From: "George R. Gonzalez" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Looking for a (working) PERQ Lines: 12 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Message-ID: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 14:23:01 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 38.27.48.218 X-Complaints-To: abuse@flash.net X-Trace: news.flash.net 943021381 38.27.48.218 (Fri, 19 Nov 1999 08:23:01 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 08:23:01 CST Organization: FlashNet Communications, http://www.flash.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp.flash.net!news.flash.net!not-for-mail Does anybody have a nice old PERQ they could part with for a few $? In Case You Were Born After 1980, A PERQ was a very interesting early workstation, microprogrammed to run something like P-Code. It was way ahead of it's time, it still may be. -- George ###### From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.36 (i586)) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 18:29:35 +0000 Message-ID: Lines: 15 NNTP-Posting-Host: man-098.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 943037380 18504 news@194.247.41.122 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail George R. Gonzalez wrote: > Does anybody have a nice old PERQ they could part with for a few $? > In Case You Were Born After 1980, A PERQ was a very interesting > early workstation, microprogrammed to run something like P-Code. > It was way ahead of it's time, it still may be. alt.sys.perq is the PERQ fans' newsgroup. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find working machines these days -- looks like most of the enthusiasts there spend quite a bit of their time keeping their machines running. pete -- pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB) ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 19 Nov 1999 19:58:08 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <814a4h$19v@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943052011 nnrp-08:1492 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 55 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail George R. Gonzalez (grg1@flash.net) wrote: [I've copied this to alt.sys.perq, where there are still a few PERQ-fanatics] : Does anybody have a nice old PERQ they could part with for a few $? I admire your taste in computers ;-) But my 4 PERQs are not up for grabs yet... You mention 'working' in the subject: line, but actually, PERQs are pretty easy to repair and most parts are still easy to obtain (about the hardest chip to get is the AM2910 sequencer, which is used to sequence the CPU microcode and also as part of the ethernet and hard disk interfaces). So whatever you do, don't turn down a non-working one -- there's a very good chance it can be made to run again. : In Case You Were Born After 1980, A PERQ was a very interesting Well, actually the PERQ 1 came out in 1979 IIRC.. : early workstation, microprogrammed to run something like P-Code. The really nice feature is that the microcode is not fixed. It's loaded from disk when the machine boots, so you can change the instruction set, add new microcode, etc. The microcode assembler and placer was shipped with some versions of the OS. : It was way ahead of it's time, it still may be. The graphics performance (this machine has a hardware graphics accelerator) was pretty spectacular at the time. As to being ahead of its time, well, in 1979 a PERQ gave you : A single-user machine with 256K-2M of RAM and a 12M or 24M hard disk A CPU with a performance approaching a VAX 11/780 (and it was user-microcodable, and it had 256 user registers...) A 768*1024 bitmapped display with a graphics accelerator A pointing device (normally a Sumagraphics bit pad 1 tablet) Optional networking (ethernet on most machines) Optional laser printer interface (!) Ahead of its time? Just slightly... : -- George -tony ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 19 Nov 1999 23:29:29 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <814mgp$1v9@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943055883 nnrp-07:5024 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 30 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Pete Fenelon (pete@fenelon.com) wrote: : alt.sys.perq is the PERQ fans' newsgroup. Unfortunately, it's difficult Yes, I've copied this reply to that group as well. : to find working machines these days -- looks like most of the enthusiasts : there spend quite a bit of their time keeping their machines running. Well, the main reason it's difficult to find _any_ PERQs these days is that said enthusiasts grab any/all PERQ-related stuff that we can get our sticky little hands on :-). Some of use may have given a mistaken impression about PERQs and hardware problems. Yes, there are certainly hardware-related posts on alt.sys.perq. But that's because you _can_ fiddle with the PERQ's hardware -- the CPU is 262 standard ICs (a few PROMs and PALs, a 2910, some RAM and a lot of TTL). The PERQ hardware itself seems to be pretty stable. Yes, there are problem areas, but actually, none of the major ones are in Three Rivers/PERQ Systems designed hardware. The main things that give problems are the Boschert PSU in a the PERQ 1 (a blow-up here is expensive and spectacular with a couple of doxen components blown up!), the EHT module in the Moniterm landscape monitor (which fails and nobody yet has designed a replacement) and, of course, the odd problem with the hard disks. I've got many worse problems than the reliability and repairability of PERQs -tony ###### From: Dave Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 23 Nov 1999 23:29:08 -0600 Organization: Hey Pal - Organize This! Lines: 47 Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!uunet!ams.uu.net!grolier!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.novia.net.MISMATCH!novia!sequencer.newscene.com!not-for-mail On Fri, 19 Nov 1999 14:23:01 GMT, "George R. Gonzalez" wrote: >Does anybody have a nice old PERQ they could part with for a few $? > >In Case You Were Born After 1980, A PERQ was a very interesting >early workstation, microprogrammed to run something like P-Code. > >It was way ahead of it's time, it still may be. I remember using a PERQ based system called InTran in the early 80's. This was a system interfaced via ethernet to Xerox 9700 laser printers. For those that don't know, Xerox 9700s were 120 ppm, heavy duty printers. I worked in a service bureau at the time, and one of our services was custom forms design/printing. The Intran system replaced the incredibly cumbersome FDL programming language that came on the Xerox printers (and still does). You typed source code into an editor along the lines of: 10 AT 0,0 DRAW BOX 20 WIDE BY 20 HIGH USING SOLID LINE; and then compiled this into a form by running the FDL compiler. As you can imagine, building a form this way was incredibly dull and time-consuming. The Intran system replaced all this nonsense with a GUI painting environment where you literally drew forms on the screen, and then saved the binary output. Once transferred to the Xerox system, they were ready to print. This was extremely hi-tech in 1982, and increased my productivity 1000%. I also remember running a disk check/repair utility called "Scavenger" that used a bird of some sort (Buzzard?) to show it's progress; that it had a pretty good hi-res chess program, and a stunningly good (for the time) pool game that I killed *many* hours on! I remember exiting out of the GUI software to the "shell", which on reflection now seems very Unix like in it's command set, although I really have no idea what OS it was running. Yes, this thing was *definitely* ahead of it's time. I was literally speechless when I first saw it! Good luck finding a working model these days! Dave ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 36 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 06:53:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plethora.net X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 943426417 205.166.146.8 (Wed, 24 Nov 1999 00:53:37 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 00:53:37 CST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!feeder.via.net!