[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2310 bytes --] I personally lost two friends and former colleagues recently that these list probably wants to know about. I just heard from Lynne Jolitz, Bill's wife. It seems he passed away about a month ago after a long illness. Most of you know he was the original force behind the BSD 386 development. I know little more than what I have just reported at this time, but will pass on any info as I learn it. Also in other news, not Unix related, but PDP-11 and the computer graphics world. We lost Jack Burness a few weeks ago. Jack was the author of the original "Moonlander" for the PDP-11 with which many of us wasted many hours trying to pick up "a Big Mac with fries" at "Mare Assabet." [Note: There was no WWW/Wikipedia in those days to find it, but to look up Assabet River, so many people naively thought it was a legitimate lunar landmark - its the River that the DEC Maynard bldg sits]. He was a larger than life person [his joke's mailing list was a whos-who of the computer industry - it was an honor to be on it]. We all have a passel of stories about Jack. I have written separately about Jack a number of times and if you have never looked at the source to Moonlander, you own it yourself to read it. Remember he wrote it as a throw-away demo for the GT-40 for trade show [his integer transcendental funcs are quite instructive]. As one of the folks on the Masscomp Alumni list put it, 'Jack was someone that just does not deserve to die.' This is the announcement Maureen published in the DEC Alumni list. ************************** January 20, 2022 ******************************** Our sincere condolences to Maureen Burness and all friends in CXO and elsewhere on the passing of her husband, *Jack Burness*, 75, Colorado Springs, who left us on January 20, 2022. Maureen said: With his bigger than life personality, humor, and intellect, he was loved and respected by so many people, including his devoted family. Born in Brooklyn, NY in 1946, he received his Engineering Degree from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and was employed by DEC, Maynard in the early days and then here in Colorado Springs. Many of you knew he had a huge appetite for the outdoors of Colorado and Martha’s Vineyard and joined him in his sometimes-disastrous adventures. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3900 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1745 bytes --] On Fri, 8 Apr 2022, Clem Cole wrote: [...] > Also in other news, not Unix related, but PDP-11 and the computer > graphics world. We lost Jack Burness a few weeks ago. Jack was the > author of the original "Moonlander" for the PDP-11 with which many of us > wasted many hours trying to pick up "a Big Mac with fries" at "Mare > Assabet." [Note: There was no WWW/Wikipedia in those days to find it, > but to look up Assabet River, so many people naively thought it was a > legitimate lunar landmark - its the River that the DEC Maynard bldg > sits]. He was a larger than life person [his joke's mailing list was a > whos-who of the computer industry - it was an honor to be on it]. We all > have a passel of stories about Jack. I have written separately about > Jack a number of times and if you have never looked at the source to > Moonlander, you own it yourself to read it. Remember he wrote it as a > throw-away demo for the GT-40 for trade show [his integer > transcendental funcs are quite instructive]. As one of the folks on > the Masscomp Alumni list put it, 'Jack was someone that just does not > deserve to die.' I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume is reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and modifying it for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also implemented reverse gravity... Eventually DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch registers if they'd suspected that they were used for playing it :-) The GT-40 had a primitive loader; it was Craig McGregor of the CSU (UNSW) who used it to download an 8-bit loader for things like Lunar Lander (I only wrote a simple "Life" program for it, using the light-pen). -- Dave
On Sat, 9 Apr 2022, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume is
> reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and modifying
> it for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also implemented
> reverse gravity...
Oops; reverse gravity (for the Sun) was implemented for Space Wars (or
whatever it was called; this was ~40 years ago, so don't expect my memory
to be the best).
-- Dave
i do fondly remember the gt-40 and the many hours playing on it.
and i do remember the DEC engineers being bothered about replacing the registers.
> On Apr 8, 2022, at 3:29 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume is
> reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and modifying it
> for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also implemented reverse
> gravity...
>
> Eventually DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch registers if
> they'd suspected that they were used for playing it :-)
>
> The GT-40 had a primitive loader; it was Craig McGregor of the CSU (UNSW)
> who used it to download an 8-bit loader for things like Lunar Lander (I
> only wrote a simple "Life" program for it, using the light-pen).
>
> -- Dave
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 280 bytes --] I've never met anyone who did more than play on a gt40, myself included. I suspect it was something DEC sales loved, but maybe it made a lot less profit than vt52s, decwriters and other io devices attached to your normal 11 chassis. Perhaps some architects made good use of it? [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 356 bytes --]
George Michaelson wrote:
> I've never met anyone who did more than play on a gt40, myself included. I
> suspect it was something DEC sales loved, but maybe it made a lot less
> profit than vt52s, decwriters and other io devices attached to your normal
> 11 chassis.
>
> Perhaps some architects made good use of it?
