From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jul 1 10:19:34 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 08:19:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: looking for info on the NCR Datamate Message-ID: <20060701151934.8938.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Not the Decision Mate, something that probably came out after it, yet before the PC4/i. They all basically have the same appearance. I was talking to a former employee of NCR and she told me that less then 3000 were made. It was intended (says she) to be networked with the Decision Mate or something, and share some of it's resources maybe. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From marvin at rain.org Sat Jul 1 13:10:50 2006 From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 11:10:50 -0700 Subject: Livermore Swapmeet Message-ID: <44A6BAAA.CC5323BD@rain.org> It looks like I'll be heading up to the Livermore Swapmeet tomorrow (Sunday). If you are there, stop by and say hi :)! I'll have mostly electronic/transmitter hunting stuff, but the last time I was there (2005 VCF), it had some interesting stuff. I'm told it used to be a good spot for picking up classic computer related "stuff"! Marvin, KE6HTS From vp at drexel.edu Sat Jul 1 13:27:30 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 14:27:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Fake email addresses (was Re: Why do people keep stealing my work) Message-ID: <200607011827.k61IRUZl031560@dune.cs.drexel.edu> > I like to do a similar thing with online forms that require your name and > email. I create a throwaway email address and then make up a name and > address. I'm still getting spam offering really great mortgage rates to > someone called David Marquez in Juneau. But I never did get anything for > Consuelo O'Brien of Barrow. You can do even better than that, by creating rules to automatically handle incoming email according to the destination address. See "Fighting Spam by Encapsulating Policy in Email Addresses", by John Ioannidis www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/ndss/03/proceedings/papers/1.pdf **vp From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jul 1 15:26:36 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 20:26:36 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> Roger Merchberger wrote: >> Some time ago, someone on this list posted a URL for a site where >> someone had homebrewed something to that effect and were using a >> 'scope as the XY display; it was all hooked up to a computer so that >> they could draw images, write words etc. on the 'scope's display. > >> Anyone have the URL handy? Wouldn't mind looking at that again, but if >> I filed it I can't find it... > > Dunno if this is what you were thinking; and it's kinda offtopic as it > uses a PC & Soundcard to draw the images; tho it would seem possible to > do it with ontopic hardware... Actually, that wasn't the one I was thinking of, although it was one I'd seen before and forgotten about - so thanks for sharing! I'm thinking that something like that (though obviously not porn-based :-) would make a nice little self-contained display for our museum. PC + soundcard under the desk, nice old Tek 'scope running as a little scrolling message display with the museum name or something... I don't know, it's oddball enough to be quite eye-catching, but fairly trivial to implement. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 1 14:59:04 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 12:59:04 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> On 7/1/2006 at 8:26 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >I'm thinking that something like that (though obviously not porn-based :-) >would make a nice little self-contained display for our museum. PC + >soundcard >under the desk, nice old Tek 'scope running as a little scrolling message >display with the museum name or something... I don't know, it's oddball >enough to be quite eye-catching, but fairly trivial to implement. EDN and Electronic Design have had several articles on how to hook up an DAC to a parallel port--just do it twice (maybe use a spare control line for X-Y selection) and you've got all the circuitry done. For example: http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=6257 If you had two parallel ports, you could save some money at the expense of accuracy, by using a simple resistive ladder DAC: http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html The rest, as they say, is trivial software. :) Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 1 15:27:49 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 13:27:49 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/1/2006 at 8:26 PM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> I'm thinking that something like that (though obviously not porn-based :-) > >> would make a nice little self-contained display for our museum. PC + >> soundcard >> under the desk, nice old Tek 'scope running as a little scrolling message >> display with the museum name or something... I don't know, it's oddball >> enough to be quite eye-catching, but fairly trivial to implement. > > EDN and Electronic Design have had several articles on how to hook up an > DAC to a parallel port--just do it twice (maybe use a spare control line > for X-Y selection) and you've got all the circuitry done. > > For example: > http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Print.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=6257 > > If you had two parallel ports, you could save some money at the expense of > accuracy, by using a simple resistive ladder DAC: > > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html > > The rest, as they say, is trivial software. :) Sound card sure seems easier! :> Build a WAV file and just have it "play" endlessly. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sat Jul 1 16:00:20 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 22:00:20 +0100 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> Don Y wrote: > Sound card sure seems easier! :> > Build a WAV file and just have it "play" endlessly. I'd have thought the AC coupling hardware would have caused problems with that, and you'll have a maximum frequency limit of about 20kHz due to the low-pass filters on most sound cards. And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Best plan would be a pair of DACs, a counter and a 16-bit EPROM (or a pair of 8-bits). Program the ROM with the pattern data, hook up a display and have fun. Could even add a few more ROMs and have colour output and/or intensity control as well. Heck, the simplest DAC is a bank of 20 resistors (R-2R ladder). Cheap too - a penny a resistor, total cost of 20 British New Pence. I don't think ADI or Maxim have anything cheaper... -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jul 1 17:22:07 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 22:22:07 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44A6F58F.4070700@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: >> If you had two parallel ports, you could save some money at the >> expense of >> accuracy, by using a simple resistive ladder DAC: >> >> http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html >> >> The rest, as they say, is trivial software. :) > > Sound card sure seems easier! :> > Build a WAV file and just have it "play" endlessly. Although I wonder if the parallel port's fast enough such that a couple of latches could be used upstream of the dacs, controlled by one of the parallel port's status lines? That way only one port could be used, plus there's scope for using another of the status lines to control blanking. cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 1 16:42:15 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:42:15 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44A6EC37.6040908@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Sound card sure seems easier! :> >> Build a WAV file and just have it "play" endlessly. > > I'd have thought the AC coupling hardware would have caused problems > with that, and you'll have a maximum frequency limit of about 20kHz due > to the low-pass filters on most sound cards. You don't care about the DC bias... the image will "self center". And, consider the persistence of most 'scopes... 20KHz would be more than adequate for a "sweep rate". > And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Best plan would be a > pair of DACs, a counter and a 16-bit EPROM (or a pair of 8-bits). > Program the ROM with the pattern data, hook up a display and have fun. > Could even add a few more ROMs and have colour output and/or intensity > control as well. > > Heck, the simplest DAC is a bank of 20 resistors (R-2R ladder). Cheap > too - a penny a resistor, total cost of 20 British New Pence. I don't > think ADI or Maxim have anything cheaper... The "problem" here is you can't easily change the "display". From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 1 16:45:47 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:45:47 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> On 7/1/2006 at 10:00 PM Philip Pemberton wrote: >And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Jules didn't mention how many charcters he wanted to display, nor the length of persistence of the phosphor on his scope, nor the quality of the characters (i.e. are line segments good enough or does one have to do a true arc rendering?), so I've got to wonder what "fast enough" is? Even on a 486, punping out 100K bytes/second through a parallel port shouldn't be much of a problem. Build a table of datapoints for the whole display and loop right through them. >Heck, the simplest DAC is a bank of 20 resistors (R-2R ladder). Cheap too >- a penny a resistor, total cost of 20 British New Pence. I don't think ADI or >Maxim have anything cheaper... Hmmm, I thought I said that! >If you had two parallel ports, you could save some money at the expense of >accuracy, by using a simple resistive ladder DAC: > > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html An item I hadn't though of, though, is that you may want to save a bit for blanking the display between characters. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 1 19:02:36 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 17:02:36 -0700 Subject: TZ07 Schematics In-Reply-To: <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607011702360085.300C530C@10.0.0.252> This is more in the way of idle curiosity, but does there exist schematics for the TZ07 tape drive anywhere? I've seen the maintenance manual online, but not the circuit diagrams. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Sat Jul 1 21:40:34 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 22:40:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6EC37.6040908@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <44A6EC37.6040908@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607020242.WAA21284@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Best plan would >> be a pair of DACs, a counter and a 16-bit EPROM (or a pair of >> 8-bits). Program the ROM with the pattern data, hook up a display >> and have fun. [...] > The "problem" here is you can't easily change the "display". Then use RAM instead of ROM, and add a little electronics so that the host can grab control of it long enough for a write cycle. The display will glitch while you write, but for the thing as described that's no biggie, since you'd write very seldom. If you have intensity control on the 'scope, you could even use the write signal to turn the beam off, so glitches would be less visible. der Mouse From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 1 22:35:19 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 20:35:19 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607020242.WAA21284@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <44A6EC37.6040908@DakotaCom.Net> <200607020242.WAA21284@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44A73EF7.6070903@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: >>> And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Best plan would >>> be a pair of DACs, a counter and a 16-bit EPROM (or a pair of >>> 8-bits). Program the ROM with the pattern data, hook up a display >>> and have fun. [...] > >> The "problem" here is you can't easily change the "display". > > Then use RAM instead of ROM, and add a little electronics so that the i thought the goal was to have very *little* (none) electronics -- since someone would have to design/build it... > host can grab control of it long enough for a write cycle. The display > will glitch while you write, but for the thing as described that's no > biggie, since you'd write very seldom. If you have intensity control > on the 'scope, you could even use the write signal to turn the beam > off, so glitches would be less visible. Actually, this will be VERY visible. I.e. try updating a raaster scan display without watching where the scan is currently. You end up with weird visual artifacts. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 01:49:18 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 18:49:18 +1200 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> References: <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 7/2/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html I've built that first simple ladder DAC (to hang a 1950s Triplett meter off of a parallel port for just random analog fun)... the problem is that it's difficult to tune the individual resistors to prevent the needle (or voltage) from going visibly *down* when transitioning the DAC from, say, 0x3F to 0x40 or 0x7F to 0x80. The cumulative errors of the low order bits can get to the point that you don't get a constant output increment by incrementing the digital value. The needle did deflect from 0 to full, but writing a ramping program showed very clearly that it wasn't a continuous progression. What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors to pick. -ethan From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jul 1 03:50:33 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 09:50:33 +0100 Subject: RS232 <=> RS422 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1151743833.5082.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Thu, 2006-06-29 at 01:38 +0100, Tony Duell wrote: > > could also sample them from Analog.com if your day job qualifies you. > > What day job? I doubt if 'privately repairing old HP calculators' counts :-) > They don't check *that* hard... Gordon. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jul 1 04:09:20 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 10:09:20 +0100 Subject: Weird : Fw: The results of your email commands In-Reply-To: <02ed01c698c9$012a36b0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <003f01c69689$8bb3f330$2101a8c0@finans> <02ed01c698c9$012a36b0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <1151744961.5082.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Sun, 2006-06-25 at 21:34 -0500, Jay West wrote: > Someone wrote.... > > It looks like someone is sending MIME data to the listserver using forged > > From: headers. > > Nah, the list software strips all posts with MIME content. It would never > get out to list traffic if someone sent that in. > > Jay > Well, it's not sent as text/plain, and it's base64 encoded. That sounds like MIME to me... Of course the actual content-type is lost so there's no way to determine what it actually is. I might just stick a filter in to bit-bucket it. Gordon. From gordon at gjcp.net Sat Jul 1 08:38:51 2006 From: gordon at gjcp.net (Gordon JC Pearce) Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:38:51 +0100 Subject: Airflow in drive case In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1151761132.14177.1.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Sat, 2006-06-17 at 22:02 -0700, dwight elvey wrote: > I have even measured air flowing back towards the fin's output, right in > front > of a fan and not much more than 8 inches away. Before understanding the > flow, I can well believe that - airflow is a funny thing. I've observed raindrops blowing up the bonnet of a friend's Landrover, running down the side, and then flowing *forwards* back to the front again. This is at 50mph into a strongish headwind! Gordon. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 03:50:39 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 20:50:39 +1200 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? Message-ID: I have this Kensington Expert Mouse here (c. 1995), and I'm wondering if I'm missing an external adapter box... it has a Mac-style DIN-8 for a connector, and inside, I see 3 chips - an LM358 near the DIN-8, an LP339N (quad comparator?) and a 24-pin Motorola SC417907P with an adjacent 4.00MHz crystal resonator, clearly some sort of microcontroller being used as a mouse protocol encoder. One mysterious part is the optical receiver, an SD6150... it's an acrylic-housed device with a visible silicon die, and 5 leads. It's positioned to catch the light off of the marked roller that catches light from an IR diode, so it's got to be something like a multiple-element photodiode (they are marked "DTC1" and "DTC2"), but googling isn't not revealing any hard details on the part. I _think_ I can see 4 "panels" on the die, so it might be a Common lead and 4 light sensitive patches that the board would use to turn a strobed light from the roller into both phases of the quadrature waveform. I don't think the folks that once used this had old Macs (perhaps they did 10 years ago), so my first thought is... what protocol might this speak and am I missing an external adapter to, say, a PS/2-style mouse cable? Another possibility I can think of is that it is designed to hook to a Microsoft Bus Mouse board (probably have one of those hanging around here somewhere). I did some googling on it and can't find any internals info or any "hack" articles. Honestly, I could use this even if I have to extract raw quadrature and do something with that. It's a single-sided board, so reverse-engineering it is not impossible, but I thought I'd ask first and see if anyone knows some technical details on it. Thanks, -ethan From lee at geekdot.com Sun Jul 2 05:45:29 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 12:45:29 +0200 (CEST) Subject: Vector Imagery Message-ID: <1245.86.144.139.97.1151837129.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what > resistors to pick. The output impedance of an R2R ladder is R so you chose R to suit the stage the ladder will drive. You won't get 0V-5V without some sort of amplifier on the output, even using CMOS gates to drive the ladder. For a more monotonic output 2R should really be 2R-Rout where Rout is the output impedance of the driving gate. Lee. From brad at heeltoe.com Sun Jul 2 06:49:48 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 07:49:48 -0400 Subject: Rk05 suitcase exercisor? Message-ID: <200607021149.k62BnnoS019078@mwave.heeltoe.com> Hi all I've heard rumors that an RK05 suitcase exercisor exists. Has anyone ever seen one or used one? Does anyone have one? I assume it would connect via the "unibus" connector and exercise the drive (seek, read, write, etc...) -brad From jclang at notms.net Sun Jul 2 08:34:05 2006 From: jclang at notms.net (joseph c lang) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 09:34:05 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: References: <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <06070209340500.03261@bell> On Sunday 02 July 2006 02:49, you wrote: > On 7/2/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html > > I've built that first simple ladder DAC (to hang a 1950s Triplett > meter off of a parallel port for just random analog fun)... the > problem is that it's difficult to tune the individual resistors to > prevent the needle (or voltage) from going visibly *down* when > transitioning the DAC from, say, 0x3F to 0x40 or 0x7F to 0x80. The > cumulative errors of the low order bits can get to the point that you > don't get a constant output increment by incrementing the digital > value. The needle did deflect from 0 to full, but writing a ramping > program showed very clearly that it wasn't a continuous progression. > > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors > to pick. > > -ethan The problem is not the resistor values. You have the formula. R 2R ;^) It works for any value of R. it's equal value that counts. You are more likely suffering from non-equal voltage on each driver. The load is not the same for all bits,and any mismatch (high or low) will directly affect linearity. Buffering with a CMOS driver and using high value of R will help some. joe lang From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Jul 2 08:02:53 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 09:02:53 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery Message-ID: <0J1S00KI71JAAZ87@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Vector Imagery > From: "Ethan Dicks" > Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 18:49:18 +1200 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On 7/2/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html > >I've built that first simple ladder DAC (to hang a 1950s Triplett >meter off of a parallel port for just random analog fun)... the >problem is that it's difficult to tune the individual resistors to >prevent the needle (or voltage) from going visibly *down* when >transitioning the DAC from, say, 0x3F to 0x40 or 0x7F to 0x80. The >cumulative errors of the low order bits can get to the point that you >don't get a constant output increment by incrementing the digital >value. The needle did deflect from 0 to full, but writing a ramping >program showed very clearly that it wasn't a continuous progression. First, the 1950s triplett meter is likely 20,000ohms/volt at will load any ladder using resistors larger than 1000ohms in an R2R ladder. The 5v range looks like a 100K resistor across the probes. Second, The output port is TTL? CMOS? IF TTL the output swing is not to 5V to with even light loads. IF CMOS output voltage will sag if the load is too great. For 8bit R2R ladders I use R=10k and 74HC244(or other high current output CMOS) as a buffer. The load is usually very high impedence (VTVM, FETVM, DVM, OPamp voltage follower). Allison >What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R >ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit >parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors >to pick. > >-ethan From pechter at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 09:19:41 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 10:19:41 -0400 Subject: Root password on solaris 5.7? In-Reply-To: References: <44A4528F.2020902@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4631B.4000605@msm.umr.edu> <44A48479.1050502@DakotaCom.Net> <44A4B075.20501@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: If I could find a good U5 -- or even better a U10 with a 400 mhz to replace my 270 I'd jump on it. I just put a Linksys ethernet card in the U5 and I'm debating making it a firewall instead of my Linux box running IPCop. Bill On 6/30/06, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > On 6/30/06, jim stephens wrote: > > ...I like solaris, especially with $25 U5's on the market these days. > (400+mhz no less) > > Not that I'm surprised to see U5s down to $25, but what's a U30 go for > these days? I'm trying to balance machine value vs shipping costs. > > If I found a U5 at home for $25, I'd probably retire my SS5 as my 24/7 > Solaris box. I used to use a U5 every day for C/Perl development, c. > 1999; was quite happy with it. > > -ethan > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jul 2 10:51:11 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 08:51:11 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: References: <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <200607011445470715.2F8F14B2@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44A7EB6F.9050601@DakotaCom.Net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 7/2/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> > http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/dacs.html > > I've built that first simple ladder DAC (to hang a 1950s Triplett > meter off of a parallel port for just random analog fun)... the > problem is that it's difficult to tune the individual resistors to > prevent the needle (or voltage) from going visibly *down* when > transitioning the DAC from, say, 0x3F to 0x40 or 0x7F to 0x80. The > cumulative errors of the low order bits can get to the point that you > don't get a constant output increment by incrementing the digital > value. The needle did deflect from 0 to full, but writing a ramping > program showed very clearly that it wasn't a continuous progression. > > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors > to pick. The "right values" are 'R' and '2*R' -- the trick is picking that *one* 'R'. Much easier than building a resistor network out of R, 2R, 4R, 8R... You have to take into account the input impedance of your meter. It is not infinite so *it* affects the voltage seen at the meter. Try the same experiment with a DMM for different results. :> (your VOM will have a marking indicating "XXX ohms / volt" which characterizes it's impedance) You need a low enough value of R so that your load has negligible effect. OTOH, a TTL output port will not *source* much current. So, lower values of R tax the output drive capability of the port. And, doesn't really give you +5V as a HI. A CMOS output will be better in both cases (drives closer to the rails and can source as well as sink current). You could also put a unity gain buffer on the output to give you a lower output impedance which will isolate the effects of your meter (load) from the R-2R ladder. If you were using this to generate e.g. audio, then the audio amp acts as this buffer. I frequently use R-2R ladders on small MCU's (like PIC's) for things like sound generators. Your ear is quite tolerant of these small mismatches (if R & 2R are on the same thickfilm substrate, they tend to track pretty well) in resistance (which translate to nonlinearities and nonmonotonic transfer functions). Analog Devices used to publish an excellent cookbook of A/D and D/A techniques. Worth having. From reevejd at mchsi.com Sun Jul 2 11:06:34 2006 From: reevejd at mchsi.com (John D. Reeve) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 11:06:34 -0500 Subject: Compaq Portable III Message-ID: <000f01c69df1$8633f8f0$e3f1ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Hello All. I have a Compaq Portable III (286) that is functioning fine, except that the clock loses time (it seems to basically stop) if the machine is off more than an hour. It does remember its setup information, however, and there are no error messages during boot-up. I imagine it needs a new battery - where would I find one for such an old machine? The battery does hold a charge for at least some time, according to my meter readings, so maybe it isn't the battery? Thanks for any help. John R. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jul 2 12:12:10 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 10:12:10 -0700 Subject: Compaq Portable III In-Reply-To: <000f01c69df1$8633f8f0$e3f1ce0c@gatewaynotebook> References: <000f01c69df1$8633f8f0$e3f1ce0c@gatewaynotebook> Message-ID: <44A7FE6A.9030105@DakotaCom.Net> [apologies to the list for not trimming the OP's post... some posts come in as one long line of text -- that Tbird fails to wrap. This was one such post... :< ] John D. Reeve wrote: > Hello All. I have a Compaq Portable III (286) that is functioning fine, except that the clock loses time (it seems to basically stop) if the machine is off more than an hour. It does remember its setup information, however, and there are no error messages during boot-up. I imagine it needs a new battery - where would I find one for such an old machine? The battery does hold a charge for at least some time, according to my meter readings, so maybe it isn't the battery? Thanks for any help. I doubt you will find *the* battery. Or, if you do, you may decide it's not worth the price! :> I simply removed the battery from my machines (it is soldered to the PCB but comes off easy -- remove the plastic clip-on bracket before doing so) and soldered a pigtail with a two-pin connector on the end. I chose the connector to mate with the 3xAAA NiMH's batteries that I have (probably surplus cordless phone packs?). So, I just plug a new battery whenever (*if* ever!) one dies. (so far, the replacement has never died). The plastic "clip-on bracket" is just the right size to wrap around the NiMH battery -- though I also put a piece of self-adhesive velcro on the battery to guarantee it never flops around inside the case. And, a small diode (4148/914) in series with the pigtail as "cheap insurance" to guard against a battery plugged in backwards (I suspect the PCB artwork may not contain such a diode -- though it *might* for UL). HTH, --don From sethm at loomcom.com Sun Jul 2 14:07:02 2006 From: sethm at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 12:07:02 -0700 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? Message-ID: <2C0848CD-C48B-4D99-B608-799A0B61AAAA@loomcom.com> Alright, I admit it. I'm stumped. BBC has a series, "Look Around You", a comedy program based on late 1970s and early 1980s educational programming. Season two included an episode called "Computers", and featured these two fake "home computers". The Bournemouth ("The most powerful computer in Britain"): http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ bournemouth.jpg The Petticoat 5 ("The first computer designed just for women"): http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ petticoat.jpg I assume that these are genuine British classic computers that the producers painted and re-badged for television. But what are they? -Seth From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 2 15:34:27 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:34:27 +0000 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <2C0848CD-C48B-4D99-B608-799A0B61AAAA@loomcom.com> References: <2C0848CD-C48B-4D99-B608-799A0B61AAAA@loomcom.com> Message-ID: <44A82DD3.2060103@yahoo.co.uk> Seth Morabito wrote: > BBC has a series, "Look Around You", a comedy program based on late > 1970s and early 1980s educational programming. Season two included an > episode called "Computers", and featured these two fake "home computers". > > I assume that these are genuine British classic computers that the > producers painted and re-badged for television. Totally made up for the show, AFAIK. There are a few genuine 80's micros to be spotted in there, though! I keep meaning to try and find out what happened to the Bournemouth prop - it'd be an amusing thing for the museum to have on display... The cursor area on Bournemouth's keyboard closely resembles the RML 480Z - and I'm sure some genuine machine has used a row of 4 smaller keys like in that photo too (although it's possible I'm thinking of the CBM +4's function keys, in which case they're actually a different size) (incidentally I found the first series a lot more funny - somehow it seemed closer to how I remember those 80's schools shows, whilst being completely insane :-) cheers Jules From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jul 2 14:43:24 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 14:43:24 -0500 Subject: On the subject of AXP-VMS V7.3-1 Message-ID: Does anyone else need it? From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jul 2 15:15:35 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 15:15:35 -0500 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? Message-ID: <82e11b219ad941ecb25f5dbd2c565a5e@valleyimplants.com> Very likely that it uses an adaptor box. Almost all Macs (exclusive of the Plus) with MiniDIN-8 serial also had MiniDIN-4 ADB interface, which would be what a mouse would use. Even on a Plus I don't see why anyone would go to the trouble of rewriting enough drivers to use the serial ports for a mouse when the mouse port is available and SSW expects its use. Could this be a NeXT trackball? From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jul 2 15:54:23 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 16:54:23 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Philip Pemberton wrote: > I'd have thought the AC coupling hardware would have caused problems with > that, and you'll have a maximum frequency limit of about 20kHz due to the > low-pass filters on most sound cards. > And I doubt the parallel port would be fast enough. Non-existent problems. I've been doing this since the 70's and AC-coupled scopes are just fine as long as you don't do any horribly baselined stuff. And with regards to rate and CPU speed, I never had any problem using CPU's that were realistically a tenth of a MIP or slower :-). If it's just a half-dozen letters then there's dozens of ways to implement it (some of them COMPLETELY ANALOG.) My favorite thing to put on a X-Y scope is in fact the output of an analog computer. See Paul Horowitz's Lorenz equation integrator for a wonderfully chaotic example: http://frank.harvard.edu/~paulh/misc/lorenz.html I built this, added some knobs to twiddle the parameters, and hooked it up to a 10" X-Y display and am very happy :-). Tim. From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Sun Jul 2 15:55:58 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 21:55:58 +0100 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <44A82DD3.2060103@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 2/7/06 21:34, "Jules Richardson" wrote: > Seth Morabito wrote: >> BBC has a series, "Look Around You", a comedy program based on late >> 1970s and early 1980s educational programming. Season two included an >> episode called "Computers", and featured these two fake "home computers". >> >> I assume that these are genuine British classic computers that the >> producers painted and re-badged for television. > > Totally made up for the show, AFAIK. There are a few genuine 80's micros to be > spotted in there, though! I keep meaning to try and find out what happened to > the Bournemouth prop - it'd be an amusing thing for the museum to have on > display... When the archives come back up you can search for the discussion we had about them back then. Didn't we decide bournemouth was *probably* based on a TRS80 with at least 2 different keyboard components and the petticoat was totally fabricated from scratch? I remember having a rootle around for pictures of the floppy drives in bournemouth afterwards because I don't remember ever seeing any with a nice icon of the floppy disk on it, or the '0' and '1' designations. > (incidentally I found the first series a lot more funny - somehow it seemed > closer to how I remember those 80's schools shows, whilst being completely > insane :-) I think the reason the second series wasn't so funny is because it was much better produced and realised, like they'd put more effort into accurately spoofing 'Tomorrow's World' rather than just going for laughs like the 'perfect eggy' in the first series. You've reminded me I've got a DVD of the first series for Sellam here somewhere..... -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 2 17:26:26 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:26:26 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <44A84812.4030700@yahoo.co.uk> Tim Shoppa wrote: > http://frank.harvard.edu/~paulh/misc/lorenz.html s/html/htm/ that's rather cool, though. I never thought that the circuit to produce that would be so simple. Well, sort-of - I doubt I've got one of those MPY634 chips sitting around in the junk box... > I built this, added some knobs to twiddle the parameters, > and hooked it up to a 10" X-Y display and am very happy :-). It'd look nice on a Tek 555 'scope sat on top of the Elliott 803 at the museum :-) From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 17:31:53 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 23:31:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 2, 6 06:49:18 pm Message-ID: > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors > to pick. Eh? The resistors in the ladder are R and 2*R, for some suitable value of R. The (maximum) output voltage depends on 2 things. Firstly the output voltage from the parallel port (and note, if those 8 output signals don't switch between the same voltages, you will get non-monotonicity as you observed). And secondly, the load you connect to the output. I would also think that the output impedance of the parallel port needs to be taken into account. And that may well be non-linear (which may make things difficult). Another cause of non-monotinicity is, of course, errors in the individual resistor values. Just out of curiousity, why do you want to use an R-2R ladder, rather than a single-chip DAC? Commercial vector displays that I've come across either used a DAC chip (Vectrex), a DAC module (DEC GT40), or a rather complicated circuit with tweakers for the top 6 bits (HP 1350). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 2 17:34:44 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 23:34:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 2, 6 08:50:39 pm Message-ID: > > I have this Kensington Expert Mouse here (c. 1995), and I'm wondering > if I'm missing an external adapter box... it has a Mac-style DIN-8 for > a connector, and inside, I see 3 chips - an LM358 near the DIN-8, an The 358 could well be used as a level shifter e.g. to RS232 levels. > LP339N (quad comparator?) and a 24-pin Motorola SC417907P with an Yes, a quad comparater and a microcontroller. > adjacent 4.00MHz crystal resonator, clearly some sort of > microcontroller being used as a mouse protocol encoder. One > mysterious part is the optical receiver, an SD6150... it's an How many of these sensors are there? One, or one for each axis? [...] > did 10 years ago), so my first thought is... what protocol might this > speak and am I missing an external adapter to, say, a PS/2-style mouse My first thought, based on the 8 pin connector, is that it's for a Sun. I have a trackball with the same connector, which has a label saying 'Sun' something-or-other stuck on the microntroller. -tony From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Sun Jul 2 17:49:49 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 23:49:49 +0100 Subject: Microfilm scanning - film scanners? Message-ID: <44A84D8D.20108@dsl.pipex.com> Hi, I've been skimming the recent threads on microfiche scanning with some interest. Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried scanning microfilm/microfiche with a film scanner? Just interested, because VueScan (free trial from www.hamrick.com, $50 for the basic licence, $90 for the 'professional' licence) seems to have a setting for microfilm scanning. Unfortunately I don't have any microfilm to try it out, but my film scanner (a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV) only takes mounted 35mm slides and 35mm strip film, so anything I put in would have to meet those size constraints... I could (in theory at least) bodge up a cardboard carrier for my flatbed scanner (an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo) and use that, but I don't rate its optical quality for transparency film very highly. I was just curious if anyone had considered trying it... I'd love to but like I said, I haven't got any film to test with. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com Sun Jul 2 18:49:41 2006 From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 19:49:41 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A84812.4030700@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <44A84812.4030700@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060702234941.5F2A5BA4960@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Tim Shoppa wrote: > > http://frank.harvard.edu/~paulh/misc/lorenz.html > > s/html/htm/ Ah, yes, to play search and replace myself the really correct URL is http://frank.harvard.ed/~paulh/misc/lorenz.htm I had to type that 4 times before I finally left the "l" off the end! > that's rather cool, though. I never thought that the circuit to produce that > would be so simple. Well, sort-of - I doubt I've got one of those MPY634 chips > sitting around in the junk box... The Lorenz equation is remarkable for it's conciseness. I recall that when I first learned about it (late 80's?) I was told that it was originally intended to model some sort of atmospheric or gas flow phenomena. As a practical matter you can get nearly the same chaotic behavior with less expensive circuits that have the right kind of nonlinearities. In my implementation the most expensive components were the ten-turn pots and the turn-counter knobs to set the parameters. I think MPY634's are $10 a pop, but that there are some AD parts that are equivalent and slightly cheaper. There are some even simpler circuits that produce chaotic behavior using just diodes and inductors and capacitors. One of these is often called "Chua's circuit" or "Chua's diode" if you want to go googling. > > I built this, added some knobs to twiddle the parameters, > > and hooked it up to a 10" X-Y display and am very happy :-). > > It'd look nice on a Tek 555 'scope sat on top of the Elliott 803 at the museum :-) I highly recommend it! Historically a lot of chaos research even in the 80's was in fact done with analog computers. It certainly is more fun to move wires around a plugboard and tweak knobs and see the result on the scope, as compared with editing computer code or point-and-drool with a mouse and then running it and then seeing the picture! Tim. From williams.dan at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 19:09:59 2006 From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 01:09:59 +0100 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <26c11a640607021709g7eed9ecft7b853e6df1ade0c8@mail.gmail.com> > My first thought, based on the 8 pin connector, is that it's for a Sun. I > have a trackball with the same connector, which has a label saying 'Sun' > something-or-other stuck on the microntroller. > > -tony > I just got (with a Tadpole Sparcbook) a trackball. It has the same connector. I would try plugging it into the socket on a Sun keyboard and see if it works. Dan From rickb at bensene.com Sun Jul 2 19:13:56 2006 From: rickb at bensene.com (Rick Bensene) Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 17:13:56 -0700 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? Message-ID: The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of an HP 9825 calculator/computer. http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9825a.html. The four ROM drawers in the front look exactly like the ROM drawers on the 9825. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Web Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com > > The Petticoat 5 ("The first computer designed just for women"): > http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ > petticoat.jpg > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jul 2 21:20:56 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 19:20:56 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <20060702234941.5F2A5BA4960@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <44A84812.4030700@yahoo.co.uk> <20060702234941.5F2A5BA4960@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <44A87F08.6000502@DakotaCom.Net> Tim Shoppa wrote: >>> I built this, added some knobs to twiddle the parameters, >>> and hooked it up to a 10" X-Y display and am very happy :-). >> It'd look nice on a Tek 555 'scope sat on top of the Elliott 803 at the museum :-) > > I highly recommend it! > > Historically a lot of chaos research even in the 80's was in fact done > with analog computers. It certainly is more fun to move wires around > a plugboard and tweak knobs and see the result on the scope, as compared > with editing computer code or point-and-drool with a mouse and then > running it and then seeing the picture! I built a two player (team) football game in the early 70's out of analog computers (integrators, adders, etc.). It was wicked cool sprawled out on a 4'x8' sheet of plywood. One of those "guaranteed 'A'" projects that teachers drool over... From doc at mdrconsult.com Sun Jul 2 22:10:31 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:10:31 -0500 Subject: Automatic fan control circuit In-Reply-To: <00fe01c69cb0$8c1a2a60$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <00fe01c69cb0$8c1a2a60$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <44A88AA7.8020900@mdrconsult.com> Richard A. Cini wrote: > All: > > > > If anyone is looking for a very simple, temperature-dependent > fan speed control, check this out: > > > > http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?content=control.shtml > > > > It uses a 10k pot, NTC thermistor, MOSFET and 12v fan. I just built one > using a 40mm Sunon fan for a small SBC enclosure and it works great. All > parts (except the fan) are available from Radio Shack and cost about $7. Word of warning, if (like me) you're not familiar with MOSFET components and you're not shopping at Rat Shack. There's a typo on that page in the parts list - the US part number should be IRF510, not IFR510. Otherwise, thanks, Rich! This is something I needed badly. Doc From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 22:13:44 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 15:13:44 +1200 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 7/3/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors > > to pick. > > Eh? The resistors in the ladder are R and 2*R, for some suitable value of > R. Well... yes... I don't have enough analog theory in my head to come up with the value of R... 2*R is rather obvious once you have R. > Just out of curiousity, why do you want to use an R-2R ladder, rather > than a single-chip DAC? Commercial vector displays that I've come across > either used a DAC chip (Vectrex), a DAC module (DEC GT40), or a rather > complicated circuit with tweakers for the top 6 bits (HP 1350). Two reasons come to mind - one, to make this a passive device off of the parallel port that doesn't require an external power wart, and two, because I'm at the South Pole and I have to work with what I have on hand - there won't be another plane for nearly 4 months. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 2 22:33:39 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 15:33:39 +1200 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <0J1S00KI71JAAZ87@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0J1S00KI71JAAZ87@vms042.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On 7/3/06, Allison wrote: > > > >Subject: Re: Vector Imagery > > From: "Ethan Dicks" > > Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 18:49:18 +1200 > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >I've built that first simple ladder DAC (to hang a 1950s Triplett > >meter off of a parallel port for just random analog fun)... > First, the 1950s triplett meter is likely 20,000ohms/volt at will load > any ladder using resistors larger than 1000ohms in an R2R ladder. > The 5v range looks like a 100K resistor across the probes. I've already cracked open the meter and tweaked the internal load resistor. The simple 8-resistor ladder I built _works_, with the exception of a noticable dip in voltage between 2^5-1 and 2^5, and 2^6-1 and 2^6, and 2^7-1 and 2^7. > Second, The output port is TTL? CMOS? IF TTL the output swing is > not to 5V to with even light loads. IF CMOS output voltage will sag > if the load is too great. To be honest, I have no idea - it's an integrated port on a modern machine. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a CMOS port, but I don't know that for a fact. > For 8bit R2R ladders I use R=10k and 74HC244(or other high current > output CMOS) as a buffer. The load is usually very high impedence > (VTVM, FETVM, DVM, OPamp voltage follower). OK... that's a place to start. I know I can make it work with an 8-bit buffer, but once I get a powered chip external to the PC in the mix, I might as well wait for the next plane and use an 8-bit or a 12-bit DAC and OPamp for a "real" D-A circuit. -ethan From melamy at earthlink.net Sun Jul 2 23:21:11 2006 From: melamy at earthlink.net (Steve Thatcher) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 21:21:11 -0700 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: <82e11b219ad941ecb25f5dbd2c565a5e@valleyimplants.com> References: <82e11b219ad941ecb25f5dbd2c565a5e@valleyimplants.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060702211950.021ab778@earthlink.net> The Kensington Expert Mouse is just a mouse that uses a cable for either PS2 or serial port connections. It does use a minidin connector on it. I don't recall if it can be used on a MAC or not. best regards, Steve Thatcher At 01:15 PM 7/2/2006, you wrote: > Very likely that it uses an adaptor box. Almost all Macs > (exclusive of the Plus) with MiniDIN-8 serial also had MiniDIN-4 > ADB interface, which would be what a mouse would use. >Even on a Plus I don't see why anyone would go to the trouble of >rewriting enough drivers to use the serial ports for a mouse when >the mouse port is available and SSW expects its use. > >Could this be a NeXT trackball? From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jul 3 00:21:31 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 00:21:31 -0500 Subject: Rk05 suitcase exerciser? In-Reply-To: <200607021149.k62BnnoS019078@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <000001c69e60$8e037c80$2000a8c0@main> -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brad Parker Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 6:50 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Rk05 suitcase exercisor? I have testers for several different disk and tape drives. The only one I have for the RK05 is a home made unit, which does plug into the unibus connector. Paul Anderson Hi all I've heard rumors that an RK05 suitcase exercisor exists. Has anyone ever seen one or used one? Does anyone have one? I assume it would connect via the "unibus" connector and exercise the drive (seek, read, write, etc...) -brad From philpem at philpem.me.uk Sun Jul 2 17:12:56 2006 From: philpem at philpem.me.uk (Philip Pemberton) Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 23:12:56 +0100 Subject: Microfilm scanning - film scanners? Message-ID: <44A844E8.3030604@philpem.me.uk> Hi, I've been skimming the recent threads on microfiche scanning with some interest. Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried scanning microfilm/microfiche with a film scanner? Just interested, because VueScan (free trial from www.hamrick.com, $50 for the basic licence, $90 for the 'professional' licence) seems to have a setting for microfilm scanning. Unfortunately I don't have any microfilm to try it out, but my film scanner (a Minolta DiMAGE Scan Dual IV) only takes mounted 35mm slides and 35mm strip film, so anything I put in would have to meet those size constraints... I could (in theory at least) bodge up a cardboard carrier for my flatbed scanner (an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo) and use that, but I don't rate its optical quality for transparency film very highly. I was just curious if anyone had considered trying it... I'd love to but like I said, I haven't got any film to test with. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at philpem.me.uk | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Mon Jul 3 02:15:39 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 08:15:39 +0100 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 3/7/06 01:13, "Rick Bensene" wrote: > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. > http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9825a.html. The four ROM drawers > in the front look exactly like the ROM drawers on the 9825. Good spot! Now someone's going to get upset that it was maybe gutted to make a TV prop :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de Mon Jul 3 02:20:19 2006 From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 09:20:19 +0200 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: <26c11a640607021709g7eed9ecft7b853e6df1ade0c8@mail.gmail.com> References: <26c11a640607021709g7eed9ecft7b853e6df1ade0c8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060703092019.3e0a9ba8@SirToby.dinner41.de> On Mon, 3 Jul 2006 01:09:59 +0100 "Dan Williams" wrote: > I would try plugging it into the socket on a Sun keyboard > and see if it works. And possibly destroy it. I would first check the pinouts of the Sun and the mouse. If they match I would check if supply voltages and logic levels are compatible. (IIRC the Sun keyboards and rodents use RS232 at TTL level.) -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/ From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jul 3 02:32:37 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 03:32:37 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: <20060703092019.3e0a9ba8@SirToby.dinner41.de> References: <26c11a640607021709g7eed9ecft7b853e6df1ade0c8@mail.gmail.com> <20060703092019.3e0a9ba8@SirToby.dinner41.de> Message-ID: <200607030741.DAA28328@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > (IIRC the Sun keyboards and rodents use RS232 at TTL level.) YRC, basically. Sun keyboard and mouse interfaces are standard serial (1200 baud, unless you've hacked the hardware - which is easy, and useful, to do for some mice) except that the voltage levels are TTL instead of RS-232, and the mechanical interface is not standard RD-232. Exactly what it *is* depends on the device and its age - recently, everything is miniDNI-8, at least as far as Sun used Sun-specific interfaces, but for type-3 I've seen DA-15 as the host interface and the mouse plugging into the keyboard with a connector whose proper name I do not know - it's a four-conductor version of the RJ-11 six-conductor or RJ-45 eight-conductor plug, mechanically compatible with the canonical telephone handset connector. For even older (type-2), I've seen keyboard and mouse each plugging into a small adapter box which has a DA-15 on it; I forget what connector the keyboard and mouse used to plug into the adapter box. This implies that it's possible to use a Sun keyboard or mouse on a normal serial port, by adding a power supply and level-shifting glue logic and doing the rest in software. I've never tried this with a mouse, but I've tried it with a keyboard, and it worked fine. I would not hesitate to try it with a mouse - and not just because I have lots of spare Sun mice. :) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jul 3 02:42:38 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 00:42:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 2 Jul 2006, Rick Bensene wrote: > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. > http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9825a.html. The four ROM drawers > in the front look exactly like the ROM drawers on the 9825. My eyes were more drawn to the slot near the top left of the keyboard. I'd say it was most definitely built from an HP9825. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 3 05:07:28 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:07:28 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Two reasons come to mind - one, to make this a passive device off of > the parallel port that doesn't require an external power wart, and > two, because I'm at the South Pole and I have to work with what I have > on hand - there won't be another plane for nearly 4 months. Can you make resistors out of ice? :-) Lack of power on the parallel port's a strange one - I always found it hard to believe that the implementors didn't forsee the use of the port as a general-purpose output port and provide it with a couple of power pins. It's not like there aren't several grounds available so that couple could have been given up for +5V pins. I used to power external gadgets from the PC keyboard port because I happened to have the right connectors to hand in order to tap power from there - that was at least portable until everywhere went to ps/2 type keyboards. One of my other machines just had one of the internal drive power connectors fed out of the back of the case though for a useful point to take power from. cheers J. From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jul 3 13:05:15 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:05:15 -0700 Subject: ESD disc drive papers Message-ID: I turned these up looking for something else this morning http://www.wallash.com/publications Related to Billy's postings a while back about ESD issues in disc drives and why it is more of an issue in modern drives. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jul 3 04:25:43 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 21:25:43 +1200 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/3/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Lack of power on the parallel port's a strange one - I always found it hard to > believe that the implementors didn't forsee the use of the port as a > general-purpose output port and provide it with a couple of power pins. It's > not like there aren't several grounds available so that couple could have been > given up for +5V pins. The Amiga 1000 has a power pin just for powering external devices. It was unpopular because one needed a custom cable to avoid frying devices that weren't expecting it or to avoid frying the Amiga in case the pin was shorted to ground. The A500 and A2000 have PC-compatible parallel port connectors. > I used to power external gadgets from the PC keyboard port because I happened > to have the right connectors to hand in order to tap power from there - that > was at least portable until everywhere went to ps/2 type keyboards. I have done that, too, even with PS/2 keyboard connectors. > One of my other machines just had one of the internal drive power connectors > fed out of the back of the case though for a useful point to take power from. Done that, too... I've used DIN-4s for it because C= had a line of disks (1541-II and a few others) that used a DIN-4 for +5, +12 and GND). I was just hoping to upgrade my dodgy ladder with a more precise one without resorting to additional cables and powered circuits. I seemed to have opened a can of worms. -ethan From vp at drexel.edu Mon Jul 3 15:16:00 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 16:16:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? Message-ID: <200607032016.k63KG0AQ007541@dune.cs.drexel.edu> > > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of > > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. > Good spot! Now someone's going to get upset that it was maybe gutted to make > a TV prop :) actually it may be even worse, because the "petticoat" looks like the even rarer 9835A (http://hpmuseum.net/image.php?file=992), which looks very much like the 9825, but does not have the LED display or printer. BTW although the monitor on top of the peticoat, looks like an HP monitor (e.g. like the one used for the HP-86), the 9835A used a totally different monitor. **vp From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Mon Jul 3 12:38:09 2006 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 10:38:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <200607031700.k63H0b4U048550@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060703173809.45430.qmail@web82704.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > > Alright, I admit it. I'm stumped. > > BBC has a series, "Look Around You", a comedy > program based on late > 1970s and early 1980s educational programming. > Season two included > an episode called "Computers", and featured these > two fake "home > computers". > > The Bournemouth ("The most powerful computer in > Britain"): > http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ > > bournemouth.jpg > This looks to be made from an HP 64000 development system. Like the one seen here: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:wmbqtorpWVMJ:www.gaby.de/e64000.htm+hp+64000&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3 I also believe the other is made from an HP 9825. Bob From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 3 05:15:49 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:15:49 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <20060702234941.5F2A5BA4960@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> References: <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A485E6.2050509@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300406.AAA00988@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> <44A6DA7C.7080108@yahoo.co.uk> <200607011259040995.2F2D6251@10.0.0.252> <44A6DAC5.9030405@DakotaCom.Net> <44A6E264.2000701@dsl.pipex.com> <20060702205426.A6085BA4969@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> <44A84812.4030700@yahoo.co.uk> <20060702234941.5F2A5BA4960@mini-me.trailing-edge.com> Message-ID: <44A8EE55.3000400@yahoo.co.uk> Tim Shoppa wrote: > As a practical matter you can get nearly the same chaotic behavior with less > expensive circuits that have the right kind of nonlinearities. In > my implementation the most expensive components were the ten-turn pots > and the turn-counter knobs to set the parameters. I think MPY634's are > $10 a pop, but that there are some AD parts that are equivalent and slightly > cheaper. I did wonder how critical those components are - or rather, what the nature of it 'not working' is when bits of slightly lower tolerance are used. > There are some even simpler circuits that produce chaotic behavior using > just diodes and inductors and capacitors. One of these is often called > "Chua's circuit" or "Chua's diode" if you want to go googling. Will do! Later on we can make a 'proper' funded project out of this - it'd definitely be justified - but prior to launch and opening of the new museum we're probably pretty much stuck raiding bits from the junk box :-) >> It'd look nice on a Tek 555 'scope sat on top of the Elliott 803 at the museum :-) > > I highly recommend it! > > Historically a lot of chaos research even in the 80's was in fact done > with analog computers. It certainly is more fun to move wires around > a plugboard and tweak knobs and see the result on the scope, as compared > with editing computer code or point-and-drool with a mouse and then > running it and then seeing the picture! If anyone has any circuits... We've got a nice Pace TR-48 analogue computer that I suspect would lend itself well to this (conveniently with a Tek 555 and a large XY display currently parked on top!) as well as a fairly large Solartron that could probably also do the job. Unfortunately we only have one person who knows anything about the analogue machines, and he doesn't get that much time to ever do anything with them :-( cheers Jules From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Mon Jul 3 19:51:48 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 17:51:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: ne1 got a Proprinter II (parts machine) Message-ID: <20060704005148.23796.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> I need one plastic part to make this one complete. E-mail me offlist please. Thankee. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Mon Jul 3 15:53:59 2006 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 13:53:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: IBM 1800 rescue In-Reply-To: <200607031700.k63H0b4U048550@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> For those interested, I rescued an IBM 1800 computer system last weekend. It appears to have been built in 1967 and has been maintained running until about two years ago. It has a simulated 2311 hard drive (using an older PC) and a 1442 card read punch. Came with a full set of documentation! Some photos can be seen at: http://dvq.com/1800/1800.htm I hope to put together a list of the manuals and microfiche and the more than 1000 SLT modules that came with it. Hopefully I can get it up and running again. Bob From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 16:17:15 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:17:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 3, 6 10:07:28 am Message-ID: > Can you make resistors out of ice? :-) I think I read somewhere (this may well have been on Usenet) that somebody had 'doped' ice with suitable ionic substances and made very crude transistors from it :-) A frequency response of 1Hz was good IIRC (the charge carrier mobility was darn low...) > > Lack of power on the parallel port's a strange one - I always found it hard to > believe that the implementors didn't forsee the use of the port as a > general-purpose output port and provide it with a couple of power pins. It's > not like there aren't several grounds available so that couple could have been > given up for +5V pins. > > I used to power external gadgets from the PC keyboard port because I happened > to have the right connectors to hand in order to tap power from there - that > was at least portable until everywhere went to ps/2 type keyboards. Well, PS/2 keuyboard connectors also carry a 5V line :-)... The other place is the joystick connector (AFAIK the ones you find on soundcards still have the 5V line available, but I don't have a soundcard to check). One thing that annoyed me as a circuit that needed a single bit input to the computer. It used ome of the lines on the parallel port, but you had to get 5V from somewhere. Why not use one of the switch inputs on the joystick port, you can get 5V from the same connector. Of course the software came as a binary only, so you couldn't modify it to use the joystick port. > One of my other machines just had one of the internal drive power connectors > fed out of the back of the case though for a useful point to take power from. Somewhere I have a 'PC bracket' with a little PCB on that that doesn't plug into any motherboard connector. Instead it's got a 4 pin connector that takes a '3.5" drive power connector (if you see what I mean), from which it takes thr 12V line). The PCB contains a 3 terminal regulator with a jumper block to set the output to somewhere between 3V and 12V (most useful voltages, including 5V, are catered for). The output appears on one of those coazial power connectors, poking through a hole in the bracket. I assume it was indended to power PC speakers or the like from the computer power supply. It would be a lot more use to me if the voltage-setting jumpers were accessible from outside the case :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 15:57:33 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 21:57:33 +0100 (BST) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: from "Rick Bensene" at Jul 2, 6 05:13:56 pm Message-ID: > > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. > http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9825a.html. The four ROM drawers > in the front look exactly like the ROM drawers on the 9825. Indeed. As does the tape drive at the rear left of the keyboard, and the hinges for the cover on the RHS of the machine. On the 9825 there's a flap on top, hinged on the right side, covering the well for the printer paper. One thing bothers me. There's no evidence of the internal printer (at the rear right of the keyboard). That means it _might_ have started life as a 9831 (the BASIC-language model, which didn't have the printer AFAIK). I hope not, that machine is, I am told, rather rare. The monitor looks like an NEC model, HP badged them for a time too. AFAIK it was never used on the 9825/9831 though (not that that means anything when you're making a TV prop). -tony From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jul 3 17:09:06 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:09:06 -0400 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? Message-ID: <200607032209.k63M97pO024789@mwave.heeltoe.com> Hi - can anyone identify the type of rack slide in these pictures? http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001376.JPG http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001377.JPG http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001378.JPG I have 4 different pieces of equipment which where pulled out of racks and the "mates" to the slides where left behind. They're all the same "u shapes with wings" slide. I'd like to find the same type so I don't have to remount the slides (color me lazy). I think these are common on DEC equipment, but I don't know what they are... thanks for any hints! -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Mon Jul 3 06:25:22 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:25:22 -0400 Subject: Rk05 suitcase exerciser? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 03 Jul 2006 00:21:31 CDT." <000001c69e60$8e037c80$2000a8c0@main> Message-ID: <200607031125.k63BPMlS000837@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Paul Anderson" wrote: > >I have testers for several different disk and tape drives. The only one I >have for the RK05 is a home made unit, which does plug into the unibus >connector. oh, you can't get away with just that - here anyway - ... :-) please do share! any chance you have a schematic or even just a general description? -brad ps: any chance you have a box for a century data drive? From stanb at dial.pipex.com Mon Jul 3 02:51:24 2006 From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 08:51:24 +0100 Subject: Does a Kensington Expert Mouse need an external adapter? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 02 Jul 2006 23:34:44 BST." Message-ID: <200607030751.IAA16688@citadel.metropolis.local> Hi, Tony Duell said: > > My first thought, based on the 8 pin connector, is that it's for a Sun. I > have a trackball with the same connector, which has a label saying 'Sun' > something-or-other stuck on the microntroller. Sun meece are certainly 8-pin, most seem to have a short lead as they plug into the keyboard, rather than the computer case. (Having fun getting Freebsd running on an Ultra 5 atm, X is proving recalcitrant!) -- Cheers, Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com The future was never like this! From useddec at gmail.com Mon Jul 3 20:33:30 2006 From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 20:33:30 -0500 Subject: Rk05 suitcase exerciser? In-Reply-To: <200607031125.k63BPMlS000837@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <000001c69f09$dbe185b0$2000a8c0@main> Can you send me a phone # off list that I can call you now? Paul Anderson -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Brad Parker Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 6:25 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Rk05 suitcase exerciser? "Paul Anderson" wrote: > >I have testers for several different disk and tape drives. The only one I >have for the RK05 is a home made unit, which does plug into the unibus >connector. oh, you can't get away with just that - here anyway - ... :-) please do share! any chance you have a schematic or even just a general description? -brad ps: any chance you have a box for a century data drive? From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 3 20:53:24 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:53:24 -0700 Subject: IBM 1800 rescue In-Reply-To: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200607031853240020.3ABE744C@10.0.0.252> On 7/3/2006 at 1:53 PM Bob Rosenbloom wrote: >For those interested, I rescued an IBM 1800 computer >system last weekend. It appears to have been built in >1967 and has been maintained running until about two >years ago. It has a simulated 2311 hard drive (using >an older PC) and a 1442 card read punch. Came with a full >set of documentation! Hard to believe that under all of that, lurks the heart of an 1130! Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 16:05:16 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:05:16 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 3, 6 03:13:44 pm Message-ID: > > On 7/3/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > > What I really would like to find is a formula for calculating R2R > > > ladder values so that I could get a 0V-5V output from an 8-bit > > > parallel port. Constructing it is easy, once one knows what resistors > > > to pick. > > > > Eh? The resistors in the ladder are R and 2*R, for some suitable value of > > R. > > Well... yes... I don't have enough analog theory in my head to come up with > the value of R... 2*R is rather obvious once you have R. Ah, OK... What you need to do is choose R so that it (or more accurately 2*R) is large compared to the output impedance of the port lines (so that the 'extra' resistance added by the drivers isn't a cause of inaccuracies) and low compared to the load (IIRC, the output resistance of the R-2R ladder is simply R). Obviously you might well not be able to do this. In which case, you either have to buffer the port lines (to reduce the output impedance there) or add a buffer amplifier on the analogue output. Either solution involves active components that need power. > > Just out of curiousity, why do you want to use an R-2R ladder, rather > > than a single-chip DAC? Commercial vector displays that I've come across > > either used a DAC chip (Vectrex), a DAC module (DEC GT40), or a rather > > complicated circuit with tweakers for the top 6 bits (HP 1350). > > Two reasons come to mind - one, to make this a passive device off of > the parallel port that doesn't require an external power wart, and Can't you grab power from the computer? Obvious places would be either the keynoard connector or the joystick port. I have never forgivven IBM for not putting a +5V line on the parallel port. It would be so useful for homebrew add-ons. I have modified a few parallel cards (cut and jumper in the obvious way) so that pin 25 is a +5V output, the problem then is that any normal printer cable will short the 5V line to ground. Incidnetally, the HP machine that currently occupies my bench has a 50 pin Blue Ribbon serial port connector. On that are the +5V, +12V and -12V power supply lines :-) > two, because I'm at the South Pole and I have to work with what I have > on hand - there won't be another plane for nearly 4 months. Ah, and you don't have any DACs in the junk box... But do you have suitable resistors? I've not done the calculations, but intuitively, you need the R's and 2*R's all to agree to better than 0.5% for an 8 bit converter. 0.5% resistors are not common. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 3 16:10:03 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:10:03 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: from "Ethan Dicks" at Jul 3, 6 03:33:39 pm Message-ID: > > I've already cracked open the meter and tweaked the internal load > resistor. The simple 8-resistor ladder I built _works_, with the > exception of a noticable dip in voltage between 2^5-1 and 2^5, and > 2^6-1 and 2^6, and 2^7-1 and 2^7. What resistor vavlues are you using, and what tolerance? > > > Second, The output port is TTL? CMOS? IF TTL the output swing is > > not to 5V to with even light loads. IF CMOS output voltage will sag > > if the load is too great. > > To be honest, I have no idea - it's an integrated port on a modern > machine. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a CMOS port, but I don't > know that for a fact. > Write 0xFF to the port, and measure the voltage on the data lines with a (fairly high impedance) voltmeter. A CMOS driver will give you almost 5V, a TTL one will be quite a bit lower (it might only be about 2.5V). Then connect up your 'DAC', write FF again, and measure the voltages again. If they're significantly lower, your DAC is loading the port too much, use higher value resistors. You might also try writing 0 to a particular port line, measuring the voltage there with the others at all 0's and all 1's. Then do the same thing with the line you're monitoring set to 1. Repeat those tests for all 8 port lines. If you see the voltage on the line being monitored change when you change other bits, again I think the resistors are too low. -tony From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Mon Jul 3 09:19:59 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:19:59 -0700 Subject: Microfilm scanning - film scanners? In-Reply-To: <44A84D8D.20108@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44A84D8D.20108@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44A9278F.9050000@msm.umr.edu> Philip Pemberton wrote: > > I could (in theory at least) bodge up a cardboard carrier for my > flatbed scanner (an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo) and use that, but I > don't rate its optical quality for transparency film very highly. I used a Perfection scanner to scan a fiche. Microfilm should be even easier, assuming you mean the 16mm format with images that fill that frame. The images I scanned with the epson were about 1/8" on a side, or maybe 1/3 the size of the 16mm frame size for an 8 1/2" x 11" image on a 16mm microfilm roll. The biggest problem with the epson would be how to feed the frame thru the scanner. If you had some moviola reels you could mount them on either side of the unit and spool to an empty reel on the other side, I suppose. I used settings to produce a g4 compressed tiff with the same bit resolution as a 400 dpi scan of 8 1/2 x 11 would produce with my epson and it worked okay, though I had to manuall position a scan box over each image on the microfiche sheet, and scan. Jim From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Mon Jul 3 21:14:26 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 23:14:26 -0300 Subject: Vector Imagery References: Message-ID: <015001c69f0f$d8043cc0$01fea8c0@alpha> > Then connect up your 'DAC', write FF again, and measure the voltages > again. If they're significantly lower, your DAC is loading the port too > much, use higher value resistors. You might also try writing 0 to a > particular port line, measuring the voltage there with the others at all > 0's and all 1's. Then do the same thing with the line you're monitoring > set to 1. Repeat those tests for all 8 port lines. If you see the voltage > on the line being monitored change when you change other bits, again I > think the resistors are too low. Go simpler: Use a ZN428 from Ferranti ;o) From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 3 21:20:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 19:20:30 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607031920300014.3AD743C6@10.0.0.252> On 7/3/2006 at 10:07 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >Lack of power on the parallel port's a strange one - I always found it >hard to believe that the implementors didn't forsee the use of the port as a >general-purpose output port and provide it with a couple of power pins. >It's not like there aren't several grounds available so that couple could have >been given up for +5V pins. Given the implementation of the port, I don't believe that any use beyond a printer port was foreseen at the time of product release. The implementation has some oddities about it, however (I'm talking about the original IBM PC device found on the parallel printer adapter and the monochrome display adapter). If one looks at the original IBM PC BIOS listing, the printer port is referred to in at least one spot as an 8255, which was not the way it was implemented--but perhaps that was the original plan. The fact that the output buffer on the original PC part (both on the parallel port printer adapter and on the MDA) are tristate (LS374), with the tristate enable tied to ground, essentially forcing the idea of unidirectionality (I know that it's possible to drive the data lines low externally by application of sufficient current, but it's hardly the way to run a railroad). It's also curious that the 6-bit latch (LS174) used for some of the handshaking pins has a free bit. I (and doubtless many others) found that it was a simple matter to lift the tristate enable line and tie it to the unused bit on the latch, giving full controllable bidirectional use of the port. It's interesting that the PS/2 version of the parallel port did exactly this; the bit used being identical in position and sense to the original parallel port hack (probably a coincidence). Regardless, it's pretty obvious that the "bidirectionality) of the parallel interface was intended for self-diagnostic use more than anything. If one needed +5, one could steal it by using a DC boost converter from an unused logic high output or from the keyboard connection or, in the case of later machines, a USB port. Cheers, Chuck From bpope at wordstock.com Mon Jul 3 21:23:39 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:23:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060704022339.C150B5824B@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Tony Duell > > One thing bothers me. There's no evidence of the internal printer (at the > rear right of the keyboard). That means it _might_ have started life as a > 9831 (the BASIC-language model, which didn't have the printer AFAIK). I > hope not, that machine is, I am told, rather rare. > You would hope they would use something easy to get... ie the way of least resistance! Cheers, Bryan From rborsuk at colourfull.com Mon Jul 3 21:34:22 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:34:22 -0400 Subject: IBM 1800 rescue In-Reply-To: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Bob, On Jul 3, 2006, at 4:53 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > For those interested, I rescued an IBM 1800 computer > system last weekend. It appears to have been built in > 1967 and has been maintained running until about two > years ago. It has a simulated 2311 hard drive (using > an > older PC) and a 1442 card read punch. Came with a full > set of documentation! Some photos can be seen at: > > http://dvq.com/1800/1800.htm > > I hope to put together a list of the manuals and > microfiche and the more than 1000 SLT modules that > came with it. Hopefully I can get it up and running > again. > > > Bob > > Nice rescue. The IBM looks to be in great shape. I'd be interested in seeing what documentation you obtained. Rob Rob Borsuk email: rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations Web: http://www.colourfull.com From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jul 3 22:47:43 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:47:43 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <20060703173809.45430.qmail@web82704.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <200607031700.k63H0b4U048550@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060703224743.10ef0362@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 10:38 AM 7/3/06 -0700, you wrote: > >> >> Alright, I admit it. I'm stumped. >> >> BBC has a series, "Look Around You", a comedy >> program based on late >> 1970s and early 1980s educational programming. >> Season two included >> an episode called "Computers", and featured these >> two fake "home >> computers". >> >> The Bournemouth ("The most powerful computer in >> Britain"): >> >http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ >> >> bournemouth.jpg >> > >This looks to be made from an HP 64000 development >system. Like the one seen here: > >http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:wmbqtorpWVMJ:www.gaby.de/e64000.htm+hp+ 64000&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3 Definitely! You can even see the "hatch" on the back RH corner where you install the interfaces, emulator cards, etc in the 64000. You can't see it in the 64000 picture but it does have the ventilation slots on the sides like the Bournemouth computer. BTW the EPROM socket shown on the 64000 was optional and one without it looks exactly like the cutout shown to the right of the keyboard of the Bournemouth computer. Joe > >I also believe the other is made from an HP 9825. > >Bob > > > From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Mon Jul 3 22:36:45 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:36:45 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <200607032016.k63KG0AQ007541@dune.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060703223645.198ff340@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 04:16 PM 7/3/06 -0400, you wrote: >> > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of >> > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. >> Good spot! Now someone's going to get upset that it was maybe gutted to make >> a TV prop :) > >actually it may be even worse, because the "petticoat" looks like the >even rarer 9835A (http://hpmuseum.net/image.php?file=992), which looks >very much like the 9825, but does not have the LED display or printer. > >BTW although the monitor on top of the peticoat, looks like an HP >monitor (e.g. like the one used for the HP-86), the 9835A used a >totally different monitor. It's not a HP monitor. They only have two adjusting knobs, not three. The case definitely looks like a HP 9825. You can see the gap on the top about 1/4 of the way from the right that is the edge of the door over the printer and paper feed. You can also see what looks like the original HP biege on the top and on the left corner. It's been POORLY painted over in pink. You can see a lot of the original color showing through in several places. It looks like someone taped over and painted over the orginal display. Notice that the color of the "tape" doesn't match the original color on the top and sides. they've also replaced the keyboard with one that is smaller and has fewer keys. That is definitely not an HP keyboard. I'm wondering what that "horn" above the keyboard is supposed to be? (please, no quips about it being a male computer!) Joe > >**vp > From cooper9907 at student.faytechcc.edu Mon Jul 3 22:24:57 2006 From: cooper9907 at student.faytechcc.edu (Paul Cooper) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 23:24:57 -0400 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? References: Message-ID: <10DC01DA62436F47B3BCB5F88C20C0A1010F229F@studentemail> I attached a photo of the Petticoat -5 computer that I am saving in my online photo archive to remind me how far technology has advanced. The Petticoat -5 does have some similarity of the HP 9825. But I can?t say with certainty that the Petticoat -5 computer have been builted from the carcass of the HP 9825 calculator/computer. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of Adrian Graham Sent: Mon 7/3/2006 3:15 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: Subject: Re: Stumper: What computers are these? On 3/7/06 01:13, "Rick Bensene" wrote: > The Petticoat 5 looks like it might have been built from the carcass of > an HP 9825 calculator/computer. > http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/hp9825a.html. The four ROM drawers > in the front look exactly like the ROM drawers on the 9825. Good spot! Now someone's going to get upset that it was maybe gutted to make a TV prop :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jul 3 22:39:05 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 23:39:05 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought Message-ID: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular oscilloscope, a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN B. DUMONT LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes come from the front panel markings). It worked fine then. After sitting idle for years - probably at least a decade - I've got my hands back on this 'scope. It doesn't quiet work, but appears to be close. It's an entirely vacuum-tube design; even the power-supply rectifiers are valves rather than semiconductors, and all the wiring is point-to-point, with terminal strips used as necessary and most components self-supported by their leads. (I mention this to give some idea of its age.) When I turn it on, it appears to power up. All the filaments light as far as I can see (the one I can't see is the CRT, and since I get some light on the screen under some circumstances, I infer its filament is working too). But I can't find the beam. I've set both X and Y selectors to "off", which (based on my past experience with this 'scope) should give me a single stationary dot. If I crank the intensity all the way up, I get vague shadowy patterns of light on the screen, but no matter how I play with the X and Y position controls, I can't get anything definite. The Y position control does something; the X position control does not, as far as I can tell from watching the screen. What memory I retain (which may be wrong) indicates that this display syndrome is typical of a beam which is far off-screen in one direction or another, but doesn't give any hints for what to do if the position controls don't work. Any thoughts? I googled, to no avail. Since the wiring is point-to-point, I could trace out a schematic. I will if I have to, but I'm hoping that the above symptoms is enough for someone to point me in a useful direction to look for the problem. Unfortunately I have only minimal test equipment available - a moderately-decent electromech voltmeter is about it. Since the X position knob does nothing, I speculate that that pot has gone bad and is, in terms of the circuit it controls, always hard over against one margin. Does this sound plausible? I may try to find the deflection electrodes and apply the voltmeter to them, if it has a suitably high range (I'd not try it unless it has a range of at least a kilovolt). Yes, it'd load the driving circuit more than it's designed for, but glassfets are mostly pretty resistant to that sort of thing, and the loading alone may well bring the beam back on the screen if that's what's wrong. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Mon Jul 3 23:53:43 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 00:53:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> I know, bad form to follow up to myself.... > [...'scope which doesn't seem to have the beam on-screen...] ...I turned out to be in luck. On closer examination, this 'scope has a bank of screw terminals which are labeled (in black-on-dark-brown, not obvious except on close inspection) as being suitable for jumpering in certain ways to get the X and Y deflection plates as coming direct from inputs or coming from the X and Y deflection amplifier circuitry. I removed the insulator panel on which these terminals are mounted, and it is clear that four of the terminals go directly to the deflection plates (two for each axis), with a resistor (4.7M) hardwired from there to the deflection-amplifier terminals. (The direct-input terminals are capacitor-coupled to the plates if the jumpers are in the direct-input positions; if the jumpers are in the amplifier-fed positions, they short out these resistors, with the direct-input terminals doing nothing at all.) So I removed the jumpers entirely and, using alligator clip leads, grounded both X deflector plates (to the chassis, that being where all other grounds go). Voila, I can find the trace! (Well, spot, under the circumstances.) Using a voltmeter on the amplifier-output terminals indicates that one is driving about +100V and the other about +400V (of course, these may be reading low because of meter impedance, but they clearly are nowhere near equal). Grounding the deflection plate corresponding to the +400V line and leaving the other alone gives me a spot near one edge of the display; the other way around and I get the symptom I wrote about. So now it's just a matter of tracing circuitry back until I find the problem. (Heh. "Just".) Sorry to bother everyone when the answer was right there waiting to be discovered all the time. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 4 00:17:25 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 22:17:25 -0700 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607032217250051.3B793B39@10.0.0.252> On 7/3/2006 at 11:39 PM der Mouse wrote: >Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular oscilloscope, >a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN B. DUMONT >LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes come from the >front panel markings). It worked fine then. > >After sitting idle for years - probably at least a decade - I've got my >hands back on this 'scope. It doesn't quiet work, but appears to be >close. > >It's an entirely vacuum-tube design; even the power-supply rectifiers >are valves rather than semiconductors, and all the wiring is >point-to-point, with terminal strips used as necessary and most >components self-supported by their leads. (I mention this to give some >idea of its age.) > >When I turn it on, it appears to power up. All the filaments light as >far as I can see (the one I can't see is the CRT, and since I get some >light on the screen under some circumstances, I infer its filament is >working too). But I can't find the beam. I've set both X and Y >selectors to "off", which (based on my past experience with this >'scope) should give me a single stationary dot. If I crank the >intensity all the way up, I get vague shadowy patterns of light on the >screen, but no matter how I play with the X and Y position controls, I >can't get anything definite. The Y position control does something; >the X position control does not, as far as I can tell from watching the >screen. > >What memory I retain (which may be wrong) indicates that this display >syndrome is typical of a beam which is far off-screen in one direction >or another, but doesn't give any hints for what to do if the position >controls don't work. > >Any thoughts? I googled, to no avail. Since the wiring is >point-to-point, I could trace out a schematic. I will if I have to, >but I'm hoping that the above symptoms is enough for someone to point >me in a useful direction to look for the problem. > >Unfortunately I have only minimal test equipment available - a >moderately-decent electromech voltmeter is about it. > >Since the X position knob does nothing, I speculate that that pot has >gone bad and is, in terms of the circuit it controls, always hard over >against one margin. Does this sound plausible? I may try to find the >deflection electrodes and apply the voltmeter to them, if it has a >suitably high range (I'd not try it unless it has a range of at least a >kilovolt). Yes, it'd load the driving circuit more than it's designed >for, but glassfets are mostly pretty resistant to that sort of thing, >and the loading alone may well bring the beam back on the screen if >that's what's wrong. > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 4 00:33:34 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:33:34 -0500 Subject: T300 exerciser Message-ID: > ps: any chance you have a box for a century data drive? I have a few of them, if you have a drive clean enough to attempt a head load. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 4 00:36:53 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:36:53 -0500 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? Message-ID: > can you indentify this rack slide? Chassis-Trak From allain at panix.com Mon Jul 3 08:18:16 2006 From: allain at panix.com (John Allain) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 09:18:16 -0400 Subject: On the subject of AXP-VMS V7.3-1 References: Message-ID: <00bf01c69ea3$25964220$21fe54a6@ibm23xhr06> Subject: On the subject of AXP-VMS V7.3-1 > Does anyone else need it? Yes; and key with that could be an unrestricted liscence to run it. John A. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jul 4 01:19:42 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 18:19:42 +1200 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <015001c69f0f$d8043cc0$01fea8c0@alpha> References: <015001c69f0f$d8043cc0$01fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: On 7/4/06, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > Then connect up your 'DAC', write FF again, and measure... > > Go simpler: Use a ZN428 from Ferranti ;o) I think you missed the part where if I ordered one, it might show up by 1 November. I have to use what I have on hand. -ethan P.S. - Tony, thanks for the info on port loading, etc. I'm trying to avoid a multi-cable setup so that when I turn things over to the next guy, it's as uncomplicated to attach as possible. Also, while I've used PS/2 ports, etc., in the past, I'm not sure how much longer they'll be standard equipment. We already have servers here with no parallel ports. I've rigged up a USB-to-banana-jack cable for +5V for my breadboard (that's where my simple "DAC" is at the moment), but the only free USB ports are on the front, leaving me the only option of parallel cable in the back for data, and a long cable all the way around the machine to the front for power. Not a robust end-user situation, I'd say, but OK for puttering around. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Tue Jul 4 01:35:37 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 18:35:37 +1200 Subject: Powering (or not) a parallel-port-attached DAC (was Re: Vector Imagery) Message-ID: On 7/4/06, Tony Duell wrote: > Obviously you might well not be able to do this. In which case, you > either have to buffer the port lines (to reduce the output impedance > there) or add a buffer amplifier on the analogue output. Either solution > involves active components that need power. I know that the "right" way to do it involves active components... given my 95% success with passive components, I was hoping to squeak by. If I could get power and data from the same source (see below), I wouldn't be quite so picky. > Can't you grab power from the computer? Obvious places would be either > the keynoard connector or the joystick port. Keyboard connector is a possibility. This (server-class) computer doesn't have a joystick port. As I mentioned in another message, my breadboard is extracting power for projects from the USB port (cable came from a dead keyboard), but I really don't think the mechanical arrangement is viable in a user environment. We've lost three of these machines in 12 months by static discharge when plugging in USB devices - you can see the resultant hole in the epoxy of the gate array that does the USB... the machine is totally fried after a spark... I'd prefer to glue the cover shut to keep users out; I certainly don't want to leave a device behind that encourages them to fiddle with the front USB ports. No... we don't have any powered USB hubs here - the ports the vendor designs in are the ports we have to work with. I'd probably be best served by rigging up a back bracket with a custom power cable - that way, at least, it'd be out of sight, out of mind when installed. > I have never forgivven IBM for not putting a +5V line on the parallel > port. It would be so useful for homebrew add-ons. I have modified a few > parallel cards (cut and jumper in the obvious way) so that pin 25 is a > +5V output, the problem then is that any normal printer cable will short > the 5V line to ground. That's a nice hack, and one I might have done for myself back in the ISA days, but as I mentioned in another message, an official +5V output pin on the Amiga 1000 caused lots of people lots of grief and C= relented with the A500 and A2000 and went with a totally PC-printer-cable-compatible port after the A1000. I've seen some goofy designs for getting power to an external device - molded DB25s with integral coaxial power connector (for an early powered mouse), and more than one design for a male/female keyboard power connector (Xircom did one for their PE3 Pocket Ethernet Adapters)... it would have been so much easier if there had been an official way to tap power. > > two, because I'm at the South Pole and I have to work with what I have > > on hand - there won't be another plane for nearly 4 months. > > Ah, and you don't have any DACs in the junk box... We have many, many parts in drawers (I probably have access to 20-25 parts bins), but DACs are not among them. I might be able to scrounge something off of a dead board (we have some Vaisala weathersonde boards and some UPS boards in the scrap pile - I did manage to score 16 IRF510s from a dead UPS a couple of months ago, perfect for a thermo-controlled fan ;-) > But do you have suitable resistors? I've not done the calculations, but intuitively, you > need the R's and 2*R's all to agree to better than 0.5% for an 8 bit > converter. 0.5% resistors are not common. Ah... we have quantities of 1% resistors, but no 0.5% resistors that I know of. As for my simple 8-value DAC, I used 5% resistors and hand-sorted them for a (nearly) consistent 1:2 ratio up the line. We have a number of the ancient Ohmite red drawers with a dozen values per tray (there are lots of components here from the 1960s, including a bucket full of tubes/valves). -ethan From quapla at xs4all.nl Tue Jul 4 01:56:59 2006 From: quapla at xs4all.nl (Edward) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 08:56:59 +0200 (CEST) Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? In-Reply-To: <200607032209.k63M97pO024789@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200607032209.k63M97pO024789@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <16901.195.114.232.202.1151996219.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> I use these on my dec papertape puncher/reader. here are also longer ones, they are often used on RX01/RX02 drives. I guess that the lighter panelmount equipment uses these. Ed > > Hi - > > can anyone identify the type of rack slide in these pictures? > > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001376.JPG > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001377.JPG > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001378.JPG > > I have 4 different pieces of equipment which where pulled out of racks > and the "mates" to the slides where left behind. They're all the same > "u shapes with wings" slide. > > I'd like to find the same type so I don't have to remount the slides > (color me lazy). > > I think these are common on DEC equipment, but I don't know what they > are... > > thanks for any hints! > > -brad > From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jul 4 01:58:00 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:58:00 +0100 Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <20060703173809.45430.qmail@web82704.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3/7/06 18:38, "Bob Rosenbloom" wrote: > http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/wallpaper/images/1600/ >> >> bournemouth.jpg >> > > This looks to be made from an HP 64000 development > system. Like the one seen here: > > http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:wmbqtorpWVMJ:www.gaby.de/e64000.htm+hp+640 > 00&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3 Nice one, Bob! And there's us thinking the BBC's props department had gone all creative on us rather than just spraying something burgundy :o) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jul 4 02:17:04 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:17:04 +0100 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? In-Reply-To: <200607032209.k63M97pO024789@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 3/7/06 23:09, "Brad Parker" wrote: > > Hi - > > can anyone identify the type of rack slide in these pictures? > > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001376.JPG > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001377.JPG > http://www.heeltoe.com/images/IM001378.JPG Looks like standard PDP-era DEC slides to me, I've got pics of the likes of DECtape55 units with a similar fitting....don't have any handy ones online though. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From lbickley at bickleywest.com Tue Jul 4 02:35:29 2006 From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 00:35:29 -0700 Subject: IBM 1800 rescue In-Reply-To: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200607040035.29647.lbickley@bickleywest.com> On Monday 03 July 2006 13:53, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > For those interested, I rescued an IBM 1800 computer > system last weekend. It appears to have been built in > 1967 and has been maintained running until about two > years ago. It has a simulated 2311 hard drive (using > an > older PC) and a 1442 card read punch. Came with a full > set of documentation! Some photos can be seen at: > > http://dvq.com/1800/1800.htm > > I hope to put together a list of the manuals and > microfiche and the more than 1000 SLT modules that > came with it. Hopefully I can get it up and running > again. > > > Bob Outstanding find! Wish you the best getting the critter up and running!!!! Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero" From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 02:53:00 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 03:53:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> I wrote about an old oscilloscope which was giving me trouble. After some poking and prodding, I managed to get things tweaked back into operation. Then I was hacking on some software, pursuant to driving the 'scope as an X-Y display off a soundcard output, when I became aware of the 'scope making small popping noises. Small popping noises are not a normal operating sound for that 'scope. I used it enough to know _that_. Then, looking over at it, I saw that (at least some of) the tube filaments were dark, and there was nothing on the display. So I turned it off. The popping sounds continued, and I saw a wisp of smoke. I unplugged it and turned it over in search of the part that was upset. Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the impression it might actually catch fire. It's now been at least ten minutes since I unplugged it, and the transformer is still too hot to rest my hand on for longer than about a quarter-second. And, it is giving off odours which I am also quite certain are not part of normal operation. Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy enough to give me useful voltage measurements. The only winding whose voltage I am confident of is the one that drives the tube heaters. Based solely on wire count I am sure there are at least two others - and based on the application I expect at least one for the final anode voltage and one for power to most of the circuits. Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com Tue Jul 4 03:30:11 2006 From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 10:30:11 +0200 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: >From: der Mouse >Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic >Posts" >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] >Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 03:53:00 -0400 (EDT) > >I wrote about an old oscilloscope which was giving me trouble. After >some poking and prodding, I managed to get things tweaked back into >operation. Then I was hacking on some software, pursuant to driving >the 'scope as an X-Y display off a soundcard output, when I became >aware of the 'scope making small popping noises. > >Small popping noises are not a normal operating sound for that 'scope. >I used it enough to know _that_. Then, looking over at it, I saw that >(at least some of) the tube filaments were dark, and there was nothing >on the display. > >So I turned it off. The popping sounds continued, and I saw a wisp of >smoke. I unplugged it and turned it over in search of the part that >was upset. > >Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the >dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute >after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making >sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the >impression it might actually catch fire. > >It's now been at least ten minutes since I unplugged it, and the >transformer is still too hot to rest my hand on for longer than about a >quarter-second. And, it is giving off odours which I am also quite >certain are not part of normal operation. > >Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a >current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy >enough to give me useful voltage measurements. The only winding whose >voltage I am confident of is the one that drives the tube heaters. >Based solely on wire count I am sure there are at least two others - >and based on the application I expect at least one for the final anode >voltage and one for power to most of the circuits. > >Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B I can't imagine that a transformer makes popping noises *after* the power supply is turned off. You may have several faults in the scope. First, a *hot* transformer core usually is an indication that lots of current was drawn. That could be a shrot circuit between windings of the transformer coil, but perhaps it is a short circuit external to the transformer. Check for fuses ... The only thing I can think of that makes popping noises are the old big power supply smoothing electrolytic capacitors, like 100 ?F/450V or something like that rating. Those old caps are not hermetically closed like the modern caps. They have a small stop in the bottom which can open under pressure (from the inside). When that happens, the cap is dryed and needs to be reformed or replaced. The opening of that stop can be small (which could make the popping sound), but it can also be quite spectacular. The stop is blown off, and all the rubbisch inside the cap squirts out! The cap would be a plausible explanantion why the popping sound continues *after* the power is turned off... Disconnect the secundary coils of the transformer to the circuits behind it, and turn the scope on. If only the transformer now gets jiuce (power), but it stays cool, the real problem is in the rectifying stages. If the transformer still gets hot (without any load), yes, you do need a new transformer, or remoev the old coil and put on new windings ... hope this helps, - Henk, PA8PDP. _________________________________________________________________ Meer ruimte nodig? Maak nu je eigen Space http://spaces.msn.nl/ From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Tue Jul 4 05:19:06 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 04:19:06 -0600 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44AA409A.7020803@jetnet.ab.ca> der Mouse wrote: > I wrote about an old oscilloscope which was giving me trouble. After > some poking and prodding, I managed to get things tweaked back into > operation. Then I was hacking on some software, pursuant to driving > the 'scope as an X-Y display off a soundcard output, when I became > aware of the 'scope making small popping noises. > > Small popping noises are not a normal operating sound for that 'scope. > I used it enough to know _that_. Then, looking over at it, I saw that > (at least some of) the tube filaments were dark, and there was nothing > on the display. > > So I turned it off. The popping sounds continued, and I saw a wisp of > smoke. I unplugged it and turned it over in search of the part that > was upset. > > Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the > dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute > after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making > sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the > impression it might actually catch fire. > > It's now been at least ten minutes since I unplugged it, and the > transformer is still too hot to rest my hand on for longer than about a > quarter-second. And, it is giving off odours which I am also quite > certain are not part of normal operation. > > Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a > current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy > enough to give me useful voltage measurements. The only winding whose > voltage I am confident of is the one that drives the tube heaters. > Based solely on wire count I am sure there are at least two others - > and based on the application I expect at least one for the final anode > voltage and one for power to most of the circuits. > > Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( YES! Well since this has to be a custom design,try here -- http://www.electra-print.com/ > /~\ The ASCII der Mouse > \ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca > / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 4 06:31:09 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 11:31:09 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607031920300014.3AD743C6@10.0.0.252> References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> <200607031920300014.3AD743C6@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44AA517D.4060405@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/3/2006 at 10:07 AM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> Lack of power on the parallel port's a strange one - I always found it >> hard to believe that the implementors didn't forsee the use of the port as > a >> general-purpose output port and provide it with a couple of power pins. >> It's not like there aren't several grounds available so that couple could > have >> been given up for +5V pins. > > Given the implementation of the port, I don't believe that any use beyond a > printer port was foreseen at the time of product release. Just seems strange - but I wonder if it was a marketing move and they deliberately crippled the port? Maybe there was some plan for an I/O board that could be sold (doubtless at great expense) to anyone wanting to use their PC for control purposes. In fact, maybe that was another intended use (which never happened) for the board that's used to connect a PC to the expansion chassis? (I've never seen or looked at details of one of those boards - but presumably it's full of generic I/O lines) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 4 06:40:44 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 11:40:44 +0000 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AA53BC.1010105@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > I was just hoping to upgrade my dodgy ladder with a more precise one > without resorting to additional cables and powered circuits. I seemed > to have opened a can of worms. :-) I thought that pretty much all DACs are ladder-based internally anyway, just with far finer tolerances than the typical "bag 'o resistors" hack. In other words, by fine-tuning a homebrew ladder and using suitable buffering, you could probably get something pretty respectable running. I stumbled across a few pages on DACs and ADCs a while ago: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_4/chpt_13/1.html thinking about it, I wonder if the resistor packs often found in old equipment are any finer tolerance (or at least more closely matched) than using seperate resistors? If you have any scrap ones laying around it might be worth investigating. cheers Jules From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jul 4 07:03:03 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:03:03 -0400 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? In-Reply-To: Message from "Al Kossow" of "Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:36:53 CDT." Message-ID: <200607041203.k64C33rG021848@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Al Kossow" wrote: > >> can you indentify this rack slide? > >Chassis-Trak ok, but *which* chassic-trak? :-) any idea which were most common? I'm guessing the C-649 is close. -brad From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jul 4 07:03:03 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:03:03 -0400 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? In-Reply-To: Message from "Al Kossow" of "Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:36:53 CDT." Message-ID: <200607041203.k64C33rG021848@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Al Kossow" wrote: > >> can you indentify this rack slide? > >Chassis-Trak ok, but *which* chassic-trak? :-) any idea which were most common? I'm guessing the C-649 is close. -brad From tpeters at mixcom.com Tue Jul 4 07:34:10 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 07:34:10 -0500 (CDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <44AA409A.7020803@jetnet.ab.ca> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AA409A.7020803@jetnet.ab.ca> Message-ID: <23473.144.160.5.25.1152016450.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> > der Mouse wrote: >> Small popping noises are not a normal operating sound for that 'scope. >> I used it enough to know _that_. Then, looking over at it, I saw that >> (at least some of) the tube filaments were dark, and there was nothing >> on the display. >> Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the >> dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute >> after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making >> sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the >> impression it might actually catch fire. yikes! Sounds like the potting is boiling or burning off... >> It's now been at least ten minutes since I unplugged it, and the >> transformer is still too hot to rest my hand on for longer than about a >> quarter-second. And, it is giving off odours which I am also quite >> certain are not part of normal operation. >> Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a >> current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy >> enough to give me useful voltage measurements. The only winding whose >> voltage I am confident of is the one that drives the tube heaters. >> Based solely on wire count I am sure there are at least two others - >> and based on the application I expect at least one for the final anode >> voltage and one for power to most of the circuits. First, I'd disconnect the filter caps and meter them for shorts! Any semiconductor diodes? Might be one or two of those shorted too. Might be you shoulda reformed those OLD caps before powering up on full AC, or replaced them. >> Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( > > YES! Well since this has to be a custom design,try here > -- http://www.electra-print.com/ > >> /~\ The ASCII der Mouse >> \ / Ribbon Campaign >> X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca >> / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 4 08:37:07 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:37:07 +0000 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44AA6F03.3070102@yahoo.co.uk> der Mouse wrote: > Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the > dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute > after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making > sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the > impression it might actually catch fire. *Sigh* ISTR the power supply for our Marconi's paper tape reader doing exactly that; the Selenium rectifier downstream of the transformer decided to develop a dead short, resulting in a rather cooked transformer. Luckily, with the machine being ex nuclear-plant, we could lay our hands on a spare. I assume the popping noises are the sounds of the transformer windings distorting with the heat. I expect you've now got a very dead transformer on your hands :-( Maybe somewhere like the CHM would be worth contacting to see if they've got an identical 'scope from which someone can take voltage / current readings and allow you to build a replacement supply for yours. (Unfortunately all of our ancient 'scopes are either Tek or Cossor, so I can't do anything - I will check just to be certain of that, though) cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jul 4 08:50:08 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 06:50:08 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AA53BC.1010105@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AA53BC.1010105@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AA7210.2000606@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> I was just hoping to upgrade my dodgy ladder with a more precise one >> without resorting to additional cables and powered circuits. I seemed >> to have opened a can of worms. > > :-) > > I thought that pretty much all DACs are ladder-based internally anyway, Um, kind of. :-/ Many are precision current sources that are switched in and out. There are also other DAC *techniques* like pulse width modulation, etc. > just with far finer tolerances than the typical "bag 'o resistors" hack. > In other words, by fine-tuning a homebrew ladder and using suitable > buffering, you could probably get something pretty respectable running. It's not just tweeking the R values. You also have to ensure the characteristics of the "switches" (in this example, the output stages of that parallel port/latch) are well matched AND that everything keeps behaving as temperatures change and power supply voltages fluctuate. There are also transient effects that may or may not be important to consider (e.g., when switching from 0x7F to 0x80, does the output momentarily assume the 0xFF level? Or, the 0x00 level??) There's a *reason* you buy these things when you need them :> > I stumbled across a few pages on DACs and ADCs a while ago: > > http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_4/chpt_13/1.html > > thinking about it, I wonder if the resistor packs often found in old > equipment are any finer tolerance (or at least more closely matched) > than using seperate resistors? If you have any scrap ones laying around > it might be worth investigating. From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jul 4 09:43:23 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 10:43:23 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 04 Jul 2006 06:50:08 PDT." <44AA7210.2000606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> zillions of years ago, when I was an undergrad, I did some work for the university geology department. They had a litle PDP-11 with dual floppies which ran RT-11. It had a nice ADC board from Data Transalation and a scope with D-to-A. The unit was originally designed to sample some sort of data and display the results on the scope. For a senior project I made a bridge and connected a strain gauge to the ADC and wrote code to sample the data over time, do some simple transformations and plot the data on the scope. The used it to measure particle size distributions in a slurry tube. All I rememeber is that everything had great documentation, the scope was an off the shelf o-scope and I was suprised that just controlling x, y, "z" (beam) I could plot numbers and dots on the screen and it looked pretty good. I don't remember but I suspect the cpu was just a little qbus 11/03 and everything was written in fortran. anyway, once done with the project I couldn't resist and wrote a spacewar game. It worked great and became very popular with the grad students. so popular that the dept head eventually hid all the disks with the program on it because nothing was going on except a spacewar tournament :-) my point is that I was suprised how well a little '11 could do with fortran code and a (I presume) a very linear ADC. The game ran ran well and was very fluid. wish i'd saved the source code... (but it wasn't very complex) I would guess that a simple parallel port adc on a PC could do very well displaying a reasonable number of dots on a scope with intensity control... not very impressive given what fpga's do now shading polygons, but fun none the less. -brad From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 4 11:19:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 09:19:45 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AA517D.4060405@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44A8EC60.1020801@yahoo.co.uk> <200607031920300014.3AD743C6@10.0.0.252> <44AA517D.4060405@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607040919450113.3DD79DBA@10.0.0.252> On 7/4/2006 at 11:31 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >In fact, maybe that was another intended use (which never happened) for >the board that's used to connect a PC to the expansion chassis? (I've never >seen or looked at details of one of those boards - but presumably it's full of >generic I/O lines) That's unlikely--the expansion board set was mostly buffers and receivers that worked directly off the bus lines. IBM did offer a Data Acquistiion board, however. I just don't think they ever saw a need for generic parallel I/O, though (and I'm not 100% certain of this), the sample circuit for the prototype adapter involved driving an 8255. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 4 11:31:37 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 09:31:37 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607040931370548.3DE27CAD@10.0.0.252> On 7/4/2006 at 3:53 AM der Mouse wrote: >I wrote about an old oscilloscope which was giving me trouble. After >some poking and prodding, I managed to get things tweaked back into >operation. Then I was hacking on some software, pursuant to driving >the 'scope as an X-Y display off a soundcard output, when I became >aware of the 'scope making small popping noises. When you described your beam-location problem, I was about to send an email recommending that you check power-supply components, but changed my mind when you seemed to have things straightened out. Apologies for the blank message. At any rate, the first order of business is to see if you've still got a power transformer left. The easiest way is to simply remove all of the tubes (I'm assuming that there are no solid-state recitifiers) and unplug the CRT. Power it up and see if the transformer runs cool and silent. If not, it's toast. Old transformers are made with magnet wire, paper, cloth and varnish. Any of this stuff can break down, resulting in a short. The popping you heard was probably old varnish boiling out of the core. If you discount the high-voltage anode supply for the CRT, an O-scope power transformer is a pretty pedestrian affair. It's possible that if you can locate a power transformer that has all the windings that you need but for the CRT anode and filament supplies, you can use a separate transformer or two to supply those voltages, if you have the room. Before you plunk in a new transformer, however, you'll want to check all of the electrolytics in the unit and look for possible short circuits. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 11:42:20 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 12:42:20 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <23473.144.160.5.25.1152016450.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AA409A.7020803@jetnet.ab.ca> <23473.144.160.5.25.1152016450.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> Message-ID: <200607041654.MAA21713@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>> Turns out it is the power transformer ([...]). It continued making >>> popping noises well over a minute after I unplugged it, and for a >>> few seconds I was even mentally making sure I knew where the >>> nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the impression it >>> might actually catch fire. > yikes! Sounds like the potting is boiling or burning off... That was my own impression too. If it had been more accessible to air I suspect it *would* have caught fire, but it was enclosed in a fairly solid steel case.... >>> Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a >>> current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy >>> enough to give me useful voltage measurements. [...] > First, I'd disconnect the filter caps and meter them for shorts! I actually don't suspect that. First, because that would drastically reduce supply output voltage, and the thing did work for half an hour or so. (I found the trace; after poking around the circuit enough I found the right pot to adjust.) Second, because - after the transformer overheated - I felt all the caps in sight, and none of them were even warm to the touch, much less as hot as I'd expect if they were responsible for overloading the power transformer. > Any semiconductor diodes? Might be one or two of those shorted too. No semiconductors at all as far as I've been able to find yet. While I haven't yet put much effort into searching, there are at least three rectifier tubes, so I see no reason to expect semiconductor diodes. > Might be you shoulda reformed those OLD caps before powering up on > full AC, or replaced them. Perhaps - though, as I say, shorted caps are low on my suspicion scale at the moment. Or do caps that fail shorted do so with a low enough resistance that they don't dissipate enough power to get warm? If so, it coulda been one of the caps failing in service. As for a replacement transformer, I'm actually considering using multiple different transformers, one per function, instead of a single core with lots of windings. I might be able to use stock transformers that way. But first, I'm going to poke through it enough to draw a schematic of the power supply portions of the circuit. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jul 4 12:26:36 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 12:26:36 -0500 Subject: Vector Imagery Message-ID: <6b455c1f3333440da1f67b2058d98335@valleyimplants.com> > The Lorenz equation is remarkable for it's conciseness. I recall that >when I first learned about it (late 80's?) I was told that it was >originally intended to model some sort of atmospheric or gas flow >phenomena. When I first heard of the Lorenz attractor, I read that Lorenz was trying to model weather on a Royal-McBee computer (ontopic!), but due to processing constraints was forced to drop everything but the wind (and perhaps temperature, but I'm not sure there) The Lorenz Attractor came out of these equations. Came out of a popular article, so, remember, "The Guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate" From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jul 4 12:31:15 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 12:31:15 -0500 Subject: Last call for RS/6000-3CT parts Message-ID: Last call- almost everything from a model 7030-3CT (excepting CD-ROM drive, Winchester drive sled, and the processor card is likely a bit wonky). From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jul 4 12:37:41 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 13:37:41 -0400 Subject: Powering (or not) a parallel-port-attached DAC Message-ID: <01C69F6F.0746BB20@MSE_D03> Don't know if it'd work, but since you're ordering parts anyway would a regulated charge pump work? I assume you're not using the control lines; if you diode-or them together with maybe some small resistors to limit & balance the load and set 'em high, they oughta be good for 30-40ma, and if you're using a DAC it shouldn't draw nearly as much power as an R-2R ladder... It's often done with RS-232 gizmos, but I don't see why it wouldn't work on the Parallel port as well. Just a thought (and probably not a good one...) mike Original Message: --------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 18:35:37 +1200 From: "Ethan Dicks" Subject: Powering (or not) a parallel-port-attached DAC (was Re: Vector Imagery) On 7/4/06, Tony Duell wrote: > Obviously you might well not be able to do this. In which case, you > either have to buffer the port lines (to reduce the output impedance > there) or add a buffer amplifier on the analogue output. Either solution > involves active components that need power. I know that the "right" way to do it involves active components... given my 95% success with passive components, I was hoping to squeak by. If I could get power and data from the same source (see below), I wouldn't be quite so picky. From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 13:49:37 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:49:37 -0400 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> On Monday 03 July 2006 11:39 pm, der Mouse wrote: > Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular oscilloscope, > a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN B. DUMONT > LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes come from the > front panel markings). It worked fine then. I'm not sure if the one I have is the same unit or not, but I have one in storage that's of this make. Apparently military surplus? My unit has a cover that fits over the front, and in which probes etc. can be stored. Does this sound like what you have? If so, I may have schematics here somewhere. > After sitting idle for years - probably at least a decade - I've got my > hands back on this 'scope. It doesn't quiet work, but appears to be > close. > > It's an entirely vacuum-tube design; even the power-supply rectifiers > are valves rather than semiconductors, and all the wiring is > point-to-point, with terminal strips used as necessary and most > components self-supported by their leads. (I mention this to give some > idea of its age.) Sounds familiar... > When I turn it on, it appears to power up. All the filaments light as > far as I can see (the one I can't see is the CRT, and since I get some > light on the screen under some circumstances, I infer its filament is > working too). But I can't find the beam. I've set both X and Y > selectors to "off", which (based on my past experience with this > 'scope) should give me a single stationary dot. If I crank the > intensity all the way up, I get vague shadowy patterns of light on the > screen, but no matter how I play with the X and Y position controls, I > can't get anything definite. The Y position control does something; > the X position control does not, as far as I can tell from watching the > screen. > > What memory I retain (which may be wrong) indicates that this display > syndrome is typical of a beam which is far off-screen in one direction > or another, but doesn't give any hints for what to do if the position > controls don't work. > > Any thoughts? I googled, to no avail. Since the wiring is > point-to-point, I could trace out a schematic. I will if I have to, > but I'm hoping that the above symptoms is enough for someone to point > me in a useful direction to look for the problem. Seems to me that another thing that you might consider is whether or not there's any sweep being triggered. > Unfortunately I have only minimal test equipment available - a > moderately-decent electromech voltmeter is about it. Yeah, you need a scope to properly troubleshoot a scope, really. :-) > Since the X position knob does nothing, I speculate that that pot has > gone bad and is, in terms of the circuit it controls, always hard over > against one margin. Does this sound plausible? Not really. > I may try to find the deflection electrodes and apply the voltmeter to them, > if it has a suitably high range (I'd not try it unless it has a range of at > least a kilovolt). Yes, it'd load the driving circuit more than it's > designed for, but glassfets are mostly pretty resistant to that sort of > thing, and the loading alone may well bring the beam back on the screen if > that's what's wrong. Old tube-based scopes like that are fun, and they're all pretty similar. You have a HV supply that's negative, often, with the cathode of the CRT tied to that. Then from there on down there's a string of resistive voltage divider parts that supplies control grid and focus and the intensity and positioning controls will be in that string as well. One thing that I've encountered sometimes is high-value resistors (1M+?) either opening up or changing to much higher values and throwing everything off. Another is coupling capacitors, particularly those from the deflection amplifiers, getting a bit leaky and upsetting things. If you want to start tracing things out finding that string of stuff would be where I'd start. And then measure voltages. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 13:53:28 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:53:28 -0400 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607041453.28564.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 12:53 am, der Mouse wrote: > I know, bad form to follow up to myself.... It is? :-) > > [...'scope which doesn't seem to have the beam on-screen...] > > ...I turned out to be in luck. > > On closer examination, this 'scope has a bank of screw terminals which > are labeled (in black-on-dark-brown, not obvious except on close > inspection) as being suitable for jumpering in certain ways to get the > X and Y deflection plates as coming direct from inputs or coming from > the X and Y deflection amplifier circuitry. I removed the insulator > panel on which these terminals are mounted, and it is clear that four > of the terminals go directly to the deflection plates (two for each > axis), with a resistor (4.7M) hardwired from there to the > deflection-amplifier terminals. Right. I'd forgotten about that. Those 4.7M resistors are to maintain the DC balance of what's normally driving the plates. You might check and see if they are indeed 4.7M. > (The direct-input terminals are capacitor-coupled to the plates if the > jumpers are in the direct-input positions; if the jumpers are in the > amplifier-fed positions, they short out these resistors, with the > direct-input terminals doing nothing at all.) > > So I removed the jumpers entirely and, using alligator clip leads, > grounded both X deflector plates (to the chassis, that being where all > other grounds go). Voila, I can find the trace! (Well, spot, under > the circumstances.) Using a voltmeter on the amplifier-output > terminals indicates that one is driving about +100V and the other about > +400V (of course, these may be reading low because of meter impedance, > but they clearly are nowhere near equal). That's a heck of an imbalance, there. > Grounding the deflection plate corresponding to the +400V line and leaving > the other alone gives me a spot near one edge of the display; the other way > around and I get the symptom I wrote about. > > So now it's just a matter of tracing circuitry back until I find the > problem. (Heh. "Just".) Sorry to bother everyone when the answer was > right there waiting to be discovered all the time. Probably leaking capacitors coupling at the amplifier output? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 13:48:31 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 14:48:31 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <44AA6F03.3070102@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AA6F03.3070102@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607041920.PAA22966@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> [oscilloscope power transformer failure] > I assume the popping noises are the sounds of the transformer > windings distorting with the heat. Possibly, though I find Chuck Guzis's guess that it's boiling varnish somewhat more plausible. Just a thought - does anyone know what happens to a steel-core transformer if its core goes above its Curie temperature? While I don't think it got anywhere near the Curie temperature of plain iron (about 1000?K - and paper catches fire at something like 500?K), I don't know the Curie temperature of transformer-core metal.... > I expect you've now got a very dead transformer on your hands :-( That's what I fear too. :( I haven't done anything with it, yet; I've been at work all day. When I get back home I'm going to trace out a schematic of everything the transformer feeds, mostly meaning the power supply, to tell whether the suggestion of pulling all tubes really will remove all load from the transformer. (I expect it to, given the apparent absence of semiconductor diodes, but am not about to count on it without checking.) > Maybe somewhere like the CHM would be worth contacting to see if > they've got an identical 'scope from which someone can take voltage / > current readings and allow you to build a replacement supply for > yours. I may do that, but first I'm going to see if I can get voltage measurements off mine my removing all load. If necessary I'll cut wires; even if this transformer works in isolation, I am not about to try to run the 'scope off it for more than moments, so I definitely will be cutting wires to remove it at some point. > (Unfortunately all of our ancient 'scopes are either Tek or Cossor, > so I can't do anything - I will check just to be certain of that, > though) The thought is much appreciated! /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 14:31:34 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:31:34 -0400 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607041920.PAA22966@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AA6F03.3070102@yahoo.co.uk> <200607041920.PAA22966@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607041531.34699.