Patching Multi-User BASIC to run without a disk-drive

[mail@gabrielegan.com]

In order to teach BASIC to a class of students without buying one Altair clone for each of them, I need to use Multi-User BASIC so I can run three terminals off each computer. But for the purposes of teaching the elements of computing I prefer to have the students boot from paper-tape after toggling in a boot-loader. That is, I intend to conceal from the students the existence of the MBL prom and the existence of the disk drives. So, my question is: can Multi-User BASIC run without the disk-drive?

I know it lacks the CLOAD and CSAVE commands so we'd have to figure out another way to save programs (listing them to the paper-tape punch is the obvious solution) but I suspect that the problem is worse than that and Multi-User BASIC actually needs the floppy-disk as part of its operation. Does anyone know if that's true? If it is, does anyone know if there's another solution that would enable me to have six simultaneous users of BASIC on two Altairs without using the floppy-disk?

Gabriel Egan

[toml_12953]

I use the Wang 3300 Emulator. It can run 4 terminals (plus console) on a standard PC. You can start it running on the PC then just let the students turn on the terminals to use it. The only I/O is SAVE (to paper tape) and LOAD (again, from paper tape) Of course you'd have to have ASR terminals to use SAVE or LOAD.

http://www.wang3300.org/

Tom Lake

[AltairClone]

As a compromise, you could require entry of a front panel bootstrap and the physical load of a papertape as part of the process to boot disk-based Timesharing BASIC. See http://youtu.be/FKNayPnZT54.

There actually was a non-disk based version of TS BASIC, but I've never seen a copy.

Mike

[mail@gabrielegan.com]

Thanks Tom for the pointer to the Wang emulator. Got it running but I can't see how I could have multiple students using BASIC all at once as the virtual terminals all appear on the one PC screen. Also, I'm really rather invested in doing this with the Altair clone.

Mike: I'll do some trawling to see if that non-disk Timeshare BASIC is anywhere on the web. I imagine, though, that you'd already have found it if it is.

Regards

Gabriel Egan

[toml_12953]

Thanks Tom for the pointer to the Wang emulator. Got it running but I can't see how I could have multiple students using BASIC all at once as the virtual terminals all appear on the one PC screen. Also, I'm really rather invested in doing this with the Altair clone.

Regards

Gabriel Egan

If you ever decide to give the 3300 a shot here's the sequence:

1. Click on System then Configure.... (it's the only menu choice)
2. Uncheck Regulated CPU Speed if you want decent response time with terminals faster than the default 110 baud Teletype.
3. Select the number of terminals from the drop down box. I was wrong about that. I said you could have 4. The actual number is 8 (plus PC console) but with a 64K machine, each terminal wouldn't have much RAM! Once you set the number of terminals a Config Term button will appear for each terminal you selected.
4. Now click on the button marked Config Term #n (where n is a number from 1 to the number of terminals you specified)
5. Check the box marked Associate serial port with terminal
6. Set your COM port, Baud Rate, Parity, Bits/Byte, Stop Bits and Flow control
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for each terminal
8. Click OK.
You have to generate a version of BASIC for each number of terminals you specify. This will set up the proper partitions. The download comes with versions for one or two terminals but to use more you have to sysgen another version. I can help with that if you decide to try it.

Tom Lake

[mail@gabrielegan.com]

Thanks, Tom, that's very cool.

Gabriel Egan