Mr. Stacy... AboutMr. Greenblatt & MacHack VI
Visitor
Since you seem to personally know Mr. Greenblatt, I was wondering if you
could pass on a few questions to him.
1) Was there any published information about the CHEOPS hardware?
2) What did it really do? How big was it? When was it? Etc. (If it was
prior to 1977 then you did the first hardware assisted chess program, and
not Mr. Ken Thompson.)
3) How many 'versions' of MacHack VI were there? History says you worked on
the program off and on for about 10 years.
4) What was the 'official' name of the program? "Greenblatt's chess
program" or "MacHack VI"?
5) Where did the "VI" in "MacHack VI" come from?
6) I came across a copy of TECH-II (originally by Alan Baisley) at
ftp://ftp.ultimate.com/pdp10/chess2/
The copy in the ITS directory appears to have mention of your CHEOPS
hardware.
I was told that directory came originally from a directory "RG"....
Were you involved in TECH-II's creation? Did you modify the program to test
hardware? When?
The discovery of this program was very intriguing. None of my references
has any mention of any program other than MacHack VI ever running with
CHEOPS.
Thank you.
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Christopher C. Stacy
http://www.computerhistory.org/about/press_relations/chess/
Visitor
news:uoe6xs...@news.dtpq.com...
> Have you consulted the archival material at the Computer Museum?
> http://www.computerhistory.org/about/press_relations/chess/
I've been there before. Mostly just downloading the videos. Such as the
Ken Thompson stuff and the Bernstein 704 video, for examples.
But since I've been concentrating on trying to find the old programs, I
haven't read all of it.
They don't really have all that much online, although I think I've read that
they have plans to put more online. Not quite sure what.
We have been thinking about the possibility of donating some stuff to them,
if we get anything physical. For electronic stuff, they can certainly have
a copy if they want it. But we'd need to get something really good before
they'd want anything...
(For example, if anybody donates physical copies of classic articles, papers
or thesises. Or donates original copies of early commercial chess programs.
And so on.)
But it still hinges on getting a lot of the old stuff.
A few haven't responsed. Either they weren't interested or the messages got
lost in the spam filters, or something.
A few have responsed but said they don't have anything. They've long since
thrown all that stuff away.
A few have responsed and said they think they do have their old stuff, but
have no way to get it off the tape (paper or magnetic). I've suggested the
possibility of maybe loaning it to one of the PDP archive sites that can
still read those tapes, but I doubt they are going to do it. I don't want
to pester them and check back just yet.
Of course, most of the people from back then I can't find at all. And some
stuff is probably lost completely. Bernstein's 1950's learning checkers
program, for example. That'd be such a spectacular find that it'd make
Greenblatt's chess program look like nothing. But there's not much chance
it still exists.
I'm still looking though...
Every month that goes by, the less chance of stuff still existing. The
greater the chance that stuff will be damaged by mildew or stray magnetic
fields, or the tape disintegrating, etc.
Christopher C. Stacy
to the museum than what they have online.
Visitor
>I think you might find that there's much more
> to the museum than what they have online.
That's possibly true.
But since I'm no where near there, I can't go check.
I'd like to go see the physical stuff, for that matter. But I just don't
live anywhere near there and I never go anywhere near there, so it's not
going to happen.
Christopher C. Stacy
> "Christopher C. Stacy" <cst...@news.dtpq.com> wrote in message
> news:uhdcpi...@news.dtpq.com...
> >I think you might find that there's much more
> > to the museum than what they have online.
>
> That's possibly true.
>
> But since I'm no where near there, I can't go check.
>
> I'd like to go see the physical stuff, for that matter. But I just don't
> live anywhere near there and I never go anywhere near there, so it's not
> going to happen.
I am under the impression that everything you are looking
for is already there and done. It would behoove you to
investigate that before duplicating all the effort.
Visitor
related listed in their archives.
Photos, a few hardware chess microcomputers, etc.
Most of the stuff was donated by just a couple of people.
I'll email them and check, though.
I would have expected that something such as a software chess program would
be listed on their web search and made available. Pretty easy to do that.
A few of the people I've emailed with about their programs, none of them
have said or suggested or hinted that they had been contacted by anybody
else recently, and certainly not by the computer history museum. If they
had, and had donated their old program, I would have thought they'd have
mentioned it.
In fact, I noiced that one of the donators in the list was a person who had
suggested to me that we might donate the programs to there... And apparently
even he hasn't donated his old program to them...
I suspect that since they are more concerned about computer history in
general, computer chess isn't a high priority. They are aware of it, they
have an exhibit with a few hardware items, but that's about it. If you
offer to donate something, I'm sure they'd accept it, but they probably
aren't making a great effort to track down the old programs.
I bet they probably don't even have a collection of important computer chess
papers. Like the complete collection of the ICCA journal. They should
certainly save that. And a few other important papers and thesises.
But, as I said, I've emailed them and maybe I'll get a response back.
Maybe you could suggest to Mr. Greenblatt that he donate his program to
them? It'd be a worthy place, and it might encourage him to go out to his
garage, before the tape suffers too much bit rot.
"Christopher C. Stacy" <cst...@news.dtpq.com> wrote in message
news:uoe6wa...@news.dtpq.com...
Christopher C. Stacy
> I went through their web search and they have practically
> nothing chess related listed in their archives.
They recently did a big chess project, according to Greenblatt.
> I suspect that since they are more concerned about computer history in
> general, computer chess isn't a high priority. They are aware of it, they
> have an exhibit with a few hardware items, but that's about it. If you
> offer to donate something, I'm sure they'd accept it, but they probably
> aren't making a great effort to track down the old programs.
You seem to be sure of a lot of things, about this museum
you have never contacted, about what a PDP-10 is, ....
Visitor
They do have a *very* small collection of chess programs.
Mostly commercial stuff.
Their chess collection is much more hardware (and photos, books, etc.)
oriented than software based.
This is all the software they have. Including the stuff that's not
available to the public:
***
Sargon: A Computer Chess Program, 1978
Sargon II: A Computer Chess Program, 1980
Grandmaster Chess program, 1987
Sargon Chess program, 1990
Sargon III chess program, 1983
Chess 4.6 source code, 1977
The Chessmaster 2000 program, ca. 1986
Deep Junior 7.0 chess program, 2001
***
As you can see, mostly commercial stuff. We've been concentrating on the
older research stuff.
They are working on a chess project. But it's not really software oriented.
As I said... some of the authors I've already been in contact with made no
mention of any sort about them donating their old code to them.... If they
had dontated the stuff, it would have been mentioned.
I was right.
So, it looks like our effort definetly excedes theirs at this point. The
only thing of value they have yet that we don't is Chess 4.6, and that's
because we are having trouble finding the authors. And there's a good
chance we have tracked down an even earlier version of that program.
Again, please ask Mr. Greenblatt about the possibility of donating his
source code. To them definetly... To the rest of the world to be posted and
admired.
And any stories etc. he might have about it...
If these don't get preserved now, they probably never will.
"Christopher C. Stacy" <cst...@news.dtpq.com> wrote in message
news:uk6hjv...@news.dtpq.com...
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Christopher C. Stacy
> I am in contact with them...
>
> They do have a *very* small collection of chess programs.
>
> Mostly commercial stuff.
>
> Their chess collection is much more hardware (and photos, books, etc.)
> oriented than software based.
> They are working on a chess project. But it's not really software oriented.
> I was right.
That's interesting, because Greenblatt is the one
who told me about the museum; they were working with
him a little while back. I'll ask him again, though.
Visitor
> That's interesting, because Greenblatt is the one
> who told me about the museum; they were working with
> him a little while back. I'll ask him again, though.
>
[shrug]
Maybe I'm talking to somebody who doesn't know that somebody else is talking
with Mr. Greenblatt.
I have no idea.
I really didn't figure they'd have much just yet.
Most of the authors I did talk to either 1) didn't have anything to
distribute (lost etc.) or 2) did have something but no way to read it.
In fact, one even suggested that maybe if we could collect stuff, it should
be donated to the computer history museum.
However, we are trying to collect anything of any significance during that
time period.
That's not necsarily the same thing as what a museum would call "historical"
and wanting it...
That modified TECH-II program is a good example.
For a collector or a computer history buf, it's definetly noteworthy! But
not really of historical significance to make it into a museum.
Christopher C. Stacy
> For a collector or a computer history buf, it's definetly
> noteworthy! But not really of historical significance to
> make it into a museum.
Uhhh...it's a COMPUTER museum.
Are you sure we're both referring to the same place?
The one that I'm referring to has a great interest
in software, documentation, interviews with people,
and also of course hardware.
Visitor
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> writes:
>
>> For a collector or a computer history buf, it's definetly
>> noteworthy! But not really of historical significance to
>> make it into a museum.
>
> Uhhh...it's a COMPUTER museum.
ComputerHistory.org
It's the only place I know of that's actively involved in collecting
computer stuff.
> Are you sure we're both referring to the same place?
> The one that I'm referring to has a great interest
> in software, documentation, interviews with people,
> and also of course hardware.
I think we are talking about the same place.
I'm sure they do have a great interst in a lot of areas.
BUT, a lot of the chess programs I've been finding aren't of real historical
significance.
Other than the fact they exist, of course.
To hobbiest, some of this stuff is definetly of interest.
They might not be so enthused because there is no historical event
surrounding it.
Again, that TECH-II program I came across...
A hobbiest / collector would find it interesting that it was done on a PDP-6
and used Greenblatt's CHEOPS. A computer museum might not find it so
interesting since it was just personal project. Especially since we can't
actually *prove* that it was done by Mr. Greenblatt, or have any details
surrounding it.
Without being to talk to him, we can only assume that he did it.
Same for a couple of hacked versions of TECH-II... no clear history to them.
They may want them just to stick into their archives somewhere, just to say
they have them, but without a good sense of where they came from and some
historical significance, it's not going to mean much to them.
We will, of course, offer them everything we have manage to collect and
everything we will get. But that doesn't automatically mean they are going
to want it.
For them, they've got the entire computer area to collect, and they need to
follow certain practices about stuff they accept. We are just concentrating
on computer chess programs, because that's what we are interested in.
Christopher C. Stacy
> Again, that TECH-II program I came across...
>
> A hobbiest / collector would find it interesting that it was done
> on a PDP-6 and used Greenblatt's CHEOPS. A computer museum might
> not find it so interesting since it was just personal project.
> Especially since we can't actually *prove* that it was done by
> Mr. Greenblatt, or have any details surrounding it.
>
> Without being to talk to him, we can only assume that he did it.
I'm not quite following what you're saying, above.
Are you saying that "TECH II" was not of historical
significance? Or that the Computer Museum, which
is doing a big project on computer chess, would not
be interested in whether it ran on a PDP-6?
Or that nothing is known about the program,
or who wrote it?
When you say "we can only assume" and make various
suggestions that "we" don't know any details about
all this stuff, to whom are you referering?
I don't know anything about computer chess, and have no interest,
but in using Google for about 15 seconds, I can see a bunch has
been written about this stuff. 20 seconds later, I can tell you
that a program named "Kaissa" from the Soviet Union won the first
World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm; it defeated
(among others) Tech II in 33 moves, in round 2. After 90 seconds
of research on the ACM web site, I begin to wonder if you have
read the extensive literature mentioning Tech II, for example?
Have you read the proceedings from ACM International Computer
Chess Championships and from the annual United States Computer
Chess Championships, from say, around 1969-1979?
Another 2 minutes later, I have located Marc Boule's 2002
Master's thesis, an FPGA for chess moves, and have read:
"As its title indicates, the Chess Oriented Processing System
(Cheops) was also developed as a custom chess playing machine.
The core of Cheops is a custom built, 16 bit CPU designed specifically
to execute chess instructions. The Chess Array Module, along with
controlling logic, is responsible for generating chess moves.
The Cheops system was integrated to the TECH II and MacHack chess
programs but no performance results are given [44].
Cheops was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
during the late 1970s."
This suggests to me that, for example, Tech II was a well-known
chess program. Which further suggests that you don't know what
you are talking about. Which leads me to the conclusion' that you
are wasting people's time, while you deride and dismiss the efforts
of professional historians and collectors in this area, and assert
that they have done nothing. So why are you wasting everyone's time?
That's a rhetorical question.
Christopher C. Stacy
to ask about their chess exhibit. They emailed
me a bunch of documents that describe the kinds of
things they have in their 6-part exhibit.
(Some of this looks familar from a few minutes ago
when I was Googling, so it's probably all online.)
The brochures have information about MacHack VI
and other historically important programs.
I know that they worked with Greenblatt when preparing
this exhibit (because that's how I found out about it).
Like any museum, theyhave also curated tons of material
that went into preparing the public exhibit. If you are
a serious researcher, they have provisions for you to
access their collections and work with their staff.
They might have source code. They're checking for me.
Meanwhile, as I believe I mentioned a while back,
there is a project that is in the process of recovering
all of the old files from the AI Lab backup tapes.
The old chess programs should be there, as well.
Barring all that, if I were suitably motivated, I might
go helping RG dig around in his house to find any old
listings he might have. Can't say that anything I've
heard or seen in this conversation is really making me
excited about bothering. I'll try to remember to mention
it to him when I see him again later this week, though.
If I find it, my first priority would be to work with
the MIT Museum (did you try contacting them to see what
they already have?) and the Computer History Museum.
Christopher C. Stacy
Geez.
Brian Harvey
>all of the old files from the AI Lab backup tapes.
How did I miss this first time around? Sounds like a privacy disaster
in the making -- we were all naive about such things back then.
Christopher C. Stacy
No! Privacy issues are tantamount and care will be taken.
It's not as though everybody's files will be available to the
world in some kind of free-for-all. Only that you will be able
(hopefully) to get your own old files back from the mists of time,
and then you can do whatever you want them.
(Sorry! Didn't mean to alarm anybody...)
Christopher C. Stacy
> b...@abbenay.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey) writes:
>
> > cst...@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> > >all of the old files from the AI Lab backup tapes.
> >
> > How did I miss this first time around? Sounds like a privacy disaster
> > in the making -- we were all naive about such things back then.
>
> No! Privacy issues are tantamount and care will be taken.
"paramount".
(well, hopefully, something will get mounted (and not me), anyway...)
Brian Harvey
>It's not as though everybody's files will be available to the
>world in some kind of free-for-all. Only that you will be able
>(hopefully) to get your own old files back from the mists of time,
>and then you can do whatever you want them.
That's cool. I definitely have some I'd like to regain.
But, out of curiosity, how am I going to prove that b...@cs.berkeley.edu
is the same person as bh@mit-ai? (It's not as if I had a password... :-)
Christopher C. Stacy
Brian Harvey
Yeah, I guess everyone is known by someone -- there weren't ever that
many of us, by modern standards. Makes me feel important. :-)
Visitor
> Oh, and quit calling me "Mr."!
> Geez.
Well, I don't know you personally, so I figured "Mr." was appropriate.
Visitor
> The brochures have information about MacHack VI
> and other historically important programs.
> I know that they worked with Greenblatt when preparing
> this exhibit (because that's how I found out about it).