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , Dave wrote: >I remember using a PERQ based system called InTran in the early 80's. They just died this year. They migrated from the Perq to the Sun 3, and the code was ported from Pascal for the Perq to C for SunView. (Remember the pre-X Sun windowing system?) Xerox eventually killed the operation because it had no *possible* hope of being Y2K ready, because it couldn't run on Solaris. I sit within five feet of a rack, a Cisco router, and a Sparc 5 that were gotten rid of as part of the process of shutting down Xerox Intran; I used to work there. (Okay, maybe the Cisco is 15 feet away.) The guy who was doing the port from SunOS to Solaris was really offended when we tried to convince him that char *foo = malloc(20); char *bar = foo; free(foo); /* use bar */ wasn't legitimate. He insisted he'd saved a copy of that pointer, so it was okay. Anyway, for the curious, I spent two years of my life doing Unix support for forms designers who were running Intran on top of late Sun 3's and early to middle-range Sparc systems. *sigh*. It was actually a lot of fun. One of my coworkers from there wrote a couple of songs for God Is My Copilot. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 24 Nov 1999 20:56:58 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943484454 nnrp-09:21359 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 87 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-x.support.nl!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Dave (Nunya@Business.net) wrote: : I remember using a PERQ based system called InTran in the early 80's. Interesting... I'd not heard of that application. : This was a system interfaced via ethernet to Xerox 9700 laser : printers. For those that don't know, Xerox 9700s were 120 ppm, heavy I'm sure Xerox whould have prefered you to use one of their D-machines (which actually have a few similarites to the PERQ...) [...] : I also remember running a disk check/repair utility called "Scavenger" Ah yes... A remarkably useful program that could repair all sorts of filesystem damage. Of course the way that the POS filesystem was built helped a lot -- for example you could recreate the disk information blocks from the Partition information blocks, you could recreate partion information blocks from a good filesystem (and possibly the Disk Information block), etc. The headers of every block on the disk contained pointers to the previous and next blocks of the file (and something else that I forget). As an aside, the disk controller and DMA engine hardware could be programmed to read the pointers into one area of memory and the data into another area. : that used a bird of some sort (Buzzard?) to show it's progress; that It's normally taken to be a vulture amongst my friends... I have no idea what it officially is. Do you remember the busy bee that buzzed around when the machine was doing something? A lot more fun than an hourglass :-) The cursor was actually a hardware feature. It was a 64*64 pixel bitmap (I think) that was read from memory during the vertical refresh interval and loaded into a fifo. Then, at the appropriate point on the screen during the display, the fifo was read out and the bits in it combined with the main screen bitmap (you could AND/OR/insert/XOR, etc the cursor with the normal image) and the result displayed. This was independant of the rasterop machine that was used to combine 2 bitmaps and store the result in memory (often to be displayed, but not always [1]). The cursor system did not actually change the displayed bitmap in memory. The cursor was effectively a hardware sprite, and most games made use of it. There was a pacman clone called 'PERQdebugger'. The 'pacman' (actually it looked like a PERQ 1 monitor unit ;-)) was the hardware cursor. The monsters, though, were displayed and moved using rasterops. [1] Rasterops were fast (a quadword -- 64 bits -- was updated in 12 microcycles (2us). One way to do a read-after-write verify on the PERQ was to read the disk sector back into a spare area of memory, and then do an XOR rasterop between the original area (the source) and the data just read (the destination). This would zero the destination if the data read matched the original data. Then just scan the destination to see if any words are non-zero (If you were _really_ insane you could even use rasterops for the test -- keep on halving the region by ORing the 2 halves together. Keep on going until you're down to a single quadword. If that's non-zero, there was an error). : it had a pretty good hi-res chess program, and a stunningly good (for : the time) pool game that I killed *many* hours on! I remember exiting : out of the GUI software to the "shell", which on reflection now seems : very Unix like in it's command set, although I really have no idea : what OS it was running. My guess (based on the unix-like shell and scavenger) is that you were running Accent... : Yes, this thing was *definitely* ahead of it's time. I was literally : speechless when I first saw it! : Good luck finding a working model these days! Well, they're suprisingly easy to maintain (almost all parts still available, people about who know how to fix them), so if you find one at all, there's a very good chance it'll either be working or can be got working again. : Dave : -tony ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> X-Newsreader: NN version 7.alpha0 From: mtpins@visi.com (Michael T Pins) Lines: 55 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 04:01:32 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.143.84 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 943502492 209.98.143.84 (Wed, 24 Nov 1999 22:01:32 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 22:01:32 CST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.direct.ca!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!mtpins seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes: >In article , >Dave wrote: >>I remember using a PERQ based system called InTran in the early 80's. >They just died this year. They migrated from the Perq to the Sun 3, and >the code was ported from Pascal for the Perq to C for SunView. (Remember the >pre-X Sun windowing system?) >Xerox eventually killed the operation because it had no *possible* hope of >being Y2K ready, because it couldn't run on Solaris. Hey now, no spreading FUD here, 'eh? The Intran code itself was Y2K clean, and both SunOS4.1.3_U1 and SunOS4.1.4 can by patched to be Y2K safe. Xerox finally pulled the plug on Intran because it had hemorrhaged money for years, due mainly to the lack of interest in investing the needed money to port the thing off SunView. Playing SysAdmin there was a great gig while it lasted, though. I even sort of miss the joys to trying to keep a Sun 3/160 running. >I sit within five feet of a rack, a Cisco router, and a Sparc 5 that were >gotten rid of as part of the process of shutting down Xerox Intran; I used to >work there. (Okay, maybe the Cisco is 15 feet away.) Cisco router? We didn't own the router. Do you mean the Catalyst switch? I got the only thing I really wanted, the Sparc5 off my desk. >The guy who was doing the port from SunOS to Solaris was really offended when >we tried to convince him that > char *foo = malloc(20); > char *bar = foo; > free(foo); > /* use bar */ >wasn't legitimate. He insisted he'd saved a copy of that pointer, so it was >okay. I assume you mean Ron? Or was there someone else? Did you ever see the Java port Ben was working on? Pretty cool, actually. >Anyway, for the curious, I spent two years of my life doing Unix support for >forms designers who were running Intran on top of late Sun 3's and early to >middle-range Sparc systems. *sigh*. It was actually a lot of fun. And you managed to annoy MikeJ even more than I did. :-) >One of my coworkers from there wrote a couple of songs for God Is My Copilot. Really? Who was that? -- ************************************************************************** * Michael T Pins | mtpins@visi.com * * keeper of the nn sources | mtpins@icaen.uiowa.edu * * ftp://ftp.visi.com/users/mtpins | #include * ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 52 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 23:12:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plethora.net X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 943657974 205.166.146.8 (Fri, 26 Nov 1999 17:12:54 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 17:12:54 CST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , Michael T Pins wrote: >The Intran code itself was Y2K clean, Was not. The transforms to at least one or two of the printers had 2-digit years, and I believe one of them printed dates with one digit too many, tromping another field, in the Y100. ;) >and both SunOS4.1.3_U1 and SunOS4.1.4 >can by patched to be Y2K safe. *maybe*. Sun makes no promises, and the complete lack of *ANY* support from Sun is a big killer. >Xerox finally pulled the plug on Intran >because it had hemorrhaged money for years, due mainly to the lack of >interest in investing the needed money to port the thing off SunView. I think the problem wasn't not investing the money, it was the way they tried to do the port. ;-) >Playing SysAdmin there was a great gig while it lasted, though. >I even sort of miss the joys to trying to keep a Sun 3/160 running. Yeah. That was fun. >Cisco router? We didn't own the router. Do you mean the Catalyst switch? >I got the only thing I really wanted, the Sparc5 off my desk. Yeah, the switch. It's a router of sorts. :) >Did you ever see the Java port Ben was working on? Pretty cool, actually. I didn't see it, but I heard lots about it. ;-) >And you managed to annoy MikeJ even more than I did. :-) Heh. >>One of my coworkers from there wrote a couple of songs for God Is My Copilot. >Really? Who was that? Kevin. He's a rock star, y'know. This mild-mannered programmer stuff is just a disguise. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> X-Newsreader: NN version 7.alpha0 From: mtpins@visi.com (Michael T Pins) Lines: 29 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 27 Nov 1999 05:42:11 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.143.84 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 943681331 209.98.143.84 (Fri, 26 Nov 1999 23:42:11 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 23:42:11 CST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!mtpins seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) writes: >In article , >Michael T Pins wrote: >>and both SunOS4.1.3_U1 and SunOS4.1.4 >>can by patched to be Y2K safe. >*maybe*. Sun makes no promises, and the complete lack of *ANY* support from >Sun is a big killer. Actually, Sun does promise that both SunOS4.1.3_U1 and SunOS4.1.4, properly patched, are Y2K compliant. I ended up writing a set of scripts to untar them off of tape, install them, reboot into single-user mode, then install the libc stuff. The joys of customers who don't know anything about unix. >>Cisco router? We didn't own the router. Do you mean the Catalyst switch? >>I got the only thing I really wanted, the Sparc5 off my desk. >Yeah, the switch. It's a router of sorts. :) You're a bum. The switch I could use (I just added an HP to my lan and I'm out of ports on my hub, I need to go to 10base2 to connect the rest of it.) -- ************************************************************************** * Michael T Pins | mtpins@visi.com * * keeper of the nn sources | mtpins@icaen.uiowa.edu * * ftp://ftp.visi.com/users/mtpins | #include * ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> Organization: Plethora . Net - More net, less spam! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test70 (17 January 1999) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 15 Message-ID: Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 18:37:20 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 205.166.146.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@plethora.net X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 943814240 205.166.146.8 (Sun, 28 Nov 1999 12:37:20 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 12:37:20 CST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!feeder.qis.net!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , Michael T Pins wrote: >Actually, Sun does promise that both SunOS4.1.3_U1 and SunOS4.1.4, properly >patched, are Y2K compliant. I was under the impression that they'd made sure, however, that there was no one with anything like a support contract. ;-) If it *does* fall over, Sun's going to point at three years of End Of Life notices and laugh. -s -- Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter. Boycott Spamazon! Will work for interesting hardware. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! ###### From: Dave Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 28 Nov 1999 23:57:08 -0600 Organization: Hey Pal - Organize This! Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!news-feed.fnsi.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.novia.net.MISMATCH!novia!sequencer.newscene.com!not-for-mail On 24 Nov 1999 20:56:58 -0000, ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >: that used a bird of some sort (Buzzard?) to show it's progress; that > >It's normally taken to be a vulture amongst my friends... I have no idea >what it officially is. > >Do you remember the busy bee that buzzed around when the machine was >doing something? A lot more fun than an hourglass :-) Ah yes! The Busy Bee! I had *totally* forgotten about that one! Other memories: it had a mouse-like thing called a "puck", that used a special surface - you couldn't just use it on a desk. The puck had 4 buttons - red, blue, yellow and green. Only 2 were widely used in the apps I used, and 1 other was rarely used. The 4th button I never used. It used 8" floppies and I have no recollection of how big the hard drive was. I remember a couple of instances of hardware problems, where Three Rivers Computers would send us a replacement board/part/whatever. I'd plug it in and go, and return the old one via FedEx. I remember looking at the CPU board once and seeing a Z80 on it. I remember being surprised at the time, because this thing had at least a meg of ram (a *huge* amount at the time!), and I was wondering why they chose a Z80 when so much ram was involved. Was the Z80 *really* the CPU? Or was it some kind of I/O controller? Or was most of the ram perhaps *display* memory only? This thing had big, portrait, full-page bit-mapped screen! It was by *far* the coolest thing I had seen up to that time. Later, in the late 80s/early 90s time frame, Xerox had (bought, I think) and introduced a competing system called Elixir. I never used one, but it was pretty much the same idea - a GUI replacement for their incredibly brain-dead form and font management on the 9700/8700/4050/4090 series of Laser printers. Dave ###### From: afrb2@cus.cam.ac.uk (A.F.R. Bain) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 29 Nov 1999 09:28:55 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 48 Message-ID: <81th0n$29t$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: taurus.cus.cam.ac.uk Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news-x.support.nl!colt.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!server1.netnews.ja.net!