Cheyenne is a nice basement system. Only needs 1.75 MW.
The system which replaced Cheyenne is Derecho, a 19.8 petaflop system.
https://news.ucar.edu/132904/scientists-nationwide-launch-first-projects-new-ncar-supercomputer
Last fall, NOAA/NWS replaced theirs (one in Manassas, one in Phoenix)
> I have often wondered about the people we find in the various DEC
> Processor (and other) books. Were they models in staged
> photo-sessions or were these candid shots from DEC facilities and if
> so, can anyone identify who they might be.
Someone asked this about the covers of the old
> I thought, at first, some dirt or debris had gotten stuck there, but
> on closer look I saw something black below the keys that seemed to be
> stuck. I pulled a key cap off and found a U shaped piece of black
> plastic that was put there on purpose to prevent you from depressing
> the key.
> Did something happen to comp.os.vms and/or usenet? All the DEC
> newsgroups appear to be missing from Eternal September.
There has been a huge flood of spam originating from google, in various
newsgroups, for a few months. I saw 15,000 one day in comp.os.vms
alone. This problem has
> Googling for "mirror uxc.cso.uiuc.edu" found me one hopeful hit:
> https://www.funet.fi > pub > misc > Notes.README
Ron,
Another good search approach that I hadn't thought of. Many thanks!
De
> How much is older than that? I didn't think uucp got going until V7
> was released outside of AT in 1980 or 81... I'm sure someone
> will correct my notions though :)
If memory serves (hahahalolrofl...) the origins of usenet go back to at
least 1980. (Ignoring the Plato history.)
What set
> Maybe https://archive.org/details/usenet-mod It includes
> mod.sources.mbox.zip
Thanks, didn't think of that. I've found things in there before.
That takes us back into 1984. The net.* hierarchy is also in the same
collection, and its net.sources mbox goes back to ~1982.
Anyone know of an
Does anyone have or know of an archive of old mod.sources (predecessor
of comp.sources.unix) posts? I know googlegroups has it, but that only
means nothing since it's effectively inaccessible there.
De
> According to a warning on the site: "After many years of service,
> hobbes.nmsu.edu will be decommissioned and will no longer be
> available. You the user are responsible for downloading any of the
> files found in this archive if you want them. These files will no
> longer be available for
> I slept on the problem a bit--good thing that I'm old; I like to
> sleep--and think that I've got it sussed out.
:)
> Tape appears to consist of 4101 byte blocks, each with a "/02CMSx"
> header; the first one seems to be "CMSF" with the intervening ones being
> "CMSV" and then a final 87
> The distance between the CMS header and the CMSN header appears to be
> much larger than 800 bytes--the first, for example is about 4K . The
> next CMS file name header follows about 80 bytes later.
Later versions of the filesystem would be more likely to use 2k or 4k
blocks.
> I don't see
> Ive got a tape here from what I believe to be a VM system. The
> structure is unknown to me, although I can possibly take a stab at
> it. Lots of data between tapemarks that seems to consist of a number
> of records that start out something like this (translated from
> EBCIDC):
I think
> This dislike of “Discord” has touched a nerve for me. It’s also one
> of the reasons the cctalk list has lost most of it value. Discord is
> a collection of channels most devoted to specific subjects that you
> more or less subscribe to. It’s just a server and you need an invite
> to join
> Surely you hyperbole.
Since it's used in Android for various things, and in Firefox and
Chromium for various things, he's not in the least.
De
> I would also appreciate any recommendations for database software.
In addition to GCstar, which is an application you run on your
workstation, there are some open source collection management tools
aimed at museums and the like. Most of the latter probably require some
server side support. A
> I'm looking for a good inventory program to help me keep track of all of
> my PDP-8 stuff.
> I would like to keep track of physical location, board etch revision,
> board modification revision, bus type, where used, etc.
If you're using a unix-like operating system, GCstar seems
> Wait! There is a SCAMP other than Burroughs' Single Chip A-Series=20
> Mainframe Processor.
And then there's the SC/MP.
De
> Starting to go through my boxes of POS stuff. I know of course that
> 3.2 is out there (minus the Pro/Communications option which has a bad
> disk in the distro) however are these disks out there now?
I appear to have diskette sets including Pro Hard Disk 3.0, a 3.1 update
set, DECnet Pro,
> > It is important to keep everyone aware of phishing attempts, but it's=20
> > also important to make sure when you send warning emails to simply=20
> > delete the actual URL that the criminals provide so that nobody=20
> > accidently clicks on something...
> As someone that tends to
> At the most recent CoCoFEST!, I brought home the old Glenside Club
> Computer Hard Drive. The mechanism is an ST-251, and I was wondering
> if someone on-list would be willing to attempt to pull data off the
> drive. I have no ability to configure to read this drive type, and
> the data
> Is there any way to change the orientation of an object on the table
> using just the STL file?
Creality's slicer software is a fork of Cura.
Cura can rotate objects on the platform during the slicing process. Not
sure I've ever actually used Creality's version, but in the more generic
I think I know the answer to this, but just in case:
Is there a way to image ESDI disks other than to hook them up to their
usual host controller and use the host? E.g. for MFM, I'd grab the MFM
Emulator board.
Cheers,
De
Folks,
A heads up that I've turned on some mail veracity signing functionality
in Mailman. One could hope it would just work, and that I made no
mistakes in the configuration, but... :)
I'm working on this to try to improve deliverability of list traffic.
De
Folks,
As I try to track down why various subscribers are getting booted from
the list in the last couple of days, I'm noticing that a number of you
are subscribed from an address that forwards elsewhere.
This works poorly.
TL;DR follows, but basically this is brought to you by the fact that
> Yes, but I am pretty sure it doesn't have the ethernet. And I found
> a bargain on the Beaglebone Black Industrial.
It does have ethernet. They dropped the HDMI output. But the main
advantage is price, so if you already found a deal, win.
De
> Does anyone here know if the Beaglebone Black Industrial is he same
> as the regular Beaglebone Black? I have a couple of the MFM Emulator
> boards to build and will need a couple Beaglebones for them.
They're supposed to be the same except with expanded operating
temperature range.
You
> Kludging something up with a modern supply looks fairly easy; there's
> plenty of room in there, but it will be ugly. Don't know what I'll
> do about the fan, but the VK100 logic itself probably doesn't need a
> fan so whatever is built into the ATX will be enough.
At least the ATX won't
> A friend gave me a DEC VK100 (aka GiGi) recently. It's in really nice
> shape, but it is missing the power supply. Before I try to kludge
> something up with an ATX supply, I thought I'd ask if anybody knows
> where I might find an official replacement.
The board in the supply is an Astec,
> Wow! I'd love to see the 1971 vintage GCR tape controller, it must
> have been the size of a 360 CPU! We had a GCR controller from
> Storage Tech. in 1982 or so that was the same size as a PDP 11/44
> large cabinet. CDC Keystone drives (92185) had it integrated into
> the 680x controller
> I’m working on a project, and I need to know the age of various tape
> formats. For example when were 6250bpi 700’ 9-Track tapes or DC600A
> cartridges introduced? Is there any good resource online that
> documents this? Wikipedia is of some help, but the older you go, the
> spottier it
> Anyone have a dump of the KDJ11-E M8981 11/93 EPROM firmware?
> That would be U106 377E7 V2.01 (I assume the full part number would
> have been 23-377E7)
size 65536
sha256sum f3a4a9932c99a316709ae3f34580478d16b0498ad5af1809f7e7193417498618
url
> Then I'd image the tape with Tapeimgr and see if I could figure out
> what software was used. I've reverse-engineered a few, Retrospect and
> one other, I think I uploaded it all to my Github.
Phil's overall process is good, but you shouldn't use `dd` to image
tapes. It discards tape block
> Has anyone else noticed that the list server is screwing up digest
> emails, starting with Volume #115?
