Does anyone have electronic copies? They’re not in the zips available.

"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@archeia.com> wrote in message
news:sf9i9b$1rft$1@gioia.aioe.org...
>
> Does anyone have electronic copies? They're not in the zips available.

Unfortunately, they don't exist. The original source was for a
photo-typesetter that hasn't existed for decades (and mostly likely is only
stored on 8" floppies that probably aren't readable even if the right
hardware was available).

The only way for them to exist is for someone to scan a printed version.

I have a single printed version in our archives (with installation
instructions for 8" floppies dated March 5, 1984). Its got someone's
hardwritten notes in it (it's not pristine). Anyway, since it is the only
known version, I won't let it out of the office, since it is literally
irreplaceable.

I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here) if someone
would want to convert that to something more usable. But since I'd have to
scan each page individually and the document is an inch thick give or take a
few millimeters, I'd need some compensation for the time. (I have lots of
things I could be doing that are either fun, make money, or advance Ada --
this is none of these!) Contact me privately if you want to discuss this
further.

BTW, since RRS still exists and never made a public version for any version
of Janus/Ada (including the CP/M versions) -- because all of the versions
are derived from the same original source and it is likely that some of the
compiler still survives from those versions) -- using it without a license
is technically infringing. I don't think there is much chance that anyone
would try to stop non-commercial use, but I would suggest getting legal if
anything commercial is involved. (And yes, we periodically get requests for
help with it from users that I would have expected to have moved on long
ago.)

Randy Brukardt, founder, R.R.
Software, Inc.

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
> I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
> figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here)

Do you think you could scan and post one page, maybe from the middle, so
we would know what we are dealing with?

On 17/08/2021 08:23, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Luke A. Guest" <laguest@archeia.com> wrote in message
> news:sf9i9b$1rft$1@gioia.aioe.org...
>>
>> Does anyone have electronic copies? They're not in the zips available.
>
> Unfortunately, they don't exist. The original source was for a
> photo-typesetter that hasn't existed for decades (and mostly likely is only
> stored on 8" floppies that probably aren't readable even if the right
> hardware was available).

There are a few retro youtube channels who could handle getting any old
hardware working if you have it and are willing to donate or lend it to
them, retro recipes, rmc, 8-bit guy, etc.

> The only way for them to exist is for someone to scan a printed version.
>
> I have a single printed version in our archives (with installation
> instructions for 8" floppies dated March 5, 1984). Its got someone's
> hardwritten notes in it (it's not pristine). Anyway, since it is the only
> known version, I won't let it out of the office, since it is literally
> irreplaceable.
>
> I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
> figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here) if someone

Maybe you should let someone come in with their own laptop and scanner
to do it.

> BTW, since RRS still exists and never made a public version for any version
> of Janus/Ada (including the CP/M versions) -- because all of the versions
> are derived from the same original source and it is likely that some of the
> compiler still survives from those versions) -- using it without a license
> is technically infringing. I don't think there is much chance that anyone
> would try to stop non-commercial use, but I would suggest getting legal if
> anything commercial is involved. (And yes, we periodically get requests for
> help with it from users that I would have expected to have moved on long
> ago.)

Seriously? Even Caldera released CP/M tot he public and Amstrad released
the source to the Spectrum ROM's.

On 2021-08-17 11:03, Paul Rubin wrote:
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
>> I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
>> figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here)
>
> Do you think you could scan and post one page, maybe from the middle, so
> we would know what we are dealing with?

I saw a few forums about reading 8" floppies. It looks quite doable.
Floppies are very reliable too, my old 3.5" floppies from 90's are still
readable. I think there are good chances of success.

Conversion from typesetting to HTML would be a neat Ada program... (:-))

--
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

On 17/08/2021 10:16, Luke A. Guest wrote:

>> BTW, since RRS still exists and never made a public version for any
>> version
>> of Janus/Ada (including the CP/M versions) -- because all of the versions
>> are derived from the same original source and it is likely that some
>> of the
>> compiler still survives from those versions) -- using it without a
>> license
>> is technically infringing. I don't think there is much chance that anyone
>> would try to stop non-commercial use, but I would suggest getting
>> legal if
>> anything commercial is involved. (And yes, we periodically get
>> requests for
>> help with it from users that I would have expected to have moved on long
>> ago.)
>
> Seriously? Even Caldera released CP/M tot he public and Amstrad released
> the source to the Spectrum ROM's.

Having an official public release would be good for historical reasons.
Having the source would be even better, for curios like me who have been
wondering how old 8-bit compilers worked.

On 17/08/2021 10:16, Luke A. Guest wrote:
> On 17/08/2021 08:23, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>> "Luke A. Guest" <laguest@archeia.com> wrote in message
>> news:sf9i9b$1rft$1@gioia.aioe.org...

>> stored on 8" floppies that probably aren't readable even if the right
>> hardware was available).
>
> There are a few retro youtube channels who could handle getting any old
> hardware working if you have it and are willing to donate or lend it to
> them, retro recipes, rmc, 8-bit guy, etc.

8-bit guy definitely had a drive that worked, has a video on it, don't
know if he still has it.

