From mike.ab3ap at gmail.com Tue Feb 6 09:44:05 2024 From: mike.ab3ap at gmail.com (Mike Markowski) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2024 18:44:05 -0500 Subject: [COFF] Dave Mills' Hollerith web page Message-ID: <0ed811bf-7860-486c-9261-34e8f659037c@gmail.com> After learning of Dave's death, a professor I very much enjoyed as a U of Delaware EE student, I came across this page https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/gallery/gallery9.html This reminds me of his lectures, the occasional 90 degree turn into who knows what, but guaranteed to be interesting.  And if anyone has a UDel Hollerith card they're willing to part with, please get in touch.  I have none.  :-( Mike Markowski -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From coff at tuhs.org Tue Feb 20 05:59:19 2024 From: coff at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via COFF) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 05:59:19 +1000 (AEST) Subject: [COFF] The Web Service on Minnie is 30 Years Old Today Message-ID: <20240219195919.7929243247@minnie.tuhs.org> On Wed Feb 23 16:33, 1994, I turned on the web service on my machine "minnie", originally minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au, now minnie.tuhs.org (aka www.tuhs.org). The web service has been running continuously for thirty years, except for occasional downtimes and hardware/software upgrades. I think this makes minnie one of the longest running web services still in existence :-) For your enjoyment, I've restored a snapshot of the web site from around mid-1994. It is visible at https://minnie.tuhs.org/94Web/ Some hyperlinks are broken. ## Web Logs The web logs show me testing the service locally on Feb 23 1994, with the first international web fetches on Feb 26: ``` sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:13 1994] GET / HTTP/1.0 sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:18 1994] GET /BSD.html HTTP/1.0 sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:20 1994] GET /Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 ... estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:48:21 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:48:30 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:49:46 1994] GET /BSD-info/cdrom.html HTTP/1.0 shazam.cs.iastate.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:31:20 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 shazam.cs.iastate.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:31:24 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:32:04 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:32:10 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 ``` ## Minnie to This Point Minnie originally started life in May 1991 as an FTP server running KA9Q NOS on an IBM XT with a 30M RLL disk, see https://minnie.tuhs.org/minannounce.txt By February 1994 Minnie was running FreeBSD 1.0e on a 386DX25 with 500M of disk space, 8M of RAM and a 10Base2 network connection. I'd received a copy of the BSDisc Vol.1 No.1 in December 1993. According to the date on the file `RELNOTES.FreeBSD` on the CD, FreeBSD 1.0e was released on Oct 28 1993. ## The Web Server I'd gone to a summer conference in Canberra in mid-February 1994 (see pg. 29 of https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V15.1.pdf and https://minnie.tuhs.org/94Web/Canberra-AUUG/cauugs94.html, 10am) and I'd seen the Mosaic web browser in action. With FreeBSD running on minnie, it seemed like a good idea to set up a web server on her. NCSA HTTPd server v1.1 had been released at the end of Jan 1994, see http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1994q1/0282.html It was the obvious choice to be the web server on minnie. ## Minnie from Then to Now You can read more about minnie's history and her hardware/software evolution here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/minnie.html I obtained the "tuhs.org" domain in May 2000 and switched minnie's domain name from "minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au" to "minnie.tuhs.org". Cheers! Warren P.S. I couldn't wait until Friday to post this :-) From dave at horsfall.org Tue Feb 20 06:06:29 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 07:06:29 +1100 (EST) Subject: [COFF] The Web Service on Minnie is 30 Years Old Today In-Reply-To: <20240219195919.7929243247@minnie.tuhs.org> References: <20240219195919.7929243247@minnie.tuhs.org> Message-ID: And well done again, for people who aren't on TUHS :-) -- Dave From wobblygong at gmail.com Tue Feb 20 13:09:02 2024 From: wobblygong at gmail.com (Wesley Parish) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:09:02 +1300 Subject: [COFF] The Web Service on Minnie is 30 Years Old Today In-Reply-To: <20240219195919.7929243247@minnie.tuhs.org> References: <20240219195919.7929243247@minnie.tuhs.org> Message-ID: <1577ed22-047b-4116-ad08-90f708fe913e@gmail.com> Love those story manglings. "Prunella's Lustful Murderous Haiku Went Sailing In Terror" - makes as much sense as