[HECnet] VAX/Smalltalk-80

[Keith Halewood]

I got it ‘working’ but missing the uVMS Workstation support... that and not having a VT125. Remember the VMI files need to be 512 byte fixed records because they’re mapped in.

> On 7 Apr 2020, at 22:15, Thomas DeBellis <tommytimesharing at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, that is pretty awesome!
> 
> I don't suppose any flavor of Smalltalk ever made it over to the PDP-10?  I think Object Oriented Lisp (Lisp with Flavors) may have made it.
> 
> There was a graphics device called a Type 340 Precision Incremental CRT Display which was used on the PDP-6 and available on the KA-10.  I saw one at MIT on MIT-AI (ITS).  Since Tenex started out on a KA-10, it is available there, too.
> 
> I never heard of it on the KI-10 but I believe it was possible. For internal memory on the 20, probably not.  Tops-20 has certain small traces of the device.
> 
> However, SIMH does in fact implement the Type 340; apparently, fully.  You can a pop-up window with all the dots in the right places.  I had started investigating porting some of that code to KLH10.  One assumes with the SIMH KL, it could be made available. It's an interesting thought.
> 
>> On 4/7/20 4:46 PM, mark at wickensonline.co.uk wrote:
>> Wow!
>> 
>> Thank you for this! Not only is Smalltalk interesting in itself, but this an excellent example of VAX Macro-32 too!
>> I will attempt to assemble + compile the application.
>> It looks like it is using VS II user interface libraries. That will be the first hurdle to compile it on a machine with the appropriate library and graphics - I'm thinking here maybe on of Matt's graphical versions of SIMH?
>> 
>> Thanks, Mark.
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of John H. Reinhardt
>> Sent: 07 April 2020 15:15
>> To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
>> Subject: Re: [HECnet] VAX/Smalltalk-80
>> 
>>> On 4/7/2020 7:45 AM, Nigel Williams wrote:
>>> See below for a link to a g-drive file containing a ZIP archive of the DEC research group implementation of Smalltalk for the VAX.
>>> 
>>> If someone has a VT125 to try it on I would appreciate seeing an image of the screen with Smalltalk running.
>>> 
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>> 
>>>> *From:* Nigel Williams <nw at retroComputingTasmania.com>
>>>> *Date:* 7 April 2020 at 10:33:55 pm AEST
>>>> *To:* John Ames <commodorejohn at gmail.com>
>>>> *Subject:* *Re:  VAX/Smalltalk-80?*
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>>> On 2 Apr 2020, at 10:08 am, John Ames via cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>>>>> I know from the book "Smalltalk-80: Bits of History, Words of Advice"
>>>> Thanks for the reminder about the VMS version, as you likely know
>>>> their paper about VAX Smalltalk was in an early DEC Technical Journal
>>>> too.
>>>> 
>>>>> ...while the second ran under VMS and was actually developed within
>>>>> DEC. This version - VAX/Smalltalk-80 - was headed up by Stoney
>>>>> Ballard and Stephen Shirron; anybody know if there's a surviving
>>>>> copy out there, if it was ever available outside DEC to begin with?
>>>> I contacted Stephen and he kindly provided a ZIP
>>>> 
>>>> https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NvO-ULropJ9xyT-WFqalXY79FBt6tdfB
>>>> 
>>>> I had a quick look and it will need an early VMS I suspect, around
>>>> version 4.x (might work on a later version).
>>>> 
>>>> cheers,
>>>> nigel.
>> Very cool.  I have the three (?) popular books about smalltalk-80 from the 80's. I'll have to dig them out along with the DEC Tech Journal (If I have it).
>> 
>> --
>> John H. Reinhardt
>> 
>>