Message-ID: <390FEFB6.72AD7D9D@trailing-edge.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 09:21:58 -0400
From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com>
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology
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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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sjm wrote:
> 
> <rant type="sarcastic">
> Your only hope is that one of the four-hundred-and-eighty ongoing
> projects to write a PDP-10 emulator will eventually produce
> something that compiles.  At least a third of these projects are also
> completely imaginary, so don't get your hopes up.  Those that aren't
> will be ready for (limited) public review under strict NDA within
> eight years if current agressive development schedules are met.

A good number of the emulator (simulator?) authors are a bit afraid
that releasing their current source code would require that they
support it.  I'm of the other opinion - if they release their
current source code (I don't care if it's GPL or not GPL, I do
*not* want to get into that religious war!) then others will support
it.

What's really encouraging is that several of the authors of the DECUS
freeware in the archives have wandered across the collection and told
me that they appreciate seeing software that they used or wrote
themselves, sometimes 30 or more years ago.

> TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 software is available online thanks to Tim Shoppa
> and some anonymous donors.

You're welcome :-).  It's nice to see that at least I - and both the
anonymous and not-so-anonymous donors mentioned at the archive home
page,

  http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/

- come off as the good guys.  We're really trying.  I've seen some
emulator progress mentioned here as a result of the sources being
available and browsable, and that's a Good Thing.  So far
several hundred people have visited the archive site and downloaded
or browsed through the software available, and that's a Good Thing
too.

>  Plenty more would be, but the community
> has largely, and very wisely, decided that it would be far better if
> the existing software were allowed to mildew unsaved in basements.
> This will preserve its purity so it is not touched by infidels.

It really breaks my heart and pains me that so much software
is out there just rotting away.  Some of the current holders of the
tapes don't understand that the tapes *are* still readable (sure,
not everyone has 9-track and 7-track drives anymore, and not
everyone has the ability to read and decode TOPS-10 BACKUP or
TOPS-20 DUMPER tapes, but I do!), others don't understand that there
is a wide interest in the software.

There are some other organizations - such as computer museums - that
probably don't understand the value of the tapes or disks
they currently have in their collection.  Many of these museums
have members/volunteers that read this newsgroup, and I hope that
those readers pay attemtion to my plea below.

Thus I'll repeat my plea:

If anyone has any PDP-10 software covered by the DEC 36-bit hobbyist
license, please get it to me.  I'll pay shipping both ways, and I'm
an expert at archiving old data.  Your tapes will be properly cared
for, carefully read, and returned.  If you want, you'll be thanked
on the archive page for the stuff you provide, or if you prefer you
can remain anonymous.  Just don't let the software rot away!

The best reference I can give is what I've done so far.  Just
look at

  http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/

and you'll find hundreds of megabytes of PDP-10 software, preserved in
both *exact* tape or disk image form and as browsable, human-readable
files.  Both commercial software covered by the DEC 36-bit hobbyist
license and the DECUS 10- and 20- freeware collections are available
there.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd                 Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927

######

From: jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Wed, 03 May 2000 09:21:58 -0400, Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com>
wrote:
>A good number of the emulator (simulator?) authors are a bit afraid
>that releasing their current source code would require that they
>support it.  I'm of the other opinion - if they release their
>current source code (I don't care if it's GPL or not GPL, I do
>*not* want to get into that religious war!) then others will support
>it.

I'll second this, and add that the experience of the Hercules IBM mainframe
emulator backs it up: most folks don't just say that there's a problem and
that it should be fixed, but also contribute code to fix the problem. The
maintainer has put in a bunch of work in integrating patches, but there's
more than a small amount of code contributed by others (including me).

######

From: "Dave G." <dgorst@delete.csi.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Sorry for being obtuse, but what are the big problems emulating the PDP-10
(lack of documentation, transferring the original software, copyrights, or
maybe just the scale of the endeavour)? I missed the beginning of this
thread and this is all a bit before my time.

Cheers,
Dave.

Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote in message
news:slrn8h0j5g.641.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx...
> On Wed, 03 May 2000 09:21:58 -0400, Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com>
> wrote:
> >A good number of the emulator (simulator?) authors are a bit afraid
> >that releasing their current source code would require that they
> >support it.  I'm of the other opinion - if they release their
> >current source code (I don't care if it's GPL or not GPL, I do
> >*not* want to get into that religious war!) then others will support
> >it.
>
> I'll second this, and add that the experience of the Hercules IBM
mainframe
> emulator backs it up: most folks don't just say that there's a problem and
> that it should be fixed, but also contribute code to fix the problem. The
> maintainer has put in a bunch of work in integrating patches, but there's
> more than a small amount of code contributed by others (including me).

######

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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
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In article <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com>,
Dave G. <dgorst@delete.csi.com> wrote:
>Sorry for being obtuse, but what are the big problems emulating the PDP-10
>(lack of documentation, transferring the original software, copyrights, or
>maybe just the scale of the endeavour)? I missed the beginning of this
>thread and this is all a bit before my time.

Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
documentation.  But there's more to the equation.

Having written an emulator once, I have a couple comments to make.

Writing an emulator for a CPU is actually quite easy.  But it's
only a tiny fraction of the job.  Writing emulators for the
peripherals also needs to be done, and this can seriously complicate
matters.

Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.

When people write code for a specific computer, they don't debug
until the code works according to the specifications of the underlying
hardware, they just debug until it works.  If it happens that
they've stumbled across a hardware bug or undocumented feature,
then the software is very likely to break the first time it's run
on an emulator that does not share this bug or feature.

Here's a real case in point:  On the emulator I wrote, we had a
third party vendor who had a major application.  At one point in
the application, the program ran off the end of executable code
and into a data area, executing the random data as instructions
until it eventually ran into real code again.  As luck would have
it, no disaster resulted.  Otherwise, the vendor would have found
out about the bug and fixed it.

Our emulator reacted differently to this random data due to the
presense of a large number of undefined opcodes.  This caused the
application to crash.  Asking a third-party vendor to fix an
application which ran just fine on the real computer was out of
the question.  Thus, we had to isolate every one of those undefined
opcodes, find out what they did on the real hardware, and emulate
the behavior correctly.  Actually, I won't swear that we got it
all correct -- we just debugged it until it worked.

Every time we thought the emulator was perfected, we found a new
application that tickled some previously-undiscovered undocumented
behavior.

Timing is another problem.  I've heard that there was an early
version of a PDP-10 emulator that was failing under Tops-10 because
emulated disk I/O was happening too fast.

I'm currently working with an emulator for a heavily pipelined
architecture.  Beilieve me, getting all the timings right is a
bear.

Bottom line:  writing a working emulator is non-trivial and a
bastard to support.

--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Edward A. Falk (falconer@best.com) writes:
>
... 
> Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
> features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.

  That outlines the beauty of the IBM System 360 et al design philosophy:
  the various branches could build the hardware any way they chose, but
  the Principles of Operation manual was the _bible_.  (Eg. 3nnn versus
  4nnn series.)  Similarly, the design of PL/I left no doubt as to what
  constitutes a valid program versus trick programming using UNSPECified
  features.

  But humans, being what they are, came up with imprecise exceptions,
  followed by multiple imprecise exceptions, apparently tossed the SIO
  instruction (hardware), AND, (if I heard right) allows pointer arith-
  metic in PL/I v 2!

######

Message-ID: <39105E1C.6DC3E519@trailing-edge.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 17:13:01 -0400
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Edward A. Falk wrote:
> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
> documentation.

Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
Manual".  This is a big win.

The fact that the CPU spec is over 500 pages means that it is a lot
harder than many of the microcomputers commonly emulated.

> Writing an emulator for a CPU is actually quite easy.

It's complicated for at least some of the PDP-10's by the presence
of loadable microcode.

> Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
> features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.

Even more complicated for the PDP-10's with loadable microcode because
most of the microcode versions have subtle bugs, some of which are
used by the software to identify the CPU type :-).

>  But it's
> only a tiny fraction of the job.  Writing emulators for the
> peripherals also needs to be done, and this can seriously complicate
> matters.

Absolutely.  If you look at the TOPS-10 and -20 sources you can see
that many times the OS writers and the peripheral hardware designers
didn't agree as to how things are supposed to work.  And these are
guys who (at least nominally) were supposed to be working together!

Tim.

######

Message-ID: <3910AAEA.466D811D@jetnet.ab.ca>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 16:40:42 -0600
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Tim Shoppa wrote:
> 
> Edward A. Falk wrote:
> > Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
> > documentation.
> 
> Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
> manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
> notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
> Manual".  This is a big win.
> 
> The fact that the CPU spec is over 500 pages means that it is a lot
> harder than many of the microcomputers commonly emulated.
> 
> > Writing an emulator for a CPU is actually quite easy.
> 
> It's complicated for at least some of the PDP-10's by the presence
> of loadable microcode.
> 
> > Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
> > features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.
> 
> Even more complicated for the PDP-10's with loadable microcode because
> most of the microcode versions have subtle bugs, some of which are
> used by the software to identify the CPU type :-).
> 
> >  But it's
> > only a tiny fraction of the job.  Writing emulators for the
> > peripherals also needs to be done, and this can seriously complicate
> > matters.
> 

While slower, would not writing a emulator, for the emulator
work if that does not violate copy writes of the microcode?
Ben.
-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
"Ancient Logic" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/al/index.html

######

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In article <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
>Timing is another problem.  I've heard that there was an early
>version of a PDP-10 emulator that was failing under Tops-10 because
>emulated disk I/O was happening too fast.

IIRC, this was a spot in ITS (in DSKDMP I think?) under KLH's KS10 emulator
(I heard about it but didn't see it), where it would start a disk I/O
transfer using a buffer which included the code currently being executed,
and then it would jump out of the way before the disk had a chance to start
DMAing stuff in.  But on an emulator, the easiest way to emulate disk I/O
is to suspend instruction execution do the entire I/O "instantaneously"
between instructions, so it would fill the whole buffer before the next
instruction was fetched.

Since it worked fine on real KS10s, this bug is the emulator's problem,
just like the thing you described with executing random data and living
to tell about it.  I had similar problems with my PDP-11 emulator, and
worked around them by putting in a queueing system so that most operations
of most devices can be delayed by a configurable # of instruction fetches
before that operation is begun (at which point it still may happen in a
flash, if it's to a file or device that's accessed using blocking I/O).
It's a big pain but this makes it possible to address the actual problem,
that the user code assumes it can always finish the last N instructions
before a particular spot, before there's any possibility that the device
will have completed (or even begun) the operation.

Anyway, although I've never finished a KS10 emulator, I've done plenty of work
on one and I really think that the instruction set *is* the main concern.
It's freakin' huge!!!  The paging and UMR and interrupt systems have to be
done right too, but they aren't all *that* complicated, at least on the KS.
Some of the devices will be tricky, especially the TU77 since the TM03
documentation is so full of nasty little omissions etc., but generally the
device support in the OSes for the KS10 is terrible so there just aren't
that many devices to worry about in the first place.

Do a TU77 and an RP06 and a DZ and you're practically there!  The KS10 OSes
don't support many of the other zillions of older PDP-11 disk/tape devices
that *would* have worked (the RK611 even has an 18-bit mode, and the RK11D
can be ECOed into an RK11E too), so you can skip all of those, and the KS10
didn't live long enough to really overlap with the newer PDP-11/VAX stuff
(no MSCP at all, and no DELUA, the DEUNA was around but drew too much current
to actually install one).  So you're off the hook for all that stuff too.

AFAIK no serial mux besides the DZ11 was ever officially supported on the KS10
(which is ironic because the KS10 CPU's backplane is actually made from a
DH11 PCB with different wire wrap!), there was the DUP11/KMC11 set that was
used for sync serial I/O but you're probably not going to get much call for
that on a Unix or Windows based emulator.  The DZ is dead easy, so really,
serial I/O is no biggie either.

John Wilson
D Bit

######

From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 4 May 2000 01:40:07 GMT
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In article <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
>Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
>features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.

That's true even for silly things like terminal emulators. There's a long
history of problems with vt100 emulations, for example.

-- 
This is The Reverend Peter da Silva's Boring Sig File - there are no references
to Wolves, Kibo, Discordianism, or The Church of the Subgenius in this document

Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications, Entropy Gradient Reversals.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc.  www.best.com
From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 04 May 2000 02:00:43 GMT
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In article <3910d117_1@news.wizvax.net>, John Wilson <wilson@dbit.com> wrote:
>In article <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
>Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
>>Timing is another problem.  I've heard that there was an early
>>version of a PDP-10 emulator that was failing under Tops-10 because
>>emulated disk I/O was happening too fast.
>
>IIRC, this was a spot in ITS (in DSKDMP I think?) under KLH's KS10 emulator
>(I heard about it but didn't see it), where it would start a disk I/O
>transfer using a buffer which included the code currently being executed,
>and then it would jump out of the way before the disk had a chance to start
>DMAing stuff in.  But on an emulator, the easiest way to emulate disk I/O
>is to suspend instruction execution do the entire I/O "instantaneously"
>between instructions, so it would fill the whole buffer before the next
>instruction was fetched.

Ahhhh, *that* was it.  Now I remember.


>Anyway, although I've never finished a KS10 emulator, I've done plenty of work
>on one and I really think that the instruction set *is* the main concern.
>It's freakin' huge!!!

Yes, but very modular.

>Some of the devices will be tricky, especially the TU77 since the TM03
>documentation is so full of nasty little omissions etc., ...

I think writing all the device emulators is where it gets really
ugly.

--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc.  www.best.com
From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 04 May 2000 02:07:31 GMT
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In article <39105E1C.6DC3E519@trailing-edge.com>,
Tim Shoppa  <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>Edward A. Falk wrote:
>> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
>> documentation.
>
>Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
>manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
>notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
>Manual".  This is a big win.

Egads.  Scanned images of pages.  Yikes.

Still, it's a huge win.  This must have been added since the
last time I browsed the 36bit.org homepage.

Does it include peripheral documentation?


>It's complicated for at least some of the PDP-10's by the presence
>of loadable microcode.

Ouch.


>Even more complicated for the PDP-10's with loadable microcode because
>most of the microcode versions have subtle bugs, some of which are
>used by the software to identify the CPU type :-).

Double ouch.


I remember the pdp-10's in the old MIT AI lab.  The hackers in
the lab had extended the instruction sets of some of the machines.

They had a programming contest once (I think it was factoring huge
numbers or looking for Mersenne primes or some such) and someone
asked if they could use microcode in the contest.  The answer
was something like "no -- what next; allow wire-wrap?"


I don't suppose emulating the KL-Udge would be a good idea either.

--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

From: "Henry W. Miller" <hmiller@iols.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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"Edward A. Falk" <falconer@best.com> wrote in message
news:39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com...
> In article <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com>,
> Dave G. <dgorst@delete.csi.com> wrote:
> >Sorry for being obtuse, but what are the big problems emulating the
PDP-10
> >(lack of documentation, transferring the original software, copyrights,
or
> >maybe just the scale of the endeavour)? I missed the beginning of this
> >thread and this is all a bit before my time.
>

Ed,

> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
> documentation.  But there's more to the equation.
>
> Having written an emulator once, I have a couple comments to make.
>
> Writing an emulator for a CPU is actually quite easy.  But it's
> only a tiny fraction of the job.  Writing emulators for the
> peripherals also needs to be done, and this can seriously complicate
> matters.
>
> Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
> features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.
>

    I have TONS of old documentation, much to my wife's chagrin.  As
soon as I get my scanner up and running, this is one of my goals: scan
all of that old stuff into a human/machine readable format.  This is going
to have to be a low priority item, but hopefully it'll happen.  When it
does,
and as soon as I can get a new ANONYMOUS FTP account set up,
or possibly WEBify it, I'll make it available.

> When people write code for a specific computer, they don't debug
> until the code works according to the specifications of the underlying
> hardware, they just debug until it works.  If it happens that
> they've stumbled across a hardware bug or undocumented feature,
> then the software is very likely to break the first time it's run
> on an emulator that does not share this bug or feature.
>
> Here's a real case in point:  On the emulator I wrote, we had a
> third party vendor who had a major application.  At one point in
> the application, the program ran off the end of executable code
> and into a data area, executing the random data as instructions
> until it eventually ran into real code again.  As luck would have
> it, no disaster resulted.  Otherwise, the vendor would have found
> out about the bug and fixed it.
>
> Our emulator reacted differently to this random data due to the
> presense of a large number of undefined opcodes.  This caused the
> application to crash.  Asking a third-party vendor to fix an
> application which ran just fine on the real computer was out of
> the question.  Thus, we had to isolate every one of those undefined
> opcodes, find out what they did on the real hardware, and emulate
> the behavior correctly.  Actually, I won't swear that we got it
> all correct -- we just debugged it until it worked.
>

    Here's another fun point, although it's a software issue: when I was
doing the TCP/IP for TENEX close to 20 years or so ago, I found out
that many versions of TENEX had different JSYS values for certain
calls.  Try to get people to get consistent!  It made it really difficult to
try to put out a unified release for people, without requiring the host
system programmer to perform some hacking, other than the usual
tweaking of values in STORAGE/STG.

> Every time we thought the emulator was perfected, we found a new
> application that tickled some previously-undiscovered undocumented
> behavior.
>
> Timing is another problem.  I've heard that there was an early
> version of a PDP-10 emulator that was failing under Tops-10 because
> emulated disk I/O was happening too fast.
>

    As I recall the folklore, the Amdahl 470 had the same problem, as it
ran too fast and thus broke some of the carefully defined timing loops
in OS/360.

> I'm currently working with an emulator for a heavily pipelined
> architecture.  Beilieve me, getting all the timings right is a
> bear.
>
> Bottom line:  writing a working emulator is non-trivial and a
> bastard to support.
>
> --
> -ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See
*********************#*************#*
> http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html
#**************F******!******!*!!****
> and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do
******!***************************#**
> to Save the Internet    **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

-HWM

######

From: "George R. Gonzalez" <grg@umn.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 10:46:40 -0500
Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus
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Heinz W. Wiggeshoff wrote in message <8eq371$3hq$1@freenet9.carleton.ca>...
>Edward A. Falk (falconer@best.com) writes:
>>
>...
>> Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
>> features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.


IBM learned this the hard way with the 7090 series, as programmers figured
out lots of undocumented tricks, like you could specify two index registers
at once in the index register bitmap, and you'd get the OR of the two.  This
caused problems when the 7094 design changed the bitmap to an encoded field.
All of a sudden you didnt get the OR of index register 1 and 2, but got
register 3.

Or on the PDP-8, what happened when you accessed non-existent memory wasnt
ever specified.  Each model did something a little different-- I dimly
recall the original -8 did something really weird, like instead of executing
the next instruction, it would skip it and execute whatever was at word
zero, or what was in the AC register.   Definitely a bug IMHO.

It's nice to have all these boundary conditions pinned down tightly.
One of the big headaches in writing a VT-100 emulator was that
the specs only (vaguely) documented in-bounds behavior,
but it was important to be able to handle "scroll -29 lines" and other
unusual combinations, as many screen editors used and depended on the
quirks.

######

From: jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <390FEFB6.72AD7D9D@trailing-edge.com> <slrn8h0j5g.641.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com> <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com> <8eq371$3hq$1@freenet9.carleton.ca> <8es6ni$s4b$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>
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On Thu, 4 May 2000 10:46:40 -0500, George R. Gonzalez <grg@umn.edu> wrote:
>IBM learned this the hard way with the 7090 series, as programmers figured
>out lots of undocumented tricks, like you could specify two index registers
>at once in the index register bitmap, and you'd get the OR of the two.  This
>caused problems when the 7094 design changed the bitmap to an encoded field.
>All of a sudden you didnt get the OR of index register 1 and 2, but got
>register 3.
 
This must be why the S/3x0 POO has comments everywhere you look about being
sure not to depend on the values in reserved fields on output, and setting
them to zero on input, for compatibility with future systems. IBM did indeed
learn that lesson.

######

From: allen.baum@compaq.com (Allen J. Baum)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 10:18:18 -0700
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Allegedly, the fastest PDP-10/Decsystem-20 ever built was a custom one that was given
to Bill Gates at a Decus event 3 or 4 years ago.

It was an Alpha running Bob Supnik's emulator, 
with an I/O device which was a real PDP-10 front panel that they'd dug out of a warehouse.

-- 
**********************************************
* Allen J. Baum          tel. (650)853-6626  *
* Compaq Computer Corp.  fax  (650)853-6513  *
* 181 Lytton Ave.                            *
* Palo Alto, CA 95306    abaum@pa.dec.com    *
**********************************************

######

Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail
From: Neil Franklin <neil@franklin.ch.remove>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 04 May 2000 21:46:15 +0200
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"Henry W. Miller" <hmiller@iols.net> writes:

>  When it
> does,
> and as soon as I can get a new ANONYMOUS FTP account set up,
> or possibly WEBify it, I'll make it available.

Or: get an Web account (easier to get than FTP Accounts) and then just
put the raw ascii files in there (saving the work of webifying).

As much as it may surprise in todays age of styling-overdesigned web
sites, web servers can export an raw directory full of ascii files!


--
Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic
Use a WIMP (Windows Icons Mouse Pulldowns) interface -
  or get one with a CLUE (Command Line User Environment)?

