Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Jason T via cctalk]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 12:01 PM, Mike Norris via cctalk
 wrote:
> Do you know were or how is the best place to send the scan (sorry this is my 
> first post)?

First post and already bottom-posting - off to a fine start!

Please do scan the manual if you can't find an example of it online.
Email me directly if you need hosting for it
(http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs).

-j

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:56 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 1 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>> I guess they trusted the disk enough.  Normal practice would be to save the 
>> dayfile to a regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part of daily 
>> maintenance), at which point you could print it, or archive it to tape, or 
>> whatever else comes to mind.
> 
> Was there typically any other way to access the disk file, such as if the 
> system were down?
> It could be useful in troubleshooting, such as if the system were down.

Not that I know of.  The file system structure was quite trivial so it would be 
easy to write a standalone inspect tool but I don't remember any such thing.

> At least they would not have had "Help" to suggest, "If the system will not 
> IPL/Boot, then run Troubleshooting Wizard"

That at least isn't an issue, since deadstart (CDC for "IPL") was traditionally 
done from magnetic tape, and could also load from other media if needed.

paul

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I guess they trusted the disk enough.  Normal practice would be to save 
the dayfile to a regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part of 
daily maintenance), at which point you could print it, or archive it to 
tape, or whatever else comes to mind.


Was there typically any other way to access the disk file, such as if the 
system were down?

It could be useful in troubleshooting, such as if the system were down.
. . .

At least they would not have had "Help" to suggest, "If the system will 
not IPL/Boot, then run Troubleshooting Wizard"

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:01 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> > On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk  
> > wrote:
> > console terminal [...] VT52. (It was not good
> > practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
> 
> As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions.  Lots of operating 
> system console interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy 
> consoles, and if so a CRT is a bad idea.  But you can certainly make CRT 
> consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC 6000 series.
> 
> Just a wild-ass guess, but I suspect that a typical CDC 6600 system would 
> have had a printer that logged console interaction?  I'm only suggesting that 
> a CRT console with no logging was a bad idea.

True.  The CDC OS would log anything interesting to a "dayfile", essentially a 
running log of system events including operator actions.  Those go to disk.  
Dayfile messages related to a particular job would also be printed with that 
job output.

> Of course, in principle the logging could be to disk or tape, but I don't 
> think most "machine-room" people would have trusted that nearly as much for a 
> console log. One wants a log of what happened on the console even when the 
> system was not working well.

I guess they trusted the disk enough.  Normal practice would be to save the 
dayfile to a regular disk file periodically (perhaps as part of daily 
maintenance), at which point you could print it, or archive it to tape, or 
whatever else comes to mind.

There was also the "accounting log", a second dayfile with accounting related 
messages coded in a fashion that made it straightforward to extract the data 
for billing.  And an "error log" with messages related to hardware problems 
(I/O errors with the hardware error detail data).

paul

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:56 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:

> > On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> > console terminal [...] VT52. (It was not good
> > practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)
>
> As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions.  Lots of operating
> system console interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy
> consoles, and if so a CRT is a bad idea.  But you can certainly make CRT
> consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC 6000 series.
>

Just a wild-ass guess, but I suspect that a typical CDC 6600 system would
have had a printer that logged console interaction?  I'm only suggesting
that a CRT console with no logging was a bad idea.

Of course, in principle the logging could be to disk or tape, but I don't
think most "machine-room" people would have trusted that nearly as much for
a console log. One wants a log of what happened on the console even when
the system was not working well.

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Mike Norris via cctalk]

Hi Eric,


>I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
>seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
>of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
>PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
>but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
>practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)


I worked in the Multivendor Environment so DEC (OEM 11's) so DEC terminals 
weren't that common there and when we first started using it I don't think we 
had access the LA120 (here in the UK at least!)

>However, a scan of the SuperTerm maintenance manual definitely would be
>good to archive for posterity.

Do you know were or how is the best place to send the scan (sorry this is my 
first post)?

Regards Mike Norris

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Feb 1, 2018, at 12:51 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data Systems c. 1978, it was a
>> 180 CPS dot matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer
>> in place of a LA36,
> 
> 
> I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
> seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
> of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
> PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
> but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
> practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)

My college experience (1973-1975) with consoles started with a ASR-33, then an 
LA30, and finally an LA36.  The LA30 was, amazingly enough, even less reliable 
than the ASR-33.  The LA36, on the other hand, was rock solid (as was the 
LA120, which I didn't see until after I went to DEC).

As for CRTs, it all depends on the design assumptions.  Lots of operating 
system console interfaces are designed on the assumption you have hardcopy 
consoles, and if so a CRT is a bad idea.  But you can certainly make CRT 
consoles and have it work -- consider the CDC 6000 series.

paul

Re: SuperTerm Maintenance Manual

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Mike Norris via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> The SuperTerm was manufactured by Intertec Data Systems c. 1978, it was a
> 180 CPS dot matrix printer (RS232), quite often used as a console printer
> in place of a LA36,


I know it sounds snarky, and admittedly my sample size is small, but it
seems to me that it was quite _rarely_ used as a console printer in place
of a LA36. Of the DEC machine rooms I saw back in the day (DECsystem-10,
PDP-11, VAX-11/7xx), most used an LA36 or LA120 as the console terminal,
but I also saw one Teletype Model 43 and one VT52. (It was not good
practice to use a CRT as the system console, IMO.)

I saw Intertec Intertube CRT terminals and SuperBrain microcomputers a fair
bit outside the machine rooms, but never saw a SuperTerm, though I'd seen
advertising for it. Given that it cost slightly more than an LA120, if I'd
had to make the choice, I'd have bought an LA120.  Also typically DEC
offered good deals on buying a complete system, at least for the sort of
large systems you'd find in a machine room, so substituting another
vendor's console terminal would cost more than just the delta in price
between the DEC terminal and the other vendor's terminal.

It's possible that some of the console terminals I saw could have had LA36
internal upgrades produced by Intertec or other companies. The only
advantage was that an LA36 could be upgraded to higher speed. The various
third-party graphics upgrades for the LA36 obviously weren't worthwhile for
a console terminal except in so far as they included the speed upgrade.

However, a scan of the SuperTerm maintenance manual definitely would be
good to archive for posterity.