Hi everyone!
I'm curious; other than Wikipedia what do we know about Whitechapel
workstations? Do any of us have some working in our collections, with
software, disk dumps, etc?
Cheers!
Hi,
n00b alert
Does anyone have a 101 level boot strap guide for someone wanting to get
into creating better-than-dd disk images?
I'm finding myself back in a position where I want to image / preserve
multiple 5¼ & 3½ inch disks. I think all of them are PC compatible
disks. Probably standard FAT-12 and a handful of super capacity disk
formats from the likes of IBM / Microsoft where they tried to squeeze
1.6 (?) MB on a 3½ inch disk.
I have an internal 5¼ inch floppy drive that is in unknown condition
(I've never used / tested it since I got it).
I also have (at least one) 5¼ disk that I acquired as a scratch monkey
disk to test on before working on disks that I care more about.
I was thinking about acquiring a Kryoflux in the next few months and
starting to collect better quality images of disks. I recently saw
someone on Twitter suggest that Kryoflux wasn't the best route to go and
suggested a SuperCard Pro instead.
I had been using the dd command under Linux against a USB connected 3½
inch floppy drive for most things. But I've come to learn that's not as
good as some people would like to see preserved.
So, does anyone have a 101 level boot strap guide for someone wanting to
get into creating better-than-dd disk images?
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
On Fri, 4 Nov 2022 17:53:10 PM Tony Duell <ard.p850ug1(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> More seriously I have a working (last time I turned it on) MG1 with
> monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Also have the technical notes manual and
> an installation disk kit. Another chap I know (I think he's here but
> I'll let him speak up) scanned the manual and coppied the disks last
> year, so there is a backup.This is a 32016-based machine of course. It
>
Yes hello, this is me. In fact, if you would like to see the Whitechapel
MG-1 in my possession in operation, come up tomorrow (Sunday) to the Centre
for Computing History in Cambridge, where the system is on public display
alongside an AT with a busy bunch of Transputers in it. It's all part of
the Retro Computing Festival that's underway this weekend:
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/69485/Retro-Computer-Festival-2022-S…
If you can't make it to Cambridge, then when the machine is running (which
it isn't at the moment --- wait for between 10 AM and 5 PM GMT Sunday), you
can visit the machine over HTTP at http://mg-1.uk . (Note no https.)
Working MG-1s and related machines (like the colour CG-1) are rare owing to
leaky batteries (what else).
I'm very grateful to Tony for his generous sharing of MG-1 materials --- it
helps make it possible to show off the MG-1 in this way! I've got
everything on Google Drive, with links available on the website just
mentioned. Since it's liable to be down when you're reading this, here's an
archive.org link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210625124716/http://mg-1.uk/
Note also this page with links to 42nix 2.6 OS media, also owing to Tony:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210625124758/http://mg-1.uk/42nix/42nix.html
You will probably have to edit archive.org's links out to Google Drive in
order for them to work, but I think it should be pretty easy to do this.
I have been meaning to make disk images of my best-effort reconstruction of
a clean 42nix 2.5 installation (a predecessor to the version linked above),
which I derived from a disk image taken from one of Jim Austin's MG-1s.
There is not a vast difference for the user at the console between 2.5 and
2.6, although they did fix a bug in the TCP/IP implementation that allows a
forking HTTP server running on 2.5 to cause a kernel panic. I suspect
revisions to TCP/IP were required to get NFS working, which, I remember
concluding, had been a new feature for 2.6.
I've never been able to get my hands on GENIX.
All sorts of spare boards, including things like never-populated bare
> RAM boards for the Hitech,.
>
It took me a lot longer than I like to admit to realise that HITECH was
derived from wHITECHapel...
Speaking of discoveries, I found out today that the Centre for Computing
History is in possession of a couple Hitech MIPS machines (sans cases).
Apparently they might have some media on QIC tapes as well. Tony, I'll try
to get you in touch with the person I was speaking with about this.
