February 2026 - cctalk - classiccmp.org

Recommendations for 8051 software tools?

by Paul Flo Williams

I've started working on a disassembly of the Digital VT320 video terminal, so I'm diving into 8051 assembler. At the moment, I'm using the D52 disassembler and am getting decent results, although I wished I hadn't used the analyse option to produce a starting control file; it doesn't cope at all well with code involving lots of jump tables because the control flow appears to break, and it decides that much of the code is just data. Ho hum. Nevertheless, the code looks pretty understandable at the moment, so the next stage is to annotate by hand, instead of updating the control file, and to assemble whenever I make a change so that I can be sure that I can produce the original ROM. There isn't an "A52" to match D52, so I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for a FOSS macro assembler that will take D52's output. I ask for a macro assembler because there are some modifications I'd like to make to the source file to clear things up. One of these would be to cope with the fact that DEC decided that all of their jump tables would have addresses in little-endian format, despite the 8051 being a big-endian device. So, the normal "dw" directive is not going to work for me, and I'll need to do something like: dwl macro %1 db low(%1), high(%1) endm (Totally pulling that syntax out of my bum, btw.) A quick search finds as31 and naken_asm - anyone use these? I'd also love to hear recommendations for emulator code for the 8051, preferably simple C because I'm going to need to hook up a 2681 DUART, 5911 EEPROM and DC7081 video chip (all presumably new code) to get this working. Paul.

6 months

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Re: Everex Step/MP: Did it ship?

by Chris Zach

On 2/21/26 07:48, emanuel stiebler wrote: > Everex had their own Unix version (5.4?), "ESIX" which ran on intel. > Probably they ran that? No, it ran SCO Unix, which was the business version popular at the time. I found the ad and edition of computerworld in the Internet Archive: The issue is the June 22nd 1992 one and it has all sorts of interesting articles and predictions from people like Gates, Jobs, Wang, Bell, and others. Going to be worth a read here. Anyway, on the PDF download it starts at page 186-189. They benchmarked it against a Dec 433MP (could also do 6 processors) and a SystemPro (2) with 60 user loads. Wow.

6 months

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Wyse 520

by me＠scifidan.com

A buddy of mine showed off his Wyse 520 and was wondering if anyone on here has one and if you use it. It's a nice looking keyboard but I'm not that fond of the small screen. Daniel sysop | Air & Wave BBS finger | calcmandan(a)bbs.erb.pw

6 months

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Sun 386i ROM/Firmware image?

by Michael Engel

Hi, did anyone ever create an image of the Sun 386i firmware (EP)ROM? There was a discussion on cctalk two years ago, but it seems the ROM was not dumped back then. https://marc.info/?l=classiccmp&m=171014099801502 The firmware dump would obviously be very useful to write an emulator for the 386i. Our department here at Bamberg Uni bought four 386i machines back in 1989 as their first workstations for a whooping 230k German Marks. It would be nice to be able to show a running machine or an emulation at our upcoming anniversary (the department itself was only founded 25 years ago, but the 386i machines were purchased more than a decade before that date by the people who later founded the department), but none of the 386i machines here have survived.. So if someone has a 386i for sale (ideally in Europe, I'm in Germany) I'm also interested... Best, Michael

6 months

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Re: Recommendations for 8051 software tools?

by trp

What timing! I’ve been down the 8051 rabbit hole for a few months now. I cut my professional teeth on Intel assembler back in the mid 80’s so. Never worked with the 8051 (8048/8085/8086/8088 were the processors I used). What I’ve found so far that may be of use are: SDCC (Small Device C Compiler). It has an assembler, sdas. I haven’t used it. I also found the original Intel Macs-51 tools (macro assembler, linker, librarian). I probably prefer the Intel tools because they remind me of the tools I used way back when. The Intel DOS tools will run on msdos emulators, dosbox-x is one I found useful. It is possible to run dosbox-x without the gui (set up the DOS commands in the autoexec.bat) dosbox-x -silent -nomenu The Intel DOS tools are located here: https://www.retrocomputing.nl/wp-content/uploads/PLM-51/PLM51_V1_2.zip https://www.retrocomputing.nl/wp-content/uploads/PLM-51/PLM51_V1_4.zip Intel documentation can be found with an internet search at a number of sites. The relevant titles are: MCS-51 MACRO ASSEMBLER USER'S GUIDE MCS-51 UTILITIES USER’S GUIDE FOR DOS SYSTEMS EXTERNAL PRODUCT SPECIFICATION FOR THE MCS-51 OBJECT MODULE FORMAT The msdos emulator is here: https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/releases/tag/dosbox-x-v2026.01.02 I ran into problems building SDCC from the “official” repo. I used the following repo sucessfully: https://github.com/swegener/sdcc.git

