User:Thor - Revision history

Thor at 18:51, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T18:51:10Z

Thor at 17:41, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:41:51Z

Thor at 17:41, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:41:08Z

Thor at 17:36, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:36:47Z

Thor at 17:35, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:35:40Z

Thor at 17:34, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:34:40Z

Thor at 17:31, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:31:29Z

Thor at 17:30, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:30:00Z

Thor at 17:26, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:26:15Z

Thor at 17:19, 7 February 2009

2009-02-07T17:19:54Z

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 * 1980-1985 - DEC PDP-11 Shop.  Lots of different species of PDP-11's (04/24/34/40/44/70).  RT-11 (V3, 4 & 5), RSTS/E (mostly production is later V7s, but got exposure to 8 and the new DCL shell).  A bit of Ultrix, RSX-11 MUMPS.  Programmed primarily in DIBOL and Basic-Plus.  Learned C for the first time with the PDP-11 C Language C tape for RSTS/E.  Did a bit of programming in random Basics - Fortran, SPSS, just a bit of Macro-11.
 * 85-2001 - Initially DEC shop - PDP-11's running BSD 2.9.  Then large crop of small Vaxen -- mostly MicroVAX-II's in a VMS VAXCluster with early Ethernet on DECnet.  System was a member of SPAN (Space Physics Analysis Network) -- at the time the largest "Internet" if it's kind -- but it was DECnet based.   Shop then shifted to Suns -- early SUN3's with SUNOS then into the Sparcs running solaris.  Started running FreeBSD.   Most all programming is lots of different generations of C.
-* 2001-2006 - Consultant (I'm an Enterprise Architect)
+* 2001-2006 - Consultant (I'm an Enterprise Architect) - Globetrotter...
-* 2006-Present - Mostly .NET shop -- a bit of Mono - Linux, FreeBSD.
+* 2006-Present - Mostly .NET shop -- a bit of Mono - Linux, FreeBSD.  Grounded in Seattle nowadays -- soaking up the rain and the coffee...
 ---Hobby projects (some moneymaking, most not):

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:41, 7 February 2009
Line 2:		Line 2:

	Very into Retrocomputing, started programming in High School in about '75, so have seen a bit since...		Very into Retrocomputing, started programming in High School in about '75, so have seen a bit since...
		+	Back when the machines had souls...

	---Work/School		---Work/School

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 * 2008 - Keep a couple of SIMH systems running -- two PDP-10 systems - one with TOPS-10 and the other with the PANDA version of Tops-20 (on KLH10).   Trying to put together a RSTS/E system - got a 8.4 system up.  Trying to run latest 9, but seems like every time I would build it, sysgen and reboot, the disk would become corrupted.  Trying to put together a DECNet system with LAT, but only that latest version of Decnet supported ethernet.   Need to get the hobbyist VMS stuff from HP.
 * 2008-2009 PDPVM - Worked on porting SIMH PDP-10 base CPU into c#.  I really only need the user-mode CPU, not any of the I/O.  Wanted to work more on the TOPS-10/TOPS-20 OS Emulator.   I want to put together a system that can run TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 executables at the command line (in cygwin or freebsd/linux).   I think it would be much easier to write an OS emulator in a real OO language like C#.  Even though I worked primarily in C for almost 30 years--I've totally fallen in love with C#.  Only pain is that C# doesn't have octal :/. I'm also quite good at metaprogramming - writing languages which generate code (which C# is really good at supporting) -- the JSYS and CALLI interfaces can probably be autogenerated with a sufficiently complex specification.  This is still ongoing.  Need to finish the CPU and get so I can run most of the early diagnostics (this is how I developed the C emulator -- nice to essentially have some unit tests).   Then I need to figure out what OS to do first.  I've thought to get the 20 running and then make it run the pa1040.exe emulator on the 20.  But I'd really like to do both separately.   I got bogged down on the FILOP operations in C the first time around.  I just ran MACRO and started emulating each CALLI I ran across in order (order of needed them). I have lots of tools I wrote load .SAV and .EXE files into memory that I can port.  I'd also thought of the possibility of doing this whole user-mode emulator for RT-11, RSTS/E and RSX (of course we don't have sources to these--for the kernel anyway).
-* 2009 - I've also been getting into 3D environments so I've thought of doing full on 3D models of my favorite old machines.   I have even thought of doing them up in XNA or MOGRE with full 3D sound with a running SIMH emulator inside the simulation.   How about some games with fully working PDP's in them?
+* 2009 - I've also been getting into 3D environments so I've thought of doing full on 3D models of my favorite old machines.   I have even thought of doing them up in XNA or MOGRE with full 3D sound with a running SIMH emulator inside the simulation.   How about some games with fully working PDP's in them?  Finding sounds will be hard.  Fans and Transformers are reasonably easy, but tape drives and dot matrix printers will be hard.  Smells are impossible.   Going to a data center in Beijing and hearing all of the transformers sing at the wrong frequency (50hz instead of 60hz) is something most people wouldn't get.  You don't really hear them anymore -- it's just the fans.
 * Recently got accounts on Paul Allen's real PDP-10 and 20 (20 runs on the TOAD box I think).
 * Had always mused about doing a subversion repository for the TOPSs-10 and 20 sources -- check in all of the various versions through time to rebuild the whole history.