Inside DEC they were used (with DEC-20s) to run the Stanford SUDS CAD software.
p
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1451 bytes --] Feels like a good fit. If they'd got into the right hands in a uni they'd have been doing the same thing, but my personal sense was they mostly got to CS departments, small volumes went to people with real world 2D and 3D design drive, and when commodity high res scan displays went mass market then CAD bust out and rotring pen shares went south. There was this weird dichotomy that architecture schools would have analogue computers because air conditioning engineers used them, but they had to walk to the computer centre to do programming (this was my experience at Leeds uni basically) Vector graphics were sweet-as. People liked pixels better. More people would have experienced vector scan as asteroids or the tank game that made it into video game parlours but by then 75% plus of the cabinets were raster displays. The Tektronix 4010 at York was almost always free, people went to the apl decwriter before they'd use it. I really loved it! On Sat, 9 Apr 2022, 10:54 am Phil Budne, <phil@ultimate.com> wrote: > George Michaelson wrote: > > I've never met anyone who did more than play on a gt40, myself > included. I > > suspect it was something DEC sales loved, but maybe it made a lot less > > profit than vt52s, decwriters and other io devices attached to your > normal > > 11 chassis. > > > > Perhaps some architects made good use of it? > > Inside DEC they were used (with DEC-20s) to run the Stanford SUDS CAD > software. > p > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1956 bytes --]
Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume
>> is reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and
>> modifying it for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also
>> implemented reverse gravity...
> Oops; reverse gravity (for the Sun) was implemented for Space Wars (or
> whatever it was called; this was ~40 years ago, so don't expect my memory
> to be the best).
I wonder how many GT40 Spacewar implementations there were?
I have seen two: one from MIT, the other from Stanford.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1137 bytes --] The PDP-11/40 in the University of Toronto's Computer Research Facility (CRF) had a GT-40, and the lead EE prof there loved the screen editor RT-11 provided for it. I never used it, but I was intrigued. (I did land the LM a few times, though. More than a few.) Across the raised floor aisle was the PDP-11/45, which ran Unix from 5PM to 8AM if I remember right, RT-11 the rest of the time, until some date around 1976 or 1977 (?), when Unix became an unstoppable force for innovation. -rob On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 4:35 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org> wrote: > Dave Horsfall wrote: > >> I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume > >> is reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and > >> modifying it for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also > >> implemented reverse gravity... > > Oops; reverse gravity (for the Sun) was implemented for Space Wars (or > > whatever it was called; this was ~40 years ago, so don't expect my > memory > > to be the best). > > I wonder how many GT40 Spacewar implementations there were? > I have seen two: one from MIT, the other from Stanford. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1555 bytes --]
If I recall there was a GT40 up on the fourth floor of UMCP's CS
building. I don't remember spacewar, but there was a luner lander game
where you tried to land near the lunar McDonalds (if you crashed in to
it, it chided you for destroying the only McDonalds on the moon).
------ Original Message ------
From: "Lars Brinkhoff" <lars@nocrew.org>
>I wonder how many GT40 Spacewar implementations there were?
>I have seen two: one from MIT, the other from Stanford.
Hi, Dave Horsfall wrote: > Eventually DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch registers > if they'd suspected that they were used for playing it :-) Andrew Hume wrote: > i do remember the DEC engineers being bothered about replacing the > registers. There's nothing at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre)#Lunar_Lander_(1973) about the switch registers being worn by playing Burness's Moonlander. What's the connection? There are a couple of links from that section to interesting pages with quotes from Burness, https://www.acriticalhit.com/moonlander-one-giant-leap-for-game-design https://www.technologizer.com/2009/07/19/lunar-lander/ which include a photo that's captioned as Burness and Moonlander from circa '74: https://www.acriticalhit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/unnamed-LG-2.png -- Cheers, Ralph.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1168 bytes --] There was a hack to stop the game and reload fuel and go 4000 to continue. Maybe people who did not expect the front console to be used so heavily broke the funky rocker switches. G On Sat, 9 Apr 2022, 8:46 pm Ralph Corderoy, <ralph@inputplus.co.uk> wrote: > Hi, > > Dave Horsfall wrote: > > Eventually DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch registers > > if they'd suspected that they were used for playing it :-) > > Andrew Hume wrote: > > i do remember the DEC engineers being bothered about replacing the > > registers. > > There's nothing at > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre)#Lunar_Lander_(1973) > about the switch registers being worn by playing Burness's Moonlander. > What's the connection? > > There are a couple of links from that section to interesting pages with > quotes from Burness, > https://www.acriticalhit.com/moonlander-one-giant-leap-for-game-design > https://www.technologizer.com/2009/07/19/lunar-lander/ > which include a photo that's captioned as Burness and Moonlander from > circa '74: > > https://www.acriticalhit.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/unnamed-LG-2.png > > -- > Cheers, Ralph. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2111 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1323 bytes --] On Sat, Apr 9, 2022, 2:10 AM Rob Pike <robpike@gmail.com> wrote: > The PDP-11/40 in the University of Toronto's Computer Research Facility > (CRF) had a GT-40, and the lead EE prof there loved the screen editor RT-11 > provided for it. I never used it, but I was intrigued. (I did land the LM a > few times, though. More than a few.) > > Across the raised floor aisle was the PDP-11/45, which ran Unix from 5PM > to 8AM if I remember right, RT-11 the rest of the time, until some date > around 1976 or 1977 (?), when Unix became an unstoppable force for > innovation. > Also the approximate date of the rt11 emulation being viable on Unix... Warner -rob > > > On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 4:35 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars@nocrew.org> wrote: > >> Dave Horsfall wrote: >> >> I have fond memories of playing it on the GT-40, and if Andrew Hume >> >> is reading this he'll remember reverse-engineering the code and >> >> modifying it for three-play operation; I think Peter Ivanov also >> >> implemented reverse gravity... >> > Oops; reverse gravity (for the Sun) was implemented for Space Wars (or >> > whatever it was called; this was ~40 years ago, so don't expect my >> memory >> > to be the best). >> >> I wonder how many GT40 Spacewar implementations there were? >> I have seen two: one from MIT, the other from Stanford. >> > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2310 bytes --]
the connection is that these are switch registers on the front panel.
they ae designed for occasional use, not for long sessions with
multiple people flipping them on and off for hours on end.
they did last well, but its certainly not what they were designed for.
> On Apr 9, 2022, at 3:46 AM, Ralph Corderoy <ralph@inputplus.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> Eventually DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch registers
>> if they'd suspected that they were used for playing it :-)
>
> Andrew Hume wrote:
>> i do remember the DEC engineers being bothered about replacing the
>> registers.
>
> There's nothing at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre)#Lunar_Lander_(1973)
> about the switch registers being worn by playing Burness's Moonlander.
> What's the connection?
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 385 bytes --] On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 5:29 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote: > If I recall there was a GT40 up on the fourth floor of UMCP's CS > building. I don't remember spacewar, but there was a luner lander game > where you tried to land near the lunar McDonalds (if you crashed in to > it, it chided you for destroying the only McDonalds on the moon). > > That's Jack's Moonlander. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 922 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1342 bytes --] > On 9 Apr 2022, at 17:23, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > > > On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 5:29 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com <mailto:ron@ronnatalie.com>> wrote: > If I recall there was a GT40 up on the fourth floor of UMCP's CS > building. I don't remember spacewar, but there was a luner lander game > where you tried to land near the lunar McDonalds (if you crashed in to > it, it chided you for destroying the only McDonalds on the moon). > > That's Jack's Moonlander. It is OK for you Americans. We ran the GT40 in Scotland about 1974 (2nd year undergrad). When the astronaut got out and said “a big mac to go” we had absolutely no idea what he was talking about! “a big mac” meant nothing and “to go” was just bad grammar. Worse grammar than the split infinitives in star trek. I am sure we did not have a Macdonalds in Scotland at that time. We did have KFC under the uni - many a late-night chew while solving programming problems …. But Macdonalds? They were well into the 80s…... It was years later before any of us actually understood what was being said, but yes, a great way to spend debugging hours in the early hours of the morning. I can only just remember the use of the light pen - was that for thrust? I have no recollection of any keyboard inputs. Iain [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2646 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1851 bytes --] Knowing Jack, I think I safely say he would have been amused by the different reactions. Just remember when he wrote that I do not think there was a mikyd’s anywhere close to Maynard. Jack was a child of the Bronx which made his love of the outdoors all the more real. Maynard (Mare Assabet) really was desolate in comparison. On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 6:14 AM Dr Iain Maoileoin < iain@csp-partnership.co.uk> wrote: > > On 9 Apr 2022, at 17:23, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > > > On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 5:29 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote: > >> If I recall there was a GT40 up on the fourth floor of UMCP's CS >> building. I don't remember spacewar, but there was a luner lander game >> where you tried to land near the lunar McDonalds (if you crashed in to >> it, it chided you for destroying the only McDonalds on the moon). >> >> That's Jack's Moonlander. > > > It is OK for you Americans. We ran the GT40 in Scotland about 1974 (2nd > year undergrad). > > When the astronaut got out and said “a big mac to go” we had absolutely > no idea what he was talking about! > “a big mac” meant nothing and “to go” was just bad grammar. Worse grammar > than the split infinitives in star trek. > > I am sure we did not have a Macdonalds in Scotland at that time. We did > have KFC under the uni - many a late-night chew while solving programming > problems …. > But Macdonalds? They were well into the 80s…... > > It was years later before any of us actually understood what was being > said, but yes, a great way to spend debugging hours in the early hours of > the morning. > I can only just remember the use of the light pen - was that for thrust? > I have no recollection of any keyboard inputs. > > Iain > -- Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3108 bytes --]