6 months

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Re: Chat program for RSX

by Vasile Buruiana

I hope this message arrives in the proper talking group as it is my first reply within years of reading everything. If you are getting chastised for using an old computer, just tell everybody that even the worst modern virus of today does not fit inside the RAM of your dinosaur, so you are 99.99% protected. Security through obscurity. Ask your colleagues if they have the same level of protection given only by the existence of any of their systems, and no other additional software. I am writing this from an old terminal connected to a FELIX C-256 Romanian made mainframe from the 1970s. That is a clone of the French IRIS-50 made by Companie Internationale pour Informatique. Now that's an ugly beast. Try to telnet to some modern small system running some BSD / Linux, which talks to the world, then use BitchX or some other text-based IRC client to chat. I am sorry I am in a hurry, big boss at work wants his paperwork done. Best regards Vasile Buruiana Doctor of communist digital dinosaurs On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 8:00 PM <cctalk-request(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > Send cctalk mailing list submissions to > cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via email, send a message with subject or > body 'help' to > cctalk-request(a)classiccmp.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > cctalk-owner(a)classiccmp.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..." > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Chat program for RSX (Jacob Ritorto) > 2. Re: Chat program for RSX (Daniel Seagraves) > 3. Re: Chat program for RSX (emanuel stiebler) > 4. Re: Chat program for RSX (ben) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:47:31 -0500 > From: Jacob Ritorto <jacob.ritorto(a)gmail.com> > Subject: [cctalk] Chat program for RSX > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <CA5293FC-836F-4D0C-AE16-9404CF0E7E8A(a)gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hi, > > I like period correct hardware terminals for authentic immersion feels and > have been tending to RSX (and UNIX) PDP-11s since my teen years, quite a > long time now. I keep them in my living room and den, etc. Convincing > setups that quite look the part. And actually *are* the part; running much > as though it’s still 1986. Very little emulation “cheating.” Real SMD > disks, even, sometimes. > > Anyway, one of the many fun things I do with them is chat rooms. People > are like, “you connected here on a WHAT?” > > In doing this I find myself often chastised by my esteemed Internet > colleagues for using such “horrible” computers because “That’s the worst > possible computer you could pick” (real quote, minus some aspersions about > power consumption) and “what loser can’t scroll up and look through chat > that’s more than 24 lines back?!?” > > I try to ignore all this in the name of “progress,” but, I mean, they have > a point. As much as I’m having a nice time with all this, it does hurt > quite enough already for all the other obvious reasons and then I CAN’T > SCROLL BACK?!? Come on. > > When you think about it retrospectively, this _is_ actually kind of bad, > right? > > So What? Quit the real terminal and computer and use a modern laptop? > > Hell no. > > It strikes me that scrollback is a silly thing to condemn such a storied > lineage of computers over, but that’s exactly what’s happening in this > contemporary vale of tears. My friends think PDP-11s suck because they > can’t scroll (and, yes, perhaps some other things). > > So I say let’s write a scrolling “terminal” program for RSX. Should work > with serial and telnet (BQT stuff) and DECnet (i.e. $SET HOST XXXXXX). > Actually maybe it doesn’t even have to know about that layer, right? > (Thinking as I write this). Spawn whatever command and it buffers the > output such that you can effortlessly scroll back up through stuff that has > scrolled past. > > Something terribly rudimentary, perhaps, but with at least infinite > scrollback. Like just a dumb scroll back buffer wrapper thing. Writes to > / reads from disk as you accrue characters / cursor up. > > Heck, this would have been a boon in the day for normal use, right? Like > having a glass tty and a real paper printing terminal all in one! I can > scarcely believe it doesn’t already exist. > > Would you folks be into helping with it? If not, I’ll try myself. Did a > bit of this sort of work some decades ago writing a disk imager under RSX > in MACRO-11 using QIO$ calls, looked up fresh from the orange binders > sitting there on the couch. Pretty easy. > > Should we take from screen or tmux? Or do a clean room concept, you think? > I hope it can work under RSX and UNIX. RSTS/e, too, anyone? RT? > > If you have opinions about this or if it already exists, let me know, pls. > > thx > jake > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 07:57:48 -0600 > From: Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav(a)lunar-tokyo.net> > Subject: [cctalk] Re: Chat program for RSX > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <6656C51C-12BD-4D8F-8419-C82A0439A88F(a)lunar-tokyo.