17 Dec
2023
17 Dec
'23
8:01 a.m.
I have been working with a VAX780 sim running
Unix System V r2 VAX780 and am having strange
issues.
TERM is defined at vt100
When firing up vi at times the cursor is positioned
in the wrong place or when inserting text it over
writes areas on the screen.
I have tried vt100, vt100-am, vt100-nam and none
work as expected.
Any ideas? Thanks
-Ken
Happy holidays
--
WWL 📚
18 Dec
18 Dec
12:13 a.m.
On 12/16/23 6:01 PM, KenUnix wrote:
I have been working with a VAX780 sim running
Unix System V r2 VAX780 and am having strange
issues.
TERM is defined at vt100
When firing up vi at times the cursor is positioned
in the wrong place or when inserting text it over
writes areas on the screen.
I have most often encountered this when my terminal window size was
larger than exactly 80x24.
If you're using Xterm or Gnome-terminal or a Windows terminal, for
example, make sure that the window is exactly 80 columns wide by 24
lines tall, or the VT100 termcap inside the emulator will be very confused.
-Seth
12:23 a.m.
On 12/16/23 6:01 PM, KenUnix wrote:
I'm not so sure on that one, I ran this on an arbitrarily sized xterm (I use a tiling
WM) and it sized the vi session correctly and didn't seem to exhibit cursor
anomalies. This encapsulating terminal is a recent (past year) build of xterm using I
believe the xterm256 or whatever its named TERM, in which I then launched your script
using my local copy of vax780. Tried just now in Linux fbcon with a TERM of
"linux" and likewise the vi session still seems to size to 80x24 appropriately
and doesn't have any cursor positioning issues. Note in both cases the TERM variable
I describe is the *host* terminal, TERM in the emulated session is vt100.
- Matt G.
I have been working with a VAX780 sim running
Unix System V r2 VAX780 and am having strange
issues.
TERM is defined at vt100
When firing up vi at times the cursor is positioned
in the wrong place or when inserting text it over
writes areas on the screen.
I have most often encountered this when my terminal window size was
larger than exactly 80x24.
If you're using Xterm or Gnome-terminal or a Windows terminal, for
example, make sure that the window is exactly 80 columns wide by 24
lines tall, or the VT100 termcap inside the emulator will be very confused.
-Seth 
4:51 a.m.
The concept of a resizable window didn't appear until GUI interfaces.
Originally the hardware terminal had one specific size and vi depended
on the screen being that exact size. I suspect that SVr2 was in that
category, as the Sun merger of SVr4 would have been the reason to
incorporate it. So try a 24x80 window and see if it behaves.
Try "stty -a" and see if it mentions rows and columns. If not, what
terminfo says (try "infocmp") is what vi will believe.
It might also matter how you option your vt100 emulator, and even the
native vt100 had setup options, such as wraparound (terminfo calls this
auto_right_margin or just am). Vi depends on knowing what the cursor
does when it types in the rightmost column.
Thanks,
/Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)
maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com>
On 12/17/23 10:23, segaloco via TUHS wrote:
On 12/16/23
6:01 PM, KenUnix wrote:
I'm not so sure on that one, I ran this on an arbitrarily sized xterm
(I use a tiling WM) and it sized the vi session correctly and didn't seem to exhibit
cursor anomalies. This encapsulating terminal is a recent (past year) build of xterm
using I believe the xterm256 or whatever its named TERM, in which I then launched your
script using my local copy of vax780. Tried just now in Linux fbcon with a TERM of
"linux" and likewise the vi session still seems to size to 80x24 appropriately
and doesn't have any cursor positioning issues. Note in both cases the TERM variable
I describe is the *host* terminal, TERM in the emulated session is vt100.
- Matt G. I have been working with a VAX780 sim running
Unix System V r2 VAX780 and am having strange
issues.
TERM is defined at vt100
When firing up vi at times the cursor is positioned
in the wrong place or when inserting text it over
writes areas on the screen.
I have most often encountered this when my terminal window size was
larger than exactly 80x24.
If you're using Xterm or Gnome-terminal or a Windows terminal, for
example, make sure that the window is exactly 80 columns wide by 24
lines tall, or the VT100 termcap inside the emulator will be very confused.
-Seth 
4:59 a.m.
That’s not entirely true. The VT100 could switch modes from 80x24 to
132x14 (the latter was pretty ugly) or with the AVO 132x24.
------ Original Message ------
From "Mary Ann Horton" <mah(a)mhorton.net>
To tuhs(a)tuhs.org
Date 12/17/23, 5:51:00 PM
Subject [TUHS] Re: Compatibility question
The concept of a resizable window didn't appear
until GUI interfaces.
Originally the hardware terminal had one specific size and vi depended
on the screen being that exact size. I suspect that SVr2 was in that
category, as the Sun merger of SVr4 would have been the reason to
incorporate it. So try a 24x80 window and see if it behaves.
5:08 a.m.
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 4:00 PM Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
That’s not entirely true. The VT100 could switch
modes from 80x24 to
132x14 (the latter was pretty ugly) or with the AVO 132x24.
I recall some VMS programs in v3.2 misbehaving when run in 132x24 mode...
Warner
------ Original Message ------
From "Mary Ann Horton"
<mah(a)mhorton.net>
To tuhs(a)tuhs.org
Date 12/17/23, 5:51:00 PM
Subject [TUHS] Re: Compatibility question
The concept of a resizable window didn't appear until GUI interfaces.
Originally the hardware terminal had one specific size and vi depended on
the screen being that exact size. I suspect that SVr2 was in that category,
as the Sun merger of SVr4 would have been the reason to incorporate it. So
try a 24x80 window and see if it behaves.
6:35 a.m.
Here is what I ended up doing. Creating a putty session with locked size.
Aso
using the vi as designed it works well. I have included the putty.defs,
putty.notes
and vi.notes.
Now everything is fine. Thanks for your help.
See attachments
Getting System-V-r2-VAX780:
For those running Arch the tar file is here. Simply download, untar
cd to it , type in ./unix
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XToKXIxZvs9LKNerkVbTNspMik7OnLrs/view?usp=…
For other 64 bit Unix's use this image
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L-M8dGXogDpKutR0fpSkOkaEfNNH-1SZ/view?usp=…
Getting System-V-r3-3b2-700 64bit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16zJrq3USLFAVnoGtbh4GCIj685o_UQER/view?usp=…
The above packages do not require any special software. It is all self
contained.
-ken
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 6:08 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 4:00 PM Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
--
End of line
JOB TERMINATED
That’s not entirely true. The VT100 could
switch modes from 80x24 to
132x14 (the latter was pretty ugly) or with the AVO 132x24.
I recall some VMS programs in v3.2 misbehaving when run in 132x24 mode...
Warner
------ Original Message ------
> From "Mary Ann Horton" <mah(a)mhorton.net>
> To tuhs(a)tuhs.org
> Date 12/17/23, 5:51:00 PM
> Subject [TUHS] Re: Compatibility question
>
> The concept of a resizable window didn't appear until GUI interfaces.
> Originally the hardware terminal had one specific size and vi depended on
> the screen being that exact size. I suspect that SVr2 was in that category,
> as the Sun merger of SVr4 would have been the reason to incorporate it. So
> try a 24x80 window and see if it behaves.
>
>
>
9:24 a.m.
For the record Ken's scripting appears to work with my copy of SimH vax780 albeit
with some non-fatal errors, probably different configure flags vs. the static copy in this
archive. I'm on aarch64 so can't use the vax780 binary in there but after boot
the images seem to run fine for me. Dunno what distros do, my copy is upstream.
Typing "unix" at the double "$" prompt starts the bootstrap. Running
uname(1) returns the expected properties for SVR2 for the VAX-11/780.
- Matt G.
P.S. SVR2 is post-1983 so a little touchier, so just some caution on distribution. Not
sure if there's any IP ownership differences concerning materials that said
"Western Electric" and/or "Bell Laboratories" in their licenses vs
materials that said "AT&T". Some clarity from the interested parties would
be helpful but I have no clue what the likelihood of a second round of free-to-study
licensing of later SysV codebases looks like. I would have to wonder if the licensing of
illumos has some technicality where all code SVR4 and back (that being the split point) is
technically covered under their license. I'm no lawyer so *shrug*
On Sunday, December 17th, 2023 at 4:35 PM, KenUnix <ken.unix.guy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Here is what I ended up doing. Creating a putty
session with locked size. Aso
using the vi as designed it works well. I have included the putty.defs, putty.notes
and vi.notes.
