MACSYMA classic

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

Eric Swenson got the original-ish MACSYMA built and running in ITS.

It's frankensteined together from a mix of source and FASL files from
ITS, Lisp machine Macsyma sources, etc.

RE: Foonlies

[Rich Alderson via cctalk]

From: Lars Brinkhoff
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 11:28 AM

> Al Kossow wrote:

>>> SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
>>> 10,000 TTL IC'S
>>> 3 MIPS

>> Was this ever built? 10K ICs would have been bigger than the Livermore S-1.

> This says the Superfoonly was designed.  Doesn't say it was actually
> built.  Triple-I funded the construction of the updated design, the F1.
> 
>   "The original superfoonly was designed at Stanford, on an ARPA
>   contract, but Dave Poole, Phil Pettit, and Jack Holloway. There was
>   also a fourth whose role (I think) was to build the CAD system which
>   was used for the design. He later went to work for DEC. DEC took the
>   foonly design and lobotomized it, which became the KL10. The other
>   three came to Triple-I with a proposal to build an updated version of
>   the original design (using ECL instead of TTL).
> 
> http://dave.zfxinc.net/ddyer.html

The fourth guy was Dick Helliwell, who was hired by DEC when they licensed SUDS
from SAIL.  I met Dick when we both worked at XKL; he was the major part of the
effort to make SUDS run on the X Window System, on the KL-10 and later on the
Toad-1.  I'm going to disagree with the history Al posted, because Dick himself
told me the story.

He also ported Perl 4 and the GNU utilities and Emacs to TOPS-20.

Rich


Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computers: Museum + Labs
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134

mailto:ri...@livingcomputers.org

http://www.LivingComputers.org/

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Evan Koblentz via cctalk]

For extra credit was it drawn in any particular vintage software or 
computer?


Not to my knowledge.

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Evan Koblentz via cctalk]

Apple II
IMSAI
ColecoVision


That's exactly right. We wanted to show some of his favorite systems. We 
already knew he likes cats, robots, Star Trek, and building electronic 
gadgets.





In any event, nice shirt :-)


Thank you.

Re: Foonlies

[Wayne S via cctalk]

Yes, they merged @ 1996 with the new company being named  AII  ("A" eye-eye). 
Then the combined company was bought by AGFA @2001.   All the big daily 
newspapers used their photo typesetters, the Autologic model APS6 and/or the 
III 3850.

They were fast and didn't break much and used Harlequin Rips so publications  
could have any front end systems that spoke postscript. The Mac was coming into 
it's own as a relatively inexpensive non-proprietary publishing platform and 
the publishers and print houses liked that.

Right before the year 2000 scare, all the newspapers bought new ones with the 
result that Autologic/III made a bundle in 1999, then didn't really have any 
big orders for the following few years. I know that the LA Times bought 18 of 
them alone at @ $75K each. As the newspapers transitioned from film to 
computer-to-plate in the following years, AII couldn't keep up and  was 
ultimately bought by AGFA. There was a lot of competition in the CTP arena back 
then. I think AGFA moved the company to Cambridge, MA, from Thousand Oaks, 
California.







From: Paul Koning 
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 4:23 PM
To: Wayne S
Subject: Re: Foonlies

Triple I / Autologic?  Interesting.  I remember (from around 1978) III and 
Autologic as two separate manufacturers of phototypesetting machines, with III 
rather obscure, very large physically (a small room) and very fast.  Did they 
merge?

paul

> On Jan 31, 2018, at 2:52 PM, Wayne S via cctalk  wrote:
>
> Was this the machine that Triple I/Autologic created  to digitize old color 
> film movies?
> AFIK, it used lasers to scan the film and create digital color seps that were 
> recombined later in the process. It was used in the Kate Winslett / Leonardo 
> DiCaprio remake of "Titanic".  Autologic even got a mention in the movie 
> credits.
>
> Autologic donated that machine to UCLA for their film preservation archive 
> project.
>
> Wayne

Re: chip technology dead-ends (was: Foonlies)

[Mark Linimon via cctalk]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 07:07:23PM -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> Back in the 70s, 4000-series CMOS was among the slowest logic around.

I really wish I still had one technical magazine that came out during
the late 70s/early 80s.  (I don't remember which one it was, anymore.)
It was devoted to keeping you up with the latest chip/minicomputer
technology.

It contained a very serious editorial about "what are we going to use to
replace CMOS" now that the > 10MHz chips were starting to be avialable.
"Clearly" there was no way to push the technology past that: it was simply
impossible due to heat dissipation -- the chips were going to burn up.

It was an open-ended question; clearly neither ECL nor TTL were going to
fit the bill.  (Hey, at least the author got _that_ part correct.)

Oh and while we're skewering early CMOS chips, they were grossly sensitive
to static.  The company I was working for during the summers was buying
these $40 4-digit LED things with a CMOS driver and if you even looked
at it wrong you could watch the chip swell up and bake underneath its
protective plastic.

This was not not very amusing to management.

I'll bet I still have one in a box somewhere.

mcl

Re: Foonlies

[William Donzelli via cctalk]

> And, if you went to 74S, Fast or 74AS, you could easily match the ECL
> 10K performance.  Now, there were a bunch of tricks that you could use with
> ECL that helped, like wired-OR instead of adding a tri-state buffer.  ECL
> had a notable advantage in 1970, but as TTL derivatives continued to
> advance, that shrank to nothing.

If you are comparing 74S/AS/F TTL to 10K ECL, you are making a unfair
comparison. When the 74S and 10K were introduced in the very early
1970s, 10K ECL was not the fastest ECL available, MECL III was. MECL
III was almost three times faster than 10K, but was expensive and
difficult to use. It remained in front line use until the mid-1970s,
simply because nothing could touch it. 10K became the popular ECL
family because it was the easiest to use and would not break the bank.

Additionally, when 74AS was introduced, 100K had already been
established, with 10KH following shortly thereafter. 100K was very
easy to deal with, as long as ALL the rules in the databooks were
followed, but like MECL III, very expensive (a normal glue logic chip,
like a 100101 triple OR/NOR was seven bucks in DIP, compared to thirty
cents for something similar in TTL). Later still, 10E/100E was even
faster, down to typical 400 pS gate delays - still something that TTL
could not touch at the time. To top in off, 10G was a little faster
that 10E/100E.

Also, running 74S at full throttle often results in a real shitshow on
the circuit board. It is far easier to run ECL at full speed
potential.

CMOS killed ECL, not TTL.

--
Will

Re: Foonlies

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

Wayne S wrote:
>  Was this the machine that Triple I/Autologic created to digitize old
> color film movies?
> AFIK, it used lasers to scan the film and create digital color seps
> that were recombined later in the process. It was used in the Kate
> Winslett / Leonardo DiCaprio remake of "Titanic".  Autologic even got
> a mention in the movie credits.

I don't think so.  At least, I never heard that the F1 had such
equipment.

Re: Foonlies

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/31/2018 04:26 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:

> Then again, DEC Western Research Lab in the mid 1980s did an
> interesting project to do a full custom single ECL chip
> implementation of a MIPS (or Alpha?) CPU, intended to run at 1 GHz.
> The CAD system they built for this was quite interesting, as were
> bits of key technology like a heat pipe based chip cooling setup,
> possibly the first such device.  It wasn't finished (the ECL fab
> shops kept going out of business faster than the CAD team could tweak
> the design rules in the tools) but some neat stuff came out of it, in
> internal reports only unfortunately.
Still have a bunch of ECL 10K logic--I've never been very interested in
using it for anything.

I think that AES built their own minicomputer using ECL back in the
1970s, but I don't recall ever seeing much about its release.

More surprising than the advance of Schottky TTL on ECL was the
startling speedup of CMOS.   Back in the 70s, 4000-series CMOS was among
the slowest logic around.  By the mid 1980s, we were building
supercomputers using CMOS.

