Re: Classic programming

[Peter Coghlan]

On Fri, 07 Aug 2015 at 18:11:09 -0400, Sean Conner  wrote:

>
>   But I'm also interested in older software as well.  One of my "when I get
> around to it" projects is playing with the Viola web browser [4].  Written
> in the early 90s, it *barely* compiles on a 32-bit Unix system and while it
> may compile on a 64-bit system, it's unrunnable [5].  It has a scripting
> language built in, but it is its own scripting language that is quite
> annoying to actually use. I've been trying to update the code so it will at
> least run on modern systems, and then next, replace the scripting language
> with something more reasonable.
> 

>
> [5] Because integers and pointers will always be 32 bits right?
>

The DEC C / Compaq C / HP C or whatever it is called this week compiler on
Alpha or IA64 VMS has 32 bits ints and pointers can be 32 or 64 bits.

I think the similarly named compiler on OSF1 / Digital Unix / Tru64 or
whatever that is called this week offers the same facilites.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Peter Coghlan]

On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  wrote:

>
> I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
> are "not software enabled".
>

I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
disk that had media problems :-(

It probably doesn't help much but the online help says this:

 VOLINV,  volume is not software enabled

  Facility: SYSTEM, System Services

  Explanation:  The volume valid bit is not set for the volume. All physical
and logical I/O operations will be rejected until the bit is
set.

  User Action:  Check for a programming error. Verify that the volume is
mounted and loaded. Check to see that the power is on before
retrying the program.
 
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Jerry Weiss]

If the saveset restoration  and the complex bootstrap both fail, suggest you 
investigate the following.

1) Make sure the SCSI bus that is used by the CD-ROM has proper termination and 
termination power.

2) Create/obtain a new image CD.   Your image may be corruption or the CD-ROM 
may have trouble reading it.  




> On Aug 8, 2015, at 3:43 AM, Peter Coghlan  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
>> are "not software enabled".
>> 
> 
> I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
> disk that had media problems :-(
> 
> It probably doesn't help much but the online help says this:
> 
> VOLINV,  volume is not software enabled
> 
>  Facility: SYSTEM, System Services
> 
>  Explanation:  The volume valid bit is not set for the volume. All physical
>and logical I/O operations will be rejected until the bit is
>set.
> 
>  User Action:  Check for a programming error. Verify that the volume is
>mounted and loaded. Check to see that the power is on before
>retrying the program.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Holm Tiffe]

Peter Coghlan wrote:

> On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  wrote:
> 
> >
> > I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
> > are "not software enabled".
> >
> 
> I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
> disk that had media problems :-(

Yes, so are the hints in the manuals.
.. but I've erased and verified thoses disks with the Utilities on them
(>>> set host/dup/DSSI/bus:0 0 params)
and that verify came up w/o errors. I had one disk that would'nt spin up
after power up and I've repaired that disk with an rubber hammer :-)
(Reported that months before) ..but taht I'snt the disk I'm trying to
install.

I've used the RF Series Integrated Storage Element Users Guide
(http://computer-refuge.org/classiccmp/dec94mds/rf72dug8.pdf)
to do this and in this moment I've run Verify again:

LBN Statistics:
 0 Total Block(s) in error
Complete
..Hmm

So I think I missed one step, a logical format or so... on the other side
I can find no hints what that could be..

My tries to install produces the same errors on the two RF31 disks,
haven't tried to install on the RF71 but could do this, they are all empty.

Regards,

Holm
> 
> It probably doesn't help much but the online help says this:
> 
>  VOLINV,  volume is not software enabled
> 
>   Facility: SYSTEM, System Services
> 
>   Explanation:  The volume valid bit is not set for the volume. All physical
> and logical I/O operations will be rejected until the bit is
> set.
> 
>   User Action:  Check for a programming error. Verify that the volume is
> mounted and loaded. Check to see that the power is on before
> retrying the program.
>  
> Regards,
> Peter Coghlan.

-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Holm Tiffe]

No Jerry, I don't think that the problems are related to the SCSI Bus or
the CDR. I can't write to the DSSI disks, that is the problem.
If thast problem persists I'll try to install to an additional SCSI disk
next..
Regards,

Holm

Jerry Weiss wrote:

> If the saveset restoration  and the complex bootstrap both fail, suggest you 
> investigate the following.
> 
> 1) Make sure the SCSI bus that is used by the CD-ROM has proper termination 
> and termination power.
> 
> 2) Create/obtain a new image CD.   Your image may be corruption or the CD-ROM 
> may have trouble reading it.  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > On Aug 8, 2015, at 3:43 AM, Peter Coghlan  wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  
> > wrote:
> > 
> >> 
> >> I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
> >> are "not software enabled".
> >> 
> > 
> > I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
> > disk that had media problems :-(
> > 
> > It probably doesn't help much but the online help says this:
> > 
> > VOLINV,  volume is not software enabled
> > 
> >  Facility: SYSTEM, System Services
> > 
> >  Explanation:  The volume valid bit is not set for the volume. All physical
> >and logical I/O operations will be rejected until the bit is
> >set.
> > 
> >  User Action:  Check for a programming error. Verify that the volume is
> >mounted and loaded. Check to see that the power is on before
> >retrying the program.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Peter Coghlan.

-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Holm Tiffe]

Holm Tiffe wrote:

> Peter Coghlan wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > > I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI 
> > > disks
> > > are "not software enabled".
> > >
> > 
> > I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
> > disk that had media problems :-(
> 
> Yes, so are the hints in the manuals.
> .. but I've erased and verified thoses disks with the Utilities on them
> (>>> set host/dup/DSSI/bus:0 0 params)
> and that verify came up w/o errors. I had one disk that would'nt spin up
> after power up and I've repaired that disk with an rubber hammer :-)
> (Reported that months before) ..but taht I'snt the disk I'm trying to
> install.
> 
> I've used the RF Series Integrated Storage Element Users Guide
> (http://computer-refuge.org/classiccmp/dec94mds/rf72dug8.pdf)
> to do this and in this moment I've run Verify again:
> 
> LBN Statistics:
>  0 Total Block(s) in error
> Complete
> ..Hmm
> 
> So I think I missed one step, a logical format or so... on the other side
> I can find no hints what that could be..
> 
> My tries to install produces the same errors on the two RF31 disks,
> haven't tried to install on the RF71 but could do this, they are all empty.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Holm

Tried the RF71 and it worked!
After the successful backup the Backup asked for a "YES" if I would do
additional actions and I've tried DIA0 agin wich resulted in the same
errors.

