Questions tagged [dec]
For questions regarding the hardware, software and peripheral products of DEC - The Digital Equipment Corporation.
49 questions
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What is the line separator (end of line) character of textfiles of the VMS operating system?
CP/M and MS-DOS had several characteristics are derived from DEC operating systems, such as Control-Z EOF, the coloned device name (drive letter) prefix of file identifiers, 3-character filename ...
4
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2
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Searching for DEC RP04 disk drive operation information
I am searching for information on the operation of the DEC RP04 disk drive. I found several manuals, such as the "RP04 moving head disk subsystem maintenance manual" and the "RP04 ...
3
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0
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What DEC PDP-11 document did these pages come from?
What DEC PDP-11 document did these pages come from?
Around 1978-1981 I photocopied a section of a DEC PDP-11 document.
Now I'm trying to figure out what document that was.
The system we had then was a ...
1
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2
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DEC's "decimal ASCII"?
I'm reading some older FOCAL documents and see references to things like...
SETS X TO THE DECIMAL ASCII CODE OF THE INPUT CHARACTER
A bit later there is a table of these codes, and unless I am not ...
3
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0
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Original DECUS version of Sumer in FOCAL?
I was sure I had a copy of Diamont's Sumer in FOCAL, but now I can't find a trace of it on my machines or online.
Does anyone have a copy of the original code?
21
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2
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What was this mini-computer tape troubleshooting process
Back in the early 1980s I worked at a bank. My department input data into a mini-computer which was then to a mainframe system each day. I'm pretty sure it was a DEC mini, if only because the ...
3
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1
answer
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What disk packs are compatible with the DEC RM05?
While the majority of DEC's PDP-11 systems used UNIBUS or QBUS based peripherals for storage, some of the larger PDP-11s, along with larger machines such as the DECsystem 20 and the VAX-11/780 used ...
12
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What did Richard Stallman have against VMS?
Richard Stallman of course was an advocate of free software, and VMS was proprietary, so he would've disapproved of it on that basis alone. (To be clear, I am not discussing here whether he was right ...
8
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1
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DEC RdbStar information?
I'm putting together an article on TPC-C, and while chasing down leads its primary author mentioned the RdbStar project at DEC.
As he described it, the manager of DEC's storage department (Jim Grey? ...
5
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3
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Performance characteristics of the DEC Type 30 graphical display
The DEC Type 30 was an early vector graphics display, that was used for an astonishingly wide range of applications for the 1960s. It used a 16-inch circular CRT with high persistence phosphor ...
5
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2
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Understanding PALcode
Reading over some old articles on Alpha I realized I really didn't understand PALcode. So I did a little reading on that.
PALcode is stored in main memory, is written in Alpha ML, and is called by a ...
15
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Did the PDP-8 designers consider a stack?
The PDP-8 was a remarkable exercise in minimalist computer design; some of the aspects of its design are discussed in detail at PDP-8 transistor count
One feature it did not have was a stack. Instead, ...
5
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3
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Was there an analog of local labels in the IBM assembly language?
In the assembly language used in Unix on DEC machines (PDP-11, VAX), one can use numerical labels and refer to them with suffixes "b" and "f" meaning "backwards" and &...
7
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2
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Behavior of DECDHL on single lines
The escape sequences ESC # 3 and ESC # 4 (DECDHL) are meant to be used on pairs on adjacent lines to request double height lines. As an example:
echo -e "\e#3DOUBLE HEIGHT LINE\n\e#4DOUBLE HEIGHT ...
3
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1
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Porting of software from the m68k family architecture to the DEC VAX
I am looking for impressions, memoirs, articles, guidelines - everything that is possible about the unusual direction of software migration. I am interested in non-Unix related code, and preferably ...