Retrochallenge 2013 Winter Warmup Entry

              NOTE: SLAVE the AlphaServer 1000A running OpenVMS will be online
              all month and accessible using either SSH, Telnet or Dial Up.

              Telnet: slave.hecnet.eu port 23
              SSH: slave.hecnet.eu port 22
              Dialup: +44 15394 22404

              New accounts created via username/password: NEWUSER/NEWUSER
              Moria is available via username/password: MORIA/MORIA
              Adventure is available via username/password: ADVENT/ADVENT
              BBS is available via username/password: BBS/BBS

      POSTS
      31-Jan-2013 Towel!
                  I can't believe we've reached the end so soon! This is a tale of
                  meager progress but hopefully glances towards the future.

      25-Jan-2013 No Progress!
                  No progress this week although I did manage to swap the motherboard
                  in my itanium workstation.

      20-Jan-2013 Meta Assembler
                  Next steps - port my final year University project, a Meta Assember
                  written in Modula-2 to the VAX/VMS implementation

      19-Jan-2013 Modula 2 for VAX/VMS
                  I was a big fan of Modula 2 'back in the day' and have only just
                  come across this implementation for VAX/VMS within the last month.

      19-Jan-2013 Airline Manager - Finished
                  Airline Manager is now in a good enough shape to release to the big
                  wide world.

      13-Jan-2013 Airline Manager - Part 3
                  I've jumped ship from BBC Basic to X11 Basic. Having completed that
                  process the program is looking a lot healthier (and more readable).
                  Now it just needs to work!

      06-Jan-2013 The Retrochallenger
                  As everyone is doing fancy diagrams I thought I'd add my own to
                  chart the typically characteristics of a retrochallenger!

      05-Jan-2013 Airline Manager - Part 2
                  I've been slowly correcting GOTO line numbers and filling in some of
                  the missing pieces - I now have the basic program flow working!

      04-Jan-2013 Airline Manager
                  Completely distracted right from the start with a 28 year old BBC
                  BASIC program!

      This page contain information about my entry to the Retrochallenge 2013 Winter
      Warmup competition. The retrochallenge competition is held bi-annually and
      requires entrants to spend a month on a project involving retro hardware and/or
      retro software.
      The term retro describes software or hardware that are more than ten years old.

      The competition main page can be found here[1].

      My entry this year is split into three (possibly four tasks):

          1. Cataloging my DEC media (CDROMs, tapes, floppies etc.) to make them more
             accessible to the community and to help me remember what I actually have.

          2. Reading a load of donated TK50 tapes which have some old and interesting
             stuff on (this is a careful process to avoid breakages etc.)

          3. Getting the DECUS archive online in an easy to search form with VMS/RSX
             etc. specific search criteria.

          4. If I get time I'd like to write an entry for a competition where the task
             is to write a specific algorithm in a programming language. I'm going to
             split the task into a number of steps and program each step in a
             different language by using the calling standard of OpenVMS[2].


      ENDNOTES

      1. Retrochallenge Home Page

      2. OpenVMS Calling Standard Manual