[cctalk] Re: Borland Turbo C++ and Turbo Basic - Books and Manuals
On Sun, Apr 07, 2024 at 12:05:32PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2024-04-07 5:57 a.m., Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote: > > On 4/6/24 5:37 PM, Mike Norris via cctalk wrote: > > > Additional > > > I would like £5 beer money for this one please! > > > Writing Open VMS Alpha Device Drivers in C - Margie Sherlock/Leonard > > > Szubowicz > > > > > > I'd take it. > > > > I can send you beer money, or could send you 2 or 3 bottles of local > > beer. I'm living near Munich, Germany. > > > > Sending beer will likely be quite more expensive than 5 pounds, but has > > a fun factor bonus :-) > > > > regards, > > chris > > > I don't think bottles would be ship able. Bottles of beer are perfectly shippable. I ordered bottled beer over the mail plenty of times before. The trick is to use good packaging and pack them well. Or go with cans if you don't trust your packaging skills to reach the level of "Fedex Proof (TM)". ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
> On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:49 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: > > On 2024-04-12 7:23 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>> On Apr 12, 2024, at 5:54 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk >>> wrote: >>> >>> ... >>> my favorite terminal 3190 that was neon gas, so monochrome, but could take >>> 5 addresses, and flip between 62 lines of 160 characters (always there), to >>> 4 terminals of 62x80 any two visible at a time, or 4 terminals of 31x160 >>> characters, any 2 visible at a time, or 4 terminals of 31x80 all visible at >>> once. when given a choice, my new boss was surprised that I chose that >>> instead of the color 3279 with graphics that everybody else wanted. Great >>> for running virtual systems... >> Sounds like the plasma panel displays that were invented for the PLATO >> system, by Don Bitzer and a few others, at the U of Illinois. Inherent >> memory: if you lit a pixel it would stay lit, to turn it off you'd feed it a >> pulse of the opposite polarity. So it was a great way to do 512x512 bitmap >> graphics with very modest complexity, no refresh memory needed. >> paul > > But too slow I suspect to run a game like spacewar. PLATO was the system where a whole lot of early games first appeared, especially multi-player games. Among them were any number of variations of "Star Trek" inspired ones. While you couldn't refresh a screen full of space ships in motion as fast as you can on a dedicated graphics engine, it was certainly acceptable for the players. And a simpler two-ship game like the original spacewar would work even better, because you'd only need a couple of operations per refresh -- on the classic terminal, 12 output words at 60 per second, so 200 ms per refresh. Not quite "full motion" but close. paul
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
> On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:55 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: > > Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? My wife did, sort of: for a while she worked with IBM MT/ST word processors. Those were very early word processing systems that used a custom magnetic tape cartridge for storage and a Selectric typewriter for I/O. paul
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
On 4/13/24 12:20, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:49 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: On 2024-04-12 7:23 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Apr 12, 2024, at 5:54 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote: ... my favorite terminal 3190 that was neon gas, so monochrome, but could take 5 addresses, and flip between 62 lines of 160 characters (always there), to 4 terminals of 62x80 any two visible at a time, or 4 terminals of 31x160 characters, any 2 visible at a time, or 4 terminals of 31x80 all visible at once. when given a choice, my new boss was surprised that I chose that instead of the color 3279 with graphics that everybody else wanted. Great for running virtual systems... Sounds like the plasma panel displays that were invented for the PLATO system, by Don Bitzer and a few others, at the U of Illinois. Inherent memory: if you lit a pixel it would stay lit, to turn it off you'd feed it a pulse of the opposite polarity. So it was a great way to do 512x512 bitmap graphics with very modest complexity, no refresh memory needed. paul But too slow I suspect to run a game like spacewar. PLATO was the system where a whole lot of early games first appeared, especially multi-player games. Among them were any number of variations of "Star Trek" inspired ones. While you couldn't refresh a screen full of space ships in motion as fast as you can on a dedicated graphics engine, it was certainly acceptable for the players. And a simpler two-ship game like the original spacewar would work even better, because you'd only need a couple of operations per refresh -- on the classic terminal, 12 output words at 60 per second, so 200 ms per refresh. Not quite "full motion" but close. paul I cannot count how many hours I spend on the Plato IV terminal at our local university playing Empire and Dogfight - I was in high school at the time... --tom
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
