Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 5/31/20 3:13 PM, Eric Korpela via cctalk wrote:
> Most languages will give you some way to shoot yourself in the foot.  The
> question is how much work do you need to do?  In FORTRAN the easiest method
> was changing the value of a literal in a subroutine call.  It is standard
> compliant behavior that goes back to at least FORTRAN IV.  

One of the reasons that the F90 standards people got very strict about
vendor "features" (must not be allowed as the default) was that they
were often added as a "good idea" without a lot of thought.

I recall one from the CDC 6000 FORTRAN IV extended product that got
everyone thinking.   Instead of counting the number of characters in a
hollerith constant as used in a FORMAT, some clever boots decided that
"Hdxd", where x is the character string and d is any printable
character that forms a delimiter would be a really neat feature.   Thus,
H*HELLO* has exactly the same meaning as 5HHELLO when used in a FORMAT
statement.

One day a PSR rolled in with the following question:

Given the program segment shown below, what does it do?

DIMENSION FORMAT(10)
INTEGER HX, X
HX = 1
X = 2

100 FORMAT(HX)=(-X)

Observe that FORTRAN has no reserved words (that changed in F90) and
spaces are ignored unless part of a hollerith constant.

Well, it might be an assignment to an element of the array FORMAT--or,
it might be a FORMAT statement for an I/O operation (FORTRAN does not
disallow unreferenced FORMAT statements).

Clearly, if there were an I/O statement (e.g. READ or WRITE) referencing
label 100, the meaning was obvious.   Otherwise, meh.

There was no way to "fix" the problem other than to say "Don't be silly".

--Chuck





Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread cclist--- via cctalk

On 2020-05-30 14:18, Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctech wrote:

Chuck, your post just reminded me of how I used FORTRAN to interface
with my PDP-11 ASM routines when I was doing data acquisition as fast
as possible on a MINC system.  Perused my FORTRAN code about 6 months
ago and had common blocks and a routine which took "arrays" which were
essential chunks of PDP-11 memory that I'd use as data buffers and to
access data in my ASM routines directly.  Certainly a lot faster than
doing function calls to get at this data but would now be looked at as
very "dangerous" programming.


That's why my (long after retirement) interest is mostly in MCU 
programming, currently the STM32F7 series.


The processors have all sorts of interesting memory management hardware 
built-in, including storage protection, but few people avail themselves 
of it.  For me, this allows this once-engineer to get back to playing 
with hardware without putting up with the nonsense of a massive 
operating system.  I find that very gratifying in my dotage.


Cheers,
Chuck


RE: intellec MDS80 on eBay

2020-05-31 Thread ED SHARPE via cctalk


Still looking for the matching  paper tape reader and punch.  For one of 
these...Ed#
On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech  wrote:
Hi!

I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay:

    https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595

(Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former
coworker.)

Thanks,
  Jan-Benedict

-- 


RE: intellec MDS80 on eBay

2020-05-31 Thread ED SHARPE via cctalk


I assume this are not the standard Intel floppy drives?    
On Sunday, May 31, 2020 Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctech  wrote:
Hi!

I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay:

    https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595

(Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former
coworker.)

Thanks,
  Jan-Benedict

-- 


Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Eric Smith via cctalk
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 5:50 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 5/31/20 2:24 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
> >
> >
> > On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was
> unrelated
> > to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
> > systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written
> in
> > PL/M.
> >
>
> Which is even funnier when you realize that the PL/M compiler
> was written in Fortran.
>

In at least the more recent versions, Intel FORTRAN-80 on ISIS-II was
compiled with the ISIS-II PL/M compiler, which was itself written in PL/M.

The ISIS-II PL/M compiler was bootstrapped from the PL/M cross-compiler
that was written in FORTRAN, and it's entirely possible that early versions
of Intel FORTRAN-80 were developed that way as well.


is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#

2020-05-31 Thread ED SHARPE via cctalk
is nexgen cpu and motherboard scarce or rare item? Ed#



Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Mich.com via cctalk



Sent from my iPhone.