much we see on the news! Wesley Parish On 20/02/24 08:59, Warren Toomey via COFF wrote: > On Wed Feb 23 16:33, 1994, I turned on the web service on my machine > "minnie", originally minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au, now minnie.tuhs.org (aka > www.tuhs.org). The web service has been running continuously for thirty > years, except for occasional downtimes and hardware/software upgrades. > > I think this makes minnie one of the longest running web services > still in existence :-) > > For your enjoyment, I've restored a snapshot of the web site from > around mid-1994. It is visible at https://minnie.tuhs.org/94Web/ > Some hyperlinks are broken. > > ## Web Logs > > The web logs show me testing the service locally on Feb 23 1994, > with the first international web fetches on Feb 26: > > ``` > sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:13 1994] GET / HTTP/1.0 > sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:18 1994] GET /BSD.html HTTP/1.0 > sparcserve.cs.adfa.oz.au [Wed Feb 23 16:33:20 1994] GET /Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 > ... > estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:48:21 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 > estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:48:30 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 > estcs1.estec.esa.nl [Sat Feb 26 01:49:46 1994] GET /BSD-info/cdrom.html HTTP/1.0 > shazam.cs.iastate.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:31:20 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 > shazam.cs.iastate.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:31:24 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 > dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:32:04 1994] GET /BSD-info/BSD.html HTTP/1.0 > dem0nmac.mgh.harvard.edu [Sat Feb 26 06:32:10 1994] GET /BSD-info/Images/demon1.gif HTTP/1.0 > ``` > > ## Minnie to This Point > > Minnie originally started life in May 1991 as an FTP server running KA9Q NOS > on an IBM XT with a 30M RLL disk, see https://minnie.tuhs.org/minannounce.txt > > By February 1994 Minnie was running FreeBSD 1.0e on a 386DX25 with 500M > of disk space, 8M of RAM and a 10Base2 network connection. I'd received a copy > of the BSDisc Vol.1 No.1 in December 1993. According to the date on the file > `RELNOTES.FreeBSD` on the CD, FreeBSD 1.0e was released on Oct 28 1993. > > ## The Web Server > > I'd gone to a summer conference in Canberra in mid-February 1994 (see > pg. 29 of https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V15.1.pdf > and https://minnie.tuhs.org/94Web/Canberra-AUUG/cauugs94.html, 10am) > and I'd seen the Mosaic web browser in action. With FreeBSD running on > minnie, it seemed like a good idea to set up a web server on her. > > NCSA HTTPd server v1.1 had been released at the end of Jan 1994, see > http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1994q1/0282.html > It was the obvious choice to be the web server on minnie. > > ## Minnie from Then to Now > > You can read more about minnie's history and her hardware/software > evolution here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/minnie.html > > I obtained the "tuhs.org" domain in May 2000 and switched minnie's > domain name from "minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au" to "minnie.tuhs.org". > > Cheers! > Warren > > P.S. I couldn't wait until Friday to post this :-) From coff at tuhs.org Tue Feb 20 17:11:11 2024 From: coff at tuhs.org (segaloco via COFF) Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2024 07:11:11 +0000 Subject: [COFF] Archived A Couple 5ESS Training Programs Message-ID: <2enQ1xrdytok6ddazKpdyWbuenETON0vhLyZnrRX71TzE5BdwZSfXiwuheeu7DgetnwWDozpJd3ZSuW3kHhz9l8zjOaTTNPzHJd8qSLA98I=@protonmail.com> I've just uploaded a couple new items to archive.org that folks may find interesting: https://archive.org/details/5ess-2000-switch-es5431-office-data-base-1998 https://archive.org/details/5ess-2000-switch-es5432-system-analysis-1998 Linked above are the ES5431 (Office Data Base Installation) and ES5432 (System Analysis) training CDs as produced by Bell Laboratories (Lucent era) for the 5ESS-2000 switch. Among other things, these CDs contain a 5ESS simulator which you can see a screenshot of here: https://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=28001.msg269652#msg269652 I was able to successfully get it to run on Windows 98 SE in a virtual machine, although did break one rule of archiving optical media in that I didn't take iso rips. I intend to throw an old FreeBSD hard disk in that computer sometime soon and do some proper rips with dd(1). In the meantime, this means using the above archives presents only a partial experience in that the Training section of the software appears to depend on the original discs being inserted. In any case, the simulator interests me greatly. I intend to do a little digging around in it as time goes on to see if there may be traces of 3B20 emulation or DMERT in the guts. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows. Either way, it'll be interesting to play with. Thus far I've only verified the simulator launches, but have done nothing with it yet. Picked up Steele's Common Lisp (2nd Edition) in the same eBay session so time will be split between this, learning Lisp, and plenty of other little oddball projects I have going, but if I find anything interesting I'll be sure to share. Given that Nokia is shedding 5ESS stuff pretty heavily right now (or so I've heard) I have to wonder if more of this stuff will start popping up in online market places. Word over on the telephone forum is that some folks in Nokia do have an interest in preserving 5ESS knowledge and materials but are getting the expected apathy and lack of engagement from higher ups. Hopefully this at least means Nokia doesn't mind too much this stuff getting archived if they don't have to do any of the footwork :) - Matt G. From andreww591 at gmail.com Sat Feb 24 21:15:55 2024 From: andreww591 at gmail.com (Andrew Warkentin) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2024 04:15:55 -0700 Subject: [COFF] Archived A Couple 5ESS Training Programs In-Reply-To: <2enQ1xrdytok6ddazKpdyWbuenETON0vhLyZnrRX71TzE5BdwZSfXiwuheeu7DgetnwWDozpJd3ZSuW3kHhz9l8zjOaTTNPzHJd8qSLA98I=@protonmail.com> References: <2enQ1xrdytok6ddazKpdyWbuenETON0vhLyZnrRX71TzE5BdwZSfXiwuheeu7DgetnwWDozpJd3ZSuW3kHhz9l8zjOaTTNPzHJd8qSLA98I=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On 2/20/24, segaloco via COFF wrote: > > In any case, the simulator interests me greatly. I intend > to do a little digging around in it as time goes on to see > if there may be traces of 3B20 emulation or DMERT in the > guts. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows. Either way, > it'll be interesting to play with. Thus far I've only > verified the simulator launches, but have done nothing > with it yet. I've installed the simulator and it doesn't appear to be based on any kind of 3B20 emulation (unlike the emulator used on the VCDX's administrative module). It's mostly a collection of DLLs and what appear to be some kind of table files. I guess it could be a port of the actual 5ESS UI code to Windows, but I'm not quite sure of that. From brad at anduin.eldar.org Sun Feb 25 00:08:14 2024 From: brad at anduin.eldar.org (Brad Spencer) Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2024 09:08:14 -0500 Subject: [COFF] Archived A Couple 5ESS Training Programs In-Reply-To: (message from Andrew Warkentin on Sat, 24 Feb 2024 04:15:55 -0700) Message-ID: Andrew Warkentin writes: > On 2/20/24, segaloco via COFF wrote: >> >> In any case, the simulator interests me greatly. I intend >> to do a little digging around in it as time goes on to see >> if there may be traces of 3B20 emulation or DMERT in the >> guts. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows. Either way, >> it'll be interesting to play with. Thus far I've only >> verified the simulator launches, but have done nothing >> with it yet. > > I've installed the simulator and it doesn't appear to be based on any > kind of 3B20 emulation (unlike the emulator used on the VCDX's > administrative module). It's mostly a collection of DLLs and what > appear to be some kind of table files. I guess it could be a port of > the actual 5ESS UI code to Windows, but I'm not quite sure of that. I am not familiar with this particular simulator, but it could simply be a program or program set that was made to look like the 5E without anything from the actual 5E being involved. I was involved a bit with simulating switch responses for the OSS system I worked on at AT&T/Lucent and that was done mostly with either stand alone programs which simply responded minimally like the caller expected or later with a simulation engine that a coworker wrote that could be programmed to respond in a more complete and configurable manor than the stand lones could do. We never used any of the actual switch code to do any of this, just used what the documentation said would be the call and then generated a response. As far as I know these simulators never left our group. I also wrote for, my own purposes, a simulator that simulated the backend of the OSS system I worked on so that I could point an instance of the web / HTML based UI I was writing for said system without having to actually have a backend system present and do development. In fact, much of my own development on the Web UI for that OSS system was done in the simulated environment first. I would not be suprised that the training group came up with a way to simulate the 5E UI based just on the inputs and outputs. -- Brad Spencer - brad at anduin.eldar.org From paul.winalski at gmail.com Tue Feb 27 03:35:08 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2024 12:35:08 -0500 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 Message-ID: A friend of mine has a DECmate-II word processor. It is in perfect working order except for one thing. The field encoding the current date/time has overflowed. It is impossible