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!afrb2 In article , Dave wrote: >On 24 Nov 1999 20:56:58 -0000, ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >wrote: > >>: that used a bird of some sort (Buzzard?) to show it's progress; that >> >>It's normally taken to be a vulture amongst my friends... I have no idea >>what it officially is. >> >>Do you remember the busy bee that buzzed around when the machine was >>doing something? A lot more fun than an hourglass :-) > >Ah yes! The Busy Bee! I had *totally* forgotten about that one! > >Other memories: it had a mouse-like thing called a "puck", that used >a special surface - you couldn't just use it on a desk. The puck had >4 buttons - red, blue, yellow and green. Only 2 were widely used in >the apps I used, and 1 other was rarely used. The 4th button I never >used. It used 8" floppies and I have no recollection of how big the >hard drive was. According to the fault log for my PERQ this was one of the machines achilles' heels. The yellow buttom kept breaking because it was used all the time, and with it broken the machine was useless. > >I remember a couple of instances of hardware problems, where Three >Rivers Computers would send us a replacement board/part/whatever. I'd >plug it in and go, and return the old one via FedEx. I remember >looking at the CPU board once and seeing a Z80 on it. I remember >being surprised at the time, because this thing had at least a meg of >ram (a *huge* amount at the time!), and I was wondering why they chose >a Z80 when so much ram was involved. Was the Z80 *really* the CPU? No -- the Z80 was the I/O controller. The CPU is built around and AMD 2900 bit slice ALU. There are four multiplexers beside it on the CPU board. There's a pile of discrete logic and some PALS which make up a small state machine for controlling access to the main system memory. I think (although Tony will probably correct me) that the Z80 has its own (rather small) memory for doing I/O related things. >Or was it some kind of I/O controller? Or was most of the ram perhaps >*display* memory only? This thing had big, portrait, full-page >bit-mapped screen! Alan ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Date: 29 Nov 1999 19:14:35 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943908629 nnrp-02:14793 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 65 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Dave (Nunya@Business.net) wrote: : Other memories: it had a mouse-like thing called a "puck", that used : a special surface - you couldn't just use it on a desk. The puck had : 4 buttons - red, blue, yellow and green. Only 2 were widely used in : the apps I used, and 1 other was rarely used. The 4th button I never : used. It used 8" floppies and I have no recollection of how big the : hard drive was. The 4-button puck was actually part of a (standard) Sumagraphics Bit Pad 1 that was plugged into the GPIB port on the PERQ. This probably means that your machine was a PERQ 1 since that was the only supported pointing device on that machine. PERQ 2s had a thing called a Kriz Mouse as standard. This was also electromagnetic and had to be used on its special pad. It was a 3 button unit and looked like a modern mouse. The PERQ 2 _would_ also work with a Bit Pad, but most weren't used that way. If it was a PERQ 1 (or 1a, the only difference being the CPU board) then it would have had a 14" Shugart SA4000 hard drive mounted vertically in the left side of the cabinet. Depending on which drive you had, it would either be 12Mbytes or 24 Mbytes. : I remember a couple of instances of hardware problems, where Three : Rivers Computers would send us a replacement board/part/whatever. I'd : plug it in and go, and return the old one via FedEx. I remember : looking at the CPU board once and seeing a Z80 on it. I remember Ah no... You looked at the I/O board and saw a Z80... The PERQs used a Z80 for lowspeed I/O (keyvoard, sound, RS232, GPIB, floppies). On PERQ 2s you could download user code into the (16K) memory on the Z80. PERQ 1s only had 4K of RAM on the Z80 and had no way to run user code there. The CPU was the entire leftmost board in the cardcage. It's 260-ish chips, including an AM2910 sequencer, 48 RAMs (for the microcode store), 5 74181 ALUs (I think we can safely ignore the 2T4 which had 6 such chips) -- yes, it's a 20 bit machine, PROMs, PALs (on the 1a and later machines only), and a lot of TTL glue. The board was a user-microcodable 20 bit processor with 256 user registers, a 16 level arithmetic stack, a graphics blitter, etc. The processor data path was also used to calculate addresses in main memory, so that the 20 bit CPU limited you to 1Mwords (2Mbytes) of memory -- still a large amount for the time. : being surprised at the time, because this thing had at least a meg of : ram (a *huge* amount at the time!), and I was wondering why they chose : a Z80 when so much ram was involved. Was the Z80 *really* the CPU? : Or was it some kind of I/O controller? Or was most of the ram perhaps No it was just an I/O chip. And not even used for the high-speed I/O (ethernet, hard disk, laser printer, etc). : *display* memory only? This thing had big, portrait, full-page : bit-mapped screen! Yep! -tony ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Date: 29 Nov 1999 19:25:12 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <81ujuo$fd@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81th0n$29t$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943908633 nnrp-02:14793 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 58 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail A.F.R. Bain (afrb2@cus.cam.ac.uk) wrote: : >Other memories: it had a mouse-like thing called a "puck", that used : >a special surface - you couldn't just use it on a desk. The puck had : >4 buttons - red, blue, yellow and green. Only 2 were widely used in : >the apps I used, and 1 other was rarely used. The 4th button I never : >used. It used 8" floppies and I have no recollection of how big the : >hard drive was. : According to the fault log for my PERQ this was one of the machines achilles' : heels. The yellow buttom kept breaking because it was used all the time, : and with it broken the machine was useless. Oh, come on... THat puck comes apart trivially and you just swap the switches round... Or you make up an adapter cable for the end that plugs into the control box under the tablet. The Sumagraphics user manual, shipped with every PERQ 1, includes schematics of the tablet! : No -- the Z80 was the I/O controller. The CPU is built around and AMD : 2900 bit slice ALU. There are four multiplexers beside it on the CPU Err... Assuming this is a classic-PERQ (and that seems obvious), then there are no AMD ALUs in the machine. The 2900-series chip is the 2910 sequecner. That chips is used to sequence the CPU microcode, and there's also one as part of the hard disk controller and the ethernet interface (this time sequencing ROM-based microcode). I am not all sure by what you mean by the 'four multiplexers'. There's the AMUX and BMUX feeding the ALU inputs (selecting data from registers or RAM or constants or...). There's the Jmux on the input to the sequencer (selecing various sources for microcode branch addresses). I can't think what the other one is, though. : board. There's a pile of discrete logic and some PALS : which make up a small state machine for controlling access to the : main system memory. I think (although Tony will probably correct me) : that the Z80 has its own (rather small) memory for doing I/O related : things. On the PERQ 1, the Z80 has 4K of RAM, used for its stack, etc. On the 2, etc, it has 16K of memory. Incidentally, although it's overkill from the access time point of view, these RAMs are the same type of chips as used for the main CPU control store, and are 55ns SRAMs (!). Yes, it's no coincidenace that the first machines (with 4K of control store) also had 4K on the Z80, and the later machines (with 16K of control store) had 16K on the Z80. The main memory could be accessed by the PERQ CPU, the video display hardware, and the DMA controller. The latter had 8 channels, a couple of which were used for transfer to/from some FIFOs that linked to the Z80 on the other side (and to an DMA chip that I forget the number of on that side). All communication between the Z80 and the main CPU was via such FIFOs (IIRC there were 4 of them total, 2 in each direction, 2 for DMA, 2 for programmed I/O). The 2 processors did not share memory. -tony ###### From: pm215@watchdragon.demon.co.uk (Peter Maydell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 29 Nov 1999 09:17:55 -0000 Organization: dragon cluster Lines: 19 Message-ID: <81tgc3$24r$1@watchdragon.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: pmaydell@chiark.greenend.org.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.watchdragon.demon.co.uk X-Server-Date: 29 Nov 1999 09:17:55 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Originator: @mnementh.local ([127.0.0.1]) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!colt.net!ayres.ftech.net!news.ftech.net!news.lattis.xara.net!ewrotcd!root@127.0.0.1!watchdragon.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Dave wrote: > It used 8" floppies and I have no recollection of how big the >hard drive was. 14" and a handful of megabytes; pictures at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~pmaydell/hardware/faranth/ > I remember >looking at the CPU board once and seeing a Z80 on it. I remember >being surprised at the time, because this thing had at least a meg of >ram (a *huge* amount at the time!), and I was wondering why they chose >a Z80 when so much ram was involved. Was the Z80 *really* the CPU? >Or was it some kind of I/O controller? Yep, I/O controller. The CPU was the board at the other end -- it's all done with discrete logic, no microprocessor involved :-> (The third standard PERQ1 board is the RAM board). Peter Maydell ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Date: 30 Nov 1999 19:42:24 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <8219b1$i4@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943996329 nnrp-12:22106 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 60 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Dave (Nunya@Business.net) wrote: : On 29 Nov 1999 19:14:35 -0000, ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) : wrote: : >If it was a PERQ 1 (or 1a, the only difference being the CPU board) then : >it would have had a 14" Shugart SA4000 hard drive mounted vertically in : >the left side of the cabinet. Depending on which drive you had, it would : >either be 12Mbytes or 24 Mbytes. : The SA4000 number rings a bell, and I remember a large hard drive : mounted vertically in the cabinet. In which case it's certainly a PERQ 1 or 1a. The PERQ 2's had smaller hard disks hidden away at the back of the cabinet. : I wasn't much of a hardware guy at the time - jeez, was it *really* : almost 20 years ago? I just saw the Z80 and naturally ass-u-med it : was the CPU board. :-) FWIW, '20 years ago' could just about be right. IIRC the first PERQ shipped in 1979.... : I still remember my jaw hitting the floor the first time I used it, : however. Besides the "real" software that I used in my job, the chess : and pool games were extraordinarily good for their time. It had much the same effect on me, even though the first PERQ I saw wasn't working. The reason my jaw hit the ground was that I pulled the CPU board and saw all those nice, simple, chips, and the 16K of control store :-) I was expecting a 68000-based unix box. : This is the first mention of PERQs that I've ever seen on Usenet. I : didn't know there was an alt.sys.perq., although all I see there now It's pretty low traffic (although PERQ-related posts are always welcome ;-)). : is this thread! I always thought that it was a very narrow niche : system that no one else would have heard of, unless you had worked : with Xerox laser printers. They're somewhat more common in the UK (they were an officially recomended system at UK universities for some reason, and they were second-sourced by ICL over here). There's a group of hobbyists who still maintain and restore these machines, so there's still a number in operation. : I had pretty much forgotten about the Perq/InTran system. This has : brought back *lots* of good memories. Are there any web resources for : info on these beasts? There _used_ to be (anyone know where the site has moved to?). There's hardware and software FAQLs, introduction to microcoding, etc... : Dave -tony ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Date: 30 Nov 1999 19:48:05 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <8219ll$it@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 943996331 nnrp-12:22106 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 53 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.icl.net!colt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Dave (Nunya@Business.net) wrote: : On 29 Nov 1999 19:14:35 -0000, ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) : wrote: : >The 4-button puck was actually part of a (standard) Sumagraphics Bit Pad : >1 that was plugged into the GPIB port on the PERQ. This probably means : >that your machine was a PERQ 1 since that was the only supported pointing : >device on that machine. : > : >PERQ 2s had a thing called a Kriz Mouse as standard. This was also : >electromagnetic and had to be used on its special pad. It was a 3 button : >unit and looked like a modern mouse. The PERQ 2 _would_ also work with a : >Bit Pad, but most weren't used that way. : > : >If it was a PERQ 1 (or 1a, the only difference being the CPU board) then : >it would have had a 14" Shugart SA4000 hard drive mounted vertically in : >the left side of the cabinet. Depending on which drive you had, it would : >either be 12Mbytes or 24 Mbytes. : Well I did a little web research and found a few PERQ web pages. I'm : not sure now what model I used all those years ago. The "T2" : designation seems familiar, as do the NIO and EIO boards - I remember : joking about "E I E I O" boards (as in Old MacDonald had a farm). Ah yes.... That's joke is widely used by PERQ-fanatics (although we tend to say 'E I O I O' (the PERQ 2 I/O boards were the EIO -- Ethernet Input/Output), the NIO (Non-ethernet I/O, which was an EIO without the ethernet chips fitted) and the OIO -- Optional Input/Output, which went in slot 5 in the card cage of _any_ PERQ (1 or 2) and gave you an ethernet port (yes, you could have 2 ethernet ports on a PERQ 2), Canon laserprinter interface, and a 16 bit DR11-like 'PERQlink' parallel port. : Also the keyboard pictured on a PERQ 1 does not look like the keyboard : I used, it looked more like the one pictured on the PERQ T2 system. I : don't know if the keyboards are significant or not. Also, was the 4 : button puck available on the T2 model? Yes. The Bit Pad 1 works on all 'classic' PERQs (everything but the 3a). It certainly works on a T2. The only problem is that the T2 had a little 5.25" winchester at the back, not the 14" SA4000 you seem to remember as well. Of course it's possible you used several machines. : What was the timeframe of the T2 system? I was using this machine : circa 1982 to 1984, roughly speaking. It was configured as a complete : workstation, with the hardware built into a desk. That's about the right timeframe for the T2. -tony ###### From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.13 (i586)) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 20:27:57 +0000 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: man-056.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 943994958 18513 news@194.247.41.69 Lines: 16 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail In alt.folklore.computers Dave wrote: > I always thought that it was a very narrow niche > system that no one else would have heard of, unless you had worked > with Xerox laser printers. A lot of British postgrads and academics got to experience Perqs 'cos at one point they were pretty much the standard issue machine for SERC research grants for several years -- Whitechapels were a fad for a while, as were HLH Orions with Starpoint terminals, before Suns became ubiquitous. I think the last Perq in my old department went out of service in '91 or '92. ICL badged/marketed them (it also marketed Sun-3s for a while, too) pete -- pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB) ###### From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.13 (i586)) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 20:29:27 +0000 Message-ID: <73c128.pn2.ln@fenelon.com> Lines: 9 NNTP-Posting-Host: man-056.