> On May 31, 2020, at 9:16 PM, Bill Gunshannon  
> wrote:
> 
> On 5/31/20 8:35 PM, Mich.com wrote:
>> Sent from my iPhone.
 On May 31, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk 
  wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 5/31/20 2:24 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
 On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
 to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
 systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
 PL/M.
>>> 
>>> Which is even funnier when you realize that the PL/M compiler
>>> was written in Fortran.
>>> 
>>> bill
>> As I recall, it was the cross compiler for PL/M that was written in FORTRAN. 
>> But that came first, before any 8080-hosted PL/M compiler.
> 
> You are definitely right on that. I forget what it was intended to run
> on, probably some minicomputer like a DEC System-10 or -20.  Hmmm...  I
> wonder if it would compile with Fortran-80 on my TRS-80.  That might be
> fun to see.  I even have corrected sources around here somewhere because
> after all those years of people using it I found a few bugs in the two
> sets of sources that were floating around the Internet.  :-)
> 
> bill
> 

I remember the “technical Computer center” people at Chrysler where I worked 
talking about making the PL/M compiler run on our CDC Cyber computers (60-bit). 
It was a bit of work. I seem to remember thinking it was written to run on an 
IBM mainframe, if that makes sense. But they got it working and we used it 
until Intel came out with their 8080-based development systems. Then we started 
using them to compile.

Dave




Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Bill Gunshannon via cctalk

On 5/31/20 8:35 PM, Mich.com wrote:



Sent from my iPhone.


On May 31, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk  
wrote:

On 5/31/20 2:24 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
PL/M.


Which is even funnier when you realize that the PL/M compiler
was written in Fortran.

bill


As I recall, it was the cross compiler for PL/M that was written in FORTRAN. 
But that came first, before any 8080-hosted PL/M compiler.



You are definitely right on that. I forget what it was intended to run
on, probably some minicomputer like a DEC System-10 or -20.  Hmmm...  I
wonder if it would compile with Fortran-80 on my TRS-80.  That might be
fun to see.  I even have corrected sources around here somewhere because
after all those years of people using it I found a few bugs in the two
sets of sources that were floating around the Internet.  :-)

bill



Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Mich.com via cctalk



Sent from my iPhone.

> On May 31, 2020, at 7:50 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> On 5/31/20 2:24 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:
>> On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
>> to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
>> systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
>> PL/M.
> 
> Which is even funnier when you realize that the PL/M compiler
> was written in Fortran.
> 
> bill

As I recall, it was the cross compiler for PL/M that was written in FORTRAN. 
But that came first, before any 8080-hosted PL/M compiler.


Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk

He amassed a huge collection, then
sold the lot and bought a Tesla. :-)


On Mon, 1 Jun 2020, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote:

Assuming a 'Tesla' is an electric car, I'd  rather be in the reverse
position (selling said car and being able to buy some interesting old
computers...)]


A Tesla is a rather expensive electric car, a product of Elon Musk.
STARTING (minimal stripped down) at 40,000 pounds, and some models over 
80,000 pounds.


Sell one of THOSE, and you can buy a car AND a lot of great computer 
stuff.  Although some early Apples could go for ten times that.







Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Bill Gunshannon via cctalk

On 5/31/20 2:24 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:



On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
PL/M.



Which is even funnier when you realize that the PL/M compiler
was written in Fortran.

bill


Anyone know what an AM000076 (Dip 18) is?

2020-05-31 Thread Ian Finder via cctalk
Title says all,

Backing up all the programmable parts in the Apollo DN100 and the CPU board
has a few of these ceramic DIPs with the same Apollo P/N labels as the
Am27S29 and similar programmable parts.


Thanks


Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Tony Duell via cctalk
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 5:53 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 19:56, Tony Duell  wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 7:24 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
> >  wrote:
> >
> > There were also some pretty high-spec British microcomputers, but they
> > tended to flop owing to the price. Things like the HH Tiger (did it
> > ever go into production? Prototypes certainly exist).
>
> True!
>
> Yes, a friend has (or had) one.