Now everything is fine. Thanks for your help.
See attachments
Getting System-V-r2-VAX780:
For those running Arch the tar file is here. Simply download, untar
cd to it , type in ./unix
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XToKXIxZvs9LKNerkVbTNspMik7OnLrs/view?usp=…
For other 64 bit Unix's use this image
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L-M8dGXogDpKutR0fpSkOkaEfNNH-1SZ/view?usp=…
Getting System-V-r3-3b2-700 64bit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16zJrq3USLFAVnoGtbh4GCIj685o_UQER/view?usp=…
The above packages do not require any special software. It is all self contained.
-ken
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023 at 6:08 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 4:00 PM Ron Natalie
<ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
--
End of line
JOB TERMINATED That’s not entirely true. The VT100 could switch
modes from 80x24 to 132x14 (the latter was pretty ugly) or with the AVO 132x24.
I recall some VMS programs in v3.2 misbehaving when run in 132x24 mode...
Warner
> ------ Original Message ------
> From "Mary Ann Horton" <mah(a)mhorton.net>
> To tuhs(a)tuhs.org
> Date 12/17/23, 5:51:00 PM
> Subject [TUHS] Re: Compatibility question
>
>> The concept of a resizable window didn't appear until GUI interfaces.
Originally the hardware terminal had one specific size and vi depended on the screen being
that exact size. I suspect that SVr2 was in that category, as the Sun merger of SVr4 would
have been the reason to incorporate it. So try a 24x80 window and see if it behaves.
11:05 p.m.
On 12/17/23, Ron Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
That’s not entirely true. The VT100 could switch
modes from 80x24 to
132x14 (the latter was pretty ugly) or with the AVO 132x24.
The 132-character screen width was for displaying files originally
formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and
linker maps, for example.
-Paul W.
19 Dec
19 Dec
4:29 a.m.
Speaking of how VMS handled escape sequences, in the 1980s I
swung both ways (e.g. VMS and Unix). When DEC announced TERMTABLE,
a termcap-like library for VMS, I thought it would be fun to
write a termcap to TERMTABLE conversion program, so I did.
I thought this would let me run VMS TUI programs on non-DEC
compatible terminals.
This turned out to be a bad idea because none (?) of the DEC-written
programs actually used TERMTABLE. They were all hard-wired to use
VT100 (and VT52?) escape sequences. As I recall, I couldn't find any
programs that used TERMTABLE in non-trivial ways so I gave up.
Jon Forrest
UCB (ret.)
7:46 a.m.
On Mon, 18 Dec 2023, Paul Winalski wrote:
The 132-character screen width was for displaying
files originally
formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and linker
maps, for example.
Such as the mighty 1403 :-)
Hint: never leave your cup of coffee on top of it, as the lid will open
automatically when it runs out of paper...
-- Dave
1:56 p.m.
Dave Horsfall [19/12/2023 02.46]:
Such as the mighty 1403 :-) Hint: never leave your cup
of coffee on top
of it, as the lid will open automatically when it runs out of paper...
Haven't heard of anyone doing that, but a stack of punched cards,
though, before the diagonal line was drawn along the edge of the stack.
--
Hilsen Harald
11:40 p.m.
On 12/18/23, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Mon, 18 Dec 2023, Paul Winalski wrote:
The 1403 was the best line printer ever made. It was originally the
printer for the IBM 1400 second-generation (discrete transistor-based)
computer. It continued to be the line printer for S/360. The deluxe
model, the IBM 1403 N1, had a power cover that could be operated under
computer control. The OS/360 operating system would raise the
printer's cover if an error condition occurred, such as out of paper
or a paper jam. This was a very useful feature in large data centers
where there were several line printers, to indicate which printer had
a problem.
The cover of a 1403 N1 also provided a convenient and attractive flat
surface on which to place things. But a dangerous one. Many a card
deck magtape reel, coffee cup, or pizza box has been unceremoniously
dumped on the floor.
When our shop upgraded from a S/360 model 25 to a S/370 model 125, our
1403 was replaced by a 3203 line printer. It was not as good as the
1401 had been.
There was a business in Massachusetts in the 1980s that bought and
sold old IBM computer gear. A company asked them for a quote on their
IBM 1400 system (1401 processor, 1402 card read/punch, 1403 printer).
They were offered $18,000 for the whole system, or $15,000 for the
1403 printer alone. That's how valued those printers were.
To bring this closer on-topic, was there Unix support for the IBM 1403?
-Paul W.
The 132-character screen width was for displaying
files originally
formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and linker
maps, for example.
Such as the mighty 1403 :-)
Hint: never leave your cup of coffee on top of it, as the lid will open
automatically when it runs out of paper... 
20 Dec
20 Dec
12:07 a.m.
Yes, Amdahl UTS supported the 1403 from earliest days.
There even seem to be some mods to 'tbl' to support it.
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 9:40 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 12/18/23, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
wrote:
On Mon, 18 Dec 2023, Paul Winalski wrote:
The 1403 was the best line printer ever made. It was originally the
printer for the IBM 1400 second-generation (discrete transistor-based)
computer. It continued to be the line printer for S/360. The deluxe
model, the IBM 1403 N1, had a power cover that could be operated under
computer control. The OS/360 operating system would raise the
printer's cover if an error condition occurred, such as out of paper
or a paper jam. This was a very useful feature in large data centers
where there were several line printers, to indicate which printer had
a problem.
The cover of a 1403 N1 also provided a convenient and attractive flat
surface on which to place things. But a dangerous one. Many a card
deck magtape reel, coffee cup, or pizza box has been unceremoniously
dumped on the floor.
When our shop upgraded from a S/360 model 25 to a S/370 model 125, our
1403 was replaced by a 3203 line printer. It was not as good as the
1401 had been.
There was a business in Massachusetts in the 1980s that bought and
sold old IBM computer gear. A company asked them for a quote on their
IBM 1400 system (1401 processor, 1402 card read/punch, 1403 printer).
They were offered $18,000 for the whole system, or $15,000 for the
1403 printer alone. That's how valued those printers were.
To bring this closer on-topic, was there Unix support for the IBM 1403?
-Paul W.
The 132-character screen width was for displaying
files originally
formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and linker
maps, for example.
Such as the mighty 1403 :-)
Hint: never leave your cup of coffee on top of it, as the lid will open
automatically when it runs out of paper... 
2:23 a.m.
Tom smiled while reading that man page: "It is assumed that the TN print
train is being used."
I have to wonder how many younger programmers know what a print train is,
much less what it looked like (or how heavy they were when you
changed them). Also, with the loss of the use of real lineprinters, you
have to wonder if those same folks understand why the asa(1) program that
POSIX.2 requires is there (although IIRC later *.2 revisions moved it to
the "FORTRAN Runtime Utilities" as an option POSX2_FORT_RUN - but we had it
there in the original draft).
Paul -- you left out the other "feature" -- the noise, which was still
deafening even with a model N1 and its cover.
I equate four sounds to my early computing days: the ASR33 printing, a 1403
printing, a 1402 reading card, and finally, the constant fan noise in the
machine room, plus the smell of light machine oil [definitely in a terminal
room of ASR33s].
ᐧ
ᐧ
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 1:07 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, Amdahl UTS supported the 1403 from earliest
days.
There even seem to be some mods to 'tbl' to support it.
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 9:40 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 12/18/23, Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
The 1403 was the best line printer ever made. It was originally the
printer for the IBM 1400 second-generation (discrete transistor-based)
computer. It continued to be the line printer for S/360. The deluxe
model, the IBM 1403 N1, had a power cover that could be operated under
computer control. The OS/360 operating system would raise the
printer's cover if an error condition occurred, such as out of paper
or a paper jam. This was a very useful feature in large data centers
where there were several line printers, to indicate which printer had
a problem.
The cover of a 1403 N1 also provided a convenient and attractive flat
surface on which to place things. But a dangerous one. Many a card
deck magtape reel, coffee cup, or pizza box has been unceremoniously
dumped on the floor.
