- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Devin Heitmueller 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

On Jan 20, 2017 7:59 PM, "Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic" < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: On 01/20/2017 01:47 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > On 01/20/2017 01:35 PM, Steven Toth wrote: > If you're writing a large software stack, need to integrate with other >> frameworks or libraries, an IDE is the way to go. >> > Not picking on Steven, but on the dislike of most IDEs. One more thing, and it's really at the top of my list since I tend to be very OCD on engineering related things ... it makes a @#$!%^& mess of the code indentation. I almost always know when someone uses an IDE because the code will end up getting some weird identation that no programmer could ever come up with. You can generally tell a programmers preference for the way they code but only an IDE can mess up indentation like that. if(blah) { if (!red) { sub_function(); subfunct2(); } } else { subfunct2(); } (Wow that was painful to type and look at) I'm not arguing for or against IDEs but this isn't really a fair criticism of IDEs. Such formatting issues are usually a difference in an editor's defaults with regards to tabs vs spaces, and it's common when you have any project worked on by users of multiple text editors. Code can look just as crappy in emacs after a vi user comes along and makes changes. There are ways to mitigate such issues through specification of tab/whitespace handling at the file or project level, but they are not uniformly supported by all editors. The real frustration I have is not about what the "right" answer is about tabs but rather that after decades the editors haven't arrived at a uniform standard for specifying the whitespace policy and having all the editors know how to parse and abide by it. In short, I agree with your frustration but an IDE user is just as likely to see their source code mangled by your non-IDE editor of choice. Devin

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Kenneth Seefried 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

From: Neil Cherry <ncherry(a)linuxha.com> > >This new is better is what got Wellfeet/Baynetworks in trouble. Instead >of providing an ASCII interface to the command line they went menu (not >terrible) or snmp commands (ARGH!). Later they dropped the menu and went >full Windows GUI. Which was useless when the network as down. > Ahh...Wellfleet's "Site Manager". I'm sure in some Bostonian ivory tower, "everything is an SNMP OID and thou shalt only speak SNMP to it" sounded like a great idea. What they delivered was a steaming pile of bad design choices, wildly inconsistent behavior, poor documentation and crippling bugs (new and different in every release). To this day it's my go-to example of truly awful, how not to do it, user interfaces. I've rarely found one worse. KJ

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Mac 128k M0001 for sale
by Joseph Oprysko 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

I'm looking to part with my Mac 128k. Rather than selling it on eBay, I'd rather it go to someone I know will appreciate it. It's fully functional, comes with mouse, keyboard, manual, original boot floppy, Apple Mac carrying case, and external floppy drive. It's the exact same Mac 128k that appears in the Smithsonian Channels "The Real Mad Men of Advertising" which was shot last summer. If you're interested, please email me off list with an offer, I can also send pictures. Thanks, Joe

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simH (was Programming)
by william degnan 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

Evan/docents at the museum, Don't forget simH. I really like this platform for OS monitor, DOS, and programming of emulated hardware environments. I have been putting simH on the new gen of single board computers and they work great for demoing by connecting to a serial device. Low power you can run off a battery. I like the Next Thing Co CHIP as well as the Rasp Pi Zero. So cheap! The CHIP is $9.95 and comes with wifi, bluetooth, storage built in. Ready for headless serial port access out of the box. Network and control remotely. For cases that one wants to avoid harming or simply does not have working vintage hardware it works pretty well. For example I Know Corey was talking about attaching the PiDP8 with its simH emulation of PDP 8 OS/8 to a printer for museum demos of.the real PDP 8. There is other hardware in the museum that could be demoed that way, such as the VAX, Altair, SWTPC 6800, Sol20, etc. where running the real thing has proven to be not practical and prone to failure. Bill Degnan twitter: billdeg vintagecomputer.net

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Mike Willegal 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

I agree that learning "C" using K&R in a shell might be a good way to start. Installing some kind of language support shouldn't be too much of a problem on any modern system. I'm guessing that GNU "C" comes installed with most Linux implementations. On OS/X you can install Xcode pretty simply. You don't need to use the Xcode IDE, but it is the easiest way to install the GNU tools that you need. I forget details, but while installing, I think you specify install the GNU C extensions. Once installed, you go to OS/X's terminal and type "cc" from there. I use OS/X terminal all the time for cross compiling 6502 or 8008 applications. Those cross compliers are "C" programs which are usually easy to tweak plus I've written a number of "C" language utilites to convert between archaic or unusual file formats. One caution is that modern incarnations of "C" may, by default, enforce some additional type checking restrictions and the like that break the examples in K&R, so it may become difficult for a beginner to figure out why the tutorial doesn't work. In case you want to go whole hog retro, I'll tell you that for a brief while, I made my living programming in "C" on a dual 5 1/4" floppy based Compaq luggable. I can't remember the name of the compiler, but it worked pretty well. We used a standard word processor of the day, perhaps it was WordStar, for source file editing. Not really any more difficult than using a shell in a modern system. Around the same time, I also experimented with a "C" implementation on the Apple II, and, by comparison, it was very clunky. I've been slowly learning to make OS/X applications over the past few years with xCode in Objective C for my SCELBI emulator app. Moving it over to the iPhone and iPad is in the cards. I'll tell you that the learning curve is extremely steep, but once you reach some level of proficiency, the power of the environment starts to get addictive. This is probably heresy on this forum, but I'm temped to say forget assembly and other archaic languages and just learn how to make IOS or Andriod apps. Surprisingly, the skills aren't really all that transferable from one to the other. Some basics are similar, but there is a great gulf of 30 plus years of technology separating the two worlds. Regardless of what approach you take, unless you have an idea of some concrete application that you need to write, it's going to be extremely difficult to become very proficient. Your first step should be deciding upon the end application that you REALLY need to have. regards, Mike Willegal