Meanwhile TNMOC at Bletchley are in possession of three MG-1s.
--Tom
My apologies if this topic is a sore point for some of you. Their abrupt
closing wasn't that long ago.
Does anybody have any insight on what is going on there? The web site has
not been updated in about 2.5 years. The world seems to be moving on; it
would be nice to know if we're ever going to see the museum re-open, and in
what capacity.
I realize the people are gone and scattered and it's never going to be the
same experience if it re-opens. But there are plenty of us who still
believe in the need for such a place, and starting from scratch would be
difficult.
-Mike
(Off-list replies are welcomed if that makes the discussion easier ...)
>Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2022 20:44:34 -0700
>From: Stan Sieler <sieler(a)allegrosupport.com>
>Subject: [cctalk] list problem with digestmode
>
>Hi,
>
>Is anyone else getting 4 to 10 digest emails a day, each with 4 to 8
>messages?
>(cctalk) (Instead of one a day)
<snip>
>Stan Sieler
Same here. I have not changed my email service, so that is not the cause. The change began when the new list server went online.
Bob
Hi,
Is anyone else getting 4 to 10 digest emails a day, each with 4 to 8
messages?
(cctalk) (Instead of one a day)
I have received four digest emails since noon: 2:57PM (8 msgs), 3:47 PM (7
msgs), 5:44 PM (7 msgs), and 8:24 PM (6 msgs). (Yes, all embedded messages
are different.)
I tried emailing the list owner, but the only response I got was from a
moderator (Lawrence W, who specifically said he wasn't the owner), who
wasn't able to help me. (He did suggest checking my mode...see below.)
I tried going to the website to "login" and check my status...it said my
email address wasn't known (which, of course, was patently false...since
I'm receiving emails :)
So, I tried: subscribe with sieler(a)allegro.com, ensure I have 'digest' mode
on.
And.....still get multiple messages per day ... *not* what a digest is!
This started happening on the order of 3 to 6 months ago. I used to get a
single digest a day, with 20 to 50 messages in it.
The multiple messages (even though they're smaller) are really annoying.
As a possible clue...somewhere around March we (my business partner and I)
sold our domain, allegro.com, in the process of retiring. The new owner is
providing two years of email forwarding of sieler(a)allegro.com to
sieler(a)allegrosupport.com (the latter is a gmail corporate managed account,
as allegro.com had been prior to March). (Oh, I tried "logging" in via
both domains with no luck.)
If the forwarding is a factor, I could try to get allegro/allegrosupport
unsubscribed and use a third account :)
thanks!
Stan Sieler
sieler(a)allegro.com
sieler(a)allegrosupport.com
sieler(a)gmail.com
From: Gavin Scott <gavin(a)learn.bio>
Subject: [cctalk] 50 Years of the HP 3000
> Well, here we are. If you boot up a classic HP 3000 system and simply
> hit return when it asks you for the date and time, it will default to:
As it turns out, I have a complete, working HP 3000 917/LX system, with
printers, a line printer with stand, 14-port terminal concentrator, four HP
700-series terminals (one new in box, one likely dead), SCSI disk storage
module with a couple of 2GB drives, DAT drive, and all of the necessary
cables. It all seems to work perfectly (with the exception of the one
worn-out terminal), and I booted it up a couple of months ago with no
problems. The passwords have been removed from the MANAGER.SYS account, so
the system is now wide open. There's also some software: ASK/ManMan,
FORTRAN, and of course TurboIMAGE and Query; also a copy of Reflection
(Windows emulator for HP terminals). There's also in excess of 100 pounds
of documentation, and some boxes of paper, including green-bar (remember
that?).
