Hamurabi Focal source

[Ethan Dicks]

On 3/30/10, Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
> From: "Ethan Dicks" Monday, March 29, 2010 1:26 PM
>> I have it on an original DECUS papertape, IIRC
>> (http://archive.netbsd.se/?ml=cctalk&a=2004-01&m=144185 - yep... there
>> I am talking about it ;-)
>
> Then we just have to twist your arm to upload it somewhere :-).

I might just have to do that.  I have several ways to read papertapes
directly into pre-Omnibus PDP-8s, but I'd have to think a bit on the
best way to attach something to a "modern machine" to read tapes for
uploading.

I have an RS-232<->20mA adapter lying around, but no docs and I
haven't yet reverse-engineered the schematic to ensure it's using the
alternate EIA pins for current loop.  That's one option.  I'm sure I
have an IBM 5150 or 5160 with an original serial card (that could
support current loop), but it'd be at the bottom of a stack in
storage.  Building a current loop adapter from scratch might be the
fastest path.  I have an ASR33 and a DEC PRS/04 reader (both current
loop, one 110 bps, one faster, IIRC).

>> You might be after DECUS tape FOCAL8-5 - "The Sumer Game"
>
> You seem to imply that this *isn't* what you have the tape for?

I'm implying that I don't know for certain that the tape I have is
that exact tape.  I have *a* tape.  I haven't looked at it this year,
so I'm allowing for fuzzy memory.  I might have a tape containing a
later version of the program, if there happened to ever be one.

> Has anyone written Doug and asked him?  (He's not hard to find online.)

I have not.  I just did a few minutes digging (beyond a one-line
drive-by googling) to help the original questor.

Doug would be an authoritative source, but in case he doesn't have a
40+-year-old program lying around in easy-to-access machine readable
form, one could pursue the DECUS route as well.

> Now that would be something.  I've never found any trace of most of
> the DECUS stuff for the PDP-8, except the text blurbs like the one
> quoted above.

I don't have all that much of the older stuff myself - perhaps a
handful of papertapes (less than 10) and perhaps a floppy or two.  My
only exposure to the vast majority of those programs is those same
blurbs that are already well circulated.

-ethan