Latest posts
How can you call it a MiniVac if has no tubes? Nice to see one live and in the flesh, even if it is not 100% working. In 72 the only access I had to computers, was watching Star Trek re-runs with computers that had the fancy blinking light displays. Some where around that time I got the idea of building my own computer. Still working on that idea
I learned Pascal on the time-shared CDC Cyber at the university back in '84. Fortran and IBM 360 assembly language were other classes I took on the same system (someone had written a full 360 assembler and simulator as a thesis project I assume). Cyber assembly language was not offered, at least not as an undergraduate course. I learned C on one of the two VAXen that also resided there at the…
c1980; Ugh! Primes! I used them at uni, but never really liked them. Yes, Pascal, Fortran, COBOL, and PMA (Prime Macro Assembler) were all taught on it. And there was also a 16-bit Pascal also on the PDP-11 we had - that was (I think) Vrije Pascal - Maybe this… pascal.hansotten.com Pascal and the Vrije Universiteit – Pascal for small machines And from that (possibly?) There is a Amsterdam Compiler…
I used one of these when I was 11, back in 1972. I acquired one a few years ago, but have not restored it yet. The cool bit was that the motor drove a multi-contact multi-pole switch that was used as a clock. It was delightfully hands-on.
I had one of these as a child. It was one of the things that nudged me from dinosaurs to computers. I found one on Ebay about 10 years ago, so now I have one again. I also have the cardboard replickit, but I’ve not assembled it yet.
Certainly Pascal exist(ed) on a 16-bit word addressed machine - the Prime series of minicomputers gained a Pascal compiler in the early 80s at rev 17 of Primos IIRC. Just in case it’s of interest, there’s a book that details the implementation of the Pascal P4 compiler that generates P-code and the P-code interpreter itself: Pemberton and Daniels: Pascal Implementation: The P4 Compiler and…
For those who care about algorithmic detail: Novak Kaluđerović - Kolja A long division story A long division story
Yes, those images are somewhat off-putting (the related articles may be still interesting), but thankfully all the books listed are quite significantly pre-2023, meaning not an issue where it does count… Also, yes, I thought I had kind of an idea what “prolific writer” means, but I may have to revise this, given the new data-point available.
A potentially interesting site that’s been made somewhat off-putting by virtue of more than normally sloppy AI slop images. Kind of fits with the mass churned out books though. The man was a machine. (If that machine was a photocopier…)
If you have an interest in vintage computer books, have a look at Mitch Waite’s website. There’s a drove of books available for download as PDF, directly from the author’s website. (Mind that there’s still an “all rights reserved” note.) I’ve seen some of them recommended in various context (e.g. CP/M). It’s quite a list, covering the years 1972 to 1999 and various topics. (You’ll have to engage…
oldben: Do you also include The 5 minute warm up for the drive to reach 1500 rpm? Huh? I don’t have drives, I have SD cards. The slowest drives I think I’ve ever had hands-on with would have been on a PDP-11. I think they spun up in under 30 seconds… Want to see my system boot-up on a 150Mhz RISC-V system? It takes about one second from the power light going on to asking you to ‘login’. Demo of…
Do you also include The 5 minute warm up for the drive to reach 1500 rpm? This also brings up the question how large were BCPL programs on the average, in the day and age media was floppy sized and programs came on punched cards?