The thing is, despite aspirations from my youth, I really don't need a
complete timesharing computer system in my house, so I'm looking to sell the
whole thing as a package. It seems possible that someone on this list might
be interested, and I'm also open to suggestions about other places I could
list it. I took it to the west coast Vintage Computer Faire this year, and
there were several nibbles, but obviously I still have it. It's currently
located in the San Francisco Bay area, but I commute semi-regularly between
there and Portland OR, and could be fairly easily persuaded to deliver it
anywhere in either of those areas, or in between. (The system will fit in a
mini-van - barely - or comfortably in a full-sized pick-up truck with room
to spare.) I'd like to see $2000, but will cheerfully entertain offers
(cheerfully if they're reasonable, or met with hysterical laughter if not).
Feel free to contact me off-list if you'd like more details and/or pictures.
Thanks!
~~
Mark Moulding
I have a box here of 14 DZ11 Unibus 8 line serial port interfaces. And I
have no clue why I have them.
Anyone need some? Otherwise I'll Ebay/recycle them.
CZ
Well, here we are. If you boot up a classic HP 3000 system and simply
hit return when it asks you for the date and time, it will default to:
HP32002E.01.00
WHICH OPTION <WARMSTART/COOLSTART>? COO
ANY CHANGES? N
DATE (M/D/Y)?
WED, NOV 1, 1972, 12:00 AM
LOG FILE NUMBER 64 ON
*WELCOME*
:HELLO OPERATOR.SYS;HIPRI
0:00/13/SP#6/SPOOLED OUT
0:00/#S1/14/LOGON FOR: OPERATOR.SYS,OPERATOR ON LDEV #20
HP3000 / MPE V E.01.00 (BASE E.01.00). WED, NOV 1, 1972, 12:00 AM
which is exactly 50 years ago today. November 1972 was the month that
the very first HP 3000 systems were shipped to customers. Shortly
after this, those initial deliveries were all hastily recalled when it
quickly became clear that they were not yet capable of living up to
their specifications. The 3000 however would go on to recover from
this event and eventually became one of HP's most successful and
profitable product lines, and one of the most beloved computer systems
of all time, regularly beating out IBM, DEC, DG, and others in
customer satisfaction surveys.
For some stories about the earliest days of the platform, I refer you
to the words of Bob Green http://www.robelle.com/smugbook/classic.html
and Bill Foster http://www.teamfoster.com/hewlett-packard who were
there.
The original "Classic" CISC HP 3000 systems live on today through Dave
Bryan's most excellent SIMH simulation
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/hp/ and I have a turn-key setup which
will let you have your own 1980-vintage HP 3000 system up and running
in a couple minutes which is downloadable from my Google Drive at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16vaNUrmfs2aQpjdQijG4PZmJaNu3hfcz
(Save the zip file using the download link in the upper right then
extract it anywhere convenient and see the README file for further
instructions) This only includes a SIMH binary for Windows, but you
can also build a SIMH executable from Dave Bryan's source above for
your platform of choice and use the rest of my infrastructure.
MPE Forever.
G.
The LCM has some of stuff (a Zenith Z150 PC computer, including monitor and an early paged memory expansion that I installed, a couple of Apple IIc computers and monitors, a printer, but probably more important, a bunch of original MS-DOS software diskettes and manuals from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (including several versions of MS-DOS, FORTRAN, MS Word for DOS, an early version of Lotus-123, and other earlier software) that I used to complete my doctoral degree and first start my college teaching position.
But I understood at the time that Paul's LCM was actually "buying" my computer stuff, as they reached out to me in interest to acquire the entire lot of materials (after I had emailed an availability list to this very same cctalk group) and accepted the prices I requested without question as I recall, plus I was reimbursed for all shipping costs. And so I interpreted the transaction at the time that I no longer had rights (other than visitation rights should I ever visited Seattle) to these items.
I may be unclear in my understanding from the time, but at the same time none of what the LCM received from me was so rare or unique as to my wanting to ever request it back again. I was thankful at the time that I had a place for this computer stuff to go. I would be sad, however, if any of it might be now in a dumpster or landfill, or has been sold to someone else, and so I guess I also don't want to hear that news either way.
Kevin Anderson
Dubuque, Iowa
