I have an entire box of Datapoint 2200 digital tapes, probably over 50 of them. I'm not sure what's on them, but I got them long ago from a former dealer/tech(?) for Datapoint outside Reno. I also scored a ton (probably literally) of hardware but that was all stolen in the Great Vintage Computer Heist of 2012.
As you can guess, the rollers in the tapes are probably deteriorated by now but someone with some patience and determination could probably extract the data. If anyone is interested, contact me privately. Sellam On Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 9:08 PM Steve Lewis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Thanks. I was curious about if I found a Datapoint 2200 "in the wild" -- > what could be done with it, if no floppy nor any working tapes (then again, > such a system is well retired and really no need to power it on). "good > tapes" would probably be degraded by now (although the media has probably > been extracted and archives somewhere? so like with a TRS-80 today, can you > just use any tape deck or even a smartphone to just play back the tape? > not quite that simple, as the DP2200 digital data would have to converted > into appropriate audio tones -- unless they didn't actually use audio > tape?) > > Sounds like the "systems debugging" might allow injecting direct machine > code at addresses (the IBM 5100 has a DSP that allows this, to Alter > addresses to apply PALM instructions, then do a "BR" branch run at your > starting address to kick things off). I'm reading through the Lamont Wood > Datapoint book, maybe it will have more insight here. I was just curious > how the first tape (for the DP2200) was produced. > > I recall the story by Paul Allen - they had developed a BASIC, but didn't > have a boot loader to load it, and Paul wrote one while on the airplane to > MOS. That's not quite the same - but I imagine a similar story with the > DP2200. An early incomplete DP2200 was built, someone coded some save/load > routines, tested, and once perfected maybe it was formalized into (a part > of) what became the bootrom? (if you have a correct "CTOS" tape, does the > DP2200 just load it or is an initial command needed?) Sorry, as > mentioned I'm reading the Datapoint book, and after that will explore the > manuals mentioned here that will probably explain it. (I see reference to > a DP2200 emulator made on the System/360 - but none ever made it to a > "modern" x86 PC?) > > > > > On Thu, Oct 13, 2022 at 3:11 AM jos via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > On 12.10.22 22:54, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote: > > > Does anyone know how the 1970/1971 original Datapoint 2200 was > > programmed? > > > It had tapes containing terminal programs to access different types of > > > systems. And the instruction set was said to be similar what became > the > > > 8008. But how were these terminal programs created and how were the > > tapes > > > written? Were they under emulators on larger systems, like a PDP-10? > > > Were there any tapes that had something like a machine code editor > and > > > tape-write routines? I assume no kind of ROM was built into the system > > > (unless it had a built in machine code editor, and routines to write > that > > > content to a tape?) Was a version of BASIC ever built for the 8008 > that > > > ran on a Datapoint 2200 or similar system? > > > > > > -Steve > > > > Look here to wat was available for this class of machines : > > > > > > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/datapoint/software/60000_Datapoint_Software_Catalog_Sep1982.pdf > > > > > > So, yes, Basic, RPG, Cobol ( for 5500 upwards), Databus, Datashare, > > Dataform were available. > > > > Programs development could be done standalone, even on a cassette-only > > system. > > > > Keep in mind that Diablo 14" diskdrives were available for these system, > > allowing for quite a comfortable environment. For early 70's standards of > > course... > > > > My DP2200 does have a bootrom, allowing for booting from floppy, or some > > simnple ad-hoc systems debugging. Look for the deocumented source code > for > > this bootrom on Bitsavers. > > > > > > Jos > > > > >