So I think I must have done something different wit that DSSI DUP utiliy.

Any hints?

Regards

Holm
-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-08 08:21, Holm Tiffe wrote:

Johnny Billquist wrote:


On 2015-08-07 18:22, Holm Tiffe wrote:


Hmm.. it seems that the pdf is containing thestuff that I've already read
somewhere on HP's website.

There are two possibilities:


[>>> B/R5:1000 DKA400:
[
[
[If you are booting from an InfoServer device, enter a command that
[specifies root 1. For example, on a VAX 6000 computer, enter:
[
[
[>>> B/R5:1100/X:D/B:6 ET0
[

Ok, the first should fit with an abbrevation:

  B/R5:1000 DUA3

(I have a VAX4000-300 not an VS4000/90, nor I have an VAX6000..)

and this boots until the message with the write protected disk
dua3..(sorry, don't have it handy..) and than the system hangs.

When I simply boot  B dua3 the install system asks for a date
and I finally get a "$". Thats all..


That is all that is to be expected. Not sure what you were expecting,
but if you read the VMS installation manuals, you will see that this is
where you should end up.


Hmm.. I'm not sure if you read what I previously wrote..I can hear you
laughing but I don't think that this is really helpful..


Well, I wasn't laughing, and apologies if it came across that way.
However, I was slightly annoyed at your apparent success in getting 
where the documentation says you should get, and then all the 
experimentation with boot flags when you already reached the goal.



What I've expected was an behavior like that described in the manuals,
the manuals are telling stuff with boot flags that seems to not applicable
here.


Correct. The boot flags are not applicable. When you get to the '$' 
prompt, you have succeeded. No point in futzing more. We could try to 
figure out what the effects of the boot flags are, and other possible 
things you could do from the CD, but that would be unrelated to 
installing VMS.



W/o any flag I end up at the prompt of a standalone backup
wich is fine for me..


Right.


I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
are "not software enabled".


That is a different problem, and needs to be figured out with the DSSI 
disks. I assume you have not pushed in the write protect switches. You 
could connect to the disk drives, and check the status from that side. 
There are diagnostics you can run, and so on, on the disks.
The VAX boot environment on your machine have, I believe, the ability to 
connect you to the disk drives. I can't remember the details, so you'll 
have to either search manuals, or ask online about that.


My only actual recollection of when something like this can happen is 
when the drive decides that some data are unreliable on the disk, and it 
write protects itself, in order to give you time to recover. But since 
you want to do a clean install at this point, you would want to ignore 
this feature. I would hope the built in diagnostics could help you 
there, if this actually is the case.



And at this point, you run BACKUP to restore the initial saveset to a
disk, and then you boot that disk to continue.


That's why I've asked what todo..


And now you know. :-)

Johnny


Shure?


Good. You know how to get to the '$' prompt. Thus, booting from the CD 
is accomplished, for the task of installing VMS.
You now have a problem with the DSSI disks to solve, in order to install 
VMS.

New problem, new questions. :-)

Johnny



Regards,

Holm




--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-08 12:00, Holm Tiffe wrote:

Peter Coghlan wrote:


On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  wrote:



I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
are "not software enabled".



I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
disk that had media problems :-(


Yes, so are the hints in the manuals.
.. but I've erased and verified thoses disks with the Utilities on them
(>>> set host/dup/DSSI/bus:0 0 params)
and that verify came up w/o errors. I had one disk that would'nt spin up
after power up and I've repaired that disk with an rubber hammer :-)
(Reported that months before) ..but taht I'snt the disk I'm trying to
install.

I've used the RF Series Integrated Storage Element Users Guide
(http://computer-refuge.org/classiccmp/dec94mds/rf72dug8.pdf)
to do this and in this moment I've run Verify again:

LBN Statistics:
  0 Total Block(s) in error
Complete
..Hmm


Ok. Good that you know how to get into the disks and play around.


So I think I missed one step, a logical format or so... on the other side
I can find no hints what that could be..


No. There is no hidden step. First of all, you need to understand the 
VMS installation as such do not require any such steps ever. A disk is a 
disk. It's a bunch of blocks. Reformatting the drive will not change that.
What is on the blocks previously is also totally irrelevant to VMS. VMS 
will overwrite it anyway during installation.


So, from an installation point of view, it's simple. You want to write 
the VMS filesystem and files onto the disk. That is all.


Now, with all this said, I don't even believe you can do a physical 
reformat of DSSI disks. And I don't know what a "logical" reformat 
means, or what it would do.


To install VMS, you need the machine, a distribution, and a target disk. 
You are having problems with the target disk, which is outside the scope 
of the installation.


So we're at this point at a pure problem with your target disk. The DSSI 
disks are possibly the most complex disk subsystem I've ever seen. So I 
bet there are things in there I have no clue about.


As others suggested, the best bet is the volume valid bit. And I suspect 
an erase might not clear that bit. It's a form of metadata for the disk 
that the drive keeps around.



My tries to install produces the same errors on the two RF31 disks,
haven't tried to install on the RF71 but could do this, they are all empty.


Could be worth a try.

Johnny



Regards,

Holm


It probably doesn't help much but the online help says this:

  VOLINV,  volume is not software enabled

   Facility: SYSTEM, System Services

   Explanation:  The volume valid bit is not set for the volume. All physical
 and logical I/O operations will be rejected until the bit is
 set.

   User Action:  Check for a programming error. Verify that the volume is
 mounted and loaded. Check to see that the power is on before
 retrying the program.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.





--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-08 12:21, Holm Tiffe wrote:

Holm Tiffe wrote:


Peter Coghlan wrote:


On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe  wrote:



I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the DSSI disks
are "not software enabled".