Stan,
Your subscription was set to "Summary Digest". I've switched it to
"Plain Text Digests". Let's see if that makes things better.
De
> 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 dug into the list digest settings a little. It looks like the way the
migration tool set them doesn't match the old
> Is Constant Linear vs Angular Velocity (?) anything I need to worry
> about when sticking within the IBM PC compatible line from say '90
> forward?
There aren't that many platforms that used CLV drives. I don't recall
seeing one in the PC world. If anyone did, they would have been
> Is there a reason to do a real IMAGE backup, rather than a file
> backup?
People have occasionally found interesting things in the unallocated
sectors of disks. For garden variety PC format disks, it's not
necessary to do flux imaging to preserve that sort of thing, though. A
regime using a
> 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.
Some people are bothered by Kryoflux's
> I don't know that as a song, but it's one of the final lines of the
> poem "The Last Bug".
"Now I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song,
to let sounds contribute toward it."
De
> I was curious if anyone recognizes this punched card reader. Marked:
> AMP Incorporated - SYSCOM Division.
Can't help with the identity, but I'm loving the 9 edge hanging out the
front in contravention of the instruction label! :)
Apparently AMP didn't know the "face down nine edge first"
> Those are good examples, but is it "many" or just those two and maybe
> one or two more? For example, Burroughs and IBM mainframes were both
> very much "lights and switches" control panel type machines. For
> that matter, so were the other CDC products; the 6000 series was a
> bit of an
> I'm conflating my Sixel work with my ReGIS work. I know that there
> are a number of utilities to work with Sixel, but it seems like there
> are fewer that work with ReGIS.
Indeed. I've fiddled with Sixel in xterm, for example. It turns out
ReGIS is hard to google, partly of course
Does anyone know of a tool that can convert from one or more vector
image formats to ReGIS? For use on unix-ish platforms.
De
> I followed the suggestion in a previous message to logon to the new
> server and set my desired list settings. Now I show up with two
> subscriptions for my email address, one as "nonmember" and the new
> one as "member". It does not appear that I am receiving doubles
> delivery of
> Are these vacation messages becoming a problem? We never saw then
> before.
Maybe. Has the blasted thing replied to the list more than once now?
De
Folks,
I've migrated all of the cctech subscribers to cctalk, and removed the
cctech list. I've tried to arrange that mail sent to cctech gets
forwarded to cctalk, but that may require a bit of tuning.
I do still have the various posting archives which will make an
appearance in the (hopefully)
> Are the old posts all archived and searchable? I have a gap from 2016
> through 2022, and before that it is complete back to Mar 29, 2007 (I
> think it is complete).
I think I have cctech back to 2005 for import into the new mailman web
system. I also have the mailman2 pipermail archives
Folks,
I've belatedly realized that it's going to be a bit of a headache to
implement the old cctalk/cctech crossposting duality under the new
version of mailman.
I seem to recall a discussion about retiring the cctech list and just
continuing with cctalk, and that the consensus was in favor of
Friends,
The process of migrating the cctalk and cctech mailing lists to a new
host in Chicago is underway. This evening, I've moved the list mail
handling to the new server, and this message will be the first live
test. Assuming this works, you shouldn't have to change anything to
post to the
> Specific to IBMPC to DECNET networking...anyone worked in this
> environment? Not me. I don't have the D drive that fails or the
> network, but I am curious what I would need to make this work. Maybe
> I can put something together. Anyone using a Digital Ethernet
> Personal Computer Bus
> You may also want to look at the timing the list software uses for
> deciding when to notify people they've had excessive bounces; I got
> this on April *24*, fully two weeks after I stopped getting messages;
> a similar thing happened on March 21, but that one was only one week
> late:
> The scope does what it is supposed to, you get a time-domain
> visualization of voltage. Though, they are awkward to use due to the
> lack of rotary encoders. Scaling horizontally or vertically requires
> you to go into a menu, navigate to the right option, do the actual
> scaling and go
> That's true generally. Anything other than actual photographs
> (continuous tone images) should NOT be run through JPEG because JPEG
> is not intended for, and unfit for, anything else. Printouts, line
> drawings, and anything else with crisp edges between dark and light
> will be messed
> I know that some IBM mainframes prefer 3ɸ power but I know of multiple
> people that have re-wired their CECs to use 1ɸ power.