--Chuck

Re: Foonlies

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 31, 2018, at 7:20 PM, Mark Linimon via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 10:00:53AM -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
>> An all-ECL redesign (details escape me) resulted in no appreciable
>> improvement in performance.
> 
> But I'm sure the local power company appreciated the extra revenue they
> got from it.
> 
> (I recently donated the little chunk of ECL logic I had back to Rice
> University, where it came from lo those many years ago.  Even by the
> time they were building their "fast" computer in 1970, 74S was already
> starting to catch up.)

Then again, DEC Western Research Lab in the mid 1980s did an interesting 
project to do a full custom single ECL chip implementation of a MIPS (or 
Alpha?) CPU, intended to run at 1 GHz.  The CAD system they built for this was 
quite interesting, as were bits of key technology like a heat pipe based chip 
cooling setup, possibly the first such device.  It wasn't finished (the ECL fab 
shops kept going out of business faster than the CAD team could tweak the 
design rules in the tools) but some neat stuff came out of it, in internal 
reports only unfortunately.

paul

Re: Foonlies

[Mark Linimon via cctalk]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 10:00:53AM -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> An all-ECL redesign (details escape me) resulted in no appreciable
> improvement in performance.

But I'm sure the local power company appreciated the extra revenue they
got from it.

(I recently donated the little chunk of ECL logic I had back to Rice
University, where it came from lo those many years ago.  Even by the
time they were building their "fast" computer in 1970, 74S was already
starting to catch up.)

mcl

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Sam O'nella via cctalk]

For extra credit was it drawn in any particular vintage software or
computer?

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Evan Koblentz via cctalk]

Gene wrote...

Just...no.

Yeah, agreed. No.

Fred wrote...

The "nuts" and "bolts" should be capacitors and chips.
The squared off U shaped object nearest on the desk >should be 
replaced by

an Escher Fork (aka impossible >trident).

soldering iron and scope, instead of hammer.
maybe some magic smoke escaping from whatever he >works on.
inadequate clutter.
howzbout some books and schematics



On Wed, 31 Jan 2018, Jay West wrote:

Completely agreed (Fred). But by the time you add all that... it's too
detailed for a t-shirt. Actually, already is.


Then, howzbout: leave out the guy.  He isn't "distinctive" enough to add 
much.  Then just show a cluttered vintage computer collector workbench.



Guys -- with all due respect, we posted this as a preview, not a 
crowdsourced method to make a whole new design. :)


Most of the feedback we received is very positive.

Re: Foonlies

[Wayne S via cctalk]

 Was this the machine that Triple I/Autologic created  to digitize old color 
film movies?
AFIK, it used lasers to scan the film and create digital color seps that were 
recombined later in the process. It was used in the Kate Winslett / Leonardo 
DiCaprio remake of "Titanic".  Autologic even got a mention in the movie 
credits.

Autologic donated that machine to UCLA for their film preservation archive 
project.

Wayne


> On Jan 31, 2018, at 11:27 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> Al Kossow wrote:
>>> SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
>>> 10,000 TTL IC'S
>>> 3 MIPS
>> 
>> Was this ever built? 10K ICs would have been bigger than the Livermore S-1.
> 
> This says the Superfoonly was designed.  Doesn't say it was actually
> built.  Triple-I funded the construction of the updated design, the F1.
> 
>  "The original superfoonly was designed at Stanford, on an ARPA
>  contract, but Dave Poole, Phil Pettit, and Jack Holloway. There was
>  also a fourth whose role (I think) was to build the CAD system which
>  was used for the design. He later went to work for DEC. DEC took the
>  foonly design and lobotomized it, which became the KL10. The other
>  three came to Triple-I with a proposal to build an updated version of
>  the original design (using ECL instead of TTL).
> 
> http://dave.zfxinc.net/ddyer.html

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

Thanks, Evan. With that bit of background, I personally enjoy the design
quite a bit more- and the 'quirkiness' makes a lot more sense.

