test-drb June 2021

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

100 participants
47 discussions

Interesting photos of a computer graphics lab from 1968

by spam＠hell.org

A friend of mine collects old photos, and sent me a link to this set he just recovered from film. He doesn't know much about the provenance, but it might be interesting to figure out what we can about them. The link is here: https://www.espressobuzz.net/Found/GeorgeClark/GraphicsLab/ The film roll was dated June 1968, which was a month before I was born. The most interesting (to me) is the photo of the Adage Graphics Terminal. I'd never heard of the company before, but it looks like they were one of the many tech companies that sprang up in the MIT & Harvard orbit in the 60s and 70s. There's a small amount of info about the company on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adage,_Inc. Also in the same photo, to the right of the terminal is a silver box that might be an early joystick. It's hard to say. The pictures of the graphics terminal output is pretty cool, given that it's probably really pushing state of the art at the time. Also, they're in color, which was still not terribly common at the time. The only few photos I was able to find of Adage terminals are all black and white. Other recognizable hardware are a couple of ASR33 teletypes (one of which was rebadged as Adage), and some tape drives, the manufacture I don't recognize. Everything else, I pretty much can't make out what any of it is, but perhaps someone recognizes the particular layout of the blinkinlights? He was told that the pictures were taken "somewhere in the northeast". I suspect Boston, and therefore probably MIT or maybe Harvard. On the same roll were some pictures of "a colonial ship with lots of cannons", which I suspect was the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor, but I haven't seen those pics yet. I wonder if the tile pattern on the floor is distinct enough or recognizable? Anyway, it's an interesting set of archival photos, and I figured someone here might find them interesting or might recognize more than I do. -mike

5 years, 1 month

Fwd: Lawrence Moser Breed 1940-2021, A Personal Recollection

by lee_courtney＠acm.org

Sad computer history note - Larry Breed, one of the original implementors of Iverson Notation AKA A Programming Language AKA APL passed away last month. Larry went to work at IBM on the first APL implementation on an IBM 7090 in 1965 as his first job out of Stanford. My path crossed Larry's not thru APL, but when I was working my first retirement job at Hassett Hardware in downtown Palo Alto. Larry would come in to buy parts for his latest Burning Man or community project. He was a delightful person to talk with, learn something from, and just be around. I'm sorry I did not take the time to talk to him more about APL when I had the chance. There's a Wikipedia entry on Larry here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_M._Breed) and remembrances of him on the apl.comp.lang mailing list. God speed Larry and RIP. Lee Courtney

5 years, 1 month

Serial Multisession

by cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net

Does anyone know anything about the "Serial Multisession" that the VT LAN 40, and presumably other terminals, supports? I've not heard about it before and intend to do some research. But I figured that it was an interesting enough topic, that is multiplexing terminal sessions over a single serial link, to warrant further discussion. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

5 years, 1 month

INFAPLUG LAN

by binarydinosaurs＠gmail.com

Hello folks, A random conversation on twitter yesterday lead me to discovering an old 1980s LAN technology called INFAPLUG. This was a serial LAN hooked up via a PC serial port at 9600 baud to a ?smart plug? the size of a wall wart. This plug contained all the smarts and hooked into the coax backbone. There were boards available for VAX amongst other things so I?m amazed I?d never heard of it. Has anyone else? A small writeup is here: https://archive.org/details/lansexplainedgui00curr/page/64/mode/2up?q=infap… <https://archive.org/details/lansexplainedgui00curr/page/64/mode/2up?q=infap…> Cheers! -- Adrian Graham Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest private home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

5 years, 1 month

On compiling. (Was a way off topic subject)

by sieler＠allegro.com

Paul K got it right: "Any language can be interpreted or compiled. For some languages, like LISP and TECO, interpreting is a rather natural implementation techniques, while for others (C, ALGOL) compilation is the obvious answer. But either is possible." A few quick notes... Back around 1973, I wrote a compiler for InterLISP on the Burroughs B6700, with the target code being a new P-code invented just for LISP (by, I think, Bill Gord, based on Peter Deutsch and Ken Bowles P-code work). Yeah, some parts of the P-code machine had to invoke the interpreter, but that's philosophically no different than the next note... Around 1977/1978, Hewlett-Packard released the source code for their COBOL compiler for the HP 3000. My friend looked at the source and said: every statement compiles into a bunch of subroutine calls! So, technically....it was a compiler. But, essentially no machine code was emitted :) In 1984, HP announced their PA-RISC systems (HP 3000 and HP 9000), and that their ALGOL-like language, SPL, used by them and customers on the HP 3000, would not be ported to PA-RISC (because "it wasn't possible"). We looked at it and said: we can. And, we did (without the "subroutine call" mechanism :) In some cases, we emulate a 16-bit wide CISC architecture (e.g., if you use the SPL construct "ASSEMBLE (...)", we compile it...into PA-RISC code emulating the old architecture). It's still in use today, and can now emit either PA-RISC code or C source code (for a form of cross-compiling). What HP missed, and many people miss, is that any language can be compiled. The main question one might ask is the degree of closeness to machine code that's emitted :) Stan