When our shop upgraded from a S/360 model 25 to a S/370 model 125, our
1403 was replaced by a 3203 line printer. It was not as good as the
1401 had been.
There was a business in Massachusetts in the 1980s that bought and
sold old IBM computer gear. A company asked them for a quote on their
IBM 1400 system (1401 processor, 1402 card read/punch, 1403 printer).
They were offered $18,000 for the whole system, or $15,000 for the
1403 printer alone. That's how valued those printers were.
To bring this closer on-topic, was there Unix support for the IBM 1403?
-Paul W.
On Mon, 18 Dec 2023, Paul Winalski wrote:
> The 132-character screen width was for displaying files originally
> formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and
linker
maps, for
example.
Such as the mighty 1403 :-)
Hint: never leave your cup of coffee on top of it, as the lid will open
automatically when it runs out of paper...
3:31 a.m.
On 12/19/23, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Tom smiled while reading that man page: "It is
assumed that the TN print
train is being used."
I have to wonder how many younger programmers know what a print train is,
For the edification of those who don't know, the 1403 line printer and
its brothers worked like this. There was a (removable and switchable)
horizontal cartridge that sat midway in the printer, laid out
horizontally across the paper, behind an ink-soaked cloth band located
between the print train and the paper. Behind the paper was a series
of 132 hammers (one per column of print). The cartridge contained a
single chain of type that was spun at high speed. Whenever the
position of a desired character passed in front of its desired colu,
that column's hammer struck the back of the paper and thus printed the
character.
There were several print trains available, just as there were several
typeballs for the IBM Selectric typewriter. One of these used a space
character ' ' both for the space and for the underscore '_'. This
was the origin of using underscores to represent spaces in program
identifiers.
The other way to do line printing is to have a rotating drum with the
full character set for each column. This is the way the DEC line
printers worked. Of course there were minor inaccuracies in the
timing of the hammers, and with the drum-based printers this resulted
in wavy lines. There were inaccuracies in the print train-style
printers, too, but waviness in the columns is not as noticeable to the
eye as waviness in the lines. Coming from the IBM world, I considered
the DEC printers total junk.
Paul -- you left out the other "feature" --
the noise, which was still
deafening even with a model N1 and its cover.
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
-Paul W.
5:52 a.m.
On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
[For the curious & easily distracted among us....]
6:05 a.m.
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 15:52:39 -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski
<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
"This video isn't available anymore"
Does anybody have a copy?
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
7:03 a.m.
On Dec 19, 2023, at 4:05 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> wrote:
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 15:52:39 -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
The above link does work for me... I thought I'd direct you to
archive.org but there it says attempts to archive this video failed.
Strange! May be try another browser?
On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski
<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
"This video isn't available anymore"
Does anybody have a copy?
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
7:32 a.m.
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 17:03:03 -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
On Dec 19, 2023, at 4:05 PM, Greg 'groggy'
Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> wrote:
Yes, thanks. "Another browser" seems to have helped.
A hollow voice croaks "interoperability".
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 15:52:39 -0800, Bakul Shah wrote:
The above link does work for me... I thought I'd direct you to
archive.org but there it says attempts to archive this video failed.
Strange! May be try another browser? I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh"
but I did find "La Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
"This video isn't available anymore"
Does anybody have a copy? 
12:05 p.m.
I've just heard it on Firefox, on Fedora.
Wesley Parish
On 20/12/23 14:32, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 17:03:03 -0800, Bakul
Shah wrote:
On Dec 19, 2023, at 4:05 PM, Greg
'groggy' Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> wrote:
Yes, thanks. "Another browser" seems to have helped.
A hollow voice croaks "interoperability".
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php
On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 15:52:39 -0800,
Bakul Shah wrote:
The above link does work for me... I thought I'd direct you to
archive.org but there it says attempts to archive this video failed.
Strange! May be try another browser?
I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh"
but I did find "La Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
"This video isn't available anymore"
Does anybody have a copy?
6:15 a.m.
Thank you for this, I never knew how this worked. My experience as an
IBM 360 (USC-ECL) operator was brief and I never got into the nuts and
bolts.