My Multiprise 2003/205 claims to want a pair of 3-phase inputs. I've
run it on two "phases" on a single side. It bitches, of course, and one
loses the intended
> In my current house I have done 240V/50A wiring, 240V/50A Sub Panel,
> lots of 240V/30A outlets. None of which I would advise the usual
> amateur to do. :-)
IIRC nothing in the VAX cpu actually requires 3 phase. The PDU(s) just
eat that from the wall.
De
> Back in the 2007 time frame, Andrew Lynch had written a utility to read
> Vector Graphic hard-sectored diskettes on a Catweasel board. Called
> "CWVG", does anyone have a copy of the program?
The program doesn't appear to have made it onto vector-archive.org.
I'll add to Jay's comment
> I'm interested in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU
> architecture that are unusually prolific in one way or another.
The Prime 50 Series has a few candidates:
1. The procedure call instruction allocates a stack frame, saves the
calling procedure's state, then
> Well you could ask Silverfrost who now own it. I think a lot of Salford
> Pr1me software was lost.
Vague memory suggests that someone did, and that they don't have it any
more. When I asked Rob Jung, ex-Primate, if he still had the Prime
version of his ARJ compressor, he didn't have that
> It was intended to be a stop-gap, to be discarded when the ICL was
> replaced with PR1ME. However the PR1ME was benchmarked with Fortran 66.
> When Pr1me Fortran 77 was delivered its performance was "pants" so the
> "stop gap" ICL compiler was ported to PR1ME...
Wish we could find that
> I've been using them for a couple of weeks now. Easy to apply
> (compared to plastiands) runs perfectly in DC300-600 sized
> cartridges.
Is there a size that works for the minicarts?
De
> how about https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-us/p/pcb-card-pullers
Two thoughts -
* Not sure the mounting hole spacing is correct; the one from Vince's
site looks to be about 2" between centers; the Essentra says 1.25".
It's entirely possible I don't know diddly about DEC card handles
> There is an stl file on this page (4th down on the right):
> I had a few of these printed for a Unibone I put together, and they
> came out well.
Fritz,
Perfect, thanks!
De
> Does anyone have a design for printing card handles for QBUS / UNIBUS
> cards? It seems a natural application.
I suppose I should be more specific: the plastic kind that are just
handles, also seen on flip chip cards, -8 stuff, whatever. Not
extractor levers or s-box stuff.
TIA,
De
Folks,
Does anyone have a design for printing card handles for QBUS / UNIBUS
cards? It seems a natural application.
Some grepping of the list logs, a brief plonk through the gadawful
thingiverse search, and various googling have produced no existing
designs.
Thanks,
De
I have a recalcitrant Cipher C995 9track drive. Does anyone have
manuals for this thing? It seems to be enough different from the M990
to matter.
Thanks,
De
> And that is why there are SNADs! :D
"Systems Network Architecture Distribution Services" ? :)
De
> Also came across a TSX Plus reference guide and install guide, from
> 1985. These two fill a very large binder, have they already been
> scanned?
The 6.50 manuals, TSX Plus 6.50, and the COBOL and RTSORT layered
products are also available here:
http://tsxplus.classiccmp.org/
De
> Sold for $4,900. Looks like a couple of low score bidders got in a
> bidding war and really wanted to win.
Must be those deskthority people _really_ wanted those '220
keyboards. :)
De
FWIW, the plate on my 11/93 in BA123 cab just has "DIGITAL".
De
> Any gotchas with the PICKit-3 clones out there? I have the feeling
> that sticking with PIC would be better than trying to port to
> Arduino, and imagine that as things continue to age there will be
> more applications for interfaces. Any better but still cheapish
> alternatives for
> I realized I also don't know the RD31 and RD32.
