> Outer shell, some other inlay, ink top cap, some plastic ink pen
> stuff --> The ink pen config
> 
> I should have all those. Don't know if more existed.
> Not yet tried the ink variant.
> 
Felt tip was also available.
picture here http://ferretronix.com/1627/

RE: TU-58 in simh

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Don North via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2017 10:13 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: TU-58 in simh

On 4/21/2017 6:55 PM, allison wrote:
> On 04/21/2017 09:34 PM, Don North via cctalk wrote:
>> On 4/21/2017 4:25 PM, Brian L. Stuart via cctalk wrote:
>>> I've seen suggestion that TU-58s are emulated in simh on
>>> PDP-11s.  However, I'm not seeing it in a show dev and my
>>> google-fu is failing me to find any info on how to use it.  Any
>>> pointers on how to boot from a TU-58 image?
>>>
>>> TIA,
>>> BLS
>>>
>> Using simh v4.0 from github, in the PDP11 simh ini file:
>>
>> *set tdc enable**
>> **attach tdc0 tu58.dsk*
>>
>> then assuming tu58.dsk is a bootable image:
>>
>> *boot tdc0*
>>
>> Only two units 0,1 are supported (just like a real dual drive) and the
>> images must be 262,144 bytes in size (like a real tu58 cartridge).
>>
> I remember TDC was DECcassette (TU-60).
>
> The boot for RT-11 would be BOOT DD:  the tape image should be built
> with a DD driver or DDX for RT11XM.
> Least that how it works for my physical PDP-11/23 RT11 system.
> Generally all the files that should be on
> a RT11 floppy needs to be on the tape.
>
> For other OSs it first has to fit on the device and have a suitable
> driver for TU58.
>
> Allison
>
TU58 is really not much useful for running any real DEC OS other than XXDP, to
run diagnostics; that is what I use it for on my 34 and 44 (real hardware). I
don't use TU58 at all under SIMH (does not make much sense).

RT-11SJ works running from TU58, but just barely, and it is not really usable.
RT11 is barely usable once you move up to a dual drive RX02.

___

Well, I can't agree with that.  I used an LSI-11 with 4 RX02 drives running
RT-11 to develop COBOL programs back in the early 80's.  It was slow, but
that is what coffee breaks were for.

bill

Re: A treasure trove in Dallas

[Mark Linimon via cctalk]

currently in Houston, heading back to Austin on Sun or Mon, 
would need to hear about what they want within "soon", have
F-150, need vague excuse to go to Little Rock, Arkansas (power5)

mcl

Re: USA vintage computing trip

[Alexandre Souza via cctalk]

Thanks a lot Evan! But I don't believe this dream can be achieved this
year. Maybe in the next :o)

2017-04-22 1:49 GMT-03:00 Evan Koblentz via cctalk :

> Hi,
>
> I'm going to Kfest for the first time this year, cannot wait!!!
>
> Anyway: if you decide to visit here, then give me a few weeks' notice so
> you can visit the VCF museum in New Jersey. We are in a small town about 60
> minutes south of NYC and 90 minutes northeast of Philadelphia.
> 
> Evan Koblentz, director
> Vintage Computer Federation
> a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit
>
> e...@vcfed.org
> (646) 546-
>
> www.vcfed.org
> facebook.com/vcfederation
> twitter.com/vcfederation
> instagram.com/vcfederation
>