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C Compilers (was Re: Perhaps I asked the wrong question...)
by Brian L. Stuart 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

On Fri, 1/20/17, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > Some say there's nothing wrong with that, but there actually is quite > a lot wrong with it. I cut the size of the resultant binary down by > almost 80% by ditching an IDE in a product whose firmware I inherited > several years ago. The code size was important not only because the > program memory space on the processor was nearly full and they > wanted additional features, but also because the firmware updates were (and > are) sent out via the cellular data network. Until I fixed it, a global > firmware update cost about $20,000 to $22,000. Now it's about $3,500 > due to the reduced binary size. Why? The IDE isolated the programmers > from full control of the compiler and its code generation options. In > other words, they discovered "what to click to make a program", and > clicked it. Without learning a damn thing about what they were > actually doing. Amen! Brother. > Nearly all of the world's C compilers, past and current, are command > line systems. And nearly all of them are actually GCC under the covers, > for everything even remotely modern. There are two primary exceptions. First is clang, which is just as big an unmanagable as gcc. The other is kenc. Ken Thompson wrote a new suite of compilers as part of the Plan 9 project. These compilers are also available as part of Inferno. Later they were ported to work on more POSIX-like environments for the Go project, and now a number of Linux and other distributions include packages to install kenc. His compilers are much leaner than the mainstream ones, they have a much cleaner model for cross-compiling, and Ken's taste in extensions makes the ANSI committee look like Philistines. BLS

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Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Evan Koblentz 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

After posting my assembly-for-newbs question, it occurred to me that perhaps I should be asking this instead: with no experience other than LOGO and then BASIC, which (period 1980s) language should I learn next? Was it normal to go from BASIC directly to assembly (is BASIC enough preparation), or were people better off getting some in-between experience with a language such as Pascal or something else? Keep in mind that my natural aptitude is liberal arts, not math. :)

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cross platform coding for the Apple ][
by Dan Roganti 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

Anyone have some success with getting the right tools to set a workflow for building cross platform coding on the Apple ][ ? I found some tools already which I hope someone can give us some advice to build a practical workflow. While helping Evan on his robot project, the traditional method of coding directly on the vintage platform becomes a burden when trying to collaborate over the phone, email or online. Because you can't see what's on their screen and you can't share the screen online as with today's desktops. No amount of chit-chatting to summarize the code without looking at it directly is going to help. For the moment, he wants to work with Applesoft Basic, and perhaps later once the bugs are worked out and the project is running, then dive into some 6502 assembly. In the past, because it's simply not practical to do that, I once had Evan and Jeff shine their phone's camera over the computer screen during a video conference to help debug the code, it worked :) But I suggested they get one of those goose-neck mounts to hold the phone or webcam so they can type faster Now I recommended that we change to the cross platform coding because it helps to share the code, share the work, especially when it comes time to debug any problems while we collaborate on this project from long distances. And these situations happen often on a new project, with new hardware, etc. So it becomes practical over the phone, email or online. I do this already with my C64 assembly coding project to collaborate with Jeff and others at long distances. But now I'm not sure if my google-foo has lots of static for this Apple ][ topic because I never had so much trouble finding enough info, versus the time when I had to setup one for my C64. It did take some time, but mostly to get familiar with the software tools out there which is specific to that machine. Then after it just took some time to iron out the steps between each tool. For the Apple ][ this is what I found so far 1. Editor = I think any editor would suffice here, maybe there's one specific for the Apple][ ? 2. Disk Imager = AppleCommander[jav], CiderPress[win], Ominvore[win], DiskBrowser[win] 3. Emulator = AppleWin[win], LinApple[nix]---> both are the same port 4. Floppy emulator = ADTPro[jav] via serial port Now these tools work as described, but there's still some glitches in the workflow problem#1, I can open any disk image with the tools mentioned. But then when I try to extract the Basic file on my desktop, the tools give you 2 choices, either the original Apple format, or text format. The original format is so you can later import the file to the disk image. But then it's not possible to edit the file cause I can't locate an editor which can view the file in the first place. And the viewer in the disk imagers don't let you edit file. problem#2, With AppleCommander, i can extract the Basic file. It's always exported as a text file. But then it insert extra CR's on every line. I can edit the code. then import the file back into the disk image. I can verify the code is good when I view this in the disk imager. And then I load this into the emulator. But when I list the file, there's always some glitches with extra lines of garbage text, either at the beginning or end, maybe in the middle. So we can do the basic things[summary], load disk images, make disk images, view files in the disk images, extract files from the disk images[not 100%], But then, we can't successfully import the files from the desktop with the Basic code, into the disk images for the emulator or live hardware, even though the viewer in the disk imager verifies its there and readable, the listing viewed in the emulator shows the glitches This is what we're facing and we like to find somebody that can give us advice on this ------------------- For the C64, I use Assembly coding. It became easier to build a practical workflow. I just use an editor, then a script for the Assembler to build the code, the symbol table, listing file, even a debug listing for the emulator, so I can set breakpoints on the labels from the code when debugging, and even the image file so I can add it to the disk image. Then there's a 2nd tool to build the disk images for the Commodore systems. And then a very powerful emulator called VICE, which handles every single computer made by Commodore -- to load the disk images for testing/debugging the code. And the same disk image is stored on a SD card to load into the C64 hardware for live testing. For Assembly coding, it's only 5 tools for cross platform coding on the C64 Plus there are some other tools which you use in parallel, for creating graphics, sprites and sound effects, and SID music 1. Editor 2. Assembler = DASM 3. Disk Imager 4. Emulator = VICE 5. uIEC = SD card floppy For those that use Basic coding, it's even simpler. Lots of people have been very progressive in building powerful coding tools for the Commodore scene. So there's one called CBM studio. This replaces #1, #2, and #3. 1. CBM studio 2. Emulator = VICE 3. uIEC = SD card floppy Some use the CBM studio for Assembly coding. But as you know with Assemblers, not all are compatible, because of their syntax style. So I try to avoid stuff like that. Because on one project, I tried to rewrite this network game, it was coded using DASM and I wasn't about to edit 100's of lines of code in a dozen files just for that, I had enough work ahead of me already, so I just kept using my editor and that assembler. ----------------------------- And there there's always the issue that many of the tools are not built for multiple desktop platforms. I don't fault the developers for this. Because there are some very good and powerful software tools for all aspects of the machine, for graphics hardware, sound hardware, etc, not just assembly coding. So I just keep using tools like VMware to run the different tools. You have to give lots of credit to the many people who devote so much time to building these tools. Because it really promotes a wide avenue for other people to use these to get very creative. I noticed there are always multiple types of people, this is just one example. People who know how to build the right tools for you, and people that get very creative by using the right tools. Example, If you want to build your own house, you like to find the right tools, rather than getting the "forge and anvil" to build your tools -- which can already be done better by those experts who devote their time -- so you can spend more time being creative on your house design. Dan