I have one.

> He amassed a huge collection, then
> sold the lot and bought a Tesla. :-)

Assuming a 'Tesla' is an electric car, I'd  rather be in the reverse
position (selling said car and being able to buy some interesting old
computers...)]

> > Which were those? I thought all the Amstrad disk-based CPCs and PCWs
> > could run CP/M
>
> When you say "disk-based" you are excluding the GSX console and the
> cassette-based ones, right?

Yes. CP/M I think really needs some kind of random-access storage. I
guess the Epson PX8 etc ran CP/M and had (micro)cassette storage but
it was a bit of kludge. So I was only considering the Amstrads with
disk drives.


>
> The machine I referred to was the PcW 16:
>
> http://www.fvempel.nl/pcw16.html

Ah, now that I had never come across. Thanks...

-tony


Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Eric Korpela via cctalk
Most languages will give you some way to shoot yourself in the foot.  The
question is how much work do you need to do?  In FORTRAN the easiest method
was changing the value of a literal in a subroutine call.  It is standard
compliant behavior that goes back to at least FORTRAN IV.   Current
compliers and converters go to pains to make sure it still happens.  Not
sure if it is still present in f90 and beyond.  At least modern compilers
for other languages will give you a "potential foot shooting warning",
although in C++ that warning statement could take 200 kB.

C
C CHANGE THE VALUE OF 4
C

  CALL INC(4)
  WRITE (*, 30) 4
30FORMAT ('2+2=',I4)
  END

  SUBROUTINE INC(I)
  I = I + 1
  END

 OUTPUT
2+2=   5


Re: intellec MDS80 on eBay

2020-05-31 Thread dwight via cctalk
That is a nice setup. With an Ice85 that is really nice. It will clearly sell 
for a good price.
Dwight


From: cctalk  on behalf of Jan-Benedict Glaw via 
cctalk 
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2020 1:28 PM
To: cct...@classiccmp.org 
Subject: intellec MDS80 on eBay

Hi!

I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595

(Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former
coworker.)

Thanks,
  Jan-Benedict

--


Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread cclist--- via cctalk

On 2020-05-30 15:21, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

On Fri, 29 May 2020, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Oh, FORTRAN can do likewise--I suspect that most languages can be 
coaxed
(perhaps with some assembly-language subroutines)to do something 
nasty.


"A real programmer can write a FORTRAN program in any language."
But, a REAL programmer, such as Chuck, can write any language program
in FORTRAN.


Microsoft FORTRAN-80 was actually pretty decent.  I wrote a utility to 
transfer PDP-11 RX01-formatted floppy files to CP/M using it, but for 
the disk access routines themselves, which were done in M80.  I still 
have the disk with the source code.


Because F80 was uncharacteristically decent, I assumed that it wasn't 
really a Microsoft product.


Intel FORTRAN for ISIS-II was a massive undertaking, according to the 
Intel folks I spoke with.  Expensive, too.



In addition to GWBASIC, don't forget BASCOM, the Microsoft BASIC 
compiler.

It's top two uses were
1) a small speed improvement
2) marketing a program written in BASIC without revealing the source 
code.


Another indication that MS really didn't know how to write compilers.  
At an NCC (I think; it may have been a COMDEX or WCCF--they all sort of 
blur together after 40-some years), a few fellows took it on themselves 
to benchmark BASIC compilers lurking about in the floor.  Our 
compile-to-pcode compiler consistently beat the trousers off of BASCOM.


You can see evidence of that on the web where various mini and micro 
BASICs were benchmarked.  The 80286 port of ours came in just below a 
VAX 11/780 and ahead of the microprocessor crowd, including some NS32032 
systems.   And we were mult-user in addition.


I still have my original design document printed on greenbar 
tractor-feed paper on a Teletype Model 40 line printer.  Three of us 
wrote the whole thing in four months, complete with math and runtime.   
I have the t-shirt to prove it.