######

From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 05 May 00 11:27:29 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55447

In article <39105E1C.6DC3E519@trailing-edge.com>,
   Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>Edward A. Falk wrote:
>> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
>> documentation.
>
>Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
>manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
>notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
>Manual".  This is a big win.
>
>The fact that the CPU spec is over 500 pages means that it is a lot
>harder than many of the microcomputers commonly emulated.

Did he get the source for that manual?  Or did he scan it in?


>
>> Writing an emulator for a CPU is actually quite easy.
>
>It's complicated for at least some of the PDP-10's by the presence
>of loadable microcode.

One should also note that a problem in the hardware breadboard
might get a workaround done in the microcode, with the full
intention of "fixing" it in the "right" place when the initial
project is done.  Of course that never happens.  IIRC, a number
of problems that would have been ECOed ended up getting fixed
in the microcode.  It's cheaper from the hardware engineering
budget's point of view.

>> Further, you also need to correctly emulate the bugs and undocumented
>> features.  This sounds inane, but it's true.
>
>Even more complicated for the PDP-10's with loadable microcode because
>most of the microcode versions have subtle bugs, some of which are
>used by the software to identify the CPU type :-).

Dem's not bugs; dem's asspects.

>
>>  But it's
>> only a tiny fraction of the job.  Writing emulators for the
>> peripherals also needs to be done, and this can seriously complicate
>> matters.
>
>Absolutely.  If you look at the TOPS-10 and -20 sources you can see
>that many times the OS writers and the peripheral hardware designers
>didn't agree as to how things are supposed to work.  And these are
>guys who (at least nominally) were supposed to be working together!

They were? [very sarcastic emoticon here]

/BAH
  

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com> <3910d117_1@news.wizvax.net> <3910d9cb$0$223@nntp1.ba.best.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55425

In article <3910d9cb$0$223@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
>>Some of the devices will be tricky, especially the TU77 since the TM03
>>documentation is so full of nasty little omissions etc., ...
>
>I think writing all the device emulators is where it gets really
>ugly.

Well it's no picnic but it's not the end of the world.  In my PDP-11 emulator,
the TU77 (etc.) emulation is just 1132 lines of heavily commented assembly
language, I'm sure it would be a fraction of that in typical uncommented
synchronous C code with no error checking (let's be realistic here!!).
It sticks on to the device-independent tape drivers and RH emulation code
but those don't amount to much, and the RH stuff is shared with the RM/RP.

IMHO the TU77 is the most difficult to emulate of the common KS10 devices,
the RM03 and RP06 are really pretty easy and the DZ11 is very simple.
The CTY/KLINIK stuff done by the 8080A shouldn't be all that bad either.

John Wilson
D Bit

######

From: Dennis Ritchie <dmr@bell-labs.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 05 May 2000 02:19:20 +0000
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55421



"George R. Gonzalez" wrote (about having to preserve
undocumented CPU "features":

> IBM learned this the hard way with the 7090 series, as programmers figured
> out lots of undocumented tricks, like you could specify two index registers
> at once in the index register bitmap, and you'd get the OR of the two.  This
> caused problems when the 7094 design changed the bitmap to an encoded field.
> All of a sudden you didnt get the OR of index register 1 and 2, but got
> register 3.

It would be interesting to know the real history of this, from
the 701 through 704.  By the 709, likewise 7090, it was well-documented
that the 3-bit index register field specified OR of the
bit-selected registers.

Gonzalez is wrong, though, about the 7094.  It did have 7 index registers,
but there was an explicit mode whereby either a unique one of the 7 registers
was selected, or the 7090 and predecessors' behavior
was followed (LMTM/EMTM instructions).  Applications could choose;
the boot-up state was the older behavior.

But more generally he's doubtless correct that this series
didn't fully decode instructions and that "discovered"
behavior was taken advantage of.   At least in early folklore, the
STZ (store 0) instruction just sort of happened and was not described
originally.

	Dennis

#####

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <B537E81096682F96BF@0.0.0.0>
Organization: NDS
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55478

In article <8es6ni$s4b$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>,
"George R. Gonzalez" <grg@umn.edu> wrote:

 > IBM learned this the hard way with the 7090 series, as programmers
figured
 > out lots of undocumented tricks, like you could specify two index
registers
 > at once in the index register bitmap, and you'd get the OR of the two. 
This
 > caused problems when the 7094 design changed the bitmap to an encoded
field.
 > All of a sudden you didnt get the OR of index register 1 and 2, but got
 > register 3.

Ummm... this is perfectly nicely documented in the Principles of Operation
manual under "Multiple Tag Mode."  This was designed in, so that you could
put the base of a table in one index register and the offset from the base
in another, and a tag that referred to the sum of the two index numbers
would give an index amount that was the sum of the contents of the two
registers.  The 7094 provided backward compatibility with the "3 means 2 +
1" mode (enter multiple tag mode) and also the ability to address seven
discrete index registers (leave multiple tag mode).

 > It's nice to have all these boundary conditions pinned down tightly.
 > One of the big headaches in writing a VT-100 emulator was that
 > the specs only (vaguely) documented in-bounds behavior,
 > but it was important to be able to handle "scroll -29 lines" and other
 > unusual combinations, as many screen editors used and depended on the
 > quirks.

Agreed that dealing with quirks is important.  I wrote enough code to deal
with them -- and full-screen CRT management was probably the biggest area.

######

From: Gordon Greene <greeng3@rpi.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 5 May 2000 09:16:04 -0500
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55480

In article <allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com>, 
allen.baum@compaq.com says...
> Allegedly, the fastest PDP-10/Decsystem-20 ever built was a custom one that was given
> to Bill Gates at a Decus event 3 or 4 years ago.
> 
But why give it to the Prince of Darkness?  There must be someone more 
worthy of it.  Bob Supnik springs to mind...

######

From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 06 May 00 07:46:08 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55522

In article <Fu4710.83y@world.std.com>,
   "Terry C. Shannon" <shannon@world.std.com> wrote:
>
>> In alt.folklore.computers Gordon Greene <greeng3@rpi.edu> wrote:
>> > But why give it to the Prince of Darkness?  There must be someone more
>> > worthy of it.  Bob Supnik springs to mind...
>
>I dunno... I think Bob is pretty happy with his StrongARM-based Itsy 
pocket
>PCs.
>
>That said, it was ludicrous for DEC to go to Redmond bearing gifts. Look
>what it got them!
Never underestimate people who are Gates-wanna-bes.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

######

From: "George R. Gonzalez" <grg@umn.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 16:44:14 -0500
Organization: University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus
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Dennis Ritchie wrote in message <39122FA8.264D9C1D@bell-labs.com>...
>

>Gonzalez is wrong, though, about the 7094.  It did have 7 index registers,
>but there was an explicit mode whereby either a unique one of the 7
registers
>was selected, or the 7090 and predecessors' behavior
>was followed (LMTM/EMTM instructions).  Applications could choose;
>the boot-up state was the older behavior.

Thanks for the correction-- my info was second-hand.

That compatibility mode bit sounds like a major pain-- every library routine
and
interrupt handler would have to worry about saving, changing, then restoring
the setting.

In the PC world we have a similar problem with the "direction flag" and the
extended registers (FS, GS, upper 16 bits of the 32-bit registers).
I can't begin to estimate the subtle bugs caused by one routine assuming it
has exclusive control over one of these.   I once spent about 2 weeks
finding a random crashing bug where sometimes the PC's divide or mod
instruction would seem to fail.   It turns out an interrupt handler was
destroying the upper 16 bits of AX and DX, which was never a problem in this
old 16-bit program,
except inside a critical section of the 32-bit divide routine.

######

From: Alistair@caribsurf.com (Alistair Gale)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 5 May 2000 21:47:36 GMT
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On 5 May 2000 09:16:04 -0500, Gordon Greene <greeng3@rpi.edu> wrote:
>In article <allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com>, 
>allen.baum@compaq.com says...
>> Allegedly, the fastest PDP-10/Decsystem-20 ever built was a custom one that was given
>> to Bill Gates at a Decus event 3 or 4 years ago.
>> 
>But why give it to the Prince of Darkness?  There must be someone more 
>worthy of it.  Bob Supnik springs to mind...
>

Didn't he get kicked out of Harvard for stealing computer time on one
of these systems?

-- 
alistair
 
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
		-- Winston Churchill

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In alt.folklore.computers Gordon Greene <greeng3@rpi.edu> wrote:
> But why give it to the Prince of Darkness?  There must be someone more 
> worthy of it.  Bob Supnik springs to mind...

  Microsoft was a very large user of the hardware in their early days.
The Gates/Allen/Davidoff Microsoft BASIC interpreter, the BASIC compiler
(BASCOM) and the Woods Microsoft Fortran compiler were all written and
maintained on that hardware. There was an in-house assembler which did
not use standard Intel 8080 mnemonics, and which had rather extensive
macro capabilities (the BASIC interpreter and compiler shared much of
the same source, with the selection of a macro library controlling which
of the two got produced).

  At a source-license customer for the interpreter, I had the task of
defining a new macro library for Digital Research's macro assembler to
allow the oddball source to be compiled natively under CP/M prior to the
customer integrating their unique additions to the interpreter.

	Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: "Terry C. Shannon" <shannon@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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> In alt.folklore.computers Gordon Greene <greeng3@rpi.edu> wrote:
> > But why give it to the Prince of Darkness?  There must be someone more
> > worthy of it.  Bob Supnik springs to mind...

I dunno... I think Bob is pretty happy with his StrongARM-based Itsy pocket
PCs.

That said, it was ludicrous for DEC to go to Redmond bearing gifts. Look
what it got them!

cheers,

terry s

Q: What do you call a Microsoft Business Partner?

A: An Organ Donor.

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <B539232F966879A964@pm9-163.his.com>
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In article <8evg24$ebj$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>,
"George R. Gonzalez" <grg@umn.edu> wrote:

 > That compatibility mode bit sounds like a major pain-- every library
routine
 > and
 > interrupt handler would have to worry about saving, changing, then
restoring
 > the setting.

Let's see if I can get in before dmr this time...

Library routines didn't have to worry about this -- they could be coded
simply with index registers 1, 2, and 4, and would operate just fine in
either mode.  It was only 3, 5, 6 and 7 that behaved differently depending
on the mode.  And standard libraries didn't need to deal with tables much,
anyway.  (And besides, on a machine that permitted self-modifying code, it
was pretty standard to stuff the table address into the indexed instruction
making the reference, which was faster anyway.)

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com> <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com> <39112a5a@news2.starnetinc.com>
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From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 08 May 2000 21:44:47 GMT
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In article <39112a5a@news2.starnetinc.com>,
Henry W. Miller <hmiller@iols.net> wrote:
>
>"Edward A. Falk" <falconer@best.com> wrote in message
>news:39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com...
>
>Ed,
>
>> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
>> documentation.  But there's more to the equation.
>>
>    I have TONS of old documentation, much to my wife's chagrin.  As

I know what you mean.  My hallway is full of boxes of SunOS 4
documentation.


>soon as I get my scanner up and running, this is one of my goals: scan
>all of that old stuff into a human/machine readable format.  This is going
>to have to be a low priority item, but hopefully it'll happen.  When it
>does,
>and as soon as I can get a new ANONYMOUS FTP account set up,
>or possibly WEBify it, I'll make it available.

Unfortunately, we're back to something that exists, but we
can't get it.


--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Wed, 10 May 00 08:04:30 GMT
Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc.
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	<3910d9cb$0$223@nntp1.ba.best.com>
	<allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com> <ALDERSON.00May9150947@netcom2.netcom.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55791

In article <ALDERSON.00May9150947@netcom2.netcom.com>,
   alderson@netcom2.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III) wrote:
>In article <allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com>
>allen.baum@compaq.com (Allen J. Baum) writes:
>
>> Allegedly, the fastest PDP-10/Decsystem-20 ever built 
>>was a custom one that
>> was given to Bill Gates at a Decus event 3 or 4 years ago.
>
>Robert Palmer and Bill Gates were co-keynote speakers.  
>Palmer made the presentation.  The system refused to boot, 
>right there on stage (after working perfectly in dress rehearsal).

<grin>  Even -10 emulators know for sure.
>
>> It was an Alpha running Bob Supnik's emulator, with an 
>>I/O device which was a
>> real PDP-10 front panel that they'd dug out of a warehouse.
>
>It was an Alpha running *Ken Harrenstein's* emulator, 
>which Digital was at that
>time touting to the fast-fading 36-bit crowd as a way to 
>migrate onto the Alpha platform.  

I can't believe that they were still doing that.  It's obvious
that Digital was never serious about that flavor of migration.
If they were, they would have put the experts on the project.
It's just an example of idiots.

>Bob Supnik's emulators are good, but none of them are 36-bit:  He
>did the PDP-1, the -4/7/9/15, the -8/12 (I think), and the DG Nova (!).
>
>Right after Gates got his Alpha, Paul Allen bought a Toad-1 System...

I met a Toad once.  It felt like it ran real smooth, although I
didn't use TOPS-20 to the extent that I used TOPS-10.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

######

From: alderson@netcom2.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 09 May 2000 22:09:47 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55842

In article <allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com>
allen.baum@compaq.com (Allen J. Baum) writes:

> Allegedly, the fastest PDP-10/Decsystem-20 ever built was a custom one that
> was given to Bill Gates at a Decus event 3 or 4 years ago.

Robert Palmer and Bill Gates were co-keynote speakers.  Palmer made the
presentation.  The system refused to boot, right there on stage (after working
perfectly in dress rehearsal).

> It was an Alpha running Bob Supnik's emulator, with an I/O device which was a
> real PDP-10 front panel that they'd dug out of a warehouse.

It was an Alpha running *Ken Harrenstein's* emulator, which Digital was at that
time touting to the fast-fading 36-bit crowd as a way to migrate onto the Alpha
platform.  Bob Supnik's emulators are good, but none of them are 36-bit:  He
did the PDP-1, the -4/7/9/15, the -8/12 (I think), and the DG Nova (!).

Right after Gates got his Alpha, Paul Allen bought a Toad-1 System...

Rich Alderson			Last LOTS Tops-20 Systems Programmer, 1984-1991
				Current maintainer, MIT TECO EMACS (v. 170)
				Customer Advocacy, XKL LLC, 1993-2000
last name @ XKL dot COM		Chief systems administrator, XKL LLC, 1998-now

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <3910d9cb$0$223@nntp1.ba.best.com> <allen.baum-0405001018180001@althea.pa.dec.com> <ALDERSON.00May9150947@netcom2.netcom.com>
Organization: Chez Inwap
From: inwap@best.com (Joe Smith)
Date: 10 May 2000 06:00:48 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:55787

In article <ALDERSON.00May9150947@netcom2.netcom.com>,
Richard M. Alderson III <alderson@netcom.com> wrote:
>Right after Gates got his Alpha, Paul Allen bought a Toad-1 System...

I'm glad to see that said system is still in operation.

telnet xkleten.paulallen.com
Trying 204.202.80.66...
Connected to xkleten.paulallen.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

 XKLeTen - Tops20 for the Wired World, TOPS-20 Monitor 7(102400)-1
@log jms
Password: 
 Job 8 on TTY26 20-Jan-2000 10:56PM
 Previous LOGIN: 4-May-99  5:04AM
XKLeTen@ dir

   PS:<JMS>
 FOO.DAT.2
 INDEX.CGI.1
 LSF.PL.4
 LSF-COMP.PL.2
 TEST.DU.3
   .LSF.1

 Total of 34 pages in 6 files
XKLeTen@ kk



Hmmm.  My guess is that someone forgot to reset the clock after Y2K testing.
	-Joe
--
See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10 and "ReBoot" pages.

######

From: gah@ugcs.caltech.edu (glen herrmannsfeldt)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 11 May 2000 18:39:51 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56052

jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:

>In article <39105E1C.6DC3E519@trailing-edge.com>,
>   Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>>Edward A. Falk wrote:
>>> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
>>> documentation.
>>
>>Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
>>manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
>>notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
>>Manual".  This is a big win.

Note that IBM still sells the "Principles of Operation" (what you call
processor reference) for S/360 and S/370.  Pretty reasonably priced, too!

Then again, the ESA/390 manuals are on the web.

-- glen

######

From: allen.baum@compaq.com (Allen J. Baum)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 16:00:08 -0700
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56207

In article <ALDERSON.00May9150947@netcom2.netcom.com>, alderson@netcom.com wrote:

>It was an Alpha running *Ken Harrenstein's* emulator, which Digital was at that
>time touting to the fast-fading 36-bit crowd as a way to migrate onto the Alpha
>platform.  Bob Supnik's emulators are good, but none of them are 36-bit:  He
>did the PDP-1, the -4/7/9/15, the -8/12 (I think), and the DG Nova (!).

Ah, thank you very much for the correction.
It won't happen again.

>Right after Gates got his Alpha, Paul Allen bought a Toad-1 System...

Ah, I'd wondered who bought them )I'm not sure how many were sold).

-- 
**********************************************
* Allen J. Baum          tel. (650)853-6626  *
* Compaq Computer Corp.  fax  (650)853-6513  *
* 181 Lytton Ave.                            *
* Palo Alto, CA 95306    abaum@pa.dec.com    *
**********************************************

######

Message-ID: <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
From: Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
Organization: Joshua Hrouda Electronics
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56356

Tim, or anyone else:
Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case. Which is a
modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new one.

I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in it.
What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it exists).
And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?
If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?

Thanks heaps.

--
Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
     time :(                     **   **       **
E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
Ph: (02) 9708-6645
mBox: (02) 8588-8580
IRC: Josh90
ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
Napster: Josh90
Address: 77 Woodbine St,
Yagoona, NSW, Australia

######

Message-ID: <3920FFD9.1862E4A1@trailing-edge.com>
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 07:59:21 -0400
From: Tim Shoppa <shoppa@trailing-edge.com>
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56375

Joshua Hrouda wrote:
> 
> Tim, or anyone else:
> Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case. Which is a
> modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new one.
> 
> I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in it.
> What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it exists).
> And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
> Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?

And the 80's, and the 70's, and the 60's...

You are not going to fit a 7-track drive inside a PC-clone case.
The other way around, sure, that's easy :-)

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd                 Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927

######

Message-ID: <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se>
From: Johnny Billquist <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se>
Organization: Netinsight AB
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56321

Joshua Hrouda wrote:
> 
> I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in it.
> What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it exists).

8" is the normal floppy. I'm not aware of anything larger, but there
might have been some oddball device around.

> And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
> Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?

Try early '80s. Well, 7-track anyway. I guess you can still find 9-track
tapes if you care to. They do exist with SCSI. I very much doubt you'll
find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
as well.

> If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?

There are lots of them, except I guess a PC might be problematic.
You could have paper tape, punch cards and DECtape for starters.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist             |  johnny.billquist@netinsight.net
Net Insight AB               |  phone:  +46 8 685 04 88
Västberga Allé 9             |  fax:    +46 8 685 04 20
Box 42093                    |
SE-126 30 STOCKHOLM, Sweden  |  http://www.netinsight.net

######

From: "David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56424

The first floppies ever manufactured were 8".  The name "floppy"  comes from
these beasts.  With the flexible cover,  and such a large area,  they would
bend over if you held them from one edge.

A friend of mine showed me an article in one of the trade journals last year
that showed significant inventions from 1970 (or maybe 1969).  The floppy
was one such invention.

The first floppies were used in keydisk machines that replaced the 026
keypunch (punched cards).
The floppy collected card images,  and the reader passed card images onto a
big batch machine.

My first contact with 8" floppies was in 1978, when I managed a
DECsystem-20.  This machine has a PDP-11 for a front end.  The PDP-11 used
8" floppies as an installation device.

Good luck in your endeavor.

David Cressey, consultant
david@dcressey.com

Joshua Hrouda wrote in message
<3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>...
>Tim, or anyone else:
>Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case.
Which is a
>modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new
one.
>
>I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in
it.
>What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it
exists).
>And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
>Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?
>If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?
>
>Thanks heaps.
>
>--
>Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
>Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
>Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
>BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
>     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
>     time :(                     **   **       **
>E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
>        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
>Ph: (02) 9708-6645
>mBox: (02) 8588-8580
>IRC: Josh90
>ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
>Napster: Josh90
>Address: 77 Woodbine St,
>Yagoona, NSW, Australia
>
>

######

From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 16 May 2000 12:49:13 GMT
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In <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> writes:
>Tim, or anyone else:
>Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case. Which is a
>modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new one.
>
>I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in it.
>What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it exists).
>And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
>Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?
>If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?
>
>Thanks heaps.
>
>--
>Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
     <snip>

Well, while technically not a floppy, there existed 14 inch removable platter
disks.  Might be a bit hard to fit in a PC case, even a skyscraper one.

But, if you accomplish that, then you can always aim toward fitting a
rotating drum memory (e.g., IBM 2305) into (err, onto?) it.

If you accomplish either of these, I'm sure that quite a few of us would
appreciate pictures.

As for tapes, you could consider putting a mainframe style cartridge
tape drive in it (IBM 3480 style cartridges).

Dave

P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se>,
Johnny Billquist  <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> wrote:
>I very much doubt you'll
>find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
>the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
>attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
>as well.

Not like I would know anything about it, but I've *heard* that there exist
boards which will connect an IBM channel to the ISA bus.  Supposedly this
is the cheap way to connect a real 3480 to a 370 simulator (because SCSI
3480 clones can cost 5 figures $US).  If *that* works, maybe it's possible
to attach a 7-track drive that way too.