They did say they had a couple of programs they couldn't discuss because the
legal issues had not yet been worked out.
I was hoping it'd be MacHack VI, especially from what you had said.
But they wouldn't say one way or the other.
The programs they do discuss, are mostly commercial stuff, though. That's
not my area of preference.
> Like any museum, theyhave also curated tons of material
> that went into preparing the public exhibit. If you are
> a serious researcher, they have provisions for you to
I'm not a 'serious' / 'professional' researcher.
> access their collections and work with their staff.
> They might have source code. They're checking for me.
I did already ask about that. I just passed on what I was told about how
little they had for software.
> Meanwhile, as I believe I mentioned a while back,
> there is a project that is in the process of recovering
> all of the old files from the AI Lab backup tapes.
> The old chess programs should be there, as well.
I don't remember reading that...
Not sure what chess programs would be on there, though.
> Barring all that, if I were suitably motivated, I might
> go helping RG dig around in his house to find any old
> listings he might have. Can't say that anything I've
> heard or seen in this conversation is really making me
> excited about bothering. I'll try to remember to mention
> it to him when I see him again later this week, though.
>
> If I find it, my first priority would be to work with
> the MIT Museum (did you try contacting them to see what
> they already have?) and the Computer History Museum.
At this point, my main effort has been trying to contact the authors.
This is happening in my spare time, so I can't contact everybody all at
once.
And as I've said many times to many people... At this stage, I am still
somewhat disorganized and am not sure where to check or who to check o
I originally started about 2 years ago.
I contacted people, I browsed the web. I asked people from back then if
they knew anything, etc. etc.
And found very little. Other than the fact that most of the few I found had
little interest in the old stuff.
Most people didn't bother to reply.
After a while with little progress, I gave up.
It's only recently that I've started up again.
Visitor
> I'm not quite following what you're saying, above.
> Are you saying that "TECH II" was not of historical
Not as much of historical significance as the original TECH was.
However, the problem with the version of TECH-II we found is that it's been
modified by unknown parties in unknown ways for unknown reasons at unknown
times.
We don't know for certain its history. We can't prove that particular
version is a significant one.
> significance? Or that the Computer Museum, which
> is doing a big project on computer chess, would not
> be interested in whether it ran on a PDP-6?
> Or that nothing is known about the program,
> or who wrote it?
Well... You can read the comments in the files themselves....
For the TOPS-20 one (the one with the damaged source), it doesn't say a lot.
Don't know if this was the original source by Alan Baisley or not. It
doesn't mention CHEOPS, but that's about all that can be said for sure.
The TOPS-10 version has no source, but the hlp file certainly suggests a
long line of modifications. That program had definetly traveled some.
The ITS version, which has references to the PDP and CHEOPS has no
documentation with it.
So we don't really know much beyond it existing.
We don't know who wrote modified it, why it was modified, when it was
modified.
We can speculate. But we don't know for sure. Unless somebody comes
forward who was involved and can say for sure whether that is or is not
their program or modifications.
Conditions like that are fine for collectors etc., but a professional
quality collection (like what museums do) tend to prefer a bit more
information.
It does have references to the PDP-6, so they may find it interesting for
that reason. But that's not a heck of a lot compared to what it might mean
(ie: the cheops references etc.)
But again, as I've said, if we have anything they want, they are welcome to
it. The whole point of collecting this stuff is to put it on the web for
anybody who wants it. We don't want to hoarde stuff.
> When you say "we can only assume" and make various
> suggestions that "we" don't know any details about
> all this stuff, to whom are you referering?
Currently, myself, plus the guy who posted it on his ftp site.
Plus, the computer history museum... Without somebody coming forward and
giving a definite history or accounting, it doesn't have as much value to
it.
No idea where the original author is at, so we can't compare the source to
see what was actually modified.
For us hobbiests, that's acceptable. We'd prefer more info, but speculation
is acceptable.
Speculation is not acceptable for a genuine archive.
If Mr. Greenblatt or somebody else comes forward and says that was his
modifications, then that's great... it makes the program rather valuable and
significant.
> I don't know anything about computer chess, and have no interest,
> but in using Google for about 15 seconds, I can see a bunch has
> been written about this stuff. 20 seconds later, I can tell you
> that a program named "Kaissa" from the Soviet Union won the first
Right. Common knowledge.
I haven't yet tried contacting them to see if that still exists...
Considering how much reorganization has occured since then, I doubt it.
Still it might... from what I gather, some form of Kaissa existed as late as
1990
> World Computer Chess Championship in Stockholm; it defeated
> (among others) Tech II in 33 moves, in round 2. After 90 seconds
> of research on the ACM web site, I begin to wonder if you have
> read the extensive literature mentioning Tech II, for example?
Sure, I know a few things about TECH-II... At least the original version of
TECH-II, anway. (Have I studied each and every chess program since the
early 60's... No... Do you know how many there have been?!! By 1980 there
were hundreds. Heck, by the mid 70's there were more than 50, with many
just being local programs that gained little attention. No, I can't be 100%
familiar with every one of them... If I was writing a history book, then I
would need to be. But I'm not writing a book. Finding chess programs
before they are lost doesn't require me to know the authors nickname or
whether they were left handed, etc.)
But that doesn't mean the program we found is the real TECH-II.
My simply saying "Yes this is the real TECH-II" or "This is the copy that
Mr. Greenblatt modified" doesn't make it so.
That's fine for a hobbiest collector.
A professional quality collectio needs more.
And it is known for certain that one other version in that same directory
*has* been modified by other parties.
> Have you read the proceedings from ACM International Computer
> Chess Championships and from the annual United States Computer
> Chess Championships, from say, around 1969-1979?
>
> Another 2 minutes later, I have located Marc Boule's 2002
> Master's thesis, an FPGA for chess moves, and have read:
> "As its title indicates, the Chess Oriented Processing System
> (Cheops) was also developed as a custom chess playing machine.
> The core of Cheops is a custom built, 16 bit CPU designed specifically
> to execute chess instructions. The Chess Array Module, along with
> controlling logic, is responsible for generating chess moves.
> The Cheops system was integrated to the TECH II and MacHack chess
> programs but no performance results are given [44].
> Cheops was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> during the late 1970s."
Which was not part of the original history of TECH or TECH-II that I was
familiar with.
That was an event that happened much later.
And no, it's not widely mentioned.
> This suggests to me that, for example, Tech II was a well-known
> chess program. Which further suggests that you don't know what
Yes, it was. Moderately so, anyway. Not famous well known, but known. It
and the original TECH were used for a variety of experiments over the years.
> you are talking about. Which leads me to the conclusion' that you
In what way... That we can't prove that the copy we found is the real
version?
We can already prove that there have been other modifications because the
hlp file with it says so.
You've made one heck of a jump in reading that reference...
You've made the assumption that the version we have is the version they are
talking about.
You don't know that.
You've just decided that since you don't like me, that I must automatically
be wrong and that you must automatically be right.
The reality is that you don't know the history of the program that was
found. You are only speculating.
It may indeed be the one being discussed. But we don't know at this point.
And I readily admit I don't have the original references... As I've said
before, I'm stuck in a rural area with no place around here that carries
those journals. They may be available online, but since I don't belong to
those organizations I don't have access.
> are wasting people's time, while you deride and dismiss the efforts
"Wasting people's time".... Well, since you seem to enjoy these
conversations, that must mean your time is even less valuable than mine...
> of professional historians and collectors in this area, and assert
> that they have done nothing. So why are you wasting everyone's time?
"Dismiss the efforts".... And how do you reach that conclusion?
Pretty big jump considering I have said no such thing.
I have said there has been very little effort to collect the old programs.
That's very true. Some of the authors I've contacted have not been
contacted about their stuff recently. (And in fact, one of the major
authors from the 70's & early 80's He hadn't donated his program. Either
he didn't want to, or more likely, they didn't want it at the time. He's
also the one who suggested that whatever we collect, we donate to them to
help their very small collection.)
Heck, I'd love to sit back and let them do all the work and reap the
benefits. I really really would. It'd be a heck of a lot easier.
But they haven't been. That's why so much stuff is now lost.
It's only been releatively recent when anybody showed any interst. Even
now, their efforts are not... extensive. They've got a lot of areas to
cover. They don't have the time, the people or the finances to put into an
extensive search.
I've already collected at least as many programs as they have. More,
actually. Then throw in the ones from people I'm in contact with, and we
probably have couple times more than what they have. And where as most of
theirs are commercial, most of mine are free, open, and somewhat
historically significant.
You have one very bad habit of jumping to things that were not said.
>
> That's a rhetorical question.
>
Paul Rubin
chess. It has lots of info on all these old programs.
Visitor
news:7xek7rd...@ruckus.brouhaha.com...
> Why don't you look in Welsh and Bacszynskij(sp?)'s book on computer
> chess. It has lots of info on all these old programs.
I have it. Both it and the earlier book. (I bought them way back then,
when they were just released.) To be honest, I don't have a massive chess
book collection, but I do happen to have those two books. (My interest in
computer chess comes and goes... I like the programs, I like occasionally
programming computer chess.... But I don't like *playing* chess... And
since I don't like playing chess, my interest in actually programming it
comes and goes. Every few years I start getting the urge. But since my
programs are so much better than me, there's not a lot of point in doing one
yet again... so I'm hunting for the classics, instead.)
That's also one of a couple refs that I have that gave the impression that
TECH-II was a refinement to TECH, rather than being an entirely seperate
program. TECH-II is heavily based on Gillogly's paper, but it is a seperate
program, in spite of what some places & people say.
Those books also disagree with other stuff on the web, so I'm not too sure
which to believe.
jmfb...@aol.com
<GRIN> He sure does know how to get annoying in five bytes or
less. Mr. Chris ;-).
/BAH
jmfb...@aol.com
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
>"Christopher C. Stacy" <cst...@news.dtpq.com> wrote in message
>news:ubr2vt...@news.dtpq.com...
>We can already prove that there have been other modifications because the
>hlp file with it says so.
No, all this means is that the help file was modified.
Depending on developers' styles, some of us took care of
the worst part of a job (documenting) before we started to
do the fun stuff.
Also, we never changed sources when we wrote initial bug fixes.
We wrote machine language and pactched it into the SAV file
then ran it. A lot of programs never had sources; just
repatched SAVs. Now, it sounds like Greenblatt did work
with a source; a source means that there existed a file
which consisted of a string of ASCII-68 characters.
This string was fed to an assembler, then the LOADER,
then a file in the SAV format was produced. This last
string of bits was usually put out on papertape.
I don't know what the procedures for making binaries
was for the PDP-6 (I never met one). How did
DEC ship a "software package"?
Whew! [sweating emoticon turning this back into a IOR
thread]
/BAH
<snip>
/BAH
Visitor
news:dgbe20$8qk...@s787.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>>We can already prove that there have been other modifications because the
>>hlp file with it says so.
>
> No, all this means is that the help file was modified.
> Depending on developers' styles, some of us took care of
> the worst part of a job (documenting) before we started to
> do the fun stuff.
The hlp file says the program was modified.
So, either the file was indeed modified, or they are lying. If they are
lying, then everything becomes a big unknown.
So either way, we don't know for sure.
The only way to know for sure is to contact the original author, the
original patcher, or do a heck of a lot of forensic work.
For the third program... we don't even know that much. The help file
doesn't say aything about modifications. But that's also the one where the
source file is damaged.
For the original one in that same directory, the one with CHEOPS references,
there isn't even a help file. So it's all guesswork.
We can read the source, see the references, but can only make guesses.
But that wasn't really meant to be a focal point of the conversation. It
was just meant to be an example of how a program can be fine for collectors
(ie: me and most computer chess buffs), but insufficiently documented for a
genuine historical archive.
Meaning we might find the program extremely interesting, but
ComputerHistory.org might have certain reservations about its pedigree.
> Also, we never changed sources when we wrote initial bug fixes.
> We wrote machine language and pactched it into the SAV file
For the one that has the modified help file, they talked about modifying it
to run under an OS, then about adding limited graphics.
So that's a bit more than bug fixes.
Again, that's one that doesn't have the source included. But it's the same
basic TECH-II program and in the same directory.
> then ran it. A lot of programs never had sources; just
> repatched SAVs. Now, it sounds like Greenblatt did work
> with a source; a source means that there existed a file
I'm pretty sure Alan Baisley did write in source.
The point of the original TECH and TECH-II programs was not as a chess
playing program, but a chess playing program that could be used as a
technological benchmark (ie: how much better does this system perform than
this other), and as a ready made platform for people to do various chess
programming experiments.
In those respects, the original Gillogly TECH was more successfull than
Alan's TECH-II was, even though TECH-II played better.
Christopher C. Stacy
> 1) Was there any published information about the CHEOPS hardware?
> 2) What did it really do? How big was it? When was it? Etc.
See below.
> 3) How many 'versions' of MacHack VI were there?
> 4) What was the 'official' name of the program?
> "Greenblatt's chess program" or "MacHack VI"?
> 5) Where did the "VI" in "MacHack VI" come from?
"Mac Hack Six" (as in PDP-6) is the name of the program
as it appeared on the membership roll of the United States
Chess Federation.
I don't know what you mean by "versions" or "official".
> 6) I came across a copy of TECH-II (originally by Alan Baisley)
> at ftp://ftp.ultimate.com/pdp10/chess2/
> The copy in the ITS directory appears to have mention
> of your CHEOPS hardware.
> Were you involved in TECH-II's creation?
> Did you modify the program to test hardware? When?
> The discovery of this program was very intriguing.
> None of my references has any mention of any program
> other than MacHack VI ever running with CHEOPS.
You claim to have read the literature, but for some reason you
haven't read the following paper, which is widely referenced:
* J. Moussouris, J. Holloway and R. Greenblatt,
"CHEOPS: A Chess-oriented Processing System"
in J. Hayes, D. Michie and L. Michulich,
eds., Machine Intelligence 9, Ellis Horwood,
Chichester, 1979, 351-360.
It tells you about CHEOPS, Mac Hack, Tech II,
and the relationship between them.
I also doubt that you read these famous papers:
* "A Chess Playing Program" by Kotok
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-041.pdf
* "The Greenblatt Chess Program"
by R.D. Greenblatt, D.E. Eastlake and S.D. Crocker
ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-174.pdf
Also in Fall Joint Computing Conf. Procs. vol. 31, 801-810 (San Francisco, 1967).
Also in D. Levy (ed.), Computer Chess Compendium, Springer-Verlag, 1988, 56-66.
In addition to those papers, and the ones I cited in earlier messages,
a good historical overview article with a nice bibliography is
"Computer Chess And Search" by T.A. Marsland (University of Alberta).
A related article is titled "Computer Chess Methods".
See also the 2nd edition of the "Encyclopedia Of Artificial Intelligence",
(S. Shapiro ed; Wiley, 1992).
I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
Where should I send the invoice for research services?
Visitor
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> writes:
>
> "Mac Hack Six" (as in PDP-6) is the name of the program
> as it appeared on the membership roll of the United States
> Chess Federation.
You assume the '6' came from the pdp-6. A reasonable assumption. One that
many people have made But it may or may not be true.