The rest of the list I found long ago is:
RD31Seagate ST-225 20 MB
RD32Seagate ST-251 42 MB
RD51Seagate ST-412 10 MB
RD52Quantum Q54031 MB
It's clearly incomplete, as you found there were two different devices
used for
> I've now tracked down analogous manuals for all Pro drives except for
> the RD53, I don't know what kind of drive that is.
I believe:
RD53Micropolis 1325 71 MB
RD54Maxtor XT2190 159 MB
De
> I'm curious to what degree people have used serial number
> intelligence gathering and countermeasures in the industry. Like
> were/are there market research firms that would go to Fry's and
> record numbers off of boxes to try to extrapolate sales for things
> like printer consumables, and
> I can't say that I've ever observed that, but then, I probably never
> looked for it either. 80 bytes starting with HDRx, etc. is a pretty
> good indicator of the nature of the block. I've seen lots of tapes
> with 81-character records, however. (Univac 36 bit systems for
> example).
Jon,
Thanks for your thoughts.
> Your tape dump looks very much like a classic ANSI tape label format,
> except for the missing file mark after the HDR2 record. Are ALL
> those file marks after HDR2 missing, or just some of them?
Right, and they're supposed to be ANSI69ish, though they are
Folks,
I've now seen two Burroughs tapes where some of the expected file marks
between labels and file data were apparently missing.
I think a reasonable description of these is "Burroughs/Unisys B6x00
'Library/Maintenance' tapes with ANSI-69 labels"
Reading drive is a Cipher GCR Cachetape with
Folks seem to be mostly going at hardware here, but the o.p. indicated
emulation. I'll point out, since I haven't seen mention of it, that
Kevin Jordan's Nostalgic Computing Center has many of its emulated
systems linked via RJE - the Cybers, the Primes, and the VM/CMS machine
at least.
> Excellent! That's a great piece of info. Not sure why a TOPS-10
> command would be embedded in a program like this. The notion of
> filtering/delay itself makes sense but that command would make sense
> only if IBM had a DECSYSYEM too, no?
That part's a puzzler. Perhaps the link was from
> Partially related to that is a program called “20HAL” which was a
> code uploader Microsoft used in the late stages to get code from
> Microsoft in Bellevue to IBM in Boca Raton, FL.
The TOPS-10 manual says that:
(SET) TTY FILL n
sets delay characteristics for the line to class `n`.
> What I know is that tape is subdivided in files by means of marks,
> and each file is subdivided in blocks of equal size.
Er, no. The blocks aren't necessarily of equal size. Unix people who
are used to tar often seem to have this mindset, but the general case is
that records can be of
> Alas I have no idea what they are or if there is hope of using them.
Megatek built graphics terminals and I think plotters that were used in
CAD shops. Prime used them with some of their CAD offerings. Megatek
also did boards for at least DG, -11, Modcomp systems, maybe others. In
fact,
> I want to use my daisy wheel printer to create letters and memos and
> similar (rather simple) texts. What can I use to write the text?
I worked on a v7 system that had a troff driver for iirc Diablo 630
printers, but I don't see it in stock v7. For groff, you'd probably
hunt up a
> > > > I read this list on PINE, on a shell account at my ISP.
> > > Barbarian! At least upgrade to Alpine. (That's what I use.) :D
> > Philistines, all of you. I use a hacked version of Elm.
> mutt!
`less`, out of system spool.
De
> I just noticed on comp.sys.prime that I missed a couple of sample
> system releases. I have a process set up to dump messages from some
> news groups into my IMAP server for easy reading with my mail client,
> but I don't have anything set up to easily reply via the news groups.
> Does
> Late to the party, but there’s PDP11 keys sold on ebay here:
Though that may be useful to many, it's the wrong key for this thread.
De
> Does anyone have information on having a replacement PDP-11/05 key
> made?
I believe I can make these. I'd like to have a test. May I send you
one?
The key is a Chicago GRB2: cut 215 on an Ilco S1041T. You can use a
1041T and cut it down.