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A neuroscientist analyzes a 6502.
by Derrik Walker v2.0 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

Interesting read ... http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21714978-cautionary-ta… - Derrik Derrik Walker v2.0, RHCE dwalker(a)doomd.net "Those UNIX guys, they think weird!" -- John C. Dvorak

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question... FORTH
by Brian L. Stuart 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

On Fri, 1/20/17, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > If you want a really nice Forth workstation, pick up a nice > SPARCstation-IPC or -IPX and just don't boot it! ;) I should take one of my IPCs and dedicate it to that :) Come to think of it, maybe that's what I should do for VCF this year: a Forth exhibit. I should easily be able to have 3 or 4 different Forths running on a table. At a quick thought, I should be able to have it running on a 6809, a 68HC11, a SPARC, and an LSI-11. I had been thinking about doing a follow-up to last year's ENIAC exhibit but was worried that might be too repetative. BLS

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Sucessful workshop January 14&15, 2017
by Jeffrey Brace 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

Just wanted to write a quick e-mail to thank all those who attended the workshop. It was another successful workshop. It was a good idea to have the workshop in the bigger space. It accommodates more people. A lot of things got fixed and there was a lot of sharing of knowledge and expertise. Here are some phones from my iPhone which are raw, unedited and not the best quality (sorry I forgot to bring my Nikon): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9SJLfGXYiG5LS1hMU8yX19fQWM?usp=sha… If anyone wants to chime in on what the worked on, their progress and what they need to work on next. -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com

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the programmer's desk
by Jeffrey Jonas 21 Jan '17

21 Jan '17

I inherited most of the stuff from my dad's desk: coding pads, flowchart template, reference cards, books, periodicals, computer specific rulers and thingies. The only electrical thing on a programmer's desk back then was the lamp! Maybe a calculator for working out address offsets. I'd say Gesswein is the most likely to demonstrate using a PDP8 coding pad and hand-coding the assembler, then TOGGLING IT INTO THE FRONT PANEL (he probably can do most of that in his head by now!) The KIM, SYM and such made it a LITTLE easier with hexadecimal keypad & 7-segment LEDs. Alexander Pierson: > At the same time I was wrestling that, > I did a historical paper on Pascal. > In the process of researching it, > I think that was the first time I was exposed to the concept > of writing out a program by hand with pencil and paper > before entering it onto a computer. That's what I learned back in high school. A process that's served me well. THINK OUT the program first. PLAN all the tests to have confidence it really works. Niel Cherry's reply confirmed the merit of that work flow. And it let me work at home, away from the computer center. Keypunches were shared machines. You didn't compose at the keyboard. You minimised time at the machine by planning everything in advance, punch the cards as fast as possible and submit the job. > That blew my mind, seeing as never thought of a time > before text editors and glass terminals. It was an important turning point: from machine time being rare and valuable to people-time being more important. > I'm so used to instant gratification of finding syntactical errors > and compiling at the drop of a hat. Which is a more productive use of your time & attention. Be grateful! Mike Loewen: > Welcome to the early 1970s. Colleges and high schools were still using punched card batch in 1977 and afterwards. The infrastructure was there: rooms of keypunches that only needed outlets vs. expensive terminals (the ADM3a was "cheap" at just under $1,000) and data lines for each terminal. > Write your FORTRAN program down on coding forms: That's EASY compared to RPG II where every card type was a different format that was extremely column sensitive. > Then head to the keypunch room and punch your deck. > Take it to the dispatch area and submit your job to the dispatcher. Movies kinda show what it was like back then with the closed shop fishbowl-data-center. Only operators were inside to touch the machine. Now with "the cloud", we don't even get to see das blinkenlights and tapes-a-twirling. I still remember feeling so heartfallen when I learned that the FORTRAN "sense lights" might not actually light up anything. That's why I was so happy to use the LGP-21, where sense switches were REAL SWITCHES! > Come back in minutes or hours, depending on the load, Or longer :-9 > and retrieve your deck and printout. > Review the output for syntax errors, keypunch errors and logic errors. > Return to the keypunch room and punch new cards to fix the errors. > Lather, rinse and repeat. You beat me to it! I was about to say the same thing. -- jeffj

