HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mass Bus
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 8 Jan 93 10:00:29 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) writes:
>   First, a gentle poke: When you collect these older systems, you should try
> to get some manuals or the generic sales literature of the time for them as
> well. This is the third question from you I've answered tonight, and they're
> all solveable with the documentation. You also might ask on the net if any-
> one has old PDP-11 manuals they're throwing out and see if you can get some
> that way.

Amen to that.  

The most useful books are the handbooks published between 1976 and 1983.
Older books are unlikely to cover the equipment you have, and tend to be
hard to find -- they're printed on newsprint and are a bit inclined
to fall apart.  Newer books are almost entirely content free -- I have a
1984 RSX handbook, from which the only useful information I have ever managed
to glean was a comparison of disk drive seek times, which I would have got
out of a catalogue if I'd had one handy at the time.  There are a couple of
exceptions, eg the 1984 VAX Architecture Handbook (not the 1986 version which
I unfortunately have) and the Terminals and Printers handbooks.  T&P replaced
the far more useful Terminals and Communications book (mine's dated 1979, and
covers such interesting hardware as the IMP11, PCL11, COMM IOP, along with 
toys like the PDT-11, as well as programming info for many of these bits),
which covered comms controllers as well.  

Sigh.  Those books were really useful, and DEC used to give 'em away.

>   The "real" PDP-11 Massbus adapter is on the PDP-11/70, which has space for
> four Massbus controllers which directly access the 32-bit memory bus of the
> 11/70. The model number for an 11/70 Massbus adapter is RH70.

MASSBUS was the fastest I/O system DEC had for a long time (and the 11/70
let you *use* it too!).  

On the VAX, the MBA/RM05 or RP07 combination could comfortably outrun the
CI based I/O systems with their intelligent controllers, until the CIBCA
adapter was released, around 1987-88.  CIBCIs (which IMHO are the worst 
mechanical design I've ever had to tear apart) or the older SBI-connected
CI adapters just don't cut it.

Of course you can't cluster over MASSBUS, and CI has far more bandwidth 
than any single adapter could squeeze out of it, which makes it well suited
to clusters of machines accessing common disk farms.

--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                        don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre            don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand              +64-4-495-5052
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Date: 8 Jan 93 12:02:06 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

pjdm@chmeee.enet.dec.com (Peter Mayne) writes:


>I'd like to know how many instructions some popular microprocessors have,
>and this group would undoubtedly jump at the chance to pull out this kind
>of trivia. :-) (Undoubtedly we'll also learn some other stuff along the way.)

>I'll start:

>ARM (RISC):		<30
>6502 (RISC?):		55
>8086 (non-RISC):	90+
>Alpha (RISC):		150 (approx)
>VAX (non-RISC):		>400

This brings me back to the question: how do you count the number of
instructions? Do different addressing modes count as several
isntructions? If the assembler uses different mnemonics for
instructions that differ only in addressing mode (or which registers
are used), do they then count as several instructions?

If, on the ARM, LDR count as one instruction regardless of which
register is loaded, does LDX and LDY on the 6502 count as two?

If, on the PDP11, MOV with addressing modes that allow source and
destination in registers or memory count as a single instruction,
does LDR and STR on the ARM count as one or two instructions?

If one processor has separate load word and load byte instructions,
and another specifies this as part of the addressing mode, how do we
count these?

Do we count conditional branch and unconditional branch as different
instructions? What if all instructions can potentially be conditional?

Basically I think it is impossible to find a convention for counting
instructions that is reasonable for all processors.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: markz@ssc.com (Mark Zenier)
Subject: Video Game Processors (Re: Is 4004 the first microprocessor ?)
Organization: SSC, Inc.,  Seattle, WA
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1993 20:39:02 GMT
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Chris Cebelenski (cpc@shell.portal.com) wrote:
:  
:  As a semi related thread, does anyone know what processors were used
:  in home video game systems? (Atari VCS, Magnavox Odysessy, Intelevision,
:  etc.)  Past and present?

I don't think the Odesessy had a programmable processor as such.
The Fairchild game (Channel 8?) used an F8, and the RCA studio II
used an 1802.  All of this circa 1977.  Most of the later stuff
used 6502's.

