Re: LK201 emulation

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I would absolutely be interested in this - while I'd love to use original 
hardware where possible, it's not always easy to get peripherals at the same 
time as machines. A long term dream of mine is to build some sort of 
general-purpose box that can make connections to arbitrary vintage computer 
keyboard/mouse/video ports, and connect in to modern HDMI & USB peripherals to 
make it easier to just pull a machine off the shelf and get going.

> On May 17, 2020, at 5:13 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Gentlepeople,
> 
> I've been having problems with broken LK201s, so as a workaround I created an 
> adapter that connects to a standard PC USB keyboard and makes it look like an 
> LK201.  It's based on an Arduino (specifically, Adafruit Trinket M0, an 
> amazingly tiny yet powerful small microprocessor).
> 
> It's working at this point, though it needs a few small software tweaks to 
> make it complete.  I'm going to turn my breadboard into something slightly 
> more polished.
> 
> Question to the list: is this something that would be of interest to others?  
> If yes, I can make the design available.  Perhaps the PCB layout and parts 
> list.  I don't think I want to get into building units for others, though.
> 
>   paul
> 

Re: VAXStation 3200 RAM repair video (again)

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

Thanks for posting this Joseph - that was a great video! A great example of 
fault-finding

> On May 16, 2020, at 1:02 PM, Joseph Zatarski via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
>  

RE: OT: the end of Dyn DNS

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Jon Elson via cctalk
> Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2019 11:56 AM
> To: Charles Dickman ; gene...@ezwind.net;
> Discussion@ 
> Subject: Re: OT: the end of Dyn DNS
> 
> On 06/26/2019 08:36 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote:
> > Now that Dyn has been absorbed by Oracle I need a new DNS service for
> > my vanity domain. I welcome suggestions for a replacement provider.
> >
> > -chuck
> >
> I use Network Solutions, they are a bit expensive, though.
> Godaddy also provides that service.  Don't go with the cheapest, they could go
> out of business anytime.  My secondary DNS provider did just that, a month
> after I paid up for 2 years.
> 
> Jon

Though they may score no better than Oracle on some folks "companies to avoid" 
list, I use Google as my registrar https://domains.google.com and they do free 
dynamic DNS for domains you run with them supporting a handful of client 
protocols (https://support.google.com/domains/answer/6147083) - I use dyndns2 
coming from my EdgeRouter Lite, so don't need a program running on a desktop 
and it has been quite nice.

Sophie

RE: SGI IRIX 6.5 Screen Savers (emulated Indy w/ 24-bit XL graphics) running in MAME

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Al Kossow via
> cctalk
> Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 1:39 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
> Subject: SGI IRIX 6.5 Screen Savers (emulated Indy w/ 24-bit XL graphics)
> running in MAME
> 
> pretty cool..
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6E0_qgfGGQ


A while back I uploaded a few minutes of the "ElectroPaint" screensaver 
captured from an Indy w/ a framegrabber. If that's your thing, it's here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl3mF-wKWgg

Sophie

RE: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I've had pretty great luck with using SCSI2SDs in my various mostly-90s 
workstations (https://blog.pizzabox.computer/, among a few others). In a few 
cases (VAXstation 4000 VLC, Quadra 610) you need to put the settings to emulate 
a "real" model of drive, but otherwise compatibility has been pretty good.

Someone later in the thread mentioned tape support - I haven't used it, but the 
configuration utility has the option to set a given SCSI ID to present itself 
as a tape drive. I have a feeling I'm gonna need to explore this when I get 
around to trying to get my Sun 3/80 running...

Sophie
 
-Original Message-
From: cctalk  On Behalf Of Charles Dickman via 
cctalk
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2019 10:16 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?

What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be
SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this list. 
I am curious about how well it works and which version to get.

Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not seem to 
have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a supplier for them. 
The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the
V6 available.

It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without 
following the GPL.

V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware supports 
it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was after speed I 
wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be consistent with the era.