And that may not be what he called the program. His paper says "Greenblatt
chess program." (Did you read it?? You do reference it below....) That
would suggest he called it that, rather than MacHack VI. Hence the question
about what he officially called it, not what other people called it. The
name "MacHack VI" could have been done by somebody else, just for the
public's benefit. You know... a snazzy marketing / publicity name, kind of
thing.
It's just like with Ken Thompson, his early program was publicly called 'T.
Belle" soley because of the USCF requirements, but that's not what he called
it. (And yes, for the record, that came straight from his own lips.)
> I don't know what you mean by "versions" or "official".
Noun. A particular form or variation.
We know for sure of at least two seperate versions. The original and the
later one that used CHEOPS, ten years later.
But were there versions in between those 10 years? Supposedly he kept
working on it off and on during that time. Supposedly there was at least
some improvement during that time. Was there enough to call it a new
version during then?
And, just as importantly... was it ever actually ported to a different
architecture. You may remember some of the idiotic ranting some people did
because I said that some references said it had been, and other references
only said the 6 & 10. Only Mr. Greenblatt is in a position to actually
answer that.
(A side question is were there any versions by anybody else? Did anybody
come along and modify / tweak it other than Mr. Greenblatt. Beyond just
doing a TOPS-10 port, etc.)
> You claim to have read the literature, but for some reason you
> haven't read the following paper, which is widely referenced:
I have never claimed to read every piece of chess literature. I'm not a
professional researcher. I don't have thousands of dollars tied up in every
computer chess book ever published. And I'm not trying to write a book.
I'm trying to collect programs before they disappear due to bit-rot or a
house fire, etc. A lot of the older programs are lost completely. The
authors have come right out and told me that the tapes were lost or damaged,
or the printouts got wet, or the copies were kept on old backup tapes of xyz
system and when the lab threw that out, they got rid of the backup tapes
too. Etc.
Like you have done so many times before, you read more than what is written.
You seem to enjoy doing that.
> * J. Moussouris, J. Holloway and R. Greenblatt,
> "CHEOPS: A Chess-oriented Processing System"
> in J. Hayes, D. Michie and L. Michulich,
> eds., Machine Intelligence 9, Ellis Horwood,
> Chichester, 1979, 351-360.
I don't have that. Not only do I not have it, I don't have access to it.
That's one of the intense joys of living in a rural area, rather than a
major metropolitan area where there are decent libraries. I miss not having
a decent library.... Back when I was younger, I'd go there on the weekends
and browse through shelves just to see what I might find. I'd browse cacm,
mathcomp and others.... Aahhh the good old days.
Some books you can borrow on interlibrary loan, if they are in the mood, but
you can forget about journals, tech papers, etc. etc. Or any rare book that
they can't easily get hold of from some other near by library.
If I can find the books cheap, I'll consider buying them, depending on how
significant they are. If I can download it from the web, I'll do that.
(example: clear copies of Samuel's papers are available on IBM's website.
Kotok's thesis is on his website. And so on.)
Most stuff isn't available for download. And although I have checked ebay a
few times, the prices they are usually asking are far higher than what the
books are actually worth to me.
(And a lot of stuff may be on the web but not indexed by a particular search
engine. When I was trying to collect programs a couple years ago, Google
etc. indexed a lot fewer pages than they do now.)
> It tells you about CHEOPS, Mac Hack, Tech II,
> and the relationship between them.
>
> I also doubt that you read these famous papers:
I have those.
I also have Kotok's full thesis from 1962 (of which aim-41 is a part of).
And in case you can't do the math, it's worth pointing out that was written
years before Greenblatt even thought of MacHack VI. The program described
there is a very primative program. Not at all in the same league as MacHack
VI was. Even the later Kotok-McCarthy program was rather primative compared
to Machack VI.
Those don't actually answer many of my questions.
> In addition to those papers, and the ones I cited in earlier messages,
> a good historical overview article with a nice bibliography is
> "Computer Chess And Search" by T.A. Marsland (University of Alberta).
> A related article is titled "Computer Chess Methods".
> See also the 2nd edition of the "Encyclopedia Of Artificial Intelligence",
> (S. Shapiro ed; Wiley, 1992).
>
> I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
> Where should I send the invoice for research services?
For what?
You've done zilch.
Don't be so assed arrogant.
Paul Rubin
> > I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
> > Where should I send the invoice for research services?
>
> For what?
>
> You've done zilch.
>
> Don't be so assed arrogant.
It sounds to me like this newsgroup has done about everything it can
for you. Whatever else it can do will also amount to "zilch", so
perhaps it's time for you to move on and seek your answers elsewhere.
Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
Mike Speed
>
> You've done zilch.
>
> Don't be so assed arrogant.
>
Do you know what a "killfile" is?
jmfb...@aol.com
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:dgbe20$8qk...@s787.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>
>>>We can already prove that there have been other modifications because the
>>>hlp file with it says so.
>>
>> No, all this means is that the help file was modified.
>> Depending on developers' styles, some of us took care of
>> the worst part of a job (documenting) before we started to
>> do the fun stuff.
>
>The hlp file says the program was modified.
So did my help files. They always said it before I did
the code. That was usually the heirarchy of editing.
Especially if one was working on two or three bug fixes
and a development project at the same time. The very first
edit would be to bump the edit number.
>
>So, either the file was indeed modified, or they are lying. If they are
>lying, then everything becomes a big unknown.
[emoticon wipes snot of kid's nose] I'm telling you how we did
the work!!!!!! It has nothing to do with lying. It has everything
to do with started a project and then having to stop to do real
and more important work.
>
>So either way, we don't know for sure.
WE may not know for sure, but some of can figure it out.
Some of us are trying to tell you how to get started
figuring it out.
>
>The only way to know for sure is to contact the original author, the
>original patcher, or do a heck of a lot of forensic work.
No. The only way to know for sure is to contact the person
who did the edit. This could have been my secretary or
some random kid playing around on a university's computer.
>
>For the third program... we don't even know that much. The help file
>doesn't say aything about modifications. But that's also the one where the
>source file is damaged.
Fix the source file.
>
>For the original one in that same directory, the one with CHEOPS references,
>there isn't even a help file. So it's all guesswork.
>
>We can read the source, see the references, but can only make guesses.
You are posting in a newsgroup where people did that guessing for
a living. Since people were foolish enough to pay them for these
guesses, they were very, very, very, very good at it.
>
>
>But that wasn't really meant to be a focal point of the conversation. It
>was just meant to be an example of how a program can be fine for collectors
>(ie: me and most computer chess buffs), but insufficiently documented for a
>genuine historical archive.
>
>Meaning we might find the program extremely interesting, but
>ComputerHistory.org might have certain reservations about its pedigree.
Pedigree? [emoticon falls down laughing and burns bum]
>
>> Also, we never changed sources when we wrote initial bug fixes.
>> We wrote machine language and pactched it into the SAV file
>
>For the one that has the modified help file, they talked about modifying it
>to run under an OS, then about adding limited graphics.
So you know this coder's intent.
>
>So that's a bit more than bug fixes.
Never underestimate the will of a bit god to get code out
into the field. There was a major release of TOPS-10 that
was a "bug fix".
>
>Again, that's one that doesn't have the source included.
If it's a PDP-10 executable, you can make your own source.
<snip>
/BAH
jmfb...@aol.com
>
>> 1) Was there any published information about the CHEOPS hardware?
>> 2) What did it really do? How big was it? When was it? Etc.
>
>See below.
>
>> 3) How many 'versions' of MacHack VI were there?
>> 4) What was the 'official' name of the program?
>> "Greenblatt's chess program" or "MacHack VI"?
>> 5) Where did the "VI" in "MacHack VI" come from?
>
>"Mac Hack Six" (as in PDP-6) is the name of the program
>as it appeared on the membership roll of the United States
>Chess Federation.
>
>I don't know what you mean by "versions" or "official".
I think you're going to have to assume that his only
exposure to the computing development biz is Micshit.
Then everything he says, especially the snotty parts,
makes sense.
<snip repeat of refs previously ignored>
>I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
>Where should I send the invoice for research services?
Careful. ;-) That's how some of us would get hooked
into doing other people's work.
/BAH
Visitor
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> writes:
>> > I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
>> > Where should I send the invoice for research services?
>>
>> For what?
>>
>> You've done zilch.
>>
>> Don't be so assed arrogant.
>
> It sounds to me like this newsgroup has done about everything it can
It hasn't done that much... There has been a lot of discsions, but most of
the conversations have been off on subjects there not in any way relevant.
You may have enjoyed the side discussions, but the reality is that they were
not relevant.
Mr. Stacy has an intense habit of reading more than what was written.
Finding one item and going off on a tangent that doesn't really matter.
He's done it repeatedly. He'll find one item that he thinks he can run with
and troll with, and he goes for it.
Even the current stuff over about the Tech-II programs was just a side
comment about how a casual collector can accept some stuff at face value but
that a genuine collector is going to want to know more before accepting it
as genuine.
But Mr. Stacy took even that and blew it up into something far beyond what
it should have been.
Then he comes up with some 'research' that he did using google and announces
it solves all my problems and answers all my questions.... [snort]
He seems to be very talented at taking small bits of a larger conversation
and blowing them up into something else, then loudly claiming that was the
main subject to begin with, and then making all sorts of comments when you
try to point out his errors or that those items he's obsessing over had
little to do with the original subject.
> for you. Whatever else it can do will also amount to "zilch", so
> perhaps it's time for you to move on and seek your answers elsewhere.
> Don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
A few people have been friendly and tried to help. But I also have to
admit, many of the people in here have been intently unfriendly. If you
aren't here to praise the PDP-10, but instead ask questions that are only
slightly related, most definetly don't seem happy.
Far more interested in starting arguments and side discussions than talking
rationally.
Visitor
news:dgeb1r$8qk...@s808.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>>So, either the file was indeed modified, or they are lying. If they are
>>lying, then everything becomes a big unknown.
>
> [emoticon wipes snot of kid's nose] I'm telling you how we did
> the work!!!!!! It has nothing to do with lying. It has everything
> to do with started a project and then having to stop to do real
> and more important work.
Are you saying that you *personally* did the modifications to those files?
None of your previous messages said that you personally did the
modifications.
You basically said "Back in those days, when we did various changes we did
it such and such way." That just says what was common practice.
>>
>>So either way, we don't know for sure.
>
> WE may not know for sure, but some of can figure it out.
> Some of us are trying to tell you how to get started
> figuring it out.
And again, as I've said before, this is not really relevant.
That was simply given as an example of the differences between a casual
collector, who is willing to take the stuff at face value, and a
professional who would need to do a significant amount of research and / or
talk to the original people involved before accepting the program as what it
claims to be.
Mr. Stacy just took that and ran with it and blew it up into a subject all
by itself.
>>
>>The only way to know for sure is to contact the original author, the
>>original patcher, or do a heck of a lot of forensic work.
>
> No. The only way to know for sure is to contact the person
> who did the edit. This could have been my secretary or
> some random kid playing around on a university's computer.
That last line is significant....
That's why professional collectors / archivers don't like taking things at
face value.
>>For the third program... we don't even know that much. The help file
>>doesn't say aything about modifications. But that's also the one where
>>the
>>source file is damaged.
>
> Fix the source file.
The amount of damage is probably small enough to be able to do that with a
reasonable amount of accuracy.
However, then you get into the differences of 1) try to recreate it and
possibly get it wrong, or 2) archive it as is and simply accept the damage.
(Restoration vs. preservation.)
However, that's not really relevant.
The point was that program has no documentation to say where it actually
came from, whether it is or is not the original version, etc.
So for that one, we don't even know if it was important. It might have
simply been an "in-between" program. Work on the program, need to test a
change so you copy it to a new directory, test it, and then go back to the
original.
Again, that's one of the differences between casual collectors and genuine
archivers. They'll want to know more than that the program existed.
> You are posting in a newsgroup where people did that guessing for
> a living. Since people were foolish enough to pay them for these
> guesses, they were very, very, very, very good at it.
Guesses are fine for casual collectors.
The professional collectors are probably going to want more.
Even if they accept guesses, they are going to want to know the details, why
you think so, why your opinion is better than anybody elses, etc.
>>Meaning we might find the program extremely interesting, but
>>ComputerHistory.org might have certain reservations about its pedigree.
>
> Pedigree? [emoticon falls down laughing and burns bum]
Maybe pedigree wasn't the right word....
They wouldn't want to post / exhibt something they can't trace the history
of.
>>> Also, we never changed sources when we wrote initial bug fixes.
>>> We wrote machine language and pactched it into the SAV file
>>
>>For the one that has the modified help file, they talked about modifying
>>it
>>to run under an OS, then about adding limited graphics.
>
> So you know this coder's intent.
The intention yes, but that's it. No actual list of the changes, etc.
>>Again, that's one that doesn't have the source included.
>
> If it's a PDP-10 executable, you can make your own source.
I think we've been here before....
There's a difference between a disassembly and recreating the source.
True, the program is vastly simpler than MacHack VI, and with the other two
having source we definetly have a place to start, but without a good reason,
it's still not really worth the effort.
Rich Alderson
> "Christopher C. Stacy" <cst...@news.dtpq.com> wrote in message
> news:ufys5n...@news.dtpq.com...
>> * J. Moussouris, J. Holloway and R. Greenblatt,
>> "CHEOPS: A Chess-oriented Processing System"
>> in J. Hayes, D. Michie and L. Michulich,
>> eds., Machine Intelligence 9, Ellis Horwood,
>> Chichester, 1979, 351-360.
> I don't have that. Not only do I not have it, I don't have access to it.
Yes, you do. You just don't know where to look, apparently, so I'll tell you.
But first I'll tell you that you're right, we're a bunch of arrogant bastards
who aren't the least interested in helping you because you don't know or care
about The Only Decent Computer Architecture Ever Invented (TM), and we're all
busy fawning over the last bits of hoarded knowledge in our treasuries, and
further that we have no sense of homour in the least.
(Whew. Now I've got that off my chest. Sunken in my dotage, I am, but I'll
be nice because it's my natal anniversary.)
I just went to www.abebooks.com, an on-line used book seller, and typed into
the "Title" box on their first page "Machine Intelligence 9", and hit return.
It came back with 3 records, two of which may be a duplicate for a copy that
was priced at ~$12 (real price in British pounds) and the third of which was
for a US copy at $29.95. If the shipping from Great Britain is less than $18,
I'd buy that one were I you.
So now that you know where to find this gem (and I'll ask everyone reading this
to refrain from buying it out from under him!), will you please let the matter
drop?
--
Rich Alderson | /"\ ASCII ribbon |
ne...@alderson.users.panix.com | \ / campaign against |
"You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." | x HTML mail and |
--Death, of the Endless | / \ postings |
Paul Rubin
> > It sounds to me like this newsgroup has done about everything it can
> It hasn't done that much...
But it's done more than you've been willing to do for yourself, even
if that just means typing a few queries into Google and Abebooks.
> Then he comes up with some 'research' that he did using google and announces
> it solves all my problems and answers all my questions.... [snort]
It solves some of your problems and answers some of your questions.
More to the point, it shows that you weren't willing to do the most
rudimentary research yourself before asking others to do it for you.
If you want other people to do your basic grunt work, you shouldn't be
surprised if they want to get paid.
> A few people have been friendly and tried to help.
Yeah, I think I was one of them, but it has become pretty clear by now
what we're dealing with. If you want further help from me, it's
available at my standard consulting rates.
Christopher C. Stacy
--
Christopher C. Stacy
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> writes:
> > > It sounds to me like this newsgroup has done about everything it can
> > It hasn't done that much...
>
> But it's done more than you've been willing to do for yourself, even
> if that just means typing a few queries into Google and Abebooks.
>
> > Then he comes up with some 'research' that he did using google and announces
> > it solves all my problems and answers all my questions.... [snort]
>
> It solves some of your problems and answers some of your questions.
If he were to read the papers, I think it answers all his questions.
I'm sorry I helped him, though.
jmfb...@aol.com
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:dgeb1r$8qk...@s808.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>
>>>So, either the file was indeed modified, or they are lying. If they are
>>>lying, then everything becomes a big unknown.
>>
>> [emoticon wipes snot of kid's nose] I'm telling you how we did
>> the work!!!!!! It has nothing to do with lying. It has everything
>> to do with started a project and then having to stop to do real
>> and more important work.
>
>Are you saying that you *personally* did the modifications to those files?
No, I'm not saying that. I am telling you that we, who
work on PDP-10 code, did not have to change a source in order
to change the executable. A daily task of our was to edit
an executable; sometimes we edited it before we ran the program;
most of the time we edited it while we were running the program.
IOW, we edited the copy that was in memory while the program was
running. Sometimes we even remembered to put the edit in the source.
>
>None of your previous messages said that you personally did the
>modifications.
>
>You basically said "Back in those days, when we did various changes we did
>it such and such way." That just says what was common practice.
EXACTLY. Now take these common practices and imagine somebody
doing the same thing with this program you are talking about.
>
>
>
>>>
>>>So either way, we don't know for sure.
>>
>> WE may not know for sure, but some of can figure it out.
>> Some of us are trying to tell you how to get started
>> figuring it out.
>
>And again, as I've said before, this is not really relevant.
>
>That was simply given as an example of the differences between a casual
>collector, who is willing to take the stuff at face value, and a
>professional who would need to do a significant amount of research and / or
>talk to the original people involved before accepting the program as what it
>claims to be.
This is your hidden agenda. You won't be satisfied until you have
Greenblat at your beck and call. I can tell you right now (and
I have never met the man), you're not going to achieve it.
PDP-10ers are extremely helpful and glad to spend time with
people who have every intention of doing their own work. I
cannot think of a single PDP-10 bit god who was ever willing
to do the work of somebody else at slave wages.
>
>Mr. Stacy just took that and ran with it and blew it up into a subject all
>by itself.
Mr. [hi, Chris] Stacy is your one and only pathway to Greenblat.
You fucked it up completely.
>
>>>
>>>The only way to know for sure is to contact the original author, the
>>>original patcher, or do a heck of a lot of forensic work.
>>
>> No. The only way to know for sure is to contact the person
>> who did the edit. This could have been my secretary or
>> some random kid playing around on a university's computer.
>
>That last line is significant....
>
>That's why professional collectors / archivers don't like taking things at
>face value.
I think you should climb down off that snob mountain. It's those
random kids playing around that you are trying to contact. In
those days, a game did not bring in money. So "kids" could afford
to write them, play them, and distribute them.
>>>For the third program... we don't even know that much. The help file
>>>doesn't say aything about modifications. But that's also the one where
>>>the
>>>source file is damaged.
>>
>> Fix the source file.
>
>The amount of damage is probably small enough to be able to do that with a
>reasonable amount of accuracy.
>
>However, then you get into the differences of 1) try to recreate it and
>possibly get it wrong, or 2) archive it as is and simply accept the damage.
No. That's not how programming works. For a brute force method,
you can FILCOM the old EXE with your new EXE.
>
>(Restoration vs. preservation.)
There is no such thing in the software side of the computing biz.
>
>However, that's not really relevant.
>
>The point was that program has no documentation to say where it actually
>came from, whether it is or is not the original version, etc.
And somebody told you what the original version probably was...
a set of toggle activities.
>
>So for that one, we don't even know if it was important. It might have
>simply been an "in-between" program. Work on the program, need to test a
>change so you copy it to a new directory, test it, and then go back to the
>original.
And we have told you and told you and told you that that is not
how PDP-10 programs are made. We edit the exe, not the source,
while we're working on it. A lot of times, we only edit the
memory while the program is running and those changes aren't
ever saved on disk, paper nor anywhere.
>
>
>Again, that's one of the differences between casual collectors and genuine
>archivers. They'll want to know more than that the program existed.
That is not a difference. You apparently don't have any idea
what software is.
>
>
>> You are posting in a newsgroup where people did that guessing for
>> a living. Since people were foolish enough to pay them for these
>> guesses, they were very, very, very, very good at it.
>
>Guesses are fine for casual collectors.
>
>The professional collectors are probably going to want more.
It doesn't matter what "professional collectors" want; they cannot
get what never existed.
You really do not know what software is, do you?
>
>Even if they accept guesses, they are going to want to know the details, why
>you think so, why your opinion is better than anybody elses, etc.
Because I'm the TOPS-10 den mother. That's why I know what
I'm talking about and you don't know. Now, you as an amateur
collector are talking to the professionals. Why are you
trying to tell those, who are your betters, that they are wrong?
>
>
>>>Meaning we might find the program extremely interesting, but
>>>ComputerHistory.org might have certain reservations about its pedigree.
>>
>> Pedigree? [emoticon falls down laughing and burns bum]
>
>Maybe pedigree wasn't the right word....
>
>They wouldn't want to post / exhibt something they can't trace the history
>of.
In most software, there doesn't exist any documented history.
Manufacturers only delivered what worked; they never kept what
didn't work.
>>>> Also, we never changed sources when we wrote initial bug fixes.
>>>> We wrote machine language and pactched it into the SAV file
>>>
>>>For the one that has the modified help file, they talked about modifying
>>>it
>>>to run under an OS, then about adding limited graphics.
>>
>> So you know this coder's intent.
>
>The intention yes, but that's it. No actual list of the changes, etc.
This might be a clue that there wasn't any change. In the
olden days, our doc files also contained a wish list.
>
>
>>>Again, that's one that doesn't have the source included.
>>
>> If it's a PDP-10 executable, you can make your own source.
>
>I think we've been here before....
>
>There's a difference between a disassembly and recreating the source.
Not if the source was always the executable.
>
>True, the program is vastly simpler than MacHack VI, and with the other two
>having source we definetly have a place to start, but without a good reason,
>it's still not really worth the effort.
>
Huh? Now I'm completely lost. I thought your posts had to
do with a particular EXE and trying to get it to work.
/BAH
Visitor
news:mddpsr8...@panix5.panix.com...
>
> Yes, you do. You just don't know where to look, apparently, so I'll tell
> you.
Well, yes, I could go buy it. (in fact, I even mentioned at one point
buying them.) Obviously that wasn't what I meant.
I've looked at the prices for some of the classics... And usually the book
isn't worth the price they are wanting. Most of the prices I used to see
were closer to $30. I suppose things could be cheaper now that so many
online book sellers are competing, and more and more places are selling
their old stuff instead of tossing it in the trash.
If I was determined to collect every computer chess related book, then sure.
But I don't want them that badly. They'd be interesting to read, but not
necessarily enough to own.
If I was doing research, where I needed them, then sure. But I'm not. I've
never claimed, suggested, or implied that I was doing major research where I
needed to own those books.
Besides, I'm already out of space for the books I do have. I've got a few
hundred regular books and a few dozen tech books still stored out in my
garage because I don't have room to put them in here. And the store room in
the garage is getting a little full, too. With my 8 bit micros, the
floppies, the software and manuals, the magazines from back then, etc. etc.
(Yeah, I'm a bit of a packrat.)
> But first I'll tell you that you're right, we're a bunch of arrogant
> bastards
> who aren't the least interested in helping you because you don't know or
> care
> about The Only Decent Computer Architecture Ever Invented (TM), and we're
> all
> busy fawning over the last bits of hoarded knowledge in our treasuries,
> and
> further that we have no sense of homour in the least.
Well, at least you are honest about it...[grin]
If I had used a PDP back then, I might feel differently. But probably not.
The first big system I ever used was a VAX, and I don't have any great love
or fond memories of it. Or really any of the systems I've used.
I still have some fond memories of some of the 8 bit micros I've used, but
not obsessively so.
> So now that you know where to find this gem (and I'll ask everyone reading
> this
> to refrain from buying it out from under him!), will you please let the
> matter
> drop?
Let what drop...
I wasn't the one that went looking for that book.
I wasn't the one that referenced that book.
I never said I *wanted* that book. (Sure, it'd be nice to be able to go to
the local library and read all those books, but that's not the same thing as
actually wanting it.)
I didn't even bring up that subject at all.
Visitor
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> writes:
>> > It sounds to me like this newsgroup has done about everything it can
>> It hasn't done that much...
>
> But it's done more than you've been willing to do for yourself, even
> if that just means typing a few queries into Google and Abebooks.
But I'm not looking to buy those books.
I never said I wanted to buy them. Go ahead... go back and try to find even
one single post where I said I actually wanted to buy them and was looking
for a place to buy them....
Guess who brought them up...
And what little is referenced in some of those was never a major point in
any of *my* messages, anyway.
> It solves some of your problems and answers some of your questions.
It would answer a few questions. But only a few.
> More to the point, it shows that you weren't willing to do the most
> rudimentary research yourself before asking others to do it for you.
I never asked him or anybody else to go find those references or books etc.
Not once.
I did originally ask him to ask Mr. Greenblatt a few questions, because he's
the only one who know some of the answers.
Too much of the stuff on the web and in other references are incomplete or
contradictory or don't even mention it.
In those cases, Mr. Greenblatt is the only one who could tell you what is
true and what isn't.
> If you want other people to do your basic grunt work, you shouldn't be
> surprised if they want to get paid.
I haven't asked anybody to do any of that.
You've confused what Mr. Stacy has said etc. to what I've said. You really
ought to go back and reread his messages, and you'll find out that he's
definetly twisted the conversation into things I didn't say.
>> A few people have been friendly and tried to help.
>
> Yeah, I think I was one of them, but it has become pretty clear by now
> what we're dealing with. If you want further help from me, it's
> available at my standard consulting rates.
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
Visitor
news:dggtje$8qk...@s779.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>>Are you saying that you *personally* did the modifications to those files?
>
> No, I'm not saying that. I am telling you that we, who
Okay, just basic debugger patching kind of stuff.
> work on PDP-10 code, did not have to change a source in order
> to change the executable. A daily task of our was to edit
> an executable; sometimes we edited it before we ran the program;
> most of the time we edited it while we were running the program.
> IOW, we edited the copy that was in memory while the program was
> running. Sometimes we even remembered to put the edit in the source.
>>You basically said "Back in those days, when we did various changes we did
>>it such and such way." That just says what was common practice.
>
> EXACTLY. Now take these common practices and imagine somebody
> doing the same thing with this program you are talking about.
That would make the history of the program totally unknowable.
You wouldn't be able to know, let alone prove, who did what.
Better to go hunt up the original author or somebody who is believed to have
modified the program.
Such as Alan Baisley or Richard Greenblatt.
>>And again, as I've said before, this is not really relevant.
>>
>>That was simply given as an example of the differences between a casual
>>collector, who is willing to take the stuff at face value, and a
>>professional who would need to do a significant amount of research and /
>>or
>>talk to the original people involved before accepting the program as what
>>it
>>claims to be.
>
> This is your hidden agenda. You won't be satisfied until you have
> Greenblat at your beck and call. I can tell you right now (and
Hardly "beck and call".
1) discover if MacHack VI still has source.
2) release it if it does still exist.
3) Ask a few basic questions to things that nobody is sure of. (Such as the
questions at the very top of this thread.)
Those are things that he and only he can do.
(And as for the modified TECH-II program with the CHEOPS stuff, that was
being discussed, the only question there are: Is this the program you
worked on? Why? Was it done before or after MacHack VI on cheops? No
other questions, and the other programs aren't related to him. The modified
one with graphics doesn't involve him, and the one that has the damaged
source almost certainly doesn't involve him either.)
> I have never met the man), you're not going to achieve it.
> PDP-10ers are extremely helpful and glad to spend time with
> people who have every intention of doing their own work. I
> cannot think of a single PDP-10 bit god who was ever willing
> to do the work of somebody else at slave wages.
>>
>>Mr. Stacy just took that and ran with it and blew it up into a subject all
>>by itself.
>
> Mr. [hi, Chris] Stacy is your one and only pathway to Greenblat.
> You fucked it up completely.
Frankly, at this point, I really don't give a shit.
If Mr. Stacy is that familiar with Mr. Greenblatt and gets along with him
that well, then the odds are good the two of them are alike, then I really
don't want much to do with Mr. Greenblatt, either. That would not be the
kind of person I would want contact with.
I'd rather spend 6 months trying to do a source recreation, and I'm pretty
sure you know how much I don't want to do that if I don't have to.
And the reality is that it was *extremely* unlikely Mr. Greenblatt would
have been willing to go find that source. If he wasn't willing to do that
for ComputerHistory.org, then he's not too likely to be willing to do it for
anybody else, either. So actually, nothing was lost.
> I think you should climb down off that snob mountain. It's those
> random kids playing around that you are trying to contact. In
> those days, a game did not bring in money. So "kids" could afford
> to write them, play them, and distribute them.
Again, *I* am not trying to get in touch with them.
That's a point I keep trying to make...
As a casual collector, I'm willing to accept it at face value and go on to
the next program / person I can find.
Yes, I would like to get in touch with the original authors. But I don't
care about the people who patched it into something else.
This whole section got started because of a single casual comment that I
made that Mr. Stacy took and ran with.
>>However, then you get into the differences of 1) try to recreate it and
>>possibly get it wrong, or 2) archive it as is and simply accept the
>>damage.
>
> No. That's not how programming works. For a brute force method,
> you can FILCOM the old EXE with your new EXE.
This isn't programming.
This is collection / archiving / preservation.
Yes, I am indeed well aware that it's a simple matter of taking the
executable and disassembling it and filling in the missing stuff (excluding
correct labels and comments, of course.)
But because the labels and comments would be different in that area, you
wouldn't be able to say that it's an 'original'.
Since you can't do that, you might as well leave it the way it is. Preserve
it exactly as you found it.
>>(Restoration vs. preservation.)
>
> There is no such thing in the software side of the computing biz.
There is in the collection side.
You don't modify what isn't yours to modify.
You may make a copy and modify that as you want (and state so), but you
never modify the original.
>>However, that's not really relevant.
>>
>>The point was that program has no documentation to say where it actually
>>came from, whether it is or is not the original version, etc.
>
> And somebody told you what the original version probably was...