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 1:03 PM, Evan Koblentz via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I think it would be helpful if Evan and co. chimed in with the context of
>>> the shirt and why it exists- maybe a bit more about who the guy on it is.
>>>
>>
> Fair enough.
>
> It's a caricature of Dan Roganti aka Ragooman on this list, VC Forum,
> various Apple and S-100 forums, etc.
>
> Dan drew most of the early VCF East shirts in a certain style. Everyone
> liked those. Now he's going through a tough time (not my place to elaborate
> here), so we decided to make a shirt in his honor, using the same style.
>
> My favorite parts are the cat and the robot.
>



-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: where to find ZCPR2, ZCPR3, ZCPR33, ZCPR34?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 1:43 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:

>
> Still looking for ZCPR2 and ZCPR34.
>

Elsewhere nathanael pointed out to me that ZCPR1, ZCPR2, and ZCPR33 may be
found at:
http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/ftp.php?b=cpm/Software/WalnutCD/cpm

So, still looking for the ZCPR34 source code, which is the version upon
which NZ-COM and Z3PLUS are built.

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Evan Koblentz via cctalk]

I think it would be helpful if Evan and co. chimed in with the context of the 
shirt and why it exists- maybe a bit more about who the guy on it is.


Fair enough.

It's a caricature of Dan Roganti aka Ragooman on this list, VC Forum, 
various Apple and S-100 forums, etc.


Dan drew most of the early VCF East shirts in a certain style. Everyone 
liked those. Now he's going through a tough time (not my place to 
elaborate here), so we decided to make a shirt in his honor, using the 
same style.


My favorite parts are the cat and the robot.

Data IO 29B / Unipak 2B adapter?

[Mattis Lind via cctalk]

I need to read a couple of Signetics 82S215 bipolar PROMs with my old Data
IO 29B / Unipak 2B. But it needs a 351B-068 adapter.

Does anyone has information regarding this adapter?

I did find an old post in data_io_ep...@groups.io mailinglist that a man
named Alfred Marin had boards. I even found his email but it bounced.

Any other pointers in this subject?

/Mattis

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Ian Finder via cctalk]

I've been told the fellow in the picture is someone active from the
community who I had never heard of or recognized, but who has fallen ill.-
which is very sad.
And the shirt was made to recognize him.

My criticism of the shirt was, admittedly, originally based on the
"stereotypical computer collector" on front.

While I'm not a big fan of the design in general, it's a nice gesture and I
think it would be helpful if Evan and co. chimed in with the context of the
shirt and why it exists- maybe a bit more about who the guy on it is.

Without this context, I ended up criticizing it for something it didn't
intend to portray- inadvertently insulting the subject in the process. :^(

Context! It's important! Not everyone picks up on every reference.

- Ian



On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 12:31 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> Gene wrote...
>>
>>> Just...no.
>>>
>> Yeah, agreed. No.
>>
>> Fred wrote...
>>
>>> The "nuts" and "bolts" should be capacitors and chips.
>>> The squared off U shaped object nearest on the desk >should be replaced
>>> by
>>>
>> an Escher Fork (aka impossible >trident).
>>
>>> soldering iron and scope, instead of hammer.
>>> maybe some magic smoke escaping from whatever he >works on.
>>> inadequate clutter.
>>> howzbout some books and schematics
>>>
>>
>> On Wed, 31 Jan 2018, Jay West wrote:
>
>> Completely agreed (Fred). But by the time you add all that... it's too
>> detailed for a t-shirt. Actually, already is.
>>
>
> Then, howzbout: leave out the guy.  He isn't "distinctive" enough to add
> much.  Then just show a cluttered vintage computer collector workbench.
>
>
>


-- 
   Ian Finder
   (206) 395-MIPS
   ian.fin...@gmail.com

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/31/18 7:02 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote:

> Just...no.

TOS shirt on someone who looks like Carl Helmers in 1976?

Find someone that can draw, or get serious about Cubism.
This just looks stupid.

Re: where to find ZCPR2, ZCPR3, ZCPR33, ZCPR34?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 12:46 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:

> That site has NZ-COM and Z3PLUS, but I've dug through it and cannot find
> ZCPR2, ZCPR33, or ZCPR34. It's possible that they are there somewhere and I
> just didn't find them.
>

OK. Found ZCPR33 on that site in the FOG collection, disks 205 through 208.

Still looking for ZCPR2 and ZCPR34.

RE: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Gene wrote...

Just...no.

Yeah, agreed. No.

Fred wrote...