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Hoodies arriving soon
by Evan Koblentz 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

For everyone who ordered a hoodie recently: they're arriving at our museum on February 1st. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

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terminally sorting cards
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

Roganti: > about that same time, we got those new Hazeltine 1500 teminals, > that was really sweet trying out some new code > with the Esc control seqences on the CRT I remember a similar exultation when my school replaced a TTY with an ADM3a featuring lower case and full cursor control! A lot of code had that hard-coded, thus programs being tied to their hardware. That's particularly true of the early hobbyist programs, even with CP/M. Some programs such as WordStar had a configuration program to set the terminal and printer. Even now, Microsoft Windows folks struggle to find drivers for peripherals. Linux is not guiltless but is a lot less brittle thanks to the Unix evolution of termcap and terminfo. > so in school we really skipped over the punch card scene, > it wasn't until my first job did I actually get > my hands on the punched card machines During a consulting assignment on an IBM system 3, I had access to a card sorter and the related sorting trays. That taught me what's now called the "radix sort" and gave me insights into the earier era of accounting machines. A lot of card juggling there, not by the box but by the palette! What hath thou caused us, oh Mr. Hollerith!

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THINK!
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

Neil Cherry: > I get in a lot of trouble when I'm engineering something > because before I start doing, I start planning. T.J. Watson Sr said it best. "THINK". There are youtube videos where he explains that motto. Not "think first" or "think ahead". Just "think". Think about what you're doing before doing it. Solve the problem, don't just make a program for the sake of writing programs. > I sit down and think first. > My boss had a fit with me until I explained that I will be on schedule > even though I had physically to show. > I find it hard to believe that people can start doing > without planning first. So the paper and pen > (white board, markers and a camera) are my preferred method of starting a project. It's those pointy-headed-bosses that cause the crapware we have: folks pounding out pretty pieces that might not fit together, but it's "look busy" and "how many lines of code can you write per day" vs. does it work, is it maintainable, is it optimized or other goodness-o-meter things.

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one screen vs. a few active windows
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

David Riley: > Personally, my favorite is juggling jobs with ^Z and 'fg %x', > since it means one less thing to have to click on > (also, I got my start in command-line programming on single-window terminals, > so jobs juggling was the only option). > If possible, I like to avoid mouse use entirely; it entails a high context-switch overhead. I started with programmable calculators, but they were limited to their ROM system. Punched cards and greenbar on batch systems gave access to a world of languages but was S L O W and frustrationg, particularly the turnaround to fix just ONE syntax error, or 'desk debugging' an ABEND. Migrating to a Teletype was nicer: interactive but still limited by the printer mechanism. Migrating to a "glass tty" was a step up for full screen interactive editing, saving paper, no more waiting for the printer, etc. But this is where the narrative diverges. 1) Using a dedicated terminal is nice because there's little to go wrong with it once the baud rate and such are set. Any problem and just swap terminals. VCF celebrates such systems. A lot. 2) But once I started using Procomm under DOS, I could do a lot more. File transfers. Play back scripts. Save screen shots. Log the entire session. Automate dialers and logins. 3) I used Unix shell layers, job control and various data switches with a plain terminal. It allows multiplexing the single device. But it's still just one connection at a time. It's nice having the OPTION of multiple active windows. Right now, I'm using a laptop with a full screen vi-editor, composing this into a temporary file that I'll cut-and-paste into my gmail account to reply to the list. But with just one click, I'm back to the full screen Firefox since I am still reading the list digest. That's how I'm combining my replies. No need for refresh, oh where was I, etc. But then again, I just interrupted vi for a shell escape to blast out a quick email because this is via ssh to a remote system and it's a nusance to create a temporary window, ssh again just for one interruption.

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going paperless
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

Mike Loewen: > A lot of us old-school C programmers prefer the command line. 99.9% of my work is command line. That way a shell script can automate it. I can recall a command and "do it again". > My personal preference (on *nix) is: > 1. Terminal window open for editing with 'vim'. > 2. Another terminal window for running 'make'. > 3. A third terminal for reading 'man' pages. :-) I'm still floundering with going totally paperless for manuals and documentation. It's nice downloading multi-hundred page PDF files and not needing to clear shelf space for each databook. But books can be read without electricity and allow for customization such as bookmarks, column-notes and post-its. For schematics, I still prefer ledger or size B or C to minimize off-page connectors. How I hate ALD (automated logic diagrams) :-( Standard US Architectural Drawing Sizes Size (mm, inches) ARCH A 228.6 x 304.8 9 x 12 ARCH B 304.8 x 457.2 12 x 18 ARCH C 457.2 x 609.6 18 x 24 ARCH D 609.6 x 914.4 24 x 36 ARCH E 914.4 x 1219.2 36 x 48

