🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <18...@cc.usu.edu>, GE...@cc.usu.edu (Gehri Grimaud) writes:
> Back in about '82 I worked for the Micro Lab here at USU.  We used Heathkit
> H19 terminals on all of our home-built CP/M machines.  One of the guys in the 
> lab got fed up with the limited character graphics capabilities of the H19.
> So we decided to do a little hacking on the character generator ROM.

Gehri!! You forgot about the detached keyboard attachment! Here's what you
do:
    - Order a pizza
    - Remove the screws that hold the H19s keyboard to the keyboard shelf
    - Get a *really* long ribbon cable
    - Cut pieces from the pizza box to cover the hole in the terminal
      behind the keyboard and to wrap around the keyboard as a box. The
      box can be held in place by the screws that you took out earlier.
      Note that a bit of duct tape is necessary to hold the top together.

Now you have a fancy detached keyboard for you H19 *plus* a handy storage
shelf when you're not using it. If you do the pizza box bit right, you even
have a nice reminder to order pizza when you start hacking.

And then there are the rumors about the guys that hooked up a VT52 in
parallel and got about 500 Kbaud thruput (it uses a microcoded engine
that prefers to receive characters from the uart rather than draw the
screen).

===============================================================================
Roger Ivie

35 S 300 W
Logan, Ut.  84321
(801) 752-8633
===============================================================================

I don't know if this counts as a terminal hack, but....

I was hired last summer to transfer some ancient records from an Apple ][+ onto
a DEC.  The Apple was using old PFS: FILE software, which has very proprietary
storage formats.  So what did I do?  I ran a serial cable from the Apple's
printer port (a card, actually) right into the DEC.  I told PFS: FILE to print
everything, letting *it* take care of decoding the information.  Meanwhile, I
had the DEC thinking that the cable ran to a terminal, and had it logging
everything that came across.

And the best thing was, it actually worked.

                      Ben Liblit
                      BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu
                      "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit."

In article <90045.160...@psuvm.psu.edu> BRL...@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) writes:
>I don't know if this counts as a terminal hack, but....
>
>I was hired last summer to transfer some ancient records from an Apple ][+ onto
>a DEC.  The Apple was using old PFS: FILE software, which has very proprietary
>storage formats.  So what did I do?  I ran a serial cable from the Apple's
>printer port (a card, actually) right into the DEC.  I told PFS: FILE to print
>everything, letting *it* take care of decoding the information.  Meanwhile, I
>had the DEC thinking that the cable ran to a terminal, and had it logging
>everything that came across.
>
>And the best thing was, it actually worked.
>
>                      Ben Liblit
>                      BRL102 @ psuvm.bitnet -- BRL102 @ psuvm.psu.edu
>                      "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit."

I did the same thing to a Summa/4 attached to a Siemens phone switch. My
client could not handle the volume of paper generated by the damn thing. 
The vendor said there was no way to download the records to a PC database,
so I hooked up the printer port of the Summa (serial) to the serial port
of the PC and had the Summa print it's most detailed report while running
Crosstalk on the PC to capture the whole thing. A quick program to parse
the resulting file for records and fields finished the job!

Fred B.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fred Buechler                           fr...@llama.rtech.com
Devil Mountain Consulting, Inc          71261...@compuserve.com
Concord, California                     # include <DISCLAIMERS.STD>
"Never test for an error condition that you don't know how to handle"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In article <90045.160...@psuvm.psu.edu> BRL...@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) writes:
>I was hired last summer to transfer some ancient records from an Apple ][+ onto
>a DEC. ...  I ran a serial cable from the Apple's
>printer port (a card, actually) right into the DEC...

I can beat that, or rather some friends of mine could.  This happened
close to 20 years ago.  Two pdp8 systems, with a file they wanted to transfer
from one to the other.  Incompatible disk drives, only one magtape, and
things like uucp were of course unheard-of then and there.  But both had
ASR33s as consoles.  They started the file printing to the console and
turned on the paper-tape punch.  Once enough of it had come out to reach
over to the other console, they threaded it into the paper-tape reader
there and started reading it in.

This worked fine, except for one little hitch:  the speed of an ASR33
is set by mechanical widgetry (everything in an ASR33 is mechanical...)
and they're not all at precisely the same speed.  They started out with
the two ASR33s across the room from each other.  By the time the file
transfer ended, they'd had to move them nose-to-nose, and the tape was
starting to get pretty taut...
-- 
"The N in NFS stands for Not, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
or Need, or perhaps Nightmare"| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry he...@zoo.toronto.edu

On the reverse slope of interesting hacks to transfer files, I worked at a
company that produced large technical manuals for its software and hardware
(200-300 pages).  The documentation people used one mini to type in and
edit these documents.  They were then printed out for proof reading by the
engineers.  Once corrected, they were printed out again in final format
and hand carried to another building where the print shop was.  There, they
were typed in again, proofed again, and printed.  I never could convince
them that there *had* to be a better way.  After all, this company sold
computer based systems (sigh).

					Andrew MacRae

A colleague of mine who spent some time working for a national security
agency a while back tells me that the "torn tape relay system" was
routinely used for forwarding telex bulletins.

In article <1990Feb16.0...@cs.rochester.edu> k...@cs.rochester.edu writes:
>A colleague of mine who spent some time working for a national security
>agency a while back tells me that the "torn tape relay system" was
>routinely used for forwarding telex bulletins.

Seems to me that the wire services used to do precisely the same thing, way
back when.

							spl (the p stands for
							punched paper tape
							chads make great
							confetti)
-- 
Steve Lamont, sciViGuy	(919) 248-1120		EMail:	s...@ncsc.org
NCSC, Box 12732, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
"That's People's Commissioner Tirebiter -- and NOBODY'S sweetheart!"
					- F. Scott Firesign

In article <90045.160...@psuvm.psu.edu>, BRL...@psuvm.psu.edu (Ben Liblit) writes:
> I was hired last summer to transfer some ancient records from an Apple ][+ onto
> a DEC.  The Apple was using old PFS: FILE software, which has very proprietary
> storage formats.  So what did I do?  I ran a serial cable from the Apple's
> printer port (a card, actually) right into the DEC.  I told PFS: FILE to print
> everything, letting *it* take care of decoding the information.  Meanwhile, I
> had the DEC thinking that the cable ran to a terminal, and had it logging
> everything that came across.
> 

In the old (pre-KERMIT) days around here, this scheme was formalized into
a program called VAXN8. The upload sequence used by VAXN8 was to issue
the command CREATE <file>, send the file to the host, and then send
a control-Z. The download sequence was to issue the command
TYPE <file>,SYS$MICRO:CNTLZ. were SYS$MICRO:CNTLZ. was a file containing
only a control-Z. The program would then capture all of the data sent
by the host on disk until it saw the control-Z.

VAXN8 existed in many versions for the various CP/M machines that
were popular at the time. I think there was even an Apple II version.

It seems that VAXN8 has died the death. I just checked and 
SYS$MICRO:CNTLZ. no longer exists. :-(

===============================================================================
Roger Ivie

35 S 300 W
Logan, Ut.  84321
(801) 752-8633
===============================================================================

I did the same thing, making a Cado (contel) computer think it was
printing, and it was actually dumping the files over the modem to my
Mac.  This was for a price sheet, and the company had NO other way to
do it - It was my first month using the Mac, too...  I was pretty
proud of myself for thinking of it.  So now what do I do?  About the
same.  If something isn't broken, don't fix it!
-- 

	-=Alan=-

	al...@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu