Aucbvax.1394
fa.info-micro
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!CSTACY@MIT-AI
Fri May 22 15:01:37 1981
INFO-MICRO Digest V3 #45
INFO-MICRO AM Digest Thursday, 21 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 45
Today's Topics: Micro Architecture - 8086/Z80 & NSC16000,
Micro Networking - CP/M,
Lisps - Choices & Plisp & Oregon Lisp,
Mince - Onyx, Atari Expansion, Circuit Analysis,
Data Ram Query, Video Boards - NEC & MATROX
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 28 April 1981 05:08-EDT
From: Daniel J. Blumenfeld <DAN MIT-ML AT>
Subject: Hardware interfacing to the 8086 and the Z8000, NSC16000 news
Well, designing stuff around the 8086 or the Z8000 is pretty
straightforward, and besides the fact that there are 16 bit data paths
and the I/O address space is larger (thus, you need more chips to
perform qualification), hooking up peripheral chips to either
processor is not difficult. Personally, I prefer the Z8000, but I
don't mind working with the 8086.
As for the NSC16000, well, that is a story in itself. Page 44 of the
April 6th issue of Electronic Engineering Times has an article on the
NSC16000, and the title of the article claims that the chip goes into
full production in 1982. This chip seems to hold promise, though
since it is a National Semiconduction product, don't hold your breath
for it. Examining National's past track record, things do not look
too rosy: the IMP, the SC/MP, the PACE, and then the COPS. There is
also the NSC800, which is a Z80 on the inside and has the pinout (more
or less) of an 8085. This chip was supposed to be available over a
year ago... and currently, you can only get samples of the 2.5 MHz
part for over $100. So much for N.S. holding to their delivery
schedule.
Dan
------------------------------
Date: 22 April 1981 23:25-EST
From: Steven T. Kirsch <SK MIT-MC AT>
Subject: Is there a CP/M BIOS that implements a file server protocol?
What I have is an RS-232 port to a big machine. I would like to make
it look like the RS232/big machine combination is just a floppy
interface. One way to do this is to write a BIOS for the target disk
and have the micro "pass through" the floppy commands to the big
machine. I'm looking for a more abstract, virtual interface type
thing where the BIOS sends out a virtual protocol for
extracting/sending data onto a generalized storage device.
I suspect what I am looking for is a guy who intercepts BDOS calls and
if they access the "B" disk (say), then he passes the call to the big
machine and waits for a response. The big machine interprets the
calls and executes using its standard filesystem calls, and then tells
the "interceptor guy" what values to set the registers to and what
storage locations to set to what values.
Of course, the interceptor needn't necessarily be huge: it could pass
all the calls to the big machine which then might respond with "pass
it on to BDOS." The interceptor must have a protocol to communicate
values of registers and storage to/from the big machine (it needn't
have the smarts to know what to send out to the big machine; the big
machine can ask for what it needs) and to recognize the "pass it on to
BDOS" message.
Is this the right way to go?
CP/NET from digital research will do things as I described. They call
the guy NDOS, for Network DOS (I suppose).
------------------------------
Date: 1 May 1981 03:22-EDT
From: Keith B. Petersen <W8SDZ MIT-MC AT>
Subject: [RGF: Networking]
Date: 1 May 1981 02:09-EDT
From: Ronald G. Fowler <RGF (RON AT FOWLER MIT-MC)>
Sender: RGF
To: SK
cc: INFO-CPM
Re: Networking
Steve, I retrieved the following two messages from CBBS/DETROIT,
a local message service. I don't know this guy Winkler, but have
seen his stuff advertised on CBBS's around the country, and (so
far) have heard no bad words about him.
One advantage I can see is that he provides source for his sys-
tem, so if there are any problems (if?), you will be better equipped
to solve them.
I don't know this guy and can't vouch for his software, but thought
it may be what you need.
Msg 01036 is 16 line(s) on 04/06/81 from MARK WINKLER
to ALL re: CP/NET - SMARTNET
SMARTNET AND DUMBNET NETWORKING SOFTWARE
BEFORE YOU BUY CP/NET CHECK THESE FEATURES.
1: NO MODIFICATIONS NEEDED TO THE BIOS OR XIOS
2: PASSWORD PROTECTION FOR LEVELS 1 TO 15 OF THE HUB.
3: LIST FILES OFF OF HUB COMPUTER WITHOUT DOWNLOADING.
4: AUTO SPOOLING AND DESPOOLING. A TRUE SPOOLER.
5: BLOCK DATA TRANSFER WITH CHECKSUM.
6: THE STAT COMMAND IS FULLY FUNCTIONAL ON SATELLITES.
7: ANY NUMBER OF FILES CAN BE OPENED ON THE HUB.
8: VERY LOW MEMORY REQUIREMENTS.
9: LINK SPEED BASED ON HARDWARE NOT SOFTWARE QUEUES.
10: FULL DOCUMENTED SOURCE IS PROVIDED !
11: SMARTNET IS USED ON SYSTEMS WITH AT LEAST ONE DRIVE.
DUMBNET NEEDS NO DISK DRIVES JUST MEMORY AND A CONSOLE.
SMARTNET AND DUMBNET PURCHASED TOGETHER $300.00 DISCOUNTS
AVAILABLE. MARK WINKLER 312-868-4866
Msg 00976 is 16 line(s) on 3/8/81 from MARK WINKLER
to ALL re: MP/M UTILITIES
MP/M UTILITIES PRICE $35.00
PSPOOL -- SPOOLS FILES AND PUTS FILE NAME,TIME,DATE
AND PAGE NUMBER ON EACH PAGE.