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 943994960 18513 news@194.247.41.69 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail In alt.folklore.computers Dave wrote: > joking about "E I E I O" boards (as in Old MacDonald had a farm). Now an instruction on the PowerPC -- "Enforce In-order Execution of I/O". (Basically a way of forcing synchronisation :)) pete -- pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB) ###### From: afrb2@cus.cam.ac.uk (A.F.R. Bain) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 30 Nov 1999 18:54:53 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 48 Message-ID: <8216ht$69o$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81th0n$29t$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <81ujuo$fd@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: ursa.cus.cam.ac.uk Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed2.news.nl.uu.net!sun4nl!fu-berlin.de!warwick!pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk!afrb2 In article <81ujuo$fd@p850ug1.demon.co.uk>, Tony Duell wrote: >A.F.R. Bain (afrb2@cus.cam.ac.uk) wrote: >: According to the fault log for my PERQ this was one of the machines achilles' >: heels. The yellow buttom kept breaking because it was used all the time, >: and with it broken the machine was useless. > >Oh, come on... THat puck comes apart trivially and you just swap the >switches round... Or you make up an adapter cable for the end that plugs >into the control box under the tablet. The Sumagraphics user manual, >shipped with every PERQ 1, includes schematics of the tablet! Umm I know that's what to do now; it wasn't so easy then when the machine was on a support contract and they had to call an engineer out to replace the puck every time it failed. I think it's a good illustration of how a weak link (the pointing device in a system where the pointing device was essential) can make the whole system very annoying to users. The other problem seems to have been one of basic reliability (such as monitor flickering, or failure) and hard disk problems. I suspect most of the latter were caused by the machine being moved with the disk heads unlocked. The machine used technology suitable for a machine room in a machine given to users..... >: No -- the Z80 was the I/O controller. The CPU is built around and AMD >: 2900 bit slice ALU. There are four multiplexers beside it on the CPU > >Err... Assuming this is a classic-PERQ (and that seems obvious), then >there are no AMD ALUs in the machine. The 2900-series chip is the 2910 >sequecner. That chips is used to sequence the CPU microcode, and there's >also one as part of the hard disk controller and the ethernet interface >(this time sequencing ROM-based microcode). Yes... My memory is flaky and I don't have an AMD 2910 data sheet.... There are four ALUs on the processor board which I have; but for the life of me I can't remember what they are. I think you showed me a slide of a CPU board of yours with more than four ALUs at one point. > >I am not all sure by what you mean by the 'four multiplexers'. There's >the AMUX and BMUX feeding the ALU inputs (selecting data from registers >or RAM or constants or...). There's the Jmux on the input to the >sequencer (selecing various sources for microcode branch addresses). I >can't think what the other one is, though. It probably doesn't exist. My memory is often faulty! I must reread the notes on how it works sometime.... Alan ###### From: James Lothian Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: Wed, 01 Dec 1999 15:57:00 +0000 Message-ID: <3845454C.CC4A2F4F@simul8.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: simul8.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: simul8.demon.co.uk:212.228.120.103 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944063794 nnrp-07:7290 NO-IDENT simul8.demon.co.uk:212.228.120.103 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!simul8.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Just out of interest, whatever happened to the HLH Orion? It's one of the relatively few 'interesting' machines from that era that don't seem to have any sort of following these days. James Pete Fenelon wrote: > > In alt.folklore.computers Dave wrote: > > I always thought that it was a very narrow niche > > system that no one else would have heard of, unless you had worked > > with Xerox laser printers. > > A lot of British postgrads and academics got to experience Perqs 'cos at > one point they were pretty much the standard issue machine for SERC > research grants for several years -- Whitechapels were a fad for a while, > as were HLH Orions with Starpoint terminals, before Suns became ubiquitous. > > I think the last Perq in my old department went out of service in '91 or > '92. ICL badged/marketed them (it also marketed Sun-3s for a while, too) > > pete > -- > pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB) ###### From: Pete Fenelon Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <3845454C.CC4A2F4F@simul8.demon.co.uk> User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990216 ("Styrofoam") (UNIX) (Linux/2.2.13 (i586)) Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 19:43:40 +0000 Message-ID: Lines: 31 NNTP-Posting-Host: man-034.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Trace: news.zetnet.co.uk 944078253 18510 news@194.247.41.42 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!colt.net!easynet-uk!easynet.net!peer.news.zetnet.net!master.news.zetnet.net!not-for-mail In alt.folklore.computers James Lothian wrote: > Just out of interest, whatever happened to the HLH Orion? It's one > of the relatively few 'interesting' machines from that era that don't > seem to have any sort of following these days. There were two distinct generations of Orions -- the microcoded ones (which some people did very clever stuff to -- I think a few groups managed to build instructions that optimised them for functional programming) and the Fairchild Clipper powered ones. We had examples of both at York. The functional programming group had a microcoded one and the machine used to support student hardware lab work was a microcoded one. Two Clipper-powered ones were later bought for undergraduate and MSc timesharing. The microcoded Orions ran a fairly vanilla 4.1BSD. The Clipper ones (which we got two of in '88) ran something that (if I remember) was 4.2 or 4.3ish. Quick, but pretty unreliable from both a hardware and software point of view. Had a propensity for randomly swapping process UIDs around, which given the number of processes running as root is a Bad Idea. Never quite managed to get GCC ported to the Clipper, which was one of my main after-hours projects. Pity, because the Green Hills compiler HLH supplied would spit out opcodes that were illegal! HLH at some point decided they didn't like building computers and became an Apple importer. The Clipper Orions lasted about 3-4 years at York and were replaced by IBM RS6Ks (which also replaced some of the old staff Sun 2/380s used as timesharing boxes). pete -- pete@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas" (HMHB) ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Date: 1 Dec 1999 20:36:24 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <8240s8$ng@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81th0n$29t$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <81ujuo$fd@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <8216ht$69o$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944081165 nnrp-01:10333 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 83 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail A.F.R. Bain (afrb2@cus.cam.ac.uk) wrote: : >Oh, come on... THat puck comes apart trivially and you just swap the : >switches round... Or you make up an adapter cable for the end that plugs : >into the control box under the tablet. The Sumagraphics user manual, : >shipped with every PERQ 1, includes schematics of the tablet! : Umm I know that's what to do now; it wasn't so easy then when the machine : was on a support contract and they had to call an engineer out to : replace the puck every time it failed. I think it's a good illustration : of how a weak link (the pointing device in a system where the pointing It's also a good illustration of why support contracts are not always a good idea. FWIW, I'd never get a support contract for any machine I was in charge of for _exactly_ this reason -- I could fix most faults in less time than it takes to call for support. However, I'm not sure an adapter cable to remap the buttons would be against the support contract (no modifications to any part of the machine), particularly if the support company never 'found' the adapter ;-) : device was essential) can make the whole system very annoying to users. It's interesting that the 3 problems you mention (monitor, hard disk, puck) all occur in parts that were not designed at 3RCC/PERQ systems. PERQ systems hardware (the 3 boards, etc) tends to be reliable in my experience. : The other problem seems to have been one of basic reliability (such as : monitor flickering, or failure) and hard disk problems. I suspect most : of the latter were caused by the machine being moved with the disk : heads unlocked. The machine used technology suitable for a machine : room in a machine given to users..... There are 2 things here. Firstly, yes, the SA4000 doesn't like being moved without going through the over-complex locking procedure. But _at the time_ there was little else that they could have used. The PERQ was one of the first personal computers to have a hard disk. FWIW, some high-end CP/M machines with hard disks had much the same problems. The second problem was entirely PERQ systems' fault. They didn't ship the low-level disk formatter with the machine (indeed, I'm not sure it was even available for normal customers in the early days), for all they included the (much less useful for most users) microcode assembler, etc. And higher-level disk utilities were pretty much undoucmented with all sorts of warnings in the manual to discourage you from using them. This meant that most users couldn't fix trivial disk problems themselves (as they would have done on most other machines). And it's possible to corrupt a disk in a way that needs the supplied-but-undocumented programs using only supplied software. : >: No -- the Z80 was the I/O controller. The CPU is built around and AMD : >: 2900 bit slice ALU. There are four multiplexers beside it on the CPU : > : >Err... Assuming this is a classic-PERQ (and that seems obvious), then : >there are no AMD ALUs in the machine. The 2900-series chip is the 2910 : >sequecner. That chips is used to sequence the CPU microcode, and there's : >also one as part of the hard disk controller and the ethernet interface : >(this time sequencing ROM-based microcode). : Yes... My memory is flaky and I don't have an AMD 2910 data sheet.... While I've got Mick&Brick alongside me :-) : There are four ALUs on the processor board which I have; but for the There are surely _5_ ALUs on the CPU board in your machine -- the PERQ is a 20 bit machine at the hardware level. The T4 (24 bit) CPU has 6 ALUs IIRC. These are 74S181s, btw. : It probably doesn't exist. My memory is often faulty! I must reread : the notes on how it works sometime.... Or ask on alt.sys.perq. I'm sure somebody will answer any questions on these interesting machines. : Alan -tony ###### From: Tim Bradshaw Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 02 Dec 1999 21:02:04 +0000 Organization: TFEB.ORG Ltd Sender: tfb@lostwithiel.tfeb.org Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <3845454C.CC4A2F4F@simul8.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.tfeb.org X-NNTP-Posting-Host: mailgate.tfeb.org:212.240.242.98 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944170500 nnrp-02:2959 NO-IDENT mailgate.tfeb.org:212.240.242.98 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.2.25/XEmacs 19.14 Lines: 28 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mailgate.tfeb.org!lostwithiel!nobody * James Lothian wrote: > Just out of interest, whatever happened to the HLH Orion? It's one > of the relatively few 'interesting' machines from that era that don't > seem to have any sort of following these days. HLH stopped making them in ~90 (there were two generations -- the interesting earlier microcoded ones and the later, clipper-based ones which were faster but less interesting). People kept some alive until quite recently -- perhaps still. I had a microcodable one which I gave away earlier this year, still running. If anyone is interested I have a *large* pile of orion stuff which is looking for a home, including HLH's `service' machine more-or-less intact (working before I moved it from HLH), and probably enough bits to make several other machines, as well as 2 (?) tape drives, many many tapes, including probably all the sources (you would need a license). I have been trying to find a home for this stuff, as these are I suspect the last really British-designed machines that there ever were, and I can't really afford the space to keep it all, or the time to get it working again. I've not succeeded in finding space though. (Before anyone expresses interest, this is the equivalent of several full-height 19" racks worth of stuff, except in a lot of small bits, so it is not going to be simple to move. And you have to take *all* of it, from Wiltshire (in the UK)!) --tim ###### From: James Lothian Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 14:10:05 +0000 Message-ID: <3847CF3D.B1154497@simul8.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <3845454C.CC4A2F4F@simul8.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: simul8.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: simul8.demon.co.uk:212.228.120.103 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944230176 nnrp-01:4843 NO-IDENT simul8.demon.co.uk:212.228.120.103 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 50 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.tli.de!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!simul8.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Aaah, I wish I had a bit more space! I got interested in the Orion because the perceived problems of the microcoded version were part of the inspiration for the Linn Rekursiv, which I got roped into writing (/attempting to write) a Prolog system for in about 1987. Unfortunately, I don't have room these days to take on another mini-sized machine (installing the 11/750 in the living room pretty well filled the last corner in the house). I hope it all goes to a good home! James PS I'd be very interested in hearing from anybody out there who wants to sell a Rekursiv board, just for old time's sake... Tim Bradshaw wrote: > > * James Lothian wrote: > > Just out of interest, whatever happened to the HLH Orion? It's one > > of the relatively few 'interesting' machines from that era that don't > > seem to have any sort of following these days. > > HLH stopped making them in ~90 (there were two generations -- the > interesting earlier microcoded ones and the later, clipper-based ones > which were faster but less interesting). People kept some alive > until quite recently -- perhaps still. I had a microcodable one which > I gave away earlier this year, still running. > > If anyone is interested I have a *large* pile of orion stuff which is > looking for a home, including HLH's `service' machine more-or-less > intact (working before I moved it from HLH), and probably enough bits > to make several other machines, as well as 2 (?) tape drives, many > many tapes, including probably all the sources (you would need a > license). I have been trying to find a home for this stuff, as these > are I suspect the last really British-designed machines that there > ever were, and I can't really afford the space to keep it all, or the > time to get it working again. I've not succeeded in finding space > though. > > (Before anyone expresses interest, this is the equivalent of several > full-height 19" racks worth of stuff, except in a lot of small bits, > so it is not going to be simple to move. And you have to take *all* > of it, from Wiltshire (in the UK)!) > > --tim ###### From: Scott Wheeler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 15:03:36 +0000 Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <3845454C.CC4A2F4F@simul8.demon.co.uk> <3847CF3D.B1154497@simul8.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: bmtech.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: bmtech.demon.co.uk:158.152.102.124 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944233284 nnrp-12:21728 NO-IDENT bmtech.demon.co.uk:158.152.102.124 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 15 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!bmtech.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On Fri, 03 Dec 1999 14:10:05 +0000, James Lothian wrote: >the Linn Rekursiv, which I got roped into writing (/attempting to >write) a Prolog system for Do you have any tales about that system? I remember an article on it in PCW when it was under development, but I never heard whether it got any further. I understand the instruction set was designed for Smalltalk OOP? Scott -- (please de-mung address if replying by email) ###### From: jamie.99338@bishopston.com (Jamie Jones) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 4 Dec 1999 08:38:08 GMT Organization: http://www.bishopston.com/jamie/ Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <814a4h$19v@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 944296709 mail2news:7664 mail2news mail2news.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Mail2News-Path: news.demon.net!h139-142-235-83.cg.fiberone.net!bishopston.net!news.bishopston.net!catflap.bishopston.net!jamie X-Posted-From: The Bishopston Network (http://www.bishopston.net/) NNTP-Posting-Date: 4 Dec 1999 08:38:08 GMT X-newsgroup: alt.sys.perq X-NO-Junk: Support the ban of unsolicited junk email - http://www.cauce.org/ User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.6 (UNIX) Lines: 30 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail >: Does anybody have a nice old PERQ they could part with for a few $? I own 2 PERQ1's, and 'have' a further PERQ 1 that a friend needs to get rid of. Unfortunately, I only really have the space for one such machine, so there are 2 up for grabs. User collects, however it will be some time before they are avaialable, as I'm currently in London, one perq is in Swansea, Wales, and the other is in Bristol. The one in Bristol hasn't been powered on for years, but worked when it was last used, however it's screen is not working properly. The one in Wales was given to me a few years ago with a "simple fault", but I've never had the time to do anything with it. My original Perq hasn't been used for some time, but assuming it still works, I can let the others go..... to *good* homes only! Please email me if interested, Jamie -- Jamie Jones http://www.bishopston.com/jamie/ --- 21 days to Christmas! Word of the day: "indemonstrableness" ---- "I'm not big, and I'm not clever. And I'm definitely not funny." ----------- The reply address on this posting expires in 7 days time. ###### From: J. Chris Hausler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: Sat, 4 DEC 99 14:37:22 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.93.4.4 X-To: Tony Duell Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-feed1.tiac.net!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!news.delphi.com!news Tony Duell writes: >PERQ 2s had a thing called a Kriz Mouse as standard. This was also >electromagnetic and had to be used on its special pad. It was a 3 button >unit and looked like a modern mouse. The PERQ 2 _would_ also work with a >Bit Pad, but most weren't used that way. That was Stan Kriz. Most of the folks which started Three Rivers came from the CMU CS Engineering Lab (I worked there briefly in 1970 and 71, long before Three Rivers was started). I've always wondered what became of all of them, a good group. Although I've never even seen a PERQ, it seems to me that they came along before the "world" was ready for the idea of an engineering workstation ###### From: ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ Date: 4 Dec 1999 20:30:06 -0000 Organization: P850 User Group Message-ID: <82btke$19h@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81hjeq$t6@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <81ujas$ed@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 944340180 nnrp-01:18314 NO-IDENT p850ug1.demon.co.uk:158.152.97.199 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 41 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!diablo2!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!p850ug1.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail J. Chris Hausler (jchausler@delphi.com) wrote: : Tony Duell writes: : : >PERQ 2s had a thing called a Kriz Mouse as standard. This was also : >electromagnetic and had to be used on its special pad. It was a 3 button : >unit and looked like a modern mouse. The PERQ 2 _would_ also work with a : >Bit Pad, but most weren't used that way. : : That was Stan Kriz. Most of the folks which started Three Rivers Absolutely. A man who seems to have had rather a lot to do with the PERQ design. : came from the CMU CS Engineering Lab (I worked there briefly in Yes, there's a well-know (and not always happy) relationship between the PERQ and CMU. It's obvious from some of the papers on the SPICE project that the machine they were describing was a PERQ. And, of course, Accent (an OS developped at CMU IIRC) was ported to the PERQ. : 1970 and 71, long before Three Rivers was started). I've always Not _that_ long before -- the PERQ was not Three Rivers' first project. I think Three Rivers were going in 1974 or thereabouts. : wondered what became of all of them, a good group. Although : I've never even seen a PERQ, it seems to me that they came along : before the "world" was ready for the idea of an engineering : workstation Agreed. The PERQ was _way_ ahead of its time. If you compared it with a PC 10 years later, in some respects the PERQ looked _very_ dated (like the hard disk), but in others the PERQ was ahead of the PC (!). Being first did not help :-(. They weren't quite sure what people would want from this new class of machines, and thus they made some decisions that were rather poor in retrospect. Still, they produced a very nice machine... -tony ###### Sender: lynn@LYNNLT Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.perq Subject: Re: Looking for a (working) PERQ References: <93dZ3.4351$16.525525@news.flash.net> <81th0n$29t$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> <81ujuo$fd@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> <8216ht$69o$1@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk> Reply-To: Anne & Lynn Wheeler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Anne & Lynn Wheeler Message-ID: Organization: Wheeler&Wheeler Lines: 30 User-Agent: Gnus/5.07008 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.80) Emacs/20.3 Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 15:11:12 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.63.29.100 X-Complaints-To: support@adcomsys.net X-Trace: news-west.eli.net 944579472 209.63.29.100 (Tue, 07 Dec 1999 08:11:12 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 08:11:12 MST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!crtntx1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!easynews!news-west.eli.net!not-for-mail slightly PERQ related .... in the following reference http://pucc.princeton.edu/~piper/party/jph-12.html#wheeler there is mention of different groups reviewing the proposal for a new workstation ... and all of the groups concluded what they were doing was better than the proposal and so the proposed new workstation (SUN) didn't need to be done. the workstation group that participated in the evaluation was using mostly/all PERQs. One of the PERQ demos that i remember was a phone application. the perq would pull off the calling phone number on the incoming call and show it in a pop-up window on the PERQ. numbers could also be looked up in a directory and if found also display the person's name. I also seem to remember you could classify numbers and associate activity with them ... send the call directly to phone mail, only display the window, play a specific ring/tune, play a specific message at phone mail, etc. For outgoing ... you could give a name ... and it would look up the number and do the dialing. In phone mail ... you could look at the phone mail log, it would give the incoming number, person's name if available, date/time of the call, length of recorded message, whether the message had been heard, etc. -- -- Anne & Lynn Wheeler | lynn@garlic.com, finger for pgp key http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/