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C or Pascal?
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

Evan: > If I try learning C, > then I could go directly to K&R or even pick up a modern Dummies book, > but for period's sake it would be the former. But remember the intended audience back then. K&R was BY computer folks FOR computer folks. It's "concise", thus all the followup annotated versions by others. Computer centers had a social element: the local guru instead of Google and wikis. AT&T, colleges all had formal & informal heirarchies of staff & helpers to help newcomers. You cannot assume such an environment anymore, an issue Kernighan and I discussed at VCF. Referring to Grace Hopper's interview on David Letterman: there were no manuals for the ENIAC. It was all learn by the seat of your pants. Writing manuals was quite the cottage industry, thus all the "learn along with us" newsletters, user groups and magazines. The Beagle Brothers were legendary for their fun Apple tips & tricks. O'Reilly Nutshell books set the standard for how to learn new things QUICK.

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why FORTH, not FOURTH?
by Jeffrey Jonas 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

McGuire: > Yeah, that's one part of history that I do NOT miss. > I do a good bit of assembler these days > and just wouldn't be able to stay sane > with five-character identifier names. Ach, you kids have it so easy with your long filenames, subdirectories and long identifiers! Working with limitations is part of computer HISTORY (and being re-discovered by embedded programmers) - 5 character filenames & labels on the 1130 - 8.3 filenames on CP/M and DOS - 14 character filenames on early Unix file systems (16 byte directory entry: 2 byte inode #, 14 byte name). Other machines and operating systems had their own restrictions, such as radix-50 for six characters into one 36-bit word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Radix-50 Neil Cherry: > and I think Python is used for that now > (good language though the indentation > brings me back to my Assembly Language days, > yes with 4 char labels). Indentation? 4 character labels? WHAT A LUXURY! I started with EDU-25 BASIC: ONE character names and line NUMBERS! FORTRAN was a step-up with longer variable names and line numbers only where needed! Bob Flanders: > And don't use no big words I can't understand. That's why old systems were better! No long names or words allowed! I never liked William F. Buckley because I needed a dictionary to look up everything he said :-/ Roganti: > I read that some acronyms we were so accustomed to were actually backronyms Some were intentional, such as XINU (Xinu Is Not Unix), others were to cover up an "in joke" when something was named, particularly when using naughty words (SNAFU, FUBAR).

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Brian L. Stuart 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

On Fri, 1/20/17, Mike Loewen via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > Welcome to the early 1970s. :-) Write your FORTRAN program down on > coding forms: > > https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/FortranCodingForm.png > > Then head to the keypunch room and punch your deck. Take it to the > dispatch area and submit your job to the dispatcher. Come back in minutes Or, as happened for one of my final exams in college, the professor takes the coding forms, photocopies them, and gives you back the originals. Then you have to go make the program work. You lose 1/4 point per character you have to change up to a maximum of 2 points per line up to a maximum of 50 points for the whole program. An interesting experience... BLS

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Mike Loewen 20 Jan '17

20 Jan '17

On Fri, 20 Jan 2017, Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > At the same time I was wrestling with that, I did a historical paper on > Pascal. In the process of researching it, I think that was the first > time I was exposed to the concept of writing out a program by hand with > pencil and paper before entering it onto a computer. That blew my mind, > seeing as never thought of a time before text editors and glass > terminals. I'm so used to instant gratification of finding syntactical > errors and compiling at the drop of a hat. Then again, that dates me as > an individual... > I should really give the alternative a try some time for the sake of > perspective. Welcome to the early 1970s. :-) Write your FORTRAN program down on coding forms: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/FortranCodingForm.png Then head to the keypunch room and punch your deck. Take it to the dispatch area and submit your job to the dispatcher. Come back in minutes or hours, depending on the load, and retrieve your deck and printout. Review the output for syntax errors, keypunch errors and logic errors. Return to the keypunch room and punch new cards to fix the errors. Lather, rinse and repeat. While punched cards and keypunches trigger my nostalgia, I also prefer the "instant gratification" of frequent compilation. Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

william degnan via vcf-midatlantic writes: >On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Brian Schenkenberger via vcf-midatlantic < >vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > >> william degnan via vcf-midatlantic writes: >> >> > BASIC is the universal language for >> >demos in a museum setting when you're just showing something that you >> >can execute in real time. >> >> ROTFLMAO! >> >> >Brian, >Might you be a tad biased? What language other than BASIC is most present >on the machines in the museum? I should have said the universal language >for demos in our museum setting. Sometimes you have to be practical rather >than theoretical. Pascal? C? Assembly? For museum demos? This thread >is full of "what I would do's" rather than what is reasonable, efficient >and practical specifically for Evan to use and self-support. >Bill Sorry, Real time and BASIC is what was funny.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Brian L. Stuart 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

On Thu, 1/19/17, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > Forth is a really mind-bending language, but man, it sure is > powerful. I love it. Indeed. Forth and LISP both bend your mind, and in different directions. Taken together they stretch your mind more than hallucinogens. Now you know why I'm the way I am :) BLS

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Washington, D.C.
by J. Alexander Jacocks 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