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 * I have lots of boards from MicroVAX-IIs including a couple of CPUs and a lot of 3rd party disk/tape cards from emulex and dilog.  And some memory cards.  No chassis.
 * I have the following tape drives (which should all still work on linux/freebsd scsi): Exabyte 2.2gb 8m drives, Archive QIC-125 and QIC-150 (I used to use these for Amiga backups), and a couple of early DAT drives.  I'm about to set up a rig to salvage all of the old tapes I have (suns, amigas, and old freebsd backups).   Like I mention below -- I had loads of TK50s with VMS stuff and lots of 9-Tracks with RSTS stuff that I let go without salvaging.  "Umm - honey, why don't you clean out that closet?"  - Arg!
 ---Manuals (Physical Books)

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 * I have most of the boards for an 11/24.  I don't have the backplane or case (though I do have a unibus section and the prints, but I'm not insane enough to want to do all that wirewrap by hand).
 * I have lots of boards from MicroVAX-IIs including a couple of CPUs and a lot of 3rd party disk/tape cards from emulex and dilog.  And some memory cards.  No chassis.
-* I have the following tape drives (which should all still work on linux/freebsd scsi): Exabyte 2.2gb 8m drives, Archive QIC-125 and QIC-150 (I used to use these for Amiga backups), and a couple of early DAT drives.  I'm about to set up a rig to salvage all of the old tapes I have (suns, amigas, and old freebsd backups).   Like I mention below -- I had loads of TK50s with VMS stuff and lots of 9-Tracks with RSTS stuff that I let go without salvaging.
+* I have the following tape drives (which should all still work on linux/freebsd scsi): Exabyte 2.2gb 8m drives, Archive QIC-125 and QIC-150 (I used to use these for Amiga backups), and a couple of early DAT drives.  I'm about to set up a rig to salvage all of the old tapes I have (suns, amigas, and old freebsd backups).   Like I mention below -- I had loads of TK50s with VMS stuff and lots of 9-Tracks with RSTS stuff that I let go without salvaging.  "Umm - honey, why don't you clean out that closet?"  - Arg!
 ---Manuals (Physical Books)

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 * DEC 20milliamp serial paper tape reader
 * TU-58 (Weird little serial tape drive)
 ---Manuals (Physical Books)
@@ Line 45: / Line 46: @@
 * Not too many Dec-20 books, though I have a 20 Monitor calls book
 * I also have a lovingly worn out TOPS-10 Monitor Calls manual which I used through high school--with handwritten notes, which was irritatingly much newer than the OS that my high school had (they had a KA-10, so were pretty much limited to 5.07B).   I have a lot of other TOPS-10 manuals like macro (user books).
 * TODO: Detailed inventory of above

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Very into Retrocomputing, started programming in High School in about '75, so have seen a bit since...
----Work
+---Work/School
 * High School 75-79 - PDP-10 KA10 TOPs-10 5.07 (this was the Albuquerque Public Schools system, so coincidentally was one of the machines that Bill Gates and Paul Allen rented time from to work on MITS Basic.  I learned: Assembler (loved Macro-10), DDT, Algol, Fortran, Basic, SNOBOL, LISP, TECO.  I mostly worked in assembler.
 * 79-80 - DecSystem-20 (not sure what version -- have to dig through some old printouts I have) - Tektronix 4010 programming - Pascal, Macro-20, minor exposure to MIDAS, SAIL, and APL.  Used Emacs (TECO version) for the first time.