Re(2): Re(2): [SunRescue] Offerings

[BSD Bob]

[Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> rescue at sunhelp.org,Internet writes:
> >One of my pet dreams is finding a 9 track tape system that will go
> >onto my xylogics board on the sun3.  It might be useful for regenerating
> >old tapes of such, or fun play watching the reels spin.  Nothing yet
> >has turned up in the middle NC area, though.....
> >
> >Bob
> 
> You know, in this day and age the majority of hackers have probably never
> seen tapes spin except in movies.  Unfortunately I also fit in this category.

Well, I must be ready for Olde Pfarte status.  I started out on punch decks,
Fortran, paper tape, ASR-33's, and 8080/z80 boxes with 8 inch floppers.
I still keep a roll of canary form handy along with my one remaining
roll of punched tape, just for a reality check.....(:+\\.....  Alas,
I don't have any working ARS-33's and have not seen one in several years.
But, I don't relish loading Fortran decks from 110 baud paper tape, anymore.
I sold my card punch years ago, when I left grad school for Moo U.

My goal with the reel tapes, strictly for the fun of it, and to recover
some several years worth of ancient field temperature data, was to run
up an Sun 3 with Sunos 3.5, Fortran, and reel-reel tapes.  Big fun trip
backwards in time.....  Alas, I can't quite get the 3.5 loaded, but
4.1.1 runs fine.  Maybe I can port the 3.5 Fortran to the 4.1.1 box,
IFF I can dig out all the correct bits and links.  The Fortran output
is continuous form temperature plots.  Olden Deaden application, for sure,
but an interesting way to retrocompute, and learn a little about how it
all fits together on Unix.  Back then, we mostly shoved tapes through
the window to the guru fellow.  Now he is long gone, and for the fun
and learning of it, it becomes my turn at the glass tty console.....(:+}}...

> When you find one, let me know and I'll come watch it spin.  My
> pet dream from that era is a home machine, an Altair.  There was one in a
> computer lab at a community college near me, and they wouldn't let me have
> it.  It ended up getting trashed.  It was a fully configured machine,
> lived in a rack, had two 8 inch floppies, actually still had
> documentation.  I know what environmentalists feel when a 3,000 year old
> tree gets mowed down.

I am working on it.  Some leads are beginning to surface.

I still run one hand crafted z80 box where I transferred all the data
to CP/M Fortran.  It runs Cromemco and home brewed ADC to temperature
and voltage probes.  Alas, no 8 inch floppers working anymore, so I have
to use AT 5.25 inch drives as quasi-8-inchers.  Works, though, but SLOW.
I just threw out/gave away about 1500 old 8 inch floppers, after that.
It would be more fun to run it back up on unix.  Altairs have become
cult objectes de 8080, anymore.  Last one I ran across went for 350
bucks at a flea market... no thanks...  that is too cult and slow for me.

An old sun3 maketh a better Fortran toy.....(:+}}.... IT IS CULT IRON,
of more robuste flavour.....

Anyone have a spare Fortran tape for Sunos 4.1.1 on the sun3?... or know
how to port it out of the 3.5 tree?  Most everything is there in the
3.5 tarball, but it links out to some things that I am not fully onto,
yet.

Bob