to set a date/time in the 21st century. He says that the software in question is a version of WPS-8 for the PDP-8. It should be possible to fix the date/time problem by dumping the DECmate's ROM and disassembling the code. It ought not be too hard to locate the date/time encode/decode routine and come up with a fix to the time epoch problem. Is anyone out there familiar with the DECmate-II software? Or, even better, knows how to get its source code? Advice greatly appreciated. -Paul W. From ralph at inputplus.co.uk Tue Feb 27 05:13:10 2024 From: ralph at inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2024 19:13:10 +0000 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240226191310.D17D321F80@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Hi Paul, > It should be possible to fix the date/time problem by dumping > the DECmate's ROM and disassembling the code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECmate#External_links includes ... DECmate II ROM contents, decoded and disassembled by Charles J. Lasner https://web.archive.org/web/20051218090251/http://anachronda.homeunix.com:8000/~rivie/decmate/358360.pal Hope that's a match. -- Cheers, Ralph. From coff at tuhs.org Tue Feb 27 06:41:42 2024 From: coff at tuhs.org (segaloco via COFF) Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:41:42 +0000 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 In-Reply-To: <20240226191310.D17D321F80@orac.inputplus.co.uk> References: <20240226191310.D17D321F80@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Message-ID: On Monday, February 26th, 2024 at 11:13 AM, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > Hi Paul, > > > It should be possible to fix the date/time problem by dumping > > the DECmate's ROM and disassembling the code. > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECmate#External_links includes > > ... > DECmate II ROM contents, decoded and disassembled by Charles J. Lasner > https://web.archive.org/web/20051218090251/http://anachronda.homeunix.com:8000/~rivie/decmate/358360.pal > > Hope that's a match. > > -- > Cheers, Ralph. Would a modern PDP-8 disassembler be helpful? I've got a bare bones 6502 disassembler I wrote some time ago that is modular enough that I could probably roll a PDP-8 one from its skeleton if there's not a preferred solution these days. Been looking for another simple utility project to tinker on lately. - Matt G. From ralph at inputplus.co.uk Tue Feb 27 21:45:19 2024 From: ralph at inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy) Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2024 11:45:19 +0000 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240227114519.687E821E8C@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Hi again Paul, > He says that the software in question is a version of WPS-8 for the > PDP-8. It should be possible to fix the date/time problem by dumping > the DECmate's ROM and disassembling the code I think WPS arrives on floppy. How sure are you the ROM's firmware provides the date routines used by WPS rather than it just dishing up something more crude with WPS doing the work of turning it into a date? -- Cheers, Ralph. From paul.winalski at gmail.com Thu Feb 29 03:00:36 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2024 12:00:36 -0500 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 In-Reply-To: <20240227114519.687E821E8C@orac.inputplus.co.uk> References: <20240227114519.687E821E8C@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Message-ID: IOn 2/27/24, Ralph Corderoy wrote: > > I think WPS arrives on floppy. How sure are you the ROM's firmware > provides the date routines used by WPS rather than it just dishing up > something more crude with WPS doing the work of turning it into a date? I got the ROM disassembly you pointed me to and took a look at it. Thanks, Ralph. You're right--it's WPS-8 itself that has the date/time routines that need patching. So now I'm looking for a WPS-8 disassembly, and if possible the source code, which I assume is in PDP-8 assembler. Is there a forum that PDP-8 folks hang out in where I could ask for leads? Thanks, -Paul W. From clemc at ccc.com Thu Feb 29 03:40:47 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2024 12:40:47 -0500 Subject: [COFF] DECmate-II and WPS-8 In-Reply-To: References: <20240227114519.687E821E8C@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Message-ID: below... On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 12:00 PM Paul Winalski wrote: > > So now I'm looking for a WPS-8 disassembly, and if possible the source > code, which I assume is in PDP-8 assembler. > https://web.archive.org/web/20200509075839/http://pdp12.dustyoldcomputers.com/pub/pdp8/utils/d8tape.tar.gz is the disassembler I used in the past. There are is an assembler on the same site. > > Is there a forum that PDP-8 folks hang out in where I could ask for leads? > PiDP-8 Mailing list: PiDP-8 Couple of sites: https://www.pdp8online.com/ https://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: