All — I haven’t been able to talk about this early MSDOS recovery project since a few of us began working on it in September, but you can see the blog post by Scott Hanselman here. Scott’s post links to both @BrokenPipe’s site and mine where we discuss the process. In short, I was able to get 700-ish pages of original source listings from Tim Paterson which I scanned and then we converted to workable source code. It’s the earliest known version of DOS code to exist in the wild. https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/04/28/continuing-the-story-of-ear... Rich http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
On 4/28/26 12:02 PM, Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
All —
I haven’t been able to talk about this early MSDOS recovery project since a few of us began working on it in September, but you can see the blog post by Scott Hanselman here.
Scott’s post links to both @BrokenPipe’s site and mine where we discuss the process. In short, I was able to get 700-ish pages of original source listings from Tim Paterson which I scanned and then we converted to workable source code. It’s the earliest known version of DOS code to exist in the wild.
https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/04/28/continuing-the-story-of-ear...
+1, very cool. Are you aware of anything for the Ampro DOS boards? Thanks -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
Thanks. Source-wise? No. What version did it run? http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: Neil Cherry <ncherry@linuxha.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 12:17:03 PM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Richard Cini <rich.cini@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Earliest version of MSDOS recovered On 4/28/26 12:02 PM, Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
All —
I haven’t been able to talk about this early MSDOS recovery project since a few of us began working on it in September, but you can see the blog post by Scott Hanselman here.
Scott’s post links to both @BrokenPipe’s site and mine where we discuss the process. In short, I was able to get 700-ish pages of original source listings from Tim Paterson which I scanned and then we converted to workable source code. It’s the earliest known version of DOS code to exist in the wild.
https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/04/28/continuing-the-story-of-ear...
+1, very cool. Are you aware of anything for the Ampro DOS boards? Thanks -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
(Sorry, you're message was deleted before I could respond)
Thanks. Source-wise? No. What version did it run?
It should run 2.x and 3.x. I have disk images (I hope) and will try later this year. I'm looking forward to booting that up on the serial ports. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
On 4/28/26 2:21 PM, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
(Sorry, you're message was deleted before I could respond)
Thanks. Source-wise? No. What version did it run?
It should run 2.x and 3.x. I have disk images (I hope) and will try later this year. I'm looking forward to booting that up on the serial ports.
Hmm, just found a Youtube video that show a gentleman booting regular DOS 4 & 6 on the Ampro LB186. Looks like I need to try and boot the one I have with FlashFloppy disk emulator. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
I was able to get DOS 3 working kb mine, and k use that on the Lomas 186 board I have. http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 6:57:19 PM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Neil Cherry <ncherry@linuxha.com> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Re: Earliest version of MSDOS recovered On 4/28/26 2:21 PM, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
(Sorry, you're message was deleted before I could respond)
Thanks. Source-wise? No. What version did it run?
It should run 2.x and 3.x. I have disk images (I hope) and will try later this year. I'm looking forward to booting that up on the serial ports.
Hmm, just found a Youtube video that show a gentleman booting regular DOS 4 & 6 on the Ampro LB186. Looks like I need to try and boot the one I have with FlashFloppy disk emulator. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
A comment from the blog item caught my eye:
In several cases, the listings represent point‑in‑time working states and hand-written notes, preserved by Tim Paterson himself. Think of them as a printed commit history of a Git repository. They create a timeline of changes ....
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown). These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote. Regards Herb Johnson
Good point Herb. The challenge for the blogging team is that 99.7% of the people who subscribe have never heard the clacking of a line printer or a daisy wheel printer. So they did their best putting it into a modern context. I participated in the initial review of the blog post and we did a live edit session. Let’s just say that a lot of massaging was needed. But an awesome experience for me. Rich http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:38:30 AM To: vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Herb Johnson <hjohnson@retrotechnology.info> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Re: Earliest version of MSDOS recovered A comment from the blog item caught my eye:
In several cases, the listings represent point‑in‑time working states and hand-written notes, preserved by Tim Paterson himself. Think of them as a printed commit history of a Git repository. They create a timeline of changes ....
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown). These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote. Regards Herb Johnson
I third that sentiment! I do keep a working printer for each family of computer (Tandy, Commodore, PC, etc.) I think a printing exhibit / group / room would be worth doing next year. Demonstrate how to print, load paper etc. Can't believe this needs an exhibit to expose people to "what was printing", but these are the times we're in. Bill On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:55 AM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Good point Herb. The challenge for the blogging team is that 99.7% of the people who subscribe have never heard the clacking of a line printer or a daisy wheel printer. So they did their best putting it into a modern context.
