40 years ago this year Intel came out with the 80386 – 386 – or i386.
Either seems to be correct. What this meant was a memory address of 4GB,
far beyond what an average computer user would need or want, but was so
much more than previously(8086, 80286); ‘true’ multi-tasking which for the
average computer user didn’t mean all that much; and paging, which made
virtualization possible- experimenters were over-joyed! What all this
contributed to was the end of the classical/vintage-computing era. Whether
this began the time of open-source OS development is debatable!
Happy computing?
Murray 🙂
Via one of the articles about that Unix V4 tape I found this https://eylenburg.github.io/os_familytree.htm which is quite an impressive chart of operating systems old and new.
A few bits are clearly incorrect or missing; for example, P/OS and TRAX are both not there. I was going to mention them to the author of that chart but I don't actually know the correct placement. (Is P/OS an RSX-11/M or M+ derivative? I should know but don't.)
Neat to see RSX-15 mentioned as the ancestor of RSX-11/D. Did the earlier RSX-11 versions ever ship? I know I have seen traces of /A and/or /C...
The DOS-11 and RSTS entries aren't quite right either, I can send feedback for those.
Also, while VMS is reasonably listed as RSX-11/M derivative, I always thought that VAXElan was unrelated. Along the same lines, where would MicroPower/Pascal fit?
paul
It seems that nowadays you can't get *any* replacement for failing DEC
3639 aka 2N3639 transistors. All parts are obsolete and unobtanium, e.g.
2N3640, PN3640, MMBT3640 and so on.
So, what can be used instead? The most important electrical parameter is
the storage time. It needs to be *very* low, around 20-30 ns.
Does it mean that a failing PDP-8 will stay a dead PDP-8 from now on?
Christian
As many have heard, COMPUTE!'s GAZETTE magazine has been resurrected as of
this past July 2025. And its fifth issue for November is just days away.
I'm not sure if attachments are working here, but there should be a catalog
summary of the article titles (for those who aren't subscribed but were
curious to browse the kinds of things being covered).
That same summary catalog is also archived here:
https://github.com/voidstar78/GC_TOC_SUM_CAT/blob/main/CG_2025_TSC_V0_1.TXT
I am looking for the assembler listing for a bootloader for booting from
MSCP disks like RD-disks.
Google has not been very helpful and my assembler knowledge is not enough
for me to write one from scratch. Does anyone have one they can share?
- Peter
I was just looking at some Friden Flexowriter documentation, specifically the later 2300 series. They look somewhat more modern than the well known Flexowriters but seem to be comparable otherwise. I remember seeing a mix in the TU Eindhoven computer center, around 1970.
The documentation mentions an optional feature, the ability to read and punch "edge punched cards". Those look like conventional Hollerith cards, but instead of the 12 row punching with rectangular holes, they are punched along the bottom edge in exactly the same manner as an 8 channel punched tape. In other words, imagine running a blank card through the tape path of a paper tape punch, and that's what you would see.
I never ran into this before. Has anyone ever seen these in the wild?
paul
I have an ANK 2462 keyboard for my Olivetti M24. The lugs on a couple of the
retaining clips for the keyboard enclosure have broken off and disappeared.
In fact, the keyboard came to me with tape holding it together!
I guess I can live with using tape to hold it together, but it would be nice
if I could fix this. I am looking for clever suggestions for how to replace
the lugs. Any good ideas?
The existing lugs look like this:
https://1drv.ms/f/c/fc758a5a91b91301/Es7R00Lwr6lHosNt3JZlX20BXGTxi5N1SkYkl9K
0QAko3g?e=r1UnbI
Thanks
Rob