oldben: The fly in the ointment here is Windows and a non byte addressable CPU design. There is a compiled windows executable too. Just Get the entire archive from MRs website and it’s there. As for non byte addressable - that may make writing a bytecode interpreter on your own hardware somewhat challenging… However older versions of BCPL did run on work based systems with packstring() and…
The fly in the ointment here is Windows and a non byte addressable CPU design. I like vintage hardware design, compared to running RISC of the day.The modern machines have too steep a learning curve for IO. Right now I am in the prototype stage so just having clean power was a major problem. Modern CMOS parts are low power except for that 30 ns voltage spike on the clock edge. That aside running…
oldben: I need 32 bit ASCII Intcode, if I ever get the hardware working here. BCPL is on my ‘round to it’ list that may get to later in the FALL. Hope it works. Do go through the OPC (One Page CPU) project pages: opc OPC - One Page CPU One Page CPU Project - CPU, Assembler & Emulator each in a single page of code where there is discussion of using BCPL on OPCv6. They go from BCPl → SIAL → Native…
I need 32 bit ASCII Intcode, if I ever get the hardware working here. BCPL is on my ‘round to it’ list that may get to later in the FALL. I have been designing with 128 cell CPLD’s, for hardware logic, and using wincupl for design software. That I can understand what gets compiled unlike VHDL or Verlog. Alas the CPLD’s will not permit as much much more logic than a basic cpu, so microcode is not a…
Long time since updating here. Been working on a hdd support,by emu, for monroe for a while but just some time ago i was able to but an hdd as well, MA 8615 so the work can maybe continue I have also made a webbased tool to extract floppy/hdd image into plain files abc.sweproj.com OS8 / Monroe Disk Decoder There is also files in my disc image archive abc.sweproj.com Archive Disk and a command line…
Not that I’m aware of. But do note; There is no single “BCPL virtual machine”. There are at least 3 virtual machines that the current compiler can output - the older OCODE, newer CINTCODE and SIAL - the latter being intended to be easy to translate to an underlying native machine code. (As is done in the OPC projects, AUIU) Also note that BCPL compilers in the past have generated native machine…
I’ll throw out my guess: no. Based on reading about virtual machines and microcode around that era. For example, the Alto would have been a prime target, since BCPL was a popular language for that machine. But the compiler and microcode targeted Nova (like) machine code. PS. By some odd quirk, the Alto BCPL compiler was based on the one for the Lincoln Labs TX-2.
Did anyone implement the BCPL virtual machine in hardware or microcode?
Rest in peace - Dr. Tim King.
Well done Pau!! Thanks so much for that and you’re so right: after the end of any war, the victors get to write the history and that often means ‘writing-out’ the achievements of the vanquished which, unfortunately, creates an ‘information vacuum’ which is quickly filled by the conspiracy cranks and various other mythologists! Your information on Vickers is almost certainly correct, many such…
RetroRamJet: The Castell Novo-Biplex monster, considered the ultimate in linear rules, is hand-powered The 24-scale Novo-Biplex is indeed a monster. I inherited a Hemmi/Post Versalog 1460, with a mere 23 scales, and it’s an utter bear to work with even with the full hardbound manual at hand. TBH, I find the simple Ricoh 102 student slide rule (which a seller on ebay had a whole load, new in box,…
Just arrived and it’s already a favourite.
amenjet: Casio FX-190 Remarkable! From curtamania :
Did you see that there are two? The FX190 and the FX191. One is in mm and one in inches. And the LCD marks along the ruler? The scientific keys are reminiscent of the FX502P, the whole thing is quite exquisite. It can perform calculations and then put the result on the LCD bars that run the length of the ruler.
Oh my, No! Now I want one…
Another big, but late progress. I didn’t take care about the RAM check anymore, but I noticed that some opcodes not working correctly. Like 7421 MQL, MQA, BSW, RAL etc. Suddenly I had a test pattern in the RAM. Some opcodes were still not working, and some missing. Then they were fixed according the datasheets. But first not handled correctly afterwards. 2 years ago I noticed that there are 3…
Have you seen the Casio FX-190, talking about rules?
Wow, this is cool. Looking forward to doing the same with my Olimex ESP32-p4-pc board.
But it’s worth remembering, that even this fancy ghost byte effect demo still ALSO features classic PETSCII art and animation.
scruss: There has to be an explanation of what’s all going on at once and why that’s cool on the particular hardware Yeah, this is how the C64 demo scene has been for some decades. Well … not all of it. There’s still a lot of PETSCII demo sceners who obviously can’t “innovate” with technical trickery. It’s a pretty pure expression of artistic skill and aesthetics. But there are other forms of…
I powered the OberonStation up and it still works.