I participated in the initial review of the blog post and we did a live edit session. Let’s just say that a lot of massaging was needed. But an awesome experience for me.
Rich
http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini
Long Island S100 User’s Group
Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
________________________________ From: Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:38:30 AM To: vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Herb Johnson <hjohnson@retrotechnology.info> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Re: Earliest version of MSDOS recovered
A comment from the blog item caught my eye:
In several cases, the listings represent point‑in‑time working states and hand-written notes, preserved by Tim Paterson himself. Think of them as a printed commit history of a Git repository. They create a timeline of changes ....
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown).
These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote.
Regards Herb Johnson
Hello! That works for me. Last year that teletype exhibit was noisy and a lot of fun. My family business was hotmetal typography. We switched to photo soon after, and there the computers used teletypes to communicate with the shift workers. Incidentally the computer in question was indeed a DG Nova and indeed by the time that ended, it was the Eclipse family, but both used teletype systems. At home we used an Epson dot matrix system for our Apple, eventually for the PC I ran. So I am used to sending my working and sometimes not working programs to printers. ---- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 11:07 AM Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I third that sentiment!
I do keep a working printer for each family of computer (Tandy, Commodore, PC, etc.)
I think a printing exhibit / group / room would be worth doing next year. Demonstrate how to print, load paper etc. Can't believe this needs an exhibit to expose people to "what was printing", but these are the times we're in.
Bill
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:55 AM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Good point Herb. The challenge for the blogging team is that 99.7% of the people who subscribe have never heard the clacking of a line printer or a daisy wheel printer. So they did their best putting it into a modern context.
I participated in the initial review of the blog post and we did a live edit session. Let’s just say that a lot of massaging was needed. But an awesome experience for me.
Rich
http://cini.classiccmp.org/ https://github.com/RichCini
Long Island S100 User’s Group
Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
________________________________ From: Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:38:30 AM To: vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Herb Johnson <hjohnson@retrotechnology.info> Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Re: Earliest version of MSDOS recovered
A comment from the blog item caught my eye:
In several cases, the listings represent point‑in‑time working states and hand-written notes, preserved by Tim Paterson himself. Think of them as a printed commit history of a Git repository. They create a timeline of changes ....
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown).
These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote.
Regards Herb Johnson
I was fortunate to have worked for a small newspaper communications company (Micro-comm, not the modem company) that sold equipment to service such as AP. In the mid 80's AP and others were updating their equipment to more modern equipment. Their wire services use a rather unique set of protocols such and hi and lo speed TTY, versions of Baudot, 7 bit ASCII and other protocols on current loop and normal pots lines. I got to play with news wires and equipment that had been self built (1918 Underwood with a motor and transmission to receive 27.8(?) baud news wire). We built modems (300/1200/2400) that could handle these odd procotols and bit rates and translate to ASCII. We built teletype replacements using OKI data printers. To this day I know the sound of the teletype, EPSON and OKI printers when heard in the background. :-) -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
On 4/30/26 11:06 AM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I third that sentiment!
I do keep a working printer for each family of computer (Tandy, Commodore, PC, etc.)
I think a printing exhibit / group / room would be worth doing next year. Demonstrate how to print, load paper etc. Can't believe this needs an exhibit to expose people to "what was printing", but these are the times we're in.
And that's not a bad thing. Pop it in an AI and get a video ;-) Nothing beats the sound of an IBM chain printer running at full blast! I still have my Atari 825 printer (Centronics 730 with an Atari Interface). It even has the brown 'toilet' paper roll (I think it's a roll). I do need to ink the ribbon. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
Hi all. Can anyone point me to a recording from "Ask Questions! Virtual session with Ken and Roberta Williams" session at VCF-East on 2026-Apr-18? Thanks.
I do t think the talks are posted yet -- RETRO Innovations, Contemporary Gear for Classic Systems www.go4retro.com store.go4retro.com On Apr 30, 2026 at 2:58 PM -0400, Steve Craft via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org>, wrote:
Hi all. Can anyone point me to a recording from "Ask Questions! Virtual session with Ken and Roberta Williams" session at VCF-East on 2026-Apr-18?
Thanks.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 2:58 PM Steve Craft via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Hi all. Can anyone point me to a recording from "Ask Questions! Virtual session with Ken and Roberta Williams" session at VCF-East on 2026-Apr-18?
