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– Documents

This page gathers together any documents related to BTI. If you have an old BTI manual, or brochure gathering dust in a box in your garage, please contact me and we can figure out a way to get it online.

Ads (link)

Source Machine Full image
Computerworld, Sep 25, 1974 BTI 3000 A Dime an Hour
Computerworld, Feb 26, 1975 BTI 4000 Introducing The First Minicomputer Timesharing System That Can Support up to 256 Users
Computerworld, Dec 12, 1977 BTI 4000 Turning a profit in turnkey systems
Computerworld, Jan 16, 1978 BTI 4000 Take an in-depth look at in-house timesharing
Computerworld, Apr 23, 1979 BTI 5000 This Should Be Your In-House Service Bureau
Computerworld, Sep 15, 1980 BTI 5000 How To Start A Timesharing Service
Computerworld, Dec 15, 1980 BTI 8000 Now you can grow by plugging in resources instead of changing computers
Computerworld, Jun 1, 1981 BTI 8000 What's the score on the BTI 8000?
Computerworld, Dec 7, 1981 BTI 8000 200 reasons to buy the BTI 8000
Computerworld, Jan 14, 1985 BTI 8000 The BTI 8000 outperforms the HP 3000 3 to 1
R&R Reynolds and Reynolds: We Do Not Make Aluminum Cigarettes

Brochures (link)

Document Pages Size Notes
BTI 8000 32 Bit Multiprocessor System 18 16.1 MB 1
A collection of brochures, mostly about the BTI 8000 System 115 26.1 MB 10
Model 5000 Systems Price List, June 1981 6 2.6 MB 5
Beckman Laboratory Management System (1982) 8 5.8 MB 7
Application Software for BTI Computer Systems SOARS/5000 15 7.5 MB 8
SOARS Fact Sheet 2 642 KB 8
SOARS/5000 Price List, April 1979 4 1.2 MB 8

Newsletters (link)

Document Pages Size Notes
UP-TIME newsletter, volumes 15-19 and 22-28, Feb 84 - Mar 85
Up-Time was a newsletter written by a BTI customer to help support other BTI customers
141 8.4 MB 4
An article on writing a Pascal program for the BTI-8000
showing how to incorporate system XREQ calls to a high level Pascal program
4 171 KB 4

Patents (link)

Document Pages Size
US Patent 4,380,029: Data Recording Format and Method and Apparatus for Producing Same 9 598 KB
US Patent 4,390,944: System for Controlling Access to a Common Bus in a Computer System 14 1.04 KB

Manuals (link)

Document Pages Size Notes
Model 4000 Interactive Timesharing System User's Manual 152 2.1 MB 5
BTI 8000 Theory of Operations and Technical Summary 245 11.8 MB 1

Design Documents (link)

Document Pages Size Notes
BTI-8000 CPU Schematic, 3/81 13 2.6 MB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) External Specification, 10/81 46 1.4 MB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Gap Spacing & Motion Control 11 494 KB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Internal Specification, 7/81 29 732 KB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Microcode, 10/81 162 4.1 MB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Other Proms, Fpla, & Microcode Flowcharts, 8-81 46 1.5 MB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Record Formats, 10/80 2 65 KB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Schematic, 12/81 9 917 KB 2
BTI-8000 Cartridge Tape Controller (CTC) Schematic Mnemonics, 10/81 10 353 KB 2
BTI-8000 Debugger Console Schematic, 10/78 6 1.4 MB 2
BTI-8000 Peripheral Processing Unit (PPU) Controller Interface Specification, 7-81 19 398 KB 2
BTI-8000 Peripheral Processing Unit (PPU) Schematic, 11/79 15 1.8 MB 2

OS Software (link)

Ron Crandall found a tape containing some source code listings of the BTI-8000 operating system. Tom Poulter gave permission for him to share them online, so here they are. Unfortunately, they aren't complete and many of the included header files are missing, but it still provides a wealth of information about the OS and how the instruction set was used in real life. The most interesting document has to be the core operating system listing, SYSTEM.LIS. You can also grab a zip file containing all the files.

Document Description Size Notes
CM.LIS Control Mode (job control language) program source code listing 1.9 MB 3
DISKBOOT.LIS Disk resident bootstrap source code listing 312 KB 3
DISKTOTA.LIS Offline disk to tape backup source code listing 1.0 MB 3
OPL.LIS Offline program loader source code listing 496 KB 3
PEEKPOKE.LIS Disk Peeker and Poker source code listing 939 KB 3
PIE.LIS Pie In The Sky Filesystem Reconstructor source code listing 621 KB 3
PPU25.LIS PPU 3/Rev 25 microcode source code listing 606 KB 3
PPU26.LIS PPU 5/Rev 26 microcode source code listing 1.1 MB 3
PROM.LIS Boot PROM dump in intel Hex format 8 KB 3
PROMBOOT.LIS PROM resident bootstrap source code listing 222 KB 3
RDU.LIS RDU (Remote Diagnostic Utility) source code listing 2.7 MB 3
REBUILD.LIS Disk ADT Rebuilder source code listing 619 KB 3
SECPASS.LIS Secondary Password source code listing 254 KB 3
SSU16.LIS SSU (System Services Unit) microcode source code listing 1.5 MB 3
SYSTEM.LIS BTI 8000 core operating system listing 10.5 MB 3
TAPEBOOT.LIS Tape Resident Bootstrat Program source code listing 267 KB 3
TAPERECO.LIS Offline disk volume recoverer source code listing 837 KB 3
TBMAKE.LIS write code files on tape for TAPE source code listing 185 KB 3
TOPL.LIS Tape offline program loader source code listing 604 KB 3

Miscellaneous (link)

Document Size Notes
LIFE listing in BTI 4000 BASIC-X 88 KB 5
BTI Stock Certificate 2 MB 9

Notes (link)

Note Comment
1 Contributed by Al Kossow, webmaster of bitsavers.org
2 Contributed by David W. Milton, former BTI design engineer
3 Contributed by Ron Crandall, with permission of Tom Poulter
4 Contributed by Ray Smith, ex-BTI
5 Contributed by Bob Pilkey, ex-R&R
6 Contributed by Paul A. Roberts
7 Contributed by Clayton Weimer
8 Contributed by Dan Prusinowski
9 Contributed by Bruce Adams
10 Contributed by David A Coyle