[vcf-midatlantic] Pdp-8 focal @ Kennett Classic

David Gesswein djg at pdp8online.com
Fri Jul 7 02:52:27 UTC 2023


If you do run into the overrun problem loading a FOCAL source file just take
the reader out of run every 1/2 time it took to overrun until PDP-8
stops sending and it will be fine.

A lot of the FOCAL program around are too large for 4k. I have a Lunar
Landar that works in 4k if you haven't already found something to load under
FOCAL. Assuming this was part of your plan or were you just loading FOCAL
binary?

On Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 10:33:37PM -0400, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> Dave
> Inhave an actual tape with loader prepared.  I get what're saying about the
> baud.
>   I don't have a run relay.
>   I guess we'll see
> 
> On Thu, Jul 6, 2023, 10:16 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> 
> > Note if your loading a FOCAL program if whatever is sending baudrate is
> > faster than the PDP-8 transmit baud rate the loading will fail after a
> > while
> > with buffer overrun. I've adjusted the pot on the TTY clock card to make it
> > load from a teletype. I'm talking if your using a PC that transmits exactly
> > 110 baud and the PDP-8 actually transmits at 108 baud you have problems.
> > Loading the FOCAL tape itself doesn't have this problem.
> >
> > Note that some versions of the FOCAL tape have two sections so without
> > reader
> > run if you don't hit continue quick enough after the first halt you will
> > not
> > load the initial dialog.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 09:45:15PM -0400, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic
> > wrote:
> > > Saturday at the museum we're going to try to load FOCAL from papertape
> > into
> > > the PDP-8 system.  12 noon to ?  All are welcome.  Also going to document
> > > system in detail, measure voltages, etc.
> > > Kennettclassic.com
> > > Bill
> >


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