Thanks. I’ve sent parts off now. If they come back and don’t look right then I will come back to you for measurements. I want to make something that, even if it isn’t identical to the original, looks like it. I have the microtan R keypad above, but didn’t find the correct keytops until recently. I also need to make a ribbon cable for it with the correct headers. I also have quite a few of the…
Dmitry’s previous demo release “Beeperdrive” was released at Diehard’s demo comp Winter 2026. He included the source, and I managed to port it over to the VZ200 / Laser200 only last night using a 18 resistor ladder circuit DAC sitting on the printer port. The VZ/Laser uses a piezo speaker which does not respond to a lot of auido unlike the ZX’s full cone speaker. Sounds wonderful, and at the…
Oh, that CM-100 is special!
Jos Visser has been quietly developing OpenComal over the years. His up-to-date repo is here: josvisser66/opencomal: A bad but open source implementation of the Comal programming language There’s a WASM version, too: OpenComal playground
Yes, I routinely use my nixie-based Compucorp Scientist 122E desktop. It is keypress programmable similar to the early HP and TI calculators: I also use several calculators because of their unique display or shape. The Castell Novo-Biplex monster, considered the ultimate in linear rules, is hand-powered, unlike the Casio CM-100 solar computer math calc which has been my companion mostly for hex…
Yes, the IPM-OTT integrator intended for German WWII ballistic and rocketry calculations was unable to be completed during the war due to bombing of Darmstatt. It was finally completed in 1948.
If you haven’t yet, do a search on the IPM-OTT integrator. Ask AI for photos and drawings because if you use the Deutch’s museum link and archive you may end up in a parse tree loop like I did. In a nutshell, when searching for its intended WWII use, Ballistics and Rocketry calculations are the main mention. So, I remember having a picture in a book or magazine that showed an electromechanical…
I have just opened my Microtan treasure chest, and I do have a keypad in there. So if you need any measurements, let me know what to measure and I will be happy to get them for you.
This is an existing recreation, that might be interesting. http://www.microtan.ukpc.net/Microtan-R/Keypad2.jpg Kicad files are available on the site. They have created recreations for many of the Tangerine boards. microtan.ukpc.net Tangerine Microtan 65 Tangerine 6502 Microtan 65/Micron/6809 microcomputers: Hardware, Software, Manuals, ROM images, Circuit Diagrams, Schematics, Magazine articles,…
Thanks to some help getting photos and measurements, I have now sent some parts off for a prototype keypad. Updates to follow…
EdS: via Lardo Boffin on stardot. I’ve posted over there with a couple of optimised versions in 8 bit BBC Basic - just under 4 seconds, compared to the baseline of 18 and a bit. I’m quite pleased!
The Rockwells are big, yes. I have a Monroe 9820 as well, and some PC1001s. All PPS4 processors.
I just remember using them, and they were big scientific monsters.Nice to see other vintage calculators out there.
I have a few Rockwell 920s, they have printers and magnetic cards and a lot of program steps. I have a PC1300, that also has a printer and magnetic cards. The paper on that one uses the the metalised paper, though, which is tricky to find. I also have a Casio PRO FX-1 which uses magnetic cards. The Casio and Sharp have hand-powered card readers, which is more reliable than the motorised version,…
I have an HP 97 with a mag card reader, but it has an LED display. I’m not sure there were any HPs with both nixie tubes and mag cards, by the early 1970s (when the programmables started appearing) the displays were almost all LED.
Hi everyone, I built something you might enjoy — a fully interactive Amiga Workbench 1.3 desktop that runs right in your browser. The windows actually drag, there’s a working CRT TV, it plays music, and it even has a retro bazaar. It’s not commercial — the shop sections are just there for the vibe, to complete the experience. A small tribute to the Amiga and Commodore era. Would love for you to…
oldben: Does any one have a NIXIE tube calculator? I am thinking of the big desk top calculators I have an Anita Mk10 from the 60s. Not programmable. It has Nixies and a Decatron. However it’s non working and in a poor state of repair. Maybe one day I’ll resurrect it. anita-calculators.info ANITA Mk 10 Calculator -Gordon