Chuck

Re: DG/UX install media

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I'm pretty sure these are just raw images, as Torfinn suggested. If
you run strings(1) on them, you see the contents of all sorts of shell
scripts and the text portion of binaries, etc. I'm guessing that the
images have a partition table header that libmagic just doesn't know
about.

I'm waiting on a new NVRAM chip to arrive in order to boot my AViiON
from these disks - if that arrives before we verify the disks, I'll
report back with how it goes.

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 10:02 AM Liam Proven via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018 at 13:42, alan--- via cctalk  
> wrote:
> >
> > I've tried loop mounting with no success.  Is there a software tool
> > (Linux or Windows) that will burn a non-ISO image to a CD?  Most
> > expect/assume ISO-9660.
>
> On Windows (a few years ago, I no longer run it in normal use), my
> personal favourite was ImgBurn. Simple, free, Just Works™.
>
> http://www.imgburn.com/
>
> From the site:
>
> «
> ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN,
> CCD, CDI, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.
> »
>
> --
> Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
> Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
> UK: +44 7939-087884 - ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: DG/UX install media

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I too am very interested in this - I just picked up an AViiON on eBay and I’m 
excited to restore it but have seen precious little in the way of OS images or 
manuals and the like

Sophie

> On Sep 26, 2018, at 1:05 PM, alan--- via cctalk  wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have install media for DG/UX targeted for M88100 CPUs
> (specifically Aviion)?  Any version 
> 
> Thanks, 
> 
> -Alan

Re: Making a bootable LIF CD for the 9000/382

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I have a Sony CDU561-SC (it came in a Sun 411 case - not sure if Sun
ever sold them like this or if it was custom) that worked just fine to
boot an HP 9000/425e (one of the last 68k models, I think?) the other
day. Its been pretty handy for various old workstations (except for my
SGI Indy who really doesn't seem to like it)

Sophie
On Fri, Jul 6, 2018 at 1:16 PM Pete Lancashire via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> I've stayed with the Toshibas although I have a Sony that supports the
> block size as well. The thing to do is look for external CD-ROMs from like
> SUN DEC etc. Or from the SUN 3800 I need to get rid of.
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2018, 9:49 AM Al Kossow via cctalk 
> wrote:
>
> > Couple of related things, does anyone have a list of SCSI CDROMs known to
> > boot on the 68K 9000s?
> > I've ordered another A1999 to see if my drive is just bad, and have
> > started digging through my
> > boxes of drives for other models to test.
> >
> > Has anyone come across an archive of SCSI CDROM technical manuals (ie.
> > what commands they support)?
> >
> > I have one manual for the Toshiba ca. 1990 which is up on bitsavers.
> > Another one of those things
> > I should have been collecting, along with a bunch of different CDROM
> > drives while Weird Stuff still existed.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

Re: Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I misspoke - Spectre potentially affects all processors that use
*pipelining and speculative execution*, not just superscalar ones (I
mis-parsed "all modern processors capable of keeping many instructions
in flight").

There's been ongoing patches to the Linux kernel for Meltdown (and for
other OSes, though we can't read their mailing lists). For Spectre,
though, it seems like solutions might take longer to distribute.

It's kind of fascinating to run in to a cross-platform vulnerability
like this! Is anyone else aware of similar vulnerabilities from
history that also affected multiple processors, but relied on their
implementation details?

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 4:03 PM, Ed Sharpe  wrote:
> http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-starts-issuing-patches-for-meltdown-spectre-vulnerabilities/?loc=newsletter_large_thumb_related=TREc64629f=46856739
>
> this  just  hit  my email box. Ed#
>
> In a message dated 1/4/2018 1:54:43 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
> cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:
>
> From the exploit homepage (https://spectreattack.com/) , it seems like the
> Meltdown vulnerability affects all out-of-order executing Intel *branded*
> CPUs (from the P6 onward), and the Spectre vulnerability potentially
> impacts all superscalar processors of...all brands potentially :(
>
> Sophie
>
> On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 3:44 PM, jim stephens via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 1/4/2018 12:34 PM, Ed Sharpe via cctalk wrote:
>>
>>> what about xenon processors??
>>> ed#
>>> In a message dated 1/4/2018 1:18:14 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>>> cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> There is no difference between them and any other intel x86 or x64
>> processor as far as the flaw involved.
>>
>> Though they are not mentioning it, I suspect one can target P3 and P4
>> equally well with the exploit. It has been around that long.
>> thanks
>> Jim
>>
>>
>>> - Original Message -
>>> From: "Warner Losh via cctalk" 
>>> To: "Murray McCullough" ; "General
>>> Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
>>> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2018 1:05 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Spectre & Meltdown
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 11:00 AM, Murray McCullough via cctalk <
 cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

 This may be off-topic but these latest uprocessor exploits has raised
> a question: Are the 'old/classic' uprocessors using x86 technology in
> the same boat? The very earliest ones, i.e., 1970s and early 80's.
> probably not. How many are actually in use and/or on the Net?
>
> I've seen it reported, but haven't verified, that this bug extends
 about 20
 years back in the past to the Pentium Pro/Pentium II class of machines.
 If
 I read that correctly, there's only two generations of Pentium not
 affected, the P54C and P55C, the former of F00F fame... 386 and 486 CPUs
 apparently aren't affected since they didn't have speculative execution.
 The 8088/8086/80186/80286 presumably are also immune... If you extend
 things further back, CP/M on Z80/8080 is also fine, but I don't think
 those
 are properly x86 :)

 Warner

>>> 
>>> Finally, an excuse to use all those old 486 boxes...
>>>
>>> m
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

>From the exploit homepage (https://spectreattack.com/) , it seems like the
Meltdown vulnerability affects all out-of-order executing Intel *branded*
CPUs (from the P6 onward), and the Spectre vulnerability potentially
impacts all superscalar processors of...all brands potentially :(

Sophie

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 3:44 PM, jim stephens via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 1/4/2018 12:34 PM, Ed Sharpe via cctalk wrote:
>
>> what about  xenon processors??
>> ed#
>>   In a message dated 1/4/2018 1:18:14 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>> cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:
>>
>>
>>
> There is no difference between them and any other intel x86 or x64
> processor as far as the flaw involved.
>
> Though they are not mentioning it, I suspect one can target P3 and P4
> equally well with the exploit.  It has been around that long.
> thanks
> Jim
>
>
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "Warner Losh via cctalk" 
>> To: "Murray McCullough" ; "General
>> Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
>> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2018 1:05 PM
>> Subject: Re: Spectre & Meltdown
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 11:00 AM, Murray McCullough via cctalk <
>>> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> This may be off-topic but these latest uprocessor exploits has raised
 a question: Are the 'old/classic' uprocessors using x86 technology in
 the same boat? The very earliest ones, i.e., 1970s and early 80's.
 probably not. How many are actually in use and/or on the Net?

 I've seen it reported, but haven't verified, that this bug extends
>>> about 20
>>> years back in the past to the Pentium Pro/Pentium II class of machines.
>>> If
>>> I read that correctly, there's only two generations of Pentium not
>>> affected, the P54C and P55C, the former of F00F fame... 386 and 486 CPUs
>>> apparently aren't affected since they didn't have speculative execution.
>>> The 8088/8086/80186/80286 presumably are also immune... If you extend
>>> things further back, CP/M on Z80/8080 is also fine, but I don't think
>>> those
>>> are properly x86 :)
>>>
>>> Warner
>>>
>> 
>> Finally, an excuse to use all those old 486 boxes...
>>
>> m
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: Sync on Green RGB video

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I've had v good luck w/ old video inputs & the ASUS PB78Q - I've gotten
video from:
* DEC VAXstation 4000 VLC (3W3 -> 3 BNC -> VGA)
* DEC 3000 AXP 300 (3W3 -> 3 BNC -> VGA)
* Sun SPARCstation (13W3 -> VGA)
* SGI Indy (13W3 -> VGA)
* NeXTstation mono (DB19 -> VGA w/ a cable off ebay)

