May 2024 - cctalk - classiccmp.org

by Tarek Hoteit

A friend of a friend had a birthday gathering. Everyone there was in their thirties, except for myself, my wife, and our friend. Anyway, I met a Google engineer, a Microsoft data scientist, an Amazon AWS recruiter (I think she was a recruiter), and a few others in tech who are friends with the party host. I had several conversations about computer origins, the early days of computing, its importance in what we have today, and so on. What I found disappointing and saddening at the same time is their utmost ignorance about computing history or even early computers. Except for their recall of the 3.5 floppy or early 2000’s Windows, there was absolutely nothing else that they were familiar with. That made me wonder if this is a sign that our living version of classical personal computing, in which many of us here in this group witnessed the invention of personal computing in the 70s, will stop with our generation. I assume that the most engaging folks in this newsgroup are in their fifties and beyond. (No offense to anyone. I am turning fifty myself) I sense that no other generation following this user group's generation will ever talk about Altairs, CP/M s, PDPs, S100 buses, Pascal, or anything deemed exciting in computing. Is there hope, or is this the end of the line for the most exciting era of personal computers? Thoughts? Regards, Tarek Hoteit

14 minutes

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NTSC TV demodulator

by wrcooke＠wrcooke.net

I have a couple of 70s/80s "home" computers (e.g. Radio Shack Color Computer) that are intended to connect to a TV set. They don't have easily available composite video, even internally, only modulated RF output. Currently I have an old CRT TV that I use with them, but for various reasons that isn't practical long-term. Does anyone know of a small TV tuner that tunes old analog TV channels (US NTSC) and outputs composite or VGA or HDMI signals? I've looked around a bit but haven't found anything. It's relatively easy to build one, but I would prefer a pre-built solution. And I'm sure others have run into this same problem. Thanks, Will

1 hour, 59 minutes

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Help request with fundraising campaign to save historic computers

by Gianluca Bonetti

Hello everyone I have been following this mailing for a long time but have never posted yet. Simply, I never had something interesting to write about, until now. Apologies for my first message being a funding request, but I trust you will agree with me about the importance of this matter for preserving computer history. I am helping Museo del Computer with this fundraising effort in order to save a large number of machines with significant historic value, including some Sperry Univac systems. Museo del Computer is a non-profit organization in northern Italy, run solely by volunteer work and donors' money since governments are still not interested in computer history. Museo del Computer is one of the largest computer history museums worldwide, with 4000 sqm between exhibition area and storage space, open to the public upon booking. This recovery expedition will go as far as 750km to load 100+ machines onto 3 lorries. The goal is to preserve these history-rich machines for all living enthusiasts and for future generations. All these hundred machines are really pieces of history, around 50 years old (I wasn't even born back then!) They need to be saved, moved carefully, and preserved in the custody of a Museum which we can all benefit from. The fundraising campaign is on Fundrazr at this link https://fundrazr.com/computermuseum Header pictures show some of the actual machines being saved: they are in great condition and probably still working. I trust you understand the importance of this activity in preserving computer history! Your contribution is greatly appreciated! Please share and spread the word! Thank you very much for any contributions! Will keep you posted, and hope to meet you at Museo del Computer any time soon! Gianluca Bonetti

1 day, 21 hours

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Mylar/Sponge Keyboard Repair Kits

by Marvin Johnston

I've got a couple of keyboards where the sponge has disintegrated to the point they no longer work. The latest one is a Vector 3 keyboard and I would love to get it fixed. Can repair kits still be purchased and/or are the instructions for making those sponge/mylar pieces available? Thanks! Marvin

2 days, 1 hour

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Papertape-Reader Decitek 442A9: need manual/schematics

by Michael Fritsch

I have a Decitek 442A9 papertape reader which needs repair. I have already replaced the belt, but that is not enough. The reader behaves very strangely. It starts running as soon as I apply power. And there is another problem: when I load a tape, it rattles irregular during reading. This is not a mechanical problem, it seems to react to the pulse of the feed hole, which arrives at the wrong time. I'm pretty sure, that I have to adjust the sprockets somehow relative to the stop positions of the stepper motor. It was nothing to be found online except pictures of a similar model 443A9 at RICM: https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/dec-pdp-8s-4. The controller board number is 30291A Does anyone happen to have the manual and/or schematics or any other documents? Thank you, Micha

2 days, 18 hours

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Re: Random items on Pascal #3

by Fred Cisin

Turbo-Pascal was quite popular. At the annnouncement of it (West Coast Computer Faire), Phillipe Kahn (Borland) was so inundated with "yeah, but what about C?" questions, that by the end of the first day, "Turbo C is coming soon"

2 days, 21 hours

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ANSI-M (Mumps) and the VA

by Bill Gunshannon

With the VA dropping Vista what happens to that army of Mumps programmers they had? Can't see much call for them in the IT world today. Seems like a worse fate than COBOL Programmers. bill

3 days, 11 hours

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BASIC

by Murray McCullough

Nostalgia keeps pressing ahead: It was 60 yrs. ago that BASIC came into existence. I remember very well writing in Apple Basic and GW Basic later on. As a non-compiled OS, an interpreted OS, it was just the right tool for a microcomputer with limited memory. I recall fondly taking code from popular magazines and getting them to run. It was thrilling indeed! Happy computing, Murray 🙂

3 days, 14 hours

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Re: Random items on Pascal #3

by Charles

In the early '80's, I did some programming with Micro Concurrent Pascal, on embedded CDP1802 systems. It was really nice to be able to program in something other than assembly language (a cross-assembler that ran on a PDP-11 system). Regarding protections, it didn't have many. I remember spending a day tracking down a fatal bug with a logic analyzer (emulators were still a dream in this small company)... another programmer had used an array subscript out of range and the compiler didn't catch it for some reason. So in this array defined [0..20], when the typo caused a write to FOO[60] instead of FOO[20], bad things happened. Ah, the good old days ;) -Charles

