April 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

The Next Great Workshop: April 28 & 29!
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Apr '18

01 Apr '18

Signup here: < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15skPd9SrZ2WsHMoTBTrrvBNwG1nbixVNfey… > We have 8 so far with room for more. We won't have a workshop in May. I will start looking at the dates available for June, July, Aug.

2 2

2nd call for VCF East 13 Saturday Dinner Survey
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Apr '18

01 Apr '18

Here is the survery again: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DV5T7PN I only got 11 responses so far. I was hoping to have more. I will give it another week and then close out the survey. Then the local admin group will decide what to do based on the results. Thanks! Jeff Brace

1 0

UCSD P-System on a hard drive - any pointers?
by Glenn Roberts 01 Apr '18

01 Apr '18

Can't recall if I've asked this here before - looking for anyone with personal experience or connections to enable hosting the UCSD P-System OS on an 8-bit system (Heathkit) with a hard drive. I'm looking for more depth than you can find by just Googling (I'm familiar with most of that content I think). I'm not that interested in the later version by Pecan that was for the IBM PC. If you've no interest then thanks and enjoy your day, otherwise more detail below. tx! * Glenn I have fond memories of using the P system on a Terak 8510a - that was a pretty cool platform (LSI-11 based; wondering - does the museum have one?) P-System was never a big success for multiple reasons, but it has some nice qualities that make it worth preserving, including full screen editing and an IDE-like environment, semi open source (at least the pre-commercial versions done at UCSD) and broad platform support. It was a learning environment that I suspect influenced many who were new to computer science in the late 70's so it deserves a place in the annals of personal computing history. I'm working on a Heathkit platform (H8 or 89). I have the Heath implementations (both rev II and rev IV) but Heath never bothered to support their own hard drive (Z67) - probably because the P-System was rapidly fading around the time that came out. Working with floppy versions is tedious and unreliable - I'd like to host this on my Z67 emulator on the Heathkit. I'm aware that UCSD has released the earlier versions (I.5, II) but the most promising approach (I think) is to use the later "CP/M Adaptable" release. This uses a translator layer to map the P-System BIOS to the CP/M BIOS. We already have CP/M BIOS support for the Z67. The preferable release would seem to be Rev IV from Softech since that supports "Winchester" drives and memory swapping, etc. Again I have a licensed copy of the IV release but it's the Heath tailored one - I'm thinking the CP/M Adaptable one is a better starting point. I've found many of the needed pieces of this in the Maslin archive and in Bitsavers so I've got most (maybe even all) of the pieces of the puzzle but it's a bit tedious to piece together a working system. So if you've got experience (or only interest) in this topic or more importantly know of any substantial work that's been done (or an "expert" - perhaps someone from Softech or the original UCSD team?) I'd be interested in more information. Thanks! - gfr

1 0

Museum Report 2018-03-31 March 31, 2018
by Jeffrey Brace 31 Mar '18

31 Mar '18

I was at the museum today giving tours while Evan and Adam worked in the warehouse and in the museum to rearrange an exhibit and to work on the server etc. for the tablets. He can give you details later on what he and Adam worked on. A steady stream of visitors today. They came in two by two. Lots of highly interested people with lots of questions. A funny story with the first pair, a father and son. They son who was about 16 years old seemed to have some knowledge of vintage computers by reputation, but not personal experience. They needed to rush out and the boy was sad that he didn't have time to try some BASIC programming. I told him that the Commodore 64 was my favorite and that he could always buy one at a reasonable price nowadays. Then Evan and Adam came in the door carrying a C64. I told them of his interest and they gave him the C64. This C64 was found in the Camp Evans Base Of Terror area, so it was exposed to the elements and probably not in working condition, but the kid loved it. We told him that he could come to our workshop and get assistance repairing it. I also told him about our VCF East in May. One guy used to work at Fort Monmouth and Camp Evans and loved our new MOBIDIC display. So lots of fun being docent today with visitors excited and interested. I switched out the Star Gemini-10X printer above the C64 with a Commodore 1526 printer, which was common in that time period and matches the color well. I plan on borrowing the Star Gemini 10X for my exhibit at VCF East with Computer which will use Computer Eyes to capture a still image from a video camera and then print it out on the printer for attendees to take home.

2 2