Cat variants

[Charles Springer]

Hi all.

I have no idea any more what we did for various Cats for development versus production, etc. My working unit has EPROMs we did at IAI. The paper labels are missing from three and the fourth says 1Lo and 1.74. I opened it for cleaning to see if that fixes a weak video signal every 4 or 8 lines (the spacing should tell me something when I look at the schematic). I'll put aluminum stickers over them or they might eventually get enough UV to get flakey.

There are two rows of soldered in RAM, a third row in sockets, and fourth row empty.

Who can tell me more about this? I didn't keep a logbook or anything like that.

-- Charlie

[Charles Springer]

I guess that is 256K + 32K extra. Also replaced the battery. #001794 motherboard.

[dwight elvey]

Hi Charlie
 As far as I know, it sounds like it is a standard unit. I have a production box
and it has the 1.74 ROMs and had one empty row of RAM sockets as well
as one row of empty.
 I've put sockets in my last row and fully populated it with RAM to bring
the unit up to 512K RAM. The disk can only save slightly over 300K of that
space as I recall. If you are going to do assembly of the source code,
you need all 512K.
 As you my know, I've attached some static RAM to the empty locations
for language and other ROMs to give me space to build images in
as well. I forget what the size of the RAM that is needed. I'd set it up at a
different address to take advantage of the built in address decoder.
To build source, you need that as well.
 As for the 1.74 code, I know there were some slight variations. One fellow
has a built in 'see' word that does decompile. Mine doesn't do that so
there must have been a developers version of the 1.74 code that didn't
get a different ROM version number. ( Most strange ).
Dwight

 

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Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:46:17 -0700
Subject: [Canon Cat] Re: Cat variants
From: charles....@gmail.com
To: cano...@googlegroups.com

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[Jonathan Gevaryahu]

We should try to get these different versions archived before the eproms decay/bitrot to all 0xFF, IMHO.

-- 
Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare
jgeva...@gmail.com
jgeva...@hotmail.com

[Charles Springer]

What made me wonder was the EPROMS in sockets that look like we made them at IAI. I have sold of the others and I think this was my personal Cat.

Yes, it would not be hard to add the last row. On mine, the third row uses a different size memory chip (16Kx4) and only adds 32K. Static RAM in the two empty ROM sockets is easy too. I'm sure I have the chips. I had a bunch the same size I as going to try to use as a FIFO for video RAM when the ant-"dumping" legislation, pushed my a memory maker in Idaho, declared the "fair value" of the video RAMs I bought from Japan was $12 instead $3 a chip. It killed the ImageWorks II frame grabber, which used 8 of them.  (Thank you  Micron. You didn't even make video RAMs. I have never used your parts in a product since).

Hey, at least I remember some things :-)

-- Charlie

[dwight elvey]

Hi Charlie
 Well that third row is different. As I recall, the chips I put in were
64X1 chips. Each row was 128K total. I guess it didn't make much sense
to have much more when the disk couldn't take much more.
 I guess with the 512K possible and the addition of a double sided
disk, one could have a bigger system. There doesn't seem to be any
automatic code for double side but it could be added.
 Other than the desire to compile on the cat, I can't see any other
reason to have the space for so much more RAM. The 32K makes
sense for the disk size they had.
Dwight

 

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Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:57:07 -0700
Subject: Re: [Canon Cat] Re: Cat variants

[Sandy]

Speaking of ROM versions, I have, I think, 2.40 which is a nice version.  The best and last was 2.42 and I thought I had a copy of that but, in a somewhat casual search, I haven't been able to find it.  I do have 2.40 though.

But, I also thought we had archived 2.40 but maybe that went away when Google stopped groups having files.

Whatever, the archiving should be done somewhere for folk to download.

Dwight, can you burn ROMs that work in the Cat?

Best,

Sandy

Sent from my iPhone

===

[dwight elvey]

Hi Sandy
 Yes, I can burn or copy ROMs. I can create from source the 2.40 ROMs as
well. I have a modified version of 2.40 that I've added the setups for the HP
printers if anyone is interested it that as well.
 I was looking at things and realized that the RAMs were not X1 but X4. The RAMs
I installed were 128KX4s. Charlie's machine should be able to take these
as well as the 32KX4 chips.
 As far as the ROM's on machines, I do have digital copies of the 1.74 version,
from my machine. It wouldn't take much code to dump the ROMs from
a Cat without removing them from the machine ( I know many fear the
complicated disassembly and possible damage ).
 There is some code in the compiler disk image to do memory dumps, in
Motorola S format, through the serial port. It would be trivial to use this
to dump the system ROMs of any machine that one thought had unusual
code in there ROMs.
 I could post checksums as well. As I recall there is code in the machine to
run checksums.
Dwight

---

Subject: Re: [Canon Cat] Re: Cat variants

From: sand...@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 08:23:24 -0700
To: cano...@googlegroups.com

[Sandy Bumgarner]

Great!

But who would want anything but 2.40? You like historic bugs? Note,
very damn few bugs in any ROM version. 2.40 had one know bug in the
in text 'spreadsheet' arithemetic code but it was obscure. 2.42 had
no known bugs.

I don't remember what little bugs there were in any version earlier
than 2.40 as I don't care to use any of those.