5 years, 1 month

Sovier/Russian 132-pin PGA Ceramic IC Packaging

by pbirkel＠gmail.com

In item https://www.ebay.com/itm/265045229011 I am curious as to whether the gold islands on the top-side are functional test-points giving electrical access to the underside pins? Was there a clip designed to attach to the top-side of these chips for use in circuit analysis? Was this design unique to Russian manufacture (I don't recall ever seeing this design previously)? paul

5 years, 1 month

VT340 Emulation

by mark＠matlockfamily.com

One VT340 emulator that works quite well is the VT Lan 40. This was one of the last terminals made by DEC. It ran Windows 3.1 from ROM and used the LK411-AA keyboard (with the round PC keyboard connector) displaying on a Super VGA LCD display (1024 x 768 x 16 colors) It could connect to several (unto 8) systems simultaneously using a DB25 serial, a MMJ serial, then over its ethernet connector: multiple LAT, CTERM (DECnet) and Telnet (TCP/IP) sessions. The session windows allow cut and paste between Windows. The VT340 emulation seems to be perfect displaying Regis and pixels correctly and handling mouse movements correctly in the VT340 mode. Output from Saturn Graph for VMS works great! It also displays APL overstrike characters correctly with VAX APL using the ^D prefix described in the APL documentation. It also handles some escape sequence quirks that RSX KED does that mess up other VT100 emulators. Being able to use a Super VGA display allows a small footprint compared to a real VT340 (for VCF events) and the fact that it uses a real LK411 keyboard is great. The only minor issue is that they are not cheap, but you can buy new-in-thebox old inventory at: http://keyways.com/vtlan40.html You?ll also need a VT411-AA keyboard sold separately and find a Super VGA LCD display. Fortunately the last item can be cheap. I got a good NEC one at a second hand store for $20. One final comment, the two VT Lan 40s I got eventually had a connector between the front power switch and the actual switch break due to a bad choice of plastic by DEC. However, this can easily be repaired with a 1? piece of 1/8? I.D. PVC tubing from the hardware store. Mark Matlock

5 years, 1 month

On compiling. (Was a way off topic subject)

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 6/23/21 1:14 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > I don't remember the details at this point, but I assume the "execute TECO macro" operation in the Stevens PDP-10 TECO compiler is done in that way. And of course these could keep the compiled code around to reuse if the source string hasn't changed. A modern example of this technique is the regex library in Python, which lets you compile a regex string into a compiled regex object for later use, or lets you perform operations using the regex string directly. The latter form caches a string -> compiled regex cache so doing this in a loop still performs reasonably well. Could be the case of "what does "compile" mean?" If the meaning is "reduce to machine language" maybe not. Otherwise, if the meaning is "interpret", then maybe so. Consider this paragraph of the tutorial at http://www.snobol4.org/docs/burks/tutorial/ch7.htm" -------------------------------------------------------- 7.7 RUN-TIME COMPILATION The two functions described below are among the most esoteric features, not just of SNOBOL4, but of all programming languages in existence. While your program is executing, the entire SNOBOL4 compiler is just a function call away. ----------------------------------------------------------- So maybe not rendering into machine code, but something else. --Chuck

5 years, 1 month

Rockwell 65001EAB3

by brain＠jbrain.com

I know it's a long shot, but wondering if anyone might have a Rockwell 65001 EAB3 type IC lying around in a discard pile or otherwise willing to go to a new home.? Here's a pic of one in the Commodore C900 keyboard: https://i.ibb.co/tZ2m68x/IMG-1538.jpg I see one online for sale, but the both the pricing is untenable for a device I don't need to use but just wanted to research and I also don't want to prohibit a known good device from being available if needed. Jim -- Jim Brain brain at jbrain.com www.jbrain.com

5 years, 1 month

ISO: Docs for Mostek MK8009-CA omnibus memory

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hey all -- Picked up a memory board for my PDP-8/A, it's a Mostek MK8009-CA, currently outfitted with 32KW of memory but with empty pads for another 32KW. Not a ton of documentation on this -- anyone have anything? At minimum, configuration information would be nice, I'd also like to know what it takes to upgrade it to 64KW (apart from 24 more 4116's), so schematics would be excellent. I have this weird idea about extending TSS/8 to use more memory and the advanced features of the KT8-A... - Josh

5 years, 1 month

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test-drb June 2021