I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to mount a
disk that had media problems :-(


Yes, so are the hints in the manuals.
.. but I've erased and verified thoses disks with the Utilities on them
(>>> set host/dup/DSSI/bus:0 0 params)
and that verify came up w/o errors. I had one disk that would'nt spin up
after power up and I've repaired that disk with an rubber hammer :-)
(Reported that months before) ..but taht I'snt the disk I'm trying to
install.

I've used the RF Series Integrated Storage Element Users Guide
(http://computer-refuge.org/classiccmp/dec94mds/rf72dug8.pdf)
to do this and in this moment I've run Verify again:

LBN Statistics:
  0 Total Block(s) in error
Complete
..Hmm

So I think I missed one step, a logical format or so... on the other side
I can find no hints what that could be..

My tries to install produces the same errors on the two RF31 disks,
haven't tried to install on the RF71 but could do this, they are all empty.

Regards,

Holm


Tried the RF71 and it worked!


Good.


After the successful backup the Backup asked for a "YES" if I would do
additional actions and I've tried DIA0 agin wich resulted in the same
errors.


As I would have expected. That drive didn't change just because you 
installed to another drive.



So I think I must have done something different wit that DSSI DUP utiliy.


I disagree. The disk drive is in a state which you need to clear. The 
question is how you clear it. But since you now have VMS installed 
somewhere, I'm sure VMS can help you clear the state for that disk.


Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

Re: ISA Pertec controllers available

[Tom Moss]

On 8 August 2015 at 05:35, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

>
> I recall that some years ago, I spoke with a fellow from Chi Corp, who
> barely remembered the thing.  (Chi did not make them--they were done by a
> Canadian outfit).  He did warn that the cards are somewhat sensitive to CPU
> speed, so you may want to install it in the slowest PC that you own.
>
>
I'll probably be using it with an XT or 286, which should fit the bill.

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-08 12:43, Johnny Billquist wrote:

On 2015-08-08 12:21, Holm Tiffe wrote:

Holm Tiffe wrote:


Peter Coghlan wrote:


On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 at 08:21:07 +0200, Holm Tiffe
 wrote:



I'm starting the image restore and now I have a problem that the
DSSI disks
are "not software enabled".



I'm not sure but I think I recall getting that error when trying to
mount a
disk that had media problems :-(


Yes, so are the hints in the manuals.
.. but I've erased and verified thoses disks with the Utilities on them
(>>> set host/dup/DSSI/bus:0 0 params)
and that verify came up w/o errors. I had one disk that would'nt spin up
after power up and I've repaired that disk with an rubber hammer :-)
(Reported that months before) ..but taht I'snt the disk I'm trying to
install.

I've used the RF Series Integrated Storage Element Users Guide
(http://computer-refuge.org/classiccmp/dec94mds/rf72dug8.pdf)
to do this and in this moment I've run Verify again:

LBN Statistics:
  0 Total Block(s) in error
Complete
..Hmm

So I think I missed one step, a logical format or so... on the other
side
I can find no hints what that could be..

My tries to install produces the same errors on the two RF31 disks,
haven't tried to install on the RF71 but could do this, they are all
empty.

Regards,

Holm


Tried the RF71 and it worked!


Good.


After the successful backup the Backup asked for a "YES" if I would do
additional actions and I've tried DIA0 agin wich resulted in the same
errors.


As I would have expected. That drive didn't change just because you
installed to another drive.


So I think I must have done something different wit that DSSI DUP utiliy.


I disagree. The disk drive is in a state which you need to clear. The
question is how you clear it. But since you now have VMS installed
somewhere, I'm sure VMS can help you clear the state for that disk.


Now I'll be snarky, but just for a single paragraph, Holm... :-)
Did you ever actually read the full ISE Users Guide manual? Check page 
3-7 to 3-12. There you actually have the manual talk about both the 
software write protect and the hardware write protect. In this context I 
believe you are going to play with the hardware write protect.


Ignore my previous comment about the write protect button, as the RF31 
apparently do not have one. It's all done through firmware instead.


Check if there are any other parameters that looks like they might be 
related as well.


Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Holm Tiffe]

Johnny Billquist wrote:

[..]i
> 
> Now I'll be snarky, but just for a single paragraph, Holm... :-)
> Did you ever actually read the full ISE Users Guide manual? Check page 
> 3-7 to 3-12. There you actually have the manual talk about both the 
> software write protect and the hardware write protect. In this context I 
> believe you are going to play with the hardware write protect.
> 
> Ignore my previous comment about the write protect button, as the RF31 
> apparently do not have one. It's all done through firmware instead.
> 
> Check if there are any other parameters that looks like they might be 
> related as well.
> 
>   Johnny
> 
> -- 

The drive means that it has no wrt_prot parameter Johnny..

Trust me, I'm try to read things that are available before I ask.

I've learned about the drive internals since one of them was bad when I got
the machine, none of them was booting something, had tried that first and
so I ran erase and test utils in the drive. That was months before now.
I know that the drive hat an error in his logs but I've cleared that error
after running the drive tests and exerciser as described.
(I think tere is a rubber bumper in the drive that glued on the head
assembly and with google I found the "solution")
There was no time previously to try to install VMS.

No the thing is that I know almost nothing about VMS (and RSX11), I'm a
unix guy as you know.
People on the net organized almost w/o any effort from me that I got this
VAX4000/300 to give it a good home, now I have some free time and I'm
trying to install it after cleaning and repairing that !§$%%&/&%i!! PSU.

In the meantime as I write this I have run the drvexr task for 20 minutes:

 4188 operations completed.
75150 LBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
25050 LBN blocks (512 bytes) written.
81900 DBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
27300 DBN blocks (512 bytes) written.
75150 LBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
0 bytes in error (soft).
0 uncorrectable ECC errors.
Complete.

Have you an VMS mount command handy that I should try?

Regards,

Holm
-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2015-08-08 13:50, Holm Tiffe wrote:

Johnny Billquist wrote:

[..]i


Now I'll be snarky, but just for a single paragraph, Holm... :-)
Did you ever actually read the full ISE Users Guide manual? Check page
3-7 to 3-12. There you actually have the manual talk about both the
software write protect and the hardware write protect. In this context I
believe you are going to play with the hardware write protect.

