Alto II (was Re: PDP-8 prices

From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon Jan 25 17:57:27 1999

> > I had the same feeling when I looked at the bid. (The Alto is also near the
> > top of my list of Super-Cool Machines. It's much higher in Cool Use terms
> > than an Apple I, or an Altair, or even a straight -8. It may not be higher
> > in Cool Prestige terms than those machines, but that's OK.)
>
> Being something of an old workstation collector, I agree with you... Who
> cares if a machine isn't wanted by the masses. It can still be interesting...

Well, generally I'm an idealist but on some topics I'm quite pragmatic.
Since I have limited space and time, there's no point in collecting a
machine unless I can/will do something with it. And the Alto is definitely
interesting! It has some famous programs (the Smalltalk and Mesa languages,
the Bravo editor/word processor, a nice little core OS, even a few games
although I think they tax the machine's resources unfortunately). The
hardware design is interesting but generally comprehensible. And you're
allowed to write your own microcode. :)

And, of course, in a parallel universe it might have started the GUI move-
ment five years early if Xerox had actually sold it, instead of using it
(the Alto, and PARC in general) to damage itself (Xerox) so severly.

I was going to mention this before but couldn't find a place to fit it.
It's important not to confuse the Super-Cool Machines on my list with super-
cooled machines! :) I don't think I can reasonably support my own Cray.

> I am _always_ suspicious when a known collector offers a machine for sale
> in unknown/untested condition.

Is the seller a known collector, or an unknown collector from a known
domain (spies.com)?

> > Yeah, this thing would probably require some work to get and keep it
>
> Be warned that Xerox machines are nasty to work on. A lot of the chips
> might be standard, but they have house codes on them. And unlike HP 1820-
> numbers, no list of Xerox numbers seems to have got out. I've still got to
> figure out what the chips in the Daybreak are at some point...

Aargh, I didn't realize that. My visions of singlehandedly maintaining an
Altair are fading away. I thought it was also a problem to keep the CRTs on
any Xerox machine in good shape.

> > runnfing. For starters, you'd have to find disk packs, put software on
>
> Aren't the _blank_ disks the same as RK05 packs?

Maybe. They're 2.5 MB when formatted. There are some Alto manuals on the
Web (I don't seem to have the URL) which would give you a better idea.

> > The other reason the Altair is so high on my list is that I don't know of an
> > emulator. Anyone?
>
> Altair, or Alto? I'm not into emulators at all, but as the Alto has a few
> similarities with the PERQ (which I do know pretty well), I would have
> thought emulation one would have been non-trivial. Emulating a PERQ
> properly, even with all the docs, is non-trivial - there are all sorts of
> traps that you'd not expect.

Alto, of course. That was a silly mistake!

Well, the machine is obviously very rare. It's a pain to keep running. The
same may be true of the Star (probably to a lesser degree). I'm not going
to get one any time soon. I'd love to sit down and USE one for a few hours
(to see Smalltalk, generally get the feel of the physical hardware, play
with the 5-key keyset, and see how fast the machine runs -- including the
games!) but even THAT's not likely to happen. So that leaves an emulator.

But you're right. The emulator wouldn't just have to emulate a specific
CPU, it would have to emulate the microcode. At the least, you would have
to have 2-3 special-case emulators for 2-3 different instruction sets.
(Perhaps they would magically recognize the current microcode image and use
the appropriate instruction set.) And there's the disk hardware and the
video hardware to deal with as well.
Received on Mon Jan 25 1999 - 17:57:27 GMT