PRINT -- LISTS FILES ON PRINTER WITH SAME HEADINGS AS
PSPOOL BUT CAN START ON ANY PAGE.
LOGIN -- FORCES ALL USERS TO LEVEL ZERO. PASSWORDS MUST
BE USED TO ACCESS ANY OTHER LEVEL.
DR -- DISPLAYS THE SYS AND DIR FILES AND R/O AND R/W
STATUS. ALSO THE FILE SIZE AND DISK FREE BYTES
SETATT - SETS THE FILES ATTRIBUTES COLLECTIVELY OR
SELECTIVELY.
MESSAGE - ALLOWS MESSAGES TO BE SENT BETWEEN TERMINALS.
SIGNALS THE RECEIVING CONSOLE WITH THE BELL.
BPATCH - ALLOWS THE USE OF CTL-P,CTL-Q,CTL-D IN MBASIC
VER 4.51,5.1,5.2. MARK WINKLER 541
INGRAHAM AVE. CALUMET CITY,ILL. 60409 312-868-4866
------------------------------
Date: 8 May 1981 21:59-EDT
From: Scott W. Layson <GYRO AT MIT-AI>
Subject: Which Lisp (eenie, meenie, ...)
I have the impression that there are enough different Lisps and enough
aficianados of each that you're not going to find a definition that is
directly compatible with more than a quarter of the programs out
there. On the other hand, Lisps seem generally not too hard to
translate between (especially since it's easy to write useful
translation-assistance programs).
I dug out the Standard Lisp report, which I had not seen earlier, and
indeed it looks pretty standard. Sure, there are things I don't like
about it, but that's not what you asked. Just one suggestion: you
certainly can't implement the whole standard on a micro, so when
you're picking and choosing for your subset, PLEASE don't leave out
vectors. Many useful algorithms are difficult or impossible to write
without something at least a little array-like; lists, for all their
elegance, are often just not appropriate.
-- Scott Layson
------------------------------
Date: 3 May 1981 (Sunday) 2228-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: An updated address for the P-LISP Apple LISP system:
As previously promised... the corrected address of Pegasys
Systems is: 4005 Chestnut St.; Phila., Penna.; 19104.
If you've already sent mail to the previously indicated
address -- don't worry -- it will be received as well.
-- Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 30 Apr 1981 2046-MDT
From: MARTI at UTAH-20
Subject: Little LISP.
Yet another LISP for the Z80 (my apologies to Stoutemeyer and John
Allen).
A LISP system for the TRS-80 et al, has been completed. The following
features are supported:
Compiler.
RLISP parser.
Trace package.
48k system has 2k+ pair space 12k code space.
The system supports a subset of Standard LISP excluding Floating
Point, arrays, COMPRESS, and EXPLODE. All identifiers/GENSYMs are
interned. I/O is allowed from only 2 external files. The compiler
generates fast-load files. More information is available as U. of
Oregon technical report CS-TR-80-18, Department of Computer and
Information Science, Eugene, OR, 97403. The source code is in the
public domain. Jed Marti, U. of Oregon.
------------------------------
Date: 30 April 1981 23:24-EDT
From: Scott W. Layson <GYRO AT MIT-AI>
Subject: Editors on Onyx (for csvax.mark@berkeley)
Mince, Mark of the Unicorn's Emacs-inspired screen editor, is
basically up under Onix (it needs a little more tuning before official
release). You don't have to live with ed...
------------------------------
Date: 29 April 1981 14:51-EDT
From: John Howard Palevich <TANG AT MIT-AI>
Axlon, Inc. (made up of former Atari engineers) has an add on page 371
of the May 1981 Byte for a product called the Axlon 256. I called
them up and here are the details:
Cost: $895 (for the box, the disk software and 64K) $2100 for 256K
Conections to Atari: 1 card slot in back, one joystick port up front.
(the joystick port is used to select the bank of memory, the card
is for the address and data line.)
What it does: $4000 to $7FFF becomes bank switched with fifteen other
banks of 16K. They give you a patch to DOS so that you can pretend
that you have this super fast disk. . . .
What it might do: They claim to be working on a co-processor that can
use at the memory you aren't looking at. They are also finishing up
(release July) a 128K board that switches in eight sixteen K banks, so
you can have 256K that switches in 32K banks, or eight whole address
spaces to play around with.
They have also interfaced this thing to the Apple II and
the Apple ///.
------------------------------
STOUTE@MIT-MC 04/21/81 19:10:25
Does anyone know where I can obtain a general circuit analysis program
to run under the CP/M, UCSD PASCAL, and/or Dec11 Unix operating
systems?
------------------------------
Date: 21 Apr 1981 (Tuesday) 1909-EDT
From: SHARER at WHARTON-10 (Bill Sharer)
Subject: Data RAMs
Has anybody seen anything like them in the Micro world? At Mitre this
summer I worked on a VAX that had one of these suckers for a swapper.
It essentially consists of about 80MB of CCD's that is interfaced like
a regular old disk drive. I have no idea what costs were involved but
I wonder if there isn't a very scaled down version (2MB maybe) that
could act like somebody's 8" drive. Don't ask me who makes the thing
(probably INTEL) because I am out of reasonable contact with my group.
If somebody could make these things for cheap, he would be in the
money! They have access time on the same order as the main memory!
mr bill
------------------------------
ES@MIT-MC 05/0
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