1 week

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Saga of CP/M

by Fred Cisin

PL/M (think "PL/1") was a high level programming language for microprocessors. CP/M was also briefly called "Control Program and Monitor" It was written by Gary Kildall. (May 19, 1942 - july 11, 1994) Gary taught at Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey. He took a break in 1972, to complete his PhD at University of Washington. He wrote 8008 and 8080 instruction set simulators for Intel, and they loaned him hardware. In 1973? he wrote CP/M. He offered it to Intel, but they didn't want it, although they marketed the PL/M. He and his wife started "Intergalactic Digital Research" in Pacific Grove. Later renamed "Digital Research, Inc." CP/M rapidly became a defacto standard as operating system for 8080 and later Z80 computers. In the late 1970s, when CP/M computers were available with 5.25" drives, and there were hundreds, soon thousands of different formats, I chatted with Gary, and pleaded with him ot create a "standard" format for 5.25". His response was a very polite, "The standard format for CP/M is 8 inch single sided single density." I pointed out that formats were proliferating excessively. His response was a very polite, "I understand. Sorry, but the standard format for CP/M is 8 inch single sided single density." In 1980? IBM was developing a personal computer. (y'all have heard of it) One of the IBM people had a Microsoft Softcard (Z80 plus CP/M) in his Apple. IBM went to Microsoft, to negotiate BASIC for the new machine, and CP/M. Bill Gates explained and sent them to Digital Research. When the IBM representatives arrived, Gary was flying his plane up to Oakland to visit Bill Godbout. He hadn't seen a need to be present, and assumed that Dorothy would take care of the [presumably completely routine] paperwork. While visiting Bill godbout, and delivering some software was important, it WAS something that a low level courier could have done. There was a little bit of a culture clash. The IBM people were all in identical blue suits. The DR people were in sandals, barefoot, shorts, t-shirts, braless women, with bicycles, surfboard, plants and even cats in the office, The IBM people demanded a signed non=disclosure ageement before talking. Dorothy Kildall refused. When Dorothy got Gary on the phone, it is unreliably reported that he said, "well, let them sit on the couch and wait their turn like the rest of the customers." It is also been said that DR people upstairs saw the IBM people marching up, and thought that it was a drug raid. I have stood in that bay window overlooking the front door, and can believe that. IBM chose to not do business with DR and went back to Microsoft. When billg was unable to convince them that Microsoft was not in the operating system business, Microsoft went into the operating system business. They bought an unlimited license to QDOS (Tim Paterson's work at Seattle Computer Products). They also hired Tim Paterson. DR was working on CP/M-86, but it was a ways off. Paterson had written QDOS ("Quick and Dirty Operating System") as a placeholder to be able to continue development while waiting for CP/M-86 We've mentioned before, that Tim Paterson got the idea for the directory structure from Microsoft Standalone BASIC. As Chuck pointed out, that was not a new invention, merely a choice of which way to do it. billg knew how to deal with officious managers. It is unreliably said that he told the Microsoft people, "Everybody who does not own a suit, stay home tomorrow!" IBM insisted that Micorsoft beef up security. window shades, locks on doors that normally weren't, locks on file cabinets, etc. It is unreliably said that to throw off anyboy who heard about it, that Microsoft referred to the IBm project as "Project Commodore" dr continued to sell CP/M. When the 5150/:PC was ready, IBM announced it with PC-DOS, which was a renaming of MS-DOS,renaming 86-DOS, renaming QDOS. If I recall correctly theprice was $40 (or maybe $60?) DR pointed out that NS-DOS was extremely similar to CP/M. https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~johnsojr/2012-13/fall/cs370/resources/An%20Insid… IBM didn't consider it a problem, andsimply offered to ALSO sell CP/M-86, particularly since they were already also marketing UCSD P-System. CP/M-86 was not available yet, so everybody buying a disk based PC bought PC-DOS. But, most of us assumed thata CP/M-86 would become the standard once it came out, and PC-DOS was similar and let us use the machines while waiting. CP/M-86 took a long time to come out (6 months is a LONG time in such things). When it did, the price was $240. There are disagreemnets about whether DR or IBM had set the price point. Most decided to keep using Pc-DOs until CP/M-86 had caught on. But with the price differential, and the lead, PC-DOS remained the standard. dr continued, came out with MP/M-86, and eventually came out with "Concurrent DOS", and "DR-DOS", which was based on MS-DOS. Microsoft could not fault somebody for copying them, when it was the ones that they had copied. No, Microsoft could certainly not claim trademark status for "DOS"! In fact, although Microsoft trademarkd "MS-DOS", IBM did NOT trademark PC-DOS, saying that it just meant Personal Compter Disk Operating System, which is a description, not a unique name. In 1987, I visited the Patent and Trademark Office outside of Washington, DC, and personally confirmed that in their stacks. Many people have said that blowing off IBM was the stupidest move in the history of stupid moves. Other people insist that blowing off IBM was the BRAVEST move in history. A lot of people gave Gary flack about it. eventually, he bagan drinking. On July 8, 1994, Gary fell and hit his head. It is unclear whether that was during an altercation. (A lot of people fall during bar brawls) It was at the Franklin Street biker Bar & Grill, Investigation as a potential homicide was inconclusive. About 10 years ago, I was in Pacific Grove, and visited the DR house on Lighthouse street. An extremely hospitable fellow had recently bought it in a foreclosure sale. At the time that he bought it, he was unaware of the historical significance. He let me wander through the whole place, looking out the upstairs window at the walkway, etc. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

1 week, 1 day

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