Please excuse the horn-tooting, but there are a few things that I'm 
still proud of--and a lot of abominations that I don't want to talk 
about.


--Chuck





Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Liam Proven via cctalk
On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 19:56, Tony Duell  wrote:
>
> On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 7:24 PM Liam Proven via cctalk
>  wrote:
>
> There were also some pretty high-spec British microcomputers, but they
> tended to flop owing to the price. Things like the HH Tiger (did it
> ever go into production? Prototypes certainly exist).

True!

Yes, a friend has (or had) one. He amassed a huge collection, then
sold the lot and bought a Tesla. :-)

Wondering if I can do the same, TBH.

> My experience at the time was that CP/M was not a 'big thing' in
> Britain. And S100 was even less. Yes there were S100 computers here
> (there were some British-produced ones like the CASU Super C which
> used bought-in CPU and RAM cards and CASU I/O cards) but I don't
> really remember them at the time.

[Nod]


> Which were those? I thought all the Amstrad disk-based CPCs and PCWs
> could run CP/M

When you say "disk-based" you are excluding the GSX console and the
cassette-based ones, right?

The machine I referred to was the PcW 16:

http://www.fvempel.nl/pcw16.html

(It does have a 3rd party app, ZPM, which can run CP/M programs.)

I was mistaken about the PcW 10; it's a "true" PCW and can run
LocoScript and CP/M:

http://www.fvempel.nl/pcw10.html



-- 
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053


intellec MDS80 on eBay

2020-05-31 Thread Jan-Benedict Glaw via cctalk
Hi!

I just wanted to drop an email that there's a MDS 80 on eBay:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/333612000595

(Please note: The seller, Michael, is a friend of mine, and a former
coworker.)

Thanks,
  Jan-Benedict

-- 


Re: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctalk
Chuck, your post just reminded me of how I used 
FORTRAN to interface with my PDP-11 ASM routines 
when I was doing data acquisition as fast as 
possible on a MINC system.  Perused my FORTRAN 
code about 6 months ago and had common blocks and 
a routine which took "arrays" which were 
essential chunks of PDP-11 memory that I'd use as 
data buffers and to access data in my ASM 
routines directly.  Certainly a lot faster than 
doing function calls to get at this data but 
would now be looked at as very "dangerous" programming.


Considering I was limited to <56 Kb of RAM for 
all my code and data I used a very stripped down 
version of RT-11 and found it simpler to create a 
RAMdisk out of the high memory on the 512 Kb 
memory card and wrote a VM driver to stash A/D 
data there.  For this type of programming one 
needs to look at scalability properties of a 
system.  That 11/23 system looks like a toy now 
compared to a cheap FitBit but the MINC had one 
job to do and needed to be pushed to its limits 
to do it.  I documented my code well (or so I 
thought) but after 30+ years it took me a while 
to figure out what I was doing.  For a dedicated 
system, code like that is necessary if one 
doesn't have the option of getting a more 
powerfull machine that can provide the necessary 
data acquisition speed as well as allowing "safe" 
but much slower code given the need to perform 
frequent checks on variables, address bounds, 
etc.  One needs a machine that can operate in 
supervisor and user modes with supervisor memory 
protected but each context switch takes time.


Used to be able to do this sort of stuff with 
early Windoze but everything tightly sandboxed 
now.  Now, if I want to do any reasonable speed 
data acquisition have to build a microprocessor 
system which is fun to code and then connect it 
via USB to a Windoze "mainframe" for 
analysis.  Of course, if one really wants speed, 
then one can use Ciarcia's "solder" programming language.


Boris Gimbarzevsky



On 5/29/20 3:41 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
 Yes, a pointer to the PC Interrupt Vector Table could be problematic.
>
> C lets you do a lot of things that some other languages will protect you
> from.  Accordingly, Allen Holub titled one of his books about C, "Enough
> Rope To Shoot Yourself In The Foot"
> ISBN-10: 0070296898
> ISBN-13: 978-0070296893

Oh, FORTRAN can do likewise--I suspect that most languages can be coaxed
(perhaps with some assembly-language subroutines)to do something nasty.