"Luke A. Guest" <laguest@archeia.com> wrote in message
news:sffuqj$1br8$1@gioia.aioe.org...
> On 17/08/2021 08:23, Randy Brukardt wrote:
....
>> The only way for them to exist is for someone to scan a printed version.
>>
>> I have a single printed version in our archives (with installation
>> instructions for 8" floppies dated March 5, 1984). Its got someone's
>> hardwritten notes in it (it's not pristine). Anyway, since it is the only
>> known version, I won't let it out of the office, since it is literally
>> irreplaceable.
>>
>> I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
>> figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here) if someone
>
> Maybe you should let someone come in with their own laptop and scanner to
> do it.

That would be an option; I didn't think of it as the last person that wanted
it was in Scandinavia and visiting Madison WI would be far more expense than
giving me a few hundred dollars to do it. If there is some US-based person
that wants to do that, the dynamics are different.

>Having an official public release would be good for historical reasons.

Most likely don't have the capability to make such a release (I do have a
Z-80 CP/M machine in storage, but it's unlikely to boot - S-100 machines
stored a year usually needed extensive cleaning of contacts to work, after
20 years...).

> Having the source would be even better, for curios like me who have been
> wondering how old 8-bit compilers worked.

So far as I know, that's (partially) lost. I had moved it to dual 5 1/4"
floppies, and I was asked to throw out all of the redundant stuff to save
space when we moved to a smaller space. When I was retiring the last working
machine with 5 1/4", I decided to move it into our version control, but was
unable to read all of the floppies. So parts are lost. That's OK from an RRS
perspective, as we wouldn't use an ancient code generator in anything new
anyway (it would need to hook to the modern optimizer/static analyzer, so it
would need a full redo anyway). I did manage to get the runtime into our
version control, something that would be a lot more work to reproduce.

In any case, parts of the source (and more importantly, design) are still in
use so giving it away isn't really an option.

Randy.

"Paul Rubin" <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:878s10jvdc.fsf@nightsong.com...
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
>> I've offered to others to scan it to PDFs (one per page, that's all I can
>> figure out how to do on our cheap multifunction machine here)
>
> Do you think you could scan and post one page, maybe from the middle, so
> we would know what we are dealing with?

That I can do. See

http://www.rrsoftware.com/archives/CPM-doc-sample.zip

There are three pages in here, one from the 3.3 upgrade text, and two from
the regular 3.2 printed manual. (I don't think there ever was a consolidated
version.)

Looking at this in more detail, it looks like the original documentation was
printed on the NEC Spinwriter with a special font and ribbon. The formatting
program was something we built, it was related to the typesetter version but
that might have been a bit later.

The 3.3 update seems to have been printed on a lousy dot matrix printer,
probably whatever we were using at the time. That's why I scanned a sample
of each. The 3.3 update seems to be an MS-DOS version, unfortunately (it
talks about 8087 at one point); for the most part those were the same but
there is probably some CP/M specific stuff that's missing.

I haven't been able to get the HP scanning software to work reliably on our
network, so I have to scan each page individually and e-mail it to myself.
That works fine for things that are just a single page (like invoices) but
gets real old for a large document. (There are about eight steps on the tiny
touch screen of the printer for each page.) Not sure that it would be much
easier even with the software, because I'd still have to go into the other
room and change each page to be scanned (no feeder on this scanner).

Randy.

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
> room and change each page to be scanned (no feeder on this scanner).

It might be easier to just photograph all the pages with a phone. That
would be harder to OCR than good quality scans, but at least it would
preserve the contents.

"Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
> it looks like the original documentation was printed on the NEC
> Spinwriter... The 3.3 update seems to have been printed on a lousy
> dot matrix printer,

Any idea of the total number of pages involved? The Spinwriter text is
quite readable and probably OCR-able, not counting the handwritten
notes. The dot matrix update would be more difficult.

Den 2021-08-20 kl. 07:25, skrev Paul Rubin:
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
>> room and change each page to be scanned (no feeder on this scanner).
>
> It might be easier to just photograph all the pages with a phone. That
> would be harder to OCR than good quality scans, but at least it would
> preserve the contents.
>

Or film it while this device turns the pages?

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir5ZanXy6nc>

--
Björn

"Paul Rubin" <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:87v940mttd.fsf@nightsong.com...
> "Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com> writes:
>> it looks like the original documentation was printed on the NEC
>> Spinwriter... The 3.3 update seems to have been printed on a lousy
>> dot matrix printer,
>
> Any idea of the total number of pages involved? The Spinwriter text is
> quite readable and probably OCR-able, not counting the handwritten
> notes. The dot matrix update would be more difficult.

I can't easily tell; the pages are numbered by chapter (2-3, 4-5, 8-4,
etc.). It's about 19 mm (using a ruler) of 24 lb paper (we printed these
things to last), including 4 heavy dividers. So it's probably not a huge
number. I guessed 200+ when I was trying to figure out how much time it
would take me to deal with it.) BTW, some of the pages have yellow
highlights as well. I don't think that would cause problems for an OCR, but
I don't know.

Note that a lot of the manual is a basic outline of Ada; the original manual
was created back in the early days of Ada when other material wasn't readily
available. But it also includes details and limitations on the various
features, which is interesting for a subset. So just skipping that material
isn't a great idea.

Randy.