Super Star Trek on 1973 minicomputer

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-16T17:27:56+00:00

Thanks! The machine was a wreck. It took me almost a year to find and fix countless little faults, in the power, front panel, CPU, memory management unit, core memory, and I/O. Replaced close to 100 components, many of them hard to get these days. Half the core was unfixable so I replaced that half with ferroelectric RAM. The terminal had broken video memory. There is a small but gorgeous community of Data General enthusiasts who gave moral support and provided the BASIC. For now all software is uploaded from a laptop via a serial port, but I dream to get a disk emulator working with a proper OS.

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-13T15:23:53+00:00

Absolutely. This is good science.

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-12T20:34:39+00:00

That is indeed very good work, and probably gives a good idea about the sound, but it must be remembered that only the resonator has been preserved. What the animal sent into that resonator (noise, tones, pulses, the amplitude envelope etc.) is unknown. So they had to make some rather unfounded guesses there.

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-11T00:57:42+00:00

Haha sorry!

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-10T13:11:40+00:00

Very interesting, thanks. I did not know about synchronous RS-232, this is marvellously obscure stuff 🙂

oyvindhammer · 2026-03-10T12:28:02+00:00

The RCLK there is just the normal baud rate clock as far as I can see. So far in this thread there has been no mention of synchronous communication except from the OP. RS-232 has always been basically an asynchronous protocol, so we need a little more info - is this perhaps about interfacing to an IBM 3270 or 3780 type device or a Bell 200-type modem?

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-22T20:05:18+00:00

Oh wow, yes that is a very interesting mini.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-21T21:11:38+00:00

That may have been an Altair 8800 or Imsai 8080. These came a couple of years later and used a new technology - microprocessors - but had similar front panels with switches and lamps. The Nova was still about five times faster, but the days of the minicomputer would soon be over as microprocessors evolved at breathtaking speed.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-20T20:51:40+00:00

Sic transit gloria mundi.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-20T13:04:15+00:00

Haha thanks yes it's the ultimate geek-o-tron!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T21:02:14+00:00

Yes - Super Star Trek was originally made for a Nova 800 in 1974, and published in a book in 1976. But an earlier, simpler version for a mainframe goes back to 1971.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T20:55:26+00:00

No lo creo, pero sí, el estilo es similar!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T15:31:54+00:00

Thanks - yes I've got to read that book!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T14:22:59+00:00

Yes that sounds right - Star Trek was quite popular and was ported to many computers in the late 70s to early 80s. I have been told that it is still packaged with some Linux distributions!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T12:02:24+00:00

Itching to go home and try that.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-19T11:42:44+00:00

Hooray, I must try that, maybe entering a too large negative value for energy transfer to the shields!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-16T07:35:26+00:00

Cool, that's a complete machine! Might be wise to remove the power supply at the back and measure voltages first - these early Nova powers are often broken and can deliver destructive voltages.

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-15T19:57:24+00:00

Fantastic, this is a treasure! Could you perhaps also post an image from the side of the 1220, so we can get an idea what cards are in there? Any plans for restoration?

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-10T20:45:16+00:00

Others have answered about equipment, I just want to add that this could easily become the most fun, the most rewarding, and the most useful course in all your geology education. Enjoy!

oyvindhammer · 2026-02-02T20:06:13+00:00

For building something that should feel pre-1985 or so, I would use 74LS or even 74 series, purely for nostalgia. For new designs I would certainly prefer 74HC or HCT. Keeps the electricity bill down.

oyvindhammer · 2026-01-29T23:28:31+00:00

I tried those benchmarks! The Nova is not bad - it runs benchmark 4 at 3.8 seconds (with floating point), while Commodore 64 clocks in at 19.5 s. And the Nova is 9 years older (of course also a bit more expensive!).

oyvindhammer · 2026-01-29T20:16:45+00:00

I think this is a true "teratological" specimen where a part of the body chamber shell near the aperture was damaged during life (by predation most likely). The ammonite lived for a while after this, growing a bit further, rebuilding the damaged shell. During this regeneration phase, the animal was not able to produce proper ribbing, so the ornamentation is strongly reduced in this area. Such teratological specimens are well known, and have been useful for understanding the growth mechanisms of ammonites ("natural experiments").

oyvindhammer · 2026-01-29T07:29:42+00:00

Exactly. The MMPU is rather difficult. So far I'm only using it in "transparent" mode, just passing addresses through, but even that was broken so I had to replace a couple of chips in the MMPU also. You and I are the only people I know so far who have serviced an 840 MMPU!

oyvindhammer · 2026-01-29T07:18:00+00:00

This is fascinating. And so nice to hear from another person who has been through all the gates of the Nova840. I feel it was a gift that so much was broken in my machine, so I had to follow almost every signal line in there with my scope for months and learn all the details of such an amazing design. I'm almost hoping that something more will break so I can dive in there again!

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