> a set of toggle activities.
Nope. It wasn't.
Again, the source for TECH and TECH-II were made public. They were given to
people to experiment and test computer chess ideas.
(Technically, TECH 1 was mostly done as an article in AI, but the original
BLISS source was available to people who wanted it. A few people have had
it, but not anymore. Right off the top of my memory, I'm not 100% sure
what TECH-II was written in. I can certainly guess, but I'm sure if I say
it was language xyz, somebody will jump in and yell about how I was wrong
and didn't know what I was talking about. And MacHack VI also had original
MIDAS source, again, because people have had copies of it.)
>>So for that one, we don't even know if it was important. It might have
>>simply been an "in-between" program. Work on the program, need to test a
>>change so you copy it to a new directory, test it, and then go back to the
>>original.
>
> And we have told you and told you and told you that that is not
> how PDP-10 programs are made. We edit the exe, not the source,
> while we're working on it. A lot of times, we only edit the
> memory while the program is running and those changes aren't
> ever saved on disk, paper nor anywhere.
Considering I have the source code on my hard drive right now, that's not
really a valid statement...
The one modified for graphics might not have source. It may have been done
the way you mean. But that version hasn't been discussed much in these
messages. (Other than the point of not being able to know for sure who has
worked on it or in what way.)
It's mostly been the CHEOPS one and the other with the damaged source which
may or may not be the original TECH-II and which may or may not have been
modified.
>>Again, that's one of the differences between casual collectors and genuine
>>archivers. They'll want to know more than that the program existed.
>
> That is not a difference. You apparently don't have any idea
> what software is.
That reply really doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.
>>Guesses are fine for casual collectors.
>>
>>The professional collectors are probably going to want more.
>
> It doesn't matter what "professional collectors" want; they cannot
> get what never existed.
That's why you track down the original authors. Duh!!
Such as Alan Baisley for the original TECH-II.
Or Greenblatt about the modified one to run CHEOPS.
>>Even if they accept guesses, they are going to want to know the details,
>>why
>>you think so, why your opinion is better than anybody elses, etc.
>
> Because I'm the TOPS-10 den mother. That's why I know what
> I'm talking about and you don't know. Now, you as an amateur
> collector are talking to the professionals. Why are you
> trying to tell those, who are your betters, that they are wrong?
Because you apparently don't know anything about the type of collecting I'm
talking about.
What you do is not the same kind of thing others do.
>>They wouldn't want to post / exhibt something they can't trace the history
>>of.
>
> In most software, there doesn't exist any documented history.
> Manufacturers only delivered what worked; they never kept what
> didn't work.
You speak with the authors.
Or you trace down when the program was archived onto tape. What directoy it
came from. If the computer records exist, perhaps who accessed it last.
And so on. In that case, you can't 100% prove stuff, but you can at least
document the process you went through and why you think it is what you
claim.
>>> So you know this coder's intent.
>>
>>The intention yes, but that's it. No actual list of the changes, etc.
>
> This might be a clue that there wasn't any change. In the
> olden days, our doc files also contained a wish list.
For the one modified to run with graphics, it clearly says it was indeed
hacked a couple times for various reasons.
So you can know what in general was changed, but not the details. What code
they actually changed with their patches.
>>I think we've been here before....
>>
>>There's a difference between a disassembly and recreating the source.
>
> Not if the source was always the executable.
For these programs, there was provably original source.
.
>>True, the program is vastly simpler than MacHack VI, and with the other
>>two
>>having source we definetly have a place to start, but without a good
>>reason,
>>it's still not really worth the effort.
>>
>
> Huh? Now I'm completely lost. I thought your posts had to
> do with a particular EXE and trying to get it to work.
No.
That was a long long time ago and was about MacHack VI. The conversations
have gotten twisted several times since then.
Originally, way way back, I was wanting to know how to get MacHack VI
running.
The plan was provide an emulator image that people could download and
actually play MacHack VI.
But that died when somebody said their disk image was what?... 90 meg?
(Can't remember exactly.) Somebody else pointed out that it could be
reduced down to a small 20+ meg image.
That's still way too big to be practical. It's okay for local use, but it's
just too big for a web site download. So that idea died. (Realistically,
for convenient download and use, the whole thing shouldn't be more than
3-5meg. Small enough to be convenient and quick to download.)
Since then, I have never mentioned getting those TECH-II programs running.
The conversations have gotten twisted around several times and gone in 14
different directions. But never about running those programs. I never ever
asked how to run these programs. Much of these past conversations came from
a couple casual comments that were amde and somebody took those and ran with
them. Picking out small comments that they could inflate into something
new.
Two of those three programs have source. That's far more important than
getting the programs running.
Mark Crispin
> For the TOPS-20 one (the one with the damaged source), it doesn't say a lot.
> Don't know if this was the original source by Alan Baisley or not.
Have you ever thought about asking the person who did the TOPS-20 (and the
TOPS-10) ports of TECH II?
Didn't think so.
If you thought about it, you didn't follow through on that thought very
well, because you never contacted him. Then again, he would take
considerable offense at your use of such phrases as "damaged source", so
it's probably better that you don't.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Mark Crispin
> Better to go hunt up the original author or somebody who is believed to have
> modified the program.
> Such as Alan Baisley or Richard Greenblatt.
I doubt very much that you will be able to contact AGB.
I don't know if RG would be willing to talk with you; I would not presume
to speak for him.
There are individuals, who read this newsgroup, who have original ITS
sources for MacHack and Tech II. One of those individuals knows quite a
bit about Tech II, including some details that even RG doesn't know about
the various forks in the source and how they came about. That same
individual also has a well-deserved reputation for not suffering fools
gladly.
You have had such bad luck in getting information from these people.
Could it have something to do with you saying things like:
"damaged source"
"I really don't give a shit."
"That would not be the kind of person I would want contact with."
"you apparently don't know anything about the type of collecting I'm
talking about"
You've done an excellent job of offending people who have done nothing to
you, and who could have done a great deal for you if you hadn't so
thoroughly alienated them.
If you ever get in touch with RG, I strongly suggest that you adopt a
different approach. RG is one of the nicest people that I know, and over
the years he has shown remarkable tolerance towards obnoxious individuals.
However, given that you would be asking him to do a considerable amount of
work, you should consider that far more flies are caught with sugar than
with vinegar.
Don Chiasson
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote in message
news:11271018...@spool6-east.superfeed.net...
[big snip of much pugnacious conversation]
> The plan was provide an emulator image that people could download and
> actually play MacHack VI.
Whose plan?
> But that died when somebody said their disk image was what?... 90 meg?
> (Can't remember exactly.) Somebody else pointed out that it could be
> reduced down to a small 20+ meg image.
I recall this, and ignored it. Possible misunderstanding? Your comment
sounded to me as if 90 meg was a bigger operating system than you expected.
I
think that 90 meg is a compressed image of an entire RP06 disk with
everything on it, even swap space, not just the OS.
> That's still way too big to be practical. It's okay for local use, but
> it's
> just too big for a web site download. So that idea died. (Realistically,
> for convenient download and use, the whole thing shouldn't be more than
> 3-5meg. Small enough to be convenient and quick to download.)
I do Linux work on the bare metal. 90 meg is a lot, but is not a big deal.
Downloading an ISO is a lot bigger than that. I therefore infer that you do
not have access to high speed internet. Perhaps you could have said that and
asked if someone could help by snail mailing you a CD. That should take
place off line, and you could say to the group that you received the disk.
You complain about people leaping off in all sorts of wrong directions. It
would be easier if you provided more information about who you are and
precisely what and why you are doing rather than just making requests that
people are attempting to answer. How about supplying a name? How about a
lightly coded e-mail address at the bottom of the message?
> Since then, I have never mentioned getting those TECH-II programs running.
> The conversations have gotten twisted around several times and gone in 14
> different directions. But never about running those programs. I never
> ever asked how to run these programs. Much of these past conversations
> came from a couple casual comments that were amde and somebody took those
> and ran with them. Picking out small comments that they could inflate
> into something new.
People are trying to help. What do you want to do, what do you have and what
do you know?
> Two of those three programs have source. That's far more important than
> getting the programs running.
Why is it important? What are you doing? Are you a historian, a chess
player, a student, or? The people here will not mind, but such information
provides context so they can provide a better answer.
Useful information, please.
Don C++
e-mail: it's not not, it's hot.
Mike Speed
obviously the product of generic drift produced by so-called "parents" who
had no right to produce such a sub-human bane upon intellectual society.
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> I recall this, and ignored it. Possible misunderstanding? Your comment
> sounded to me as if 90 meg was a bigger operating system than you expected.
> I think that 90 meg is a compressed image of an entire RP06 disk
> with everything on it, even swap space, not just the OS.
>>That's still way too big to be practical.
(snip)
> I do Linux work on the bare metal. 90 meg is a lot, but is not a big deal.
> Downloading an ISO is a lot bigger than that. I therefore infer that you do
> not have access to high speed internet. Perhaps you could have said that and
> asked if someone could help by snail mailing you a CD. That should take
> place off line, and you could say to the group that you received the disk.
It might be that he doesn't have high speed internet, but it might also
be that he wants people to use it that don't. Consider that you might
click on a web page, and wouldn't expect it to download 90M and use
300MB before it started displaying anything.
It might even be nice to have it run as a Java applet.
Note that there are alternatives to running an entire machine and
legacy OS if one just wants to run one program. Emulating at the
user program level, with system calls being done by the host,
instead of by a guest OS is fairly common. Consider wine, for
example. VM/CMS does OS emulation without the full MVS operating
system. I believe that the Apple 680x0 emulation under PPC also
did this.
Most likely, then, it is the right way to make a one program
web site. You only need emulation of the user mode instructions
and the system calls that are needed.
-- glen
Andreas Davour
> But first I'll tell you that you're right, we're a bunch of arrogant
> bastards who aren't the least interested in helping you because you
> don't know or care about The Only Decent Computer Architecture Ever
> Invented (TM), and we're all busy fawning over the last bits of
> hoarded knowledge in our treasuries, and further that we have no sense
> of humour in the least.
Phew, I was glad you said it Rich. I was afraid I was the only one like
that.
/andreas
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
Andreas Davour
> > I answered all these questions by myself, using Google.
> > Where should I send the invoice for research services?
>
> For what?
>
> You've done zilch.
>
> Don't be so assed arrogant.
Is this guy for real?
BTW, Chris I loved that, and laughed enough to make my wife wonder what
was so fun about usenet...
Andreas Davour
No need to dip to this individual's low standards of expression, even
though I understand how you feel.
Just killfile it.
Visitor
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.05...@shiva1.cac.washington.edu...
> On Sun, 18 Sep 2005, Visitor wrote:
>> Better to go hunt up the original author or somebody who is believed to
>> have
>> modified the program.
>> Such as Alan Baisley or Richard Greenblatt.
>
> I doubt very much that you will be able to contact AGB.
Don't know. He's on my list to track down but I haven't gotten around to it
yet.
> I don't know if RG would be willing to talk with you; I would not presume
> to speak for him.
From what I've gathered from in here and elsewhere, RG's not too inclined to
talk to anybody about MacHack VI. I've heard other people say they had
tried to talk him into releasing the source again and he always declined to.
It's almost like he'd rather forget it existed.
That may be because he, like many chess program authors back then, thought
of 'chess programming' as actual AI, rather than something boring like
'games programming'. People think of it as a "chess program" instead of an
"AI experiment that can play chess."
Or it could be he's feeling like many authors of famous programs (chess or
otherwise), after years and years of people wanting to talk about it, he's
just tired of it and wants nothing to do with it anymore.
> There are individuals, who read this newsgroup, who have original ITS
> sources for MacHack and Tech II. One of those individuals knows quite a
> bit about Tech II, including some details that even RG doesn't know about
> the various forks in the source and how they came about. That same
> individual also has a well-deserved reputation for not suffering fools
> gladly.
Well, then that's entirely up to him.
The original conversations in here are posted, and it's easy to see which
particular person took stuff I said and dragged it out and into different
directions, etc.
My original posts are polite.
Still, that's up to them.
> You have had such bad luck in getting information from these people. Could
> it have something to do with you saying things like:
>
> "damaged source"
"Damaged source" is correct.
When the source file has random characters in it and lines of source are
missing, that is the correct term.
What would you call it?
> "I really don't give a shit."
After suffering through all the subject changes and stuff from one
particular peson and less so from others, yes, I did reach that point.
> "That would not be the kind of person I would want contact with."
>
> "you apparently don't know anything about the type of collecting I'm
> talking about"
>
> You've done an excellent job of offending people who have done nothing to
> you, and who could have done a great deal for you if you hadn't so
> thoroughly alienated them.
If I've offended people accidently, then I'm sorry.
But the reality is that some of that was not accidental.
I've been in here and had my conversations twisted repeatedly and I
definetly have earned some strong negative feelings towards a person or two.
> If you ever get in touch with RG, I strongly suggest that you adopt a
> different approach. RG is one of the nicest people that I know, and over
Well, that's nice to know.
> the years he has shown remarkable tolerance towards obnoxious individuals.
> However, given that you would be asking him to do a considerable amount of
> work, you should consider that far more flies are caught with sugar than
> with vinegar.
If you'll read my original conversations, you'll discover that I was polite.
Even the very top of this thread, where I asked Mr. Stacy to ask him some
questions, I was polite.
It was only when he started coming back with 'research' that things really
went downhill.
> -- Mark --
>
> http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
> Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
> Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Visitor
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.05...@shiva1.cac.washington.edu...
>> For the TOPS-20 one (the one with the damaged source), it doesn't say a
>> lot.
>> Don't know if this was the original source by Alan Baisley or not.
>
> Have you ever thought about asking the person who did the TOPS-20 (and the
> TOPS-10) ports of TECH II?
Assuming they came from the same site, he might.
But it's not a high priority.
The only reason these programs have been mentioned so many times is because
a few people in here got stuck on the subject.
The reality is that I'd much rather get an original copy directly from the
author, than a modified version. No matter who the person was that did the
modifications.
> Didn't think so.
>
> If you thought about it, you didn't follow through on that thought very
> well, because you never contacted him. Then again, he would take
> considerable offense at your use of such phrases as "damaged source", so
> it's probably better that you don't.
"Damaged source" is offensive?
Considering there are random characters in the middle of the file and a
dozen lines of source are missing, I do think the term "damaged" is
definetly correct.
Visitor
news:IeydnTeNBJ-...@rogers.com...
>
>> The plan was provide an emulator image that people could download and
>> actually play MacHack VI.
>
> Whose plan?
At least my plan. That's what I said early on. That was one of my original
reasons about posting in here.
>> But that died when somebody said their disk image was what?... 90 meg?
>> (Can't remember exactly.) Somebody else pointed out that it could be
>> reduced down to a small 20+ meg image.
>
> I recall this, and ignored it. Possible misunderstanding? Your comment
> sounded to me as if 90 meg was a bigger operating system than you
> expected.
It was a lot bigger.
I had no idea that a minimal os image for the program would be that big.
It's not like there'd need to be lots of apps and tools installed.