SCSI 7-trackers:  well I'd sure buy one!  If the price was right, which it
couldn't possibly be at the low volume they'd have.

John Wilson
D Bit

######

From: jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On 16 May 2000 10:01:27 -0400, John Wilson <wilson@dbit.com> wrote:
>Not like I would know anything about it, but I've *heard* that there exist
>boards which will connect an IBM channel to the ISA bus.  Supposedly this
>is the cheap way to connect a real 3480 to a 370 simulator (because SCSI
>3480 clones can cost 5 figures $US).  If *that* works, maybe it's possible
>to attach a 7-track drive that way too.

They do exist, but finding them might be *very* hard; outside of a very few,
they were mainly made for the MicroChannel 370/390 systems IBM sold into the
low end. (I don't know if the current P/390 systems are PCI or not, but
they're even more hideously expen$ive.) The channel interface is simple
enough that a dumb board could probably be built out of one or two PLAs,
these days, and a moderately intelligent one with a not-too-fast micro.

(Hm. Maybe a parallel-to-channel adapter...oink.)

>SCSI 7-trackers:  well I'd sure buy one!  If the price was right, which it
>couldn't possibly be at the low volume they'd have.

Did they make 7-track drives with the same interface as the Pertec 9-track
drives? If so, you might be able to get there by taking the SCSI interface
out of one of the SCSI 9-track drives (at least, I know Qualstar does it by
makign their SCSI interface drive the Pertec interface on the back side) and
hanging it on a 7-track drive.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In comp.org.decus Johnny Billquist <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> wrote:
> Try early '80s. Well, 7-track anyway. I guess you can still find 9-track
> tapes if you care to. They do exist with SCSI. I very much doubt you'll
> find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
> the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
> attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
> as well.

  7-track was long gone (except for the occasional leftover used to read
old tapes) by the 80's. We had a 370/115 (I know, don't laugh, but at least
it was a 370) in 1976 which had 3410 9-track drives. These were the goofy
roll-top-desk-like drives. I'm pretty sure that the maximum density on 7-
track was 800BPI (the other densities were 200BPI and 556BPI), so 9-track
caught on rapidly due to offering 1600BPI (the 3410's were 1600BPI only
unless you paid more for the 800BPI option, which was still 9-track, not
7-track). I think this means there was a generation of 9-track 800BPI units
before the 3410. The 3420's offered 6250BPI on some models. I had a string
of 3420 drives, some of which were re-badged 2420's, so that would imply
that 9-track was available back in the later S/360 era.

  To answer another poster: the 8" floppy was designed by IBM for micro-
code loads (IMPL) on mainframes - in particular, the S/370. Once they had
it, IBM used it in all sorts of unit record equipment like the keypunch
emulators you mentioned.

	Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

######

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In article <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu>,
Terry Kennedy  <terry@gate.tmk.com> wrote:
>  To answer another poster: the 8" floppy was designed by IBM for micro-
>code loads (IMPL) on mainframes - in particular, the S/370. Once they had
>it, IBM used it in all sorts of unit record equipment like the keypunch
>emulators you mentioned.

I vaguely remember reading some story that floppy disks were actually invented
by some crazy inventor type in Japan (???) in the 50s, for audio recording
or something.  IIRC IBM denies this is the case but paid the guy off anyway.
Sound familiar to anyone?

John Wilson
D Bit

######

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Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 11:55:15 -0400
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John Wilson wrote:
> 
> In article <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu>,
> Terry Kennedy  <terry@gate.tmk.com> wrote:
> >  To answer another poster: the 8" floppy was designed by IBM for micro-
> >code loads (IMPL) on mainframes - in particular, the S/370. Once they had
> >it, IBM used it in all sorts of unit record equipment like the keypunch
> >emulators you mentioned.
> 
> I vaguely remember reading some story that floppy disks were actually invented
> by some crazy inventor type in Japan (???) in the 50s, for audio recording
> or something.  IIRC IBM denies this is the case but paid the guy off anyway.
> Sound familiar to anyone?

Not exactly in the right chronological order, but when cheap used 5.25"
floppies began flooding the surplus markets in the late 80's and
early 90's I bought some, hooked a UART and A/D and D/A coverters
up, and had 8-bit sound recording.  There was a loud click every
rotation as the track was switched though, and at 5 or 6 rotations per
second I only got 7 seconds on a single-sided 5.25" floppy.

(The drives I was using were Tandon TM-100's, I don't think I ever
got double sided operation working right with automatic head switching.)

Just a little bit more primitive than MP3 players, but a whole
lot more fun :-).

Tim.

######

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Terry Kennedy wrote:

> I think this means there was a generation of 9-track 800BPI units
> before the 3410.

In the IBM world 9-track came in with 360 in 1964.  I doubt if many
7-tracks were built after that.
-- 
Nick Spalding

######

From: albaugh@agames.com (Mike Albaugh)
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John Wilson (wilson@dbit.com) wrote:
: In article <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu>,
: Terry Kennedy  <terry@gate.tmk.com> wrote:
: >  To answer another poster: the 8" floppy was designed by IBM for micro-
: >code loads (IMPL) on mainframes - in particular, the S/370. Once they had
: >it, IBM used it in all sorts of unit record equipment like the keypunch
: >emulators you mentioned.

: I vaguely remember reading some story that floppy disks were actually invented
: by some crazy inventor type in Japan (???) in the 50s, for audio recording
: or something.  IIRC IBM denies this is the case but paid the guy off anyway.
: Sound familiar to anyone?

	The "crazy guy in japan" part and the patent-part are "news to me",
but I used to _have_ an "audio floppy" drive. It seems to have disappered
along with my magneto-restrictive delay-lines and the air-system-sockets
for the tubes from my SolidState90 :-)

	Anyway, my high-school language-lab used these things when I was
there, and got rid of them shortly after I graduated (1967), whereupon I
saved one from the dumpster. They looked a lot like a normal turntable
(Hm,... maybe I need to explain what one of _them_ looks like :-), with
a very narrow "record head" in the end of the "tone arm" instead of
a needle. The "records" were rubber with some sort of oxide mixed-in.
They looked like single-sided LPs (ask an old guy :-) with very coarse
grooves. the idea was that you would record yourself responding to
the "practice dialog" ("Guten Tag, Luisa, wie gehts?", or "Italia est
paene insula") and then just pick up and re-position the needle to hear
how you sounded. I do not recall a Japanese name or logo on them, but
that was a _long_ time ago...

						Mike
| albaugh@agames.com, speaking only for myself

######

From: mario@klebsch.de (Mario Klebsch)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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Johnny Billquist <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> writes:

>8" is the normal floppy. I'm not aware of anything larger, but there
>might have been some oddball device around.

8" hard sectored should be one of the oldest and probably oddest
floppy drives, I know of.

The oposite extreme in size, I saw, were 2 1/2" floppies (or were they
2"?). The floppy disk did not even have a closed case. I saw them in
a typewriter made by Olympia.

73, Mario
-- 
Mario Klebsch						mario@klebsch.de

######

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In article <slrn8i2m5v.nqe.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx>,
Jay Maynard <jmaynard@texas.net> wrote:
>Did they make 7-track drives with the same interface as the Pertec 9-track
>drives? If so, you might be able to get there by taking the SCSI interface
>out of one of the SCSI 9-track drives (at least, I know Qualstar does it by
>makign their SCSI interface drive the Pertec interface on the back side) and
>hanging it on a 7-track drive.

There are Pertec-to-SCSI converter boxes.  I had one in front of me yesterday
hooking a Cipher drive to a 'x86 box.

-- don

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <pfdsf8.mge.ln@ds9.klebsch.de>,
Mario Klebsch <mario@klebsch.de> wrote:
>The oposite extreme in size, I saw, were 2 1/2" floppies (or were they
>2"?). The floppy disk did not even have a closed case. I saw them in
>a typewriter made by Olympia.

There were such things as 2.5" floppies, that looked a lot like shrunken
3.5" floppies.  Some early 90s Zenith laptops used them.  

I suspect that the reduction in storage wasn't justified by the utility 
added by going smaller.  A 3.5" floppy fits in a shirt pocket (which a 
5.25" floppy doesn't), and that's small enough.  8-)

(Actually, I do have shirts with pockets that'll take a 5.25" floppy...)

-- don

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In alt.folklore.computers Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote:
> Did they make 7-track drives with the same interface as the Pertec 9-track
> drives? If so, you might be able to get there by taking the SCSI interface
> out of one of the SCSI 9-track drives (at least, I know Qualstar does it by
> makign their SCSI interface drive the Pertec interface on the back side) and
> hanging it on a 7-track drive.

  Yes, but these were *unformatted* Pertec interfaces - the ones you never
see anymore because the spec for the interface chips is RTL or DTL (I for-
get which - it's been 20+ years since I designed an unformatted Pertec con-
troller).

  Modern-ish 9-track drives use *formatted* Pertec interfaces. Examples are
the Cipher F880 (DEC TS05), MPI blah-blah (DEC TU80), and so forth. The
guts of the TU7x drives from DEC (actually built by Pertec and then Triumph-
Adler) are in fact unformatted Pertec, which is why the DEC formatters are
so bizarre.

	Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

######

From: Jim Thomas <thomas@cfht.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 14:04:47 -1000
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Terry Kennedy wrote:

>  7-track was long gone (except for the occasional leftover used to read
> old tapes) by the 80's. We had a 370/115 (I know, don't laugh, but at least
> it was a 370) in 1976 which had 3410 9-track drives. These were the goofy
> roll-top-desk-like drives. I'm pretty sure that the maximum density on 7-
> track was 800BPI (the other densities were 200BPI and 556BPI), so 9-track
> caught on rapidly due to offering 1600BPI (the 3410's were 1600BPI only
> unless you paid more for the 800BPI option, which was still 9-track, not
> 7-track). I think this means there was a generation of 9-track 800BPI units
> before the 3410. The 3420's offered 6250BPI on some models. I had a string
> of 3420 drives, some of which were re-badged 2420's, so that would imply
> that 9-track was available back in the later S/360 era.

7-track did come in 200/556/800 BPI NRZI varieties.  The 2410 came out with
the first 360's in 800/1600 BPI PE.  Umm, can you say "8-bit bytes" to
yourself ?-)
Nothead

######

From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <FuoFu8.FA0@spcuna.spc.edu>, Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
wrote:

>   you might be able to get there by taking the SCSI interface
> > out of one of the SCSI 9-track drives (at least, I know Qualstar does it by
> > makign their SCSI interface drive the Pertec interface on the back side) and
> > hanging it on a 7-track drive.
>

Good luck FINDING a 7 track drive. The last one I heard about was a 
7 track TU10 on eBay last year. I'm REALLY happy that I don't have any
tapes that are 7 track :-)

I remember hearing a story about Stanford scrambling around trying to
find a 7 track TU10 in the late 80's to try to read SAIL tapes.

>   Yes, but these were *unformatted* Pertec interfaces - the ones you never
> see anymore because the spec for the interface chips is RTL or DTL (I for-
> get which - it's been 20+ years since I designed an unformatted Pertec con-
> troller).
> 

From memory, unformatted drives have three connectors, read data, write
data, and control. Cipher, Pertec, and others sold formatter boxes to
go with this that provided a record level interface which is where the
"formatted" drives came from (they integrated the separate formatter
box into the tape drive). Early Emulex and Wespercomp TM11 emulating
controllers worked with unformatted tape drives, later designs used
the formatted ones (Cipher 980/990s etc).

-- 
The eBay Curse:
"May you find everything you're looking for.."

######

From: "David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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All of this talk about 7 and 9 track tapes bring back a war story from the
days I was a digit.

I was teaching DEC-10 courses in Marlboro in the late 70s, before they
opened the training center in Bedford.  I was teaching this DEC-10 admin
(read: system manager) course for customers.  The admin course  was always a
tough, tough course to teach.  The technical material was way easier to
understand than the "monitor courses", but the audience was very, very
demanding.

I had two customers in the class,  whom I will call Mr. IBM, and Mr. DEC.
At a certain point,  Mr. IBM
asks me about support for 8-track tapes from his IBM system.  He wants to
know about volume and file label processing,  not just whether the iron can
read the bits.

I give him the standard answer,  which I have no reason to doubt,  even
today.  If you are programming in COBOL,  and you declare the appropriate
clauses for IBM  volume and file labels,  and declare that the recording
mode is EBCDIC,  the COBOL run time system will read the data just fine.  It
will detect and process the labels, and take corresponding action.  It will
convert from EBCDIC to ASCII wherever necessary,  and it's all been tested,
and it all works.

After glaring at me to see if I might not be lying,  Mr. IBM, apparently
accepts all this,  and jots down a note.

Sometime later that day,  Mr. DEC pipes up.  He's got a lot of PDP-11s at
the shop and they just bought a DEC-10.  So he asks me about reading PDP-11
DECtapes on the DECtape drive on his system
(we're talking DEC-10 DECtapes on a KA here).   So I hem and haw,  and say
that we don't actually have a supported solution for that,  but that I heard
that the DECUS library had an offering that claims to do that.  Mr. DEC is
happy.  He's been to the DECUS library before,  and he knows his chances are
awfully good.

But Mr. IBM is scowling deeply.  I know what's coming.  Sure enough, he
seeks me out at the next break,
(far too classy to disrupt my presentation).  And he accuses me:  You
assured me that your cross vendor solution for IBM tapes was tested and
supported.  How can I believe you when you don't even support the rest of
DEC's product line!  Well,  there it was.  I was stuck.  I gave him the
names of some people he could call to reassure himself,  and I advised him
to test it for himself back at his site.  But he never smiled at me again,
for the rest of  the week.  I don't blame him!

######

From: "Mike Yankus" <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 09:24:18 -0500
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Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote in message
news:slrn8i2m5v.nqe.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx...
>
> (Hm. Maybe a parallel-to-channel adapter...oink.)
>

Such things were built.  There was a UNIBUS to IBM channel
device.  I don't remember who built it.  In the early/mid
70's there were lots of interface devices being built for
the UNIBUS.  DEC had its own group, Computer Special
Systems (CSS?) who would custom build such things.

Mike

######

From: "Mike Yankus" <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Jim Thomas <thomas@cfht.hawaii.edu> wrote in message
news:3921E21F.855C2380@cfht.hawaii.edu...
>
> 7-track did come in 200/556/800 BPI NRZI varieties.  The 2410 came out
with
> the first 360's in 800/1600 BPI PE.  Umm, can you say "8-bit bytes" to
> yourself ?-)
> Nothead
>

Another interesting thing about 7 tracks, you got to choose parity, even
or odd (nine tracks were always odd).  If you choose even parity, you
could not write a 0.  I don't remember which character this was in
6-bit code (a blank?), but it was translated to something else in
even parity mode (at least on IBM 360 equipment).

IBM also had (several??) options for writing 8 bit binary to 7 track
tape.  I don't recall the details except that they had to be
odd parity.

Mike

######

From: "Mike Yankus" <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 09:47:31 -0500
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<glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:8frg49$1fc0$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com...
> In <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua
Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> writes:
> >Tim, or anyone else:
> >Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case.
Which is a
> >modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new
one.
> >
> >I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in
it.
> >What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it
exists).
> >And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
> >Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?
> >If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?
> >
> >Thanks heaps.
> >
> >--
> >Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
>      <snip>
>
> Well, while technically not a floppy, there existed 14 inch removable
platter
> disks.  Might be a bit hard to fit in a PC case, even a skyscraper one.
>
> But, if you accomplish that, then you can always aim toward fitting a
> rotating drum memory (e.g., IBM 2305) into (err, onto?) it.
>
> If you accomplish either of these, I'm sure that quite a few of us would
> appreciate pictures.
>
> As for tapes, you could consider putting a mainframe style cartridge
> tape drive in it (IBM 3480 style cartridges).
>
> Dave
>
> P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.
>

What indeed was the largest tape/disk peripheral devices ever built
(single tape, single spindle disk)?  I have heard about drums that
had a horizontal axis and were several yards long.  The rotational
momentum was something to worry about.  I vaguely remember a horror
story about trying to move one of these things while it was spinning.

Mike

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: dp@world.std.com (Jeff DelPapa)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <FupozJ.DCE@world.std.com>
Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 16:11:43 GMT
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In article <8fube9$hk1$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com>,
Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> wrote:
>
>
>What indeed was the largest tape/disk peripheral devices ever built
>(single tape, single spindle disk)?  I have heard about drums that
>had a horizontal axis and were several yards long.  The rotational
>momentum was something to worry about.  I vaguely remember a horror
>story about trying to move one of these things while it was spinning.
>

While not as large as some drums, there are examples of single disk
platters 1.25 meters in diameter.  These were usually head-per-track
drives, used for swapping.  At one point, a platter from such a drive
was turned into a coffee table at SAIL.

I have heard of such a drive getting disturbed, and shedding a
platter.  Since I haven't heard any more details, I assume it was an
urban legend.  (neat story, had it leaving thru a concrete wall)

-dp-

Organizer, The New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society; The NERDS.
The first US team to compete in the British Scrapheap Challenge.
www.the-nerds.org

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <8fua2q$f9k$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com>,
Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> wrote:
>Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote in message
>news:slrn8i2m5v.nqe.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx...
>>
>> (Hm. Maybe a parallel-to-channel adapter...oink.)
>>
>
>Such things were built.  There was a UNIBUS to IBM channel
>device.  I don't remember who built it.

Isn't that the DX11?

But I think Jay meant, something which plugs into a printer port on a micro.

FWIW the ISA-to-channel board I heard about was within the last few years,
and I don't think it was an IBM product (so it may still be in production).
The user was running MTS under FunSoft's OPEN/370 emulator, and he was happy
because he got to recycle the tape drives he already had (which he said would
have cost $1500/ea used), instead of blowing $15K or whatever for a SCSI 3480.

John Wilson
D Bit

######

From: "Charlie Gibbs" <cgibbs@sky.bus.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 17 May 00 11:32:49 -0800
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In article <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com (Joshua Hrouda) writes:

>I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives)
>in it.  What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger,
>if it exists).

How about those old Iomega cartridge drives that were the forerunner
of Zip drives?  I think the cartridges were slightly larger than
8-inch floppies.

--
cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.

######

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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56569

Frank Zereski was the guy responsible for the DX11.


John Wilson wrote:
> 
> In article <8fua2q$f9k$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com>,
> Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> wrote:
> >Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote in message
> >news:slrn8i2m5v.nqe.jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx...
> >>
> >> (Hm. Maybe a parallel-to-channel adapter...oink.)
> >>
> >
> >Such things were built.  There was a UNIBUS to IBM channel
> >device.  I don't remember who built it.
> 
> Isn't that the DX11?
> 
> But I think Jay meant, something which plugs into a printer port on a micro.
> 
> FWIW the ISA-to-channel board I heard about was within the last few years,
> and I don't think it was an IBM product (so it may still be in production).
> The user was running MTS under FunSoft's OPEN/370 emulator, and he was happy
> because he got to recycle the tape drives he already had (which he said would
> have cost $1500/ea used), instead of blowing $15K or whatever for a SCSI 3480.
> 
> John Wilson
> D Bit

######

From: Jim Thomas <thomas@atlas.cfht.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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>>>>> "David" == David Cressey <david@dcressey.com> writes:

    David> I was teaching DEC-10 courses in Marlboro in the late 70s,
    David> before they opened the training center in Bedford.

    David> ...

    David> Sometime later that day, Mr. DEC pipes up.  He's got a lot of
    David> PDP-11s at the shop and they just bought a DEC-10.  So he asks
    David> me about reading PDP-11 DECtapes on the DECtape drive on his
    David> system (we're talking DEC-10 DECtapes on a KA here).

Late 70's?  KA-10?  Strange :-)

Nothead

######

From: Jim Thomas <thomas@atlas.cfht.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56599

>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> writes:

    Mike> Another interesting thing about 7 tracks, you got to choose
    Mike> parity, even or odd (nine tracks were always odd).  If you choose
    Mike> even parity, you could not write a 0.  I don't remember which
    Mike> character this was in 6-bit code (a blank?), but it was
    Mike> translated to something else in even parity mode (at least on IBM
    Mike> 360 equipment).

I may have gotten the "predecessor" part wrong, but ... :-)

In BCD a "0" was "82".  A blank was no data bits.  It was the blank that
had the problem on even parity tapes, but I can't remember what character
got written instead.  Who used even parity?

Nothead

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In alt.folklore.computers John Wilson <wilson@dbit.com> wrote:
> But I think Jay meant, something which plugs into a printer port on a micro.

  How about the opposite direction? Back in the S-100 days, there was a
S-100 card for connecting a 1403N1 printer to an S-100 system. While I
didn't buy that one, I did do a prototype direct interface between a DG
Nova 3 and a Xerox 9700 printing subsystem (not using the IBM channel
interface on the 9700). The idea was to use it for draft typesetter out-
put instead of running the job on a VIP (which was slow, noisy, and had
"fonts" on pieces of film you wrapped around a drum. The project was
canceled when the Linotron 202 came out, which used fonts on floppies
and was trivially easy to interface to the DG.

	Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

######

From: jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Thu, 18 May 2000 01:20:56 GMT, Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com> wrote:
>  How about the opposite direction? Back in the S-100 days, there was a
>S-100 card for connecting a 1403N1 printer to an S-100 system.

With or without the 2821? ...or was the -N1 the one with the built-in
control unit?

The mind boggles...While the 1403 was old, cranky, and slow, even in the
days of S-100, it's still more printer than the fastest S-100 box can keep
busy... and what do you drive it from? CP/M's DESPOOL?!

######

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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <544.172T2460T6925401@sky.bus.com>,
Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>How about those old Iomega cartridge drives that were the forerunner
>of Zip drives?  I think the cartridges were slightly larger than
>8-inch floppies.

A fair amount larger, if you include thickness; I'd guess about 1/2" thick,
going from memory.

(We had one.  I remember talking my parents into giving me an ENTIRE CARTRIDGE
for my own stuff!)

-s
-- 
Copyright 2000, All rights reserved.  Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter.  Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting & Computers: http://www.plethora.net/
Get paid to surf!  No spam.  http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: jsaum@world.std.com (Jim Saum)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <8frg49$1fc0$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, wa4qal@vnet.ibm.com wrote:

>But, if you accomplish that, then you can always aim toward fitting a
>rotating drum memory (e.g., IBM 2305) into (err, onto?) it.

The 2305, part of the 370 peripheral family, was a fixed-head disk,
not a drum. It consisted of several platters with a dedicated head for
each track. Access time was rotational latency only, with no seek
delay. IIRC, the official name was 2305 Fixed-Head Storage Facility.

The 2301 and 2302 in the 360 peripheral line were actual drums, with
rotating cylindrical surfaces instead of one or more platters.

Some shops took to calling 2305's "drums" because they filled the same
functional niches as their drum predecessors, i.e., fast,
random-access, zero-seek-time devices.

- Jim Saum

######

From: "David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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Not that strange,  must have been a used one.  Or maybe my memory is faulty
on this detail.
After all, it was over 20 years ago.  I remember checking with the student
to make sure the DECtape drives  were DECsystem-10 DECtapes,  and not the
DECtapes that went with the PDP-11 front end
for KL systems at that time.


Jim Thomas wrote in message ...
>>>>>> "David" == David Cressey <david@dcressey.com> writes:
>
>Late 70's?  KA-10?  Strange :-)
>
>Nothead

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56542

In alt.folklore.computers Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote:
> With or without the 2821? ...or was the -N1 the one with the built-in
> control unit?

  Good question. The 1403N1 could be attached to various 370 processors via
a buult-in (to the 370) control unit. These were of the form I?A (Internal
whatever Adapter) - I remember that 3340's used the IFA (F=File). I'd guess
that the support for the 1403 was IPA (P=Print). An upgrade to a 4331 brought
a 2821 into my life, unfortunately.

  The 2821 wasn't particularly bright - it held the core memory that kept
track of where slugs were located on the print train and so forth and fired
the hammers at the right time, but that was about it.

> The mind boggles...While the 1403 was old, cranky, and slow, even in the
> days of S-100, it's still more printer than the fastest S-100 box can keep
> busy... and what do you drive it from? CP/M's DESPOOL?!

  Not really. An N1 is 1100LPM best-case (and a lot slower than that for
certain pathological data cases - printing SPSS reports on a train without
extra 0's dropped it to about 500LPM).

  I wrote a background spooler for CP/M that had no problem running Data-
products 2260 printers (600LPM) in the background. I had a 2260 (later
replaced with a B600) and it ran at full speed. We had some customers that
had even faster printers (not sure if it was a 900 or a 1200LPM unit) and
they said it ran at full speed.

  Of course, the CP/M implementation that my company provided was fully
interrupt-driven with a DMA disk subsystem...

  For historical interest, I've placed the documentation from one of my
company's CP/M releases on http://www.tmk.com/cpmstuff. Note that almost
all of these are WordStar documents and may have some assorted weirdness
when viewed in a browser - particularly at line breaks.

  Also, the address and phone number in those manuals is long gone, and
the Pro-Comp systems mentioned in them has no relation to any current com-
pany by that name (though some of these systems are still operating).

	Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 01:26:07 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56531

Jeff DelPapa wrote:
> 
> In article <8fube9$hk1$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com>,
> Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >What indeed was the largest tape/disk peripheral devices ever built
> >(single tape, single spindle disk)?  I have heard about drums that
> >had a horizontal axis and were several yards long.  The rotational
> >momentum was something to worry about.  I vaguely remember a horror
> >story about trying to move one of these things while it was spinning.
> >
> 
> While not as large as some drums, there are examples of single disk
> platters 1.25 meters in diameter.  These were usually head-per-track
> drives, used for swapping.  At one point, a platter from such a drive
> was turned into a coffee table at SAIL.
> 
> I have heard of such a drive getting disturbed, and shedding a
> platter.  Since I haven't heard any more details, I assume it was an
> urban legend.  (neat story, had it leaving thru a concrete wall)
> 
Could you be refering to Bryant disk drives???  My understanding is that
the Bryant drive had one huge platter in the range of 1.25 meters across.
This platter spun verically instead of horizontally, and it did spin 
fairly fast.  I have heard stories of these platters getting loose and
cutting through walls, etc.  IMHO this is *not* an urban legend...

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

From: hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 18 May 2000 09:55:56 -0500
Organization: House of Hawkins
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References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <544.172T2460T6925401@sky.bus.com> <39236bd3$0$85047$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56577

In article <39236bd3$0$85047$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net>,
Peter Seebach <seebs@plethora.net> wrote:

>Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>>How about those old Iomega cartridge drives that were the forerunner
>>of Zip drives?  I think the cartridges were slightly larger than
>>8-inch floppies.

>A fair amount larger, if you include thickness; I'd guess about 1/2" thick,
>going from memory.

>(We had one.  I remember talking my parents into giving me an ENTIRE CARTRIDGE
>for my own stuff!)

Five megs?  What in the world would you ever do with that much space? :)

hawk

-- 
Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.   
                                               hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu
(319) 266-7114                        http://eyry.econ.iastate.edu/hawk
These opinions will not be those of UNI until it pays my retainer.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: dp@world.std.com (Jeff DelPapa)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <FurM2J.BrB@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 17:03:55 GMT
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8fube9$hk1$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com> <FupozJ.DCE@world.std.com> <3923A91F.35469A6F@dallas.net>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56535

In article <3923A91F.35469A6F@dallas.net>,
Charles Richmond  <richmond@dallas.net> wrote:
>Jeff DelPapa wrote:
>> 
>> In article <8fube9$hk1$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com>,
>> Mike Yankus <Mike_Yankus@itd.sterling.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >What indeed was the largest tape/disk peripheral devices ever built
>> >(single tape, single spindle disk)?  I have heard about drums that
>> >had a horizontal axis and were several yards long.  The rotational
>> >momentum was something to worry about.  I vaguely remember a horror
>> >story about trying to move one of these things while it was spinning.
>> >
>> 
>> While not as large as some drums, there are examples of single disk
>> platters 1.25 meters in diameter.  These were usually head-per-track
>> drives, used for swapping.  At one point, a platter from such a drive
>> was turned into a coffee table at SAIL.
>> 
>> I have heard of such a drive getting disturbed, and shedding a
>> platter.  Since I haven't heard any more details, I assume it was an
>> urban legend.  (neat story, had it leaving thru a concrete wall)
>> 
>Could you be refering to Bryant disk drives???  My understanding is that
>the Bryant drive had one huge platter in the range of 1.25 meters across.
>This platter spun verically instead of horizontally, and it did spin 
>fairly fast.  I have heard stories of these platters getting loose and
>cutting through walls, etc.  IMHO this is *not* an urban legend...
>

Bryant was one maker, I think Control Data also made a huge plattered
disk.

By the time the story about the loose platter had got to me, it was
devoid of sufficient specifics (where, how it came lose, when, etc)
that it seemed prudent to consider the possiblility that it was
legend.  If you have a more complete version of the story, I would
love to hear it.

-dp-
Organizer, The New England Rubbish Deconstruction Society; The NERDS
We are the first US team to compete in the British Scrapheap Challenge
competition.  www.the-nerds.org

######

From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 18 May 2000 20:09:31 GMT
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56649

In <FuqtGH.135@spcuna.spc.edu>, Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com> writes:
>In alt.folklore.computers Jay Maynard <jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx> wrote:
>> With or without the 2821? ...or was the -N1 the one with the built-in
>> control unit?
>
>  Good question. The 1403N1 could be attached to various 370 processors via
>a buult-in (to the 370) control unit. These were of the form I?A (Internal
>whatever Adapter) - I remember that 3340's used the IFA (F=File). I'd guess
>that the support for the 1403 was IPA (P=Print). An upgrade to a 4331 brought
>a 2821 into my life, unfortunately.
>
>  The 2821 wasn't particularly bright - it held the core memory that kept
>track of where slugs were located on the print train and so forth and fired
>the hammers at the right time, but that was about it.
>
>> The mind boggles...While the 1403 was old, cranky, and slow, even in the
>> days of S-100, it's still more printer than the fastest S-100 box can keep
>> busy... and what do you drive it from? CP/M's DESPOOL?!
>
>  Not really. An N1 is 1100LPM best-case (and a lot slower than that for
>certain pathological data cases - printing SPSS reports on a train without
>extra 0's dropped it to about 500LPM).
>
>  I wrote a background spooler for CP/M that had no problem running Data-
>products 2260 printers (600LPM) in the background. I had a 2260 (later
>replaced with a B600) and it ran at full speed. We had some customers that
>had even faster printers (not sure if it was a 900 or a 1200LPM unit) and
>they said it ran at full speed.
>
>  Of course, the CP/M implementation that my company provided was fully
>interrupt-driven with a DMA disk subsystem...
>
>  For historical interest, I've placed the documentation from one of my
>company's CP/M releases on http://www.tmk.com/cpmstuff. Note that almost
>all of these are WordStar documents and may have some assorted weirdness
>when viewed in a browser - particularly at line breaks.
>
>  Also, the address and phone number in those manuals is long gone, and
>the Pro-Comp systems mentioned in them has no relation to any current com-
>pany by that name (though some of these systems are still operating).
>
>       Terry Kennedy             http://www.tmk.com
>        terry@tmk.com             Jersey City, NJ USA

You left out the part about the 1403N1/2821 conbination being a bit
of a power hog.  And this, when coupled with marginal air
conditioning, created some real havoc.  We had a 1403N1 installed in
a temporary office (It had raised flooring, but it wasn't raised
flooring like in a computer room, but was raised flooring because it
was a trailer!).  Anyway, the 1403N1/2821 combination produced
enough heat that it overloaded the airconditioning in the trailer.
Thus, when it was switched on in the morning, we got about 30
minutes of use out of it before the temperature had risen to the
point that the bias point on the magnetic cores had shifted (They
were temperature sensitive.), and this caused a device check.

This was only about 10 years ago.  We had it installed, and got the
device check, so we called in a CE to work on it.  The first one
they dispatched walked in, looked at it, threw up his hands, turned
around and left!  It seems the printer was older than he was!

What I thought was interesting was that the data entered the trailer
through a fiber optic cable a little smaller than a pencil.  This
went to a 3044 Fiber Optic Channel Extender box, and a pair of
channel cables, which were about an inch in diameter, came out of
the other side of it.  These went into the 2821, and a pair of
printer cables, which were about 2 inches in diameter, came out of
it and went to the 1403N1.  It was kind of hard to believe that as
the cables got bigger, the data got smaller.

Dave

P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for
them.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se>,
Johnny Billquist  <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> wrote:
>Try early '80s. Well, 7-track anyway. I guess you can still find 9-track
>tapes if you care to. They do exist with SCSI. I very much doubt you'll
>find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
>the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
>attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
>as well.

The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.

I don't know if they ever got data off the 7-track tapes onto DAT or
not.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56674

In article <39236bd3$0$85047$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net>,
Peter Seebach <seebs@plethora.net> wrote:
>In article <544.172T2460T6925401@sky.bus.com>,
>Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>>How about those old Iomega cartridge drives that were the forerunner
>>of Zip drives?  I think the cartridges were slightly larger than
>>8-inch floppies.
>
>A fair amount larger, if you include thickness; I'd guess about 1/2" thick,
>going from memory.
>
>(We had one.  I remember talking my parents into giving me an ENTIRE CARTRIDGE
>for my own stuff!)

These drives were "Bernoulli boxes", I think; the ones I saw were 5
1/4" across, and yes, about half an inch thick.  They came in something
like 15MB and 30MB sizes.

Early models had quality problems.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <544.172T2460T6925401@sky.bus.com> <39236bd3$0$85047$3c090ad1@news.plethora.net> <tLYU4.8363$nm6.75632@news-east.usenetserver.com>
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In article <tLYU4.8363$nm6.75632@news-east.usenetserver.com>,
Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>These drives were "Bernoulli boxes", I think; the ones I saw were 5
>1/4" across, and yes, about half an inch thick.  They came in something
>like 15MB and 30MB sizes.

That's different; these were 8" or so, and 10MB.  Awesome units; I think
my old one still works, along with the custom driver we had to run it
off a Z-100.

-s
-- 
Copyright 2000, All rights reserved.  Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net
C/Unix wizard, Pro-commerce radical, Spam fighter.  Boycott Spamazon!
Consulting & Computers: http://www.plethora.net/
Get paid to surf!  No spam.  http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636

######

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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se> <tBYU4.8103$nm6.72787@news-east.usenetserver.com>
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In article <tBYU4.8103$nm6.72787@news-east.usenetserver.com>,
Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
>early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
>to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
>going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
>reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.

I thought I heard that the MIT folks actually saved one of their old 7-track
drives and "all" they needed to do was build a controller for it.  Could
be wrong.

John Wilson
D Bit

######

Sender: meissner@tiktok.cygnus.com
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kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:

> In article <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se>,
> Johnny Billquist  <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> wrote:
> >Try early '80s. Well, 7-track anyway. I guess you can still find 9-track
> >tapes if you care to. They do exist with SCSI. I very much doubt you'll
> >find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
> >the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
> >attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
> >as well.
> 
> The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
> early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
> to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
> going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
> reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.

I do recall at one point hearing that they were copying the old ITS backup
tapes and that they had literally 1 shot at getting the data (ie, the tapes
were self-destructing as being read, and bits literally falling off the tape).
IIRC, the reason for this was provide some evidence for prior use in a patent
case (my memory says it was the XOR graphics patent, but I'm probably
misremembering).

-- 
Michael Meissner, Cygnus Solutions, a Red Hat company.
PMB 198, 174 Littleton Road #3, Westford, Massachusetts 01886, USA
Work:	  meissner@redhat.com		phone: +1 978-486-9304
Non-work: meissner@spectacle-pond.org	fax:   +1 978-692-4482

######

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In article <syg0rfqw9g.fsf@tiktok.cygnus.com>,
Michael Meissner  <meissner@redhat.com> wrote:
>kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
>> The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
>> early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
>> to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
>> going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
>> reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.
>
>I do recall at one point hearing that they were copying the old ITS backup
>tapes and that they had literally 1 shot at getting the data (ie, the tapes
>were self-destructing as being read, and bits literally falling off the tape).
>IIRC, the reason for this was provide some evidence for prior use in a patent
>case (my memory says it was the XOR graphics patent, but I'm probably
>misremembering).

There were a number of tapes that did flake apart as they were being
read (perhaps a magnetic force microscope would have been a better tool
than a tape drive for reading these tapes?), but some of them actually
became more readable after flaking.  Turns out that, in some cases, the
flaking oxide was stuff stuck to the back of the tape --- that had been
peeled off the layer of tape underneath it.

There were several reasons given for the TCFS project in the thesis;
prior patent art is one, historical search is another (Phil Agre wanted
to know when the word "foo" came into use among the hackers), and "I
want my thesis" is a third.

I've heard that, indeed, the self-destruction problem is a problem with
many tapes.  I'd think that, in principle, you could recover 800bpi
data from a pile of 1/8"-diameter metal oxide flakes, but I would
expect it to be difficult in practice.

(Once I scratched the backing off a classified CD-R in the course of
marking it "ruined".  Oops, that was dumb.  Now there's classified data
flakes all over the classified carpet, which unfortunately gets cleaned
with an unclassified vacuum cleaner.  Everyone assured me there was
nothing to worry about --- not least since we declassified a successful
copy of the same CD a few hours later --- but I felt really dumb.)
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

From: Timothy Stark <sword7@grace.speakeasy.org>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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In alt.sys.pdp10 Glenn C. Everhart <Everhart@gce.com> wrote:
> So does there exist a freely available pdp10 emulator anywhere?
> Even incomplete?

I still am working on it but I have some problems with it. 

-- Tim Stark

-- 
Timothy Stark	<><	Inet: sword7@speakeasy.org, sword7@firesword7.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Amen." -- John 3:16 (King James Version Bible)

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 22:12:17 -0700
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56685

Michael Meissner wrote:
> 
> kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
> 
> > In article <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se>,
> > Johnny Billquist  <Johnny.Billquist@netinsight.se> wrote:
> > >Try early '80s. Well, 7-track anyway. I guess you can still find 9-track
> > >tapes if you care to. They do exist with SCSI. I very much doubt you'll
> > >find any 7-track tape drives around. They went out of fashion before
> > >the IBM PC were invented, and I don't think anyone ever have considered
> > >attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
> > >as well.
> >
> > The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
> > early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
> > to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
> > going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
> > reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.
> 
> I do recall at one point hearing that they were copying the old ITS backup
> tapes and that they had literally 1 shot at getting the data (ie, the tapes
> were self-destructing as being read, and bits literally falling off the tape).
> IIRC, the reason for this was provide some evidence for prior use in a patent
> case (my memory says it was the XOR graphics patent, but I'm probably
> misremembering).
> 
Hey, Tim Shoppa should get in touch with Tom Knight and see if he could help
out.  Who knows...he might end up with more PDP-10 stuff for his trailing-edge
site...that way we *all* would benefit!

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

From: Lord Apollyon <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com>
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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <390FEFB6.72AD7D9D@trailing-edge.com>, Tim Shoppa 
<shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:

> A good number of the emulator (simulator?) authors are a bit afraid
> that releasing their current source code would require that they
> support it.  I'm of the other opinion - if they release their
> current source code (I don't care if it's GPL or not GPL, I do
> *not* want to get into that religious war!) then others will support
> it.

<rant>
This may be way off-topic, and a rant out of left field... for that I'm 
sorry.

I was perusing looking for a PDP/11 emulator - and I seem to have 
stumbled upon the quest for the Lost City of Gold....

Not only are all of the DECENT ones commercial, they're F*(!@*# 
thousands of dollars per copy.  One obnoxious software I won't mention 
even brags about how cheap they are and then has the gonads to mention 
their US$2,000+ price tag.  What's the deal here, folks?

Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING that 
kind of price?  I mean, these greedy dudes don't seem out of business 
yet - so SOMEONE is willingly taking the knife in the chest (repeatedly) 
for these pieces of software.

How annoying.
</rant>

I'd love to see a PDP-10 emulator, but it's of personal/nostalgic 
interest only.  If the author is expecting a quick-buck out of it, he 
can find something else.

=Rob=

-- 
The reply-to-address is *REAL* and will expire on 12:01AM 1-June-2000.
Spammers: You will lose your network access.  Guaranteed.
121 domains, 402 web-accounts, and 616 dialup ISP accounts flushed.

######

From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 19 May 2000 13:18:48 GMT
Organization: IBM Austin
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56648

In <392476f6_1@news.wizvax.net>, wilson@dbit.com (John Wilson) writes:
>In article <tBYU4.8103$nm6.72787@news-east.usenetserver.com>,
>Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>>The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
>>early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
>>to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
>>going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
>>reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.
>
>I thought I heard that the MIT folks actually saved one of their old 7-track
>drives and "all" they needed to do was build a controller for it.  Could
>be wrong.
>
>John Wilson
>D Bit

I think I remember that discussion, although I don't remember hearing the
outcome.  If I'm remembering correctly, one of the problems was that even
finding heads for 7 track tapes was becoming impossible.

I also remember hearing that certain government agencies (e.g., NASA) had
an extensive collection of tapes that may be unreadable, either due to
oxide decay, magnetic decay, or just due to a lack of drives.

Is this an area that the PC industry will be facing in a few years, too?
How many people can still read the 8-inch floppies that were popular in
the late 70s?  For that matter, how many people can still read the 5.25-inch
floppies that were popular up until a few years ago?  How much longer will
the media survive before the oxide starts flaking off?

Dave

P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.