Ignore my previous comment about the write protect button, as the RF31
apparently do not have one. It's all done through firmware instead.

Check if there are any other parameters that looks like they might be
related as well.

Johnny

--


The drive means that it has no wrt_prot parameter Johnny..


Ok. Too bad. That looked so very promising. :-(


Trust me, I'm try to read things that are available before I ask.


I'll try assuming less.


I've learned about the drive internals since one of them was bad when I got
the machine, none of them was booting something, had tried that first and
so I ran erase and test utils in the drive. That was months before now.
I know that the drive hat an error in his logs but I've cleared that error
after running the drive tests and exerciser as described.
(I think tere is a rubber bumper in the drive that glued on the head
assembly and with google I found the "solution")
There was no time previously to try to install VMS.


Ok. Understood. The rubber bumper thing is something that exists in 
several drives. Search for "sticky heads" and similar phrases if you 
want to see.



No the thing is that I know almost nothing about VMS (and RSX11), I'm a
unix guy as you know.


Yeah...
But it's fun to learn. :-)


People on the net organized almost w/o any effort from me that I got this
VAX4000/300 to give it a good home, now I have some free time and I'm
trying to install it after cleaning and repairing that !§$%%&/&%i!! PSU.


Good work so far then.


In the meantime as I write this I have run the drvexr task for 20 minutes:

  4188 operations completed.
75150 LBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
25050 LBN blocks (512 bytes) written.
81900 DBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
27300 DBN blocks (512 bytes) written.
75150 LBN blocks (512 bytes) read.
 0 bytes in error (soft).
 0 uncorrectable ECC errors.
Complete.


Seems like the drive is working fine.


Have you an VMS mount command handy that I should try?


Did you try the commands mentioned in the manual?

/OVER=ID is good to make MOUNT succeed independent of what labels are on 
the disk.
/NOASSIST to make mount complete directly instead of sending a request 
to an operator.

/WRITE or /NOWRITE for that part.
/FOREIGN to mount disks that do not have a VMS filesystem on them.

After that, I'd try to just read/write to the disk from VMS. Either it 
works, and you are happy. Or it fails, at which point you will have a 
good VMS error log to read from to find more details on what the problem is.

VMS can also exercise the disk and analyze it.

Johnny

--
Johnny Billquist  || "I'm on a bus
  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@softjar.se ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive! ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol

RE: Classic programming

[Kip Koon]

Hi Brian,
I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was.  BCPL ->
MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages.  I had heard of B,
but not BCPL and MCPL.  Are there any write-ups, manuals or articles on
those three languages still around?  
I'm currently trying to teach myself C as it relates to the 68HC11
Microcontroller.  I'm using Peter Spasov's book "Microcontroller Technology"
5th edition as the text for my self-teaching efforts.
Forth running on a homebrew 6809 system?  How interesting!  I have
CamelForth v1.0 running on an Altera Cyclone II FPGA chip on a little blue
FPGA Mini-Development board that is installed on a Multicomp PCB that is
based on Grant Searle's Triple CPU Core Multicomp design.  
I'm trying to teach myself Forth as well, but it is slow going.  A friend of
mine, Neal Crook, adapted the VHDL Code a bit as well as adapting CamelForth
to run on the Multicomp board.  
I'd like to find out the details about your homebrew 6809 system.  I'm
working on a Kipper SBC that is based on Grant's Simple6809 6 Chip 6809
Computer that I'm in the middle of troubleshooting and any ideas to make
this Kipper SBC better is most appreciated.  
If you'd like further details, let me know and I'll put together some links.
I'm quite sleep at the moment, but when I ran across your email, I had to
respond!  Take care my friend.

Kip Koon
computer...@sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brian L.
Stuart

> Funny you should mention that.  I just recently wrote a PDP-8 simulator in
MCPL.  (It boots OS/8 as of about a week and a half ago).
> MCPL is a language developed by Martin Richards who originated BCPL (which
inspired Thompson's B which of course Ritchie
> developed into C).  I also spend some time here and there with Forth on a
homebrew 6809 system.
> 
> So the answer is yes, there are definitely people here who enjoy older
languages.
> 
> BLS

Re: Classic programming

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Kip Koon

> I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was. BCPL
> -> MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages. 

I don't think MCPL is in there; B was directly inspired by BCPL. See Dennis
M. Ritchie, "The Development of the C Language":

  http://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html

I got the impression from the previous discussion that MCPL was a later
branch.

Noel

Re: PDP-12 at the RICM (Michael Thompson)

[Michael Thompson]

Yesterday we started disassembling the CRT from the VR12. We picked out the
silicone that attached the metal bezel to the front of the CRT. The exposed
PVA was about 1/8" thick so we picked at the edges to remove as much as
possible. We found that the shield was actually loose and were able to
remove it without the usual heating or using nasty chemicals. Today we are
forming a sheet of 0.093" LEXAN to replace the PVA. It should be a much
better implosion shield than the original PVA.

Picture here:
http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/_/rsrc/1439041136242/Home/equipment/dec-pdp-12/dec-pdp-12-restoration/VR14_Shield-removed.jpg


We tested the high-voltage power supply and it works well. Maybe we can
start reassembling and debugging the VR14 this afternoon.

-- 
Michael Thompson

Re: Classic programming

[Phil Budne]

> Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in
> languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer
> in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing?

I don't think of it as "retrocomputing" per se, but I maintain a
SNOBOL4 implementation: http://www.snobol4.org/csnobol4/

Mostly I write SNOBOL4 throw away programs for textual
transformations. The biggest bit of programming I've done recently is
a package to compile/install shared libraries for extending SNOBOL4.

Phil

Re: Classic programming

[Jay Jaeger]

If you like to play with classics like SNOBOL in their original form,
then you can run SNOBOL and SPITBOL under the Hercules IBM mainframe
emulator.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hercules-390/files/SNOBOL4/
http://www.snobol4.com/spitbol360/

(These days I use Perl for the stuff I used to do in SNOBOL back when).