The "nuts" and "bolts" should be capacitors and chips.
The squared off U shaped object nearest on the desk >should be replaced by

an Escher Fork (aka impossible >trident).

soldering iron and scope, instead of hammer.
maybe some magic smoke escaping from whatever he >works on.
inadequate clutter.
howzbout some books and schematics



On Wed, 31 Jan 2018, Jay West wrote:

Completely agreed (Fred). But by the time you add all that... it's too
detailed for a t-shirt. Actually, already is.


Then, howzbout: leave out the guy.  He isn't "distinctive" enough to add 
much.  Then just show a cluttered vintage computer collector workbench.

Re: Foonlies

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/31/18 12:25 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
> 
> 
> On 1/31/18 11:27 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote:
>>  There was
>>   also a fourth whose role (I think) was to build the CAD system which
>>   was used for the design. He later went to work for DEC.
> 
> SUDS (Stanford University Design System)
Drawing

http://www.scaruffi.com/svhistory/sil9.html

Electronic Design Automation
The S-1 project to build a supercomputer was started by the astrophysicist 
Lowell Wood at the Lawrence Livermore
National Lab in 1975, first ran a program in 1978 and continued until 1988. Two 
Stanford students, Tom McWilliams and
Curt Widdoes, were recruited to develop SCALD (Structured Computer-Aided Logic 
Design), an influential language to
design computers, written in Pascal on DEC's PDP10  SCALD was based on the 
Stanford University Drawing System (SUDS)
developed at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) first by Phil Petit 
in 1969 on the PDP10 in assembly
language) and later by Richard Helliwell. Petit moved to DEC and used SUDS to 
design the DEC KL-10 of 1973. Therefore
SUDS became the first Computer Aided Design (CAD) system used to design an 
actual computer. Later Bechtolsheim used SUDS
to design the SUN boards at SAIL. SCALD jumpstarted a whole new field, 
Electronic Design Automation (EDA) for electrical
engineering and electronics. Tom McWilliams and Curt Widdoes started a company, 
initially called SCALD Corporation and
later Valid Logic Systems, in 1981 in San Jose to sell SCALD on a proprietary 
UNIX workstation. At the same time, also
in 1981 but in Mountain View, Aryeh Finegold and David Stamm used the 
public-domain source code for SCALD to found Daisy
Systems, that also required a specialized workstation running its own Unix-like 
operating system. Several notable
Silicon Valley founders (e.g. Vinod Khosla, Harvey Jones, Don Smith, Tony 
Zingale, Mike Schuh, George Haber, Dave
Millman and Rick Carlson) started out at Daisy Systems. The third pioneer of 
EDA was Mentor Graphics, founded in 1981 in
Oregon by Tektronix engineers (Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler and Dave 
Moffenbeier) and the only one that didn't require
specialized hardware (it ran on regular Unix workstations).



"released into the public domain in 1978."

BFD. No one has a copy today.

Re: Foonlies

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/31/18 11:27 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote:
>  There was
>   also a fourth whose role (I think) was to build the CAD system which
>   was used for the design. He later went to work for DEC.

SUDS (Stanford University Design System)
also used to design the Livermore S-1

Modified version used at MIT for the CADR

still lives on at XKL

Been searching for the Stanford/MIT SUDS and the Livermore SCALD tools for 
decades.

The DEC SUDS may be somewhere on the DEC LCG backup tapes.



https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/188493.pdf

Re: Foonlies

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

> Jonathan Katz wrote:
>> When I asked about Flight of the Navigator many, many moons ago, I
>> remember the F1 did the special effects for that movie. That means
>> Disney had it for a bit.
> Seems it was at Paramount at that time

I see now I got an email from Gary Demos 18 years ago.  He didn't know
where the F1 went after Paramount.

Re: where to find ZCPR2, ZCPR3, ZCPR33, ZCPR34?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 9:29 PM,  wrote:

> On January 30, 2018 at 3:21 PM Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
> Now I'm still looking for ZCPR2, ZCPR33, and ZCPR34.
>
> I believe you will find this site:
>
> http://www.znode51.de/indexe.htm
>
> useful.  I could be wrong, but I think it has the most up to date zcpr
> software.
>

That site has NZ-COM and Z3PLUS, but I've dug through it and cannot find
ZCPR2, ZCPR33, or ZCPR34. It's possible that they are there somewhere and I
just didn't find them.