######

From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 19 May 2000 13:25:47 GMT
Organization: IBM Austin
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56645

In <0h%U4.11002$nm6.126033@news-east.usenetserver.com>, kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
     <snip>
>
>There were a number of tapes that did flake apart as they were being
>read (perhaps a magnetic force microscope would have been a better tool
>than a tape drive for reading these tapes?), but some of them actually
>became more readable after flaking.  Turns out that, in some cases, the
>flaking oxide was stuff stuck to the back of the tape --- that had been
>peeled off the layer of tape underneath it.
>
>There were several reasons given for the TCFS project in the thesis;
>prior patent art is one, historical search is another (Phil Agre wanted
>to know when the word "foo" came into use among the hackers), and "I
>want my thesis" is a third.
>
>I've heard that, indeed, the self-destruction problem is a problem with
>many tapes.  I'd think that, in principle, you could recover 800bpi
>data from a pile of 1/8"-diameter metal oxide flakes, but I would
>expect it to be difficult in practice.
>
>(Once I scratched the backing off a classified CD-R in the course of
>marking it "ruined".  Oops, that was dumb.  Now there's classified data
>flakes all over the classified carpet, which unfortunately gets cleaned
>with an unclassified vacuum cleaner.  Everyone assured me there was
>nothing to worry about --- not least since we declassified a successful
>copy of the same CD a few hours later --- but I felt really dumb.)
>--
><kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
>The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
><URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
>The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

It's a good thing you didn't incinerate the CD.  Just think of all
of that classified smoke!  :*)

I once had the pleasure of declassifying a 3420 style tape.  Do
anyone realize how long it takes use a pair of scissors to chop the
tape into small segments?  Does anyone realize exactly how much tape
is on one of those reels?  Does anyone realize how huge of a pile of
tape clippings result when you're finished?  (Hint, it wouldn't fit
in a trash can!)  :*)

Oh, another interesting fact about tapes is that some of them are
electrically conductive.  Apparently, this is to prevent static
charges from building up.  Thus, it wouldn't be a good idea to use
one to fly a kite with around power lines (Well, so much for one
alternative use for old tapes.).

Dave

P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.

######

From: Art Rice <arice@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Reply-To: arice@ue.itug.org
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References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se> <tBYU4.8103$nm6.72787@news-east.usenetserver.com> <392476f6_1@news.wizvax.net> <8g3evo$1g0c$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>
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On 19 May 2000 13:18:48 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote:

>In <392476f6_1@news.wizvax.net>, wilson@dbit.com (John Wilson) writes:
>>In article <tBYU4.8103$nm6.72787@news-east.usenetserver.com>,
>>Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>>>The TCFS guys at MIT have a bunch of 7-track backup tapes from the
>>>early 1970s they wanted to read in 1995 (in order to transfer the data
>>>to a more modern medium).  I thought I recalled that Tom Knight was
>>>going to build a 7-track tape drive for them, but I can't find a
>>>reference to that on the Web, so maybe I am misremembering.
>>
>>I thought I heard that the MIT folks actually saved one of their old 7-track
>>drives and "all" they needed to do was build a controller for it.  Could
>>be wrong.
>>
>>John Wilson
>>D Bit
>
>I think I remember that discussion, although I don't remember hearing the
>outcome.  If I'm remembering correctly, one of the problems was that even
>finding heads for 7 track tapes was becoming impossible.
>
>I also remember hearing that certain government agencies (e.g., NASA) had
>an extensive collection of tapes that may be unreadable, either due to
>oxide decay, magnetic decay, or just due to a lack of drives.
>
>Is this an area that the PC industry will be facing in a few years, too?
>How many people can still read the 8-inch floppies that were popular in
>the late 70s?  For that matter, how many people can still read the 5.25-inch
>floppies that were popular up until a few years ago?  How much longer will
>the media survive before the oxide starts flaking off?
>
>Dave
>
>P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.

Thanks.  You just reminded me to install one of my old 5 1/4 drives
in the new PC temporarily to save some of that old DOS 2.11 software.

-- 
Art Rice   *#
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

Message-ID: <392514ED.3152B08C@trailing-edge.com>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 10:18:21 -0400
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glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote:
> I also remember hearing that certain government agencies (e.g., NASA) had
> an extensive collection of tapes that may be unreadable, either due to
> oxide decay, magnetic decay, or just due to a lack of drives.

Many of the older NASA tapes are analog recordings of telemetry
information.  The drives are usually highly specialized, and the
data formats not necessarily standardized.  Often after the tape
is read, it takes a lot of archaeology to determine what the recovered
data actually means.

> Is this an area that the PC industry will be facing in a few years, too?
> How many people can still read the 8-inch floppies that were popular in
> the late 70s?  For that matter, how many people can still read the 5.25-inch
> floppies that were popular up until a few years ago?  How much longer will
> the media survive before the oxide starts flaking off?

I regularly read 1/2" tapes of several types, 14" disk packs of
several varieties, 8" floppies, and 5.25"
floppies for my customers.  On the oldest 8" floppies (from
the early 70's, often straight from true-blue 3740's), the oxide
does flake off, quickly enough that frequent head cleanings are
required but not quickly enough that there's any difficulty in
reading the data off.

1/2" tapes can be a more "sticky" problem.  Many manufacturers
of tapes, especially in the mid-80's, were using a binder that
under less-than-ideal storage conditions turns to a sticky goo.
Even then, there's usually no problem reading the entire tape in the
first pass with some equipment here that never stops the tape or
does backspacing.  If the problem is particularly bad, there are
lubrication and baking techniques available.

What does surprise my customers is how many "old media" disks or tapes
they can fit on a single CD.  For instance, about 2500 8" floppies
can comfortably fit on a single CD-ROM.  Depending on the tape
density, length, and format, often several hundred 1/2" tapes will
fit on a single CD.  For examples, see the freeware collections
of old (up to 4 decades old) DECUS PDP-10 and PDP-11 software I
distribute through

  http://www.trailing-edge.com/www/freeware.html

Each of the freeware CD's has material from hundreds or thousands
of input tapes, floppies, paper tapes, and DECTapes.

The lifetime of a CD is another issue.  I use Kodak Gold CD-R's
for one-off copies of data going to customers, and Kodak projects
lifetimes for these of 100 years.  CD's and readers are ubiquitous
enough today that I expect compatible readers to be available new
several decades from now, just as vinyl turntables are still available
new today and will be for some time.  At some point in the future
they'll probably be archived to a better, denser medium, but for
now CD (either CD-R or pressed) is almost always the best choice.

Other options for very-long
term storage are high-quality paper and photographic film; these
have proven archival lives, if processed and stored properly, of
over a hundred years.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa@trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd                 Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927

######

From: jmaynard@thebrain.conmicro.cx (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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On 19 May 2000 13:25:47 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com
<glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com> wrote:
>I once had the pleasure of declassifying a 3420 style tape.  Do
>anyone realize how long it takes use a pair of scissors to chop the
>tape into small segments?  Does anyone realize exactly how much tape
>is on one of those reels?  Does anyone realize how huge of a pile of
>tape clippings result when you're finished?  (Hint, it wouldn't fit
>in a trash can!)  :*)

Cutting 2400 feet of tape into little bitty bits is a job for a shredder.
Stick pencil through center, suspend above shredder, stick leader into slot,
turn on shredder, stand back as shredder pulls tape through.

(At least, that's how I'd approach the job...you need a good cross-cut
shredder, though, or else you wind up with two or three 2400-foot-long
strips of tape.)

######

From: "George R. Gonzalez" <grg@umn.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 11:09:46 -0500
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Jay Maynard wrote in message ...

>Cutting 2400 feet of tape into little bitty bits is a job for a shredder.
>Stick pencil through center, suspend above shredder, stick leader into
slot,
>turn on shredder, stand back as shredder pulls tape through.
>
>(At least, that's how I'd approach the job...you need a good cross-cut
>shredder, though, or else you wind up with two or three 2400-foot-long
>strips of tape.)

Which makes me wonder-- does the CIA have a program that can reassemble
shredded documents?  Just scan in the shreds and set a Cray to work on it!

(Or maybe it would be cheaper to hire people to reassemble the shreds).

######

From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <i-liquify-spammers-May2000-D843C5.17320419052000@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net>,
Lord Apollyon  <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com> wrote:
>Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING that 
>kind of price?

People who are still running PDP-11-based control systems. Mentec is
still shipping the things, remember...

-- 
Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC.

    "The only thing worse than X is every other GUI in common usage today."
				-- Chris Rovers

######

From: albaugh@agames.com (Mike Albaugh)
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glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote:

: I also remember hearing that certain government agencies (e.g., NASA) had
: an extensive collection of tapes that may be unreadable, either due to
: oxide decay, magnetic decay, or just due to a lack of drives.

: Is this an area that the PC industry will be facing in a few years, too?
: How many people can still read the 8-inch floppies that were popular in
: the late 70s?

	Well, I still have a few 8-inch drives, and a controller that
can connect to an Atari-800 (Or any machine with a serial-port and
the needed software). But I don't know if the disks themselves are
still readable, even with "good" drives.

: For that matter, how many people can still read the 5.25-inch
: floppies that were popular up until a few years ago?

	They are/were lower density than 8-inch and 3.5-inch, so
the media _might_ last a bit longer. OTOH, 5.25-inch drives and
disk were definitely "lowest bidder" stuff, so I wouldn't bet a
lot on them.

:  How much longer will
: the media survive before the oxide starts flaking off?

	I doubt that the media is your biggest problem. I have
files, er _documents_ that I faithfully copied from floppy to
hard-drive to Zip disk. The bits are fine, but no current
software can "decode" the meaning of those bits, and I don't
have an old-enough computer to run the old software. Which
is to say: PC (and MAC) users should worry more about the
near-term "destruction" of their documents by careless app-
writers than the bit-rot itself. Not that I'm suggesting you
_not_ save the bits, especially since storage media is so
much cheaper per bit these days, but if you ever need the
_information_ from those bits, you may have to pay a bundle
to get it.

	Note that with the DMCA and UCITA, it may be _illegal_
for you to hire someone to decrypt your old docs for you, but
that's another flame-war :-)

					Mike
| albaugh@agames.com, speaking only for msyelf

######

From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 10:53:31 -0700
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In article <8g3ssq$h76$1@null.agames.com>, albaugh@agames.com (Mike
Albaugh) wrote:
> The bits are fine, but no current
> software can "decode" the meaning of those bits, and I don't
> have an old-enough computer to run the old software.

Assuming the application isn't timing critial, a simulation of
the system might work.

Anyone working on archiving information on the format of documents
created by these older apps?

-- 
The eBay Curse:
"May you find everything you're looking for.."

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <8g3fcr$1g0c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>,
 <wa4qal@vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
>In <0h%U4.11002$nm6.126033@news-east.usenetserver.com>, kragen@dnaco.net
>(Kragen Sitaker) writes:
>>(Once I scratched the backing off a classified CD-R in the course of
>>marking it "ruined".  Oops, that was dumb.  Now there's classified data
>>flakes all over the classified carpet, which unfortunately gets cleaned
>>with an unclassified vacuum cleaner.  Everyone assured me there was
>>nothing to worry about --- not least since we declassified a successful
>>copy of the same CD a few hours later --- but I felt really dumb.)
>
>It's a good thing you didn't incinerate the CD.  Just think of all
>of that classified smoke!  :*)

My worry was that the flakes were big enough that you could probably,
in principle, recover the entire contents of the CD given enough flakes
(and a holographic scanner like Holomapper with which to scan them).

Smoke would be fine --- the pits and lands would disappear in the high
heat, and each smoke particle would contain less than a bit anyway, so
reassembling the CD data would be impossible even if you could scan
every smoke particle.

>I once had the pleasure of declassifying a 3420 style tape.  Do
>anyone realize how long it takes use a pair of scissors to chop the
>tape into small segments?

How many bits per inch were on these tapes?  How many bits were on each
segment?
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56695

In article <8g3pon$9m2$1@laurel.tc.umn.edu>,
George R. Gonzalez <grg@umn.edu> wrote:
>Which makes me wonder-- does the CIA have a program that can reassemble
>shredded documents?  Just scan in the shreds and set a Cray to work on it!
>
>(Or maybe it would be cheaper to hire people to reassemble the shreds).

I've speculated on this.  I don't think you'd need a Cray; a K6-2 would
probably be fine.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: mbg@world.std.com (Megan)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <FutJz9.Iqz@world.std.com>
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 18:13:57 GMT
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8eoa1a$7p1@journal.concentric.net> <390FEFB6.72AD7D9D@trailing-edge.com> <i-liquify-spammers-May2000-D843C5.17320419052000@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net>
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56737

Lord Apollyon <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com> writes:


>Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING that 
>kind of price?  I mean, these greedy dudes don't seem out of business 
>yet - so SOMEONE is willingly taking the knife in the chest (repeatedly) 
>for these pieces of software.

What you fail to realize is that there are still MANY companies who
continue to use pdp-11 software.  And for that, they need machines.
Well, PCs are a commodity item nowadays... they're really cheap.
Since a pdp-11 had a larger initial cost, plus the cost of maintaining
it, spending $2k for a *very good emulator* which can run all the
old code can be a real win and not, as you mention, taking a knife in
the chest.

					Megan Gentry
					Former RT-11 Developer

+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL   | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group |          (home):  mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation    | addresses need '@' in place of '!'  |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43   | URL:     http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | 
| Nashua, NH 03062               | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055                 |  required." - mbg            KB1FCA |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

######

From: bill_h <bill_h@azstarnet.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 19 May 2000 12:48:26 -0700
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glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote:

> Is this an area that the PC industry will be facing in a few years, too?
> How many people can still read the 8-inch floppies that were popular in
> the late 70s?  For that matter, how many people can still read the 5.25-inch
> floppies that were popular up until a few years ago?  How much longer will
> the media survive before the oxide starts flaking off?
> 
> Dave

Well, I can. I've just been going through bunches of ~1980 floppies,
looking for interesting programs to throw in with a couple Kaypro's
I'm about to 'release'....  and it's amazing to me that virtually
every disk so far is prefectly readable. 'Course I've kept them in
pretty temperate storage, and very low (naturally) humidity, but I
consider this failure rate astounding. I've seen more errors from
crappy disks, usually showing up within days or weeks back in 1980,
than what I'm seeing now. In other words, disks that were 'solid'
after a couple months seem to last YEARS......

Bill
Tucson, AZ

######

From: albaugh@agames.com (Mike Albaugh)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Followup-To: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Date: 19 May 2000 20:06:12 GMT
Organization: Atari Games Corporation
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Al Kossow (aek@spies.com) wrote:
: In article <8g3ssq$h76$1@null.agames.com>, albaugh@agames.com (Mike
: Albaugh) wrote:
: > The bits are fine, but no current
: > software can "decode" the meaning of those bits, and I don't
: > have an old-enough computer to run the old software.

: Assuming the application isn't timing critial, a simulation of
: the system might work.

	Ah, but while a simulation of the _documented_ behavior of
an older systems is _challenging_, the simulation of the _actual_
behavior could be a Herculean task. My personal epiphany was when
I read the announcement of the Amdahl 470. It was described as
completely complying with the System 360 architectural specification
with one exception. That being that if a "transfer in channel"
command had a bad target address (leapt off into hyperspace) the
resulting error-trap would store not the address of the bad TIC,
but the (bad) target-address where it tried to land. The pamphlet
explained that they did that because it was what a _real_ 360
actually did. :-)

: Anyone working on archiving information on the format of documents
: created by these older apps?

	Assuming, of course, that the required information is legal
to know. Read the EULA :-) (no, IANAL, but prudence suggests that
people who can read proprietary file formats might keep a pretty
low profile, at least as long as the original corporation or some
successor with a few idle lawyers is around... :-)

	Yeah. the above is paranoid. It was stated for emphasis.
The _gist_ of my argument is that I feel that "dead langauges"
are at least as much a threat to old documents as media-rot is.

					Mike

| albaugh@agames.com, speaking only for myself

######

From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 19 May 2000 20:41:13 GMT
Organization: TSS Inc.
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In article <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com>,
Mike Albaugh <albaugh@agames.com> wrote:
>	Yeah. the above is paranoid. It was stated for emphasis.
>The _gist_ of my argument is that I feel that "dead langauges"
>are at least as much a threat to old documents as media-rot is.

CP/Mulator, Bochs, Ersatz-11, copies of old CP/M boot disks, MS-DOS 2.1,
etc... you don't need to reverse engineer the file formats if you can run
the original software in an emulator. This means that if you have old
copies of the applications, save them as well as their data!

-- 
Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC.

    "The only thing worse than X is every other GUI in common usage today."
				-- Chris Rovers

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8g3ssq$h76$1@null.agames.com> <aek-1905001053310001@haxrus.apple.com> <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com>
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In article <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com>,
Mike Albaugh <albaugh@agames.com> wrote:
>	Assuming, of course, that the required information is legal
>to know. Read the EULA :-) (no, IANAL, but prudence suggests that
>people who can read proprietary file formats might keep a pretty
>low profile, at least as long as the original corporation or some
>successor with a few idle lawyers is around... :-)

Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
is protected by case law, and reading proprietary file formats is a big
industry.  (Companies like Access Data make a lot of money even
breaking encryption built into proprietary file formats.)

Most free countries have similar protections written into their law.

That doesn't mean nobody will try to sue you.  It just means they will
lose.

Where do you live?  Singapore?  Myanmar?

>	Yeah. the above is paranoid. It was stated for emphasis.
>The _gist_ of my argument is that I feel that "dead langauges"
>are at least as much a threat to old documents as media-rot is.

There's definitely a threat there.  But scary paragraphs like the one
you posted above will make it worse by discouraging people from
recovering documents in those dead languages.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

From: David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 19 May 2000 21:26:47 GMT
Organization: EnterAct Corp.
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In alt.sys.pdp10 Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
: In article <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com>,
: Mike Albaugh <albaugh@agames.com> wrote:
:>	Assuming, of course, that the required information is legal
:>to know. Read the EULA :-) (no, IANAL, but prudence suggests that
:>people who can read proprietary file formats might keep a pretty
:>low profile, at least as long as the original corporation or some
:>successor with a few idle lawyers is around... :-)

: Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
: is protected by case law, and reading proprietary file formats is a big
: industry.  (Companies like Access Data make a lot of money even
: breaking encryption built into proprietary file formats.)

Unfortunatly, there are efforts afoot to change this.  Its absolutely,
incredibly stupid, but it's still happening.  And it looks like it is going
to succeed!

-- 
dscheidt@enteract.com
Ketchup, therefore, shows both thixotropic and pseudoplastic rheological
properties.   -- John Schmitt, in AFU

######

From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: 19 May 2000 21:40:41 GMT
Organization: TSS Inc.
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In article <7ciV4.21866$nm6.358015@news-east.usenetserver.com>,
Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
>is protected by case law, and reading proprietary file formats is a big
>industry.

Recent laws like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act are tryingto change that.

-- 
Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC.

    "The only thing worse than X is every other GUI in common usage today."
				-- Chris Rovers

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8fube9$hk1$1@reuters.plano.sterling.com> <39244DB2.2A2AA06A@GCE.com> <vu2V4.97323$MB.1966291@news6.giganews.com>
Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc.  www.best.com
From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 19 May 2000 22:17:04 GMT
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In article <vu2V4.97323$MB.1966291@news6.giganews.com>,
Timothy Stark  <sword7@grace.speakeasy.org> wrote:
>In alt.sys.pdp10 Glenn C. Everhart <Everhart@gce.com> wrote:
>> So does there exist a freely available pdp10 emulator anywhere?
>> Even incomplete?
>
>I still am working on it but I have some problems with it. 

Hot damn; keep us posted.  What devices have you done so far?

It's been ~20 years since I last touched a pdp-10, so I don't
know if I'd be of any help to you.  Do you want a GUI front
panel like on Doug Jones' pdp-8 emulator?  I could do that.

--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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In alt.sys.pdp10 Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
> In article <vu2V4.97323$MB.1966291@news6.giganews.com>,
> Timothy Stark  <sword7@grace.speakeasy.org> wrote:
>>In alt.sys.pdp10 Glenn C. Everhart <Everhart@gce.com> wrote:
>>> So does there exist a freely available pdp10 emulator anywhere?
>>> Even incomplete?
>>
>>I still am working on it but I have some problems with it. 

> Hot damn; keep us posted.  What devices have you done so far?

> It's been ~20 years since I last touched a pdp-10, so I don't
> know if I'd be of any help to you.  Do you want a GUI front
> panel like on Doug Jones' pdp-8 emulator?  I could do that.

I've not seen, Doug Jones' emulator, but the PDP-8 emulator for the Mac is
fantastic in the way it uses the GUI.  Doing a graphical emulation of
devices can make the emulator more intuitive (OK, I confess, it's also cool).

An added advantage of having an emulated front panel is in trying to get an
actual system up.  I used the Mac emulator to figure out what to expect when
I was working on restoring a PDP-8/m.

			Zane

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 02:50:37 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> 
>      [snip..]     [sinp...]     [snip...]
> 
> Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
> is protected by case law, and reading proprietary file formats is a big
> industry.  (Companies like Access Data make a lot of money even
> breaking encryption built into proprietary file formats.)
> 
I used to think that too...then I heard about a law that makes it a crime
to own a *schematic* of a blue box...or of a cable tv decoder.  It is kind
of like the law that allows them to arrest you for possessing burglary tools.
I guess that there is *nothing* else except burlary that could be done with
those tools, huh???   :-)

Also, as holders of TOP SECRET clearances can tell you, there are things you
know that are illegal to transmit to other people. 

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 02:59:47 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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Megan wrote:
> 
> Lord Apollyon <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com> writes:
> 
> >Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING that
> >kind of price?  I mean, these greedy dudes don't seem out of business
> >yet - so SOMEONE is willingly taking the knife in the chest (repeatedly)
> >for these pieces of software.
> 
> What you fail to realize is that there are still MANY companies who
> continue to use pdp-11 software.  And for that, they need machines.
> Well, PCs are a commodity item nowadays... they're really cheap.
> Since a pdp-11 had a larger initial cost, plus the cost of maintaining
> it, spending $2k for a *very good emulator* which can run all the
> old code can be a real win and not, as you mention, taking a knife in
> the chest.
> 
But...these other PDP-11 emulator companies *could* offer a hobbyist
license, as Mr. John Wilson does.  That would *not* materially affect
the money they are making with their software.  So if they are *not*
jerks, they are still *not* as nice as John...   :-)

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

Message-ID: <3926CC04.CB20DA3E@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
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> attaching one. Which means you'll have to build your own interface
> as well.
>

OK, Sounds reasonable... but I wouldn't know how to do it. If someone gave me the
schematic diagram, I could make it.

