I hadn't worked with him and unfortunately only know his name from others speaking of his work. As you heard I believe he had one of the largest/complete collections of cp/m out there. He seemed like the go to guy if there was an image needed. From what I understand there wasn't an online archive of it so he just had the collection in some form offline (probably due to copyrights and liability) but he'd offer the image upon request.
I thought Curtis on the vintage-computer forums had also begun creating cp/m images after Don's collection was deemed "lost". I don't recall if he was in touch with the family as well.
These are just my passer by views though. I'm sure others here knew him better than my speculations.
https://sites.google.com/site/pauldunn/
SpecBAS is a remake of Sinclair BASIC - it's faster, far more powerful
and more colourful than Sinclair BASIC has ever been!
SpecBAS incorporates all the features of Sinclair BASIC, but with more:
Procedures, with both referenced and normal variable parameters
Flow control with DO..LOOP, WHILE..LOOP, DO..UNTIL
Better array handling, with variable BASE settings and FOR..EACH support
Better string handling with LEFT$, RIGHT$, MID$, REPEAT$ etc
Memory banks which can be loaded, saved and utilised to hold a variety
of data types
Many, many more maths functions, with both radians and degrees support
Graphics with 8bpp in any supported resolution with full palette
changing, rotation, scaling etc
Sound support with MOD/S3M/XM/IT/MP3/VOC/WAV etc
Turtle graphics, sprites, tilemaps.
And it has less:
No more attribute clash
no 48k restriction
full disk access, so no tapes!
No more beeper :)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
> On 14 Nov 2012, at 23:09, Dave Caroline <dave.thearchivist at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 8:36 PM, Dave Caroline
> > <dave.thearchivist at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Ed Spittles <ed.spittles at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>> On 29 Apr 2012 at 18:46, Richard Smith wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> This thread reminds me of a computer we built at school from discrete
> >>>> transistors. Each transistor was a NOR gate with three resistors on
> >>>> the base and a collector resistor. All soldered onto squares of tag
> >>>> board. We put a bunch of them together to build a shift register with
> >>>> small laps as output. That would be about 1969 or 1970. Does anyone
> >>>> remember any more? It must have been a published design somewhere.
> >>>
> >>> Richard, I think I read the book this project was based on - in the
> >>> school
> >>> library, mid-to-late 70's. I've been looking for it, but my
> >>> recollection
> >>> is so vague I haven't found it yet. I think it may have kicked off
> >>> with
> >>> some physical computing based on wood and ball bearings, but anyhow it
> >>> worked up to a full serial CPU. My searches have been based on the
> >>> recollection that the author was Wilkinson (but maybe Wilkins, Watson,
> >>> Wilson, Watkins, Watkinson, ...) and, of course, it might not even
> >>> have
> >>> starte with W.
> >>
> >> How about the magazine wireless World
> >>
> >> http://www.fano.co.uk/history/WWcomp.html
> >>
> >> I do believe I have the set of articles here somewhere
> >
> > Now found and scanned but due to the state of the paper are scanned in
> > greyscale
> > The article above refers to it continuing into 1968 but the stuff I
> > have found ends in December 1967
> >
> > pm me for url as the files are large and cannot handle a download swarm.
> >
> > Dave Caroline
>
> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:30:43 +0000
> From: Richard Smith <mole42 at gmail.com>
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm interested in what you have found, I'd love it to be an article about
> the computer. It's a long time ago and I have only vague memories of
> soldering the logic units - some of the older boys got to assemble the
> actual machine!
>
> Best regards,
> Richard
I'm very excited about Dave's scans, because the circuits look right and
the date of 1967 would allow for both Richard's experience of building this
at school and for the author to have published as a book. He states the
intention of using the design as a teaching tool. Unfortunately there's no
named credit in the scanned pages (anything in the contents list Dave?).
But we do have "The computer will be on show at the R.S.G.B exhibition."
The one-transistor NOR gate and the toggle-flop design are both as I
remember them. Likewise the fact that it's bit-serial rings a bell.
Dave: can I assume you're happy for me to re-publish some or all of your
scans? I want to clip out at least some diagrams and tables.
[Does this list allow for attachments or MIME emails?]
Fourpence-ha'penny for a diode!
Cheers
Ed
> From: <arcarlini at iee.org>
> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, <cctech at classiccmp.org>
> Cc:
> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 22:21:14 -0000
> Subject: RE: cctech Digest, Vol 111, Issue 27
> Michael Thompson [michael.99.thompson at gmail.com]:
>> I was part of the team that created the Futurebus+
>> specification. My name is in the front with the other authors.
>
> Indeed it is. After digging up P896.1 I went and checked Digital Tech
> Journal V5 N1,
> which includes an article about the DECnis and that does indeed use FB+.
>
> I've found one Cobra (DEC 4000) document that indicates it uses FB+ too.
DEC also published the "Futurebus+ Handbook for Digital Systems", ec-h1363-41.
Google finds Postscript versions.
I have a printed copy and could send it to Al for scanning.
--
Michael Thompson
> From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:09:10 -0500
> Subject: Re: FS: HP AlphaServer DS15
> Nice. I have a couple of older Alphas (one is *much* larger, with a
> Futurebus+), so I know a little about the line, but not the later
> models. I had no idea HP packaged them up with their hot-swap drives.
> I've only ever seen DEC-badged Alphas in person.
>
> -ethan
I was part of the team that created the Futurebus+ specification.
My name is in the front with the other authors.
--
Michael Thompson
Hi Guys,
I've been following this thread but don't (or rather didn't) know of Don
Maslin. From what's been written it seems he's passed away and was a
collector/cataloger of CP/M disks for a whole range of systems. Obviously
he's well known to this group. For the sake of us "newcomers" can someone
elaborate a little on Don's life and his contribution to community?
Terry (Tez)
Al writes:
> Tim writes:
>> I fully expect that his archive is a large collection of 8", 5.25", and 3.5" floppies.
> In the system.txt file, there are quite a few ".zip" files listed.
Yes there are, but those are not Don's speciality, which was CP/M boot disks.
The zip files I gave to Don tended to be things
like BIOS source files, disassemblies, etc. Probably true for
others too. Often these were closely associated with a particular
system or boot disk.
Don never made the leap to "disk image" being the central focus. Possibly
With good justification because he supported many non-FM/non-MFM formats
(GCR, hard sectored, etc.) that teledisk et al did not handle.
Tim.