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > > > > On Feb 15, 2026, at 11:47 PM, Jacob Ritorto via cctalk < > cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > I like period correct hardware terminals for authentic immersion feels > and have been tending to RSX (and UNIX) PDP-11s since my teen years, quite > a long time now. I keep them in my living room and den, etc. Convincing > setups that quite look the part. And actually *are* the part; running much > as though it’s still 1986. Very little emulation “cheating.” Real SMD > disks, even, sometimes. > > > > Anyway, one of the many fun things I do with them is chat rooms. People > are like, “you connected here on a WHAT?” > > > > In doing this I find myself often chastised by my esteemed Internet > colleagues for using such “horrible” computers because “That’s the worst > possible computer you could pick” (real quote, minus some aspersions about > power consumption) and “what loser can’t scroll up and look through chat > that’s more than 24 lines back?!?” > > > > I try to ignore all this in the name of “progress,” but, I mean, they > have a point. As much as I’m having a nice time with all this, it does > hurt quite enough already for all the other obvious reasons and then I > CAN’T SCROLL BACK?!? Come on. > > If you have a decwriter or teletype instead of a glass tty, your scroll > back is however much paper you can keep around. > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:16:34 -0500 > From: emanuel stiebler <emu(a)e-bbes.com> > Subject: [cctalk] Re: Chat program for RSX > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <c0be7865-5bb1-4d7a-8b2d-cbb9955549e0(a)e-bbes.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > On 2026-02-16 08:57, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote: > > > > > >> On Feb 15, 2026, at 11:47 PM, Jacob Ritorto via cctalk < > cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> I like period correct hardware terminals for authentic immersion feels > and have been tending to RSX (and UNIX) PDP-11s since my teen years, quite > a long time now. I keep them in my living room and den, etc. Convincing > setups that quite look the part. And actually *are* the part; running much > as though it’s still 1986. Very little emulation “cheating.” Real SMD > disks, even, sometimes. > >> > >> Anyway, one of the many fun things I do with them is chat rooms. > People are like, “you connected here on a WHAT?” > >> > >> In doing this I find myself often chastised by my esteemed Internet > colleagues for using such “horrible” computers because “That’s the worst > possible computer you could pick” (real quote, minus some aspersions about > power consumption) and “what loser can’t scroll up and look through chat > that’s more than 24 lines back?!?” > >> > >> I try to ignore all this in the name of “progress,” but, I mean, they > have a point. As much as I’m having a nice time with all this, it does > hurt quite enough already for all the other obvious reasons and then I > CAN’T SCROLL BACK?!? Come on. > > > > If you have a decwriter or teletype instead of a glass tty, your scroll > back is however much paper you can keep around. > > > > THAT'S the vintage spirit! ;-) > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:55:41 -0700 > From: ben <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> > Subject: [cctalk] Re: Chat program for RSX > To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <28c01576-53b9-4478-aea2-74ddb54bb225(a)jetnet.ab.ca> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > On 2026-02-16 7:16 a.m., emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: > > On 2026-02-16 08:57, Daniel Seagraves via cctalk wrote: > >> > >> > >>> On Feb 15, 2026, at 11:47 PM, Jacob Ritorto via cctalk > >>> <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi, > >>> > >>> I like period correct hardware terminals for authentic immersion > >>> feels and have been tending to RSX (and UNIX) PDP-11s since my teen > >>> years, quite a long time now. I keep them in my living room and den, > >>> etc. Convincing setups that quite look the part. And actually *are* > >>> the part; running much as though it’s still 1986. Very little > >>> emulation “cheating.” Real SMD disks, even, sometimes. > >>> > >>> Anyway, one of the many fun things I do with them is chat rooms. > >>> People are like, “you connected here on a WHAT?” > >>> > >>> In doing this I find myself often chastised by my esteemed Internet > >>> colleagues for using such “horrible” computers because “That’s the > >>> worst possible computer you could pick” (real quote, minus some > >>> aspersions about power consumption) and “what loser can’t scroll up > >>> and look through chat that’s more than 24 lines back?!?” > >>> > >>> I try to ignore all this in the name of “progress,” but, I mean, they > >>> have a point. As much as I’m having a nice time with all this, it > >>> does hurt quite enough already for all the other obvious reasons and > >>> then I CAN’T SCROLL BACK?!? Come on. > >> > >> If you have a decwriter or teletype instead of a glass tty, your > >> scroll back is however much paper you can keep around. > >> > > > > THAT'S the vintage spirit! ;-) > Punched cards :) > > > End of cctalk Digest, Vol 1123, Issue 1 > *************************************** >