Apparently NZ-COM and Z3PLUS are based on ZCPR34, but are fancy
auto-installing things with no source code, whereas what I'm looking for is
the original ZCPR2, 33, and/or 34 distributions that included source code.

Best regards,
Eric

Re: Foonlies

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

Jonathan Katz wrote:
> When I asked about Flight of the Navigator many, many moons ago, I
> remember the F1 did the special effects for that movie. That means
> Disney had it for a bit.

Seems it was at Paramount at that time:

  "Probably the worst moment of my life with the Foonly came after we
  had managed to get it moved to Paramount Studios and were cranking
  through the film for a long sequence for Flight of the Navigator, a
  Disney film.

http://dave.zfxinc.net/f1.html

Re: Foonlies

[Jonathan Katz via cctalk]

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 7:03 PM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> Before I do anything rash, has anyone seriously tried to track down what
> happened to the F1 and/or its software?


When I asked about Flight of the Navigator many, many moons ago, I
remember the F1 did the special effects for that movie. That means
Disney had it for a bit.

Re: Foonlies

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

Al Kossow wrote:
> F1 was the machine that Whitney-Demos had, I think, and there was only ever
> one of them.

Before I do anything rash, has anyone seriously tried to track down what
happened to the F1 and/or its software?

Re: Foonlies

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 01/31/2018 12:00 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 01/31/2018 06:00 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:


Wow, 10 years later, with faster chips, and still the same speed?  That's 
surprising.

I believe that Honeywell went through a similar exercise at one point.
An all-ECL redesign (details escape me) resulted in no appreciable
improvement in performance.


I had a problem with a 16-bit binary counter not having 
enough frequency resolution, and looked at using ECL to be 
able to double the clock.  After much calculating, I found 
that there was not a huge improvement with the ECL.  And, if 
you went to 74S, Fast or 74AS, you could easily match the 
ECL 10K performance.  Now, there were a bunch of tricks that 
you could use with ECL that helped, like wired-OR instead of 
adding a tri-state buffer.  ECL had a notable advantage in 
1970, but as TTL derivatives continued to advance, that 
shrank to nothing.


Jon

Re: Foonlies

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 01/31/2018 11:43 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 1/31/18 12:28 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote:


SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
10,000 TTL IC'S
3 MIPS

Was this ever built? 10K ICs would have been bigger than the Livermore S-1.

F1 was the machine that Whitney-Demos had, I think, and there was only ever
one of them.



Yes, I was wondering about that.  Depending on packaging 
technique, 10K TTL ICs could have been packaged into a 
modest-sized cabinet, but if done on the large Augat panels 
like the National Advanced Systems and some other Foonly 
machines, they would get insanely large.  A roughly 12" 
square WireWrap panel with a grid of 20 x 25 chips would 
hold 500 ICs.  So, 20 of those would do the whole 10K IC 
system.  That could fit in two rack-mount card cages with 
WW, or one card cage if all etched circuitry.  It would need 
a hefty cooling blower, though.


Jon

RE: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Jay West via cctalk]

Gene wrote...
> Just...no.
Yeah, agreed. No.

Fred wrote...
>The "nuts" and "bolts" should be capacitors and chips.
>The squared off U shaped object nearest on the desk >should be replaced by
an Escher Fork (aka impossible >trident).
>soldering iron and scope, instead of hammer.
>maybe some magic smoke escaping from whatever he >works on.
>inadequate clutter.
>howzbout some books and schematics

Completely agreed (Fred). But by the time you add all that... it's too
detailed for a t-shirt. Actually, already is.

J

Re: Foonlies

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/31/2018 06:00 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:

> Wow, 10 years later, with faster chips, and still the same speed?  That's 
> surprising.

I believe that Honeywell went through a similar exercise at one point.
An all-ECL redesign (details escape me) resulted in no appreciable
improvement in performance.