Two cases in point (but I have lots more).  In the CDC 60-bit machines,
one of the most useful functions was LOC().  It passes the address of
the argument.  Note that this was basically a single instruction as
FORTRAN uses call-by-reference in most older versions.

The other aspect of the CDC operating systems is that PPMTR looked
periodically at each user's location 1 for system requests.  So, it was
a simple matter to use LOC() to obtain a negative subscript into an
array to write and read that location.   With the ability to make system
requests directly (and directly address user memory), the sky is the
limit.  Indeed several user-written system utilities were written using
just that technique. The CDC iron is word-addressable only.

(Other abuses were the arbitrary target for the ASSIGNed GOTO, but
that's another subject).

Similarly, BASIC, depending on the version, could be abused.  One
technique was to use a character array with the BASED attribute (I don't
know if I was the first to invent that keyword, but it was around 1978).
 That turned the variable into a pointer and one could change the area
that the variable pointed to with the BASE...AT statement.  Several
utilities were written in this fashion, including a few that located the
video refresh buffer and wrote to it directly.

I've been known to do similar nasty things in COBOL.

Side question:  How does one create named COMMON in C?

--Chuck





RE: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Gordon Henderson via cctalk

On Fri, 29 May 2020, Dave Wade via cctalk wrote:


-Original Message-
From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Bill Gunshannon

On 5/29/20 5:24 PM, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote:


At the risk of fanning the language fire, C seems to be a smaller step
up from native machine language than most other languages.  It's like
80% of the portability with 20% of the effort of writing directly in ASM.


Well I remember when first being introduced to "B" on the Honeywell L66 
under GCOS thinking that it allowed programmers to shoot themselves in 
the foot in the same ways as they could with assembler, but much more 
rapidly.


"B" was near assembler than "C" only having the "Machine Word" as a 
type.


And before B was BCPL.

BCPL was used to Bootstrap B was used to Bootstrap C.

BCPL equally rapidly lets you shoot yourself in the foot.. It's fun 
though. I'm in the middle of creating a lttle retro project and I'm using 
BCPL as its "self-hosting" programming language.


Gordon


Mac Performa 6214CD FTGH from San Antonio, TX (re-post; now tested)

2020-05-31 Thread Tapley, Mark B. via cctalk
All,
Still trying to find a home for this system (re-post but with more information, 
testing)

For the visually oriented, here are pictures showing the machine running:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11j__mCYOFuBAil58hAdhmSK5GMaqmcUL?usp=sharing

Things in the pictures but NOT included in the giveaway are:

1) ADB cable (Mini-DIN4) (the one in the photos was borrowed from another 
system for testing)
2) “square” ADB mouse (also borrowed)
3) Power strip

You get everything else.

Mac Performa 6214CD, PowerPC CPU, 3.5” floppy and CD drive on front face
Apple Extended Keyboard II (NO ADB CABLE)
Apple Apple Desktop Bus Mouse II (round - not working)
Apple Multiple Scan 15 Display (matching, includes cable)
APS external SCSI hard drive enclosure and cable (Centronix on the hard drive 
end, DB-25 on the Mac end)
Epson Stylus Color 740 ink-jet printer with a spare (unopened) cartridge
UMAX Astra 1220S flat-bed SCSI scanner.
ZIP drive with SCSI interface
Cables

Pile of accompanying software including at least:

DeltaGraph
Now Up-To-Date and Contact
Sad Macs, Bombs and disasters
Retrospect Backup
Astra Scanner Driver

All Free to a Good Home.
You want this if:

a) you can afford shipping or pickup from San Antonio, TX, 78254, and
b) 15 years after “Take this job and shove it” came out you finally acted on 
it, quit your job and set up your own home office and accounting business, and 
now you want to relive your glory days.

All items tested May 23, 2020. Everything worked, with the following exceptions:

1) The round ADB mouse included does not work. The keyboard does work and the 
square ADB mouse worked when plugged into it, so the fault is probably in the 
round mouse.