6 months, 1 week

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Chat program for RSX

by Jacob Ritorto

Hi, I like period correct hardware terminals for authentic immersion feels and have been tending to RSX (and UNIX) PDP-11s since my teen years, quite a long time now. I keep them in my living room and den, etc. Convincing setups that quite look the part. And actually *are* the part; running much as though it’s still 1986. Very little emulation “cheating.” Real SMD disks, even, sometimes. Anyway, one of the many fun things I do with them is chat rooms. People are like, “you connected here on a WHAT?” In doing this I find myself often chastised by my esteemed Internet colleagues for using such “horrible” computers because “That’s the worst possible computer you could pick” (real quote, minus some aspersions about power consumption) and “what loser can’t scroll up and look through chat that’s more than 24 lines back?!?” I try to ignore all this in the name of “progress,” but, I mean, they have a point. As much as I’m having a nice time with all this, it does hurt quite enough already for all the other obvious reasons and then I CAN’T SCROLL BACK?!? Come on. When you think about it retrospectively, this _is_ actually kind of bad, right? So What? Quit the real terminal and computer and use a modern laptop? Hell no. It strikes me that scrollback is a silly thing to condemn such a storied lineage of computers over, but that’s exactly what’s happening in this contemporary vale of tears. My friends think PDP-11s suck because they can’t scroll (and, yes, perhaps some other things). So I say let’s write a scrolling “terminal” program for RSX. Should work with serial and telnet (BQT stuff) and DECnet (i.e. $SET HOST XXXXXX). Actually maybe it doesn’t even have to know about that layer, right? (Thinking as I write this). Spawn whatever command and it buffers the output such that you can effortlessly scroll back up through stuff that has scrolled past. Something terribly rudimentary, perhaps, but with at least infinite scrollback. Like just a dumb scroll back buffer wrapper thing. Writes to / reads from disk as you accrue characters / cursor up. Heck, this would have been a boon in the day for normal use, right? Like having a glass tty and a real paper printing terminal all in one! I can scarcely believe it doesn’t already exist. Would you folks be into helping with it? If not, I’ll try myself. Did a bit of this sort of work some decades ago writing a disk imager under RSX in MACRO-11 using QIO$ calls, looked up fresh from the orange binders sitting there on the couch. Pretty easy. Should we take from screen or tmux? Or do a clean room concept, you think? I hope it can work under RSX and UNIX. RSTS/e, too, anyone? RT? If you have opinions about this or if it already exists, let me know, pls. thx jake

6 months, 1 week

4
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Passing of Robert Tinney

by Murray McCullough

I read a day or so ago that Robert Tinney passed on. I enjoyed his cover-page art on Byte as I’m sure so many more did too. He illustrated in a more-than-impressive way & detail what early microcomputing was. May the computer gods bless him. Murray--

6 months, 1 week

1
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CMS Pipelines for UNIX

by Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)

Okay, third attempt at this, this time with the appropriate Subject header. --lyndon ------- Forwarded Message From: Adam Thornton <athornton(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2024 09:55:30 -0700 Message-ID: <CAP2nic0E=0dLT2JaDJv0OCBQUBaqKd6+2hy30hpKjowPVc76BA(a)mail.gmail.com> To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> Subject: [TUHS] Re: Pipes (was Re: After 50 years, what has the Impact of Unix been?) List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list <tuhs.tuhs.org> On Thu, Dec 5, 2024 at 8:20=E2=80=AFAM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Unix pipelines, on the other hand, tend to be used in a manner that is > strictly linear, without the fan-out and fan-in capabilities described > by Morrison. Of course, nothing prevents one from building a > Morrison-style "network" from Unix processes and pipes, though it's > hard to see how that would work without something like `select`, which > didn't yet exist in 1978. Regardless, Unix still doesn't expose a > particularly convenient syntax for expressing these sorts of > constructions at the shell. > > Rick Troth has recently published xfl, which is pretty much CMS Pipelines for Unix. https://github.com/trothtech/xfl He's got a slide deck on it at http://www.casita.net/pub/xfl/pervasive-vmws-2024.pdf . There are a lot of really cool things you can do with fanin/fanout. Adam

6 months, 1 week

2
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Inquiry regarding Noel Chiappa / Status of Computer History Wiki (Gunkies.org)

by Hans-Ulrich Hölscher

Dear list members, I am writing to this list as I am concerned about J. Noel Chiappa. I have noticed that the Computer History Wiki has been locked for maintenance ("Spam issue") for some time now. As Noel is the primary administrator and heart of the site, this persistent lock, combined with the fact that he hasn't responded to my recent emails, makes me worry about his well-being - especially knowing that he has been facing health challenges. Does anyone on this list have recent information on how he is doing or if there is any update regarding the status of the wiki? I am not looking for private details, but simply a sign that he is okay or if there is anything the community is currently doing to support his projects. You can of course send me a PM if you like. Thank you for any insights you might be able to share. Best regards, Ulli Hölscher aka "VAXorcist"

6 months, 1 week

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2026

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2022

cctalk February 2026