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Prototype to the Canon Cat: the "Swyft"...

Tinkerer said:
That is a very cool machine. I can't help but think how a at home it would look in a 1980s sci-fi flick.:cool:
Click to expand...

Yes, a cool design. Kind of like the art deco of the computer world!

Great find. I love unusual machines like this.

Tez
 
tezza said:
Yes, a cool design. Kind of like the art deco of the computer world!

Great find. I love unusual machines like this.

Tez
Click to expand...

Maybe one day I'll have a Canon Cat to sit next to it for a size comparison.

I like the angles on it, too. But, yellow as it is, I'm not planning on cleaning it. I'll just let that be part of its "charm".
 
Hi
I just emailed Charlie with copies of the pictures.
He is quite impressed. He says that it is one of the
injection molded units made in Korea. Some early
ones were made with rubber molds.
He says the sticker is one of the temporary stickers
one places on ones shirt and the machine may
well have been Jef's. It might also be one of the
other employees, that just stuck one of Jef's
stickers on it.
He said Jef visited Dataquest quite often.
Do you know if the person you got it from was
one of the IA employees?
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
Hi
I just emailed Charlie with copies of the pictures.
He is quite impressed. He says that it is one of the
injection molded units made in Korea. Some early
ones were made with rubber molds.
He says the sticker is one of the temporary stickers
one places on ones shirt and the machine may
well have been Jef's. It might also be one of the
other employees, that just stuck one of Jef's
stickers on it.
He said Jef visited Dataquest quite often.
Do you know if the person you got it from was
one of the IA employees?
Dwight
Click to expand...

Hi Dwight,

The gentleman I bought it from had *zero* knowledge of what it was; after I purchased it, he asked me to fill him in. He thought it was just a word processor, and only saw the "prototype" sticker on the back recently.

Does Charlie know how many of these injection molded units were produced? And when? FWIW, the tutorial disk says 4/9/86...
 
pookdolie said:
Hi Dwight,

The gentleman I bought it from had *zero* knowledge of what it was; after I purchased it, he asked me to fill him in. He thought it was just a word processor, and only saw the "prototype" sticker on the back recently.

Does Charlie know how many of these injection molded units were produced? And when? FWIW, the tutorial disk says 4/9/86...
Click to expand...

Hi
I posted the email he sent me in your private box.
He'd like to talk with you as well
but from the sounds, you have little new information.
I suspect you got it for a good price. Cat's have been on
ebay from 800-1900 usd. A swyft would surely be worth
more.
A friend picked up a Cat at a local surplus shop for $30
with a broken drive ( repairable ). I wouldn't expect to
find too many like that.
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
Hi
I posted the email he sent me in your private box.
He'd like to talk with you as well
but from the sounds, you have little new information.
I suspect you got it for a good price. Cat's have been on
ebay from 800-1900 usd. A swyft would surely be worth
more.
A friend picked up a Cat at a local surplus shop for $30
with a broken drive ( repairable ). I wouldn't expect to
find too many like that.
Dwight
Click to expand...

It's not easy to find those Cats, is it? I've been scouring the `net for info, sales, etc. Lots of articles and pictures of the Cat, but to get ahold of one doesn't look easy. (Probably just as well, as I'm on a budget.) :)

This thing has a lot of layers, and is fun to play with. All of the features seem to work; the disk drive loads very quickly, the keys don't stick, the "PHONE" light in that key works, etc. There's what looks like a reset button next to the drive, which doesn't seem to do anything. Navigating pages takes some practice, to be sure. I want to use a mouse, and it feels like Mr. Raskin is training me through this little machine to cure myself of the habit...
 
pookdolie said:
It's not easy to find those Cats, is it? I've been scouring the `net for info, sales, etc. Lots of articles and pictures of the Cat, but to get ahold of one doesn't look easy. (Probably just as well, as I'm on a budget.) :)

This thing has a lot of layers, and is fun to play with. All of the features seem to work; the disk drive loads very quickly, the keys don't stick, the "PHONE" light in that key works, etc. There's what looks like a reset button next to the drive, which doesn't seem to do anything. Navigating pages takes some practice, to be sure. I want to use a mouse, and it feels like Mr. Raskin is training me through this little machine to cure myself of the habit...
Click to expand...

Hi
You have to also realize, this is from someone that owned the patent
on "drag and drop". He just felt that a mouse was not the right tool for
text, not that the mouse was a bad idea.
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
Hi
You have to also realize, this is from someone that owned the patent
on "drag and drop". He just felt that a mouse was not the right tool for
text, not that the mouse was a bad idea.
Dwight
Click to expand...

Did I read correctly that the Cat actually had some graphic abilities, but that they weren't enabled?
 
pookdolie said:
Did I read correctly that the Cat actually had some graphic abilities, but that they weren't enabled?
Click to expand...

Hi
Yes and no. There was no specific code left in the Canon Cat I have
but the hardware was surely ready. The entire video is bit mapped.
All the fonts are images in the ROM that are copied to the screen
as needed. It contains fonts for most european countries as
well as a few others.
Jef stated that he felt that the Apple II should have had a RAM
based video as well but it was shot down by Jobs.
Dwight
 
Hi Pookdolie
I've just been in touch with a friend that has a Swyft. He has
some notes written on the drive door on how to get it into
Forth.
I've emailed him and asked for this information.
He also had manuals that I've been looking for, outside
of the library at Stanford. He has a manual on tForth
and the "Technical Documentation for the Canon Cat".
I've gotten these from him and will be creating a pdf,
over the next couple week. They may not be a lot of
help with the Forth or other code in the Swyft but many
things should be similar.
I hope to find a host for these on some web page. Maybe
Bruce Damer will put it up on his DigiBarn page. He has
posted other information that I've gathered.
In any case, I'll keep you posted.
Dwight
 
Hi
Bitsavers was one of the places I'd considered. I Know
Al and see him every now and then.
As for getting into Forth on the Swyft, I go a message back
from Bill on his machine. He said that if one holds the button
( I assume the one in the drive door ) while powering on,
it should go into Forth.
He stated that he tried this and it worked on his machine.
He had notes written on the door that said:

> cold=reboot
> go=restart edit
> re=resume

I would assume the left are Forth commands and on
the right are expected behavior.
If you get into Forth, you'll know because it will say
"OK" as a prompt ( you may need at least one return ).
I'd like to see what words are defined. You should be able
to get a list by typing words or vlist.
Dwight
 
Dwight Elvey said:
Hi
Bitsavers was one of the places I'd considered. I Know
Al and see him every now and then.
As for getting into Forth on the Swyft, I go a message back
from Bill on his machine. He said that if one holds the button
( I assume the one in the drive door ) while powering on,
it should go into Forth.
He stated that he tried this and it worked on his machine.
He had notes written on the door that said:

> cold=reboot
> go=restart edit
> re=resume

I would assume the left are Forth commands and on
the right are expected behavior.
If you get into Forth, you'll know because it will say
"OK" as a prompt ( you may need at least one return ).
I'd like to see what words are defined. You should be able
to get a list by typing words or vlist.
Dwight
Click to expand...

Hi Dwight,

I just gave this a try.

Holding down the "reset" button (or whatever it is) inside the drive bay while plugging in the Swyft got me a black banner across the screen (amongst the eggshell blue color) with the white text, "Please insert a blank write enabled disk and press `tab' and `erase' together".

I had no disk. Following instructions sans disk did get the drive to spin - it wouldn't let me proceed further.

So, it did SOMETHING. Certainly different than just turning it on without the system disk, which gets me a blank page, plus the "1" header at the top, and the margins ruler at the bottom.
 
Hi
I may have not understood Bill correctly. I have scanned
the manuals and give Al Kossow a DVD with the scans.
These are specific to the Cat and not the Swyft.
I'll be returning the manuals soon. When I do,
I'll watch him actually do it.
Dwight
 
Hi
I saw the other Swyft today.
I think you were in Forth once and didn't know it.
You shouldn't need a disk. The disk is just for saving
things you write and not needed for booting.
To get into Forth, you press the button after powering
on. You then hit the return.
At this point you should see the OK prompt.
If you type " words " and return at this time you won't see
anything except the OK prompt. This is because you are
in the user vocabulary. If you now type " forth words "
and return, you should see a lot of words.
To return to the editor, just type " re " and return.
There is also some way to enter forth from the
editor. We know this because Bill had saved some
source code in the editor. I know how to do this
on the Cat but it didn't work on the Swyft. It'll
need more investigation.
The disk should be a 720K disk but I've had good
luck using 1.44m disk. The drive on the Swyft
may be different and be more fussy on requiring
the right type of disk.
In the above when I say to type something,
don't type the " . I just put that there to
separate it from normal text.
Give it a try.
The machine Bill has is serial # 11. What is
your serial number?
Dwight
 
Hi Pookdolie
We have started a google group specific to the Canon Cat
and related subjects. This would include your Swyft.
It is:

http://groups.google.com/group/canon-cat

To all, please feel free to join if you wish to talk
about the Cat or related subjects.
Including such subjects as:

Apple II SwyftWare or SwyftCard
Swyft computer
Canon Cat
tForth ( used in Swyft and Cat )
Jef Raskin's concepts of humane interfaces

Thanks
Dwight
 
Terry Yager said:
Humane interfaces? I've been waiting a long time for one of those to come around...

--T
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Maybe you need to try using a Canon Cat for some time. Do
remember that the Cat was in 1987. Many aspects of it
would no be too friendly in todays terms. Also, read Jef's
Raskin's book.
The Cat was created as an editing machine. It is quite good
at that compared to a PC. It has other builtin features
that make it useful in an office environment( speadsheet
mixed with text/form as an example ).
Dwight
 
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