[HECnet] VAX/Smalltalk-80

[Dave McGuire]

  I have a VT125, I'd love to try this at some point.

          -Dave

On 4/7/20 6:00 PM, Keith Halewood wrote:
> 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
>>>
>>>


-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA