TOPS-10 and pi

Hi,

Has anyone here got KLH10 running on a pi?? I did hear something a while back, but can't seem to locate it now. I plan to replace a power-hungry Sun Ultra-5 with a Pi to run my emulators. And probably a gopher server...

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Stan Barr     plan.b@dsl.pipex.com
Reply to
Stan Barr
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Does this help?

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Reply to
Chris Elvidge

Yes, thanks.

I just remembered there's a TOPS-10 newsgroup, I'll ask over there.

Amazing to think we can emulate what was a whole roomful of equipment on something no bigger than a ciggie packe!

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Stan Barr     plan.b@dsl.pipex.com
Reply to
Stan Barr

And the even older KDF9 also runs on the Pi:

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Bill Findlay 
kdf9@findlayw.plus.com
Reply to
Bill Findlay

Takes me back 42 years to the failing automation system at Fawley Power Station!

(Former employee at CEGB SSD Portishead)

Reply to
gareth

The automation system used a KDF9?

I find that surprising, as it was not at all well suited to the task, It was basically a number cruncher.

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Bill Findlay 
with blueyonder.co.uk; 
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Reply to
Bill Findlay

And a Pi doesn't use quite as much electrical power :-)

However, the DEC 10 had a much better flashing light display.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Diamond

I *miss* blinkenlites :-) My PDP-11 emulator - Ersatz-11 MSDOS based - has real lites...

Modern computers are so fast blinkenlites would be a bit meaningless.

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Stan Barr     plan.b@dsl.pipex.com
Reply to
Stan Barr

Well I miss with RSTS/E on PDP-11/45 and PDP-11/70 systems which had two rows of lights, the idle process cycled blocks of 4 Lights/LEDs in a circular fashion. Deliberately done as a form of CPU busy state indication, slow system low loading, fast to not noticeable more loaded to 100% busy.

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Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk 
    PC Services 
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Reply to
Paul

Poken Verboten.

Achtung alles lookenpeepers.

Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mitten grabben, Das easy schappender springenwerk, blowen fusen und poppen corken mit spitzen sparken.

Is nicht fur gewerken by das dumkopfen.

Das rubbernecken sightseeren keep hands in das pockets, relaxen und watch das blinken-lights.

Danke.

That notice wasn't in a room with a computer tho', was in room with a Keller 16 mm mag and optical film dubbing transport. Full of springs, cogs, clutches etc. Google fails to produce an image...

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Cheers 
Dave.
Reply to
Dave Liquorice

The best blinkenlites was on my university's Elliot 503 - it had an engineers display panel on a wheeled stand that was about the size of a trad. draftsman's drawing board and averaged roughly one neon indicator per square inch. I wish I had a copy of the poster on the computer-room observation window: it showed a head with two or three cubes in it and the caption:

"Quiet: I'm playing with my mental blocks"

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martin@   | Martin Gregorie 
gregorie. | Essex, UK 
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Reply to
Martin Gregorie

My top panel was the Burroughs 220 computer--the last commercial vacuum tube computer that I know of.

The panel was about 2.5 feet by 4 feet, covered with neon lights and their accompanying switches to allow for setting or resetting any bit. On either side of the main panel were two diagnostic panels, also 2.5 feet high, but each about 2 feet wide. So when the doors to these panels were open, the result was an expanse about 8 feet wide with hundreds of pulsating neon lights!

The 220's predecessor, the Burroughs 205, had a similar main panel, and, with its neons replaced by incandescents, made its way into several movies and TV shows, like the early Batman (Wham!).

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-michael - NadaNet 3.1 and AppleCrate II: http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon
Reply to
Michael J. Mahon

The Burroughs B6700 had a similarly impressive array of lights.

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roger ivie 
rivie@ridgenet.net
Reply to
Roger Ivie

Pics:

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As noted there, most of those lights are illuminated buttons (i.e., you can push the light to change the bit).

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roger ivie 
rivie@ridgenet.net
Reply to
Roger Ivie

I had an internship at Burroughs around 1980. I worked at a bank data center. They had a 2-processor B7800 like the one described on this page:

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Lots of lights as well... Burroughs had a staff of about 5 people permanently assigned to onsite duty at that customer, at least 2 of them were always there. Plus me as an intern. There was always maintenance to be done to keep this thing plus the tape drives and the impressive array of disk drives providing 7GB of storage online.

The system itself consisted of large cabinets where one cabinet would be a CPU, an IO processor, or a memory cabinet. Yes, memory was in several separate cabinets, 1MB per cabinet or so.

A preceding intern had managed to short out the the power supply in one of the cabinets, and since then everyone was warned. When you think tripping the overcurrent protection in your Pi is a nuisance...

(I just read on the page that the power supply for the B7800 CPU consisted of 40 PSUs of 135A each providing the continous current of 5kA required by the CPU alone)

When the CPU detected a fatal error, it would display codes on the lights panel. One of the registers showed the code for 0xDEAD in that case. But the effect was not that dramatic, as the display was in binary.

Reply to
Rob

...

The Burroughs field service guy who tended to USU's B6700 was nicknamed "the mad screwdriver" due to such an incident. I later heard that other sites called him that, as well.

There was also the time a mouse managed to get into the fan of one of the disk drives and got sprayed all over the platters. Can't happen with an SD card.

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roger ivie 
rivie@ridgenet.net
Reply to
Roger Ivie

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