>
> > If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?
>
> There are lots of them, except I guess a PC might be problematic.
> You could have paper tape, punch cards and DECtape for starters.

Great! Thanks... anyone got those readers ?
:)

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######

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Thanks Tim!

I like the idea of using a floppy to store raw music.
What we nee though, *IS* an audio recorder, that can utilise 5.25" floppies (1.2Mb)
and store a minute or so of audio, or more, with some kind of non-digital MP3
compression ?? :)
That way, bas sectors on track 0, or anywhere, won't make a disk completely
unusable! :)

Tim Shoppa wrote:

> John Wilson wrote:
> >
> > In article <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu>,
> > Terry Kennedy  <terry@gate.tmk.com> wrote:
> > >  To answer another poster: the 8" floppy was designed by IBM for micro-
> > >code loads (IMPL) on mainframes - in particular, the S/370. Once they had
> > >it, IBM used it in all sorts of unit record equipment like the keypunch
> > >emulators you mentioned.
> >
> > I vaguely remember reading some story that floppy disks were actually invented
> > by some crazy inventor type in Japan (???) in the 50s, for audio recording
> > or something.  IIRC IBM denies this is the case but paid the guy off anyway.
> > Sound familiar to anyone?
>
> Not exactly in the right chronological order, but when cheap used 5.25"
> floppies began flooding the surplus markets in the late 80's and
> early 90's I bought some, hooked a UART and A/D and D/A coverters
> up, and had 8-bit sound recording.  There was a loud click every
> rotation as the track was switched though, and at 5 or 6 rotations per
> second I only got 7 seconds on a single-sided 5.25" floppy.
>
> (The drives I was using were Tandon TM-100's, I don't think I ever
> got double sided operation working right with automatic head switching.)
>
> Just a little bit more primitive than MP3 players, but a whole
> lot more fun :-).
>
> Tim.

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######

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Thanks guys.
I could make my soft-sectored 8" FDD hard sectored, by installing an LED and
a photodiode. But then I'd have to correctly interface it to the board in
the drive.
I'd also have to hunt down hard sectored disks! Or I could carefully punch
holes in the ones I've got, to tell the drive where the sectors are supposed
to go!

2.5", is that the size ?
I've gotta get it! :)

Is the Zenith and the Olympia the same type of floppy ?

Anyway... at least this drive won't take up too much space, like the 8"
will.
And the LASERdisc player, and the RCA CED (Selectavision) player, and the
VHS VCR, etc. that I hope to install!!
:)

Did a Kodak/Casio digital camera, from the early 90's use a non-standard
FDD, built-in ?
I seem to remember it did....

Thanks

Don Stokes wrote:

> In article <pfdsf8.mge.ln@ds9.klebsch.de>,
> Mario Klebsch <mario@klebsch.de> wrote:
> >The oposite extreme in size, I saw, were 2 1/2" floppies (or were they
> >2"?). The floppy disk did not even have a closed case. I saw them in
> >a typewriter made by Olympia.
>
> There were such things as 2.5" floppies, that looked a lot like shrunken
> 3.5" floppies.  Some early 90s Zenith laptops used them.
>
> I suspect that the reduction in storage wasn't justified by the utility
> added by going smaller.  A 3.5" floppy fits in a shirt pocket (which a
> 5.25" floppy doesn't), and that's small enough.  8-)
>
> (Actually, I do have shirts with pockets that'll take a 5.25" floppy...)
>
> -- don

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######

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>         Well, I still have a few 8-inch drives, and a controller that
> can connect to an Atari-800 (Or any machine with a serial-port and
> the needed software). But I don't know if the disks themselves are
> still readable, even with "good" drives.
>

>                                         Mike
> | albaugh@agames.com, speaking only for msyelf

Great! I have a Mitsubishi 8" FDD. I looked into the feasability of making an
interface for it. Or more like: wiring it up to a standard FDD controller for a
PC, but I never took it further. I still have to provide the 28VDC (or whatever
it is).

So I know it's possible, but I've already got 2 FDDs, and a serial interface
would be great!

Where can I get one ? I'd mount it internally, and hope to be able to access
the data from the 8" floppy, from the DOS prompt & Win95 Explorer.

Thanks

--
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######

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I HOPE we don't have these problems, of not being able to read old
media!!!!!!!!!!

Where I work. We throw out perfectly good 5.25" FDDs. Luckily, I save
them, and
take them home!

--
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######

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From: Neil Franklin <neil@franklin.ch.remove>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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Date: 20 May 2000 22:14:17 +0200
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kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:

> In article <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com>,
> Mike Albaugh <albaugh@agames.com> wrote:
> >     Assuming, of course, that the required information is legal
> >to know. Read the EULA :-) (no, IANAL, but prudence suggests that
> >people who can read proprietary file formats might keep a pretty
> >low profile, at least as long as the original corporation or some
> >successor with a few idle lawyers is around... :-)
>
> Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
> is protected by case law,

Unless you are reverse engineering anything the owners lawyer can get
a judge to regard as an copy prevention device. Then it is a violation
of the DMCA (passed in 1998, active U.S. law since 2000.01.01).

You hit that barrier real fast. Any license key system is copy
prevention, and any old mini computer had part of such a system
embedded (hardware serial number). From then on upwards it just
lawyerly creativity in twisting facts...

In fact unless the license of the software explicitely allows the
licensee to decompile it, then any decompilation is illegal. And it is
legal for the software to auto-delete itsself if it believes such an
attempt is going on. And the manufacturer is not liable if the
software erred in its "detection" when you were not decompiling.

It has been argued that even decompiling viruses to generate
signatures for anti-virus programs is strictly a DMCA violation!
But luckily virus authors are not going to sue over that.

Wellcome to the brave new world.


> Most free countries have similar protections written into their law.

Until the U.S. government notices that an DMCA that is limited to the
U.S. can be circumvented by anyone outside, and bullies the others into
following their "lead".


> That doesn't mean nobody will try to sue you.  It just means they will
> lose.

Assuming that you are capable of affording legal defense.

Only 5 days ago a on-the-fly web page transformation site (it
translated the text of any web page into an satirical style) shut down
because the owner simply cannot afford to fight against Bank of
Amarica who have threatend to sue him, if he does not make his program
block people having BoAs site transformed. He claims that he has not
enough time to hande a flood of such request, nor computer power to
run such an growing block list.

Apparently BoA is to stupid to simply block access to their site by his
computer. (Quite what transforming a page has to do with copying is
left as an exercise to the reader.)


> Where do you live?  Singapore?  Myanmar?

Me? Luckily not in the U.S. of Lawyers.


--
Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic
Use a WIMP (Windows Icons Mouse Pulldowns) interface -
  or get one with a CLUE (Command Line User Environment)?

######

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> Well, while technically not a floppy, there existed 14 inch removable platter
> disks.  Might be a bit hard to fit in a PC case, even a skyscraper one.
>

I've seen them. The disk packs, right?
Sorry, a bit too big.

>
> But, if you accomplish that, then you can always aim toward fitting a
> rotating drum memory (e.g., IBM 2305) into (err, onto?) it.
>

I think I've seen something like that on eBay, late last year.
Sorry, too big.
I could make my PC as big as a very small car, but it'd be too big then.

>
> If you accomplish either of these, I'm sure that quite a few of us would
> appreciate pictures.
>

If I have ANYTHING to show, I'll be sure to post it on my web site. I will also inform all these mice people, who've shared many
stories, and experiences - through this and related newsgroups.


>
> As for tapes, you could consider putting a mainframe style cartridge
> tape drive in it (IBM 3480 style cartridges).

I shall!!
I don't know them, but I'll look into it.

--
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######

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AAARGGHHHH!!!

Imagine the momentum! ANd the gyroscopical force, it would impart on the people
lifting it!
It'd JUMP out of their hands, and pound itself into the floor, I'd imagine!


Mike Yankus wrote:

> <glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com> wrote in message
> news:8frg49$1fc0$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com...
> > In <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua
> Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> writes:
> > >Tim, or anyone else:
> > >Hi. I'm making myself a PC, and I'm putting it in a 'skyscraper' case.
> Which is a
> > >modified full tower case. I may even start fom stractch, and build a new
> one.
> > >
> > >I'm putting in ALL kinds of weird and unusual devices (mostly drives) in
> it.
> > >What's the biggest floppy ? (8", I've got, but I want bigger, if it
> exists).
> > >And what about tape drives, such as the 7-track & 9-track mentioned.
> > >Are these the standard types, from the early 90's ?
> > >If not, what extra unusual and rarely used (today) drives can I install ?
> > >
> > >Thanks heaps.
> > >
> > >--
> > >Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
> >      <snip>
> >
> > Well, while technically not a floppy, there existed 14 inch removable
> platter
> > disks.  Might be a bit hard to fit in a PC case, even a skyscraper one.
> >
> > But, if you accomplish that, then you can always aim toward fitting a
> > rotating drum memory (e.g., IBM 2305) into (err, onto?) it.
> >
> > If you accomplish either of these, I'm sure that quite a few of us would
> > appreciate pictures.
> >
> > As for tapes, you could consider putting a mainframe style cartridge
> > tape drive in it (IBM 3480 style cartridges).
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them.
> >
>
> What indeed was the largest tape/disk peripheral devices ever built
> (single tape, single spindle disk)?  I have heard about drums that
> had a horizontal axis and were several yards long.  The rotational
> momentum was something to worry about.  I vaguely remember a horror
> story about trying to move one of these things while it was spinning.
>
> Mike

--
Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
     time :(                     **   **       **
E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
Ph: (02) 9708-6645
mBox: (02) 8588-8580
IRC: Josh90
ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
Napster: Josh90
Address: 77 Woodbine St,
Yagoona, NSW, Australia

######

Message-ID: <3926DA91.976FF8D0@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
From: Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56790


"Glenn C. Everhart" wrote:

> So does there exist a freely available pdp10 emulator anywhere?
> Even incomplete?

Mate, can you keep ON TOPIC please ??

:)

--
Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
     time :(                     **   **       **
E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
Ph: (02) 9708-6645
mBox: (02) 8588-8580
IRC: Josh90
ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
Napster: Josh90
Address: 77 Woodbine St,
Yagoona, NSW, Australia

######

From: nailed_barnacleSPAMFREE@hotmail.com (barnacle)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 21:23:37 GMT
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In article <3926D105.5FC86725@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> wrote:
>Thanks Tim!
>
>I like the idea of using a floppy to store raw music.
>What we nee though, *IS* an audio recorder, that can utilise 5.25" floppies
> (1.2Mb)
>and store a minute or so of audio, or more, with some kind of non-digital MP3
>compression ?? :)
>That way, bas sectors on track 0, or anywhere, won't make a disk completely
>unusable! :)
>
<snip>
Broadcast companies like the Beeb have been using floppy disc recorders as a 
replacement for cartidge (continuous loop tape) players for years but 3.5" - 
1.44, 2.88, and some obscure 10M discs. The data is compressed but I can't 
recall the scheme now - too long since I used them...aptx rings a bell. Since 
the 10M discs became unavailable, the current equivalent uses zips.

--
barnacle

http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk

######

From: Bruce Bergman <blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Organization: A clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind.
Reply-To: blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net
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On Sat, 20 May 2000 21:23:37 GMT, nailed_barnacleSPAMFREE@hotmail.com
(barnacle) wrote:
>In article <3926D105.5FC86725@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> wrote:
>>Thanks Tim!
>>
>>I like the idea of using a floppy to store raw music.
>>What we nee though, *IS* an audio recorder, that can utilise 5.25" floppies
>>(1.2Mb) and store a minute or so of audio, or more, with some kind of 
>>non-digital MP3 compression ?? :)  That way, bas sectors on track 0, 
>>or anywhere, won't make a disk completely unusable! :)

><snip>
>Broadcast companies like the Beeb have been using floppy disc recorders as a 
>replacement for cartidge (continuous loop tape) players for years but 3.5" - 
>1.44, 2.88, and some obscure 10M discs. The data is compressed but I can't 
>recall the scheme now - too long since I used them...aptx rings a bell. Since 
>the 10M discs became unavailable, the current equivalent uses zips.

  In the USA, the new Cart Machines I've seen are Mini-Disc based,
which seems like an ideal use for them.  Random access, high capacity,
low media cost, re-writable, no-noise optical storage.

          --<< Bruce >>--
-- 
Bruce L. Bergman blCHURRObergman@ NOearthSPAMlink.netEVER  Remove the caps.
Troubleshooter - Electrician, Phones, HVAC, Plumbing,... 
'Current'ly with Westend Electric, Agoura, CA 818/889-9545

WARNING:  No Unsolicited Commercial E-mail is EVER accepted.

######

From: nailed_barnacleSPAMFREE@hotmail.com (barnacle)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 05:10:16 GMT
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In article <0paeis8bk62e898oamrpq0niaqj38vs1ad@4ax.com>, blCHURRObergman@earthlink.net wrote:
>On Sat, 20 May 2000 21:23:37 GMT, nailed_barnacleSPAMFREE@hotmail.com
>(barnacle) wrote:
>>In article <3926D105.5FC86725@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com>, Joshua
> Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> wrote:
>>>Thanks Tim!
>>>
>>>I like the idea of using a floppy to store raw music.
>>>What we nee though, *IS* an audio recorder, that can utilise 5.25" floppies
>>>(1.2Mb) and store a minute or so of audio, or more, with some kind of 
>>>non-digital MP3 compression ?? :)  That way, bas sectors on track 0, 
>>>or anywhere, won't make a disk completely unusable! :)
>
>><snip>
>>Broadcast companies like the Beeb have been using floppy disc recorders as a 
>>replacement for cartidge (continuous loop tape) players for years but 3.5" - 
>>1.44, 2.88, and some obscure 10M discs. The data is compressed but I can't 
>>recall the scheme now - too long since I used them...aptx rings a bell. Since 
>>the 10M discs became unavailable, the current equivalent uses zips.
>
>  In the USA, the new Cart Machines I've seen are Mini-Disc based,
>which seems like an ideal use for them.  Random access, high capacity,
>low media cost, re-writable, no-noise optical storage.
>
>          --<< Bruce >>--
*doh* Quite right...minidiscs it is. They were playing with zips when I left 
that department and didn't have contact but I think they were found to be 
unreliable.

--
barnacle

http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk

######

Message-ID: <3928B741.4C80955E@idirect.com>
From: Jerome Fine <jhfine@idirect.com>
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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56822

>Charles Richmond wrote:

> Megan wrote:
> > Lord Apollyon <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com> writes:
> > >Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING that
> > >kind of price?  I mean, these greedy dudes don't seem out of business
> > >yet - so SOMEONE is willingly taking the knife in the chest (repeatedly)
> > >for these pieces of software.
> > What you fail to realize is that there are still MANY companies who
> > continue to use pdp-11 software.  And for that, they need machines.
> > Well, PCs are a commodity item nowadays... they're really cheap.
> > Since a pdp-11 had a larger initial cost, plus the cost of maintaining
> > it, spending $2k for a *very good emulator* which can run all the
> > old code can be a real win and not, as you mention, taking a knife in
> > the chest.
> But...these other PDP-11 emulator companies *could* offer a hobbyist
> license, as Mr. John Wilson does.  That would *not* materially affect
> the money they are making with their software.  So if they are *not*
> jerks, they are still *not* as nice as John...   :-)
> +-------------------------------------------------------------+
> |     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
> +-------------------------------------------------------------+

Jerome Fine replies:

I want to respond to a number of issues!

(a) I want to second the motion that John Wilson (http://www.dbit.com) is nice.

(b) The Supnik emulator is also free and is able to run on more than UNIX
platforms.  In particular, I have a copy which runs under DOS/W95/W98.
Although the Supnik emulator lacks MSCP emulator support along with many
of the features found in the Eratz-11 emulator from John Wilson, it is still a
reasonable and useful emulator, ESPECIALLY since RSTS/RSX/RT-11 are
all legal (or at least old versions like V5.3 from RT-11 from 1985) to run under the
Supnik emulator.

(c) Megan Gentry neglects to mention that the hobby version of Eratz-11 is free.
What is not addressed is the use of PDP-11 operating systems by hobby users.
In addition, the more than $ US 2000 cost of running software using the commercial
versions of the Eratz-11 emulators is due to the high cost of the PDP-11 operating
systems.  In fact, all of the RSTS/E, RSX-11 and RT-11 license/distribution cost
to legally run any of these 3 OSs on a real PDP-11 or the "Lite" version of the
Eratz-11 emulator is substantially greater than the license for the "Lite" version
of the Eratz-11 emulator.

(d) On the other hand, I also agree with Megan Gentry that the cost of the Eratz-11
emulator for a commercial user is very reasonable.  In fact, the cost of the "Lite" version
of the Eratz-11 emulator is much less than $ US 2000 and if that is all a particular
commercial user requires, it is a bargain.

(e) Contrary to an interesting response by Stuart Brook, NONE of the above points
are are even close to a complaint about the cost of PDP-11 operating system
software, especially for commercial users.  And if Mr. Brook considers that I am
"ranting" on behalf of the hobby users in respect of the cost changed by Mentec
for PDP-11 software, perhaps it is because he has a guilty conscience with respect
to the prices that are charged for the current versions as opposed to the availability
of hobby licenses offered by Compaq/DEC for current VMS licenses.  If my post
of Sunday, May 21st, 2000 at 15:32:10 GMT does anything, it definitely points out
that Mentec does allow very old versions of PDP-11 OSs to be run under the
Supnik emulator by hobby users.  For a hobby user of RT-11, V5.3  from 1985
can probably run any program that is presently available to be run under RT-11
except those which need I/D space that was first made available under TSX-PLUS
and finally with V5.6 of RT-11 in 1992.  Since I do not consider that restriction to
be a problem and I am positive that almost no RT-11 hobby users care about Y2K
issues, I am confident that simply pointing out where the costs occur, for commercial
users who want to run up-to-date PDP-11 software, is not in any manner a "rant"
on behalf of hobby users of RT-11 who are perfectly content to run V5.3 of RT-11.
If Mr. Brook wishes to reply, perhaps he could include a list of the prices that Mentec
charges for BOTH the license and the distributions for the 3 major OSs (RSTS/RSX/
RT-11) along with FORTRAN and C and DECnet.  Otherwise, I suggest that there
is very little use in continuing without knowing what Mr. Brook is being upset about.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc,vmsnet.pdp-11
From: mbg@world.std.com (Megan)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <Fuynu1.LwB@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 12:25:13 GMT
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8eoa1a$7p1@journal.concentric.net> <390FEFB6.72AD7D9D@trailing-edge.com> <i-liquify-spammers-May2000-D843C5.17320419052000@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net> <FutJz9.Iqz@world.std.com> <39266212.C601CB07@dallas.net> <39
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Jerome Fine <jhfine@idirect.com> writes:

>(c) Megan Gentry neglects to mention that the hobby version of Eratz-11
>is free.  What is not addressed is the use of PDP-11 operating systems by
>hobby users.  In addition, the more than $ US 2000 cost of running
>software using the commercial versions of the Eratz-11 emulators is due
>to the high cost of the PDP-11 operating systems.  In fact, all of the
>RSTS/E, RSX-11 and RT-11 license/distribution cost to legally run any of
>these 3 OSs on a real PDP-11 or the "Lite" version of the Eratz-11
>emulator is substantially greater than the license for the "Lite" version
>of the Eratz-11 emulator. 

Firstly, get the name right... John's product is *Ersatz-11* not
*Eratz-11*.  Secondly, I didn't mention John's free demo version
of E11 because I wasn't mentioning his emulator by name at all, I
was responding to the initial post which complained about the high
cost of an emulator...  Finally, the 'high' cost of his full version
is *NOT* because of the high cost of the pdp-11 software... John
has put a lot of work into E11 over the years (as he documents in
another post) and he deserves to get something for it.

					Megan Gentry
					Former RT-11 Developer

+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL   | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group |          (home):  mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation    | addresses need '@' in place of '!'  |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43   | URL:     http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | 
| Nashua, NH 03062               | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055                 |  required." - mbg                   |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

######

From: Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Sat, 20 May 2000 02:50:37 -0700, Charles Richmond
<richmond@dallas.net> wrote:

>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>> 
>>      [snip..]     [sinp...]     [snip...]
>> 
>> Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
>> is protected by case law, and reading proprietary file formats is a big
>> industry.  (Companies like Access Data make a lot of money even
>> breaking encryption built into proprietary file formats.)
>> 
>I used to think that too...then I heard about a law that makes it a crime
>to own a *schematic* of a blue box...or of a cable tv decoder.  It is kind
>of like the law that allows them to arrest you for possessing burglary tools.
>I guess that there is *nothing* else except burlary that could be done with
>those tools, huh???   :-)
>
>Also, as holders of TOP SECRET clearances can tell you, there are things you
>know that are illegal to transmit to other people. 

Actually, everyone with CLASSIFIED and above "probably" has knowledge
that they are not at liberty to admit to.

-- 
Art Rice   **
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <7ciV4.21866$nm6.358015@news-east.usenetserver.com> <39265FEC.8664E8CA@dallas.net> <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56878

In article <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com>,
Art Rice  <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
>On Sat, 20 May 2000 02:50:37 -0700, Charles Richmond
><richmond@dallas.net> wrote:
>
>>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>>> Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know . . .
>>
>>Also, as holders of TOP SECRET clearances can tell you, there are things you
>>know that are illegal to transmit to other people. 
>
>Actually, everyone with CLASSIFIED and above "probably" has knowledge
>that they are not at liberty to admit to.

"Classified" is a general term including most of the DoD's
classifications, notably including confidential, secret, top secret,
and SCI.

If I knew any classified information (well, I might, but I don't think
so) I wouldn't be legally able to tell the public, but that's because
of the non-disclosure agreement I signed.

If my buddy down the hall is lax about security and leaves classified
files on the subway by accident, there's no law prohibiting their
discoverers from publishing them.  In fact, the Washington Post
published a series of classified papers known as the Pentagon Papers in
the 1970s, revealing some interesting things.

In other words, if you know something top secret, there's no law to
prohibit you from transmitting it to somebody else --- unless you
promised not to.

The UK's Official Secrets Act makes the UK a rather different place.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <vu2V4.97323$MB.1966291@news6.giganews.com> <3925bd60$0$219@nntp1.ba.best.com> <A4lV4.1039$NX3.26596@typhoon.aracnet.com>
Organization: a user of Best Internet Communications, Inc.  www.best.com
From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 22 May 2000 21:02:07 GMT
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Message-ID: <3929a04f$0$209@nntp1.ba.best.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56903

In article <A4lV4.1039$NX3.26596@typhoon.aracnet.com>,
Zane H. Healy <healyzh@shell1.aracnet.com> wrote:
>In alt.sys.pdp10 Edward A. Falk <falconer@best.com> wrote:
>> In article <vu2V4.97323$MB.1966291@news6.giganews.com>,
>> Timothy Stark  <sword7@grace.speakeasy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>I still am working on it but I have some problems with it. 
>
>> ... Do you want a GUI front
>> panel like on Doug Jones' pdp-8 emulator?  I could do that.
>
>I've not seen, Doug Jones' emulator, but the PDP-8 emulator for the Mac is
>fantastic in the way it uses the GUI.  Doing a graphical emulation of
>devices can make the emulator more intuitive (OK, I confess, it's also cool).

I put a screen-shot on line at

	http://www.best.com/~falconer/pdp8e.gif

Anybody have pictures/documentation of a pdp-10 front panel?

--
-ed falk, falk@falconer.vip.best.com.  See *********************#*************#*
http://www.rahul.net/falk/whatToDo.html    #**************F******!******!*!!****
and read 12 Simple Things You Can Do	   ******!***************************#**
to Save the Internet			   **#******#*********!**WW*W**WW****

######

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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56891

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> 
> "Classified" is a general term including most of the DoD's
> classifications, notably including confidential, secret, top secret,
> and SCI.

To pick a nit, SCI and the like are not classifications, even though
they require special clearance.  The only three classifications are
confidential, secret, and top secret.
 
> If I knew any classified information (well, I might, but I don't think
> so) I wouldn't be legally able to tell the public, but that's because
> of the non-disclosure agreement I signed.
> 
> If my buddy down the hall is lax about security and leaves classified
> files on the subway by accident, there's no law prohibiting their
> discoverers from publishing them.  In fact, the Washington Post
> published a series of classified papers known as the Pentagon Papers in
> the 1970s, revealing some interesting things.
> 
> In other words, if you know something top secret, there's no law to
> prohibit you from transmitting it to somebody else --- unless you
> promised not to.

Not quite. 18 U.S.C. 793(e) says:

      Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control
      over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch,
      photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model,
      instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense,
or
      information relating to the national defense which information the
      possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the
      United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully
      communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated,
      delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver,
      transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted
the
      same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully
retains
      the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the
      United States entitled to receive it ... [s]hall be fined under
this
      title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice)
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Message-ID: <B54FA0D5966850FBD5@0.0.0.0>
Organization: NDS
Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 02:43:33 -0400
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8g3ssq$h76$1@null.agames.com> <aek-1905001053310001@haxrus.apple.com> <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com> <7ciV4.21866$nm6.358015@news-east.usenetserver.com> <39265FEC.8664E8CA@dallas.net> <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56926

In article <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com>,
Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:

 > >Also, as holders of TOP SECRET clearances can tell you, there are
things you
 > >know that are illegal to transmit to other people. 
 > 
 > Actually, everyone with CLASSIFIED and above "probably" has knowledge
 > that they are not at liberty to admit to.

"Classified" is not a level; do you mean "Confidential"?  If so, I
disagree.

I know people who've had Top Secret clearances who have nothing they have
to keep quiet.  I had a TS and am not aware of anything that I know that I
have to keep quiet about, although I generally err on the keep-quiet side
rather than the blab-everything side.    

ehr

######

Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com
From: Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8g3ssq$h76$1@null.agames.com> <aek-1905001053310001@haxrus.apple.com> <8g46rk$9dm$1@null.agames.com> <7ciV4.21866$nm6.358015@news-east.usenetserver.com>
X-Disclaimer: Everything I write is false.
Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs
X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy.
Date: 23 May 2000 19:29:15 -0700
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56997

kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
> Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
> is protected by case law,

No longer entirely true, thanks to the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright
Act).  The anti-reverse-engineering provisions take effect on 1-Jan-2001.

:-(

######

Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com
From: Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <syg0rfqw9g.fsf@tiktok.cygnus.com> <0h%U4.11002$nm6.126033@news-east.usenetserver.com> <8g3fcr$1g0c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <YxgV4.21034$nm6.335443@news-east.usenetserver.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56994

kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
> My worry was that the flakes were big enough that you could probably,
> in principle, recover the entire contents of the CD given enough flakes

"Enough flakes" would be essentially all of the flakes from the actively
written portion of the CD.  CD data is localized.  The error correction
system uses convolutional coding so that the contents of a sector are
spread out over a few millimeters or so (it's been a while so I don't
recall the exact number).

If you have half of the flakes from the active data area, for instance,
it might well be the case that you could recover some classified data,
but certainly not all of it.

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 00:38:16 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <7ciV4.21866$nm6.358015@news-east.usenetserver.com> <39265FEC.8664E8CA@dallas.net> <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com> <NhgW4.16522$681.364800@news-east.usenetserver.com>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56952

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> 
>      [snip...]     [snip...]     [snip...]
> 
> If my buddy down the hall is lax about security and leaves classified
> files on the subway by accident, there's no law prohibiting their
> discoverers from publishing them.  In fact, the Washington Post
> published a series of classified papers known as the Pentagon Papers in
> the 1970s, revealing some interesting things.
> 
> In other words, if you know something top secret, there's no law to
> prohibit you from transmitting it to somebody else --- unless you
> promised not to.
> 
I do *not* know about the legality of all this...but when I worked for a
military contracter in the U.S., we regularly read things in the magazine
"Aviation Week" that were considered classified and that we would *not*
be at liberty to discuss.  I do *not* know how they obtained their
information, but it gives one a funny feeling to read something in a
public venue that one knows is secret.


-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

From: "Henry W. Miller" <hmiller@iols.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com> <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com> <39112a5a@news2.starnetinc.com> <3917354f$0$221@nntp1.ba.best.com> <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se> <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu> <3921E21F.855C2380@cfht.hawaii.edu> <lCwU4.920$s4.78594@petpeeve.ziplink.net> <wwg0rgn2jv.fsf@atlas.cfht.hawaii.edu> <FpLU4.1011$s4.83221@petpeeve.ziplink.net>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 09:19:54 -0700
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:56967

Dave,

"David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com> wrote in message
news:FpLU4.1011$s4.83221@petpeeve.ziplink.net...
> Not that strange,  must have been a used one.  Or maybe my memory is
faulty
> on this detail.

    If I recall, it was the "Frankenstein" (my nickname, not DEC's) machine,
built
from the remains of several KA-10's.  System 26, as I recall, not to be
confused
with the KL 1026.

    It was about the most reliable machine in Marlboro at the time, IIRC.
It did
eventually get moved to Bedford, with the rest of the Ed Services machines.

    Damn, that was a fun machine to play with.  And it could actually
support a
respectible number of users at one time.  And I also seem to recall that
they
used it for the TOPS-10 Monitor Internals Class for a while.

> After all, it was over 20 years ago.  I remember checking with the student
> to make sure the DECtape drives  were DECsystem-10 DECtapes,  and not the
> DECtapes that went with the PDP-11 front end
> for KL systems at that time.
>

    As David mentioned, it WAS over 20 years ago...

>
> Jim Thomas wrote in message ...
> >>>>>> "David" == David Cressey <david@dcressey.com> writes:
> >
> >Late 70's?  KA-10?  Strange :-)
> >
> >Nothead
>
>
>
>

    Best,

-HWM

######

From: David Razler <david.razler@worldnet.att.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Reply-To: david.razler@worldnet.com
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57096

On Wed, 24 May 2000 00:38:16 -0700, Charles Richmond
<richmond@dallas.net> wrote:

>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>> 
>>      [snip...]     [snip...]     [snip...]
>> 
>> If my buddy down the hall is lax about security and leaves classified
>> files on the subway by accident, there's no law prohibiting their
>> discoverers from publishing them.  In fact, the Washington Post
>> published a series of classified papers known as the Pentagon Papers in
>> the 1970s, revealing some interesting things.

The copy of the so-called Pentagon Papers, the military's own analysis
of the war in Viet Nam from Dien Ben Fu through the late 1960s was
owned, (ownership questionably legal) by former RAND employee Daniel
Ellsburg.

It was, incidentally, an edited version published by The NYT in both
serialized chapters in the paper and book-form. The full four volumes
were put on the record, despite their classification by U.S. Sen.
Gravel, who broke the informal regulations imposed on senators given
access to classified documents at the time and relied on the privilege
of his office to do so.

And The New York Times was stopped for a while from publishing, and
the Supreme Court decision allowing publication to continue was,
unfortunately, full of holes posing a danger for the future.

<see Sanford Unger's 'The Papers and The Papers' and Fred Friendly's
"Minnesota Rag'>

>> 
>> In other words, if you know something top secret, there's no law to
>> prohibit you from transmitting it to somebody else --- unless you
>> promised not to.

There are several laws, including an interesting civil law controlling
current and  former CIA and NSA employees. They sign a contract
requiring everything they write about the agency to be submitted to
formal review by the agency for life.

There are also post-Pentagon Papers laws that criminalize some
disclosure to the press or public, on top of the old laws regarding
treason (giving information to another nation-state)

The civil contract law deprived former CIA employee Frank Snepp of the
profits of his book 'Decent Interval' on the Viet Nam endgame.

It has also resulted in cuts and trims in other publications, many
trivial and silly, and the labor-intensive work by some authors to get
around it James Bamford, late of the NSA, sought out thousands of
public documents in order to back up everything in his excellent book
on his former employer, 'The Puzzle Palace' to avoid such action.

>> 
>I do *not* know about the legality of all this...but when I worked for a
>military contracter in the U.S., we regularly read things in the magazine
>"Aviation Week" that were considered classified and that we would *not*
>be at liberty to discuss.  I do *not* know how they obtained their
>information, but it gives one a funny feeling to read something in a
>public venue that one knows is secret.

The information comes to the journalists through three forms, same way
all other journalists get their 'secret' stuff <The folks at Aviation
Week and Space Technology and Jane's happen to be experts in their
field and wonderfully attuned to the trade they cover.>

1) The 'plant' a deliberate government maneuver that can include
disinformation as well as fact - well, the information is secret, but
we want them to know what we've got, so we'll just happen to give it
to....

2) Conversation with those involved - who either like talking or have
an agenda of their own to get the word out.

3) Multiple sources used to connect the dots: one collects all of the
public information and casual leaks and puts together the full
picture, just as the intelligence organizations do themselves - (see
A. Clarke's '2010' for an example of how a minor incident in his
fictional future<reports of complaints by Chinese firefighters that
their best pumps have suddenly been taken away> help those in the know
to come to a Dramatic Conclusion.

I've put together far more mundane stories on matters like local
corporate fights and charity fraud this way. You put together
everything you can get your hands on until the facts of the matter
become clear.

It is amazing how computers have helped both journalists and the
intelligence trade. For example, by querying two public databases we
keep at my paper's in-house computer, I was able to get the phone
number of someone trying to hide from the entire world. Took me 29
seconds. And that's using a 90-MHz Pentium, 32 meg, Win 95 and Access.

The main difference between reporters and spies is we can't wait to
tell EVERYONE what we found out. They keep things secret.

I haven't checked in a year or so, but the last time I heard, the
oldest document the Pentagon has refused to release on the grounds of
national security is entitled 'Troop Movements in Europe, April 1916.'

				dmr

######

From: "David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <8epvur$rep$1@ssauraab-i-1.production.compuserve.com> <39108b99$0$206@nntp1.ba.best.com> <39112a5a@news2.starnetinc.com> <3917354f$0$221@nntp1.ba.best.com> <3921366D.63DE7F92@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <39213818.F258CA84@netinsight.se> <FunpFJ.7KB@spcuna.spc.edu> <3921E21F.855C2380@cfht.hawaii.edu> <lCwU4.920$s4.78594@petpeeve.ziplink.net> <wwg0rgn2jv.fsf@atlas.cfht.hawaii.edu> <FpLU4.1011$s4.83221@petpeeve.ziplink.net> <392c0125@news2.starnetinc.com>
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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I was referring to the system at the customer's site,  not our system.

I managed system 26 for a while.  That was a real cobbled together job.  FS
training put the parts together,  and some of us instructors configured the
thing.  It was good for a lot of courses.

Once we moved to Bedford,  system 26 was transferred over to employee
training.  Customer training ended up with newer 10 and 20 systems,  but
sadly underconfigured for memory.    The entire rest of the shop there was
PDP-11s,  and later VAXen,  but the 10 and 20  were the only systems
supporting multiple concurrent classes.  There will never be another like
system 26 for me.


The rest of the training center had no clue.  For them,  it was one class,
one machine,  one terminal room.
And each instructor had his/her  own system disk.   Oh well, I didn't have a
clue about their stuff, either.

Somebody tried to explain a VAX to me,  in the early days.  "It's just what
you always want form a PDP-11", he said.  I replied: "All I ever wanted from
a PDP-11 was to forward my keystrokes to the computer,
and put the responses on my screen."  That was not an endearing remark.

$ exit 732777964


Henry W. Miller wrote in message <392c0125@news2.starnetinc.com>...
>Dave,
>
>"David Cressey" <david@dcressey.com> wrote in message
>news:FpLU4.1011$s4.83221@petpeeve.ziplink.net...
>> Not that strange,  must have been a used one.  Or maybe my memory is
>faulty
>> on this detail.
>
>    If I recall, it was the "Frankenstein" (my nickname, not DEC's)
machine,
>built
>from the remains of several KA-10's.  System 26, as I recall, not to be

######

From: Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Tue, 23 May 2000 02:43:33 -0400, ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice)
wrote:

>In article <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com>,
>Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
>
> > >Also, as holders of TOP SECRET clearances can tell you, there are
>things you
> > >know that are illegal to transmit to other people. 
> > 
> > Actually, everyone with CLASSIFIED and above "probably" has knowledge
> > that they are not at liberty to admit to.
>
>"Classified" is not a level; do you mean "Confidential"?  If so, I
>disagree.
>
>I know people who've had Top Secret clearances who have nothing they have
>to keep quiet.  I had a TS and am not aware of anything that I know that I
>have to keep quiet about, although I generally err on the keep-quiet side
>rather than the blab-everything side.    
>
>ehr
>

I actually did mean "Confidential."    "Classified" is a
communications category.   My error.  Since all information is
released on a need-to-know basis, there are cases where people with
Confidential clearance levels were privy to information that could not
be discussed.  Much of the info with a Confidential tag gets
declassified fairly quickly.  
I may not remember this correctly but if you have Top Secret or Eyes
Only access and admit that you know information which can not be
discussed, you are in effect, committing a breach of security.  So,
most people with top level clearance will not admit to being aware of
any secrets.

"I'm sorry Sir.  I can neither confirm nor deny that information."
Sound familliar?


-- 
Art Rice   **
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

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Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57011

In article <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com>,
Art Rice  <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
>I actually did mean "Confidential."    "Classified" is a
>communications category.   My error.

Classified includes confidential, secret, and top secret.

>Since all information is released on a need-to-know basis,

Most unclassified information is not released on a need-to-know basis.
It is released to whoever asks for it.

>there are cases where people with
>Confidential clearance levels were privy to information that could not
>be discussed.  Much of the info with a Confidential tag gets
>declassified fairly quickly.  

I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
a few years, though.

>I may not remember this correctly but if you have Top Secret or Eyes
>Only access and admit that you know information which can not be
>discussed, you are in effect, committing a breach of security.  So,
>most people with top level clearance will not admit to being aware of
>any secrets.
>
>"I'm sorry Sir.  I can neither confirm nor deny that information."
>Sound familliar?

I can see you have spent a great deal of time studying, um, Hollywood
portrayals of military security.  :)

Unlike most people, I read the reams of documents on security
procedures given to me during security indoctrination; I don't recall
reading anything suggesting that this is considered a breach of
security.  As far as I know, I can say, "Hi, I'm Kragen and I know all
about classified spread-spectrum communications." on Usenet, without
breaking any rules.  I think bringing it up like that would be
considered suspicious behavior, though; they would start trying to
figure out if I was looking for someone to sell the information to.

(For the record, I don't know anything about spread-spectrum
communications.  It was an example.  Geez, Guido, let go of my arm.)

Also, I'm not sure what "Eyes Only" access is.  :)
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

From: <bud@mycomputer.example.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 21:07:35 -0500
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57154

In alt.folklore.computers Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:

: I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
: fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
: a few years, though.

I've got some copies of historical material that formerly was 
classified confidential: microfilms of contract drawings of 
the 1916 US battle cruisers, bought from the National Archives 
some years ago.  Classification depends on the times, too.
The Department of the Navy used to publish a book listing the
ships of the US Navy, Ships' Data, that included tabulated
descriptions of each ship in the Navy.  In the '30s, Ships' Data
wasn't classified at all.  During WWII the same publication
had a Confidential classification.  

The Restricted classification (which basically meant for official
use only) _was_ dropped by the USA during the '70s.

Can't think of a cyberfolkloric connection for this, though.

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 04:36:45 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57108

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> 
>      [snip...]     [snip...]     [snip...]
> 
> Art Rice  <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
> >I may not remember this correctly but if you have Top Secret or Eyes
> >Only access and admit that you know information which can not be
> >discussed, you are in effect, committing a breach of security.  So,
> >most people with top level clearance will not admit to being aware of
> >any secrets.
> >
> >"I'm sorry Sir.  I can neither confirm nor deny that information."
> >Sound familliar?
> 
> I can see you have spent a great deal of time studying, um, Hollywood
> portrayals of military security.  :)
> 
> Unlike most people, I read the reams of documents on security
> procedures given to me during security indoctrination; I don't recall
> reading anything suggesting that this is considered a breach of
> security.  As far as I know, I can say, "Hi, I'm Kragen and I know all
> about classified spread-spectrum communications." on Usenet, without
> breaking any rules.  I think bringing it up like that would be
> considered suspicious behavior, though; they would start trying to
> figure out if I was looking for someone to sell the information to.
> 
I can assure you that Mr. Art Rice is correct.  There exists projects 
whose very names are classified Top Secret.  They are conducted in 
buildings with *no* external signs or markings.  (As if that in itself
was *not* conspicuous!!!)  All very cloak and dagger!  I have heard
that even people working on the same project could *not* communicate
with one another.

Another poor thing about having a security clearance (IMHO) is that
travel restrictions exist.  If you have a Secret or Top Secret clearance,
there are certain coutries that you are *not* allowed to visit.  I think
that you are required to report *any* foreign travel that you do.  I
currently have *no* clearance, and I am hoping that anything classified
that I might have know would by now have expired being classified.  (I
can *not* remember anything that was classified...*not* even the combinations
to my now *non* existant classified safes.)

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57171

>
> Five megs?  What in the world would you ever do with that much space? :)
>
> hawk

Dunno! I have a collection of C64 programs.... maybe I'll be able to fit them all
on, and have room for more!!!

My Lisa has a 10Mb HDD!!!! Twice as nice!


--
Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
     time :(                     **   **       **
E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
Ph: (02) 9708-6645
mBox: (02) 8588-8580
IRC: Josh90
ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
Napster: Josh90
Address: 77 Woodbine St,
Yagoona, NSW, Australia

######

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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57173



Eric Smith wrote:

> kragen@dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:
> > Fortunately, in the US, nothing is illegal to know, reverse engineering
> > is protected by case law,
>
> No longer entirely true, thanks to the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright
> Act).  The anti-reverse-engineering provisions take effect on 1-Jan-2001.
>
> :-(

Back in the early days of DOS, it seemed to be ok to reverse engineer.
I learnt about the situation, when Compaq (??) did this to IBM's PC (BIOS
maybe?).

They didn't get sued, did they ?

These days, all EULAs mention "reverse engineer".
So they saying you CAN'T rev. eng. it.
Now, what's this DMCA say, from 1/1/2000 ??

I beleive we should be able to rev. eng. stuff.
That's how people show their appreciation for existing products. It also is
called COMPETITION!!!

I have created many programs. Any that I'm gonna bother to be serious with,
and distribute, I shall mention something like this: "Reverse engineering of
this program, and it's associated components, is fully allowed" :)
Or I may just do some kinda GPL/open-sauce thing... I still dunno.


--
Joshua Hrouda                    **   **       *******
Joshua Hrouda Electronics        **   **       *******
Interweb: jhe.cjb.net            **   **
BBS: defunct after about 6       **   ******   *******
     users, and not enough       **   ******   *******
     time :(                     **   **       **
E-mail: j_hrouda@hotmail.     *****   **       *******
        com.of.course-no.spam ****    **       *******
Ph: (02) 9708-6645
mBox: (02) 8588-8580
IRC: Josh90
ICQ UIN: 12208290 (Josh9.0)
Napster: Josh90
Address: 77 Woodbine St,
Yagoona, NSW, Australia

######

From: westin*nospam@graphics.cornell.edu (Stephen H. Westin)
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
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Joshua Hrouda <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> writes:

<snip>

> Back in the early days of DOS, it seemed to be ok to reverse engineer.
> I learnt about the situation, when Compaq (??) did this to IBM's PC (BIOS
> maybe?).
> 
> They didn't get sued, did they ?

And IBM has regretted it ever since.

> These days, all EULAs mention "reverse engineer".
> So they saying you CAN'T rev. eng. it.
> Now, what's this DMCA say, from 1/1/2000 ??

It's a U.S. law. As I understand it, various business interests are
concerned about unauthorized decoding and copying of movies, music,
software, etc. They see the potential loss of revenue as the greatest
disaster that could befall mankind, and have influenced the drafting
of a law that says, more or less, that unauthorized decrypting or
defeating a copy-protection scheme will be illegal under all
circumstances. Including, say, when the protection scheme goes awry
and makes legally licensed software unusable. And it indemnifies
producers of such software from any liability in such cases.

Of course, it's just as legal (or not) in Australia as it has always
been.

-- 
-Stephen H. Westin
Any information or opinions in this message are mine: they do not
represent the position of Cornell University or any of its sponsors.

######

From: Alexandre Pechtchanski <alex*@*rockvax.rockefeller.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York
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References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <t8ciis8ms8d4huur1uqkvpmhccadaa35se@4ax.com> <B54FA0D5966850FBD5@0.0.0.0> <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com> <pqfX4.57179$681.1128333@news-east.usenetserver.com> <392E61CD.6C866F6@dallas.net>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57251

On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:36:45 -0700, Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
wrote:
[ snip ]

>...  I have heard
>that even people working on the same project could *not* communicate
>with one another.

Ah!  That reminds me a joke: three secret guys are discussing whose security is
most tight.  An american says "we have lots of offices, and those in one office
don't know what those in the other offices are doing".  An English guy says "Ha!
In our secret service even those working in the same office don't know what
workers at other desks are doing".  Soviet guys says "I can top this easily.  I
work at this desk for 15 years, and I still don't know what I am doing".

-- 
[ When replying, remove *'s from address ]
Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY

######

Message-ID: <392EDE9C.87E460A9@thinkage.ca>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57131

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> 
> In article <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com>,
> 
> I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
> fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
> a few years, though.

I don't now about the US, but in Canada "confidential" clearance
is used for things that should not be released for privacy
reasons, not because of national security. (Individual tax and
medical records for example.)

######

Message-ID: <392F24FB.9616EADC@jetnet.ab.ca>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 19:29:31 -0600
From: Ben Franchuk <bfranchuk@jetnet.ab.ca>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57135

G Swaine wrote:

> Haven't you all heard of the first rule of computing as laid down by
> that wonderful nice-guy Bill Gates: "If it can't fit on a single-sided
> single-density floppy disc, then it's too large and must be slimmed
> down", which, as we all know, is strictly adhered to by all participants
> in the software industry.
> 
 Thats true ... Windows does not come under "software" category
it comes under "virus" and does not have to follow the  above
rule.Ben.

-- 
"We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents...
 We borrow it from our children."
"Ancient Logic" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/al/index.html

######

From: "G Swaine" <g.swaine@the.gluepot.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 13:47:10 +1200
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57209


"Joshua Hrouda" <j_hrouda@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> wrote
in message
news:392E95A6.F7928D97@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com...
> >
> > Five megs?  What in the world would you ever do with that much
space? :)
> >
> > hawk
>
> Dunno! I have a collection of C64 programs.... maybe I'll be able to
fit them all
> on, and have room for more!!!
>
> My Lisa has a 10Mb HDD!!!! Twice as nice!

Ten megabits? Dont you mean one-quarter as nice as the five megabyte
drive?

And a hard disc drive? You're not using it as a file-server for a
world-wide network are you? And if so, what are you doing with the
leftover space?

Haven't you all heard of the first rule of computing as laid down by
that wonderful nice-guy Bill Gates: "If it can't fit on a single-sided
single-density floppy disc, then it's too large and must be slimmed
down", which, as we all know, is strictly adhered to by all participants
in the software industry.

:)

--

Due to the amount of junkmail I've received in the past, this message
has bogus From and ReplyTo addresses. I can be contacted via an
intermediary : gem at gem win co nz. I would like to apologise to the
genuine respondents that this may inconvenience.

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com> <pqfX4.57179$681.1128333@news-east.usenetserver.com> <392E61CD.6C866F6@dallas.net>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57114

In article <392E61CD.6C866F6@dallas.net>,
Charles Richmond  <richmond@dallas.net> wrote:
>I can assure you that Mr. Art Rice is correct.  There exists projects 
>whose very names are classified Top Secret.

Yes, that's definitely correct --- although I'm not familiar with any
of them myself.

>They are conducted in 
>buildings with *no* external signs or markings.  (As if that in itself
>was *not* conspicuous!!!)  All very cloak and dagger!  I have heard
>that even people working on the same project could *not* communicate
>with one another.

I don't know enough to confirm or deny most of the above, except that
certainly if you have people with different clearances working on the
same project, some of them may know things others are not cleared to
know.

I have not heard of any restrictions on who you could, say, eat lunch
with.

>Another poor thing about having a security clearance (IMHO) is that
>travel restrictions exist.  If you have a Secret or Top Secret clearance,
>there are certain coutries that you are *not* allowed to visit.

Are you sure?  I guess they neglected to tell me this when they granted
my TS.  ;)

>I think that you are required to report *any* foreign travel that you do.

Yes, and any contact with foreign people --- although my facilities
security officer tells me that I'm fine only reporting if they do
something suspicious, like ask what I work on.  :)
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com> <pqfX4.57179$681.1128333@news-east.usenetserver.com> <392EDE9C.87E460A9@thinkage.ca>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57116

In article <392EDE9C.87E460A9@thinkage.ca>,
Alan T. Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> wrote:
>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>> In article <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com>,
>> 
>> I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
>> fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
>> a few years, though.
>
>I don't now about the US, but in Canada "confidential" clearance
>is used for things that should not be released for privacy
>reasons, not because of national security. (Individual tax and
>medical records for example.)

In the US, "confidential" classification is used by the DoD for things
whose release could cause harm to national security.  I can't remember
what kind of harm --- "secret" is "severe harm", I think, and "top
secret" is "exceptionally severe harm".  But I haven't read the refs in
a year or two.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
References: <sgs33e14oog147@corp.supernews.com> <qhzopghe9w.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <392E9C73.2C9F6D75@hotmail.spamlite.low-salt.low-fat.com> <ur9apgv85.fsf@graphics.cornell.edu>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57105

In article <ur9apgv85.fsf@graphics.cornell.edu>,
Stephen H. Westin <westin*nospam@graphics.cornell.edu> wrote:
>Of course, it[reverse engineering]'s just as legal (or not) in
>Australia as it has always been.

According to http://slashdot.org/articles/99/08/13/1129253.shtml:

 Anonymous Coward writes "The Australian government passed legislation
 yesterday guaranteeing the right to reverse engineer software for the
 purposes of diagnosing and fixing problems and for interoperability."
 Looks like WINE and other Windows emulation projects ought to be
 headquarted in Australia, doesn't it?

From the linked press release
(http://www.dcita.gov.au/nsapi-text/?MIval=dca_dispdoc&pathid=4189):
     The Attorney-General, the Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MP and Senator the
     Hon Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology
     and the Arts announced today that passage of the Copyright Amendment
     (Computer Programs) Bill 1999 will allow software engineers to decompile
     computer software in limited circumstances so they can develop
     interoperable products.

     Currently software copyright owners can block this type of decompilation
     as an infringement of copyright.

     New laws mean developers will be able to decompile software to find this
     vital interface information if it is not readily available.

     Overseas developers have been able to do this for some time,
     particularly in Europe and the United States of America where
     Australia's main competitors in this sector are located.

As you might guess from the /. URL, this press release happened
1999-08-13.

So, actually, decompilation (one variety of reverse engineering) used
to be frequently illegal in Australia, but now it's been legal for nine
months.
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

From: Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 05:54:41 -0700
Organization: Cannine Computer Center
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57122

Alexandre Pechtchanski wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 26 May 2000 04:36:45 -0700, Charles Richmond <richmond@dallas.net>
> wrote:
> [ snip ]
> 
> >...  I have heard
> >that even people working on the same project could *not* communicate
> >with one another.
> 
> Ah!  That reminds me a joke: three secret guys are discussing whose security is
> most tight.  An american says "we have lots of offices, and those in one office
> don't know what those in the other offices are doing".  An English guy says "Ha!
> In our secret service even those working in the same office don't know what
> workers at other desks are doing".  Soviet guys says "I can top this easily.  I
> work at this desk for 15 years, and I still don't know what I am doing".
> 
I have heard something similar...sign in an office:  "My job is so
secret, not
even I know what I am doing."

Another east-west joke:  In the Kennedy-Kruschev years, an American and
a Russian
were arguing about whose contry was most free.  The American said:  "I
can stand
on the steps of the U.S. capitol building and shout: 'President Kennedy
is an
idiot!!!'".  The Russian said:  "That's nothing...I can stand on the
steps of the
Kremlin and shout:  'President Kennedy is an idiot!!!'"

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

######

From: "Don Chiasson" <don_chiasson@earthling.net>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 09:15:36 -0400
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57219


Kragen Sitaker wrote in message ...
>In article <392EDE9C.87E460A9@thinkage.ca>,
>Alan T. Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> wrote:
>>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>>> In article <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com>,
>>I don't now about the US, but in Canada "confidential"
clearance
>>is used for things that should not be released for privacy
>>reasons, not because of national security. (Individual tax
and
>>medical records for example.)
>
>In the US, "confidential" classification is used by the DoD
for things
>whose release could cause harm to national security.  I
can't remember
>what kind of harm --- "secret" is "severe harm", I think,
and "top
>secret" is "exceptionally severe harm".  But I haven't read
the refs in
>a year or two.


In Canada, "confidential" as well as "secret" and "top
secret" mean
the same as in the U.S. If they don't it gets complicated
deciding
what handling procedures to use. Canada does have the
designation
"protected" to cover privacy issues.
            Don

######

Message-ID: <393019FF.921D1963@mail.ptd.net>
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57132

Art Rice wrote:
> 
> Much of the info with a Confidential tag gets
> declassified fairly quickly.

I once saw a message from some Air Farce command that contained the
instructions, "Declassify upon receipt."

######

From: Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Thu, 25 May 2000 21:07:35 -0500, <bud@mycomputer.example.net>
wrote:

>In alt.folklore.computers Kragen Sitaker <kragen@dnaco.net> wrote:
>
>: I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
>: fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
>: a few years, though.
>
>I've got some copies of historical material that formerly was 
>classified confidential: microfilms of contract drawings of 
>the 1916 US battle cruisers, bought from the National Archives 
>some years ago.  Classification depends on the times, too.
>The Department of the Navy used to publish a book listing the
>ships of the US Navy, Ships' Data, that included tabulated
>descriptions of each ship in the Navy.  In the '30s, Ships' Data
>wasn't classified at all.  During WWII the same publication
>had a Confidential classification.  
>
>The Restricted classification (which basically meant for official
>use only) _was_ dropped by the USA during the '70s.
>
>Can't think of a cyberfolkloric connection for this, though.

Confidential also showed up quite a bit during the 60s and 70s.

For Kragen:  "Eyes Only" is a Brittish classification.

-- 
Art Rice   **
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

From: Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57339

On Fri, 26 May 2000 16:29:16 -0400, "Alan T. Bowler"
<atbowler@thinkage.ca> wrote:

>Kragen Sitaker wrote:
>> 
>> In article <4miqis840pjq3lihl9agnm71mctak6fg1v@4ax.com>,
>> 
>> I have never seen anything classified Confidential --- I thought it had
>> fallen into disuse.  I've only worked in the cloak-and-dagger field for
>> a few years, though.
>
>I don't now about the US, but in Canada "confidential" clearance
>is used for things that should not be released for privacy
>reasons, not because of national security. (Individual tax and
>medical records for example.)

When I did my service, early 70s,  there were some equipments that had
been declassified but the purpose for which they had been built (and
the end-users) was still considered "Confidential" information.  When
I was discharged it was still confidential.  



-- 
Art Rice   **
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

From: Art Rice <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On Sat, 27 May 2000 18:59:44 GMT, "Thomas M. Sommers"
<tms2@mail.ptd.net> wrote:

>Art Rice wrote:
>> 
>> Much of the info with a Confidential tag gets
>> declassified fairly quickly.
>
>I once saw a message from some Air Farce command that contained the
>instructions, "Declassify upon receipt."

Can't get much quicker than that.

-- 
Art Rice   **
Special Data Processing Corporation
--------------------------------------
All opinions expressed are mine and do 
not reflect the views of my employer.

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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In article <83k7js0vddrpmlho1his1h8mh334stht4b@4ax.com>,
Art Rice  <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
>For Kragen:  "Eyes Only" is a Brittish classification.

Oh, OK --- thanks for the clarification.  What does it mean?
-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
The Internet stock bubble didn't burst on 1999-11-08.  Hurrah!
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>
The power didn't go out on 2000-01-01 either.  :)

######

From: jmfbahciv@aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:57396

In article <aek-1605001740530001@haxrus.apple.com>,
   aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) wrote:
>In article <FuoFu8.FA0@spcuna.spc.edu>, Terry Kennedy <terry@gate.tmk.com>
>wrote:
>
>>   you might be able to get there by taking the SCSI interface
>> > out of one of the SCSI 9-track drives (at least, I know Qualstar does 
it by
>> > makign their SCSI interface drive the Pertec interface on the back 
side) and
>> > hanging it on a 7-track drive.
>>
>
>Good luck FINDING a 7 track drive. The last one I heard about was a 
>7 track TU10 on eBay last year. I'm REALLY happy that I don't have any
>tapes that are 7 track :-)
>
>I remember hearing a story about Stanford scrambling around trying to
>find a 7 track TU10 in the late 80's to try to read SAIL tapes.
<snip>

Why a TU10?  That would guarantee an inability to read.  We
had a TU71 (TU70 7-track) that we had to have just because
we had customer who owned tapes that were written on 7-track
drives, may own a 7-track drive, or might own 7-track drives.
It was one of the distasteful side effects of backwards
compatibility support.  Having this drive on our system (it
was the only 7-track in DEC) was a part of the downsizing of
OSes.  One of the distribution options of our software was
7- or 9- track magtapes.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

######

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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On 2000-05-30 kragen@dnaco.net(KragenSitaker) said:
   >In article <83k7js0vddrpmlho1his1h8mh334stht4b@4ax.com>,
   >Art Rice  <arice.NOcSPAM@ue.itug.org> wrote:
   >>For Kragen:  "Eyes Only" is a Brittish classification.
   >Oh, OK --- thanks for the clarification.  What does it mean?
Look but don't touch..

Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive

######

Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc,vmsnet.pdp-11
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
From: yodathejediknight@att.net (Gregg C Levine)
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Hello from Gregg C Levine the Master Jedi
I also want to contribute to this concept. Even the demo version is a 
capable demonstration. John Wilson even invited me to develop, and 
expand on the Fuzzball software that he provides. Now about that version 
of your emulator, the Supnik emulator, you say you have a copy that runs 
under the usual IBMPC OSes, and hardware configurations. Fine. Where 
can I get my copy? Please contact me off of this group.
Gregg C Levine yodathejediknight@att.net
<This sig is for rent, see Lando Calrissian>
<Spammers beware! This address is protect by the Jedi Knights.>
In article <3928B741.4C80955E@idirect.com>, jhfine@idirect.com says...
>
>>Charles Richmond wrote:
>
>> Megan wrote:
>> > Lord Apollyon <i-liquify-spammers-May2000@paypc.com> writes:
>> > >Nostalgia ain't worth $2k, but what I wanna know is who is PAYING 
that
>> > >kind of price?  I mean, these greedy dudes don't seem out of 
business
>> > >yet - so SOMEONE is willingly taking the knife in the chest 
(repeatedly)
>> > >for these pieces of software.
>> > What you fail to realize is that there are still MANY companies who
>> > continue to use pdp-11 software.  And for that, they need machines.
>> > Well, PCs are a commodity item nowadays... they're really cheap.
>> > Since a pdp-11 had a larger initial cost, plus the cost of maintaining
>> > it, spending $2k for a *very good emulator* which can run all the
>> > old code can be a real win and not, as you mention, taking a knife in
>> > the chest.
>> But...these other PDP-11 emulator companies *could* offer a hobbyist
>> license, as Mr. John Wilson does.  That would *not* materially affect
>> the money they are making with their software.  So if they are *not*
>> jerks, they are still *not* as nice as John...   :-)
>> +-------------------------------------------------------------+
>> |     Charles and Francis Richmond     <richmond@plano.net>   |
>> +-------------------------------------------------------------+
>
>Jerome Fine replies:
>
>I want to respond to a number of issues!
>
>(a) I want to second the motion that John Wilson (http://www.dbit.com) 
is nice.
>
>(b) The Supnik emulator is also free and is able to run on more than 
UNIX
>platforms.  In particular, I have a copy which runs under DOS/W95/W98.
>Although the Supnik emulator lacks MSCP emulator support along with 
many
>of the features found in the Eratz-11 emulator from John Wilson, it is still 
a
>reasonable and useful emulator, ESPECIALLY since RSTS/RSX/RT-11 
are
>all legal (or at least old versions like V5.3 from RT-11 from 1985) to run 
under the
>Supnik emulator.
>
>(c) Megan Gentry neglects to mention that the hobby version of Eratz-11 
is free.
>What is not addressed is the use of PDP-11 operating systems by hobby 
users.
>In addition, the more than $ US 2000 cost of running software using the 
commercial
>versions of the Eratz-11 emulators is due to the high cost of the PDP-11 
operating
>systems.  In fact, all of the RSTS/E, RSX-11 and RT-11 
license/distribution cost
>to legally run any of these 3 OSs on a real PDP-11 or the "Lite" version 
of the
>Eratz-11 emulator is substantially greater than the license for the "Lite" 
version
>of the Eratz-11 emulator.
>
>(d) On the other hand, I also agree with Megan Gentry that the cost of 
the Eratz-11
>emulator for a commercial user is very reasonable.  In fact, the cost of the 
"Lite" version
>of the Eratz-11 emulator is much less than $ US 2000 and if that is all a 
particular
>commercial user requires, it is a bargain.
>
>(e) Contrary to an interesting response by Stuart Brook, NONE of the 
above points
>are are even close to a complaint about the cost of PDP-11 operating 
system
>software, especially for commercial users.  And if Mr. Brook considers 
that I am
>"ranting" on behalf of the hobby users in respect of the cost changed 
by Mentec
>for PDP-11 software, perhaps it is because he has a guilty conscience 
with respect
>to the prices that are charged for the current versions as opposed to the 
availability
>of hobby licenses offered by Compaq/DEC for current VMS licenses.  If 
my post
>of Sunday, May 21st, 2000 at 15:32:10 GMT does anything, it definitely 
points out
>that Mentec does allow very old versions of PDP-11 OSs to be run under 
the
>Supnik emulator by hobby users.  For a hobby user of RT-11, V5.3  from 
1985
>can probably run any program that is presently available to be run under 
RT-11
>except those which need I/D space that was first made available under 
TSX-PLUS
>and finally with V5.6 of RT-11 in 1992.  Since I do not consider that 
restriction to
>be a problem and I am positive that almost no RT-11 hobby users care 
about Y2K
>issues, I am confident that simply pointing out where the costs occur, 
for commercial
>users who want to run up-to-date PDP-11 software, is not in any manner 
a "rant"
>on behalf of hobby users of RT-11 who are perfectly content to run V5.3 
of RT-11.
>If Mr. Brook wishes to reply, perhaps he could include a list of the prices 
that Mentec
>charges for BOTH the license and the distributions for the 3 major OSs 
(RSTS/RSX/
>RT-11) along with FORTRAN and C and DECnet.  Otherwise, I suggest 
that there
>is very little use in continuing without knowing what Mr. Brook is being 
upset about.
>
>Sincerely yours,
>
>Jerome Fine
>