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 02:48 pm, der Mouse wrote: > >> [oscilloscope power transformer failure] > > > > I assume the popping noises are the sounds of the transformer > > windings distorting with the heat. > > Possibly, though I find Chuck Guzis's guess that it's boiling varnish > somewhat more plausible. If this is one that has openings at the bottom, under the chassis, you may find a puddle of "stuff" under there... > Just a thought - does anyone know what happens to a steel-core > transformer if its core goes above its Curie temperature? While I > don't think it got anywhere near the Curie temperature of plain iron > (about 1000?K - and paper catches fire at something like 500?K), I > don't know the Curie temperature of transformer-core metal.... Curie temperature is when something that's magnetized loses it. Cores are not normally magnetized, except during operation, so I wouldn't worry about it. > > I expect you've now got a very dead transformer on your hands :-( > > That's what I fear too. :( I haven't done anything with it, yet; I've > been at work all day. When I get back home I'm going to trace out a > schematic of everything the transformer feeds, mostly meaning the power > supply, to tell whether the suggestion of pulling all tubes really will > remove all load from the transformer. (I expect it to, given the > apparent absence of semiconductor diodes, but am not about to count on > it without checking.) Either that or disconnecting all secondary wires. :-( > > Maybe somewhere like the CHM would be worth contacting to see if > > they've got an identical 'scope from which someone can take voltage / > > current readings and allow you to build a replacement supply for > > yours. > > I may do that, but first I'm going to see if I can get voltage > measurements off mine my removing all load. If necessary I'll cut > wires; even if this transformer works in isolation, I am not about to > try to run the 'scope off it for more than moments, so I definitely > will be cutting wires to remove it at some point. I have two or three other old scopes in storage as well as the DuMont, an Eico 425, a Paco SS-50, and a Precision S-100. One of these has a CRT with an open filament, and one has a transformer in which the primary opened. I keep hoping I'll run across a replacement some time, but no luck so far... Good luck with that one! -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Tue Jul 4 15:05:40 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 21:05:40 +0100 Subject: can you indentify this rack slide? In-Reply-To: <200607041203.k64C33rG021848@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: On 4/7/06 13:03, "Brad Parker" wrote: >> Chassis-Trak > > ok, but *which* chassic-trak? :-) > > any idea which were most common? I'm guessing the C-649 is close. I don't know part numbers, but I noticed today that they were still used on Compaq tape libraries from the late 90s as well as more recent stuff. -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 4 15:14:59 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:14:59 -0700 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200607041314590273.3EAEF913@10.0.0.252> On Monday 03 July 2006 11:39 pm, der Mouse wrote: > Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular oscilloscope, > a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN B. DUMONT > LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes come from the > front panel markings). It worked fine then. Before the days of Tek and HP, Dumont scopes were some of the best available. At various times, I've had Eico and RCA scopes, and both brands had serious warm-up drift. Supposedly, the Dumonts were among the most stable. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 15:29:16 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 16:29:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200607042033.QAA23574@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular >> oscilloscope, a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN >> B. DUMONT LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes >> come from the front panel markings). > I'm not sure if the one I have is the same unit or not, but I have > one in storage that's of this make. Apparently military surplus? I don't know. It doesn't look much like mil-surplus to my eye, but I suppose it coukld be. > My unit has a cover that fits over the front, and in which probes > etc. can be stored. Does this sound like what you have? No. My unit has no cover, and, while that might not mean much in itself, it also does not have any apparent way for a cover to attach. >> [...] > Seems to me that another thing that you might consider is whether or > not there's any sweep being triggered. I tried to disable all forms of sweep, so as to get just a stationary spot. (This has worked in the past with that 'scope.) >> Since the X position knob does nothing, I speculate that that pot >> has gone bad and is, in terms of the circuit it controls, always >> hard over against one margin. Does this sound plausible? > Not really. Turns out that's not it, anyway, as you have probably seen from later messages - the X position knob does in fact work just fine. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 15:35:54 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 16:35:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607041453.28564.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041453.28564.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200607042042.QAA23656@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> I removed the insulator panel on which these terminals are mounted, >> and it is clear that four of the terminals go directly to the >> deflection plates (two for each axis), with a resistor (4.7M) >> hardwired from there to the deflection-amplifier terminals. > Right. I'd forgotten about that. Those 4.7M resistors are to > maintain the DC balance of what's normally driving the plates. So I assumed - so that things like the X and Y position knobs still work even when driving the plates with external signals. >> Using a voltmeter on the amplifier-output terminals indicates that >> one is driving about +100V and the other about +400V (of course, >> these may be reading low because of meter impedance, but they >> clearly are nowhere near equal). > That's a heck of an imbalance, there. Yes. Quite enough to explain the problem; 100V difference is full-scale deflection, approximately. (I've been known to connect mains voltage directly to deflection plates. :-) >> So now it's just a matter of tracing circuitry back until I find the >> problem. (Heh. "Just".) Sorry to bother everyone when the answer >> was right there waiting to be discovered all the time. > Probably leaking capacitors coupling at the amplifier output? Turns out it's not quite that simple; the amplifier is DC-coupled at least two tubes back. (A moment's thought makes it obvious that it *must* be DC-coupled at least as far back as the position knob.) While it could possibly be leakage in other capacitors, the are only a few capacitors in the neighbourhood, and those few are all in places where they cannot affect one plate and not the other - shared cathodes and the like. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jul 4 15:46:58 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:46:58 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> Welcome to the world of old tube equipment. :/ That popping sound is usually the sound of boiling tar in the transformer (and of course the latent heat keeps it boiling after power is turned off). The symptoms you describe are not unusual and it's most likely a short in the transformer. If, as you say, only some of the tube filaments were dark, it may be that there are multiple filament windings and one of them developed a short. In equipment of that sort, shorted caps don't usually present such a degree of problem to the transformer. The vacuum-tube rectifiers have some hundreds-of-ohms of plate resistance, as well as maximum emission (current) limits, and act as a limiting impedance for shorted/leaky caps. If it's any consolation, there probably wasn't anything you could do to avoid the failure. I pulled out the schematic for a Stark OSK-4, a very basic vacuum-tube 'scope, probably similar in category to the DuMont. Here are some observations which may (or may not) be of assistance in your situation, if you are RE'ing the power supply: - The CRT accelerating potential does not come from a high positive supply for the anode, rather it is a high negative supply for the cathode. It is obtained through a half-wave rectifier, supplied by a transformer winding internally stacked on one side of the main B+ winding. The filament for the half-wave rectifier is obtained from an additional tap on the high-voltage winding. - The CRT has it's own filament winding, as the cathode is operating at a high potential and the cathode-filament insulation potential is limited. (In other words, the transformer is providing the high-potential insulation.) - The B- (center-tap) does not go directly to ground, rather it goes through some resistance to ground so as to develop a negative supply (for cathodes of the V input amp.) If there's no rush and you're willing to wait on a possibility I can poke around the radio museum here in the next couple of weeks to see if there's a junkered/junkable DuMont (let me know the model number). We have piles of old vac-tube scopes that we should get rid of and I know I've seen a DuMont or two. Shipping (cost) would be from Vancouver. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Tue Jul 4 15:51:33 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:51:33 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <44AAD4D6.BC754B3A@cs.ubc.ca> Brent Hilpert wrote: > (let me know the model number) ..whoops, skip that, I see you've already mentioned it. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 16:00:30 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 17:00:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607041531.34699.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AA6F03.3070102@yahoo.co.uk> <200607041920.PAA22966@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041531.34699.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200607042105.RAA23924@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Just a thought - does anyone know what happens to a steel-core >> transformer if its core goes above its Curie temperature? > Curie temperature is when something that's magnetized loses it. Yes, but it also changes the magnetic behaviour of the material in other ways too. (For example, the Wikipedia page on the Curie point says that the magnetic susceptibility theoretically becomes infinite.) I was wondering if these would affect its performance as a transformer. > Cores are not normally magnetized, except during operation, so I > wouldn't worry about it. Oh, I wasn't worried about it. Clearly it doesn't get that hot in *normal* operation. I just got curious if anyone knew whether a hot core would make its behaviour as a transformer significantly different from ditto under normal conditions. Nothing directly relevant to fixing the thing. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 16:17:33 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 17:17:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607041314590273.3EAEF913@10.0.0.252> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607041314590273.3EAEF913@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607042122.RAA24060@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular >> oscilloscope, a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN >> B. DUMONT LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes >> come from the front panel markings). > Before the days of Tek and HP, Dumont scopes were some of the best > available. At various times, I've had Eico and RCA scopes, and both > brands had serious warm-up drift. Supposedly, the Dumonts were among > the most stable. I can easily believe that. Despite being at least three decades old, during most of which it has received absolutely no maintenance (possibly excepting tube replacement), it is still usable (or would be if the power transofrmer hadn't fried). It now has a bit of warm-up drift, and some of the knobs interact with others in undesirable ways (for example, the X amplitude knob introduces a DC offset that I have to compensate for with the X position knob). But for it to even *work* after that long, especially with the total lack of care it's received, is pretty impressive. It's also notable that much of the circuitry is caked with dust to the point where I have to clean it to read resistor values even with the help of a flashlight - and the resulting leakage paths haven't rendered it nonfunctional either. It took the power transformer roasting itself to do that. No, I'd say that the good Dumont reputation you describe is deserved. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From derschjo at msu.edu Tue Jul 4 14:51:52 2006 From: derschjo at msu.edu (Josh Dersch) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 12:51:52 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> References: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> Message-ID: <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> Brad Parker wrote: > I would guess that a simple parallel port adc on a PC could do very > well displaying a reasonable number of dots on a scope with intensity > control... not very impressive given what fpga's do now shading polygons, > but fun none the less. > > A couple of years ago I tried this -- I built two very (very) simple parallel-port DACs (one for X, the other for Y) and I had them connected to linux machine with two parallel ports. I wrote a small test app to rapidly write data to the output pins on the parallel ports. Plotting points on the oscilloscope worked OK (aside from the poor precision of my DACs), but drawing arbitrary vectors seemed to be impossible because I couldn't figure out a way to change the data sent to the parallel ports for X and Y at /exactly/ the same time. Since X would be changed slightly before Y (or vice versa) I'd get a stairstep effect instead of a single line from point A to B. Maybe a faster machine would be able to reduce this effect (I was using a Pentium Pro 200), or clever use of DMA... Josh From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jul 4 16:52:26 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:52:26 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> References: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> Message-ID: <44AAE31A.9060004@DakotaCom.Net> Josh Dersch wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: >> I would guess that a simple parallel port adc on a PC could do very >> well displaying a reasonable number of dots on a scope with intensity >> control... not very impressive given what fpga's do now shading >> polygons, >> but fun none the less. >> >> > A couple of years ago I tried this -- I built two very (very) simple > parallel-port DACs (one for X, the other for Y) and I had them connected > to linux machine with two parallel ports. I wrote a small test app to > rapidly write data to the output pins on the parallel ports. Plotting > points on the oscilloscope worked OK (aside from the poor precision of > my DACs), but drawing arbitrary vectors seemed to be impossible because > I couldn't figure out a way to change the data sent to the parallel > ports for X and Y at /exactly/ the same time. Since X would be changed > slightly before Y (or vice versa) I'd get a stairstep effect instead of > a single line from point A to B. > > Maybe a faster machine would be able to reduce this effect (I was using > a Pentium Pro 200), or clever use of DMA... Always load X (for example) before Y. Then, insert an extra buffer between X's parallel port and the X D/AC. Clock BOTH D/AC's off of the Y "load" pulse. So, write to X doesn't alter the X D/AC *but* saves the output in X's "holding latch". Then, updating Y causes X's held value to fall into the X D/AC at the same time that Y's value is falling into the Y D/AC. Another problem you will encounter is handling big motions. The X or Y deflection amp will slew at it's rated bandwidth and allow X (or Y) to traverse the difference in values as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the other channel is doing the same thing -- but for a different magnitude of change. So, you don;t necessarily get a straight line connecting the X0Y0 with X1Y1. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jul 4 17:17:41 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:17:41 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AAE31A.9060004@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> <44AAE31A.9060004@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44AAE905.6010107@DakotaCom.Net> Don Y wrote: > Josh Dersch wrote: >> Brad Parker wrote: >>> I would guess that a simple parallel port adc on a PC could do very >>> well displaying a reasonable number of dots on a scope with intensity >>> control... not very impressive given what fpga's do now shading >>> polygons, >>> but fun none the less. >>> >>> >> A couple of years ago I tried this -- I built two very (very) simple >> parallel-port DACs (one for X, the other for Y) and I had them >> connected to linux machine with two parallel ports. I wrote a small >> test app to rapidly write data to the output pins on the parallel >> ports. Plotting points on the oscilloscope worked OK (aside from the >> poor precision of my DACs), but drawing arbitrary vectors seemed to be >> impossible because I couldn't figure out a way to change the data sent >> to the parallel ports for X and Y at /exactly/ the same time. Since X >> would be changed slightly before Y (or vice versa) I'd get a stairstep >> effect instead of a single line from point A to B. >> >> Maybe a faster machine would be able to reduce this effect (I was >> using a Pentium Pro 200), or clever use of DMA... > > Always load X (for example) before Y. Then, insert an extra > buffer between X's parallel port and the X D/AC. Clock BOTH s/buffer/holding latch/ > D/AC's off of the Y "load" pulse. So, write to X doesn't > alter the X D/AC *but* saves the output in X's "holding latch". > Then, updating Y causes X's held value to fall into the X D/AC > at the same time that Y's value is falling into the Y D/AC. From lproven at gmail.com Tue Jul 4 17:20:13 2006 From: lproven at gmail.com (Liam Proven) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 23:20:13 +0100 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> On 6/24/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 6/24/2006 at 12:42 AM der Mouse wrote: > > >And, basically, the answer is "yes". When I start a build of the world > >on the ?V2, I don't expect it to complete in less than a week. (The > >kernel takes more like a day.) > > Well, on the aforementioned 800 MHz P3, building the gnome meta-package is > well into its second day (just started making "evolution"). But *why*? Why not just pull down binaries? Are you trying to do a really demanding soak-test on it or something? Merely curious... -- Liam Proven ? Blog, homepage &c: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/Google Talk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 16:38:20 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 22:38:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <015001c69f0f$d8043cc0$01fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jul 3, 6 11:14:26 pm Message-ID: > Go simpler: Use a ZN428 from Ferranti ;o) > I would agree (or use any other single-chip DAC). The problem is the OP [1] is in Antarctica, and can't get components for another 4 months or something... [1] Original Poster, not Old Pauline :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 16:45:29 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 22:45:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <200607031920300014.3AD743C6@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jul 3, 6 07:20:30 pm Message-ID: > It's also curious that the 6-bit latch (LS174) used for some of the > handshaking pins has a free bit. I (and doubtless many others) found that > it was a simple matter to lift the tristate enable line and tie it to the > unused bit on the latch, giving full controllable bidirectional use of the > port. It's interesting that the PS/2 version of the parallel port did > exactly this; the bit used being identical in position and sense to the > original parallel port hack (probably a coincidence). On the original IBM Printer Adapter PCB (although not on the MDA card, which included a printer port) and some clones, the OR/ pin of the '374 is linked to ground by a track that has a couple of adjancent vias. Another via nearby goes to the appropriate output of the '174. It's a simple matter to cut the first track between the vias and solder a jumper wire to link it to the via connected to thr '174. I am not sure if this is shown on the schematic or not. It's certainly very obvious if you look at the PCB. > Regardless, it's pretty obvious that the "bidirectionality) of the parallel > interface was intended for self-diagnostic use more than anything. I once saw a clone multi-i/o card that cheated with this. There weren't enough pins on the ASIC to give the printer data port, so there was an external 374, inputs from the system data bus, outputs to the printer connector, and clock input from a pin on the ASIC. No buffer to read back the printer lines, though. No, there was another latch hidden inside the ASIC, which could be read back. It kept the BIOS routine happy, but didn't actually check the printer port was working correctly. > If one needed +5, one could steal it by using a DC boost converter from an A boost converter cannot increase power. So if you, say, double the voltage (e.g. from a TTL output sitting at about 2.5V up to 5V), you halve the available current (down to <1mA?). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 16:47:59 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 22:47:59 +0100 (BST) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <20060704022339.C150B5824B@mail.wordstock.com> from "Bryan Pope" at Jul 3, 6 10:23:39 pm Message-ID: > > One thing bothers me. There's no evidence of the internal printer (at the > > rear right of the keyboard). That means it _might_ have started life as a > > 9831 (the BASIC-language model, which didn't have the printer AFAIK). I > > hope not, that machine is, I am told, rather rare. > > > > You would hope they would use something easy to get... ie the way > of least resistance! Well, I did find a 9831 in a skip (dumpster). Said skip had quite a bit of nice HP stuff in it, and I'd been given permision to rescue it. I grabbed the ploter, 1350 graphics translator, etc. I nearly didn't bother with the machine, it looked like a 9825, and I had one of those (and had just given another one away). But I decided to pull it out to get the 2 I/O modules thst were in it. At that point I saw the nameplate was '9831'. I'd never heard of that, so I grabbed it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 16:50:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 22:50:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jul 3, 6 11:39:05 pm Message-ID: > working too). But I can't find the beam. I've set both X and Y > selectors to "off", which (based on my past experience with this > 'scope) should give me a single stationary dot. If I crank the > intensity all the way up, I get vague shadowy patterns of light on the > screen, but no matter how I play with the X and Y position controls, I > can't get anything definite. The Y position control does something; > the X position control does not, as far as I can tell from watching the > screen. Do you have a schematic or a pinout of the CRT? If so, measure the voltages on the deflection plates (these might be connected to pins coming out of the side of the CRT), Expect them to be a few hudred volts above ground, but the 2 X plates should have essentially the same voltage on them, and ditto for the 2 Y plates. Then you need to troubleshoot the apporpriate deflection amplifier. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 17:00:27 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 23:00:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der Mouse" at Jul 4, 6 03:53:00 am Message-ID: > So I turned it off. The popping sounds continued, and I saw a wisp of Possible insulation breakdown somewhere, still discharging a charged capacitor? > smoke. I unplugged it and turned it over in search of the part that > was upset. > > Turns out it is the power transformer (not surprising, in view of the > dark filaments). It continued making popping noises well over a minute > after I unplugged it, and for a few seconds I was even mentally making > sure I knew where the nearest fire extinguisher was, since it gave the > impression it might actually catch fire. > > It's now been at least ten minutes since I unplugged it, and the > transformer is still too hot to rest my hand on for longer than about a > quarter-second. And, it is giving off odours which I am also quite > certain are not part of normal operation. > > Tomorrow, I'm going to try turning it on (very briefly, with a > current-limiter in series with the primary) to see if it's healthy > enough to give me useful voltage measurements. The only winding whose I would disconnect all the secondary wiring and power it up with a mains light bulb in series with the primary (a well known way to do this is to connect the bulb across the fuseholder with the fuse pulled). The bulb should stay dark (if not, you've got breakdown or shorted turns in the transformer), you can then measure the output voltages. I would expect some of the windings to be centre-tapped (it's a fair bet this thing uses the 'biphase' full wave rectifier circuit). The 2 halves should be the same voltage, of course. > voltage I am confident of is the one that drives the tube heaters. It's not unheard-of for 'scopes to have series-strings of valve heaters run off fairly high voltage stabilised DC lines. Well, at least Tekky did this sometimes. > Based solely on wire count I am sure there are at least two others - > and based on the application I expect at least one for the final anode > voltage and one for power to most of the circuits. Most 'scopes run the gun electrodes at a high (a few kV) -ve with respsect to the chassis. That means the deflection plates can be run at somewhere near chassis potential (a few hundred V above it), so they can be easily connected to the deflection amplifiers. There may be a post-deflection-acceleration electrode, which will run at several kV +ve wrt the chassis, although this may not be present in your 'scope. It's also not unheard-of for the EHT to come from an oscillator/transformer circuit run off the normal HT (B+) line, not straight from the mains transformer. You said some of the valve heaters were out. If that means some were stil alight, then there may well be 2 or more heater windings on this transformer, one of which has failed (or has been shorted out by a fault elsewhere in the instrument). > > Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( Rewind it yourself? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 16:35:47 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 22:35:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: Stumper: What computers are these? In-Reply-To: <200607032016.k63KG0AQ007541@dune.cs.drexel.edu> from "Vassilis PREVELAKIS" at Jul 3, 6 04:16:00 pm Message-ID: > actually it may be even worse, because the "petticoat" looks like the > even rarer 9835A (http://hpmuseum.net/image.php?file=992), which looks > very much like the 9825, but does not have the LED display or printer. Does it have the 'flap' on the right side of the top? The hinges for that are clearly visible in the picture of the Petticoat. How rare is the 9835? OK, it's one family I don't have an example of, but I've not seriously looked for one. > BTW although the monitor on top of the peticoat, looks like an HP > monitor (e.g. like the one used for the HP-86), the 9835A used a To me it looks like an NEC monitor. I have the 9" CRT version on my bench as a test monitor, there was also a 12" model. HP adverts showed similar monitors with an HP badge on them. The monitor that came with my HP86B, although it looks somewhat different is also an NEC (albeit a different model), the chassis says NEC all over it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 4 17:15:49 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 23:15:49 +0100 (BST) Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AA517D.4060405@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 4, 6 11:31:09 am Message-ID: > Just seems strange - but I wonder if it was a marketing move and they > deliberately crippled the port? Maybe there was some plan for an I/O board > that could be sold (doubtless at great expense) to anyone wanting to use their > PC for control purposes. There is (or was). The Data Acquistiion Adapter. It includes a 16 bit parallel I/O port, ADC, DAC, etc. I have one, the user manual and the techref. The connector on the bracket is, IIRC a DC62. There was a breakout panel that I don't have to link it to your hackery. I do have the loopback plug (for testing), and of course the techref gives the pinouts. > In fact, maybe that was another intended use (which never happened) for the > board that's used to connect a PC to the expansion chassis? (I've never seen > or looked at details of one of those boards - but presumably it's full of > generic I/O lines) The expansion chassis interface is basically a load of buffers for the 8 bit ISA bus lines. Cards in the expansion chassis appear as they would if they were in the main machine. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 4 17:43:02 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 15:43:02 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607041543020532.3F368462@10.0.0.252> On 7/4/2006 at 11:20 PM Liam Proven wrote: >Are you trying to do a really demanding soak-test on it or something? > >Merely curious... Precisely--I'm not at all certain about the operational status of the hosting hardware. Best to have something to wring it out on. Building from the pkgsrc involves lots of different types of activity. But watching the slowness of the process got me to wondering about folks with the older much slower hardware. BTW, anyone tried WINE on NetBSD lately? Netbsd.org seems to be strangely silent on the topic. Cheers, Chuck From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 17:29:19 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 18:29:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > Welcome to the world of old tube equipment. :/ Uh, thank you. I guess. :-) (I actually started hacking electronics with vacuum tubes, well before I did anything significant with semiconductors. Back in the days when you could find large numbers of vacuum tubes thrown out in the guts of consumer electronics.) > The symptoms you describe are not unusual and it's most likely a > short in the transformer. If, as you say, only some of the tube > filaments were dark, That's not quite what I meant. I looked over, and all the tube filaments I saw were dark, but that was only about three of them, and I didn't look to see whether the rest were or not before diving for the power switch. So I can be certain of only some of them, but my observations are consistent with it actually having been all of them. > In equipment of that sort, shorted caps don't usually present such a > degree of problem to the transformer. The vacuum-tube rectifiers > have some hundreds-of-ohms of plate resistance, as well as maximum > emission (current) limits, and act as a limiting impedance for > shorted/leaky caps. That's what I'd expect. I'd expect to see red-hot plates on the rectifiers before I'd expect the transformer to go - especially a transformer as big, and, by implication, with as much excess capacity, as this one. > If it's any consolation, there probably wasn't anything you could do > to avoid the failure. That's reassuring, yes. Thank you. > I pulled out the schematic for a Stark OSK-4, a very basic > vacuum-tube 'scope, probably similar in category to the DuMont. If it helps, the tube list for this thing (aside from the CRT itself) is: 12AU7 x8 6J6 x2 2X2A x2 6AQ5 x2 6Q50 x1 5Y3GT x1 0B2 x1 The 6Q50 might be 6Q5O or 6Q5Q instead; there's a dark mark at the lower right of the last character, but it's not clear whether it's an intended part of the printing or a bit of dirt. The tube actually in that socket is an 884; "or 884" is penciled next to the socket. > Here are some observations which may (or may not) be of assistance in > your situation, if you are RE'ing the power supply: [...] Noted. Thanks. I don't know whether they'll be useful, but I'll keep them in mind. > If there's no rush and you're willing to wait on a possibility I can > poke around the radio museum here in the next couple of weeks to see > if there's a junkered/junkable DuMont (let me know the model number). "TYPE 304 H". That's the closest thing to a model number I could find. > We have piles of old vac-tube scopes that we should get rid of and I > know I've seen a DuMont or two. Shipping (cost) would be from > Vancouver. Well, a lot of the work I'll need to do I'll still need to do even if you can dig up a spare for me. And it's unlikely to take less than a week, so.... If you do find a junk one, I'm tempted to ask if you'd be willing to send the whole thing, as a parts unit (most notably the tubes, at least after the power transformer). /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Tue Jul 4 18:13:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 16:13:42 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44AAF626.8050106@DakotaCom.Net> Liam Proven wrote: > On 6/24/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> On 6/24/2006 at 12:42 AM der Mouse wrote: >> >> >And, basically, the answer is "yes". When I start a build of the world >> >on the ?V2, I don't expect it to complete in less than a week. (The >> >kernel takes more like a day.) >> >> Well, on the aforementioned 800 MHz P3, building the gnome >> meta-package is >> well into its second day (just started making "evolution"). > > But *why*? Why not just pull down binaries? > > Are you trying to do a really demanding soak-test on it or something? > > Merely curious... I always build from pkgsrc. I've learned that the quality of many packages is not anywhere near the same caliber as the core NBSD distribution. Often, looking through the 'make configure' output, I will spot things that aren't quite right. Or, options that the package builder has decided not to include (that *I* might want!). And, looking through the 'make build' often turns up warnings that are suspicious enough to merit further exploration -- and turn up outright errors (that someone will eventually report and have to track down). If you just want to be a "user" and aren't concerned about fixing things, then binaries are the way to go. :-( From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Tue Jul 4 18:29:59 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 19:29:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607042334.TAA24755@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> The only winding whose voltage I am confident of is the one that >> drives the tube heaters. > It's not unheard-of for 'scopes to have series-strings of valve > heaters run off fairly high voltage stabilised DC lines. That's not how this one works. I've looked at enough valve connections to know the heaters are largely parallel-connected (and the wires to them are a twisted pair, implying they are carrying AC rather than DC). > It's also not unheard-of for the EHT to come from an > oscillator/transformer circuit run off the normal HT (B+) line, not > straight from the mains transformer. Kind of the way TVs tend to do it, with a flyback (though of course without the associated horizontal-deflection yoke stuff)? I'm fairly sure that's not done here. There are no inductors of significant size except the power transformer. >> Anyone know a good supplier for ten-kg power transformers? :-( > Rewind it yourself? Anyone know a good supplier for transformer wire? :-) /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 19:02:20 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:02:20 -0400 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought In-Reply-To: <200607042033.QAA23574@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607042033.QAA23574@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607042002.20325.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 04:29 pm, der Mouse wrote: > >> Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular > >> oscilloscope, a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from "ALLEN > >> B. DUMONT LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes > >> come from the front panel markings). > > > > I'm not sure if the one I have is the same unit or not, but I have > > one in storage that's of this make. Apparently military surplus? > > I don't know. It doesn't look much like mil-surplus to my eye, but I > suppose it coukld be. I think in my case it's the battleship gray paint and the little metal plate with various ID numbers on it that probably gives it away. :-) > > My unit has a cover that fits over the front, and in which probes > > etc. can be stored. Does this sound like what you have? > > No. My unit has no cover, and, while that might not mean much in > itself, it also does not have any apparent way for a cover to attach. I gather from later stuff that you wrote that it's probably somewhat bigger than mine is too. Mine also has a handle on the top. And some bits on the bottom to wind the cord around. And the most unusual AC plug I've ever seen, it was three-prong but you could pivot the third prong out of the way if you wanted to use a 2-prong outlet... > >> [...] > > > > Seems to me that another thing that you might consider is whether or > > not there's any sweep being triggered. > > I tried to disable all forms of sweep, so as to get just a stationary > spot. (This has worked in the past with that 'scope.) Ok. > >> Since the X position knob does nothing, I speculate that that pot > >> has gone bad and is, in terms of the circuit it controls, always > >> hard over against one margin. Does this sound plausible? > > > > Not really. > > Turns out that's not it, anyway, as you have probably seen from later > messages - the X position knob does in fact work just fine. Yeah. Good luck with that transformer situation. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 19:06:16 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:06:16 -0400 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> Message-ID: <200607042006.16781.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 04:46 pm, Brent Hilpert wrote: > Welcome to the world of old tube equipment. :/ Yeah... > That popping sound is usually the sound of boiling tar in the transformer > (and of course the latent heat keeps it boiling after power is turned off). > The symptoms you describe are not unusual and it's most likely a short in > the transformer. If, as you say, only some of the tube filaments were dark, > it may be that there are multiple filament windings and one of them > developed a short. > > In equipment of that sort, shorted caps don't usually present such a degree > of problem to the transformer. The vacuum-tube rectifiers have some > hundreds-of-ohms of plate resistance, as well as maximum emission (current) > limits, and act as a limiting impedance for shorted/leaky caps. > > If it's any consolation, there probably wasn't anything you could do to > avoid the failure. > > I pulled out the schematic for a Stark OSK-4, a very basic vacuum-tube > 'scope, probably similar in category to the DuMont. Here are some > observations which may (or may not) be of assistance in your situation, if > you are RE'ing the power supply: > > - The CRT accelerating potential does not come from a high positive > supply for the anode, rather it is a high negative supply for the cathode. > It is obtained through a half-wave rectifier, supplied by a transformer > winding internally stacked on one side of the main B+ winding. The filament > for the half-wave rectifier is obtained from an additional tap on the > high-voltage winding. > > - The CRT has it's own filament winding, as the cathode is operating at a > high potential and the cathode-filament insulation potential is limited. > (In other words, the transformer is providing the high-potential > insulation.) This much agrees with much of my experience as well. > - The B- (center-tap) does not go directly to ground, rather it goes > through some resistance to ground so as to develop a negative supply (for > cathodes of the V input amp.) I don't particularly remember anything like that, but... > If there's no rush and you're willing to wait on a possibility I can poke > around the radio museum here in the next couple of weeks to see if there's > a junkered/junkable DuMont (let me know the model number). We have piles of > old vac-tube scopes that we should get rid of and I know I've seen a DuMont > or two. Shipping (cost) would be from Vancouver. I know that of the three units I have in storage that don't work, one is an Eico 425, one is a Paco SS-50, and one is a Precision S100 (?). One of those needs a transformer, and one needs a CRT. Unfortunately I don't have access to the storage unit until I pay them off significantly more money, so I'm not in any particular hurry either. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 19:08:07 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:08:07 -0400 Subject: Vector Imagery In-Reply-To: <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> References: <200607041443.k64EhNWm027341@mwave.heeltoe.com> <44AAC6D8.4040106@msu.edu> Message-ID: <200607042008.07032.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 03:51 pm, Josh Dersch wrote: > Brad Parker wrote: > > I would guess that a simple parallel port adc on a PC could do very > > well displaying a reasonable number of dots on a scope with intensity > > control... not very impressive given what fpga's do now shading > > polygons, but fun none the less. > > A couple of years ago I tried this -- I built two very (very) simple > parallel-port DACs (one for X, the other for Y) and I had them connected > to linux machine with two parallel ports. I wrote a small test app to > rapidly write data to the output pins on the parallel ports. Plotting > points on the oscilloscope worked OK (aside from the poor precision of > my DACs), but drawing arbitrary vectors seemed to be impossible because > I couldn't figure out a way to change the data sent to the parallel > ports for X and Y at /exactly/ the same time. Since X would be changed > slightly before Y (or vice versa) I'd get a stairstep effect instead of > a single line from point A to B. > > Maybe a faster machine would be able to reduce this effect (I was using > a Pentium Pro 200), or clever use of DMA... Or maybe using some outboard latches and those strobe pins on the port? Or something like that anyhow... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Tue Jul 4 19:13:03 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:13:03 -0400 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> On Tuesday 04 July 2006 06:29 pm, der Mouse wrote: > If it helps, the tube list for this thing (aside from the CRT itself) > is: > > 12AU7 x8 6J6 x2 2X2A x2 6AQ5 x2 > 6Q50 x1 5Y3GT x1 0B2 x1 > > The 6Q50 might be 6Q5O or 6Q5Q instead; there's a dark mark at the > lower right of the last character, but it's not clear whether it's an > intended part of the printing or a bit of dirt. The tube actually in > that socket is an 884; "or 884" is penciled next to the socket. If it might help, I have one heck of a lot of tube data online at: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/tubes.html -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rcini at optonline.net Tue Jul 4 20:56:06 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 21:56:06 -0400 Subject: Big Blue Seed XT BIOS Message-ID: <00b401c69fd6$2deef2d0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I got my hands on a couple of PC boards for what appears to be the XT project motherboard (MBE-XT) that went by the name of "The Big Blue Seed" by Ray Kosmic and NuScope Associates. The book I have is an assembly manual only and has no BIOS source. Does anyone have this? Interestingly, the assembly manual also has assembly procedures for a disk controller, memory, video, "super I/O", miscellaneous, and prototyping. All told, there are 35 cards (3-PC motherboard, 8-XT motherboard, 6 disk controller, 4 memory, 4 video, 3 multifunction, 3 misc., and 4 proto) in the series. Also, the table of contents alludes to another assembly book for Apple clone boards. Any info greatly appreciated. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From brian at quarterbyte.com Wed Jul 5 00:35:50 2006 From: brian at quarterbyte.com (Brian Knittel) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 22:35:50 -0700 Subject: IBM 1800 Rescue Message-ID: <44AAED46.1725.5B10EED7@brian.quarterbyte.com> > Hard to believe that under all of that, lurks the heart of an 1130! Actually, it turns out that that's not quite true. We heard some of the history of the 1800's development from Neil Hillier, this 1800's former owner. He was on the design team. While the 1800 has the same instruction set as the 1130, the CPU's hardware design was done by a different team to meet different performance goals, and thus the implementation is not the same. We're hoping to give Neil a formal and thorough grilling, er, interview for ibm1130.org after he's finished his move to Montana. Brian =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _| _| _| Brian Knittel _| _| _| Quarterbyte Systems, Inc. _| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 _| _| _| Fax: 1-510-525-6889 _| _| _| Email: brian at quarterbyte.com _| _| _| http://www.quarterbyte.com From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 5 01:08:56 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 23:08:56 -0700 Subject: IBM 1800 Rescue In-Reply-To: <44AAED46.1725.5B10EED7@brian.quarterbyte.com> References: <44AAED46.1725.5B10EED7@brian.quarterbyte.com> Message-ID: <200607042308560585.40CEBCFD@10.0.0.252> On 7/4/2006 at 10:35 PM Brian Knittel wrote: > While the 1800 has the same >instruction set as the 1130, the CPU's hardware design was done by a >different team to meet different performance goals, and thus the >implementation is not the same. Very interesting! I recall that Standard Oil in East Chicago, IN where I grew up had one of the 1800's and allowed high-school students to program it on weekends. Does anyone know if the same design situation was true of the 1710, or was the 1710 really just a 1620 with extra hardware? Cheers, Chuck From javickers at solutionengineers.com Wed Jul 5 02:10:55 2006 From: javickers at solutionengineers.com (Ade Vickers) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 08:10:55 +0100 Subject: FW: please forward if of interest: free Televideo luggable, Berkeley, CA Message-ID: <019601c6a002$3ade8c40$0401a8c0@solution.engineers> Best Regards, Adrian Vickers. -----Original Message----- From: John Hauser [jhauser (at) jhauser.us] Subject: please forward if of interest: free Televideo luggable, Berkeley, CA I'm not a subscriber of cctalk (nor do I want to be), which I believe means I can't post to the list. However, the following might be of interest to your subscribers: There is an old Televideo luggable being given away for free in Berkeley, California. It's at the street curb along with some other free junk in front of 1213 Channing Way. Unfortunately, I don't know the model number or operating condition, but it looked intact. It had evidently been kept by some kind of hobbyist (judging from the other junk), although not exactly a collector. Includes two built-in 5.25" floppy disk drives, if that helps in the least. Didn't want it to be thrown away if it might be gold to one of you. - John Hauser -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.9.9/382 - Release Date: 04/07/2006 From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jul 5 02:11:43 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:11:43 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040505.BAA18591@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607040806.EAA19398@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44AB6625.3EDDD264@cs.ubc.ca> der Mouse wrote: > If it helps, the tube list for this thing (aside from the CRT itself) (Thats's a lot of 12AU7s) Yes, the tube complement may help with correlation if there isn't a perfect model # match. > The 6Q50 might be 6Q5O or 6Q5Q instead; there's a dark mark at the 6Q5G: http://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/041/2/2B4.pdf Thats a funny tube: "..intended for use in DuMont Cathode-Ray Oscillographs for sweep oscillator service.." http://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/049/8/884.pdf contains a small schematic of a sweep oscillator using the 6Q5/884. (http://frank.pocnet.net/ is a good ref for tubes including oddballs) > If you do find a junk one, I'm tempted to ask if you'd be willing to > send the whole thing, as a parts unit (most notably the tubes, at least > after the power transformer). OK, ..I'll see what might be found.. From hilpert at cs.ubc.ca Wed Jul 5 02:19:51 2006 From: hilpert at cs.ubc.ca (Brent Hilpert) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:19:51 -0700 Subject: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607041449.37463.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607041314590273.3EAEF913@10.0.0.252> <200607042122.RAA24060@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44AB680D.4C128226@cs.ubc.ca> der Mouse wrote: > if the power transofrmer hadn't fried). It now has a bit of warm-up > drift, and some of the knobs interact with others in undesirable ways > (for example, the X amplitude knob introduces a DC offset that I have > to compensate for with the X position knob). But for it to even *work* .. generally the result of an imbalance between the symmetric halves of the push-pull amplifier for the axis. There should (may) be an internal pot ("DC BALANCE") for the appropriate axis to bring the amp into balance. (not that it matters unless you can get the scope working again.) From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Wed Jul 5 03:10:19 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 04:10:19 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200607050810.EAA07838@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> For those of you following my Dumont oscilloscope saga (based on an offlist email, that set of people, while perhaps small, is definitely nonempty :-).... I just now tried hooking power up to it with all the tubes pulled (including removing the CRT's socket from the tube) and a (40W) light bulb in series with the mains. The light bulb came on, to the eye about as bright as full power. A voltmeter across the transformer primary showed about 30V (vs about 110-115 if I have the 'scope's power switch off). The clip-on ammeter shows nothing at all until I wind the wire around to give it a x5 multiplier, at which point it shows 1.2A, meaning actually about 1/4A. So either the primary is very sick, or some secondary winding is shorted and is loading the primary. I then tried something else. I have a filament transformer which produces (nominal) 12.6V centre-tapped at 1.2A (according to the markings on it). So I hooked half its secondary across the heater terminals of a convenient tube (of the 6J6s) and applied power (with that light bulb in series with the mains, to be sure). The bulb burnt dimly. (It is completely invisible if I leave the secondary open; this filament transformer itself seems to be OK.) Measuring the voltage across the primary, it had sunk to about half mains voltage; a clip-on ammeter on the secondary showed it pulling about 3.5A. (This is with all the tubes completely removed from their sockets, CRT included.) A dead short across the secondary carries about 4A. The voltage across the secondary - nominally 6.3V, and that is what I get with the oscilloscope disconnected - is about 1V; a lot is being lost in the transformer (not surprising, as it's carrying some two and a half times its rated current). The winding that provides the plate supply for most of the 'scope measures about 12V. Since it is rectified by a 5Y3GT and then fed to a 0B2, it must be designed to produce at least 75V or so, probably more like 90 or 100. If we assume the fried transformer is acting normally as a transformer for the two windings in question (admittedly a large assumption), this is right at the margin of reasonable: it's getting 1V instead of 6.3V on the heater winding and is producing 12V on the medium-voltage winding, for 12V*6.3V/1V=75.6V nominal. This is not quite enough to make the 0B2 regulate, even ignoring the drop in the 5Y3GT, but is in the right ballpark. However, with the same setup I am unable to measure any voltage whatsoever across what I think must be the high-voltage winding, the one that's rectified with two 2X2As to produce the HV for the CRT. Perhaps I'm wrong about which wires are the ends of that winding, or perhaps it's failed open.... I shall be investigating more, but it's now late enough I need to call it quits for the night. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 5 09:01:16 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 07:01:16 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607050810.EAA07838@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607050810.EAA07838@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607050701160807.427F2C96@10.0.0.252> On 7/5/2006 at 4:10 AM der Mouse wrote: >So either the primary is very sick, or some secondary winding is >shorted and is loading the primary. It sounds as if your assessment is correct. :( Since gas reference tubes like the OB2 do best when the supply voltage is substantially higer than the operating voltage of the tube, I'd say that the winding on the plates of the 5Y3 are probably more like 150-0-150 VRMS. So, across the plates you should see almost 300V RMS (or its scaled equivalent with your transformer-lamp setup). Your next logical step is to disconnect and remove the transformer. Rather than unsoldering it, I'm going to assume that this is like most old equipment and there's some slack in the leads. In order not to put too much strain on the sockets and components, I'd recommend that you clip the leads perhaps a half-inch away from their ends, tagging the "stubs" so you can see where the wires connect when it comes time to connect up a replacement. There is a very very slim chance that one of the lead wires has had its insulation degraded to the point that it's contacting the shell of the transformer and shorting things out. So after you get the transformer out of the scope, you may want to open it up (if it's a "clamshell") type and have a look. Make one final test on the liberated transformer and then go look for a replacement. Cheers, Chuck From michael_short at comcast.net Wed Jul 5 12:18:43 2006 From: michael_short at comcast.net (michael_short at comcast.net) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 17:18:43 +0000 Subject: 1710 vs 1620 Message-ID: <070520061718.20381.44ABF4730009353700004F9D22007374789B9D01089CA1040A0E080C0703@comcast.net> The 1710 was an upgraded 1620. It had hardware to handle interrupt processing. There were features on the 1710 that were ordereable on the 1620 such as A/D conversion and rudimentary bit manipulations. I think that the 1710 could also handle a small number of terminals. From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 5 14:49:51 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:49:51 -0700 Subject: 1710 vs 1620 In-Reply-To: <070520061718.20381.44ABF4730009353700004F9D22007374789B9D01089CA1040A0E080C0703@comcast.net> References: <070520061718.20381.44ABF4730009353700004F9D22007374789B9D01089CA1040A0E080C0703@comcast.net> Message-ID: <200607051249510313.43BE504A@10.0.0.252> On 7/5/2006 at 5:18 PM michael_short at comcast.net wrote: >The 1710 was an upgraded 1620. It had hardware to handle interrupt processing. There >were features on the 1710 that were ordereable on the 1620 such as A/D conversion and >rudimentary bit manipulations. I think that the 1710 could also handle a small number of > terminals. It was pretty surprising what a 1710 could handle; The 1712 Mux could handle about 300 signal sources/destinations. These could be analog, digital (output) or make-break (input). And the 1710 had a real-time clock, courtesy of the 1711 data converter. Interrupts were very primitive. "Terminal" usually meant a 1717 output printer with some sort of input device (usually a few pushbuttons, but a keyboard was an option IIRC). You could have up to 20 of those--and they had the bimodal alpha-or-numeric personalities that the other 1620 I/O devices did. The 1717 was an interesting bird in that you could write both numerical output and alpha output in the same operation--there were embedded "mode change" escape sequences. One significant difference between the 1710 and 1620 was the 1710 had the ability to test for its own hardware faults, instead of halting with a CHECK STOP. Practically, I don't know how much good this was, but one could test for parity errors and other faults. It's pretty amazing what what amounts to a 5-bit computer (I don't count the parity bit) running with a 100 KHz clock rate and doing its math by memory table lookup (well, the Cadet did, anyway) could do. Cheers, Chuck http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-ibm-1620-sps-916.html From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jul 5 17:54:04 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 15:54:04 -0700 Subject: hp 16500A software In-Reply-To: <003201c699b6$dd4c4aa0$6701000a@bitis> References: <003201c699b6$dd4c4aa0$6701000a@bitis> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90607051554l6b0e83f0ya41ea087c463e85a@mail.gmail.com> On 6/26/06, Lukasz Bajger wrote: > > I need software (inverse assemblers, os etc.) for hp16500A could you send all you have to me ? Please. > Try this to get started: http://www.home.agilent.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/16500A_OP_SYS.zip From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jul 5 19:52:51 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 20:52:51 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200607041543020532.3F368462@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> <200607041543020532.3F368462@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44AC5EE3.9040306@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > BTW, anyone tried WINE on NetBSD lately? Netbsd.org seems to be strangely > silent on the topic. I can verify that both Wine and Cedega work well on all the i386 boxes I've tried them on. Make sure you use "options INSECURE" though. Peace... Sridhar From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jul 5 20:03:53 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 21:03:53 -0400 Subject: IBM 1800 rescue In-Reply-To: <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <200607031700.k63H0b4U048550@dewey.classiccmp.org> <20060703205359.92424.qmail@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > For those interested, I rescued an IBM 1800 computer > system last weekend. It appears to have been built in > 1967 and has been maintained running until about two > years ago. It has a simulated 2311 hard drive (using > an > older PC) and a 1442 card read punch. Came with a full > set of documentation! Some photos can be seen at: Fun stuff, I am envious. Anyway, did this 1800 have a built in controller for the 2311, simulating a 2841, or does it simply have a B&T channel and the old PeeCee has to simulate both the 2311 and 2841? Did you get docs on the 2311 and/or 2841? If so, GET THEM TO AL! (please). -- Will Owner of a poor 2311 with no 2841 to lead it home. From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jul 5 20:31:35 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 21:31:35 -0400 Subject: Checking before I scan... Message-ID: <005501c6a09b$eb72c460$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: I'm cleaning up the shop and I found a few Commodore manuals I want to scan but before I do, I wanted to check and see if anyone's done this already. I have the service manual for the 2031LP floppy drive, the user's manual for the 2040/3040/4040/8050 drive (I have an 8050) and the service manual for the PET 4016/4032. Let me know if these exist already. Thanks. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 00:15:24 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:15:24 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines Message-ID: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> Most laptops/drives are compatible with traditional IDE "desktop" drives (via an appropriate adapter cable). Does anyone know how backward compatible these drives are with legacy machines? Assuming I can hack the BIOS to recognize the drive (since most laptop drives are much larger than older BIOSes could support), are there any other issues to be concerned with? Thanks! --don From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 6 00:10:23 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:10:23 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607052210230643.45BF7B07@10.0.0.252> On 7/5/2006 at 10:15 PM Don Y wrote: >Most laptops/drives are compatible with traditional >IDE "desktop" drives (via an appropriate adapter cable). >Does anyone know how backward compatible these drives >are with legacy machines? Assuming I can hack the >BIOS to recognize the drive (since most laptop drives >are much larger than older BIOSes could support), >are there any other issues to be concerned with? Depends on where you draw the line on the term "laptop", Don. Some of the very early models used ATA drives, but performed 8-bit I/O on data transfers to and from the sector buffer. Modern IDE drives will only do 16 bit data transfers. Another gotcha is that very early ATA drives sometimes got things wrong. IIRC, eary Maxtors on the IDENTIFY command, swapped the words in the "total sectors' field. Fortunately, the CHS values as reported are correct, so it might not matter. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 6 00:45:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:45:03 -0700 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <44AC5EE3.9040306@gmail.com> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> <200607041543020532.3F368462@10.0.0.252> <44AC5EE3.9040306@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607052245030289.45DF364F@10.0.0.252> On 7/5/2006 at 8:52 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: >I can verify that both Wine and Cedega work well on all the i386 boxes >I've tried them on. > >Make sure you use "options INSECURE" though. I looked at WineX/Cedega, but the following item in the FAQ scared me off: "9) Does Cedega work on BeOS? BSD? TransGaming actively accepts patches from the BSD community in order for Cedega to run on FreeBSD, however Cedega is currently available for Linux only. " Which makes it sound like "if BSD has a problem, don't act like we're supposed to care". Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 00:56:36 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 01:56:36 -0400 Subject: NetBSD and old hardware curiosity In-Reply-To: <200607052245030289.45DF364F@10.0.0.252> References: <200606201006530630.0091BC23@10.0.0.252> <200606240505.BAA03820@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200606240844480336.0A382B66@10.0.0.252> <575131af0607041520r580a1c8bv69c84bb76399e415@mail.gmail.com> <200607041543020532.3F368462@10.0.0.252> <44AC5EE3.9040306@gmail.com> <200607052245030289.45DF364F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44ACA614.6000804@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/5/2006 at 8:52 PM Sridhar Ayengar wrote: > >> I can verify that both Wine and Cedega work well on all the i386 boxes >> I've tried them on. >> >> Make sure you use "options INSECURE" though. > > I looked at WineX/Cedega, but the following item in the FAQ scared me off: > > "9) Does Cedega work on BeOS? BSD? > > TransGaming actively accepts patches from the BSD community in order for > Cedega to run on FreeBSD, however Cedega is currently available for Linux > only. " > > Which makes it sound like "if BSD has a problem, don't act like we're > supposed to care". That's pretty much what that means. What it doesn't mean, however, is that help is unavailable. There are a significant number of people (myself included) out there who are running Cedega under BSD and are willing to help. Peace... Sridhar From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Thu Jul 6 03:13:22 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 10:13:22 +0200 Subject: Hobby / museum activities In-Reply-To: <00e801c68a69$1fe09950$6500a8c0@BILLING> References: <001601c68a5c$99ca3cb0$2101a8c0@finans> <004d01c68a62$54c802e0$6500a8c0@BILLING> <00e801c68a69$1fe09950$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <1152173602.683.22.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 14:32 -0500, Jay West wrote: > I had written.... > > I'll try to clean up the list and post it publicly, so people know where > > I'm headed. > > Clarification: > I wasn't saying I had a list of people to do media conversion. I was saying > I had a list of all the upgrades and new features that were being worked on > for the new classiccmp website, and that a section on the site was going to > have a list where people could see folks willing to do media conversions. > The facility is planned, but there is no data (names) in place to go on that > list. What about you letting the list and Nico know what data fields you would like, and he could keep a temporary list with the data fields in an easily parsable format? > > It was the list of all the upgrades and new features that I'm planning for > the new classiccmp website that I was saying I'd post soon :) We're looking forward to it, thanks :) -toresbe :) From toresbe at ifi.uio.no Thu Jul 6 03:27:51 2006 From: toresbe at ifi.uio.no (Tore Sinding Bekkedal) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 10:27:51 +0200 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <44A00F2B.4070808@yahoo.co.uk> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <44A00F2B.4070808@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <1152174471.683.27.camel@localhost.localdomain> On Mon, 2006-06-26 at 16:45 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > Personally I'm with Patrick on this one - I find it annoying on lists that do > it because it pushes the meaningful subject line over more than it needs to > be, (even more so if people change subject lines when replying (e.g. "xxx > was: yyy" and don't bother to edit out the automatically-added text) The single place where I've found this approach to have merit is in the case of the Debian lists - now, Debian has an incredible amount of lists used for discussing work rather than doing it (:)), and discussions are sometimes moved between lists and so on. iIn this case, the ability to track the path of an email might be useful. But not in this case, I'm sounding in with the majority here. :) -toresbe :) From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jul 6 03:13:44 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 04:13:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607050701160807.427F2C96@10.0.0.252> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607050810.EAA07838@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607050701160807.427F2C96@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607060833.EAA21186@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> So either the primary is very sick, or some secondary winding is >> shorted and is loading the primary. > It sounds as if your assessment is correct. :( THANK YOU! (For not writing "It sounds like your...".) > Since gas reference tubes like the OB2 do best when the supply > voltage is substantially higer than the operating voltage of the > tube, I'd say that the winding on the plates of the 5Y3 are probably > more like 150-0-150 VRMS. Ooh, yes, I forgot I was measuring plate-to-plate voltage, not plate-to-centre-tap voltage. So the voltage I was seeing is only about half what it'd have to be, even ignoring losses in the 5Y3GT and the "substantially higher" you mention. > Your next logical step is to disconnect and remove the transformer. Yes, I think I agree. It is sufficiently dead in place that even if it's something fixable I'll still have to take it out to deal with it. > Rather than unsoldering it, I'm going to assume that this is like > most old equipment and there's some slack in the leads. There is. I wouldn't unsolder it either, but my principal reason is that most (all?) of the connections have the wire wrapped around before soldering until it's reasonably secure mechanically *without* solder. Good construction technique in most respects, but a pain when it comkes to desoldering. (Especially when the connection is not very accessible, which is the case for at least half of them.) > In order not to put too much strain on the sockets and components, > I'd recommend that you clip the leads perhaps a half-inch away from > their ends, tagging the "stubs" so you can see where the wires > connect when it comes time to connect up a replacement. Actually, I would more likely just tag each wire from the transformer (probably with a simple serial number), and write down where each tag goes (things like "V9 pin 5" or "C12 positive side" or "chassis") - and cut the wires as close to their connection points as I can easily manage. > There is a very very slim chance that one of the lead wires has had > its insulation degraded to the point that it's contacting the shell > of the transformer and shorting things out. None of the insulation looks degraded, so I consider that, indeed, a very very slim chance. I sha'n't overlook it, though, and will check for evidence of such a thing when I crack the transformer case. (Given how electrically broken the thing is, I'll probably have to open it up just to tell which wires go together - there are a few I'm not sure of.) > So after you get the transformer out of the scope, you may want to > open it up (if it's a "clamshell") type and have a look. I'm not sure what a "clamshell" is, here. This transformer has metal (presumably steel) sheet laminate for the core, metal sides enclosing the windings, and bolts through the sides and the lamination layers to hold it all together. It's a common design for vacuum-tube-era power transformers, in my (admittedly limited) experience. And it's big; my "ten-kg" upthread was a somewhat flippant estimate, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's about right. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 6 07:08:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:08:30 +0000 Subject: Identifying cctalk messages In-Reply-To: <1152174471.683.27.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <449FF6EA.6080306@blueskystudios.com> <200606261109.36058.pat@computer-refuge.org> <44A00F2B.4070808@yahoo.co.uk> <1152174471.683.27.camel@localhost.localdomain> Message-ID: <44ACFD3E.6060105@yahoo.co.uk> Tore Sinding Bekkedal wrote: > On Mon, 2006-06-26 at 16:45 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: >> Personally I'm with Patrick on this one - I find it annoying on lists that do >> it because it pushes the meaningful subject line over more than it needs to >> be, (even more so if people change subject lines when replying (e.g. "xxx >> was: yyy" and don't bother to edit out the automatically-added text) > > The single place where I've found this approach to have merit is in the > case of the Debian lists I just had this discussion with a moderator of one of the freecycle lists, where they do tag subject lines. One interesting point he had was that it's useful in case the list address ever changes - which isn't relevant here, but is perhaps a valid point for mailing lists hosted with people such as Yahoo - who seem to have a habit of dropping groups/lists with no warning to their members. He did mention though that tagging subject lines was pretty much the norm back in BITNET days (and also that VMS made it rather awkward to see message headers other than the typical subject/date/sender) - so it's perhaps more historically correct. Doesn't make it right, of course, but it's an interesting observation :-) cheers Jules From tpeters at mixcom.com Thu Jul 6 07:06:16 2006 From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 07:06:16 -0500 (CDT) Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <42205.144.160.5.25.1152187576.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> > are with legacy machines? Assuming I can hack the > BIOS to recognize the drive (since most laptop drives > are much larger than older BIOSes could support), > are there any other issues to be concerned with? Please explain more about hacking the BIOS..? Does this involve reading out the ROM, modifying it, and burning a new one? From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 6 10:07:47 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 08:07:47 -0700 Subject: I am now Annoyed [Re: Old oscilloscope help: ideas sought] In-Reply-To: <200607060833.EAA21186@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607040339.XAA07334@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44AAD3C3.D4407AC4@cs.ubc.ca> <200607042250.SAA24552@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607042013.03623.rtellason@verizon.net> <200607050810.EAA07838@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <200607050701160807.427F2C96@10.0.0.252> <200607060833.EAA21186@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <200607060807470088.47E26813@10.0.0.252> On 7/6/2006 at 4:13 AM der Mouse wrote: >THANK YOU! (For not writing "It sounds like your...".) Well, if it sounds like "popping", it sounds as if you have a a problem. :) >I'm not sure what a "clamshell" is, here. This transformer has metal >(presumably steel) sheet laminate for the core, metal sides enclosing >the windings, and bolts through the sides and the lamination layers to >hold it all together. It's a common design for vacuum-tube-era power >transformers, in my (admittedly limited) experience. I'm referring to the metal sides, held in place with through-bolts as being the "clamshell". Sorry that I can't think of a more descriptive term. If you thought your transformer was big, you should see some of the units used in the early color TVs. I'd still recommend that you tag the "stubs" in the scope after you remove the transformer. It's not a given that any replacement unit will employ the same color coding, although there was a convention of sorts (Black=primary, Green=6.3v filament with Green/striped as CT; Yellow=5V rectifier, Red=High voltage), but you couldn't depend on it with absolute certainty. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 11:47:48 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:47:48 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <42205.144.160.5.25.1152187576.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> References: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> <42205.144.160.5.25.1152187576.squirrel@mail.athenet.net> Message-ID: <44AD3EB4.4090304@DakotaCom.Net> Tom Peters wrote: >> are with legacy machines? Assuming I can hack the >> BIOS to recognize the drive (since most laptop drives >> are much larger than older BIOSes could support), >> are there any other issues to be concerned with? > > Please explain more about hacking the BIOS..? Does this involve reading > out the ROM, modifying it, and burning a new one? Yes. What I have done in the past is to find the disk parameter table (one of the INT's points to it) and change an existing entry (for some geometry that I will likely NEVER use) to the geometry that I want. This alters the checksum of the device (obviously). So, now I need to find a couple of bytes elsewhere in memory that I can change to compensate for this. I find it easiest just to grab *another* disk entry and tweek that. (I could probably change any byte in those "sea of 0xFF" but I don't know FOR SURE that they represent "unused locations". But, I *do* know what the entries in the disk table are used for! :> I hacked a 340MB drive into my Portable 3 this way and it runs quite nicely. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 11:55:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:55:34 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <200607052210230643.45BF7B07@10.0.0.252> References: <44AC9C6C.7000206@DakotaCom.Net> <200607052210230643.45BF7B07@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44AD4086.3080207@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/5/2006 at 10:15 PM Don Y wrote: > >> Most laptops/drives are compatible with traditional >> IDE "desktop" drives (via an appropriate adapter cable). >> Does anyone know how backward compatible these drives >> are with legacy machines? Assuming I can hack the >> BIOS to recognize the drive (since most laptop drives >> are much larger than older BIOSes could support), >> are there any other issues to be concerned with? > > Depends on where you draw the line on the term "laptop", Don. Some of the What I want to do is use a modern 2.5" IDE drive in a legacy machine. As I see it (aside from the physical cabling and mounting issues), the problems I am likely to face are related to the sizes of the drives (capacities) plus any changes in the logical interface. E.g., (very) early drives had to be initialized with their *fixed* geometries; that is no longer a requirement (as modern drives do translation). It looks like the 8/16 bit issue could be a killer -- but I *think* that won't be in this case... > very early models used ATA drives, but performed 8-bit I/O on data > transfers to and from the sector buffer. Modern IDE drives will only do 16 > bit data transfers. Another gotcha is that very early ATA drives sometimes > got things wrong. IIRC, eary Maxtors on the IDENTIFY command, swapped the > words in the "total sectors' field. Fortunately, the CHS values as > reported are correct, so it might not matter. From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jul 6 12:29:19 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 10:29:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines Message-ID: <20060706172919.66107.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> "What I want to do is use a modern 2.5" IDE drive in a legacy machine." How modern? What machine? XT or AT class? "the problems I am likely to face are related to the sizes of the drives..." Won't *any* drive work, but only to the point that the BIOS supports it's size? "It looks like the 8/16 bit issue could be a killer -- but I *think* that won't be in this case..." Why? Please enlighten me. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 13:16:58 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:16:58 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <20060706172919.66107.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060706172919.66107.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44AD539A.3060908@DakotaCom.Net> Chris M wrote: > "What I want to do is use a modern 2.5" IDE drive in a > legacy machine." > > How modern? What machine? XT or AT class? 2.5" drives are more modern than damn near any "legacy machine" :> I'd like to remove the 3.5" drive in my Portable 3 and add a second floppy (since floppies on the Portable 3 seem to be flakey given its age). I would then like to squeeze a *2.5"* drive in amongst the works and end up with dual floppies AND a hard disk. > "the problems I am likely to face are > related to the sizes of the drives..." > > Won't *any* drive work, but only to the point that > the BIOS supports it's size? Older BIOS's and disks often didn't like it when the disk didn;t agree with it's notion of drive geometry. Newer drives use translation algorithms so that internally they can think of themselves as "just a bunch of sectors". And, have variable geometries to best utilize the surface area and effective head velocity over that media (media at the periphery of the drive "moves faster" than at the hub). I've found it easier to just force the BIOS and drive to agree on a geometry than to leave that as an "unknown" > "It looks like the 8/16 bit issue could be a killer -- > but I *think* that won't be in this case..." > > Why? Please enlighten me. Because the machine in question already has a 3.5" IDE drive in it that is working fine (16 bit interface) From Joachim.Thiemann at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 13:32:27 2006 From: Joachim.Thiemann at gmail.com (Joachim Thiemann) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 14:32:27 -0400 Subject: Northstar Advantage up for trade Message-ID: <922EA88B-7946-4F15-A35D-6B7A08E1A8A9@gmail.com> Hello, after having had this system for almost 10 years, I decided I can't really do it justice as a collector. I'm sure there's people in the Montreal region (or of course further away if you're willing to drive a bit - I'm looking at the Ottawa crowd here (Dave? Kirk?)) that are interested in this. This is a Northstar Advantage System - working but drive problems. The drives can probably be repaired with little effort, but I do not have the time to play with it. It comes with this documentation: Northstar Advantage Technical Manual (contains schematics) Northstar Fortran-80 Manual (original blue binder) GBASIC/GDOS documentation (Fat old binder) MBASIC (Microsoft) documentation Northstar Advantage User Manual (x2) 29 Hard-Sectored Floppies, including about 10 empties. One of those is the original Advantage Demonstration/Diagnostic Diskette (2.1.0 AQH) 5 are from the North Star Computer Society (PD software) and the rest are various CP/M and NDOS format disks with software, including F80, Small C, Turbo Pascal 1.0, dBaseII, Wordstar Some of the disks may have been damaged by improper storage, and this may have done in the drives as well - I suspect mold, the system spent way too long in my parents damp basement. I'm hoping someone can properly archive the data. In exchange I'm kinda looking for Commodore stuff - ideally, I'd like to get my hands on an Amiga 1200, a 1581 drive, or other uncommon C= stuff. I am also always looking for synthesizer stuff, and HP calcs. (BTW anyone got spare HP-IL cables????) Or just convince me it's going to a good home :-) Joe. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 17:32:41 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:32:41 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I'm just finishing up some ideas on a quick-and-dirty parallel port (SPP)-to-OMTI interface (so Jules can salvage his "bits" :> ). Anyone like to add their two cents? Note the operative word here is "quick-and-dirty". If you want to build a monument to your own cleverness, you can design/build it yourself :> Goal here is something that can be built and debugged easily (so I'm NOT using an FPGA, microcontroller, etc.) If someone has access to a double sided PCB facility (to save the hassle of wire-wrapping the thing), I'll layout a 2 layer PCB (on the off chance that someone else might want to tinker with this stuff). Note that I am not aiming for performance. Just a way to coax bits off a disk drive so they can be imaged properly (is that correct, Jules?) Thanks! --don From glen.slick at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 17:24:36 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 15:24:36 -0700 Subject: Vector Imagery (was: Why do people... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> References: <44A4ACCA.4020306@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300442.AAA01316@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4B439.1000107@DakotaCom.Net> <200606300624.CAA01712@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44A4CD81.7030705@dsl.pipex.com> <44A4D8A3.6010401@DakotaCom.Net> <44A50740.9040400@dsl.pipex.com> <44A521D3.7080702@yahoo.co.uk> <5.1.0.14.2.20060630144409.03c644f0@mail.30below.com> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90607061524g17517a7bo20374f626ee6b01c@mail.gmail.com> > >>There's a CRT clock around somewhere that has an onboard sine generator > >>(might be two sine generators) that's used to generate "proper" curves. > >>Personally, I like the sharp angles on the Atari vector font - the curves > >>look a bit too.. well.. perfect :) > > Not sure if someone posted a pointer here to this yet... http://www.cathodecorner.com/sc100.html From lee at geekdot.com Thu Jul 6 18:28:12 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 01:28:12 +0200 (CEST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: <2368.86.144.139.97.1152228492.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > (on the off chance that someone else might want to tinker > with this stuff) I might. I have a similar drive from a similar system that could do with imaging. I've not tried it yet as it had a roll pin running around loose inside when I got it. See the images at the bottom of this page .. http://www.themotionstore.com/leeedavison/68k/torch725/index.html Lee. From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jul 6 20:02:01 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:02:01 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: > Anyone like to add their two cents? Find an ISA board with an NCR 5380 scsi chip on it. I'll run over to Weird Stuff tomorrow to look. 5380's are VERY simple minded, and will work with little programming on older controllers like the Xebec 1403 in the picture. From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 20:07:47 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 21:07:47 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I struck out on the IBM 3480 heads, IBM took them back. -- Will From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jul 6 20:25:00 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:25:00 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: > I struck out on the IBM 3480 heads, IBM took them back. To give people some context, I bought 16 3480 drives in Chicago, and field stripped them last week for the heads to use in a tape recovery project. I had asked William when he was out in CA if he knew of any other drives around. More details on the drive conversion as it develops. There is a proof of concept running in Canada, but I am unable to get details, so I'm having to start from scratch (the same as I had to do for the DECtape interface). From wdonzelli at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 20:31:39 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2006 21:31:39 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > I struck out on the IBM 3480 heads, IBM took them back. > > To give people some context, I bought 16 3480 drives in Chicago, and field > stripped them last week for the heads to use in a tape recovery project. I > had asked William when he was out in CA if he knew of any other drives > around. > > More details on the drive conversion as it develops. There is a proof of > concept running in Canada, but I am unable to get details, so I'm having to > start from scratch (the same as I had to do for the DECtape interface). Oops, yes, I guess that was to be to you, not the list, but all the better, now that we can rally the troops to find 3480 heads. Right, troops? -- Will From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 6 21:26:58 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 19:26:58 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44ADC672.8050205@DakotaCom.Net> Al Kossow wrote: > >> Anyone like to add their two cents? > > Find an ISA board with an NCR 5380 scsi chip on it. > I'll run over to Weird Stuff tomorrow to look. > > 5380's are VERY simple minded, and will work with little programming on > older controllers like the Xebec 1403 in the picture. Yes, but interfacing a 5380 to a parallel port is just as hard as a bit of glue logic. And, harder for him to come by (I think I have a tube of them here from an old project...) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 06:06:19 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:06:19 +0000 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: > Hi, > > I'm just finishing up some ideas on a quick-and-dirty > parallel port (SPP)-to-OMTI interface (so Jules can > salvage his "bits" :> ). Anyone like to add their > two cents? Don, Thought for the morning - it'd be nice if the hardware was switchable between SCSI and SASI. In a moment I'll dig out the docs I have for the Omti 5x00, Adaptec ACB4000, Xebec (umm, 1452 or something like that) and the Emulex boards. Some of those boards are SASI, some are SCSI (although I think all are pre-CCS, but that's a software issue). What needs to be understood is whether the extra handshake lines needed for SCSI can be included - and if so can they be 'switched off' via either hardware or software to drive a SASI device... (from memory, the OMTI is the closest board to 'real' SCSI, so designing against that's likely a good thing) > Note that I am not aiming for performance. Just > a way to coax bits off a disk drive so they can > be imaged properly (is that correct, Jules?) Yep, doesn't matter if it takes a while to run or chews CPU cycles to do so - it's purely a way of imaging / restoring disks, not a way of interacting with them (that can be done via the loopback device in Linux once you have an image!) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 05:56:06 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:56:06 +0000 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44AE3DC6.6030602@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > Oops, yes, I guess that was to be to you, not the list, but all the > better, now that we can rally the troops to find 3480 heads. Right, > troops? *blinks* huh!? ;) From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 08:31:54 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:31:54 +0000 Subject: NeXT slab questions Message-ID: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> I'm just about to stick an OS on the newly-acquired NeXT Slab (thanks to local Freecycle list for providing, and Witchy for picking it up!) Questions: CDROM - do I need a 2048 bytes/sector one or 512 bytes/sector? (I have both available, but it just saves me guessing the type!) SCSI bus - in order to hang a (terminated, obviously) CDROM off the external SCSI connector, do I need to enable/disable termination on the system board somewhere, and/or enable/disable termination on the internal drive? (I'm not sure if the internal drive is one end of the SCSI bus, or just a short spur off the bus) Memory - Can these things take more than 32MB? Purely curious - I don't even know if such a thing as an 8MB 30 pin SIMM exists (this Slab currently has 8 x 4MB modules in it) (I did get manuals with this, but they're right at the bottom of everything else that's in the car!) cheers Jules From tosteve at yahoo.com Fri Jul 7 03:19:03 2006 From: tosteve at yahoo.com (steven stengel) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 01:19:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Otrona Attache Message-ID: <20060707081903.13460.qmail@web34104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hmm, Is it true that the Otrona Attache won't boot if the clock batteries are dead? Steve. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From james.rice at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 10:30:06 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 09:30:06 -0600 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: You need one with 512 byte/sector capability. A good rule of thumb, if it will boot a Sgi or Sun box, it will boot a NeXT. I use Toshiba's on my NeXT equipment. The external SCSI chain will auto sense the presence of the external device, so just terminate the external drive and everything will be cool. I've always used SCSI ID 6 for my CD-ROM - why I don't know but it's always worked for me. The default SCSI ID of the internal drive is 1. The internal drive is on the internal leg of the bus, so it's termination is seperate from the external leg of the bus. I've never tried to run more than 32mb in a non-Turbo chipset slab. I recently got some 16mb SIMMS. Maybe I should experiment. On 7/7/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > > I'm just about to stick an OS on the newly-acquired NeXT Slab (thanks to local > Freecycle list for providing, and Witchy for picking it up!) > > Questions: > > CDROM - do I need a 2048 bytes/sector one or 512 bytes/sector? (I have both > available, but it just saves me guessing the type!) > > SCSI bus - in order to hang a (terminated, obviously) CDROM off the external > SCSI connector, do I need to enable/disable termination on the system board > somewhere, and/or enable/disable termination on the internal drive? (I'm not > sure if the internal drive is one end of the SCSI bus, or just a short spur > off the bus) > > Memory - Can these things take more than 32MB? Purely curious - I don't even > know if such a thing as an 8MB 30 pin SIMM exists (this Slab currently has 8 x > 4MB modules in it) > > > (I did get manuals with this, but they're right at the bottom of everything > else that's in the car!) > > cheers > > Jules > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From fryers at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 10:32:20 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 16:32:20 +0100 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: All, On 7/7/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Questions: > > CDROM - do I need a 2048 bytes/sector one or 512 bytes/sector? (I have both > available, but it just saves me guessing the type!) 512 bytes/sector. > SCSI bus - in order to hang a (terminated, obviously) CDROM off the external > SCSI connector, do I need to enable/disable termination on the system board > somewhere, and/or enable/disable termination on the internal drive? (I'm not > sure if the internal drive is one end of the SCSI bus, or just a short spur > off the bus) I think the slab needs external termination. It was many years ago that I had access to one - but I seem to remember a terminator on the external SCSI connector even with no external devices. > Memory - Can these things take more than 32MB? Purely curious - I don't even > know if such a thing as an 8MB 30 pin SIMM exists (this Slab currently has 8 x > 4MB modules in it) Pass. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 11:34:07 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 16:34:07 +0000 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > CDROM - do I need a 2048 bytes/sector one or 512 bytes/sector? 512 it would seem... I guessed and stuck my old Apple-branded CDROM on there, didn't change any of the SCSI termination, booted the floppy, and off it went. It's now got NeXTSTEP 3.2 running on there, with the developer tools installing as we speak.... I love it when hardware and software just works like that - such a rare thing! > Memory - Can these things take more than 32MB? Still not got to the bottom of that one, though. There are only 8 30-pin sockets on the system board (websites lead me to believe that some slab models had 72-pin sockets instead), but the memory info option in the boot firmware curiously shows 32MB in two 16MB banks, and in addition reports half the banks as empty - as though the *system* can physically address more memory, but that the system board just doesn't have the physical sockets to put any more in... Bloody nice machines, though. cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 11:41:02 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 16:41:02 +0000 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44ADC672.8050205@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44ADC672.8050205@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44AE8E9E.2080706@yahoo.co.uk> Don Y wrote: >> 5380's are VERY simple minded, and will work with little programming on >> older controllers like the Xebec 1403 in the picture. > > Yes, but interfacing a 5380 to a parallel port is just as hard > as a bit of glue logic. That would be my assumption, too - presumably they'd need more I/O lines than the parallel port has available... (I'll see if I can find time to grab the datasheet later though...) > And, harder for him to come by > (I think I have a tube of them here from an old project...) Actually, I almost certainly do have some amongst the cache of ex-workshop Torch spares - I believe that chip was used in the Triple X (at the very least I have spare Triple X system boards on which that chip will be socketed). I'm not so keen on it as a preservation solution though (even assuming it could be used) as it's not the sort of chip that everyone's going to have just lying around; a bunch of LS TTL chips are a lot easier to come by! Plus of course there's the issue of whether it'd happily talk to a SASI target or not - quite possibly it's stuck firmly in SCSI-land. cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 10:49:31 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:49:31 -0400 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AE828B.9050205@gmail.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > Still not got to the bottom of that one, though. There are only 8 30-pin > sockets on the system board (websites lead me to believe that some slab > models had 72-pin sockets instead), but the memory info option in the > boot firmware curiously shows 32MB in two 16MB banks, and in addition > reports half the banks as empty - as though the *system* can physically > address more memory, but that the system board just doesn't have the > physical sockets to put any more in... I have a Turbo Color Slab which takes 72-pin SIMMs. If I had to guess, I'd probably guess that only the '040 slabs have 72-pin sockets. If memory serves, there are four sockets in my slab. Peace... Sridhar From james.rice at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 10:50:21 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 09:50:21 -0600 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/7/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > I love it when hardware and software just works like that - such a rare thing! That was one of the beautiful things about NeXT's. Usually everything just works. > > > Memory - Can these things take more than 32MB? > > Still not got to the bottom of that one, though. There are only 8 30-pin > sockets on the system board (websites lead me to believe that some slab models > had 72-pin sockets instead), but the memory info option in the boot firmware > curiously shows 32MB in two 16MB banks, and in addition reports half the banks > as empty - as though the *system* can physically address more memory, but that > the system board just doesn't have the physical sockets to put any more in... All Turbo chip set models had 72 pin sockets. There were a few non-Turbo (25mhz) machines that had the Turbo chip set and 72 pin sockets but ran at 25mhz. I have one of those odd ball machines. I have heard of a slab with a Turbo chip set and 30 pin SIMM sockets but have not seen one. That may be what you have. Interesting. > > Bloody nice machines, though. Agreed. My first love is still the Cube, but the slabs are very nice. > > cheers > > Jules > -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 12:07:17 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:07:17 +0000 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> James Rice wrote: >> I love it when hardware and software just works like that - such a rare >> thing! > > That was one of the beautiful things about NeXT's. Usually everything > just works. I was at least expecting some sort of disaster about the 1.2GB hard disk that I dropped in there - having googled a bit it seems people had a hell of a job adding drives to the system post-install and crafting the appropriate geometry entries. Appears that there isn't a problem at OS install-time though; it figured it all out for me happily (and has given me usable space about 40 blocks shy of the full disk capacity). > All Turbo chip set models had 72 pin sockets. There were a few > non-Turbo (25mhz) machines that had the Turbo chip set and 72 pin > sockets but ran at 25mhz. I have one of those odd ball machines. I > have heard of a slab with a Turbo chip set and 30 pin SIMM sockets but > have not seen one. That may be what you have. Interesting. Hmm, well this machine is an '040 @ 25MHz, but with the 30 pin sockets. I'm not sure if that's a Turbo or not? I always thought the Turbo was exclusively an '040 @ 33MHz - but quite possibly it's *any* '040 slab regardless of speed? >> Bloody nice machines, though. > > Agreed. My first love is still the Cube, but the slabs are very nice. I'd love to find a Cube. Or even a colour slab. But considering I've been searching for *any* NeXT for the last 3 years, I'm happy :-) That display's probably the most clear and crisp I've ever used on any system (no doubt it benefits from being mono - but it even beats all the mono systems I've ever used hands-down) cheers Jules From james.rice at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 11:47:23 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 10:47:23 -0600 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/7/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > I was at least expecting some sort of disaster about the 1.2GB hard disk that > I dropped in there - having googled a bit it seems people had a hell of a job > adding drives to the system post-install and crafting the appropriate geometry > entries. Appears that there isn't a problem at OS install-time though; it > figured it all out for me happily (and has given me usable space about 40 > blocks shy of the full disk capacity). Most of the time, drives <2.1gb just work. I did have some issues with some Compaq ROMed Seagates but most others were seamless. Above 2gb you need a disktab. > > Hmm, well this machine is an '040 @ 25MHz, but with the 30 pin sockets. I'm > not sure if that's a Turbo or not? I always thought the Turbo was exclusively > an '040 @ 33MHz - but quite possibly it's *any* '040 slab regardless of speed? Only those with the later chip set are Turbo machnies, even if they run at 25mhz. The 25mhz slabs with the Turbo chip set are not real common and were kind of a transitional thing. > I'd love to find a Cube. Or even a colour slab. But considering I've been > searching for *any* NeXT for the last 3 years, I'm happy :-) Are they that rare in the UK? I still find them for free around here (Dallas). Now Turbo Cubes and Dimension boards are another story. I sold my spare Dimension board this spring within the first hour of listing it in a users forum. I still have a spare 25mhz '040 Cube to sell later this fall. -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 12:59:09 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:59:09 +0000 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AEA0ED.3030306@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > Thought for the morning - it'd be nice if the hardware was switchable > between SCSI and SASI. In a moment I'll dig out the docs I have for the > Omti 5x00, Adaptec ACB4000, Xebec (umm, 1452 or something like that) and > the Emulex boards. Right, low-down on the various boards: OMTI 5000 series: Manual calls the interface "SCSI/SASI" - from the wording it was current before SCSI was actually a recognised standard, but they've done their best to cope with the forthcoming spec. The board does support parity detection/generation (can be disabled via a jumper) and the device ID is selectable. The board *does not* support disconnect/reconnect, message out, or re-select. Single-host environment only. Bus signals used: D0-7, parity, BSY-, ACK-, RST-, MSG-, SEL-, C-/D, REQ-, I-/O. Drive geometry is controlled by an "Assign disk parameters" command (0xC2) and is *not* persistent across power cycles. Bytes/sector is jumper-selectable to 128, 256, 512 or 1024 bps. Xebec S1410: Manual calls the interface SASI. No support for parity generation or checking on this one. Device ID is selectable by cutting PCB traces (yuck). Bus signals used: D0-7, BSY-, ACK-, RST-, MSG-, SEL-, C-/D, REQ-, I-/O. Drive geometry is controlled by an "Initialize drive characteristics" command (0x0C) and is *not* persistent across power cycles. Bytes/sector is jumper-selectable to either 256 or 512 bps. Adaptec ACB4000: Manual uses the term 'SCSI' exclusively. Parity generation/detection is not supported, however. The board doesn't support disconnect/reconnect, or arbitration. Single-host environment only. Bus signals used: D0-7, BSY-, ACK-, ATN- RST-, MSG-, SEL-, C-/D, REQ-, I-/O. Drive geometry is controlled by a mode select command (0x15) and *is* persistent across power cycles; at format time the board stores the drive geometry at block 0 (and offsets normal drive accesses by 1 block) - when the board is power cycled it automatically reads this geometry back from the drive. Bytes/sector is selectable to 256, 512 or 1024 bps. Emulex: I don't have any info on their boards, just the boards themselves. Will check bitsavers at some point. The problem here lies with the Adaptec board - it uses the ATN line found in full-blown SCSI, whereas all the other bridge boards don't. At least on this side of the pond, it's a common board too that gets used in a lot of classic hardware; it'd be a shame if it was unsupportable :-( cheers Jules From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jul 6 22:09:29 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:09:29 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44ADD069.3060803@gmail.com> William Donzelli wrote: > I struck out on the IBM 3480 heads, IBM took them back. I have a 3490 for sale, cheap, if you're interested. Peace... Sridhar From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jul 7 13:11:02 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:11:02 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AEA3B6.7090506@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> I'm just finishing up some ideas on a quick-and-dirty >> parallel port (SPP)-to-OMTI interface (so Jules can >> salvage his "bits" :> ). Anyone like to add their >> two cents? > > Thought for the morning - it'd be nice if the hardware was switchable > between SCSI and SASI. In a moment I'll dig out the docs I have for the > Omti 5x00, Adaptec ACB4000, Xebec (umm, 1452 or something like that) and > the Emulex boards. > > Some of those boards are SASI, some are SCSI (although I think all are > pre-CCS, but that's a software issue). What needs to be understood is > whether the extra handshake lines needed for SCSI can be included - and > if so can they be 'switched off' via either hardware or software to > drive a SASI device... I hadn't thought of adding ATN (though I was debating supporting the parity *signal* -- but not the logic) but it shouldn't be a problem. The issue will be in the software (though even that can probably be "solved once" and remembered) > (from memory, the OMTI is the closest board to 'real' SCSI, so designing > against that's likely a good thing) One of the manuals (model 20?) that I have didn't support parity so I hadn't yet planned on that (but will). >> Note that I am not aiming for performance. Just >> a way to coax bits off a disk drive so they can >> be imaged properly (is that correct, Jules?) > > Yep, doesn't matter if it takes a while to run or chews CPU cycles to do > so - it's purely a way of imaging / restoring disks, not a way of > interacting with them (that can be done via the loopback device in Linux > once you have an image!) One compensating factor is that the drives that typically are involved will be small (tiny?!). It's not like trying to move 100GB! :> I'm not sure if the "8MHz I/O bus" applies to newer PC's (i.e. is it throttled down someplace) which would limit accesses to the printer port hardware -- nor any limitations on other hardware platforms. But, I am guessing you can probably get 250-500KB/s through this interface. Not stellar but sure beats DC! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jul 7 13:32:51 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:32:51 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AE8E9E.2080706@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44ADC672.8050205@DakotaCom.Net> <44AE8E9E.2080706@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AEA8D3.6030602@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Don Y wrote: >>> 5380's are VERY simple minded, and will work with little programming on >>> older controllers like the Xebec 1403 in the picture. >> >> Yes, but interfacing a 5380 to a parallel port is just as hard >> as a bit of glue logic. > > That would be my assumption, too - presumably they'd need more I/O lines > than the parallel port has available... (I'll see if I can find time to > grab the datasheet later though...) The 5380 makes sense if you are talking to the bus (ISA, SBUS, etc.). I think the suggestion is to find something that already has a 5380 on it and talks to your bus-of-interest. The 5380 is really quite dumb so it would be like having a "custom-parallel-port- designed-with-SCSI-in-mind" :> >> And, harder for him to come by >> (I think I have a tube of them here from an old project...) > > Actually, I almost certainly do have some amongst the cache of > ex-workshop Torch spares - I believe that chip was used in the Triple X > (at the very least I have spare Triple X system boards on which that > chip will be socketed). > > I'm not so keen on it as a preservation solution though (even assuming > it could be used) as it's not the sort of chip that everyone's going to > have just lying around; a bunch of LS TTL chips are a lot easier to come > by! Noted. > Plus of course there's the issue of whether it'd happily talk to a SASI > target or not - quite possibly it's stuck firmly in SCSI-land. I suspect you would have no problem there. The 5380 does very little by itself (it wants to interrupt on damn near every bus phase change...) From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jul 7 14:24:35 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:24:35 Subject: FA: PDP-8 and loads of extras Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060707142435.4b578b58@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> Last year I bought a PDP-8 and a HUGE load of extra circuit cards, drives, manuals and all kinds of extra items from a DEC dealer that was going out of business. I've never had time to do anything with it and now I have some serious family problems that are probably keep me pretty busy for the forseeable future so I've decided to get rid of the -8 and all the related items. If you're interested in the PDP-8s be sure to check my auctions. I have a LOT of stuff so it will take some time to get it all listed so keep checking back. Joe From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 14:36:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:36:30 +0000 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AEB7BE.5030401@yahoo.co.uk> Right, Next question ;) I've stuck NeXTStep 3.2 on the machine, but it seems to have configured the box to boot straight into a default user called 'me' rather than offering me a login dialog (NeXT's equivalent to XDM). I'm *assuming* that there aren't any post-install steps that NeXT are expecting me to do as the 'me' user, prior to using the box as a complete system. (I don't have docs for 3.2) Purely for the purposes of installing other software, I'd quite like to change the system to prompt for a login name at startup though - anyone recall how to do this? That way I can log in as root and have the full desktop environment available, rather than having to drop to a shell and issuing 'su', working out the locations / names of the file browser etc. that I need, figuring out CDROM mounting and all that other fun stuff. I'll get to the manuals tomorrow, but I'm almost certain they won't cover OS setup, and even if they did would be the wrong version anyway :-) Initial (and only, so far) irritation: the mouse is too darn slow. Even on maximum speed setting, it's still sluggish compared to what I'm used to, and needs far too much desk movement to get it across the screen. Funnily enough I found exactly the same thing with the BeBox - so it's possibly a trait of early 90's GUIs... cheers Jules From mtapley at swri.edu Fri Jul 7 13:38:25 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 13:38:25 -0500 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <200607071700.k67H03Vo047714@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200607071700.k67H03Vo047714@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: At 12:00 -0500 7/7/06, Jules wrote: >Hmm, well this machine is an '040 @ 25MHz, but with the 30 pin sockets. I'm >not sure if that's a Turbo or not? I always thought the Turbo was exclusively >an '040 @ 33MHz - but quite possibly it's *any* '040 slab regardless of speed? I don't believe there were ever any 68030 slabs. NeXT went to '040 in the cube before the slab came out. So the "Turbo" distinction refers to the chipset which accellerates memory access, etc. Most if not quite all "Turbo" machines also had the CPU clocked at 33 MHz. All of the official and unofficial documentation I've seen indicates 4 MB as the limit for 30-pin SIMMS, which limits your machine to 32MB (which is plenty for NS3.2, 3.3). However there are many places where NeXT did not officially support bigger SIMMS, but they worked fine. NeXTDimension cards, many of the 33 MHz CPU boards, etc. So it may well be worth a try if you can get a matched set of 4 bigger 30-pin SIMMs. Particularly if your machine is a hybrid more or less oriented to the 72-pin SIMM slots, it may expect greater depth per bank than 16 MByte. Corrections welcome, if anyone has better knowledge than I. -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jul 7 13:44:37 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 11:44:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AEB7BE.5030401@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 07, 2006 07:36:30 PM Message-ID: <200607071844.k67IibAA023037@onyx.spiritone.com> > Purely for the purposes of installing other software, I'd quite like to change > the system to prompt for a login name at startup though - anyone recall how to > do this? > > That way I can log in as root and have the full desktop environment available, > rather than having to drop to a shell and issuing 'su', working out the > locations / names of the file browser etc. that I need, figuring out CDROM > mounting and all that other fun stuff. IIRC, you simply tell it you want to install additional software and it prompts you for the root password. Of course it's been 5+ years since I gave my NeXT slab away so I might be remembering wrong. Zane From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 7 13:48:09 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 11:48:09 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AEA8D3.6030602@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44ADC672.8050205@DakotaCom.Net> <44AE8E9E.2080706@yahoo.co.uk> <44AEA8D3.6030602@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607071148090033.4DD283C3@10.0.0.252> If you have an 8255-based data acquisition board kicking around (they're not uncommon), that might be a good "universal" solution, giving you a few more I/Os and latched input and output. Just a thought... Cheers, Chuck From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Fri Jul 7 15:08:49 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:08:49 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060707150849.539f6402@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> I have a couple but I don't completely understand them. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 7 15:12:39 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:12:39 +0000 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <200607071844.k67IibAA023037@onyx.spiritone.com> References: <200607071844.k67IibAA023037@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <44AEC037.9040406@yahoo.co.uk> Zane H. Healy wrote: >> Purely for the purposes of installing other software, I'd quite like to change >> the system to prompt for a login name at startup though - anyone recall how to >> do this? >> >> That way I can log in as root and have the full desktop environment available, >> rather than having to drop to a shell and issuing 'su', working out the >> locations / names of the file browser etc. that I need, figuring out CDROM >> mounting and all that other fun stuff. > > IIRC, you simply tell it you want to install additional software and it > prompts you for the root password. Of course it's been 5+ years since I > gave my NeXT slab away so I might be remembering wrong. Rats, not in this case :-) It got about 90% of the way through installing the developer stuff then started complaining about permissions problems. I can only assume that it tried running as 'me' and then died doing on some of the filesystem modification steps. cheers Jules From james.rice at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 14:42:58 2006 From: james.rice at gmail.com (James Rice) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 13:42:58 -0600 Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AEC037.9040406@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607071844.k67IibAA023037@onyx.spiritone.com> <44AEC037.9040406@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: As I recall, open a terminal window and set the password for the "me" user. Then log out. When you log back in it will ask for the user name and password. You can then log in as root and set the root password. most of the NeXT unix shell commands are pure 3.x BSD. Or was it 2.x, I can't remember. -- www.blackcube.org - The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers www.blackcube.org/personal/index.html - Personal web page From r_a_feldman at hotmail.com Fri Jul 7 14:50:51 2006 From: r_a_feldman at hotmail.com (Robert Feldman) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:50:51 -0500 Subject: Otrona Attache Message-ID: >Message: 15 >Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 01:19:03 -0700 (PDT) >From: steven stengel >Subject: Otrona Attache > >Hmm, > >Is it true that the Otrona Attache won't boot if the >clock batteries are dead? > >Steve. Yes. That is my experience with an 8:16 when trying to boot into MS-DOS with an Autoexec.bat file to get the date and time. It's easy to open the case and change the batteries, though. Takes two A-76 button cells, IIRC. Bob From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jul 7 14:57:50 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:57:50 -0700 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? Message-ID: > I have a couple but I don't completely understand them. They are an edited version of the list maintained by Dick Best at DEC which kept track of every part number DEC used. The unedited version has the responisble engineer and a bunch of other internal information as well. From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jul 7 15:24:31 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 13:24:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? In-Reply-To: from "Al Kossow" at Jul 07, 2006 12:57:50 PM Message-ID: <200607072024.k67KOVbP025518@onyx.spiritone.com> > > I have a couple but I don't completely understand them. > > They are an edited version of the list maintained by Dick Best at DEC which > kept track of every part number DEC used. > > The unedited version has the responisble engineer and a bunch of other > internal information as well. Are any of these available online? Either in the Edited, or Unedited from? Zane From arcarlini at iee.org Fri Jul 7 16:02:01 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 22:02:01 +0100 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? In-Reply-To: <200607072024.k67KOVbP025518@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <003501c6a208$98af6f30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Zane H. Healy wrote: > Are any of these available online? Either in the Edited, or Unedited > from? I have an electronic one which dates from the mid 1990s. The original was in some random database format but the person who sent it to me managed to extract the data into comma-delimeted text (iirc). I'll go and find out exactly what I have. I recall it came on two CDs but some of it might be a dupe of what is already out there (e.g. Eric Smith has a scan of a paper Options Module List). My ftp server is not playing ball right now so I will need to upload it to (the first ...) whoever wants it ... figure 400MB-800MB total (although I'll zip it up before sending). Antonio arcarlini at iee.org From paul at frixxon.co.uk Fri Jul 7 16:21:48 2006 From: paul at frixxon.co.uk (Paul Williams) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:21:48 +0100 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? In-Reply-To: <003501c6a208$98af6f30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <003501c6a208$98af6f30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: <44AED06C.3030803@frixxon.co.uk> Antonio Carlini wrote: > > I have an electronic one which dates from the mid 1990s. The original > was in some random database format but the person who sent it to me > managed to extract the data into comma-delimeted text (iirc). http://vt100.net/dec/dblist.tgz -- Paul From vrs at msn.com Fri Jul 7 16:33:47 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 14:33:47 -0700 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? References: <200607072024.k67KOVbP025518@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: > > The unedited version has the responisble engineer and a bunch of other > > internal information as well. > > Are any of these available online? Either in the Edited, or Unedited from? Eric Smith has one online here: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/dec/doc/oml/ I downloaded a copy that I use often :-). Vince From vrs at msn.com Fri Jul 7 17:16:46 2006 From: vrs at msn.com (vrs) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 15:16:46 -0700 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? References: <003501c6a208$98af6f30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> <44AED06C.3030803@frixxon.co.uk> Message-ID: > > I have an electronic one which dates from the mid 1990s. The original > > was in some random database format but the person who sent it to me > > managed to extract the data into comma-delimeted text (iirc). > > http://vt100.net/dec/dblist.tgz Cool! (Always wanted a searchable version.) Vince From paul at frixxon.co.uk Fri Jul 7 17:56:41 2006 From: paul at frixxon.co.uk (Paul Williams) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 23:56:41 +0100 Subject: What exactly is a DEC 'Edited Options/Modules List'? In-Reply-To: References: <003501c6a208$98af6f30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> <44AED06C.3030803@frixxon.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AEE6A9.6060708@frixxon.co.uk> vrs wrote: >>>I have an electronic one which dates from the mid 1990s. The original >>>was in some random database format but the person who sent it to me >>>managed to extract the data into comma-delimeted text (iirc). >> >>http://vt100.net/dec/dblist.tgz > > > Cool! (Always wanted a searchable version.) Antonio was perhaps too polite to say that he passed this to me ages ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, with the suggestion that I should add it as some kind of addendum to Manx, but I am slow. I lag. -- Paul From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Fri Jul 7 18:00:39 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 00:00:39 +0100 (BST) Subject: NeXT slab questions In-Reply-To: <44AEB7BE.5030401@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AE624A.9050801@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE8CFF.8000301@yahoo.co.uk> <44AE94C5.3020603@yahoo.co.uk> <44AEB7BE.5030401@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <2689.192.168.0.3.1152313239.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> On Fri, July 7, 2006 8:36 pm, Jules Richardson said: > change > the system to prompt for a login name at startup though - anyone recall > how to > do this? Hm, no real answer from me; my slab came with a root user already built in, and for the life of me I can't remember how I got root access when I did a total reinstall onto a new disk. I'm fairly sure James Rice was a help here. > I'll get to the manuals tomorrow, but I'm almost certain they won't cover > OS > setup, and even if they did would be the wrong version anyway :-) If I can do it blind then you can too. I even patched mine with the y2k install and did other stuff without help, pity I'm 250 miles away from mine right now. > needs far too much desk movement to get it across the screen. Funnily > enough I > found exactly the same thing with the BeBox - so it's possibly a trait of > early 90's GUIs... Yep, that's an irritation for me too. -- adrian/witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 7 18:58:17 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 00:58:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607071148090033.4DD283C3@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jul 7, 6 11:48:09 am Message-ID: > > If you have an 8255-based data acquisition board kicking around (they're > not uncommon), that might be a good "universal" solution, giving you a few > more I/Os and latched input and output. The problem is that the 8255 is fundamnetally broken as designed (well, I'd expect that from Intel, alas). Any write to the mode control register clears all outputs to 0's. Which means you can't reverse the direstion of one of the 8 bit ports without mucking up everything else. Yes, I know about the bidirexctional mode (Mode 2 IIRC). But to use that in a lot of cases is a kludge too. Personally I'd rather link a 6522 or similar to the ISA bus. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 7 20:21:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:21:32 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> On 7/8/2006 at 12:58 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Yes, I know about the bidirexctional mode (Mode 2 IIRC). But to use that >in a lot of cases is a kludge too. Personally I'd rather link a 6522 or >similar to the ISA bus. Tony, I know that you hate the 8255, but the streets are paved with them, whereas the 6522 is a little harder to get one's hands on. Even the Z80 PIO is not easy to find new. Mode 2 for the data lines should work just fine on an 8255. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 7 20:23:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:23:42 -0700 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question Message-ID: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and find that for whatever reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk sample. What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's (sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)? Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jul 7 20:54:48 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:54:48 -0700 Subject: Intertec Superbrain Message-ID: It appears to use a 1791 Dave has schems at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/supbrain/index.htm From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jul 7 20:57:26 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:57:26 -0700 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > From: Al Kossow > Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:54:48 -0700 > To: "classiccmp at classiccmp.org" > Conversation: Intertec Superbrain > Subject: Re: Intertec Superbrain > > > It appears to use a 1791 > > Dave has schems at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/supbrain/index.htm Foo, the schems are for the SBII. You can't quite see what kind of controller in in the SB From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jul 7 21:14:51 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 19:14:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060707185958.C23475@shell.lmi.net> On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and find that for whatever > reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk > sample. > What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's > (sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)? I've been told (but can't personally verify), that it's 179x They sure screwed up that format, didn't they? The data is inverted relative to the address marks, the index address mark is often too early for an NEC (I often have to disable the index pulse to read them), the head numbers on the second side are often wrong, and I have no idea why the data address marks are flaky. And they called DSDD 48tpi "quad" density, which meant that when they came out with DSDD 96tpi, they called that "Super Density", and abbreviated it "SD"! (what is the next larger size of olives?) The good news is that it usually doesn't object to a properly formatted diskette, so it's often possible to format a stack of diskettes; use the SB to copy the files to them, and then bring those diskettes back to read. I tried to talk to Intertec about their formats. At NCC '83, some of their suits told me that they could not imagine ANY possible reason to convert data between disk formats, other than to steal their "proprietary" software (CP/M?), and that they would file a lawsuit if I included any SB formats in XenoCopy! That night was the first time that I ever added formats to XenoCopy in a hotel room. They never kept that promise. They used to have a sizable hobbyist following! -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 7 22:04:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:04:05 -0700 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <20060707185958.C23475@shell.lmi.net> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> <20060707185958.C23475@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200607072004050192.4F988B31@10.0.0.252> On 7/7/2006 at 7:14 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >They sure screwed up that format, didn't they? I'm using a WD1770 on an ISA board to read them. It works okay, but I'm still trying to figure out the wherefore for the strange DAMs. It doesn't make sense to me. Strangely, vendor diskettes are perfectly normal, but the ones that have been created or written by a SB are just bizarre. Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 23:04:27 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 16:04:27 +1200 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 7/8/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/8/2006 at 12:58 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >Yes, I know about the bidirexctional mode (Mode 2 IIRC). But to use that > >in a lot of cases is a kludge too. Personally I'd rather link a 6522 or > >similar to the ISA bus. > > Tony, I know that you hate the 8255, but the streets are paved with them, > whereas the 6522 is a little harder to get one's hands on. Yeah... unfortunately, that's the case... I have several boards here with 8255s, from an RB5X to an MC-1N (micro-controller based on the INS 8073), to the sbc6120, to a couple of ancient ISA DAQ boards with many 8255s. With my Commodore background, I never encountered an 8255 until a few years ago. I did pick up a copy of the classic 8255 text a while back - it explains a lot. -ethan From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jul 7 23:54:47 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:54:47 -0400 Subject: IBM printer, resistor packs Message-ID: <200607071445.59885.rtellason@gmail.com> I have an IBM 4019 printer, with postscript card (I'm told). Does anybody know where I might find user or service manuals for this online? Also, I've got several tubes of some Beckman resistors packs, marked 1899-258-0 and can't seem to find any data on these, can anybody point me to where I might find some? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jul 7 23:55:04 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:55:04 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607080028.48405.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 07:58 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > If you have an 8255-based data acquisition board kicking around (they're > > not uncommon), that might be a good "universal" solution, giving you a > > few more I/Os and latched input and output. > > The problem is that the 8255 is fundamnetally broken as designed (well, > I'd expect that from Intel, alas). Any write to the mode control register > clears all outputs to 0's. Which means you can't reverse the direstion of > one of the 8 bit ports without mucking up everything else. Oh really? I've never heard _that_ before about these parts... Do you know offhand if that's the case for other brands as well? I believe I have some NEC parts around somewhere. > Yes, I know about the bidirexctional mode (Mode 2 IIRC). But to use that > in a lot of cases is a kludge too. Personally I'd rather link a 6522 or > similar to the ISA bus. I sure have enough of those, too, and 6526s as well. No idea how hard it would be to interface one of those parts to a bus that's not made for it but I believe I've seen it done -- if I'm remembering right the Osborne 1 used a 68xx chip for something, it's been ages since I looked at the schematics, but that at least tells me that it's possible. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jul 7 23:55:20 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:55:20 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607080030.28529.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 09:21 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Tony, I know that you hate the 8255, but the streets are paved with them, > whereas the 6522 is a little harder to get one's hands on. I show 11 of those, 23 of the 6526, and > Even the Z80 PIO is not easy to find new. ...12 of these on hand here, if anybody needs them. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at verizon.net Fri Jul 7 23:55:36 2006 From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:55:36 -0400 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607080031.53553.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 09:23 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and find that for whatever > reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk > sample. > > What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's > (sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)? I actually encountered a couple of those machines early on, but never did get a hold of any service data on them. From what I heard later on, though, they had _two_ z80 chips in there, one as the "main" processor and the other one to handle disk i/o. Maybe that has something to do with it? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jul 8 00:22:20 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 00:22:20 -0500 Subject: Integrating a HSD-05AA SBB into a VAX 4000 - it can be done, and fairly easily. Message-ID: <27f76c5fa80243ff938c5b994fd5f32e@valleyimplants.com> Had a bit of a breakthrough on the quest to inexpensively get storage on the '4200 - if you take apart the HSD05 SBB and pull off the white sticker on the PCB there are solder pads for a 50-pin header on the DSSI bus side - whoopee! After disassembling the PCB from a dead hard drive (soaking them in an oven set at 375 is a great way to remove parts, but a bit smelly. For SMDs you can shake or scrape them off, a pair of pliers takes care of reluctant through-hole components) for the SCSI header, I soldered it in place. Now for a trip to the electronics store for a DIN-96 and a IDC 50-pin pin header (I'm going to wire up a SCSI cable with a F on one end to plug into the backplane, a F for the HSD, and a M to plug the bulkhead cable into). Now all I need to do is figure out power, mounting, and SCSI signal issues. For power, does anyone know about how much one ISE sled can source? I have one sled mounting the TK70, so I can wire up a multitap feed from there as long as it doesn't overload the sled. I don't think that the HSD, TK70 and one or two 3.5" drives will overload a sled that can support a 5.25" full height drive, but I'm not positive there yet. The easiest way to do SCSI would be to have a direct ribbon cable from the HSD to the drives. The slickest would be to feed it into the backplane as per the official instructions. If I did that, I'd have to pull the SCSI signals back off at the TK70 sled (it connects to the backplane SCSI instead of DSSI) and do a cable anyway, so at this point I'm thinking that the realism is not strictly necessary (only have the one sled). Everything is reverseable, the HSD could even go back in its SBB if necessary. Mounting is the last issue - for the drives I think I'll use metal sheet stock with a few holes drilled in it. Undecided for the board. DEC did a BA400 integrated HSD05 that sat in the QBUS bay and pulled power from the bus. The qbus-supplied power is not hacker-friendly, and i'm not sure what to use as a support (would probably use perfboard or acrylic, toyed with using stripped old PCBs). For convienience, I think I'll probably wind up mounting the HSD on the back side of one of the homebrew drive sleds. If it works (and is photogenic), I'll take pictures. Definitely more attainable than the $500 CMD SCSI cards. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jul 8 00:36:39 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 00:36:39 -0500 Subject: NeXT slab questions Message-ID: > Purely for the purposes of installing other software, I'd quite like to change >the system to prompt for a login name at startup though - anyone recall how to >do this? Setting a password for 'me' is the easiest way. You can change it in the preferences panel, or using the terminal (commands are almost exactly 4.3BSD, although strangely there is no 'uname') I believe there was another way by setting something in NetInfo or similar, but the password is the easy way. BTW root ships unpassworded (great security there - almost impossible to get at locally unless you know what you're doing, but no prompt for a password - and it stayed that way until Rhapsody). On another tangent - when in school I skimmed a book on NeXTs written very early on. For a while, anyway (this book covered the '030 cube only) NeXTSTEP used a 'black hole' for a trashcan. When did this change to the recycle arrows? (and why a recycle in NeXT and Windows? you're concieveably 'recycling' the disk space, but very definitely trashing the file. OTOH, the 'shredder' in CDE is equally confusing - I have never heard that it ever supported secure deletion, which is what a shredder implies). From blairrya at msu.edu Sat Jul 8 11:04:04 2006 From: blairrya at msu.edu (Ryan Blair) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 12:04:04 -0400 Subject: HP 3000 available Message-ID: <20060708120404.f8e19b79.blairrya@msu.edu> I have an HP 3000/922 (PA-RISC architecture, not Series II [sorry, Jay!]) available that I am looking to get rid of. This machine is in a low-boy type rack with casters, with a similar sized rack for disks. It has both HP-IB and SCSI controllers available for tape, disk, and over media. It has an Ethernet controller, a DDS drive (possibly dead), and two disks internally. The disk rack has 3 HP-IB disks of the same model, each somewhere in the 650MB range. It will happily boot from either the HP-IB chains or the SCSI controller. It runs and was passing diagnostics properly last time it was fired up (last year). If anyone would like this machine, I can bring it to VCF/Midwest, or it can be picked up near Lansing, MI. I'm not asking anything for this machine, I just need the space back. I would look fondly upon offers of RS/6000 gear or quiet 9GB+ 68-pin SCSI drives, however :) I have some more (though smaller) machines that I will be posting later that will also be available at VCF/Midwest. -Ryan From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jul 8 12:26:23 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 10:26:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines Message-ID: <20060708172623.57279.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> >> "What I want to do is use a modern 2.5" IDE drive in a >> legacy machine." >> >> How modern? What machine? XT or AT class? >2.5" drives are more modern than damn near any "legacy >machine" :> Umm, not really. I have several 20mb 2.5" drives in my possession. I would have to say that the drive itself qualifies as legacy. Regardless, there's a big difference between any laptop drive that was around in the late 80s and the 40gig unit in my inarguably modern Toshiba laptop. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 8 12:50:05 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 10:50:05 -0700 Subject: OT? Laptop drives in legacy IDE machines In-Reply-To: <20060708172623.57279.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060708172623.57279.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44AFF04D.2010507@DakotaCom.Net> Chris M wrote: >>> "What I want to do is use a modern 2.5" IDE drive > in a >>> legacy machine." >>> >>> How modern? What machine? XT or AT class? > > >> 2.5" drives are more modern than damn near any > "legacy >> machine" :> > > Umm, not really. I have several 20mb 2.5" drives in > my possession. I would have to say that the drive > itself qualifies as legacy. Regardless, there's a big > difference between any laptop drive that was around in > the late 80s and the 40gig unit in my inarguably > modern Toshiba laptop. The sorts of 2.5" drives one is likely to stumble across nowadays a GB drives, not MB drives (actually, I have a source for sub GB 2.5" drives but that's the exception, not the rule). My concern is with stuffing a *modern* laptop drive into a 20 year old machine. Newer drives are shorter (thinner?) than the older drives and for me to fit one in with the two 5" floppies I need every fraction of an inch that I can get. It may, in fact, be easier to interface a DoC than to try to squeeze a real disk in there. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 8 13:00:23 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 11:00:23 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <44AEA0ED.3030306@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44AD8F89.5090606@DakotaCom.Net> <44AE402B.60304@yahoo.co.uk> <44AEA0ED.3030306@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44AFF2B7.6020106@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: [Right, low-down on the various boards:] > OMTI 5000 series: > > Bus signals used: D0-7, parity, BSY-, ACK-, RST-, MSG-, SEL-, C-/D, > REQ-, I-/O. I have some documents for a "model 20" that doesn't support parity. > Drive geometry is controlled by an "Assign disk parameters" command > (0xC2) and is *not* persistent across power cycles. This (and other related CCS missing features) would have to be something you would accommodate in your software... Actually, for prototyping (software), I wonder if hacking together some shell scripts wouldn't be a bad way to go. So, you could interactively invoke particular SCSI commands and see their results (e.g., #set_drive_geometry XX YY ZZZ). > The problem here lies with the Adaptec board - it uses the ATN line > found in full-blown SCSI, whereas all the other bridge boards don't. At > least on this side of the pond, it's a common board too that gets used > in a lot of classic hardware; it'd be a shame if it was unsupportable :-( Adding the extra signals (ATN, parity, etc.) is no big deal. But, I'll have to rethink just how "automated" I make the handshaking of interlocked signals. As you said (offlist?), it makes assumptions about the board that it is talking to (which may not apply to other boards). The downside is that it makes the transactions more expensive (but, we're not concerned with that :> ) You might try a dummy inb/outb loop on your host-of-preference to verify tht you *can* access t from user land AND get some idea for how fast these opcodes are (run the loop 10^6 times, etc.). If it turns out that they aren't restricted to legacy bus speeds (assuming a PC target), then the aforementioned handshaking is *best* done in software! From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jul 8 15:48:08 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 20:48:08 +0000 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44B01A08.5030306@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes Anything interesting? I'm just starting to get stuck into Bletchley's Superbrain/Compustar collection (more on that tomorrow I expect), but we're rather lacking in any software other than CP/M itself - any games, apps, or drivers for the network boards or hard disk units would be rather useful, although it sounds like these things might be a bit of a nightmare to copy on anything except the real hardware... cheers Jules From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jul 8 15:01:55 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 13:01:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <44B01A08.5030306@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> <44B01A08.5030306@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060708130003.Y64477@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 8 Jul 2006, Jules Richardson wrote: > I'm just starting to get stuck into Bletchley's Superbrain/Compustar > collection (more on that tomorrow I expect), but we're rather lacking in any > software other than CP/M itself - any games, apps, or drivers for the network > boards or hard disk units would be rather useful, although it sounds like > these things might be a bit of a nightmare to copy on anything except the real > hardware... . . . some complications, but not THAT bad. And a SB can read diskettes that are formatted in SB formats that do not have the errors and weirdities. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jul 8 16:23:34 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:23:34 +0000 Subject: Intertec Superbrain In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B02256.6060200@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: > It appears to use a 1791 > > Dave has schems at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/supbrain/index.htm Hmm, they're better than the paper schematics that I have - which are official, but released on A3 paper such that the text/numerics are too small for the quality of whatever printer they used. In other words, completely useless! Those ones of Dave's are still somewhat fuzzy though - although probably usable in an emergency. Before I kill my eyes though - anyone happen to have better quality versions? cheers Jules From staylor at mrynet.com Sat Jul 8 15:41:24 2006 From: staylor at mrynet.com (User Staylor) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 15:41:24 -0500 Subject: Jumper settings for Camintonn Qbus memory? Message-ID: <200607082041.k68KfOno002808@mrynet.com> Anyone have jumper settings/documentation for Camintonn Qbus memory, particularly the CMV-1000? Can't find any references online. TIA, -scott From jwest at classiccmp.org Sat Jul 8 15:53:52 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 15:53:52 -0500 Subject: Fw: please forward if of interest: free Televideo luggable, Berkeley, CA Message-ID: <013e01c6a2d0$9f366fc0$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Someone wrote..... > There is an old Televideo luggable being given away for free in Berkeley, > California. It's at the street curb along with some other free junk in > front of 1213 Channing Way. Unfortunately, I don't know the model number > or operating condition, but it looked intact. It had evidently been kept > by some kind of hobbyist (judging from the other junk), although not > exactly a collector. Includes two built-in 5.25" floppy disk drives, if > that helps in the least. If someone is interested, contact me off-list immediately. Jay West From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 8 16:44:30 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 22:44:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607080028.48405.rtellason@gmail.com> from "Roy J. Tellason" at Jul 8, 6 00:55:04 am Message-ID: > > The problem is that the 8255 is fundamnetally broken as designed (well, > > I'd expect that from Intel, alas). Any write to the mode control register > > clears all outputs to 0's. Which means you can't reverse the direstion of > > one of the 8 bit ports without mucking up everything else. > > Oh really? I've never heard _that_ before about these parts... Do you know It is mentioned in the Intel 8255 data sheet. > offhand if that's the case for other brands as well? I believe I have some > NEC parts around somewhere. It certainly applies to the National Semiconductor version. I used one in my first Z80 homebrew, and one of the first programs I wrote once I'd added it simply configured all ports as outputs, wrote a suitable value to port A, then jumped back to the start. I then found the lines that should be high were, in fact, pulsing. Reading the data sheet showed why (I was re-loading the mode control register, thus clearing the output ports). Of course it was trivial to correct in this program, but it sure made life difficult later. -tony From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 8 21:12:34 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 19:12:34 -0700 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <44B01A08.5030306@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> <44B01A08.5030306@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607081912340986.548FB687@10.0.0.252> On 7/8/2006 at 8:48 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Anything interesting? Don't know yet--I'll get around to making a list this week. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 8 21:15:05 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 19:15:05 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607081915050219.54920159@10.0.0.252> On 7/8/2006 at 10:44 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Reading the data sheet showed why >(I was re-loading the mode control register, thus clearing the output >ports). Of course it was trivial to correct in this program, but it sure >made life difficult later. The typical application of most 8255's, I'm going to guess is that they're initialized at the start of an application or when the computer is booted and the mode is never fiddled with thereafter. Does the 8251 USART also have some sort of strange initialization problem? It's been a long time since I've used one, but I seem to recall a gotcha. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 8 21:17:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 19:17:30 -0700 Subject: OT: Replacing a drive belt on a Selectric II Message-ID: <200607081917300255.549437DD@10.0.0.252> I know this is pretty far OT, but it might help someone with an I/O Selectric too, so I'm posting it here. At any rate, I've got a very nice Selectric II typewriter with a broken drive belt. I've got a replacement, but I'm very wary about taking screwdrivers and whatnot to the mechanical marvel. Does anyone know how to do this who'd care to give me a step-by-step? I'd hate to throw the thing out--it is/was a great machine. Cheers, Chuck From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 8 22:56:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 20:56:42 -0700 Subject: OT: Replacing a drive belt on a Selectric II In-Reply-To: <200607081917300255.549437DD@10.0.0.252> References: <200607081917300255.549437DD@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44B07E7A.6010503@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > I know this is pretty far OT, but it might help someone with an I/O > Selectric too, so I'm posting it here. > > At any rate, I've got a very nice Selectric II typewriter with a broken > drive belt. I've got a replacement, but I'm very wary about taking > screwdrivers and whatnot to the mechanical marvel. > > Does anyone know how to do this who'd care to give me a step-by-step? I'd > hate to throw the thing out--it is/was a great machine. I'm not sure how this is done on a "Selectric II" -- I didn't know they made I/O's of the II. But, on the "regular" Selectric I/O, you remove the cover (obviously) and slide the carriage to the far right. This gives you access to the left dust cover (be careful not to mangle the tapes as you remove that!) On the left side (YOUR left) of the carriage there is a cover over the idler gear. Take it off. While you are there, loosen the 2 screws? that hold the bracket carrying the C1 contacts and the lower idler gear. Take off the selection switch assembly. Don't mangle any of the blades. Try to notice the positions of the screws that mount it (mark them) so you can get a headstart aligning it correctly when you reassemble. Use a piece of string/wire or rubber bands to hold it out of the way towards the front of the machine. Then, take out the two screws that hold the pusher cam follower onto the bottom of the machine. In the guts of the machine, you have to carefully take off the spring and pawl for the cycle clutch. Don't drop the spring! :> Or the little horseshoe clip that holds the pawl on its fulcrum. Now, you disembowel the machine :> First, take off the three screws that hold the cycle shaft in place (on the left side of the chassis). Carefully pry the plate from the frame of the machine. Slip the spring off the positive latch bail (this is the follower that rides on the positive cams). Push/pull the positive bail down and, while holding it there, remove the selectors from behind the bail. Now you need patience and/or a couple of extra arms... Push the -5 and rotate 2 links out of the way (hard to describe what/where they are... just watch for interference and THINK about how you can coerce these things out of the way). While doing this, slide the shaft out the left side of the frame. You don;t need to pull it all the way out. Just enough to get the drive belt off the shaft. Watch for any shims that might be there to hold the shaft aligned properly. To reassemble, just do everything backwards! :> This is not really a task to be tackled casually. You really need to THINK about each step as you are doing it so you don't bust anything. And, you want it all to fit back together with minimal amount of tweeking required. Avoid any of the cams that move the tapes since any little alteration there will affect printing. Good luck! :> From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 8 23:08:43 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:08:43 -0700 Subject: OT: Replacing a drive belt on a Selectric II In-Reply-To: <44B07E7A.6010503@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200607081917300255.549437DD@10.0.0.252> <44B07E7A.6010503@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607082108430216.54FA0AF5@10.0.0.252> Thanks, Don! I think I'll try it when I screw up the courage. What the heck, if I mess things up, the result is the same--an unusuable piece of equipment. But I think you forgot a very important step: "First, pour yourself a good stiff drink..." Cheers, Chuck On 7/8/2006 at 8:56 PM Don Y wrote: >Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I know this is pretty far OT, but it might help someone with an I/O >> Selectric too, so I'm posting it here. >> >> At any rate, I've got a very nice Selectric II typewriter with a broken >> drive belt. I've got a replacement, but I'm very wary about taking >> screwdrivers and whatnot to the mechanical marvel. >> >> Does anyone know how to do this who'd care to give me a step-by-step? >I'd >> hate to throw the thing out--it is/was a great machine. > >I'm not sure how this is done on a "Selectric II" -- I >didn't know they made I/O's of the II. > >But, on the "regular" Selectric I/O, you remove the cover >(obviously) and slide the carriage to the far right. This gives >you access to the left dust cover (be careful not to mangle the >tapes as you remove that!) > >On the left side (YOUR left) of the carriage there is a >cover over the idler gear. Take it off. While you are there, >loosen the 2 screws? that hold the bracket carrying the >C1 contacts and the lower idler gear. > >Take off the selection switch assembly. Don't mangle any of >the blades. Try to notice the positions of the screws that >mount it (mark them) so you can get a headstart aligning it >correctly when you reassemble. Use a piece of string/wire >or rubber bands to hold it out of the way towards the front >of the machine. > >Then, take out the two screws that hold the pusher cam follower >onto the bottom of the machine. > >In the guts of the machine, you have to carefully take off >the spring and pawl for the cycle clutch. Don't drop the >spring! :> Or the little horseshoe clip that holds >the pawl on its fulcrum. > >Now, you disembowel the machine :> > >First, take off the three screws that hold the cycle shaft >in place (on the left side of the chassis). Carefully pry >the plate from the frame of the machine. Slip the spring >off the positive latch bail (this is the follower that rides >on the positive cams). > >Push/pull the positive bail down and, while holding it there, >remove the selectors from behind the bail. Now you need >patience and/or a couple of extra arms... > >Push the -5 and rotate 2 links out of the way (hard to describe >what/where they are... just watch for interference and THINK >about how you can coerce these things out of the way). >While doing this, slide the shaft out the left side of the >frame. You don;t need to pull it all the way out. Just >enough to get the drive belt off the shaft. Watch for any shims >that might be there to hold the shaft aligned properly. > >To reassemble, just do everything backwards! :> > >This is not really a task to be tackled casually. You >really need to THINK about each step as you are doing it >so you don't bust anything. And, you want it all to fit back >together with minimal amount of tweeking required. > >Avoid any of the cams that move the tapes since any little >alteration there will affect printing. > >Good luck! >:> From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sat Jul 8 23:33:22 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 21:33:22 -0700 Subject: OT: Replacing a drive belt on a Selectric II In-Reply-To: <200607082108430216.54FA0AF5@10.0.0.252> References: <200607081917300255.549437DD@10.0.0.252> <44B07E7A.6010503@DakotaCom.Net> <200607082108430216.54FA0AF5@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44B08712.6000003@DakotaCom.Net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Thanks, Don! I think I'll try it when I screw up the courage. What the > heck, if I mess things up, the result is the same--an unusuable piece of > equipment. It's not rocket science. :> Bit, if you aren't the patient type or are easily frustrated, don't try it! :< Just remember that it *does* come apart so if things seem like they need to be forced, you're doing something wrong! My I/O is on the other end of the country so I can't take photos to show you what each part is. But, if push comes to shove, email me photos of where you're at and I can point out which part is which, etc. HTH, --don > But I think you forgot a very important step: > > "First, pour yourself a good stiff drink..." > > > Cheers, > Chuck > > > On 7/8/2006 at 8:56 PM Don Y wrote: > >> Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> I know this is pretty far OT, but it might help someone with an I/O >>> Selectric too, so I'm posting it here. >>> >>> At any rate, I've got a very nice Selectric II typewriter with a broken >>> drive belt. I've got a replacement, but I'm very wary about taking >>> screwdrivers and whatnot to the mechanical marvel. >>> >>> Does anyone know how to do this who'd care to give me a step-by-step? >> I'd >>> hate to throw the thing out--it is/was a great machine. >> I'm not sure how this is done on a "Selectric II" -- I >> didn't know they made I/O's of the II. >> >> But, on the "regular" Selectric I/O, you remove the cover >> (obviously) and slide the carriage to the far right. This gives >> you access to the left dust cover (be careful not to mangle the >> tapes as you remove that!) >> >> On the left side (YOUR left) of the carriage there is a >> cover over the idler gear. Take it off. While you are there, >> loosen the 2 screws? that hold the bracket carrying the >> C1 contacts and the lower idler gear. >> >> Take off the selection switch assembly. Don't mangle any of >> the blades. Try to notice the positions of the screws that >> mount it (mark them) so you can get a headstart aligning it >> correctly when you reassemble. Use a piece of string/wire >> or rubber bands to hold it out of the way towards the front >> of the machine. >> >> Then, take out the two screws that hold the pusher cam follower >> onto the bottom of the machine. >> >> In the guts of the machine, you have to carefully take off >> the spring and pawl for the cycle clutch. Don't drop the >> spring! :> Or the little horseshoe clip that holds >> the pawl on its fulcrum. >> >> Now, you disembowel the machine :> >> >> First, take off the three screws that hold the cycle shaft >> in place (on the left side of the chassis). Carefully pry >> the plate from the frame of the machine. Slip the spring >> off the positive latch bail (this is the follower that rides >> on the positive cams). >> >> Push/pull the positive bail down and, while holding it there, >> remove the selectors from behind the bail. Now you need >> patience and/or a couple of extra arms... >> >> Push the -5 and rotate 2 links out of the way (hard to describe >> what/where they are... just watch for interference and THINK >> about how you can coerce these things out of the way). >> While doing this, slide the shaft out the left side of the >> frame. You don;t need to pull it all the way out. Just >> enough to get the drive belt off the shaft. Watch for any shims >> that might be there to hold the shaft aligned properly. >> >> To reassemble, just do everything backwards! :> >> >> This is not really a task to be tackled casually. You >> really need to THINK about each step as you are doing it >> so you don't bust anything. And, you want it all to fit back >> together with minimal amount of tweeking required. >> >> Avoid any of the cams that move the tapes since any little >> alteration there will affect printing. >> >> Good luck! >> :> From ts442st at wp.pl Fri Jul 7 04:26:53 2006 From: ts442st at wp.pl (ts442st) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 11:26:53 +0200 Subject: Calcomp 1044 plotter Message-ID: <000501c6a1a7$7cfe9fb0$c005b33e@powerd07684a98> I have calcomp plotter 2024 MA. I need nanuals, diagrams. Can You help me From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 13:45:59 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:45:59 -0400 Subject: IBM printer, resistor packs Message-ID: <200607071445.59885.rtellason@gmail.com> I have an IBM 4019 printer, with postscript card (I'm told). Does anybody know where I might find user or service manuals for this online? Also, I've got several tubes of some Beckman resistors packs, marked 1899-258-0 and can't seem to find any data on these, can anybody point me to where I might find some? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Fri Jul 7 22:14:11 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 23:14:11 -0400 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question Message-ID: <0J2200JSEE9P6ID7@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: Intertec Super Brain question > From: Fred Cisin > Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 19:14:51 -0700 (PDT) > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >On Fri, 7 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and find that for whatever >> reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk >> sample. >> What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's >> (sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)? > >I've been told (but can't personally verify), that it's 179x 1791 (they use inverted data and everything If memory serves). Same as the 1793 only the data bus is inverted. They use the inversion to make their files less readable. They were, till everyone figured it out. >They sure screwed up that format, didn't they? > >The data is inverted relative to the address marks, >the index address mark is often too early for an NEC >(I often have to disable the index pulse to read them), >the head numbers on the second side are often wrong, >and I have no idea why the data address marks are flaky. >And they called DSDD 48tpi "quad" density, which meant >that when they came out with DSDD 96tpi, they called >that "Super Density", and abbreviated it "SD"! >(what is the next larger size of olives?) Classic case of the 179x could so they did. Didn't make it a good idea or even comforms to any standard. > >The good news is that it usually doesn't object to a properly >formatted diskette, so it's often possible to format a stack >of diskettes; use the SB to copy the files to them, and then >bring those diskettes back to read. > > >I tried to talk to Intertec about their formats. >At NCC '83, some of their suits told me that they could >not imagine ANY possible reason to convert data between >disk formats, other than to steal their "proprietary" >software (CP/M?), and that they would file a lawsuit if >I included any SB formats in XenoCopy! >That night was the first time that I ever added formats >to XenoCopy in a hotel room. >They never kept that promise. Yes there was the liklyhood that it meant more useful software would be available for the 'brain. Likely took them longer than a slow 8008 for that being a good thing to occur. >They used to have a sizable hobbyist following! Never seen that many though they were nice to use. Allison > >-- >Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com > From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 23:28:48 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:28:48 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607080028.48405.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 07:58 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > > If you have an 8255-based data acquisition board kicking around (they're > > not uncommon), that might be a good "universal" solution, giving you a > > few more I/Os and latched input and output. > > The problem is that the 8255 is fundamnetally broken as designed (well, > I'd expect that from Intel, alas). Any write to the mode control register > clears all outputs to 0's. Which means you can't reverse the direstion of > one of the 8 bit ports without mucking up everything else. Oh really? I've never heard _that_ before about these parts... Do you know offhand if that's the case for other brands as well? I believe I have some NEC parts around somewhere. > Yes, I know about the bidirexctional mode (Mode 2 IIRC). But to use that > in a lot of cases is a kludge too. Personally I'd rather link a 6522 or > similar to the ISA bus. I sure have enough of those, too, and 6526s as well. No idea how hard it would be to interface one of those parts to a bus that's not made for it but I believe I've seen it done -- if I'm remembering right the Osborne 1 used a 68xx chip for something, it's been ages since I looked at the schematics, but that at least tells me that it's possible. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 23:30:28 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:30:28 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071821320680.4F3AB02F@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607080030.28529.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 09:21 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Tony, I know that you hate the 8255, but the streets are paved with them, > whereas the 6522 is a little harder to get one's hands on. I show 11 of those, 23 of the 6526, and > Even the Z80 PIO is not easy to find new. ...12 of these on hand here, if anybody needs them. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 23:31:53 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:31:53 -0400 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> References: <200607071823420346.4F3CAAB1@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607080031.53553.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 07 July 2006 09:23 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I've got a load of Super Brain CP/M diskettes and find that for whatever > reason, the DAM (data address marks) seem to vary wildly on a disk-to-disk > sample. > > What did the SB use for a diskette controller and why the varying DAM's > (sometimes it's just a single sector or group of sectors on a track)? I actually encountered a couple of those machines early on, but never did get a hold of any service data on them. From what I heard later on, though, they had _two_ z80 chips in there, one as the "main" processor and the other one to handle disk i/o. Maybe that has something to do with it? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From empiretheatre at btconnect.com Sat Jul 8 13:12:38 2006 From: empiretheatre at btconnect.com (Technical Department) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 19:12:38 +0100 Subject: Thurlby LA160 Logic analyser Message-ID: <000601c6a2ba$193bbd00$0601a8c0@home> Hi.. Do you still need a copy of the LA160 logic analyser software. I have just bought an LA160 on e-bay, and it came with it but on a 51/2" disk. You will need the upgrade EPROM's to go with it but I could copy these for you. I should be able to transfer it to a CD. Let me know.... Daniel. From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sat Jul 8 18:33:21 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 19:33:21 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: <0J23005SKYRKSXGQ@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: OMTI parallel port interface hack > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2006 22:44:30 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> > The problem is that the 8255 is fundamnetally broken as designed (well, >> > I'd expect that from Intel, alas). Any write to the mode control register >> > clears all outputs to 0's. Which means you can't reverse the direstion of >> > one of the 8 bit ports without mucking up everything else. >> >> Oh really? I've never heard _that_ before about these parts... Do you know > >It is mentioned in the Intel 8255 data sheet. > >> offhand if that's the case for other brands as well? I believe I have some >> NEC parts around somewhere. It applies to ALL 8255s. For some uses this is not a problem, others just plain annoying. All a side effect of putting 10# in a 5# bag if you ask me. However of all the parallel devices it's widely available (even in CMOS) and despite it's flaws it's still more versitile than any other PPI. An alternate if the application can tolerate it's interface is the 8155 (22 IO lines and 8085/8088 muxed data/address interface). >It certainly applies to the National Semiconductor version. I used one in >my first Z80 homebrew, and one of the first programs I wrote once I'd >added it simply configured all ports as outputs, wrote a suitable value >to port A, then jumped back to the start. I then found the lines that >should be high were, in fact, pulsing. Reading the data sheet showed why >(I was re-loading the mode control register, thus clearing the output >ports). Of course it was trivial to correct in this program, but it sure >made life difficult later. Once you know this it's less a problem. Hint: if you invert the outputs and add pullups you can hide the problem for some cases. For many apps it's not a problem. The upside is 24 IO lines. Or two ports with full handshake and interrupt posting. No so bad really. For some cases using the 8255 is way overkill and a LS273 was more suitable but then I'm barking at the design of others. Allison > > >-tony From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 9 06:09:03 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 11:09:03 +0000 Subject: Intertec Super Brain question In-Reply-To: <0J2200JSEE9P6ID7@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0J2200JSEE9P6ID7@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <44B0E3CF.8050001@yahoo.co.uk> Allison wrote: >> They used to have a sizable hobbyist following! > > Never seen that many though they were nice to use. Seems that here in the UK they were the machine of choice for British Gas to use back in the 80s - at least that's where all of ours seem to have come from. We've even got some British Gas training course notes on both using and servicing the machines [1], along with lists of common faults and what spares their central workshop used to carry! [1] The service training course notes mention the Northstar Horizon as a useful piece of test equipment :-) We've got something like 12 machines - three of each (Superbrain, Superbrain II, Superbrain QD, and Computstar), then four hard disk units, plus a few of what I gather are network boards for the Compustar systems. Ultimately we'll keep a couple of systems I expect and re-house the rest, once I know what's fixable and what isn't. I've got three machines plus a hard disk unit in the car to restore over the next few days... cheers Jules From vax9000 at gmail.com Sun Jul 9 07:27:05 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 08:27:05 -0400 Subject: looking for 3 QBUS SCSI testers that have $ to spend Message-ID: Please read http://www.mscpscsi.com/tester.html for details. Thank you! vax, 9000 From classiccmp at vintage-computer.com Sun Jul 9 11:44:23 2006 From: classiccmp at vintage-computer.com (Erik Klein) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 09:44:23 -0700 Subject: Teletype Stuff Message-ID: <003301c6a376$ef170710$6501a8c0@NFORCE4> I've been contacted by someone who has a whole pile of old teletype paper, tape and related stuff that he needs to clear out. "6 boxes (12ea) 8 7/16 white single roll; 50 black & 28 buff/canary rolls teletype tape; 44 ink ribbon bobbins (empty) ; 2 boxes continuous flatfold tabulating machine paper (single); 2 boxes tabulating paper 8 1/2 x11 (two part) 2 boxes teletype ribbon (purple) 1 box teletype ribbon (black 1/2") and a couple strays, and 8-9 boxes other ribbon (see photo)" I'd like some of this stuff but there's no way I can ship or store all of it. Would anyone else be interested in some? As far as I can tell this is all NOS stuff. You can see some pictures at http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?p=23825#post23825 Please let me know if you're interested. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum From vax9000 at gmail.com Sun Jul 9 12:47:42 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 13:47:42 -0400 Subject: looking for 3 QBUS SCSI testers that have $ to spend In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have Ryan here and two more needed. On 7/9/06, 9000 VAX wrote: > > Please read http://www.mscpscsi.com/tester.html for details. Thank you! > > vax, 9000 > From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jul 9 13:17:24 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 13:17:24 -0500 Subject: post for paul about vcf gear Message-ID: <007601c6a383$ee1e6350$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> I'm posting this for Paul Anderson, as his mail server is apparently currently blacklisted by spamhaus. > I have the following list of booklets I am considering making copies of to > take to VCF/Midwest next week. I'll be going to Kinko's or somewhere > early > next week and am trying to figure out the level of interest. These were > made > up for DEC field service only. I'm guessing $20 each, except for the PDP11 > which is about 100 pages. If anyone wants them mailed within the US, $5 or > $6 should cover shipping for the entire set. Please contact me off list if > you have any interest or questions about this, or if you want anything > else > brought to VCF/ Midwest. > > > > RK05/RK11 TECHTIPS > > > > RK8E HANDOUTS > > > > LP05 HANDOUTS > > > > 11/40 STUDENT HANDOUTS > > > > RX01 HANDOUTS > > > > PDP8E HANDOUTS > > > > PDP11 MAINFRAME TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE INCLUDES FLOWS AND DECAIDS > > > > Thanks, Paul Anderson > > 217-586-5361 From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 9 15:15:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 21:15:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <0J23005SKYRKSXGQ@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Jul 8, 6 07:33:21 pm Message-ID: > It applies to ALL 8255s. For some uses this is not a problem, others just > plain annoying. All a side effect of putting 10# in a 5# bag if you ask me. > However of all the parallel devices it's widely available (even in CMOS) > and despite it's flaws it's still more versitile than any other PPI. I guess it depends on what you consider 'versatile' to mean, but considering the 8255 doesn't let you individually select the direction of each port line (the 6821, 6522 and Z80-PIO all do, I think the Z8536 does too), considering you can't change the mode without clearing all outputs (AFAIK no other parallel chip has that 'feature'), and considering it's just a plain parallel port with handshakes (the 6522 contains a shift register, counters, etc too), I think it's one of the _least_ versatile paralell chips around. > Once you know this it's less a problem. Hint: if you invert the outputs > and add pullups you can hide the problem for some cases. Not really. At reset all the lines are inputs (thank %deity they got that right, or we'd have contentions to deal with too). A TTL input connected to one of those lines would float high (and it would be a lot easier to pull the line high than to pull it low). After writing to the mode register and making that line an output, it will be low. Then you write to the port and maybe make it high again. You either have to pull it low externally, or design your circuit to be happy with this high-on-reset, low-after-configuration setup. Actually, if any write to the mode register had made all outputs high it would have been a nicer chip. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 9 15:20:12 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 21:20:12 +0100 (BST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <200607081915050219.54920159@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jul 8, 6 07:15:05 pm Message-ID: > > The typical application of most 8255's, I'm going to guess is that they're > initialized at the start of an application or when the computer is booted > and the mode is never fiddled with thereafter. As I mentioned in my reply to Allison, it's worse than that. On reset, the line is an input, so a TTL input connected to it will treat it as high (it would be good practice to add a pull-up resistor, sure) On writing to the mode register, that TTL input will be forced low Then you might make it high again. Your external circuit has to be happy with this (it can't assume the line will stay high as the chip is initialised). The other parallel chips (e.g. 68721, 6522) don't have this problem, with those, you can write to the output port register and make outputs effectively 1 _before_ writing to the direction register. Then if you have an exetrnal pull-up, or assume a TTL input floats high (naughty!), you will not get a momentary low glitch on the line. > > Does the 8251 USART also have some sort of strange initialization problem? > It's been a long time since I've used one, but I seem to recall a gotcha. IIRC, it's impossible in gnneral to force it into a known state. If you're setting it up for synchronous operation and forget how many of the initialisation bytes you've sent it, there's no software way to force it into a known state from where you can start the initialisation again (a hardware reset will do it, of course). -tony From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Sun Jul 9 16:27:02 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 14:27:02 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B174A6.1080509@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: [8255 POR/initialization issues] > Your external circuit has to be happy with this (it can't assume the line > will stay high as the chip is initialised). The other parallel chips > (e.g. 68721, 6522) don't have this problem, with those, you can write to > the output port register and make outputs effectively 1 _before_ writing > to the direction register. Then if you have an exetrnal pull-up, or > assume a TTL input floats high (naughty!), you will not get a momentary > low glitch on the line. > >> Does the 8251 USART also have some sort of strange initialization problem? >> It's been a long time since I've used one, but I seem to recall a gotcha. > > IIRC, it's impossible in gnneral to force it into a known state. If > you're setting it up for synchronous operation and forget how many of the > initialisation bytes you've sent it, there's no software way to force it > into a known state from where you can start the initialisation again (a > hardware reset will do it, of course). There have been (and will undoubtedly CONTINUE to be!) lots of "bad" peripheral chips designed with this and other SNAFUs. It is good practice to separate the I/O's from the rest of the system if you want a reliable product (i.e. things that run 24/7/365 without intervention). I regularly "or" a reset line that the processor can control into the RESET_IO signal (not all processors have the ability to *drive* their RESET line) for exactly this reason. You *really* don't want something that is controlling, for example, motors or hydraulics on a piece of industrial equipment to *rely* on the processor powering up properly and completing the initialization of the I/O's "correctly" ("Hey, who's FINGER is this stuck in this 15 ton press?") Just like you don't want to rely on the processor to poll the status of interlock/safety switches, etc. Of course, this makes the hardware design a bit more involved (e.g., you have to ensure you pick latches that can be forcibly reset, etc.). Which can be an issue on low cost products. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 9 17:02:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 15:02:00 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607091502000475.58D0AEBD@10.0.0.252> On 7/9/2006 at 9:20 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >As I mentioned in my reply to Allison, it's worse than that. Oh, I understand that there are problems. And in those situations where problems exist with the 8255 and your application, it's probably best to use a different chip or implementation. In a way, this reminds me of Dijkstra railing against the horribleness of the IBM 1620. Yes, it's true that there is no way for a program to determine the contents of a memory location and it's impossible to output certain characters, and so forth. The 1620 had a terribly incomplete instruction set. But a lot of 1620's were sold and a lot of productive work got done on them nonetheless. Would I choose the 1620 architecture to implement a new computer? No way. But warts and all, the 1620 was useful--as is the 8255. Cheers, Chuck From kenziem at sympatico.ca Sun Jul 9 21:41:01 2006 From: kenziem at sympatico.ca (Mike) Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 22:41:01 -0400 Subject: OLS special Message-ID: <200607092241.01623.kenziem@sympatico.ca> For anyone visiting Ottawa, I have several machines I'd like to get out of my basement. Machines to trade http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/trade.html From teoz at neo.rr.com Sun Jul 9 23:51:48 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:51:48 -0400 Subject: 68K Mac auto inject drive needed (superdrive) Message-ID: <28cd01c6a3dc$8da60c40$0b01a8c0@game> Seems like I am a couple 1.44 MB Mac 68k superdrives short for my machines (the old auto inject used in Mac II's and Quadras, not the black door manual inject variety), anybody have a couple they don't need? I recall somebody here had a stack a while back they were offering but I can't find the email in my archive. Thanks, TZ From pierre.alouit at promistel.com Fri Jul 7 18:07:34 2006 From: pierre.alouit at promistel.com (Pierre Alouit) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 01:07:34 +0200 Subject: Request - 300 x 512Mo-PC2700-AENEON-16 chips 32Mx8 Message-ID: <7817.JGIRQGER@promistel.com> Hello , I am looking for: - 300 x 512Mo-PC2700-AENEON-16 chips 32Mx8 - P/N: AED660UD00-500B98X - Target price: 34$ USD Best regards Pierre Alouit Promistel Industries mailto:pierre.alouit at promistel.com skype:pierre.alouit Msn: pierre.alouit at hotmail.fr AIM: palouit ICQ:6927567 From pierre.alouit at promistel.com Fri Jul 7 18:34:38 2006 From: pierre.alouit at promistel.com (Pierre Alouit) Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 01:34:38 +0200 Subject: Request - 300 x 512Mo-PC2700-AENEON-16 chips 32Mx8 Message-ID: <78134.EPPHAUFW@promistel.com> Hello , I am looking for: - 300 x 512Mo-PC2700-AENEON-16 chips 32Mx8 - P/N: AED660UD00-500B98X - Target price: 34$ USD Best regards Pierre Alouit Promistel Industries mailto:pierre.alouit at promistel.com skype:pierre.alouit Msn: pierre.alouit at hotmail.fr AIM: palouit ICQ:6927567 From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net Sun Jul 9 16:23:25 2006 From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison) Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 17:23:25 -0400 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack Message-ID: <0J2500KNVNESJKU0@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> > >Subject: Re: OMTI parallel port interface hack > From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2006 21:20:12 +0100 (BST) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> The typical application of most 8255's, I'm going to guess is that they're >> initialized at the start of an application or when the computer is booted >> and the mode is never fiddled with thereafter. > >As I mentioned in my reply to Allison, it's worse than that. > >On reset, the line is an input, so a TTL input connected to it will treat >it as high (it would be good practice to add a pull-up resistor, sure) > >On writing to the mode register, that TTL input will be forced low > >Then you might make it high again. > >Your external circuit has to be happy with this (it can't assume the line >will stay high as the chip is initialised). The other parallel chips >(e.g. 68721, 6522) don't have this problem, with those, you can write to >the output port register and make outputs effectively 1 _before_ writing >to the direction register. Then if you have an exetrnal pull-up, or >assume a TTL input floats high (naughty!), you will not get a momentary >low glitch on the line. The 6522 is sometimes nice but hard to find. and for many the 68721 is even harder to find. As someone said, 8255s, the roads paved with them. Also how often do you have to turn a port around? Apps where I needed that I found that there were other approaches that worked better. >> >> Does the 8251 USART also have some sort of strange initialization problem? >> It's been a long time since I've used one, but I seem to recall a gotcha. > >IIRC, it's impossible in gnneral to force it into a known state. If >you're setting it up for synchronous operation and forget how many of the >initialisation bytes you've sent it, there's no software way to force it >into a known state from where you can start the initialisation again (a >hardware reset will do it, of course). Most sync mode chip setups are a PITA! If you forget how many init bytes you sent, your software is broken or Alzhimers. Also issuing a reset command after a data port read works. The 8251/9551/2651 and related varients are all annoying about that. In general I dislike chips that need to be pumped with a string of bytes to one address for init. However most behave and it's not that hard to sort out. However since most of the S100 crates I have and many systems I've built 8251s are familiar and used as I still have tubes of them. However it's not my first choice for Sync ops though for async its fine. Allison > >-tony From ying6926 at ureach.com Mon Jul 10 03:16:46 2006 From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 04:16:46 -0400 Subject: Look for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port Message-ID: <200607100816.EAA06701@www22.ureach.com> I am looking for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port or fujitsu equivalent. Any information would be appreciated. Henry From bert at brothom.nl Mon Jul 10 05:46:43 2006 From: bert at brothom.nl (Bert Thomas) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:46:43 +0100 Subject: Look for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port In-Reply-To: <200607100816.EAA06701@www22.ureach.com> References: <200607100816.EAA06701@www22.ureach.com> Message-ID: <44B23013.9000405@brothom.nl> Henry Ji wrote: > I am looking for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port > or fujitsu equivalent. Any information would be appreciated. I may able to arrange one, or just the serial interface board. Where are you located? From blairrya at msu.edu Mon Jul 10 07:33:24 2006 From: blairrya at msu.edu (Ryan Blair) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 08:33:24 -0400 Subject: More hardware available at VCF/Midwest Message-ID: <20060710083324.060d50be.blairrya@msu.edu> As I mentioned earlier, here is the rest of the list of things I will have available at VCF/Midwest. Want one of these? Drop me an email ahead of time and I'll hold an item for you, otherwise locate me at VCF. Some of these are missing RAM or a hard drive, but should be runnable with the missing bits installed (no toasty motherboards or anything like that). 2x SPARCstation 5 1x SPARCstation 20 2x Javastation 1x HP 9000 715/64 1x HP 9000 300/345 1x HP 9000 C110 2x SGI Indigo2 (one XZ, one High Impact) 1x Macintosh IIci 1x Macintosh G3 (beige model) 3x NCD MCX 1x NCD MCX-L 1x Cisco IGS 2x ISA GPIB boards (one HP, one NI) 1x IdeaComm 5250/Remote 1x 3Com Wireless Bridge 1x Webpal These are free for the taking, but if you've got some spare Alpha PWS RAM, quiet 68-pin SCSI hard drives, or interesting RS/6000 gear, I would be more than happy to help you "dispose" of it ;) -Ryan From erick.davidson at gmail.com Mon Jul 10 08:53:59 2006 From: erick.davidson at gmail.com (Eric Davidson) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 06:53:59 -0700 Subject: Teletype Stuff In-Reply-To: <003301c6a376$ef170710$6501a8c0@NFORCE4> References: <003301c6a376$ef170710$6501a8c0@NFORCE4> Message-ID: I'd be interested. I imagine the paper isn't worth shipping, though. Where is this located, and where are you? From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Mon Jul 10 11:46:02 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:46:02 -0400 Subject: Superbrains for giveaway Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060710123507.03d6aa18@mail.30below.com> Speaking of Superbrains... I saved 2 superbrains from extinction many years ago, and never had a chance to diddle with them; but I must say the zoo where they're caged is under disrepair. They powered up & asked for a boot disk last time I tried, but that was prolly 5 years ago - they've been kept in an unheated garage since. They've been out of the rain & all, but it's a dusty, dirty garage, so they'll need some cleaning, TLC & whatnot... IIRC (but don't trust my memory) one's a SBII, the other might be an SB QB, each has at least one floppy, but I don't remember if either has 2. Other than that, I never really knew much about 'em. I'll be at VCF-MW 2.0, so delivery could be free to Indiana this weekend. Thanks, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 10 12:59:01 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 17:59:01 +0000 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing Message-ID: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of systems before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common cause... I've got a mono fixed-frequency display that'll often power up and display fine for a few seconds, after which the vertical collapses and the horizontal shrinks slightly, such that the picture vanishes to a single (squashed) horizontal line in the middle of the screen. The "picture" goes rather dim at the same time. I would have thought that was a power supply problem of some description - except that some initial checks show that the expected single +12V supply for the display is at +11.8V, so only slightly down on what it should be. Hmm, I suppose I could try feeding +12V in from a bench supply and rule that one out... cheers Jules From blkline at attglobal.net Mon Jul 10 12:04:04 2006 From: blkline at attglobal.net (Barry L. Kline) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:04:04 -0400 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B28884.5080309@attglobal.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > > I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of > systems before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common > cause... > That's typically a bad vertical output transistor. Barry From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Mon Jul 10 12:04:39 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:04:39 +0100 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <003001c6a442$ee5e6bc0$0200a8c0@p2deskto> From: "Jules Richardson" > > I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of systems > before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common cause... > > I've got a mono fixed-frequency display that'll often power up and display > fine for a few seconds, after which the vertical collapses and the horizontal > shrinks slightly, such that the picture vanishes to a single (squashed) > horizontal line in the middle of the screen. The "picture" goes rather dim at > the same time. > > I would have thought that was a power supply problem of some description - > except that some initial checks show that the expected single +12V supply for > the display is at +11.8V, so only slightly down on what it should be. > > Hmm, I suppose I could try feeding +12V in from a bench supply and rule that > one out... > > Jules, I start with any electrolytics you can find in the frame stage........ Does the monitor have seperate synch, or is it combined with the video? Don't run it for long with the frames collapsed, or you will get screen burn - if you need to run it for tests, keep contrsat and brilliance at a minimum. The dimming of the picture may be a crude protection circuit that reduces brilliance on loss of synch (to prevent screen burn). Jim. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 10 13:22:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:22:40 +0000 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B28884.5080309@attglobal.net> References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> <44B28884.5080309@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <44B29AF0.8080702@yahoo.co.uk> Barry L. Kline wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: >> I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of >> systems before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common >> cause... >> > > That's typically a bad vertical output transistor. Even with the horizontal output also shrinking by about 60%? Otherwise yep, that would have been my suspicion too - just seems odd the way vertical dies completely and horizontal is also significantly affected. I hate trying to fix displays :-) cheers J. From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jul 10 12:47:08 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:47:08 -0700 Subject: Superbrains for giveaway Message-ID: This reminds me that it would be a good thing to get all of the programmable parts dumped from these machines. From blkline at attglobal.net Mon Jul 10 12:48:24 2006 From: blkline at attglobal.net (Barry L. Kline) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:48:24 -0400 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B29AF0.8080702@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> <44B28884.5080309@attglobal.net> <44B29AF0.8080702@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B292E8.4080700@attglobal.net> Jules Richardson wrote: > Barry L. Kline wrote: > I hate trying to fix displays :-) I grew up fixing television sets in the family business... thankfully I don't do that schtick anymore. I'd agree, the shrinkage of horizontal deflection does make it less likely to be the transistor, but I've seen it before and therefore it would be my first choice to check. Barry From rtellason at gmail.com Mon Jul 10 13:12:59 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:12:59 -0400 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B292E8.4080700@attglobal.net> References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> <44B29AF0.8080702@yahoo.co.uk> <44B292E8.4080700@attglobal.net> Message-ID: <200607101412.59686.rtellason@gmail.com> On Monday 10 July 2006 01:48 pm, Barry L. Kline wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > > Barry L. Kline wrote: > > > > I hate trying to fix displays :-) Yeah... > I grew up fixing television sets in the family business... thankfully I > don't do that schtick anymore. I had a tv repair business in 1974, and also worked on them at later points in time. Not something I'd particularly care to go back to any time soon, either. :-) > I'd agree, the shrinkage of horizontal deflection does make it less > likely to be the transistor, but I've seen it before and therefore it > would be my first choice to check. It would be unlikely to be the transistor if it was opening up, but if it was shorting it may be loading down the supply to the extent that it would shrink the horizontal some. Or the supply for the vertical may be flyback-derived, which would mean that a short there (whether it's a transistor or a bad electrolytic) would load down the flyback a bit more. But yeah, that's where I'd start looking too. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at gmail.com Mon Jul 10 13:25:37 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:25:37 -0400 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <200607101412.59686.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> <44B292E8.4080700@attglobal.net> <200607101412.59686.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607101425.37570.rtellason@gmail.com> On Monday 10 July 2006 02:12 pm, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Monday 10 July 2006 01:48 pm, Barry L. Kline wrote: > > Jules Richardson wrote: > > > Barry L. Kline wrote: > > > > > > I hate trying to fix displays :-) > > Yeah... > > > I grew up fixing television sets in the family business... thankfully I > > don't do that schtick anymore. > > I had a tv repair business in 1974, and also worked on them at later > points in time. Not something I'd particularly care to go back to any time > soon, either. :-) > > > I'd agree, the shrinkage of horizontal deflection does make it less > > likely to be the transistor, but I've seen it before and therefore it > > would be my first choice to check. > > It would be unlikely to be the transistor if it was opening up, but if it > was shorting it may be loading down the supply to the extent that it would > shrink the horizontal some. Or the supply for the vertical may be > flyback-derived, which would mean that a short there (whether it's a > transistor or a bad electrolytic) would load down the flyback a bit more. > But yeah, that's where I'd start looking too. Oh, and if the supply for the vertical output circuitry _is_ flyback-derived, then also look at the possibility of the diode being used to derive it shorting out -- this would have both the effect of killing the vertical sweep _and_ loading down the horizontal sweep at the same time... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 10 13:41:49 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:41:49 -0700 Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <0J2500KNVNESJKU0@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0J2500KNVNESJKU0@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200607101141490360.5D3FC5D9@10.0.0.252> On 7/9/2006 at 5:23 PM Allison wrote: >If you forget how many init bytes you sent, your software is broken >or Alzhimers. Also issuing a reset command after a data port read >works. The 8251/9551/2651 and related varients are all annoying >about that. In general I dislike chips that need to be pumped with a >string of bytes to one address for init. However most behave and it's >not that hard to sort out. However since most of the S100 crates I have >and many systems I've built 8251s are familiar and used as I still >have tubes of them. However it's not my first choice for Sync ops >though for async its fine. Ah, I remember now. The 8251, after a power-up reset, is set to input two mode words. However, if it's driven by an application that is unaware of when the last system reset was done, is caught with a problem if it attempts to program the chip with an "internal reset" command. IIRC, the way out of this was to output a zero byte before the "Internal Reset" command. The zero byte, if a mode word, set the 8251 into a sync mode; if issued as a command, would set various handshaking lines. In either case, the 8251 was ready to accept a real command byte, which then could be used to set the mode. One thing about the 8251 docs was the strange use of "high" and "low" and "one" and "zero". As in "high will force the RTS/ line to zero". Very confusing. Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jul 10 15:17:19 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:17:19 -0700 Subject: Open Tape Reader design Message-ID: After several years of frustration, here is the initial design document for a magnetic tape reader with the explicit goal of being a completely open design. http://bitsavers.org/tools/USBTapeInterface2006.txt From brian at quarterbyte.com Mon Jul 10 15:22:09 2006 From: brian at quarterbyte.com (Brian Knittel) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:22:09 -0700 Subject: big iron DASD and tape free for prompt pickup Message-ID: <44B25481.25833.77FC3E46@brian.quarterbyte.com> Hi folks, Norm Aleks and I have some big iron bits to give away, caveat is they have to be picked up on or before Wednesday July 19. Location is Oakland, CA. You'll need a truck w/liftgate (preferably), or we can arrange for our storage facility's forklift to help move if you can meet us on the morning of the 19th. Items are: 3 ea. IBM 3380-B4 DASD slave (must hook to -A4 to be used) 1 ea. IBM 3880-2 DASD controller 1 ea. IBM 3880-3 DASD controller 1 ea. IBM 3380-4 DASD controller 1 ea. IBM 3420-3 9-track tape drive, low density 2 ea. IBM 3420-8 9-track tape, high density These are BIG and HEAVY and would look VERY COOL in your basement or office. Or bedroom, if you're into that sort of thing. Some of the 3880 boxes are in the less common red color scheme. The DASD and controllers can actually be put to practical use, by scrapping the electronics and installing plywood shelves, wherein they become once again useful storage devices. [Disclosures: Some of the cabinets are in less than pristine physical condition. One of the 3420s is missing its door]. Contact me off-list if interested. What's not picked up will go to BDI for auction & most likely scrapping. Regards Brian =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- _| _| _| Brian Knittel _| _| _| Quarterbyte Systems, Inc. _| _| _| Tel: 1-510-559-7930 _| _| _| Fax: 1-510-525-6889 _| _| _| Email: brian at quarterbyte.com _| _| _| http://www.quarterbyte.com From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 10 16:20:29 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:20:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: OMTI parallel port interface hack In-Reply-To: <0J2500KNVNESJKU0@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> from "Allison" at Jul 9, 6 05:23:25 pm Message-ID: > The 6522 is sometimes nice but hard to find. and for many the 68721 is > even harder to find. > > As someone said, 8255s, the roads paved with them. Also how often do > you have to turn a port around? Apps where I needed that I found that > there were other approaches that worked better. A trivial example that I have done many times : You can bit-bang I2C through a couple of port lines on a 6522 (or 6821), and all you have to add is a couple of pull-up resistors. You can't do it with an 8255 so easily (you need 2 ouputs, 2 inputs, and external buffers). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 10 16:48:19 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:48:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B29565.3030103@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 10, 6 05:59:01 pm Message-ID: > > > I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of systems > before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common cause... > > I've got a mono fixed-frequency display that'll often power up and display I'm sorry, my ESP transceiver is down at the moment. Or in other words, could you please tell us the make/model. There isn't just one design you know... > fine for a few seconds, after which the vertical collapses and the horizontal > shrinks slightly, such that the picture vanishes to a single (squashed) > horizontal line in the middle of the screen. The "picture" goes rather dim at > the same time. OK. The second 2 symptoms (small, dim, horizontal) sounds like something is loading horizontal output stange. That would reduce the EHT of course (which would tend to enlarge the picture), but will also reduce the deflection amplitude. It's not unhard-of for the vertical output stage to take its power from the flyback transformer. In which case a fault there (and I'd suspect a shorted capacitor) would load the horizontal stage too. Can you find the vertical output stage? Is there a TDA1170 IC (a good bet in an older chassis), it may have a heatsink soldered to the tabs. Or can you trace back the leads fro mthe yoke? 2 will go near the flyback transformer, it's the other 2 you are interested in. > > I would have thought that was a power supply problem of some description - > except that some initial checks show that the expected single +12V supply for > the display is at +11.8V, so only slightly down on what it should be. Maybe the monitor is drawing more supply current when the fault occurs, loading down the mains PSU too. -tony From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jul 10 17:33:21 2006 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:33:21 -0600 Subject: Open Tape Reader design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B2D5B1.3020606@e-bbes.com> http://www.bitsavers.org/tools/USB_TapeInterface_20060710.txt Al Kossow wrote: > After several years of frustration, here is the initial design document for > a magnetic tape reader with the explicit goal of being a completely open > design. > > http://bitsavers.org/tools/USBTapeInterface2006.txt > > > > > From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 10 19:12:13 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 00:12:13 +0000 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B2ECDD.4000707@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: >> >> I'm asking this here as I've heard of it happening on all sorts of systems >> before, as though it's a common fault and possibly with a common cause... >> >> I've got a mono fixed-frequency display that'll often power up and display > > I'm sorry, my ESP transceiver is down at the moment. :-) It's one of these Superbrain ones - single fixed frequency, mono, TDA1170 for the vertical - and from the looks of it, supply for the vertical is taken directly from the system's PSU rather than being generated within the monitor. (I've got Intertec's official released schematics - but they're so shrunk on A3 paper as to be next to useless as hardly any component details / part numbers can be made out) > could you please tell us the make/model. There isn't just one design you > know... Sure - just wondered if ot was one of those symptoms where the answer is foobar xyz in 99% of cases; I'm happy to be poking around looking for specific problems in the meantime, though. >> fine for a few seconds, after which the vertical collapses and the horizontal >> shrinks slightly, such that the picture vanishes to a single (squashed) >> horizontal line in the middle of the screen. The "picture" goes rather dim at >> the same time. > > OK. The second 2 symptoms (small, dim, horizontal) sounds like something > is loading horizontal output stange. That would reduce the EHT of course > (which would tend to enlarge the picture), but will also reduce the > deflection amplitude. Seems strange to lose vertical completely though, surely? It's entirely separate for this display it seems - the TDA1170 takes the vertical sync pulses and drives the vertical deflection directly, without any connection to the horizontal part, EHT etc. (except the ground and power lines!) > Can you find the vertical output stage? Is there a TDA1170 IC Indeed there is, and luckily I do have some of those spare if that's what this turns out to be (I've certainly had those die in displays before, but I would have thought it more likely to be a dead cap somewhere that's causing the trouble) >> I would have thought that was a power supply problem of some description - >> except that some initial checks show that the expected single +12V supply for >> the display is at +11.8V, so only slightly down on what it should be. > > Maybe the monitor is drawing more supply current when the fault occurs, > loading down the mains PSU too. True. At least it's a single +12V supply to the display, so I can stick the ammeter on it and see if it does anything odd at the point where it breaks. cheers Jules From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jul 10 20:53:51 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 20:53:51 -0500 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B2ECDD.4000707@yahoo.co.uk> References: Message-ID: <200607110056.k6B0uPEJ008819@mail1.magma.ca> > (I've got Intertec's official released schematics - but they're so shrunk on > A3 paper as to be next to useless as hardly any component details / part > numbers can be made out) I have reasonably decent SuperBrain schematics on 11x17 paper - I have a medium quality scan on my site, and if you need better, I can do a high- res scan of the monitor schematic for you. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 10 20:21:23 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 21:21:23 -0400 Subject: big iron DASD and tape free for prompt pickup In-Reply-To: <44B25481.25833.77FC3E46@brian.quarterbyte.com> References: <44B25481.25833.77FC3E46@brian.quarterbyte.com> Message-ID: <200607102121.23579.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 10 July 2006 16:22, Brian Knittel wrote: > 1 ea. IBM 3420-3 9-track tape drive, low density Note that the above drive is able to read 7-track and 9-track tapes at 200, 556, 800, or 1600bpi, according to IBM's website: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_3420.html Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 10 20:27:46 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 18:27:46 -0700 Subject: Open Tape Reader design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607101827460417.5EB36B9D@10.0.0.252> On 7/10/2006 at 1:17 PM Al Kossow wrote: >After several years of frustration, here is the initial design document >for >a magnetic tape reader with the explicit goal of being a completely open >design. > >http://bitsavers.org/tools/USBTapeInterface2006.txt Interesting, Al! Will your design work without a head change for 7 track tape? If not, how have you decided to handle 7 track tape? Cheers, Chuck From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jul 10 21:06:29 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:06:29 -0700 Subject: Open Tape Reader design Message-ID: > Interesting, Al! Will your design work without a head change for 7 track > tape? If not, how have you decided to handle 7 track tape? 7 tracks will require a new head. I have combo 7/9 track heads, and I've verified that at least 7 of the 18 tracks of a 3480 stack land in 7 track widths. John claims he's read 9 tracks on a 3480 stack, but that may be marginal on some tracks, according to my measurements. From aek at bitsavers.org Mon Jul 10 21:08:26 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:08:26 -0700 Subject: big iron DASD and tape free for prompt pickup Message-ID: > Note that the above drive is able to read 7-track and 9-track tapes Brian should be able to verify that by looking at the head stack. I'm skeptical, though. From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 10 21:17:33 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:17:33 -0400 Subject: big iron DASD and tape free for prompt pickup In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607102217.33398.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 10 July 2006 22:08, Al Kossow wrote: > > Note that the above drive is able to read 7-track and 9-track tapes > > Brian should be able to verify that by looking at the head stack. I'm > skeptical, though. I guess it's possible that it was an option, not standard. "Optional features * Seven-Track Capability - Models 3, 5 and 7 can operate in seven-track mode at either 556 BPI or 800 BPI. 200 BPI is also available if these models are attached to an IBM 3803 Model 2." I kind of doubt that IBM screwed up the description there. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jul 10 23:47:35 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:47:35 +1200 Subject: Macintosh question (G3, 7 years old, so OT) In-Reply-To: <44A26A85.3020900@mdrconsult.com> References: <44A26A85.3020900@mdrconsult.com> Message-ID: On 6/28/06, Doc Shipley wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > Does anyone here know about the internals of the G3 line? I have a > > motherboard in front of me that I'm attempting to see if it will work. > > There are a couple of different G3 system boards with very different > PSU inputs. As far as I know, neither is PC ATX compatible. > > www.xlr8yourmac.com has some pages that detail converting an > off-the-shelf ATX PSU for use on a "beige" G3. > > The Blue & White G3 I haven't seen plans for, but I'd bet its PSU is > closer to PC-ish. To close this topic out, I did get it all working. It's a "Blue & White" G3, 350Mhz, 384MB of RAM, Firewire, ATI Rage 128 video, now running OS X (10.3). I have no battery, so it won't remember the time when I power it off, but that's an easy problem to fix once planes start flying. As for the PSU, I'm using a bog-standard ATX supply with one modification - I've pulled the -5VDC pin because on this motherboard, Apple grounded the pin normally used for -5V. That's why it was pulsing before - the crowbar circuit was preventing the PSU from frying itself when its -5V line was shorted to ground at the motherboard. I found a page, thanks to the pointers here, about how to mount this in an ATX case - the only real hitch is that the location of the PSU connector is too far away from the top of the case for a standard PSU cable to reach; it will require an extender. Two minor mechanical issues are the location of the mounting holes and the custom I/O backplate, but those are trivial to work around. Thanks again for all the advice. -ethan From vax9000 at gmail.com Tue Jul 11 06:23:11 2006 From: vax9000 at gmail.com (9000 VAX) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:23:11 -0400 Subject: looking for 3 QBUS SCSI testers that have $ to spend In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 7/9/06, 9000 VAX wrote: > > Please read http://www.mscpscsi.com/tester.html for details. Thank you! > Thank you and I now have 3 who are willing to help. vax, 9000 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 11 08:35:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:35:40 +0000 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? Message-ID: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> Quick check - does anyone have an earlier floppy-based release of Domain OS for Apollo machines archived? We've been offered an Apollo, but no idea yet of which model - all the details say is that it dates from when Apollo were independent (which possibly still means it's something like a 3000, I suspect - weren't HP not really involved until the 400 series?) Anyway, the machine has no OS, but it does have install floppies (that's another thing; I thought Domain OS came on tape by the 3xxx machines - floppies suggest it's much older). I'm willing to bet that the floppies aren't in the best of health by now though, so figured I'd check if someone has floppy-based install media archived anywhere before I chase this one up! (last thing we want is yet another machine with no software to run on it :-) cheers Jules From fryers at gmail.com Tue Jul 11 08:10:54 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:10:54 +0100 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: G'Day, On 7/11/06, Jules Richardson wrote: [Floppies for DomainOS] > Anyway, the machine has no OS, but it does have install floppies (that's > another thing; I thought Domain OS came on tape by the 3xxx machines - > floppies suggest it's much older). I have seen floppies for DomainOS 9.7 (if my memory serves me correctly) for a DN3000 Apollo. I have installed DomainOS from floppy but I no longer have access to them, or the machine. > I'm willing to bet that the floppies aren't in the best of health by now > though, so figured I'd check if someone has floppy-based install media > archived anywhere before I chase this one up! (last thing we want is yet > another machine with no software to run on it :-) Probably as slighlty more healthy than the tapes and drives. The tape drives in the Apollos also suffered from the drive wheels turning to goo while reading the tapes. The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. I seem to remember there were some utilities for writting DOS formatted disks available at some point. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From dm561 at torfree.net Tue Jul 11 08:49:30 2006 From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:49:30 -0400 Subject: Look for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port Message-ID: <01C6A4CF.80BD1A20@MSE_D03> ---------------Original Messages: From: Henry Ji Subject: Look for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port I am looking for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port or fujitsu equivalent. Any information would be appreciated. Henry ------------------------------ From: Bert Thomas Subject: Re: Look for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port Henry Ji wrote: > I am looking for okidata 9pin dotmatrix printer with rs232 port > or fujitsu equivalent. Any information would be appreciated. I may able to arrange one, or just the serial interface board. Where are you located? ====================Reply: I also have some printers & RS232 boards. OKIs are pretty heavy to ship though; where are you and which model(s) are you interested in? mike From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 11 09:50:29 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:50:29 +0000 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: References: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B3BAB5.7030604@yahoo.co.uk> Simon Fryer wrote: >> I'm willing to bet that the floppies aren't in the best of health by now >> though, so figured I'd check if someone has floppy-based install media >> archived anywhere before I chase this one up! (last thing we want is yet >> another machine with no software to run on it :-) > > Probably as slighlty more healthy than the tapes and drives. The tape > drives in the Apollos also suffered from the drive wheels turning to > goo while reading the tapes. Possibly. We've got 10.x (.4 or .2, can't recall which) on good tapes though, plus I've got archives here - but that release won't run on the earlier hardware (I think it'll technically work on the 3000 and 4000 series, but it's probably a real memory hog on those boxes) We've got a few good QIC drives - no shortage yet (I make a point of seeking those out when stuff's being dumped!); seems like only about 50% of the ones out there suffer from the goo problem - but it seems spread across all manufacturers and ages, strangely. > The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. Yep, wouldn't surprise me - although it's possibly driven by a SCSI bridge board (e.g. OMTI 5000 series) for some Apollos rather than being a native controller (I think the 3xxx and 4xxx machines don't have SCSI and are either ST412 or ESDI - presumably same goes for even earlier machines) cheers Jules From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 11 09:01:21 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:01:21 -0700 Subject: Open Tape Reader design Message-ID: >> Interesting, Al! Will your design work without a head change for 7 track >> tape? If not, how have you decided to handle 7 track tape? > > 7 tracks will require a new head. I have combo 7/9 track heads, and I've > verified that at least 7 of the 18 tracks of a 3480 stack land in 7 track > widths. John claims he's read 9 tracks on a 3480 stack, but that may be > marginal on some tracks, according to my measurements. The SAXO USB/FPGA board arrived yesterday, and the designer didn't bother to bring any of the USB chip's unused I/O out to vias, so the analog board will have to have a PCA9555 16 bit I2C I/O chip on it to control the I2C chip enables on the TZA1000s. The PCA9555 also provides 7 extra low speed I/Os for bit fiddling on the analog board. It occurred to me over the last day or two that it would be simple to also make this a "USB Catweasel", so when I lay out the analog board, I'll put buffering on it for a 50 and 34 pin floppy connector and run them over to some of the unused pins on the FPGA. It might even be possible to take one of the analog inputs and tap onto the preamp output of a floppy and bypass the data separator on the drive, capturing analog flux transitions from the head directly. This may make it possible to recover data from marginal media that can't get through the drive's data separator. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 11 09:04:07 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:04:07 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? Message-ID: > The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. It would be a good thing to try Imagedisk on these to try to get the software archived. I've had pretty good luck with reading 5" floppies. 8" is another story... From fryers at gmail.com Tue Jul 11 09:19:37 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:19:37 +0100 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: <44B3BAB5.7030604@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> <44B3BAB5.7030604@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: All, On 7/11/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Simon Fryer wrote: > >> I'm willing to bet that the floppies aren't in the best of health by now > >> though, so figured I'd check if someone has floppy-based install media > >> archived anywhere before I chase this one up! (last thing we want is yet > >> another machine with no software to run on it :-) > > > > Probably as slighlty more healthy than the tapes and drives. The tape > > drives in the Apollos also suffered from the drive wheels turning to > > goo while reading the tapes. > > Possibly. We've got 10.x (.4 or .2, can't recall which) on good tapes though, > plus I've got archives here - but that release won't run on the earlier > hardware (I think it'll technically work on the 3000 and 4000 series, but it's > probably a real memory hog on those boxes) I am pretty sure 10.4 with November 98 (or was it 97) patches worked quite happliy on the 3000 machines. I was using one for a while (it may have been a DN5000) in 99 as I prefered the keyboard and GUI to everything else available. I seem to remember that I was having problems getting X to work properly at the time and ended up switching to a HP300 running OpenBSD in 2000. > We've got a few good QIC drives - no shortage yet (I make a point of seeking > those out when stuff's being dumped!); seems like only about 50% of the ones > out there suffer from the goo problem - but it seems spread across all > manufacturers and ages, strangely. It is one of those problems that seems to plague old hardware! I think the first tape of my 10.4 install has a mark where I have had the roller wheel turn to mush. I pulled a tape drive from another apollo at the time and was able to install without any problems. > > The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. > > Yep, wouldn't surprise me - although it's possibly driven by a SCSI bridge > board (e.g. OMTI 5000 series) for some Apollos rather than being a native > controller (I think the 3xxx and 4xxx machines don't have SCSI and are either > ST412 or ESDI - presumably same goes for even earlier machines) Hmmm. Going from memory here. The DN3000 and 4000 machines used ESDI disks from a WD70?? controller. The controller had Apollo firmware. I have seen identical controllers with x86 firmware. It was possible to put the cards from Apollos into PCs - but without low level formatting utilities etc. The floppy interface on the WD70?? cards was used for the floppy drive on the DN3000 I used with a floppy drive. I forget how SCSI and the tape drives were connected - the OMTI cards sound familear. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 11 09:30:31 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:30:31 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? Message-ID: > I forget how SCSI and the tape drives were connected The tape drives are QIC-02, with a separate ISA card just for tape. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 11 10:47:19 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:47:19 +0000 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B3C807.6000602@yahoo.co.uk> Al Kossow wrote: >> The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. > > It would be a good thing to try Imagedisk on these to try to get the > software archived. > > I've had pretty good luck with reading 5" floppies. 8" is another story... Hmm, good point - I had 'floppy-based' stuck in my head and completely missed that the fax we've got says that they're 8". That suggests it's a pretty early Apollo and well before the 3000 or 4000 series. At least if they're 8" disks then the recording density is pretty low and so there's a good chance they're intact. OTOH, I've never tried hooking up an 8" drive to a modern machine (i.e. PC) and tried Imagedisk (for example) with it. cheers Jules From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jul 11 13:46:39 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:46:39 -0400 Subject: Tandy model 16 help needed - Shoreline, Washington Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3746C@MEOW.catcorner.org> Anyone real knowledgeable with these units interested in helping somone out? I know a guy that has a bunch of records on model 16 disks that he can't access. A "consultant" has hosed every copy of the program he used to access them with. Might be a real problem to fix. The guy is over 80 years old, and a little hard to converse with over the phone. Kelly From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 11 17:54:26 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 23:54:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: <44B2ECDD.4000707@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 11, 6 00:12:13 am Message-ID: > It's one of these Superbrain ones - single fixed frequency, mono, TDA1170 for > the vertical - and from the looks of it, supply for the vertical is taken > directly from the system's PSU rather than being generated within the monitor. The next thing I'd do is get the TDA1170 data sheet (it should be on the web somewhere). 99% of designs using that chip follow the same schematic, at least for the output stage, so you should be able to match things up. Then suspect the electrolytics associated with the output stage. One of them might well be shorting... > > OK. The second 2 symptoms (small, dim, horizontal) sounds like something > > is loading horizontal output stange. That would reduce the EHT of course > > (which would tend to enlarge the picture), but will also reduce the > > deflection amplitude. > > Seems strange to lose vertical completely though, surely? It's entirely My thought was a fault in the vertical section that (a) completely killed the vertical deflections and (b) loaded the supply to the the vertical section, (from the flyback transformer), enough to much up the horizontal side too. Anothre thought was that the vertical fault caused a heavy current to flow in the deflection coils -- heavy enough to saturate the core and thus change the inductance of the horizontal coils enough to mess up the operation of that side of things. But it's not that either -- if it was, the beam would surely be deflected well off-screen, it wouldn't be in the centre. -tony From gkaufman at the-planet.org Tue Jul 11 18:16:52 2006 From: gkaufman at the-planet.org (Gary E Kaufman) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:16:52 -0400 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <200607111700.k6BH06vu014098@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200607111700.k6BH06vu014098@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <44B43164.8040802@the-planet.org> > From: Jules Richardson > Subject: Re: *early* Domain OS available? > > > Al Kossow wrote: > >>> The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. >>> >> It would be a good thing to try Imagedisk on these to try to get the >> software archived. >> >> I've had pretty good luck with reading 5" floppies. 8" is another story... >> > > Hmm, good point - I had 'floppy-based' stuck in my head and completely missed > that the fax we've got says that they're 8". That suggests it's a pretty early > Apollo and well before the 3000 or 4000 series. > > At least if they're 8" disks then the recording density is pretty low and so > there's a good chance they're intact. OTOH, I've never tried hooking up an 8" > drive to a modern machine (i.e. PC) and tried Imagedisk (for example) with it. I've used a Shugart 801R with Imagedisk, and it works very nicely. I laid out a small pcb to simplify the connections and could have more made up if there were any interest. Dave Dunfield was invaluable in helping me work thru issues getting single density to work properly. I ended up with an Adaptec ISA scsi adapter card for the floppy controller which works well (it's a 1522a). - Gary From rtellason at gmail.com Tue Jul 11 18:50:46 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:50:46 -0400 Subject: Monitor picture collapsing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607111950.46234.rtellason@gmail.com> On Tuesday 11 July 2006 06:54 pm, Tony Duell wrote: > The next thing I'd do is get the TDA1170 data sheet (it should be on the > web somewhere). How about here: http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/chipdata/tda1170.pdf :-) > Then suspect the electrolytics associated with the output stage. One of > them might well be shorting... Yes. <...> > > Seems strange to lose vertical completely though, surely? It's entirely > > My thought was a fault in the vertical section that (a) completely killed > the vertical deflections and (b) loaded the supply to the the vertical > section, (from the flyback transformer), enough to much up the horizontal > side too. > > Anothre thought was that the vertical fault caused a heavy current to > flow in the deflection coils -- heavy enough to saturate the core and > thus change the inductance of the horizontal coils enough to mess up the > operation of that side of things. But it's not that either -- if it was, > the beam would surely be deflected well off-screen, it wouldn't be in the > centre. What core? There isn't any core in deflection coils... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From kelly at catcorner.org Tue Jul 11 19:04:29 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:04:29 -0400 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E303610F@MEOW.catcorner.org> > I've used a Shugart 801R with Imagedisk, and it works very nicely. I > laid out a small pcb to simplify the connections and could have more > made up if there were any interest. I would be interested. My wiring of the adapters looks like a bird's nest, but not wuite as organized. I did by an fdadap, but I could use some more adapters. What do you do for DS/SS sensing? I ended up using a small toggle switch. I use Tandon 848 double sided drives with imagedisk. They work very well, you just have to keep the heads clean. > > Dave Dunfield was invaluable in helping me work thru issues getting > single density to work properly. I ended up with an Adaptec ISA scsi > adapter card for the floppy controller which works well (it's > a 1522a). I can't say enough good things about Mr. Dunfield nor ImageDisk. I have made images of Tandy 2000 QD 5.25" disks, Tandy mixed density 8" disks, and PC compatible disks. What ImageDisk can't handle I save for the catweasel. Kelly From rcini at optonline.net Tue Jul 11 19:20:25 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:20:25 -0400 Subject: Apple II Star Trek Message-ID: <004801c6a548$f8d58910$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: Does anyone have a copy of the Apple II Star Trek in the DSK format that they can point me to? I just installed Apple II Oasis and I'd like to play with it. Much obliged. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From cfandt at netsync.net Tue Jul 11 20:59:48 2006 From: cfandt at netsync.net (Christian R. Fandt) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:59:48 -0400 Subject: Fwd: [Hallicrafters] Way Off-Topic Request Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20060711215012.02e7eb78@mail.netsync.net> I'm passing this on to cctech for those who may be able to help the original poster from another list . . . Of course, reply directly to Rich, not me! Thanks, Chris F. >Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:25:49 -0700 >From: Rich Oliver >Organization: Lowell Observatory >To: hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net >Cc: Rich.Oliver at lowell.edu >Subject: [Hallicrafters] Way Off-Topic Request [Not on cctech! -CRF] >List-Id: Discussion of equipment manufactured by Hallicrafters > > > >Attention antique computer geeks: > >We have a legacy device here at Lowell Observatory called the >Solar-Stellar Spectrograph, built by NCAR to make direct measurements of >the Sun and Sun-like stars. We hope to keep it running for several more >years but a recent failure has it out of action. > >Can anybody help me locate a (dual) Q-Bus card made by ADAC? It is a type >"1620 TTL". A "1620 DMA" might also work. I have checked Google and ePay >with no luck. Any leads would be appreciated! > >Thanks, Rich > >______________________________________________________________ >Hallicrafters mailing list >Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/hallicrafters >Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html >Post: mailto:Hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net >---- >List Administrator: Duane Fischer, W8DBF **for assistance** >dfischer at usol.com >---- >Hallicrafters Collectors International: http://www.w9wze.org NNNN Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt at netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/ From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 11 23:42:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:42:42 -0700 Subject: 9 track 800 bpi tape conversion Message-ID: <200607112142420420.648C391C@10.0.0.252> Hey folks, Anyone down Arizona way want to do some 800 bpi 9 track tape conversion? I'm in over my head with another project and really can't take care of this customer in any sort of timely manner. I haven't quoted a rate to the customer, so no prices yet. If I haven't made it clear, this is a money-for-work job, not a freebie. Drop me a note off-line if you're interested and can handle this. Cheers, Chuck From sellam at vintagetech.com Wed Jul 12 03:13:13 2006 From: sellam at vintagetech.com (Sellam Ismail) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:13:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VCF Midwest 2.0 THIS SATURDAY Message-ID: Be there or be octagonal! ATTN CCTALK FOLKS: If you're interested in giving a talk at the VCF this weekend we could use a few interesting stories. Please inquire to either myself or Patrick Finnegan if you'd like to try your hand at public speaking :) ---------------------------------------------------- Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2.0 Saturday, July 17, 10am to 6pm Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ ---------------------------------------------------- The 2nd annual Vintage Computer Festival Midwest is happening THIS WEEKEND! Come and join us to celebrate the history of the machines, stories and people of the computer revolution. VCF Midwest 2.0 is a one-day event taking place on Saturday, July 17th, from 10:00am until 6:00pm at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. For more information on VCF Midwest 2.0 including admission, directions, etc., please visit the VCF Midwest 2.0 website: http://www.vintage.org/2006/east/ Best regards, Sellam Ismail Producer Vintage Computer Festival -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ] From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jul 12 16:15:46 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:15:46 -0400 Subject: VCF Midwest 2.0 THIS SATURDAY In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607121715.46115.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 12 July 2006 04:13, Sellam Ismail wrote: > Be there or be octagonal! > > ATTN CCTALK FOLKS: If you're interested in giving a talk at the VCF > this weekend we could use a few interesting stories. Please inquire > to either myself or Patrick Finnegan if you'd like to try your hand > at public speaking :) > > ---------------------------------------------------- > Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2.0 > Saturday, July 17, 10am to 6pm Just a note - that should read "Saturday, July 15th" > Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana > http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ > ---------------------------------------------------- > > The 2nd annual Vintage Computer Festival Midwest is happening THIS > WEEKEND! Come and join us to celebrate the history of the machines, > stories and people of the computer revolution. > > VCF Midwest 2.0 is a one-day event taking place on Saturday, July > 17th, from 10:00am until 6:00pm at Purdue University in West > Lafayette, Indiana. > > For more information on VCF Midwest 2.0 including admission, > directions, etc., please visit the VCF Midwest 2.0 website: > > http://www.vintage.org/2006/east/ And this should be http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Jul 12 16:25:57 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:25:57 -0600 Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: <004801c6a548$f8d58910$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <004801c6a548$f8d58910$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <44B568E5.7000301@Rikers.org> Richard A. Cini wrote: > Does anyone have a copy of the Apple II Star Trek in the DSK > format that they can point me to? I just installed Apple II Oasis and I'd > like to play with it. there are some trek listings in: http://www.umich.edu/~archive/apple2/ are any of those what you are after? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From glen.slick at gmail.com Wed Jul 12 16:47:18 2006 From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:47:18 -0700 Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: <44B568E5.7000301@Rikers.org> References: <004801c6a548$f8d58910$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> <44B568E5.7000301@Rikers.org> Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90607121447n33c1977djdaf2bb9018ef2a97@mail.gmail.com> On 7/12/06, Tim Riker wrote: > > there are some trek listings in: > > http://www.umich.edu/~archive/apple2/ > some others possibilities... ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/ action/star_trek.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek/startrek1.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek/startrek2.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek_kobayashi_alternative/startrekkobayashialt1.gz adventure/star_trek_kobayashi_alternative/startrekkobayashialt2.gz adventure/star_trek_promethean_prophecy/star_trek_promethean_prophecy_1.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek_promethean_prophecy/star_trek_promethean_prophecy_2.dsk.gz From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jul 12 17:38:04 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:38:04 -0500 Subject: The Internal HSD05-AA is working Message-ID: <14721272df4843f0b6b95ae3a599c000@valleyimplants.com> It's installed and working with a 4 GB Seagate ST34371 on custom clear drive sleds. I don't have a webserver, so the pictures can't go anywhere, but VMS is being installed as we type. Installing a HSD05-AA SBB into a VAX BA4xx series chassis. Parts needed: HSD05-AA SBB (you don't need the trilink or a micro-ribbon terminator) 50-pin internal SCSI cables (2) Power splitters/sheet stock (or real sleds for ISEs) 2x 50-pin M PCB mount pin headers 1x 50 pin M IDC pin header 1x Molex-type 4 position power connector 1x DIN-96 Eurocard-style connector I found most of these supplies in my junk box/parts boards. An oven heated to 375 makes a good if smelly large--scale component removal device. If you can find the DIN-96 (VME type) and one of the 50-pin pin headers in wire-wrap, that would likely make life much easier. To start with: pull apart the HSD05 SBB and remove the PCB. Pull off the white sticker between the 68-pin HD connector and the terminator packs/sockets. Underneath this will be drilled holes for a 50-pin pin header. The board legend indicates pin 1. Clear the holes and solder in one of your PCB pin headers in this position. You're done making modifications to the PCB assembly. Now take your DIN-96, Molex, and other board-mount pin header. This will interface between the DIN SCSI out from the HSD and the 50-pin cable that you will use to carry the SCSI signals in the chassis. If you have RZ-ISE (SCSI) sleds, you can be really slick and feed the SCSI signal into the SCSI traces on the backplane, but we won't do that here. Wire up the Molex first. The signals are as follows (Narrow SCSI-1) Pins 1,2,3 on A,B,C +12v Pins 4,5 on A,B,C +5v DIN SCSI Row A Row B Pin 6 2 Pin 7 4 pin 8 6 pin 9 8 pin 10 10 pin 11 12 pin 12 14 pin 13 16 pin 14 18 pin 15 GND pin 16 GND pin 17 GND pin 18 GND 25 pin 19 NC GND pin 20 GND GND pin 21 32 GND pin 22 NC GND pin 23 36 GND pin 24 38 GND pin 25 40 GND pin 26 42 GND pin 27 44 GND pin 28 46 GND pin 29 48 GND pin 30 50 GND pin 31 NC GND pin 32 GND GND Now how to connect it . . . take one of your SCSI cables and put the IDC pin header in towards the end. In the top part of the BA4(3,4)0 chassis there will be a 50-pin plug that the bulkhead DSSI-0 channel connects to (trace the wires out, there is also the SCSI-IN bulkhead connector in the same area). Unplug this cable, plug in your new cable in the slot. Plug the HSD05 somewhere in the middle (or end), and plug the bulkhead connector in to the new IDC 50pin M connector on the cable - presto, your existing termination works, external DSSI disks/clusters can be set up, and your HSD-served disks can be shared over DSSI should you get another VAX. Of course, if you had the cables to do that, you'd probably have your HSD in a StorageWorks Shelf, but the dream can still live. Plug your other SCSI cable into the adaptor board, and connect up your SCSI disks. "SHOW DSSI" in the VMB should pop them up as RF72s. I have verified this with a RZ21 4GB drive. Note for setup: the HSD05 manual doesn't specifically discuss what the "format" command is, but it is necessary to run it, unlike IRIX or Solaris where it is only used when absolutely necessary. From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jul 12 17:44:07 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:44:07 -0400 Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90607121447n33c1977djdaf2bb9018ef2a97@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002c01c6a604$afb43260$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Glen: I actually looked at these, and these are "real" games. What I'm after is the Star Trek from the Apple II manual (I should have been more specific). I found a BASIC listing but it seems that there was a machine language overlay at the end that did something (sounds I think) so I'm looking for a disk with the program on it. The BASIC listing did not have the corresponding machine language program. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Glen Slick Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 5:47 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Apple II Star Trek On 7/12/06, Tim Riker wrote: > > there are some trek listings in: > > http://www.umich.edu/~archive/apple2/ > some others possibilities... ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/ action/star_trek.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek/startrek1.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek/startrek2.dsk.gz adventure/star_trek_kobayashi_alternative/startrekkobayashialt1.gz adventure/star_trek_kobayashi_alternative/startrekkobayashialt2.gz adventure/star_trek_promethean_prophecy/star_trek_promethean_prophecy_1.dsk. gz adventure/star_trek_promethean_prophecy/star_trek_promethean_prophecy_2.dsk. gz From josefcub at gmail.com Wed Jul 12 17:51:58 2006 From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:51:58 -0500 Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: <002c01c6a604$afb43260$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> References: <1e1fc3e90607121447n33c1977djdaf2bb9018ef2a97@mail.gmail.com> <002c01c6a604$afb43260$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <9e2403920607121551v4d9e0f75l33fd8905dd66b8ce@mail.gmail.com> On 7/12/06, Richard A. Cini wrote: > Glen: > > I actually looked at these, and these are "real" games. What I'm > after is the Star Trek from the Apple II manual (I should have been more > specific). I found a BASIC listing but it seems that there was a machine > language overlay at the end that did something (sounds I think) so I'm > looking for a disk with the program on it. The BASIC listing did not have > the corresponding machine language program. > > Rich > > Rich Cini I bet what you're looking for is on the Apple DOS 3.2 System Master diskette. http://apple2history.org/history/ah14.html shows a CATALOG containing Apple Trek, and Asimov ought to have a copy. Otherwise: http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/apple2/images/masters/?fl= has a DOS 3.2 System Master image, according to a 'Web search. ...Josef From pete at dunnington.plus.com Wed Jul 12 18:29:05 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:29:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: "Richard A. Cini" "RE: Apple II Star Trek" (Jul 12, 18:44) References: <002c01c6a604$afb43260$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Message-ID: <10607130029.ZM861@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Jul 12 2006, 18:44, Richard A. Cini wrote: > Glen: > > I actually looked at these, and these are "real" games. What I'm > after is the Star Trek from the Apple II manual (I should have been more > specific). I found a BASIC listing but it seems that there was a machine > language overlay at the end that did something (sounds I think) so I'm > looking for a disk with the program on it. The BASIC listing did not have > the corresponding machine language program. That sounds like the 1978 Apple ][ INTEGER version, from W Sander. Bob Bishop's original 1976 "Apple Star-Trek" for INTEGER BASIC is better known, and there's also an Applesoft version. They're all on my web page: http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/startrek/ If that's what you're looking for, check out http://www.geocities.com/robertjamesbishop/softlist.html as well. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From rcini at optonline.net Wed Jul 12 19:14:11 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:14:11 -0400 Subject: Apple II Star Trek In-Reply-To: <9e2403920607121551v4d9e0f75l33fd8905dd66b8ce@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <002f01c6a611$44a4be60$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> I have Asimov mirrored here. There are indeed two DOS 3.2 disks in NIB format. I was running 3.3 and Apple-Trek isn't on it. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Josef Chessor Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 6:52 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Apple II Star Trek On 7/12/06, Richard A. Cini wrote: > Glen: > > I actually looked at these, and these are "real" games. What I'm > after is the Star Trek from the Apple II manual (I should have been more > specific). I found a BASIC listing but it seems that there was a machine > language overlay at the end that did something (sounds I think) so I'm > looking for a disk with the program on it. The BASIC listing did not have > the corresponding machine language program. > > Rich > > Rich Cini I bet what you're looking for is on the Apple DOS 3.2 System Master diskette. http://apple2history.org/history/ah14.html shows a CATALOG containing Apple Trek, and Asimov ought to have a copy. Otherwise: http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/apple2/images/masters/?fl= has a DOS 3.2 System Master image, according to a 'Web search. ...Josef From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jul 12 20:05:42 2006 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:05:42 -0400 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? References: <44B3A92C.3010300@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <000801c6a618$77b90d40$0100a8c0@screamer> I've got some older Apollo's, some still have 8-inch floppies. 3xxx machines could support 5 1/4 inch drives. I ~may~ have Aegis on 8-inch disks. I do have a running DN4500 with most of the SAU's for early Apollo hardware. This would let you boot diskless from my 4500, and then INVOL your drive. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 9:35 AM Subject: *early* Domain OS available? > > Quick check - does anyone have an earlier floppy-based release of Domain > OS for Apollo machines archived? > > We've been offered an Apollo, but no idea yet of which model - all the > details say is that it dates from when Apollo were independent (which > possibly still means it's something like a 3000, I suspect - weren't HP > not really involved until the 400 series?) > > Anyway, the machine has no OS, but it does have install floppies (that's > another thing; I thought Domain OS came on tape by the 3xxx machines - > floppies suggest it's much older). > > I'm willing to bet that the floppies aren't in the best of health by now > though, so figured I'd check if someone has floppy-based install media > archived anywhere before I chase this one up! (last thing we want is yet > another machine with no software to run on it :-) > > cheers > > Jules > > > From bshannon at tiac.net Wed Jul 12 20:16:37 2006 From: bshannon at tiac.net (Bob Shannon) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 21:16:37 -0400 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? References: <44B3C807.6000602@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <003401c6a61a$1d5ecb30$0100a8c0@screamer> Early Apollo's with 8-inch drives can run Aegis SR9.7.2. Again, I have a working DN4500 with the old SAU's for these machines. I also have a complete DN660 with spares, needs some work reseating boards to get it to boot properly. I'd like to unload all my Apollo hardware and documentation. Anyone interested? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jules Richardson" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 11:47 AM Subject: Re: *early* Domain OS available? > Al Kossow wrote: >>> The floppy drive appeared to be a standard PC style 5 1/4" drive. >> >> It would be a good thing to try Imagedisk on these to try to get the >> software archived. >> >> I've had pretty good luck with reading 5" floppies. 8" is another >> story... > > Hmm, good point - I had 'floppy-based' stuck in my head and completely > missed that the fax we've got says that they're 8". That suggests it's a > pretty early Apollo and well before the 3000 or 4000 series. > > At least if they're 8" disks then the recording density is pretty low and > so there's a good chance they're intact. OTOH, I've never tried hooking up > an 8" drive to a modern machine (i.e. PC) and tried Imagedisk (for > example) with it. > > cheers > > Jules > From bear at typewritten.org Wed Jul 12 20:28:52 2006 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:28:52 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: <003401c6a61a$1d5ecb30$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <44B3C807.6000602@yahoo.co.uk> <003401c6a61a$1d5ecb30$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <6060E05F-570B-46D5-9CCB-D5A47992D62A@typewritten.org> On Jul 12, 2006, at 6:16 PM, Bob Shannon wrote: > Early Apollo's with 8-inch drives can run Aegis SR9.7.2. > > Again, I have a working DN4500 with the old SAU's for these > machines. > > I also have a complete DN660 with spares, needs some work > reseating boards to get it to boot properly. > > I'd like to unload all my Apollo hardware and documentation. > > Anyone interested? Bob; I'm still interested, but I don't know how much (if at all) your situation regarding motor freight has changed since the last time we spoke. If nothing else I would be extremely interested in whether you still have Aegis on 8" floppies, as this would be singularly useful for my DN330. ok bear -- http://www.typewritten.org From bear at typewritten.org Wed Jul 12 20:28:52 2006 From: bear at typewritten.org (r.stricklin) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:28:52 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? In-Reply-To: <003401c6a61a$1d5ecb30$0100a8c0@screamer> References: <44B3C807.6000602@yahoo.co.uk> <003401c6a61a$1d5ecb30$0100a8c0@screamer> Message-ID: <6060E05F-570B-46D5-9CCB-D5A47992D62A@typewritten.org> On Jul 12, 2006, at 6:16 PM, Bob Shannon wrote: > Early Apollo's with 8-inch drives can run Aegis SR9.7.2. > > Again, I have a working DN4500 with the old SAU's for these > machines. > > I also have a complete DN660 with spares, needs some work > reseating boards to get it to boot properly. > > I'd like to unload all my Apollo hardware and documentation. > > Anyone interested? Bob; I'm still interested, but I don't know how much (if at all) your situation regarding motor freight has changed since the last time we spoke. If nothing else I would be extremely interested in whether you still have Aegis on 8" floppies, as this would be singularly useful for my DN330. ok bear -- http://www.typewritten.org From edwin_rhodes at hotmail.com Tue Jul 11 16:08:39 2006 From: edwin_rhodes at hotmail.com (Edwin Rhodes) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:08:39 +0000 Subject: looking for a vax Message-ID: hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? ed. Creation is only a sheer act of will. Edwin. From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jul 13 01:26:51 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:26:51 -0400 Subject: looking for a vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607130226.51414.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 11 July 2006 17:08, Edwin Rhodes wrote: > hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? > ed. Yes. Perhaps it would help to say where you are, what you're gonna use it for, what version of VMS, what you're willing to spend, etc. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From g-wright at att.net Thu Jul 13 01:54:53 2006 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:54:53 +0000 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? Message-ID: <071320060654.25961.44B5EE3C0004262E0000656921602807489B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "r.stricklin" > > On Jul 12, 2006, at 6:16 PM, Bob Shannon wrote: > > > Early Apollo's with 8-inch drives can run Aegis SR9.7.2. > > > > Again, I have a working DN4500 with the old SAU's for these > > machines. > > > > I also have a complete DN660 with spares, needs some work > > reseating boards to get it to boot properly. > > > > I'd like to unload all my Apollo hardware and documentation. > > > > Anyone interested? > > Bob; > > I'm still interested, but I don't know how much (if at all) your > situation regarding motor freight has changed since the last time we > spoke. If nothing else I would be extremely interested in whether you > still have Aegis on 8" floppies, as this would be singularly useful > for my DN330. > > ok > bear > > -- > http://www.typewritten.org If you can't come up with the 8" Aegis disks let me know I have them here. Just have to did them out and make copies. - jerry From Rinaldo.Eversdijk at stork.com Thu Jul 13 02:51:57 2006 From: Rinaldo.Eversdijk at stork.com (Rinaldo.Eversdijk at stork.com) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:51:57 +0200 Subject: looking for a vax Message-ID: <8396A6180D00874B9A19FD728529F06A35104E@nlhoo1-exc010.aerospace.intra> There are still a lot of 2nd hand VAX systems available, but depending on what you want to spend, it might be hard to get a good working one, because a lot of them are still used or spared for special programs. If you would be looking for any manual I could be able to make you a copy as we are working with VAX ALPHA-computers ourselves. We are running on VMS version 6.1 Do any of you know how to run/learn/program new ethernet addresses of other perhipherals into the ALPHA system? Also we have the following for sale; We have a lot of INTEL iRMX, Mulitbus II and iSBC manuals in which you might be interested. Currently they are all stored in 4 boxes with a total weight of around 100kg. So we have enough info of these topics Rgds Rinaldo -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Finnegan Sent: donderdag 13 juli 2006 8:27 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: looking for a vax On Tuesday 11 July 2006 17:08, Edwin Rhodes wrote: > hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? > ed. Yes. Perhaps it would help to say where you are, what you're gonna use it for, what version of VMS, what you're willing to spend, etc. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and any attachment(s) sent with it are intended exclusively for the addressee(s), and may not be used by, opened by, passed on to, or made available for use to, any person other than the addressee(s). Stork rules out any and all liabilities resulting from any electronic transmission. From rick at rickmurphy.net Thu Jul 13 05:26:18 2006 From: rick at rickmurphy.net (Rick Murphy) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:26:18 -0400 Subject: looking for a vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060713062431.02566828@rickmurphy.net> At 05:08 PM 7/11/2006, Edwin Rhodes wrote: >hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? >ed. > >Creation is only a sheer act of will. > >Edwin. I have a MicroVAX 3 (3600 CPU in a BA123 box) with some spare cards (memory, etc.). I'm in Northern VA near Washington DC. If you can pick it up, it's yours. -Rick From cheri-post at web.de Thu Jul 13 05:28:34 2006 From: cheri-post at web.de (Pierre Gebhardt) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:28:34 +0200 Subject: The Internal HSD05-AA is working Message-ID: <1367038111@web.de> Great work !! I own a HSD10, but never got these stupid external DSSI cables. When I opened the shelf once, I thought that such a work could be possible, but I never got into it. But now, I'll try that out with the help of your guide below. The HSD10 is very similar to the HSD05 in terms of the PCB. Regards, Pierre > > It's installed and working with a 4 GB Seagate ST34371 on custom clear drive sleds. > I don't have a webserver, so the pictures can't go anywhere, but VMS is being installed as we type. > > Installing a HSD05-AA SBB into a VAX BA4xx series chassis. > > Parts needed: HSD05-AA SBB (you don't need the trilink or a micro-ribbon terminator) > 50-pin internal SCSI cables (2) > Power splitters/sheet stock (or real sleds for ISEs) > 2x 50-pin M PCB mount pin headers > 1x 50 pin M IDC pin header > 1x Molex-type 4 position power connector > 1x DIN-96 Eurocard-style connector > I found most of these supplies in my junk box/parts boards. An oven heated to 375 makes a good if smelly large--scale component removal device. > > If you can find the DIN-96 (VME type) and one of the 50-pin pin headers > in wire-wrap, that would likely make life much easier. > > To start with: pull apart the HSD05 SBB and remove the PCB. Pull off the white sticker between the 68-pin HD connector and the terminator > packs/sockets. Underneath this will be drilled holes for a 50-pin pin header. The board legend indicates pin 1. Clear the holes and solder in one > of your PCB pin headers in this position. You're done making modifications to the PCB assembly. > > Now take your DIN-96, Molex, and other board-mount pin header. This will interface between the DIN SCSI out from the HSD and the 50-pin cable > that you will use to carry the SCSI signals in the chassis. If you have RZ-ISE (SCSI) sleds, you can be really slick and feed the SCSI signal into > the SCSI traces on the backplane, but we won't do that here. > > Wire up the Molex first. The signals are as follows (Narrow SCSI-1) > > Pins 1,2,3 on A,B,C +12v > Pins 4,5 on A,B,C +5v > > DIN SCSI > > Row A Row B > > Pin 6 2 > Pin 7 4 > pin 8 6 > pin 9 8 > pin 10 10 > pin 11 12 > pin 12 14 > pin 13 16 > pin 14 18 > pin 15 GND > pin 16 GND > pin 17 GND > pin 18 GND 25 > pin 19 NC GND > pin 20 GND GND > pin 21 32 GND > pin 22 NC GND > pin 23 36 GND > pin 24 38 GND > pin 25 40 GND > pin 26 42 GND > pin 27 44 GND > pin 28 46 GND > pin 29 48 GND > pin 30 50 GND > pin 31 NC GND > pin 32 GND GND > > Now how to connect it . . . take one of your SCSI cables and put the IDC pin header in towards the end. In the top part of the BA4(3,4)0 chassis there will be a 50-pin > plug that the bulkhead DSSI-0 channel connects to (trace the wires out, there is also the SCSI-IN bulkhead connector in the same area). Unplug this cable, plug in > your new cable in the slot. > Plug the HSD05 somewhere in the middle (or end), and plug the bulkhead connector in to the new IDC 50pin M connector on the cable - presto, your existing > termination works, external DSSI disks/clusters can be set up, and your HSD-served disks can be shared over DSSI should you get another VAX. Of course, > if you had the cables to do that, you'd probably have your HSD in a StorageWorks Shelf, but the dream can still live. > > Plug your other SCSI cable into the adaptor board, and connect up your SCSI disks. "SHOW DSSI" in the VMB should pop them up as RF72s. > I have verified this with a RZ21 4GB drive. > Note for setup: the HSD05 manual doesn't specifically discuss what the "format" command is, but it is necessary to run it, unlike > IRIX or Solaris where it is only used when absolutely necessary. > > > ______________________________________________________________ Verschicken Sie romantische, coole und witzige Bilder per SMS! Jetzt bei WEB.DE FreeMail: http://f.web.de/?mc=021193 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 13 07:24:25 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:24:25 +0000 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? Message-ID: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> Just in case there are any! I picked up our first blue-faced PET 2001 last night (we've got a couple of the black-faced ones already), but it's cosmetically in a bit of a state after living in someone's garage for years. I know almost nothing about these machines - are there any particular gotchas about restoring them (like, "don't touch this bit as all the paint will fall off") other than the usual stuff that applies to bringing up a new toy for the first time? The logic board *looks* healthy enough - it seems to have escaped the corrosion that's got bits of the case. Isn't there a particular chip (or several) that's prone to dying in PETs though? Remains to be seen if it'll power up. What's software availability like? Any archives of tape data on the 'net anywhere? (Diags would be great, games would be fun later on :-) cheers Jules -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From browe58 at comcast.net Thu Jul 13 08:14:27 2006 From: browe58 at comcast.net (Bill Rowe) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 09:14:27 -0400 Subject: (3) IBM StorageTek (STK) Silos available Message-ID: <002e01c6a67e$45020c10$6500a8c0@SYMANTECA2E27F> My client has (3) IBM StorageTek (STK) Silos available for sale in Ohio. Anyone interested? Thanx. Bill 603-512-7826 From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 13 11:31:10 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:31:10 +0000 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B6754E.8010105@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > The logic board *looks* healthy enough - it seems to have escaped the > corrosion that's got bits of the case. Right, the machine seems (surprise!) rather dead. I've got 5.05V on three of the regulators, but 'only' 4.95V on the second-from-front one; I'm presuming that's not a problem, though (are these things wired in parallel, or do they feed individual bits of circuitry? I dragged the schematics off the 'net, but they don't make the power distribution clear) What's the LED for? It's not lit on this machine when power's applied - is it supposed to be, or does it signal some other activity and spends most of its time unlit? The RAM chips seem to be running at a level best described as "fairly warm". Not too hot to touch or anything, but they're still putting out a fair bit of heat - but then given the age/technology maybe that's normal? (certainly there don't seem to be any that are running any hotter than the rest) I'll put a 'scope on the video lines in a mo and see if it looks like it's even generating plausible video signals... cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 13 11:32:05 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:32:05 +0000 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B67585.6020201@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > Re: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? ^^^ and that's what happens when I'm in a rush ;) From kelly at catcorner.org Thu Jul 13 10:42:44 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 11:42:44 -0400 Subject: Sparcstation LX available in New Jersey Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3747A@MEOW.catcorner.org> Main unit (64 MB RAM, 2GB HD), external CD Drive. Would need a monitor, mouse, keyboard, scsi cable and CD caddy. Free if you pick it up in Northern New Jersey. I have the video adapter (3W13 to HD 15), but that would cost $15. Located in Wantage, NJ Close to the PA and NY border. Kelly From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 13 12:18:30 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:18:30 -0700 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <001701c6a6a0$5e5a6b40$6501a8c0@GIZMO> Does anybody have any documentation for the HP Nighthawk 20mb drive? It's got a custom 40 pin interface that's neither IDE, SCSI nor ST506. Even a pin out would be helpful, and a manual would be wonderful! Thanks, Bob Armstrong From kelly at catcorner.org Thu Jul 13 13:44:58 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:44:58 -0400 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3747B@MEOW.catcorner.org> > Does anybody have any documentation for the HP Nighthawk 20mb drive? Do you mean the "kittyhawk"? It was a mini IDE, similar to today's 2.5" laptop HD. If you mean something else, ignore the reset of this message. > It'sgot a custom 40 pin interface that's neither IDE, SCSI nor ST506. Even a > pin out would be helpful, and a manual would be wonderful! If it was a mini 40 pin, then it is PROBABLY IDE. See: http://www.homebrewcpu.com/hp_kittyhawk_1_3_microdrive.htm for reference I quote: The Kittyhawk can be used via a 2.5" IDE cable adapter (commonly used to adapt notebook hard drives to desktop systems). There is a significant warning, though. You MUST NOT plug the drive in backwards. Modern drives can typically survive being put in backwards. The Kittyhawk, though, will not. If you plug it in backwards, it will be destroyed. Not the warning too. Don't plug it in wrong! From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jul 13 14:06:42 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:06:42 -0400 Subject: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday Message-ID: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> As it happens, we now have a speaker for VCF/Midwest. Jack Rubin is going to talk about his 50 years of computing experience in a talk titled "Still an enduser after all these years." So please join us for that this Saturday, at 12pm. Maps, directions, etc. are available from the website at: http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ Note that the times listed there are wrong; the event will start at 12pm with Jack's talk, and the exhibits and marketplace will be open from 1pm until 6pm. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 13 14:21:52 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:21:52 -0700 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <000001c6a6b1$9bb15470$6501a8c0@GIZMO> >Do you mean the "kittyhawk"? No, Nighthawk. It's a 20 year old, 3-1/2" half height form factor hard disk, most commonly found in the HP 9153c. It's big enough, in cubic inches, for 100 Kittyhawk drives. Bob From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jul 13 14:49:20 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:49:20 -0400 Subject: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Thursday 13 July 2006 15:06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > As it happens, we now have a speaker for VCF/Midwest. Jack Rubin is > going to talk about his 50 years of computing experience in a talk > titled "Still an enduser after all these years." > > So please join us for that this Saturday, at 12pm. Maps, directions, > etc. are available from the website at: > http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ > > Note that the times listed there are wrong; the event will start at > 12pm with Jack's talk, and the exhibits and marketplace will be open > from 1pm until 6pm. Just to add -- it will be held in Purdue's Stewart Center building, exhibits in room 218, and the speaker will be in room 202. Just follow the signs once you get to the building. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From kelly at catcorner.org Thu Jul 13 15:24:51 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:24:51 -0400 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3747C@MEOW.catcorner.org> > No, Nighthawk. It's a 20 year old, 3-1/2" half height form factor hard > disk, most commonly found in the HP 9153c. It's big enough, in cubic > inches, for 100 Kittyhawk drives. I'm glad you ignored the rest of what I had to say then. Is there a part number on the drive? I'm finding a lot of conflicting information about the internal workings of the 9153C. I have found several references to the 9133 being MFM (ST-412), but that is NOT the 9153. How about a "long" part number on either unit? (4numbers - 4 or 5 numbers)? Kelly From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 13 16:28:31 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:28:31 -0700 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <000001c6a6c3$4cecf8f0$0401010a@GIZMO> >I'm glad you ignored the rest of what I had to say then. Is there a part number on the drive? > I'm finding a lot of conflicting information about the internal workings of the 9153C. > I have found several references to the 9133 being MFM (ST-412), but that is NOT the > 9153. How about a "long" part number on either unit? (4numbers - 4 or 5 numbers)? Try 97500-85620. Actually I think there were a couple of different versions, and I'm not really familiar with HP nomenclature. FWIW, HP also sold this drive in some early PCs, for which is used a custom HP controller card. Thanks - I appreciate the help! Bob From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jul 13 17:11:44 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 17:11:44 -0500 Subject: Things I will take to VCF midwest if wanted Message-ID: <000901c6a6c9$53bf2170$6500a8c0@BILLING> Qume QVT100 terminal - no powerup - mint cosmetics Hazeltime 1420 terminal - no powerup - mint cosmetics Xerox Star? 8" floppy drive enclosure (may be HD too), Xerox keyboard IBM Netfinity dual proc server M20 (one proc installed, bad SCSI HD) IBM Netfinity 3000 single proc server (it's like a P3/350 or so) I don't have any time to research anything about the above pieces. Just tell me if you want it by 11pm tonight. If you want it, I'll put it in the car, and when I get to VCFmw it's yours. You must take it, no room on return trip :) Jay West From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 13 17:42:01 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:42:01 +0100 (BST) Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 13, 6 12:24:25 pm Message-ID: > > > Just in case there are any! > > I picked up our first blue-faced PET 2001 last night (we've got a couple of > the black-faced ones already), but it's cosmetically in a bit of a state after > living in someone's garage for years. > > I know almost nothing about these machines - are there any particular gotchas > about restoring them (like, "don't touch this bit as all the paint will fall There are 2 silly failure points on old PETs. One is the IC sockets, which were of pretty poor quality (I replace them with turned-pin on any machine I intend to run). The second is the power connector to the mainboard. It links to the trandformer and the smoothing caps mounted separately in the case, and is somewhat under-rated. It goes high-resistance and overheats (the white plastic housing turns brown). You want to check and maybe replace this > What's software availability like? Any archives of tape data on the 'net > anywhere? (Diags would be great, games would be fun later on :-) If you have the first release of the ROMS (BASIC 1?) then there's diagnostics in the ROM. It was replaced by a machine code monitor in later versions. But you need a couple of test connectors (one goes in the user port, the other in place of the keyboard cable) to use them. A friend of mine has them (and a BASIC 1 PET), I can try to ask for details. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 13 17:48:24 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:48:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive In-Reply-To: <001701c6a6a0$5e5a6b40$6501a8c0@GIZMO> from "Robert Armstrong" at Jul 13, 6 10:18:30 am Message-ID: > > =20 > Does anybody have any documentation for the HP Nighthawk 20mb drive? = > It's > got a custom 40 pin interface that's neither IDE, SCSI nor ST506. Even = > a > pin out would be helpful, and a manual would be wonderful! Is this the drive that's used in the 9153, 9154 and some Vectras? If so, then read on :-) The interface seems to be a bit strange. There are raw data lines (like ST506) for the actual disk data, and an 8-bit bidirectional data bus for control. There are also cryptically-named control lines which refer to an ADC and DAC (!). There were service manuals for the drive and/or the 9153 on hpmuseum.net, but I don't think they've been restored after the crash yet. They were, alas, boardswapper guides with no real information, apart from the fact that one of them contained a pinout, which I extracted and reproduce below. It's a start anyway. 1 Rd Data 2 Gnd 3 Wr Data 4 Gnd 5 Wr Gate 6 Gnd 7 4MHz Clk 8 Gnd 9 Rd A-D converter 10 Gnd 11 +5V 12 Gnd 13 +5V 14 Gnd 15 +12V (Motor) 16 Gnd (Motor) 17 +12V (Motor) 18 Gnd (Motor) 19 Dr Sel 0 20 Dr Sel 1 21 Dr Sel 2 22 Dr Sel 3 23 Wr D-A Converter 24 NA/B 25 Sector Pulse 26 Index Pulse 27 Wr NIC Chip 28 Reset 29 +12V (Motor) 30 +12V (Motor) 31 Fault 32 +12V 33 Data Bus 7 34 Data Bus 0 35 Data Bus 6 36 Data Bus 1 37 Data Bus 5 38 Data Bus 2 39 Data Bus 4 40 Data Bus 3 -tony From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 13 19:28:23 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:28:23 +0000 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> Tony Duell wrote: > There are 2 silly failure points on old PETs. One is the IC sockets, > which were of pretty poor quality (I replace them with turned-pin on any > machine I intend to run). The second is the power connector to the > mainboard. It links to the trandformer and the smoothing caps mounted > separately in the case, and is somewhat under-rated. It goes > high-resistance and overheats (the white plastic housing turns brown). > You want to check and maybe replace this Well I'm sort-of getting somewhere. The video signals looked happy on a 'scope, so it at least looked like it was generating *something* and so at least some basic functions were working. I pulled the display (monitor) board and was going to test that next (the schematics on the web are handy as they show the expected waveforms at various points within the display circuitry). Powered up with it supported out the back of the shell so that I could get at it, and the display sprang into life! So there's a bad joint or other connection in there somewhere, which hopefully won't be too hard to trace. The actual display's garbage, though. Perfectly readable characters - just completely random ones and filling the display. The actual characters change slightly with each power cycle, although most seem fixed. The display doesn't change with keyboard input (in other words, it seems the machine's completely hung, rather than it just being a fault in the circuitry that interfaces with screen RAM). Anyone have thoughts on that one - maybe it's a common fault with PETs? I'll have to check what the RAM organisation is on these machines - if it's x4 or x8 then I can play around with switching RAM chips around to see if it's a dead RAM chip causing the fault (if they're x1's then obviously that's not going to help me much :-) I'll check out the reset circuitry too, just in case it's that which is causing trouble... > If you have the first release of the ROMS (BASIC 1?) Hmmm, *probably*. I'll have to nose around the web for part numbers. It's certainly the original PCB issue (as in p/n 320008), but that's perhaps no guarantee that the ROMs are also first release. cheers Jules ps. corrected the subject line as it was driving me nuts :-) -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Thu Jul 13 18:51:49 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:51:49 -0700 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B6DC95.2080705@msm.umr.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > > The actual display's garbage, though. Perfectly readable characters - > just > completely random ones and filling the display. The actual characters > change > slightly with each power cycle, although most seem fixed. sounds like the processor is dead, but the video generation circuits may be alive. When you reset one, the screen is scrubbed by the firmware to blank or black, and as you mentioned this probably means the cpu is not getting to the right place, since you see the power on gibberish. Hopefully tony's other suggestion about the sockets, if you have one with such might produce joy. jim From jcwren at jcwren.com Thu Jul 13 21:02:58 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:02:58 -0400 Subject: Cromemco Dazzler board set + docs available Message-ID: <44B6FB52.5040402@jcwren.com> I'm starting the process of clearing out my basement. Right now, an item of interest to some may be a Cromemco Dazzler board set I have on eBay, auction 220006408118. Also available is a Digital Research CP/M Gold Card for the Apple II and IIe (220006405859), NIB. --jc From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 13 21:20:34 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:20:34 -0700 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <000a01c6a6ec$19914000$0401010a@GIZMO> >drive and/or the 9153 on hpmuseum.net, Bingo, that's the one. I have the 9153C, which is one of these funky drives inside an enclosure with a GPIB interface. It looks like at least some of the documentation has been restored to hpmuseum.net. To make the story short, my drive is dead and replacement drives seem to go for absolutely amazing amounts of money, so I was toying with the idea of hacking up some kind of replacement for it. The next question is, what's the "SS/80 Command Set" ? Thanks, Bob From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 13 21:33:18 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:33:18 -0700 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <000001c6a6ed$e12f47f0$0401010a@GIZMO> > The next question is, what's the "SS/80 Command Set" ? Sorry, I misunderstood. It looks like SS/80 is the HPIB command set used by the 9153, and not the actual interface to the drive itself. The only document which seems to talk about the actual drive is this one http://www.hpmuseum.net/document.php?hwfile=2723 And sadly it's a bit light on any details. ob From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 13 22:14:03 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:14:03 -0700 Subject: Fans in VAXstation 4000/vlc Message-ID: Does anyone have any experience in replacing the fans in a VAXstation 4000/vlc? I think the bearings in my system are going out. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jul 13 22:46:16 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 23:46:16 -0400 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> Good news about VCF - see below. On Thursday 13 July 2006 15:49, you wrote: > On Thursday 13 July 2006 15:06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > As it happens, we now have a speaker for VCF/Midwest. Jack Rubin is > > going to talk about his 50 years of computing experience in a talk > > titled "Still an enduser after all these years." > > > > So please join us for that this Saturday, at 12pm. Maps, directions, We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George Goble speaking about the history of computing at Purdue's Engineering schools, followed by Jack Rubin at 12pm. Both talks will be in Purdue's Stewart Center, room 202, followed by exhibits opening at 1pm in room 218. > > etc. are available from the website at: > > http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ > > > > Note that the times listed there are wrong; the event will start at > > 12pm with Jack's talk, and the exhibits and marketplace will be open > > from 1pm until 6pm. > > Just to add -- it will be held in Purdue's Stewart Center building, > exhibits in room 218, and the speaker will be in room 202. Just follow > the signs once you get to the building. > > Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jul 13 23:21:15 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:21:15 +1200 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B6754E.8010105@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> <44B6754E.8010105@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > What's the LED for? It's not lit on this machine when power's applied - is it > supposed to be, or does it signal some other activity and spends most of its > time unlit? It's a diagnostic LED. Older ROMs have a built-in diagnostic that you invoke by grounding a particular pin on the user port. The diagnostic will fail unless certain user port pins are wired together and certain keyboard pins are wired together (back in the day, C= technicians had a blue folder with instructions and a couple of dongles to attach. I have a set at home, but won't be able to access them for 6 months). > The RAM chips seem to be running at a level best described as "fairly warm". > Not too hot to touch or anything, but they're still putting out a fair bit of > heat - but then given the age/technology maybe that's normal? (certainly there > don't seem to be any that are running any hotter than the rest) Throw a scope on the /CS pin of zero page - when the machine is running, you should see some activity. > I'll put a 'scope on the video lines in a mo and see if it looks like it's > even generating plausible video signals... Perfect. One possibility, of course, is that the mobo is fine and the video is dark. The largest point of failure for old PET is crappy sockets. There's no single IC (unlike the PLA in an C-64) that one automatically gravitates to on a PET. The video is discrete TTL, so there's no video chip (6545) to replace... as long as the CPU can see ROM and see RAM, even a lack of I/O shouldn't prevent it from getting as far as clearing video memory and putting up the normal banner. You won't have keyboard, tape, IEEE-488 or the user port without the 6520s and 6522s, but at the very least, you should see garbage characters on the screen if the video circuit and the monitor are functional. -ethan From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 13 23:29:31 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:29:31 -0700 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607132129310829.6ECCD96B@10.0.0.252> On 7/13/2006 at 11:46 PM Patrick Finnegan wrote: >We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George >Goble speaking about the history of computing at Purdue's Engineering >schools, followed by Jack Rubin at 12pm. Both talks will be in Purdue's >Stewart Center, room 202, followed by exhibits opening at 1pm in room 218. Isn't George the one who did the "how to light a barbeque really, really fast" stunt? Purdue is/was odd that there are two Computer disciplines--that administered by the EE department and the one handled by the Math department (maybe not today; I haven't kept track) The EE folks used to give computer architecture classes to the mathematics urchins. It was a very strange department 40 years ago--there were profs who taught computer classes who had never been to the basement of the math building, nor ever written a program. I remember Saul Rosen lugging one of those big Monroe mechanical calculators to the first meeting of Numerical Methods class Peter and Dorothy Denning taught bonehead FORTRAN back then. Some math faculty were absolutely hostile to the computer folks--I suspect they thought that the pure science was being polluted by a bunch of machinery. Maybe they were right--but I'd hate to have to derive the 4 color map problem solution manually. Cheers, Chuck . From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jul 13 23:37:23 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:37:23 +1200 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Well I'm sort-of getting somewhere. The video signals looked happy on a > 'scope, so it at least looked like it was generating *something* and so at > least some basic functions were working. Good. > I pulled the display (monitor) board... and the display sprang into life! Handy. > The actual display's garbage, though. Perfectly readable characters - just > completely random ones and filling the display. The actual characters change > slightly with each power cycle, although most seem fixed. Typical of a machine that has good video but something is wrong between the CPU, RAM and ROM. > The display doesn't change with keyboard input (in other words, it seems the > machine's completely hung, rather than it just being a fault in the circuitry > that interfaces with screen RAM). Anyone have thoughts on that one - maybe > it's a common fault with PETs? It's a common _symptom_ of a hung PET, but there are multiple causes. If the CPU can't access ROM or a ROM is dead (I've had that happen once) or zero page is bad or inaccessible, you'll get a screen of random memory garbage. When things are working normally, the startup code of the PET checks the diagnostic pin, then moves on to clear screen memory, test memory from $0400 to wherever, then uses that quantity to generate the banner. Normally, if you have garbage on the screen, it's either because zero page and/or page 1 (stack) are "bad" or because the ROMs above $E000 are "bad". Bad memory above $400 will show up in the banner with a lower-than-expected amount of BASIC memory. > I'll have to check what the RAM organisation is on these machines - if it's x4 > or x8 then I can play around with switching RAM chips around to see if it's a > dead RAM chip causing the fault (if they're x1's then obviously that's not > going to help me much :-) There were two kinds of static PETs - early ones with 256x4 memory (5101s?) and later ones with 2114s. The 2114s were only in use for a short time, and are somewhat rare. Later PETs moved to 4Kx1 DRAMs (also rare) or 16Kx1 4116s (common in the 16K and 32K PET era). I don't think anyone made any x8 SRAMs in 1978 (when did the 2016 come out?) The recommended procedure when suspecting bad SRAM chips is to swap the top set for the bottom set. If either RAM at zero page is bad, the fault will move to the top of memory and you'll get something less than the usual amount of free BASIC RAM, but that's the only consequence. All PETs dynamically size RAM at power-on and can handle pretty much anything as long as they can write a zero byte at $0400 (start of BASIC storage). If you have bad _sockets_, though, just the act of moving chips around and flexing the board will have an effect. > I'll check out the reset circuitry too, just in case it's that which is > causing trouble... > Hmmm, *probably*. I'll have to nose around the web for part numbers. It's > certainly the original PCB issue (as in p/n 320008), but that's perhaps no > guarantee that the ROMs are also first release. Depending on the history of the machine, it _might_ have had a ROM upgrade. One was available (several bugs were fixed), but unless the owner also bought an early 2040 disk drive, it's unlikely that they paid for a ROM upgrade (the most severe bug affected IEEE-488 operations). Even back in the day when I used to go to PET user group meetings, I don't think folks upgraded an 8K PET with new ROMs - they put their money into a newer PET, since by then, software was coming out that needed 16K-32K of RAM (Scott Adams' "Adventureland" and "Pirate's Adventure", for example, needed 24K on a PET; word processors were also thirsty, even if you got the 4K utility ROM) -ethan From pat at computer-refuge.org Thu Jul 13 23:54:03 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:54:03 -0400 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607132129310829.6ECCD96B@10.0.0.252> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132129310829.6ECCD96B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607140054.03937.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 14 July 2006 00:29, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/13/2006 at 11:46 PM Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George > >Goble speaking about the history of computing at Purdue's Engineering > >schools, followed by Jack Rubin at 12pm. Both talks will be in Purdue's > >Stewart Center, room 202, followed by exhibits opening at 1pm in room 218. > > Isn't George the one who did the "how to light a barbeque really, really > fast" stunt? Yes. the same. Unfortunately, I don't think I can swing a demo of that at the event. :) At some point, he got yelled at by the fire department for doing that demo, because it sounded like a bomb had gone off on campus.. > Purdue is/was odd that there are two Computer disciplines--that > administered by the EE department and the one handled by the Math > department (maybe not today; I haven't kept track) The EE folks used to > give computer architecture classes to the mathematics urchins. It's still the case, except that it's the Science department (well, Computer Science now). CS and Computer Engineering. And there's also Computer Technology for those who seek a future writing code in Visual Basic.... > Some math faculty were absolutely hostile to the computer folks--I suspect > they thought that the pure science was being polluted by a bunch of > machinery. Maybe they were right--but I'd hate to have to derive the 4 > color map problem solution manually. The CS program is it's own thing, rather than being run by the Math department anymore. So, I hear that it's not really like that anymore, from the experience of my friends that have gone through the CS program. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 00:04:30 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:04:30 +1200 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3747B@MEOW.catcorner.org> References: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3747B@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > Does anybody have any documentation for the HP Nighthawk 20mb drive? > Do you mean the "kittyhawk"? It was a mini IDE, similar to today's 2.5" laptop HD. > If you mean something else, ignore the reset of this message. Bob's already covered the fact that it's a Nighthawk not a Kittyhawk, but in any case, I wanted to point out that 2.5" IDE drives have a *44* pin connector, not 40. It needs a place for power since unlike 3.5" and larger drives, there is no 4-pin Molex power connector. I have a Kittyhawk (it's on an IDE-64 on my C-64)... it is definitely a 44-pin device. -ethan From uban at ubanproductions.com Fri Jul 14 00:18:58 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:18:58 -0500 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714001551.02492e30@mail.ubanproductions.com> I have a friend who is cleaning out his basement and has some boards which have a number of 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX parts on them. I'm not familiar with the 72 and 73, but I'm guessing they are unobtainium at this point. If someone is interested in these, they are available for the cost of shipping... --tom From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 00:24:54 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:24:54 -0400 Subject: Fans in VAXstation 4000/vlc In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607140124.54258.rtellason@gmail.com> On Thursday 13 July 2006 11:14 pm, Zane H. Healy wrote: > Does anyone have any experience in replacing the fans in a VAXstation > 4000/vlc? I think the bearings in my system are going out. No experience with those in particular, but I've had pretty good luck with taking old and noisy fans and applying just a drop of light oil (like sewing machine oil or similar) to the bearings. Sometimes they're not apparently accessible but are covered by a paper sticker or even that plus a little plastic cap that a sharp knife can help pry out. The CPU fan on my server was getting pretty noisy a while back, and I noticed its rotation was also getting pretty erratic at times, sometimes even stopping completely, and I managed to give it that treatment and it's been fine ever since, 24/7. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 00:29:06 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 01:29:06 -0400 Subject: what are these chips? Message-ID: <200607140129.06923.rtellason@gmail.com> Got a bunch of these parts, marked "8041016A" and with a Tandy logo (?), one site listed them as DRAM, but does anybody know what they are? 16kx1, 4kx1? Something else? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jul 14 00:35:44 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:35:44 -0700 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607140054.03937.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132129310829.6ECCD96B@10.0.0.252> <200607140054.03937.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44B72D30.7060502@msm.umr.edu> Patrick Finnegan wrote: >On Friday 14 July 2006 00:29, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > >>On 7/13/2006 at 11:46 PM Patrick Finnegan wrote: >> >> >>>We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George >>>Goble speaking about the history of computing >>> >>> >>Isn't George the one who did the "how to light a barbeque really, really >>fast" stunt? >> >> Also of R-12 refrigerent replacement fame. I'd love to hear his talk. Not to say I would miss Jack Rubin's talk, but I emailed George about some things years ago, and fondly remember the wonderful BBQ caper. Patrick, aren't you still sharing a house with an S/390? I think there must be something going on there with the water or something. Definitely have to keep an eye on the chef's anyway. I hope you all have an excellent time. Wish I had moved to KCMO as is my plans for the future and could attend. Jim From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 02:40:18 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:40:18 +1200 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? Message-ID: I have a small (5"?) panel-mount CRT here I'm trying to fire up. The label on the top suggests that it's made by Nanao and is a model MG-550CDM. Google turned up a hit or two, but no real information. The PCB has a 10-pin single-sided edge-connector, visually similar to the style Commodore used on PETs and C-64s. There are two connectors on the back of the chassis - an RCA, clearly NTSC video in, and a 2x3 molex connector, obviously power and perhaps some additional control. This came out of some piece of radio comms gear, if that helps place its context. >From what I can tell from cursory inspection, pins 1 and 10 are ground, 5 and 9 appear to be no connect, 8 is NTSC in, 7 seems to be AC in (can't identify AC return...), and 2, 3, 4, and 6 disappear into the bowels of the circuitry. If I'm lucky, there is some sort of industry convention in play here. Does this arrangement ring any bells with anyone? Thanks, -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 02:58:56 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 19:58:56 +1200 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Ethan Dicks wrote: > I have a small (5"?) panel-mount CRT here I'm trying to fire up. The > label on the top suggests that it's made by Nanao and is a model > MG-550CDM. Google turned up a hit or two, but no real information. Ah! Found a reference... an Italian eBay auction (#5870973095) says that the MG-550CDM is amber monitor in an Icom IC-781 and IC-R9000. > The PCB has a 10-pin single-sided edge-connector... two connectors > on the back of the chassis - an RCA, clearly NTSC video in, and a 2x3 > molex connector, obviously power and perhaps some additional control. > This came out of some piece of radio comms gear, if that helps place > its context. Icom gear, I now know. > From what I can tell from cursory inspection, pins 1 and 10 are > ground, 5 and 9 appear to be no connect, 8 is NTSC in, 7 seems to be > AC in (can't identify AC return...), and 2, 3, 4, and 6 disappear into > the bowels of the circuitry. So... does anyone have schematics or perhaps a block diagram/wiring harness pinout for either an Icom IC-781 or IC-R9000? I'm also interested in locating a spare CRT - as you can imagine, leaving a radio display on 24/7 for years and years is going to produce a bit of burn-in. Thanks for any tips. -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 03:03:23 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 20:03:23 +1200 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Good news about VCF - see below. > We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George > Goble speaking about the history of computing at Purdue's Engineering > schools, followed by Jack Rubin at 12pm. Wow... sorry I can't be there... I'd love to hear about Purdue's self-built dual-processor VAX (another one of George's fun projects). -ethan From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Fri Jul 14 05:00:49 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:00:49 +0100 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44B76B51.2030503@dsl.pipex.com> Ethan Dicks wrote: > So... does anyone have schematics or perhaps a block diagram/wiring > harness pinout for either an Icom IC-781 or IC-R9000? I'm also > interested in locating a spare CRT - as you can imagine, leaving a > radio display on 24/7 for years and years is going to produce a bit of > burn-in. Google is your friend -- http://www.qsl.net/icom/download/ic781/ic781.zip Linked from: http://www.qsl.net/icom/manuals.html Search terms: IC-781 service manual -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Jul 14 06:57:16 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:57:16 -0500 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B63B79.2010900@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> > I know almost nothing about these machines - are there any particular gotchas > about restoring them (like, "don't touch this bit as all the paint will fall > off") other than the usual stuff that applies to bringing up a new toy for the > first time? > > The logic board *looks* healthy enough - it seems to have escaped the > corrosion that's got bits of the case. Isn't there a particular chip (or > several) that's prone to dying in PETs though? Remains to be seen if it'll > power up. I've repaired a number of PETs in recent years, including a couple of the original 2001 machines like this. Physical failures are common in the PET - look for corroded sockets, video, power connectors etc. Be careful with the wires to the keyboard, as these break easily (although this would not result in the dead-system that you are observing). The most common chip failures I enountered were RAMs (several) and ROMs (two cases). If you check my site, you can see the interior shot of one of my 2001s where I had to build a little daughter board to adapt a 2716 EPROM to fit into the original ROM socket. Another 2001 that I have has a rom upgrade board which carries a set of ROMs for version 4.0 BASIC. I believe the original ROM content is available on funet - If everything else seems to be OK, you might try reading the ROMs and checking the content. I also had one instance of a failure in an I/O chip - I don't recall if it was a 6521 or 6522 but it was one or the other (and this was in a 2001). Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 14 08:07:38 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:07:38 +0000 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Typical of a machine that has good video but something is wrong > between the CPU, RAM and ROM. Just going through the motions of reseating chips (again - tried once, but doesn't hurt to do it a second time!) Does anyone have a photo, PCB layout, or access to a real board so that they can check ROM chip locations for me? The 6540 ROMs in mine are arranged (left to right) as: 018 (PCB loc. H7) 014 (PCB loc. H6) 012 (PCB loc. H5) 016 (PCB loc. H4) 015 (PCB loc. H3) 013 (PCB loc. H2) 019 (PCB loc. H1) (6540 #010 is at the back-right of the board, location A2/A3. Character table, I assume) Seems a bit odd - I'm just surprised that they aren't linear. Odd that there's no 017 either, but then there's no 011 - possibly they did that so the two couldn't be mixed up. Date codes are all in 1978, so presumably I'm looking at a first issue of the ROMs? I'd just like to rule out that someone hasn't pulled the ROMs on this at some point and put them back in the wrong positions :-) (annoyingly the schematic correlates ROM memory location with PCB location, but not ROM part number with PCB location) > There were two kinds of static PETs - early ones with 256x4 memory > (5101s?) and later ones with 2114s. The 2114s were only in use for a > short time, and are somewhat rare. 6550's in this one... > The recommended procedure when suspecting bad SRAM chips is to swap > the top set for the bottom set. Will give that a go if re-seating everything again doesn't work. And 'scope the /CS line... cheers Jules -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 14 08:15:08 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:15:08 +0000 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> References: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> Dave Dunfield wrote: > Physical failures are common in the PET - look for corroded sockets, > video, power connectors etc. I didn't see anything first time around (re-seating ICs and connectors was one of the first things I did), but I'm just going through it again to be sure. > The most common chip failures I enountered were RAMs (several) > and ROMs (two cases). If you check my site, you can see the interior > shot of one of my 2001s where I had to build a little daughter board > to adapt a 2716 EPROM to fit into the original ROM socket. Hmm, that actually sounds like a wise move anyway if this machine is going to be a runnable display system. It's not one of those things that should detract from any kind of 'value' either, providing any broken original ROMs are kept with the machine... I'll have a look at your images - hopefully there's one where I can make out the correct ROM locations too :) > I believe the original ROM content is > available on funet - If everything else seems to be OK, you might > try reading the ROMs and checking the content. Good plan - will do if needed. From the schematic it looks like they're at least x8 devices, so I should be able to make them look like something that my programmer can read... cheers Jules From tshoppa at wmata.com Fri Jul 14 08:08:56 2006 From: tshoppa at wmata.com (Tim Shoppa) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:08:56 -0400 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards Message-ID: Tom Uban wrote: > I have a friend who is cleaning out his basement and has > some boards which have a number of 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX > parts on them. I'm not familiar with the 72 and 73, but > I'm guessing they are unobtainium at this point. Most likely they are date codes, especially if "XX" is never greater than 52 :-). There are some signetics and TI and NatSemi line driver/receiver parts with 72xx and 73xx part numbers, though. Tim. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 14 09:35:36 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:35:36 +0000 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > Dave Dunfield wrote: >> Physical failures are common in the PET - look for corroded sockets, >> video, power connectors etc. > > I didn't see anything first time around (re-seating ICs and connectors > was one of the first things I did), but I'm just going through it again > to be sure. Hmm, well no luck there - and everything seems tight in its sockets. Swapping RAM banks doesn't help, either. CPU reset and clock(s) seem OK on the 'scope. There looks to be activity on the various RAM /CS lines, too. One strange thing: I pulled the character generator ROM, expecting that doing so would either give me a completely white or completely black screen. It doesn't - I get some white blocks and some black blocks at random on the display. I admit to not yet understanding what the PET's doing with its display circuitry, but I had expected that having no ROM there would result in every character having the same value, so regardless of what happened to be in the video RAM at power-up I'd get the same character at every screen location. Not sure if that sounds indicative of a particular fault... cheers Jules From pechter at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 08:44:29 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:44:29 -0400 Subject: looking for a vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've got a Vaxstation 3100 M38 running here I could be convinced to part with. I've been using the emulator from Simh more than the physical vax. I'm in Central New Jersey. I'd like to get $40 for the whole thing. It's got 32mb of memory and the color graphics option and was running VMS 7.2 Hobbiest with X11 when I last fired it up about 2 years ago. Time to clean out the house. I've also got some oddball stuff. A Sun Sparc2 clone "Opus Personal Mainframe" Sounds pretty rare and collectable. A Sun SLC A Sun IPX Various keyboards, CD drives and scsi and video cables for the above. Bill On 7/11/06, Edwin Rhodes wrote: > > hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? > ed. > > Creation is only a sheer act of will. > > Edwin. > > > From pechter at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 08:44:29 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:44:29 -0400 Subject: looking for a vax In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've got a Vaxstation 3100 M38 running here I could be convinced to part with. I've been using the emulator from Simh more than the physical vax. I'm in Central New Jersey. I'd like to get $40 for the whole thing. It's got 32mb of memory and the color graphics option and was running VMS 7.2 Hobbiest with X11 when I last fired it up about 2 years ago. Time to clean out the house. I've also got some oddball stuff. A Sun Sparc2 clone "Opus Personal Mainframe" Sounds pretty rare and collectable. A Sun SLC A Sun IPX Various keyboards, CD drives and scsi and video cables for the above. Bill On 7/11/06, Edwin Rhodes wrote: > > hey guys i am looking for a vax to run vms on, any out there? > ed. > > Creation is only a sheer act of will. > > Edwin. > > > From r.bazzano at ulm.it Fri Jul 14 09:38:04 2006 From: r.bazzano at ulm.it (Roberto Bazzano) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:38:04 +0200 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? References: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca><44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <00b501c6a753$1dd72140$6ec90196@ufficio> > One strange thing: I pulled the character generator ROM, expecting that > doing so would either give me a completely white or completely black > screen. It doesn't - I get some white blocks and some black blocks at > random on the display. I admit to not yet understanding what the PET's > doing with its display circuitry, but I had expected that having no ROM > there would result in every character having the same value, so regardless > of what happened to be in the video RAM at power-up I'd get the same > character at every screen location. Not sure if that sounds indicative of > a particular fault... I'll try to replace 2114 video ram: on three pet I repaired they were defective. Also, put an oscilloscope on the CPU data and address bus and look if signals are all 0 or 5 volts: if you see some strange value like 2-3 volts or attenuated square waves (near 0 or near 5 volts) then there is some defective chip. Then you can try to remove chips one at times to identify it: you'll find it when the strange wave value goes away. Roberto From uban at ubanproductions.com Fri Jul 14 09:41:34 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:41:34 -0500 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714093145.02623f38@mail.ubanproductions.com> At 09:08 AM 7/14/2006 -0400, you wrote: >Tom Uban wrote: > > I have a friend who is cleaning out his basement and has > > some boards which have a number of 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX > > parts on them. I'm not familiar with the 72 and 73, but > > I'm guessing they are unobtainium at this point. > >Most likely they are date codes, especially if "XX" is never greater >than 52 :-). > >There are some signetics and TI and NatSemi line driver/receiver parts >with 72xx and 73xx part numbers, though. > >Tim. I would have thought that too except that the numbers are TI SN72XXXN series parts with a date code too. Here are a couple of board pictures: http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board1.jpg http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board2.jpg I will see if I can get a better list of part numbers later today. --tom From fryers at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 09:56:20 2006 From: fryers at gmail.com (Simon Fryer) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:56:20 +0100 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714093145.02623f38@mail.ubanproductions.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714093145.02623f38@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: All, On 7/14/06, Tom Uban wrote: [...] > I would have thought that too except that the numbers are TI SN72XXXN > series parts with a date code too. Here are a couple of board pictures: > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board1.jpg > http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board2.jpg > > I will see if I can get a better list of part numbers later today. Looks mostly like SN72710N. Googling gives a few hits but it appears you have to pay for data sheets. Simon -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is the utility of the final product." Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh From rtellason at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 10:19:41 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:19:41 -0400 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714093145.02623f38@mail.ubanproductions.com> Message-ID: <200607141119.41690.rtellason@gmail.com> On Friday 14 July 2006 10:56 am, Simon Fryer wrote: > All, > > On 7/14/06, Tom Uban wrote: > > [...] > > > I would have thought that too except that the numbers are TI SN72XXXN > > series parts with a date code too. Here are a couple of board pictures: > > > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board1.jpg > > http://www.ubanproductions.com/Images/board2.jpg > > > > I will see if I can get a better list of part numbers later today. > > Looks mostly like SN72710N. Googling gives a few hits but it appears > you have to pay for data sheets. No datasheet yet, but there's a spec sheet here: http://www.datasheets.org.uk/specsheet.php?part=SN72710 -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Jul 14 11:56:57 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:56:57 -0500 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607141558.k6EFwIMw019661@mail4.magma.ca> > >> Physical failures are common in the PET - look for corroded sockets, > >> video, power connectors etc. > > > > I didn't see anything first time around (re-seating ICs and connectors > > was one of the first things I did), but I'm just going through it again > > to be sure. > > Hmm, well no luck there - and everything seems tight in its sockets. > > Swapping RAM banks doesn't help, either. > > CPU reset and clock(s) seem OK on the 'scope. There looks to be activity on > the various RAM /CS lines, too. Sounds like you are at the "real debugging" point. If you have a logic anaylzer or a storage scope, you should be able to catpture the first few accesses to ROM, and confirm that the CPU is fetching the right opcode from the right address by walking the bus lines on the CPU with your probe. Verify that what happens on the bus matches the code in the ROM contant. That fact that you have a screen full of viewable but random characters means the CPU didn't get as far as clearng the video RAM (or possibly could not write the video RAM). Assuming the former, then one of three things has most likely happened: - The program "crashed" due to reading an invalid opcode (check interface between ROM and CPU) - The program "crashed" due to faulty RAM - this usually happens at the first RTS instruction. (check interface between CPU and RAM). - The program is running, but stuck in a loop waiting for an event that never happens. Get the ROM listings from funet, and logically follow the code until the screen is cleared (iirc this is not terribly far into the code) - then note each hardware device (ROM, RAM, PIO etc.) as the code flows through this path, and using a storage scope match up the hardware accesses you see following a reset with the logic of the code. At some point they will diverge. If the CPU has crashed due to bad ROM, this can happen anywhere. If due to a bad RAM, it will likely happen at the end of a subroutine call). In either case, you will likely see bus activity which is unrelated to the logic of the program (since the program is no longer running). In some cases you may see NO bus activity (if the CPU encounted a HLT opcode). If the program is stuck looping on an event, you should see repeated accesses to the affected device and the program will not proceed past this point. Keep in mind that bad bus tranceivers etc. can make any of the above look like any ot the others, so when you are observing "funnies" on the bus, it's a good idea to verify the signals all the way through the entire address/data path. > One strange thing: I pulled the character generator ROM, expecting that doing > so would either give me a completely white or completely black screen. It > doesn't - I get some white blocks and some black blocks at random on the > display. I admit to not yet understanding what the PET's doing with its > display circuitry, but I had expected that having no ROM there would result in > every character having the same value, so regardless of what happened to be in > the video RAM at power-up I'd get the same character at every screen location. > Not sure if that sounds indicative of a particular fault... I don't have the schematics in front of me, however as this is a character oriented display, the CG ROM should sit between the video memory and the video shift register. Removing it should effectivly decouple the video RAM data from the visual display, and I would expect to see all white or all black, however with the ROM removed, the inputs to the shift register are basically undriven, and depending on the device you may just be seeing crosstalk from adjecent lines - as long as you get good recognizable characters with the CG ROM installed (even if they are randomly position around the screen), the display is probably working correctly. Scoping the inputs to the shift register should show you what is happening (and you may see lines on the display come/go as you load the pin). Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From uban at ubanproductions.com Fri Jul 14 11:12:41 2006 From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:12:41 -0500 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714110725.025ad778@mail.ubanproductions.com> Just to clarify a few things: The web site seems to be a bit messed up. The event is Saturday only in Purdue's Stewart Center building (exhibits in room 218 and the speakers in room 202). The talks begin at 11am West Lafayette time, which is 10am for those of us in the Chicago area. I've known George and Mike for a number of years and their talk should be well worth seeing/hearing. --tom At 11:46 PM 7/13/2006 -0400, Patrick Finnegan wrote: >Good news about VCF - see below. > >On Thursday 13 July 2006 15:49, you wrote: > > On Thursday 13 July 2006 15:06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > As it happens, we now have a speaker for VCF/Midwest. Jack Rubin is > > > going to talk about his 50 years of computing experience in a talk > > > titled "Still an enduser after all these years." > > > > > > So please join us for that this Saturday, at 12pm. Maps, directions, > >We now have a second speaker, so the event will start at 11am with George >Goble speaking about the history of computing at Purdue's Engineering >schools, followed by Jack Rubin at 12pm. Both talks will be in Purdue's >Stewart Center, room 202, followed by exhibits opening at 1pm in room 218. > > > > etc. are available from the website at: > > > http://www.vintage.org/2006/midwest/ > > > > > > Note that the times listed there are wrong; the event will start at > > > 12pm with Jack's talk, and the exhibits and marketplace will be open > > > from 1pm until 6pm. > > > > Just to add -- it will be held in Purdue's Stewart Center building, > > exhibits in room 218, and the speaker will be in room 202. Just follow > > the signs once you get to the building. > > > > Pat > >-- >Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ >The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 14 11:38:28 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:38:28 -0700 Subject: 72XX, 73XX, and 74XX logic boards In-Reply-To: <200607141119.41690.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <5.2.0.9.0.20060714093145.02623f38@mail.ubanproductions.com> <200607141119.41690.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607140938280880.716837C9@10.0.0.252> On 7/14/2006 at 11:19 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote: >> Looks mostly like SN72710N. Googling gives a few hits but it appears >> you have to pay for data sheets. > >No datasheet yet, but there's a spec sheet here: > >http://www.datasheets.org.uk/specsheet.php?part=SN72710 I believe the TI SN727xx parts are TI equivalents of the Fairchiild uA7xxx line, for which datasheets are readily available. Cheers, Chuck From whdawson at nidhog.net Fri Jul 14 11:51:04 2006 From: whdawson at nidhog.net (Bill Dawson) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:51:04 -0400 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > Does anyone have a photo, PCB layout, or access to a real board > so that they > can check ROM chip locations for me? > > The 6540 ROMs in mine are arranged (left to right) as: > > 018 (PCB loc. H7) > 014 (PCB loc. H6) > 012 (PCB loc. H5) > 016 (PCB loc. H4) > 015 (PCB loc. H3) > 013 (PCB loc. H2) > 019 (PCB loc. H1) > > (6540 #010 is at the back-right of the board, location A2/A3. > Character table, > I assume) > > Seems a bit odd - I'm just surprised that they aren't linear. Odd > that there's > no 017 either, but then there's no 011 - possibly they did that > so the two > couldn't be mixed up. > > Date codes are all in 1978, so presumably I'm looking at a first > issue of the > ROMs? > > I'd just like to rule out that someone hasn't pulled the ROMs on > this at some > point and put them back in the wrong positions :-) (annoyingly > the schematic > correlates ROM memory location with PCB location, but not ROM > part number with > PCB location) > According to the document at http://tinyurl.com/kspmq http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/firmware/computers/pet/PET-parts.txt the ROMs are in their correct locations. BASIC 1: A2 901439-08 6540-010 ROM character H1 901439-01 6540-011 ROM Basic 1 C000-C7FF H1 901439-09 6540-019 ROM Basic 1r C000-C7FF H5 901439-05 6540-012 ROM Basic 1 C800-CFFF H2 901439-02 6540-013 ROM Basic 1 D000-D7FF H6 901439-06 6540-014 ROM Basic 1 D800-DFFF H3 901439-03 6540-015 ROM Basic 1 E000-E7FF H4 901439-04 6540-016 ROM Basic 1 F000-F7FF H7 901439-07 6540-018 ROM Basic 1 F800-FFFF Regards, Bill From arcarlini at iee.org Fri Jul 14 11:53:20 2006 From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:53:20 +0100 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001a01c6a766$042eb330$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Ah! Found a reference... an Italian eBay auction (#5870973095) says > that the MG-550CDM is amber monitor in an Icom IC-781 and IC-R9000. I have a transceiver manual for an Icom IC781 (7MB) and another manual for an Icom UX-R9000 LCD Unit (112KB) and a third manual for an Icom IC-R9000L Receiver (20MB). They probably won't compress much as ZIP. I assume 112KB email is fine, 20MB is too much, how about 6MB? Anywhere I can FTP them too (my FTP server is down right now). Antonio From browe58 at comcast.net Fri Jul 14 12:03:46 2006 From: browe58 at comcast.net (Bill Rowe) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:03:46 -0400 Subject: StorageTek Silos Message-ID: <003101c6a767$78826780$6500a8c0@SYMANTECA2E27F> I have a client in Ohio looking to get rid of (3) StorageTek Silos. Are these things worth anything? If not, it's ALL yours! You'll just have to dismantle and remove it your self. Anyone interested? Thanx. Bill 603-512-7826 From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jul 14 15:41:57 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 15:41:57 -0500 Subject: troubleshooting video Message-ID: <8e6a11459da441fead14b94347f942ea@valleyimplants.com> I have an IRIS that I've been working on off-and-on for a while. I'm currently looking into the graphics circuitry. For a while, when I had it connected to the SGI monitor it displayed a garbled version of what I assume was the PROM monitor (pixels/lines were skewed across the screen back-and-forth). I assumed that it was a video mode problem, checked the switches, and put it back on - nothing. Then I tried a Sun multisync, and it switched into its "I don't know what to make of this input signal" flashing-light mode. Checked switches again, tried with BPRN and BPRO jumpers in, tried again with BPRN/BPRO back out. Put the scope on the IRIS sync output, compared it with a Sun 3/110 CG4 output. (thought it might be a sync issue) The most common regular waveform (I assume it's HSYNC) is ~28KHz on the IRIS and 61.72 KHz on the Sun (measured with the DSO's cursor function - digital scopes are trancendentally cool!) The Sun's sync is similar to published for 1152x900, the SGIs is not quite what was expected for "Mode 1" on the IP2 (for either primary monitor or secondary monitor back-panel setting) Primary is supposed to be 60Hz non-interlaced, secondary should be 33Hz interlaced (no HSYNC given) From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Fri Jul 14 16:01:50 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:01:50 -0500 Subject: The Internal HSD05-AA is working Message-ID: The sleds I used were cut from sheets of plexiglas to fit snugly in the rails. I drilled 4 holes through the bottom to support a 3.5" ff drive. Tempered Masonite hardboard could also be used, and then you wouldn't have to have static buildup precautions. Metal sheets with retention brackets would be nicer, but I was going for quick and cheap (materials on-hand) With 1" drives, you can mount 2 in each BA4x0 drive bay, one per "sled" per guide. As before, I don't know how much power can be safely taken of of one drive sled connector, but I have the TK70, HSD05 and one 1/3 ht Seagate Barracuda 4GB drive working off of one sled with no trouble (haven't actually used the TK70 yet, no tapes, but it's plugged in and everything seems cool). From chd_1 at nktelco.net Fri Jul 14 17:09:51 2006 From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 18:09:51 -0400 Subject: Update: VCF/Midwest Final Announcement -- this coming saturday In-Reply-To: References: <200607131506.42266.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607131549.20882.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607132346.16373.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44B8162F.2040008@nktelco.net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > Wow... sorry I can't be there... I'd love to hear about Purdue's > self-built dual-processor VAX (another one of George's fun projects). I actually had an account on one of those machines when I was a freshman (Purdue CEE '89). I believe it was ec. Of course I had no clue at the time. My feeling at the time was that the EE department and ECN was where the cool computer stuff was going on. CS and PUCC was about batch processing. Probably unfair, but what I remember. I have a little book here called "Purdue University UNIX Pocket Guide" that I still use quite regularly. (Can you still get a copy in the Armory basement?) The cover of the book is an ASCII art map of the Purdue computer network at the time. One of the machines is ghg. -chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 18:36:41 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:36:41 +1200 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/15/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Swapping RAM banks doesn't help, either. OK... that means either the RAM is OK or the zero-page sockets are bad or the problem is somewhere else. > CPU reset and clock(s) seem OK on the 'scope. There looks to be activity on > the various RAM /CS lines, too. That's a good sign. > One strange thing: I pulled the character generator ROM, expecting that doing > so would either give me a completely white or completely black screen. It > doesn't - I get some white blocks and some black blocks at random on the > display. I admit to not yet understanding what the PET's doing with its > display circuitry, but I had expected that having no ROM there would result in > every character having the same value, so regardless of what happened to be in > the video RAM at power-up I'd get the same character at every screen location. In the PET, unlike, say, the C-64, reverse video is done in *hardware*. If the high-bit is set in video RAM, the video circutry inverts the values fetched from the chargen ROM. The only thing in the CHARGEN ROM is a "normal video" copy of the character set (as opposed to the C-64 and ilk that have a full 256-char character set in ROM). The symptom you are describing is perfectly typical. The test, honestly, isn't all that revealing. If you see the random garbage characters at power-on, then you are probably accessing the CHARGEN ROM just fine. The CPU can't see that one (it's not mapped anywhere for the 6502), just the video circuit. I would say that it's possible you have a corrupt/dead ROM (yes, it happens), bad ROM or RAM sockets, or possible you swapped bad RAM for bad RAM. It's also possible that one or more of the TTL glue chips is bad or you could even have a shorted or corroded trace somewhere in a critical path. Given a recent 2001 repair on the cbm-hackers list, I'd recommend pulling the board and going over it visually. Look for any repair areas where it's more likely that something is awry. It's a 2-layer board - you might even consider holding it over a light and seeing if there are any obviously cracked traces or other mechanical damage. In any case, I'd say one of the first things to consider replacing would be the zero page sockets. After that, if you can find a compatible pinout or make a pinswabber, check the contents of the ROMs. I wouldn't worry about bit-for-bit comparisons on a first pass - just see that you can read them at all. When I had a ROM failure in my 2001-32K (U.S. 3032), the ROM just plain didn't read out. Totally dead. Chances are, if it reads at all, the contents are fine. -ethan From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 18:06:28 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:06:28 +0100 (BST) Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive In-Reply-To: <000a01c6a6ec$19914000$0401010a@GIZMO> from "Robert Armstrong" at Jul 13, 6 07:20:34 pm Message-ID: > > >drive and/or the 9153 on hpmuseum.net, > > Bingo, that's the one. I have the 9153C, which is one of these funky > drives inside an enclosure with a GPIB interface. As I understand it, the 9153 has a floppy drive, the 9154 doesn't, they are otherwise identical. I have a 9154, the controller board has a connector for the floppy drive, and a labelled DIP switch to say whether or not it's installed. I beleive, too, that one version of the 9153 used a double density drive turning at 600rpm, in fact the same unit as is used in the 9114B. Another version of the 9153 used a high density drive, probably turning at 300 rpm (so the data rate would be the same). Be warned that the floppy drive gets its power over some of the odd-numbered wires of the ribbon cable, there is no separate power cable > > It looks like at least some of the documentation has been restored to > hpmuseum.net. > > To make the story short, my drive is dead and replacement drives seem to > go for absolutely amazing amounts of money, so I was toying with the idea of > hacking up some kind of replacement for it. > > The next question is, what's the "SS/80 Command Set" ? That's the SubSet/80 command set. It's a subset of CS/80 (Command Set 80). These are the commands the unit responds to over the HPIB interface -- docvmentation for this does exist (the 'service manual' for the 9133 might well include it as an appendix [1]), but it's not easy to find. [1] I have a (paper) manaul called something like 'HP's 3.5" floppy drive service manual'. It's odd. It's got some alignment instructions for the original Sony drive (but the Sony manual is a lot more complete!), then details of the PSUs in the 9121/9133, etc. No full schematics, alas. But there's a useful appendix giving the command set. It would be hard to make a replacement drive to link to your existing controller (not least because docuemntation on this is somewhat minimal [2]), it should be possible to make, say, a module with an HPIB port on one side and SCSI on the other. It would respond to CS/80 or SS/80, and talk to a normal SCSI drive. I am suprised nothing like this exists commercially (or maybe it does, and I've not looked for it carefully enough). [2] I've not traced out scheamtics of the 9154 yet, it is on the to-do list. But they wouldn't be a lot of use -- from what I remember the controller board contains a 68B09, EPROM, RAM, HP's HPIB chip and a gate array that contains all the hard disk control stuff. The drive also has a couple of custom chips in it. So diagrams at that level won't help you make a replacement drive. It's possible to remove the PCBs from the drive without damaging it. After removing the drive and the mounting brackets from it, the bottom 'tray' unclips, it contains one PCB. You have to pull it hard enough to disconnect the plugs to the other PCB. Then hold the spindle motor rotor and remove the nut in the middle of that, and slide the rotor off the spindle. The other PCB is then easy to remove. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Fri Jul 14 18:11:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:11:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: Fans in VAXstation 4000/vlc In-Reply-To: from "Zane H. Healy" at Jul 13, 6 08:14:03 pm Message-ID: > > Does anyone have any experience in replacing the fans in a VAXstation > 4000/vlc? I think the bearings in my system are going out. My expereinces lead me to do the following : For modern-ish machines with standard fans, I replace the whole fan with the best one I can find. Alas most modern fans are not really worth repairing (even I say that :-)) For older machines, machines that I want to keep as original as possible, anything with odd fans, I try to rebuild them. Most fans will come apart. Peeling off the label often reveals either a cap over the bearings, or screws that hold the motor to the frame. After releasing that, you can see the end of the spindle. There's normally a circlip there, take that off, then slide the spindle out of the bearings and remove all the loose parts. Make sure you know where all the washers, etc go. If the beariongs are ball races, then either replace them (they are very likely to be a standard size) or try to remove the covers, wash out the old grease, and re-pack them with high melting point grease. If they're phosphor-broze bushes, you might just need to relubricate them, or you might have to make replacements. This is fairly easy on a small lathe. -tony From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 18:46:16 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:46:16 +1200 Subject: CMB PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <00b501c6a753$1dd72140$6ec90196@ufficio> References: <200607141059.k6EAxsbo031609@mail4.magma.ca> <44B798DC.50002@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7ABB8.5080102@yahoo.co.uk> <00b501c6a753$1dd72140$6ec90196@ufficio> Message-ID: On 7/15/06, Roberto Bazzano wrote: > I'll try to replace 2114 video ram: on three pet I repaired they were > defective. While 2114s are notorious, it doesn't sound to me like the behavior he is describing has anything to do with video RAM. "Garbage characters" on power-up is a normal state. What's also normal is that less than 1 second later, as the tube is warming up, the CPU clears video RAM. That's the step his machine is stuck at. The "problem" is that there's no one cause for having a frozen PET with garbage characters on the screen... Anything that interferes with the CPU accessing RAM or ROM will do that. As other posters have mentioned, different failures will cause different types of crashes at different points, but the visual effect is the same. If I were scoping a problem at that level, I'd pull out my Fluke 9010A and the 6502 pod and go to town; not everyone has one of those, but if you do, it's a really handy tool at this level of debugging - built-in RAM tests, ROM checksums (once you define where ROM is and what the expected checksums are), bus tests (including shorted bus-lines), etc. If you had or could build one of the modernish ROM/RAM replacements, it would go a long way to eliminating swaths of circuitry. I have one at home made by one of the cbm-hacker members... it's a daughter card that sits in the CPU socket. You pull the RAM and ROM from the machine, move the CPU to the daughter card, install a compatible ROM image to the single EPROM/EEPROM, set the DIP switches accordingly, and boot it all up. If it were not to boot, then the problem is likely some sort of stuck bus transceiver or total I/O selection failure. If it does, then you could re-install the ROM or RAM first and at least get an idea where the problem is via the time-tested divide-and-conquer method. -ethan From Mzthompson at aol.com Fri Jul 14 19:08:37 2006 From: Mzthompson at aol.com (Mzthompson at aol.com) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 20:08:37 EDT Subject: VCF/Midwest - Stuff I am bringing Message-ID: <3ad.5fee68b.31e98c05@aol.com> Here's a partial list of stuff I am bringing to VCF/Midwest. A pair of NeXT Turbo Slabs (consecutive serial numbers) complete with monitors, printers, kybds, mice, cables, documentation and OS CDROM. Also some spare NeXT keyboards, mice, cables and some unopened software. IBM 5150, 5160, and an AT; a couple SGI boxes; an IBM RS6000 (/250 I think); and a Tandy 1000. If still room in the car then some DECstations and associated stuff. Mike Thompson From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 20:12:24 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 13:12:24 +1200 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? In-Reply-To: <001a01c6a766$042eb330$5b01a8c0@uatempname> References: <001a01c6a766$042eb330$5b01a8c0@uatempname> Message-ID: On 7/15/06, Antonio Carlini wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > > Ah! Found a reference... an Italian eBay auction (#5870973095) says > > that the MG-550CDM is amber monitor in an Icom IC-781 and IC-R9000. > > I have a transceiver manual for an Icom IC781 (7MB) and another > manual for an Icom UX-R9000 LCD Unit (112KB) and a third manual for > an Icom IC-R9000L Receiver (20MB). They probably won't compress > much as ZIP. I assume 112KB email is fine, 20MB is too much, > how about 6MB? Anywhere I can FTP them too (my FTP server is > down right now). Phillip's posting had what I need in it - a 39MB IC-781 service manual. Thanks, though, -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 20:19:33 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 13:19:33 +1200 Subject: Pinouts for a Nanao CRT model MG-550CDM? In-Reply-To: <44B76B51.2030503@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44B76B51.2030503@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: On 7/14/06, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: > > So... does anyone have schematics or perhaps a block diagram/wiring > > harness pinout for either an Icom IC-781 or IC-R9000? > > Google is your friend -- > > http://www.qsl.net/icom/download/ic781/ic781.zip > Linked from: http://www.qsl.net/icom/manuals.html > Search terms: IC-781 service manual Thanks. I'd been looking under IC-781 and got lots of hits, but not _that_ hit. I've already found one thing I was looking for in it - it's a +12V unit (despite the silkscreen that says "125VAC1.6A" on the top of the PCB. :-P ) Now I just need to identify what else is on the molex connector (probably external brightness and contrast, based on where the traces lead) and I'll be able to fire this thing up. The reason I need it is that PIXIE video (RCA CDP 1861) is _not_ compatible with modern video gear (VCRs, TVs, monitors, etc.) They took some liberties with converting the video out to pseudo-RS170 video, and only vintage video gear can handle the signal. Unfortunately, here at Pole, they threw out all the old stuff years ago - we have lots of LCD flat panels (lower power consumption than CRTs) and plenty of stuff made since 2000, but not much in the way of older gear. Thanks again for the pointer, -ethan From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Fri Jul 14 20:35:40 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 13:35:40 +1200 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: On 7/15/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > Just going through the motions of reseating chips (again - tried once, but > doesn't hurt to do it a second time!) Doesn't hurt, but if the sockets themselves are a problem, won't do much good. > Does anyone have a photo, PCB layout, or access to a real board so that they > can check ROM chip locations for me? Alas, no... there's a lot of stuff on zimmers.net (what was formerly on funet.fi), but I no longer have a static PET... sold it years ago. > Date codes are all in 1978, so presumably I'm looking at a first issue of the > ROMs? I would say so. BASIC 2 for the newer PETs came out around 1978/1979, ISTR; with the upgrade following on its heels. The only way to be sure is the part numbers, though (which, I think, have already been correctly identified by another list member). -ethan From jcwren at jcwren.com Fri Jul 14 21:21:22 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 22:21:22 -0400 Subject: ADM-3A+ Someone looking for one? Message-ID: <44B85122.6040501@jcwren.com> I see to recall that someone was looking for an ADM-3A a short time ago. I have an ADM-3A+ that is clean, except for a crack in the top casing just to the left of the keyboard. Video is bright and pretty crisp. I also have a ADM-5 logic board, condition unknown. If whomever it was is still looking for a ADM-3A, and a plus model is acceptable, please contact me off-list at jcwren at jcwren.com --jc From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jul 15 00:23:00 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 00:23:00 -0500 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility Message-ID: I know this is a long shot, but does anyone know if the DEC VSXXX mouse (VAXstation/early AXP) signaling protocol is shared by anything else (Sun mice, for instance). I've got the LKA, so all I need is a mouse substitute. From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sat Jul 15 02:00:33 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:00:33 +0200 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060715070033.GH22950@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-07-15 00:23:00 -0500, Scott Quinn wrote: > I know this is a long shot, but does anyone know if the DEC VSXXX > mouse (VAXstation/early AXP) signaling protocol is shared > by anything else (Sun mice, for instance). I've got the LKA, > so all I need is a mouse substitute. Generally, the protocols for the simpler mice are quite similar, but there are differences. I've written the Linux driver for this mouse and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From Bink77 at aol.com Thu Jul 13 03:28:00 2006 From: Bink77 at aol.com (Bink77 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:28:00 EDT Subject: TR: pb to find the NEC FIP16A5R datasheet Message-ID: <329.8675670.31e75e10@aol.com> Hi. Not sure if this is the right email address, but if your still looking for the FIP16A5R Fluorescent display, I have a few NOS units on hand. Let me know. Thanks, Bink From Bink77 at aol.com Thu Jul 13 03:30:55 2006 From: Bink77 at aol.com (Bink77 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 04:30:55 EDT Subject: TR: pb to find the NEC FIP16A5R datasheet Message-ID: <535.3bf37ce.31e75ebf@aol.com> Hi. Not sure if this is the right email address, but if your still looking for the FIP16A5R Fluorescent display, I have a few NOS units on hand. Let me know. Thanks, Bink From PETERSB at airproducts.com Fri Jul 14 07:05:53 2006 From: PETERSB at airproducts.com (Peter,Steven B.) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 08:05:53 -0400 Subject: Friden electro-mechanical calculator Message-ID: <0A336D2628433B47A987C7E47E3DF1820F47C4@us0355exmp.america.apci.com> I saw that some time ago you have a Friden electro-mechanical calculator available. Is it still available? Thanks From pete at dunnington.plus.com Sat Jul 15 04:51:05 2006 From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:51:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: "Ethan Dicks" "Re: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips?" (Jul 15, 13:35) References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <10607151051.ZM6513@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> On Jul 15 2006, 13:35, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 7/15/06, Jules Richardson wrote: > > Just going through the motions of reseating chips (again - tried once, but > > doesn't hurt to do it a second time!) > > Doesn't hurt, but if the sockets themselves are a problem, won't do much good. > > > Does anyone have a photo, PCB layout, or access to a real board so that they > > can check ROM chip locations for me? > > Alas, no... there's a lot of stuff on zimmers.net (what was formerly > on funet.fi), but I no longer have a static PET... sold it years ago. > > > Date codes are all in 1978, so presumably I'm looking at a first issue of the > > ROMs? > I would say so. BASIC 2 for the newer PETs came out around 1978/1979, > ISTR; with the upgrade following on its heels. The only way to be > sure is the part numbers, though (which, I think, have already been > correctly identified by another list member). Yes, Jules' machine has the first issue. It sounds like he has almost exactly the same version of machine as I do; mine has the same MPS6540 ROMs and MPS6550 RAMs. Except for the dead ones that I've replaced, that is: many of those old MOS Technology chips are dying of old age, and I've replaced three RAM chips in my PET in the last two years. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sat Jul 15 10:36:41 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 10:36:41 -0500 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility Message-ID: Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote > I've written the Linux driver for this mouse >and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want >to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper >driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a >microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay ones)? everyone seems to assume that people want to use the VSXXX on a PC, not get a mouse for their DEC. I guess it's back to using an X-terminal- won't have to get the 15-pin breakout cable then either. Idle speculation- I wonder which mouse is closest for conversion purposes (definitely not HP-HIL, perhaps Sun or old SGI?) From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Jul 15 11:00:40 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:00:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > > Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote >> I've written the Linux driver for this mouse >> and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want >> to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper >> driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a >> microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. > > So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay ones)? > everyone seems to assume that people want to use the VSXXX on a PC, not get a mouse > for their DEC. > I guess it's back to using an X-terminal- won't have to get the 15-pin breakout cable then either. > > Idle speculation- I wonder which mouse is closest for conversion > purposes (definitely not HP-HIL, perhaps Sun or old SGI?) > > > I have some. I probably have the 15 pin breakout cable also if its the DS5XXX one. Free for shipping. I have Hockey-puck ball and Hawley types, also VSXXX-GA (Early logitech style) Peter Wallace From pechter at gmail.com Sat Jul 15 11:52:41 2006 From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:52:41 -0400 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: VAR/X out side of Philadelphia has 'em for a reasonable price. Just a satisfied customer and ex-coworker back in my DEC days. Bill On 7/15/06, Scott Quinn wrote: > > > > I know this is a long shot, but does anyone know if the DEC VSXXX mouse > (VAXstation/early AXP) signaling protocol is shared > by anything else (Sun mice, for instance). I've got the LKA, so all I need > is a mouse substitute. > > > > From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jul 15 14:01:29 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:01:29 -0700 Subject: Merging drives under VAX/VMS V5.5? Message-ID: I'm looking to merge a couple of RZ29's down to a single RZ28 (everything will fit). Does anyone have any advice? Basically I'm trying to downgrade a VAXstation 4000/vlc from a BA350 with 3 7200RPM RZ29's (user disk is a shadowset) to a single 5400RPM RZ28 that I'll put in an external enclosure after pulling it from the SBB brick. The BA350 and 3 RZ29's generate a *lot* of heat. I've done plenty of migrations to larger disks using BACKUP/IMAGE, but have never tried to combine separate disks onto a single disk. I would think that the following would work, but it doesn't preserve the ownership of the directories and files (at least under 5.5). BACKUP DSA1:[GU*...]*.*;* [...]/VERIFY/LIST Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From healyzh at aracnet.com Sat Jul 15 14:10:18 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 12:10:18 -0700 Subject: Never Mind Re: Merging drives under VAX/VMS V5.5? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >the following would work, but it doesn't preserve the ownership of >the directories and files (at least under 5.5). >BACKUP DSA1:[GU*...]*.*;* [...]/VERIFY/LIST BACKUP DSA1:[GU*...]*.*;* [...]/BY_OWNER=ORIGINAL Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jul 15 15:25:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:25:30 +0000 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <10607151051.ZM6513@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> References: <44B6E527.1020906@yahoo.co.uk> <44B7971A.9030901@yahoo.co.uk> <10607151051.ZM6513@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> Message-ID: <44B94F3A.1060508@yahoo.co.uk> Pete Turnbull wrote: > Yes, Jules' machine has the first issue. It sounds like he has almost > exactly the same version of machine as I do; mine has the same MPS6540 > ROMs and MPS6550 RAMs. Except for the dead ones that I've replaced, > that is: many of those old MOS Technology chips are dying of old age, > and I've replaced three RAM chips in my PET in the last two years. I had a bit of time to play with RAM chips today, but unfortunately only with a pile that are also an unknown quantity. By swapping out various banks of RAM in the dead machine, I could get four variations of behaviour: Totally black screen on power-up Garbage on power-up, clearing to black screen after < 1s Garbage on power-up, *partially* clearing to black screen after < 1s Garbage on power up, no change over time. The partial screen clear's rather odd - the bottom 5 and a half or so lines of the display would be cleared, but the rest would stay as garbage. Possibly the screen-clear routine was running but crashing halfway though... I've never seen a working 2001 series PET, but a totally black screen clear and then apparent hang definitely isn't right behaviour :) Anyway, Ethan's point about checking the board for problems seems sensible at the moment. I'll try reading the ROMs out too. I'd also like to test the RAM - I've got two choices there... 1) Somewhere we have a RAM tester that may well cope with the ICs used in the PET - problem is that it got packed up when we were going to move buildings/sites and laying my hands on it in the near future might be tricky. 2) I could maybe build something to hang off the PC parallel port and do the job. It probably only needs a couple of latch ICs to latch the address, plus control lines wired to the parallel port. Only downside is that I wouldn't be able to drive the RAM at the frequencies found in the PET, so it might not show up all errors. Getting this sorted isn't time-critical at all, so I could wait for the RAM tester to surface and take it from there - but the satisfaction of knowing that it was done and all 100% working would be nice! cheers Jules ps. intermittent video turned out to be corrosion on the pins at the back of the CRT itself, so at least that problem's gone away. From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sat Jul 15 14:49:14 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:49:14 +0200 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: <20060715070033.GH22950@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: <20060715194914.GJ22950@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-07-15 10:36:41 -0500, Scott Quinn wrote: > Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote > > I've written the Linux driver for this mouse > > and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want > > to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper > > driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a > > microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. > > So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay ones)? Dunno. I've got a number of these, basically always got one when I got a VAX for free somewhere. > everyone seems to assume that people want to use the VSXXX on a PC, not get a mouse > for their DEC. Well, this mouse, despite missing a scroll wheel, fits _very_ well in my hand and I love to use it. > Idle speculation- I wonder which mouse is closest for conversion > purposes (definitely not HP-HIL, perhaps Sun or old SGI?) I guess any simple serial mouse is equally "close" to the VSXXX-AA. MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sat Jul 15 14:51:23 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:51:23 +0200 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060715195123.GK22950@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-07-15 09:00:40 -0700, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > > Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote > > > I've written the Linux driver for this mouse > > > and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want > > > to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper > > > driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a > > > microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. > > > > So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay ones)? > > I have Hockey-puck ball and Hawley types, also VSXXX-GA (Early logitech > style) The ball mouse is for lamers:-) Show somebody the two rollers, that's always good for shocking! MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f?r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B?rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From rtellason at gmail.com Sat Jul 15 15:15:57 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:15:57 -0400 Subject: CBM PET 2001 restoration tips? In-Reply-To: <44B94F3A.1060508@yahoo.co.uk> References: <10607151051.ZM6513@mindy.dunnington.plus.com> <44B94F3A.1060508@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607151615.57787.rtellason@gmail.com> On Saturday 15 July 2006 04:25 pm, Jules Richardson wrote: > I'd also like to test the RAM - I've got two choices there... > > 1) Somewhere we have a RAM tester that may well cope with the ICs used in > the PET - problem is that it got packed up when we were going to move > buildings/sites and laying my hands on it in the near future might be > tricky. > > 2) I could maybe build something to hang off the PC parallel port and do > the job. It probably only needs a couple of latch ICs to latch the address, > plus control lines wired to the parallel port. Only downside is that I > wouldn't be able to drive the RAM at the frequencies found in the PET, so > it might not show up all errors. If you do come up with something that'll hang off the parallel port, I'd sure be interested in seeing it. I don't think that exercising parts at the same speed they normally run at is going to be that critical, but I do think that a lot of what I've seen with bad RAM is that it either works or it doesn't, mostly. If this is platform-indepenent then so much the better. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jul 15 15:26:19 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 13:26:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E303610F@MEOW.catcorner.org> Message-ID: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> > I can't say enough good things about Mr. Dunfield > nor ImageDisk. I have made images of Tandy 2000 QD > 5.25" disks, Tandy mixed density 8" disks, and PC > compatible disks. The T2K quads are easy. Nothing unusual there. AAMOF I seem to recall even being able to make images of them with WinImage, possibly even reading directly in Win2K. > What ImageDisk can't handle I save for the > catweasel. I'm curious to know what a catweasel can do that an imaging program can't... > Kelly __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jul 15 16:33:41 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 14:33:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning Message-ID: <20060715213341.33172.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> is wd-40 a good idea? I was thinking isopropyl alcohol might not penetrate as well or quickly. And Im not paying another tenner for that radio shack stuph, especially since I already have a can of it *somewhere*. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jul 15 17:09:25 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:09:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060715150538.Q98874@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Chris M wrote: > > What ImageDisk can't handle I save for the > > catweasel. > I'm curious to know what a catweasel can do that an > imaging program can't... GCR MFM without WD/IBM sector headers (Amiga) certain address marks with some FDC's FM with some FDC's 128 byte sectors damaged disks (both accidents and some copy protection) From cisin at xenosoft.com Sat Jul 15 17:20:24 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:20:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <20060715213341.33172.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060715213341.33172.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20060715151737.P98874@shell.lmi.net> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Chris M wrote: > is wd-40 a good idea? Are you trying to lubricate it, with a residue left behind? From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sat Jul 15 18:38:37 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:38:37 +0100 (BST) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <20060715213341.33172.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> from "Chris M" at Jul 15, 6 02:33:41 pm Message-ID: > > is wd-40 a good idea? I was thinking isopropyl alcohol Depends on whether you're trying to ruin the keyboard or not! Round here, I call it 'Wanton Destruction 40'. The stuff sold in the UK (and I assume elsewhere) is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons -- the short chain ones evapourate quickly, leaving the longer, waxy, ones behind. Great at keeping rust off the garden tools, or the steel rods you keep in stock, not good on precision machinery. I've have the result of spraying a camera with it. It didn't cure the original fault (one spring unhooked under the baseplate), now I'll have to strip the whole darn thing down to clean it out. Clock repairers in the UK are equally against this stuff. Also be warned that like mineral oils, it will attack some common plastics (it turns them brittle in my experience). > might not penetrate as well or quickly. And Im not Propan-2-ol will pentrate pretty well. Anyway, you should probably dismantle the keyboard and clean the parts separately (this takes me an afternoon without rushing it). > paying another tenner for that radio shack stuph, > especially since I already have a can of it *somewhere*. All I can say is that iff a keyboard sprayed with WD40 turns up on my bench, the repair cost is \pounds 50.00 _minimum_ even if no replacement parts are needed. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sat Jul 15 19:20:56 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 21:20:56 -0300 Subject: keyboard cleaning References: Message-ID: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> > > is wd-40 a good idea? I was thinking isopropyl alcohol > Depends on whether you're trying to ruin the keyboard or not! > Round here, I call it 'Wanton Destruction 40'. The stuff sold in the UK > (and I assume elsewhere) is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons -- > the short chain ones evapourate quickly, leaving the longer, waxy, ones > behind. Great at keeping rust off the garden tools, or the steel rods you > keep in stock, not good on precision machinery. The problem is: WD-40 ISN'T A LUBRIFICATING AGENT!!! How many times it has to be shouted for people to understand? WD means Water Dispenser, is something that isolates metal from water (and humidity). It SEEMS to be an oil, but isn't a replacement for oil. It is SO thin that it can penetrate everywhere (curiosity: Someday I put some WD inside a syringe with a very thin needle. I used to ungrip some nuts, and needed the precision of the needle to apply and not to mess with the entire device. I left it overnight (full) in a horizontal position. Next morning it only had HALF the syringe of WD. It had flowed thru the (very fine) needle and there was lots of WD on my table. Incredible how thin it is!!!). So it is used to ungrip bolts, nuts and like. If you want to use WD as an oil, you can use cooking oil with the same result - a total mess. Greetz :) Alexandre Souza From jcwren at jcwren.com Sat Jul 15 19:30:24 2006 From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:30:24 -0400 Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <44B988A0.30703@jcwren.com> I think it means "Water Displacement". http://www.wd40.com/AboutUs/our_history.html --jc Alexandre Souza wrote: > The problem is: WD-40 ISN'T A LUBRIFICATING AGENT!!! How many times it > has to be shouted for people to understand? WD means Water Dispenser, is > something that isolates metal from water (and humidity). It SEEMS to be an > oil, but isn't a replacement for oil. It is SO thin that it can penetrate > everywhere (curiosity: Someday I put some WD inside a syringe with a very > thin needle. I used to ungrip some nuts, and needed the precision of the > needle to apply and not to mess with the entire device. I left it overnight > (full) in a horizontal position. Next morning it only had HALF the syringe > of WD. It had flowed thru the (very fine) needle and there was lots of WD on > my table. Incredible how thin it is!!!). So it is used to ungrip bolts, nuts > and like. > > If you want to use WD as an oil, you can use cooking oil with the same > result - a total mess. > > Greetz :) > Alexandre Souza > > From pcw at mesanet.com Sat Jul 15 20:13:17 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:13:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: <20060715195123.GK22950@lug-owl.de> References: <20060715195123.GK22950@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: > On Sat, 2006-07-15 09:00:40 -0700, Peter C. Wallace wrote: >> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: >>> Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote >>>> I've written the Linux driver for this mouse >>>> and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want >>>> to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper >>>> driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a >>>> microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. >>> >>> So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay ones)? >> >> I have Hockey-puck ball and Hawley types, also VSXXX-GA (Early logitech >> style) > > The ball mouse is for lamers:-) Show somebody the two rollers, that's > always good for shocking! Yes, they have to be the just about the simplest mechanical mouse, but they are fussy about what they run on. > > MfG, JBG > > -- > Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ > "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O > f??r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B??rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O > ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 15 20:14:45 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:14:45 -0700 Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <44B988A0.30703@jcwren.com> References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> <44B988A0.30703@jcwren.com> Message-ID: <200607151814450789.786739C8@10.0.0.252> You might try some paint- or hardware-store denatured alcohol. It's basically ethanol with a bit a methanol added to make sure you don't try to mix your martinis with it. It's used as a shellac thinner among other things. I use it to clean flux residue from PCB's. It doesn't bother most plastics. Isopropyl alcohol might also be okay if you can get it in the pure form. Don't use rubbing alcohol--it's usually about 70% alcohol with the balance being water. Ah, for a can of Freon TF.... Cheers, Chuck On 7/15/2006 at 8:30 PM J.C. Wren wrote: >I think it means "Water Displacement". >http://www.wd40.com/AboutUs/our_history.html > > --jc > >Alexandre Souza wrote: >> The problem is: WD-40 ISN'T A LUBRIFICATING AGENT!!! How many times >it >> has to be shouted for people to understand? WD means Water Dispenser, is >> something that isolates metal from water (and humidity). It SEEMS to be >an >> oil, but isn't a replacement for oil. It is SO thin that it can penetrate >> everywhere (curiosity: Someday I put some WD inside a syringe with a very >> thin needle. I used to ungrip some nuts, and needed the precision of the >> needle to apply and not to mess with the entire device. I left it >overnight >> (full) in a horizontal position. Next morning it only had HALF the >syringe >> of WD. It had flowed thru the (very fine) needle and there was lots of >WD on >> my table. Incredible how thin it is!!!). So it is used to ungrip bolts, >nuts >> and like. >> >> If you want to use WD as an oil, you can use cooking oil with the >same >> result - a total mess. >> >> Greetz :) >> Alexandre Souza >> >> From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sat Jul 15 21:50:23 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:50:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning Message-ID: <20060716025023.50108.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> no wd-40 isnt a good lubricant (for certain tasks at least) but it is supposed to be a penetrant. I had thought that a subsequent wash of alcohol would remove *it*. Im contemplating submersing it in a watered down sudsy ammonia solution. Sudsy or probably even strait ammonia is the BEST stuph that Ive seen for getting at hidden crud, even better then acetone. You have to soak it for a day or 2 though. But it reacts with copper so Im concerned. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fernande at internet1.net Sat Jul 15 22:26:41 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:26:41 -0400 Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <20060716025023.50108.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060716025023.50108.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44B9B1F1.4080705@internet1.net> Chris M wrote: > no wd-40 isnt a good lubricant (for certain tasks at > least) but it is supposed to be a penetrant. Supposed to be, but it's definitely not the best. My use of WD-40 is reserved for anti-corrosive measures, and cleaning dirt and grease from tools.... ratchets, wrenches, etc. You don't need a penetrant, you need a solvent. > I had > thought that a subsequent wash of alcohol would remove > *it*. I don't think the alcohol would cut the WD-40 effectively, although, I never tried it. > Im contemplating submersing it in a watered down > sudsy ammonia solution. Sudsy or probably even strait > ammonia is the BEST stuph that Ive seen for getting at > hidden crud, even better then acetone. You have to > soak it for a day or 2 though. But it reacts with > copper so Im concerned. Where did you get this keyboard? How dirty is it? What kind of construction is it? I normally clean keyboards with soap and water in the kitchen sink, scrubbed with an old tooth brush, after it's been dis-assembled as much as I dare. I then blow out as much water as I can and stick it in front of a box fan. I've had one keyboard not work after this process, However, it was an untested keyboard, so it may very well have been toast to begin with. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From cclist at sydex.com Sat Jul 15 22:55:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 20:55:44 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> Isn't WD-40 pretty much kerosene (paraffin oil to those on the other side of the pond) with some lighter solvents added? I've never found it to be much better than kerosene for freeing rusted bolts at any rate. Cheers, Chuck From fernande at internet1.net Sat Jul 15 23:27:28 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 00:27:28 -0400 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44B9C030.3070007@internet1.net> Chuck Guzis wrote: > Isn't WD-40 pretty much kerosene (paraffin oil to those on the other side > of the pond) with some lighter solvents added? I've never found it to be > much better than kerosene for freeing rusted bolts at any rate. Chuck, I've heard that it's got kerosene in it, but I wouldn't know how to verify that. You did forget one ingredient..... the fragrance!! WD-40 smells the way it does because they add the smell!! Chad Fernandez <- going back to lurk mode Michigan, USA From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 00:07:50 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:07:50 -0400 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > Isn't WD-40 pretty much kerosene (paraffin oil to those on the other side > of the pond) with some lighter solvents added? I've never found it to be > much better than kerosene for freeing rusted bolts at any rate. WD-40 is basically Stoddard's solvent with some light oils added. Stoddard's solvent is a degreaser mixed to be relatively safe (fumes, flashpoint, etc.) and is quite similar to what dry cleaners use to get grease out of clothing. This is why WD-40 can be used effectively for a light duty lubricant, as it "refloats" dried out grease by dissolving the dried solids and mixing new oil in. Halfway decent short term, light duty use is OK, but not good for anything involving high speed, high loads, or medium to long periods of time between lube jobs. And you have to admit - handy as hell. As much as machinists complain about it, nearly all of them use it like the rest of us. As far as the original post is concerned - BAD BAD BAD for electrical contacts! And for rusted bolts - time is the key. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 01:39:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:39:08 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607152339080295.79903332@10.0.0.252> On 7/16/2006 at 1:07 AM William Donzelli wrote: >WD-40 is basically Stoddard's solvent with some light oils added. >From Wiki: "White spirit, also known as Stoddard solvent is a paraffin-derived clear, transparent liquid which is a common organic solvent used in painting and decorating. It is a mixture of saturated aliphatic and alicyclic C7 to C12 hydrocarbons with a maximum content of 25% of C7 to C12 alkyl aromatic hydrocarbons." So, basically a close relative to paint thinner, right? Cheers, Chuck From jbglaw at lug-owl.de Sun Jul 16 04:29:44 2006 From: jbglaw at lug-owl.de (Jan-Benedict Glaw) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:29:44 +0200 Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: References: <20060715195123.GK22950@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: <20060716092944.GN22950@lug-owl.de> On Sat, 2006-07-15 18:13:17 -0700, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: > > > On Sat, 2006-07-15 09:00:40 -0700, Peter C. Wallace > > > wrote: > > > > On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: > > > > > Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote > > > > > > I've written the Linux driver for this mouse > > > > > > and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want > > > > > > to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper > > > > > > driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a > > > > > > microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. > > > > > > > > > > So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay > > > > > ones)? > > > > > > > > I have Hockey-puck ball and Hawley types, also VSXXX-GA (Early logitech > > > > style) > > > > > > The ball mouse is for lamers:-) Show somebody the two rollers, that's > > > always good for shocking! > > Yes, they have to be the just about the simplest mechanical mouse, but they > are fussy about what they run on. Uh? I've had no problem with my mice regarding this. Always using them directly on my desk, no specific mouse pad or anything... MfG, JBG -- Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O f??r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B??rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 16 06:05:41 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:05:41 +0000 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BA1D85.1080804@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: > And for rusted bolts - time is the key. and, more often than not, large amounts of heat... From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 16 06:11:41 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:11:41 +0000 Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <44B9B1F1.4080705@internet1.net> References: <20060716025023.50108.qmail@web61024.mail.yahoo.com> <44B9B1F1.4080705@internet1.net> Message-ID: <44BA1EED.3000609@yahoo.co.uk> C Fernandez wrote: > I normally clean keyboards with soap and water in > the kitchen sink, scrubbed with an old tooth brush, after it's been > dis-assembled as much as I dare. I then blow out as much water as I can > and stick it in front of a box fan. I've had one keyboard not work > after this process, However, it was an untested keyboard, so it may very > well have been toast to begin with. It does depend on the quality of your water. Around here it more often than not results in some keys having to be dismantled individually to get them to work, as deposits in the water get left behind and stop the switches from working. On some I've had it completely change the feel of the keyboard too, presumably as deposits get trapped between sliding components (usually they loosen up again with use, but not always) These days I tend to pull keycaps off and wash separately if I can, or if not use a suitable short brush / cloths and soapy water to try to clean the keycaps without getting water inside. -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From dave06a at dunfield.com Sun Jul 16 06:52:22 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 06:52:22 -0500 Subject: Goodies available in Ontario Canada Message-ID: <200607161055.k6GAt0FN009999@mail4.magma.ca> Hi Guys, Going through the collection to see what I can move out to make room for material closer to my areas of interest. I have the following systems available: --------------------------------------------- ADDS Mentor 2000 Nice multiuser PICK machine (I had great fun hacking into it to obtain the SYSPROG password as some of you may recall). Unisys A7-311 Dual CPU "mainframe in a box" NEC N5200 Japanese version of NEC APC One of the few machines to run DOS from 8" floppies. Runs DOS and CP/M86 Compuduct "Rainbow" Large oddball S-100 computer. BMC/OKI IF-800 Large all-in-one Z80 CP/M system with Integrated, color monitor and printer. NekoTech Powerstation A portable ALPHA machine. Generic ALPHA 164LX based machine. Almost all of my MACs, including: Plus, several SEs, II, IIfx, IIsi, IIci, LC, LCII, Classic, Centrius 650, Performa 6116CD, Powermac 7200 + Lots of MAC peripherals and goodies All of my Suns including: 2 3/60s, Sparc1, Sparc4, Sparc5, IPX, Classic + Lots of SUN peripherals and goodies Misc. Material: ------------------ A couple of Morrow/Freedom100 terminals. Probably a couple of other terminals as well. TRS-80 Model III chassis, no drives, mainboard is dead due to corrosion (could be repaired), one power supply is bad, does have a disk controller. Large quantity (many thousands) of 3.5" floppy disks - both 720k and 1.44M. These are NOS - from the days when we used to shipped our software on floppy disks. Large TRS-80 Daisy Wheel II printer. Coleco Adam printer (only) - This contains the power supply for the whole system. Victory Autoloader with two complete sets of 5.25" and 3.5" hoppers (two sets of each). Remington Rand Model 17 typewriter. Piles of SCSI Drives, CD readers, CD writers, QIC and DAT tape drives. Piles of QIC and DAT tapes. Several Monochrome and CGA monitors. Probably lots more jun... er... find high-quality vintage equipment - I'll try to get a list up on the web site which I can keep updated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos and more information about most of this material is available on my web site. Items are located near Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From pcw at mesanet.com Sun Jul 16 09:23:11 2006 From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 07:23:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VSXXX mouse compatibility In-Reply-To: <20060716092944.GN22950@lug-owl.de> References: <20060715195123.GK22950@lug-owl.de> <20060716092944.GN22950@lug-owl.de> Message-ID: On Sun, 16 Jul 2006, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: > On Sat, 2006-07-15 18:13:17 -0700, Peter C. Wallace wrote: >> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote: >>>> On Sat, 2006-07-15 09:00:40 -0700, Peter C. Wallace >>>> wrote: >>>>> On Sat, 15 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote: >>>>>> Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote >>>>>>> I've written the Linux driver for this mouse >>>>>>> and its protocol is not compatible with anything else. So if you want >>>>>>> to use such a mouse on eg. a PeeCee, you either need to write a proper >>>>>>> driver for it (if the operating system doesn't have one), or put a >>>>>>> microcontroller in between for protocol conversion to PS2. >>>>>> >>>>>> So is there some big cache of these things (other than the $80 e-bay >>>>>> ones)? >>>>> >>>>> I have Hockey-puck ball and Hawley types, also VSXXX-GA (Early logitech >>>>> style) >>>> >>>> The ball mouse is for lamers:-) Show somebody the two rollers, that's >>>> always good for shocking! >> >> Yes, they have to be the just about the simplest mechanical mouse, but they >> are fussy about what they run on. > > Uh? I've had no problem with my mice regarding this. Always using them > directly on my desk, no specific mouse pad or anything... My test is to draw a diagonal line. The balled mice work fine, the Hawley mouse does a lousy job. Could just be something about my desk that the Hawley mouse doen't like... > > MfG, JBG > > -- > Jan-Benedict Glaw jbglaw at lug-owl.de . +49-172-7608481 _ O _ > "Eine Freie Meinung in einem Freien Kopf | Gegen Zensur | Gegen Krieg _ _ O > f????r einen Freien Staat voll Freier B????rger" | im Internet! | im Irak! O O O > ret = do_actions((curr | FREE_SPEECH) & ~(NEW_COPYRIGHT_LAW | DRM | TCPA)); > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 09:53:42 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 07:53:42 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <20060715150538.Q98874@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060715150538.Q98874@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200607160753420908.7B54FFAE@10.0.0.252> On 7/15/2006 at 3:09 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >GCR >MFM without WD/IBM sector headers (Amiga) >certain address marks >with some FDC's FM >with some FDC's 128 byte sectors >damaged disks (both accidents and some copy protection) Also: Hard-sectored "Strange" recording methods (e.g. OSI) --Chuck From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jul 16 10:07:23 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:07:23 -0500 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning Message-ID: > "White spirit, also known as Stoddard solvent is a paraffin-derived clear, >transparent liquid which is a common organic solvent used in painting and >decorating. It is a mixture of saturated aliphatic and alicyclic C7 to C12 >hydrocarbons with a maximum content of 25% of C7 to C12 alkyl aromatic >hydrocarbons." > >So, basically a close relative to paint thinner, right? Is paint thinner (mineral spirits, whatever you want to call it . . .) From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Sun Jul 16 10:35:35 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:35:35 -0500 Subject: Troubleshooting video Message-ID: I'm not looking for a potted answer here - just ideas for where to look. Is ~28KHz a common HSYNC frequency? seems too low for anything I've seen. What else should I look at for a non-syncing monitor? USENET seems to indicate 48.8 KHz HSYNC on these old SGI monitors (SGI employee posting), so I'm not sure where the ~28 KHz is coming from- is this crystal or RC controlled? There are about 9 boards in the graphics half, I suppose sync is generated on the last one (in this case the DC4 display controller) - no crystals there. Common failure on old framebuffers? any tips? tony? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 16 11:59:15 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 16:59:15 +0000 Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BA7063.3010103@yahoo.co.uk> Scott Quinn wrote: > > I'm not looking for a potted answer here - just ideas for where to look. Is ~28KHz a > common HSYNC frequency? seems too low for anything I've seen. Hmm, I'd expect an SGI (or similar machine of its class) to be attempting 1024x768 at 60Hz non-interlaced minimum, so hsync somewhere around 50KHz. > What else should I look at for a non-syncing monitor? Is it the monitor or the machine? For a monitor test I'd throw it on any old PC and see what I could get out of it (wire up a sync combiner if the monitor needs csync; easy to do) > USENET seems to indicate 48.8 KHz HSYNC on these old SGI monitors (SGI employee posting), Plausible, anyway. I suppose it's just possible that you could do interlaced 1024x768 with a 28KHz signal, but it'd be hell on the eyes. Possibly that's the SGI's default though if it can't detect what monitor you're plugging into it? (scratch that idea if the outputs are BNC, but if the video's done over some form of multi-pin connector, might it not need strapping in a certain way to indicate display type?) cheers Jules From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jul 16 12:03:05 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:03:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Troubleshooting video Message-ID: <20060716170305.80332.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> no, 28khz is not what you *should* be seeing. The original vga fixed frequency stuph ran at 31.5kc. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > Scott Quinn wrote: > > > > I'm not looking for a potted answer here - just ideas for where to look. Is ~28KHz a > > common HSYNC frequency? seems too low for anything I've seen. > > Hmm, I'd expect an SGI (or similar machine of its class) to be attempting > 1024x768 at 60Hz non-interlaced minimum, so hsync somewhere around 50KHz. > > > What else should I look at for a non-syncing monitor? > > Is it the monitor or the machine? For a monitor test I'd throw it on any old > PC and see what I could get out of it (wire up a sync combiner if the monitor > needs csync; easy to do) > > > USENET seems to indicate 48.8 KHz HSYNC on these old SGI monitors (SGI employee posting), > > Plausible, anyway. > > I suppose it's just possible that you could do interlaced 1024x768 with a > 28KHz signal, but it'd be hell on the eyes. Possibly that's the SGI's default > though if it can't detect what monitor you're plugging into it? (scratch that > idea if the outputs are BNC, but if the video's done over some form of > multi-pin connector, might it not need strapping in a certain way to indicate > display type?) > > cheers > > Jules > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From esharpe at uswest.net Sun Jul 16 12:13:31 2006 From: esharpe at uswest.net (ed sharpe) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:13:31 -0700 Subject: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes References: Message-ID: <001201c6a8fb$2a050eb0$0af9e444@SONYDIGITALED> At the museum here we have Gernsback's ( yes the same Hugo G. the Hugo sf award is named after)radio and television news, prior to that it was separate issues called 'radio news' and 'television news'. The dedicated 'television news' issues had the most wonderful covers. Early Radio and Television history is interesting to study! if you need to get hold of me use the mailbox at www.smecc.org I seldom use this qwest address any more and may not answer ed sharpe archivist for smecc ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Duell" To: Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 2:15 PM Subject: Re: TV kits was Re: Tek 555 was Re: Need pointers on Oscilloscopes >> into >> > > a multi standard monitor (240, 405, 441, 625) for use with a PC based >> > >> > Presumably your radar CRT is electrostatically defiected, which makes >> > varying the scan rate a lot easier than if you were using >> > electromagnetic >> > deflection. >> >> Yes, the VCR97 is a 6" electrostaic deflection and focus CRT > > Sure. It hadn't registered with me that you were using a VCR97 for this. > >> > I found 'Newnes Televsion Handbook' in a second-hand bookshop a few >> > years >> > back. I don't think they realised what it was, the price was pretty >> > low. >> > It covers _only_ mechanically-scanend stuff.... >> > >> A very lucky find! I recently got hold of some "television and shortwave" >> magazines from 1935 to 1939, which cover the late mechanical and early > > Unfortunately, my oldest 'Practical Television' magaizes are from 1952, I > think. I have about 3 years worth from then, then a large gap, another 3 > or 4 complete years in the early 70's, then another gap, then everything > from the end of 1985 onwards (until a couple of months ago, when the > editors changed, the new chap is, I believe termially clueless, so I've > stopped wasting money on it...) > >> electronic systems (the Baird 240 / EMI 405 competition and such like. >> There >> is also a lot of information on the development of the Scophony >> mechanicaly >> scanned 405 line receiver (I have one of the few remaining parts of a >> Scophony set, http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/tv1.htm) > > Ooooh... A very nice find there... > > -tony > > > From bobalan at sbcglobal.net Sun Jul 16 12:15:05 2006 From: bobalan at sbcglobal.net (Bob Rosenbloom) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:15:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: HP 2621B terminal available In-Reply-To: <200607161607.k6GG7mm2070586@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060716171505.83838.qmail@web82712.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I have an HP 2621B terminal WITHOUT the keyboard free to anyone who wants it. It does power on but displayed characters (it has a menu at the bottom of the screen) are dim and a little out of focus. Bob From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jul 16 12:44:04 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 13:44:04 -0400 Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: <20060716170305.80332.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060716170305.80332.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200607161344.04205.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 16 July 2006 13:03, Chris M wrote: > no, 28khz is not what you *should* be seeing. The > original vga fixed frequency stuph ran at 31.5kc. Scott said: > these old SGI monitors and > There are about 9 boards in the graphics half I don't know of any VGA controller that had 9 boards in it (or was designed to hook to an old SGI monitor)... You do realize that the "stuff" we talk about on classiccmp are usually things that aren't PC's, right? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jul 16 12:44:30 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:44:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning Message-ID: <20060716174430.45634.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> the keyboard is for a NEC APC III. Some keys are intermittentsometimes. Other times theyre not. :D. I think Ill try soapy water and a splash of ammonia. Shaken not stirred. Next question - how does one scope out an 8048s code without enlisting the services of a soldering iron? I wouldnt be all that adverse to cutting a few traces. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Sun Jul 16 13:09:39 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:09:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Troubleshooting video Message-ID: <20060716180939.34673.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> here we go. No I wasnt aware of a ban on pc-talk here. And my point was 28kc is below even the hscan of comparitively low-res vga. --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: > On Sunday 16 July 2006 13:03, Chris M wrote: > > no, 28khz is not what you *should* be seeing. The > > original vga fixed frequency stuph ran at 31.5kc. > > Scott said: > > these old SGI monitors > and > > There are about 9 boards in the graphics half > > I don't know of any VGA controller that had 9 boards in it (or was designed to > hook to an old SGI monitor)... > > You do realize that the "stuff" we talk about on classiccmp are usually things > that aren't PC's, right? > > Pat > -- > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From kelly at catcorner.org Sun Jul 16 13:16:24 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:16:24 -0400 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036113@MEOW.catcorner.org> > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis >> On 7/15/2006 at 3:09 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >> > >GCR > >MFM without WD/IBM sector headers (Amiga) > >certain address marks > >with some FDC's FM > >with some FDC's 128 byte sectors > >damaged disks (both accidents and some copy protection) > > Also: > > Hard-sectored > "Strange" recording methods (e.g. OSI) > > --Chuck > Fred and Chuck seem to sum it up quite nicely. The "image" programs like teledisk and imagedisk are very limited in what they can image. What they do, they do very well, but they rely on a WD or WD emulated chip in the floppy control circuit. Since the current copyright standing of teledisk is not known to me, but that of imagedisk is, for these quick and dirty copies, I rely on ImageDisk. If I find images in teledisk, I write them out to physical media and re-read them into ImageDisk files. The catweasel does not rely on the WD style controllers. It can handle the "funny" address marks, hard sector disks, GCR, read and write FM formats reliably, and has a host of options for dealing with damaged disks. Just my $0.02... Kelly From fernande at internet1.net Sun Jul 16 13:20:00 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:20:00 -0400 Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <20060716174430.45634.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060716174430.45634.qmail@web61012.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44BA8350.50302@internet1.net> Chris M wrote: > the keyboard is for a NEC APC III. Some keys are > intermittentsometimes. Other times theyre not. :D. I > think Ill try soapy water and a splash of ammonia. Chris, Skip the ammonia. Ammonia will react with copper. Dish soap will, too but not like the Ammonia. If you don't add enough to react with the copper, your probably not adding enough for it to clean the keyboard any better any way. Get yourself an old toothbrush scrub the keyboard up, and rinse with plenty of warm water after disassembling as much as you can (case, etc). Don't let the electronic bits soak for any period of time.... get it wet, scrubbed, and dry in short order. Blow as much water off as you can with a compressor, or a can of air. Blow the water down, so gravity is working for you, off the parts from several (all) angles. The let it sit on its side, changing side every so often, in front of a fan. Sometimes a towel will work to pull off some of the water after the final rinse, too. Let us know how it goes, what you do differently, etc. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jul 16 13:46:02 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:46:02 -0400 Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: <20060716180939.34673.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20060716180939.34673.qmail@web61019.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200607161446.03039.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 16 July 2006 14:09, Chris M wrote: > here we go. No I wasnt aware of a ban on pc-talk here. > And my point was 28kc is below even the hscan of > comparitively low-res vga. But higher than 15.75kHz video on a CGA or NTSC video. Pat > --- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org > > wrote: > > On Sunday 16 July 2006 13:03, Chris M wrote: > > > no, 28khz is not what you *should* be seeing. The > > > original vga fixed frequency stuph ran at 31.5kc. > > > > Scott said: > > > these old SGI monitors > > > > and > > > > > There are about 9 boards in the graphics half > > > > I don't know of any VGA controller that had 9 boards > > in it (or was designed to > > > hook to an old SGI monitor)... > > > > You do realize that the "stuff" we talk about on > > classiccmp are usually things > > > that aren't PC's, right? > > > > Pat > > -- > > Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- > > http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ > > > The Computer Refuge --- > > http://computer-refuge.org > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Sun Jul 16 15:16:19 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:16:19 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? Message-ID: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> Out of interest (I suspect the answer's no), does Imagedisk support boards based around the UM8398 FDC IC? According to the datasheet it'll handle FM density, but I suspect that it's totally incompatible with anything else on the planet... cheers Jules -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From healyzh at aracnet.com Sun Jul 16 16:04:49 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:04:49 -0700 Subject: Goodies available in Ontario Canada In-Reply-To: <200607161055.k6GAt0FN009999@mail4.magma.ca> References: <200607161055.k6GAt0FN009999@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: At 6:52 AM -0500 7/16/06, Dave Dunfield wrote: >Items are located near Ottawa, Ontario Canada. You realize that from my point of view, that's the best thing about all the stuff :^) Keeps me from being tempted. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 15:58:18 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:58:18 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <44BA1D85.1080804@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 16, 6 11:05:41 am Message-ID: > > William Donzelli wrote: > > And for rusted bolts - time is the key. > > and, more often than not, large amounts of heat... Another trick that works very well for me is to try tightening the bolt slightly. Put the tool on, turn it clockwise (assuming a right-hand thread), then try turning it anticlockwise again. About 95% of the time, the bolt comes right out. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 16:04:22 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:04:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: from "Scott Quinn" at Jul 16, 6 10:35:35 am Message-ID: > > > > I'm not looking for a potted answer here - just ideas for where to > look. Is ~28KHz a common HSYNC frequency? seems too low for anything > I've seen. It might be, although it sounds low for a workstation monitor. TV HSync is around 15.6kHz (different on the 2 sides of the Pond, but suprisingly close!), The IBM MDA was around 18kHz. And so on. For a non-interlaced monitor, the ratio of hyxnc to vsyn frequencies is the total number of lines in the picture (including non-displayed lines during the flyback time). For 2-way interlace, it's half the number of lines, and so on. This might give you an idea if the hysnc frequency is reasoanble. Is the Vsync frequency reasonable (likely to be 10's of Hz -- 50Hz, 60Hz or something like that). If it is, does the number of lines make sense based on the resulution of the display. > What else should I look at for a non-syncing monitor? USENET seems to > indicate 48.8 KHz HSYNC on these old SGI monitors (SGI employee posting), That would be more like what I'd expect on a workstation. > so I'm not sure where the ~28 KHz is coming from- is this crystal or > RC controlled? There are about 9 boards in the graphics half, I suppose > sync is generated Almost certainly there's one master crystal oscillator that's digitially divided down to produce all the video timing signals. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 15:39:44 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:39:44 +0100 (BST) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <44B9B1F1.4080705@internet1.net> from "C Fernandez" at Jul 15, 6 11:26:41 pm Message-ID: > construction is it? I normally clean keyboards with soap and water in > the kitchen sink, scrubbed with an old tooth brush, after it's been > dis-assembled as much as I dare. I then blow out as much water as I can I normally take them apart as much as _I_ dare, which may be a lot further :-). In particular, I pull all the keycaps (after making a diagram of their positions) and clean them with one of those foam cleaner sprays. In one case, where I had a lot of keyswitch problems, I even desoldered all the keyswticthes from the PCB, took them out of the frame, took the PCB off the frame too, and then took each switch apart and cleaned it. That's a lot of work and may well not be worth doing in all cases. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 15:41:25 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:41:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607152055440257.78FA9A2D@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jul 15, 6 08:55:44 pm Message-ID: > > Isn't WD-40 pretty much kerosene (paraffin oil to those on the other side > of the pond) with some lighter solvents added? I've never found it to be > much better than kerosene for freeing rusted bolts at any rate. It has some heavier stuff added too. If you fill a container with WD40 and leave it overnight (cooling it is supposed to help too), it will separate into 2 distinct layers. The top one is actually a reasonable light oil, the bottom one is much like wax. -tony From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jul 16 16:33:44 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:33:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <200607160753420908.7B54FFAE@10.0.0.252> References: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060715150538.Q98874@shell.lmi.net> <200607160753420908.7B54FFAE@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <20060716142652.O47183@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Also: > Hard-sectored > "Strange" recording methods (e.g. OSI) How well does the Catweasel deal with those? The Central Point Option Board does NOT do well, although most of that is due to their software implementation (it can't copy anything that doesn't have an index pulse!) One [bored] day we put together a copy protection scheme, that wouldn't stop DISKCOPY, but would stop Norton fUtilities and Option Board. Back side of a hard-sectored diskette, formatted originally with a drive indexing off of hub instead of sensor. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com From cisin at xenosoft.com Sun Jul 16 16:41:17 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:41:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20060716143703.B47183@shell.lmi.net> On Sun, 16 Jul 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > I normally take them apart as much as _I_ dare, which may be a lot > further :-). In particular, I pull all the keycaps (after making a > diagram of their positions) and clean them with one of those foam cleaner > sprays. The first time that you take off the space bar from the keyboard of a 5150, it's a little bit of a struggle mastering how to re-attach it. I have a basket with a lid for cleaning them in a dishwasher. From vp at drexel.edu Sun Jul 16 16:29:28 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:29:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive Message-ID: <200607162129.k6GLTSB1014809@dune.cs.drexel.edu> ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > [...] it should be possible to make, say, a module with an HPIB port on > one side and SCSI on the other. It would respond to CS/80 or SS/80, and > talk to a normal SCSI drive. I am suprised nothing like this exists [...] Actually the IEM-4400 has a SCSI DAT tape drive and a board to interface it to HP-IB. I wonder if that board can be made to connect a SCSI *disk* to HPIB (probably need a new ROM though which will make the project more expensive than building everything from scratch). Regarding the HP Nighthawk drive I have one too (it was inside a 9153A box). When I bought the 9153A I assumed I'd find a standard drive inside (disappointed...). Once I saw the custom drive I decided not to bother with that drive (no way of repairing it, or recovering data stored on it). Unfortunately I was proven right, as the drive gave up the ghost. The Nighthawk drive now shorts the power supply. If you remove the hard disk, the 9153A powers up, but with the drive connected, nothing comes on, and a resistor on the drive begins to smell! :-( **vp From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 17:39:54 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:39:54 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> On 7/16/2006 at 9:58 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >Another trick that works very well for me is to try tightening the bolt >slightly. Put the tool on, turn it clockwise (assuming a right-hand >thread), then try turning it anticlockwise again. About 95% of the time, >the bolt comes right out. When we work with stuck valve caps, etc. on brass instruments, rather than apply force using something like a strap wrench, what works better is a tangential blow with a hammer (rawhide head in the case of brass). The concussive shock works where a steady torque does not--and the chances of stripping threads or shearing bolts is much reduced. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 17:46:00 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 15:46:00 -0700 Subject: *early* Domain OS available? ---> 8" floppy with Imagedisk In-Reply-To: <20060716142652.O47183@shell.lmi.net> References: <20060715202619.35828.qmail@web61020.mail.yahoo.com> <20060715150538.Q98874@shell.lmi.net> <200607160753420908.7B54FFAE@10.0.0.252> <20060716142652.O47183@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200607161546000585.7D05671A@10.0.0.252> On 7/16/2006 at 2:33 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >How well does the Catweasel deal with those? >The Central Point Option Board does NOT do well, although >most of that is due to their software implementation >(it can't copy anything that doesn't have an index pulse!) It depends pretty much on your coding skills--but I've had very good luck with some really oddball recording schemes. Of course, I was just reading the diskettes, not making copies. That could be a different kettle of fish. >One [bored] day we put together a copy protection scheme, >that wouldn't stop DISKCOPY, but would stop Norton fUtilities >and Option Board. Back side of a hard-sectored diskette, >formatted originally with a drive indexing off of hub instead >of sensor. What defeated almost all copy-protection schemes was that, at some point, you have to have the executable code in memory and a determined cracker will figure out a way to defeat all of your lovely protection code. All you can hope for is that it slows the crackers down a bit. Make it too hard and they feel challenged and just redouble their efforts. Cheers, Chuck From ploopster at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 18:18:41 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:18:41 -0400 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> References: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BAC951.6030807@gmail.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/16/2006 at 9:58 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >Another trick that works very well for me is to try tightening the bolt >> slightly. Put the tool on, turn it clockwise (assuming a right-hand >> thread), then try turning it anticlockwise again. About 95% of the time, >> the bolt comes right out. > > When we work with stuck valve caps, etc. on brass instruments, rather than > apply force using something like a strap wrench, what works better is a > tangential blow with a hammer (rawhide head in the case of brass). The > concussive shock works where a steady torque does not--and the chances of > stripping threads or shearing bolts is much reduced. When working on my car's suspension and drivetrain, I tend to use a combination of penetrating lube, heat and concussion. Peace... Sridhar From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jul 16 18:33:29 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:33:29 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 Message-ID: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> So, I picked up some new toys at "The Event" yesterday, and I was wondering... Does anyone happen to have copies of CP/M (or any other OS) for Televideo's TS-801? These seem to have a pair of 5.25" DSDD 48tpi drives, from what little information I've seen from google. I picked up a pair of TS-801's and a TS-806C (not to be confused with a TS-806), which is a "shared tape drive" box. I haven't found much info there that I can't figure out from a quick look at the machine, though.. Thanks. Pat (Wishing he could just ask Don for the disks...) -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From rtellason at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 18:47:56 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:47:56 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607161947.57007.rtellason@gmail.com> On Sunday 16 July 2006 07:33 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > So, I picked up some new toys at "The Event" yesterday, and I was > wondering... > > Does anyone happen to have copies of CP/M (or any other OS) for Televideo's > TS-801? These seem to have a pair of 5.25" DSDD 48tpi drives, from what > little information I've seen from google. I picked up a pair of TS-801's > and a TS-806C (not to be confused with a TS-806), which is a "shared tape > drive" box. What's the difference between a TS-806 and a TS-806C, not to be confused with? I have a TS-816 in storage. A bit more than a "shared tape drive", it's got a tape drive that they say handles up to 14MB (dunno why some other drives can seemingly stuff so much more into the same form factor tapes) and also a big old 8" HD, belt-driven yet. A Z80, and I think 128K of ram, which is probably what you also have in that other unit as well. It's been a long time since I've run into any of that stuff, and while I have the 816 and one of the cables to connect a "workstation" to it, pretty long at that, I never did get any 801s or similar. Is the 801 the one where the floppy drives are vertical and to one side of the display monitor? > I haven't found much info there that I can't figure out from a quick look > at the machine, though.. > > Thanks. > > Pat (Wishing he could just ask Don for the disks...) Don sent me a belt to put on that 8" HD, which I still have somewhere, in the box he sent it in, I never did get around to putting it on there. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From evan at snarc.net Sun Jul 16 18:54:31 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:54:31 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? Message-ID: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Anyone have a report...? From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 19:23:33 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:23:33 -0400 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> References: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: > When we work with stuck valve caps, etc. on brass instruments, rather than > apply force using something like a strap wrench, what works better is a > tangential blow with a hammer (rawhide head in the case of brass). The > concussive shock works where a steady torque does not--and the chances of > stripping threads or shearing bolts is much reduced. Thay are hard to find, but there is a class of wrench called a striking wrench. It is made exactly for this purpose - a wrench with a cube on the end of the handle so you can whack it with a hammer. -- Will From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 19:25:39 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:25:39 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: > Anyone have a report...? Yes, many of us are dying to know who won the computer geek line dancing contest, done to Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator". -- Will From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 20:21:05 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:21:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive In-Reply-To: <200607162129.k6GLTSB1014809@dune.cs.drexel.edu> from "Vassilis PREVELAKIS" at Jul 16, 6 05:29:28 pm Message-ID: > > ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > > [...] it should be possible to make, say, a module with an HPIB port on > > one side and SCSI on the other. It would respond to CS/80 or SS/80, and > > talk to a normal SCSI drive. I am suprised nothing like this exists [...] > > Actually the IEM-4400 has a SCSI DAT tape drive and a board to interface it > to HP-IB. I wonder if that board can be made to connect a SCSI *disk* to > HPIB (probably need a new ROM though which will make the project more > expensive than building everything from scratch). I don't think that simplifies things that much. OK I'm a hardware hacker, but I think I could build the hardware for this in an afternoon without really trying. Writing the firmware would take (me?) a lot longer. > > Regarding the HP Nighthawk drive I have one too (it was inside a > 9153A box). When I bought the 9153A I assumed I'd find a standard > drive inside (disappointed...). Once I saw the custom drive I decided I was somewhat suprised when I took the cover off the 9154 that I got with my HP150-II... > not to bother with that drive (no way of repairing it, or recovering > data stored on it). Unfortunately I was proven right, as the drive > gave up the ghost. The Nighthawk drive now shorts the power supply. > If you remove the hard disk, the 9153A powers up, but with the drive > connected, nothing comes on, and a resistor on the drive begins to > smell! :-( I wonder if some standard part has failed, and thus the thing could be repaired. I _will_ investigate this drive sometime, and trace out schematics, but alas I have other things I want to do first... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Sun Jul 16 20:23:31 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:23:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <20060716143703.B47183@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jul 16, 6 02:41:17 pm Message-ID: > > On Sun, 16 Jul 2006, Tony Duell wrote: > > I normally take them apart as much as _I_ dare, which may be a lot > > further :-). In particular, I pull all the keycaps (after making a > > diagram of their positions) and clean them with one of those foam cleaner > > sprays. > > The first time that you take off the space bar from the keyboard of a > 5150, it's a little bit of a struggle mastering how to re-attach it. >From what I remember, the procedure I use to dismantle that keyboard goes like that : Remove the 2 screws on the bottom. Take off the casing, disconnect the cable. Pull off all keycaps other than the space bar Bend the locking tab, then slide the bottom half of the keyboard assembly to free it from the top half Separate the halves, remove all the 'flaps' Dismantle the space bar Remove the screw holding the PCB to the bottom plate, free the PCB from the keyhole slots/studs, remove it. -tony From rigdonj at cfl.rr.com Sun Jul 16 21:28:27 2006 From: rigdonj at cfl.rr.com (Joe R.) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:28:27 Subject: Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive In-Reply-To: <200607162129.k6GLTSB1014809@dune.cs.drexel.edu> Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.20060716212827.3e2f1a94@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> At 05:29 PM 7/16/06 -0400, Vassilis wrote: > >Actually the IEM-4400 has a SCSI DAT tape drive and a board to interface it >to HP-IB. Vassilis, Do you have ANY docs for the IEM dirve? I have several of their units and I'd like to find out more about them. Joe From jwest at classiccmp.org Sun Jul 16 21:42:11 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:42:11 -0500 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> This report will be terse, only because I can't keep my eyes open any more tonight.... Evan wrote... > Anyone have a report...? VCF/Midwest v2.0 was a BLAST.... this year had a fair amount more floorspace in active use than last year, a good sign. VCF/M is alive and growing :) Friday night a large group of us met for some awesome Indian food at a buffet, then got a tour of the Purdue datacenter. The IBM pSeries 1600 supercomputer cluster was the high point of my own walk through (even though it runs AIX ;) ). I have to admit, I think most of the million+ dollar pricetag is for that cute gold stripe down the front ;) Watching the Adic tape library robot come screaming down the racks and stopping about 8 inches from your face on the other side of the glass was rather titilating as well. I was rather disappointed in that I couldn't find a single "emergency pull" button to hit *sigh*. Although... there was this rabbit trap on the wall with a wooden stick holding up the.... (Pat, someone should write on the front of that panel "shhhhh be vewy vewy quiet... I'm hunting wabbits"). After the tour we attempted to go see Pat's own personal datacenter in downtown Lafayette, but the police who cordoned off a couple block radius around his datacenter had other ideas. They weren't talking, but we were able to come back the next day. I did get pictures of some of the datacenter (Purdue's) which I'll post if Pat says it's ok. Saturday it took quite a few hours to get everyones stuff from the loading docs to the exhibit room. There were around five flattrucks and many people working them continuously for a few hours. I liked all the displays, but I think my own favorite was the "Geek Museum" due to the gamer in me. I did manage to take a lot of pictures of the exhibit hall during the show. I know there was some concern about if there would be any speakers lined up for the show. Let me tell you - it was worth anyones plane ticket price and then some to see/hear the two speakers (George Goble and Mike Marsh) talk about their creation of the dual processor Vax 11/780. That was pure, unadulterated Classic Computer heaven. I think they went slightly over the time allowed, and I was hoping they'd still keep right on going. I am hoping that Pat can make that tape available for purchase - if so, I will be buying a copy and I'd strongly encourage others to as well. It was chock full of exactly the type of fascinating tidbits that we all love, like why they had to set the drives to seek when idle to avoid a headcrash. Or how to tell of an impending "drives gone critical" (no relation to the late night video advertisement) by the strobe pattern effect of the top surface. There was also some fascinating discussion of some of the problems they had with certain instructions failing when they resided in the last few bytes of a page. For the next "speaker", several of us (myself, Tom Uban, and Dan Cohoe) were recruited to sit on a discussion panel with Jack Rubin just a couple hours before it was to start. It was hard to tell for sure from my view, but I think this actually came off fairly good - mainly due to great points by Tom, Dan, and Jack rather than myself :) After the show we spent many hours carting off everyones gear to the loading doc (you should see the pictures of it all stacked up waiting for loading). Then a large group of us went to the same Italian restraunt as last year and it was just as good again (by the way, George Goble went with us and was still fascinating to listen to). Good food and beer was enjoyed :) After leaving the restraunt we headed to see Pats own "slightly crowded" datacenter. Let's just say that it's a good thing his building doesn't have a basement. Anything other than cement slab over bedrock would surely give way at the plethora of mainframe gear. Pat, that microwave looks sorely out of place. Actually, it looks very scared.... Of course I enjoyed this part of the evening as at this point I consumated a trade with pat that allowed me to put some new (to me) DEC gear on my trailer. Yup, my trailer was present. As was a fire extinguisher (J/K). My favorite part of the trip - assisting around five other guys with loading Dan C's newest acquisition in to his minivan. An IBM RS/6000. And not just "any" RS/6000. It was an SP machine. Think Cray (as to appearance {and size/weight}). Yes, I did say minivan. I don't think I've ever laughed quite so hard as seeing the precise way that the forklift moving forward and van moving backward was choreographed to get the machine, base pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. Along with a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we started loading this machine, I am guessing around 10:30 or so. I do know that it took until around 2am. I have lots of pictures of this operation, including a side view of the minivan's wheel well (or lack thereof). I belive I did hear a leafspring cry out. Thank god CarFax doesn't track that kind of information or Dan may have trouble selling the vehicle some day ;) The next morning a few various groups met at separate places for breakfast or to complete personal trades. I myself left around 10am to head back to St. Louis. Oh, by the way.... folks looking for DEC gear that didn't show up to VCF/M missed out - Paul Anderson was there with a large amount of great gear for sale. I was like a kid in a candy store with the M module card inventory, printsets, documentation, tapes, and even a nice RK05 drive. Overall, I think VCF/M v2.0 was a great success. That being said, I humbly submit that we can still grow it further and be better still next year. I want to publicly thank (and commend) Pat for pulling the event together and making it happen. He deserves a round of applause and thanks! I (and I know for sure others) are already really looking forward to VCF/M v3.0. Jay West PS - Pat, I really did like the new VCF/Midwest v2.0 T-shirt. Don't forget to send me an "L". Where do I sent the money? From bob099 at centurytel.net Sun Jul 16 22:01:45 2006 From: bob099 at centurytel.net (Choctaw Bob) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 22:01:45 -0500 Subject: Laser 128 please help Message-ID: <44BAFD99.6090809@centurytel.net> I picked up a Laser 128 at a flea market for $5. Got it home hooked up to video in port on tv, it booted a disc I didn't even know it had, a childrens spelling game. I have just exhausted my knowledge of the Laser and Apples in general, where can I go for more information? Anyway to create a system disc, without access to an Apple? Google provides an embaressment of sources about apple but much less about Laser. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Sun Jul 16 22:29:24 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:29:24 -0300 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning References: Message-ID: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> > > Isn't WD-40 pretty much kerosene (paraffin oil to those on the other side > > of the pond) with some lighter solvents added? I've never found it to be > > much better than kerosene for freeing rusted bolts at any rate. > It has some heavier stuff added too. If you fill a container with WD40 > and leave it overnight (cooling it is supposed to help too), it will > separate into 2 distinct layers. The top one is actually a reasonable > light oil, the bottom one is much like wax. The brazilian WD-40 hasn't this property! :oO From wdonzelli at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 22:38:50 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 23:38:50 -0400 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> References: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: > The brazilian WD-40 hasn't this property! :oO Nor does the US WD-40. You can buy non-pressurized gallons (I think that big) jugs of the stuff, and it is homogeneous. -- Will From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 22:52:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 20:52:30 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <200607162052300904.7E1E044E@10.0.0.252> On 7/16/2006 at 11:38 PM William Donzelli wrote: >> The brazilian WD-40 hasn't this property! :oO > >Nor does the US WD-40. You can buy non-pressurized gallons (I think >that big) jugs of the stuff, and it is homogeneous. I recall a friend who spent quite a bit of time in the Amazon basin once mentioned to me that he'd flown on a then-ancient Ford Trimotor where the pilot dumped a gallon of WD-40 into the tank along with the fuel...I don't know why, however. Cheers, Chuck From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 23:11:17 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:11:17 +1200 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607162052300904.7E1E044E@10.0.0.252> References: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> <200607162052300904.7E1E044E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: On 7/17/06, Chuck Guzis wrote: > I recall a friend who spent quite a bit of time in the Amazon basin once > mentioned to me that he'd flown on a then-ancient Ford Trimotor where the > pilot dumped a gallon of WD-40 into the tank along with the fuel...I don't > know why, however. Mechanical fuel pump? Steel gas tank? -ethan From pat at computer-refuge.org Sun Jul 16 23:15:59 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:15:59 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Just a few fixups on Jay's report... (and a few things to add/clarify) On Sunday 16 July 2006 22:42, Jay West wrote: > Friday night a large group of us met for some awesome Indian food at a > buffet, then got a tour of the Purdue datacenter. The IBM pSeries 1600 > supercomputer cluster was the high point of my own walk through (even > though it runs AIX ;) ). I have to admit, I think most of the million+ > dollar pricetag is for that cute gold stripe down the front ;) (The "gold" -- really copper -- stripe was on our two p690 16x POWER4 Regattas. The "cluster 1600" or SP still has nice sexy black racks, though. :) > Watching the > Adic tape library robot come screaming down the racks and stopping about 8 > inches from your face on the other side of the glass was rather titilating > as well. I was rather disappointed in that I couldn't find a single > "emergency pull" button to hit *sigh*. Although... there was this rabbit > trap on the wall with a wooden stick holding up the.... (Pat, someone > should write on the front of that panel "shhhhh be vewy vewy quiet... I'm > hunting wabbits"). ... holding up a 400A 208V 3phase contactor, which *should* be fixed but no one is willing to test... > After the tour we attempted to go see Pat's own personal > datacenter in downtown Lafayette, but the police who cordoned off a couple > block radius around his datacenter had other ideas. They weren't talking, > but we were able to come back the next day. I did get pictures of some of > the datacenter (Purdue's) which I'll post if Pat says it's ok. > > Saturday it took quite a few hours to get everyones stuff from the loading > docs to the exhibit room. There were around five flattrucks and many people > working them continuously for a few hours. I liked all the displays, but I > think my own favorite was the "Geek Museum" due to the gamer in me. I did Mike Lee did a wonderful job with his exhibit, and probably could have used another table or three to spread everything out on. > manage to take a lot of pictures of the exhibit hall during the show. I > know there was some concern about if there would be any speakers lined up > for the show. Let me tell you - it was worth anyones plane ticket price and > then some to see/hear the two speakers (George Goble and Mike Marsh) talk > about their creation of the dual processor Vax 11/780. That was pure, > unadulterated Classic Computer heaven. I think they went slightly over the > time allowed, and I was hoping they'd still keep right on going. I am > hoping that Pat can make that tape available for purchase - if so, I will > be buying a copy and I'd strongly encourage others to as well. It was chock I'll see how the recording came out. George sat somewhat off-camera and off-mic for most of it, but it might still come out ok. In retrospect, I should have set them up like a "panel" like we did for the 2nd set of speakers.. > full of exactly the type of fascinating tidbits that we all love, like why > they had to set the drives to seek when idle to avoid a headcrash. Or how > to tell of an impending "drives gone critical" (no relation to the late > night video advertisement) by the strobe pattern effect of the top surface. > There was also some fascinating discussion of some of the problems they had > with certain instructions failing when they resided in the last few bytes > of a page. For the next "speaker", several of us (myself, Tom Uban, and Dan > Cohoe) were recruited to sit on a discussion panel with Jack Rubin just a > couple hours before it was to start. It was hard to tell for sure from my > view, but I think this actually came off fairly good - mainly due to great > points by Tom, Dan, and Jack rather than myself :) After the show we spent > many hours carting off everyones gear to the loading doc (you should see > the pictures of it all stacked up waiting for loading). Then a large group > of us went to the same Italian restraunt as last year and it was just as > good again (by the way, George Goble went with us and was still fascinating > to listen to). Good food and beer was enjoyed :) Nit, actually Mike Marsh was the one that trailed us to the restraunt, to my "data center" and back for the loading fun later... > After leaving the restraunt we headed to see Pats own "slightly crowded" > datacenter. Let's just say that it's a good thing his building doesn't have > a basement. Anything other than cement slab over bedrock would surely give > way at the plethora of mainframe gear. Pat, that microwave looks sorely out I actually chose the place *because of* the cement slab floor, which is level with the sidewalk outside. > of place. Actually, it looks very scared.... Of course I enjoyed this part It happened to be in one of my 10x10 storage units that I cleared out into the place. > of the evening as at this point I consumated a trade with pat that allowed > me to put some new (to me) DEC gear on my trailer. Yup, my trailer was > present. As was a fire extinguisher (J/K). It's a shame we couldn't get you some IBM SP gear on that trailer. ;) > My favorite part of the trip - assisting around five other guys with > loading Dan C's newest acquisition in to his minivan. An IBM RS/6000. And > not just "any" RS/6000. It was an SP machine. Think Cray (as to appearance > {and size/weight}). Yes, I did say minivan. I don't think I've ever laughed For the record, I'd estimate the weight of a "fully configured" rack to be around 2000lbs, 1800lbs if you take the steel plates out of the bottom of the rack. Fortunately, we weren't putting *exactly* that into Dan's minivan. > quite so hard as seeing the precise way that the forklift moving forward > and van moving backward was choreographed to get the machine, base > pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. Along with > a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we started loading this > machine, I am guessing around 10:30 or so. I do know that it took until > around 2am. I have lots of pictures of this operation, including a side > view of the minivan's wheel well (or lack thereof). I belive I did hear a > leafspring cry out. Thank god CarFax doesn't track that kind of information > or Dan may have trouble selling the vehicle some day ;) With only 2 nodes, he probably got *only* about 1150lbs of IBM gear. ;) > The next morning a few various groups met at separate places for breakfast > or to complete personal trades. I myself left around 10am to head back to > St. Louis. Oh, by the way.... folks looking for DEC gear that didn't show > up to VCF/M missed out - Paul Anderson was there with a large amount of > great gear for sale. I was like a kid in a candy store with the M module > card inventory, printsets, documentation, tapes, and even a nice RK05 > drive. I'd agree. I had a module that Paul couldn't find in time to bring to the show with him, but he had a lot great looking things that I would have considered buying if I had a use for them. > Overall, I think VCF/M v2.0 was a great success. That being said, I humbly > submit that we can still grow it further and be better still next year. I > want to publicly thank (and commend) Pat for pulling the event together and > making it happen. He deserves a round of applause and thanks! I (and I know > for sure others) are already really looking forward to VCF/M v3.0. As always, it looks a lot better now than it did the week before (when I was working my arse off to get things prepared for the show).. > Jay West > PS - Pat, I really did like the new VCF/Midwest v2.0 T-shirt. Don't forget > to send me an "L". Where do I sent the money? I made up a cafepress store to sell shirts, anyone can order them from here: http://www.cafepress.com/vcfmw2/ Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 23:22:34 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:22:34 -0700 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the UM8398 looks to be yeat another integration of the NEC 765 with some support circuitry. I think I've even got one of these on an ISA board and it looks for all the world like a plain-jane PC/AT style controller. Cheers, Chuck On 7/16/2006 at 8:16 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Out of interest (I suspect the answer's no), does Imagedisk support >boards >based around the UM8398 FDC IC? According to the datasheet it'll handle FM >density, but I suspect that it's totally incompatible with anything else >on >the planet... > >cheers > >Jules > >-- >(\__/) >(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your >(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From cclist at sydex.com Sun Jul 16 23:31:01 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:31:01 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: References: <003301c6a951$9c858900$02fea8c0@alpha> <200607162052300904.7E1E044E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607162131010916.7E414A84@10.0.0.252> On 7/17/2006 at 4:11 PM Ethan Dicks wrote: >Mechanical fuel pump? Steel gas tank? Now, that's a thought. I'd forgotten about the perpetual state of sogginess in the Amazon. Reminds me of a BBC news story on buffalo-riding cops in the same general area: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5126216.stm Wonder if the buffalo drink WD-40? Cheers, Chuck From vp at drexel.edu Sun Jul 16 23:32:26 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:32:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: IEM-4400 (was Documentation for HP Nighthawk 20mb drive) Message-ID: <200607170432.k6H4WQG2023830@dune.cs.drexel.edu> "Joe R." wrote: > Do you have ANY docs for the IEM dirve? I have several of their units > and I'd like to find out more about them. alas nothing. I have asked on this list before for any info on this thing, but I got no answers. **vp From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Sun Jul 16 23:56:59 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:56:59 +1200 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 7/17/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > Just a few fixups on Jay's report... (and a few things to add/clarify) > > > .... folks looking for DEC gear that didn't show > > up to VCF/M missed out - Paul Anderson was there with a large amount of > > great gear for sale. I was like a kid in a candy store with the M module > > card inventory, printsets, documentation, tapes, and even a nice RK05 > > drive. > > I'd agree. I had a module that Paul couldn't find in time to bring to the > show with him, but he had a lot great looking things that I would have > considered buying if I had a use for them. Yeah... that's something else I was sorry I couldn't be there for. I'm often in the market for disk interfaces and memory for various DEC machines (mostly -11 and -8 platforms). Out of curiousity, how much did the RK05 run you? I have enough of my own, but I'm curious about a non-eBay price point. -ethan From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 17 00:15:17 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:15:17 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607161947.57007.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607161947.57007.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607170115.17983.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 16 July 2006 19:47, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Sunday 16 July 2006 07:33 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > So, I picked up some new toys at "The Event" yesterday, and I was > > wondering... > > > > Does anyone happen to have copies of CP/M (or any other OS) for > > Televideo's TS-801? These seem to have a pair of 5.25" DSDD 48tpi > > drives, from what little information I've seen from google. I picked up > > a pair of TS-801's and a TS-806C (not to be confused with a TS-806), > > which is a "shared tape drive" box. > > What's the difference between a TS-806 and a TS-806C, not to be confused > with? A TS-806 is a multi-user computer that could run things like MMMOST to connect to TS-800 diskless terminals. A TS-806C is a shared tape drive. All it has is a tape drive, a Z80 board with some firmware (it doesn't boot anything), 64k ram, and what are probably a pair of 15-pin RS422 ports to connect back to the hosts. > I have a TS-816 in storage. A bit more than a "shared tape drive", it's > got a tape drive that they say handles up to 14MB (dunno why some other > drives can seemingly stuff so much more into the same form factor tapes) > and also a big old 8" HD, belt-driven yet. Yea, I've got one too. had a crashed hdd, and its tape drive needs some work (was like that when Don sent it to me). > A Z80, and I think 128K of ram, which is probably what you also have in > that other unit as well. It's been a long time since I've run into any of > that stuff, and while I have the 816 and one of the cables to connect a > "workstation" to it, pretty long at that, I never did get any 801s or > similar. Is the 801 the one where the floppy drives are vertical and to > one side of the display monitor? Nope. The TS-801 is a desktop machine with a pair of full-height floppies that look like Apple Disk II units or the FH floppies in an IBM PC (or PC/XT). I took a couple pictures and put them up here... http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/televideo/ts801 (and ts806c) Note: the -s versions are low res versions of the non -s versions. > > I haven't found much info there that I can't figure out from a quick look > > at the machine, though.. > > > > Thanks. > > > > Pat (Wishing he could just ask Don for the disks...) > > Don sent me a belt to put on that 8" HD, which I still have somewhere, in > the box he sent it in, I never did get around to putting it on there. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 17 00:22:43 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:22:43 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607170122.43940.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 July 2006 00:56, Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 7/17/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > Just a few fixups on Jay's report... (and a few things to add/clarify) > > > > > .... folks looking for DEC gear that didn't show > > > up to VCF/M missed out - Paul Anderson was there with a large amount of > > > great gear for sale. I was like a kid in a candy store with the M > > > module card inventory, printsets, documentation, tapes, and even a nice > > > RK05 drive. > > > > I'd agree. I had a module that Paul couldn't find in time to bring to > > the show with him, but he had a lot great looking things that I would > > have considered buying if I had a use for them. > > Yeah... that's something else I was sorry I couldn't be there for. > I'm often in the market for disk interfaces and memory for various DEC > machines (mostly -11 and -8 platforms). > > Out of curiousity, how much did the RK05 run you? I have enough of my > own, but I'm curious about a non-eBay price point. I think he was asking about $500 for it. I didn't buy it, mostly because I don't have a controller or machine that needed one. Hopefully, he'll consider coming next year. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 00:31:20 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:31:20 +1200 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <200607170122.43940.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170122.43940.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: On 7/17/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I think he was asking about $500 for it. I didn't buy it, mostly because I > don't have a controller or machine that needed one. For a working one, I don't think that's too bad. Hopefully the amber plastic elbow in the filter air handler is still intact - I've seen those things get really brittle. There are plenty of things that can fail in an RK05, but fortunately, they are easy to work on. > Hopefully, he'll consider coming next year. I should be back in the Midwest in plenty of time for it. Purdue is a little under 5 hours from my house - not too far. -ethan From rtellason at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 00:34:41 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:34:41 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607170115.17983.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607161947.57007.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607170115.17983.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> On Monday 17 July 2006 01:15 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Sunday 16 July 2006 19:47, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Sunday 16 July 2006 07:33 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > So, I picked up some new toys at "The Event" yesterday, and I was > > > wondering... > > > > > > Does anyone happen to have copies of CP/M (or any other OS) for > > > Televideo's TS-801? These seem to have a pair of 5.25" DSDD 48tpi > > > drives, from what little information I've seen from google. I picked > > > up a pair of TS-801's and a TS-806C (not to be confused with a TS-806), > > > which is a "shared tape drive" box. > > > > What's the difference between a TS-806 and a TS-806C, not to be confused > > with? > > A TS-806 is a multi-user computer that could run things like MMMOST to > connect to TS-800 diskless terminals. > > A TS-806C is a shared tape drive. All it has is a tape drive, a Z80 board > with some firmware (it doesn't boot anything), 64k ram, and what are > probably a pair of 15-pin RS422 ports to connect back to the hosts. Gotcha. > > I have a TS-816 in storage. A bit more than a "shared tape drive", it's > > got a tape drive that they say handles up to 14MB (dunno why some other > > drives can seemingly stuff so much more into the same form factor tapes) > > and also a big old 8" HD, belt-driven yet. > > Yea, I've got one too. had a crashed hdd, and its tape drive needs some > work (was like that when Don sent it to me). The tape drive in mine was pretty cruddy when I got it, but a good cleaning seems to have helped that a lot. > > A Z80, and I think 128K of ram, which is probably what you also have in > > that other unit as well. It's been a long time since I've run into any > > of that stuff, and while I have the 816 and one of the cables to connect > > a "workstation" to it, pretty long at that, I never did get any 801s or > > similar. Is the 801 the one where the floppy drives are vertical and to > > one side of the display monitor? > > Nope. The TS-801 is a desktop machine with a pair of full-height floppies > that look like Apple Disk II units or the FH floppies in an IBM PC (or > PC/XT). I took a couple pictures and put them up here... > http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/televideo/ts801 (and ts806c) > Note: the -s versions are low res versions of the non -s versions. The machine itself doesn't stir any recollections at all, but then it really has been a heck of a long time since I've seen any of that stuff. I'm trying to remember when it was that I acquired that machine and I haven't nailed it down to a year yet. Those drives with all the red connectors sure do look familiar, though, what make are they? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 00:41:01 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:41:01 +1200 Subject: Does anyone on the list have an ISOs or pointers to ISOs for a "New Internet Computer" (NIC)? Message-ID: It's not quite 10 years old, but it's off-the-wall enough, I think, to fit in here. I have a NiC that I got when they were new. It's great, but somewhat orphaned. For those that don't know, it was a dictionary-sized Intel box, notable for its lack of a hard drive. Larry Ellison (of Oracle fame) intended it to be an Internet Appliance and Windows Killer. The company sold a number of the machines, but never made a big splash. They folded a few years ago, and took things like their Yahoo Group with them. What I'm specifically after was an ISO that someone came up with that would boot the NiC, then run entirely out of a RAM disk, allowing you to mount different CDs of music as a jukebox. I have a project I'd like to do and I think that would make a good starting point. I've been googling for NiC and disk images and such for a while and can't even find any of the once-available standard boot images for the NiC, let alone anything a little bit custom. Thanks for any tips. -ethan From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 17 01:06:36 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:06:36 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170115.17983.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 July 2006 01:34, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Monday 17 July 2006 01:15 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > On Sunday 16 July 2006 19:47, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > > On Sunday 16 July 2006 07:33 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > I have a TS-816 in storage. A bit more than a "shared tape drive", > > > it's got a tape drive that they say handles up to 14MB (dunno why some > > > other drives can seemingly stuff so much more into the same form factor > > > tapes) and also a big old 8" HD, belt-driven yet. > > > > Yea, I've got one too. had a crashed hdd, and its tape drive needs some > > work (was like that when Don sent it to me). > > The tape drive in mine was pretty cruddy when I got it, but a good > cleaning seems to have helped that a lot. This one has a tape stuck in it (unlabelled), and the roller in the drive has turned to goo, which I now have to repair, and clean the goo off the tape. At least I know that it uses DC600A cartridges. Maybe I'll get lucky, and there'll be something useful (software) on the tape. > > > A Z80, and I think 128K of ram, which is probably what you also have > > > in that other unit as well. It's been a long time since I've run into > > > any of that stuff, and while I have the 816 and one of the cables to > > > connect a "workstation" to it, pretty long at that, I never did get > > > any 801s or similar. Is the 801 the one where the floppy drives are > > > vertical and to one side of the display monitor? > > > > Nope. The TS-801 is a desktop machine with a pair of full-height > > floppies that look like Apple Disk II units or the FH floppies in an IBM > > PC (or PC/XT). I took a couple pictures and put them up here... > > http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/televideo/ts801 (and ts806c) > > Note: the -s versions are low res versions of the non -s versions. > > The machine itself doesn't stir any recollections at all, but then it > really has been a heck of a long time since I've seen any of that stuff. > I'm trying to remember when it was that I acquired that machine and I > haven't nailed it down to a year yet. Those drives with all the red > connectors sure do look familiar, though, what make are they? It's the same Tandon TM 100-2A that IBM shipped in PCs and PC/XTs. At least there's nothing (besides the EPROM, which is socketed) that is terribly complex. Actually, I might pull the rom, and dump it while I'm at work tomorrow... I'm tempted to power one of the TS-801's up and just see what comes out the "terminal" port. (perhaps after checking out the power supply first :) Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 17 01:12:14 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 23:12:14 -0700 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607161947.57007.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607170115.17983.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607162312140458.7E9DF362@10.0.0.252> So what is the level of software compatibility between the 801 802 and 803? I've got CP/M for the 803 as well as some OS from Software 2000 in my collection... Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 17 01:14:33 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:14:33 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607170214.33668.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 July 2006 02:06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > At least there's nothing (besides the EPROM, which is socketed) that is > terribly complex. Argh. I meant to say "custom," not "complex." > Actually, I might pull the rom, and dump it while I'm at work tomorrow... > I'm tempted to power one of the TS-801's up and just see what comes out the > "terminal" port. (perhaps after checking out the power supply first :) In light of my above typo, maybe I'll just get some sleep instead. With VCF/MW going on this weekend, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jul 17 01:14:14 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:14:14 -0500 Subject: Troubleshooting video Message-ID: <459501f90ce54e4898ef5d6e08123320@valleyimplants.com> Pat wrote >You do realize that the "stuff" we talk about on classiccmp are usually things >that aren't PC's, right? Yep, that's why I posted here :-) - it's a SGI IRIS 3130 68020-based Multibus machine. I'm sorry that I gave the impression it was a PC, I was just trying to not scare off anyone who hasn't ever worked with one of these beasts but who knows about computer video/graphics systems. I did pull some numbers from the XF86 PC modeslist to see if what I was seeing was close to "normal", it didn't seem to be. Jules wrote >I suppose it's just possible that you could do interlaced 1024x768 with a >28KHz signal, but it'd be hell on the eyes. Possibly that's the SGI's default >though if it can't detect what monitor you're plugging into it? (scratch that >idea if the outputs are BNC, but if the video's done over some form of >multi-pin connector, might it not need strapping in a certain way to indicate >display type?) The monitor connection is 4BNC. I wasn't sure about the interlaced - it seemed that mathematically it should be 24 KHz (48/2), but if 28KHz could be it, I'll look again. There's a switch that's supposed to select interlaced/non interlaced. I guess next stop is to check if that's being read properly, since flipping it doesn't seem to make a difference. I'll also try to find the crystal oscillator (thanks, Tony), perhaps it's on the Update Controller? I think the interlacing must be for linking it up with a TV system, since the monitor can't do 30Hz interlaced. Standard refresh is 60Hz (per the IRIS FAQ) From pat at computer-refuge.org Mon Jul 17 01:27:07 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:27:07 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607162312140458.7E9DF362@10.0.0.252> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607162312140458.7E9DF362@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607170227.07298.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 July 2006 02:12, Chuck Guzis wrote: > So what is the level of software compatibility between the 801 802 and 803? > I've got CP/M for the 803 as well as some OS from Software 2000 in my > collection... I'm not certain, but I'd be happy to try it and find out. There were some major differences between systems, though... the TS-803 and 802 had a built-in display and keyboard, where the TS-801 requires an external RS-232 serial terminal. So I'm guessing that it'll end up not being compatible enough. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jul 17 01:39:04 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:39:04 -0500 Subject: OT but surprising (although not really) - SGI Message-ID: <40594dd4ab1942889458da37489c5f0e@valleyimplants.com> Am I reading their announcements right (https://support.sgi.com/login) that they are dropping not only MIPS but also all graphics systems (incl. Prism)? I guess it makes sense from a business standpoint - anybody can make an Itanium with a ATI graphics card, and VPro was a bit long in the tooth - but it's still a bit of a shock. From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Mon Jul 17 02:03:57 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:03:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: TRS-80 PT-210 printing terminal interfacing Message-ID: I have a PT-210 printing terminal from Radio Shack. There's a slot for an rs232 serial connector adapter. Does anyone know anything about this adapter such that I can build one myself? How about schematics? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From doc at mdrconsult.com Mon Jul 17 06:12:39 2006 From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 06:12:39 -0500 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> References: <200607161539540519.7CFFD127@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BB70A7.2050805@mdrconsult.com> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/16/2006 at 9:58 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: > > >Another trick that works very well for me is to try tightening the bolt > >>slightly. Put the tool on, turn it clockwise (assuming a right-hand >>thread), then try turning it anticlockwise again. About 95% of the time, >>the bolt comes right out. > > > When we work with stuck valve caps, etc. on brass instruments, rather than > apply force using something like a strap wrench, what works better is a > tangential blow with a hammer (rawhide head in the case of brass). The > concussive shock works where a steady torque does not--and the chances of > stripping threads or shearing bolts is much reduced. If I understand what you're saying, that's much like the technique used in the oilfield called "pinging". We'd take a hammer roughly the size of the bolt-head and just *gently* tap the head repeatedly. To the side of the bolt if possible, but straight down works. It's a tedious job, but I've never seen it fail, even when the bolt was swedged in. Doc From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 07:28:07 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:28:07 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the UM8398 looks to be yeat another > integration of the NEC 765 with some support circuitry. I think I've even > got one of these on an ISA board and it looks for all the world like a > plain-jane PC/AT style controller. Well I've got one here on an 8 bit ISA board - but slightly worrying is that it has its own PROM on board, and seems to be jumper selectable for an oddball address (0xC800, 0xCC00, 0xCA00). It's quite possibly a dead-end and will go for scrap; if it could co-exist nicely as a second floppy controller that Imagedisk would work with then it'd be a nice board for adding FM read/write support to my main desktop PC... In the same heap of boards was another 8 bit card with a Zilog 765 FDC on it, so that one might be a possibility too (no on-board ROM, but it looks to be fixed at the PC's primary FDC address - maybe it's possibly to hack some of the address lines to make it appear at a different address, though) cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 07:59:35 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:59:35 +0000 Subject: Superbrain CRTC ROM board? Message-ID: <44BB89B7.6030105@yahoo.co.uk> Hi, I've got a Superbrain here with a little ROM carrier board plugged into the CRTC chip socket on the Superbrain main board. The carrier board then contains a TMS2516 EPROM, the CRT8002B IC, and a 74LS08 chip. Is this something that someone's come across before? Looking at the ROM contents it looks likely to be a character table. Ideally what I'd like to do though is take the board out completely and put the CRTC chip directly back in the socket on the Superbrain's system board, as the carrier board's right in the way of some of the ICs I need access to in order to diagnose the fault with the system... cheers Jules -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From listmailgoeshere at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 07:30:08 2006 From: listmailgoeshere at gmail.com (listmailgoeshere at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 13:30:08 +0100 Subject: chain printer speed? In-Reply-To: <001801c69042$071b78c0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <448EADF6.6030707@yahoo.co.uk> <3.0.6.16.20060613170455.47ef1200@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <3.0.6.16.20060614173700.3cb728d6@pop-server.cfl.rr.com> <001801c69042$071b78c0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: I was told 60 LPS (so 3600 LPM) for the IBM 3262 belt printer that was attached to the AS/400 (don't know what model, but it was one of the oldest 3-19"-racks-full ones) in my first ever IT job. No idea whether that's accurate, mind... what I do know is that the thing could basically consume boxes of paper as fast as you could load them into it :-) From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jul 17 08:55:27 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 08:55:27 -0500 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607171258.k6HCw8tq025143@mail3.magma.ca> > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the UM8398 looks to be yeat another > > integration of the NEC 765 with some support circuitry. I think I've even > > got one of these on an ISA board and it looks for all the world like a > > plain-jane PC/AT style controller. > > Well I've got one here on an 8 bit ISA board - but slightly worrying is that > it has its own PROM on board, and seems to be jumper selectable for an oddball > address (0xC800, 0xCC00, 0xCA00). > > It's quite possibly a dead-end and will go for scrap; if it could co-exist > nicely as a second floppy controller that Imagedisk would work with then it'd > be a nice board for adding FM read/write support to my main desktop PC... > > In the same heap of boards was another 8 bit card with a Zilog 765 FDC on it, > so that one might be a possibility too (no on-board ROM, but it looks to be > fixed at the PC's primary FDC address - maybe it's possibly to hack some of > the address lines to make it appear at a different address, though) If it's an 8-bit card, the ROM may simply be a BIOS which provides support for higher density drives or other features. Most enhanced FD controllers I've seen for XTs have a BIOS ROM. I don't know this chip, however if it is a 765 clone, it should work with ImageDisk. If the board has HD capacity and it is implemented the same as the AT, then it should work with ImageDisk as well. ImageDisk does not use BIOS at all when performing transfers, so it needs standard hardware. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From wmaddox at pacbell.net Mon Jul 17 08:36:51 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 06:36:51 -0700 Subject: Shipping a Diablo Model 31 disk drive Message-ID: <44BB9273.7050105@pacbell.net> I am having a Diablo 31 disk drive shipped to me. Can anyone advise on how to prepare one of these for shipment, for example, locking the head actuator? Thanks, --Bill From dkelvey at hotmail.com Mon Jul 17 09:13:53 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 07:13:53 -0700 Subject: OT: WD40, was: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <200607162052300904.7E1E044E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: >From: "Chuck Guzis" > >On 7/16/2006 at 11:38 PM William Donzelli wrote: > > >> The brazilian WD-40 hasn't this property! :oO > > > >Nor does the US WD-40. You can buy non-pressurized gallons (I think > >that big) jugs of the stuff, and it is homogeneous. > >I recall a friend who spent quite a bit of time in the Amazon basin once >mentioned to me that he'd flown on a then-ancient Ford Trimotor where the >pilot dumped a gallon of WD-40 into the tank along with the fuel...I don't >know why, however. > Hi It may have been as an octane booster. These older engines has higher compression ratios and todays fuels are a little low on octane. Most people don't understand octane. Most people think it has more power. Actually it has less. Most people think it is better for their car. Actually, if used in most of todays lower compression engines, it will cause increased carbon deposits, reduced horsepower and less miliage. Once an engine has been run on higher octane for some time, that shouldn't have been, it will not run well on the proper octane because of carbon buildup. Anyway, WD-40 doesn't soak up water. Most people use ethenal for that. My guess is becasue of the higher altitudes, he need to increase the octane. Anything that would reduce detination would work. WD-40 doesn't burn to well and might work. Dwight From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jul 17 09:59:23 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:59:23 -0500 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP><004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <00c601c6a9b1$98729730$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> > It's a shame we couldn't get you some IBM SP gear on that trailer. ;) I suspect the SP is over the rating of my camry/class2 hitch 's towing capacity. > With only 2 nodes, he probably got *only* about 1150lbs of IBM gear. ;) oh, then I could have gotten one! But only if I left the TU81/RA82 behind. Jay From jwest at classiccmp.org Mon Jul 17 10:02:45 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:02:45 -0500 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP><004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP><200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <00ce01c6a9b2$1120e880$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> You wrote... > Yeah... that's something else I was sorry I couldn't be there for. > I'm often in the market for disk interfaces and memory for various DEC > machines (mostly -11 and -8 platforms). Paul had lots of -8 and -11 modules there. As I recall, around seven milk crates full of cards. > Out of curiousity, how much did the RK05 run you? I have enough of my > own, but I'm curious about a non-eBay price point. I did not get the RK05 - I toyed with the idea but it wasn't the right time for me to buy it. Except for the AC power cord that was cut (a trivial repair), the RK05 was in pretty much mint condition. Jay From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Mon Jul 17 10:12:44 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:12:44 -0500 Subject: Laser 128 please help Message-ID: <872b3b914e2b4402b6f0652a7b29c3dc@valleyimplants.com> The Laser is a pretty perfect clone of the //c. I have no idea what they shipped with, but in elementary school we had them for half the lab. We just used standard DOS 3.3 or ProDOS disks in them when we needed the O/S. They have (AFAIK) the AppleSoft(like) basic in ROM (there may be some cross-polination with the IIgs machines that started trickling in and I used for more serious programming), so you can throw on one of the serial image download programs. From rtellason at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 10:09:56 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:09:56 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170134.41324.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607171109.56360.rtellason@gmail.com> On Monday 17 July 2006 02:06 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > The tape drive in mine was pretty cruddy when I got it, but a good > > cleaning seems to have helped that a lot. > > This one has a tape stuck in it (unlabelled), and the roller in the drive > has turned to goo, which I now have to repair, and clean the goo off the > tape. At least I know that it uses DC600A cartridges. And DC300XL, and several others. I have a box around here someplace... > Maybe I'll get lucky, and there'll be something useful (software) on the > tape. The unit I had came out of a dental practice, so there wasn't much interesting there. I don't remember what application software they were running, but the OS was "mmmost". I remember hearing that those machines also came with TurboDOS at that time and I think that might have been more interesting to play with. Got a book on that around somewhere, too. I never did find any docs on mmmost. I don't remember how at this point, but I managed to get a few of the ordinary utilities I was using into the box at that point in time, and some of them gave very bizarre results -- nsweep for example showing a file multiple times, because it was in the directory structure under several "users". One of these days I'd like to get more of a handle on some of those CP/M variants and how they did what they did. <...> > > The machine itself doesn't stir any recollections at all, but then it > > really has been a heck of a long time since I've seen any of that stuff. > > I'm trying to remember when it was that I acquired that machine and I > > haven't nailed it down to a year yet. Those drives with all the red > > connectors sure do look familiar, though, what make are they? > > It's the same Tandon TM 100-2A that IBM shipped in PCs and PC/XTs. That's what I thought but I wasn't sure. The name Tandon came to mind, for sure. > At least there's nothing (besides the EPROM, which is socketed) that is > terribly complex. > > Actually, I might pull the rom, and dump it while I'm at work tomorrow... > I'm tempted to power one of the TS-801's up and just see what comes out the > "terminal" port. (perhaps after checking out the power supply first :) This sort of talk in here has me wondering from time to time how the power supplies in some of my older gear are likely to be doing.... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 11:15:52 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:15:52 +0000 Subject: IC pin corrosion Message-ID: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> Out of interest, are any particular types of environment harsher for IC leg corrosion than others? I've not seen that much corrosion about, other than surface stuff that can be cleaned off - but I'm currently trying to get an old Acorn System Three running, and about half the ICs in it are leaving some of their pins behind when removed from sockets as they've corroded right through :-( The PCBs are otherwise in very good condition, but for some reason a lot of the chips (most notably DRAMs and LS logic) are in a right state, and it would seem that *something* has been eating away at them - yet *some* of the ICs are totally corrosion-free (as are all the passives, IC sockets etc.) Luckily all the dead parts (so far!) are ones that I've got spares for, but it's just made me wonder what's accelerated the decay in some of the chips but not anything else (unfortunately I only picked this machine up last week so don't know its storage history, but I can ask the previous owner). Judging by the pretty good condition of the rest of the machine, I wouldn't say that it's been in a particularly high moisture environment. cheers Jules -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From emu at e-bbes.com Mon Jul 17 10:36:50 2006 From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:36:50 -0600 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BBAE92.4050805@e-bbes.com> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Out of interest, are any particular types of environment harsher for IC > leg corrosion than others? Some guy sweating a lot, putting the chips in ? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 11:46:51 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:46:51 +0000 Subject: crosscheck MK4564 DRAM against 4164? Message-ID: <44BBBEFB.7040600@yahoo.co.uk> Could some kind soul crosscheck an MK4564-25IRL DRAM against a D4164-2 for me? I suspect that I can replace the former with the latter, but the various datasheet archives on the 'net are being spectacularly unhelpful in providing a spec sheet for the 4564's :-( I'm expecting that they're exactly the same pinout and organisation, and that the 4564-25's are 250ns parts and the 4164-2's are 200ns parts, so they're a drop-in replacement, but it'd be handy if someone can confirm that! Worst-case I can pull some 4564's off a spare board, but I'd rather use the box of 4164's that I have if they'll fit... cheers J. -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 17 11:22:44 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:22:44 -0700 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <200607171258.k6HCw8tq025143@mail3.magma.ca> References: <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <200607171258.k6HCw8tq025143@mail3.magma.ca> Message-ID: <200607170922440439.80CCE13F@10.0.0.252> On 7/17/2006 at 8:55 AM Dave Dunfield wrote: >If it's an 8-bit card, the ROM may simply be a BIOS which provides support >for higher density drives or other features. Most enhanced FD controllers >I've seen for XTs have a BIOS ROM. > >I don't know this chip, however if it is a 765 clone, it should work with >ImageDisk. If the board has HD capacity and it is implemented the same as the AT, >then it should work with ImageDisk as well. ImageDisk does not use BIOS at all >when performing transfers, so it needs standard hardware. At least that's right for my ISA sample. However, my notes on the chip also tell me that it doesn't support FM, in spite of what the chip docs say. It could be a mistake on my part, but I'm pretty certain I was careful. The Zilog 765 chip was very common, as was the UM8272A--both are licensed clones of the NEC 765. The one that doesn't seem to be a direct clone is the National 8473--it handles 128 byte sector MFM read/write/formatting just fine. Cheers, Chuck From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 17 11:28:48 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:28:48 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607170928480883.80D270DB@10.0.0.252> On 7/17/2006 at 4:15 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Out of interest, are any particular types of environment harsher for IC >leg corrosion than others? Coastal salt spray, various industrial environments, perhaps? Anyone who's ever had a jug of muriatic acid in their shop with a loose cap has experienced how quickly a layer of rust can form on any steel in the vicinity. When I was a boy, people who lived near the refineries used to experience lead-based exterior paints turning black from reaction with the sulfur in the air. Cheers, Chuck From kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com Mon Jul 17 11:40:59 2006 From: kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com (Miller, Keven) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:40:59 -0600 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes Message-ID: <44BBBD9B.6080504@reeltapetransfer.com> I have a friend who has a DC100a tape with no way to read it. Just wondering if anyone here can and get data onto a pc. I do have a Colorado Jumbo 250 that I have used DC 2120 QIC-80 tapes with. But don't know if that would read DC100a tapes. Keven Miller kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com Orem UT 84097. From evan at snarc.net Mon Jul 17 11:42:08 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 12:42:08 -0400 Subject: Anyone have a Teleram T-3000? Message-ID: <002701c6a9bf$f1f26480$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> It's a Z80 portable computer from 1982. I'm looking to buy or trade for one. From nico at farumdata.dk Mon Jul 17 12:35:56 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:35:56 +0200 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes References: <44BBBD9B.6080504@reeltapetransfer.com> Message-ID: <001a01c6a9c7$759a7280$2101a8c0@finans> Hi Keven To the best of my knowloedge, DC100 tapes are physical identical to DC600 tapes, so there is no way you can read it on DC2120 drives. DC100's are so "vintage", that they are pre-SCSI. I would expect a QIC-02 or QIC-36 formatting, implying that it needs its own controller. Nico www.farumdata.dk ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miller, Keven" To: Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 6:40 PM Subject: Reading DC100a tapes > I have a friend who has a DC100a tape with no way > to read it. Just wondering if anyone here can and > get data onto a pc. > > I do have a Colorado Jumbo 250 that I have used > DC 2120 QIC-80 tapes with. But don't know > if that would read DC100a tapes. > > > Keven Miller > kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com > Orem UT 84097. > > From nico at farumdata.dk Mon Jul 17 12:39:38 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:39:38 +0200 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes References: <44BBBD9B.6080504@reeltapetransfer.com> Message-ID: <002301c6a9c7$f9d771b0$2101a8c0@finans> Looking very emarrassed ..... Sorry, I goofed. I mixed it up with a DC300 tape... Sorry Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: "Miller, Keven" To: Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 6:40 PM Subject: Reading DC100a tapes > I have a friend who has a DC100a tape with no way > to read it. Just wondering if anyone here can and > get data onto a pc. > > I do have a Colorado Jumbo 250 that I have used > DC 2120 QIC-80 tapes with. But don't know > if that would read DC100a tapes. > > > Keven Miller > kevenm at reeltapetransfer.com > Orem UT 84097. > > From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Mon Jul 17 12:46:46 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:46:46 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> Jules Richardson wrote: > > Out of interest, are any particular types of environment harsher for IC > leg corrosion than others? In marine applications we typically conformal coated boards lest they deteriorate. Salt water/spray and fish guts tend to seriously impact the reliability of electronic devices! :> Though I suspect this is NOT the environment you're dealing with... > I've not seen that much corrosion about, other than surface stuff that > can be cleaned off - but I'm currently trying to get an old Acorn System > Three running, and about half the ICs in it are leaving some of their > pins behind when removed from sockets as they've corroded right through :-( > > The PCBs are otherwise in very good condition, but for some reason a lot > of the chips (most notably DRAMs and LS logic) are in a right state, and > it would seem that *something* has been eating away at them - yet *some* > of the ICs are totally corrosion-free (as are all the passives, IC > sockets etc.) > > Luckily all the dead parts (so far!) are ones that I've got spares for, > but it's just made me wonder what's accelerated the decay in some of the > chips but not anything else (unfortunately I only picked this machine up > last week so don't know its storage history, but I can ask the previous > owner). Judging by the pretty good condition of the rest of the machine, > I wouldn't say that it's been in a particularly high moisture environment. Any sorts of "wildlife" that may have used it as a, er, "bathroom"? From mtapley at swri.edu Mon Jul 17 11:00:39 2006 From: mtapley at swri.edu (Mark Tapley) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:00:39 -0500 Subject: Mac Performa needs home In-Reply-To: <200607171512.k6HFC02a082542@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200607171512.k6HFC02a082542@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: All, See below (read from the bottom, sorry for the mixed top/bottom posting. Sherry Fawcett (sfawcett at maine.rr.com) in Maine has a Performa that needs a new home. Suggestions welcome, please contact her directly. >At 18:44 -0400 7/14/06, sherrill fawcett wrote: >>Hi Mark - Thank you so much. I don't mind your putting the info out at all. >> >>Sherry >>On Friday, July 14, 2006, at 02:39 PM, Mark Tapley wrote: >> >>>Not immediately, but I am on a mailing list of classic computer >>>collectors. If you don't mind my posting your contact info to the >>>list, I'll be happy to forward your offer there, and either >>>someone on the list or someone known by someone on the list is >>>likely to speak for it. >Hi - I have a Performa (about 1994) that works fine, but I have no >room for it. I don't want to throw it away - would just like to >give it to someone. I'm in Maine. Do you know of anyone in my area >who might be interested? > >Sherry Fawcett -- - Mark Cell Phone: 210-379-4635 office: 210-522-6025 From lee at geekdot.com Mon Jul 17 12:49:28 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:49:28 +0200 (CEST) Subject: IC pin corrosion Message-ID: <1364.86.144.139.97.1153158568.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > and about half the ICs in it are leaving some of their pins behind > when removed from sockets as they've corroded right through :-( This is not uncommon, I've seen it frequently on control systems that have all socketed ICs. It seems to occur most in the sockets that have one sprung leaf pressing against a flat side like this \| but also in other types where the socket contacts the pin surface. All these systems had been in constant use for more than twenty years. There were cases where we were getting intermittent errors reported and on pulling the cards we found at least one IC on each board with pins detatched. Hard plated pins, such as TI 74xx series seemed to suffer most with tin plated steel suffering the least. Lee. From lee at geekdot.com Mon Jul 17 12:59:11 2006 From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:59:11 +0200 (CEST) Subject: crosscheck MK4564 DRAM against 4164? Message-ID: <1898.86.144.139.97.1153159151.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> > Could some kind soul crosscheck an MK4564-25IRL DRAM against a > D4164-2 for me? Everything I have says they are interchangeable. Lee. From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 17 13:01:50 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 11:01:50 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44BBB7B8.3090902@yahoo.co.uk> <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607171101500095.81279F72@10.0.0.252> On 7/17/2006 at 10:46 AM Don Y wrote: >Any sorts of "wildlife" that may have used it as a, er, "bathroom"? Cat urine--absolute death to PCBs. Don't ask why I know. Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 14:30:13 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:30:13 +0000 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <1364.86.144.139.97.1153158568.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <1364.86.144.139.97.1153158568.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <44BBE545.5060602@yahoo.co.uk> Lee Davison wrote: >> and about half the ICs in it are leaving some of their pins behind >> when removed from sockets as they've corroded right through :-( > > This is not uncommon, I've seen it frequently on control systems that > have all socketed ICs. It seems to occur most in the sockets that have > one sprung leaf pressing against a flat side like this \| but also in > other types where the socket contacts the pin surface. All these systems > had been in constant use for more than twenty years. Hmmm, that's interesting. This particular system does use the single sprung leaf socket, but then so does a lot of equipment - it just struck me as odd how the system was otherwise in very good condition except that the corrosion seemed to have aimed for some of the chips and destroyed them so completely. None of the soldered chips have problems, and none of the wider socketed ICs have problems - but about 80% of the socketed 'narrow' (i.e. 14 or 16 pin) chips are showing severe signs of corrosion. Makes me wonder if it's a batch-related thing - perhaps some sort of strange reaction between the metal making up the 14/16 pin sockets and the chips. I have noticed that the corroded parts are all in the bottom 50% of the boards as they sat in the original 3U case; whether that implies a temperature-related issue or just something to do with whatever the machine sat on in storage, I don't know. > Hard plated pins, such as TI 74xx series seemed to suffer most That's certainly what I seem to be seeing - many of the 74xx chips rotted out, along with virtually all of the DRAM. Just one of those mysteries, I suppose. It just surprised me - not only have I never seen corrosion attack chips quite so much, but I've never seen it quite so selective in the chips that it attacks either... cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 14:30:37 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:30:37 +0000 Subject: crosscheck MK4564 DRAM against 4164? In-Reply-To: <1898.86.144.139.97.1153159151.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> References: <1898.86.144.139.97.1153159151.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com> Message-ID: <44BBE55D.3000805@yahoo.co.uk> Lee Davison wrote: >> Could some kind soul crosscheck an MK4564-25IRL DRAM against a >> D4164-2 for me? > > Everything I have says they are interchangeable. Brilliant - thanks! From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jul 17 14:38:25 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:38:25 -0500 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607171101500095.81279F72@10.0.0.252> References: <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607171841.k6HIfF5M004219@mail4.magma.ca> > >Any sorts of "wildlife" that may have used it as a, er, "bathroom"? > > Cat urine--absolute death to PCBs. Don't ask why I know. Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED (A True Story) In 1993, sometime in December, a customer walks in with a dead PowerBook 165. Fault description: hangs on startup. An additional symptom provided was: whilst being carried from the customer's site to our service center, a 'sloshing' noise was heard within the machine. "Has anything been spilt on this computer?" I inquired, but no, nothing of the sort had happened, protested the client vehemently. Taking this with a grain of salt (no-one's going to admit doing something that totally invalidates their warranty and effectively wrecks their computer) I went about filling in the repair order. Back on the bench, I started the PowerBook up. Sure enough, an address error on startup, just after 'Welcome to Macintosh'. I lowered my ear to the keyboard, at which point I heard a crackling noise (couldn't hear any sloshing noise though) and became aware of a rather 'sharp' odor which seemed to emanate from the inside of the machine. Flicking the computer off and unplugging the adapter, I removed the battery from its compartment, only to observe that the entire battery casing was soaked in a fluid which appear to have a rainbow- like sheen (kind of like what a puddle of soapy water would look like -- oily and colorful). I also noticed that the same fluid was leaking out of the battery compartment onto the static mat, but appeared clear rather than multi-colored. My first thoughts were that the battery had somehow leaked acid out into the guts of the PowerBook, which would account for the sharp smell (which reminded me of ammonia), yet the battery terminals were about the one part of the battery that was dry. No, upon closer examination, I ruled the acid theory out. The battery was wet, but not leaking. Tipping the machine on its side, I watched more fluid run out and coagulate on the bench in a puddle about the size of a compact disc. It was definitely clear, and I observed that the 'rainbow' effect had been caused by the reaction of the plastic battery casing to this 'mystery liquid'. I then unscrewed the computer and separated the two parts of the PowerBook. The smell suddenly became a LOT stronger. The hard disk looked like a solid lump of rust, and the daughterboard appeared to have about three barbecued chips. Although I was quickly forming my own opinions on what had happened, I invited several of my workmates in to take a sniff and offer an opinion. We were unanimous in our decision. I rang the customer, who seemed surprised when I asked the question: "Do you have a cat?" As it turned out, he didn't have a cat, but he did have a lovely fluffy bunny rabbit who was seen in the vicinity of the PowerBook only the day before. Yes, there was no doubt about it, little fluffy had hopped up onto the keyboard and downloaded some incompatible data. I checked the warranty form, but there was no provision for failure due to rabbit urine anywhere. I advised the customer to get in touch with his insurance company. In the end, the PowerBook was biffed and the customer upgraded to a 180c. I cleaned up the static mat and sprayed the service department with a healthy dosage of "Fresh Field of Flowers." I checked in with the customer about a week later, asked how was he enjoying the 180c, asked if he'd managed to restore his data, and, of course, asked how was his rabbit? "Delicious," he said. -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From evan at snarc.net Mon Jul 17 13:47:23 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:47:23 -0400 Subject: Cyril Yansouni? Message-ID: <002a01c6a9d1$7113f470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Anybody know where Cyril Yansouni is these days? He's the former chairman of Read-Rite. From evan at snarc.net Mon Jul 17 13:54:41 2006 From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 14:54:41 -0400 Subject: Cyril Yansouni? In-Reply-To: <002a01c6a9d1$7113f470$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Message-ID: <002b01c6a9d2$760fefa0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> Disregard, found him: http://www.solectron.com/common/bios/yansouni.htm -----Original Message----- From: Evan Koblentz [mailto:evan at snarc.net] Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 2:47 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Cyril Yansouni? Anybody know where Cyril Yansouni is these days? He's the former chairman of Read-Rite. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 15:12:30 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:12:30 +0000 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607171841.k6HIfF5M004219@mail4.magma.ca> References: <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> <200607171841.k6HIfF5M004219@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: <44BBEF2E.7090907@yahoo.co.uk> Dave Dunfield wrote: >>> Any sorts of "wildlife" that may have used it as a, er, "bathroom"? >> Cat urine--absolute death to PCBs. Don't ask why I know. > > Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... > > > THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED > (A True Story) Thing is, surely any repair tech would have checked obvious things first - like pulling the battery, and investigating the sloshing noise - before they went anywhere near the power socket? Otherwise they just open themselves up to turning a potentially simple repair into a very expensive one... Amusing enough story, but I'm not so sure about the 'true' bit! cheers Jules From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Mon Jul 17 15:23:06 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:23:06 +0000 Subject: System 36 available (Keele uni, UK) Message-ID: <44BBF1AA.9080606@yahoo.co.uk> Afraid I know of no details on this one - other than a rough location (Keele uni, or at least that's where the chap who has it works), contact number, and that any rescue is fairly urgent - it's heading into a skip rather soon. If there's likely to be any interest, do shout - I can always phone the guy and get more details. cheers Jules From rtellason at gmail.com Mon Jul 17 14:28:27 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:28:27 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBEF2E.7090907@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BBCD06.7060105@DakotaCom.Net> <200607171841.k6HIfF5M004219@mail4.magma.ca> <44BBEF2E.7090907@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607171528.27069.rtellason@gmail.com> On Monday 17 July 2006 04:12 pm, Jules Richardson wrote: > Dave Dunfield wrote: > >>> Any sorts of "wildlife" that may have used it as a, er, "bathroom"? > >> > >> Cat urine--absolute death to PCBs. Don't ask why I know. > > > > Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... > > > > > > THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED > > (A True Story) > > Thing is, surely any repair tech would have checked obvious things first - > like pulling the battery, and investigating the sloshing noise - before > they went anywhere near the power socket? Otherwise they just open > themselves up to turning a potentially simple repair into a very expensive > one... Yah. When we had the shop what I would've done in that case is to open the unit up right there on the counter, never mind bringing it back to the bench... > Amusing enough story, but I'm not so sure about the 'true' bit! > > cheers > > Jules -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk Mon Jul 17 14:48:23 2006 From: roger.holmes at microspot.co.uk (Roger Holmes) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:48:23 +0100 Subject: (no subject) Message-ID: <1829F47D-F5B3-417D-BF4D-55F49461409E@microspot.co.uk> I am subscribed to the digests of the on topic posts. Sometimes I see follow ups to items which did sound interesting. Are the on and off topic digests swapped? Roger Holmes. From dave06a at dunfield.com Mon Jul 17 17:18:21 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 17:18:21 -0500 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBEF2E.7090907@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607171841.k6HIfF5M004219@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: <200607172139.k6HLdsEY017282@monisys.caonisys.ca> > > Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... > > > > > > THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED > > (A True Story) > > Thing is, surely any repair tech would have checked obvious things first - > like pulling the battery, and investigating the sloshing noise - before they > went anywhere near the power socket? Otherwise they just open themselves up to > turning a potentially simple repair into a very expensive one... > > Amusing enough story, but I'm not so sure about the 'true' bit! I agree completely - I should have made it clear that the claim of truth is in the original material that I have (I think someone mailed it to me some years ago). If any evidence of physical abnormality (smell, sound, dripping, owner reports etc.) I would never have powered the machine if it were me ... I don't know if there is any truth to the story, however I would guess that if there is, it may have been "embellished" somewhat for good storytelling... Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From cisin at xenosoft.com Mon Jul 17 17:07:46 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 15:07:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Jules Richardson wrote: > Well I've got one here on an 8 bit ISA board - but slightly worrying is that > it has its own PROM on board, On an 8 bit ISA board, that is usually (not always) to add support for "high density" drives (including 8"!!) > and seems to be jumper selectable for an oddball > address (0xC800, 0xCC00, 0xCA00). The PROM needs address selection to avoid conflict with other add-ons, such as hard disk. > It's quite possibly a dead-end and will go for scrap; if it could co-exist > nicely as a second floppy controller that Imagedisk would work with then it'd > be a nice board for adding FM read/write support to my main desktop PC... > In the same heap of boards was another 8 bit card with a Zilog 765 FDC on it, > so that one might be a possibility too (no on-board ROM, but it looks to be > fixed at the PC's primary FDC address - maybe it's possibly to hack some of > the address lines to make it appear at a different address, though) certainly POSSIBLE From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 17:47:07 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 23:47:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: <459501f90ce54e4898ef5d6e08123320@valleyimplants.com> from "Scott Quinn" at Jul 17, 6 01:14:14 am Message-ID: > > Pat wrote > > >You do realize that the "stuff" we talk about on classiccmp are usually things > >that aren't PC's, right? > > Yep, that's why I posted here :-) - it's a SGI IRIS 3130 68020-based Multibus machine. > I'm sorry that I gave the impression it was a PC, I was just trying to not scare off > anyone who hasn't ever worked with one of these beasts but who knows about > computer video/graphics systems. I did pull some numbers from the XF86 PC modeslist On this list, people are more likely to know about the obscure stuff than about PCs :-) > > The monitor connection is 4BNC. I wasn't sure about the interlaced - it seemed that mathematically Is that R, G, B, and composite sync, or what? I don't want to be appearing to 'teach grandmother how to suck eggs', but how are you measuring the sync frequencies? Where are you measuring them? waht instrument are you using? And so on.... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 17:58:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 23:58:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 17, 6 12:28:07 pm Message-ID: > > Chuck Guzis wrote: > > To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the UM8398 looks to be yeat another > > integration of the NEC 765 with some support circuitry. I think I've even > > got one of these on an ISA board and it looks for all the world like a > > plain-jane PC/AT style controller. > > Well I've got one here on an 8 bit ISA board - but slightly worrying is that > it has its own PROM on board, and seems to be jumper selectable for an oddball > address (0xC800, 0xCC00, 0xCA00). If those are segment addresses, they would be quite normal for a BIOS extension ROM. My guess is that this board was designed to go in an XT, and the extension ROM adds high-density disk support. Getting back to the UM8390 chip. It's a single-chip PC/AT disk controller, it does mostly what you'd expect. Personally, I've never got one to work in FM mode, though. I do have the data sheet somewhere, which I can find if you're interested. It has an on-chip address decoder which decodes A0..A9 to put the 765-like part, and the other I/O ports, and the expected addresses. From what I remmeber, there's a pin you tie high or low to select the primary or secondary controller addresses. Alternatively you can just invert one of the high-order address lines (I forget which one, it's trivial to work out) going into the IC. There was a similar chip -- UM8389 I think -- which was a PC/XT disk controller. It didn't do high denisty, it didn't have the clock selection port, and it used a different crustal (IIRC 8MHz, the 8390 uses 24MHz). Otherwise it was pin-compatible. Many years ago, I bought a multi-I/O board for an XT that used this chip. I desoldered it, replaced with with a 8390, changed the crystal, and set it to the secondary address. Used that to link 8" drives to my XT... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 18:03:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:03:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <200607170922440439.80CCE13F@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at Jul 17, 6 09:22:44 am Message-ID: > At least that's right for my ISA sample. However, my notes on the chip > also tell me that it doesn't support FM, in spite of what the chip docs > say. It could be a mistake on my part, but I'm pretty certain I was > careful. I couldn't get it (UM8390) to work in FM mode either. I tried things like Anadisk and 22Disk, and also home-written software (which worked find in MFM mode). In general, the last byte of a sector would be randomly corrupted (and maybe other bytes wrong too) -- this was when reading a known sector off a single-density flopyy. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 18:11:34 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:11:34 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BBEF2E.7090907@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 17, 6 08:12:30 pm Message-ID: > > THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED > > (A True Story) > > Thing is, surely any repair tech would have checked obvious things first - > like pulling the battery, and investigating the sloshing noise - before they Well, I know I do things very differently to most repairers, but I never power up a customer's machine before pulling the covers and looking inside. Partly to look for 'foreign liquids' :-), partly to look for modifications, electrical hazards (disconnected ground wires, etc), loose parts, missing parts, and so on. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Mon Jul 17 18:13:31 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 00:13:31 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607172139.k6HLdsEY017282@monisys.caonisys.ca> from "Dave Dunfield" at Jul 17, 6 05:18:21 pm Message-ID: > > > > > Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... > > > > > > > > > THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? -tony From cclist at sydex.com Mon Jul 17 18:18:08 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:18:08 -0700 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: <002301c6a9c7$f9d771b0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <44BBBD9B.6080504@reeltapetransfer.com> <002301c6a9c7$f9d771b0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <200607171618080426.82492911@10.0.0.252> Aren't DC-100A tapes PHYSICALLY identical with the HP 98200 (HP 85, 98xx, etc.) as well as the DEC TU58-type tapes? Nico's right--it's very vintage, and AFAIK, no formal standard exists for recording on the media itself (i.e., each manufacturer is different). Cheers, Chuck From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca Mon Jul 17 19:55:02 2006 From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:55:02 -0600 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BC3166.3070205@jetnet.ab.ca> Tony Duell wrote: > > Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, > and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > -tony Fix that grid leak!!!! From bob099 at centurytel.net Mon Jul 17 20:06:58 2006 From: bob099 at centurytel.net (Choctaw Bob) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:06:58 -0500 Subject: Laser 128 please help Message-ID: <44BC3432.1080208@centurytel.net> thanks for the help, now to find a dos disk, 3.3 or pro From jrkeys at concentric.net Mon Jul 17 21:26:33 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 21:26:33 -0500 Subject: Thanks for the Donations Message-ID: <00a201c6aa11$97c11fe0$31406b43@66067007> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or labor offers for the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up short on the money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick these items up and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both trips. I will be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you off list after everything is complete. Thanks again John From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jul 18 00:03:18 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:03:18 +0200 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes References: <44BBBD9B.6080504@reeltapetransfer.com><002301c6a9c7$f9d771b0$2101a8c0@finans> <200607171618080426.82492911@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <000c01c6aa27$7c4f3510$2101a8c0@finans> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Guzis" To: Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1:18 AM Subject: Re: Reading DC100a tapes > Aren't DC-100A tapes PHYSICALLY identical with the HP 98200 (HP 85, 98xx, > etc.) as well as the DEC TU58-type tapes? Nico's right--it's very > vintage, and AFAIK, no formal standard exists for recording on the media > itself (i.e., each manufacturer is different). > According to http://www.athana.com/html/minicart.html they are identical to HP85. I don't know about TU58, sorry. ISTR that I did a bit of digging last year for a potential customer, but the result was negative. I could find neither used drives nor any info on the formatting. Seems like a dead end to me, unless a working HP85 could be found. BTW : Any new entries for my list at http://www.farumdata.dk/uk/enmuseum.asp ? Nico From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jul 18 00:11:27 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 01:11:27 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607171109.56360.rtellason@gmail.com> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607170206.36322.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607171109.56360.rtellason@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607180111.27421.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Monday 17 July 2006 11:09, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > On Monday 17 July 2006 02:06 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > Actually, I might pull the rom, and dump it while I'm at work tomorrow... > > I'm tempted to power one of the TS-801's up and just see what comes out > > the "terminal" port. Turns out the power supply seems to be ok, and the "terminal" port is wired as a DCE DB-25S at 9600 baud (8/n/1). The machine spits a message out of its "terminal" port when it tries to boot, so disassembling the EPROM should give me enough info to write a BIOS for CP/M if I need to... but I'd rather get some authentic software if possible. I wouldn't mind playing with MMMOST even if it is a bit strange... Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jul 18 00:49:43 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 01:49:43 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200607180149.43860.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Sunday 16 July 2006 22:42, Jay West wrote: > My favorite part of the trip - assisting around five other guys with > loading Dan C's newest acquisition in to his minivan. An IBM RS/6000. And > not just "any" RS/6000. It was an SP machine. Think Cray (as to appearance > {and size/weight}). Yes, I did say minivan. I don't think I've ever laughed > quite so hard as seeing the precise way that the forklift moving forward > and van moving backward was choreographed to get the machine, base > pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. Along with > a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we started loading this > machine, I am guessing around 10:30 or so. I do know that it took until > around 2am. I have lots of pictures of this operation, including a side > view of the minivan's wheel well (or lack thereof). I belive I did hear a > leafspring cry out. Thank god CarFax doesn't track that kind of information > or Dan may have trouble selling the vehicle some day ;) Really it was only from 11:30pm until 1am... Anyhow, I've got a webpage detailing the saga up. Thanks go to Jay for providing the pictures! http://computer-refuge.org/compcollect/ibm/rs6k/sp-dan/ Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jul 18 08:29:16 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 06:29:16 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > >-tony Electrolytic capacitor. Dwight From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 18 09:56:21 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:56:21 +0000 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BCF695.8040304@yahoo.co.uk> dwight elvey wrote: > > > >> From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >> >> Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, >> and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? >> >> -tony > > Electrolytic capacitor. Aren't they all oil-based? Does distilled water from a battery count? :-) From rollerton at gmail.com Tue Jul 18 09:06:15 2006 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:06:15 -0500 Subject: Thanks for the Donations In-Reply-To: <00a201c6aa11$97c11fe0$31406b43@66067007> References: <00a201c6aa11$97c11fe0$31406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <2789adda0607180706t6f3e7c08kfd05257f59deb58e@mail.gmail.com> How much short on money are you? I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. Bob On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: > Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or labor offers for > the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up short on the > money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick these items up > and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both trips. I will > be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you off list after > everything is complete. Thanks again John > > From kth at srv.net Tue Jul 18 10:12:03 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:12:03 -0600 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BCFA43.8090305@srv.net> Tony Duell wrote: >> >> >>>>Not my story - but I saved this from somewhere... >>>> >>>> >>>>THE POWERBOOK THAT LEAKED >>>> >>>> > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > >-tony > > How much water? How frequently was it leaking? Where was it located? Possibilities: 1. Condensation. 2. Sprinkler/rain through a window. 3. Kid/drunk with glass of water/booze. 4. Pets/kids urinating into it. 5. Leak in the cooling system. 6. Leak from room above. ... From dkelvey at hotmail.com Tue Jul 18 10:23:28 2006 From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 08:23:28 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BCF695.8040304@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: >From: Jules Richardson > >dwight elvey wrote: >> >> >> >>>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) >>> >>>Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, >>>and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? >>> >>>-tony >> >>Electrolytic capacitor. > >Aren't they all oil-based? No, it is a water solution with something like borate in it. It looks like clear water. Some of the newer paper ones used a paste or gel but the older cans when opened, it just looked like water. Dwight Dwight > >Does distilled water from a battery count? :-) > From vp at drexel.edu Tue Jul 18 10:09:58 2006 From: vp at drexel.edu (Vassilis PREVELAKIS) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:09:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Reading DC100a tapes Message-ID: <200607181509.k6IF9w13028344@dune.cs.drexel.edu> "Nico de Jong" wrote: > Seems like a dead end to me, unless a working HP85 could be found. Well I have a couple of HP-85s and HP-9915s (the embedded version of the HP-85). I also have an HP-9825A which also uses the same type of tape. However, if the tape was not recorded on a similar machine it will probably not be readable by my machines. > I don't know about TU58 yes its the same, but the TU58 uses preformatted cartridges (can't format cartridges on its own). While the cartridges are physically identical to the HP ones, there is no data compatibility. **vp From brad at heeltoe.com Tue Jul 18 11:08:39 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:08:39 -0400 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:03:18 +0200." <000c01c6aa27$7c4f3510$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <200607181608.k6IG8dDh013098@mwave.heeltoe.com> "Nico de Jong" wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Chuck Guzis" >To: >Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1:18 AM >Subject: Re: Reading DC100a tapes > > >> Aren't DC-100A tapes PHYSICALLY identical with the HP 98200 (HP 85, 98xx, >> etc.) as well as the DEC TU58-type tapes? Nico's right--it's very >> vintage, and AFAIK, no formal standard exists for recording on the media >> itself (i.e., each manufacturer is different). >> >According to http://www.athana.com/html/minicart.html they are identical to >HP85. I don't know about TU58, sorry. >ISTR that I did a bit of digging last year for a potential customer, but the >result was negative. I could find neither used drives nor any info on the >formatting. >Seems like a dead end to me, unless a working HP85 could be found. Would it be possible to put a random DC-100A or HP85 tape in a TU-58 and connect the heads (after amplification) to an A/D like Al is doing with 9-tracks? Or are all the heads (and the tracks) different between manufacturers? (no doubt they are, but I thought I'd ask) Just curious if anyone knows. I have concidered doing some advanced TU-58 recovery. I have been collecting drives & electronics and have finally reached critical mass this summer. -brad From SUPRDAVE at aol.com Tue Jul 18 11:25:53 2006 From: SUPRDAVE at aol.com (SUPRDAVE at aol.com) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:25:53 EDT Subject: Various tape/backup media available Message-ID: <3c3.6afaf80.31ee6591@aol.com> Pay for shipping and add whatever else you'd like for the following tapes, all new. QW5122F plenty of these! MC3000XL Taumat format MC3000XL 2120XLF DC6150 DC600A QD9120 DC9250 these are used IIRC DC2080 MC3020XL three TK70 two 88meg syquest 105meg 3.5 syquest four HIFD 200meg floppy. QG15M D8 8mm tape plenty of 2120 and 2120XL From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jul 18 11:41:32 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 09:41:32 -0700 Subject: Reading DC100a tapes Message-ID: > Would it be possible to put a random DC-100A or HP85 tape in a TU-58 and > connect the heads (after amplification) to an A/D like Al is doing with > 9-tracks? You should be able to connect the heads directly to the preamp, and use the tapewizl directly. I was going to try recovering HP and Apple 40meg tapes this way using a TU58 transport. I haven't looked at the head geometry on the different drives that take DC100 carts yet, though. I know I've scanned some documentation on the 3M transport, will need to see if I've pdf'ed it yet. I'm also hoping to use this on TEK 405x as well (no head movement to worry about controlling) I'd like to try this at some point on QIC carts, but getting firware going to do the serpentine tracks will be a bit of work. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Tue Jul 18 11:43:24 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:43:24 -0500 Subject: Troubleshooting video Message-ID: <90da012c05544a3a8b736d458092d030@valleyimplants.com> > Is that R, G, B, and composite sync, or what? >I don't want to be appearing to 'teach grandmother how to suck eggs', but >how are you measuring the sync frequencies? Where are you measuring them? >waht instrument are you using? And so on.... Yep, RGB on seperate BNCs and H-V combined on another. I'm throwing a LeCroy scope onto the SYNC output and using the cursors to measure between the regular pulses. I pulled the graphics boardset and found one jumper (ext/int) that was set differently from Gerhard's model (thanks for the settings!) and I swapped that, which raised the sync frequency to 29.1 KHz. The total waveform looks like: 29.1-29.4 KHz negative-going pulses, with 134muS square negative pulses occuring at 66Hz (looks like it might be stuck in 33Hz interlaced mode). there are stronger negative pulses in line with the ~29 KHz sync at 400.96 Hz, and on top of that there are 174muS blanks in the signal (at the positive end) at 2.56 KHz -----\/---\/---\/---\/ (regular pulses) ---|_____|--- (vsync pulse, 66KHz) \/---------\ /---\/---\/ (the 2.56KHz blank and strong negative pulse) \/ not to time scale, and the strong negative pulse was the same duration as the regular horizontal pulses. The strong negative always occured after a blank, but not every blank. The Display Generator board is crystal-controlled (meaning I should have pulled it out all the way before pontificating) There is a set of jumpers on the main processor board (IP2) which are supposed to set resolution, with choices between 60Hz non-interlaced, 33Hz interlaced, RS-170A, and European Standard. These seem to make no difference. The jumper to select master/slave mode on the processor made a difference (dropped the sync to ~2KHz), so I know there is a control connection between the IP2 and the graphics. I checked the DIP switches, and they function. I suppose I could try the system with no processor and see what the default sync rate is. I'm wondering if the system (or parts) were set up for genlock of some sort, and is expecting something it's not getting. I'll throw the LeCroy on a Sun 3/160 and check the waveforms for comparison. Sorry, but you might need to "teach grandmother how to suck eggs", this is both the first computer video and the first scope I've really dug into. I found out really fast that my NTSC TV book doesn't help much. . . From jim at g1jbg.co.uk Tue Jul 18 11:53:18 2006 From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:53:18 +0100 Subject: Dec VT320 printset Message-ID: <005101c6aa8a$ab7de080$0200a8c0@p2deskto> Hi, I'm trying to repair a couple of these units, does anyone have the printset for them (or even just a circuit diagram)? Many thanks Jim Beacon. Please see our website: www.g1jbg.co.uk From nico at farumdata.dk Tue Jul 18 12:21:15 2006 From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 19:21:15 +0200 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes References: Message-ID: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> From: "Al Kossow" > You should be able to connect the heads directly to the preamp, and use the > tapewizl directly. I was going to try recovering HP and Apple 40meg tapes > this way using a TU58 transport. I haven't looked at the head geometry on > the different drives that take DC100 carts yet, though. I know I've scanned > some documentation on the 3M transport, will need to see if I've pdf'ed it > yet. > Would this principle work for recovery of 4mm (DAT) and 8 mm (Exabyte) tapes? It happens regularly that customers ask if I can read "behind" a small file they "happened" to write. I have no problems with 9 track and 3480/3490's. Nico From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jul 18 12:53:30 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:53:30 -0400 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <200607181353.30428.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 18 July 2006 13:21, Nico de Jong wrote: > From: "Al Kossow" > > > You should be able to connect the heads directly to the preamp, and > > use the > > tapewizl directly. I was going to try recovering HP and Apple 40meg > > tapes this way using a TU58 transport. I haven't looked at the head > > geometry on the different drives that take DC100 carts yet, though. > > I know I've scanned > > some documentation on the 3M transport, will need to see if I've > > pdf'ed it yet. > > Would this principle work for recovery of 4mm (DAT) and 8 mm > (Exabyte) tapes? It happens regularly that customers ask if I can Exabyte drives use helical scan, so it'd probably be more difficult to do on them. It'd probably make more sense to take an Exabyte drive, and modify it as necessary. But yes, the principle should be mostly the same (except that you need to worry about having the tape moving at the correct speed (and the head spinning at the right speed and angle) as well. 4mm DAT drives use stationary heads, so it'd probably be a bit easier to do this with one of those. But with either, the tape is in a cartridge, so you'd probably want to use an actual drive mechanism instead of a modified 9-track with a different head (though that's probably obvious). Pat (not by any means a tape/storage expert) -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jul 18 13:11:33 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:11:33 -0700 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> References: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> Message-ID: <44BD2455.1000504@msm.umr.edu> Nico de Jong wrote: >From: "Al Kossow" > > >>You should be able to connect the heads directly to the preamp, and use >> >> >th > >> >> >Would this principle work for recovery of 4mm (DAT) and 8 mm (Exabyte) >tapes? It happens regularly that customers ask if I can read "behind" a >small file they "happened" to write. > The error recovery on serpentine recorded tapes uses a tape block number to do data recovery. The QIC tapes did not backspace to do error recovery in general. If a read after write occurred, it would throw out more blocks of the error data, and at read time the order would have to be sorted out by the read firmware. For whatever brilliant reason, the QIC designers and implementors never designed in any useful error recovery and published it. So as a result, the fact that the QIC tape firmware throws it's hands up and dies leaves you with your problem. I would think that if you can read the track in binary, and pick out the block numbers and decode them, you should be able to do the recovery. The key is finding a drive that will read the track, and having total access to it. Sounds like Al is up to that, so you might be able to pull this off. Several "data recovery" guys I dealt with back in the day were ex Tandberg tech guys who had gotten hold of secret or confidential (to hear them tell it) diagnostic software, and some of the tape drives and they would be able to read over defective parts of the recorded tape. I dont know of any other QIC drive that had such utilities available. I believe that they used the 1gb or 2gb model tandberg's which were 5 1/4" form factor to do this. If anyone has or knows of such, maybe they can comment on whether these programs are now available. The time frame I am talking about is from 85 to 90 or so. Jim From cclist at sydex.com Tue Jul 18 13:56:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:56:13 -0700 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: <44BD2455.1000504@msm.umr.edu> References: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans> <44BD2455.1000504@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <200607181156130315.867FA54D@10.0.0.252> Most QIC-02 tape drives have an MCU with very accessible EPROM on it. If I had to deal with one of those, it's the EPROM where I would start, perhaps altering a command to provide "warts and all" reading. But with all respect to Patrick, 4mm DAT is also helical scan, just like 8mm Exabyhte. Honest. Maybe you were thinking of Travan drives? If I had to recover data, I'd probably first try to manually position past the overwritten area, then see if the drive could be made to pick up with the next good block. Failing that, I'd hack the firmware to do it. Cheers, Chuck From technobug at comcast.net Tue Jul 18 16:42:32 2006 From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 14:42:32 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607181507.k6IF7FZb094416@dewey.classiccmp.org> References: <200607181507.k6IF7FZb094416@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <341C2635-B4FF-48E9-933F-6F285AAF31F3@comcast.net> > Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the > floor, > and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > -tony > > Rear projection TVs of the older sort are water cooled... CRC From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 18 18:04:08 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:04:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: Dec VT320 printset In-Reply-To: <005101c6aa8a$ab7de080$0200a8c0@p2deskto> from "Jim Beacon" at Jul 18, 6 05:53:18 pm Message-ID: > > Hi, > > I'm trying to repair a couple of these units, does anyone have the printset > for them (or even just a circuit diagram)? No, but it's a fair bet your flyback trasnformer has failed. You can often see a crack in the plastic with the potting compound oozing out... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 18 18:02:47 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:02:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: Troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: <90da012c05544a3a8b736d458092d030@valleyimplants.com> from "Scott Quinn" at Jul 18, 6 11:43:24 am Message-ID: > > > > > Is that R, G, B, and composite sync, or what? > > >I don't want to be appearing to 'teach grandmother how to suck eggs', but > >how are you measuring the sync frequencies? Where are you measuring them? > >waht instrument are you using? And so on.... > > Yep, RGB on seperate BNCs and H-V combined on another. Sounds normal... > I'm throwing a LeCroy scope onto the SYNC output and using the cursors to measure between the Fine. I was just a bit worried that some counters don't trigger correctly on sync signals, and if that's what you were using, you might get odd results. > regular pulses. I pulled the graphics boardset and found one jumper (ext/int) that was > set differently from Gerhard's model (thanks for the settings!) and I swapped that, which raised the sync > frequency to 29.1 KHz. > > The total waveform looks like: 29.1-29.4 KHz negative-going pulses, with 134muS square negative pulses > occuring at 66Hz (looks like it might be stuck in 33Hz interlaced mode). there are stronger negative pulses That 66Hz sounds about right for a Vsync frequency, so I guess the 'scope is not wildly out of calibation (it never hurts to check these things [1]!). [1] I've been known to tap my 'scope probe on the output of a handy crystal oscillator can. If I see the right frequency there, the 'scope is well enough calibrated for this sort of test. > in line with the ~29 KHz sync at 400.96 Hz, and on top of that there are 174muS blanks in the signal (at the positive end) at 2.56 KHz I wonder what those are? they don't sound rignt to me, I would have expected a 2-level singal only. I asusme all the power rails are nice and stable (sorry, I've had that one all too often...) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 18 17:44:30 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:44:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: from "dwight elvey" at Jul 18, 6 06:29:16 am Message-ID: > > > > > >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > > > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, > >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > > >-tony > > Electrolytic capacitor. No. It was (fairly pure) water. Not electrolyte, transformer oil [1], cat pee, or anything like that. And it kept on happening. A pool would form, it would be mopped up, then the pool would come back. And the set continued to work, although the picture was poor. [1] Some UK TVs, back in the valve/405 line era had oil-filled line output (horizontal output) transformers. I think Murphy and Philips both used them... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Tue Jul 18 17:54:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:54:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44BCFA43.8090305@srv.net> from "Kevin Handy" at Jul 18, 6 09:12:03 am Message-ID: > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, > >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > > >-tony > > > > > How much water? How frequently was it leaking? Where was it located? Enough to form a pool on the floor under the table on which the set was placed. And it would come back after being cleaned up. > > Possibilities: > > 1. Condensation. > 2. Sprinkler/rain through a window. > 3. Kid/drunk with glass of water/booze. > 4. Pets/kids urinating into it. > 5. Leak in the cooling system. > 6. Leak from room above. Nope, none of those. It was water (not urine, for example). The set continued to work. It has nothing to do with any living thing (animals, people, plants). -tony From g-wright at att.net Tue Jul 18 18:16:14 2006 From: g-wright at att.net (g-wright at att.net) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:16:14 +0000 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes Message-ID: <071820062316.13131.44BD6BBE000132AC0000334B21603760219B0809079D99D309@att.net> -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Nico de Jong" > From: "Al Kossow" > > You should be able to connect the heads directly to the preamp, and use > the > > tapewizl directly. I was going to try recovering HP and Apple 40meg tapes > > this way using a TU58 transport. I haven't looked at the head geometry on > > the different drives that take DC100 carts yet, though. I know I've > scanned > > some documentation on the 3M transport, will need to see if I've pdf'ed it > > yet. > > > Would this principle work for recovery of 4mm (DAT) and 8 mm (Exabyte) > tapes? It happens regularly that customers ask if I can read "behind" a > small file they "happened" to write. I have no problems with 9 track and > 3480/3490's. > > Nico > If It Helps ........... Some place out there, there use to be a tape reading tool that would read the tape backwards. I believe is was run under linux ??? I have never used it. - jerry From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Tue Jul 18 18:21:18 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:21:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: DSDD 3.5" floppies Message-ID: While cleaning out the pile-o-stuff I came across half a metric buttload of DSDD 3.5" floppies. If anyone wants/needs some, I'll send 20 anywhere in the continental US for $2. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Tue Jul 18 19:11:37 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:11:37 -0700 Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes In-Reply-To: <071820062316.13131.44BD6BBE000132AC0000334B21603760219B0809079D99D309@att.net> References: <071820062316.13131.44BD6BBE000132AC0000334B21603760219B0809079D99D309@att.net> Message-ID: <44BD78B9.9040104@msm.umr.edu> g-wright at att.net wrote: > -------------- Original message ---------------------- >From: "Nico de Jong" > > >> >> >> >If It Helps ........... > >Some place out there, there use to be a tape reading tool >that would read the tape backwards. I believe is was >run under linux ??? I have never used it. > > >- jerry > > What type of tape? If QIC other than HP (QIC-24, etc) there is no way that most of the drives did that. They actually read on all forward operations, and kept track of the recorded end of media. (not the holes). It is possible that the Tandberg had such, but for most drives including the Tandberg there is no published way to do that. Some 1/2" tapes could to a read reverse, but most helical scan or qic drives could not, due to the way the data was recorded, and retries were accomplished. also 3480 and 3490 can do read reverse. jim From pat at computer-refuge.org Tue Jul 18 20:08:58 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:08:58 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607182108.58174.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 18 July 2006 18:44, Tony Duell wrote: > > >From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) > > > > > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, > > >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > > > > >-tony > > > > Electrolytic capacitor. > > No. It was (fairly pure) water. Not electrolyte, transformer oil [1], > cat pee, or anything like that. And it kept on happening. A pool would > form, it would be mopped up, then the pool would come back. And the set > continued to work, although the picture was poor. Rain coming down the antenna lead (assuming an outdoor antenna, of course)? Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From wmaddox at pacbell.net Tue Jul 18 20:34:58 2006 From: wmaddox at pacbell.net (William Maddox) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:34:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Shipping a Diablo series 30 drive Message-ID: <20060719013458.63451.qmail@web81306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Has anyone here shipped one of these drives before? I'm looking for advice on the proper way to secure it for shipment. There is no obvious shipping lock mechanism, though the head actuator appears to be secured when retracted. --Bill From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jul 18 20:42:48 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 20:42:48 -0500 Subject: Thanks for the Donations References: <00a201c6aa11$97c11fe0$31406b43@66067007> <2789adda0607180706t6f3e7c08kfd05257f59deb58e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <00f801c6aad4$a588ea40$2a406b43@66067007> The SDS910 is part of a second donation from a different source that came in because of the SEL810A donation. There is a third donation that has also come in for pickup in the KC area and so this looks like a very big and heavy trip. The cost so far is about $1692 for KS/NE only, which includes $388 for airline ticket, $891 for truck rental, $300 for fuel, $112.37 for taxes and fees. I have so far received $530 toward both trips (KS & GA (with prices increases over $3300 now needed)). Some people that had promised funds have not sent the checks. HP was to have given $600 but sent a check for $100 instead. So, that's the long answer to your question ($1162 or $2770). Thanks for asking and I will update you as my target date of August 19th gets closer. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Ollerton" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > How much short on money are you? > > I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. > > Bob > > On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: >> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or labor offers >> for >> the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up short on >> the >> money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick these items >> up >> and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both trips. I >> will >> be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you off list >> after >> everything is complete. Thanks again John >> >> > From jrkeys at concentric.net Tue Jul 18 21:01:27 2006 From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:01:27 -0500 Subject: Fw: Thanks for the Donations Message-ID: <011101c6aad7$401dc060$2a406b43@66067007> Sorry did not look at the return address, this should have been off line. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keys" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:42 PM Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Robert Ollerton" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM > Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > > >> How much short on money are you? >> >> I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. >> >> Bob >> >> On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: >>> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or labor offers >>> for >>> the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up short on >>> the >>> money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick these items >>> up >>> and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both trips. I >>> will >>> be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you off list >>> after >>> everything is complete. Thanks again John >>> >>> >> > > From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jul 19 00:20:51 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:20:51 -0500 Subject: IDO 4.1 for IRIX 4.0.5 Message-ID: Abstract: headers are there, not much else. I moved the IDO 5.3 IRIX4 files over to my P.I. and started playing around with them, and there is mixed news. Bits of IDO4.1 (the recommended IDO for IRIX 4) are there, including headers and cc, but other bits are missing (make, gendist, and other stuff that make life easier.) So news is mixed: it looks like you could concievably use the IRIX4 files on the freely-distributable IDO 5.3 to get a lot closer to having a development environment on IRIX 4.0.x, but you'll still need to supplement (big time) with GNU tools. I have the tarfile of the IRIX4 subrelease here if anyone wants it, but I don't think I'll put too much more work into making it nice. I use 3.3.2 more often on that machine, anyway. I believe there is also a way to cross-build on an IRIX 5 host. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jul 19 00:31:14 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:31:14 -0500 Subject: IDO 4.1 for IRIX 4.0.5 Message-ID: super-post-script: In the process of doing this research, IRIX scribbled over my filesystem while I was making a tarfile backup of a directory. I went to SGI's ftp server to see if I could find a recommended/required patchset, but all they had for IRIX 4.0.x was an updated Sendmail (in ftp.sgi.com/patches). Are older patchsets still squirelled away somewhere on the FTP site? (I'm looking for 4.0.5 and 3.3.2) From useddec at aol.com Mon Jul 17 02:54:00 2006 From: useddec at aol.com (Paul Anderson) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 02:54:00 -0500 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000201c6a976$48e414e0$4200a8c0@main> I think both drives (I left one in the van) have the new style elbow. The old ones are a pain. They only take a minute to check. I try to keep a few of the new ones on hand, along with the other parts. I also had copies of the RK05/RK11 tech tips, RK8E, and other training handouts not sold by DEC. Thanks, Paul -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 12:31 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: So how was VCF Midwest? On 7/17/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I think he was asking about $500 for it. I didn't buy it, mostly because I > don't have a controller or machine that needed one. For a working one, I don't think that's too bad. Hopefully the amber plastic elbow in the filter air handler is still intact - I've seen those things get really brittle. There are plenty of things that can fail in an RK05, but fortunately, they are easy to work on. > Hopefully, he'll consider coming next year. I should be back in the Midwest in plenty of time for it. Purdue is a little under 5 hours from my house - not too far. -ethan From dcohoe at qualitymeats.on.ca Tue Jul 18 06:10:17 2006 From: dcohoe at qualitymeats.on.ca (Dan Cohoe) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 07:10:17 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <200607180149.43860.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <003101c6aa5a$c1967740$a302a8c0@wcruz> Patrick, by now you've likely found the front and rear hinges for the RS/6000 that I left on top of a pile of nodes near the elevator. Can you grab them and hold on to them for me. Looks like I need to be more careful about looking too goofy when people are around with cameras. Dan -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.1/390 - Release Date: 7/17/06 From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jul 19 05:29:07 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:29:07 +0100 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray Message-ID: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> Hi, I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 errors. Fusing lamp tests good as per . I assume this means the AC power module has fried itself. Best I can find on Google is that I need to replace the triac and some 'support components'. I can find component designator IDs, but not component values - does anyone know what needs replacing, and what to replace it with? It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors, but there's no paper jam visible. Anyone know what causes this? I'm guessing the optosensor on the fuser assembly has failed, but I can't identify the opto. Does anyone have a part number for it? Finally, if by some twist of fate I manage to get this thing running, I'm going to need an A4 paper tray. Anyone in the UK got a spare they feel like parting with? Thanks. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From brad at heeltoe.com Wed Jul 19 09:04:05 2006 From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:04:05 -0400 Subject: old Solaris s/w, docs Message-ID: <200607191404.k6JE45Nb030660@mwave.heeltoe.com> I have 2 boxes of old Solaris developer docs & cd's, mostly Solaris 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, maybe some 2.4. I think there is a compiler in their also. Answerbook, install, etc... If anyone wants them they are free for shipping (not light, I'll bet each box is 15lbs). -brad From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jul 19 10:16:53 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:16:53 -0500 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray Message-ID: > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors, but there's no paper jam >visible. Anyone know what causes this? I'm guessing the optosensor on the >fuser assembly has failed, but I can't identify the opto. Does anyone have a >part number for it? You might want to try a good cleaning first. I've had several laser printers display this issue, and it was likely just dust and fibers in the opto inhibiting the light path. A good way to test emissive IR components is with a CCD camcorder. Point the camera at the thing (remote . . . ) and the light will be visible on the monitor if it is functioning. From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 12:10:51 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:10:51 -0700 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Hi, > I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 > errors. Fusing lamp tests good as per > . I assume > this means the AC power module has fried itself. Does this happen randomly throughout the day? Or, only when the printer is first powered up? > Best I can find on Google is that I need to replace the triac and some > 'support components'. I can find component designator IDs, but not > component values - does anyone know what needs replacing, and what to > replace it with? > > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors, but there's no paper jam > visible. Anyone know what causes this? I'm guessing the optosensor on > the fuser assembly has failed, but I can't identify the opto. Does > anyone have a part number for it? I can email you a service manual... > Finally, if by some twist of fate I manage to get this thing running, > I'm going to need an A4 paper tray. Anyone in the UK got a spare they > feel like parting with? From aek at bitsavers.org Wed Jul 19 12:43:21 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:43:21 -0700 Subject: Shipping a Diablo series 30 drive Message-ID: > Has anyone here shipped one of these drives before? Look at the service manual on bitsavers. There is a triangular shipping plate to prevent the head assembly from sliding out. From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jul 19 12:49:13 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:49:13 +0100 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> Don Y wrote: > Philip Pemberton wrote: >> Hi, >> I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 >> errors. Fusing lamp tests good as per >> . I assume >> this means the AC power module has fried itself. > > Does this happen randomly throughout the day? Or, only > when the printer is first powered up? On power up. It's doing it all the time now... *sigh* > I can email you a service manual... How big is it? FTP would be easier for me if it's bigger than a few megs... Thanks. -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 13:06:24 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:06:24 -0700 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> Philip Pemberton wrote: >>> Hi, >>> I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 >>> errors. Fusing lamp tests good as per >>> . I >>> assume this means the AC power module has fried itself. >> >> Does this happen randomly throughout the day? Or, only >> when the printer is first powered up? > > On power up. > It's doing it all the time now... *sigh* OPen the rear door. Apply power. Wait 3 or 4 seconds (not TOO long else the error sets and you have to power down for several minutes for it to clear itself). You should see the lamp light up in the first few seconds or so. If NOT, power off (before the error sets). Wait a few seconds (no, not a few MINUTES, just a few seconds ... 5 or 10) and then power on *again*. See if the light comes on this second time... >> I can email you a service manual... > > How big is it? FTP would be easier for me if it's bigger than a few megs... > > Thanks. I don;'t think I have any FTP space available here (I keep all my documents off-line). I'll check it's size... --don From ploopster at gmail.com Wed Jul 19 13:26:02 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:26:02 -0400 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44BE793A.7020004@gmail.com> Don Y wrote: > I don;'t think I have any FTP space available here (I keep > all my documents off-line). I'll check it's size... You can stick it on my server if you want. Peace... Sridhar From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 14:02:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 12:02:14 -0700 Subject: FTGH: CoCo2 Message-ID: <44BE81B6.7030303@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I'm just finishing up documenting this CoCo2. Then, unless someone wants to pony up for shipping from 85751, it's headed to the landfill. (though I will probably steal the RF modulator off of it before doing so). Original cardboard box is showing signs of age... :-( Any takers? (only the lower 48 US, please) --don From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jul 19 14:48:10 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:48:10 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607180111.27421.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607171109.56360.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607180111.27421.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607191548.10360.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Tuesday 18 July 2006 01:11, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > On Monday 17 July 2006 11:09, Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > On Monday 17 July 2006 02:06 am, Patrick Finnegan wrote: > > > Actually, I might pull the rom, and dump it while I'm at work > > > tomorrow... I'm tempted to power one of the TS-801's up and just > > > see what comes out the "terminal" port. > > Turns out the power supply seems to be ok, and the "terminal" port is > wired as a DCE DB-25S at 9600 baud (8/n/1). The machine spits a > message out of its "terminal" port when it tries to boot, so > disassembling the EPROM should give me enough info to write a BIOS > for CP/M if I need to... but I'd rather get some authentic software > if possible. I wouldn't mind playing with MMMOST even if it is a bit > strange... Thanks to help from Jerry, I now have it booting. For the record, the Televideo TS-801 does boot the same image as the TS-802 (the 802 is probably just an 801 packaged in the same case as a Televideo terminal). ------------------------------------------------- System IPL from Floppy disk in progress TELEVIDEO SYSTEM TS-802 V2.1 62k CP/M vers. 2.2 A>dir A: MOVCPM COM : ED COM : STAT COM : BIOS ASM A: DUMP ASM : LT31 COM : PIP COM : ASM COM A: D COM : CBIOS ASM : SYSGEN COM : EDFILE DOC A: NSWP COM : SUBMIT COM : DDT COM : COPYDISK COM A: DEBLOCK ASM : FORMAT COM : XSUB COM : LOAD COM A: DUMP COM : EDFILE COM A> ------------------------------------------------- Since this machine seems to be completely undocumented/unknown (on the web anyhow), I guess it's time to write some... Is there any chance that someone has some user or system documentation for the TS-801 or TS-802 that they could make available to me somehow? It'd be nice too if I could get a copy of whatever software Televideo usually shipped with these machines; my research shows that they had a software suite called TeleSolutions, and some other things that they shipped with the machines. Also, a copy of MMMOST or one of their other multi-user O/S's might be neat to play with... Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 19 15:02:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:02:41 -0700 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607191548.10360.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607171109.56360.rtellason@gmail.com> <200607180111.27421.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607191548.10360.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <200607191302410797.0415BD3E@10.0.0.252> On 7/19/2006 at 3:48 PM Patrick Finnegan wrote: >Is there any chance that someone has some user or system documentation >for the TS-801 or TS-802 that they could make available to me somehow? About all I have is the User's Manual for the TS-803 (which is better than I expected)--and some diskettes for the same. Did you know that TVI also offered a mouse for these systems, called the SuperMouse? That's pretty unusual for a CP/M-80 based system. Cheers, Chuck From pat at computer-refuge.org Wed Jul 19 15:18:13 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:18:13 -0400 Subject: Televideo TS-801 In-Reply-To: <200607191302410797.0415BD3E@10.0.0.252> References: <200607161933.29766.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607191548.10360.pat@computer-refuge.org> <200607191302410797.0415BD3E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <200607191618.13660.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Wednesday 19 July 2006 16:02, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/19/2006 at 3:48 PM Patrick Finnegan wrote: > >Is there any chance that someone has some user or system > > documentation for the TS-801 or TS-802 that they could make > > available to me somehow? > > About all I have is the User's Manual for the TS-803 (which is better > than I expected)--and some diskettes for the same. > > Did you know that TVI also offered a mouse for these systems, called > the SuperMouse? That's pretty unusual for a CP/M-80 based system. The 803's? Yes, and they did it for the TPC-I also ("Televideo Portable Computer")... they also had a TPC-II which was an 8088-based system in the same case, which I had when I was growing up as a kid. They're both similar in formfactor to a Compaq "Portable" luggable, and IIRC had a 9" green CRT. The TPC-II had a CGA-compatible video interface (with a composite video jack on the back if you wanted to have color). The TS-801 and TS-802 (well, and TS-806 and TS-816) were character-based CP/M boxes, unlike the 803 and TPC-I, which had graphics capabilities. Televideo had some kick-ass machines back in the day, it's a shame that they didn't catch on very widely. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jul 19 15:25:46 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:25:46 -0500 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) Message-ID: <162d01c6ab71$848b1780$6500a8c0@BILLING> After returning from VCF, a friend of mine brought me some stuff he saw headed for the skip and saved it for me. Some of it is fun stuff! 1) DEI v.35 to RS232 Monitor Interface Adapter - this box connects between two V.35 devices and presents a DB25 that can be connected to a programmable data communications tester. 2) Two NAVTEL 75/1200 breakoutbox/testers - these cute boxes not only are breakout boxes, but also do sync/async troubleshooting, bert tests, auto format negotiation, etc. 3) Fluke 8920A True RMS Volt Meter 4) Teltone TLS2 Test Line Simulator - I believe this box simulates a telco between two analog telephone devices (such as modems, etc.). 5) B&K Precision 1651 triple output bench power supply 6) THREE Tektronix 834 Programmable Data Communications Testers - these are awesome, I was thinking about buying one, now I have three :) I'd prefer a Spectron Northern Telecom Datascope2000, but hey, these were free :) 7) AMP MI-1 50 pin telco cable making tool So... tell your friends to save you "funny looking electronic stuff", you never know what you'll get :) Jay West From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jul 19 15:46:02 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:46:02 -0500 Subject: Halcyon & Tek 834 References: <162d01c6ab71$848b1780$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: <165001c6ab74$5a4dec10$6500a8c0@BILLING> Almost forgot... a Halcyon 502B universal test set. I'm not completely sure what this is, but the front panel inclines me to believe it's used for testing DSx loops and such. Best of all, the Tektronix 834 datacom test units include a full range of add-on rom packs for BISYNC ascii, BISYNC ebcdic, SDLC/SNA, Link Test, and general purpose rom pack. Each unit is in a nice tek blue leather carrycase and includes operation manuals on the main unit, each of the rom packs, keyboard overlays, and even product brochures. Schweet :) So if anyone needs owner/operation docs on the unit or any of those rom packs, just let me know. One of the 834's works great, the other two appear to have power supply problems. Would anyone happen to have schematics or PS repair info for these? It'd be nice to get the other two up and running. Most suprisingly the tek owner manuals for the 834 don't have schematics! Jay West From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk Wed Jul 19 16:40:39 2006 From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Adrian Graham) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:40:39 +0100 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: <162d01c6ab71$848b1780$6500a8c0@BILLING> Message-ID: On 19/7/06 21:25, "Jay West" wrote: > After returning from VCF, a friend of mine brought me some stuff he saw > headed for the skip and saved it for me. Some of it is fun stuff! Hi Jay, Half the stuff in my museum was headed for the skip so I know what you mean :) Given that at work I'm a DEC/Compaq/HP failed circus engineer we also love the dumpster diving for those unobtainium parts...... PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I go to New York and Boston :) -- Adrian/Witchy Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator Www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UK's biggest private home computer collection? From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jul 19 14:22:26 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 19:22:26 +0000 Subject: Magtape market... Message-ID: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> Out of interest, what's the market for unused, still-sealed magtape (9 track, 2400ft*, 6250bpi) like? I got hold of a few reels the other week and can't decide whether we should just put them to use them as/when necessary, or use them to raise funds for other museum projects... * well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to 2000 in increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm assuming it's feet! (did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that *wasn't* 2400ft in length?) thanks Jules From bpope at wordstock.com Wed Jul 19 16:53:54 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:53:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060719215354.4AF4158129@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Adrian Graham > > PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal > boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I go > to New York and Boston :) > Plus you get exposed to these terms on an international list like this and tend to pick them up sometimes.. :) Cheers, Bryan From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jul 19 17:05:44 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 23:05:44 +0100 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> Adrian Graham wrote: > PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal > boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I go > to New York and Boston :) Beats hearing Americanisms on this side of the pond :) -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Jul 19 17:09:23 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:09:23 -0700 Subject: Magtape market... In-Reply-To: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > > > * well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to > 2000 in increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm > assuming it's feet! (did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that > *wasn't* 2400ft in length?) > thanks 3600' reels. but I don't recall a scale that actually showed the amount of tape on any of the reels like you describe. can you describe them more? Scotch brand? black label type? If they are so old that they predate that, then their reliability would be questionable for anything but transfers off a system. You'd want to back them up immediately from that media if possible, if the New old Stock was too old itself. at least you would not have to worry about the possible printthru problems you can have with really old 1/2" tape and the like where data is corrupted by magnetic leakage between layers of tape due to age on the shelf w/o being unreeled from time to time. Jim From jim.isbell at gmail.com Wed Jul 19 17:21:00 2006 From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:21:00 -0500 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: Another reason to tell your friends, AND follow up on leads, is that if you dont, you will hear later about the stuff they sent to the "dumpster", as I unfortunately did. I heard a story of an old man that had closed his radio shop in the 1960s and had a garage FULL of NEW old tubes in their boxes. He lived just a few blocks from me. He was planning on cleaning the garage out and throwing the stuff away. I quized my friend and he assured me this was first hand information. I didnt want to come off as a "Vulture" but I really didnt want the stuff to be thrown out either so I asked if he would ask the guy if he would sell the lot to me. I forgot about it and a few months later I learned that the old guy had died and the entire garage full of parts and tubes and radios had gone into the dumpster because his kin "knew" that tubes were now worthless since the invention of the transistor and Integrated Circuit. Its enough to make you cry. On 7/19/06, Philip Pemberton wrote: > Adrian Graham wrote: > > PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal > > boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I go > > to New York and Boston :) > > Beats hearing Americanisms on this side of the pond :) > > -- > Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder > philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G > http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G > -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 19 17:23:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 15:23:41 -0700 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> On 7/19/2006 at 10:40 PM Adrian Graham wrote: >PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal >boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I >go to New York and Boston :) The US term is actually a trade name, although it's become a generic term over the years (much like "hoover" is a UK-ism for a vacuum cleaner). But perhaps the UK term is also a trade name--perhaps named after someone called Nigel Skip? :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster Cheers, Chuck From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Wed Jul 19 17:25:21 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:25:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 19 Jul 2006, Adrian Graham wrote: > PS, 'skip'? I thought that was a UK thing and you lads called the big metal > boxes 'dumpsters'? Then again I hear an awful lot of UK-isms every time I go > to New York and Boston :) It comes from watching British comedies on the telly (PBS) ... :-) Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From philpem at dsl.pipex.com Wed Jul 19 17:39:35 2006 From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 23:39:35 +0100 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <44BEB4A7.5050605@dsl.pipex.com> Don Y wrote: > OPen the rear door. Apply power. Wait 3 or 4 seconds (not TOO > long else the error sets and you have to power down for several > minutes for it to clear itself). You should see the lamp light > up in the first few seconds or so. Nope. The fuser's completely off. > If NOT, power off (before the error sets). Wait a few seconds > (no, not a few MINUTES, just a few seconds ... 5 or 10) and then > power on *again*. See if the light comes on this second time... No activity on the second attempt either. >>> I can email you a service manual... >> >> How big is it? FTP would be easier for me if it's bigger than a few >> megs... >> >> Thanks. > > I don;'t think I have any FTP space available here (I keep > all my documents off-line). I'll check it's size... I probably should have said "I've got some FTP space you could upload it to"... :) -- Phil. | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder philpem at dsl.pipex.com | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jul 19 18:42:15 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 23:42:15 +0000 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > The US term is actually a trade name, although it's become a generic term > over the years (much like "hoover" is a UK-ism for a vacuum cleaner). But > perhaps the UK term is also a trade name--perhaps named after someone > called Nigel Skip? :) My US better half drives me nuts calling tissues 'kleenex' - so I always get her back by talking about doing the hoovering :-) Similar languages can be fun... From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jul 19 18:46:35 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 23:46:35 +0000 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: References: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44BEC45B.8090600@yahoo.co.uk> Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote: > I heard a story of an old man that had closed his radio shop in the > 1960s and had a garage FULL of NEW old tubes in their boxes. He lived > just a few blocks from me. He was planning on cleaning the garage out > and throwing the stuff away. I quized my friend and he assured me > this was first hand information. I didnt want to come off as a > "Vulture" To be honest, I think in most cases there are ways of being diplomatic about that; providing they know that you're asking for the good of the preservation movement rather than any personal gain, most people seem fine and the worst they can do is turn you down. Better than stuff getting trashed. Even if they do turn you down, it might get them thinking enough to realise that there are people to house this stuff (for money or not) and they might do a bit more asking around rather than just throwing stuff away. cheers Jules From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 19 18:07:30 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:07:30 -0700 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607191607300002.04BEEE1B@10.0.0.252> Warning--very, very OT: On 7/19/2006 at 11:42 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >Similar languages can be fun... Thankfully, languages evolve. Over the years, I've noted the gradually increasing use of "vacation" for "holiday" on the BBC. Now, if you folks could learn to spell... :) My aunt and her family used to refer to the refrigerator as the "icebox". It made no difference to them that the iceman hadn't cometh for several decades. Who keeps gloves in their auto's glove compartment/glovebox? Do the Brits refer to an act of sabotage as "throwing gas grips into the works"? Cheers, Chuck From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jul 19 19:09:29 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:09:29 +0000 Subject: Magtape market... In-Reply-To: <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> References: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> jim stephens wrote: > Jules Richardson wrote: > >> >> >> * well, near as I can tell. The scale on the reel goes from zero to >> 2000 in increments of 400 and is some way over the 2000 mark; I'm >> assuming it's feet! (did anyone ever sell magtape > 2000ft that >> *wasn't* 2400ft in length?) >> thanks > > 3600' reels. but I don't recall a scale that actually showed the amount > of tape on any of the reels like you describe. can you describe them more? Scotch > brand? They're branded as Inmac Plus, then just 'lifetime computer tape, 6250bpi'. No other details on the front other than the scale on the clear window of the shell. On the back there's a label: "A4L0J0814A2 43" (which doesn't mean anything according to google, at least). By my estimate the length's actually 2200 feet, assuming that the scale does indeed work in feet! > If they are so old that they predate that These were used with a Sun 3E VME crate [1], so would have dated from anywhere between the mid-80's and the machine's retirement (early 90's). The drive's a standard enough 9 track front-loading vacuum unit. [1] Actually a pretty cool box. Cabinet with dual VME racks - the front one houses the standard CPU and related boards, whilst the back one is full of image processing hardware. PSUs live in the middle, with the hard drives (one's SMD I believe, the other's SCSI) at the top. It was made by ContextVision (who are still trading), and owned by Shell - some of the used tapes with it hint that it was used for analysing seismic image data from oilfields. I grabbed the tapes + tape drive from the site the other week, but the machine and its three graphical displays are too big and heavy to shift in my car for the moment! > then their reliability would be questionable > for anything but transfers off a system. You'd want to back them up > immediately from that media if possible, if the New old Stock was too old > itself. I think I picked up about 15 of the sealed ones - if there is any kind of useful resale market for them then I can always open one and do some read-write testing; it's just not worth the time at this stage if they only go for a buck each or something anyway! :) cheers Jules From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Wed Jul 19 18:21:00 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:21:00 -0700 Subject: Magtape market... In-Reply-To: <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BEBE5C.1080305@msm.umr.edu> Jules Richardson wrote: > jim stephens wrote: > > They're branded as Inmac Plus, Inmac was a supply distributor that sold high end stuff thru phone and direct catalog marketing. They sold tapes, printer ribbons, all the usual crap. i dont know if they still exist as inmac, or were bought out, but I have not seen the name for a long time, so I suspect they merged into something else and dropped the name. IIRC it may be one of the distributors from around here in Orange county, as a friend used to buy from them a lot, even though they were over priced. We bought Scotch brand tapes from a distributor, whereas Inmac this and Inmac that had private labeling. I never would pay for such crap then or now. made as much sense as people who think designer jeans mean something. to me (using the jeans example) whether I split the seams while wearing them, or they wear out too soon is a better measure than who's name is on the butt. However they were quality stuff. Also, I doubt that the tape was anything but 2400'. I dont think you could buy much of anything but 600, 1200, 2400, and 3600' tapes, unless you spooled your own. Ibm shops had what were called DTR's which had 100 to 200' of tape on them with patches, and I have a few that were not DTR spooled, but those were rare. Your box sounds like a nice one. A beast but nice if you have room to play with it. Jim From cclist at sydex.com Wed Jul 19 18:32:03 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:32:03 -0700 Subject: Magtape market... In-Reply-To: <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607191632030195.04D568B6@10.0.0.252> On 7/20/2006 at 12:09 AM Jules Richardson wrote: >I think I picked up about 15 of the sealed ones - if there is any kind of >useful resale market for them then I can always open one and do some >read-write testing; it's just not worth the time at this stage if they >only go for a buck each or something anyway! :) They're not worth much in today's market. Perhaps later when they get to be scarce.. NOS tapes seem to be going for less than the shipping cost. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Wed Jul 19 19:34:43 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:34:43 +0000 Subject: Magtape market... In-Reply-To: <44BEBE5C.1080305@msm.umr.edu> References: <44BE8672.5000601@yahoo.co.uk> <44BEAD93.1080704@msm.umr.edu> <44BEC9B9.10800@yahoo.co.uk> <44BEBE5C.1080305@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: <44BECFA3.9030501@yahoo.co.uk> jim stephens wrote: > to me (using the jeans example) whether I split the seams while wearing > them, or they wear out too soon is a better measure than who's name is > on the butt. absolutely. > Also, I doubt that the tape was anything but 2400'. Same here, based on googling around. Makes me wonder if the manufacturing process winds the reel a bit tighter than a drive will or something, so once it's had a run through a drive it'll show as closer to 2400ft. > Your box sounds like a nice one. A beast but nice if you have room > to play with it. Luckily it's got all the OS tapes, drivers for the image processing hardware etc. and seems to accept various standards of video as input - just a question of whether the tapes (those are all QIC 150MB ones) are still good. If they are though it could make an interesting museum addition as it could actually do something visual. My experience of reading old QIC media has been on the whole pretty good, so I'm pretty hopeful. cheers Jules From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 19 18:42:52 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:42:52 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> from "Philip Pemberton" at Jul 19, 6 11:29:07 am Message-ID: > > Hi, > I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 errors. > Fusing lamp tests good as per > . I assume this > means the AC power module has fried itself. It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. I'll give a basic overview of what goes on in the various modules, I can dig out the schematics (which are not in the HP service manual, this is a somewhat useless document, therefore!), if you want to go further. Firstly, be warned that the 115V and 230V versions of the AC block have different circuitry round the triac, not just different component values. Instructions for the former do not apply to the latter. OK, the fuser temperature is monitored by the thermistor pressed against the roller. This is connected in a simple R's and C's circuit (on the DC controller board), the voltage out from that depends on the temperature. It goes to an analogue input on one of the microcontrollers on that board (I think it's the 'slave' one, but I will have to check). This microcontroller generates a pulse train to turn on the fuser lamp, nothing to turn it off (if you see what I mean). AFAIK it is not a proportional control. Just on/off. This signal goes to the AC block. The upper PCB contains 3 subcircuits 1) A circuit to detect the pulse train ant turn on the optotriac on the lower PCB when it's present (thus turning on the fuser). 2) A circuit to detect problems (pulse input stuck high, current in the fuser when it shouldn't be there, etc), and to turn off the protection relay if this happens 3) A circuit to cotnrol the cooling fan that you can ignore for the moment. The lower PCB contaisn, along with the mains input filter, the fuser control ocmponents. There's a relay between one side of the mains and one side of the fuser, and a triac between the other side of the mains and the other side of the fuser. The relay coil goes to the upper PCB, the triac gate is controlled by an optotriac, the LED side of which also goes to the upper PCB. One thing that's worth doing very early on. Connect some kind of 24V detector (LED + resistor, even a small light bulb) across the relay coil. If it goes out at any point, it means the protection circuit is operating, and this will shut down the fuser. I once had a particularly nasty fault there. The relay would turn off a few seconds after power-up. It even did it when I powered the module from a 24V bench supply (and with no pulse input at all). Every associated component tested fine. It turned out that one of the electrolytics had leaked slightly and put a conductive gunge on the PCB. This was providing enough current to trip the protection circuit (!). > > Best I can find on Google is that I need to replace the triac and some > 'support components'. I can find component designator IDs, but not component > values - does anyone know what needs replacing, and what to replace it with? Stop guessing ! > > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors, but there's no paper jam > visible. Anyone know what causes this? I'm guessing the optosensor on the > fuser assembly has failed, but I can't identify the opto. Does anyone have a > part number for it? Yes, there's only one paper path sensor in the SX engine, that's the one on the side of the fuser. A paper jam means that sensor didn't detect / not detect paper as expected. The most common cause of this is that the printer didn't pick up paper from the paper tray, due to a warn pickup roller. That's the D-shaped roller on the spindle above the paper tray, under the scanner block. Replace the roller (the roller alone is cheaper than the complete spindle, and it trivial to change, at least if you had a mis-spent childhood repairing ASR33s!), and the cork (?) pad that holds the paper against it. Of coruse the problem might be in the sesor. It's just a plain slotted optoswitch, I think. Mothing odd about it. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Wed Jul 19 18:21:30 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:21:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607182108.58174.pat@computer-refuge.org> from "Patrick Finnegan" at Jul 18, 6 09:08:58 pm Message-ID: > > > >Incidnetally, I have heard of a TV set that leaked water onto the floor, > > > >and no the cause was not a vase of flowers on top of it. Any ideas? > > > > > > > >-tony > > > > > > Electrolytic capacitor. > > > > No. It was (fairly pure) water. Not electrolyte, transformer oil [1], > > cat pee, or anything like that. And it kept on happening. A pool would > > form, it would be mopped up, then the pool would come back. And the set > > continued to work, although the picture was poor. > > Rain coming down the antenna lead (assuming an outdoor antenna, of course)? Very close. UK TVs (even back in the 405 line era) tend to use a 75 ohm coaxial aerial cable (not a flat twin 300 ohm one that's popular in the States). This cable often had an air-spaced insulator between the centre core and the braind, and thus there were channels the full length of the cable. The aerial terminal box had developed a water leak. Rain came in there, ran down the channels in the cable (not down the outside), then came out inside the coaxial plug at the back of the set and ended up on the floor. Of course this messed up the properties of the cable, hence a weak signal and a poor picture. -tony From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Wed Jul 19 19:04:05 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 21:04:05 -0300 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray References: Message-ID: <034a01c6ab90$076afc10$08fea8c0@alpha> > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. Very good explanation. I'd tell him to go to www.repairfaq.org and take a look on the laserjet and printer/copiers texts. There are a wealth of info there. See ya Alexandre From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Wed Jul 19 19:56:40 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:56:40 +1200 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: On 7/20/06, Tony Duell wrote: > > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors... > > A paper jam means that sensor didn't detect / not detect paper as > expected. The most common cause of this is that the printer didn't pick > up paper from the paper tray, due to a warn pickup roller. That's the > D-shaped roller on the spindle above the paper tray, under the scanner > block. Replace the roller (the roller alone is cheaper than the complete > spindle, and it trivial to change, at least if you had a mis-spent > childhood repairing ASR33s!), and the cork (?) pad that holds the paper > against it. It's common that either the roller or the "transfer pad" (the cork) get glazed with age and use. One can buff them up with emery cloth for the short term, but the only long term fix is to replace them. ISTR paying about $15 for a set ($7-ish for each component) as opposed to something like $50 for one spindle with roller. I revived a $15 IIIsi for under $50 with a pair of new rollers and a pair of new pads. Well worth it. Something like this will fix you right up... http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs/RollerKits/NX-RK_RollerKit.html -ethan From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 20:04:56 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:04:56 -0700 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BEB4A7.5050605@dsl.pipex.com> References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE679B.4070303@DakotaCom.Net> <44BE7099.2040708@dsl.pipex.com> <44BE74A0.6040604@DakotaCom.Net> <44BEB4A7.5050605@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44BED6B8.1060906@DakotaCom.Net> Philip Pemberton wrote: > Don Y wrote: >> OPen the rear door. Apply power. Wait 3 or 4 seconds (not TOO >> long else the error sets and you have to power down for several >> minutes for it to clear itself). You should see the lamp light >> up in the first few seconds or so. > > Nope. The fuser's completely off. There are two different PCB's involved in dealing (directly) with the fuser. One supplies power to the lamp. The other monitors temperature, etc. The supply has an overtemperature cutoff device that breaks the circuit to the filament. If you don't see 24V at the lamp, this could be open (i.e. broken). There is a thermistor located near this cutoff device that performs temperature *control*. It obviously relies on a processor (hence is not a reliable means of preventing OVERtemperature cutoff :> ). I have a note (to myself) about replacing an upper fan to fix an intermittent "50" error. You might want to check if the fan is bound, shorted, etc. >> If NOT, power off (before the error sets). Wait a few seconds >> (no, not a few MINUTES, just a few seconds ... 5 or 10) and then >> power on *again*. See if the light comes on this second time... > > No activity on the second attempt either. But you are sure that your *first* attempt you didn't leave power on long enough for 50 to set? (Once it sets, you have to wait 10 minutes for a cap to discharge before it will "try again") >>>> I can email you a service manual... >>> >>> How big is it? FTP would be easier for me if it's bigger than a few >>> megs... >>> >>> Thanks. >> >> I don;'t think I have any FTP space available here (I keep >> all my documents off-line). I'll check it's size... > > I probably should have said "I've got some FTP space you could upload it > to"... :) Ah. Well, I have good news, bad news and REALLY bad news... :< The good news is I have a document that is a collection of HP FSE "notes" concerning the legacy LJ's. I.e. things that FSE's encountered in the field plus the fixes they found for them. Among these notes are: ------------ Intermittent 50 Error (can be associated with paper jams) 1. Replace Fusing Assy Cable known to be intermittent (see service note 33440A-09) 2. Replace AC Power Module Cable ------------ I mention this because you mentioned paper jams (?) The bad news is this document is 5M. I also have a *consumer* version of their service manual (about 20M). The REALLY bad news is the document you REALLY want to look at I probably can't send to you (it is in with my "NDA" documents which means I probably signed something at some point in time stating that I wouldn't disclose it or its contents :< Sorry, I take these sorts of things seriously.) The other really bad news is I sit behind a dialup connection so uploading any of these is a bitch for me. But, I can probably get access to a high speed connection from friends, etc. in a pinch. It's unfortunate that you're on the other side of the pond. I could probably get you a whole LJ3 for less than the cost of mailing a first class letter to you! :< (I finally discarded my last LJ2 & LJ3 due to lack of space -- despite the fact that toner was so dirt cheap at $16! Though the wasted BTUs probably weren't helpful :< ) Let me know if you want me to hunt down a faster connection... --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 20:13:14 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:13:14 -0700 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BED8AA.5050301@DakotaCom.Net> Tony Duell wrote: >> Hi, >> I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 errors. >> Fusing lamp tests good as per >> . I assume this >> means the AC power module has fried itself. > > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. > > I'll give a basic overview of what goes on in the various modules, I can > dig out the schematics (which are not in the HP service manual, this is a > somewhat useless document, therefore!), if you want to go further. The *consumer* manual's big selling point is the description of printing errors. E.g. "if the print anomaly occurs every XXX inches, this is the cause; if YYY inches, that is the cause; etc. It also helps with part numbers for replacements (which, I believe, the OP was seeking). I think it also lists signals (i.e. supplies) available at each of the various connectors in the machine. For some reason, these printers had lots of *cable* problems (I suspect the problems were in the *connectors* on the cables) > 3) A circuit to cotnrol the cooling fan that you can ignore for the moment. I have a note about replacing the "upper fan" in an LJ3 with this type of problem. So, I expect they are related -- if only indirectly (perhaps loading down a supply when faulty? I'd have to check if the thermistor is PTC or NTC to see how that might confuse the MCU) > I once had a particularly nasty fault there. The relay would turn off a > few seconds after power-up. It even did it when I powered the module from > a 24V bench supply (and with no pulse input at all). Every associated > component tested fine. It turned out that one of the electrolytics had > leaked slightly and put a conductive gunge on the PCB. This was providing > enough current to trip the protection circuit (!). I had a similar experience with a Lexmark Optra Se3455 (?). Except it caused the expansion PCI bus to malfunction so that the NIC wasn't reliably seen. Weird. I suspect the bus must have been buffered since it didn't interfere with the rest of the devices operation. --don From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 20:16:06 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:16:06 -0700 Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: References: <44BE0973.20701@dsl.pipex.com> Message-ID: <44BED956.8030404@DakotaCom.Net> Ethan Dicks wrote: > On 7/20/06, Tony Duell wrote: >> > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors... >> >> A paper jam means that sensor didn't detect / not detect paper as >> expected. The most common cause of this is that the printer didn't pick >> up paper from the paper tray, due to a warn pickup roller. That's the >> D-shaped roller on the spindle above the paper tray, under the scanner >> block. Replace the roller (the roller alone is cheaper than the complete >> spindle, and it trivial to change, at least if you had a mis-spent >> childhood repairing ASR33s!), and the cork (?) pad that holds the paper >> against it. > > It's common that either the roller or the "transfer pad" (the cork) > get glazed with age and use. One can buff them up with emery cloth > for the short term, but the only long term fix is to replace them. You can also use "Rubber Renu" to rejuenate the rubber roller -- until it wears too far. I offered several NOS LJ3 roller assemblies here a month or two ago, no taakers. :-/ > ISTR paying about $15 for a set ($7-ish for each component) as opposed > to something like $50 for one spindle with roller. I revived a $15 > IIIsi for under $50 with a pair of new rollers and a pair of new pads. > Well worth it. Ouch! I guess I must be spoiled... I see working LJ3's (the damn things are REALLY hard to kill!) discarded pretty regularly. From jwest at classiccmp.org Wed Jul 19 20:13:17 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 20:13:17 -0500 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <200607191607300002.04BEEE1B@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <002501c6ab99$af3aa540$6600a8c0@HPLAPTOP> It was written.... > My aunt and her family used to refer to the refrigerator as the "icebox". > It made no difference to them that the iceman hadn't cometh for several > decades. I suspect "icebox" is regional as well... it's in common use here. > Do the Brits refer to an act of sabotage as "throwing gas grips into the > works"? No, they refer to it as "throwing a spanner into the works" :) J From wdonzelli at gmail.com Wed Jul 19 20:16:14 2006 From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 21:16:14 -0400 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: <44BEC45B.8090600@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> <44BEC45B.8090600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: > To be honest, I think in most cases there are ways of being diplomatic about > that; providing they know that you're asking for the good of the preservation > movement rather than any personal gain, most people seem fine and the worst > they can do is turn you down. Better than stuff getting trashed. Don't dick around. Money talks. Often LOUDLY. -- Will From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com Wed Jul 19 20:22:53 2006 From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 18:22:53 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion Message-ID: Tony Duell wrote: UK TVs (even back in the 405 line era) tend to use a 75 ohm coaxial aerial cable (not a flat twin 300 ohm one that's popular in the States). This cable often had an air-spaced insulator between the centre core and the braind, and thus there were channels the full length of the cable. The aerial terminal box had developed a water leak. Rain came in there, ran down the channels in the cable (not down the outside), then came out inside the coaxial plug at the back of the set and ended up on the floor. Of course this messed up the properties of the cable, hence a weak signal and a poor picture. -tony Nice tale and after seeing some of those old coaxials, easy to believe it must have happened more than once. Reminds me of one of my worst memories on the big iron systems. Had a computer that was on the top floor. The building maintenance people were running the grounding cable on the lightning rod down to the earth rod.. And discovered this wonderful cable channel that carried the power from the basement MGs up to the main frame power supplies. The inevitable happened and a lightning bolt took out all the supplies on the entire system. The overvoltage crowbars saved most of the logic. But the lightning literally vaporized the power cables, and the MG was a big piece of toast. Nobody was punished - the union said that there were no guidelines stating this was a bad thing. And common sense seems to be a rare commodity. Billy From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 21:30:27 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 19:30:27 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BEEAC3.3010706@DakotaCom.Net> Billy Pettit wrote: > Reminds me of one of my worst memories on the big iron systems. Had a > computer that was on the top floor. The building maintenance people were > running the grounding cable on the lightning rod down to the earth rod.. > And discovered this wonderful cable channel that carried the power from the > basement MGs up to the main frame power supplies. The inevitable happened > and a lightning bolt took out all the supplies on the entire system. The > overvoltage crowbars saved most of the logic. But the lightning literally > vaporized the power cables, and the MG was a big piece of toast. > > Nobody was punished - the union said that there were no guidelines stating > this was a bad thing. And common sense seems to be a rare commodity. People tend to think "wires are wires (are wires...)" Note how often CAT5 is run in the same channels as telco wiring :-( From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Wed Jul 19 21:37:44 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 19:37:44 -0700 Subject: OT-ish? McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule" Message-ID: <44BEEC78.9020707@DakotaCom.Net> My only claim to being *possibly* on-topic is the age of the article (1974) and the fact that it inspired many of the early phoneme-driven speech synthesizers (Votrax, etc.). Does anyone have access to a suitably good engineering library with a copy of: McIlroy, M D, "Synthetic English Speech by Rule", Bell Telephone Labs, CSTR #14, 1973 (though I have also seen it referenced as 1974!) or: Ainsworth, W A, "A System for Converting English Text to Speech", IEEE Trans Audio & Electroacoustics AU-21 #3 pp 288-290, 1973 The former is far more interesting to me than the latter :-( (sigh) There are *some* advantages to being a student (though those days are long past, in my case!) I can try my local public library to see if it is available via ILL. I guess I could also try the local university's engineering library. Thanks! --don From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Wed Jul 19 22:26:25 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:26:25 -0500 Subject: troubleshooting video Message-ID: <76d87c949948463592522cf83d1a9306@valleyimplants.com> >I wonder what those are? they don't sound rignt to me, I would have >expected a 2-level singal only. I asusme all the power rails are nice and >stable (sorry, I've had that one all too often...) Threw the scope on them, 5v looks O.K. (about 2.5x background noise (I'm using unshielded alligator clip leads, no probes yet). -5v +12v and -12v are all quite noisy. I don't know if this is a recent development (I checked it out after replacing some caps in the 5v section), or if the trick of using a DMM in AC mode to check for noise doesn't really work. I wonder if there's a common filter cap that's dried out somewhere, or if ones on each channel have gone (there are 4 boards, mains rectifier & smoother, chopper, -5 v and +-12v channels, and 5v at 100(something) A) Maybe it would be easier to do another external filter cap on each channel. I'll look at it a bit more and see what's up. From Tim at Rikers.org Wed Jul 19 23:57:53 2006 From: Tim at Rikers.org (Tim Riker) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:57:53 -0600 Subject: T-Shirts (was: So how was VCF Midwest?) In-Reply-To: <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> Message-ID: <44BF0D51.2040602@Rikers.org> Patrick Finnegan wrote: > I made up a cafepress store to sell shirts, anyone can order them from here: > http://www.cafepress.com/vcfmw2/ ok, so I'm lazy. What is the meaning of: E5 C3 C6 61 D4 E6 40 F2 4B F0 56 43 46 2F 4D 57 20 32 2E 30 much of that is non-ascii so it'd probably not human readable. The pics are of a PDP-8 and and Apple //e it I'm not mistaken. I wonder what it looks like disassembled on either of those two? -- Tim Riker - http://Rikers.org/ - TimR at Debian.org Embedded Linux Technologist - http://eLinux.org/ BZFlag maintainer - http://BZFlag.org/ - for fun! From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 20 00:39:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:39:34 -0700 Subject: CoCo2 spoken for Message-ID: <44BF1716.7010306@DakotaCom.Net> Hi, I have a few names of folks interested in the CoCo2. Thanks! --don From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 20 09:33:54 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:33:54 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> Fred Cisin wrote: >> In the same heap of boards was another 8 bit card with a Zilog 765 FDC on it, >> so that one might be a possibility too (no on-board ROM, but it looks to be >> fixed at the PC's primary FDC address - maybe it's possibly to hack some of >> the address lines to make it appear at a different address, though) > > certainly POSSIBLE Hmm, if I'm thinking right, all I need to do is invert A7 from the ISA BUS before it goes through the selection circuitry, and that'll plonk the FDC at a base address of 0x370 rather than 0x3f0. Does that sound sensible? There's even an unused NAND gate on the board that I can use to do the inversion if so. I think that should work... cheers Jules From ray at arachelian.com Thu Jul 20 08:47:06 2006 From: ray at arachelian.com (Ray Arachelian) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:47:06 -0400 Subject: Sun E4000 Peripheral Power Supply broad? Message-ID: <44BF895A.50602@arachelian.com> Any chance someone has a spare? :-) I recently got my hands on an e4k, but the peripheral power supply seems dead. I took it apart and saw that the fuse is good, haven't had a chance to test its components, but thought I'd ask. From rtellason at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 09:04:43 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:04:43 -0400 Subject: Sun E4000 Peripheral Power Supply broad? In-Reply-To: <44BF895A.50602@arachelian.com> References: <44BF895A.50602@arachelian.com> Message-ID: <200607201004.43162.rtellason@gmail.com> On Thursday 20 July 2006 09:47 am, Ray Arachelian wrote: > Any chance someone has a spare? :-) I recently got my hands on an e4k, > but the peripheral power supply seems dead. I took it apart and saw > that the fuse is good, haven't had a chance to test its components, but > thought I'd ask. No spare broads around here! One is all I can handle anyhow... :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 20 10:58:40 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:58:40 +0000 Subject: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :) In-Reply-To: References: <44BEACB8.6000002@dsl.pipex.com> <44BEC45B.8090600@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BFA830.8070809@yahoo.co.uk> William Donzelli wrote: >> To be honest, I think in most cases there are ways of being diplomatic >> about >> that; providing they know that you're asking for the good of the >> preservation >> movement rather than any personal gain, most people seem fine and the >> worst >> they can do is turn you down. Better than stuff getting trashed. > > Don't dick around. Money talks. Often LOUDLY. Sometimes. Depends on the person - a lot of people I come across would much rather their stuff go to a good home than be used to line their own pockets and I've seen the look of distaste at the mention of money a few times! It's certainly worth getting a feel for the type of person first rather than automatically mentioning money; it can put people off. cheers J. From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Thu Jul 20 10:12:15 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:12:15 -0500 Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 11:42:15PM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote: > Similar languages can be fun... They can, if all the parties in question can actually speak the language. This discussion reminds me of freshman English in college. I had Dr. Dutt, a woman from India who went to college in England and was trying to teach English in America. She loved to compare English and American expressions. Her favorite was "You can have your cake and eat it too." Apparently the English version is "You can eat your cake and have it too." I really didn't seen enough of a difference between the two to warrant the number of times she brought it up. Unfortunately she would frequently say, "This is the word I am using" as she wrote a word on the board because we couldn't understand what she was saying. Now folks, don't start asking the English to learn to spell. I have enough trouble when I see center spelled centre. When I see the English spelling my brain tries to pronounce it like century without the u. If they start working on their spelling we might end up with words like doctor spelled doctah. That would really take some getting used to. English spelling I can handle. What they really need to work on, or perhaps America needs to work on, is their date formats and their idea of what a decimal point is. If I see 3.000 somewhere I read it a three, not three thousand. English dates that are between the 1st and 12th of the month are very easy to mis-interpret. I interpret 01/02/2006 as January 2nd, 2006, not February 1st, 2006. Spelling variations are understandable. Differing date and decimal point formats can really cause confusion. According to dictionary.com a decimal point is a dot: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decimal%20point A comma is a puncuation mark: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/comma Now, if we can just come up with a standard date format ... Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. From jwest at classiccmp.org Thu Jul 20 10:13:57 2006 From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:13:57 -0500 Subject: OT Re: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to saveyou electronic stuff :)) References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <013e01c6ac0f$1f7c6210$6700a8c0@BILLING> Shouldn't this be moved to alt.languages.humor.nonclassiccmp? ;) J From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jul 20 10:32:40 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:32:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > According to dictionary.com a decimal point is a dot: Hardly surprising, since dictionary.com is a USA thing. > Now, if we can just come up with a standard date format ... That's already been done; the ISO came up with that long ago. yyyy-mm-dd. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 20 11:38:31 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:38:31 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> Jules Richardson wrote: > Hmm, if I'm thinking right, all I need to do is invert A7 from the ISA > BUS before it goes through the selection circuitry, and that'll plonk > the FDC at a base address of 0x370 rather than 0x3f0. Does that sound > sensible? There's even an unused NAND gate on the board that I can use > to do the inversion if so. > > I think that should work... ... and I'm not sure if I need to change the IRQ and DMA lines too. Maybe the primary and secondary FDCs in a PC can co-exist on the same IRQ and DMA channel [1] (and indeed this seems to be implied by the linux floppy driver - although it can be told that a second FDC exists at a different port address, the IRQ and DMA params seem tied to the driver instance, rather than to a particular FDC controller) [1] which presumably has potential to screw up if you try to access both FDCs in the system "at once". There's enough spare space on the board that I can fit in some homebrew jumpers to change IRQ and DMA channel if needs be... cheers Jules From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 10:52:40 2006 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:52:40 -0500 Subject: Fw: Thanks for the Donations In-Reply-To: <011101c6aad7$401dc060$2a406b43@66067007> References: <011101c6aad7$401dc060$2a406b43@66067007> Message-ID: <2789adda0607200852u4880af1do8b491fb7e28a286e@mail.gmail.com> how do you want the check made out to; and whats the mailing address? On 7/18/06, Keys wrote: > Sorry did not look at the return address, this should have been off line. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Keys" > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:42 PM > Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Robert Ollerton" > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > > Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM > > Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > > > > > >> How much short on money are you? > >> > >> I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. > >> > >> Bob > >> > >> On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: > >>> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or labor offers > >>> for > >>> the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up short on > >>> the > >>> money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick these items > >>> up > >>> and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both trips. I > >>> will > >>> be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you off list > >>> after > >>> everything is complete. Thanks again John > >>> > >>> > >> > > > > > > From rcini at optonline.net Thu Jul 20 10:59:24 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:59:24 -0400 Subject: Apple II card info needed Message-ID: <000b01c6ac15$79168ed0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> All: Today I received three Apple II cards for which I'd like to get some info/manuals on. The first is the "Synch Printer Interface Card" which I believe is for the Silentype printer (It has a 9-pin DE9F on it). The second is an Apple-labeled 12k ROM card with part number 960-9104. It has six sockets and appears to be ORGed at $D000. There's a jumper labeled "2716" and a small red toggle switch. Maybe it can program EPROMS? Five of the six slots are filled with Apple ROMs - the D8 ROM is missing. The third one is from Xebec Systems and is labeled "Apple Host Adapter". It has a 50-pin 0.1" header along one side. No custom silicon (only an EPROM). Given the manufacturer and pin header, I'm guessing SCSI. Any info greatly appreciated. Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jul 20 11:06:27 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:06:27 -0700 Subject: sn75als056/057 Message-ID: Has anyone ever looked at these parts as Unibus/QBus transceivers? They appear to still be in production. From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 20 11:16:13 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:16:13 -0700 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607200916130884.086CBE7E@10.0.0.252> On 7/20/2006 at 4:38 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >... and I'm not sure if I need to change the IRQ and DMA lines too.... On a well-behaved PC XT/AT FDC, bit 3 of the DCR is supposed to tristate the IRQ and DRQ lines, so two or more FDCs can share the same IRQ and DMA selections. Not all controllers do this, however, so it's best to check. Cheers, Chuck From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 20 11:33:41 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:33:41 -0700 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? Message-ID: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> Is there a VMS program that will read/write simh style tape container files (.tap) from real magtapes? Thanks, Bob Armstrong From ploopster at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 11:41:23 2006 From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:41:23 -0400 Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44BFB233.8050906@gmail.com> der Mouse wrote: >> Now, if we can just come up with a standard date format ... > > That's already been done; the ISO came up with that long ago. > yyyy-mm-dd. It's too bad they didn't pick YYYY-MON-DD. Peace... Sridhar From Kevin at RawFedDogs.net Thu Jul 20 11:45:12 2006 From: Kevin at RawFedDogs.net (Kevin Monceaux) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:45:12 -0500 Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <20060720164512.GA25369@RawFedDogs.net> On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 11:32:40AM -0400, der Mouse wrote: > > According to dictionary.com a decimal point is a dot: > > Hardly surprising, since dictionary.com is a USA thing. Okay. dictionary.co.uk(which redirected me to freesearch.co.uk after entering the search phrase) says almost the same thing: http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/decimal%20point It says a decimal point is the . between the two parts of a decimal. It then goes on to say that some countries use a comma instead. > > Now, if we can just come up with a standard date format ... > > That's already been done; the ISO came up with that long ago. > yyyy-mm-dd. Works for me. Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes. From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Thu Jul 20 12:53:18 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:53:18 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <200607200916130884.086CBE7E@10.0.0.252> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> <200607200916130884.086CBE7E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44BFC30E.8040902@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 7/20/2006 at 4:38 PM Jules Richardson wrote: > >> ... and I'm not sure if I need to change the IRQ and DMA lines too.... > > On a well-behaved PC XT/AT FDC, bit 3 of the DCR is supposed to tristate > the IRQ and DRQ lines, so two or more FDCs can share the same IRQ and DMA > selections. Not all controllers do this, however, so it's best to check. Hmm, well Imagedisk doesn't seem happy with it in present state at least - but an attempt to read a disk image results in it thinking for a while and then coming back without an error, but with nothing read, so it would seem that data transfer from the second controller's not working at the moment... (actually, 'test RPM' doesn't work either, which presumably just uses an interrupt rather than any transfer of data) I'll give linux a try just to rule out an imagedisk problem. As I say though I think the linux driver assumes that both FDCs are using the same IRQ/DMA, and I don't think I can change the IRQ/DMA for imagedisk at all (Well, not without a recompile) hardware - bah! ;) cheers Jules From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jul 20 11:53:25 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:53:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <44BFB233.8050906@gmail.com> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44BFB233.8050906@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200607201700.NAA25875@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >>> Now, if we can just come up with a standard date format ... >> That's already been done; the ISO came up with that long ago. >> yyyy-mm-dd. > It's too bad they didn't pick YYYY-MON-DD. Strictly from an information-ambiguity perspective, I agree. (While *nobody* uses yyyy-dd-mm, there is, absent that context, an ambiguity for the first 12 days of each month.) But I can see why they didn't; it raises the politically touchy question of whose language gets to be the one whose MON abbreviations get used. ISO date format has the advantage that chronological sort order equals lexicographic sort order (assuming your digits are in order); if you strip out the delimiters (dashes, above; I've seen slashes used too), it also equals numeric sort order. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Thu Jul 20 12:02:00 2006 From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:02:00 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Shipping from Germany In-Reply-To: <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: Has anyone had any recent experience with shipping large metal objects (300lbs) from Germany (or thereabouts) to the US? Recommended shippers, costs, etc? I thought I had seen something on the list, but the search page yielded results. Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/ From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 20 12:05:58 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:05:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> from "Robert Armstrong" at Jul 20, 2006 09:33:41 AM Message-ID: <200607201705.k6KH5wcB013217@onyx.spiritone.com> > Is there a VMS program that will read/write simh style tape container > files (.tap) from real magtapes? > > Thanks, > Bob Armstrong I'd recommend using VMSTPC to read the tapes, and then using the SIMH tool (it's in the seperate tools tarball) to change it to a SIMH .TAP file. That way you have .TPC files that can be written back to real tapes, and .TAP files for SIMH. Zane From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 20 12:10:10 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:10:10 -0700 Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BFC30E.8040902@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44BA9E93.6080001@yahoo.co.uk> <200607162122340556.7E398CA4@10.0.0.252> <44BB8257.4040704@yahoo.co.uk> <20060717150335.B7570@shell.lmi.net> <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> <200607200916130884.086CBE7E@10.0.0.252> <44BFC30E.8040902@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607201010100267.089E209E@10.0.0.252> On 7/20/2006 at 5:53 PM Jules Richardson wrote: >I'll give linux a try just to rule out an imagedisk problem. As I say >though I think the linux driver assumes that both FDCs are using the same IRQ/DMA, >and I don't think I can change the IRQ/DMA for imagedisk at all (Well, not >without a recompile) > >hardware - bah! ;) That "TESTSD" utility I posted understands diskette configuration files (and multiple controllers) a la "DISKETTE.CFG". It'd be an interesting twofer to see if your controller supports FM and also if it's a candidate for a multiple controller setup. Cheers, Chuck From JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us Thu Jul 20 12:24:10 2006 From: JEphraim at ci.southlake.tx.us (Jesse Ephraim) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:24:10 -0500 Subject: looking for a book suggestion In-Reply-To: <200607201702.k6KH2xFB026715@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: I have several old Apple IIs, a TRS-80 (new in the box), and a few other older computers. I would like to get them all running again, if possible. I have been putting computers together since the late 80s, but have little knowledge of actual computer electronics repair (soldering, replacing broken wires, etc.). I would appreciate any suggestions about good, accurate, thorough books to purchase so that I can start teaching myself the basics. There are a number of such books out there, but I am having difficulty evaluating the accuracy and thoroughness of them. Since this question is probably not of interest to many others on the list, please feel free to email me any suggestions at jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us Many thanks! Jesse Ephraim Adult Services Librarian Southlake Public Library 1400 Main Street, Suite 130 Southlake, TX 76092 (817) 748-8247 jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us "A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge." - Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 20 12:30:41 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:30:41 -0700 Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save you electronic stuff :)) In-Reply-To: <20060720164512.GA25369@RawFedDogs.net> References: <200607191523410226.0496D18D@10.0.0.252> <44BEC357.409@yahoo.co.uk> <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> <200607201535.LAA25147@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <20060720164512.GA25369@RawFedDogs.net> Message-ID: <200607201030410848.08B0EB7B@10.0.0.252> > According to dictionary.com a decimal point is a dot: ...when it's not a "period"(US) or "full stop" (UK). :) I rather like the space as a grouping operator---1 000 000 instead of 1,000,000 or 1.000.000. But why is it that no grouping is observed to the right of the decimal? (e.g. 0.000 003). Our common system of numeric notation is inadequate when it comes to expressing precision. Does 1000 mean 1E3 or 1.0E3 or 1.00E3 or 1.000E3 or something else? But scientific notation has never really caught on with the masses. I suspect that most adults don't even know what it is. Cheers, Chuck From buseyl at yahoo.com Thu Jul 20 12:58:10 2006 From: buseyl at yahoo.com (Liam Busey) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 10:58:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Apple II card info needed In-Reply-To: <200607201702.k6KH0c84026649@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060720175810.33249.qmail@web53201.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard A. Cini wrote: > > Today I received three Apple II cards > for which I'd like to get > some info/manuals on. -snip- > > > > The second is an Apple-labeled 12k ROM card with > part number 960-9104. It > has six sockets and appears to be ORGed at $D000. > There's a jumper labeled > "2716" and a small red toggle switch. Maybe it can > program EPROMS? Five of > the six slots are filled with Apple ROMs - the D8 > ROM is missing. This sounds like an Apple Firmware card with Integer BASIC installed. With a flip of the switch and a system reset your Apple's onboard firmware will be replaced by whatever is on the board. A very useful expansion in the 48K Apple world when their was still a good mix of Interger and Applesoft BASIC programs floating around. It was largely superseded by the 16K RAM Language card. Liam Busey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From rcini at optonline.net Thu Jul 20 13:12:39 2006 From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:12:39 -0400 Subject: Apple II card info needed In-Reply-To: <20060720175810.33249.qmail@web53201.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002601c6ac28$16042ec0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> Yes, from your description and some searching, that's what it is. Can anyone tell me what was supposed to go in the D8 socket? All of the pictures I've seen show that socket empty. If anyone has a scan of this manual handy I'd appreciate getting a copy. Thanks! Rich Rich Cini Collector of classic computers Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ /***************************************************/ -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Liam Busey Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 1:58 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Apple II card info needed --- Richard A. Cini wrote: > > Today I received three Apple II cards > for which I'd like to get > some info/manuals on. -snip- > > > > The second is an Apple-labeled 12k ROM card with > part number 960-9104. It > has six sockets and appears to be ORGed at $D000. > There's a jumper labeled > "2716" and a small red toggle switch. Maybe it can > program EPROMS? Five of > the six slots are filled with Apple ROMs - the D8 > ROM is missing. This sounds like an Apple Firmware card with Integer BASIC installed. With a flip of the switch and a system reset your Apple's onboard firmware will be replaced by whatever is on the board. A very useful expansion in the 48K Apple world when their was still a good mix of Interger and Applesoft BASIC programs floating around. It was largely superseded by the 16K RAM Language card. Liam Busey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From ak6dn at mindspring.com Thu Jul 20 13:14:54 2006 From: ak6dn at mindspring.com (Don North) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:14:54 -0700 Subject: sn75als056/057 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44BFC81E.8010303@mindspring.com> Al Kossow wrote: > Has anyone ever looked at these parts as Unibus/QBus transceivers? > They appear to still be in production. Yup, they are not quite suitable. The bus ports have a maximum tolerable voltage spec of 2.5V (not 5.5V) which of course will not work on the UNIBUS (termination is ~3.4V). I would recommend the Am26S10CN (also still in production in Pb free DIP) which is a true 5V bus transceiver. The only issue that has been identified is that the 26S10 has a somewhat higher bus receiver input threshold (2.0V+/-.25V) than does a legacy 8641 device (1.5V+/-0.2V). There was a discussion of this on cctech about 6mos back (search UNIBUS 26S10) for hits. Don North From gtoal at gtoal.com Thu Jul 20 13:39:58 2006 From: gtoal at gtoal.com (Graham Toal) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:39:58 -0500 Subject: OT-ish? McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule" Message-ID: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> > My only claim to being *possibly* on-topic is the age > of the article (1974) and the fact that it inspired > many of the early phoneme-driven speech synthesizers > (Votrax, etc.). > > Does anyone have access to a suitably good engineering > library with a copy of: > > McIlroy, M D, "Synthetic English Speech by Rule", > Bell Telephone Labs, CSTR #14, 1973 (though I have > also seen it referenced as 1974!) > > or: > > Ainsworth, W A, "A System for Converting English Text > to Speech", IEEE Trans Audio & Electroacoustics AU-21 #3 > pp 288-290, 1973 > > The former is far more interesting to me than the > latter :-( Just maybe I have either or both; I'll check when I get home. You know about the old post on net.sources? Have a look at some of the stuff in here: http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/text2speech/ It's the same vintage, may be of interest. Also, I hacked the navy code around a bit to make it more accurate and to assist with using a large phonetic word list. And to parameterize the tables from an editable data file rather than being hard coded in the C source. The algorithm is considerably improved if you subject the words to TeX's hyphenation algorithm before applying the grapheme->phoneme rewrite rules. Hyphenation points roughly correspond to phoneme boundaries, and stop words like haphazard from sounding half-assed. Graham From kth at srv.net Thu Jul 20 15:14:46 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:14:46 -0600 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> Message-ID: <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> Robert Armstrong wrote: > Is there a VMS program that will read/write simh style tape container >files (.tap) from real magtapes? > >Thanks, >Bob Armstrong > > Attached is one I coded up to read a bunch of tapes I had. Probably ugly code, but it worked. If nothing else, it may give you something to start from. You may prefer using the TPC route as specified in another post, though. -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: readtk.bas URL: From innfoclassics at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 15:30:30 2006 From: innfoclassics at gmail.com (Paxton Hoag) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:30:30 -0700 Subject: Shipping from Germany In-Reply-To: References: <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: > Has anyone had any recent experience with shipping large metal objects > (300lbs) from Germany (or thereabouts) to the US? Recommended shippers, > costs, etc? I thought I had seen something on the list, but the search For heavy items you might check airport to Airport freight. Lufthansa flies Frankfurt to PDX, someting like that. I have gotten good deals sending stuff to Germany in the past. Don't know the other way, going from Germany to the USA. Please post your results. Paxton Astoria, OR From bob at jfcl.com Thu Jul 20 16:42:21 2006 From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:42:21 -0700 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? Message-ID: <000001c6ac45$6880f300$0401010a@GIZMO> >I'd recommend using VMSTPC to read the tapes, and then using the SIMH tool >(it's in the seperate tools tarball) to change it to a SIMH .TAP file. I know about VMSTPCE (use it all the time), but its file format is not the same as simh. A tool to convert, however, would solve all the problems. Can it convert both ways? VMSTPCE uses an RMS file with VFC file organization to store every tape record in one file record - it's the "right" way to do it, but unfortunately not very portable to other OSes. Bob From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu Thu Jul 20 17:21:46 2006 From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:21:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: if dectape goes bad Message-ID: Suppose you have a dectape and for whatever reason the tape on the reel is destroyed. What currently-available tape can be used on the reel instead? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail? From chrism3667 at yahoo.com Thu Jul 20 17:42:07 2006 From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:42:07 -0700 (PDT) Subject: keyboard cleaning In-Reply-To: <005401c6a86e$1ab0c860$0afea8c0@alpha> Message-ID: <20060720224207.16649.qmail@web61025.mail.yahoo.com> I bought one of those tub things from Walmart w/a 28 qt. capacity (a qt. is roughly a lt. for those hooked on metrics). I put in about eh 1 - 1.5 cups of laundry detergent, ran hot water from the shower into it, then plopped in the keyboard (without the casing, but didn't pull the keytops off. No way, no fing way). Then I poured about 1/3 of a 1/2 gallon bottle of ammonia in. Let it sit for a few hours (while I watched Timeline - wasn't anywhere near as good as I was lead to believe), rattled the keys some at that point, then went to bed. The next afternoon I awoke, rattled the keys some more, then ran the shower over it. I left it in front of the air conditioner for the remainder of the day (what was left) and by oh midnight or so I plugged it in. A few of the keys are still partially unresponsive, but overall I think the procedure was a success, and there wasn't any *apparent* damage to the unit. But some ram chips died along the way...only ~25k of memory is available to programs, of a 640k system. Granted it has that SLE software running, but I can't imagine it eating up that much memory. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From paulrsm at buckeye-express.com Thu Jul 20 18:03:41 2006 From: paulrsm at buckeye-express.com (Paul R. Santa-Maria) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:03:41 -0400 Subject: Apple II card info needed Message-ID: <380-22006742023341492@buckeye-express.com> 1. Silentype printer interface card http://appleiifs.tripod.com/graphics/synchprinter.jpg 2. Integer BASIC Firmware Card. The 2716 jumper let you replace the 2516(?) ROMs with 2716 EPROMs. The red toggle switch lets you choose whether the motherboard or firmware card ROMs are active at power-up. http://apple2history.org/museum/peripheralcards_apple/firmware_card.ht ml 3. Xebec SASI hard drive controller for Sider brand hard drives. -- Paul R. Santa-Maria Temperance, Michigan USA From bbrown at harpercollege.edu Thu Jul 20 18:14:29 2006 From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:14:29 -0500 Subject: HP 3000 available In-Reply-To: <20060708120404.f8e19b79.blairrya@msu.edu> References: <20060708120404.f8e19b79.blairrya@msu.edu> Message-ID: Please let me know if this machine is still available. I have always wanted a 3000 (I worked with 2000's years ago and support 9000's for a living). (I am the one at VCF/midwest wearing an HP-3000 t-shirt). thanks. -Bob >I have an HP 3000/922 (PA-RISC architecture, not Series II >[sorry, Jay!]) available that I am looking to get rid of. This machine >is in a low-boy type rack with casters, with a similar sized rack for >disks. It has both HP-IB and SCSI controllers available for tape, disk, >and over media. It has an Ethernet controller, a DDS drive (possibly >dead), and two disks internally. The disk rack has 3 HP-IB disks of >the same model, each somewhere in the 650MB range. It will happily boot >from either the HP-IB chains or the SCSI controller. It runs and was >passing diagnostics properly last time it was fired up (last year). > >If anyone would like this machine, I can bring it to VCF/Midwest, or it >can be picked up near Lansing, MI. > >I'm not asking anything for this machine, I just need the space back. I >would look fondly upon offers of RS/6000 gear or quiet 9GB+ 68-pin >SCSI drives, however :) > >I have some more (though smaller) machines that I will be posting later >that will also be available at VCF/Midwest. > >-Ryan -- bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace From rborsuk at colourfull.com Thu Jul 20 18:28:02 2006 From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:28:02 -0400 Subject: HP 3000 available In-Reply-To: References: <20060708120404.f8e19b79.blairrya@msu.edu> Message-ID: <3B631451-F54B-4F5C-8893-9A15586F6B98@colourfull.com> Bob, I picked up the machine last night from Ryan. I swapped him for an RS/6000 and a PowerServe. Write me off list if your interested and maybe we can trade something. Rob On Jul 20, 2006, at 7:14 PM, Bob Brown wrote: > Please let me know if this machine is still available. I have > always wanted a 3000 > (I worked with 2000's years ago and support 9000's for a living). > > (I am the one at VCF/midwest wearing an HP-3000 t-shirt). > > thanks. > > -Bob > > >> I have an HP 3000/922 (PA-RISC architecture, not Series II >> [sorry, Jay!]) available that I am looking to get rid of. This >> machine >> is in a low-boy type rack with casters, with a similar sized rack for >> disks. It has both HP-IB and SCSI controllers available for tape, >> disk, >> and over media. It has an Ethernet controller, a DDS drive (possibly >> dead), and two disks internally. The disk rack has 3 HP-IB disks of >> the same model, each somewhere in the 650MB range. It will happily >> boot >> from either the HP-IB chains or the SCSI controller. It runs and was >> passing diagnostics properly last time it was fired up (last year). >> >> If anyone would like this machine, I can bring it to VCF/Midwest, >> or it >> can be picked up near Lansing, MI. >> >> I'm not asking anything for this machine, I just need the space >> back. I >> would look fondly upon offers of RS/6000 gear or quiet 9GB+ 68-pin >> SCSI drives, however :) >> >> I have some more (though smaller) machines that I will be posting >> later >> that will also be available at VCF/Midwest. >> >> -Ryan > > > -- > bbrown at harpercollege.edu #### #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR > Harper Community College ## ## ## Systems Administrator > Palatine IL USA #### #### Saved by grace Robert Borsuk -- (\__/) (='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")_(") signature to help him gain world domination. From healyzh at aracnet.com Thu Jul 20 18:31:41 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:31:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <000001c6ac45$6880f300$0401010a@GIZMO> from "Robert Armstrong" at Jul 20, 2006 02:42:21 PM Message-ID: <200607202331.k6KNVgar022643@onyx.spiritone.com> > >I'd recommend using VMSTPC to read the tapes, and then using the SIMH tool > >(it's in the seperate tools tarball) to change it to a SIMH .TAP file. > > I know about VMSTPCE (use it all the time), but its file format is not the > same as simh. A tool to convert, however, would solve all the problems. > Can it convert both ways? I don't believe it will go both ways, I think it's a one way trip :^( > VMSTPCE uses an RMS file with VFC file organization to store every tape > record in one file record - it's the "right" way to do it, but unfortunately > not very portable to other OSes. At least TPC files are slightly more portable than some formats (RSX-11M+ Virtual Tape comes to mind). Zane From cisin at xenosoft.com Thu Jul 20 18:38:55 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:38:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> Message-ID: <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> Because "readtk.bas" was an ATTACHMENT, instead of inline code, my ISP cut it off. What percentage of ISPs are that over-protective? On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Kevin Handy wrote: > WARNING: This e-mail has been altered by MIMEDefang. Following this > paragraph are indications of the actual changes made. For more > information about your site's MIMEDefang policy, contact > LMI Postmaster . For more information about MIMEDefang, see: > > http://www.roaringpenguin.com/mimedefang/enduser.php3 > > An attachment named readtk.bas was removed from this document as it > constituted a security hazard. If you require this document, please contact > the sender and arrange an alternate means of receiving it. From compoobah at valleyimplants.com Thu Jul 20 18:45:45 2006 From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:45:45 -0500 Subject: Power Supply issues Message-ID: O.K. - now on to the power supply. The +5v channel 1 supply is good, 69 mV peak to peak AC noise (measured on a scope with AC coupling) the +-12v channels are ~292 mV of noise the -5v channel has 500 mV of noise, even with an additional 1000 ?F capacitor across the output (to hopefully filter this junk out) (-5V also has periodic fluctuations at a lower frequency) All of this is high-frequency, excluding the -5v hum. In short, it doesn't look like adding an external filter cap will help much, unless I go all the way and throw in a LC filter. Pulled the P/S apart, and the board with +-12V and -5V has peculiar capacitors mounted on it - 3 lead Mallory Aerovox. Are these really the multipart electrolytics that went out of style (I thought) with solid state? The wiring is 2 leads connected to one side of the power rail, one lead to the other. Could twin-lead caps be substituted? From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 20 18:52:42 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:52:42 -0700 Subject: OT-ish? McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule" In-Reply-To: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> References: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> Message-ID: <44C0174A.1060407@DakotaCom.Net> Graham Toal wrote: >> My only claim to being *possibly* on-topic is the age >> of the article (1974) and the fact that it inspired >> many of the early phoneme-driven speech synthesizers >> (Votrax, etc.). >> >> Does anyone have access to a suitably good engineering >> library with a copy of: >> >> McIlroy, M D, "Synthetic English Speech by Rule", >> Bell Telephone Labs, CSTR #14, 1973 (though I have >> also seen it referenced as 1974!) >> >> or: >> >> Ainsworth, W A, "A System for Converting English Text >> to Speech", IEEE Trans Audio & Electroacoustics AU-21 #3 >> pp 288-290, 1973 >> >> The former is far more interesting to me than the >> latter :-( > > Just maybe I have either or both; I'll check when I get home. Excellent! I would be surprised if you *did*. I have pretty much resigned myself to a trip to the university's engineering library (though I think I will wait until some of this heat and humidity disappears...) > You know about the old post on net.sources? > > Have a look at some of the stuff in here: > > http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/text2speech/ This seems to be the NRL ruleset embellished (for use with a spell-checker? -- if so, you might want to look at things like double metaphone for the approach you are/were taking...) > It's the same vintage, may be of interest. Yes, I have a version of the NRL code that I translated from SNOBOL ~25 years ago. But, it has the same limitations (in terms of pronunciation accuracy) as the original ruleset. I was hoping a peek at McIlroy's and Ainsworth's rules would shed some additional insights not immediately discernible from the Elovitz et al. paper. More modern synthesizers suffer from big time code bloat (e.g., flite can easily grow to 10-20MB while executing; festival ten times that...). For "doing things on the cheap" you need to look back in time :-( > Also, I hacked the navy code around a bit to make it more > accurate and to assist with using a large phonetic > word list. And to parameterize the tables from an editable > data file rather than being hard coded in the C source. I'd already done that. As well as shrinking the tables considerably (I think my table is less than 2.5KB including delimiters, pointers, etc.). There are also other efficiency hacks you can do to speed up the searches, etc. > The algorithm is considerably improved if you subject the words > to TeX's hyphenation algorithm before applying the grapheme->phoneme > rewrite rules. Hyphenation points roughly correspond to phoneme > boundaries, and stop words like haphazard from sounding half-assed. Ah, that's a clever idea! Though it depends on how much overhead that adds to the complexity of the algorithm. I am REALLY squeezing hard to get this, a klatt-style synthesizer, OS, etc. into a small application specific CPU core so every byte has to pay for itself :> Thanks! --don From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 20 18:56:32 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:56:32 -0700 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200607201656320564.0A122D26@10.0.0.252> On 7/20/2006 at 4:38 PM Fred Cisin wrote: >Because "readtk.bas" was an ATTACHMENT, instead of inline code, my ISP cut >it off. What percentage of ISPs are that over-protective? Many, very many. If you put it in an attached .zip archive, some will disallow the attachment. I've found that using retro technology and LHARC-ing attachments seems to keep prying email filters out. Cheers, Chuck From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 17:47:14 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:47:14 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <034a01c6ab90$076afc10$08fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at Jul 19, 6 09:04:05 pm Message-ID: > > > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. > > Very good explanation. I'd tell him to go to www.repairfaq.org and take > a look on the laserjet and printer/copiers texts. There are a wealth of info > there. Some of which I contributed to. My first laser printer used a Canon CX engine. I was given it because it didn't work, it took me an hour or so to find a dead PAL (actually a HAL) on the formatter board. Canon didn't sell spare chips, they wouldn't even sell be the complete board. And they wouldn't supply a service manual. (This was before I'd found The PrinterWorks, who would at least sell mechanical bits and complete boards). Figuring I'd got nothing to lose, I took the machine _completely_ apart. And I slowly figured out what was going on. Many of the chips were standard (the motor control stuff was also used in consumer electronics devices -- the presence of a pin named '33/45' on the PLL chip pretty much means it was used in a record player turntable :-)). There was some custom stuff I couldn't really identify, but... Fortunately (and this took a lot of working out), I discovered that 1) There was a model called the CX-VDO that didn't have a formatter board, the external connector went straight to th DC controller board. 2) It was used on the PERQ, a machine I owned and was in love with. 3) I'd been given a few PERQ optional I/O cards in various states of completeness, it should be possible to make one complete one. So with much help from Bob Davis, and a lot of luck, I put it all back together, aligned the optics using an IR remote control tester to detect the beam, etc. Built up the PERQ interface, made up a cable, and plugged it in. And it didn't work. But it did something. Tests showed it was sending exactly 16 pixels from the PERQ, then giving up. Aha, that's the data bus and FiFO width. Yes, I'd missed off a jumper on the PERQ board that clocked the FIFO. Anyway, a few years later, I bought (cheap) a Apple LW2NT (SX engine). I did much the same with that. Took it apart, figured out how it worked, and made notes. I use that printer on my PC to this day.... This has taught me a lot of things, amongst them Laser printers are actually quite simple, although there are some tricks (like the deliberate AC ripple on one of the EHT voltages, to cause the toner to come on/off the drum, leading to a more even distribution) The fact that the manufacturer won't supply a manual is no real problem if you don't mind taking the time to produce your own. A few months (!) spent taking a laser printer apart, putting it together, and attacking it with 'scope and meter will tell you more than any servive manaul or training course I've ever heard about. Many of the laser printer repair books and stuff on the web are downright wrong. Others simply encourage lucky-dip methods. I've yet to see one that really goes back to first principles and tells you to start by checking signals, etc. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:19:38 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:19:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: from "Tony Duell" at Jul 20, 6 00:42:52 am Message-ID: Yes, I am following up my own message. I have found my notes on the LW2NT (SX engine), and I didn't sign any NDA to produce them [1]. so I can mention stuff here [1] I just took apart a printer I owned... > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. > > I'll give a basic overview of what goes on in the various modules, I can > dig out the schematics (which are not in the HP service manual, this is a > somewhat useless document, therefore!), if you want to go further. > > Firstly, be warned that the 115V and 230V versions of the AC block have > different circuitry round the triac, not just different component values. > Instructions for the former do not apply to the latter. > > OK, the fuser temperature is monitored by the thermistor pressed against > the roller. This is connected in a simple R's and C's circuit (on the DC > controller board), the voltage out from that depends on the temperature. The thermistor is connected between ground (pin 5) and pin 4 of J206 (this carries the cable that goes to the socket that the PCB on the end of the fuser plugs into. On the DC controller board, there's a resistor R237 (18k) that forms a potential divider with the thermistor across the 5V supply. The midpoint of that divider goes to a little RC netwrok (R747 (3k3) and C210 (4u7) -- chrck the latter isn't shorted!), and thence to the AN0 input of IC218 (slave microcontorller, mask-programemd 7811). The bottom cover interlock switch SW205 connectes R820 in parallel with the thermistor, disabling the fuser if the cover is removed. The fuser drive signal comes out of IC218 on port PD2. It's buffered by IC219e ('04) and IC211e ('07), then it comes out on J208 and goes to the AC block. > It goes to an analogue input on one of the microcontrollers on that board > (I think it's the 'slave' one, but I will have to check). This > microcontroller generates a pulse train to turn on the fuser lamp, > nothing to turn it off (if you see what I mean). AFAIK it is not a > proportional control. Just on/off. > > This signal goes to the AC block. The upper PCB contains 3 subcircuits > > 1) A circuit to detect the pulse train ant turn on the optotriac on the > lower PCB when it's present (thus turning on the fuser). The input signal is AC coupled to the base of Q157 (note this transistor is baised _on_ with no input signal). The output of that is integrated by D157 and C156 (check these!), then goes to Q156. The collector load of this transsitor is the optotriac LED on the AC PCB. > 2) A circuit to detect problems (pulse input stuck high, current in the > fuser when it shouldn't be there, etc), and to turn off the protection > relay if this happens This is where it gets complicated (!). The protection circuit is designed to turn off the relay if there's current in the fuser when there's no fuser drive. OK, let's start at the midpoint (!). The protection circuit will trigger if C153 charges to more than the zener voltage of ZD151. If this happens, Q153 turns on, turning on Q152 (the only PNP transistor on the board). This turns on Q151, which holds Q152 on, thus actingh as a latch. Q151 turning on also turns off Q155 via D151 and D152. The collector load of Q155 is the protection realy, which is thus turned off. So waht can cause C153 to charge? It is _discharged_ via D155 when there's a drive signal to the fuser (but if this diode is shorted, it'll happily charge that way too, check that!). But also Q154 must be off to provide a chariging voltage. This means the comparater circuit IC151 (LM393) must have one of its outputs on (low). This occurs if there's a signal from the current transformer T101 on the lower PCB. > > 3) A circuit to cotnrol the cooling fan that you can ignore for the moment. This is the circuit round Q159 Note that most small signal NPN transistors in this printer are 2SC1815 (a sort-of TUN). > > The lower PCB contaisn, along with the mains input filter, the fuser > control ocmponents. There's a relay between one side of the mains and one > side of the fuser, and a triac between the other side of the mains and > the other side of the fuser. The relay coil goes to the upper PCB, the > triac gate is controlled by an optotriac, the LED side of which also goes > to the upper PCB. Basically as I rememebred it. Mains live to T101 (current transformer) then via relay contacts (with SQ101 snubber in parallel) to pin 1 of J103 (fuser lamp connector). Pin 2 of J103 via triac and suppressor choke L102 back to mains neutral (with SW102 in parallel) Gate drive to the triac comes from the optotriac SSR101, with a couple of resistors R103 (22R) and R102 (150R) involved. > > It's also been throwing 13 Paper Jam errors, but there's no paper jam > > visible. Anyone know what causes this? I'm guessing the optosensor on the > > fuser assembly has failed, but I can't identify the opto. Does anyone have a > > part number for it? > > Yes, there's only one paper path sensor in the SX engine, that's the one > on the side of the fuser. Again from my notes.... The sensor is a slotted optoswitch. There are 3 pins on the fuser connector J331 involved. Pin 7 is +5V supply, pin 6 is the paper detect signal, pin 5 is ground (also used for the thermistor ground, see above). These go back to the DC controller board. The LED of the optoswitch is fed from the 5V line with R334 (270R) in series. The trasnsitor side has the emitter to groundm the collector load is R333 (27k), to +5V. This then drives Q332, the collector of which is the output (open-collector on this board). Back on the DC controller board, the collector loard of Q332 is R764 (3k3). then decoupled by R765 (3k3) and C722, then to poer PA3 on the slave microcontroller. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:25:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:25:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BED8AA.5050301@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jul 19, 6 06:13:14 pm Message-ID: > > Tony Duell wrote: > >> Hi, > >> I've got a Laserjet III that's intermittently throwing Service 50 errors. > >> Fusing lamp tests good as per > >> . I assume this > >> means the AC power module has fried itself. > > > > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too. > > > > I'll give a basic overview of what goes on in the various modules, I can > > dig out the schematics (which are not in the HP service manual, this is a > > somewhat useless document, therefore!), if you want to go further. > > The *consumer* manual's big selling point is the description of > printing errors. E.g. "if the print anomaly occurs every > XXX inches, this is the cause; if YYY inches, that is the cause; I just put calipers on each of the rollers (including the drum from an empty toner cartridge) and worked it out > etc. It also helps with part numbers for replacements (which, > I believe, the OP was seeking). The PrinterWorks web site has exploded diagrams of the mechanical stuff, with part numbers (you guys have it easy, when I started doing there, there wasn't a web..) > > I think it also lists signals (i.e. supplies) available at each of > the various connectors in the machine. For some reason, these > printers had lots of *cable* problems (I suspect the problems > were in the *connectors* on the cables) Odd.. I've only had connection problems when I've forgotten to plug stuff back in.... > > > 3) A circuit to cotnrol the cooling fan that you can ignore for the moment. > > I have a note about replacing the "upper fan" in an LJ3 with > this type of problem. So, I expect they are related -- if only > indirectly (perhaps loading down a supply when faulty? The only connection between the fan control circuit and the fuser control is that both run off the 24V line. Which is stiff enough to supply the motor, EHT PSU, and so on. I don't think the fan circuit will affect the fuser. In any case, the only things that would be likely to happen would be the single transistor in the fan circuit could short (==fan runs all the tine) or open (== fan never runs in one version, fan always runs at the slow speed in the other). OK, the fuser might then over heat and thus give an error 50, but you'd see the fuser light as it warmed up (which the OP says it doesn't do IIRC). > I'd have to check if the thermistor is PTC or NTC to see > how that might confuse the MCU) I am pretty sure that the thermistor resistance decreases with increasing temperature. But the thermistor circuit runs off the 5V line anyway (see the value of having full schematics to all the boards....) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 17:59:48 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:59:48 +0100 (BST) Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray In-Reply-To: <44BED6B8.1060906@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jul 19, 6 06:04:56 pm Message-ID: > > Philip Pemberton wrote: > > Don Y wrote: > >> OPen the rear door. Apply power. Wait 3 or 4 seconds (not TOO > >> long else the error sets and you have to power down for several > >> minutes for it to clear itself). You should see the lamp light > >> up in the first few seconds or so. > > > > Nope. The fuser's completely off. > > There are two different PCB's involved in dealing (directly) > with the fuser. One supplies power to the lamp. The other > monitors temperature, etc. This is an SX engine, isn't it? If so, there are _4_ PCBs involved : The one on the end of the fuser, which simply connected the thermistor to the cable harness. The other stuff on that PCB has nothing to do with the temeperature contorl The DC controller board, which monitors the resistance of the thermistor, and procduces the fuser drive signal The protection board which disables the fuser if something goes seriously wrong The AC input board which contains the fuser control triac and protection relay In any case, I find thinking about which boards are involved to be the first step to board-swapping, which is not a route I want to take. I prefer to think about the signals involved, to monitor those, and then check back to components. > > The supply has an overtemperature cutoff device that breaks > the circuit to the filament. If you don't see 24V at the > lamp, this could be open (i.e. broken). On every laser printer I've ever worked on, the fuser lamp runs off the mains. Not off 24V or anything like that. And yes, it's directly on the mains, there is no isolating transformer (the control signals are isolated by optoisolators and/or relays) Also be warned that there are snubber networks across the relay and triac. If the fuser is open (or removed) you will see mains voltage across the connnector on the AC block even when the fuser should be turned off, since your voltmeter is so high an impedance that the snubbers will easily pass enough current to drive it. > There is a thermistor located near this cutoff device that > performs temperature *control*. It obviously relies on > a processor (hence is not a reliable means of preventing > OVERtemperature cutoff :> ). > > I have a note (to myself) about replacing an upper fan > to fix an intermittent "50" error. You might want to check Presumably becuase the thing was overheating? > if the fan is bound, shorted, etc. The bearing on the opposite side to the motor is known to fail. These fans are easy to take apart, then you can clean up the parts and reassemble with a bit of light oil on the bearings. It will at least tell you if the fan was the problem. > > >> If NOT, power off (before the error sets). Wait a few seconds > >> (no, not a few MINUTES, just a few seconds ... 5 or 10) and then > >> power on *again*. See if the light comes on this second time... > > > > No activity on the second attempt either. > > But you are sure that your *first* attempt you didn't > leave power on long enough for 50 to set? (Once it sets, you > have to wait 10 minutes for a cap to discharge before it > will "try again") Assuming this is an SX engine with the original DC controller board (I am told there's a new version, I have never seen it in any of the SX printers I've worked on), that's C211 (100uF) on the DC controller. You can dischage it by band (say via a 1k resistor) when testing. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:30:05 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:30:05 +0100 (BST) Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: from "Billy Pettit" at Jul 19, 6 06:22:53 pm Message-ID: > > Reminds me of one of my worst memories on the big iron systems. Had a > computer that was on the top floor. The building maintenance people = > were > running the grounding cable on the lightning rod down to the earth rod.. > And discovered this wonderful cable channel that carried the power from = > the > basement MGs up to the main frame power supplies. The inevitable = > happened > and a lightning bolt took out all the supplies on the entire system. = > The > overvoltage crowbars saved most of the logic. But the lightning = > literally > vaporized the power cables, and the MG was a big piece of toast. > > Nobody was punished - the union said that there were no guidelines = > stating > this was a bad thing. And common sense seems to be a rare commodity. So presumably those people who install cables (we call them 'electricians' over here normally) don't actually have to know the behaviour of electricity. Or that lightening is a fast, high voltage, high current, pulse that will get anywhere given half a chance. And so it's best to keep it well away from everything else. Tell me, are there any guidelines about connectings these idiots' private parts to the output of that MG set? If not, do so :-) -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:41:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:41:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BF9452.8000000@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 20, 6 02:33:54 pm Message-ID: > Hmm, if I'm thinking right, all I need to do is invert A7 from the ISA BUS > before it goes through the selection circuitry, and that'll plonk the FDC at a > base address of 0x370 rather than 0x3f0. Does that sound sensible? There's > even an unused NAND gate on the board that I can use to do the inversion if so. > > I think that should work... Yep, that's basically what I did. Of course the ROM firmware won't be any use any more (I'd pull the ROM just in case it interfers with something...) but Imagedisk won't care about that. I can try to find the data sheet on the chip (I know I have it somewhere), IIRC, theres a pin on the chip that determines the state of A7 that will select the thing (so it can be put at the primary or secondary address). I found out about this _after_ adding the inverter... -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:33:57 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:33:57 +0100 (BST) Subject: troubleshooting video In-Reply-To: <76d87c949948463592522cf83d1a9306@valleyimplants.com> from "Scott Quinn" at Jul 19, 6 10:26:25 pm Message-ID: > > >I wonder what those are? they don't sound rignt to me, I would have > >expected a 2-level singal only. I asusme all the power rails are nice and > >stable (sorry, I've had that one all too often...) > > Threw the scope on them, 5v looks O.K. (about 2.5x background noise (I'm using unshielded alligator clip leads, Are you trying to tell me you're seeing 2.5V of ripple on the 5V line? If so, find out why. It may be because of your lack of proper probesm it may be a fualt... > no probes yet). -5v +12v and -12v are all quite noisy. I don't know if this is a recent development (I checked it out > after replacing some caps in the 5v section), or if the trick of using a DMM in AC mode to check for noise doesn't That depends on the DMM. Try measuring a battery on the AC range. If you get a voltage reading, then you DMM responds to DC voltages even on the AC ranges, at which point it won't indicate ripple correctly. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:42:36 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:42:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: Languages/Expressions (Was: why you should tell friends to save In-Reply-To: <20060720151215.GA24628@RawFedDogs.net> from "Kevin Monceaux" at Jul 20, 6 10:12:15 am Message-ID: > English in America. She loved to compare English and American expressions. > Her favorite was "You can have your cake and eat it too." Apparently the > English version is "You can eat your cake and have it too." I really didn't The normal UK expression is "You can't have your cake and eat it" -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:47:21 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:47:21 +0100 (BST) Subject: Imagedisk UM8398 FDC support? In-Reply-To: <44BFB187.2020200@yahoo.co.uk> from "Jules Richardson" at Jul 20, 6 04:38:31 pm Message-ID: > > Jules Richardson wrote: > > Hmm, if I'm thinking right, all I need to do is invert A7 from the ISA > > BUS before it goes through the selection circuitry, and that'll plonk > > the FDC at a base address of 0x370 rather than 0x3f0. Does that sound > > sensible? There's even an unused NAND gate on the board that I can use > > to do the inversion if so. > > > > I think that should work... > > ... and I'm not sure if I need to change the IRQ and DMA lines too. Maybe the > primary and secondary FDCs in a PC can co-exist on the same IRQ and DMA > channel [1] (and indeed this seems to be implied by the linux floppy driver - They should be able to. One of the bits in one of the output ports turns off (3-states) the IRQ and DMA lines. The UMC chip does get this bit right. I've had it co-exist with the original IBM XT controller, and with a 3rd party clone controller with no problems. Of coruse there might be controllers out there that don't handle this correctly. -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:45:06 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:45:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: Apple II card info needed In-Reply-To: <000b01c6ac15$79168ed0$6601a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz> from "Richard A. Cini" at Jul 20, 6 11:59:24 am Message-ID: > > All: > > > > Today I received three Apple II cards for which I'd like to get > some info/manuals on. The first is the "Synch Printer Interface Card" which > I believe is for the Silentype printer (It has a 9-pin DE9F on it). Yes, I am pretty sure that's the Silentype interface/ > > > > The second is an Apple-labeled 12k ROM card with part number 960-9104. It > has six sockets and appears to be ORGed at $D000. There's a jumper labeled > "2716" and a small red toggle switch. Maybe it can program EPROMS? Five of > the six slots are filled with Apple ROMs - the D8 ROM is missing. My guess would be this is the AppleSoft ROM card. It goes in slot 0 (IIRC) on a machine with Integer BASIC on the motherboard. The switch selects between AppleSoft and Integer BASICs. > The third one is from Xebec Systems and is labeled "Apple Host Adapter". It > has a 50-pin 0.1" header along one side. No custom silicon (only an EPROM). > Given the manufacturer and pin header, I'm guessing SCSI. Or maybe SASI? -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 18:52:51 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:52:51 +0100 (BST) Subject: looking for a book suggestion In-Reply-To: from "Jesse Ephraim" at Jul 20, 6 12:24:10 pm Message-ID: > > I have several old Apple IIs, a TRS-80 (new in the box), and a few other > older computers. I would like to get them all running again, if > possible. I have been putting computers together since the late 80s, > but have little knowledge of actual computer electronics repair > (soldering, replacing broken wires, etc.). I would appreciate any > suggestions about good, accurate, thorough books to purchase so that I > can start teaching myself the basics. There are a number of such books > out there, but I am having difficulty evaluating the accuracy and > thoroughness of them. I have yet to find even an adequate book on computer repair :-(. PC books are going to be boardswapper guides, and will be useless for repairing 8 bit micros (it's a moot point whether they're even useful for repairing PCs ;-)). Most other books seem to contain a very basic introduction to electronics, a bit on test gear, and then maybe some mangled examples. Other than the service manual (which should exist at least for the TRS80), my recomendation would be to learn electronics at least well enough to understand how these machines should work (a good book for this is 'The Art of Electronics' by Horrowitz and Hill), then read every book you can find on electronics troubleshooting and repair (radio, TV, etc, even valve stuff -- the basic ideas of making measurements, thinking about them, then finding the fault have not changed, and probably can never change). -tony From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk Thu Jul 20 19:02:54 2006 From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 01:02:54 +0100 (BST) Subject: Power Supply issues In-Reply-To: from "Scott Quinn" at Jul 20, 6 06:45:45 pm Message-ID: > > > > O.K. - now on to the power supply. > The +5v channel 1 supply is good, 69 mV peak to peak AC noise (measured o= > n a scope with AC coupling) > the +-12v channels are ~292 mV of noise > the -5v channel has 500 mV of noise, even with an additional 1000 =B5F ca= > pacitor across the output (to hopefully filter this junk out) > (-5V also has periodic fluctuations at a lower frequency) > > All of this is high-frequency, excluding the -5v hum.=20 > In short, it doesn't look like adding an external filter cap will help mu= > ch, unless I go all the way and throw in a LC filter. My first through is that capacitors ahve inducatnce too, and that your added one might well have significant impedance at the noise frequency as a result > Pulled the P/S apart, and the board with +-12V and -5V has peculiar capac= > itors mounted on it - 3 lead Mallory Aerovox. > Are these really the multipart electrolytics that went out of style (I th= > ought) with solid state? My guess is that the 3 leads (2 on te +ve side?) are there to reduce the self-inductace, e.g. by connecting to both ends of the rolled-up foil inside. I think I've seen similar caps in HP stuff. > The wiring is 2 leads connected to one side of the power rail, one lead t= > o the other. Could twin-lead caps be substituted? Only if the self-inductance is low enough. Capacitors designed for use in SMPSUs should be OK, maybe parallel them with a 1uF non-electrolytic for good measure -tony From paul0926 at comcast.net Thu Jul 20 19:27:45 2006 From: paul0926 at comcast.net (Paul Heller) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:27:45 -0600 Subject: Thanks for the Donations In-Reply-To: <2789adda0607200852u4880af1do8b491fb7e28a286e@mail.gmail.com> References: <011101c6aad7$401dc060$2a406b43@66067007> <2789adda0607200852u4880af1do8b491fb7e28a286e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <61B02228-4996-4C3D-AE22-EAA722466A6A@comcast.net> OK, guys, I have to ask. As a newbie to this list I have no idea what you are talking about. Just what is it that you are so anxious to throw your money towards? What restoration? Paul On Jul 20, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Robert Ollerton wrote: > how do you want the check made out to; and whats the mailing address? > > > > On 7/18/06, Keys wrote: >> Sorry did not look at the return address, this should have been >> off line. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Keys" >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> >> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:42 PM >> Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations >> >> >> > ----- Original Message ----- >> > From: "Robert Ollerton" >> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> > >> > Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM >> > Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations >> > >> > >> >> How much short on money are you? >> >> >> >> I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. >> >> >> >> Bob >> >> >> >> On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: >> >>> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or >> labor offers >> >>> for >> >>> the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up >> short on >> >>> the >> >>> money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick >> these items >> >>> up >> >>> and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both >> trips. I >> >>> will >> >>> be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you >> off list >> >>> after >> >>> everything is complete. Thanks again John >> >>> >> >>> >> >> >> > >> > >> >> From paul0926 at comcast.net Thu Jul 20 19:37:09 2006 From: paul0926 at comcast.net (Paul Heller) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:37:09 -0600 Subject: looking for a book suggestion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <04ED1A5E-69C4-4BBE-A661-8D30BBF74BBF@comcast.net> If anyone has a list of good books, I too would like to see it. There is a lot of useless modern PC repair books that are of no help at all. For basic electronics, I found the Tab Electronics Guide to Understanding Electricity and Electronics useful. You can still buy this book new. It will even explain how to solder. Another somewhat useful book might be The Microcomputer Builder's Bible if you can find it. The reason I say "might" be is because it is a bit technical (I don't yet understand it). It is oriented to microprocessor based machines, (8080 on up), but does have a good base of information that is applicable to older technologies as well. Paul On Jul 20, 2006, at 11:24 AM, Jesse Ephraim wrote: > I have several old Apple IIs, a TRS-80 (new in the box), and a few > other > older computers. I would like to get them all running again, if > possible. I have been putting computers together since the late 80s, > but have little knowledge of actual computer electronics repair > (soldering, replacing broken wires, etc.). I would appreciate any > suggestions about good, accurate, thorough books to purchase so that I > can start teaching myself the basics. There are a number of such > books > out there, but I am having difficulty evaluating the accuracy and > thoroughness of them. > > Since this question is probably not of interest to many others on the > list, please feel free to email me any suggestions at > jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us > > Many thanks! > > Jesse Ephraim > > Adult Services Librarian > Southlake Public Library > 1400 Main Street, Suite 130 > Southlake, TX 76092 > (817) 748-8247 > jephraim at ci.southlake.tx.us > > "A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical > knowledge." > - Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) > From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Thu Jul 20 19:34:44 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:34:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Power Supply issues In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607210037.UAA01577@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> > the -5v channel has 500 mV of noise, even with an additional 1000 ?F > capacitor across the output (to hopefully filter this junk out) > All of this is high-frequency, excluding the -5v hum. > In short, it doesn't look [as though] adding an external filter cap > will help much, unless I go all the way and throw in a LC filter. If the noise is really high frequency, that 1000?F cap may be too large. Large-value caps tend to have a comparatively high effective series inductance. If you want HF noise filtering, you should not only use a large cap like that but also small caps, like .01-.1 ?F, in a technology like cermaic disc that doesn't have high effective series inductance. Preferably, scatter the filtering around through the circuit, to soak up noise near its source. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From gtoal at gtoal.com Thu Jul 20 19:52:15 2006 From: gtoal at gtoal.com (Graham Toal) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:52:15 -0500 Subject: OT-ish? McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule" In-Reply-To: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> References: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> Message-ID: <44C0253F.mailGD611HTWI@gtoal.com> > > McIlroy, M D, "Synthetic English Speech by Rule", > > Bell Telephone Labs, CSTR #14, 1973 (though I have > > also seen it referenced as 1974!) > > > > Ainsworth, W A, "A System for Converting English Text > > to Speech", IEEE Trans Audio & Electroacoustics AU-21 #3 > > pp 288-290, 1973 Sorry, turned out to be neither, although the two books I remembered having are very similar in content. I have: >From text to speech: The MITalk system (allen, hunnicutt & klatt) Electronic synthesis of speech (linggard) These two are fairly good: English word stress (fudge) Generative phonology (kenstowicz & kisseberth) Fudge is definitely recommended reading. Linggard is at the vocoder/electronic circuit level. Unless you're doing your own chip, it's probably not relevant. I also have a whole pile of chomsky-type grammar books and computational morphology books that any linguist would be happy to have as their entire library :-) (I'm not a linguist, just a programmer who once worked on spelling correction and got off on a tangent for a time) Graham From cclist at sydex.com Thu Jul 20 19:55:02 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:55:02 -0700 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607201755020817.0A47BC63@10.0.0.252> On 7/21/2006 at 12:30 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: >So presumably those people who install cables (we call them >'electricians' over here normally) don't actually have to know the >behaviour of electricity. We call them "card-carrying union members" here. :) Cheers, Chuck From rtellason at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 19:57:19 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason, Sr.) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:57:19 -0400 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <200607202057.19023.rtellason@gmail.com> On Thursday 20 July 2006 07:38 pm, Fred Cisin wrote: > Because "readtk.bas" was an ATTACHMENT, instead of inline code, my ISP cut > it off. What percentage of ISPs are that over-protective? I dunno, but it showed up here like this: 1???????! ????????! Program to read a tape into simh format file ????????! ????????!???????Ugly and rough, but it works. ????????!???????Anything unexpected will cause it to crash. ????????! ????????!???????08/16/2002 - Kevin Handy ????????!???????????????Fixed it so it actualy works ????????! 100?????TAPE.CH% = 7% ????????LINPUT "Tape device ", TAPE_DEVICE$ ????????TAPE_DEVICE$ = "MKA500:" IF TAPE_DEVICE$ = "" ????????! ????????! Make this smaller for RSTS, else it will run out of memory ????????! ????????MAX_RECORD% = 10240% ????????OPEN TAPE_DEVICE$ for input AS FILE TAPE.CH%, & ????????????????ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL, & ????????????????RECORDTYPE NONE, & ????????????????RECORDSIZE MAX_RECORD%, & ????????????????ACCESS READ ????????V% = MAGTAPE(3%, 0%, tape.CH%)??! Rewind tape 110?????FILE.CH% = 8% ????????LINPUT "Save into ", FILE_NAME$ ????????FILE_NAME$ = "TAPE.TAPE" IF FILE_NAME$ = "" ????????! ????????! Lose everything from ORGANIZATION on for RSTS, which doesn't ????????!???????need it. ????????! ????????OPEN FILE_NAME$ FOR OUTPUT AS FILE FILE.CH%, & ????????????????ORGANIZATION SEQUENTIAL fixed, & ????????????????RECORDTYPE NONE, & ????????????????RECORDSIZE 512% ????????EOF% = 0% 200?????WHEN ERROR IN ????????????????GET #TAPE.CH% ????????????????RCT% = recount ????????USE ????????????????IF ERR = 11% OR ERR=252% ????????????????THEN ????????????????????????CONTINUE WriteEOF ????????????????END IF ????????????????PRINT "Unhandled error"; err; " "; ert$(err) ????????????????stop ????????END WHEN ????????EOF% = 0% ????????print "!";rct%; ????????print RCT% if ccpos(0%) >= 50% 250?????FIELD #TAPE.CH%, RCT% AS TBUFFER$ ????????BUFFER$ = BUFFER$ + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / 256% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%) AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%* 256%) AND 255%) + & ????????????????& ????????????????TBUFFER$ + & ????????????????& ????????????????CHR$(RCT% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / 256% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%) AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%* 256%) AND 255%) ????????GOSUB WriteBlocks ????????GOTO 200 ?WriteEof: ????????IF EOF% = 0% ????????THEN ????????????????! ????????????????! First EOF ????????????????! ????????????????RCT% = 0% ????????????????GOSUB WriteLength ????????????????EOF% = 1% ????????ELSE ????????????????! ????????????????! Second EOF ????????????????! ????????????????RCT% = 0% ????????????????GOSUB WriteLength ????????????????GOSUB WriteLength ????????????????GOTO ExitProgram ????????END IF ????????GOTO 200 ?WriteLength: 500?????BUFFER$ = BUFFER$ + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / 256% AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%) AND 255%) + & ????????????????CHR$(RCT% / (256% * 256%* 256%) AND 255%) ????????GOSUB WriteBlocks ????????RETURN ?WriteBlocks: 600?????WHILE LEN(BUFFER$) >= 512% ????????????????FIELD #FILE.CH%, 512% AS XBUFFER$ ????????????????LSET XBUFFER$ = BUFFER$ ????????????????PUT #FILE.CH% ????????????????BUFFER$ = RIGHT(BUFFER$, 513%) ????????NEXT ????????RETURN ?ExitProgram: 10000???GOSUB WriteBlocks ????????IF BUFFER$ <> "" ????????THEN ????????????????FIELD #FILE.CH%, 512% AS XBUFFER$ ????????????????LSET XBUFFER$ = BUFFER$ ????????????????PUT #FILE.CH% ????????END IF ????????CLOSE FILE.CH% ????????CLOSE TAPE.CH% 32767???END > On Thu, 20 Jul 2006, Kevin Handy wrote: > > WARNING: This e-mail has been altered by MIMEDefang. Following this > > paragraph are indications of the actual changes made. For more > > information about your site's MIMEDefang policy, contact > > LMI Postmaster . For more information about > > MIMEDefang, see: > > > > http://www.roaringpenguin.com/mimedefang/enduser.php3 > > > > An attachment named readtk.bas was removed from this document as it > > constituted a security hazard. If you require this document, please > > contact the sender and arrange an alternate means of receiving it. I dislike in the extreme any provider (or these days more often it seems like it's third parties) screwing around with the content in my emails. My earlier provider had a problem with this, and kept on trying to tell me that they _couldn't_ turn it off completely, even though their web site seemed to indicate that this was indeed one of the options. Their whole approach to spam and virus issues was so heavy-handed that it interfered with normal email communications with various people, blocking whole providers (a whole cable company in BC for example) and that was a lot of the reason I dropped them. The next outfit also used a third-party email processor, and that required a separate login and password that I never did keep track of and so I turned their stuff completely _off_ and left it that way. Only to find that they were trying to "help" by turning it on for me to one extent or another, not once but three or four times! Then we come to verizon, which is my latest provider. They apparently have a default of filtering stuff, and a default of simply deleting filtered stuff without you knowing that anything's going on. I changed that to stuff things into a spam folder that I looked at from time to time. And when I found a couple of messages in there that did NOT belong there wasn't any easy way to tell their system that it didn't belong, no "not spam" button or anything, so I just moved those posts to my inbox and hoped for the best. That's why I switched things over to google's gmail, which has so far not given me any errors of that sort, that and the fact that I can still get at my mail without having to go through my ISP, or from the library, or let it pile up there for a while, or... Good luck getting that sorted out. -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rtellason at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 20:02:33 2006 From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason, Sr.) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:02:33 -0400 Subject: Power Supply issues In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200607202102.33066.rtellason@gmail.com> On Thursday 20 July 2006 07:45 pm, Scott Quinn wrote: > O.K. - now on to the power supply. > The +5v channel 1 supply is good, 69 mV peak to peak AC noise (measured on > a scope with AC coupling) the +-12v channels are ~292 mV of noise > the -5v channel has 500 mV of noise, even with an additional 1000 ?F > capacitor across the output (to hopefully filter this junk out) (-5V also > has periodic fluctuations at a lower frequency) > > All of this is high-frequency, excluding the -5v hum. A 1000uF cap isn't going to help you at all with high frequency noise, at which point it probably looks more like an inductor than a capacitor. When I want a really quiet power supply I generally put a 1 - 10 uF tantalum cap across the big electrolytics, _and_ a smaller ceramic disc cap of somewhere say up to 100nF but no higher, which tends to give you better coverage. > In short, it doesn't look like adding an external filter cap will help > much, unless I go all the way and throw in a LC filter. If what I suggest in the above paragraph doesn't help then maybe a pi-filter is perhaps the next logical step. > Pulled the P/S apart, and the board with +-12V and -5V has peculiar > capacitors mounted on it - 3 lead Mallory Aerovox. Are these really the > multipart electrolytics that went out of style (I thought) with solid state? Probably not. > The wiring is 2 leads connected to one side of the power rail, one lead to > the other. Could twin-lead caps be substituted? Maybe. I haven't seen these but I'd guess that they're something special with that configuration. I remember years back (1974!) Zenith used a special 4-lead cap in their TVs on the output side of the flyback transformer. And some cap maker messed up, changed what the materials were or something, and ended up hurting bigtime because they failed left and right and you had CRTs getting ruptured from 40KV+ voltages and similar nonsense. I heard that Zenith covered all of that and that they got it all covered by the cap maker... Have you done any searching for those parts? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin From rollerton at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 20:14:42 2006 From: rollerton at gmail.com (Robert Ollerton) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:14:42 -0500 Subject: Thanks for the Donations In-Reply-To: <61B02228-4996-4C3D-AE22-EAA722466A6A@comcast.net> References: <011101c6aad7$401dc060$2a406b43@66067007> <2789adda0607200852u4880af1do8b491fb7e28a286e@mail.gmail.com> <61B02228-4996-4C3D-AE22-EAA722466A6A@comcast.net> Message-ID: <2789adda0607201814x2ee57e9eme03203ca62935815@mail.gmail.com> Houston Computer Museum Need help to collect some significant donations http://www.houstoncomputermuseum.org/ On 7/20/06, Paul Heller wrote: > OK, guys, I have to ask. As a newbie to this list I have no idea what > you are talking about. > > Just what is it that you are so anxious to throw your money towards? > What restoration? > > Paul > On Jul 20, 2006, at 9:52 AM, Robert Ollerton wrote: > > > how do you want the check made out to; and whats the mailing address? > > > > > > > > On 7/18/06, Keys wrote: > >> Sorry did not look at the return address, this should have been > >> off line. > >> ----- Original Message ----- > >> From: "Keys" > >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> > >> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 8:42 PM > >> Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > >> > >> > >> > ----- Original Message ----- > >> > From: "Robert Ollerton" > >> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > >> > > >> > Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 9:06 AM > >> > Subject: Re: Thanks for the Donations > >> > > >> > > >> >> How much short on money are you? > >> >> > >> >> I would like to make sure the sds910 gets rescued. > >> >> > >> >> Bob > >> >> > >> >> On 7/17/06, Keys wrote: > >> >>> Thanks to all that have sent help in the form of money or > >> labor offers > >> >>> for > >> >>> the two large rescues I have going on soon, but we did come up > >> short on > >> >>> the > >> >>> money side. I have been given to the end of August to pick > >> these items > >> >>> up > >> >>> and hope to borrow the money that is needed to complete both > >> trips. I > >> >>> will > >> >>> be sending tax receipts to all the donors and will update you > >> off list > >> >>> after > >> >>> everything is complete. Thanks again John > >> >>> > >> >>> > >> >> > >> > > >> > > >> > >> > > From fernande at internet1.net Thu Jul 20 20:15:11 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:15:11 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <44C02A9F.8030105@internet1.net> Tony Duell wrote: >>Reminds me of one of my worst memories on the big iron systems. Had a >>computer that was on the top floor. The building maintenance people > So presumably those people who install cables (we call them > 'electricians' over here normally) Tony, An electrician would be an officially trained skilled trades person that works on electrical equipment. Building maintenance people may be skilled trades, or some Joe Schmoe handy man type..... depends on the company or organization doing the hiring. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 20 20:49:16 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:49:16 -0700 Subject: OT-ish? McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule" In-Reply-To: <44C0253F.mailGD611HTWI@gtoal.com> References: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> <44C0253F.mailGD611HTWI@gtoal.com> Message-ID: <44C0329C.6060709@DakotaCom.Net> [other comments sent offlist] Graham Toal wrote: >>> McIlroy, M D, "Synthetic English Speech by Rule", >>> Bell Telephone Labs, CSTR #14, 1973 (though I have >>> also seen it referenced as 1974!) >>> >>> Ainsworth, W A, "A System for Converting English Text >>> to Speech", IEEE Trans Audio & Electroacoustics AU-21 #3 >>> pp 288-290, 1973 > > Sorry, turned out to be neither, although the two books I remembered > having are very similar in content. I have: Yes, I haven't found these to be widely available. I'll try the university and perhaps send a note to the author (can't hurt! B. Stroustrup replied to some critiques I had of one of *his* texts ;> ) >>From text to speech: The MITalk system (allen, hunnicutt & klatt) > > Electronic synthesis of speech (linggard) > These two are fairly good: > English word stress (fudge) > Generative phonology (kenstowicz & kisseberth) > > Fudge is definitely recommended reading. I think Gary Steele (?) wrote a book some years ago though probably hobbyist level (we shared an employer at the time... though that last name doesn't sound right :< ) > Linggard is at the vocoder/electronic circuit level. Unless you're > doing your own chip, it's probably not relevant. No. A simple CODEC and do everything digitally -- except the final gain stages ("volume control") Though I *would* be interested in seeing what was inside the Votrax VS6 product! IIRC, it was entirely analog (though the manual for the product says little about the guts... Gagnon was obviously concerned with preserving the "secrets" of his technology :> ) > I also have a whole pile of chomsky-type grammar books and computational > morphology books that any linguist would be happy to have as their > entire library :-) (I'm not a linguist, just a programmer who once > worked on spelling correction and got off on a tangent for a time) Yikes! Sort of like working on the design of a hammer handle and building a HOUSE in the process?? :> --don From buseyl at yahoo.com Thu Jul 20 21:01:08 2006 From: buseyl at yahoo.com (Liam Busey) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:01:08 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Apple II card info needed In-Reply-To: <200607210024.k6L0OHpk032876@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20060721020108.66393.qmail@web53213.mail.yahoo.com> --- Richard A. Cini wrote: > > Yes, from your description and some searching, > that's what it is. Can anyone > tell me what was supposed to go in the D8 socket? > All of the pictures I've > seen show that socket empty. Anything you want. An Apple with Integer BASIC firmware typically had one or two sockets open for additional ROM programs or utilities. IIRC, the only popular one was the 'Programmer's Aid' expansion ROM. When the Applesoft firmware took over the Apple world, it gobbled up the whole 10K ROM space beneath the monitor so that was the end of that. A shame. Fortunately Apples don't require Applesoft to be useful. > If anyone has a scan of this manual handy I'd > appreciate getting a > copy. Thanks! I've never seen the manual. The wonderful book, "Understanding the Apple II" covers the Firmware card and even provides instructions for some useful hacks like F8 ROM selection. You can find it in the online manuals section of 1000bit under the Apple heading. www.1000bit.net Liam Busey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jul 20 21:17:32 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:17:32 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion References: <44C02A9F.8030105@internet1.net> Message-ID: <003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C Fernandez" To: Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 9:15 PM Subject: Re: IC pin corrosion > Tony Duell wrote: > >>Reminds me of one of my worst memories on the big iron systems. Had a > >>computer that was on the top floor. The building maintenance people > > > So presumably those people who install cables (we call them > > 'electricians' over here normally) > > Tony, > > An electrician would be an officially trained skilled trades person that > works on electrical equipment. Building maintenance people may be > skilled trades, or some Joe Schmoe handy man type..... depends on the > company or organization doing the hiring. > > Chad Fernandez > Michigan, USA > Funny , I thought the NEC handbook had a section for doing grounding for buildings (lightning). Its been a few years since I read it. Smaller companies tend to have handy man type electrician running the wiring with a electrical tech overseeing it (or an electrical engineer depending on how important the project is). Larger companies have union electricians overseen by a large engineering support staff that checks everything from the main power all the way to the contactor the cables are going into. From jhfinedp3k at compsys.to Thu Jul 20 23:21:54 2006 From: jhfinedp3k at compsys.to (Jerome H. Fine) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:21:54 -0400 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access Message-ID: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Hi All, Just thought I would ask for some help - are any text based groups still available? About a year ago, my ISP dropped support for newsgroups. I was about to access the only 2 newsgroups I care about via my local university. However, that was recently dropped as well. I only use 2 newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11 vmsnet.pdp-11 Does anyone still allow access? READ ONLY is acceptable, although I would prefer to be able to may a post a couple of times a year. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- To obtain the original e-mail address, please remove the ten characters which immediately follow the 'at'. If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From ethan.dicks at gmail.com Thu Jul 20 22:38:02 2006 From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:38:02 +1200 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access In-Reply-To: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> References: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Message-ID: On 7/21/06, Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Hi All, > > Just thought I would ask for some help - are any text based groups > still available? > > About a year ago, my ISP dropped support for newsgroups. I was about to > access the only 2 newsgroups I care about via my local university. However, > that was recently dropped as well. I only use 2 newsgroups: > > alt.sys.pdp11 > vmsnet.pdp-11 > > Does anyone still allow access? READ ONLY is acceptable, although I > would prefer to be able to may a post a couple of times a year. Personally, I use Google Groups for textual newsgroups... http://groups.google.com/group/vmsnet.pdp-11 http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys.pdp11 -ethan From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Thu Jul 20 22:52:09 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:52:09 -0700 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access In-Reply-To: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> References: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Message-ID: <44C04F69.7090905@DakotaCom.Net> Jerome H. Fine wrote: > Just thought I would ask for some help - are any text based groups > still available? > > About a year ago, my ISP dropped support for newsgroups. I was about to > access the only 2 newsgroups I care about via my local university. > However, that was recently dropped as well. I only use 2 newsgroups: > > alt.sys.pdp11 > vmsnet.pdp-11 > > Does anyone still allow access? READ ONLY is acceptable, although I > would prefer to be able to may a post a couple of times a year. Can't you read through google groups? From teoz at neo.rr.com Thu Jul 20 22:48:38 2006 From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:48:38 -0400 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access References: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Message-ID: <004801c6ac78$8d2bd1b0$0b01a8c0@game> Why not just read and send using google groups? http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys.pdp11?hl=en subscribe there. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerome H. Fine" To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 12:21 AM Subject: Free Newsgroup Access > Hi All, > > Just thought I would ask for some help - are any text based groups > still available? > > About a year ago, my ISP dropped support for newsgroups. I was about to > access the only 2 newsgroups I care about via my local university. However, > that was recently dropped as well. I only use 2 newsgroups: > > alt.sys.pdp11 > vmsnet.pdp-11 > > Does anyone still allow access? READ ONLY is acceptable, although I > would prefer to be able to may a post a couple of times a year. > > Sincerely yours, > > Jerome Fine > -- > To obtain the original e-mail address, please remove > the ten characters which immediately follow the 'at'. > If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail > address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk > e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be > obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the > 'at' with the four digits of the current year. From schoedel at kw.igs.net Thu Jul 20 23:56:08 2006 From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (Kevin Schoedel) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:56:08 -0400 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access In-Reply-To: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> References: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Message-ID: If you prefer an efficient newsreader to a web interface, teranews.com offers access for a one-time $4 fee. -- Kevin Schoedel VA3TCS From cctech at retro.co.za Fri Jul 21 00:44:45 2006 From: cctech at retro.co.za (Wouter) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 07:44:45 +0200 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <200607191700.k6JH0dZn006420@dewey.classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20060721074317.06fcac68@alpha.ccii.co.za> Hi Tony and all I get the digest, so this mystery might be solved by the time you read this... >Enough to form a pool on the floor under the table on which the set was >placed. And it would come back after being cleaned up. Check the antenna :-) Water leaking in at the top and running down the coax. W From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu Fri Jul 21 00:56:24 2006 From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:56:24 -0700 Subject: Pack Inspector Message-ID: <44C06C88.5000208@msm.umr.edu> I purchased a Computer Link Pack inspector about 2 months ago on Ebay. I just got a junk pack to play with this week (same vendor). It is marked "Master Alignment Pack" and is declassified navy badged. Anyway though people might get a kick out of it. I would love to have a real use for it, but it is just for collection and display purposes. Jim http://jwstephens.com/pack-insp-2006-07-20/page_01.htm From classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk Fri Jul 21 01:40:11 2006 From: classiccmp.org at irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk (Rob O'Donnell) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 07:40:11 +0100 Subject: Free Newsgroup Access In-Reply-To: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> References: <44C05662.3000308@compsys.to> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060721073035.06337e08@irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk> At 05:21 21/07/2006, you wrote: >About a year ago, my ISP dropped support for newsgroups. I was about to >access the only 2 newsgroups I care about via my local university. However, >that was recently dropped as well. I only use 2 newsgroups: > >alt.sys.pdp11 >vmsnet.pdp-11 > >Does anyone still allow access? READ ONLY is acceptable, although I >would prefer to be able to may a post a couple of times a year. Apart from google groups, which has been suggested already, there are still several outfits supplying free usenet access, though usually not to the binaries groups. There's a list of lists here http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/ But here's a free server for starters: freebin.readnews.com "Limited to 2 connections per IP, and rate-limited to dialup speed" but for a those text groups I imagine you'll get by. Rob. From healyzh at aracnet.com Fri Jul 21 02:36:17 2006 From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:36:17 -0700 Subject: Pack Inspector In-Reply-To: <44C06C88.5000208@msm.umr.edu> References: <44C06C88.5000208@msm.umr.edu> Message-ID: At 10:56 PM -0700 7/20/06, jim stephens wrote: >I purchased a Computer Link Pack inspector about 2 months ago on Ebay. > >I just got a junk pack to play with this week (same vendor). It is marked >"Master Alignment Pack" and is declassified navy badged. Anyway though >people might get a kick out of it. > >I would love to have a real use for it, but it is just for >collection and display >purposes. > >Jim > >http://jwstephens.com/pack-insp-2006-07-20/page_01.htm That's interesting. That green sticker on the pack says "Unclassified" doesn't it? That's very strange, I wonder what kind of system it was in. The only systems I know of with packs like that would have requirements for the packs to be destroyed. Is there any clue as to what hardware it was for? It looks a *LOT* like the ones we used on Honeywell DPS-8's. Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ | From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jul 21 03:19:36 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 04:19:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Fluke 87 calibration? Message-ID: <200607210827.EAA08986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Thanks to my sister's bf's generosity, I am now the proud owner of a Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER". However, I am told it needs recalibration (this is why he gave it away). It is not _grossly_ out of calibration; as a quick test, I measured +5V and +12V from a handy (running) computer and local mains voltage; I got 4.99V (DC), 12.17V (DC), and 122.7V (AC) - all totally plausible. (Actually, when I first turned it on, it appeared as though most of the segments on the display were flaky, some dim, some just not working. I took it apart and put it back together and now the display totally works - the connection from the pcb to the display is pure pressure, and I conjecture something jarred it slightly loose.) I did a bit of searching, but didn't find any manuals around (eg, bitsavers' fluke/ directory didn't have anything relevant-looking). Anyone know the procedure, or can point me at a manual somewhere? /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 21 06:49:31 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:49:31 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC Message-ID: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> Out of interest, has anyone tried Imagedisk with a secondary FDC? I'd just like to verify that the software works OK with it before trying to diagnose suspected hardware problems! [1] [1] With the Zilog 765 board, for the record - board modded to use 0x370 as the port base, but currently wired to share IRQ 6 and DMA channel 2 with the PC's built-in floppy controller. cheers Jules From kelly at catcorner.org Fri Jul 21 07:04:35 2006 From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:04:35 -0400 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E3036118@MEOW.catcorner.org> > Out of interest, has anyone tried Imagedisk with a secondary > FDC? I'd just > like to verify that the software works OK with it before > trying to diagnose > suspected hardware problems! [1] > Yes, I use it with a secondary FDC and it works just fine. Kelly From fernande at internet1.net Fri Jul 21 07:06:14 2006 From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:06:14 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game> References: <44C02A9F.8030105@internet1.net> <003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game> Message-ID: <44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net> Teo Zenios wrote: > Funny , I thought the NEC handbook had a section for doing grounding for > buildings (lightning). Its been a few years since I read it. Smaller > companies tend to have handy man type electrician See there's that word again "electrician". An electrician is a skilled trade with an apprenticeship. A handyman could be anybody with a screwdriver! Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA From dave06a at dunfield.com Fri Jul 21 08:42:23 2006 From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:42:23 -0500 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC In-Reply-To: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607211245.k6LCj97B031654@monisys.caonisys.ca> > > Out of interest, has anyone tried Imagedisk with a secondary FDC? I'd just > like to verify that the software works OK with it before trying to diagnose > suspected hardware problems! [1] I did in fact verify that it worked on a secondary FDC when I implemented the ability to support it - I haven't checked it since then (I don't keep a system with multiple FDCs active), but I also haven't changed any of that low-level code. If anyone reports problems, I'll gladly set it up and diagnose. Regards, Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html From bpope at wordstock.com Fri Jul 21 09:04:42 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:04:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Goodies available in Ontario Canada In-Reply-To: <200607161055.k6GAt0FN009999@mail4.magma.ca> Message-ID: <20060721140442.604F358514@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Dave Dunfield > > Hi Guys, > > Going through the collection to see what I can move out to make > room for material closer to my areas of interest. > > I have the following systems available: > --------------------------------------------- > > Probably lots more jun... er... find high-quality > vintage equipment - I'll try to get a list up on the > web site which I can keep updated. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All that and no ICONs! :( Oh well... Cheers, Bryan From aek at bitsavers.org Fri Jul 21 10:06:19 2006 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:06:19 -0700 Subject: Pack Inspector Message-ID: It's probably an RP05/06. The same seller had an alignment pack, which I've given to Guy S. If you just bought the pack inspector from the same source, it had the manual with it, which would be useful to scan. From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jul 21 10:13:25 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:13:25 -0400 Subject: IC pin corrosion In-Reply-To: <44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net> References: <003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game> <44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net> Message-ID: <200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 21 July 2006 08:06, C Fernandez wrote: > Teo Zenios wrote: > > Funny , I thought the NEC handbook had a section for doing > > grounding for buildings (lightning). Its been a few years since I > > read it. Smaller companies tend to have handy man type electrician > > See there's that word again "electrician". An electrician is a > skilled trade with an apprenticeship. A handyman could be anybody > with a screwdriver! I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only "card-carrying union-member" electricians do apprenticeships. Purdue (for example) hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't necessarily been through any apprenticeship program (though some of them work just as effectively as Chicago card-carrying union electricians... ;). Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From drb at msu.edu Fri Jul 21 10:18:18 2006 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:18:18 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 17 Jul 2006 00:15:59 EDT.) <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> References: <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> <000c01c6a933$2e70d2d0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> Message-ID: <200607211518.k6LFIJ4g010428@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. Along with > a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we started loading this Ok, I don't take direction well, and this is cc_talk_, after all. I just can't take it any more. I'm dying to know. Lawn mower? De From pat at computer-refuge.org Fri Jul 21 10:29:02 2006 From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:29:02 -0400 Subject: So how was VCF Midwest? In-Reply-To: <200607211518.k6LFIJ4g010428@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <200607170015.59993.pat@computer-refuge.org> <004b01c6a94a$9b591b20$6700a8c0@HPLAPTOP> <200607211518.k6LFIJ4g010428@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <200607211129.02543.pat@computer-refuge.org> On Friday 21 July 2006 11:18, Dennis Boone wrote: > > pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. > > Along with a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we > > started loading this > > Ok, I don't take direction well, and this is cc_talk_, after all. > I just can't take it any more. I'm dying to know. > > Lawn mower? The short of it is that his lawn-mower died, and he bought another (of the same model) on ebay that he picked up on his way down to West Lafayette. Pat -- Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org From starmaster at gmail.com Fri Jul 21 10:43:58 2006 From: starmaster at gmail.com (Star Master) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:43:58 -0600 Subject: MSD SD-2 Service Manual Message-ID: <5736e8250607210843l4d9a77fbr6f8ba5002bf195e1@mail.gmail.com> Does anyone know where I can get an MSD SD-2 Service Manual? I'm willing to pay an indivual or a company (Can't find one that has it). Thanks dwhit(at)dwhittaker(dot)com From bpope at wordstock.com Fri Jul 21 10:57:21 2006 From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:57:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: MSD SD-2 Service Manual In-Reply-To: <5736e8250607210843l4d9a77fbr6f8ba5002bf195e1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060721155721.D8A085827F@mail.wordstock.com> And thusly were the wise words spake by Star Master > > Does anyone know where I can get an MSD SD-2 Service Manual? I'm willing to > pay an indivual or a company (Can't find one that has it). > Thanks This has the schematics and user manual: http://staff.washington.edu/rrcc/uwweb/MSD-SD2/ Cheers, Bryan From pspan at amerytel.net Fri Jul 21 11:04:33 2006 From: pspan at amerytel.net (Phil Spanner) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:04:33 -0500 Subject: Used Wyse 60 monitors Message-ID: <002401c6acdf$5c3e2960$6614a8c0@airstreamcomm.net> Hi all, I was just asked by the local phone company if I was intersted 14 or 15 wyse 60 teminals. I am not, but if anyone on the list is interested in them (and wants to pay the freight from here, ZIP is 54001 or pick them up) I would volunteer my time to help package and ship. If no one is interested, to the dump they go...... Phil PS I really would like for all of them to go to one home, I am not interested in trying to package and ship 14 or 15 indivdual monitors paperwork etc. From cclist at sydex.com Fri Jul 21 11:22:07 2006 From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 09:22:07 -0700 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC In-Reply-To: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> References: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <200607210922070156.0D987B9E@10.0.0.252> My guess is that your primary controller isn't releasing the IRQ and DMA lines when bit 2 in port 3f2 is cleared. Not all controllers do. If this happened to our customers, we usually told them to use a different DMA and IRQ for the second card and adjust their DISKETTE.CFG file accordingly. We used to offer a diskette copyring program (SyDupe) that could use up to three controllers all on different IRQ and DMA to achieve three completely overlapped data transfer paths (i.e. we'd write three diskettes at the same time). This worked for 720K, but 1.44MB put too much of a strain on most ISA bus implementations to be a reliable product. Still, it was kind of neat to see the product working with a loaded (12 floppy drive) system. Cheers, Chuck From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com Fri Jul 21 11:51:23 2006 From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:51:23 -0400 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC In-Reply-To: <200607210922070156.0D987B9E@10.0.0.252> References: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060721124810.04193818@mail.30below.com> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words: >... Still, it was kind of neat to see the product working with a loaded >(12 floppy drive) system. Mmmm... that'd make a nice Floppy Raid system... ;-) http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com | From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jul 21 12:27:25 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:27:25 -0700 Subject: Fluke 87 calibration? In-Reply-To: <200607210827.EAA08986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607210827.EAA08986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44C10E7D.8040908@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: > Thanks to my sister's bf's generosity, I am now the proud owner of a > Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER". Excellent! I was similarly "gifted" with my 8840A but it is *way* too "overkill" (5-1/2 digits?) and not very portable (mains powered). > However, I am told it needs recalibration (this is why he gave it > away). It is not _grossly_ out of calibration; as a quick test, I > measured +5V and +12V from a handy (running) computer and local mains > voltage; I got 4.99V (DC), 12.17V (DC), and 122.7V (AC) - all totally Biggest problem is finding a source of known accuracy. Calibrating a 4-1/2 digit meter to a source that's only 0.5% accurate is just a waste of time (I rarely recalibrate my 8840 for just this reason -- going over to the lab to get access to good NIST traceable sources is a royal PITA). For example, the 8840's calibration "requires" sources accurate to 10ppm. Is there any reason why you *need* to have it's rated accuracy (besides "gee, it would be nice...")? More often than not, I rely on an old Simpson VOM for troubleshooting -- if things look "close enough", they often are. And, if they aren't "close enough", it's easier (for me) to swap in a replacement part -- I have access to a fair bit of surplus. (I'd rather spend my time working on *new* product designs than "playing technician"). Of course, if it is something truly irreplaceable (irreSWAPable?), I'll figure out what's broke and repair that, but even then the problem is usually pretty easily spotted with an out-of-cal DMM. Many labs will calibrate for ~$50 and *certify* the calibration in the process. > plausible. (Actually, when I first turned it on, it appeared as though > most of the segments on the display were flaky, some dim, some just not > working. I took it apart and put it back together and now the display > totally works - the connection from the pcb to the display is pure > pressure, and I conjecture something jarred it slightly loose.) Yes. A consequence of being a handheld meter! Be thankful... I can't do that with mine! :> > I did a bit of searching, but didn't find any manuals around (eg, > bitsavers' fluke/ directory didn't have anything relevant-looking). > Anyone know the procedure, or can point me at a manual somewhere? I'll check a few friends with similar "yellow meters" and see if one turns up. Fluke was pretty good about providing detailed service information in their manuals (though I don't know if that has changed in the years since the 8840). Enjoy your new toy! :> From James at jdfogg.com Fri Jul 21 12:32:22 2006 From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:32:22 -0400 Subject: Used Wyse 60 monitors Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2567C8@sbs.jdfogg.com> > Hi all, > > I was just asked by the local phone company if I was > intersted 14 or 15 wyse 60 teminals. > I am not, but if anyone on the list is interested in them > (and wants to pay the freight from here, ZIP is 54001 or pick > them up) I would volunteer my time to help package and ship. > If no one is interested, to the dump they go...... Was this TDS Telecom? From kth at srv.net Fri Jul 21 13:08:22 2006 From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:08:22 -0600 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> Message-ID: <44C11816.4000801@srv.net> Fred Cisin wrote: >Because "readtk.bas" was an ATTACHMENT, instead of inline code, my ISP cut >it off. What percentage of ISPs are that over-protective? > > Gaack! Let me know if you need a secondary means to get it. I set it as an attachment, because I have had problems sending source code in-line. Lines get re-wrapped, characters get "html"ized (spaces replaced with #20;), things not html get displayed as if they were (disappearing <>'s), lines get double spaced, and many other bazaar things. And, after all that, it often gets flagged as spam. The alterations vary from version to version of the various bits code being used between the two ends. Attachments *usually* don't get this treatment. They either go through, or get dropped. They usually don't get "helpfully" modified. From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jul 21 06:39:13 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 08:39:13 -0300 Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? References: <200607201705.k6KH5wcB013217@onyx.spiritone.com> Message-ID: <001d01c6acba$d6f569e0$0602a8c0@xandinho> > > Is there a VMS program that will read/write simh style tape container > > files (.tap) from real magtapes? > I'd recommend using VMSTPC to read the tapes, and then using the SIMH tool > (it's in the seperate tools tarball) to change it to a SIMH .TAP file. That > way you have .TPC files that can be written back to real tapes, and .TAP > files for SIMH. A PC working with magtapes is something I wanted to see, something that must be fantastic! ;oD I miss my 11/750 :o( Greetings from Brazil, Alexandre Souza From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br Fri Jul 21 12:55:53 2006 From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:55:53 -0300 Subject: Apple II card info needed References: Message-ID: <003701c6acef$74f0fef0$0602a8c0@xandinho> > > The third one is from Xebec Systems and is labeled "Apple Host Adapter". It > > has a 50-pin 0.1" header along one side. No custom silicon (only an EPROM). > > Given the manufacturer and pin header, I'm guessing SCSI. > Or maybe SASI? SCSI. It was used in the Sider HD. It was just a case with power supply and ST251N Seagate hard disk. From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA Fri Jul 21 13:19:55 2006 From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:19:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Fluke 87 calibration? In-Reply-To: <44C10E7D.8040908@DakotaCom.Net> References: <200607210827.EAA08986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44C10E7D.8040908@DakotaCom.Net> Message-ID: <200607211826.OAA11811@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> >> However, I am told it needs recalibration (this is why he gave it >> away). It is not _grossly_ out of calibration; as a quick test, I >> measured +5V and +12V from a handy (running) computer and local >> mains voltage; I got 4.99V (DC), 12.17V (DC), and 122.7V (AC) - all >> totally plausible. > Biggest problem is finding a source of known accuracy. Calibrating a > 4-1/2 digit meter to a source that's only 0.5% accurate is just a > waste of time Well, yes, unless it's more than 0.5% miscalibrated. For example, I have another meter that measures 5V as more like 3.5V; a source that's 0.5% accurate could greatly improve that. (That other one is an electromechanical meter, so it doesn't really apply, but the principle does.) > Is there any reason why you *need* to have [its] rated accuracy > (besides "gee, it would be nice...")? No. But I don't know how its calibration works; if it's possible that, for example, voltage is fine but resistance is totally wonky, I'd like to fix the latter. Or, the 1-10V and higher ranges are fine but the sub-1V ranges are out of whack. These may not be possible - but I don't know, and until I do, I have to consider it suspect. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk Fri Jul 21 14:44:18 2006 From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:44:18 +0000 Subject: Imagedisk and secondary FDC In-Reply-To: <200607210922070156.0D987B9E@10.0.0.252> References: <44C0BF4B.5010107@yahoo.co.uk> <200607210922070156.0D987B9E@10.0.0.252> Message-ID: <44C12E92.4070301@yahoo.co.uk> Chuck Guzis wrote: > My guess is that your primary controller isn't releasing the IRQ and DMA > lines when bit 2 in port 3f2 is cleared. Not all controllers do. Unfortunately it looks like it's the secondary (although quite possibly the primary too :-) - there's no kind of tri-stating on the DMA or IRQ lines and they're driven directly by LS logic. I can mod the board to use a different IRQ and DMA channel - I just need to tweak Imagedisk to work with it. > Still, it was kind of > neat to see the product working with a loaded (12 floppy drive) system. That's definitely the sort of thing I want to end up with. Well, 8", 5.25" of various flavours and 3.5" of various flavours at least; enough to occupy more than one controller. cheers Jules From dgy at DakotaCom.Net Fri Jul 21 15:04:34 2006 From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:04:34 -0700 Subject: Fluke 87 calibration? In-Reply-To: <200607211826.OAA11811@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> References: <200607210827.EAA08986@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> <44C10E7D.8040908@DakotaCom.Net> <200607211826.OAA11811@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> Message-ID: <44C13352.40209@DakotaCom.Net> der Mouse wrote: >> Is there any reason why you *need* to have [its] rated accuracy >> (besides "gee, it would be nice...")? > > No. But I don't know how its calibration works; if it's possible that, > for example, voltage is fine but resistance is totally wonky, I'd like > to fix the latter. Or, the 1-10V and higher ranges are fine but the > sub-1V ranges are out of whack. These may not be possible - but I > don't know, and until I do, I have to consider it suspect. Good point. No doubt it does much of this in "software" based on observations with calibration references (I know there's a fair bit of work calibrating the 8840 on the various different ranges, etc.). And, as such, the designers could have chosen lots of *different* measurement schemes/algorithms (internally) to get the accuracy they wanted. I sent emails to friends known to have Fluke DMMs -- if no luck *here*, maybe one of them will come through with the goods... From cisin at xenosoft.com Fri Jul 21 15:49:49 2006 From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin) Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:49:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files? In-Reply-To: <44C11816.4000801@srv.net> References: <000701c6ac1a$462a6af0$2cd51299@GIZMO> <44BFE436.2080202@srv.net> <20060720163711.C2091@shell.lmi.net> <44C11816.4000801@srv.net> Message-ID: <20060721134510.V60757@shell.lmi.net> > >Because "readtk.bas" was an ATTACHMENT, instead of inline code, my ISP cut > >it off. What percentage of ISPs are that over-protective? On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Kevin Handy wrote: > Gaack! Let me know if you need a secondary means to > get it. Thanks, somebody already "inlined" it > I set it as an attachment, because I have had problems > sending source code in-line. > Lines get re-wrapped, characters get "html"ized (spaces > replaced with #20;), things not html get displayed as > if they were (disappearing <>'s), lines get double spaced, > and many other bazaar things. And, after all that, it often Try putting REM 
at the beginning, and
REM
at the end of your code. The BASIC interpreter will ignore the contents of the REM lines, and 
 ("preformatted") tells html interpreters to leave the
content as is.   (not all will cooperate)