Hello Steve, The recordings will be edited and processed shortly. When they are ready, then we will post them to the VCF YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@vcfederation Jeff Brace
Thanks.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown).
For a long time, VCF MIdwest had a rule for the Free Pile: "No Printers!" They had a lot of smallish dot-matrix printers and low-end inkjet printers abandoned on the pile. A few years ago, it softened to "No Uncool Printers!" In that era, I picked up 1-2 Commodore-badged dot-matrix printers specifically because of their model numbers (one was a 1526, the printer I used at my first job in 1982 - it's not large and it doesn't do PET graphics, but it's great for code listings). In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers. I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years. For my own exhibits, I have multiple printing consoles, but I don't take a van or panel truck so hauling an LA36-sized device is just not something I can do. I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise. But for the 70s and much of the 80s, yes, mini-computers routinely had printing consoles and are part of the total experience. Mid-80s, we had 5-6 LA34, LA36, and LA120 in the warehouse outside the datacenter all chattering away, all day. I still remember the cadence of VMS3 and VMS4 machines when someone was having problems logging in or when the machine would crash - there were times, I'd hear a specific sound, and walk over and check the console for what just happened. We lost that when we moved to a VT100 on top of everything (and saved 4-5 boxes of paper per month).
These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote.
Writing large amounts of C and m68k assembler at work in the 80s, the tiny window of 80x24 of a terminal wasn't large enough to get a good view of the code, so we very frequently printed out files on the LP25 line printer and threw them across the conference room table and attacked the listing with multiple colors of highlighters to make sense of what was what. A totally obsolete debugging technique today, but it was the best we had in 1988. When everything switched to cut sheets, it added work to keep the listings in order on and off the big table. -ethan
Maybe they have a few good printer specimens in the warehouse that could be put to work at VCF for some administrative task or another, or as part of an exhibit. I still like the idea of a printiers exhibit or to encourage people to include a printer in their exhibits. But we're lucky people use a CRT at this point. Bill On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 1:20 PM Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In 2026 the blogger felt that a 1980 stack of paper source listings with hand notations, needed an explanation as a kind of non-digital archive. Part of the backstory is about OCRing those listings for an accessible digital archive & distribution. Relative to the recent VCF-East, very few printers were in exhibits, a handful offered in consignment (a DEC LA36 was for sale, fate unknown).
For a long time, VCF MIdwest had a rule for the Free Pile: "No Printers!" They had a lot of smallish dot-matrix printers and low-end inkjet printers abandoned on the pile. A few years ago, it softened to "No Uncool Printers!" In that era, I picked up 1-2 Commodore-badged dot-matrix printers specifically because of their model numbers (one was a 1526, the printer I used at my first job in 1982 - it's not large and it doesn't do PET graphics, but it's great for code listings).
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers. I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years. For my own exhibits, I have multiple printing consoles, but I don't take a van or panel truck so hauling an LA36-sized device is just not something I can do. I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
But for the 70s and much of the 80s, yes, mini-computers routinely had printing consoles and are part of the total experience. Mid-80s, we had 5-6 LA34, LA36, and LA120 in the warehouse outside the datacenter all chattering away, all day. I still remember the cadence of VMS3 and VMS4 machines when someone was having problems logging in or when the machine would crash - there were times, I'd hear a specific sound, and walk over and check the console for what just happened. We lost that when we moved to a VT100 on top of everything (and saved 4-5 boxes of paper per month).
These remind me how dead paper and paper printing are today for most computerists (that is, everyone not an adult in 1980). In the era, the automation of text-on-paper and desktop (paper) publishing were a revolution; today they are marginal history, a recovery challenge, an explanatory footnote.
Writing large amounts of C and m68k assembler at work in the 80s, the tiny window of 80x24 of a terminal wasn't large enough to get a good view of the code, so we very frequently printed out files on the LP25 line printer and threw them across the conference room table and attacked the listing with multiple colors of highlighters to make sense of what was what. A totally obsolete debugging technique today, but it was the best we had in 1988. When everything switched to cut sheets, it added work to keep the listings in order on and off the big table.
-ethan
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage. Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot. This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit. On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs. Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models. -Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
Oh I'm very sad I didn't get to see your Spinwriter! I worked on those, and for showing what a hard core impact printer was like, you really can't beat then. Those things were tanks. On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 8:11 PM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs.
Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models.
-Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
I demoed a Xerox-branded Diablo 630 at VCF East in 2016 as part of my Xerox 820-II Office Suite exhibit. People showed interest in the daisywheel printer. On Thu, 30 Apr 2026, Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Oh I'm very sad I didn't get to see your Spinwriter! I worked on those, and for showing what a hard core impact printer was like, you really can't beat then. Those things were tanks.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 8:11 PM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs.
Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models.
-Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
Mike Loewen mloewen@cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
If anyone wants them, especially if they'll demo them, I've got a pair of Printronix line printers, one on a roll-around stand, one IIRC new in the box, plus consumables. They're free if you want to come to central VA and get them! These two came out of a typesetting shop in Michigan, they were used to run off pre-print proofs. The NIB one was the shop spare. Thanks, Jonathan On Thursday, April 30th, 2026 at 20:59, Mike Loewen via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I demoed a Xerox-branded Diablo 630 at VCF East in 2016 as part of my Xerox 820-II Office Suite exhibit. People showed interest in the daisywheel printer.
On Thu, 30 Apr 2026, Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Oh I'm very sad I didn't get to see your Spinwriter! I worked on those, and for showing what a hard core impact printer was like, you really can't beat then. Those things were tanks.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 8:11 PM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs.
Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models.
-Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
Mike Loewen mloewen@cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
On 4/30/26 21:51, Jonathan Chapman via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
If anyone wants them, especially if they'll demo them, I've got a pair of Printronix line printers, one on a roll-around stand, one IIRC new in the box, plus consumables. They're free if you want to come to central VA and get them! These two came out of a typesetting shop in Michigan, they were used to run off pre-print proofs. The NIB one was the shop spare.
What model(s)? -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
At the LSSM anniversary celebration last fall, I demoed their HP 3000 system 39 with attached line-matrix printer (2564). I printed a lot of calendars for the visitors. At VCF East in 2021, I had a 2934A dot-matrix printer as part of my HP 3000 minicomputer exhibit. It got very little interest from visitors. On Fri, 1 May 2026, Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs.
Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models.
-Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
Mike Loewen mloewen@cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/
That's right! You had a printer, sorry I forgot to acknowledge you keeping the spirit going. I may have my own Okimate somewhere, but usually I give them away when I get them. Bill On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 8:11 PM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
People seemed to like my NEC Spinwriter 5520 this year, even if I didn't have it do much more than printing OS65A output and game diagnostics. 51 lbs of inconvenience! Seriously though, it seems to me that the opinions on printers sorta shifted in the past decade when it comes to collecting and displaying, and I'm not sure what happened. Dot matrix, daisy wheel, typewriter -- whatever technology, if you can integrate it into an exhibit somehow, and possibly make feelies out of it for souvenirs, all the better of an experience. A few folks asked to print drawings from our Windows 95 exhibit last year on the dot matrix, which was a fun thing to offer. I also brought a Seikosha along once with my VIC exhibit, where it came in handy for checking my source code on long form programs.
Has anyone seen an exhibit with an operational Okimate 10 or 20? If so, I want to talk to whomever pulled that off, as I'd like to get one of mine going some time on my CBM kit. Celebrate the printers while we still have the harder-to-replace ink resources of the oddball models.
-Z On Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 07:10:08 PM EDT, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I ran an exhibit that had a cbm SuperPet running pascal, with output to a CBM IEEE printer. b
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:37 PM Dave Shevett via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
This was the basis of my exhibit plans months ago. I was bringing DECmates and my DEC LQP02 to show office printing on a daisywheel printer. Unfortunately both of my DECmates are non functional so I had to pivot.
This year the IBM crew had a very nice high speed wide body dot matrix printer running. That was a great exhibit.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 5:22 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 01:19:34PM -0400, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 10:38 AM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
In terms of printing at events, teletypes get some exposure, and they should. I've only ever seen a line printer once or twice at VCF, and only a few desktop-sized dot-matrix printers.
I've brought my low end chain printer twice. Did have a printer with my setup this year but didn't use it a lot.
I can't recall ever seeing a printing console (LA36/LA120/etc) on a minicomputer at any VCF over the past 20 years.
Looks like the last time I had one was 2019 and it was just a LA100. When getting ready for a different event found most of my DEC printing terminals aren't working. Yet more things to fix.
I don't even use them at home because of the cost of a box of fanfold paper. I would set one up for ASCII art but not to just chew through half a box of paper to make some noise.