On 4/13/24 10:20, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > PLATO was the system where a whole lot of early games first appeared, > especially multi-player games. Among them were any number of variations of > "Star Trek" inspired ones. While you couldn't refresh a screen full of space > ships in motion as fast as you can on a dedicated graphics engine, it was > certainly acceptable for the players. And a simpler two-ship game like the > original spacewar would work even better, because you'd only need a couple of > operations per refresh -- on the classic terminal, 12 output words at 60 per > second, so 200 ms per refresh. Not quite "full motion" but close. > The guys down the hall at CDC SVLOPS were the PLATO people for a couple of years in the 70s. CDC had internal training classes that used the orange monster. I recall I took one for Project Manager training. "The Mythical Man Month" was a required text for the course. --Chuck
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
> > On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:55 PM, ben via cctalk > wrote: > > > > Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? > > My wife did, sort of: for a while she worked with IBM MT/ST word > processors. Those were very early word processing systems that used a > custom magnetic tape cartridge for storage and a Selectric typewriter for > I/O. > > paul > > The Rhode Island Computer Museum has two IBM Mag Card Selectric systems, and just got an IBM Cassette Selectric System. -- Michael Thompson
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
On Sat, 2024-04-13 at 13:22 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:55 PM, ben via cctalk > > wrote: > > Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? > > My wife did, sort of: for a while she worked with IBM MT/ST word > processors. Those were very early word processing systems that used > a custom magnetic tape cartridge for storage and a Selectric > typewriter for I/O. The first word processor I heard of was the "Redactron" that ran on the 7044 side of the 7094/7044 Direct Couple at the Caltech Jet Priopulsion Laboratory. I don't know whether it was used anywhere else. I don't know whether documents were ultimately stored on mag tape, or the 1405 RAMAC, or only on paper. > paul
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
On 4/13/24 11:22, Michael Thompson via cctalk wrote: >>> On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:55 PM, ben via cctalk >> wrote: >>> >>> Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? >> >> My wife did, sort of: for a while she worked with IBM MT/ST word >> processors. Those were very early word processing systems that used a >> custom magnetic tape cartridge for storage and a Selectric typewriter for >> I/O. The mag card Selectric (MC/ST) was relatively popular also. --Chuck
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
On Sat, 2024-04-13 at 07:58 +0100, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk wrote: > > -Original Message-From: ben via cctalk < > > cctalk@classiccmp.org>Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2024 2:56 AMTo: > > cctalk@classiccmp.org > > Cc: ben Subject: [cctalk] Other input > > devices. > > Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? > > We had one where I worked, with a Honeywell badge on it. We never > used it in that manner, it had a papertape reader attached which was > used to convert output from Friden Flexowriters to Magtape for a > Honeywell H3200. As a freshman, I noticed that the HP Digital Slide Rule 6-digit pocket calculator was only $600. I suggested to myy college buddy Ed Kelm that it ought to be possible to build a desk calculator that used a TV for the display. That never happened, but Ed held onto that thought and eventually designed the Lexitron dedicated-logic word processor. It had a landscape-format screen. Vertical scrolling was done by typewriter- platen-like knobs on both sides of the screen. Margins were set by the same kinds of sliders as on a typewriter. As you can imagine, training for experienced secretaries was less than half a day. Documents were stored on 1/4" three-track tape cassettes using a drive invented by another school-days chum named Cliff Tedder. Because of problems with the Orange County, California, power system, where voltage ranges of 90-130 volts were common, Ed invented the now well-kinown switching power supply -- and Lexitron kept the patents so Ed got nothing but a salary from it. It rectified line voltage, regulated it to 90 volts, which ran a 20 kHz oscillator (so that the transformers required far less iron), and ultimately produced well-regulated power for the electronics. Raytheon bought Lexitron, and pounded it into the ground. Ed ultimately took his instance of it to a landfill because he couldn't find a computer museum that wanted it. > Dave
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
On Sat, 2024-04-13 at 12:54 -0700, Van Snyder wrote: As a freshman, I noticed that the HP Digital Slide Rule 6-digit pocket calculator was only $600. I suggested to myy college buddy Ed Kelm that it ought to be possible to build a desk calculator that used a TV for the display. That never happened, but Ed held onto that thought and eventually designed the Lexitron dedicated-logic word processor. It had a landscape-format screen OOPS, a portrait-format screen.
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.--keyboard to mag tape
Memories are fuzzy. I think I remember a device that wrote to a magnetic tape, where the tape written to just fell into...something like a very wide vacuum column from a tape drive, not taken up on a spool. Maybe it had a keyboard, but it's input actually came in over (dial-up?) tty-like serial data. Like, branch offices or field sales people called in and upload their daily data? Does anybody remember anything like this? --Carey
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
At 10:00 AM 4/13/2024, Paul Berger wrote: The problem with a lot of these old machines was they relied on a lot of electro-mechanical devices that would today be replaced by electronics and a few simple actuators. These mechanical devices need to be adjusted and maintained and have lots of parts to wear out. For a great example of 1950s electro-mechanical devices, check out this: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102740072 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102740069 "The First Magnetic Random Access Mass Memory with Interchangeable Media"
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? On Sat, 13 Apr 2024, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: My wife did, sort of: for a while she worked with IBM MT/ST word processors. Those were very early word processing systems that used a custom magnetic tape cartridge for storage and a Selectric typewriter for I/O. Rather off-topic, and silly (about MT/ST), . . . I gave away one decades ago. A friend wanted it as an advertising prop because he was writing a word processing program called "FULL/ST".
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
On 4/12/24 20:21, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Apr 12, 2024, at 7:48 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: ... The other was to print on its "whippet" printer, a very fast electrostatic printer that put soot onto a thermal paper that was then heated to "fix" it. There was a huge variac under the printer to adjust the heater. The perfect setting was between two windings. Too cold and the soot fell off. Too hot and it was melted and smeared into an almost illegible mess. But it was very fast -- and only 80 columns wide. It was about the size of a KSR-33. Different beast, but it reminds me of an electrostatic plotter we at on the U of Illinois PLATO system. That one was by Versatec, either 11 or 17 inches wide (I forgot), 300 dpi, pretty sure it used wet toner. It also used a chain drive for the paper feed, which had enough backlash that starting and stopping would produce visible irregularities in the output. So I wrote a driver for it that did overlapped I/O to avoid that problem. (File I/O directly from a PPU program, lots of fun!) With that, it did an awesome job printing musical scores. Yes, there were a number of Versatec models for different paper sizes and pixel density. I worked with a bunch of 1200A units, they could run either roll or fanfold paper at 11" width. The paper was clay coated and felt like a dirty chalkboard. The toner was quite smelly, some kind of paraffin oil with carbon particles suspended in it. There was a blower to evaporate the toner solvent. The 1200A had 200 pixels/inch, so you got 2112 pixels across the page, IIRC. it applied 800 V to the writing electrodes, and something like 400 V to the segmented backplate that was on the opposite side of the paper. It could print text at about 1200 LPM, which was pretty fantastic for the time. But, I am glad to not have to deal with these things anymore! Jon
[cctalk] Re: Other input devices.