Mark Zenier  markz@ssc.wa.com  

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: mph@plasma.apana.org.au (Martin Peter Howell)
Subject: Re: Number of instructions in microprocessors
Organization: APANA site, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 16:38:55 GMT

don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes) writes:

>Will someone refresh my failing memory?  For the 6502 mnemonics, I get:

>Move:	lda ldx ldy sta stx sty txa tya tax tay txs tsx php plp pha pla
>Control:jmp beq bne bpl bmi bcc bcs bvs bvc jsr rts brk rti
>Arith:	adc sbc inx iny dex dey inc
>Bitwise:rol ror lsl asr and ora eor
>Flags:	sei sed sec cli cld cld
                        ^^^^^^^

>That's 49.  I can't remember if the Minus, Zero and oVerflow flags had
>SEf/CLf instructions.  If not, can someone remind me what the other six
>mnemonics were (and/or correct my list).  It's been about six years since
>I touched one of these things....

You forgot:

Move:       
Control:    cmp(!) cpx cpy nop
Arith:      dec 
Bitwise:    bit 
Flags:      clc clv 

there is no lsl or asr, instead there is asl and lsr. 
I count 56 total.

-Martin.
mph@plasma.apana.org.au
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: sjm1@crux2.cit.cornell.edu (Iceland Boy!)
Subject: Digigal Rainbow 100?
Keywords: digital, DEC, Rainbow 100
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies
Date:  4 Jan 93 18:20:34 GMT

A couple of days ago I was poking around in the Connecticut State Surplus
Retail Store (translation: State junk shop, good junk cheap) and I came
upon a wall-o'-Digital Rainbow 100s.  They were having a terrific 90% off
sale, so I got one for 20 bucks, including weird 1982 monitor and keyboard
that plugs into the back of the monitor with a phone jack.  I thought it
would look neat next to my 486, and indeed it does, reminding me of a bygone
era in computing.  The only problem is, I have NO idea what operating system
these things ran.  I assume it must be CP/M (or is that C/PM?  I can never
remember...), or perhaps one of DEC's proprietary OS's?  I must admit I know
little about the early days of desktop computing, but I'd love to get this
thing running.  Right now it just lets me access "terminal mode" after
start up.  If anyone could give me some info about the Rainbow 100, I'd
be quite thankful.

-- Seth J. Morabito     sjm1@crux2.cit.cornell.edu
	Cornell University Llama Processing Unit
	"Doing Llamas right since 1967"
From: daz@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (David A. Z.)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Date: 4 Jan 93 23:39:23 GMT
Organization: /etc/organization
NNTP-Posting-Host: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu

In article <1992Dec31.084528.12526@telesoft.com> kst@telesoft.com 
(Keith Thompson @pulsar) writes:

>Each integer can be described by a finite string of ASCII characters.

	Huh?  You mean I can't have an integer with an infinite number of
digits BEFORE the decimal point?

	If so, it would seem to infer (pardon the layman's terms) that there
exists some integer so gosh-darn long, that it couldn't be multiplied by 10.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
From: agc@bmdhh286.bnr.ca (Alan Carter)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Mass Bus
Date: 7 Jan 93 09:11:12 GMT
Organization: BNR-Europe-Limited, Maidenhead, England

In article <1993Jan7.072148.1480@netcom.com>, sspatter@netcom.com (Samuel Scott Patterson) writes:
|> 'lo.
|> 
|>      anybody out there got any idea what Mass Bus is?  I have a card in
|> my Unibus PDP-11/34a that has a jack on it and the card is labeled, 
|> "Mass Bus"  I suspect it's a converter to some other bus format so the 
|> PDP can use the Mass Bus backplane but what the heck does Mass Bus go to?

It handles transfers between the Transporter and the Pattern Buffer. 
You need to degauss it every couple of years to prevent buildups of 
wee Scottish engineers. 

   Alan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the
   river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy
   hotels, patronized chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. 

   Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome, 1889
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: My first computer (Was Re: "Stringy Floppy")
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:34:35 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.104139.181@front.se>, samuel@front.se writes:

|>In article <1993Jan9.201706.27670@EE.Stanford.EDU>, siegman@EE.Stanford.EDU 
|>(Anthony E. Siegman) writes:
|>
|>>    Among the collection of bizarre early computer artifacts...
|>> [...]
|>>    The Stringy Floppy was a little box that connected to a TRS-80
|>> Model I Level II...
|>
|>This story reminds me about my first computer, a "TRS-80 Level I
|>Basic" or something like that.
|>
|>The Basic-interpretator had the following interesting features :
|>
|>  - The program was stored in its ASCII representation.
|>  - There was a fixed set of variables, the 26 floating-point A..Z,
|>    one (sic!) array of floating-point A, and the two 10-character
|>    strings A$ and B$. If you needed more than 26 variables, or more
|>    than one array you had to use subsets of the array A according to
|>    some delibrate scheme. 
|>  - String comparations of type IF A$ = "YES" THEN was not allowed.
|>  - The only keyboard input function was INPUT, but on the other hand,
|>    keyboard input was not buffered, i.e. if you typed something on 
|>    the keyboard when the computer was 'working', the text were anyway
|>    printed to the screen. This proved to be VERY useful.
|>  - And actually one useful feature : It was possible to supply 
|>    expressions, not just constants as parameter X when INPUT X was 
|>    executed.

Plus no access to machine code I seem to rmember so that it was not possible to
do the job properly yourself. The same story was true for the Texas Instruments
beastie, which when it arrived in the UK cost almost a thousand pounds for a
usable system! This was when a PET cost 400 quid and a grand bought you a fairly
nice apple II system with disks on it!.

One of my favorite hacks from those days I remember was playing with a
multithreaded version of BASIC on PET and APPLE. The key was that MICROSOFT
basic for 6502 used to has to call a routine in RAM to fetch the next command
token. By subverting it you could make the interpreter do jumps within a program
under control of a separate clock. Very nice for doing dataloggers etc.

The system was called Tomult and was produced by ICI of all people.

--

Phill Hallam-Baker
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 04:12:41 GMT

In article <rdippold.726434106@cancun>, rdippold@cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron
Dippold) writes:

|>> - but then that might just have been
|>>a Commodore-bigot's point of view.  (My disk drive was smarter than my
|>>computer - it had 3 6502s in it!)  (Sort of reminiscent of the time when the
|>>most powerful computer Apple made was the Laserwriter)
|>
|>Yeah, it was cool on the C-64 how you could detach the drives from the
|>machine and let them copy by themselves.  I also remember that because
|>the drive was so smart Commodore decided that it wasn't really
|>necessary for the computer to talk to the disk drive with any speed.
|>Ouch.  Thank gawd for the fastload cartridges that came out later!

I started on the PET (all species). Recently I was given a semi dead 4032 that
someone had tweaked to get 40/80 mode out of it, it seems to start up ok but the
cursor don't flash and the keyboard don't work. Probably a blown 6522/6520.

Anyway getting drives is a real hassle - they are too popular. Because they plug
onto the IEEE-488 bus they also plug into scopes, intelligent DVMS and all sorts
of goodies. The people with the blighters want to keep 'em!


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
From: chardi@cs.man.ac.uk (Ian "Flup" Chard)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: The mark of a drunken hacker
Date: 12 Jan 93 10:06:10 GMT
Reply-To: chardi@cs.man.ac.uk
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester

I thought I was immune from this sort of thing, but upon awakening after a
particularly good New Year's party, I opened my eyes and I couldn't stop the
room moving.  This is all very well and good, but at the time all I could
think was "Aarrgghh, I can't get a lockable picture"!

Thus confirming what I had hitherto only suspected:  the line between humans
and computers is very, very thin...  ;-)

Ian.

-- 

[ Ian Chard, Systems Integration |  "Oh, Tetrapak, I always wondered where    ]
[ University of Manchester, UK   |  those were made!"                         ]
[ Email:    chardi@cs.man.ac.uk  |                                            ]
[ Al-Hussein:    50d50'N 0d15'W  |                                   -- anon. ]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: rorschak@daimi.aau.dk (Jesper Lauridsen)
Subject: Re: REQUEST "Shoot yourself in the foot!..
Organization: Farmers against PDP-11
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 17:49:25 GMT

No thanks.
-- 
 Jesper Lauridsen      | I am a computer scientist
 rorschak@daimi.aau.dk | I science computers
From: kurz.1@ipa.fhg.de (Hermann Kurz)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to ... SC/MP
Date: 7 Jan 1993 11:11:10 GMT
Organization: IPA Stuttgart
NNTP-Posting-Host: leila1.ipa.fhg.de

In article <7123@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> mark-r@spec0.ee.man.ac.uk 
(Mark Robinson (JO PhD)) writes:

>All this talk of old micros has reminded me..