--Chuck

Re: Foonlies

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/31/18 12:28 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote:

> SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
> 10,000 TTL IC'S
> 3 MIPS

Was this ever built? 10K ICs would have been bigger than the Livermore S-1.

F1 was the machine that Whitney-Demos had, I think, and there was only ever
one of them.

Re: Foonlies

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 01/31/2018 08:00 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:



On Jan 31, 2018, at 3:28 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk  
wrote:

This document seems to imply that the Super Foonly and the Foonly F1
were separate machines.  When I've seen them discussed, they always
seemed to be uses synonymously.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/KC10_Jupiter/memos/foonly_19840410.pdf

SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
10,000 TTL IC'S
3 MIPS

F1 (1978)
5,000 ECL IC'S
3.5 MIPS

Wow, 10 years later, with faster chips, and still the same speed?  That's 
surprising.


Oh, but they cut the IC count in HALF!  And, I'll bet, 
doubled the power consumption, too.  If the F1 didn't have 
cache, then they were probably running up against the memory 
bandwidth.


Jon

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Here's a sneak preview of the shirt design for all of the 2018 Vintage 
Computer Federation events. As usual, each event will have a different 
shirt color.
Dan Roganti aka Ragooman used to design the VCF East shirts. Any 
similarity to him or his interests in the current design is purely

coincidental. :)
https://vcfed.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/pnw-shirt-front-1.png



Just...no.


That's not Pavl.


The "nuts" and "bolts" should be capacitors and chips.
The squared off U shaped object nearest on the desk should be replaced by 
an Escher Fork (aka impossible trident).

soldering iron and scope, instead of hammer.
maybe some magic smoke escaping from whatever he works on.
inadequate clutter.
howzbout some books and schematics

Re: Sneak peak: this year's VCF PNW/East/West shirt design

[geneb via cctalk]

On Tue, 30 Jan 2018, Evan Koblentz via cctalk wrote:

Here's a sneak preview of the shirt design for all of the 2018 Vintage 
Computer Federation events. As usual, each event will have a different shirt 
color.


Dan Roganti aka Ragooman used to design the VCF East shirts. Any similarity 
to him or his interests in the current design is purely

coincidental. :)

https://vcfed.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/pnw-shirt-front-1.png


Just...no.

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Foonlies

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 31, 2018, at 3:28 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> This document seems to imply that the Super Foonly and the Foonly F1
> were separate machines.  When I've seen them discussed, they always
> seemed to be uses synonymously.
> 
> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/KC10_Jupiter/memos/foonly_19840410.pdf
> 
> SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
> 10,000 TTL IC'S
> 3 MIPS
> 
> F1 (1978)
> 5,000 ECL IC'S
> 3.5 MIPS

Wow, 10 years later, with faster chips, and still the same speed?  That's 
surprising.

paul

Re: Bluebox boards, anyone?

[systems_glitch via cctalk]

Neat! I'd be interested in a board. I missed out on the ones being handed
out at HOPE in 2008 (The Last HOPE, for which a friend and I embarked on a
last-minute trip to NYC for I think around $150 total, for the both of us).

Thanks,
Jonathan

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 8:04 AM, David Griffith via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> Would anyone like a bluebox PCB or two?
>
> This project was inspired by Don Froula's ProjectMF[1] in which he
> presents a PIC-based bluebox[2] and PCB (handed out at HOPE in 2008).  A
> big reason I like AVRs more than PICs is because the development software
> is OSS and free.  So I reimplemented Don's bluebox in C for an AVR
> ATtiny85.  The PCB started off an a drop-in replacement, but evolved into
> something designed to fit into a Hammond 1591XXM box instead of functioning
> as a lid for a Radio Shack 230-1801 box.  The Hammond box also comes in
> transluscent blue!
>
> The firmware code[3] is done.  I just have to do some tweaks once some
> test PCBs[4] are made because on the prototype, I wired up the keypad a bit
> strangely.  The code implements a 13-key bluebox, a DTMF keypad, a redbox
> for US, Canada, and UK, greenbox, and 2600 dial pulse.  The PCB needs work
> to correct some early design decisions that turned out to be non-optimal.
>
> [1] http://projectmf.org/
> [2] http://projectmf.org/bluebox.html
> [3] https://github.com/DavidGriffith/bluebox-avr
> [4] https://github.com/DavidGriffith/bluebox-esquire
>
> --
> David Griffith
> d...@661.org
>
> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
>

Bluebox boards, anyone?