Sandy
===

--
John O. 'Sandy' Bumgarner
KI6UOQ

[dwight elvey]

Hi
 I was looking for the words that are needed to dump a ROM from a
Cat to a PC through the serial lead. It could be a Apple as well as
IBM type of PC so don't think the name resticts it.
 The top words are:
 
ibm0high
ibm1high
ibm0low
ibm1high
 
Just change the word target to  = 0 and a few
low level words:
 
even/oddsrec
ibmsenddata
toibm
 
These can all be found in the TCOMPLR240.TXT file about 1/3 the way through
the file.
 Since it sends a Motorola S file, it is all readable text that you can easily
look at or edit to remove any extra stuff at the start or end.
Dwight
 

[Charles Springer]

I recall the number of bugs was vanishingly small. However, there was one rather glaring flaw in the whole interface that didn't show till the testing after production began, because we either all knew how it was supposed to work, or the people tested on earlier were given tutorials or personal instruction (Sandy might remember my blonde neighbor :-) It had a simple but inelegant solution that required action by the user you wouldn't expect except from an IBM PC with DOS.

-- Charlie

[Sandy]

Charlie, you don't mean Bana do you?  And, what 'glaring flaw' were you talking about?  The only one I can think of is that some folk just didn't get the concept of leaping to a target.  They didn't get it and could not be easily taught - at least I couldn't teach them.

Sandy

Sent from my iPad, gift of my family.

===

[Charles Springer]

Roni (Denise) with the thick blond hair down to her ass. Cocktail waitress at the BBC in Menlo Park. Had a big problem for a while with an Arab who gave here a ring at a party he threw at the club (in order to have her around) and then harassed her for being rebuffed. He had diplomatic immunity. I asked her if she gave the ring back and she said "No. Why?" Ah, beautiful women. Her philosophy of life was based on the fact that if she got a flat tire ANYWHERE, all she had to do was stand by it for a while and it would be fixed. I gave her a Cat and Laser printer for a semester writing course she was taking at the community college and did a little feedback thing every couple of weeks.

The problem had to do with using fresh diskettes. During the testing with the people from that guy (Nice eh? I'm loosing it. The marketing and focus group wizard, Melvin Purvis Mackenna or something) the Stanford secretaries in the administration were going nuts with old work flashing on their screens and they couldn't get rid of it. I don't recall exactly because it was rather subtle. In fact, I remember it took a couple hours to convince you and Jef and some of the others that it was real. They didn't turn their machines off because they went to sleep on their own (power supply turned off filament current and left everything else going for "instant on". I think that and the gas gauge are my only contributions to the final interface). Before they went home they would "Disk" and take out the floppy and put it away. When they started in the morning, some would put a new floppy in for that day. When they hit "Disk" all of yesterdays work showed up and they had to select and delete it all. The Cat thought they were doing a "Copy-up" or something like that and putting everything in RAM onto the floppy, because that was the procedure. I came up with the awkward solution of taking all new floppys when you got them and put at least 1 character of text on them, our "Dean Of Students Office" or something. Even a space. Then they were not empty and the copy-up (or whatever it was) would not happen. We were all so used to the interface that this never came up as a possible problem, but it was driving the new users crazy. I don't recall if it went out as a process in the manual or an addenda or there was a better fix.

I wonder if it existed in the Swyfts? Since they were all in a high school class, Ron probably just told them what to do the first time it came up, and they didn't have to deal with it again and we never heard about it as a problem.

-- Charlie

[dwight elvey]

Hi
 Being a old computer user, I always format a disk before using
it.
Dwight

 

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Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:05:27 -0700

[Charles Springer]

In this case, "formatting" with the only key that can do it, the "Disk" key (which was supposed to always know what to do, and it did - if there was a timer to tell it you probably didn't make the first step copy a disk and then go away for 16 hours) would copy the contents of the last disk in the drive to your new disk. It was trivial to select it all and delete, but that is an ugly MSDOS type move in the middle of the sublime. Like the staccato trumpets when they bring Siegfried's body back to the castle.

-- Charlie

[Sandy]

Wow Charlie, I love your reference!

Anyway, I believe I verified the disk action you describe.  Terry Holmes was visiting last night and he wanted to check the Cat's cursor actions when leaping and then adding text.  So, I hauled out my Cat (2.40), put it on the kitchen table and we played with it for a bit.

I had two blank disks which we used just for the heck of it (I hadn't read this thread yet) and I believe it did as you describe, wrote on the first and then wrote on the second.  The text was not selected.  I can crank up the Cat and check the behavior if anyone is interested but it will have to wait a bit as we have a three year old grandkid and Sherry playing in the kitchen right now! (-:

Sandy

Sent from my iPad, gift of my family.

===

[Charles Springer]

Well, I cleaned the motherboard without effect. Anybody have the video schematic?

As I was testing I was thinking "Wow, this is fantastic! Leap leap select (two thumps in a very natural movement) bang! Throw away the mouse! I really miss this thing.

I also realized what many of you have discovered I'm sure. We don't need to make Cats or emulates them, etc. We need a custom USB/wireless keyboard. That is all. It isn't trivial, but I have found in China that tooling we paid $40,000 for in 198X is more like $2000 today. CNC has totally changed the plastics tooling business and injection molding. Besides, the world desperately needs a proper sculpted keyboard. These flat DIN contraptions are made for secretaries with long fingernails who need a carpal tunnel "disability".

-- Charlie

[Sandy]

Well, I just got to the place in Job's biography where the split between Jef and Steve is described.  Specifically "the road not taken" and The Cat.

If the research for the rest of the biography is as poor as that done for this part, the whole book is suspect.

Sandy

Sent from my iPhone

[Charles Springer]

There is never any mention about Jef and PARC and one of his former students working there. At least he gets more than the usual mention in passing.

Reminds me. Warnock was at PARC. I still say he is lying through his teeth when he says he created PostScript without ever seeing Forth.

-- Charlie

[dwight elvey]

Hi
 I'll try to attach the schematic.
Dwight

 

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Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 20:04:07 -0700