>Three questions, 5 points each, here's your starter for 10...

>1. What was the proper numeric title of the SC/MP (Single
>Chip / Microprocessor - often called SCaMP, SCaMPy, SCruMPy, etc).
>Was it the 1802?

No, if memory serves me well it was the INS 8060

>2. Why was it so popular in hobbyist SBC kits and evaluation
>boards in the mid-late 70's, but then died such an abrupt death?

It was extremely cheap but also extremely limited

>3. Any details about architecture/instruction set/idiosyncracies
>would be interesting. Has anybody built anything round this thing
>recently?

- There was no Stackpointer
- There was a DELAY instruction (no loops required!)

- only short jumps where implemented, to do a long jump, you have to load 
  one of the three available 16-bit registers with the destination 
  address and exchange the PC with this register 
- Address pointer wraps around at 2^12 (4096)
- on my system, the two last points where no real limitation, because i had 
  only 256 byte of RAM (this was 1978 and memory prices where sort of high)
- this system is running in my appartment, it makes a good blinkenlights!
      (hey, this is my first computer!)

---
ern
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:18580 sci.math:17669 comp.compression:4318
From: madler@cco.caltech.edu (Mark Adler)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math,comp.compression
Subject: Re: Compressing decimal expansion of pi (was Re: PI)
Date: 5 Jan 1993 00:53:17 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: punisher.caltech.edu


>>         Has anyone done a check of digit frequency (how many 1's, how many
>> 2's, etc...) there is in a long file of PI?  I'd like to hear the results.

Using the file mentioned in the post (1381376 bytes), the distribution
is (second column is deviation from mean):

0:     125505   -51
1:     125083   371
2:     125594  -140
3:     125793  -339
4:     125372    82
5:     125880  -426
6:     124796   658
7:     125452     2
8:     125376    78
9:     125689  -235
*:    1254540 digits

The remaining bytes are spaces, line feeds, and form feeds.

Mark Adler
madler@cco.caltech.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,sci.math
From: jdg41088@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Pickaxe)
Subject: Re: Number of numbers (Was Re: PI)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 03:41:32 GMT

jromanac@tid.es (Javier Romanach) writes:


>Hi,
>Sorry to change subjet. I'm looking for an ftp site that would have  a file
>with at least the first 200.000 decimals of pi. Does anybody know one?

I've got a 1.4 meg file that contains a few digits of pi. If anyone is
interested mail me and I'll send you a compressed/uuencoded copy. Warning:
this file may explode your mailbox.

-- 
| Joe Gross          | Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| pickaxe@uiuc.edu   | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign        |
| (217) 328-4331     | "I've given up trying to stay ahead of the times, |
| NeXTmail welcome   | it's now a matter of how far I get left behind."  |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: etlanmy@ermintrude.ericsson.se (Allan Murphy)
Subject: Re: VCS processor (was Re: Game machine processors)
Organization: Ericsson Cellular Division
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:42:03 GMT

stuart.r.adamson writes ( fondly of the ZX81 )::
>
>Yeh remember that, as used in such games like 3D Monster Maze or Mazogs where
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>the screen would state "You are entering the Mists of Time". The computer
>would then goto fast mode, and when it returned, you were playing the game.
>
>Ha Ha.
>

But goddang if those weren't great games ! Ah, I can still remember the thrill
of sending away for games on tape at six pounds ninety five each.