I vaguely recall, as a teen, taking a tour of a DEC-10 shop in about
1970 in Portland. Their printer played "Anchors Aweigh" and I never knew
how. But now I wonder - does this mean they had an IBM 1403 connected to
a DEC 10 somehow?
Thanks,
/Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)
maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com>
On 12/19/23 15:52, Bakul Shah wrote:
On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul
Winalski<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the
noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
[For the curious & easily distracted among us....]
10:07 p.m.
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 11:14 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
I vaguely recall, as a teen, taking a tour of a DEC-10
shop in about 1970
in Portland. Their printer played "Anchors Aweigh" and I never knew how.
But now I wonder - does this mean they had an IBM 1403 connected to a DEC
10 somehow?
It certainly means they had some kind of chain or train printer, but any
place big enough to have a PDP-10 would probably have had the budget for a
serious printer as well. I don't know if DEC made a competing printer (I
think they were very early with dot matrix printing?) or not (or who other
than IBM made big lineprinters), but once you know the trick is possible,
the rest is a relatively simple matter of having someone with a good ear to
tune the printer output so it sounds right.
For a modern and delightful analogue to this, have a look at the
Floppotron. https://www.youtube.com/@PaweZadrozniak
10:22 p.m.
Until the DECwriter series and the VT04, DEC sold OEM printers and
terminals were made by other manufacturers. Paul is speaking of the
traditional LP01, which Centronix made (I think) IIRC [Datapoint maybe -- I
forget], and it was ordered with either an upper case only drum [faster -
as it had two copies of the A-Z set] or an upper and lower case drum -
which included some special characters. The 8-bit parallel interface was
defined by Centronix, which was the standard printer interface for Minis
and later PCs. The difference with the latter is that IBM used a common
ground wire so they could put it in a DB25S connector. With the PC, IBM
designed the interface using a bi-directional Intel parallel I/O chip so
you could read it - which was not true of the earlier interfaces for
PDP-8/10/11.
As for the LP01 drum, it was possible to replace in the field but a PITA
[we did when we got a used one from Tektronix's Finance shop that was
running RSTS Cobol and moved it to the Teklab's 11/70 - V7++ UNIX system].
FWIW: when the Printronix was released in the late 1970s, it became the
standard lineprinter for UNIX sites until the rise of laser printers.
As for putting a 1403 on a PDP-10, I suspect it was possible, but it
probably took some custom interfacing.
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 11:08 AM Adam Thornton <athornton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 11:14 PM Mary Ann Horton
<mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
I vaguely recall, as a teen, taking a tour of a
DEC-10 shop in about 1970
in Portland. Their printer played "Anchors Aweigh" and I never knew how.
But now I wonder - does this mean they had an IBM 1403 connected to a DEC
10 somehow?
It certainly means they had some kind of chain or train printer, but any
place big enough to have a PDP-10 would probably have had the budget for a
serious printer as well. I don't know if DEC made a competing printer (I
think they were very early with dot matrix printing?) or not (or who other
than IBM made big lineprinters), but once you know the trick is possible,
the rest is a relatively simple matter of having someone with a good ear to
tune the printer output so it sounds right.
For a modern and delightful analogue to this, have a look at the
Floppotron. https://www.youtube.com/@PaweZadrozniak
21 Dec
21 Dec
12:11 a.m.
On Wed, Dec 20, 2023, at 11:07, Adam Thornton wrote:
For a modern and delightful analogue to this, have a
look at the
Floppotron. https://www.youtube.com/@PaweZadrozniak
Wow, the Floppotron takes things to a whole other level -- thanks
for sharing!
--
a l a n d. s a l e w s k i
ads(a)salewski.email
salewski(a)att.net
https://github.com/salewski
20 Dec
20 Dec
10:34 p.m.
On 12/19/23, Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
I vaguely recall, as a teen, taking a tour of a DEC-10 shop in about
1970 in Portland. Their printer played "Anchors Aweigh" and I never knew
how. But now I wonder - does this mean they had an IBM 1403 connected to
a DEC 10 somehow?
They very well might have had an IBM 1403 printer on their PDP-10
system. DEC marketed the PDP-10 as their commercial raised-floor data
center computing solution. They OEMed a lot of the high-end
peripheral gear for the DEC-10/20 from third-party vendors in the IBM
world. The high-end disk of the time was an OEM version of the IBM
3330 with an IBM block multiplexer channel-to-DEC MASSBUS adapter.