Of these I'm definitely sure the NeXTstation, and the Indy use
sync-on-green - the others might be too? But at the least, that monitor is
compatible w/ Sync-on-green (and seems to be able to reliably deal with 3W3
-> 3 BNC -> VGA even when the BNC -> VGA cable is actually hoping for the
standard 5 BNC

Sophie


On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 8:48 PM, william degnan via cctech <
cct...@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I have a 3100 Vasstation but I have not used it yet..  I have only used my
> MicroVAX 3100.
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 4:21 PM, Aaron Jackson via cctech <
> cct...@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> > You might be surprised how many LCD monitors support SoG. I have several
> > iiyama LCD panels which work fine with a 3100.
> >
> > Aaron.
> >
> >
> > Douglas Taylor via cctech writes:
> >
> > > I have a couple of vaxes that output 'unique' video, Alpha 3000 300,
> > > Alpha 3000 400, Vax 4000 VLC, and Vax Station 3100 M76.
> > >
> > > The Alpha and VLC each have a 3W3 type of connector and the 3100 has a
> > > 15 pin DEC designed connector.
> > >
> > > What does it take to connect these to inexpensive, modern VGA light
> > > weight monitors?
> > >
> > > Doug
> >
>

Re: Slightly OT: Computer internals book recommendations

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I have the second edition (there appears to now be a third out!) but
re-reading the preface and "what's changed since the first edition" doesn't
seem to say what I remembered re: buses (namely, it says nothing at all).
It is possibly my professors were referring to a much earlier
course/textbook (or that I dreamed the whole thing!). CS: APP is still a
pretty useful book, but...not on this topic, it would seem.

(in the second edition, the only reference to buses is on a page where they
note that as of its publishing, buses are much more complicated and much
less exposed to programmers than they once were)

- Sophie

On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 1:10 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> > From: Sophie Haskins
>
> > earlier editions of "Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective"
> had a
> > bunch of discussions of buses etc .. but the edition I have
> explicitly
> > calls out that they felt like it wasn't important to have chapters on
> > anymore :(
>
> Well, that might not be the wrong call, _iff_ keeping them in would have
> increase the cost of the text-book for (poor) student...
>
> And for the rest of us, there's ABE for the earlier editions! :-) Which
> edition do you have, may I ask? Thanks!
>
> Noel
>

Re: Slightly OT: Computer internals book recommendations

[Sophie Haskins via cctalk]

I want to say that earlier editions of “Computer Systems: A Programmers 
Perspective” had a bunch of discussions of buses etc in addition to assembly, 
compilers, linking, etc. but the edition I have explicitly calls out that they 
felt like it wasn’t important to have chapters on anymore :(

> On Nov 19, 2017, at 2:29 AM, Huw Davies via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 19 Nov 2017, at 10:57, Eric Christopherson via cctalk 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> Basically, I'm looking for a certain book (although really any book in
>> the same vein would satisfy), which was on computer system architecture,
>> organization, etc.; it talked about the usual boolean logic, assembly
>> programming in some fictitious instruction set, an overview of two
>> actual architectures (I think at that time they were 32-bit x86 and
>> 64-bit POWER). The other thing I remember very specifically was there
>> was a place near the back (probably an appendix) that talked about
>> one or more specific buses (I think at least PCI was there), with timing
>> diagrams to tell you what was actually going back and forth between the
>> bus and CPU.
>> 
> 
> Sounds like either 
> 
> Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach by David Patterson and John 
> Hennessy
> 
> Computer Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface by David 
> Patterson and John Hennessy
> 
> I see there’s a MIPS edition of the second book. My copy of the second book 
> has Hennessy as the first author.
> 
> Time for a re-read - it’s been a while since I read both of them.
> 
> Huw Davies   | e-mail: huw.dav...@kerberos.davies.net.au
> Melbourne| "If soccer was meant to be played in the
> Australia| air, the sky would be painted green" 
>