Fun read. I'd write my own story but it is much less exiting. Maybe some day you'll tell us about kiel and the PDP-10.
/P On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:28:41PM +0100, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: > Hey folks, > > after my OmniUSB-thread has gone down the teleprinter way... I'll start a > new thread. > > Did you now how I came to vintage computers? How I became some kind of > computer engineer? Probably not. It's so easy. Listen. Long story ahead. > > In 1999 I started to study computer science. Java and algorithms and all > that clean stuff. > One day in autumn 2000 I had that idea: I need a Fernschreiber > (=teleprinter)! I had nothing to do with that stuff. And I did no know how > it worked. I even did not remember having seen one. It was just that word > in my head. > So I bought my first Siemens T100 (still here in the house, two floors > below me). It was a machine with strange connectors which made awful noise > when connected to power. > So I went to the library and found a good book from 1934. That told me how > the teleprinter works. > I then somehow soldered a simple interface to connect that beast to the > parallel (!!!) port of my Linux server (the first hachti.de server was a > mainboard and a harddisk in the corner of my student home where we had > 10mbit LAN acess and fixed IP. I even did a DNS reverse mapping > philipp.vorstrasse.uni-bremen.de for my IP). > At that time all about programming I knew was Turbo Pascal, some Z80 > machine language (not assembly language, I programmed that beast in hex) > and a bit Java. I didn't even know much about Linux. The server back then > had been setup by someone else who was in need of a server. So he used it > as well. > I used the parallel port because I had an idea how to control the pins. I > knew that there was something ugly called serial port but I had not yet > made the connection that this was EXACTLY what I would have needed. > > To program that thing I needed some software. So I went to the bookstore at > noon. Will never forget that. Bought the O'Reilly Linux Kernel drivers book > (the one with the horse) and started to write my first C program ever. It > was a kernel module. The Kernel must have been Linux 2.2. It was > frustrating. But after a decent 30 hour nonstop session and hundreds of > reboots (haha, of my web and mail server which was also running X from time > to time) I really had some bitbang code which made the teleprinter say what > I wanted it to say. > I soon realised that with a multitasking OS like Linux I had the choice of > outputting correct data using busy wait in Kernel or outputting a mess when > the system gets under load. So I learned THAT lesson. > I decided that I needed something else. Because I had heard of other people > working with something called PIC Microcontroller, I bought one and a > programmer. And a breadboard. That evil 16f84 was sitting there on my desk, > naked, and did - nothing. > Getting the PIC up and running was pure horror. The hardest architecture > I've ever mastered. Since then I know: PIC is a load of complete shit! In > the end I failed to create a RS232 (had learned that in the meantime) to > teleprinter converter but had the idea to hook up two teleprinters using > modems. TelexPhone was born. The project (telexphone.net) was eventually > kind of stolen a few years later and continued to something still in > existence called i-telex over internet. That was never what I wanted > because the V21 modems (hard to find!!) are bit transparent. That means > that the teleprinters on both sides of the wire run as synchronous as with > a real wire between them. Very cool. The TelexPhone used a 16f876 with a > approx 2k cooperative multitasking system written entirely in assembly. It > was somehow modular. I managed to hook in modules with private main loop > and init parts by writing an impressive linker script which automated that. > Hey, I was 21 and did all that on my own! Please do NOT laugh! > > In the meantime someone somewhere invented something called eBay. And > because It's always good to have several different devices of the same type > and even better to have several examples of each those different devices, I > had an eBay search for "Lochstreifen" which means punched paper tape. Paper > tape for teleprinter, of course. > > One day I found an offer "Honeywell H316 minicomputer" which sounded > interesting. With paper tape. And no pictures. In Switzerland. A quick > search (probably already google? I used altavista.digital.com before) told > me that this could be an interesting toy. So I bought it for the incredible > amount of SFr 450. > Borrowed a car and went there. What I found was some messy stuff somewhere > on an uninsulated attic in Switzerland. Very dirty. I nearly turned down > the deal because it all looked so crappy. The seller admitted that he had > kept the stuff in that open attic since beginning of the 1980s. > I took it home. Had to drive TWICE from Bremen to Switzerland to get it > all. And it was a lucky buy. > After fiddling and cleaning around some weeks (never seen a minicomputer > before!) and reading the manuals, I found out that the PSU had a slight > problem which lead to unjustified shutdown. After I had solved that by > pulling out one of the security circuit card from the PSU, it powered up > the computer. And it magically worked instantly exactly as the manual told > me. That was in 2004. The H316 has never since then failed a single time. > Only issue are some contact issues with some memory cabling which may > happen after moving the machine. > Since then I have never had to switch a chip or a lamp or whatever. No > single failure. Not one failed CPU or memory test (except when I stress the > cable's card edge connector). It's so amazing that it became boring. > Programming in FORTRAN IV? Read the manual, punch tape, use the compiler, > linking loader and libraries as described in the manual - works. No secret > shit. And The machine came with all that software as nice source code > listing and binary paper tapes. > > While still wandering around on my Olympus of quality, I got a call by a > teleprinter friend who asked me if I would take a pdp8 computer. I thought > that bit of that infamous DEC mess could be a good counter example for my > H316's unlimited quality and went to pick up the pdp8. The day ended with > my yellow car completely stuffed with rusty pdp8/l, and lots of other > stuff. It were three machines. The tape drives and racks were fubar and > went to scrap. > > http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn0750_full.jpg > http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn0751_full.jpg > http://pdp8.hachti.de/gallery/haul/dscn2109_full.jpg > > That was the beginning of the end. It just happened. Later 8/e, lab8/e etc. > And I had to admit that playing with Omnibus pdp8 is absolutely amazing! > It's a great toy! I think the pdp8/e (not straight-8, 8/i, /s or whatever) > is one of the greatest toys ever made. There are many games, it breaks > regularly while still giving you a chance to be satisfied after fixing it. > And it's so versatile! > And digging through those blurry schematics is a game in its own right! For > the Honeywell everything comes in high quality print, completely correct, > no derivations and workarounds. With DEC it can be an adventure to get an > overview over a hardware, its features, ECOs and FCOs and what else could > happen. > > Someday I also made a pdp8 in an FPGA. That was during the time I wanted to > be a chip designer. But the only place where I could to ASIC design (I did > my diploma thesis about a video generator FPGA design) was closed down > instead of hiring me. Thank you, Silicon Image! > > Currently I'm working for a Bosch/Denso joint venture doing Linux security > for car multimedia systems. In my free time I have just started to > construct a Märklin model railroad digital decoder which I will try to sell > commercially (the competition use closed source PIC stuff. I use GPLv3 AVR > code). And I run a letterpress print shop with the biggest machine being > over 5 metric tons. > > In the printshop there's also an 8/e. And I have inherited a forklift. > > Don't know why I wrote this... Just wanted to write it. The teleprinter > discussion... It was the teleprinter discussion.... > > I never learned to get that paper... I just had the right toys. > > That's it for now :-) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