On 4/12/24 20:55, ben via cctalk wrote: Did any one ever use a keyboard to magtape as input device? I bought a surplus desktop key to tape machine made by Pertec. It had a 7" 9-track drive in it, a small core memory and a field of light bulbs to show the read-back contents, as well as the keyboard. I tore it apart at the right section and turned it into a mag tape drive for my Z-80 CP/M system. The basic tape formatting was all done in software, and I took tapes in to work and read them on our VAX to verify what I was doing was readable. I also traded a guy for a Honeywell key to tape system that apparently was used as an off-line tape to line printer unit. But, it was actually possible to use it as a key to tape machine, too. I wanted it for the 300 LPM printer, but had to use it in the tape to print mode to decipher the protocol of the printer. Jon
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems
Plato experience is still active including the games at https://www.cyber1.org/ Regards, Tarek Hoteit AI Consultant, PhD +1 360-838-3675 https://tarek.computer INFOCOM AI LLC - https://infocom.ai > On Apr 13, 2024, at 10:20, Paul Koning via cctalk > wrote: > > > >> On Apr 12, 2024, at 9:49 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: >> >> On 2024-04-12 7:23 p.m., Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > On Apr 12, 2024, at 5:54 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk > wrote: > > ... > my favorite terminal 3190 that was neon gas, so monochrome, but could > take 5 addresses, and flip between 62 lines of 160 characters (always > there), to 4 terminals of 62x80 any two visible at a time, or 4 terminals > of 31x160 characters, any 2 visible at a time, or 4 terminals of 31x80 > all visible at once. when given a choice, my new boss was surprised that > I chose that instead of the color 3279 with graphics that everybody else > wanted. Great for running virtual systems... >>> Sounds like the plasma panel displays that were invented for the PLATO >>> system, by Don Bitzer and a few others, at the U of Illinois. Inherent >>> memory: if you lit a pixel it would stay lit, to turn it off you'd feed it >>> a pulse of the opposite polarity. So it was a great way to do 512x512 >>> bitmap graphics with very modest complexity, no refresh memory needed. >>>paul >> >> But too slow I suspect to run a game like spacewar. > > PLATO was the system where a whole lot of early games first appeared, > especially multi-player games. Among them were any number of variations of > "Star Trek" inspired ones. While you couldn't refresh a screen full of space > ships in motion as fast as you can on a dedicated graphics engine, it was > certainly acceptable for the players. And a simpler two-ship game like the > original spacewar would work even better, because you'd only need a couple of > operations per refresh -- on the classic terminal, 12 output words at 60 per > second, so 200 ms per refresh. Not quite "full motion" but close. > >paul >
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems (was: Re: Re: IBM 360)
On Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 9:45 AM Christian Kennedy via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > While on the topic of odd IBM mass storage systems, does anyone recall > an IBM system that used rotating carousels holding sheets of magnetic > material? The carousel would rotate to position the selected sheet into > the read/write station, where it would be moved up and down relative to > the multiple fixed heads, a weird linear riff on a fixed head disk. > > LBL had one of these systems, installed in the same room as one of the > few examples of the IBM 1360 photo digital storage system. They kept a > broom next to the later in order to sweep up the photo chips when the > thing occasionally spewed them everywhere. > I don't know if you saw it but the video at this link that Len Shustek posted shows a machine very similar to what you describe ==> https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102740069 Sellam
[cctalk] Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems (was: Re: Re: IBM 360)
On Fri, Apr 12, 2024 at 9:45 AM Christian Kennedy via cctalk wrote: While on the topic of odd IBM mass storage systems, does anyone recall an IBM system that used rotating carousels holding sheets of magnetic material? The carousel would rotate to position the selected sheet into the read/write station, where it would be moved up and down relative to the multiple fixed heads, a weird linear riff on a fixed head disk. Nowhere near as cool, . . . About 30 years ago? (When libraries would DEDICATE a PC for each CDROM that they had) Keith Hensen made a device consisting of a carousel holding 240 CD/CD-ROM/DVDs. It had a name something like "Qubik"? It was in a square box with a smoked plexiglass cover, with a drive at each corner. They were stackable. The drives were SCSI, the carousel controls were RS232. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com
[cctalk] Versatec Electrostatic Printers (was :Re: Re: Odd IBM mass storage systems)
On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 10:48 PM Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > Yes, there were a number of Versatec models for different > paper sizes and pixel density. Does anyone else have one in their collection? I have an ICL-badged V80 which has a GPIB interface to link it to a PERQ. I also have the schematics, etc for the plain V80 but nothing on the GPIB interface (ether user or service data). IIRC the V80 is based round a Texas 16-bit microprocessor with some AM2900-series sequencers and ROMs to control the electrode timing. As Jon said in the bit I deleted, there's a 'nib electrode' under the paper and a segmented backing electrode above it. The charge image is built up on the paper, then the toner is flowed over it and the carbon (I assume) particles adhere to the charged bits. No drying heater in mine. -tony