JRJ

On 8/8/2015 10:14 AM, Phil Budne wrote:
>> Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in
>> languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer
>> in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing?
> 
> I don't think of it as "retrocomputing" per se, but I maintain a
> SNOBOL4 implementation: http://www.snobol4.org/csnobol4/
> 
> Mostly I write SNOBOL4 throw away programs for textual
> transformations. The biggest bit of programming I've done recently is
> a package to compile/install shared libraries for extending SNOBOL4.
> 
> Phil
> 

RE: Classic programming

[Brian L. Stuart]

On Sat, 8/8/15, Kip Koon  wrote:
> I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was.  BCPL ->
> MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages.

Kip,
As Noel mentioned, MCPL wasn't part of the evolution; it actually
is pretty recent compared to the other three.

>  I had heard of B, but not BCPL and MCPL.  Are there any write-ups,
> manuals or articles on those three languages still around?  

Yes.  There are copies of several different generations of BCPL
reference manuals floating around online.  I've come across at
least three, not including the material in his current distribution
of it: basically the original one by Richards, one by Gardner,
and one done by XEROX.  It's been a surprisingly widely used
language for one that is so little known.  The basic story is that
Cambridge began developing a language calling it the Cambridge
Programming Language.  They joined forced with London University
who was also working on language development and changed
the name to Combined Programming Language.  Richards defined
a subset of the language with the intent that it be the implementation
language for a CPL compiler and described it in his dissertation
at Cambridge in '66.  The following year he was at MIT and did
the first implementation of this Basic CPL, or BCPL.  This was at
the same time as when the Multics project was in full force and
Bell Labs was involved.  If I'm not mistaken, there was a version
of BCPL that ran on Multics, and I am guessing that's where Ken
was exposed to it.  When Bell Labs pulled out of Multics and Ken
started playing around with the now famous "little used PDP-7"
he created a language for it that was based on BCPL but I gather
somewhat smaller because of the more limited resources on the
PDP-7.  That was B.  Then Dennis decided to add types to B and
the result was C.  As near as I can tell, MCPL was something
Richards was playing around with primarily about 10 years ago.
I'm not sure, but from what I can tell, his most recent work has
been on BCPL rather than MCPL, though as I mentioned, I'm
finding I really like MCPL.

Richards' pages for both languages are here:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/BCPL.html
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/MCPL.html

Among the resources he has there is a rather extensive document
on running BCPL on the Raspberry Pi.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mr/bcpl4raspi.pdf

> Forth running on a homebrew 6809 system?  How interesting!

Yeah, it started as a weekend diversion doing a paper design
of a 6809 SBC, and I ended up doing a couple turns of the boards
and have a few lying around I play with from time to time.  One
of them is dedicated to running a TU-58 emulator for one of my
LSI-11s.

> I'd like
> to find out the details about your homebrew 6809 system. 

I've got a rather skeletal collection of material on it here:

http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/6809sbc/

> I'm working on a Kipper SBC that is based on Grant's
> Simple6809 6 Chip 6809 Computer that I'm in the middle of
> troubleshooting and any ideas to make this Kipper SBC better
> is most appreciated.  

The main things that you might find interesting here relative
to Grant's are the inclusion of a microSD card for storage,
a design and layout that allows for either a 6809 or 6809E
(with appropriate jumpering), and a little MMU for using 128KB
of memory mapped into the lower 48KB space in pages of 16KB.
The whole thing ends up being 11 (or 12 if you're running
on an E) chips:

1 - 6809 processor
1 - 6821 parallel interface
1 - 16550 UART
1 - MAX232 RS232 level converter
1 - 2864 EEPROM
1 - 628128 128KB static RAM
1 - 7404
2 - 74138
2 - 74153

The '138s are for address decoding as you'd expect.  The '153s
are the MMU.

If you do get some material up on your system, I'd love to look
at it.

BLS

Re: Classic programming

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/08/2015 08:44 AM, Jay Jaeger wrote:

If you like to play with classics like SNOBOL in their original
form, then you can run SNOBOL and SPITBOL under the Hercules IBM
mainframe emulator.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hercules-390/files/SNOBOL4/
http://www.snobol4.com/spitbol360/

(These days I use Perl for the stuff I used to do in SNOBOL back
when).


Technically, however, isn't the language "SNOBOL4", not "SNOBOL"?  At 
least that's the way my bought-in-1968 black covered copy has it.  I've 
tried it on a 360/40 and a CDC 6600 (even in 1968, there existed several 
"ports' of it, including for the Univac 1108 and RCA Spectrola as well 
as one for the Intel 8080 under CP/M.


As others have pointed out, there are better tools now.

Does the code from Bell Labs SNOBOL 1, 2, or 3 still exist anywhere?

--Chuck

Re: Classic programming

[Jay Jaeger]

I have always felt that the language name is SNOBOL, with multiple
versions, kind of like FORTRAN II (which is what the 1410 had), FORTRAN
IV, FORTRAN V, etc., but Griswold seems to think otherwise.  ;)

>From a CACM article "A history of the SNOBOL programming languages" from
R. E. Griswold, the abstract reads:

"Development of the SNOBOL language began in 1962. It was followed by
SNOBOL2, SNOBOL3, and SNOBOL4. Except for SNOBOL2 and SNOBOL3 (which
were closely related), the others differ substantially and hence are
more properly considered separate languages than versions of one
language. In this paper historical emphasis is placed on the original
language, SNOBOL, although important aspects of the subsequent languages
are covered."

A version of SNOBOL3 is available in the 6th Edition Unix distribution,
which is available online.  (/usr/bin/sno).