DEC was notoriously bad at producing 9-track magtape drives. But they
were smart enough to OEM high-end tape drives from Storage Technology
Corporation, which made the gold standard of tape drives in the IBM
data center world.
So DEC did have the capability to attach IBM gear to the PDP-10. They
would certainly have an incentive to use 1403 printers in this market.
Nobody familiar with IBM line printers would consider the standard DEC
line printers acceptable. The 1403 was typically connected to the
S/360/370's byte multiplexer channel (transmits one byte at a time to
each device; intended for slow peripherals such as card readers, line
printers, card punches). I know DEC had IBM channel adapters for
disks and tapes usually attached by selector or block multiplexer
channels. They may have had a byte multiplexer channel adapter, too.
-Paul W.
20 Dec
20 Dec
7:11 a.m.
Bakul Shah wrote in
<7DEABFE1-9015-461E-82EF-FF8E00516DBD(a)iitbombay.org>:
|On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
|>
|> Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
|> sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
|> existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
|> "Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen
on
|> this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
|
|I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
|
|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
My aunt, who once was married with a --Transi-- Pennsylvanian for
decades (and lived there), would surely proclaim "OH, [BIG] BOOOY".
|[For the curious & easily distracted among us....]
As i am not french i does not matter that it seems not super right.
Thought: if by that time AI would have been a thing, would it have
recomposed it to the Beatles' "Help!", and played it as the boss
went passing along? (Or, rather, the more empathic "a hard day's
night".)
--End of <7DEABFE1-9015-461E-82EF-FF8E00516DBD(a)iitbombay.org>
--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
| Only in December: lightful Dubai COP28 Narendra Modi quote:
| A small part of humanity has ruthlessly exploited nature.
| But the entire humanity is bearing the cost of it,
| especially the inhabitants of the Global South.
| The selfishness of a few will lead the world into darkness,
| not just for themselves but for the entire world.
| [Christians might think of Revelation 11:18
| The nations were angry, and your wrath has come[.]
| [.]for destroying those who destroy the earth.
| But i find the above more kind, and much friendlier]
7:23 a.m.
I guess the 1403 was the original multimedia output device.
See also Sam Harbison's line printer art:
http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/ASCII/
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 5:11 PM Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen(a)sdaoden.eu> wrote:
Bakul Shah wrote in
<7DEABFE1-9015-461E-82EF-FF8E00516DBD(a)iitbombay.org>:
|On Dec 19, 2023, at 1:31 PM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
|>
|> Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
|> sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
|> existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
|> "Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen
on
|> this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
|
|I couldn't find "Anchors Aweigh" but I did find "La
Marseillaise":
|
|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0MGO17K10
My aunt, who once was married with a --Transi-- Pennsylvanian for
decades (and lived there), would surely proclaim "OH, [BIG] BOOOY".
|[For the curious & easily distracted among us....]
As i am not french i does not matter that it seems not super right.
Thought: if by that time AI would have been a thing, would it have
recomposed it to the Beatles' "Help!", and played it as the boss
went passing along? (Or, rather, the more empathic "a hard day's
night".)
--End of <7DEABFE1-9015-461E-82EF-FF8E00516DBD(a)iitbombay.org>
--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
| Only in December: lightful Dubai COP28 Narendra Modi quote:
| A small part of humanity has ruthlessly exploited nature.
| But the entire humanity is bearing the cost of it,
| especially the inhabitants of the Global South.
| The selfishness of a few will lead the world into darkness,
| not just for themselves but for the entire world.
| [Christians might think of Revelation 11:18
| The nations were angry, and your wrath has come[.]
| [.]for destroying those who destroy the earth.
| But i find the above more kind, and much friendlier]
21 Dec
21 Dec
9:53 a.m.
On Dec 19, 2023, at 4:31 PM, Paul Winalski
<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, the 1403 was very loud. The pitch of the noise varied with the
sequence of characters being printed. Some IBM hacker (yes, they
existed) came up with a deck of cards that, when printed, played
"Anchors Aweigh" on the 1403. IBM field service wasn't very keen on
this hack because it put a lot of wear-and-tear on the print train.