2) The printer doesn’t move any ink to the page. The ink is dried out, so I’m 
not at all surprised. I expect it to work with new cartridges, but did not test 
that. There is an unopened replacement cartridge included, so you can test at 
least the black printing if you open that.
Replacement cartridges available at: 
https://www.compandsave.com/Epson_Stylus_Color_740_Ink_Cartridges_s/1396.htm 
under $4 each.
Everything else about the printer seems to work. I hooked up to it via USB 
using my MacBook and software from http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net and it 
responds as expected for an ink-jet with dried-up ink but otherwise functional.

3) I have no ZIP cartridge to test the ZIP drive. It is recognized on the SCSI 
bus as a removable-media drive, power light comes on, etc, but I don’t know 
that it reads or writes.

4) The Mac OS 8.5 on the drive will not allow me to set the year to 2020.

5) Backup battery is dead, so the unit won’t remember dates between shutdown 
and startup again.

5) The door to the monitor’s controls is broken, and just taped back into place.

Things that do work include the floppy drive, the CD drive (plays audio CDs), 
all other aspects of the computer itself and the external drive, the keyboard, 
and the monitor.
Driver software and media for scanner and printer are included. The scanner 
works, I scanned an image with it and it came up clear. The glass could use 
cleaning, though.

Please, please, please take this as a group, I really don’t want to split it 
up. Shipping will be challenging; if you are out of driving range but want it, 
contact me and we can talk. If you are in driving range and want it, let me 
know and we can meet half-way. Not looking to make any money, I just don’t want 
to throw it away and don’t want to lose money giving it away.
- Mark
210-522-6025 office
210-379-4635 cell



Re: history is hard

2020-05-31 Thread Jon Elson via cctalk

On 05/31/2020 02:06 AM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:



On 5/30/2020 11:15 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 
Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.
Our /50 had it and I have never seen any indication in the 
documentation for the hardware that

indicated that it was an option.

I don't think that either MVT or MFT would have been very 
stable without it.  I certainly spent a lot of time
studying how to get around it, and am responsible for a 
couple of SPIE patches in the MVT product
from exploits trying to get into supervisor mode to muck 
with such.


Yes, the SPIE call as supplied from IBM was surely the 
security hole big enough for 5 ocean liners abreast to steam 
right through! Everybody had to patch that, and the patch 
was fairly simple.  But, it was a clear indication of how 
LITTLE IBM thought about security. Of course, they were 
thinking about banks where 3 teams reviewed code before it 
ever ran on the machine, not universities where kids would 
try all sorts of mischief.
Yes, I know supervisor state isn't tied to the storage 
keys, but that was the way I went to

try to circumvent the storage keys.
Oh, once you have the P bit set to zero, you can do 
anything, such as changing the storage protection key of 
your own program.


Jon


Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Fred Cisin via cctalk

One reaason why you don't hear much about that is because the first
version of Microsoft Fortran for the PC wasn't real great.
It was written in Microsoft Pascal.


On Sat, 30 May 2020, John Foust via cctalk wrote:

Really!
How does this connect to Microsoft's FORTRAN-80 for CP/M circa 1977?


unrelated product, with no apparent connections, that I'm aware of.  The
8080/Z80 FORTRAN-80 would have been a better starting point!
Bob Wallace wrote the original Microsoft Pascal; I don't know who wrote
the [PC] Fortran, other than being told that it was written in 
Microsoft Pascal, and to avoid the run-time library.


On Sun, 31 May 2020, Eric Smith wrote:
I assume you mean that Microsoft Fortran for the PC was written in 
Pascal.


I did some reverse-engineering of the Microsoft FORTRAN-80 compiler, and it
appears to be hand-written in 8080 assembly.

On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
PL/M.



Exactly.

Microsoft Fortran for the PC, written in Pascal, was not related to 
Microsoft FORTRAN-80 for CP/M, which was written in 8080 assembly.


Microsoft Fortran for the PC was not related to Microsoft FORTRAN-80 for 
TRS80, which was a derivative of Microsoft FORTRAN-80 for CP/M, which was 
written in 8080 assembly.  Because the TRS80 was Z80, I would not be 
surprised if some of the TRS80 specific code in Microsoft FORTRAN-80 
for TRS80 might have used some Z80.



Microsoft Fortran for the PC was written in Pascal.
It was an unrelated product.

I don't think that any of the Microsoft Fortran products were related to 
the Intel FORTRAN-80.  Did Microsoft ever develop anything in PL/M?

Did Microsoft ever develop anything for ISIS-II?



Re: history is hard

2020-05-31 Thread jim stephens via cctalk




On 5/30/2020 11:15 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote:

On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

 
Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.
Our /50 had it and I have never seen any indication in the documentation 
for the hardware that

indicated that it was an option.

I don't think that either MVT or MFT would have been very stable without 
it.  I certainly spent a lot of time
studying how to get around it, and am responsible for a couple of SPIE 
patches in the MVT product

from exploits trying to get into supervisor mode to muck with such.

Yes, I know supervisor state isn't tied to the storage keys, but that 
was the way I went to

try to circumvent the storage keys.

thanks
Jim


Re: PC Fortran (Was: Microsoft open sources GWBASIC

2020-05-31 Thread Eric Smith via cctalk
On Sat, May 30, 2020 at 3:27 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk 
wrote:

> >> One reaason why you don't hear much about that is because the first
> >> version of Microsoft Fortran for the PC wasn't real great.
> >> It was written in Microsoft Pascal.
>
> On Sat, 30 May 2020, John Foust via cctalk wrote:
> > Really!
> > How does this connect to Microsoft's FORTRAN-80 for CP/M circa 1977?
>
> unrelated product, with no apparent connections, that I'm aware of.  The
> 8080/Z80 FORTRAN-80 would have been a better starting point!
> Bob Wallace wrote the original Microsoft Pascal; I don't know who wrote
> the Fortran, other than being told that it was written in Microsoft
> Pascal, and to avoid the run-time library.
>

I assume you mean that Microsoft Fortran for the PC was written in Pascal.

I did some reverse-engineering of the Microsoft FORTRAN-80 compiler, and it
appears to be hand-written in 8080 assembly.

On the other hand, Intel also had a FORTRAN-80 product, which was unrelated
to Microsoft FORTRAN-80. Intel FOTRAN-80 ran on their MDS development
systems under the ISIS-II operating system, and the compiler was written in
PL/M.


Re: history is hard

2020-05-31 Thread Eric Smith via cctalk
On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 3:30 PM Jon Elson via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 05/29/2020 02:38 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
> >  > From: Jon Elson
> >
> >  > As far as I know, there was no VM/360. There WAS VM/370, which
> was out
> >  > in the early 1970's
> >
> > CP/67, which was a semi-product, and ran only on 360/67's, was basically
> the
> > same functionality as VM/370. (I get the impression that the code was
> > descended from CP/67, but I can't absolutely confirm that
> I think it was, too.  But, only a /67 could run this.  Any
> other 360 would have big security/reliability problems if
> they tried to implement this kind of virtualization.
> Low-level machines did not even have storage protection
> keys, and on the /40 and /50 (I think) it was an option,
> although I'd guess almost any /50 had it installed.  And,
> the storage protection keys were a very coarse/crude tool,
> although you could set up
> sharable read-only areas.
>

The issue wasn't whether the machine had storage keys (protection, SSK and
ISK instructions). AFAIK CP/67 didn't use that even when available. What
CP/67 and VM/370 required was Dynamic Address Translation (DAT), and the
360/67 was the ONLY 360 model for which that was available. Contrary to
popular belief, DAT wasn't even available on every 370 model, as it was an
optional feature of the 370 architecture.

CP/40 was developed on a modified 360/40 that had DAT (with the addition of
a "CAT box"), but was never available as a product.