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- Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!SNYBUFVA.BITNET!TARKA10
- From: TARKA10@SNYBUFVA.BITNET (Mark Tarka)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
- Subject: DEC Rainbow -- CP/M or MS-DOS?
- Message-ID: <01GR70VLMXK2B8JPS4@SNYBUFVA.BITNET>
- Date: 16 Nov 92 02:56:39 GMT
- Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
- Distribution: world
- Organization: from SUNY College at Buffalo, NY 14222
- Lines: 49
-
- Yes, it's another ugly baby to you, but she's my baby now.
-
- The DEC Rainbow. I'm a new owner. I've got little in the way of documentation
- beyond the introductory material, and not much in the way of software (MSDOS
- ver. 3.10, CP/M 86/80 ver. 2.0, Pibterm). I still have the notion that the
- device can be used in a scientific environment (nothing fancy -- Fortran and
- Basic computation...Pascal?...some interfacing to instrumentation). However,
- I've found nothing "out there" which works on my unit, except an unARChiving
- utility called PK361, which I obtained by anonymous FTP from a mil.net server
- called SIMTEL20; of course, I haven't checked each and every available file, but
-
- when I see the phrase "for IBM or IBM-compatible PC's", I just stop and dump
- that file, unless I think there's something in it that I can extract.
-
- Now, from the position that I don't know a thing about PC architecture or moving
-
- programs from system to system, I do have a handle on these preliminaries: the
- heart of the Rainbow includes a Z-80 muP and an Intel-like 8088 (which is akin
- to an 8086 except for the appetite -- one byte vs two at a time); I have played
- with the MSDOS assembler, Debug.
-
- Here's a litany of questions:
-
- 1. Will I find it possible, or even useful to attempt to adapt existing
-
- software written for, say, IBM, to the Rainbow (the 8088 was in both, at
- one time).
- 2. If 1 is worthwhile, what resources (books...) might be available,
- where I can learn to make conversions?
- 3. Is there anyone on the list with a Rainbow needing a new home, or
- any hardware, software, or documentation which can be put to use at my
- location (I believe I've collected enough cans to cover shipping costs)?
-
- I'm not looking to install windows or a highpower text processor, but am in need
-
- of a terminal emulator which will coordinate a bit better with the WordPerfect
- application on the campus VAX; I don't know what else may be required.
-
- If someone has any comments, advice, or donations, we can have a talk on or off
- the list.
-
- Yeh, I know, it's just not worth it. So I can better spend my time fishing with
-
- dynamite?
-
- Mark Tarka
- Chemistry Dept.;Buffalo State College; 1300 Elmwood Ave.;
- Buffalo, NY, 14222-1095; USA. (716)878-6686. TARKA10@SNYBSCVA
-
-