For example, ReactOS, a windows clone, has a disk image of 10meg.
A version of Minix, ready to use under Bochs, is only 8 meg.
And so on. So, when I heard it was 90meg, yeah, I was surprised.
Even when it was said it could be 20+ megs, I was still a bit surprised. I
just didn't know the OS's of that time were so big and needed that much
space.
I had always thought of the OS's and programs from back then as being small,
tightly coded, efficient, etc. Discovering it was so large was a surprise.
> I
> think that 90 meg is a compressed image of an entire RP06 disk with
> everything on it, even swap space, not just the OS.
Perhaps the image is so big because of the random stuff in the swap space
etc., and since that's not zeroed out, it doesn't compress well and the
image ended up being so big.
I don't know how big the swap space would have to be to increase the image
that much, though.
>> for convenient download and use, the whole thing shouldn't be more than
>> 3-5meg. Small enough to be convenient and quick to download.)
>
> I do Linux work on the bare metal. 90 meg is a lot, but is not a big deal.
> Downloading an ISO is a lot bigger than that. I therefore infer that you
> do
Oh sure, lots of people download big stuff. Including me.
But for a general purpose situation where people may want to just download
it and play it out of curosity, you don't want it to be too big.
It'd have to be small enough to be conveniently downloaded in just a few
minutes.
There's no exact size limit, but 90meg is too much for casual downloading
just to play a game of chess. Even 20meg is too big.
> not have access to high speed internet. Perhaps you could have said that
> and
> asked if someone could help by snail mailing you a CD. That should take
> place off line, and you could say to the group that you received the disk.
Although I could have gotten a copy, it would have been too big for me to
have used in the way I had intended.
That was the problem. I wasn't wanting it so I could play with it, I was
wanting it so everybody could. And it turned out to be too big for that.
> You complain about people leaping off in all sorts of wrong directions. It
> would be easier if you provided more information about who you are and
> precisely what and why you are doing rather than just making requests that
I didn't make too many requests.
Really, I didn't.
Most of these conversations had nothing to do with the stuff I had asked
about.
> people are attempting to answer. How about supplying a name? How about a
> lightly coded e-mail address at the bottom of the message?
I have posted it in here before.
But yes, I do dislike posting email addresses in newsgroups. I got into
that habit back in the 90s.
>> Since then, I have never mentioned getting those TECH-II programs
>> running.
>> The conversations have gotten twisted around several times and gone in 14
>> different directions. But never about running those programs. I never
>> ever asked how to run these programs. Much of these past conversations
>> came from a couple casual comments that were amde and somebody took those
>> and ran with them. Picking out small comments that they could inflate
>> into something new.
>
> People are trying to help. What do you want to do, what do you have and
> what
> do you know?
Here is all that I've asked about.
1) PC based assembler & disassembler.
My plan then was to recreate the source. I thought Greenblatt was dead and
that was likely the only way to recover it. No I didn't and don't want to
do it. I'm not planning to do that anymore.
2) how do I get MacHack VI up and running in an emulator. In the same
message, I did ask about whether there were any ready made images with
machack on it.
At the time I had planned to offer a ready made image that people could
download and immedately play. I followed the suggestions and managed to get
ITS installed and running, but then discovered I had been told the wrong OS.
I didn't get around to trying tops-10 because I was busy with other stuff.
Later, I was told about the disk image size and I realized it would have
been too big for people to conveniently download.
3) I asked Mr. Stacy to ask Mr. Greenblatt some questions. Like what was
the 'official' name of the program (MacHack VI or "The Greenblatt chess
program", where did the "VI" come in (the pdp-6 or some other reason). Was
MacHack VI ever run on the PDP11 like some say, or only on the pdp-6/10.
And so on. (And that got Mr. Stacy off onto all sorts of threads and
'research' that claimed to answer the questions but didn't.)
Right off the top of my head, I don't think I've actually asked any other
questions. I may have asked one or two minor questions here and there, but
those above are the only major ones I've asked.
All the rest of these convesations have been small side items that have
gotten blown way off topic and way out of proportion.
My side comment that I had heard the 6809 has a similar 'flavor' assembly
to the pdp6/10.
A side comment about Tech-II and the CHEOPS references got blown into
several dozen messages.
A comment that I had heard MacHack VI had also been done on the
PDP11 as well got into a lecture about the differences between 6/10/11/etc.
A side comment about collecting programs that ComputerHistory.org would want
more information got turned into a long discussion about tech-II.
And so on.
At least 90% of the messages in here have been conversations that had spun
off the original thread and that weren't really relelvant to what I had
asked about. Somebody got focused on some small side comment and a full
converstion got blown up from there.
I didn't ask for anybody to disassemble the program because I didn't want
to.
I didn't ask for anybody to go onto the web and find some papers that are
only vaguely relevant. And some that weren't relevant at all.
I didn't ask for anybody to go hunt up a book on an online bookstore.
I didn't ask for most of the stuff that's been talked about.
>> Two of those three programs have source. That's far more important than
>> getting the programs running.
>
> Why is it important? What are you doing? Are you a historian, a chess
> player, a student, or? The people here will not mind, but such information
> provides context so they can provide a better answer.
I've said it a few times, although it's gotten burried. We are attempting
to collect and preserve classic chess programs.
A couple of us are programmers, a couple others are chess players, etc. We
just share an interest in preserving computer chess past. None of us are
historians, but if we get anything good, the computerhistory.org people will
probably want it, and they definetly are professionals.
The project is, at this stage, collecting everything we can find, regardless
whether we can trace its origins or not. Eventually, we will, of course,
have to track down some of the history of the programs. In some cases,
since we aren't professionals, we'll just accept the hlp file as being
correct and take it at face value. It's not significant enough to warrant a
full tracing of people involved.
(For example, the modified tech-II that has no source is an example of that.
Worth keeping, but not worth the trouble to try and track down the original
modifiers. The tech-ii that has references to CHEOPS is important enough to
at least make an effort to know its history. Such as asking Greenblatt.
The Tech-II that has the damaged source code could possibly be an original
tech-II, in which case, the best choice is to ask the Alan Baisley.)
In most cases, we prefer to try and track down the author. Get it straight
from them. That way we know for certain where it came from and have the
author's permission.
Executables are nice, but the original source is significantly more
valuable. Even if we can't recompile it, we can see the source, we can see
what the programmer did, why he did it, read his comments, and so on.
Sometimes there are only executables left. In those cases, we make do with
it.
In the case of MacHack VI, I had originally thought to disassemble it and
recreate the source. Reasonable labels, some comments in the code, the
whole works Machack VI is a valuable historic chess program.. It's a heck
of a lot of work and I really didn't want to do it, but I had thought about
it enough to post my original message in here. But there aren't any PC
based tools that I can work with.
And then I discovered that Greenblatt was still alive. And then I asked Mr.
Stacy to ask him some questions etc. And then I discovered that Mr.
Greenblatt is talking with the computer musem. And I figured that if he's
going to give the source out to anybody, he'd be willing to do them. If
not, then he certainly wouldn't be willing to give it to anybody else.
> Useful information, please.
>
> Don C++
> e-mail: it's not not, it's hot.
>
>
>
>
Visitor
news:9dednblnP_0...@comcast.com...
> Don Chiasson wrote:
>
> It might be that he doesn't have high speed internet, but it might also
I have low speed broadband.... Just fast enough they can call it better
than dial-up... But at least it's on all the time, which means I can do the
iso's over night.
> be that he wants people to use it that don't. Consider that you might
> click on a web page, and wouldn't expect it to download 90M and use
> 300MB before it started displaying anything.
Right.
> It might even be nice to have it run as a Java applet.
That is nice.
I've used a few emulators on the web that are set up this way. Such as the
apple-2 emulator.
It's nice to be able to just click a link and immediately start playing
Sargon-2, for example.
No downloading, no messing with installations, etc. Just click and run.
I had thought to do MacHack VI as simple as possible. A single zip
download, uncompress it and just run it, with no configuration involved. If
I could do it as a single merged executable, then that'd be even better,
since they wouldn't have to unzip it.
> Most likely, then, it is the right way to make a one program
> web site. You only need emulation of the user mode instructions
> and the system calls that are needed.
All of which is way outside of my knowledge of the pdp 6/10 and its/tops-10.
That would be the best choice, but I'm certainly not capable of doing it.
And I don't have the time even if I could do it.
Mark Crispin
> If you'll read my original conversations, you'll discover that I was polite.
I've read your conversations. They can be categorized as many things, but
"polite" is not one of them.
You remind me very much of a 10-year-old child who charges into a
gathering of middle-aged hobbyists, and immediately demands that the
entire group pay attention to him. He then further compounds the problem
by (very loudly) telling everybody how smart he is and how much he knows
about the hobby and those who participate it in. When a gentle attempt is
made to correct the child's gross inaccuracies, the child starts screaming
that he's being picked on.
The inevitable consequence is that the child's mother is told that she is
not to bring the child to the gathering any more.
In observing your conversations, you have made numerous wildly inaccurate
(and at times downright offensive) statements. Perhaps it was ignorance
that caused you to make those statements; but refusal to accept correctly
is stupidity, not ignorance.
You have offended several individuals who could have helped you a lot
(including providing you with the source code for the programs in
question). As some friendly advice:
. take some humble pills
. be respectful, especially to people from whom you seek aid
. *listen* instead of screaming
Quite frankly, you are clueless; and you are going to remain clueless as
long as you continue the way you are now. You're also going to find that
doors will remain slammed shut in your face.
I don't know why, I will give you with two very small clues:
I said in my previous message that I doubt very much that you'll be able
to contact AGB. As far as I know, nobody has heard of, or from, AGB in
nearly 3 decades. He was very ill when I knew him, and his departure from
the community was more or less final. In any case, even if he is still
living and you locate him, he will certainly not be able to provide you
with TECH II sources.
MacHack and TECH II were both written in PDP-10 assembly language, which
has nothing whatsoever to do with the 6809. The PDP-10 was a large
mainframe computer, and thus your comparisons with miniomputer and
microcomputer systems are nonsense. Although the programs themselves were
not large by modern standards, they ran on a very large environment and
there is no shortcut to duplicating that environment. You must either
provide the complete environment, or completely reimplement the programs.
The former is considerably easier than the latter.
How well you behave with these two clues will dictate whether or not you
get any more.
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> MacHack and TECH II were both written in PDP-10 assembly language, which
> has nothing whatsoever to do with the 6809.
The 6809 may have a small relation to the PDP-11, but not
much to the -10. It has, for example, the autoincrement
and autodecrement addressing modes, otherwise rare for 8 bit
micros.
> The PDP-10 was a large
> mainframe computer, and thus your comparisons with miniomputer and
> microcomputer systems are nonsense. Although the programs themselves
> were not large by modern standards, they ran on a very large environment
> and there is no shortcut to duplicating that environment. You must
> either provide the complete environment, or completely reimplement the
> programs. The former is considerably easier than the latter.
This may or may not be true. The CMS emulation of OS/360 system
calls is much smaller than OS/360 itself. By leaving out some
rarely used but hard to implement features it is sometimes possible
to take a shortcut. In this case, one would only need to implement
the features actually used by the program in question. That isn't
the way the current emulators are written, but it is possible.
-- glen
Mark Crispin
>> The PDP-10 was a large
>> mainframe computer, and thus your comparisons with miniomputer and
>> microcomputer systems are nonsense. Although the programs themselves were
>> not large by modern standards, they ran on a very large environment and
>> there is no shortcut to duplicating that environment. You must either
>> provide the complete environment, or completely reimplement the programs.
>> The former is considerably easier than the latter.
> This may or may not be true. The CMS emulation of OS/360 system
> calls is much smaller than OS/360 itself. By leaving out some
> rarely used but hard to implement features it is sometimes possible
> to take a shortcut. In this case, one would only need to implement
> the features actually used by the program in question. That isn't
> the way the current emulators are written, but it is possible.
The OS/360 system call suite was quite small. By comparison, even a
minimal system call emulator for TOPS-10 that "does what must be done and
nothing more" is a non-trivial undertaking (as DECUUO on ITS
demonstrated). ITS system calls are more difficult, and TOPS-20 system
calls even more difficult.
In the case of MacHack and Tech II, there is an additional issue of data
structures. These programs were written in a day when porting to other
architectures was not considered. Even worse, Tech II has self-modifying
code.
-- Mark --
http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
jmfb...@aol.com
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
>"Mark Crispin" <m...@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote in message
>news:Pine.LNX.4.64.05...@shiva1.cac.washington.edu...
>> On Wed, 14 Sep 2005, Visitor wrote:
>>> For the TOPS-20 one (the one with the damaged source), it doesn't say a
>>> lot.
>>> Don't know if this was the original source by Alan Baisley or not.
>>
>> Have you ever thought about asking the person who did the TOPS-20 (and the
>> TOPS-10) ports of TECH II?
>
>Assuming they came from the same site, he might.
>
>But it's not a high priority.
>
>The only reason these programs have been mentioned so many times is because
>a few people in here got stuck on the subject.
>
>The reality is that I'd much rather get an original copy directly from the
>author, than a modified version. No matter who the person was that did the
>modifications.
And we, who really do know how development worked back then,
are telling you that there is no "original" source copy.
It is impossible to have an "original" source in any
software product.
There are released sources where the developer froze a source
and shipped it. Since this is a game and there wasn't any
manufacturer or software house whose business was developing
games back then, there isn't going to be an "official" source.
<SHEESH!!!>
/BAH
David Evans
Mark Crispin <M...@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>I've read your conversations. They can be categorized as many things, but
>"polite" is not one of them.
>
On the other hand, this is the most action the group has seen in a
while and I've learned a lot. The farce has been useful to me, at
least!
--
David Evans
Faculty of Computer Science dfe...@bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
jmfb...@aol.com
dfe...@bcr10.uwaterloo.ca (David Evans) wrote:
>In article
<Pine.WNT.4.64.05...@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>,
>Mark Crispin <M...@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>>I've read your conversations. They can be categorized as many things, but
>>"polite" is not one of them.
>>
>
> On the other hand, this is the most action the group has seen in a
>while and I've learned a lot. The farce has been useful to me, at
>least!
This turning the useless into something useful is also a PDP-10
attribute. I don't know if it's unique to PDP-10ers.
It was certainly our (TOPS-10's) unviolatable rule of thumb.
/BAH
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip regarding the complexity, or lack thereof, of emulation)
>> This may or may not be true. The CMS emulation of OS/360 system
>> calls is much smaller than OS/360 itself. By leaving out some
>> rarely used but hard to implement features it is sometimes possible
>> to take a shortcut. In this case, one would only need to implement
>> the features actually used by the program in question. That isn't
>> the way the current emulators are written, but it is possible.
> The OS/360 system call suite was quite small. By comparison, even a
> minimal system call emulator for TOPS-10 that "does what must be done
> and nothing more" is a non-trivial undertaking (as DECUUO on ITS
> demonstrated). ITS system calls are more difficult, and TOPS-20 system
> calls even more difficult.
If you include the access methods, it is a lot of code. One of my
favorite OS/360 system calls, LINK, I always missed on TOPS-10.
LINK will load another program into memory and run it while the
original program is still in memory, sort of like the unix system()
call.
> In the case of MacHack and Tech II, there is an additional issue of data
> structures. These programs were written in a day when porting to other
> architectures was not considered. Even worse, Tech II has
> self-modifying code.
Self modifying code would definitely complicate things.
-- glen
Johnny Eriksson
> If you include the access methods, it is a lot of code. One of my
> favorite OS/360 system calls, LINK, I always missed on TOPS-10.
> LINK will load another program into memory and run it while the
> original program is still in memory, sort of like the unix system()
> call.
Tops-10 7.03 and later implements contexts, and the ctx. uuo:
.r ddt
DDT
0/ 0 foo#
d+1/ 0 foo: 6,,1
FOO+1/ 0
FOO+2/ 0
FOO+3/ 0
FOO+4/ 0
FOO+5/ 0 bar#
.+10/ 0 bar: $"!sys!
BAR+1/ 0 $"!opr!
ctx.$x
OPR>push
.context
Contexts used/quota = 3/none, pages used/quota = 98/none
Context Superior Prog Idle time
1 DDT 5.54
2 1 OPR 2.26
* 3 2
.pop
OPR>exit
<SKIP>
> -- glen
--Johnny
jmfb...@aol.com
glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>Mark Crispin wrote:
>
>(snip regarding the complexity, or lack thereof, of emulation)
>
>>> This may or may not be true. The CMS emulation of OS/360 system
>>> calls is much smaller than OS/360 itself. By leaving out some
>>> rarely used but hard to implement features it is sometimes possible
>>> to take a shortcut. In this case, one would only need to implement
>>> the features actually used by the program in question. That isn't
>>> the way the current emulators are written, but it is possible.
>
>> The OS/360 system call suite was quite small. By comparison, even a
>> minimal system call emulator for TOPS-10 that "does what must be done
>> and nothing more" is a non-trivial undertaking (as DECUUO on ITS
>> demonstrated). ITS system calls are more difficult, and TOPS-20 system
>> calls even more difficult.
>
>If you include the access methods, it is a lot of code. One of my
>favorite OS/360 system calls, LINK, I always missed on TOPS-10.
>LINK will load another program into memory and run it while the
>original program is still in memory, sort of like the unix system()
>call.
Look up the MERGE. UUO. Will this do what you want?
>
>> In the case of MacHack and Tech II, there is an additional issue of data
>> structures. These programs were written in a day when porting to other
>> architectures was not considered. Even worse, Tech II has
>> self-modifying code.
>
>Self modifying code would definitely complicate things.
And, if the user typed ^CSAVE FOO, it would save the
modified code which may be the piece that the OP sees
as "munged". Or the munged part is the piece that
gets written based on bit settings in those locations.
He simply has to look at the source file with DDT and
see what is in that area. -10 ASCII files simply don't
get munged and survive copying to other systems without
somebody fixing it.
/BAH
glen herrmannsfeldt
> In article <MYSdnaEhZKa...@comcast.com>,
> glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
(snip)
>> One of my
>>favorite OS/360 system calls, LINK, I always missed on TOPS-10.
>>LINK will load another program into memory and run it while the
>>original program is still in memory, sort of like the unix system()
>>call.
> Look up the MERGE. UUO. Will this do what you want?
As far as I can tell, MERGE reloads the hiseg.
Another post suggests CTX, but I couldn't find much explanation
for that.
The way LINK is supposed to work is that the original program is
still addressable. OS/360 only has one address space for the OS
and all programs that are running. Everything is addressable,
though protection might stop you from actually referencing something
else. That would be hard in TOPS-10.
It should be possible to completely swap out, or map out, the whole
program and load a new one in, but then it won't be addressable.
-- glen
-- glen
Visitor
news:Pine.WNT.4.64.05...@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU...
> about the hobby and those who participate it in. When a gentle attempt is
> made to correct the child's gross inaccuracies, the child starts screaming
> that he's being picked on.
"gentle"...??
> I said in my previous message that I doubt very much that you'll be able
> to contact AGB. As far as I know, nobody has heard of, or from, AGB in
> nearly 3 decades. He was very ill when I knew him, and his departure from
[shrug] That may or may not be true.
I haven't made any effort to find him.
> the community was more or less final. In any case, even if he is still
> living and you locate him, he will certainly not be able to provide you
> with TECH II sources.
Why?
A lot of authors did keep copies of their stuff.
True, in the years since, many of the tapes and printouts were damaged or
lost. But often the authors did keep a copy.
So there is no guarantee one way or the other.
The reality is that although TECH-II is interesting in a historical sense,
it's not really an interesting program and isn't high on my list of things
to track down. The copies of Tech-II were just somthing I stumbled upon.
> MacHack and TECH II were both written in PDP-10 assembly language, which
> has nothing whatsoever to do with the 6809. The PDP-10 was a large
Shheeessshhh!!!
Are you bringing that up again!!?? Things like this are why these
conversations in here are such a pita.
As I said in the beginning, when I first mentioned the 6809, and a couple
times later, the only reason I mentioned that was because I had heard the
6809 assembly language had a similar 'flavor' to what the "pdp" had, and
that it might have provided something for me to relate to while I learned
the asm that had been used.
I never said it was identical. Or that they were related. Or that the
cpu's were related. Only that I had heard they had a similar "flavor" of
assembly language style. I've already explained that at least 3 times
before.
It was a single, small, insignificant, irrelevant side comment.
And it got blew up into a major thing back then.
And you are trying to do it yet again.
As I said way back then, whether that was actually true or not really didn't
make a heck of a lot of difference. It had just been a small side comment.
> mainframe computer, and thus your comparisons with miniomputer and
> microcomputer systems are nonsense. Although the programs themselves were
> not large by modern standards, they ran on a very large environment and
Totally irrelevant to anything that I've said before.
I've never compared those systems to microcomputers. Not once.
The only mention of micros I made were
1) I had done complete disassembly and source recreation back in my 8 bit
days, and that although I could do it, I didn't like it.
2) I had once heard the 6809 had a similar flavor assembly language to what
the "pdp" used.
Nothing else was mentioned about microcomputers from back then. Nor did I
make any comparisons between them.
No claims, comments, etc. etc. that the pdp's were like micros from back
then.
> there is no shortcut to duplicating that environment. You must either
> provide the complete environment, or completely reimplement the programs.
> The former is considerably easier than the latter.
"Provide the complete environment".... Hmmm.... That sounds a heck of a lot
like my early question about running the program under and emulator.... How
about that.
As for reimplementing the program.... Well, that too was brought up a few
times in here. But never by me. Those were other items that people brought
up on their own and tried to claim that I said. I didn't. In fact, I've
said several times I had no intention of porting them to another system.
The closest I said was, in reply to other people talking about that, was
that it might be nice to have a portable C version, but that I had no plans
to do it.
Visitor
news:dgu3aq$8ss...@s1094.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
> In article <11273327...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
Hello Mr. Troll....
> There are released sources where the developer froze a source
> and shipped it. Since this is a game and there wasn't any
> manufacturer or software house whose business was developing
> games back then, there isn't going to be an "official" source.
"Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released. (And played
in tournaments with, etc.) Minor modifications and tweaks don't count.
That's a given for a chess program.
Rather than some modified version by somebody else. Or some unknown copy on
some unknown site with possibly unknown changes by unknown people.
But I'm pretty sure you already knew that.... This has already been
discussed. You were just trying to start something.
Mark Crispin
> <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
> Hello Mr. Troll....
The last time that I saw BAH in person, the term "Mr." was inappropriate.
Although BAH and I have had our quarrels (not the least because there are
some very sensitive topics on which we are on opposite sides), I would not
call BAH a "troll" either.
> "Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released. (And played
> in tournaments with, etc.) Minor modifications and tweaks don't count.
> That's a given for a chess program.
If you want something that the author *released*, there is probably only
one person in the world who can provide you with that. That person is the
only one who was actually *given* a copy of TECH II by AGB instead of just
copying whatever was on AGB's directory. That's the same person who did
the ports to WAITS, TOPS-10, and TOPS-20.
Mark Crispin
>> made to correct the child's gross inaccuracies, the child starts screaming
>> that he's being picked on.
> "gentle"...??
Yes, gentle.
You do not know what non-gentle is out of us.
I fear that you have not wisely used the clues that I gave you. I'm
afraid that it is no longer possible to help you.
>> In any case, even if he is still living and you locate him, he will
>> certainly not be able to provide you with TECH II sources.
> Why?
> A lot of authors did keep copies of their stuff.
Sadly, I doubt very much that AGB kept anything.
> I never said it was identical. Or that they were related. Or that the
> cpu's were related. Only that I had heard they had a similar "flavor" of
> assembly language style.
You heard wrong.
> 1) I had done complete disassembly and source recreation back in my 8 bit
> days, and that although I could do it, I didn't like it.
So why don't you shut up and do it? That'll give you a hobby for a while.
Having put your foot in your mouth, you continue to insert more foot. If
you keep doing that, sooner or later you're bound to gag.
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> You remind me very much of a 10-year-old child who charges into a
> gathering of middle-aged hobbyists, and immediately demands that the
> entire group pay attention to him.
Having an 11 year old child, who was 10 only recently, I have
to disagree. At least my children were much better than
that at 10, so maybe closer to three or four.
(snip)
> MacHack and TECH II were both written in PDP-10 assembly language, which
> has nothing whatsoever to do with the 6809. The PDP-10 was a large
> mainframe computer, and thus your comparisons with miniomputer and
> microcomputer systems are nonsense.
(snip)
The 6809 may be related to the PDP-11, but what is the relation between
the PDP-11 and the PDP-10, other than being one apart. I don't want
to bring up any discussion of VAX, as that was done recently enough.
The 10 and 11 are very different machines, but why?
-- glen
Pat Farrell
> The 6809 may be related to the PDP-11, but what is the relation between
> the PDP-11 and the PDP-10, other than being one apart. I don't want
> to bring up any discussion of VAX, as that was done recently enough.
> The 10 and 11 are very different machines, but why?
Different goals, aims and targets.
The PDP-x numbers defined families of processors.
There is nearly nothing in common between a PDP-10 and
a PDP-11, other than the name Digital Equipment Corporation on
the box.
The 11 was a minicomputer, successor to the PDP-8
the first popular minicomputer. It was little-endian,
byte oriented and did one task at a time fairly well.
The usually were located in normal space, labs,
factory floors, etc.
They cost low numbers of tens of thousands of dollars
in the $15,000 range for lots of them.
The PDP-10 was huge computer. Physically six or eight or
more times as large as a PDP-11. They cost roughly a million dollars.
They always lived in specialized computer rooms. They
supported fifty or one hundred or more simulatanious users.
They were big-endian, word oriented. They didn't even
have a predefinied definition of a byte.
We could go on and on, they had nearly nothing in common,
except that the later PDP-10s used a PDP-11/40 as
the front end so that its processor didn't have to
be bothered by piddling stuff.
--
Pat
Paul Rubin
> > the PDP-11 and the PDP-10, other than being one apart. I don't want
> > to bring up any discussion of VAX, as that was done recently enough.
> > The 10 and 11 are very different machines, but why?
What about their operating systems--weren't those related? ITS and
MINITS, I mean. 1/2 ;-).
jmfb...@aol.com
<Pine.WNT.4.64.05...@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>,
Mark Crispin <M...@CAC.Washington.EDU> wrote:
>> <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> Hello Mr. Troll....
>
>The last time that I saw BAH in person, the term "Mr." was inappropriate.
Last time I checked, it still was.
>
>Although BAH and I have had our quarrels (not the least because there are
>some very sensitive topics on which we are on opposite sides),
<grin> 'ey, Mark.
> .. I would not
>call BAH a "troll" either.
>
>> "Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released. (And played
>> in tournaments with, etc.) Minor modifications and tweaks don't count.
>> That's a given for a chess program.
>
>If you want something that the author *released*,
This gives me a hint that the OP doesn't know how software
work is done. It is also worrisome because it means that
computer users and/or owners think that software is a
one-time entity, like a car or orange or hammer.
<snip>
/BAH
jmfb...@aol.com
"Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:dgu3aq$8ss...@s1094.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>> In article <11273327...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
>
>
>Hello Mr. Troll....
Honey, you really don't want to piss off the den mother.
>
>> There are released sources where the developer froze a source
>> and shipped it. Since this is a game and there wasn't any
>> manufacturer or software house whose business was developing
>> games back then, there isn't going to be an "official" source.
>
>"Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released.
And I've been telling you that this process (released)
was an unlikely event.
> .. (And played
>in tournaments with, etc.) Minor modifications and tweaks don't count.
If you are going to exclude these minor mods, then you have no
chance of getting the thingie you call an original. Original
in that computing era was mostly a person toggling in
instructions (if it was a PDP) or punching cards (if it
was an IBM). That is original. As development on the software
progressed, the results of a day's work might be repunched
on paper tape or written to DECtape. If the original media
was IBM cards, then another procedure was done, which I
won't get into here.
>That's a given for a chess program.
No, that may be a given for a chess program now, although unlikely,
but it was not back then. It could not be.
>
>Rather than some modified version by somebody else.
Or the developer. The developer would also be tweaking his/her
midnight hacks as time went on.
> . Or some unknown copy on
>some unknown site with possibly unknown changes by unknown people.
The changes would be known; they're the bits you see.
>
>
>But I'm pretty sure you already knew that....
No, I don't know that. Neither do you, since you don't have
a clue about how people do this kind of work.
> This has already been
>discussed. You were just trying to start something.
Yes, I'm trying to start to train you about how software
gets created and how software has to evolve over time.
/BAH
Patricia Tressel
> They always lived in specialized computer rooms.
Or in Mark's house. ;-)
The KS-10 was talked up as an "office environment" machine.
Only one leetle problem -- no office environment storage
devices to go with. Many many years later, Setasi produced
a SCSI adapter and mountable SCSI drives.
-- Pat
Morten Reistad
<jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <11274961...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
>><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>news:dgu3aq$8ss...@s1094.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>>> In article <11273327...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
>>
>>
>>Hello Mr. Troll....
To be frank, you go calling names. Gender-incorrect ones as well.
I guess it is evident who is the troll.
>Honey, you really don't want to piss off the den mother.
You are firmly in the process of getting plonked from all regulars
in this group.
>>> There are released sources where the developer froze a source
>>> and shipped it. Since this is a game and there wasn't any
>>> manufacturer or software house whose business was developing
>>> games back then, there isn't going to be an "official" source.
>>
>>"Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released.
>
>And I've been telling you that this process (released)
>was an unlikely event.
Ideed. There _WERE_ no released sources. What we in posterity
have from these ages are more random snapshots from backups and
archive tapes.
The very people you do a solid job of irritating here are the ones
that have seen to it that these bits are indeed saved for posterity.
They have actually given you a lot of pointers to self help.
But, as you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink.
These PDP10 installations were normally large sites, and as time
went by they got lots and lots of terminals attached. Running a
program was therefore just a matter of running the binary from
the location the developer had given out. It is somewhat like
having a website up, constantly changing.