[David Griffith via cctalk]

Would anyone like a bluebox PCB or two?

This project was inspired by Don Froula's ProjectMF[1] in which he 
presents a PIC-based bluebox[2] and PCB (handed out at HOPE in 2008).  A 
big reason I like AVRs more than PICs is because the development software 
is OSS and free.  So I reimplemented Don's bluebox in C for an AVR 
ATtiny85.  The PCB started off an a drop-in replacement, but evolved into 
something designed to fit into a Hammond 1591XXM box instead of 
functioning as a lid for a Radio Shack 230-1801 box.  The Hammond box also 
comes in transluscent blue!


The firmware code[3] is done.  I just have to do some tweaks once some 
test PCBs[4] are made because on the prototype, I wired up the keypad a 
bit strangely.  The code implements a 13-key bluebox, a DTMF keypad, a 
redbox for US, Canada, and UK, greenbox, and 2600 dial pulse.  The PCB 
needs work to correct some early design decisions that turned out to be 
non-optimal.


[1] http://projectmf.org/
[2] http://projectmf.org/bluebox.html
[3] https://github.com/DavidGriffith/bluebox-avr
[4] https://github.com/DavidGriffith/bluebox-esquire

--
David Griffith
d...@661.org

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Re: who is in this picture? (VCF 199x)

[Michael Lee via cctalk]

I believe that's Pavl Zachary...

Photo from 2004 VCF West 7:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/geekmuseum/2908317855



On 1/30/2018 3:55 PM, Bill Degnan via cctech wrote:

https://retropopplanet.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/vintage-computer.jpg

I was not at this particular VCF out in California in the later 90's when
this photo of a DEC exhibit was taken; the original picture from vintage.org
is no longer hosted.

Does anyone have a copy of the old vintage.org exhibit/photo archive?

Bill

Re: X11 expertise on ancient HW sought... (4-plane visual (overlay) via X-server on MS-WIndows)

[Dimitris Theodoropoulos via cctalk]

I believe that my case is identical to the original message of the list and
24-bit is required.
The problematic visual (the one which is not provided by the external
X-server) is the following (I cite an extract from xdpyinfo on the original
system):

*  visual:*
*visual id:0x36*
*class:PseudoColor*
*depth:4 planes*
*available colormap entries:16*
*red, green, blue masks:0x0, 0x0, 0x0*
*significant bits in color specification:4 bits*

At another part of xdpyinfo, I also get the following info:

*screen #0:*
*  dimensions:1280x1024 pixels (342x274 millimeters)*
*  resolution:95x95 dots per inch*
*  depths (4):8, 12, 24, 4*

Please forgive my technical ineptitude, in case I did not answer your
question, but I am not experienced in this domain.
D. Theo

2018-01-30 12:42 GMT+02:00 David Brownlee :

> On 29 January 2018 at 14:22, Dimitris Theodoropoulos via cctalk
>  wrote:
> > Sorry for undiggind this subject so many years later, but have you found
> a
> > solution to your problem? I am facing exactly the same issue, and i have
> > tried all possible windows X server options without success. The only
> > possibility I am working with is with a Mac OS X server, which reports a
> > 5-bit visual.
>
> What bit-depth do you require on the X-server?
>
> David
>

Foonlies

[Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk]

This document seems to imply that the Super Foonly and the Foonly F1
were separate machines.  When I've seen them discussed, they always
seemed to be uses synonymously.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/KC10_Jupiter/memos/foonly_19840410.pdf

SUPERFOONLY   DESIGNED 1968-71
10,000 TTL IC'S
3 MIPS

F1 (1978)
5,000 ECL IC'S
3.5 MIPS



Also, except for the CCRMA F4 at Computer History Museum, does anyone
know about any Foonly machine having been preserved?