For a while every time I brought a wide carrage printer someone gave me a box of paper they didn't want so went home with more paper than I came with. For ascii art type stuff I mostly printed what people asked for with some printing to just attract so never used more than a couple inches for the weekend. Even my chain printer is only 125 lines per minute so that limits paper usage.
Last time I did ascii and plotter art I seemed to have less interest. Couldn't decide if VCF has gotten enough bigger that people don't spend as much time at each exhibit or there is less interest. Or my presentation isn't attractive to newer people.
Wow! Looks like my "paper is dead" post stole the thread, big time! My apologies to my old friend Richard Cini, who started the thread with his great work to aid recovering early-early MS-DOS development from paper listings. Paper is a recoverable media! Um, the consensus issues about printer exhibitions, seem to be bulk, sustained visitor interest, plus restoration & maintenance. My brilliant work-around idea for an exhibit, would be a video jukebox of printer demonstrations. Select the printer, hear and see it in operation on the screen for a few minutes - then move on, next printer or next exhibit. These could be taped at home! Wadda think? Maybe one printer for show, the smell of ink, the buzz of pint head pins? Otherwise a collection of dead print heads would be portable - I've got a neat set of Selectric typeballs to show off, would that be of interest? What did you just call me? Print mechs are marvels of mechanical technology! I'm gonna think about this some more. Send me some private emails to encourage me. Thanks for voting for printers! - regards Herb Johnson, retrotechnology.com
Hello! On your blog Rich concerning the older MS-DOS reconstruction efforts, regarding Ray Duncan. He's an author who wrote of my books on programming in that environment, which is "Advanced MS-DOS Programming: The Microsoft Guide for Assembly Language and C Programmers". It was really helpful when I got started, using Borland's TASM products in fact. And if you have a copy look in the back at how it was published, the tool used was the CCI system which originally ran on a DG Nova, rewritten for the MS-DOS world. (I think. My dad's efforts to track that down for me did not lead to any useful clues.) Anyway that's an amazing book. ---- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 12:03 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
All —
I haven’t been able to talk about this early MSDOS recovery project since a few of us began working on it in September, but you can see the blog post by Scott Hanselman here.
Scott’s post links to both @BrokenPipe’s site and mine where we discuss the process. In short, I was able to get 700-ish pages of original source listings from Tim Paterson which I scanned and then we converted to workable source code. It’s the earliest known version of DOS code to exist in the wild.
https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/04/28/continuing-the-story-of-ear...
Rich
Long Island S100 User’s Group
Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
Thanks Gregg. Oddly, I think I have that book somewhere. I’ll have to see if I can find it. Rich -- Rich Cini http://cini.classiccmp.org https://github.com/RichCini From: Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8@gmail.com> Date: Thursday, April 30, 2026 at 7:54 PM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Richard Cini <rich.cini@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Earliest version of MSDOS recovered Hello! On your blog Rich concerning the older MS-DOS reconstruction efforts, regarding Ray Duncan. He's an author who wrote of my books on programming in that environment, which is "Advanced MS-DOS Programming: The Microsoft Guide for Assembly Language and C Programmers". It was really helpful when I got started, using Borland's TASM products in fact. And if you have a copy look in the back at how it was published, the tool used was the CCI system which originally ran on a DG Nova, rewritten for the MS-DOS world. (I think. My dad's efforts to track that down for me did not lead to any useful clues.) Anyway that's an amazing book. ---- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8@gmail.com "This signature was once found posting rude messages in English in the Moscow subway." On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 12:03 PM Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
All —
I haven’t been able to talk about this early MSDOS recovery project since a few of us began working on it in September, but you can see the blog post by Scott Hanselman here.
Scott’s post links to both @BrokenPipe’s site and mine where we discuss the process. In short, I was able to get 700-ish pages of original source listings from Tim Paterson which I scanned and then we converted to workable source code. It’s the earliest known version of DOS code to exist in the wild.
https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/04/28/continuing-the-story-of-ear...
Rich
Long Island S100 User’s Group
Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
participants (15)
-
Alexander Pierson -
Bill Degnan -
Dave McGuire -
Dave Shevett -
David Gesswein -
Ethan Dicks -
go4retro＠go4retro.com -
Gregg Levine -
Herb Johnson -
Jeffrey Brace -
Jonathan Chapman -
Mike Loewen -
Neil Cherry -
Richard Cini -
Steve Craft