You could even connect to the site from far away. If you want
a pointer to what that was like, go learn the telnet song.
>> .. (And played
>>in tournaments with, etc.) Minor modifications and tweaks don't count.
>
>If you are going to exclude these minor mods, then you have no
>chance of getting the thingie you call an original. Original
>in that computing era was mostly a person toggling in
>instructions (if it was a PDP) or punching cards (if it
>was an IBM). That is original. As development on the software
>progressed, the results of a day's work might be repunched
>on paper tape or written to DECtape. If the original media
>was IBM cards, then another procedure was done, which I
>won't get into here.
>
>>That's a given for a chess program.
>
>No, that may be a given for a chess program now, although unlikely,
>but it was not back then. It could not be.
I tried to tell you that. If the program was early enough, or
hacked enough with DDT, it may not have source code. Or the
binary may be extensively modified from that source.
On the pdp6 and pdp10 the environment for development directly
in the binary is quite friendly. I used DDT as a spreadsheet
replacement for doing my taxes several years in the 1980s.
>>Rather than some modified version by somebody else.
>
>Or the developer. The developer would also be tweaking his/her
>midnight hacks as time went on.
And, collecting the bits is a major effort.
>> . Or some unknown copy on
>>some unknown site with possibly unknown changes by unknown people.
>
>The changes would be known; they're the bits you see.
>>
>>
>>But I'm pretty sure you already knew that....
>
>No, I don't know that. Neither do you, since you don't have
>a clue about how people do this kind of work.
>
>> This has already been
>>discussed. You were just trying to start something.
>
>Yes, I'm trying to start to train you about how software
>gets created and how software has to evolve over time.
This thing was not about chess when the devlopers made it,
it was about general problem handling; or "AI". Chess was
just a vehicle.
This is why these participants tend to ignore the "Chess only"
bit of things. Lots of general algorithms and data representations
were discovered during this process. This is why this is
seen as parts of a whole, and you get a lot of reluctance to
show only one part, as this is a detour from a much larger
and more important project these people largely do on their
own time and money. But, it you want to that on your time,
fine. You got the pointers.
To quote Nansen, "Go join the dark, tall, silent men who
do things and leave others to talk about it."
-- mrr
Mike Ross
The Shelby. Actually was a PC with a SCSI drive, Massbus adapter, and
dedicated software; not a SCSI adapter for the KS, as you imply. Only
problem was, they had great difficulty getting it to work with DEC
36-bit systems, as their Massbus was rather less consistent in spec.
than the 16 and 32 bit Massbus implementations. By the time they got
the 36-bit software drivers for the PC halfway reliable, there were no
customers left to sell to, so 36-bit support was never officially
released...
DEC marketed it as the RP12. I have one:
http://www.corestore.org/rp12.htm
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
'As I walk along these shores
I am the history within'
Pat Farrell
> Pat Farrell wrote:
> >> They always lived in specialized computer rooms.
>
> Or in Mark's house. ;-)
That doesn't count.
> The KS-10 was talked up as an "office environment" machine.
> Only one leetle problem -- no office environment storage
> devices to go with. Many many years later, Setasi produced
> a SCSI adapter and mountable SCSI drives.
Hmm, I remember the "on site" as being very hot in 77,
forget it that was still RP04 time or RP06.
Neither of them was very space friendly, and the
three phase power is something I don't have
in my house.
What disks did people use with the KS systems?
--
Pat
Arthur Krewat
>
> What disks did people use with the KS systems?
>
BOCES/LIRICS had RP06's.
aak
Mike Ross
wrote:
>What disks did people use with the KS systems?
Mine had 4 RP06s. RM03s were also possible, IIRC - quite a lot
smaller, less power, and single-phase.
Mark Crispin
>>>> They always lived in specialized computer rooms.
>> Or in Mark's house. ;-)
> That doesn't count.
Mark thinks otherwise. :-) :-)
> What disks did people use with the KS systems?
The most common were RM03 and RP06. Occasionally, you would see RP04 and
RM05, although DEC did not support the latter in TOPS-20 (so we had to add
support for it).
For home use, RM03 and RM05 were far more practical than RP06. However,
you generally had to rewire the power supply on an RM05 for 240V (as
opposed to 208V).
Antti Louko
> The Shelby. Actually was a PC with a SCSI drive, Massbus adapter, and
> dedicated software; not a SCSI adapter for the KS, as you imply. Only
.
.
Is Massbus specification and the protocol (both 16 and 18 -bit
variants) available somewhere?
Eric Smith
> Is Massbus specification and the protocol (both 16 and 18 -bit
> variants) available somewhere?
The official Massbus specifcation (DEC STD something-or-other) was not
publicly available. Some companies licensed it to produce plug-compatible
peripherals.
However, there is plenty of information about it (not quite as precise
as specifications) in the maintenance manuals and print sets for various
DEC hardware.
There is a fairly general overview of Massbus in "Computer Engineering:
A DEC View of System Design", which is out of print but available online:
http://research.microsoft.com/~gbell/Computer_Engineering/contents.html
There's not enough total information publicly available to be able to
engineer a reliable Massbus interface that will work the first time.
It will take a fair bit of experimentation to determine some of the
necessary timing characteristics, protocol subtleties, etc. But then,
this was true even inside DEC where the official specification was
available to the engineers, as recounted in the story "Tony in RH20 Land,
or I Should Have Listened When Mother Told Me There Was a Great Future in
Encyclopedia Sales":
http://panda.com/tops-20/Tony-in-RH20-Land.txt
Eric
Eric Smith
> What disks did people use with the KS systems?
Mike Ross wrote:
> Mine had 4 RP06s. RM03s were also possible, IIRC - quite a lot
> smaller, less power, and single-phase.
But will a KS boot from an RM? I thought that the console boot code
running on the 8080 inside the KS was fairly picky about boot devices
(both tape and disk).
Eric
Eric Smith
> For home use, RM03 and RM05 were far more practical than RP06.
> However, you generally had to rewire the power supply on an RM05 for
> 240V (as opposed to 208V).
The RP05 and RP06 can also be run on single-phase 240V. The spindle motor
is normally wired between two phases of 120/208V three-phase power, but is
rated for operation over a wide enough range that it is OK with 240V.
The DCL (control logic) power supply is normally wired between a single
phase and neutral (120V). I don't recall whether it is trivially switched
to 240V, but you can power it from a separate 120V circuit if you don't
have 240V with a neutral (split-phase).
Eric
jmfb...@aol.com
Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>In article <dh36m8$8qk...@s871.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
> <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>In article <11274961...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
>> "Visitor" <No...@example.com> wrote:
>>><jmfb...@aol.com> wrote in message
>>>news:dgu3aq$8ss...@s1094.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...
>>>> In article <11273327...@spool6-east.superfeed.net>,
>>>
>>>
>>>> There are released sources where the developer froze a source
>>>> and shipped it. Since this is a game and there wasn't any
>>>> manufacturer or software house whose business was developing
>>>> games back then, there isn't going to be an "official" source.
>>>
>>>"Original" as in what the author actually wrote and released.
>>
>>And I've been telling you that this process (released)
>>was an unlikely event.
>
>Ideed. There _WERE_ no released sources. What we in posterity
>have from these ages are more random snapshots from backups and
>archive tapes.
I know nothing about this particular code. Was it possible
to ^C and save the core image which could then be rerun,
continuing the game? That would explain the so-called
garbage in the middle of the file (assuming the report
that it modified itself is correct).
Also the fact that it's an EXE implies that this doesn't
match an original executable. The EXE format was not
available until 1973 or 1974.
A small niggle is trying to tell me that LOADER would be
needed (LINK will not work but I can't recall why). The
reason I have this niggle is because of the hours of
work CDO had to go through just to get a CREFed listing
of DTASRX for TW's farewell party. He couldn't LINK
it but I don't remember....But why would he have had
to link it? All he was doing was generating a listing.
Now I've confused myself.
It's probably a waste of time to specualte without a DDT
inspection of both the EXE and the source.
>
>The very people you do a solid job of irritating here are the ones
>that have seen to it that these bits are indeed saved for posterity.
>They have actually given you a lot of pointers to self help.
>But, as you can lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink.
He doesn't believe that water is to be drunk, no matter how often
we tell him differently.
<snip>
>On the pdp6 and pdp10 the environment for development directly
>in the binary is quite friendly. I used DDT as a spreadsheet
>replacement for doing my taxes several years in the 1980s.
DDT for spreadsheet? <GRIN> On a heirarchal hack basis:
Is this a step above a TECO use; or one step below?
<snip>
>>Yes, I'm trying to start to train you about how software
>>gets created and how software has to evolve over time.
>
>This thing was not about chess when the devlopers made it,
>it was about general problem handling; or "AI". Chess was
>just a vehicle.
And guaranteed to be tested.
/BAH
Michael Thompson
The RP05/06 drives will run from a two-wire 220VAC circuit. I modified the
phase plug on the power controller and connected two phases in the power
recepticle. With this method the drive can be converted back to 3-phase in a
few seconds. The modified drive wiring diagram is at:
http://starfish.osfn.org/rcs/DECsystem/FAQ/Single_Phase_RP06_Wiring.jpg
I can post detailed instructions and pictures is someone needs them.
Rich Alderson
> I know nothing about this particular code. Was it possible to ^C and save
> the core image which could then be rerun, continuing the game? That would
> explain the so-called garbage in the middle of the file (assuming the report
> that it modified itself is correct).
You've confused two completely separate programs, Barb. The corrupted file is
a SOURCE COPY of a program called TECH II, not anything to do with MACHACK VI.
> Also the fact that it's an EXE implies that this doesn't match an original
> executable. The EXE format was not available until 1973 or 1974.
As for the DECUS program(s) derived from MACHACK VI, the Tops-10 version is a
.SAV file, while the Tops-20 version is an .EXE created by GETting the Tops-10
.SAV and re-SAVEing it. The .EXE was not made until c. 1980, but the .SAV is
10 years older, IIRC.
--
Rich Alderson | /"\ ASCII ribbon |
ne...@alderson.users.panix.com | \ / campaign against |
"You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." | x HTML mail and |
--Death, of the Endless | / \ postings |
Mark Crispin
> But will a KS boot from an RM? I thought that the console boot code
> running on the 8080 inside the KS was fairly picky about boot devices
> (both tape and disk).
Yes, a KS will boot from an RP04, RP05, RP06, RM03, RM05, TU45, TU77.
I know this first-hand.
Mark Crispin
> You've confused two completely separate programs, Barb. The corrupted file is
> a SOURCE COPY of a program called TECH II, not anything to do with MACHACK VI.
What's totally ironic is that if he wasn't such a jerk, he could have
gotten good TECH II *and* MacHack sources from me.
Mark Crispin
> What's totally ironic is that if he wasn't such a jerk, he could have gotten
> good TECH II *and* MacHack sources from me.
What's even more ironic is that I have experience in porting TECH II to
multiple platforms *and* in writing KL/KS standalone exec-mode programs.
I would have provided him with something that would run directly under an
emulator without anything else, if he had asked nicely and perhaps offered
something in return.
Patricia Tressel
> The RP05/06 drives will run from a two-wire 220VAC circuit. I modified the
> phase plug on the power controller and connected two phases in the power
> recepticle. With this method the drive can be converted back to 3-phase in a
> few seconds. The modified drive wiring diagram is at:
> http://starfish.osfn.org/rcs/DECsystem/FAQ/Single_Phase_RP06_Wiring.jpg
Wow!
> I can post detailed instructions and pictures is someone needs them.
No hurry ;-) but if you could sometime, that would be great!!
-- Pat
Patricia Tressel
> The RP05 and RP06 can also be run on single-phase 240V. The spindle motor
> is normally wired between two phases of 120/208V three-phase power...
I remember hearing horror stories about some disk drives with
three-phase spindle motors -- don't remember which, but clearly
not RP05/6 ;-) -- in which, if the phases were wired up in the
wrong direction, the motor would turn backwards. Bad Things
ensued.
Does anyone else recall such stories? have details? know what
drives were involved?
-- Pat
Arthur Krewat
> I remember hearing horror stories about some disk drives with
> three-phase spindle motors -- don't remember which, but clearly
> not RP05/6 ;-) -- in which, if the phases were wired up in the
> wrong direction, the motor would turn backwards. Bad Things
> ensued.
>
> Does anyone else recall such stories? have details? know what
> drives were involved?
Most anything I ever saw DEC related that was "supposedly"
3-phase was 220/208 single, or even better, 110 all around.
Some of the 220/208 thingies needed an extra 110 leg, the
"third phase" which you could connect to one of the other two.
I hooked up RM05's with a big oven-style 50-amp connector
to the two of three phases supplied to my sister's warehouse.
Ran fine.
I am hereby proposing that all "urban legends" pertaining to
3-phase requirements be put to rest ;)
Maybe the old drums? Or precursors to the RP06/RM05/RM03/RP04
drives?
aak
Bill Pechter
I believe RP04's were three phase.
I've seen 'em spin backwards at NJ Bell -- with a continuous brush
cycle and no head load 'cause of phase reversal.
RP04-II's (later renamed RP05's before release from DEC engineering)
were two phase with a daisy chain cable possible. RP07's (also a Sperry
product like the RP04) IIRC may have been three phase.
Bill
working from Ex-Field Service memory
--
--
d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN. Don't you wish you could still buy it now!
pechter-at-ureach.com
Bill Pechter
> Antti Louko wrote:
>
>>Is Massbus specification and the protocol (both 16 and 18 -bit
>>variants) available somewhere?
>
>
> The official Massbus specifcation (DEC STD something-or-other) was not
> publicly available. Some companies licensed it to produce plug-compatible
> peripherals.
>
> However, there is plenty of information about it (not quite as precise
> as specifications) in the maintenance manuals and print sets for various
> DEC hardware.
>
> There is a fairly general overview of Massbus in "Computer Engineering:
> A DEC View of System Design", which is out of print but available online:
>
I believe DEC held patents on the MassBus (and/or the AMP connectors
used) there. There were Braegen (IIRC) versions of Calcomp disk drives
that were MassBus compatible but they were sued into discontinuing them.
Bill
Mark Crispin
> RP04-II's (later renamed RP05's before release from DEC engineering)
> were two phase with a daisy chain cable possible.
I never saw an RP05. If I recall correctly, the RP05 looked like the RP06
but used RP04 packs and had RP04 capacity.
I do remember that the RP06 had twice as many cylinders as the RP04; I've
long forgotten if the packs were physically the same as RP04 packs (which
would imply that an RP06 pack could be formatted for an RP04?? Does
anyone remember?).
By "two phase", do you mean two of the three phases (that is, 208V with
120/240 degrees of separation on the sine wave) in three-phase wiring, or
do you mean so-called "220V wiring" (which in the USA is actually closer
to 240V with 180 degrees of separation on the sine wave)?
I got scolded many times by the power guys for using the term "two
phase"... :-)
RM05 power supplies had to be reconfigured if they were were given 240V
instead of 208V power. By default, they were wired for 208V, and if not
reconfigured would run for a short while on 240V before frying.