Aucbvax.1383
fa.info-micro
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!CSTACY@MIT-AI
Thu May 21 01:01:02 1981
INFO-MICRO Digest V3 #44
INFO-MICRO AM Digest Wednesday, 21 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 44
Today's Topics:
Modems - LMODEM & APPLE-CAT II & Bell 212 speed,
Ithica Review, CCBIOS Mods, Unix Software Query
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 April 1981 04:36-EST
From: Keith B. Petersen <W8SDZ MIT-MC AT>
Subject: [W8SDZ: Northstar/modem conflict]
This is not an "official answer" from BUG-MTN, but I noticed your
message there and wanted to pass along a bit of info you may find
useful. If you are using a Horizon mainframe, you cannot use port C0H
for the PMMI modem. The reason is that that port is used by the
mother board for some sort of parity business with Northstar memory.
Everyone I know who has a Horizon II has had this problem. It doesn't
seem to matter whether you have the parity option on your memory
boards or not. The symptom is unexplained bombing of programs used
with the modem. Anytime the program does an output to port C0H, it
messes up the system memory.
Around here, Horizon owners have standaradized on port B0H.
------------------------------
Date: 24 April 1981 22:09-EST
From: Edward Barton <EB AT MIT-AI>
The LMODEM program recently mentioned in INFO-MICRO runs on
MIT-Multics in addition to ITS, though storage of 8-bit files is not
implemented there.
------------------------------
Date: 23 April 1981
From: Mike Leavitt <LEAVITT USC-ISI AT>
Subject: Apple-Cat ii, MicroAce, Locksmith
Three quick items:
1. The Apple-Cat II by Novation's 1200 baud capability is Bell
202 half-duplex. Don't think youwill be able to talk to
212a's. But aside from that,the specs look fine.
2. Has anyone out there actually built a $150 MicroAce. I
described it to a friend, after seeing it at the Faire, and
he ran right out and ordered one. Did I lead him wrong?
3. I heard rumors that Locksmith is in bankruptcy after being
sued by every software house in the world because of its bit-
copying program. Can anyone confirm or deny this? That would
be a real tragedy!
Mike
------------------------------
Date: 28 April 1981 19:26-EDT
From: Brian P. Lloyd <LLOYD AT MIT-AI>
Subject: Bell 212A speed selection.
There has been some misunderstanding as to the function of pin 23 of
the EIA connector. As it turns out, there are two function (options)
available for pin 23. When the "Interface Speed Indication" option is
selected, pin 23 indicates the operating speed of the modem. If the
"Speed Control" option is selected, pin 23 controls the originate
speed of the modem (rather than the HS switch). Needless to say,
these two options are mutually exclusive.
Brian Lloyd
------------------------------
Date: 24 Apr 1981 0841-PST
From: Mo at LBL-Unix (Mike O'Dell)
Subject: 212 lossages
The recent messages about 212 interconnections have me puzzled. When
I read the Ma Bell documentation on the 212, this business about speed
select on originate comes out differently. The way I read it, the
button on the front panel is the ONLY thing which will effect
originate speed. The business about the pin 23 option is some frob
whereby the direction of the line is reversed (sourced by modem,
rather than sinked by modem) so the modem can tell you what speed the
connection is coming in on. I could be very wrong, but in my
documentation, it does not show pin 23 providing speed select in
originate mode. Does someone out there actually have one WORKING with
23 doing originate speed select?? I realize that according to RS-232,
if the pin does anything, speed selection is what it should do, but
this would not be the first time Ma Bell's designers neglected the
pertinant specifications.
Yours in quandry,
Mike
------------------------------
Date: 26 April 1981 01:11-EST
From: Robert E. Spivack <PHOTOG MIT-MC AT>
Update on ithaca intersystems problems in cook-book out of the box
installation the followng problems were found:
The boards are often sold separately, documentation cnsists of very
complete info on eac board, but a 'system' level manual on how t brng
up a system consisting of all boards does not exist.
The million jumpers are for setting slightly non-ieee timing specs for
memory access, etc. and/or running with non-ieee imsai type systems
tat may use altair-like s-100 conventions, Unfortnately, the manual is
sometimes wrng.
We found the only ithaca intersystems distributer for New England area
located in Newton , MA (about 1 hour from us in r.i.) and we drove in
Saturday and played micro-doctor. Well, just as I had deduced, the
64K dynamic ram board was d-o-a (dead on arrival) after swapping
memory, resetting a few jumpers, the system ran with the other guy's
discs and terminal. ok, so on to our nifty, double-sided, double or
single density morrow dsc drives (also known by some as 'tinker' toys).
Well, the good ole sugart 850's were all jumpered wrong, and even
after an hour our helpful wizard could not get em right. We finally
decided to just buy a set of jade single-sided discs from him, but lo,
those also needed jumpers and he found shugart had changed the pcb on
him and hehad no documentation on them. Soooooooo, we bought the lobo
sngle-sided drives he was using 'out from under him', plugged them
into our main-frame and HIS terminal and everything worked fne......
went home only to find our brand new televideo 920C was also a basket
case ...it works in local mode but refuses to talk to the mainframe.
Thinking fast, I set up the good old unreliable trash-80 threw in the
rs-232 comm-80 box from Steve Ciarcia, loaded the dmb terinal emulator
program and ..... thank godness it worked. so right now we have the
ithaca running with 2 8 inch discs and a 16 row by 64 col trash-80 as
the console. well, now at least we can start bringing up some
software. whehw!!!!!!! i guess the lesson is that noting ever works
correctly like god old Murphy says... Hmmm.. we bought everything
mail-order to get low prices i wnder if all the QA rejects get sent by
the manufacturers to these kind of dealers and the list price retail
stores get the working hardware!!! thank you to those of you that
sent me mail in reply to my earlier msg. spiv
------------------------------
Date: 25 Apr 1981 (Saturday) 1417-PST
From: DWS at LLL-MFE
Subject: C.C.S. BIOS mods
Does anyone have experience with modifying California Computer
Systems' CCBIOS? Specifically, is there anything non-obvious involved
with adding driver code for devices other than their disk controller
and the serial port on their CPU card? Their documentation says that
mods are trivial. Any reports on this?
-- Dave Smith
------------------------------
Date: 21 Apr 1981 1147-PST
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow <GEOFF AT SRI-CSL>
Subject: UNIX "Business" Software packages.
I have a friend in the bay area who is interested in buying an 11/44
system for his business. I recommended he run UNIX(TM) on it (of
course). What he needs is a General-Accounting Package (i.e. General
Ledger, Accounts Payable, etc). as well as a Manufacturing Package
(i.e. Inventory Control, Bill Materials Generator, Purchase Order
Processing, Materials Requirement Planning, etc.).
Anyone know of any packages that would run under UNIX on an 11/44
(running V6 or V7) that would do any of this stuff, who has it, what
price, how good, etc.?
Also, anyone know of the speed comparison between a TI-990 Mod/10
CPU and an 11/44?
------------------------------
End of INFO-MICRO Digest
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