So, did we come to a conclusion? Are we going to meet this evening, or tomorrow evening? Everyone should be aware that the inauguration is tomorrow, and that could make a mess of traffic, in NoVA. - Alex On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 12:59 PM, Alexander via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Alexander <ajpierson1(a)yahoo.com> > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> > Cc: > Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 12:59:59 -0500 > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Washington, D.C. > Depending on the time, I will probably be free on one of those days for > something. I'm near Tyson's more or less. > > -Alexander 'Z' Pierson > > Sent from my pocket telephone. > > "J. Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic@lists. > vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > >I'm also in the DC area, and will be in Tyson's Corner, tomorrow, and > could > >probably meet. > > > >- Alex > > > >On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 12:51 PM, Ethan via vcf-midatlantic < > >vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > > >> If anyone is going to be around the D.C. area over the next couple of > days > >>> for whatever reason and would like to meet over coffee, feel free to > >>> e-mail > >>> me at dcayea(a)lyonmountain.com > >>> > >> > >> I'm in Northern VA. I know there is a few others on here (though haven't > >> met them face to face.) Are you in the city or suburbs? Any NoVA people > >> want to meet up in the evening Thur/Fri ? > >> > >> - Ethan O > >> > >> > >> > >

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Amazon Smile
by Evan Koblentz 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

As others noted: we registered for Amazon Smile, which is their non-profit fundraising program. That means you can shop at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/47-4133714, get all the same things at all the same prices, and a tiny portion of it gets donated to Vintage Computer Federation. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

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Assembler, continued
by Evan Koblentz 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

Dan's suggestion worked: typing an exclamation inside the monitor brought me into the mini-assembler. I need a book * specifically * for the enhanced/Platinum model. Otherwise I won't know which mistakes are mine vs which are differences in the computer. Some of you will advise me to just get an older Apple II instead :) but I don't have space for another system. Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation A 501(c)3 educational non-profit http://www.vcfed.org

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

william degnan via vcf-midatlantic writes: > BASIC is the universal language for >demos in a museum setting when you're just showing something that you >can execute in real time. ROTFLMAO!

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Web site calendar(s)
by Evan Koblentz 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

Jeff B. smacked me over the head with a pool noodle a few dozen times until I got around to putting calendar(s) on the VCFed web site. :) The main (Federation-wide) calendar is easy to find: go to www.vcfed.org and click where it says calendar on the top navigation bar. There's also a Mid-Atlantic chapter calendar which you can reach by mousing over to Groups - Mid-Atlantic - Calendar. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)3 educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Lego LOGO hack
by Dan Roganti 19 Jan '17

19 Jan '17

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:19 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:07 PM, Dean Notarnicola <dnotarnicola(a)gmail.com > > wrote: > >> Dan, >> The .do disk is the main Logo environment, used to write and run Logo >> programs. This is what would need to be patched and therein is the rub. As >> we both discovered, ciderpress will not read the .do file because it is a >> custom format. I'm starting to suspect that it was developed with some sort >> of intermediate system similar to p-system. >> >> > ok, so there's another *.do disk image out there. > cause Ciderpress says it can read *.do images > so I thought it was still a Apple disk image > I just tried 2 more mirror sites for asimov.net like this one without any > luck > ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/programming/logo/ > > On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:22 PM, Dean Notarnicola <dnotarnicola(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I tried a couple of different versions myself, and I had someone create a > .do from an original disk. Despite the fact that it is a .do image (merely > a container file), the disk itself is a non-standard format that ciderpress > sees as corrupt :-( > > <ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/programming/logo/> >> > On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:46 PM, Dan Roganti <ragooman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > I just tried reading this with AppleCommander, and it couldn't open that > either > but it mentions one of the possible reasons is the *.do image could be a > protected disk > Is there another Viewer or Reader for Protected disks ? > Dan > > On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:50 PM, Dean Notarnicola <dnotarnicola(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I considered that, but I am able to boot the .do file into an A][ > emulator, so I would think that this would indicate the absence of copy > protection. > > oh man, I didn't even try to load it yet into the emulator I just tried it on AppleWin and it loads fine !! I used each ][+, ][e and Enhanced ][e LinApple is supposed to be a port of AppleWin, so it should work there too I get the splash screen and then pressed enter to get to the main screen So it must be a Protected disk, right ? But I think I forgot how to load Dos into the original ][ mode After it boots up into the Monitor, I switch to Basic, and at the prompt, I tried PR#6 at the Basic prompt, but I get a "Error #6" So the Dos didn't load, it's the same Master.dsk used for ][+, ][e, etc But which emulator did you use again ? Dan

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Assembler, continued
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

William Dudley via vcf-midatlantic writes: >IMHO, the difficult bit with assembly language is that you have to keep >track of all the "book keeping" needed by your algorithm. If you need >10 variables, and array of 100 integers, and pointers to subroutines, >then you have to keep track of all this stuff yourself. This means that >you have to start planning on paper long before you write your first >opcode. Of course, it also means that you have to be familiar with the >machine architecture, how many registers it has, how much stack, etc, so >that you can figure out WHERE you are going to store all the stuff you >need. First, that's one of the reasons that assemblers accept human assigned names for routines and fixed data location -- so you don't have to keep track of a routine or data pointer. Local data? Carve up the stack. Arrays? Machines with indexing make this much simpler that those without. If you really want a challenge, try writting assembly on a machine that doesn't possess branch instructions and executes multiple operations at one time! ;)

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Washington, D.C.
by Cayea, Daniel 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

If anyone is going to be around the D.C. area over the next couple of days for whatever reason and would like to meet over coffee, feel free to e-mail me at dcayea(a)lyonmountain.com

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Washington, D.C.
by Alexander 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

Depending on the time, I will probably be free on one of those days for something. I'm near Tyson's more or less. -Alexander 'Z' Pierson Sent from my pocket telephone. "J. Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: >I'm also in the DC area, and will be in Tyson's Corner, tomorrow, and could >probably meet. > >- Alex > >On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 12:51 PM, Ethan via vcf-midatlantic < >vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > >> If anyone is going to be around the D.C. area over the next couple of days >>> for whatever reason and would like to meet over coffee, feel free to >>> e-mail >>> me at dcayea(a)lyonmountain.com >>> >> >> I'm in Northern VA. I know there is a few others on here (though haven't >> met them face to face.) Are you in the city or suburbs? Any NoVA people >> want to meet up in the evening Thur/Fri ? >> >> - Ethan O >> >> >>

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For all you Amazon Shoppers...
by Joseph Oprysko 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

Amazon has philanthropy program (where they donate money to NPO's). If you do your shopping at smile.amazon.com and select Vintage Computer Federation, you can have Amazon donate 0.5% of qualifying purchases to provide money to our favorite charity, and support our hobby at the same time. This has been a public service announcement. -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Assembler, continued
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic writes: >> I decided to try to cookbook series. Getting it now... > >Page 19: "So many assembler books and courses omit this essential first >step! An assembler is simply too powerful a tool to start off with. You >must first know what op codes are and how they are used. You must >thoroughly understand addressing modes and the different ways you show >which addressing mode is in use." You should have attend my assembly lecture first VCF University. Your loss.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked th e wrong question...
by Kenneth Seefried 18 Jan '17

18 Jan '17

From: Evan Koblentz <evan(a)snarc.net> > Was it normal to go from BASIC directly to assembly (is BASIC enough preparation), > or were people better off getting some in-between experience with a language such > as Pascal or something else? > As with most things, that depends. One runs into the limits of BASIC pretty quickly. In the world I was in back in those days (mostly 808x/Z-80/TRS-80/CP/M), people seemed to pretty quickly bifurcate from BASIC to either assembly or (usually Turbo) Pascal. I was in the later category, FWIW. Other than figuring out Z-80 asm well enough to cobble together custom CP/M BDOS and other components, I lived in Turbo Pascal. But then, it was dirt cheap. If it was more expensive (see: Pascal/MT), I might have been on a different path. KJ

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by Mike Willegal 17 Jan '17

17 Jan '17

I recommend reading MOS's original 6500 series programming manual. It's done in the form of a very well written tutorial. http://archive.6502.org/datasheets/synertek_programming_manual.pdf regards, Mike Willegal

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OT: PHP HTTP POST setBasicAuth question.
by william degnan 17 Jan '17

17 Jan '17

Anyone here a PHP expert? I am banging my head against the desk here... I have the following code but for some reason it kind of seems like the username and password are not actually being sent. Does anyone here have the ability to receive an http post that I can send to confirm whether you're actually getting an attempted username and passowrd along with an XML document? Here is a code snippet working with: $r = new HTTP_Request($dest_url) or die("$dest_url: $php_errormsg"); $r->setMethod(HTTP_REQUEST_METHOD_POST); $r->addHeader('Content-Type', 'text/xml'); $r->setBasicAuth($username, $password); $r->addRawPostData($packet); $res = $r->sendRequest() or die("sendRequest:". $php_errormsg); I keep getting a 401 (Access Denied) error. No PHP errors. I can send debug output, etc. not posted here. This is a Windows PHP instance, PHP Version 5.4.31 Windows 2008 Server. Of course I am assuming I have the right username and password, but could there be logic error? I am posting to a major B2B portal, but it may be possible that multiple attempts have shut me down. I need to know if my code is correctly posting a username and password before I complain to them to fix their end. Thanks anyone.. Bill

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For those who liked the mini computers
by Christian Liendo 17 Jan '17

17 Jan '17

If you like legos and vintage computers https://powerpig.ecwid.com/#!/Technology/c/15326690/offset=0&sort=normal

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time for me to learn assembly
by Evan Koblentz 17 Jan '17

17 Jan '17

Hey everyone. Trying to teach myself Apple II assembly. I have NO experience at this. All I ever learned was LOGO in elementary school and AppleSoft (Microsoft) BASIC in middle school. (I'm not counting a very small amount of LISP in college and mastery of HTML 4 which isn't programming.) Everyone said to get the book Assembly Lines. I got the PDF of the original version. Hit a glitch almost immediately. After doing CALL -151 to enter the monitor, it says to type F666G to enter the mini-assembler, and then "The prompt should change to an exclamation mark." It doesn't change to an exclamation mark. It just goes back to the asterisk. What's happening? Same behavior in LinApple (Linux Apple II emulator) as on my Platinum.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Perhaps I asked the wrong question...
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 17 Jan '17

17 Jan '17

Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic writes: >{...snip...} >> Keep in mind that my natural aptitude is liberal arts, not math. :) > > Well one mistake certainly might be thinking it has something to do >with math. ;) Counting bytes... that's math! :P

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Pocket CHIP simH
by Brian L. Stuart 16 Jan '17

16 Jan '17

On Sun, 1/15/17, william degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > I'm right there with you on that. Now that I've gotten it reloaded > > after it shat all over its SD card, I'm running mine 24/7. It sits > > there next to my desk (currently) in the OS/8 console I/O polling > > loop, projecting waves of comfort toward me as I get stressed out > > putting out the fires caused by other peoples' incompetence. > > I have my PiDP on the mantle above the fireplace running a slow deeper > thought in 777 mode. All this discussion inspired me to do a little with the PocketCHIP I got for Christmas. In addition to simh, I also got Inferno running on it and just for fun, here are a couple of pics of it running my ENIAC simulator. http://cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/eniac/chip1s.jpg http://cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/eniac/chip2s.jpg BLS

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Pocket CHIP simH
by william degnan 15 Jan '17

15 Jan '17

> > Just finished a headless CHIP that's attached to a VT220. It's networked wirelessly, I can grab via CRON job the lpt.txt output file every 10 minutes to send "mail" from the simulator that way. > > Took 2 hours to MAKE them all. Posted more how to on my site ...so now I have three Pis and two CHIPS with simH installed.

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Pocket CHIP simH
by william degnan 15 Jan '17

15 Jan '17

Anyone interested, I have been working on a standardized way to put simH on things, such as the Pocket CHIP. This is useful, you can make a serial connection to this or the Raspberry Pi and attach a termina on the other end. It's a safe way to demo ancient operating systems if your actual hardware is not quite ready for a full weekend of exhibiting, or you don't have peripherals. Obvious to many but some may find it useful to get into simH. Here is 101 on what I have been doing. My Linux skills are getting better, I use it daily now whereas a few years ago I was a lot more tentative with it. http://vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=664

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Breakfast tomorrow AM
by Evan Koblentz 15 Jan '17

15 Jan '17

For anyone coming to the workshop tomorrow: we're meeting at 9am at the Princess Maria Diner (rt. 35 in Wall). We should be back to the museum around 10:30.

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This is awesome! 3D printed "mini" vintage computers
by Evan Koblentz 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

https://www.etsy.com/shop/RabbitEngineering/items

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Computer Jokes....Re: What are you working on for The next great workshop is Jan 14 & 15
by Dan Roganti 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 5:42 PM, Mike Loewen via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2017, Blatboy via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > > Thanks Evan. After I wrote that whole thing... even I can see it's too >> much. I'll probably stick with the first two ideas, and I'll be happy if >> I >> complete one. I was planning on leaving a good bit of the gear in the car >> unless I needed it. Even that seems awesomely gluttonous to me. I can't >> ever leave anything in a car in NYC haha. >> > > > > A musician friend of mine was in NYC last week, and left his banjo on the > back seat. On the way back to his car, he noticed that the rear window was > broken. Fearing the worst, he rushed back to the car to discover two more > banjos on the back seat. > > (cue rimshot) > > > since I grew up there, I seem to recall there was a version of a computer joke like this I think it went something like this, but don't hold me to it :) I'm sure there are other jokes similar to this " A friend of mine went to the computer show with me while in NYC last week. He left his TRS-80 model I on the back seat. After the show, he noticed somebody broke into his car 'cause the the rear window was broken. Being so afraid, he ran back to the car only to find a TRS80 Model II and model III also on the back seat." :) Dan

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Workshop is on! For tomorrow 1/14 & Sunday 1/15, 2017
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

I checked the weather report and it seems that the snow will be light and it will be in the evening around 5pm Saturday. So we *will* have the workshop as scheduled. I am only checking the weather in my area, so I don't know what it will be like outside the InfoAge area. Since weather patterns are always subject to change suddenly and unpredictably I request that everyone please use your own best judgment when driving here. Please be safe. No workshop is worth driving in bad weather. Looks like we will have a good turnout for this workshop. I look forward to everyone getting stuff fixed! :) Also, the new PayPal card reader device that VCF just bought will do chip cards, credit cards and apple pay. -- Jeff Brace - ark72axow(a)gmail.com

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Tools at workshop
by David Gesswein 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

If I remember correctly the museum has good soldering and desoldering tools. Do those get moved to the workshop or should I still bring my own? I will only need them occasionally when I find a dead component. Bad weather here will start before I leave so if it looks too bad in the morning I will cancel. Looks better for people farther north.

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Workshop is on! For tomorrow 1/14 & Sunday 1/15, 2017
by Herb Johnson 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

My weather considerations, are from Mercer County NJ, the junction of I-95 NJ/PA and I-195 which goes west to InfoAge an hour away. My read of the weather, is that the snow will come up from the south and west from early afternoon to mid-evening, possibly overlap I-195. It will "likely" be cleared or dissipate from the road by either late Saturday evening, or early Sunday morning. Therefore, I plan to travel I-195 late Sat morning, and be prepared to stay over Saturday night, if I can't travel back and forth again between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 14 Jan '17

14 Jan '17

Tony and I worked in the museum from 10:00am-12:30pm today. We installed four long bookshelves along one of the workshop area walls. Bob F. got here at 6:30pm and we worked until 11:30pm. We stocked the new bookshelves and did some other rearranging in that area. As for what happened between 12:30pm and 6:30pm, I honestly don't remember! Pretty sure I went to lunch, had a conversation with Fred, lingered around the museum, and somehow passed several hours! Going to sleep now. The museum workshop is a mess. I'll deal with that tomorrow.

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