Source can be found at:

http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Trees/V6/usr/source/sno/

More generally, PUPS has and bitsavers have UNIX stuff:

7th edition: http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/ATT/

6th edition: http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/

MINI-Unix (which ran on machines without memory management):

http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/usdl/Mini-Unix/

JRJ

On 8/8/2015 12:55 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 08/08/2015 08:44 AM, Jay Jaeger wrote:
>> If you like to play with classics like SNOBOL in their original
>> form, then you can run SNOBOL and SPITBOL under the Hercules IBM
>> mainframe emulator.
>>
>> https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hercules-390/files/SNOBOL4/
>> http://www.snobol4.com/spitbol360/
>>
>> (These days I use Perl for the stuff I used to do in SNOBOL back
>> when).
> 
> Technically, however, isn't the language "SNOBOL4", not "SNOBOL"?  At
> least that's the way my bought-in-1968 black covered copy has it.  I've
> tried it on a 360/40 and a CDC 6600 (even in 1968, there existed several
> "ports' of it, including for the Univac 1108 and RCA Spectrola as well
> as one for the Intel 8080 under CP/M.
> 
> As others have pointed out, there are better tools now.
> 
> Does the code from Bell Labs SNOBOL 1, 2, or 3 still exist anywhere?
> 
> --Chuck
> 
> 

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Antonio Carlini]

On 08/08/15 12:50, Holm Tiffe wrote:
 No the thing is that I know almost nothing about VMS (and RSX11), I'm 
a unix guy as you know. P



Have you an VMS mount command handy that I should try? Regards, Holm 


It sounds like you have VMS installed on one disk and at least one other 
disk doesn't seem to be working.


I suspect that it will be much easier to diagnose further issues from 
VMS rather than from the limited stand-alone environment

or the limited console environment.

So boot VMS (which should just be BOOT whatever-the-disk-id-is) and then 
use SHOW DEVICE to look at the state of the disks.


One of the ones you could not restore to was (iirc) DIA0. Hopefully it 
will show up with that name or possibly something$DIA0.


You want to do something like:

$ INIT DIA0: label

If that completes without error then

$ MOUNT/SYSTEM DIA0: label

If that works without error then your disk is ready.

I assume that in your case the INIT will fail, in which case the SHOW 
DEVICE DIA0:/FULL will probably be helpful in determining the next step.


Antonio

Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System

[Antonio Carlini]

On 07/08/15 19:35, Chuck Guzis wrote:


I think that supermicro still has the specs for the board up:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/archive/PentiumIII/440GX/P6DGE.cfm 



As you can see, it's pretty basic.  It's pretty hard to find 
reasonably fast boards with fully-functional ISA slots nowadays.




I think I have that mobo around somewhere!

The manual seems to be here: 
http://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/440GX/MNL-018.pdf


The only obvious things I can see are Quick Boot Enable (doesn't wait 
for disks, doesn't test beyond 1MB of memory), On-Board SCSI (disable, 
so it doesn't probe for SCSI disks).


Beyond that, I don't see any obvious options (unless you've got some 
card plugged in that slows the whole thing down, but I don't think you 
mentioned any such cards).


Antonio

Re: Classic programming

[Sean Caron]

Hi Phil,

I checked out your SNOBOL4 page and I just wanted to note for your list of
historical platforms that SNOBOL4 and SPITBOL were also implemented on the
Michigan Terminal System (MTS) on S/360 ... this is actually the
incarnation I've been playing with recently ... along with numerous other
languages, it's just baked right into the D6.0 distribution tapes so it's
easy to get started right after a fresh installation ... I've found MTS is
a great platform to play around with a lot of these older languages on
Hercules... it's my favorite S/360 operating system by far.

Best,

Sean


On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 11:14 AM, Phil Budne  wrote:

> > Is there a subset of this group for people who like to program in
> > languages or language implementations or libraries that are no longer
> > in common mainstream use? Or other groups for such a thing?
>
> I don't think of it as "retrocomputing" per se, but I maintain a
> SNOBOL4 implementation: http://www.snobol4.org/csnobol4/
>
> Mostly I write SNOBOL4 throw away programs for textual
> transformations. The biggest bit of programming I've done recently is
> a package to compile/install shared libraries for extending SNOBOL4.
>
> Phil
>

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Holm Tiffe]

Antonio Carlini wrote:

> On 08/08/15 12:50, Holm Tiffe wrote:
> > No the thing is that I know almost nothing about VMS (and RSX11), I'm 
> >a unix guy as you know. P
> 
> 
> >Have you an VMS mount command handy that I should try? Regards, Holm 
> 
> It sounds like you have VMS installed on one disk and at least one other 
> disk doesn't seem to be working.
> 
> I suspect that it will be much easier to diagnose further issues from 
> VMS rather than from the limited stand-alone environment
> or the limited console environment.
> 
> So boot VMS (which should just be BOOT whatever-the-disk-id-is) and then 
> use SHOW DEVICE to look at the state of the disks.
> 
> One of the ones you could not restore to was (iirc) DIA0. Hopefully it 
> will show up with that name or possibly something$DIA0.

Yes, I've done that already.
It seems that the disk has some problems, or better the two RF31 disks.
If I try to install VMS on the disks there is some ratteling and data where
copied to them, after a while I get those infamous "volume is not software
enabled" errors.
There are no problems detected from the dssi internal support programms or
their logs...


I've erased the disk dia0 again with the dssi tools since that overwrites
every sector o nthe disk (for data security reasons) and I get no error.
Now hours later I've tried to install again. (backup/image/verify
dua3:vms073.b/save disk0$dia0:) The backup starts to shuffle data and then
bails out with that:

%PAA0, Port has Closed Virtual Circuit - REMOTE SIDE DISK0

%BACKUP-E-WRITEBLOCK, error writing block 237 of
DISK0$DIA0:[VMS$COMMON.SYSHLP.UNSUPPORTED]RF35_T392F_DEC.EXE;1-SYSTEM-F-VOLI
NV, volume is not software enabled
..followed with all next blocks.

I have a real 
VT420 connected an must copy all the things per hand...

I think that there is  some hardware error on the disk but not related to
the disk surface, more some positioning error or something like this.
Maybe changing some electrolytics will help here?
I've checked the disk with the exercider and dsktest more then one time,
there is NO error at all.

Ideas?

I'll check waht you've suggested tomorrow.. had two scotches an two beers
in the meantime..


Regards,

Holm


> 
> You want to do something like:
> 
> $ INIT DIA0: label
> 
> If that completes without error then
> 
> $ MOUNT/SYSTEM DIA0: label
> 
> If that works without error then your disk is ready.
> 
> I assume that in your case the INIT will fail, in which case the SHOW 
> DEVICE DIA0:/FULL will probably be helpful in determining the next step.
> 
> Antonio
> 
> 

-- 
  Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, 
 Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583
  www.tsht.de, i...@tsht.de, Fax +49 3731 74200, Mobil: 0172 8790 741

RE: Classic programming

[Kip Koon]

Hi Noel,
Thank you for correcting me.  I was quite sleepy when I first read the
original email and missed the point that MCPL came later.  I have just
finished reading " The Development of the C Language" and I must say that it
was very interesting reading.  I'm waiting on the Revised R&R C book to
arrive so I can begin my journey through C and especially how it relates to
Motorola's 68HC11 microcontrollers.  
I viewed Dennis Ritchie's home page and read where he passed away.  I of
course never knew, but I know he will be missed greatly by many people I
would imagine.  I learned C++ first, so backing up and learning C should be
interesting.  No doubt I will miss a few C++ features.  :)  Thanks again.
Take care my friend.

Kip Koon
computer...@sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon


> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel
Chiappa
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 9:15 AM
> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: Classic programming
> 
> > From: Kip Koon
> 
> > I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was.
BCPL
> > -> MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages.
> 
> I don't think MCPL is in there; B was directly inspired by BCPL. See
Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Development of the C Language":
> 
>   http://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
> 
> I got the impression from the previous discussion that MCPL was a later
branch.
> 
>   Noel

Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System

[Ken Seefried]

Supermicros (and to a similar degree Tyan) are mostly in the "server class"
of motherboards. That apparently means they put a *lot* of self-test code
in there somewhere.  I've had literally thousands of Supermicro machines of
a dozen different types at various times, and they all took an inordinate
amount of time to decide to think about booting no matter what (all
auto-detect turned off, quickboot on, inboard SCSI disabled).  I got used
to it, because quality-wise it was worth the wait.

Re: VAX4000/300 MNS7.3 isntallation from CDROM

[Peter Coghlan]

Holm Tiffe wrote:
>
> It seems that the disk has some problems, or better the two RF31 disks.
> If I try to install VMS on the disks there is some ratteling and data where
> copied to them, after a while I get those infamous "volume is not software
> enabled" errors.
> There are no problems detected from the dssi internal support programms or
> their logs...
>

There might be something in the VMS error log:

$ ANALYZE /ERROR_LOG

>
> I've erased the disk dia0 again with the dssi tools since that overwrites
> every sector o nthe disk (for data security reasons) and I get no error.
> Now hours later I've tried to install again. (backup/image/verify
> dua3:vms073.b/save disk0$dia0:) The backup starts to shuffle data and then
> bails out with that:
>
> %PAA0, Port has Closed Virtual Circuit - REMOTE SIDE DISK0
>

As far as I know, DSSI can be used as a VAX cluster interconnect and DSSI disks
behave in similar ways to nodes in a VAX cluster.  Therefore, it may be more
correct to think of your DSSI disks as remotely served disks on another node
instead of locally attached disks.

In the case of a cluster which is using ethernet as a VAX cluster interconnect,
error messages similar to:

%PEA0, Port has Closed Virtual Circuit

normally indicate ethernet media problems causing difficulty with cluster
connections.  PEA0 is the "port emulator" device where the ethernet is
emulating a "real" CI cluster interconnect - coaxial cables and a transformer.

Perhaps your PAA0 errors indicate some sort of errors with the DSSI connections
rather than the disk media? There should be more details on this in the VMS
error log.

Regards,
Peter Coghlan.

Re: Classic programming

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great Sean Caron once stated:
> I love this list, I always learn so many interesting things ... reading the
> article on SynthesisOS now; a few pages in, it sounds like an early attempt
> at building a reflective operating system? Neat. I wonder if the Quamachine
> still exists? :O

  I wondering if the source code exists!

  -spc

Re: Classic programming

[Mike Stein]

I think I've got a 68HC11 development kit somewhere if you're
interested; I'll dig for it and contact you privately if I find it.

m

On 8/8/15, Kip Koon  wrote:
> Hi Noel,
> Thank you for correcting me.  I was quite sleepy when I first read the
> original email and missed the point that MCPL came later.  I have just
> finished reading " The Development of the C Language" and I must say that
> it
> was very interesting reading.  I'm waiting on the Revised R&R C book to
> arrive so I can begin my journey through C and especially how it relates to
> Motorola's 68HC11 microcontrollers.
> I viewed Dennis Ritchie's home page and read where he passed away.  I of
> course never knew, but I know he will be missed greatly by many people I
> would imagine.  I learned C++ first, so backing up and learning C should be
> interesting.  No doubt I will miss a few C++ features.  :)  Thanks again.
> Take care my friend.
>
> Kip Koon
> computer...@sc.rr.com
> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon
>
>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel
> Chiappa
>> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 9:15 AM
>> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
>> Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
>> Subject: Re: Classic programming
>>
>> > From: Kip Koon
>>
>> > I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was.
> BCPL
>> > -> MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages.
>>
>> I don't think MCPL is in there; B was directly inspired by BCPL. See
> Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Development of the C Language":
>>
>>   http://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
>>
>> I got the impression from the previous discussion that MCPL was a later
> branch.
>>
>>  Noel
>
>

Re: Classic programming

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/08/2015 12:13 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:

I have always felt that the language name is SNOBOL, with multiple
versions, kind of like FORTRAN II (which is what the 1410 had),
FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN V, etc., but Griswold seems to think otherwise.
;)


I think the test would be "Can language x+1 run, without substantial 
modification, programs written in language x?"  If the answer is "no", 
then languages x and x+1 are separate languages, and not compatible 
dialects of the same language.


So FORTRAN IV would be a compatible dialect of FORTRAN II (mostly at any 
rate, FII vendors had a nasty habit of adding their own features 
willy-nilly, as did FIV).  I think Codasyl was first to clamp down on 
"the default is the standard as we say it is", then FORTRAN followed.


However, I'd submit that F95 is a separate language, as it can't run 
FIV, F66 or F77 programs without modification as it doesn't understand 
ASSIGN-ed GOTOs as well as H-type (Hollerith) FORMAT specs.


--Chuck

RE: Classic programming

[Kip Koon]

Hi Mike,
Thanks a bunch for the offer!  That would be great!  I appreciate it.

Kip Koon
computer...@sc.rr.com
http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon


> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mike Stein
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 6:27 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: Classic programming
> 
> I think I've got a 68HC11 development kit somewhere if you're interested; 
> I'll dig for it and contact you privately if I find it.
> 
> m
> 
> On 8/8/15, Kip Koon  wrote:
> > Hi Noel,
> > Thank you for correcting me.  I was quite sleepy when I first read the
> > original email and missed the point that MCPL came later.  I have just
> > finished reading " The Development of the C Language" and I must say
> > that it was very interesting reading.  I'm waiting on the Revised R&R
> > C book to arrive so I can begin my journey through C and especially
> > how it relates to Motorola's 68HC11 microcontrollers.
> > I viewed Dennis Ritchie's home page and read where he passed away.  I
> > of course never knew, but I know he will be missed greatly by many
> > people I would imagine.  I learned C++ first, so backing up and
> > learning C should be interesting.  No doubt I will miss a few C++ features. 
> >  :)  Thanks again.
> > Take care my friend.
> >
> > Kip Koon
> > computer...@sc.rr.com
> > http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Kip_Koon
> >
> >
> >> -Original Message-
> >> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel
> > Chiappa
> >> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 9:15 AM
> >> To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
> >> Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
> >> Subject: Re: Classic programming
> >>
> >> > From: Kip Koon
> >>
> >> > I have often wondered what the inspiration for the C Language was.
> > BCPL
> >> > -> MCPL -> B -> c, quite an interesting list of languages.
> >>
> >> I don't think MCPL is in there; B was directly inspired by BCPL. See
> > Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Development of the C Language":
> >>
> >>   http://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html
> >>
> >> I got the impression from the previous discussion that MCPL was a
> >> later
> > branch.
> >>
> >>Noel
> >
> >

Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System

[Mark Linimon]

It probably is not this, but maybe you can try it.

For a while HP servers had the extremely annoying property of the
boot being rate-limited by the serial console speed if you had been
unfortunate enough to enable it by default.  You would not notice
anything other than the slowness on a video monitor, but if you
plugged a serial cable in you could see it struggle.

I've never seen this on anything other than HPs and for good reason.

mcl

SCSI Tape to TAP utility

[Chuck Guzis]

A couple of weeks ago, I offered to share the source and executable for 
a SCSI tape-to-SIMH .TAP file utility for MSDOS.


To run it, you'll need an ASPI driver for your SCSI adapter.

It was compiled using MSC 8.00C.

Find it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x6qiudlpyitgxom/STP2T02.ZIP?dl=0

Enjoy,
Chuck
-

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the spammers."

Re: OT: Slow booting, was re: Booting an IBM MP 3000 S/390 System

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/08/2015 05:56 PM, Mark Linimon wrote:

It probably is not this, but maybe you can try it.

For a while HP servers had the extremely annoying property of the
boot being rate-limited by the serial console speed if you had been
unfortunate enough to enable it by default.  You would not notice
anything other than the slowness on a video monitor, but if you
plugged a serial cable in you could see it struggle.

I've never seen this on anything other than HPs and for good reason.


Interesting, but you're right--not applicable here.

I note that Supermicro's ftp site has a late beta version of the BIOS 
for this system.  I"m going to give it a try to see if it improves anything.


--Chuck

Re: Classic programming

[Jay Jaeger]

On 8/8/2015 5:47 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 08/08/2015 12:13 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:
>> I have always felt that the language name is SNOBOL, with multiple
>> versions, kind of like FORTRAN II (which is what the 1410 had),
>> FORTRAN IV, FORTRAN V, etc., but Griswold seems to think otherwise.
>> ;)
> 
> I think the test would be "Can language x+1 run, without substantial
> modification, programs written in language x?"  If the answer is "no",
> then languages x and x+1 are separate languages, and not compatible
> dialects of the same language.
> 
> So FORTRAN IV would be a compatible dialect of FORTRAN II (mostly at any
> rate, FII vendors had a nasty habit of adding their own features
> willy-nilly, as did FIV).  I think Codasyl was first to clamp down on
> "the default is the standard as we say it is", then FORTRAN followed.
> 

Actually, with FORTRAN II to IV: not.  I spent quite a lot of time
translating FORTRAN stuff back in the day.  COMMON blocks were always
handled differently, IO Formats differed, binary IO differed, etc. etc.

> However, I'd submit that F95 is a separate language, as it can't run
> FIV, F66 or F77 programs without modification as it doesn't understand
> ASSIGN-ed GOTOs as well as H-type (Hollerith) FORMAT specs.
> 
> --Chuck
> 

Re: SCSI Tape to TAP utility

[Jay Jaeger]

If anyone is interested, I have code for a Linux SCSI tape to AWSTAPE
program, and a program that translates aws format to a raw byte stream.
 Not sure if I have one that translates to the SimH .tap format, though.
 GNU C.

JRJ

On 8/8/2015 7:57 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> A couple of weeks ago, I offered to share the source and executable for
> a SCSI tape-to-SIMH .TAP file utility for MSDOS.
> 
> To run it, you'll need an ASPI driver for your SCSI adapter.
> 
> It was compiled using MSC 8.00C.
> 
> Find it here:
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/x6qiudlpyitgxom/STP2T02.ZIP?dl=0
> 
> Enjoy,
> Chuck
> -
> 
> "The first thing we do, let's kill all the spammers."
> 
> 

Re: OT: Slow booting,

[Fred Cisin]

Did you say that the slow boot problem that you were having was a 
machine with ISA?


Would it make sense to put in a POST card, and make a new [temporary] BIOS 
with its POST peppered with OUTs?  Just seeing any output that would let 
you know WHERE in the process it was getting bogged down might help.
It could be as trivial as it trying to access hardware that isn't there, 
and not moving on until it gets a timeout error.

Re: SCSI Tape to TAP utility

[Chuck Guzis]

On 08/08/2015 08:14 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:

If anyone is interested, I have code for a Linux SCSI tape to
AWSTAPE program, and a program that translates aws format to a raw
byte stream. Not sure if I have one that translates to the SimH .tap
format, though. GNU C.


I've got a Linux utility to translate SIMH .tap to raw binary, if that's 
interesting to anyone.  I would have thought that such utilities existed 
already.


--Chuck