De
Bill,
> Is there anywhere we can find a list of what is avaiable on each of
> those images? I tried a few and at least one has all the compilers
> but no emacs. Another has emacs but apparently no compilers. :-)
> I'm impressed so far but would really like to find systems that I can
> do
I've uploaded an updated set of sample system images. Jim worked
through rebuilding the disk files with more filesystem and paging space,
and we enhanced the run script wrapper a bit. There are also a couple
of help text tweaks, system startup fixes, etc.
The tarball is 142882727 bytes, and its
I realize I told a lie the other day. INFORMATION is actually installed
on the rev21 public emulator, and the samples. A few manuals are
online. I feel like I've seen one or two more that I can't find just
now. I haven't gotten these integrated into sysovl.info yet:
> Great news. I look forward to trying it out. Other than compilers, is
> there much else to run on Prime at the moment? Do any applications
> still exist to try and run? Is Prime Information (apparently the
> platform's "killer app") available? Are there any games? Was there
> the equivalent
> > So, how do I login a regular user? Does the emulator come up with
> > an open port that I can telnet into to get a regular serial line?
> Use the emulator -tport command line option to set its incoming
> terminals port.
Bill,
The inittab snippet from Jim's message that I reposted here
> OK,CO SYSTEM>ED.SHARE.COMI 7 /* Share ED editor
> Not found. (CO)
> ER!
To continue through to the end of the startup process, tell it:
CO CONTINUE 6
Until this is fixed, you'll have to use the non-shared editor, NSED,
instead of the shared editor ED.
> Thank you
A set of sample system images derived from the public emulators can be
downloaded from https://yagi.h-net.org/p50em_samplemachines.tar.gz to
get you started. The tarball is 309078820 bytes, and its sha256sum is
8fe261f7a9f19e9fab2814371387f9cef5c64161fe7cf4bdc542144202678ca9. We
may rebuild
> I think I'm making progress. I don't know if I've encountered an
> emulator issue, or if the primos_22.1.4_1of3.tap tape image from
> Bitsavers is bad. I didn't encounter any errors unzipping the zip
> archive it was in. When restoring logical tape number 2 from it, I
> got an MT read
> I think I'm making progress. I don't know if I've encountered an
> emulator issue, or if the primos_22.1.4_1of3.tap tape image from
> Bitsavers is bad. I didn't encounter any errors unzipping the zip
> archive it was in. When restoring logical tape number 2 from it, I
> got an MT read
> That might have worked. There were some prompt differences in the next
> section compared to the install guide:
> Partition CMDDEV created successfully.
Yup, looks good.
Background: there were some changes from rev to rev of the options to
MAKE. E.g. some abbreviations changed or
> [CPBOOT Rev. 19.0 Copyright (c) 1990, Prime Computer, Inc.]=20=20
> [BOOT Rev. 23.4 Copyright (c) 1993, Computervision Corp.]
> RUN FILE TREENAME=3Dmake.save
> BOOTING FROM MT0make.save
> MAKECopyright (c) 1991, Prime Computer, Inc.
> Enter command line options:
> something appeared to get stuck in a loop, displaying:
> Press Enter to continue, h to halt...
> over and over again. I eventually resorted to killing the emulator.
> It took a kill -9 to get it to end. In case it gives any clues,
> after killing it the error.log contained:
I've
For those interested in playing with Jim's emulator, a few resources:
Bitsavers has some doco and bits:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/prime/
http://bitsavers.org/bits/Prime/
I have been assembling what I hope will be the definitive Prime info
site. It's not complete, but contains manuals scanned
I'm reposting this announcement from Jim Wilcoxson.
De
Newsgroups: comp.sys.prime
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 08:34:13 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <0c560b91-35d2-4dcc-b859-a8eb4d22b...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Prime emulator source released on GitHub
From: Jim Wilcoxson
Today, with much help
> Initial value would be zero; that's common for several of the older
> CRCs (including CRC-CCITT used by DDCMP).
The other common initializer seems to be 0x.
De
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