The holidays always seemed to feature people running programs which played festive songs
by punching fully laced cards or printing patterns on the line printers. Whenever I
noticed something, I'd ask the operators to kill those programs because they could
cause equipment failures. A fully laced punch card is much more flexible and likely to
jam. Printing all columns on a printer, especially doing so without a line feed, tends to
moisten the paper which tended to gum up the print trains.
Those line printers were definitely noisy. I've got tinnitus thanks to working
around them.
- Rod
20 Dec
20 Dec
3:34 a.m.
The night operator for the High Speed Job Stream at the University of
Toronto would nap on top of the 1401. He would be woken by the lid lifting
him up when the printer ran out of paper, an effective alarm clock set to
the computer's cycle.
-rob
On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 7:34 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Tom smiled while reading that man page: "It is
assumed that the TN print
train is being used."
I have to wonder how many younger programmers know what a print train is,
much less what it looked like (or how heavy they were when you
changed them). Also, with the loss of the use of real lineprinters, you
have to wonder if those same folks understand why the asa(1) program that
POSIX.2 requires is there (although IIRC later *.2 revisions moved it to
the "FORTRAN Runtime Utilities" as an option POSX2_FORT_RUN - but we had
it there in the original draft).
Paul -- you left out the other "feature" -- the noise, which was still
deafening even with a model N1 and its cover.
I equate four sounds to my early computing days: the ASR33 printing, a
1403 printing, a 1402 reading card, and finally, the constant fan noise in
the machine room, plus the smell of light machine oil [definitely in a
terminal room of ASR33s].
ᐧ
ᐧ
On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 1:07 PM Tom Lyon <pugs78(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, Amdahl UTS supported the 1403 from earliest days.
> There even seem to be some mods to 'tbl' to support it.
>
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2023 at 9:40 AM Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/18/23, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
>> > On Mon, 18 Dec 2023, Paul Winalski wrote:
>> >
>> >> The 132-character screen width was for displaying files originally
>> >> formatted to be printed on a line printer. Compiler listings and
>> linker
>> >> maps, for example.
>> >
>> > Such as the mighty 1403 :-)
>> >
>> > Hint: never leave your cup of coffee on top of it, as the lid will open
>> > automatically when it runs out of paper...
>>
>> The 1403 was the best line printer ever made. It was originally the
>> printer for the IBM 1400 second-generation (discrete transistor-based)
>> computer. It continued to be the line printer for S/360. The deluxe
>> model, the IBM 1403 N1, had a power cover that could be operated under
>> computer control. The OS/360 operating system would raise the
>> printer's cover if an error condition occurred, such as out of paper
>> or a paper jam. This was a very useful feature in large data centers
>> where there were several line printers, to indicate which printer had
>> a problem.
>>
>> The cover of a 1403 N1 also provided a convenient and attractive flat
>> surface on which to place things. But a dangerous one. Many a card
>> deck magtape reel, coffee cup, or pizza box has been unceremoniously
>> dumped on the floor.
>>
>> When our shop upgraded from a S/360 model 25 to a S/370 model 125, our
>> 1403 was replaced by a 3203 line printer. It was not as good as the
>> 1401 had been.
>>
>> There was a business in Massachusetts in the 1980s that bought and
>> sold old IBM computer gear. A company asked them for a quote on their
>> IBM 1400 system (1401 processor, 1402 card read/punch, 1403 printer).
>> They were offered $18,000 for the whole system, or $15,000 for the
>> 1403 printer alone. That's how valued those printers were.
>>
>> To bring this closer on-topic, was there Unix support for the IBM 1403?
>>
>> -Paul W.
>>
>
367
days inactive
371
days old
30 comments
20 participants
participants (20)
-
Adam Thornton -
Alan D. Salewski -
Bakul Shah -
Clem Cole -
Dave Horsfall -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Harald Arnesen -
Jon Forrest -
KenUnix -
Mary Ann Horton -
Paul Winalski -
Rob Pike -
Rod Bartlett -
Ron Natalie -
segaloco -
Seth Morabito -
Steffen Nurpmeso -
Tom Lyon -
Warner Losh -
Wesley Parish