I still have a binder of 1981's issues of Computer and Video Games with the
order forms cut out for Mazogs and 3d Monster Maze. I especially liked the
rave articles about the brand new Spectrum and how fab it was going to be ;-)   


--
Allan J. Murphy                  /     \ "Curves and lines...of grand designs...
                                 \     /  We break the surface tension with
etlanmy@deep-thought.ericsson.se /     \  our wild kinetic dreams...."
From: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: <None>
Date: 2 Jan 93 12:27:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Advanced Computer Concepts BBS, New Rochelle, NY 914-654-1981
Reply-To: dick.zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com (Dick Zeitlin) 

S> .This reminds me of an old story that I heard something like 10-12 years ago
 > .That there exists a commercial BASIC-interpretator where all numbers have t
 > .be written as old roman numbers (1 = I, 2 = II, 15 = XIV etc; 5.5 = V.V ???
 > .Has anybody encountered or used this interpretator ? Or is the story a hoax

I never encountered a BASIC that used Roman numerals, but if you're of a
sufficiently perverse nature, you should check out Intercal.  This is a
language designed to teach humility...  <~>

        D/
---
 . QMPro 1.0 41-3345 . Bring back A-N airways!!    Dick.Zeitlin%acc1bbs@ssr.com
From: Tony.Duell@launchpad.unc.edu (Tony Duell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Whatever happened to ... SC/MP
Date: 7 Jan 93 19:20:14 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service


That brings back memories - my first computer wasa Science of Cambridge
MK14 kit that I built years ago. It uses an SC/MP processor.

I belevie the first version (which I have never seen) was a PMOS chip that
used a +5v and -7v supplies. This was superceeded by the SC/MP II also
known as the INS8060N (at least for the plastic pack version)

It had several nice features, and plenty of horrible ones. Among them are:
1) On-chip clock oscillator - just add a Xtal
2) Bus request/grant pins, tri-state buses, etc. You could actually
parallel up these chips if you were mad nenough to try - just parallel all
the pins except for the grant in and grant out, which you daisy-chain.
3) 16 address lines - sort of. In fact, only the bottom 12 had pins on the
chip - the upper 4  weere multiplexed to the data bus during NADS time
(Not ADdress Strobe). The program counter only incremeted the lower 12
lines - you had to fiddle with the top 4 yourself. 
4) 1 addressing mode (:-)) - relative. Immediate was relative to the
program counter. You also had 3 pointer registers, which you loaded in 8
bit halves from the accumulator. No subroutine stack, although you could
swap any pair of pointer registers, including the program counter.
5) 3 flag outputs, and 2 sense inputs, one of which could also be used as
an interrupt. Interrupts swaped the PC with pointer 3 I think (but I never
used that feature).
6) Serial I/O. you could shift the Extension register, and the top bit was
loaded from the SIN pin, and the LSB fell off into the SOUT signal.

Well, it's been a long time. Some questions of mine in return
1) What instruction took the longest time to execute, and how long was that
2) What location did it start from after a reset?

-tony 'PDP11 Hacker' Duell
ard@siva.bris.ac.uk
 
--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser")
Subject: Re: Game machine processors (was Re: Is 4004 the first microprocessor ?)
Organization: Generic American College Kids (G.A.C.K.)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 09:52:04 GMT
Reply-To: slb22@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Seth "the Lesser")
X-Posted-From: cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

cpc@shell.portal.com (Chris Cebelenski) writes:
>lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
>>
>>The Odyssey was *not* a digital device, much less a processor.  It is a
>>non-extensible analog hack that plays rounds of ping-pong; it even lacked
>>the concept of keeping score, much less displaying it.
>
>Yes, I belive that is true.  Magnavox later came out with the Odyssey-2
>(or Odyssey^2).  That machine may have used an F-8.  Yes?  No?  Maybe?

No.  The Odyssey^2 did *not* use an F-8.  That was the Fairchild Channel 8.

I have no idea what the Odyssey^2 *did* use, but I once wrote a bit of
assembly code for it, and I definitely recall that it was a 6-bit machine.  It
had 16 registers 0-F, of which B and C were dedicated to screen output
functions.  More I do not recall.

Seth L. Blumberg          \ Warning: This posting has been determined to cause
slb22@columbia.edu (play)   \ cancer in laboratory animals.  Please make sure
sethb@ctr.columbia.edu (work) \ that no white mice are allowed to read it.  
    > No one I know shares my opinions, least of all Columbia University. <
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers