Date : Mon, 06 Mar 2006 20:07:15 +0000
From : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!
Mike wrote:
>> Think we've been through the SCSI side of things on this list a few times
> in
>> the past and I can never remember the exact ins and outs, other than it
>> probably won't work without modifying ROM code, and even then you need a
> drive
>> that'll handle 256 byte sectors - which isn't many of them.
>
> Need to become a master of Mode_Sense-Fu. I managed to persuade a 5.25
> Seagate 80 Meg to run on my BBC. Still using it. I did it with the BBC
> command stuff : equal volumes of coffee and tears as I rememeber.
Oooh, well it's nice to know that someone's actually done it. There's hope
then for when all of our ST506/412 drives eventually die!
[fractals]
> BTW Jules, I did fnid a few more pages of scribble that look something
> like the link drawings
nice - be interested to see those sometime...
>>> Its not fast though. Summit like 6 hours per screen
>
> Luxury! Some of mine ran two days.
eek!
I remember the mandelbrot prog for my Casio graphical calculator circa 1990
and that'd run in about 2 hours...
> I did a 'dump to / resume from' disc
> routine in case of crashes, though that was more a workaround for the Feline
> Foot Interrupt hazard, (cats like warm places to curl up in.... ).
Girlfriend's cat likes the top of the wireless router, so it's slowly filling
up with cat hair...
> Did you ever see 'PsycheBrot', done as a charity fund raiser? (I'll try and
> find the guys name, I think he was called Chris Reynolds), fabulous
> animated Mandelbrots: a small programming masterpiece. I may even still
> have a copy
Hmm, that sounds rather interesting! Let me know if you stumble across a copy!
> The transputer was by Flight, (now flite http://www.flite.co.uk )
> electronics.
I might give them a prod then if Mike W doesn't unearth any bits. Someone
there *might* recall it, although my experience of chasing up leads within
companies is that usually the people who knew anything are long gone by now...
> The transputer board was, I think, serial port driven. Not a tube in sight.
Oh, poo. That's a bit dull! Mind you, interconnects between transputers were
just serial links, so I suppose it's sort of in keeping :)
> Tube to Inmos serial link anyone?
Yes please. Still need something to act as a front end to our Inmos ITEM crates.
I thought I'd struck gold when a PC transputer link board turned up the other
day, but it turns out that it was missing half its bits :(
> Then there's the small matter of the folding Occam editor
Ahhh, memories! I used to love that editor - seems that only recently is the
concept starting to appear in modern source editors. (or at least SciTE and
Kate both do it under linux)
> Fragula has got me wondering about a tube to 64 bit array. Having seen the
> startup for the later Cray VME IO rack, (which had several VME 'crates'
> within it), As well as the tales of actually getting hold of UniCOS, I'm
> wondering if some notes on CAL might fall off he back of some notable
> instsitution in the near future. One of my mates from down Reading way has
> offered to chip in some actual programs, their data, and the 'official'
> results.
Well as I mentioned I'll hopefully swing by the Cray museum when I'm over in
MN again in a few weeks, partially in a Bletchley museum capacity. If there's
useful docs or software needed I might be able to arrange something, you never
know!
Jim Austin's notional Cray collector on this side of the pond, but I'm not
sure what docs or software he has. He may well be worth a prod too.
>> Master Scientifics did exist, but I don't know of anyone who has one.
>
> I heard some were sighted in Salford uni. Though the scallies will probably
> have had 'em all melted down by now, I guess.
Although given that Cambridge uni's 32016's only got dumped last year, there's
a small chance they're still lurking in a cupboard I suppose!
> If we're talking homebrew, perhaps we ought to fill in some of the gaps. How
> about a Mips
MIPS would be nice... maybe someone can graft a beeb onto a SGI :) Get an O2k
and do it straight onto the Craylink hardware ;)
> A thought. Does the legendary X.25 packet switchstream adapter count as a
> processor or an add-on?
pass. Don't know much about it, although it rings a bell - I may have some
documentation somewhere...
> I remember an advert for a Torch 'Unicorn' which seemed to be a 68000
> running SVR3, or was it just anohther myth?
Not a myth. The Unicorn as I recall was the 68000 copro in its own box, to
which you attached a beeb. In comparison, the 7xx series machines were the
same hardware, but all packaged in a single metal case.
Annoyingly, I haven't got SVR3 install media although I have most other Torch
things on floppy. The hard disk in my 725 is a little unwell and it's a ST412
drive via a bridge board so data recovery's not exactly easy :(
> Minor drool over the curve tracer - I've been asked to do some retro
> distortion units with germanium transistos, and it would be good for
> consistency!
I have no idea how it works, or even what state it's in internally... :(
(no idea where it came from either!)
cheers
J.