From fernande at internet1.net  Fri Jul 21 15:56:58 2006
From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:56:58 -0400
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: 
	<003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game>	<44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net>
	<200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>

Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only "card-carrying 
> union-member" electricians do apprenticeships.  Purdue (for example) 
> hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't necessarily been through 
> any apprenticeship program (though some of them work just as 
> effectively as Chicago card-carrying union electricians... ;).


Pat,

My point is that an electrician has formal training for the trade, and a 
handyman type maintenance person does not.  A friend of mine, was 
attending the local community college for his electrical training while 
working under a local electrical contractor for his apprenticeship.  I 
don't have any reason to believe that the contractor was union.

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA



From emu at e-bbes.com  Fri Jul 21 16:10:54 2006
From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:10:54 -0600
Subject: MicroVAX I
Message-ID: <44C142DE.206@e-bbes.com>

Hi all,
anybody out here has the printset for the MicroVAX I (aka KD32) ?


From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Fri Jul 21 16:18:26 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:18:26 -0300
Subject: looking for a book suggestion
References: 
Message-ID: <007d01c6ad0b$6667ec10$02fea8c0@alpha>

> I have yet to find even an adequate book on computer repair :-(.

    PC repair or old computer repairing?

    You can find plenty of info on old computers. Apples, Commodores,
Amigas, and like. But nothing about the PC, although if you can understand
the XT schematic, most of the problems makes sense for you.

> PC books are going to be boardswapper guides, and will be useless for
> repairing 8 bit micros (it's a moot point whether they're even useful for
> repairing PCs ;-)).

    Going to be? Have you ever read one of those? :o)

> Other than the service manual (which should exist at least for the
> TRS80), my recomendation would be to learn electronics at least well
> enough to understand how these machines should work (a good book for this
> is 'The Art of Electronics' by Horrowitz and Hill), then read every book
> you can find on electronics troubleshooting and repair (radio, TV, etc,
> even valve stuff -- the basic ideas of making measurements, thinking
> about them, then finding the fault have not changed, and probably can
> never change).

    ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook - the bible of everything electronics, take
a look! :oD



From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Fri Jul 21 16:22:56 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:22:56 -0300
Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray
References: 
Message-ID: <009101c6ad0c$0e6c28e0$02fea8c0@alpha>

> > > It might do. It might be a lot of other things too.
> >     Very good explanation. I'd tell him to go to www.repairfaq.org and
take
> > a look on the laserjet and printer/copiers texts. There are a wealth of
info
> > there.
> Some of which I contributed to.

    Both of us ;o)

> My first laser printer used a Canon CX engine. I was given it because it
> didn't work, it took me an hour or so to find a dead PAL (actually a HAL)
> on the formatter board. Canon didn't sell spare chips, they wouldn't even
> sell be the complete board. And they wouldn't supply a service manual.
> (This was before I'd found The PrinterWorks, who would at least sell
> mechanical bits and complete boards).

    Oh, you are the one of the CX crazy printer, you are a god! :oD

> Anyway, a few years later, I bought (cheap) a Apple LW2NT (SX engine). I
> did much the same with that. Took it apart, figured out how it worked,
> and made notes. I use that printer on my PC to this day....

    Same here, I have a Laserjet III (which I don't use anymore) and a 4
Plus which I did the same

> Many of the laser printer repair books and stuff on the web are
> downright wrong. Others simply encourage lucky-dip methods. I've yet to
> see one that really goes back to first principles and tells you to start
> by checking signals, etc.

    Well, this is a deeper level that me and you may understand, but what
about the John Doe with error 50 on his HP3? I fixed **lots** of HP3 with
just changing that (insert your preffered expletive here) thiristor, and
giving a good cleaning and resolder of contacts as I stated in my part of
the text

    Great printers, but I'd love to have a 5 Plus :oP




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 21 16:51:41 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:51:41 -0700
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
References: 	<003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game>	<44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net>	<200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
Message-ID: <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>

C Fernandez wrote:
> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
>> I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only "card-carrying 
>> union-member" electricians do apprenticeships.  Purdue (for example) 
>> hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't necessarily been through 
>> any apprenticeship program (though some of them work just as 
>> effectively as Chicago card-carrying union electricians... ;).

Is this a question of "electrician" vs. "Electrician"?
It was my understanding that Electricians (licensed as such)
go through a formal apprentice-journeyman-master process.
Whereas "someone who fiddles with wires" mayn't even know
the first thing about electricity (and, in some localities,
wouldn't be allowed to work on an electrical system in a
residence or commercial building).

*Is* there such a formal process *required* to become a
"licensed Electrician"?  Or, is it simply "take a test,
pay the fee"  (in the US).

I have a cousin who is a Master Electrician and I know went
through those "stages".  Though I never thought to ask if
that was a requirement for licensure or just a practical
consequence of employment.

(e.g., Don't MD's *need* to do internships?)

> My point is that an electrician has formal training for the trade, and a 
> handyman type maintenance person does not.  A friend of mine, was 
> attending the local community college for his electrical training while 
> working under a local electrical contractor for his apprenticeship.  I 
> don't have any reason to believe that the contractor was union.



From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Fri Jul 21 16:57:21 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:57:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
References: 
	<003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game>	<44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net>
	<200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
Message-ID: <200607212201.SAA13091@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> My point is that an electrician has formal training for the trade,
> and a handyman type maintenance person does not.

Which, of course, does not necessarily mean anything about their
relative skill levels.  (I would be very interested in any work that
looks at skill levels of formally trained professionals, self-taught
professionals, and "interested amateurs".  But I've seen enough
"professionally"-done things that make me go "eeeyeek, I don't know if
that's code, but I sure hope not" and rip it out *now* before it causes
trouble...I've seen enough such horrors that I actually wouldn't be
surprised if there were a *negative* correlation between formal
training and skill level.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From pat at computer-refuge.org  Fri Jul 21 17:06:53 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:06:53 -0400
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
References:  <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
	<44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Friday 21 July 2006 17:51, Don Y wrote:
> C Fernandez wrote:
> > Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >> I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only
> >> "card-carrying union-member" electricians do apprenticeships. 
> >> Purdue (for example) hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't
> >> necessarily been through any apprenticeship program (though some
> >> of them work just as effectively as Chicago card-carrying union
> >> electricians... ;).
>
> > My point is that an electrician has formal training for the trade,
> > and a handyman type maintenance person does not.  A friend of mine,
> > was attending the local community college for his electrical
> > training while working under a local electrical contractor for his
> > apprenticeship.  I don't have any reason to believe that the
> > contractor was union.

What I was intending (but worded poorly) was that having an 
apprenticship isn't generally required for being an electrician, but I 
do see your point.  You're speaking of an "Electrician" and I'm 
speaking of "someone you pay to do electrical work under an appropriate 
building permit."

>
> Is this a question of "electrician" vs. "Electrician"?
> It was my understanding that Electricians (licensed as such)
> go through a formal apprentice-journeyman-master process.
> Whereas "someone who fiddles with wires" mayn't even know
> the first thing about electricity (and, in some localities,
> wouldn't be allowed to work on an electrical system in a
> residence or commercial building).
>
> *Is* there such a formal process *required* to become a
> "licensed Electrician"?  Or, is it simply "take a test,
> pay the fee"  (in the US).

'round here, I'm pretty sure it's the later.  Personally, I've never 
gone through an appprenticeship (but have had some direction, and have 
experience), and am a lot better electrician than most of the ones in 
the are... It pisses me off immensely when I find somewhere that the 
electrician reversed hot and neutral... the most annoying so far was a 
lightswitch, where the idiot that built the place switched neutral 
instead of hot.  That made the simple act of changing a broken 
lightbulb a dangerous proposition...

FWIW, as a student employee at Purdue, I did a fair amount of electrical 
installation work (an 'electrician' not 'Electrician').

> I have a cousin who is a Master Electrician and I know went
> through those "stages".  Though I never thought to ask if
> that was a requirement for licensure or just a practical
> consequence of employment.

I think it has a lot to do with who you work for (and their 
requirements), or if you're a union member.

> (e.g., Don't MD's *need* to do internships?)

I think there's a HUGE gap between the requirements for being an 
electrician or an MD...

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Fri Jul 21 17:13:59 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:13:59 -0700
Subject: Pack Inspector
In-Reply-To: 
References: <44C06C88.5000208@msm.umr.edu>
	
Message-ID: <44C151A7.9010706@msm.umr.edu>

Zane H. Healy wrote:

> At 10:56 PM -0700 7/20/06, jim stephens wrote:
> 
> That's interesting.  That green sticker on the pack says 
> "Unclassified" doesn't it?  That's very strange, I wonder what kind of 
> system it was in.  The only systems I know of with packs like that 
> would have requirements for the packs to be destroyed.  Is there any 
> clue as to what hardware it was for?  It looks a *LOT* like the ones 
> we used on Honeywell DPS-8's.

I was surprised that it as not destroyed, given the Navy ID, but it is a 
ones pack, with no data,
so maybe someone believed the label.  Heaven knows with it being thru a 
scrapper, andnow
my kitchen you'd be nuts to try to read it anyway.

And the 300mb would barely hold a word document anyway :-)  probably 
only fighter
inventories anyway.  The navy or marines usually had their accounting 
and ID stuff done
at centers away from bases and shipped in already printed, so the 
computer of
this age probably would not have been for that sort of crap anyway.

The DPS-6's I had at ultimate had packs like this for 300mb drives, but 
I won't swear
that is what this is for.

the inspector came with a listing of the IBM packs and models, probably 
the CDC
drives that honeywell or dec used would be near that, or only double 
density.
I don't know of anything over 300 they did before going on to 
winchesters, and
killing off the removable (don't recall a 600 for instance).

Also it came with a cone like adapter for other packs, I didnt 
photograph, or if I
did it was not mentioned in the photos.

If anyone is interested in having something done with a pack they don't 
dare try
with their own, let me know.  I had to manually remove the pack cover on 
this
one, I think because I may be missing a pin release adapter to push up 
far enough
to release the cover on this model drive.

I suspect that there may have been a system to prevent accidental 
swapping of
packs on different spindles, but I never read or heard about it.  I only 
worked
on systems where there was one pack type around.  I.E. T50 or T-300, or
CDC 50's or CDC 300's and none of those interchanged, or were remotely
interchangable.

This pack is marked "master alignment pack" on the outside, but not on
the pack inside, so it may be special, don't know.  All the master alignment
packs I ever saw from IBM, or 3M were marked on the pack's badges,
not on hand written ones on the side.

Jim


From fernande at internet1.net  Fri Jul 21 17:17:33 2006
From: fernande at internet1.net (C Fernandez)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:17:33 -0400
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607212201.SAA13091@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: 	<003c01c6ac6b$d354b560$0b01a8c0@game>	<44C0C336.7070908@internet1.net>	<200607211113.25284.pat@computer-refuge.org>	<44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
	<200607212201.SAA13091@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C1527D.2080707@internet1.net>

der Mouse wrote:
> Which, of course, does not necessarily mean anything about their
> relative skill levels.  (I would be very interested in any work that
> looks at skill levels of formally trained professionals, self-taught
> professionals, and "interested amateurs".

The only thing I can say to that, is that idiots are everywhere in every 
field.  Also people that just don't care and only think about what's 
easier for them, when doing a job.

> But I've seen enough
> "professionally"-done things that make me go "eeeyeek, I don't know if
> that's code, but I sure hope not" and rip it out *now* before it causes
> trouble...I've seen enough such horrors that I actually wouldn't be
> surprised if there were a *negative* correlation between formal
> training and skill level.

Be careful here....."professionally" just means they paid to do it.  It 
doesn't mean they have any kind of license or training.  In a lot of 
fields, all it takes to becomes a professional is a truck, a phone 
number, and a product to install/sell.

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA


From bob at jfcl.com  Fri Jul 21 17:30:24 2006
From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:30:24 -0700
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
Message-ID: <000001c6ad15$47e5aa70$6b1636d0@GIZMO>

>At least TPC files are slightly more portable than some formats (RSX-11M+ 
>Virtual Tape comes to mind).

  Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
for more than ten minutes.  And by "working", I mean anything that doesn't
require disassembly of the drive and the computer to free a jammed tape.
Actually reading the bits is more than I could hope for :-)

Bob




From rtellason at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 17:38:00 2006
From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason, Sr.)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:38:00 -0400
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
References:  <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
	<44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607211838.00248.rtellason@gmail.com>

On Friday 21 July 2006 05:51 pm, Don Y wrote:
> C Fernandez wrote:
> > Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >> I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only "card-carrying
> >> union-member" electricians do apprenticeships.  Purdue (for example)
> >> hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't necessarily been through
> >> any apprenticeship program (though some of them work just as
> >> effectively as Chicago card-carrying union electricians... ;).
>
> Is this a question of "electrician" vs. "Electrician"? It was my
> understanding that Electricians (licensed as such) go through a forma
>l apprentice-journeyman-master process. Whereas "someone who fiddles with
> wires" mayn't even know the first thing about electricity (and, in some
> localities, wouldn't be allowed to work on an electrical system in a
> residence or commercial building).
>
> *Is* there such a formal process *required* to become a "licensed
> Electrician"?  Or, is it simply "take a test, pay the fee"  (in the US).

I think that this is something that will vary a great deal from one locale to 
another.  When I lived in the NYC area you couldn't work at that unless you 
had a license,  and the only way to get a license was to apprentice to 
somebody who did.  But NYC has some pretty tight restrictions in other 
respects anyhow,  no romex ferinstance -- you use BX for smaller structures 
or conduit for anything three stories or taller.

They also have the situation pretty screwed up in other respects as well.  I 
lived in Westchester County,  right outside The City,  and there was a guy I 
knew there who was in the trade but not able to find work.  While they were 
crying for people in The City.  I don't know if it was a union thing or what 
but he was _not_ allowed to cross that line for some reason.

OTOH,  around here there are no licensing requirements.  I've done some work 
of that sort,  and so has my brother (a great deal more than I have, in 
fact).  The only place that requires a license is the City of Harrisburg,  
but I don't need to go there.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Fri Jul 21 17:44:01 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:44:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <000001c6ad15$47e5aa70$6b1636d0@GIZMO> from "Robert Armstrong" at
	Jul 21, 2006 03:30:24 PM
Message-ID: <200607212244.k6LMi1vr014179@onyx.spiritone.com>

> >At least TPC files are slightly more portable than some formats (RSX-11M+ 
> >Virtual Tape comes to mind).
> 
>   Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
> for more than ten minutes.  And by "working", I mean anything that doesn't
> require disassembly of the drive and the computer to free a jammed tape.
> Actually reading the bits is more than I could hope for :-)

That's the one thing I dislike about the TZ30, it's a real pain to
disassemble to clean.  I've never had to deal with a jammed tape, but I
typically clean the drive good prior to using it, and make sure that the
tape is properly aligned in the cartridge.

I really should put together a MicroVAX II with a TK50 to read some of the
tapes I have around here.  If they're still readable.  Unfortunately a bunch
have been stored under bad conditions.

		Zane



From rtellason at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 17:42:21 2006
From: rtellason at gmail.com (Roy J. Tellason, Sr.)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:42:21 -0400
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>

On Friday 21 July 2006 06:06 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> Personally, I've never gone through an appprenticeship (but have had some
> direction, and have experience), and am a lot better electrician than most
> of the ones in the are... It pisses me off immensely when I find somewhere
> that the electrician reversed hot and neutral... the most annoying so far
> was a lightswitch, where the idiot that built the place switched neutral
> instead of hot.  That made the simple act of changing a broken lightbulb a
> dangerous proposition...

Only if you're grounded.  :-)

I can beat that,  though.  When the family unit in the apartment downstairs 
from us (Stepson, his wife, their six kids) complained about getting shocks 
from the dryer,  I checked the cord wiring (it had been replaced), the wiring 
at the outlet,  and finally the wiring in the breaker box,  after measuring 
120VAC between the dryer and the washer sitting next to it.  And in the 
breaker box I found black and white connected to the two-pole breaker for the 
dryer,  while red was tied to the ground bus.

And then there was the attempt when wiring up an outside light where the kid 
decided to hook both wires from the light and both wires from the feed up to 
the switch.  Turned the breaker back on and the light was on all the time,  
until he flipped the switch,  which popped the breaker,  because he had it 
going _across the line_.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From pat at computer-refuge.org  Fri Jul 21 18:17:21 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:17:21 -0400
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <200607212244.k6LMi1vr014179@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <200607212244.k6LMi1vr014179@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <200607211917.21144.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Friday 21 July 2006 18:44, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> > >At least TPC files are slightly more portable than some formats
> > > (RSX-11M+ Virtual Tape comes to mind).
> >
> >   Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive
> > working for more than ten minutes.  And by "working", I mean
> > anything that doesn't require disassembly of the drive and the
> > computer to free a jammed tape. Actually reading the bits is more
> > than I could hope for :-)
>
> That's the one thing I dislike about the TZ30, it's a real pain to
> disassemble to clean.  I've never had to deal with a jammed tape, but
> I typically clean the drive good prior to using it, and make sure
> that the tape is properly aligned in the cartridge.
>
> I really should put together a MicroVAX II with a TK50 to read some
> of the tapes I have around here.  If they're still readable. 
> Unfortunately a bunch have been stored under bad conditions.

Ya guys do realize that older DLT drives (possibly even DLT4000's) will 
read TK50/TK70 media, I hope?

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 21 17:35:54 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:35:54 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Pack Inspector
In-Reply-To:  from "Zane H. Healy" at
	Jul 21, 6 00:36:17 am
Message-ID: 

> >
> >I just got a junk pack to play with this week (same vendor).  It is marked
> >"Master Alignment Pack" and is declassified navy badged.  Anyway though
> >people might get a kick out of it.

> That's interesting.  That green sticker on the pack says 
> "Unclassified" doesn't it?  That's very strange, I wonder what kind 


If ,as the other label says, it's the alignment pack, then it would not 
have been written by the target system (it would contain the 
factory-written catseye patterns, etc), so presumably nothing classified 
ever got onto it.

And for once it sounds like the Military have realised what was going on :-)

-tony



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 21 17:27:48 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:27:48 +0100 (BST)
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607201755020817.0A47BC63@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 20, 6 05:55:02 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> On 7/21/2006 at 12:30 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >So presumably those people who install cables (we call them 
> >'electricians' over here normally) don't actually have to know the 
> >behaviour of electricity. 
> 
> We call them "card-carrying union members" here. :)

Yesm, I was being polite. We have various terms for the darn jobsworths 
[1] over here too...

[1[ A common UK expression for what the Jargon File would call a Droid. 
It comes form "It's more than my job's worth to do...", in other words it 
means somebody who won't bend rules even when it's obvious to somebody 
who has more than 2 working braincells that the rules don't apply...

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 21 18:01:36 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:01:36 +0100 (BST)
Subject: So how was VCF Midwest?
In-Reply-To: <200607211518.k6LFIJ4g010428@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> from "Dennis
	Boone" at Jul 21, 6 11:18:18 am
Message-ID: 

> 
>  > pedestal, and two of the four processing nodes in that minivan. Along with
>  > a lawn mower (don't ask). I don't recall what time we started loading this
> 
> Ok, I don't take direction well, and this is cc_talk_, after all.
> I just can't take it any more.  I'm dying to know.
> 
> Lawn mower?

Presuambly not a low-noise RF amplifier. (which was called a 'Lawnmower' 
by radar hackers for the obvious reason)

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 21 18:12:46 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:12:46 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Looking for some HP LJ3 repair hints and a paper tray
In-Reply-To: <009101c6ad0c$0e6c28e0$02fea8c0@alpha> from "Alexandre Souza" at
	Jul 21, 6 06:22:56 pm
Message-ID: 

> > My first laser printer used a Canon CX engine. I was given it because it
> > didn't work, it took me an hour or so to find a dead PAL (actually a HAL)
> > on the formatter board. Canon didn't sell spare chips, they wouldn't even
> > sell be the complete board. And they wouldn't supply a service manual.
> > (This was before I'd found The PrinterWorks, who would at least sell
> > mechanical bits and complete boards).
> 
>     Oh, you are the one of the CX crazy printer, you are a god! :oD

I wouldn't go that far, but at one point I had a large pile of CX bits on 
the bench... The hexagonal mirror and lenses in a foam-lined box. Gears, 
screws, bearings, etc everywhere. Ever seen inside the drive motor of a 
CX? It's odd, it's an ironless rotor. Flat, plastic moulding 
encapsulating the coils (I don't think I could _repair_ that), with a 
normal commutator in the shaft. And a big disk-shaped permanent magnet in 
the housing. 

And what about the page counter? It's electolytic (!). A pulse is applied 
to it after every page printed, and it 'electroplates' a tiny amount of, 
I assume, mercury, from one end to the other. Seeing the length of the 
column gives the number of pages printed.


> 
> > Many of the laser printer repair books and stuff on the web are
> > downright wrong. Others simply encourage lucky-dip methods. I've yet to
> > see one that really goes back to first principles and tells you to start
> > by checking signals, etc.
> 
>     Well, this is a deeper level that me and you may understand, but what
> about the John Doe with error 50 on his HP3? I fixed **lots** of HP3 with

And what about J-Random-Person with an error 50 when a new fuser lamp or 
new triac _doesn't_ fix it?

> just changing that (insert your preffered expletive here) thiristor, and
> giving a good cleaning and resolder of contacts as I stated in my part of
> the text

Oh, agreed. If I have an error 50, I pull the fuser and check the 
resistance between the pins of the 2 pin connector. Because about 75% of 
the time, the lamp is open.

But if that doesn't work, I grab the test gear and look, first, at the 
signals on the protection board (easy to get to, just remove the casing, 
upper fan, and cover on the AC block). Then I can see if (a) the DC 
controller should be driving the fuser and (b) if the protection board is 
driving the opto-triac and relay correcly. That gives be the direction to 
look in for the next fault.

-tony


From pat at computer-refuge.org  Fri Jul 21 18:19:28 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:19:28 -0400
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <200607211919.28560.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Friday 21 July 2006 18:06, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> On Friday 21 July 2006 17:51, Don Y wrote:
> > *Is* there such a formal process *required* to become a
> > "licensed Electrician"?  Or, is it simply "take a test,
> > pay the fee"  (in the US).
>
> 'round here, I'm pretty sure it's the later.  Personally, I've never
> gone through an appprenticeship (but have had some direction, and
> have experience), and am a lot better electrician than most of the
> ones in the are... It pisses me off immensely when I find somewhere

Oops, my fingers dropped a packet.. that was supposed to say "ones in 
the local area".

> that the electrician reversed hot and neutral... the most annoying so
> far was a lightswitch, where the idiot that built the place switched
> neutral instead of hot.  That made the simple act of changing a
> broken lightbulb a dangerous proposition...

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 21 18:15:14 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:15:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607212201.SAA13091@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> from "der
	Mouse" at Jul 21, 6 05:57:21 pm
Message-ID: 

> relative skill levels.  (I would be very interested in any work that
> looks at skill levels of formally trained professionals, self-taught
> professionals, and "interested amateurs".  But I've seen enough

I've heard it said 'Never underestimate the knowledge and ability of 
enthusiasts'...

My expeerience suggests that self-taught amateurs/enthusiasts, because 
they're interested in the subject, are often the best of the lot. 

-tony



From emu at e-bbes.com  Fri Jul 21 18:34:30 2006
From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:34:30 -0600
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <200607211917.21144.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <200607212244.k6LMi1vr014179@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<200607211917.21144.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <44C16486.7040107@e-bbes.com>

Patrick Finnegan wrote:

> Ya guys do realize that older DLT drives (possibly even DLT4000's) will 
> read TK50/TK70 media, I hope?

You have to go further back, than the DLT400 ...


From technobug at comcast.net  Fri Jul 21 18:46:22 2006
From: technobug at comcast.net (CRC)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:46:22 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: 


On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 04:19:36 -0400 (EDT), der Mouse  
 wrote:

> Thanks to my sister's bf's generosity, I am now the proud owner of a
> Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER".
>
> However, I am told it needs recalibration (this is why he gave it
> away).

[...hack...]

The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration procedures.

However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and provides  
a cal check for any meter you bring in. Yearly I help a friend tote  
all his toys down and have them tested - it's free! Check with your  
local Fluke distributor and see if you are so blessed.

	CRC

From ploopster at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 18:47:33 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:47:33 -0400
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <44C16486.7040107@e-bbes.com>
References: <200607212244.k6LMi1vr014179@onyx.spiritone.com>	<200607211917.21144.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<44C16486.7040107@e-bbes.com>
Message-ID: <44C16795.1060505@gmail.com>

e.stiebler wrote:
> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> 
>> Ya guys do realize that older DLT drives (possibly even DLT4000's) 
>> will read TK50/TK70 media, I hope?
> 
> You have to go further back, than the DLT400 ...

If memory serves, the TZ86 can read TK50/TK70 but not write.  I might be 
completely mistaken, however.

Peace...  Sridhar


From ying6926 at ureach.com  Fri Jul 21 18:59:24 2006
From: ying6926 at ureach.com (Henry Ji)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:59:24 -0400
Subject: Rotec industry PC
Message-ID: <200607212359.TAA23703@www21.ureach.com>


Hi 
I am looking for Rotec Gamma 4 industry PC. I wonder if anyone
has any information. 
thanks
Henry



From aek at bitsavers.org  Fri Jul 21 19:08:29 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:08:29 -0700
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
Message-ID: 


> Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
> for more than ten minutes.

Ten minutes sounds about the right length of time for the first traversal of
the tape, at which time the collected sticky crud from most old tapes is
deposited at the end of the track when it reverses direction, and then
proceeds to stick the tape to the head.

I don't know if the formulation of the tapes is such that you can remove the
stickiness with heat/dehydration. This is also something I need to try on
DC-300 carts that have become sticky.

You also need to THOUROUGHLY clean the head stack. I have a TZ30 that I
leave partially disasembled so I can pull the stack out the top so it can be
cleaned with isopropyl on a cotton swab.

--

It's probably time to put together lists of what TK50s (distr at least..)
have already been read to save others the grief of dealing with old sticky
media.






From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 21 19:22:13 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:22:13 -0700
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>

On 7/21/2006 at 6:42 PM Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:

>And then there was the attempt when wiring up an outside light...

The funny thing is that usually for industrial plant electricians sometimes
have LESS training than do the residential ones--yet industrial wiring can
be much more involved.  Back in my wasted youth working in a steel mill, I
saw an electrician hook up a water cooler (drinking fountain) to 250vdc.
About the smallest fuse used around there was 30 amps--and there was a
bewildering variety of voltages (110, 115, 208, 220, 230, 440, 660...),
phases (1 or 3) and frequencies (25 Hz, 60 Hz or DC).

The electrician sent the slagged cooler back as a "manufacturing
defect--failed on power-on"...

Cheers,
Chuck




From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 21 19:24:17 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:24:17 -0500
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
Message-ID: 



> And then there was the attempt when wiring up an outside light where the kid 
>decided to hook both wires from the light and both wires from the feed up to 
>the switch.  Turned the breaker back on and the light was on all the time,  
>until he flipped the switch,  which popped the breaker,  because he had it 
>going _across the line_.

Unorthodox, but it does work . . . I know for a fact that Silicon Graphics used a similar system on some machines
(Twin Tower, possibly others) to shut down the power supply if sufficient bits were removed to impede cooling.
Not sure if it was the same designer . . .





From jcwren at jcwren.com  Fri Jul 21 19:37:10 2006
From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:37:10 -0400
Subject: Looking For Tandy PC-2 / Sharp PC-1500
Message-ID: <44C17336.4030301@jcwren.com>

    I've got a friend who was reminiscing his old days in computing, and 
was thinking he'd like to have his old Tandy PC-2 again.  Does anyone 
have one they're looking to part with (a Sharp PC-1500 would also 
suffice)?  I'd like one that's cosmetically clean, has the 
cassette/plotter base and manuals.  If you have one you're looking to 
part with, please contact me off-list at jcwren at jcwren.com

    --jc


From useddec at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 19:37:59 2006
From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:37:59 -0500
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <624966d60607211737r33c44c21t8f4b4b10319d14d9@mail.gmail.com>

I have tapes and drives if you need any .

Thanks, Paul Anderson


On 7/21/06, Al Kossow  wrote:
>
>
> > Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
> > for more than ten minutes.
>
> Ten minutes sounds about the right length of time for the first traversal
> of
> the tape, at which time the collected sticky crud from most old tapes is
> deposited at the end of the track when it reverses direction, and then
> proceeds to stick the tape to the head.
>
> I don't know if the formulation of the tapes is such that you can remove
> the
> stickiness with heat/dehydration. This is also something I need to try on
> DC-300 carts that have become sticky.
>
> You also need to THOUROUGHLY clean the head stack. I have a TZ30 that I
> leave partially disasembled so I can pull the stack out the top so it can
> be
> cleaned with isopropyl on a cotton swab.
>
> --
>
> It's probably time to put together lists of what TK50s (distr at least..)
> have already been read to save others the grief of dealing with old sticky
> media.
>
>
>
>
>


From emu at e-bbes.com  Fri Jul 21 19:52:30 2006
From: emu at e-bbes.com (e.stiebler)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:52:30 -0600
Subject: Rotec industry PC
In-Reply-To: <200607212359.TAA23703@www21.ureach.com>
References: <200607212359.TAA23703@www21.ureach.com>
Message-ID: <44C176CE.4010504@e-bbes.com>

Henry Ji wrote:
> Hi 
> I am looking for Rotec Gamma 4 industry PC. I wonder if anyone
> has any information. 

Rotec would be a good guess ;-)
www.rotec.de ...


From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 19:54:25 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:54:25 -0400
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: 

> The funny thing is that usually for industrial plant electricians sometimes
> have LESS training than do the residential ones--yet industrial wiring can
> be much more involved.

Define how often is "usually sometimes"...

The funny thing I have seen is that perhaps the worst violators of
Electrical Code are computer guys...

--
Will


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Fri Jul 21 19:55:19 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:55:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <44C16486.7040107@e-bbes.com> from "e.stiebler" at Jul 21,
	2006 05:34:30 PM
Message-ID: <200607220055.k6M0tJ8F016643@onyx.spiritone.com>

> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> 
> > Ya guys do realize that older DLT drives (possibly even DLT4000's) will 
> > read TK50/TK70 media, I hope?
> 
> You have to go further back, than the DLT400 ...
> 

You have to have the DEC version of the DLT2000 or older, IIRC.  The Quantum
drives won't work, and I don't think I have any DEC drives...

		Zane



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Fri Jul 21 19:56:33 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:56:33 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To:  from "Al Kossow" at Jul 21,
	2006 05:08:29 PM
Message-ID: <200607220056.k6M0uX8P016665@onyx.spiritone.com>

> It's probably time to put together lists of what TK50s (distr at least..)
> have already been read to save others the grief of dealing with old sticky
> media.

Agreed, I have a few that have been done.

	Zane


From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Fri Jul 21 20:10:45 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:10:45 -0300
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
References: <200607220056.k6M0uX8P016665@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <01eb01c6ad2b$d5ec9b10$02fea8c0@alpha>

> > It's probably time to put together lists of what TK50s (distr at
least..)
> > have already been read to save others the grief of dealing with old
sticky
> > media.
> Agreed, I have a few that have been done.

    It is usual to bake the tape at a low-temperature owen (a box with foil
paper and an incandescent lamp) to dry the humidity of the tapes. It makes
them less sticky, but PLEASE do not try to re-run the tapes. It is enough to
save the conteints, but not always make tapes useable again

    This is an old tip from recording studios...




From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 21 20:25:50 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:25:50 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
Message-ID: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>



 Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:

you can get one free at : http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=T1321AA

Not classic yet, although I suppose it will run on a few ontopic machines.





From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 21 20:39:35 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:39:35 -0700
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: 
	<44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>	<44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <44C181D7.1070003@DakotaCom.Net>

Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> On Friday 21 July 2006 17:51, Don Y wrote:
>> C Fernandez wrote:
>>> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
>>>> I'm not trying to piss off anyone here, but really only
>>>> "card-carrying union-member" electricians do apprenticeships. 
>>>> Purdue (for example) hires non-unionized electricians, who haven't
>>>> necessarily been through any apprenticeship program (though some
>>>> of them work just as effectively as Chicago card-carrying union
>>>> electricians... ;).
>>> My point is that an electrician has formal training for the trade,
>>> and a handyman type maintenance person does not.  A friend of mine,
>>> was attending the local community college for his electrical
>>> training while working under a local electrical contractor for his
>>> apprenticeship.  I don't have any reason to believe that the
>>> contractor was union.
> 
> What I was intending (but worded poorly) was that having an 
> apprenticship isn't generally required for being an electrician, but I 
> do see your point.  You're speaking of an "Electrician" and I'm 
> speaking of "someone you pay to do electrical work under an appropriate 
> building permit."

Some places won't let you do the work.  Though sometimes there
are Electricians that you can hire for greatly reduced rates
who will look the other way while YOU do the work (no tie-ins)
and will come out and give it a good looking over before
representing it as *their* work to the Inspector.

>> Is this a question of "electrician" vs. "Electrician"?
>> It was my understanding that Electricians (licensed as such)
>> go through a formal apprentice-journeyman-master process.
>> Whereas "someone who fiddles with wires" mayn't even know
>> the first thing about electricity (and, in some localities,
>> wouldn't be allowed to work on an electrical system in a
>> residence or commercial building).
>>
>> *Is* there such a formal process *required* to become a
>> "licensed Electrician"?  Or, is it simply "take a test,
>> pay the fee"  (in the US).
> 
> 'round here, I'm pretty sure it's the later.  Personally, I've never 
> gone through an appprenticeship (but have had some direction, and have 
> experience), and am a lot better electrician than most of the ones in 
> the are... It pisses me off immensely when I find somewhere that the 
> electrician reversed hot and neutral... the most annoying so far was a 
> lightswitch, where the idiot that built the place switched neutral 
> instead of hot.  That made the simple act of changing a broken 
> lightbulb a dangerous proposition...

Yup.  I've seen reversed hot/neutral, ungrounded outlets/fixtures,
outlets wired across the two hot legs (fried a refrigerator that way!)
etc.  But, in residences, you can't always be sure it was an
Electrician who screwed up.  Some places that require licensed
Electricians to do work ALSO have back doors that let homeowners
(*the* homeowner, not his sibling, etc.) do work on their own
residences.

I've seen ceiling fans on 8' ceilings (d'uh), 20A circuits on 14AWG,
duplex outlets on "dedicated" circuits, ROMEX on outdoor circuits
too close to the ground, etc.  I.e. the sorts of things that an
electrician *should* be aware of but that a homeowner wouldn't
even *think* about having "requirements".

> FWIW, as a student employee at Purdue, I did a fair amount of electrical 
> installation work (an 'electrician' not 'Electrician').

My Uncle was a licensed Electrician -- actually, I had three
such uncles -- so I got exposed to a lot of this as a kid.
One used to strip wires with his *thumbnail* (ouch!  hurts
to even think about it!).  I've got great old-fashioned
"continuity testers" and a "mechanical voltmeter" (a magnet
pulls against a spring to give you an indication of 110,
220, etc.) in neat bakelite cases.  Amazing that they haven't
been dropped, etc. and broken in the past 50 years...

>> I have a cousin who is a Master Electrician and I know went
>> through those "stages".  Though I never thought to ask if
>> that was a requirement for licensure or just a practical
>> consequence of employment.
> 
> I think it has a lot to do with who you work for (and their 
> requirements), or if you're a union member.

But, presumably, there are requirements imposed by local
agencies as well?

>> (e.g., Don't MD's *need* to do internships?)
> 
> I think there's a HUGE gap between the requirements for being an 
> electrician or an MD...

My point was that you can't BECOME an MD without that "step".
Is there a similar "requirement" for "Electricians"?


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 21 20:40:43 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:40:43 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
Message-ID: <44C1821B.10206@DakotaCom.Net>

CRC wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 04:19:36 -0400 (EDT), der Mouse 
>  wrote:
> 
>> Thanks to my sister's bf's generosity, I am now the proud owner of a
>> Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER".
>>
>> However, I am told it needs recalibration (this is why he gave it
>> away).
> 
> [...hack...]
> 
> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration procedures.
> 
> However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and provides a 
> cal check for any meter you bring in. Yearly I help a friend tote all 
> his toys down and have them tested - it's free! Check with your local 
> Fluke distributor and see if you are so blessed.

EXCELLENT!




From aek at bitsavers.org  Fri Jul 21 20:51:11 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:51:11 -0700
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
Message-ID: 


>     It is usual to bake the tape at a low-temperature owen (a box with foil
> paper and an incandescent lamp) to dry the humidity of the tapes. It makes
> them less sticky, but PLEASE do not try to re-run the tapes. It is enough to
> save the contents, but not always make tapes useable again
> 
>     This is an old tip from recording studios...

Bertram and Cuddihy "Humid Aging of Magnetic Recording Tape"
IEEE Transactions On Magnetics  Sep 1982

Has a detailed analysis of the failure mechanism in the binder, along with
some temperature/humidity curves that show the rate at which the binder can
be rejuvenated.

I just bought a Toyo Living controlled humidity chamber this past week to
begin the exact characterization of the temperature and humidity protocol
required to process 1/2 tapes so that they can be read safely.

The whole "baking tapes" process has way too much black magic involved, and
I have tapes at the Museum that I have to read that are irreplaceable (and
VERY old) so I don't have the option of just throwing them onto a drive and
see if they start to squeel.

After that is dealing with DC-300's and DC-100's that I've observed with
exactly the same sticking problems.

Fortunately, the Museum has very few TK50s





From cisin at xenosoft.com  Fri Jul 21 21:21:55 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: back on-topic (was: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> bewildering variety of voltages (110, 115, 208, 220, 230, 440, 660...),
> phases (1 or 3) and frequencies (25 Hz, 60 Hz or DC).
> The electrician sent the slagged cooler back as a "manufacturing
> defect--failed on power-on"...

Even some electric company installers not knowing the difference between
delta and Y three phase

PG&E replaced the 11/70 on the condition that those present went along
with the lie that there had been a lightning strike.








From lance.w.lyon at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 21:22:02 2006
From: lance.w.lyon at gmail.com (Lance Lyon)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 12:22:02 +1000
Subject: Commodore 128 - coding a new BBS (online chat)
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<44C1821B.10206@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <03fe01c6ad35$9feed820$0100a8c0@pentium>

For Commodore people (& anyone who wants to help with the project), we're in 
the midst of thrashing out a new, modern  BBS package for the C128.

We've already had one online meet, second will be this weekend :

New York (U.S.A. - New York)    Saturday, July 22, 2006 at 10:00:00 PM
UTC-4 hours
Sydney (Australia - New South Wales)    Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 12:00:00
Noon    UTC+10 hours

Check a world time clock for other locations.

Chat will be here - http://landover.no-ip.com/128/chatbox.php

Last week there were six people involved in what ended up being a 2 hour
session. See the threads in the forum about what was covered. We'll be
expanding on last weeks topics & hopefully nailing down some features this
week.

Feel free to join  us if you can help out.

Lance

-- 
// http://landover.no-ip.com
   Commodore 128 forums & more! //




From cisin at xenosoft.com  Fri Jul 21 21:31:05 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:31:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <44C181D7.1070003@DakotaCom.Net>
References:  <44C13F9A.1040209@internet1.net>
	<44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<44C181D7.1070003@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <20060721192940.K79477@shell.lmi.net>

> I think there's a HUGE gap between the requirements for being an
> electrician or an MD...

electricians are supposed to protect the safety, health, and lives
of their clients.




From bob at jfcl.com  Fri Jul 21 21:32:37 2006
From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:32:37 -0700
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <200607211917.21144.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <001f01c6ad37$1c285690$0401010a@GIZMO>


> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
>Ya guys do realize that older DLT drives (possibly even DLT4000's) will 
>read TK50/TK70 media, I hope?

  I have a TH4AA (a DLT-III drive, I believe) that's marked "Not TK50/70
Certified" - does it not really mean that, or am I just unlucky enough to
have one of the DLT drives that's not backward compatible?

  And the real question is are the more modern DLT drives any more reliable
at reading TK50s than the older drives?

  One problem is that the TK50 tapes don't seem to survive long term storage
very well.  Most of the old tapes I have leave copious amounts of gunk on
the heads after even one pass thru the drive.  In severe cases, the tape
actually becomes stuck (glued!) to the head to the point where the drive
motors aren't able to move it anymore.  Then you have to disassemble the
drive, unstick the tape, clean the tape path, reassemble everything, and
then try to convince the drive to rewind and unload the tape for you.

  Speaking of which, does anybody know why a TK70/TZ30 drive, when you power
it up and press the unload button, insists on spacing forward for ten or
fifteen feet _before_ it'll finally start rewinding?

Bob





From starmaster at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 21:34:48 2006
From: starmaster at gmail.com (Star Master)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:34:48 -0600
Subject: MSD SD-2 Service Manual
Message-ID: <5736e8250607211934u40608bd4t94fa91bf8c7fd22c@mail.gmail.com>

And thusly were the wise words spake by Star Master
>
> Does anyone know where I can get an MSD SD-2 Service Manual? I'm willing
to
> pay an indivual or a company (Can't find one that has it).
> Thanks

This has the schematics and user manual:

http://staff.washington.edu/rrcc/uwweb/MSD-SD2/

Cheers,

Bryan

Thanks Bryan, I already found those...However I need the service and or
diagnostic info for it. When I turn it on all the lights turn on and stay
on, and it is not seen by the computer.

Anyone else?
Thanks


From ken at seefried.com  Fri Jul 21 21:40:50 2006
From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:40:50 -0400
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
Message-ID: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>


While not strictly OT, I figure if any crowd would know an answer to this, 
this one would.  I'm building some electronic toys that need a retro look.  
I'm looking for some toggle switches (SPST) with long paddle handles, very 
old school.  All I can find in the regular catalogs have anemic small 
paddles.  Any pointers? 

Ken 



From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Fri Jul 21 21:49:38 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:49:38 +1200
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
Message-ID: 

On 7/22/06, Ken Seefried  wrote:
>
> While not strictly OT, I figure if any crowd would know an answer to this,
> this one would.  I'm building some electronic toys that need a retro look.
> I'm looking for some toggle switches (SPST) with long paddle handles, very
> old school.  All I can find in the regular catalogs have anemic small
> paddles.  Any pointers?

Do you have any pictures of vintage equipment with the kind you are
looking for?  There are C&K switches with wide paddles, but they tend
to run $4-$6 in small (under 100) quantities.

You might start looking at the C&K line.  They have detailed part
numbers that specify connection type, paddle length/width, color, etc.
 Without knowing what look you are going for, it's hard to recommend a
specific part of specific vendor.

-ethan


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 21 22:02:11 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:02:11 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
Message-ID: <44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>

Ken Seefried wrote:
> 
> While not strictly OT, I figure if any crowd would know an answer to 
> this, this one would.  I'm building some electronic toys that need a 
> retro look.  I'm looking for some toggle switches (SPST) with long 
> paddle handles, very old school.  All I can find in the regular catalogs 
> have anemic small paddles.  Any pointers?

How big is big?  Are you looking for the extra long
*plastic* "flat" bats?  Or, just the older steel bat
toggles?

NKK makes some of the latter -- bat is maybe 7/8" long
(measured from the outermost portion of the switch body).
They also make some of the flat plastic handles though
only  ~3/4" long (not like the 2" long bats).  Former have
#6-32 screw terminals, latter are smaller solder eyelets.

Mountain makes one with a bat about 1" long (from the mounting
surface) that's sort of flat.

Marlin had some really cool *lighted* plastic toggles with
reasonably long (flat) bats.  But stock there tends to be
variable.  (red, green and yellow!  :> )  I've seen the same
sw's elsewhere so if interested I'll have to dig deeper.

Note that these tend to be much larger than the C&K minitoggles
so make sure you've planned extra space behind your panel, etc.


From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 21 22:22:09 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:22:09 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>

See anything here that's right?  Carling makes some very long paddle
switches:

http://www.carlingtech.com/news/pdf/pr43_MiniSWCat.pdf




From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Fri Jul 21 22:53:14 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:53:14 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> See anything here that's right?  Carling makes some very long paddle
> switches:
> 
> http://www.carlingtech.com/news/pdf/pr43_MiniSWCat.pdf
> 
But then who sells the odd ball parts except lots of ... ???
Still if you have IMSAI 8080 you can still get replacement switches.
  http://www.imsai.net/
Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.






From aek at bitsavers.org  Fri Jul 21 23:17:39 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:17:39 -0700
Subject: ISO Ultrix 4.x CD images
Message-ID: 


Someone I know is working on a DECstation simulation, and is looking for
Ultrix to test on it. Anyone have images of the distr discs?

Also, FWIW, I found someone who has a simulated 5xxx and O2 running
http://gavare.se/gxemul





From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 21 23:30:57 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:30:57 -0500
Subject: still having capacitor problems in the IRIS PSU
Message-ID: 

I'm starting to get a bit peeved - I've tried randomly throwing capacitors across the output, scientifically choosing a capacitor to have a reactance of 1 ohm
at the trouble frequency, and taking that cap and putting another .022?f unit in parallel - 

and the noise doesn't get attenuated at all, it's still at around 500mV, in high audio frequencies.

If it was going down (to ~300 mV) I'd just build a LC choke filter and be done with it, but its stubborn spurning of something that
should work is bothering me. Is the ripple carrying that much current that the resistance of the capacitor is an issue? I don't think so-
this is a secondary supply (-5V!). I also don't get why there should be a relatively equal AC component in 3 secondary supplies that do
share much after the transformer primary, and yet a low level in the main +5V.

Could this be something bizarre in the connection of the scope? I'm doing a very bodged scope -> BNC cable (one of the bundle that usually
runs to the monitor) -> 2 alligator clip leads stuck on to the relevant bits of the other-end BNC connector.

Been trying to work out this board. It's one daughtercard in the PSU, the chopper transisors are on another. Yet, there are 3 TO-3 cased bipolar
(2Nxxx parts) scattered amongst the rectifier diodes. Similar units are not present in the +5V channel. Would this have linear regulators on the non-main channels?





From lbickley at bickleywest.com  Sat Jul 22 00:35:14 2006
From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:35:14 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <200607212235.14388.lbickley@bickleywest.com>

On Friday 21 July 2006 18:25, Scott Quinn wrote:
>  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the
> PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:
>
> you can get one free at :
> http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumbe

Thanks! Ordered one...

Cheers,
Lyle
-- 
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
Mountain View, CA
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 00:56:23 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:56:23 +1200
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <000001c6ad15$47e5aa70$6b1636d0@GIZMO>
References: <000001c6ad15$47e5aa70$6b1636d0@GIZMO>
Message-ID: 

On 7/22/06, Robert Armstrong  wrote:
>   Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
> for more than ten minutes.  And by "working", I mean anything that doesn't
> require disassembly of the drive and the computer to free a jammed tape.
> Actually reading the bits is more than I could hope for :-)

I had some serious problems with an external TK50 drive that came with
an original Failed Circus upgrade of a uVAX-I to uVAX-II ($20K in
1985? 1986?) of that nature.  What did it for me was to fix
intermittent contact of the drive motor cables to the mainboard of the
drive - they use 0.1"-spacing right-angle press-in-type connectors
(don't recall the brand), the same style (but smaller size) as what
fails in the original BA-23 power harness.  Unlike the power supply
harness, I don't think it's an overcurrent issue per se, but after 10+
years, the contacts don't seem to be as reliable as when they were
new.

Getting good power to the motors fixed the problem _I_ had with tapes
getting stuck in that particular drive.  YMMV.

-ethan


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 01:01:47 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:01:47 +1200
Subject: DLT and TKxx drives (was Re: VMS program to read/write simh .tap
	container files?)
Message-ID: 

On 7/22/06, Robert Armstrong  wrote:
>   Now if only there were some magic to keep a TK50/TK70/TZ30 drive working
> for more than ten minutes.

Speaking of the drives, I have a small Perl program that will emit the
right PostScript to directly print lines of text on the label inserts.
 Free if anyone wants it.

I was tired of handwritten cardboard labels and misaligned
laserprinted Avery sticky labels.

-ethan


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 01:02:39 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:02:39 +1200
Subject: back on-topic (was: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: <20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
	<20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: 

On 7/22/06, Fred Cisin  wrote:
> Even some electric company installers not knowing the difference between
> delta and Y three phase
>
> PG&E replaced the 11/70 on the condition that those present went along
> with the lie that there had been a lightning strike.

Ow!

-ethan


From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 01:40:52 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:40:52 -0400
Subject: back on-topic (was: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: 
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
	<20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>
	
Message-ID: 

> > PG&E replaced the 11/70 on the condition that those present went along
> > with the lie that there had been a lightning strike.
>
> Ow!

Now you know the difference between a DEC and an IBM. The DEC smokes
and burns, and the IBM just says "no, you don't".

--
Will


From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 02:05:18 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:05:18 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>

On 7/21/2006 at 9:53 PM woodelf wrote:

>But then who sells the odd ball parts except lots of ... ???
>Still if you have IMSAI 8080 you can still get replacement switches.
>  http://www.imsai.net/
>Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
>stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.

Well, the surplus dealers sometimes have some unusual stuff:

http://www.electronicsurplus.com
http://www.meci.com

There's about a zillion of these places around.

Cheers,
Chuck








From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 02:08:24 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:08:24 -0700
Subject: still having capacitor problems in the IRIS PSU
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200607220008240909.10C3E27F@10.0.0.252>

On 7/21/2006 at 11:30 PM Scott Quinn wrote:

>I'm starting to get a bit peeved - I've tried randomly throwing
>capacitors across the output, scientifically choosing a capacitor to have
>a reactance of 1 ohm at the trouble frequency, 

Forgive a stupid question, Scott--are you taking your ground return for
your scope from the metal chassis or from a grounded track on the PCB?
They might not be the same thing.

Cheers,
Chuck




From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 03:18:11 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:18:11 +1200
Subject: back on-topic (was: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: 
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
	<20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>
	
	
Message-ID: 

On 7/22/06, William Donzelli  wrote:
> Now you know the difference between a DEC and an IBM. The DEC smokes
> and burns, and the IBM just says "no, you don't".

What... like the IBM drives w/3-phase motors (can't recall the exact
model number) that "notice" that the motor is wired out of phase (and
spinning backwards) and will _not_ load the heads?

-ethan


From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Sat Jul 22 03:35:36 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 01:35:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
Message-ID: 


If anyone wants 3.5" DSDD disks from me, I'm all out.  That lot that I
posted about last week is mostly bad judging from the sixty I've gone
through so far.  With 200 to go, I'll just chuck this mess out unless
someone here wants to do something silly like make a suit of armour out of
floppies.  If that's the case, I'll sell the whole lot for the cost of
shipping.


-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From arcarlini at iee.org  Sat Jul 22 03:40:50 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 09:40:50 +0100
Subject: VMS program to read/write simh .tap container files?
In-Reply-To: <44C16795.1060505@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001001c6ad6a$8a1999b0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Sridhar Ayengar wrote:

> If memory serves, the TZ86 can read TK50/TK70 but not write.  I might
> be completely mistaken, however.

I'm pretty sure that your memory is correct. Beyond the
Tx86, the drives lost the backward compatibility. In
fact there was an N variant that lost the compatibility
in the x86 line too (I presume it cost less to buy,
or maybe the cost of the backwards-compatibility parts
rose too much during the lifetime of the drive).

Antonio




From trixter at oldskool.org  Sat Jul 22 03:49:06 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 03:49:06 -0500
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>

David Griffith wrote:
> If anyone wants 3.5" DSDD disks from me, I'm all out.  That lot that I
> posted about last week is mostly bad judging from the sixty I've gone
> through so far.  With 200 to go, I'll just chuck this mess out unless
> someone here wants to do something silly like make a suit of armour out of
> floppies.  If that's the case, I'll sell the whole lot for the cost of
> shipping.

How does an entire lot go bad?  Are you seeing an exorbitant amount of 
bad sectors after a format?
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From arcarlini at iee.org  Sat Jul 22 04:00:42 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 10:00:42 +0100
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607212235.14388.lbickley@bickleywest.com>
Message-ID: <001101c6ad6d$50c16550$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Lyle Bickley wrote:
> On Friday 21 July 2006 18:25, Scott Quinn wrote:
>>  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the
>> PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets: 
>> 
>> you can get one free at :
>>
http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?product
>> Numbe
> 
> Thanks! Ordered one...

Me too ... but I also get an email which appears to offer
a download (which I'll check out next week). It does
seem that they'll send physical CDs, but as I'm in the UK
I'll have to wait up to 6 weeks to find out. If anyone
receives physical CDs please let me know so I can save
myself burning some CD-Rs!

Antonio



From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Sat Jul 22 04:06:25 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:06:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
In-Reply-To: <44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>
References: 
	<44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: 

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006, Jim Leonard wrote:

> David Griffith wrote:
> > If anyone wants 3.5" DSDD disks from me, I'm all out.  That lot that I
> > posted about last week is mostly bad judging from the sixty I've gone
> > through so far.  With 200 to go, I'll just chuck this mess out unless
> > someone here wants to do something silly like make a suit of armour out of
> > floppies.  If that's the case, I'll sell the whole lot for the cost of
> > shipping.
>
> How does an entire lot go bad?  Are you seeing an exorbitant amount of
> bad sectors after a format?

The most handy machine for testing these is a Linux box.  Since these were
previously used on an Amiga, I need to do a low-level format before using
mformat.  Here's the typical response:

# fdformat /dev/fd0u720
Double-sided, 80 tracks, 9 sec/track. Total capacity 720 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... Problem reading cylinder 62, expected 9216, read 2048

These disks were found in a box, not protected very well from dust.  That
might have done it.

-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From dave06a at dunfield.com  Sat Jul 22 05:55:37 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:55:37 -0500
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
In-Reply-To: 
References: <44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: <200607220958.k6M9wNtu006308@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> > How does an entire lot go bad?  Are you seeing an exorbitant amount of
> > bad sectors after a format?
> 
> The most handy machine for testing these is a Linux box.  Since these were
> previously used on an Amiga, I need to do a low-level format before using
> mformat.  Here's the typical response:
> 
> # fdformat /dev/fd0u720
> Double-sided, 80 tracks, 9 sec/track. Total capacity 720 kB.
> Formatting ... done
> Verifying ... Problem reading cylinder 62, expected 9216, read 2048
> 
> These disks were found in a box, not protected very well from dust.  That
> might have done it.

Is the drive (heads) clean? Try giving the drive a good cleaning before you
chuck the disks.

Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From spectre at floodgap.com  Sat Jul 22 07:40:36 2006
From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:40:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607212235.14388.lbickley@bickleywest.com> from Lyle Bickley
	at "Jul 21, 6 10:35:14 pm"
Message-ID: <200607221240.k6MCeama010862@floodgap.com>

> >  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the
> > PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:
> >
> > you can get one free at :
> > http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumbe
> 
> Thanks! Ordered one...

So did I. Great find!

-- 
--------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ ---
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Everyone is entitled to my opinion. -- James Carpenter ---------------------


From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Sat Jul 22 10:06:55 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:06:55 -0400
Subject: back on-topic (was: OT: Electricians was Re: IC pin corrosion
In-Reply-To: 
References:  <44C14C6D.8000404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607211806.53738.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607211842.21780.rtellason@gmail.com>
	<200607211722130535.0F500451@10.0.0.252>
	<20060721191813.B79477@shell.lmi.net>
	
	
	
Message-ID: 

> What... like the IBM drives w/3-phase motors (can't recall the exact
> model number) that "notice" that the motor is wired out of phase (and
> spinning backwards) and will _not_ load the heads?

Actually, most IBM stuff that uses three phase has a phase rotation
sensor inside, as well as voltage sensing, so if something is not
right, the machine will Power Check.

--
Will


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Sat Jul 22 11:05:51 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:05:51 -0500
Subject: still having capacitor problems in the IRIS PSU
Message-ID: <503bc98f466c4b0596d905e1f70094b2@valleyimplants.com>



> Forgive a stupid question, Scott--are you taking your ground return for
>your scope from the metal chassis or from a grounded track on the PCB?
>They might not be the same thing.

no grounded track immediately available, so I'm running the leads across the two channel N outputs.
also tried to chassis/earth ground, didn't make a difference . . .





From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Sat Jul 22 12:54:26 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:54:26 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:

>>Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
>>stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.
> 
> 
> Well, the surplus dealers sometimes have some unusual stuff:
> 
> http://www.electronicsurplus.com
> http://www.meci.com
> 
The usual surplus places I check at the moment don't have any
good switches. I plan to make a simple EEPROM programer with
a octal keypad and was looking for a cheap way of doing it.
I plan to send out a order to BG Micro for some sockets soon
for the PDP-8 replica from Spare time Gizmos they are selling
as well as a little box for it.
PLUG for Spare Time Gizmos -- only two complete kits left.
http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Sat Jul 22 17:14:44 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:14:44 +0000
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
In-Reply-To: <200607220958.k6M9wNtu006308@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>
	<200607220958.k6M9wNtu006308@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C2A354.40001@yahoo.co.uk>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>>> How does an entire lot go bad?  Are you seeing an exorbitant amount of
>>> bad sectors after a format?
>> The most handy machine for testing these is a Linux box.  Since these were
>> previously used on an Amiga, I need to do a low-level format before using
>> mformat.  Here's the typical response:
>>
>> # fdformat /dev/fd0u720
>> Double-sided, 80 tracks, 9 sec/track. Total capacity 720 kB.
>> Formatting ... done
>> Verifying ... Problem reading cylinder 62, expected 9216, read 2048
>>
>> These disks were found in a box, not protected very well from dust.  That
>> might have done it.
> 
> Is the drive (heads) clean? Try giving the drive a good cleaning before you
> chuck the disks.

...and if that doesn't help it's perhaps worth pulling the drive and checking 
inside for foreign objects, just in case.

have you got other DD disks from a different batch / system that format OK 
with that drive? Or a different drive you can try to rule out any problem with 
the existing one?

cheers

Jules




From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Sat Jul 22 16:25:24 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 16:25:24 -0500
Subject: 
Message-ID: <53f531a638ad455181f5e6075e794d4d@valleyimplants.com>


>no grounded track immediately available, so I'm running the leads across the two channel N outputs.
>also tried to chassis/earth ground, didn't make a difference . . .
 
That doesn't make much sense. The scope is across the PSU Channel 4 (-5V) outputs
(labeled + and -, I'm pretty sure they are GND and -5V in that order)





From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sat Jul 22 16:27:30 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:27:30 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Looking For Tandy PC-2 / Sharp PC-1500
In-Reply-To: <44C17336.4030301@jcwren.com> from "J.C. Wren" at Jul 21,
	6 08:37:10 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
>     I've got a friend who was reminiscing his old days in computing, and 
> was thinking he'd like to have his old Tandy PC-2 again.  Does anyone 

I've seen a number on E-bay over the last few months, I don't think 
they're that rare... What is rare is the RS232 interface, and ever rarer 
the 140 key user-definable keyboard (I am half-looking for the latter).

> have one they're looking to part with (a Sharp PC-1500 would also 
> suffice)?  I'd like one that's cosmetically clean, has the 
> cassette/plotter base and manuals.  If you have one you're looking to 

Be warned that the plotter uses one of those little 4-pen Alps mechanisms 
we were talking about recently, and that the motor pinions have almost 
certainly cracked by now. 

And FWIW, I do have the technical manual (scheamtics, ROM calls, etc) for 
the PC1500 sysstem. I think the service manuals for the PC2 version are 
on the web somewhere.

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sat Jul 22 16:35:22 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:35:22 +0100 (BST)
Subject: still having capacitor problems in the IRIS PSU
In-Reply-To:  from "Scott
	Quinn" at Jul 21, 6 11:30:57 pm
Message-ID: 

> Been trying to work out this board. It's one daughtercard in the PSU, the=
>  chopper transisors are on another. Yet, there are 3 TO-3 cased bipolar
> (2Nxxx parts) scattered amongst the rectifier diodes. Similar units are n=
> ot present in the +5V channel. Would this have linear regulators on the n=
> on-main channels?

It's possible. On most SMPSUs, the main output (here the 5V line) is used 
to provide the feed back to the chopper control circuit (so that output 
comes out at the right voltage), the other just 'tag along'. Some better 
machines put linear regulators on the minor outputs (the HP9000/217 
currently on my bench has an SMPSU that gives out 5V and +/- 14.4V, the 
latter 2 rails are regulated down to 12V by linear circuits on the 
backplane).

It's not unheard-off for the minor outputs to have their own _switching_ 
regulators running off unregulated outputs of the main supply. Obviosuly 
tese regulators don't have to provide any isolation between input and 
output, and are fairly simple (The HP9845B PSU is one such, with, IIRC, 2 
main chopper circuits, each with its own feedback loop from its main 
output, and several switching regulator circuits for the minor outputs. I 
think there's a total of 5 chopper controllers in that supply...)

-tony


From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 17:24:05 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:24:05 -0700
Subject: 3.5" DSDD disks mostly bad
In-Reply-To: <44C2A354.40001@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <44C1E682.40403@oldskool.org>
	<200607220958.k6M9wNtu006308@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C2A354.40001@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607221524050273.140A3276@10.0.0.252>

It could also be the same situation as the large box of 3.5" DS2D diskettes
that we have--they were rejects accumulated over a few years of
duplication.  They're unlikely to get much better.

Cheers,
Chuck




From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 17:26:58 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:26:58 -0700
Subject: Overland Data 3210 parallel port interface?
Message-ID: <200607221526580311.140CD65A@10.0.0.252>

I've got an OD3210 9-track drive that's been sitting around here for a
couple of years.  I note that it has a Pertec interface (seems to work) and
a parallel port interface.  I'm curious about the latter.  It appears to be
4-bit each direction, but I don't have a clue as to the protocol or command
set.

Does anyone have a driver or information about the Overland parallel port
interface?

Thanks,
Chuck




From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 17:33:02 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:33:02 -0700
Subject: Capacitor problems
In-Reply-To: <53f531a638ad455181f5e6075e794d4d@valleyimplants.com>
References: <53f531a638ad455181f5e6075e794d4d@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <200607221533020202.141263BC@10.0.0.252>

On 7/22/2006 at 4:25 PM Scott Quinn wrote:


>That doesn't make much sense. The scope is across the PSU Channel 4 (-5V)
>outputs (labeled + and -, I'm pretty sure they are GND and -5V in that
order)

I'm just thinking that your high-frequency noise is leaking in via some
non-obvious path.  What happens if you leave your scope ground connected
where it is, but terminate the probe in a, say, 10K resistor to ground
(i.e. taken off the PSU supply rail)?    I'm wondering if the noise is
really on the DC line and not just being picked up via a ground loop.

Cheers,
Chuck






From healyzh at aracnet.com  Sat Jul 22 19:23:54 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:23:54 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: 

>  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the 
>PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:
>
>you can get one free at : 
>http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=T1321AA
>
>Not classic yet, although I suppose it will run on a few ontopic machines.

Way cool!  Thanks for the info, I've been needing to get a copy of 
HP-UX for the workstation that I have.  If my system isn't on-topic, 
I think it's getting pretty close.

		Zane

-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sat Jul 22 19:27:02 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:27:02 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
Message-ID: <200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>> Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER".
> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
> procedures.

Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
directly?  Fluke's webpages are rather seriously broken.  First, they
seem to have been written by someone who doesn't understand HTML
commenting (they look as though they think  ends one, the usual busted-commenting problem), and, when I use
lynx and turn on its busted comments compatability mode, I end up at
http://ca.fluke.com/caen/support/manuals/productManuals.htm, which
seems to list the manual I want, but the "Download" link simply points
back to that same page, ending up at the same URL with a bunch of goop
tacked onto the URL, and the content is the search-for-a-product page
content.

I've written to their "contact us" address, but, given my (lack of)
success at getting webpage owners to fix their pages, I don't really
expect them to do anything but tell me it works with IE (which it may
well do for all I know) so the problem is obviously mine.

> However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and provides
> a cal check for any meter you bring in. Yearly I help a friend tote
> all his toys down and have them tested - it's free!  Check with your
> local Fluke distributor and see if you are so blessed.

Now *that* is cool.  I'll have to look into it.  Thank you very much.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sat Jul 22 20:03:33 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 18:03:33 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>	
	<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>

der Mouse wrote:
>>> Fluke 87 "TRUE RMS MULTIMETER".
>> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
>> procedures.
> 
> Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
> directly?  Fluke's webpages are rather seriously broken.  First, they
> seem to have been written by someone who doesn't understand HTML
> commenting (they look as though they think  ends one, the usual busted-commenting problem), and, when I use
> lynx and turn on its busted comments compatability mode, I end up at
> http://ca.fluke.com/caen/support/manuals/productManuals.htm, which
> seems to list the manual I want, but the "Download" link simply points
> back to that same page, ending up at the same URL with a bunch of goop
> tacked onto the URL, and the content is the search-for-a-product page
> content.

http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf

is the "user's manual".   There are other manuals listed
for variants of the 87.

Of course, if you want it en francais, you'll have to look
elsewhere!  ;-)

> I've written to their "contact us" address, but, given my (lack of)
> success at getting webpage owners to fix their pages, I don't really
> expect them to do anything but tell me it works with IE (which it may
> well do for all I know) so the problem is obviously mine.
> 
>> However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and provides
>> a cal check for any meter you bring in. Yearly I help a friend tote
>> all his toys down and have them tested - it's free!  Check with your
>> local Fluke distributor and see if you are so blessed.
> 
> Now *that* is cool.  I'll have to look into it.  Thank you very much.

I wonder if this is true north of the border?


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sat Jul 22 21:23:41 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 22:23:41 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>	
	<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>>> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
>>> procedures.
>> Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
>> directly?  [...website trouble...]
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf
> is the "user's manual".   There are other manuals listed for variants
> of the 87.

That one just refers to the service manual for calibration, and
assets.fluke.com/manuals/ doesn't let me list its contents - I don't
suppose you have a pointer to the service manual?  (This one is
certainly very useful; for example, it taught me about modes like
capacitance and duty cycle.  But it punts on calibration.)  I tried
guessing a few names, like 87______smeng0800.pdf or 87______sm0800.pdf
or 80______sm.pdf, and all I got were 404s.

> Of course, if you want it en francais, you'll have to look elsewhere!
> ;-)

I could deal with a French manual, but English is better for me. :)

>>> However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and
>>> provides a cal check for any meter you bring in.  [...]
>> Now *that* is cool.  I'll have to look into it.  Thank you very much.
> I wonder if this is true north of the border?

Once the weekend ends I should be able to contact Fluke and find out.

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From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 22 22:28:02 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:28:02 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <200607222028020674.1520771C@10.0.0.252>

Is this something close to what you were looking for?

http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/8xv_____cmeng0100.pdf




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sat Jul 22 22:47:34 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:47:34 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C2F156.4030903@DakotaCom.Net>

der Mouse wrote:
>>>> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
>>>> procedures.
>>> Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
>>> directly?  [...website trouble...]
>> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf
>> is the "user's manual".   There are other manuals listed for variants
>> of the 87.
> 
> That one just refers to the service manual for calibration, and
> assets.fluke.com/manuals/ doesn't let me list its contents - I don't
> suppose you have a pointer to the service manual?  (This one is
> certainly very useful; for example, it taught me about modes like
> capacitance and duty cycle.  But it punts on calibration.)  I tried
> guessing a few names, like 87______smeng0800.pdf or 87______sm0800.pdf
> or 80______sm.pdf, and all I got were 404s.
> 
>> Of course, if you want it en francais, you'll have to look elsewhere!
>> ;-)
> 
> I could deal with a French manual, but English is better for me. :)
> 
>>>> However, Fluke has a van that tours all the major cities and
>>>> provides a cal check for any meter you bring in.  [...]
>>> Now *that* is cool.  I'll have to look into it.  Thank you very much.
>> I wonder if this is true north of the border?
> 
> Once the weekend ends I should be able to contact Fluke and find out.

http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_85_87smeng0500.pdf

There are comments about "series IV" and "series V", etc.
But, this one (above) claims to be "83, 85, 87 service"


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sat Jul 22 22:57:26 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:57:26 -0700
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C2F3A6.9010703@DakotaCom.Net>

der Mouse wrote:
>>>> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
>>>> procedures.
>>> Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
>>> directly?  [...website trouble...]
>> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf
>> is the "user's manual".   There are other manuals listed for variants
>> of the 87.
> 
> That one just refers to the service manual for calibration, and
> assets.fluke.com/manuals/ doesn't let me list its contents - I don't
> suppose you have a pointer to the service manual?  (This one is
> certainly very useful; for example, it taught me about modes like
> capacitance and duty cycle.  But it punts on calibration.)  I tried
> guessing a few names, like 87______smeng0800.pdf or 87______sm0800.pdf
> or 80______sm.pdf, and all I got were 404s.


83, 85, 87    1000V service manual
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_1000_smeng0000.pdf

83, 85, 87    1000V service manual supplement
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_1000_smeng0002.pdf

87 user's manual
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf

87 & 89 Series IV user's
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0200.pdf

87 & 89 series iv user supplement
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0202.pdf

87 & 89 series iv service
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_smeng0000.pdf

87 & 89 series iv service supplement
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_smeng0006.pdf

87 & 89 series iv user's
http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0300.pdf



From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sat Jul 22 23:04:59 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:04:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <200607222028020674.1520771C@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607222028020674.1520771C@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607230405.AAA14561@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> Is this something close to what you were looking for?

> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/8xv_____cmeng0100.pdf

Yes, but what I have is not an 87 Series V, just a plain vanilla 87.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sat Jul 22 23:22:39 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:22:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <44C2F156.4030903@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2F156.4030903@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607230426.AAA21832@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_85_87smeng0500.pdf

This looks like just what I wanted.  Excellent.  Thank you very much.

I am surprised to see that it appears to be a scan of a paper manual,
though that probably will affect my use of it little if at all.  (PDFs
I usually have to print out to be able to stand to read at any length.)

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
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From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sat Jul 22 23:28:05 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:28:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <44C2F3A6.9010703@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2F3A6.9010703@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607230429.AAA21962@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> 83, 85, 87    1000V service manual
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_1000_smeng0000.pdf
> [...more...]

Splendid.  Thank you very much.  At most one of those is what I'm
looking for now, but all have been stashed away against future need.
(Or will have been once the fetches complete, at least.)

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
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From medavidson at mac.com  Sun Jul 23 01:04:17 2006
From: medavidson at mac.com (Mark Davidson)
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:04:17 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: 
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
	
Message-ID: 


On Jul 22, 2006, at 5:23 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:

>>  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out  
>> the PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:
>>
>> you can get one free at : http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/ 
>> displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=T1321AA
>>
>> Not classic yet, although I suppose it will run on a few ontopic  
>> machines.
>
> Way cool!  Thanks for the info, I've been needing to get a copy of  
> HP-UX for the workstation that I have.  If my system isn't on- 
> topic, I think it's getting pretty close.
>
> 		Zane

Agreed... thanks so much for pointing this out!

Mark



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 08:44:16 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:44:16 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C37D30.8010807@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> See anything here that's right?  Carling makes some very long paddle
>> switches:
>>
>> http://www.carlingtech.com/news/pdf/pr43_MiniSWCat.pdf
>>
> But then who sells the odd ball parts except lots of ... ???
> Still if you have IMSAI 8080 you can still get replacement switches.
>  http://www.imsai.net/
> Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
> stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.

Grayhill make$ $ome really nice pu$hbutton matrixe$.
But, they are $tiff like tho$e on a WE touchtone telephone.

Oh, and did I mention they are expen$ive?  :>


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 08:52:07 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:52:07 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> 
>>> Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
>>> stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.
>>
>>
>> Well, the surplus dealers sometimes have some unusual stuff:
>>
>> http://www.electronicsurplus.com
>> http://www.meci.com
>>
> The usual surplus places I check at the moment don't have any
> good switches. I plan to make a simple EEPROM programer with
> a octal keypad and was looking for a cheap way of doing it.

If you put a processor in it, why not consider just using
a serial console as your "user I/O"?

I made a *touch tone* phone years ago with a *dial* on it.
(Amusing to see the reactions from people using it.  :> )
I you expect to just use octal for data entry, the same
scheme could apply (imagine a classic 500/2500 series
station set with a ZIF socket up under the handset
cradle and a small LED display above the dial...  :>  )
Definitely a geek conversation piece!


From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 23 11:02:02 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 09:02:02 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607230902020004.17D2C191@10.0.0.252>

If you're looking for an octal keypad, why not start with this one?

http://www.electronicsurplus.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=760
50&czuid=1153670221149

Sounds pretty spiffy to me--and large enough that you possibly could build
your entire project in the enclosure.

Cheers,
Chuck


On 7/23/2006 at 6:52 AM Don Y wrote:

>woodelf wrote:
>> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> 
>>>> Now I wonder who makes a nice key pad switches? I want real
>>>> stuff keys not some 5 cent plastic switch matrix.
>>>
>>>
>>> Well, the surplus dealers sometimes have some unusual stuff:
>>>
>>> http://www.electronicsurplus.com
>>> http://www.meci.com
>>>
>> The usual surplus places I check at the moment don't have any
>> good switches. I plan to make a simple EEPROM programer with
>> a octal keypad and was looking for a cheap way of doing it.
>
>If you put a processor in it, why not consider just using
>a serial console as your "user I/O"?
>
>I made a *touch tone* phone years ago with a *dial* on it.
>(Amusing to see the reactions from people using it.  :> )
>I you expect to just use octal for data entry, the same
>scheme could apply (imagine a classic 500/2500 series
>station set with a ZIF socket up under the handset
>cradle and a small LED display above the dial...  :>  )
>Definitely a geek conversation piece!





From jrkeys at concentric.net  Sun Jul 23 11:07:17 2006
From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 11:07:17 -0500
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
References: <200607210835.k6L8ZUOC002593@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607230033.UAA00852@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<44C2CAE5.4000203@DakotaCom.Net><200607230232.WAA01208@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C2F3A6.9010703@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <007b01c6ae72$162a8d30$1b406b43@66067007>

Thanks for the info, I have a 87 IV that I got at auction awhile back.  John
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Y" 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 

Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 10:57 PM
Subject: Re: Fluke 87 calibration?


> der Mouse wrote:
>>>>> The manual is on the Fluke web site and includes calibration
>>>>> procedures.
>>>> Would it be too much to ask for you (or someone) to point me at it
>>>> directly?  [...website trouble...]
>>> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf
>>> is the "user's manual".   There are other manuals listed for variants
>>> of the 87.
>>
>> That one just refers to the service manual for calibration, and
>> assets.fluke.com/manuals/ doesn't let me list its contents - I don't
>> suppose you have a pointer to the service manual?  (This one is
>> certainly very useful; for example, it taught me about modes like
>> capacitance and duty cycle.  But it punts on calibration.)  I tried
>> guessing a few names, like 87______smeng0800.pdf or 87______sm0800.pdf
>> or 80______sm.pdf, and all I got were 404s.
>
>
> 83, 85, 87    1000V service manual
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_1000_smeng0000.pdf
>
> 83, 85, 87    1000V service manual supplement
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_1000_smeng0002.pdf
>
> 87 user's manual
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87______umeng0800.pdf
>
> 87 & 89 Series IV user's
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0200.pdf
>
> 87 & 89 series iv user supplement
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0202.pdf
>
> 87 & 89 series iv service
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_smeng0000.pdf
>
> 87 & 89 series iv service supplement
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_smeng0006.pdf
>
> 87 & 89 series iv user's
> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/87_89iv_umeng0300.pdf
>
> 



From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Sun Jul 23 13:41:26 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:41:26 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>

Don Y wrote:
> 
> If you put a processor in it, why not consider just using
> a serial console as your "user I/O"?


I'm using the EEPROM for the CPU micro-code I'm building!!!

I want this to be a stand alone project- no hookups off
a PC printer port.What I really need is a PROM programer but I have
not even heard of them since EEPROM's have come out.

> I made a *touch tone* phone years ago with a *dial* on it.
> (Amusing to see the reactions from people using it.  :> )
> I you expect to just use octal for data entry, the same
> scheme could apply (imagine a classic 500/2500 series
> station set with a ZIF socket up under the handset
> cradle and a small LED display above the dial...  :>  )
> Definitely a geek conversation piece!
> 

Why does low cost development software - schematic layout
and PCB development and prom/eprom burners mean 1000's
of $$$.



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 14:04:22 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:04:22 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C3C836.3020505@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Don Y wrote:
>>
>> If you put a processor in it, why not consider just using
>> a serial console as your "user I/O"?
> 
> 
> I'm using the EEPROM for the CPU micro-code I'm building!!!
> 
> I want this to be a stand alone project- no hookups off
> a PC printer port.What I really need is a PROM programer but I have
> not even heard of them since EEPROM's have come out.

Most of the DataI/O boxes will do bipolar PROMs.
You can hunt down a "19" or a "9" (?).  They
*won't* go forward beyond their generation, though
(e.g., you aren't going to find them supporting
huge EPROMs, newer programmable logic, etc.)

>> I made a *touch tone* phone years ago with a *dial* on it.
>> (Amusing to see the reactions from people using it.  :> )
>> I you expect to just use octal for data entry, the same
>> scheme could apply (imagine a classic 500/2500 series
>> station set with a ZIF socket up under the handset
>> cradle and a small LED display above the dial...  :>  )
>> Definitely a geek conversation piece!
>
> 
> Why does low cost development software - schematic layout
> and PCB development and prom/eprom burners mean 1000's
> of $$$.
> 

I believe there are some "free" tools out there.
Some are "crippleware" (i.e. layout a PCB with fewer
than N pads).  Some are "abandonware" (end of the
line for that product).  Some are "free software"
(e.g., gEDA) but may require a bit more computer
savvy than folks may have.

I understand the complaint, though.  I could buy
another car with what I've spent on software!  :<
At some point, you just say, "Enough!  I'll live
with this set of bugs/features..."


From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 23 14:06:11 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:06:11 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>

On 7/23/2006 at 12:41 PM woodelf wrote:

>Why does low cost development software - schematic layout
>and PCB development and prom/eprom burners mean 1000's
>of $$$.

Huh?  I don't think I ever paid more than about $100 for any of my PROM
programmers.  All were-hook-it-up-to-a-PC type and they work just fine.  I
still have the first one--connected to a PC (won't work on anything much
faster, but will do 2708s).

Here's one for $79 that even programs the old 2716 high-Vpp EPROMs:

http://www.futurlec.com/EPROMProg.shtml

Of course, it's limited to 27xxx EPROMS, but there are ones in the same
price range that will do other types.

Quite frankly, the flexibility one gets from using a PC as a programming
controller really beats the standalone keypad-type.

Cheers,
Chuck






From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Sun Jul 23 14:29:43 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 13:29:43 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:

> Quite frankly, the flexibility one gets from using a PC as a programming
> controller really beats the standalone keypad-type.

Well I do most of my hobby development work at 3am
and don't want to turn on the PC. :)
Since I plan to do 512x8 proms stand alone is the better
idea for me.
Looking at the 2816 data sheets you have listed 10^4 or 10^5
cycles -- I take that to be write cycles and any number
of read cycles is that correct the way I read it?

> Cheers,
> Chuck



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 14:43:37 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:43:37 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C3D169.1040101@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> 
>> Quite frankly, the flexibility one gets from using a PC as a programming
>> controller really beats the standalone keypad-type.
> 
> Well I do most of my hobby development work at 3am
> and don't want to turn on the PC. :)
> Since I plan to do 512x8 proms stand alone is the better
> idea for me.

Most of the cheap 27xx style programmers won't do bipolar PROMs
(which your 512x8's undoubtedly are -- 7641 comes to mind?)

> Looking at the 2816 data sheets you have listed 10^4 or 10^5
> cycles -- I take that to be write cycles and any number
> of read cycles is that correct the way I read it?

Yes.


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 14:49:48 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:49:48 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C3D2DC.2090309@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Well I do most of my hobby development work at 3am
> and don't want to turn on the PC. :)
> Since I plan to do 512x8 proms stand alone is the better
> idea for me.
> Looking at the 2816 data sheets you have listed 10^4 or 10^5
> cycles -- I take that to be write cycles and any number
> of read cycles is that correct the way I read it?

If you are expecting to turn the crank on the microcode
development more than a few times, consider designing
the interface to the microstore in such a way that you
can piggyback a small SRAM in place of the PROM.  Use
latches with tristate outputs to drive the address to
the microstore (assuming you aren't pressed for speed
in the final design).

Then, when you want to twiddle the contents of the SRAM,
tristate the latch outputs and enable address buffers
on your "piggyback SRAM board" so that you can force the
address to whatever suits you.  Drive the data you want
into the RAM and generate a write cycle.

I.e. make a PROM emulator.

When done "programming", disable the address buffers on
your piggyback board and reenable the tristate latches
*in* the processor.

  If you are the type that likes to do iterative
designs (instead of getting it nailed down on paper
ahead of time), this can be a real time saver.  And,
bipolar PROMs get expensive if you're burning a new
set every hour...


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Sun Jul 23 15:51:40 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:51:40 -0500
Subject: After you get the HP-UX disks (or before...)
Message-ID: <5c9ff86e6e9248fc84c1f9c295e566c2@valleyimplants.com>



 Go to

https://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/try.do?productNumber=B9088AC

so it's all nice and legal.





From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 23 16:02:43 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:02:43 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>

On 7/23/2006 at 1:29 PM woodelf wrote:

>Since I plan to do 512x8 proms stand alone is the better
>idea for me.

Bipolar, as in 82s141 type?  I'd forgotten that this was a "vintage" list,
sorry.  I had my share of grief programming bipolars back in the 80's--lots
of "oh damn, that doesn't work, toss it in the trash and try again"
irritation.

Still, my inclination would be to use a PeeCee if I had to do the job.
Somehow, keying in and checking 1536 dgits (you did say "octal" didn't
you?) for every EPROM doesn't appeal to the lazy person in me.

Cheers,
Chuck




From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sun Jul 23 16:45:52 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 22:45:52 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Fluke 87 calibration?
In-Reply-To: <44C2F156.4030903@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jul 22,
	6 08:47:34 pm
Message-ID: 

> http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/83_85_87smeng0500.pdf
> 
> There are comments about "series IV" and "series V", etc.
> But, this one (above) claims to be "83, 85, 87 service"

THanks for that. Looks like it applies to the Fluke 85 that I use all the 
time too (yes, I'd prefer an 87, but I found this 85 at a _very_ good 
price so I bought it).

-tony


From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Sun Jul 23 17:14:22 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:14:22 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/23/2006 at 1:29 PM woodelf wrote:

> Bipolar, as in 82s141 type?  I'd forgotten that this was a "vintage" list,
> sorry.  I had my share of grief programming bipolars back in the 80's--lots
> of "oh damn, that doesn't work, toss it in the trash and try again"
> irritation.

I could I guess if I really need one programmed I could find
somebody on the list. Prom burning is still needed ( not food
burning like my supper here) to repair older machines.

> Still, my inclination would be to use a PeeCee if I had to do the job.
> Somehow, keying in and checking 1536 dgits (you did say "octal" didn't
> you?) for every EPROM doesn't appeal to the lazy person in me.

But all the low cost EPROM programmers use a PeeCee not todays
CRAP!I was looking at the low cost one and DAMIT software
will not run under the windows I have. Stupid software protection.
Having a printer port is NOT my idea of open hardware.
> Cheers,
> Chuck
Back to the design ... any market for a 20 bit cpu. :)
Buy 3 or more and I'll throw in a few extra bits too.



From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Sun Jul 23 17:26:41 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 19:26:41 -0300
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca><44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca><200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <006001c6aea7$1eae2ae0$02fea8c0@alpha>

> > Still, my inclination would be to use a PeeCee if I had to do the job.
> > Somehow, keying in and checking 1536 dgits (you did say "octal" didn't
> > you?) for every EPROM doesn't appeal to the lazy person in me.
> But all the low cost EPROM programmers use a PeeCee not todays
> CRAP!I was looking at the low cost one and DAMIT software
> will not run under the windows I have. Stupid software protection.
> Having a printer port is NOT my idea of open hardware.

    This is not crap, this is not stupid, this is not open hardware. This is
a low cost eprom programmer.

    You may think whatever you want. But there is no such thing as a free
lunch. If you want a wildely-compatible programmer, it HAS to have some kind
of intelligence. If you want a CHEAP program, the intelligence needs to be
elsewhere. Of course, better options are always welcomed, Willem did his
part, why don't you do yours? His programmer is "open hardware", only the
software isn't updated anymore, but still useable for many many many parts.

    The good thing on computers is that every unhappy person is free to
create a better device to make people and himself happy.

    See ya
    Alexandre



From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Sun Jul 23 17:43:04 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:43:04 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <006001c6aea7$1eae2ae0$02fea8c0@alpha>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca><44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca><200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<006001c6aea7$1eae2ae0$02fea8c0@alpha>
Message-ID: <44C3FB78.9040504@jetnet.ab.ca>

Alexandre Souza wrote:

>>>Still, my inclination would be to use a PeeCee if I had to do the job.
>>>Somehow, keying in and checking 1536 dgits (you did say "octal" didn't
>>>you?) for every EPROM doesn't appeal to the lazy person in me.
>>
>>But all the low cost EPROM programmers use a PeeCee not todays
>>CRAP!I was looking at the low cost one and DAMIT software
>>will not run under the windows I have. Stupid software protection.
>>Having a printer port is NOT my idea of open hardware.
> 
> 
>     This is not crap, this is not stupid, this is not open hardware. This is
> a low cost eprom programmer.
A QUICK LOOK  --- eprom programers for DOS and ISA card less that $200
Printer port $300. New for windows/TODAY $500-$100

>     You may think whatever you want. But there is no such thing as a free
> lunch. If you want a wildely-compatible programmer, it HAS to have some kind
> of intelligence. If you want a CHEAP program, the intelligence needs to be
> elsewhere. Of course, better options are always welcomed, Willem did his
> part, why don't you do yours? His programmer is "open hardware", only the
> software isn't updated anymore, but still useable for many many many parts.
> 
>     The good thing on computers is that every unhappy person is free to
> create a better device to make people and himself happy.
> 
>     See ya
>     Alexandre
> 
> .
> 



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 17:49:49 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:49:49 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C3FD0D.3000305@DakotaCom.Net>

woodelf wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> On 7/23/2006 at 1:29 PM woodelf wrote:
> 
>> Bipolar, as in 82s141 type?  I'd forgotten that this was a "vintage" 
>> list,
>> sorry.  I had my share of grief programming bipolars back in the 
>> 80's--lots
>> of "oh damn, that doesn't work, toss it in the trash and try again"
>> irritation.

Trick is to burn only those parts of the microstore pertinent to
the opcode you are debugging.  You can then learn from those
mistakes and "do it right" for the next opcode in a virgin portion
of the PROM.  Cuts down on the number of wasted parts.

> I could I guess if I really need one programmed I could find
> somebody on the list. Prom burning is still needed ( not food
> burning like my supper here) to repair older machines.
> 
>> Still, my inclination would be to use a PeeCee if I had to do the job.
>> Somehow, keying in and checking 1536 dgits (you did say "octal" didn't
>> you?) for every EPROM doesn't appeal to the lazy person in me.
> 
> But all the low cost EPROM programmers use a PeeCee not todays
> CRAP!I was looking at the low cost one and DAMIT software
> will not run under the windows I have. Stupid software protection.
> Having a printer port is NOT my idea of open hardware.

Boot to DOS.  Or, keep an old machine handy for just this
reason (I keep my Compaq Portable 3 for just such things)

> Back to the design ... any market for a 20 bit cpu. :)
> Buy 3 or more and I'll throw in a few extra bits too.

Aim for 36 bits (?) and run MULTICS!  (or have I
misremembered that...?)


From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Sun Jul 23 17:47:36 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 19:47:36 -0300
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca><44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca><200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca><006001c6aea7$1eae2ae0$02fea8c0@alpha>
	<44C3FB78.9040504@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <007f01c6aeaa$246ca0d0$02fea8c0@alpha>

> A QUICK LOOK  --- eprom programers for DOS and ISA card less that $200
> Printer port $300. New for windows/TODAY $500-$100

    Willem - $50 (built). Eprommer (www.ustr.net) - $90 (built). Willem can
be used with DOS, Eprommer too, if I'm not mistaken. And what is the problem
of having an old PC just for EPROM programming?

    Have you ever seen www.willem.org???




From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 23 17:55:01 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:55:01 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>

On 7/23/2006 at 4:14 PM woodelf wrote:

>Back to the design ... any market for a 20 bit cpu. :)
>Buy 3 or more and I'll throw in a few extra bits too.

Maybe 24 (nice multiple of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12 bit words); leads to a
usably large address space and roomy enough for a 3 address architecture.
20 feels a bit tight to me.  Also allows one to use off-the-shelf 8 bit
parts.

Cheers,
Chuck




From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 23 18:03:13 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:03:13 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3FD0D.3000305@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C3FD0D.3000305@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607231603130357.1954630D@10.0.0.252>

On 7/23/2006 at 3:49 PM Don Y wrote:

>Boot to DOS.  Or, keep an old machine handy for just this
>reason (I keep my Compaq Portable 3 for just such things)

I just came away from using a PC XT (clone) that has a SysGen
omnibridge+Microsolutions Matchpoint+Central Point Deluxe Option board.
Has a 30MB CMI hard disk run on an OMTI RLL controller for a roomy 45 MB.

Actually, it's pretty amazing how an 8088 at 8MHz is entirely usable under
DOS (or CP/M-86).

Does anyone know if MS Network can be run on an XT or does it have
286-specific code?  I can't recall.

Cheers,
Chuck






From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 23 18:39:33 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:39:33 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
Message-ID: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>

Hi,

Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?

Thx,
--don


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sun Jul 23 19:26:07 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:26:07 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jul 23,
	6 04:14:22 pm
Message-ID: 

> Back to the design ... any market for a 20 bit cpu. :)

Well, 3RCC thought there was about 27 years ago... (And FWIW, the 
microcode was in RAM, but the thing was stuffed with bipolar PROMs used 
as state machines, decoders, etc).

-tony


From wpileggi at juno.com  Sun Jul 23 23:08:04 2006
From: wpileggi at juno.com (Bill Pileggi)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 04:08:04 GMT
Subject: Philips/Magnavox "Odyssey" home gaming system/computer BOXES
Message-ID: <20060723.210855.716.23096@webmail46.lax.untd.com>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: 

From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Mon Jul 24 00:41:02 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:41:02 -0600
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>

Don Y wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
> parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
> is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
> what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?
> 
I think fairly slow. The printer port strobe has to be done
in software.




From evan at snarc.net  Mon Jul 24 00:49:05 2006
From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 01:49:05 -0400
Subject: Was anyone else at HOPE this weekend?
Message-ID: <003601c6aee4$df9b20e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>

We had a nice booth for MARCH on the first floor of the conference, manned
by myself, Bill Degnan, Bill Sudbrink, and Sridhar Ayengar.  We met LOTS of
cool people and lots of people who are collectors but they just didn't know
it yet.  :)

Were any other classiccmp'ers there?



From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Mon Jul 24 00:52:00 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:52:00 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:

> Maybe 24 (nice multiple of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 12 bit words); leads to a
> usably large address space and roomy enough for a 3 address architecture.
> 20 feels a bit tight to me.  Also allows one to use off-the-shelf 8 bit
> parts.

What off the shelf parts??? Buffers and a few FF's or latches are 8 bit wide.

> Cheers,
> Chuck
I am trying to keep this design to 1 ALU PCB and 1 Control PCB
and 24 bits is just a little too large I think to fit because
glue logic can add up. Also with 24 bits I would like 12 bit
bytes and that is even more complexity.



From henk.gooijen at hotmail.com  Mon Jul 24 01:27:21 2006
From: henk.gooijen at hotmail.com (Henk Gooijen)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:27:21 +0200
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: 

>From: Don Y 
>Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic 
>Posts"
>To: Classic Computers 
>Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
>Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:39:33 -0700
>
>Hi,
>
>Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
>parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
>is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
>what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?
>
>Thx,
>--don

Hi Don,
I seem to remember the following.
in SPP (Standard Parallel Port) mode the max transfer rate is 150 kbytes/sec 
mostly because
the handshake is done in software. It is a "forward" only protocol (data 
from computer to a
peripheral).
in ECP/EPP mode the transfer rate can go up to 2Mbyte/sec, and that depends 
among others
on the cable quality you use (IEEE-1284 IIRC), and both are bi-directional. 
Tha handshake is
done in *hardware*.
The last mode is called nibble mode, and is SPP, but with a data channel 
from the peripheral
back to the computer. In the beginning the parallel port had uni-directional 
databus drivers,
so a return channel was not possible over the data lines. But SPP has a few 
(5) wires that
are *input* on the computer side (like ERROR*, PAPER_EMPTY*, BUSY). 4 of 
these wires
were used to transfer 4-bit (nibble) data back to the computer. In nibble 
mode, the forward
transfer rate is identical to SPP, the reverse comm channel can do 50 
kbytes/sec.

- Henk, PA8PDP.

_________________________________________________________________
Iets leuks meegemaakt? Zet het op je Space! www.spacemomentje.nl/start.aspx



From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 01:34:37 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:34:37 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>
	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>

On 7/23/2006 at 11:52 PM woodelf wrote:

>What off the shelf parts??? Buffers and a few FF's or latches are 8 bit
>wide.

...and a lot of SRAM and EPROM is also.

You didn't mention how "vintage" your ALU is going to be (I'm assuming this
is a vintage design and not an FPGA).  Are you using something like the
74S481 4-bit slice or are you going for something from the 29xx family?

Cheers,
Chuck




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 02:00:03 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:03 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C46FF3.60405@DakotaCom.Net>

Henk Gooijen wrote:
>> From: Don Y 
 >>
>> Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
>> parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
>> is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
>> what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?
> 
> I seem to remember the following.
> in SPP (Standard Parallel Port) mode the max transfer rate is 150 
> kbytes/sec mostly because
> the handshake is done in software. It is a "forward" only protocol (data 
> from computer to a
> peripheral).

Yes, IIRC, you write data, write to assert strobe, and write to release
strobe (in my case, the interface is always ready so no need to poll
it's status).

(ignore affect of cabling as I sit *on* the output connector)

But, I figure that should be about 500K/s (in a tight loop) *if*
the bus is deliberately slowed to emulate 8MHz legacy machines.
(if allowed to run "flat out" at FSB speeds, then you can
build a little FM Xmitter!  :>  )

I am concerned as to how this works on other machines (e.g.,
SPARCs) with parallel interfaces.  (I don't expect them to
suffer from the PC's braindamage).

[other modes snipped -- I'm just designing for "dumb" ports]

Thanks!
--don


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 02:15:28 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:15:28 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
 <44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607240015280800.1B170A3A@10.0.0.252>

>From "Parallel Port Complete" (1996)  by Jan Axelson:

If it's an ISA-bus adapter, the bus speed is essentially the limiting
factor, no matter what the type of port is.  At an 8.33 MHz ISA bus speed,
that translates to about 1.3MB/sec.  SPP, because of the requirement of 4
writes to do a handshake, can go at best 300KB/sec.  ECP and EPP can move
at 1.3MB/sec because the handshake's done in hardware.  If ISA shortened
cycle timings (0WS) are used, one can hit about 2.7MB/sec.  If DMA is used,
this slows to about 1 MB/sec. 

Somewhere, I've got a copy of the IEEE spec, but I don't know if it calls
out an upper lmit on transfer rates.

Cheers,
Chuck




From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Mon Jul 24 04:02:42 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 03:02:42 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/23/2006 at 11:52 PM woodelf wrote:

> You didn't mention how "vintage" your ALU is going to be (I'm assuming this
> is a vintage design and not an FPGA).  Are you using something like the
> 74S481 4-bit slice or are you going for something from the 29xx family?

I was planning to use generic 2901's and LS parts other than PROM.
Ripple carry for the ALU is used since this is only 5 slices. Since I am
using a 6809 style clock I hope to get about 1.5 Mhz with the system
with a non-pipelined ROM.

> Cheers,
> Chuck
> 



From dave06a at dunfield.com  Mon Jul 24 04:58:42 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 04:58:42 -0500
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607240901.k6O91Wdd001291@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
> parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
> is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
> what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?

At one time I wrote a "PC logic analyzer", which monitors 13 input
lines from the parallel port (two reads per sample) in a tight assembly
loop to watch for a trigger condition, and then reads and buffers a
whole lot of samples at a user defined speed in an equally tight loop.

On most machines of 486 or better, the loop topped out at somewhere
around a 500khz sample rate. This is entirely bus speed limited - some
P4s do worse than some 486s.

Thats a raw two-read tight loop with no handshaking - once you put
some strobes and acknowleges in there, the actual throughput you
will realize will rapidly drop.

Dave


--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From ploopster at gmail.com  Mon Jul 24 07:41:56 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:41:56 -0400
Subject: Was anyone else at HOPE this weekend?
In-Reply-To: <003601c6aee4$df9b20e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
References: <003601c6aee4$df9b20e0$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
Message-ID: <44C4C014.801@gmail.com>

Evan Koblentz wrote:
> We had a nice booth for MARCH on the first floor of the conference, manned
> by myself, Bill Degnan, Bill Sudbrink, and Sridhar Ayengar.  We met LOTS of
> cool people and lots of people who are collectors but they just didn't know
> it yet.  :)
> 
> Were any other classiccmp'ers there?

I saw Ethan O'Toole there.

Peace...  Sridhar


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 10:15:17 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:15:17 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>
	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>
	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>
	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca> <44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>
	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>
	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>
	<44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <200607240815170535.1CCE5226@10.0.0.252>

On 7/24/2006 at 3:02 AM woodelf wrote:

>I was planning to use generic 2901's and LS parts other than PROM.
>Ripple carry for the ALU is used since this is only 5 slices. Since I am
>using a 6809 style clock I hope to get about 1.5 Mhz with the system
>with a non-pipelined ROM.

Are you doing this to explore old 4-bit bipolar slice logic or to design
your own instruction set?  The later 29Cxxx logic seems to be easier to
work with--e.g. the 29C116 is a 16-bit slice that in addition to being
CMOS, reduces the package count considerably.

Just curious. :)

Cheers,
Chuck




From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 11:02:37 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:02:37 -0700
Subject: Anyone looking for a Kaypro 10 or two?
Message-ID: <200607240902370948.1CF9AD1E@10.0.0.252>

A customer called and says she's got a working Kaypro 10 (and maybe two)
looking for a good home.  She's in the Richmond, VA area.  If interested,
drop me a line and I'll furnish contact information.

Cheers,
Chuck




From brad at heeltoe.com  Mon Jul 24 11:44:34 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:44:34 -0400
Subject: MLP-900?
Message-ID: <200607241644.k6OGiYbA026847@mwave.heeltoe.com>


Anyone know anything about the MLP-900 from Standard Computer Corporation?

http://research.microsoft.com/users/gbell/CGB%20Files/Microprogramming%20and%20Relationship%20to%20Emu%20and%20Tech%207405%20c.pdf

Just curious if any of these survived or if anyone has ever seen one.

-brad


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 11:53:25 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:53:25 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607240815170535.1CCE5226@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>	<44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607240815170535.1CCE5226@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C4FB05.9050406@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/24/2006 at 3:02 AM woodelf wrote:
> 
>> I was planning to use generic 2901's and LS parts other than PROM.
>> Ripple carry for the ALU is used since this is only 5 slices. Since I am
>> using a 6809 style clock I hope to get about 1.5 Mhz with the system
>> with a non-pipelined ROM.
> 
> Are you doing this to explore old 4-bit bipolar slice logic or to design
> your own instruction set?  The later 29Cxxx logic seems to be easier to
> work with--e.g. the 29C116 is a 16-bit slice that in addition to being
> CMOS, reduces the package count considerably.

Pick up a copy of Mick & Brick, regardless.  A good read for
this type of undertaking!


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 11:59:56 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:59:56 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <200607240015280800.1B170A3A@10.0.0.252>
References: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net> <44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607240015280800.1B170A3A@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C4FC8C.2010603@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
>>From "Parallel Port Complete" (1996)  by Jan Axelson:
> 
> If it's an ISA-bus adapter, the bus speed is essentially the limiting
> factor, no matter what the type of port is.  At an 8.33 MHz ISA bus speed,
> that translates to about 1.3MB/sec.  SPP, because of the requirement of 4
> writes to do a handshake, can go at best 300KB/sec.  ECP and EPP can move
> at 1.3MB/sec because the handshake's done in hardware.  If ISA shortened
> cycle timings (0WS) are used, one can hit about 2.7MB/sec.  If DMA is used,
> this slows to about 1 MB/sec. 

Yes, this agrees with my analysis:  *if* I/O's in ALL pc's are
throttled to that 8MHz bus rate (i.e. even on 3GHz machines!).

And, it also doesn't address how parallel ports work on *other*
machines without the ISA legacy "problem".


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 12:01:19 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 10:01:19 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <200607240901.k6O91Wdd001291@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607240901.k6O91Wdd001291@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C4FCDF.9010002@DakotaCom.Net>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>> Does anyone know what the available bandwidth of "standard"
>> parallel ports might be?  E.g., on PC's I believe bus speed
>> is emulated at 8MHz (?) for I/O instructions (legacy).  But,
>> what about other machines with parallel (printer) ports?
> 
> At one time I wrote a "PC logic analyzer", which monitors 13 input
> lines from the parallel port (two reads per sample) in a tight assembly
> loop to watch for a trigger condition, and then reads and buffers a
> whole lot of samples at a user defined speed in an equally tight loop.
> 
> On most machines of 486 or better, the loop topped out at somewhere
> around a 500khz sample rate. This is entirely bus speed limited - some
> P4s do worse than some 486s.

The P4 comment implies that *all* PC's have this upper limit
(enforced in hardware?  or, emulated in software??)

> Thats a raw two-read tight loop with no handshaking - once you put
> some strobes and acknowleges in there, the actual throughput you
> will realize will rapidly drop.



From dave06a at dunfield.com  Mon Jul 24 13:19:55 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (dave06a at dunfield.com)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:19:55 -0500
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C4FCDF.9010002@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607240901.k6O91Wdd001291@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607241721.k6OHLMjf007469@mail2.magma.ca>


> > On most machines of 486 or better, the loop topped out at somewhere
> > around a 500khz sample rate. This is entirely bus speed limited - some
> > P4s do worse than some 486s.
> 
> The P4 comment implies that *all* PC's have this upper limit
> (enforced in hardware?  or, emulated in software??)

I can't say with any certainty that *all* PC's are so limited, however I tried
my code on several P1, P2, P3 and P4 machines with a fairly consistant
upper limit of somewhere around 500khz ... Certainly any ISA pports would
have this limit, however I observed similar results with the on-mainboard
pports of the later machines. I would guess that since these appear in the
ISA address space, the chipset is providing ISA timing.

I have not tried it on a PCI pport - the software is DOS based, so there is
no PCI driver, although one should be able to have the BIOS set it up - I
*think* I have a PCI pport card around here somewhere...

I'm pretty sure it's not a software thing, as this code runs under plain old
DOS and contains nothing to artifically limit the port speed.

Sorry, thats I all I can give you - my observations. I do not have official
specs for non-ISA pports. I'll see if I can find a PCI card and test it.

Regards,
Dave
-- 
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 12:42:59 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 10:42:59 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <44C4FC8C.2010603@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net> <44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<200607240015280800.1B170A3A@10.0.0.252>
	<44C4FC8C.2010603@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607241042590106.1D558D08@10.0.0.252>

On 7/24/2006 at 9:59 AM Don Y wrote:

>Yes, this agrees with my analysis:  *if* I/O's in ALL pc's are
>throttled to that 8MHz bus rate (i.e. even on 3GHz machines!).
>
>And, it also doesn't address how parallel ports work on *other*
>machines without the ISA legacy "problem".

I did a little research on PCI parallel ports.  The highest data rate
claimed on the ones I've seen is 5.5-6 MBps in EPP mode. 

There's a slide show on 1284 that includes speed numbers on the Warp Nine
web site:

http://www.fapo.com/files/IC99.pdf

Cheers,
Chuck








From aek at bitsavers.org  Mon Jul 24 13:29:49 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:29:49 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
Message-ID: 


I've observed pulses in the 100-200ns range on an PowerMac using a PCI
parallel port card and a three instruction bit twiddle. You need to remove
the filter caps on the I/O connector to use it at that speed.





From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 15:02:52 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:02:52 -0700
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C5276C.9050100@DakotaCom.Net>

Al Kossow wrote:
> I've observed pulses in the 100-200ns range on an PowerMac using a PCI
> parallel port card and a three instruction bit twiddle. You need to remove
> the filter caps on the I/O connector to use it at that speed.

I.e. the PCI bus has a higher bandwidth and is not as
artificially constrained as legacy ISA emulation.  Yet,
it's still considerably slower than one *might* get
attaching an octal latch to, e.g., an SA1110's bus.

Is this true of most commercial machines?  I.e. can
I count on at least a few tens of nanoseconds *minimum*
between writes?  (or reads following writes, etc).

Thanks!
--don


From wpileggi at juno.com  Mon Jul 24 15:31:55 2006
From: wpileggi at juno.com (Bill Pileggi)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:31:55 GMT
Subject: Commodore Modem model 1660 free for shipping
Message-ID: <20060724.133236.3967.504146@webmail05.lax.untd.com>

An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: not available
URL: 

From oldcpu at rogerwilco.org  Mon Jul 24 15:54:20 2006
From: oldcpu at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:54:20 -0600
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <44C5337C.2000306@rogerwilco.org>


> From: "Chuck Guzis" 
>
> Actually, it's pretty amazing how an 8088 at 8MHz is entirely usable under
> DOS (or CP/M-86).
>
> Does anyone know if MS Network can be run on an XT or does it have
> 286-specific code?  I can't recall.
>
>   
Indeed, there is a Microsoft Client for DOS that will function within a 
MS-flavor network.  I've used it successfully in the past for various 
reasons, and DOS of course doesn't support long names, it is fully 
functional as a client (and with some tricks, a server) in the MS 
networking realm.

If you are interested in experimenting, Google for "DOS MSClient".  I'd 
make this site my first stop:
http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/samba/dos.html
and view the "Network Client for DOS" section.

With just a few tricks, you can actually get the DOS machine to act as a 
file server, too.  All is explained in Jacco's discussion.

BTW, I've used both the TCP/IP and IPX stacks with DOS clients.

For those that have a truly warped sense of humor, you can make your XT 
(or even a HD-less PC) into a HTTP and FTP server.  Check out these two 
sites:
http://8088.eznos.org
http://www.eznos.org

Makes for some real geeky entertainment on a slow evening with nothing 
else to do!

Jared



From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 16:00:23 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:00:23 -0700
Subject: Help on odd diskette
Message-ID: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>

I've got a rather ancient 8" diskette (hard-sectored; 32 sectors) with the
Harris Lanier brand on it.  About all that I know is that it was created
during the 1970's and contains word processing documents.

It looks to be MFM with the usual n, 1.5n and 2n frequency distribution,
but I'm not getting much meaningful from digesting the bitstream.  

Does anyone have any clues?

Cheers,
Chuck




From oldcpu at rogerwilco.org  Mon Jul 24 16:28:47 2006
From: oldcpu at rogerwilco.org (J Blaser)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:28:47 -0600
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>


> From: "Chuck Guzis" 
>
> Actually, it's pretty amazing how an 8088 at 8MHz is entirely usable under
> DOS (or CP/M-86).
>
> Does anyone know if MS Network can be run on an XT or does it have
> 286-specific code?  I can't recall.
>
>   

On review, looks like I missed the intent of your actual question, Chuck...

IIRC, the mid-80's IBM's PC Lan and MS's LAN Manager both ran on 8088's using DOS 3.3 and above and NETBIOS.  I don't believe that a 286 was required.

Jared




From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 16:23:53 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:23:53 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca> from "woodelf" at Jul 24,
	6 03:02:42 am
Message-ID: 

> 
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > On 7/23/2006 at 11:52 PM woodelf wrote:
> 
> > You didn't mention how "vintage" your ALU is going to be (I'm assuming this
> > is a vintage design and not an FPGA).  Are you using something like the
> > 74S481 4-bit slice or are you going for something from the 29xx family?
> 
> I was planning to use generic 2901's and LS parts other than PROM.

Hmmm... I always felt the 2901 constrained you rather too much, and that 
some useful signals were not brought out. (OK, not as bad as the 2910 
sequencer, which rapidly becomes a pain if you need more than 12 bits of 
microcode address [1]).

[1] OK, I am biased. The PERQ 1 CPU used a 2910 and 4K of control store. 
All later PERQs had 216K of control store, but kept the 2910 for 
compatability. There was a circuit, commonly knwon as the '2 bit kludge' 
(pun totally intentional) to extend the address from 12 bits to 14 bits. 
And a kludge it is...

> Ripple carry for the ALU is used since this is only 5 slices. Since I am

A 74S182 is only a 16 pin DIL package, and would give you lookahead 
carry. Take a look at the PERQ 2 schematics on bitsavers -- the 16K CPU 
board diagrams are there. And look at the PERQ CPU Techref also on 
bitsavers. The PERQ is a 20 bit machine using 74S181 ALUs, and the carry 
circuit should be applicable to you.

-tony



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 16:26:58 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:26:58 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607240815170535.1CCE5226@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 24, 6 08:15:17 am
Message-ID: 

> Are you doing this to explore old 4-bit bipolar slice logic or to design
> your own instruction set?  The later 29Cxxx logic seems to be easier to
> work with--e.g. the 29C116 is a 16-bit slice that in addition to being
> CMOS, reduces the package count considerably.

Now, I've not really used the 29116, I've only come across it in the PERQ 
AGW3300 graphics processor, but it strikes me from the limited data that 
I have on it, that if you use this chip you're limited to a 16 bit data 
path. It's not really a bitslice chip in that you can't stick  of them 
togehter (like you can with the 2901).

There were, IIRC, CMOS versions of the 2901 which would cut the power 
consumption, although not the package count.

-tony



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 16:29:04 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:29:04 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C4FB05.9050406@DakotaCom.Net> from "Don Y" at Jul 24,
	6 09:53:25 am
Message-ID: 

> Pick up a copy of Mick & Brick, regardless.  A good read for
> this type of undertaking!

Seconded ! Anyone who is designing a microcoded processor, particularly 
one using the AMD2900 seires chips, and who hasn't read Mick and Brick is 
making life difficult for themselves :-)

I am told paper copies are not easy to find, although isn't it on the web 
somewhere now? I don't know, I have a paper version...

-tony


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 16:40:49 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:40:49 -0700
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>
Message-ID: <200607241440490706.1E2F4CDC@10.0.0.252>

On 7/24/2006 at 3:28 PM J Blaser wrote:

>IIRC, the mid-80's IBM's PC Lan and MS's LAN Manager both ran on 8088's
>using DOS 3.3 and above and NETBIOS.  I don't believe that a 286 was
>required.

I just wanted to know this before I dug out the WFWG 3.11 diskette set--I
know that it has MS LAN on it.

Thanks!
Chuck





From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 16:58:02 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:58:02 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C5426A.4040200@DakotaCom.Net>

Tony Duell wrote:
>> Are you doing this to explore old 4-bit bipolar slice logic or to design
>> your own instruction set?  The later 29Cxxx logic seems to be easier to
>> work with--e.g. the 29C116 is a 16-bit slice that in addition to being
>> CMOS, reduces the package count considerably.
> 
> Now, I've not really used the 29116, I've only come across it in the PERQ 
> AGW3300 graphics processor, but it strikes me from the limited data that 
> I have on it, that if you use this chip you're limited to a 16 bit data 
> path. It's not really a bitslice chip in that you can't stick  of them 
> togehter (like you can with the 2901).

Exactly.  It's a one-trick pony.

> There were, IIRC, CMOS versions of the 2901 which would cut the power 
> consumption, although not the package count.



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 17:00:05 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:00:05 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C542E5.5040103@DakotaCom.Net>

Tony Duell wrote:
>> Pick up a copy of Mick & Brick, regardless.  A good read for
>> this type of undertaking!
> 
> Seconded ! Anyone who is designing a microcoded processor, particularly 
> one using the AMD2900 seires chips, and who hasn't read Mick and Brick is 
> making life difficult for themselves :-)
> 
> I am told paper copies are not easy to find, although isn't it on the web 
> somewhere now? I don't know, I have a paper version...

Dunno.  Mine is a hardbound book (yellow/orange dust jacket
makes it real easy to find!  :> )

AMD also had innumerable small databook-lets (lettes?)
covering various aspects of bitslice design and bitslice
components.  Mine are so old the *covers* are faded  :-(


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 16:55:04 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:55:04 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200607241455040297.1E3C56F0@10.0.0.252>

On 7/24/2006 at 10:26 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:

>Now, I've not really used the 29116, I've only come across it in the PERQ 
>AGW3300 graphics processor, but it strikes me from the limited data that 
>I have on it, that if you use this chip you're limited to a 16 bit data 
>path. It's not really a bitslice chip in that you can't stick  of them 
>togehter (like you can with the 2901).

True, but there was IIRC, a 32-bit version also.  AMD calls 'em
microprocessors, but without so much as a P-counter, it's hard to justify
the name.  Still, I wonder if a 5-package 2901 version without the carry
lookahead would be any faster than 2 trips (microprogrammed) through the
16-bit CMOS unit.

Cheers,
Chuck






From cisin at xenosoft.com  Mon Jul 24 16:56:50 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:56:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241440490706.1E2F4CDC@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>
	<200607241440490706.1E2F4CDC@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <20060724145412.N21879@shell.lmi.net>

> >IIRC, the mid-80's IBM's PC Lan and MS's LAN Manager both ran on 8088's
> >using DOS 3.3 and above and NETBIOS.  I don't believe that a 286 was
> >required.
>
> I just wanted to know this before I dug out the WFWG 3.11 diskette set--I
> know that it has MS LAN on it.

Windows itself (3.10 and above) demands at least 286
(3.00 WILL run on 8088)

DOS 3.10 added some network hooks, do PCLAN and MS LAN manager need more
than 8088?





From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de  Mon Jul 24 04:20:50 2006
From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:20:50 +0200
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>
	<44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
Message-ID: <44C490F2.2010503@iais.fraunhofer.de>

woodelf schrieb:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> On 7/23/2006 at 11:52 PM woodelf wrote:
>
>> You didn't mention how "vintage" your ALU is going to be (I'm 
>> assuming this
>> is a vintage design and not an FPGA).  Are you using something like the
>> 74S481 4-bit slice or are you going for something from the 29xx family?
>
> I was planning to use generic 2901's and LS parts other than PROM.
> Ripple carry for the ALU is used since this is only 5 slices. Since I am
The cost for two additional 74s182 (usable instead of am2902) is not 
very high,
but there is a price in glitches and reduced clock frequency involved 
when propagating
a ripple carry over 5 units (=20bit). You won't find the ripple carry 
effect unless you
feed the ALU with certain pathological patterns.

You might also find the Mick&Brick book worthwhile for your enterprise.
> using a 6809 style clock I hope to get about 1.5 Mhz with the system
> with a non-pipelined ROM.
>
Holger




From kossow at computerhistory.org  Mon Jul 24 13:43:51 2006
From: kossow at computerhistory.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:43:51 -0700
Subject: MLP-900
Message-ID: 


> Anyone know anything about the MLP-900 from Standard Computer Corporation?

There may be some things at CHM from Gordon's archives.

It is doubtful one has survived. The only surviving QM-1 I know of is in
Canada.




From chrism3667 at yahoo.com  Mon Jul 24 17:13:25 2006
From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 15:13:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: possibly off-topic - interfacing LCD's
Message-ID: <20060724221325.87130.qmail@web61013.mail.yahoo.com>

 I obtained a socket 7 SBC from Weirdstuff late last
fall. It has the capability of interfacing to a
*variety* of lcd dislplays. Phor phun I had in mind to
*hopefully* connect these old Thinkpad panels dating
fron the 770c (IINM) era. The sbc manual gives a
pinout, so my basic question is are these things
(lcd's) generic enough in the way they interface to be
able to use *most any* source of signals. The sbc uses
a C & T 65550 ic, and their are drivers for W3.1, WNT?
(3.51 methinks...book not in front of me), and of
course beloved W95. You can set jumpers according to
what *type* of panel yer using, according to
resolution, etc. I can scan the relevant pages and
e-mail them if anyone is curious. Grassyarse.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From williams.dan at gmail.com  Mon Jul 24 17:34:22 2006
From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:34:22 +0100
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <20060724145412.N21879@shell.lmi.net>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>
	<200607241440490706.1E2F4CDC@10.0.0.252>
	<20060724145412.N21879@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <26c11a640607241534u466d2f66u8e9fa44eb9633e8f@mail.gmail.com>

On 24/07/06, Fred Cisin  wrote:
> > >IIRC, the mid-80's IBM's PC Lan and MS's LAN Manager both ran on 8088's
> > >using DOS 3.3 and above and NETBIOS.  I don't believe that a 286 was
> > >required.
> >
> > I just wanted to know this before I dug out the WFWG 3.11 diskette set--I
> > know that it has MS LAN on it.
>
> Windows itself (3.10 and above) demands at least 286
> (3.00 WILL run on 8088)
>
> DOS 3.10 added some network hooks, do PCLAN and MS LAN manager need more
> than 8088?
>
>
>
>
The earliest machine I have seen running Lan Manager was an 80186
which was also running Windows 3.0.

Dan


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 18:06:05 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:06:05 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241455040297.1E3C56F0@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 24, 6 02:55:04 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> On 7/24/2006 at 10:26 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >Now, I've not really used the 29116, I've only come across it in the PERQ 
> >AGW3300 graphics processor, but it strikes me from the limited data that 
> >I have on it, that if you use this chip you're limited to a 16 bit data 
> >path. It's not really a bitslice chip in that you can't stick  of them 
> >togehter (like you can with the 2901).
> 
> True, but there was IIRC, a 32-bit version also.  AMD calls 'em

YEs, but the OP wants to make a 20 bit processor...

> microprocessors, but without so much as a P-counter, it's hard to justify
> the name.  Still, I wonder if a 5-package 2901 version without the carry
> lookahead would be any faster than 2 trips (microprogrammed) through the
> 16-bit CMOS unit.

Yeah, and it would probably be even faster to simulate the thing on a 
Pentium for suitable values of . But that's not the point, surely. 


-tony


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Mon Jul 24 18:24:34 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:24:34 +1200
Subject: New BASICON MC-1N (INS8073) webpage now online
Message-ID: 

After over two years, I have finally completed converting scanned docs
for my BASICON MC-1N from JPEG (!) to ASCII and put up a small page
describing this somewhat obscure INS8073-based microcontroller.  The
docs (posted _with_ permission) will probably be interesting to anyone
who is looking for information on the INS8073.  There is, naturally, a
lot of material that relates specifically to the MC-1N and its memory
map and its on-board peripherals (an 8255 PPI and an MM58174A
clock/calendar), but the bulk of the manual is about NSC Tiny BASIC.
One of the motivations for finishing the docs was to better understand
the RB5X (INS8073 w/*3* 8255 PPIs and 8K of SRAM).  The memory map may
be different, but that's trivial to transpose.

http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/

If anyone has any questions, stories, ideas, etc., for INS8073
projects, I'm interested, on-list or off-list.

-ethan


From bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca  Mon Jul 24 18:31:46 2006
From: bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca (woodelf)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:31:46 -0600
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <44C490F2.2010503@iais.fraunhofer.de>
References: <20060722024050.576.qmail@seefried.com>	<44C19533.7010906@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607212022090259.0FF4BE22@10.0.0.252>	<44C1A12A.6070606@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607220005180923.10C10C05@10.0.0.252>	<44C26652.1040005@jetnet.ab.ca>	<44C37F07.7090101@DakotaCom.Net>	<44C3C2D6.2060807@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231206110945.187B6338@10.0.0.252>	<44C3CE27.6040401@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231402430278.18E610D7@10.0.0.252>	<44C3F4BE.4030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607231555010154.194CE067@10.0.0.252>	<44C46000.3030304@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607232334370232.1AF1A227@10.0.0.252>	<44C48CB2.8010100@jetnet.ab.ca>
	<44C490F2.2010503@iais.fraunhofer.de>
Message-ID: <44C55862.6020700@jetnet.ab.ca>

Holger Veit wrote:
> woodelf schrieb:

> The cost for two additional 74s182 (usable instead of am2902) is not 
> very high,
> but there is a price in glitches and reduced clock frequency involved 
> when propagating
> a ripple carry over 5 units (=20bit). You won't find the ripple carry 
> effect unless you
> feed the ALU with certain pathological patterns.
I am guessing 25 ns for ripple carry per slice ... 125 ns delay.
24 bits would be a different story.

> You might also find the Mick&Brick book worthwhile for your enterprise.
> 
I am guessing would be if I was using 'typical' computer archtecture that
favors register to register operations.

>> using a 6809 style clock I hope to get about 1.5 Mhz with the system
>> with a non-pipelined ROM.
This is using early 70's chips so a 1 MHZ memory cycle is still fast.

> Holger
>


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Mon Jul 24 19:08:42 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 17:08:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: XP1000 problems
Message-ID: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>


Does anyone here know what the startup of a Compaq XP1000 (Alpha-based
system for OpenVMS) is supposed to look like?

I have an XP1000 with PowerStorm 300 and U2W-SCSI that I just received.  It
powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, and
there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports using
the cable for my PWS 433au, but have had no luck.  I've tried reseting the
CPU board, RAM, Video, and SCSI.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Zane




From pat at computer-refuge.org  Mon Jul 24 20:08:58 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:08:58 -0400
Subject: Mentec PDP-11's
Message-ID: <200607242108.58842.pat@computer-refuge.org>

So, has anyone ever heard of a MENTEC SBC-100?  I just acquired a pair of 
DEC-clone boxes, each has a Mentec board, which has screen printed on it "SBC 
100-04" and a label that says "SBC 104B" on it.

The board is a quad-height QBUS module, with a J11 chip, 4x 10-pin headers for 
serial ports, and 4MB (2MW) of ram soldered onboard. There's also a 8-pin DIP 
on the board labelled "19.660M" which I'm guessing is a 19.660MHz oscillator, 
a 16-switch dip switch, and a pair of 27C128 EPROMs that are 
labelled "R10-70A (C) 1991 MENTEC", and R10-71A.  

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


From brad at heeltoe.com  Mon Jul 24 20:09:24 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:09:24 -0400
Subject: Source of nifty switches? 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 24 Jul 2006 22:23:53 BST."
	 
Message-ID: <200607250109.k6P19P9w017409@mwave.heeltoe.com>


Tony Duell wrote:
>
>A 74S182 is only a 16 pin DIL package, and would give you lookahead 
>carry. Take a look at the PERQ 2 schematics on bitsavers -- the 16K CPU 
>board diagrams are there. And look at the PERQ CPU Techref also on 
>bitsavers. The PERQ is a 20 bit machine using 74S181 ALUs, and the carry 
>circuit should be applicable to you.

If it's interesting, the MIT CADR has a 32 bit alu using the 74181 and
uses the '182 for carry.  The schematics are also on bitsavers.  It's a
reasonably general microcoded 32 bit cpu.  Not bad for it's day.

Also, I have verilog for the 181 and 182 if you go that way :-) I like
to simulate...  (I have verilog for the whole cadr to be honest, but that
seems off topic)

-brad




From dburrows at netpath.net  Mon Jul 24 20:21:03 2006
From: dburrows at netpath.net (Daniel T. Burrows)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:21:03 -0400
Subject: Mentec PDP-11's
In-Reply-To: <200607242108.58842.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <200607242108.58842.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20060724211908.0660fab0@netpath.net>

It is an M100.  Great board.  I love them for test machines.  Very 
versatile.  Feel free to contact me off list for more details and set 
up / configuration information.

Dan

At 09:08 PM 07/24/2006, you wrote:
>So, has anyone ever heard of a MENTEC SBC-100?  I just acquired a pair of
>DEC-clone boxes, each has a Mentec board, which has screen printed on it "SBC
>100-04" and a label that says "SBC 104B" on it.
>
>The board is a quad-height QBUS module, with a J11 chip, 4x 10-pin 
>headers for
>serial ports, and 4MB (2MW) of ram soldered onboard. There's also a 8-pin DIP
>on the board labelled "19.660M" which I'm guessing is a 19.660MHz oscillator,
>a 16-switch dip switch, and a pair of 27C128 EPROMs that are
>labelled "R10-70A (C) 1991 MENTEC", and R10-71A.
>
>Pat
>--
>Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
>The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org



From brad at heeltoe.com  Mon Jul 24 20:24:43 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:24:43 -0400
Subject: MLP-900 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:43:51 PDT."
	 
Message-ID: <200607250124.k6P1OhBU018913@mwave.heeltoe.com>


Al Kossow wrote:
>
>> Anyone know anything about the MLP-900 from Standard Computer Corporation?
>
>There may be some things at CHM from Gordon's archives.
>
>It is doubtful one has survived. The only surviving QM-1 I know of is in
>Canada.

ok, thanks.  it's sad.

How about the B-1700?  I used one once and it was really interesting.
Has anyone archived any old tapes or software for those machines?  Any
known emulators?

Seems like lots of interesting docs on bitsavers but not software.

Any idea if CBI (http://www.cbi.umn.edu) has archives of media?

-brad


From aek at bitsavers.org  Mon Jul 24 21:10:40 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:10:40 -0700
Subject: MLP-900
Message-ID: 


> How about the B-1700?  I used one once and it was really interesting.
> Has anyone archived any old tapes or software for those machines?  Any
> known emulators?

The situation on that series is a little better than most of the Burroughs
machines. CHM has a not-quite last generation machine (19xx) as does William
Donzelli. Some software came with the CHM machine, I went to one of the last
guys who took care of them in TN a few years ago and brought back a large
stash of maint docs/sw and a card set from a 19xx he had in storage. Since
there are a lot of B-1xxx alums in the Bay Area, there is some possiblity
the CHM machine could be restored. A hardware simulation of the machine
would be a challenge.

Unfortunately, there were lots of interesting software/langs for the
machine, and almost nothing has survived that I've been able to find. Same
is true for the B5xxx/B6xxx etc. series. Univac and Burroughs had a scorched
earth policy and almost nothing survives today from their old machines.





From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 21:20:03 2006
From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:20:03 +0100 (BST)
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>


On Tue, July 25, 2006 1:08 am, Zane H. Healy said:
>
> Does anyone here know what the startup of a Compaq XP1000 (Alpha-based
> system for OpenVMS) is supposed to look like?

yup.

> powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, and
> there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports

If the diagnostic LEDs don't cycle through a powerup sequence then it's
more than likely the mainboard's dead. If the memory's bad you get a 1-3-3
beep sequence, if the CPU's bad you'll get a diagnostic display on the
LEDs. If you google for the Miyata userguides (possibly on vt100.net/manx)
you'll get a downloadable set that'll give you LED codes etc; I'm 3000
miles away from my laptop so I can't send it over :)

-- 
adrian/witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 24 21:20:29 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:20:29 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607250109.k6P19P9w017409@mwave.heeltoe.com>
References: <200607250109.k6P19P9w017409@mwave.heeltoe.com>
Message-ID: <200607241920290190.1F2F5272@10.0.0.252>

On 7/24/2006 at 9:09 PM Brad Parker wrote:

>If it's interesting, the MIT CADR has a 32 bit alu using the 74181 and
>uses the '182 for carry.  The schematics are also on bitsavers.  It's a
>reasonably general microcoded 32 bit cpu.  Not bad for it's day.

If it's a 20 bit CPU that the OP wants, perhaps someone has a set of prints
for the PERQ.

I've always been fascinated with the TI 74S481--a 4 bit slice in a 40 pin
package, but with a lot of functionality inside.  I don't know if they're
unobtainium nowadays.  The 1978 TI patent on it is here:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4224676.html.  One curious aspect is the
"position" input pin:  if the slice is the most significant, you put a
voltage higher than 3.6v on it; if the least significant, less than 0.8
volts; if in the middle, between 1.8 and 3 volts.

Cheers,
Chuck




From ohh at drizzle.com  Mon Jul 24 21:23:05 2006
From: ohh at drizzle.com (O. Sharp)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:23:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Data General/ASR-33 TTY Interface Signals
Message-ID: 


Hi, all:

I've got a DEC PDP-8/I with the typical current-loop TTY interface. I also 
have an ASR-33 teletype. The teletype, though, isn't a DEC-modified 
version; it's got a Data General card in it instead of the 4915 card DEC 
installed in their teletypes.

I'm Data General ignorant, I'm afraid.  :/  So here's my questions:

-Do your typical Data General systems use a 20ma current-loop to talk with 
ASR-33s?

-What's the pinout for DG/Teletype connections? Is it something that can 
be made DEC-friendly by simply wiring a different connector to the DG 
TTY's cables, or are the differences in signals more extensive?

-If the solution isn't that simple, does somebody have a 4915 card they 
wanted to part with (or a schematic of one) (or a DEC-outfitted ASR33 they 
wanted to trade for a DG-outfitted ASR33 )?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

                             -O.-



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 24 21:43:05 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:43:05 -0700
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241920290190.1F2F5272@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607250109.k6P19P9w017409@mwave.heeltoe.com>
	<200607241920290190.1F2F5272@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C58539.6020405@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:

> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4224676.html.  One curious aspect is the
> "position" input pin:  if the slice is the most significant, you put a
> voltage higher than 3.6v on it; if the least significant, less than 0.8
> volts; if in the middle, between 1.8 and 3 volts.

I recall some QBus(?) interface chips with similar strapping
options


From trixter at oldskool.org  Mon Jul 24 23:22:37 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:22:37 -0500
Subject: MS Network and DOS - was - Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <20060724145412.N21879@shell.lmi.net>
References: <200607241656.k6OGuMwC050974@dewey.classiccmp.org>	<44C53B8F.9030202@rogerwilco.org>	<200607241440490706.1E2F4CDC@10.0.0.252>
	<20060724145412.N21879@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <44C59C8D.2020500@oldskool.org>

Fred Cisin wrote:
>>> IIRC, the mid-80's IBM's PC Lan and MS's LAN Manager both ran on 8088's
>>> using DOS 3.3 and above and NETBIOS.  I don't believe that a 286 was
>>> required.
>> I just wanted to know this before I dug out the WFWG 3.11 diskette set--I
>> know that it has MS LAN on it.
> 
> Windows itself (3.10 and above) demands at least 286
> (3.00 WILL run on 8088)
> 
> DOS 3.10 added some network hooks, do PCLAN and MS LAN manager need more
> than 8088?

Yes, the later version requires 80186, although if you dig really hard 
you can find 8088 versions of a few key binaries somewhere in the bowels 
of MS.  I did this a while ago and SAVED 8088-friendly installed 
distributions, so if you can't find what you need, email me privately 
and I'd be happy to send you what I compiled.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From trixter at oldskool.org  Mon Jul 24 23:24:38 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 23:24:38 -0500
Subject: Parallel port bandwidth
In-Reply-To: <200607241042590106.1D558D08@10.0.0.252>
References: <44C408B5.9030308@DakotaCom.Net>
	<44C45D6E.3020305@jetnet.ab.ca>	<200607240015280800.1B170A3A@10.0.0.252>	<44C4FC8C.2010603@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607241042590106.1D558D08@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C59D06.5080006@oldskool.org>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/24/2006 at 9:59 AM Don Y wrote:
> 
>> Yes, this agrees with my analysis:  *if* I/O's in ALL pc's are
>> throttled to that 8MHz bus rate (i.e. even on 3GHz machines!).
>>
>> And, it also doesn't address how parallel ports work on *other*
>> machines without the ISA legacy "problem".
> 
> I did a little research on PCI parallel ports.  The highest data rate
> claimed on the ones I've seen is 5.5-6 MBps in EPP mode. 

You are correct; in fact, Disk2FDI uses PCI LPT cards and a special 
cable to dump diskettes completely (GAP bytes, everything) by using the 
host machine+PCI LPT to emulate a controller.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From suz at vbe.com  Mon Jul 24 21:18:56 2006
From: suz at vbe.com (Suzi Giesen)
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:18:56 -0500
Subject: Any former Philips/Magnavox VideoWriter users/owners/hackers?
Message-ID: <000601c6af90$af2d70a0$818b4d40@D6RTC721>

I have a Magnavox VideoWriter. Is there any use for one of these at all? It was my dad's and needs a new home.

S Giesen

From nico at farumdata.dk  Tue Jul 25 01:02:24 2006
From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 08:02:24 +0200
Subject: Help on odd diskette
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>

From: "Chuck Guzis" 
> I've got a rather ancient 8" diskette (hard-sectored; 32 sectors) with the
> Harris Lanier brand on it.
> It looks to be MFM with the usual n, 1.5n and 2n frequency distribution,
> but I'm not getting much meaningful from digesting the bitstream.
>
Could it be a 6 or 7-bit character set ? I've seen some funny things,
especially in word processing. If the high order bit always is ON, you could
try to set it OFF. If you mail me a few K, I could have a look at it

Nico



From segin2005 at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 02:09:24 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 03:09:24 -0400
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
Message-ID: <44C5C3A4.3080404@gmail.com>

Nico de Jong wrote:
> From: "Chuck Guzis" 
> 
>>I've got a rather ancient 8" diskette (hard-sectored; 32 sectors) with the
>>Harris Lanier brand on it.
>>It looks to be MFM with the usual n, 1.5n and 2n frequency distribution,
>>but I'm not getting much meaningful from digesting the bitstream.
>>
> 
> Could it be a 6 or 7-bit character set ? I've seen some funny things,
> especially in word processing. If the high order bit always is ON, you could
> try to set it OFF. If you mail me a few K, I could have a look at it
> 
> Nico
> 
> 
I got a 8" disk myself, it's a Verbatim brand, but I don't have a reader 
for it.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Tue Jul 25 02:24:18 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:24:18 -0700
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

At 3:20 AM +0100 7/25/06, Witchy wrote:
>On Tue, July 25, 2006 1:08 am, Zane H. Healy said:
>>
>>  Does anyone here know what the startup of a Compaq XP1000 (Alpha-based
>>  system for OpenVMS) is supposed to look like?
>
>yup.
>
>>  powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, and
>>  there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports
>
>If the diagnostic LEDs don't cycle through a powerup sequence then it's
>more than likely the mainboard's dead. If the memory's bad you get a 1-3-3
>beep sequence, if the CPU's bad you'll get a diagnostic display on the
>LEDs. If you google for the Miyata userguides (possibly on vt100.net/manx)
>you'll get a downloadable set that'll give you LED codes etc; I'm 3000
>miles away from my laptop so I can't send it over :)

Someone from comp.os.vms said it's the mainboard as well.  I was 
unable to find the document you're referring to, however, the fact 
that it doesn't complain when some or *ALL* of the RAM is missing, is 
a pretty good sign it is a dead system.  Thanks to the Powerstorm 300 
and KZPCA (U2W SCSI), both of which I've verified are good thanks to 
my PWS 433au, I don't feel like I got ripped off that bad, but it 
really ruined my day. :^(

Thought for the day, don't buy an XP1000 off eBay unless it shows 
screen shots.  It's likely to be a bad sign.

			Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From cclist at sydex.com  Tue Jul 25 02:28:28 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:28:28 -0700
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <44C5C3A4.3080404@gmail.com>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
	<44C5C3A4.3080404@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200607250028280516.204948D5@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 3:09 AM Segin wrote:

>I got a 8" disk myself, it's a Verbatim brand, but I don't have a reader 
>for it.

The way I do these is to use a Catweasel and my own code to grab the raw
pulse intervals, then write a decoder for what I see.  Unfortunately, while
this looks a lot like MFM, it doesn't really seem to be that.  The
histogram of the pulse data doesn't look like GCR either.   If you take the
shortest clock period as n, FM usually shows as two peaks spaced at n and
2n; MFM, as 3 peaks spaced n 1.5n and 2n, and GCR several (usually 5) peaks
spaced at n.

Cheers,
Chuck




From cctech at retro.co.za  Tue Jul 25 04:04:41 2006
From: cctech at retro.co.za (Wouter)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:04:41 +0200
Subject: Apple II card info needed
In-Reply-To: <200607211700.k6LH0RAs012116@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20060725110337.04698398@alpha.ccii.co.za>

Hi all

> >
> >
> > The second is an Apple-labeled 12k ROM card with part number 960-9104. It
> > has six sockets and appears to be ORGed at $D000. There's a jumper labeled
> > "2716" and a small red toggle switch. Maybe it can program EPROMS? Five of
> > the six slots are filled with Apple ROMs - the D8 ROM is missing.
>
>My guess would be this is the AppleSoft ROM card. It goes in slot 0
>(IIRC) on a machine with Integer BASIC on the motherboard. The switch
>selects between AppleSoft and Integer BASICs.
http://www.retro.co.za/ccc/apple2/apromcrd.jpg ?

W



From segin2005 at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 04:46:29 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 05:46:29 -0400
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <200607250028280516.204948D5@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>	<44C5C3A4.3080404@gmail.com>
	<200607250028280516.204948D5@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C5E875.7020701@gmail.com>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/25/2006 at 3:09 AM Segin wrote:
> 
> 
>>I got a 8" disk myself, it's a Verbatim brand, but I don't have a reader 
>>for it.
> 
> 
> The way I do these is to use a Catweasel and my own code to grab the raw
> pulse intervals, then write a decoder for what I see.  Unfortunately, while
> this looks a lot like MFM, it doesn't really seem to be that.  The
> histogram of the pulse data doesn't look like GCR either.   If you take the
> shortest clock period as n, FM usually shows as two peaks spaced at n and
> 2n; MFM, as 3 peaks spaced n 1.5n and 2n, and GCR several (usually 5) peaks
> spaced at n.
> 
> Cheers,
> Chuck
> 
> 
> 
I said reader? I meant drive. Hell, I don't even have a computer for 
which a drive was ever made for one of those!

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From brad at heeltoe.com  Tue Jul 25 06:03:28 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:03:28 -0400
Subject: MLP-900 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 24 Jul 2006 19:10:40 PDT."
	 
Message-ID: <200607251103.k6PB3SSB009120@mwave.heeltoe.com>


Al Kossow wrote:
>A hardware simulation of the machine would be a challenge.

I was thinking software simulator...  still a challenge?

>Unfortunately, there were lots of interesting software/langs for the
>machine, and almost nothing has survived that I've been able to find.

That's too bad.  I keep running into little references which remind me
of loading different microcode into the machine depending on wha
larnguage I was using...

-brad



From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk  Tue Jul 25 08:53:10 2006
From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:53:10 +0100 (BST)
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
	
Message-ID: <34486.24.90.249.225.1153835590.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>

On Tue, July 25, 2006 8:24 am, Zane H. Healy said:
>
> Someone from comp.os.vms said it's the mainboard as well.  I was
> unable to find the document you're referring to, however, the fact
> that it doesn't complain when some or *ALL* of the RAM is missing, is
> a pretty good sign it is a dead system.  Thanks to the Powerstorm 300
> and KZPCA (U2W SCSI), both of which I've verified are good thanks to
> my PWS 433au, I don't feel like I got ripped off that bad, but it
> really ruined my day. :^(

Bummer :o| We can still get XP1000 mainboards at work but you're talking
$$$ for one because someone has already parted out a working system, but I
guess you knew that already :) Resellers in the UK want $$$ for the
Powerstorm card too so it's not all bad.

-- 
adrian/witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?


From witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk  Tue Jul 25 08:53:12 2006
From: witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk (Witchy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:53:12 +0100 (BST)
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
	
Message-ID: <34488.24.90.249.225.1153835592.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>

On Tue, July 25, 2006 8:24 am, Zane H. Healy said:
>
> Someone from comp.os.vms said it's the mainboard as well.  I was
> unable to find the document you're referring to, however, the fact
> that it doesn't complain when some or *ALL* of the RAM is missing, is
> a pretty good sign it is a dead system.  Thanks to the Powerstorm 300
> and KZPCA (U2W SCSI), both of which I've verified are good thanks to
> my PWS 433au, I don't feel like I got ripped off that bad, but it
> really ruined my day. :^(

Bummer :o| We can still get XP1000 mainboards at work but you're talking
$$$ for one because someone has already parted out a working system, but I
guess you knew that already :) Resellers in the UK want $$$ for the
Powerstorm card too so it's not all bad.

-- 
adrian/witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?


From pspan at amerytel.net  Tue Jul 25 10:15:29 2006
From: pspan at amerytel.net (Phil Spanner)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:15:29 -0500
Subject: Programing PROMS
Message-ID: <003301c6affd$2b5c6520$6614a8c0@airstreamcomm.net>

Hi Chris,

Do you have the prom images that need to be programed? If so I know I can
program the national series. i do not htink that I have any blanks in stock
at the moment, but I am located in Amery WI. If you can send the images as a
binary or hex file, they should be able to be programed.

Phil



From aek at bitsavers.org  Tue Jul 25 10:18:24 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:18:24 -0500
Subject: MLP-900
Message-ID: 


> I was thinking software simulator...  still a challenge?

Yes, just due to the complexity. Much of the low level stuff would have to be reverse engineered 
for the later machines, since that is what software survives, but it is not documented as well as the 
earlier stuff. I also suspect the only language that survived is COBOL, though there was FORTRAN
and BASIC (a C was written as an experiment in Santa Barbara and LISP at the U of Utah, but there 
is no sign that they survived).

Burroughs used the concept of "S-Machines" (interpreted instruction sets in microcode) on several 
of their low and mid range systems. Same idea a P-code. Docs exist for the instruction sets for 
some of their high level languages (there was no assembly lang for the system).

The cold-load on all but the very last of the systems were from cassette. I have them, but need to 
read their contents.




From starmaster at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 11:11:38 2006
From: starmaster at gmail.com (Star Master)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:11:38 -0600
Subject: MSD SD-2 Help?
Message-ID: <5736e8250607250911i4613da84g37ef76fadd256e38@mail.gmail.com>

I am still looking for the service manaul or diagnostic info on the MSD SD-2
Disk Drive. I have the 4 schematics that are posted on the net, but need a
bit more help.

Also, if anyone has a dead (or live!) one they want to get rid of PLEASE let
me know.
Thanks.


From arcarlini at iee.org  Tue Jul 25 12:06:02 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:06:02 +0100
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: <004b01c6b00c$9d2b8910$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Zane H. Healy wrote:
> At 3:20 AM +0100 7/25/06, Witchy wrote:
>> display on the LEDs. If you google for the Miyata userguides
>> (possibly on vt100.net/manx) you'll get a downloadable set that'll
>> give you LED codes etc; I'm 3000 miles away from my laptop so I
>> can't send it over :)
> 
> Someone from comp.os.vms said it's the mainboard as well.  I was
> unable to find the document you're referring to, however, the fact

The codename is Miata not Miyata, but I don't think that will help
since Miata is an older system. The XP1000 is Monet (iirc).

All the XP1000 docs I have are already on Manx (they all all
Install/Setup guides).

Antonio



From brad at heeltoe.com  Tue Jul 25 12:20:14 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:20:14 -0400
Subject: B-1700 (was Re: MLP-900)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:18:24 CDT."
	 
Message-ID: <200607251720.k6PHKEsq031353@mwave.heeltoe.com>


"Al Kossow" wrote:
>
>The cold-load on all but the very last of the systems were from cassette. I ha
>ve them, but need to read their contents.

yes, I remember that :-) I remember looking at s-machine docs too.  I
seem to remember lots of BNF like diagrams.  I was young and
not-well-educated at the time.

I used COBOL and thought I remembered fortran and algol as well.  I
remember the machine had a card reader/punch and disks which looked like
RP06's.  Booting it was a little odd but not too painful.

I didn't want to mention the cassettes, mostly due to the terror of
thinking about reading them.  But now I've said the words and wondering
whats on them - microcode?  How would you read them?

(isn't this how you always find your victims? :-) "sure, just try and
disassemble the micrcode, how hard could it be?" :-)

hmmm... they're just cassettes.  how hard could it be? :-) I'm willing
to try if you have any extra tapes.

-brad



From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Tue Jul 25 12:45:07 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:45:07 -0500
Subject: Plextor officially no longer manufactures SCSI drives
Message-ID: 

Maybe I'm behind the curve on this, but here's something that may be
important to those of you with SCSI hardware; Plextor was praised by many as
the best/most compatible CD/DVD (esp. scsi)drives money can buy.

-----Original Message-----
From: Sales Main [mailto:sales at plextor.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 12:13 PM
To: Julian Wolfe
Subject: RE: SCSI DVD-R/RW?

Hello,

No, unfortunately we no longer make any SCSI drives whatsoever.

Thank you for your interest in Plextor products.

Regards,
 
Plextor Sales Team
Plextor Corporation
48383 Fremont Blvd. Ste 120 |  Fremont CA 94538 |
phone: 510 . 440 . 2000 |  fax: 510 . 651 . 9755



 

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Wolfe [mailto:fireflyst at earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 12:42 PM
To: Sales Main
Subject: SCSI DVD-R/RW?

Do you guys make a SCSI DVD-R or DVD-RW?  I need one for my Alpha box.






From arcarlini at iee.org  Tue Jul 25 13:22:08 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:22:08 +0100
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: <004e01c6b017$3e408530$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter1/

I don't recall this being posted before. It is
a rough write-up of the history of Apple OSs.
Apparently prepared for a book, this is the
version before prrof-reading and cutting down to size.

Antonio



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Tue Jul 25 13:25:39 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:25:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <34488.24.90.249.225.1153835592.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> from
	"Witchy" at Jul 25, 2006 02:53:12 PM
Message-ID: <200607251825.k6PIPdkx016776@onyx.spiritone.com>

> 
> On Tue, July 25, 2006 8:24 am, Zane H. Healy said:
> >
> > Someone from comp.os.vms said it's the mainboard as well.  I was
> > unable to find the document you're referring to, however, the fact
> > that it doesn't complain when some or *ALL* of the RAM is missing, is
> > a pretty good sign it is a dead system.  Thanks to the Powerstorm 300
> > and KZPCA (U2W SCSI), both of which I've verified are good thanks to
> > my PWS 433au, I don't feel like I got ripped off that bad, but it
> > really ruined my day. :^(
> 
> Bummer :o| We can still get XP1000 mainboards at work but you're talking
> $$$ for one because someone has already parted out a working system, but I
> guess you knew that already :) Resellers in the UK want $$$ for the
> Powerstorm card too so it's not all bad.
> 
> -- 
> adrian/witchy
> Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
> www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?

The PowerStorm 300 will be a great upgrade from the Elsa Gloria Synergy card
I currently have.  The Elsa Gloria is total garbage, the screen "ripples"
when scrolling to fast.  Besides from the little details I had, I rather
assumed that the video card was a piece of junk (Wierd Miata alpha-numeric
string), and the correct P/N was on the bulkhead!  So it was a nice
surprise.

Still for me the best part is the U2W SCSI, which gives me some real
incentive to do the disk upgrades I've been putting off.  Of 6 18GB drives,
only 1 is currently an LVD disk, luckily that is the system drive.  I'll
most likely upgrade the other 5 disks to 36GB LVD (assuming I have enough 
in my stash).  That alone will hopefully buy me at least a slight speed
increase.  It should definitely help in rebuilding a shadow set!

		Zane



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Tue Jul 25 13:34:32 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:34:32 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Plextor officially no longer manufactures SCSI drives
In-Reply-To:  from
	"Julian Wolfe" at Jul 25, 2006 12:45:07 PM
Message-ID: <200607251834.k6PIYWYQ016954@onyx.spiritone.com>

> Maybe I'm behind the curve on this, but here's something that may be
> important to those of you with SCSI hardware; Plextor was praised by many as
> the best/most compatible CD/DVD (esp. scsi)drives money can buy.

To the best of my knowledge, they haven't made a SCSI burner since the 16x
CD-R drive (I bought one new).  I was also lucky enough to get one of their
32x CD-ROM drives for my OpenVMS system.  I'm not sure if they've made any
SCSI CD-ROM drives since then, and I don't know if they made any SCSI DVD
drives.  I just happen to have one of the Sun SCSI DVD-ROM drives sitting
here, and it was made by Toshiba.

Plextor SCSI drives do rock!  I love the 8x Caddy drives they made years
ago, and have one in my PDP-11.  Due to the limited number of CD's for a
PDP-11, most of which I've made myself, caddy drives are perfect for the
system!

Most people that require a SCSI optical drive are now resorting to using the
Acard IDE-to-SCSI adapters.  I don't know if they will support 512-byte
blocks or not, as I haven't purchased one.

		Zane



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Tue Jul 25 13:35:36 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:35:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <004e01c6b017$3e408530$5b01a8c0@uatempname> from "Antonio
	Carlini" at Jul 25, 2006 07:22:08 PM
Message-ID: <200607251835.k6PIZa8Z016983@onyx.spiritone.com>

> 
> http://www.osxbook.com/book/bonus/chapter1/
> 
> I don't recall this being posted before. It is
> a rough write-up of the history of Apple OSs.
> Apparently prepared for a book, this is the
> version before prrof-reading and cutting down to size.
> 
> Antonio
> 

Not wanting to deal with a PDF at the moment, does this include info on the
Apple II OS's?

	Zane




From cclist at sydex.com  Tue Jul 25 13:50:15 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:50:15 -0700
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <44C5E875.7020701@gmail.com>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
	<44C5C3A4.3080404@gmail.com>
	<200607250028280516.204948D5@10.0.0.252>
	<44C5E875.7020701@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200607251150150314.22B97775@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 5:46 AM Segin wrote:

>I said reader? I meant drive. Hell, I don't even have a computer for 
>which a drive was ever made for one of those!

Fortunately, 8" drives aren't yet hard to come by.  And hooking one up to a
PC floppy controller (or a Catweasel) isn't difficult either.

FWIW, if anyone wants to take a stab at solving this puzzle, I've got a
catweasel dump of a representative track that I can make available for
download.

CHeers,
Chuck




From Billy.Pettit at wdc.com  Tue Jul 25 14:10:52 2006
From: Billy.Pettit at wdc.com (Billy Pettit)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:10:52 -0700
Subject: Old Computer Ads
Message-ID: 

Andrew Hastings of the controlfreaks list has put some old computer industry
ads up on the web: http://www.dvq.com/oldcomp/oldads.htm

They are chronological, so pick your favorite year and enjoy.

Excellent job - I was filled with memories.

Billy


From arcarlini at iee.org  Tue Jul 25 14:22:14 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:22:14 +0100
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607251835.k6PIZa8Z016983@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Zane H. Healy wrote:

> Not wanting to deal with a PDF at the moment, does this include info
> on the Apple II OS's? 

I've only skip-read it just now ....

There's a few words about the Apple I, some basic info on Apple II
stuff,
some Lisa stuff and plenty of mac stuff. There's also a chapter on
"Inspirations" (the mouse, hypertext, etc.).

Antonio




From jbmcb1 at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 15:21:57 2006
From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:21:57 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
References: <200607251835.k6PIZa8Z016983@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0607251321p2426f654k38565f3945626d7a@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/25/06, Antonio Carlini  wrote:
>
>
> There's a few words about the Apple I, some basic info on Apple II
> stuff,
> some Lisa stuff and plenty of mac stuff. There's also a chapter on
> "Inspirations" (the mouse, hypertext, etc.).



There's also some nice stuff on NeXTStep/OpenSTEP, Mach, A/UX, a bit about
their UNIX heritage, and a quick history of RISC. Great stuff.


From kelly at catcorner.org  Tue Jul 25 17:09:05 2006
From: kelly at catcorner.org (Kelly Leavitt)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:09:05 -0400
Subject: Help on odd diskette
Message-ID: <07028839E9A3744F87BEF27FF2CFF8E303612C@MEOW.catcorner.org>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 2:50 PM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Help on odd diskette
> 
> 
> On 7/25/2006 at 5:46 AM Segin wrote:
> 
> >I said reader? I meant drive. Hell, I don't even have a computer for 
> >which a drive was ever made for one of those!
> 
> Fortunately, 8" drives aren't yet hard to come by.  And 
> hooking one up to a
> PC floppy controller (or a Catweasel) isn't difficult either.
> 
> FWIW, if anyone wants to take a stab at solving this puzzle, 
> I've got a
> catweasel dump of a representative track that I can make available for
> download.
> 
> CHeers,
> Chuck
> 
> 
> 

Chuck:
  I'd be interested in taking a look at the bitstream. 
Kelly



From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de  Tue Jul 25 02:20:23 2006
From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:20:23 +0200
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C5C637.6070304@iais.fraunhofer.de>

Tony Duell schrieb:
>> Pick up a copy of Mick & Brick, regardless.  A good read for
>> this type of undertaking!
>>     
>
> Seconded ! Anyone who is designing a microcoded processor, particularly 
> one using the AMD2900 seires chips, and who hasn't read Mick and Brick is 
> making life difficult for themselves :-)
>
> I am told paper copies are not easy to find, although isn't it on the web 
> somewhere now? I don't know, I have a paper version...
>
> -tony
>   
Numerous used copies exist for cheap at Amazon. Therefore, it is 
probably not worth photocopying it,
particularly because it contains many small two-sheet schematics. I 
haven't seen it online yet.

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Holger Veit
Head IT-Management

Fraunhofer IAIS
Institute for Intelligent Analysis & Information Systems
Schloss Birlinghoven
D-53757 Sankt Augustin
e-mail: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de
Tel. +49 2241 14 2448
Fax. +49 2241 14 2342



From charles.lynch at ns.sympatico.ca  Tue Jul 25 14:23:38 2006
From: charles.lynch at ns.sympatico.ca (Charlie)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:23:38 -0300
Subject: Heathkit H89 Video Question
Message-ID: <000f01c6b01f$d58955e0$4163b18e@charles>

Hello,
  I have a Zenith version of the Heathkit 89.  Inshipping the tube fell back and pulled some wires out of the board.  Can you help?  I need eith a photo or a description of where they go.  The wires in question plug straight into the back of the tube.  That part is fine.  I need to know where they go on the board.  There are 2 browns (still fastened) 1 yellow(fastened) green, black, red and white (unfastened)  The places where they come out of the bard are labeled G1,G2,G,G4 but I don't know which wire went to wich board location.
Your assistance would be appreciated.
thanks, Charlie


From abh at acm.org  Tue Jul 25 14:33:47 2006
From: abh at acm.org (Andrew Hastings)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 14:33:47 -0500
Subject: Old Computer Ads
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C6721B.3000104@acm.org>

I have no connection to the website -- I found it while searching for 
information about the computers manufactured by cereal maker General Mills.

See also:
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/exhibits/mncomputing/companylist.html#GenMills
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61-g.html#GENERAL-MILLS-AD/ECS

-Andrew


Billy Pettit wrote:
> Andrew Hastings of the controlfreaks list has put some old computer 
> industry ads up on the web: http://www.dvq.com/oldcomp/oldads.htm
> 
> They are chronological, so pick your favorite year and enjoy.
> 
> Excellent job - I was filled with memories.
> 
> Billy


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Tue Jul 25 17:27:53 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:27:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
Message-ID: <20060725152600.K2942@shell.lmi.net>

> > I've got a rather ancient 8" diskette (hard-sectored; 32 sectors) with the
> > Harris Lanier brand on it.
> > It looks to be MFM with the usual n, 1.5n and 2n frequency distribution,
> > but I'm not getting much meaningful from digesting the bitstream.

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Nico de Jong wrote:
> Could it be a 6 or 7-bit character set ? I've seen some funny things,
> especially in word processing. If the high order bit always is ON, you could
> try to set it OFF. If you mail me a few K, I could have a look at it

. . . or inverted data (ala Superbrain),
or EBCDIC (ala some Seikos),
or compressed or encrypted?






From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 19:41:49 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:41:49 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607250109.k6P19P9w017409@mwave.heeltoe.com> from "Brad
	Parker" at Jul 24, 6 09:09:24 pm
Message-ID: 

> Also, I have verilog for the 181 and 182 if you go that way :-) I like
> to simulate...  (I have verilog for the whole cadr to be honest, but that


FWIW, the Texas Instruments TTL databook has gate level schematics for 
the '181 and '182. and gives the logic equations for the '182 (which are 
pretty obvious when you see them :-)). If you can't find a '182, it 
wouldn't be hard to program some kind of PLD or PROM to do the same function.

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 20:00:02 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:00:02 +0100 (BST)
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk> from
	"Witchy" at Jul 25, 6 03:20:03 am
Message-ID: 

> 
> 
> On Tue, July 25, 2006 1:08 am, Zane H. Healy said:
> >
> > Does anyone here know what the startup of a Compaq XP1000 (Alpha-based
> > system for OpenVMS) is supposed to look like?
> 
> yup.
> 
> > powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, and
> > there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports
> 
> If the diagnostic LEDs don't cycle through a powerup sequence then it's
> more than likely the mainboard's dead. If the memory's bad you get a 1-3-3

Never having seen one of these machines, what does it do if the power-OK 
signal is not asserted. I could believe (based on experiences with other 
machines) that all LEDs are on at power-up, and one of the first things 
the CPU does is change that pattern. So if the power-OK signal is 
deasserted, the CPU never starts, all the LEDs remain on.


-tony



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 20:05:15 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:05:15 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Source of nifty switches?
In-Reply-To: <200607241920290190.1F2F5272@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 24, 6 07:20:29 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> On 7/24/2006 at 9:09 PM Brad Parker wrote:
> 
> >If it's interesting, the MIT CADR has a 32 bit alu using the 74181 and
> >uses the '182 for carry.  The schematics are also on bitsavers.  It's a
> >reasonably general microcoded 32 bit cpu.  Not bad for it's day.
> 
> If it's a 20 bit CPU that the OP wants, perhaps someone has a set of prints
> for the PERQ.

I do, and I am sure they're on Bitsavers...

Be warned that the PERQ is not a simple CPU (the 16K control store 
version, which uses PALs for some of the logic, and which manages to 
implement more microinstructions as a result, contains over 260 ICs). And 
it's somewhat tied to the PERQ memory circuitry too. And it's got a 
graphics accelerator that you probably won't want.

Even so, look at the diagrams (and the tech manual). There may well be 
some stuff there you can use..

> 
> I've always been fascinated with the TI 74S481--a 4 bit slice in a 40 pin

I whould have a data sheet on that.

> package, but with a lot of functionality inside.  I don't know if they're
> unobtainium nowadays.  The 1978 TI patent on it is here:
> http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4224676.html.  One curious aspect is the
> "position" input pin:  if the slice is the most significant, you put a
> voltage higher than 3.6v on it; if the least significant, less than 0.8
> volts; if in the middle, between 1.8 and 3 volts.

Odd!

As an aside, the Philips P851 uses a custom chip that's a 4-bit slice. 
It's called SPALU (Scratch Pad (registers) and Arithmetic Logic Unit) in 
the service manual. There's probably enough info in said manual to 
recreate the chip if desparate (which I will be if I don't have 4 working 
ones out of the 8 I have (4 in the P851, 4 on a spare board).

-tony


From cclist at sydex.com  Tue Jul 25 17:41:12 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:41:12 -0700
Subject: Help on odd diskette
In-Reply-To: <20060725152600.K2942@shell.lmi.net>
References: <200607241400230515.1E0A47CB@10.0.0.252>
	<007f01c6afaf$e6667610$2101a8c0@finans>
	<20060725152600.K2942@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <200607251541120307.238CE66E@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 3:27 PM Fred Cisin wrote:

>. . . or inverted data (ala Superbrain),
>or EBCDIC (ala some Seikos),
>or compressed or encrypted?

No, on the first two and probably no (given the age of the disk) on the
last.  My suspicion is that I'm not recovering the data correctly from the
Catweasel stream.  And it's not 6-bit data (a la WPS I) as nearly as I can
tell.

Cheers,
Chuck






From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 24 20:28:20 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 02:28:20 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Heathkit H89 Video Question
In-Reply-To: <000f01c6b01f$d58955e0$4163b18e@charles> from "Charlie" at Jul 25,
	6 04:23:38 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> Hello,
>   I have a Zenith version of the Heathkit 89.  Inshipping the tube fell =
> back and pulled some wires out of the board.  Can you help?  I need eith =
> a photo or a description of where they go.  The wires in question plug =
> straight into the back of the tube.  That part is fine.  I need to know =
> where they go on the board.  There are 2 browns (still fastened) 1 =
> yellow(fastened) green, black, red and white (unfastened)  The places =
> where they come out of the bard are labeled G1,G2,G,G4 but I don't know =
> which wire went to wich board location.


I have the Schematics for the Z89/Z90 in front of me.

The wires from the CRT base all go to the little 'Video Driver Circuit 
Board'. According to said sceheamtics, the wiring to the CRT should be : 

Brown : FIL to pin 1 of CRT
Brown : FIL to pin 8 of CRT
Yellow : k to pin 7 og CRT
Black : Arc ground 
Red : G2 to pin 3 of CRT
White : G4 to pin 4 of CRT
Green : G1 to pin 2 of CRT


Between the video circuit board (the big one flat in the bottom of the 
case) and the driver board are the following wires : 

P901 is the Molex connector on the driver PCB

Yellow : +53V to P901-3
Orange : +6.2V to P901-5
Gren : G1 to P901-6
White : G4 to P901-8
Red : G2 to P910-10
Black : Gnd1 to P901-4
Bronw : FIL to P901-1
Brown : FIL to P910-2

Let me know if you need more information

-tony


From trag at io.com  Tue Jul 25 18:12:57 2006
From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:12:57 -0500
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: 

>Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 22:20:05 -0500
>From: Jim Leonard 

>Doc Shipley wrote:
>>    I paid $100 for mine, but it had a 6900 page count.  4000 models go
>>  cheaper.
>
>No idea where you got it; ebay shows >$200 for models that have 35K
>pagecount.  One 4050 was selling for $79, but it had an 800K (!!!)
>pagecount, is that possible?  Can these things last nearly one million
>pages?

It seems to vary a great deal with time.  A few months ago there was 
a surplus dealer selling LJ4050s with Postscript and after the first 
bunch sold at higher prices, the remainder were selling for $40 - 
$80, plus shipping.

If the original poster's only requirement is 600 dpi, then consider 
the HP LJ 4 Plus or 4M Plus (the M denotes postscript included). 
Those did 600 dpi, but are quite old by now.   I think they're very 
cool though, because they had an optional 500 page paper tray and an 
optional duplexer, and these options just made the printer higher, 
they didn't increase the small footprint.

  Though for small footprint it's really hard to beat the 
TI Microlaser Plus from around 1989 - 1991.  Unfortunately, you'd be 
hard pressed to find one with working pick-up rollers (not exit 
rollers, which are easily replaced) and the pick-up rollers are no 
longer available anywhere.  But it was 300 dpi, so not really 
relevant to this discussion.  BTW, does anyone want to come by 
Austin, TX and pick two up?   One has Postscript and a LocalTalk 
port, but has the pickup roller problem.  It has new exit rollers and 
the maximum RAM installed.  The second one I don't know much about as 
I picked it up to scavenge the pick up rollers out of.  I've got a 
couple of new toner cartridges, an OPC drum, and a developer kit too. 
Since we bought the LJ2100 keeping the TI ML wheezing along seems 
kind of pointless. 

The 4050 does 1200 X 1200 dpi, I believe.   The LJ2100 is a nice 
little printer and also does 1200 dpi.   The Computer Works store in 
San Antonio has been selling a couple of pallets of LJ2100s for $80 
each (IIRC) and of course they're available on Ebay as well.  The 
ones in SA have anywere from 10^4 pages to 3 X 10^5 page count, 
depending on how busy the office from which they came was.

Jeff Walther


From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com  Tue Jul 25 18:07:50 2006
From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:07:50 -0400
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>

IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???

=-=-=

MCA-based NCR box w/386SX20... $386.20 (ain't that funny... not!) - but 
it's a nice box if yer into that sorta thing - coprocessor & SCSI built-in.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320002549109

Or for you transputer(28each)/i860(24each) and at least 192 Meg RAM 
"supercomputer" hunters with $8K burnin' a hole in yer pocket and want to 
score the "Mother Lode":

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220007046405

Me? I was just looking for info on EPROM programmers... Too rich for my 
blood anyway - I'll stick with my CoCos & Model 200's...
;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com.         |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers



From recycler at swbell.net  Tue Jul 25 18:16:55 2006
From: recycler at swbell.net (Patrick Jankowiak)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:16:55 -0500
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <34486.24.90.249.225.1153835590.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>	
	<34486.24.90.249.225.1153835590.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <44C6A667.6040907@swbell.net>

The XP1000 runs hot as it is. It does not spin up the fan good till 
it's real hot.

It can be modded with one simple tool to drastically increase cooling:
http://www.montagar.com/~patj/xp1000z001.htm

Trust me this is worth it!

Patrick J.




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Tue Jul 25 18:17:04 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:17:04 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
Message-ID: <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>

Jeff Walther wrote:
> If the original poster's only requirement is 600 dpi, then consider the 
> HP LJ 4 Plus or 4M Plus (the M denotes postscript included). Those did 
> 600 dpi, but are quite old by now.   I think they're very cool though, 
> because they had an optional 500 page paper tray and an optional 
> duplexer, and these options just made the printer higher, they didn't 
> increase the small footprint.

I agree.  I inherited a 4+.  Scrounged the PS SIMM out of a 4M
along with the NIC from yet another LJ.  With 66(?)M or
RAM in it, the thing just sits there waiting to gobble up
whatever print jobs I send it's way!

A couple of friends feed me partially used toner cartridges
so I seem to be in LJ Heaven.  :>

(unfortunately, I print < 1000 pages a year so it's almost
a waste of space!  :<  )

> The 4050 does 1200 X 1200 dpi, I believe.   The LJ2100 is a nice little 
> printer and also does 1200 dpi.   The Computer Works store in San 
> Antonio has been selling a couple of pallets of LJ2100s for $80 each 
> (IIRC) and of course they're available on Ebay as well.  The ones in SA 
> have anywere from 10^4 pages to 3 X 10^5 page count, depending on how 
> busy the office from which they came was.

I just tossed an Optra Se3455 (1200dpi) because the replacement
toner cartridge was SO expensive (~$200)

A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
they develop pick problems!


From jclang at notms.net  Tue Jul 25 18:36:29 2006
From: jclang at notms.net (joseph c lang)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:36:29 -0400
Subject: intel multibus ram documents needed
Message-ID: <06072519362900.02220@bell>

I have a couple of multibus RAM boards I'm looking for
jumper info or schematics.

There's not much on the boards to identify the model
the first board:

62KB dram board 
multibus 1 
16 bit data path
the only marking (other than "INTEL") is PWA142779-006

The second board:
256KB dram board
multibus 1
16 bit data path
the original marking was PWA143156-045 
this is struck out with black marker and
the number 133292-002 is written over it.
(this board may have been upgraded some time in its life)

I suspect both boards were part of an Intel MDS.
(there was an ICE in the pile that I wasn't able to save)

joe lang




From cclist at sydex.com  Tue Jul 25 18:39:11 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:39:11 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:

>A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
>toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
>useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
>they develop pick problems!

Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?  (As I said, I've got a couple
of Panasonic KXP-4450/4455's from before 1990 still grinding away, but I'm
the original owner).  Sitting on my desk next to me, I've got a Brother
4050 that I paid $100 new for two years ago--still on its first cartridge,
which is supposed to be a "half capacity" model.  At that price, I can just
about afford to buy a new one when the toner runs out...

Cheers,
Chuck






From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Tue Jul 25 18:46:10 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:46:10 -0700
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <44C6AD42.4040508@msm.umr.edu>

Roger Merchberger wrote:

> IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???
>


> Laterz,
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger

Nice to spot roger.  However if you read their crapola, they have
all the worst attributes of a "power ebay seller".  No support,
therefore no answers about where it came from, condition questions
pre or post sale, etc.

No local pickup (have to steal as much for packaging it as they can)

no phone calls

I try my best to totally avoid these types, since that is all that I
can do.

I tried to offer some information to one who had some incorrect
information (some idiot in colorado) and he went totally postal
on me.  I hope none of these idiots get hold of anything I ever
want.

My current favorite to deal with is the fellow in New Mexico
who posts as riatla.  He has S100 stuff right now, and had the
CDC-160, and an 029 keypunch.  he is the nicest reseller I have
ever dealt with, and will answer questions all day long.  It is possible
to have an ebay business and be civil, as opposed to the lister
of these.

That said, hopefully someone can stomach the process to obtain
these, as they do appear to be rare.  Not worth $8000 (canadian
or US) but interesting.

Jim


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Tue Jul 25 18:49:42 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 16:49:42 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:
> 
>> A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
>> toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
>> useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
>> they develop pick problems!
> 
> Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
> it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?  (As I said, I've got a couple
> of Panasonic KXP-4450/4455's from before 1990 still grinding away, but I'm
> the original owner).  Sitting on my desk next to me, I've got a Brother
> 4050 that I paid $100 new for two years ago--still on its first cartridge,
> which is supposed to be a "half capacity" model.  At that price, I can just
> about afford to buy a new one when the toner runs out...

I don't think it makes sense unless you have big-time printing
needs.  Without looking very hard, you can find working laser
printers (especially HP's) headed for the trash almost every
week (and I'm not in a particularly *good* location for
surplus materials!).  They're *so* commonplace that it is
hardly worth the time to repair them -- unless it's a simple
"swap-out-the-fuser" type of repair.  Just move it aside
and put another in it's place.

I've given away 3 LJ4's in the past year just because they're
not worth the space to store them!  (Annoying that their RAM
requirements differ from the 4+).

I've been offered two Phasers in the past 6 months and just
can't justify that much color printing to set aside that
much floorspace  :>


From dmabry at mich.com  Tue Jul 25 19:03:14 2006
From: dmabry at mich.com (Dave Mabry)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:03:14 -0400
Subject: intel multibus ram documents needed
In-Reply-To: <06072519362900.02220@bell>
References: <06072519362900.02220@bell>
Message-ID: <44C6B142.4010903@mich.com>

joseph c lang wrote:

>I have a couple of multibus RAM boards I'm looking for
>jumper info or schematics.
>
>There's not much on the boards to identify the model
>the first board:
>
>62KB dram board 
>multibus 1 
>16 bit data path
>the only marking (other than "INTEL") is PWA142779-006
>
>The second board:
>256KB dram board
>multibus 1
>16 bit data path
>the original marking was PWA143156-045 
>this is struck out with black marker and
>the number 133292-002 is written over it.
>(this board may have been upgraded some time in its life)
>
>I suspect both boards were part of an Intel MDS.
>(there was an ICE in the pile that I wasn't able to save)
>
>joe lang
>
>  
>

Any chance of some photos?  I may have some info on them.





From jim.isbell at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 19:16:45 2006
From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:16:45 -0500
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: 

I use LJ2s and 4s.  I used to use only the LJ original but they became
to rare.  I work in a thrift shop as a volunteer and we have them come
thru all the time and sell them for $5.  If they are working I stack
them in the garage and if they are not I remove the cartridge  and
sometimes the innards and store them.  The LJ2  and the original LJ
make the best printing I have seen from ANY printer and it almost
looks like and old fashioned offset printer output even has a raised
feel to it that you can feel.  And at $5 a piece I can afford to stack
them and when one screws up I pitch it.

OTOH....I have an HP1600 color printer/scanner/copier that wasnt worth
$5 the day I bought it new.  The ink is expensive the printer often
doesnt recognise the cartridge and even when I dont need
ink...scanning...it wont let it work unless I have ink in it.  What a
waste of technology.  Currently it isnt recognising the color ink
module so I will be pitching it into the trash tomorrow after less
than 300 copies.

On 7/25/06, Don Y  wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:
> >
> >> A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
> >> toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
> >> useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
> >> they develop pick problems!
> >
> > Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
> > it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?  (As I said, I've got a couple
> > of Panasonic KXP-4450/4455's from before 1990 still grinding away, but I'm
> > the original owner).  Sitting on my desk next to me, I've got a Brother
> > 4050 that I paid $100 new for two years ago--still on its first cartridge,
> > which is supposed to be a "half capacity" model.  At that price, I can just
> > about afford to buy a new one when the toner runs out...
>
> I don't think it makes sense unless you have big-time printing
> needs.  Without looking very hard, you can find working laser
> printers (especially HP's) headed for the trash almost every
> week (and I'm not in a particularly *good* location for
> surplus materials!).  They're *so* commonplace that it is
> hardly worth the time to repair them -- unless it's a simple
> "swap-out-the-fuser" type of repair.  Just move it aside
> and put another in it's place.
>
> I've given away 3 LJ4's in the past year just because they're
> not worth the space to store them!  (Annoying that their RAM
> requirements differ from the 4+).
>
> I've been offered two Phasers in the past 6 months and just
> can't justify that much color printing to set aside that
> much floorspace  :>
>


-- 
Jim Isbell
"If you are not living on the edge, well then,
you are just taking up too much space."


From cclist at sydex.com  Tue Jul 25 19:52:27 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 17:52:27 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
	
Message-ID: <200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 7:16 PM Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote:

>OTOH....I have an HP1600 color printer/scanner/copier that wasnt worth
>$5 the day I bought it new.  The ink is expensive the printer often
>doesnt recognise the cartridge and even when I dont need
>ink...scanning...it wont let it work unless I have ink in it.  What a
>waste of technology.  Currently it isnt recognising the color ink
>module so I will be pitching it into the trash tomorrow after less
>than 300 copies.

I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of King
Gillette.

I do recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer demo at NCC back in 1970's.  My
reaction was that it was such a complicated affair that (heavens!) couldn't
even print on NCR multipart paper, so what good was it, above being a very
clever bit of machinery? 

Cheers,
Chuck




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Tue Jul 25 20:26:33 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:26:33 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>	
	<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C6C4C9.9020408@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/25/2006 at 7:16 PM Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote:
> 
>> OTOH....I have an HP1600 color printer/scanner/copier that wasnt worth
>> $5 the day I bought it new.  The ink is expensive the printer often
>> doesnt recognise the cartridge and even when I dont need
>> ink...scanning...it wont let it work unless I have ink in it.  What a
>> waste of technology.  Currently it isnt recognising the color ink
>> module so I will be pitching it into the trash tomorrow after less
>> than 300 copies.
> 
> I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of King
> Gillette.

Yup.  Fast forward to 2009... "Introducing the new, gillette
Track 47 razor -- complete with training wheels to help you
support it while shaving!"

(Though Gillette had an interesting little "residence" in CT
complete with a small *train* that circled the property -- long
since sold to Lake Compounce(?) as a kiddy ride...)

> I do recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer demo at NCC back in 1970's.  My
> reaction was that it was such a complicated affair that (heavens!) couldn't
> even print on NCR multipart paper, so what good was it, above being a very
> clever bit of machinery? 

OTOH, industrial inkjet printers are pretty interesting
devices (though really not very "clever" when you consider
the conditions under which they operate).  But *really*
messy! (and, when one screws up, it can ruin a boatload
of packaged product real quick!  :>)

IIRC, _The Medium is the Massage_ had a photo of printing
on an (raw) egg yolk.  A good example of what you *could*
do with inkjet technology (though I'd have to re-examine
the photo to have a better idea if that is really what was
used)


From ken at seefried.com  Tue Jul 25 21:20:29 2006
From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:20:29 -0400
Subject: ciro100: Re: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20060726022029.6185.qmail@seefried.com>

From: jim stephens 
>Roger Merchberger wrote: 
>
>> IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer??? 
>>
> 
>
>> Laterz,
>> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>
>Nice to spot roger.  However if you read their crapola, they have
>all the worst attributes of a "power ebay seller".  No support,
>therefore no answers about where it came from, condition questions
>pre or post sale, etc. 
>
>No local pickup (have to steal as much for packaging it as they can) 
>
>no phone calls 
>
>I try my best to totally avoid these types, since that is all that I
>can do. 
>

Ciro100 is definately one to avoid. 

I won an auction from him, and he demanded that I leave positive feedback 
for him before he would complete the deal.  I finally agreed to cancel the 
transaction to avoid him leaving a retaliatory negative. 

> My current favorite to deal with is the fellow in New Mexico
> who posts as riatla.  

Agreed!  Riatla is a very, very honest seller who often has nifty items. 

Ken 



From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com  Tue Jul 25 21:36:37 2006
From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:36:37 -0400
Subject: ciro100: Re: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <20060726022029.6185.qmail@seefried.com>
References: <200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725223512.03c62068@mail.30below.com>

Rumor has it that Ken Seefried may have mentioned these words:
>From: jim stephens 
>>Roger Merchberger wrote:
>>>IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???
>>
>>>Laterz,
>>>Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>>
>>Nice to spot roger.  However if you read their crapola, they have
>>all the worst attributes of a "power ebay seller".  No support,
>>therefore no answers about where it came from, condition questions
>>pre or post sale, etc.
>>No local pickup (have to steal as much for packaging it as they can)
>>no phone calls
>>I try my best to totally avoid these types, since that is all that I
>>can do.
>
>Ciro100 is definately one to avoid.
>I won an auction from him, and he demanded that I leave positive feedback 
>for him before he would complete the deal.  I finally agreed to cancel the 
>transaction to avoid him leaving a retaliatory negative.

EEeek!

For the record: I knew nothing of the seller - only of the "kewl" piece of 
equipment that was overpriced...

Laterz,
"Merch"

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com.         |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Tue Jul 25 22:07:34 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:07:34 -0700
Subject: XP1000 problems - Resolved
In-Reply-To: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: 

Someone on comp.os.vms suggested playing with the DIP switches that 
control the 500/667Mhz settings on the mainboard and daughterboard. 
Guess what, I had a 500Mhz CPU in a 667Mhz system.  Obviously someone 
swapped the board out prior to my buying it.  Another reason screen 
shots are good when buying a system on eBay.

Of course since I thought it was dead, I got another one, and am now 
waiting on a 667Mhz system from another dealer, it should be here 
early next week.  Oh, well, I'll have a backup system for emergencies 
:^)

		Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com  Tue Jul 25 22:08:18 2006
From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:08:18 -0700
Subject: Over 1,500 new messages in one block?!
Message-ID: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>

	I came in this evening to over 1,500 new messages, the majority of them from cctech.

	I'm not sure if the server just sat on them for a while, or something else hiccupped. I do know that I'll need to unsubscribe if it's going to be an ongoing occurrence. I cannot deal with retrieving that big a load when I'm on the road.

	Explanations of why this may have happened would be welcome, along with ideas on whether it will happen again.

	Thanks much.



	

	
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"




From lee at geekdot.com  Tue Jul 25 22:24:22 2006
From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 05:24:22 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Laser printing
Message-ID: <4002.86.139.195.23.1153884262.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com>

> IIRC, _The Medium is the Massage_ had a photo of printing
> on an (raw) egg yolk.  A good example of what you *could*
> do with inkjet technology

Tomorrow's World, a BBC TV programme, did a live demonstration of
just such a thing back in nineteen seventy something.

Lee.




From useddec at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 22:40:11 2006
From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:40:11 -0500
Subject: PDP8 parts
Message-ID: <624966d60607252040m4e817104u6736fff6f240314e@mail.gmail.com>

>
> i am negotiating on purchasing a larage quantity of PDP8 boards which
> includes G,M, R, and S series boards.  Also included in this are the M8341
> to match my M8340's to make up complete sets.  I discussed these and
> seveeral other parts with numberous members of the list several months ago
> and have been waiting to get a detailed inventory.



If anyone is interested in these or any other PDP8 boards or options please
contact me off list.

Thanks,

Ppaul Anderson
useddec at gmail.com

(217)586-5361


From useddec at gmail.com  Tue Jul 25 22:59:49 2006
From: useddec at gmail.com (Paul Anderson)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:59:49 -0500
Subject: Dec 3000's, 5000's, 3100's, ETC
Message-ID: <624966d60607252059u3132fee5nfa62efa1f8228e92@mail.gmail.com>

>
> .  If you have any interest in these boxes, please contact me off list and
> I can supply you with configurations.



Thanks,

Paul Anderson
useddec at gmail.com

(217) 586-5361


From marvin at rain.org  Tue Jul 25 23:09:00 2006
From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:09:00 -0700
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
Message-ID: <44C6EADC.FCDA70FF@rain.org>


> From: jim stephens 

> My current favorite to deal with is the fellow in New Mexico
> who posts as riatla.  He has S100 stuff right now, and had the
> CDC-160, and an 029 keypunch.  he is the nicest reseller I have
> ever dealt with, and will answer questions all day long.  It is possible
> to have an ebay business and be civil, as opposed to the lister
> of these.

I've been to their store in Albuquerque, and found them to be reasonably
friendly although they price most of their stuff by ebay standards. In case
anyone doesn't already know, riatla is Altair spelled backwards.


From nerdware at ctgonline.org  Tue Jul 25 23:12:50 2006
From: nerdware at ctgonline.org (Paul Braun)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:12:50 -0500
Subject: Anyone want a pdp11 Peripherals Handbook?
Message-ID: <44C6EBC2.4050703@ctgonline.org>

Cleaning out - found a copy of the PDP11 Peripherals Handbook, c. 1975.

If anyone wants it, $5 shipped will do the trick.

Lemmeno.

Thanks!
-- 



Paul Braun
Valparaiso, IN

"There's a fine line between stupid, and clever." - David St. Hubbins

"Enjoy every sandwich." - Warren Zevon

"The Fountain of Youth is a state of mind." - The Ides of March


From dm561 at torfree.net  Tue Jul 25 23:24:40 2006
From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:24:40 -0400
Subject: B-1700 (was Re: MLP-900)
Message-ID: <01C6B04A.040458A0@MSE_D03>

--------------Original Message:

Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:20:14 -0400
From: Brad Parker 
Subject: re: B-1700 (was Re: MLP-900)

"Al Kossow" wrote:
>
>The cold-load on all but the very last of the systems were from cassette. I ha
>ve them, but need to read their contents.

yes, I remember that :-) I remember looking at s-machine docs too.  I
seem to remember lots of BNF like diagrams.  I was young and
not-well-educated at the time.

I used COBOL and thought I remembered fortran and algol as well.  I
remember the machine had a card reader/punch and disks which looked like
RP06's.  Booting it was a little odd but not too painful.

I didn't want to mention the cassettes, mostly due to the terror of
thinking about reading them.  But now I've said the words and wondering
whats on them - microcode?  How would you read them?

(isn't this how you always find your victims? :-) "sure, just try and
disassemble the micrcode, how hard could it be?" :-)

hmmm... they're just cassettes.  how hard could it be? :-) I'm willing
to try if you have any extra tapes.

-brad

------------------Reply:

If it helps, AFAIK they used separate clock and data tracks;
one or more transitions within a clock pulse denotes a 1,
no transitions a 0.

I think I have a cassette drive somewhere with tech docs 
(schematics & interface signal description). Don't know if
it's compatible with B17 tapes though (I believe there were
several different recording methods used).

mike



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Tue Jul 25 23:12:18 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:12:18 -0700
Subject: Over 1,500 new messages in one block?!
In-Reply-To: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>
References: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>
Message-ID: <44C6EBA2.5050208@DakotaCom.Net>

Bruce Lane wrote:
> I came in this evening to over 1,500 new messages, 
 > the majority of them from cctech.
> 
> I'm not sure if the server just sat on them for a while, 
 > or something else hiccupped. I do know that I'll need to
 > unsubscribe if it's going to be an ongoing occurrence.
 > I cannot deal with retrieving that big a load when I'm
 > on the road.
> 
> Explanations of why this may have happened would be welcome,
 > along with ideas on whether it will happen again.

I often see "repeat" messages.  :-(  I figured it was infrequent
enough to ignore...

I also see messages come in "in spurts" -- but haven't checked
to see if that's just folks writing "in spurts" or my mail server
(spam service) batching mail before delivery.



From trixter at oldskool.org  Wed Jul 26 00:06:48 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:06:48 -0500
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>	
	<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of King
> Gillette.

Nah, my favorite "cheezy" printing technology has always been thermal 
transfer.  Nothing beats waiting from 12 to 35 minutes for a C64 to 
print out a full page in color, on curled paper, smelling very much like 
hot wax.  You can smell the quality!


-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 00:09:31 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:09:31 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>		<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: <44C6F90B.3040708@DakotaCom.Net>

Jim Leonard wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of 
>> King
>> Gillette.
> 
> Nah, my favorite "cheezy" printing technology has always been thermal 
> transfer.  Nothing beats waiting from 12 to 35 minutes for a C64 to 
> print out a full page in color, on curled paper, smelling very much like 
> hot wax.  You can smell the quality!

I worked on the design of a thermal dye transfer printer many years
ago.  It doesn't *have* to be slow -- we printed a 400dpi page
in 11 seconds -- a decent speed for that era.

Problem with the technology is the HUGE power requirements
(our prototype power supply had *batteries* in it to handle
the peak currents  :> ).


From zmerch-coco at 30below.com  Tue Jul 25 21:13:33 2006
From: zmerch-coco at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:13:33 -0400
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
References: 
	<200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
	
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725214248.0549efb0@mail.30below.com>

Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words:

>I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of 
>King Gillette.

OK, Tony.

[[ Oh, did I type that out loud??? ;-O ]]

>I do recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer demo at NCC back in 1970's.  My
>reaction was that it was such a complicated affair that (heavens!) couldn't
>even print on NCR multipart paper, so what good was it, above being a very
>clever bit of machinery?

Let's see - the ability to make an inexpensive[1] (for the time), quiet, 
high-resolution printing device that's *Portable*????

[1] In the era of $150+ 9-pin DM, $225 24-DM, and $1500 300dpi laser 
printers, $300 for 360dpi w/built-in battery good for 50 pages of 
single-spaced was one helluva deal!

My Canon BJ-10ex was a masterful piece of machinery, and yes, I *did* take 
it with me to Annual Training in the Army National Guard to print 
newsletters & reports on in the field - tied to my *also ontopic* Tandy 
Model 200 laptop.

I'd still have it if it didn't get *stolen*... obviously someone else found 
value in it beyond me!

The cartridges held enough to be a decent (to me - to others it was still a 
*fair*) deal, were universally available (and still are - even in my 
backwater town!) and even after oopsing and reversing polarity on my CoCo's 
serial->parallel adapter & letting some of the magic smoke out of the 
printer (I'm guessing plastic, not sillycon) it still worked for several 
years until it's "forced relocation."

I've had *very few* printers that can live up to that reputation.

Inkjets don't suck. Epson's requirement to change 1/2-full cartridges does, 
but you can't blame the technology for a stupid business decision.[2]

[2] Yes, I use Gillette razors. *For My Skin Profile* (before we get into 
comp.razors.advocacy issues) I find them to be the best shave... at least 
until I have the coin to try a Braun Activator. Want my Norelco? *That* 
sucks...

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

P.S. I didn't understand the reference at first, so yes, I did research 
King Gillette... Like I always say - if it's stupid, but works, it ain't 
stupid!  BTW, we're not all living in Niagara Falls, are we???

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com.         |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers



From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 00:44:40 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:44:40 +1200
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
	
	<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252> <44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: 

On 7/26/06, Jim Leonard  wrote:
> Nah, my favorite "cheezy" printing technology has always been thermal
> transfer.  Nothing beats waiting from 12 to 35 minutes for a C64 to
> print out a full page in color, on curled paper, smelling very much like
> hot wax.  You can smell the quality!

Sure... cheap thermal transfer is kinda nasty, but I worked with a
thermal transfer printer  in the mid-1990s that was _nice_.  We
used it for crisp color images of ice floes near McMurdo station
(the ice, clouds and water were in shades of grey, the annotations
and hazards were in color).

It was an expensive printer (I was told it used about $2 in consumables
per printed page) - it had three rolls of dye that spooled by no matter
what was being printed.  Each spool did exactly so many pages then
ran out, even if you printed one pixel on a page.  The advantage, I
guess, is a simplified mechanism and consistent printing.

-ethan


From ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk  Wed Jul 26 00:45:37 2006
From: ljw-cctech at ljw.me.uk (Lawrence Wilkinson)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 06:45:37 +0100
Subject: Over 1,500 new messages in one block?!
In-Reply-To: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>
References: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>
Message-ID: <1153892737.16111.16.camel@ljw.me.uk>

On Tue, 2006-07-25 at 20:08 -0700, Bruce Lane wrote:
> 	I came in this evening to over 1,500 new messages, the majority of
> them from cctech.
> 
> 	I'm not sure if the server just sat on them for a while, or something
> else hiccupped. I do know that I'll need to unsubscribe if it's going
> to be an ongoing occurrence. I cannot deal with retrieving that big a
> load when I'm on the road.
> 
> 	Explanations of why this may have happened would be welcome, along
> with ideas on whether it will happen again.
> 
> 	Thanks much.

The cctech message are held for moderation (to weed out spam and OT
messages).  There was a large backlog -perhaps some of the moderators
(of which I am one) are away - and they were released in one go.

I too found my phone showing 1200 new messages.

We'll try to keep on top of it in future.  At least the number of
subscribers posting from non-subscribed addresses seems to have reduced
- this was a large chunk of the workload.
-- 
Lawrence Wilkinson                                 lawrence at ljw.me.uk
The IBM 360/30 page                       http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360


From cclist at sydex.com  Wed Jul 26 00:57:59 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:57:59 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C6F90B.3040708@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
	
	<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org> <44C6F90B.3040708@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607252257590583.251CC7BD@10.0.0.252>

On 7/25/2006 at 10:09 PM Don Y wrote:

>Problem with the technology is the HUGE power requirements
>(our prototype power supply had *batteries* in it to handle
>the peak currents  :> ).

Didn't Oki (IIRC) market a printer that used a ball-point-pen like stylus
to print?  I seem to remember that one could even tell it to put a little
random jiggle into the process to simulate human handwriting.

Does anyone own a Datagraphics printer or plotter that uses a CRT and
photographic paper?  That must hold the record for the highest
cost-per-sheet of printing...

Cheers,
Chuck






From nerdware at ctgonline.org  Wed Jul 26 01:07:33 2006
From: nerdware at ctgonline.org (Paul Braun)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:07:33 -0500
Subject: Anyone want a pdp11 Peripherals Handbook?
In-Reply-To: <44C6EBC2.4050703@ctgonline.org>
References: <44C6EBC2.4050703@ctgonline.org>
Message-ID: <44C706A5.1080105@ctgonline.org>

Paul Braun wrote:
> Cleaning out - found a copy of the PDP11 Peripherals Handbook, c. 1975.
> 
> If anyone wants it, $5 shipped will do the trick.
> 
> Lemmeno.
> 
> Thanks!

Taken!  Thanks.

-- 



Paul Braun
Valparaiso, IN

"There's a fine line between stupid, and clever." - David St. Hubbins

"Enjoy every sandwich." - Warren Zevon

"The Fountain of Youth is a state of mind." - The Ides of March


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 01:13:00 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:13:00 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>		<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
	
Message-ID: <44C707EC.3070409@DakotaCom.Net>

Ethan Dicks wrote:
> Sure... cheap thermal transfer is kinda nasty, but I worked with a
> thermal transfer printer  in the mid-1990s that was _nice_.  We
> used it for crisp color images of ice floes near McMurdo station
> (the ice, clouds and water were in shades of grey, the annotations
> and hazards were in color).
> 
> It was an expensive printer (I was told it used about $2 in consumables
> per printed page) - it had three rolls of dye that spooled by no matter
> what was being printed.  Each spool did exactly so many pages then
> ran out, even if you printed one pixel on a page.  The advantage, I
> guess, is a simplified mechanism and consistent printing.

You can't really "conserve" film based on the image
*content*.  Usually, the film rides atop the paper
as it passes through the marking engine.  It's not
like you can STOP the film's progress while the paper
continues along.


From waisun.chia at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 01:16:44 2006
From: waisun.chia at gmail.com (Wai-Sun Chia)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:16:44 +0800
Subject: XP1000 problems - Resolved
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	
Message-ID: 

On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
> Someone on comp.os.vms suggested playing with the DIP switches that
> control the 500/667Mhz settings on the mainboard and daughterboard.
> Guess what, I had a 500Mhz CPU in a 667Mhz system.  Obviously someone
> swapped the board out prior to my buying it.  Another reason screen
> shots are good when buying a system on eBay.

Is it acceptable if you were to share who this unethical seller is so
that we may all avoid him?


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 01:15:53 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:15:53 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607252257590583.251CC7BD@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>		<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>	<44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
	<44C6F90B.3040708@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607252257590583.251CC7BD@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C70899.4000007@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/25/2006 at 10:09 PM Don Y wrote:
> 
>> Problem with the technology is the HUGE power requirements
>> (our prototype power supply had *batteries* in it to handle
>> the peak currents  :> ).
> 
> Didn't Oki (IIRC) market a printer that used a ball-point-pen like stylus
> to print?  I seem to remember that one could even tell it to put a little
> random jiggle into the process to simulate human handwriting.
> 
> Does anyone own a Datagraphics printer or plotter that uses a CRT and
> photographic paper?  That must hold the record for the highest
> cost-per-sheet of printing...

Honeywell made an "oscillographic recorder" that used a
special *squashed* CRT (called a "honeywell bottle")
and photosenstive paper.


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 01:19:56 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:19:56 +1200
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C707EC.3070409@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>
	
	<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252> <44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>
	
	<44C707EC.3070409@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: 

On 7/26/06, Don Y  wrote:
> Ethan Dicks wrote:
> > It was an expensive printer (I was told it used about $2 in consumables
> > per printed page) - it had three rolls of dye that spooled by no matter
> > what was being printed.  Each spool did exactly so many pages then
> > ran out, even if you printed one pixel on a page.  The advantage, I
> > guess, is a simplified mechanism and consistent printing.
>
> You can't really "conserve" film based on the image
> *content*.  Usually, the film rides atop the paper
> as it passes through the marking engine.  It's not
> like you can STOP the film's progress while the paper
> continues along.

Certainly that's the easy way to do it... one could design a mechanism
that only advanced the color transfer films if they were printed to,
or to only advance them if, say, _any_ content was being printed (to
skip swaths of white), but that makes things more complicated and
certainly slower.

-ethan


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 01:23:35 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:23:35 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C6AE16.7010000@DakotaCom.Net>		<200607251752270336.24050FDA@10.0.0.252>
	<44C6F868.40900@oldskool.org>		<44C707EC.3070409@DakotaCom.Net>
	
Message-ID: <44C70A67.8010107@DakotaCom.Net>

Ethan Dicks wrote:
> On 7/26/06, Don Y  wrote:
>> Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> > It was an expensive printer (I was told it used about $2 in consumables
>> > per printed page) - it had three rolls of dye that spooled by no matter
>> > what was being printed.  Each spool did exactly so many pages then
>> > ran out, even if you printed one pixel on a page.  The advantage, I
>> > guess, is a simplified mechanism and consistent printing.
>>
>> You can't really "conserve" film based on the image
>> *content*.  Usually, the film rides atop the paper
>> as it passes through the marking engine.  It's not
>> like you can STOP the film's progress while the paper
>> continues along.
> 
> Certainly that's the easy way to do it... one could design a mechanism
> that only advanced the color transfer films if they were printed to,
> or to only advance them if, say, _any_ content was being printed (to
> skip swaths of white), but that makes things more complicated and
> certainly slower.

The paper and film must be in contact as they pass over
the head UNDER PRESSURE (to fuse the wax into the paper).
You would need a mechanism that allowed the two surfaces
to be decoupled -- yet not experience any slippage
(i.e. so the image that you print at position X on the
page actually happens at position X regardless of how/if
the film was disengaged prior to that point).

You *might* be able to process black separately (for monochrome
prints) but that would increase the size of the mechanism.
One could ague that if you want to print monochrome, print
on a different printer!  :>

(BTW, one big advantage of thermal dye transfer is the
degree of saturation of the colors.  Black *is* black)


From kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com  Wed Jul 26 01:36:24 2006
From: kyrrin at bluefeathertech.com (Bruce Lane)
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:36:24 -0700
Subject: Over 1,500 new messages in one block?!
In-Reply-To: <1153892737.16111.16.camel@ljw.me.uk>
References: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129>
	<1153892737.16111.16.camel@ljw.me.uk>
Message-ID: <200607252336240365.24FFDD8B@192.168.42.129>

Hi, Lawrence,

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 26-Jul-06 at 06:45 Lawrence Wilkinson wrote:



>The cctech message are held for moderation (to weed out spam and OT
>messages).  There was a large backlog -perhaps some of the moderators
>(of which I am one) are away - and they were released in one go.
>
>I too found my phone showing 1200 new messages.

	Ahhhh... That explains it. Thanks much.


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"




From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 05:54:38 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:54:38 +0000
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
Message-ID: <44C749EE.7080505@yahoo.co.uk>


Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...

I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard based 
around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.

The interface between the keyboard and system is just 8 data lines and a 
strobe though, all at TTL, so presumably any old keyboard that outputs ASCII 
data could be made to work.

Ideally I'd like to find a real basket-case of a system that could provide me 
with a donor keyboard. I'm not 100% happy with that, but providing the rest 
doesn't go in the bin (such that it might be useful to someone at a later 
date) and it's not something that's ultra-rare, it seems a reasonable thing to 
do in order to complete an otherwise-pristine system.

Knowing which systems to look out for would be a start. Nascom, maybe? I think 
RML 380Z's are probably parallel ASCII too, but their keyboards are already 
rare as hen's teeth so I wouldn't be happy with that...

cheers

Jules


-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From doc at mdrconsult.com  Wed Jul 26 05:36:29 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 06:36:29 -0400
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
	
Message-ID: <44C745AD.8030808@mdrconsult.com>

Zane H. Healy wrote:
> At 3:20 AM +0100 7/25/06, Witchy wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, July 25, 2006 1:08 am, Zane H. Healy said:
>>
>>>
>>>  Does anyone here know what the startup of a Compaq XP1000 (Alpha-based
>>>  system for OpenVMS) is supposed to look like?
>>
>>
>> yup.
>>
>>>  powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, 
>>> and
>>>  there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports

   Zane, did you check the internal fans?  Some of the AXP boxen won't 
even POST if the CPU fan isn't reporting.  On my 164LX, even a good fan 
with "standard" RPM signal isn't what it wants.


	Doc


From dave06a at dunfield.com  Wed Jul 26 07:39:45 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:39:45 -0500
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C749EE.7080505@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...

Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.


> I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard based 
> around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.
> 
> The interface between the keyboard and system is just 8 data lines and a 
> strobe though, all at TTL, so presumably any old keyboard that outputs ASCII 
> data could be made to work.
> 
> Ideally I'd like to find a real basket-case of a system that could provide me 
> with a donor keyboard. I'm not 100% happy with that, but providing the rest 
> doesn't go in the bin (such that it might be useful to someone at a later 
> date) and it's not something that's ultra-rare, it seems a reasonable thing to 
> do in order to complete an otherwise-pristine system.
> 
> Knowing which systems to look out for would be a start. Nascom, maybe? I think 
> RML 380Z's are probably parallel ASCII too, but their keyboards are already 
> rare as hen's teeth so I wouldn't be happy with that...

It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.

You could do it all easily with a single 8051 microcontroller - or if you can't program
those, an 8031 (8051 with external ROM) would work equally nicely.

Somewhere around here I've got 8051 source code to a little project I did to convert
a PC keyboard to an RS-232 serial interface - It would be very little work to turn that
into a parallel interface.

Regards,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From doc at mdrconsult.com  Wed Jul 26 05:42:28 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 06:42:28 -0400
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:
> 
> 
>>A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
>>toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
>>useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
>>they develop pick problems!
> 
> 
> Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
> it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?

   In general, no.  But I needed a medium-high-volume duplex printer 
that speaks AppleTalk and LPD.  :-)


	Doc


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 08:24:02 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:24:02 +0000
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>> Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
> 
> Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
> on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
> a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.

Hmm, most of the ones (internal keyboards) I've seen are dumb - the large 
number of lines exiting the keyboard are just connected direct to the matrix 
and the decoding is done by something on the main CPU board (often the CPU 
itself), so not easily transferrable to another system :(

Agreed on the external keyboards with a ribbon cable - but I'm struggling to 
think of that many systems which used them to be honest. Most micros had 
integrated keyboards, whilst workstation-class stuff was often pretty 
proprietary and usually serial. Machines laying somewhere inbetween often seem 
to just use a serial port and rely on a separate terminal for their input.

> It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
> into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
> extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.

I was pondering that. More than likely someone on this list has already done 
exactly that. Speak now. ;-)

> Somewhere around here I've got 8051 source code to a little project I did to convert
> a PC keyboard to an RS-232 serial interface - It would be very little work to turn that
> into a parallel interface.

Quite by chance I found such a thing this morning at:

   http://www.beyondlogic.org/keyboard/keybrd.htm#1

... the HC705 IC (not a chip I'm familiar with) used may not have enough ports 
though if port A needs to be used exclusively by the keyboard (due to high 
impedance requirements) and port B is only 8 bits and tied up with the ASCII 
interface (plus the strobe line to the machine needs to go somewhere)

I'm sure it'd be dead easy for someone who knows about programming PICs and 
the like - as I say, I'm sure someone on here's done it even :-)

cheers

Jules

-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From RMeenaks at olf.com  Wed Jul 26 08:03:56 2006
From: RMeenaks at olf.com (Ram Meenakshisundaram)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:03:56 -0400
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
Message-ID: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753259C@cpexchange.olf.com>


I can get that same "SuperComputer" for about $200.  But its a bit useless without the software and drivers.  The person who was willing to sell it to me got a formatted hard-drive with nothing in there.  Kind of hard to get this running without the drivers.  The software I do have, but the drivers are necessary....


Ram

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of Roger Merchberger
Sent: Tue 7/25/2006 7:07 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
 
IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???

=-=-=

MCA-based NCR box w/386SX20... $386.20 (ain't that funny... not!) - but 
it's a nice box if yer into that sorta thing - coprocessor & SCSI built-in.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320002549109

Or for you transputer(28each)/i860(24each) and at least 192 Meg RAM 
"supercomputer" hunters with $8K burnin' a hole in yer pocket and want to 
score the "Mother Lode":

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220007046405

Me? I was just looking for info on EPROM programmers... Too rich for my 
blood anyway - I'll stick with my CoCos & Model 200's...
;-)

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | Anarchy doesn't scale well. -- Me
zmerch at 30below.com.         |
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers




From philpem at dsl.pipex.com  Wed Jul 26 08:16:39 2006
From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:16:39 +0100
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <44C76B37.4090308@dsl.pipex.com>

Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Me? I was just looking for info on EPROM programmers... Too rich for my 
> blood anyway - I'll stick with my CoCos & Model 200's...

If you're in the market for an EPROM programmer, take a look at some of the 
stuff Elnec (www.elnec.com) are offering. I picked up a Preprom-02ALV 
EPROM/Flash programmer a few years back for ?160. IIRC the Preprom has been 
discontinued, but there is a replacement for it at around the same price.

Just gives you another option to consider...

-- 
Phil.                         | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder
philpem at dsl.pipex.com         | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G
http://www.philpem.me.uk/     | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G


From dave06a at dunfield.com  Wed Jul 26 09:18:24 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:18:24 -0500
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607261321.k6QDLGWL013099@monisys.caonisys.ca>


> > Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
> > on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
> > a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.
> 
> Hmm, most of the ones (internal keyboards) I've seen are dumb - the large 
> number of lines exiting the keyboard are just connected direct to the matrix 
> and the decoding is done by something on the main CPU board (often the CPU 
> itself), so not easily transferrable to another system :(

Agreed on the "all in one" boards, I was thinking specifically about older non-
comsumer equipment which often has a separate parallel keyboard inside.
Many of the "all in one" boards also have a keyboard decoder and basically
contain a complete parallel keyboard (but it would be tough to get at) - a lot
of the cheaper stuff does keyboard scanning via the CPU.


> Agreed on the external keyboards with a ribbon cable - but I'm struggling to 
> think of that many systems which used them to be honest. Most micros had 
> integrated keyboards, whilst workstation-class stuff was often pretty 
> proprietary and usually serial. Machines laying somewhere inbetween often seem 
> to just use a serial port and rely on a separate terminal for their input.

I've got some old Volker Craig terminals with parallel keyboards on ribbon cables.
I'm know I've seen many others over the years ...


> > It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
> > into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
> > extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
> 
> I was pondering that. More than likely someone on this list has already done 
> exactly that. Speak now. ;-)
> 
> > Somewhere around here I've got 8051 source code to a little project I did to convert
> > a PC keyboard to an RS-232 serial interface - It would be very little work to turn that
> > into a parallel interface.
> 
> Quite by chance I found such a thing this morning at:
> 
>    http://www.beyondlogic.org/keyboard/keybrd.htm#1
> 
> ... the HC705 IC (not a chip I'm familiar with) used may not have enough ports 
> though if port A needs to be used exclusively by the keyboard (due to high 
> impedance requirements) and port B is only 8 bits and tied up with the ASCII 
> interface (plus the strobe line to the machine needs to go somewhere)
> 
> I'm sure it'd be dead easy for someone who knows about programming PICs and 
> the like - as I say, I'm sure someone on here's done it even :-)

HC705 is a single-chip microcontroller. This project is very similar to the
one I did, except that I used an 8051, and mine worked on raw scancodes
(both ways, so that you could control the keyboard over the serial port as
well using the standard keyboard control codes).

For a parallel keyboard interface, you would translate the scancode to
ASCII. Most likely you would also implement Caps-Lock and Num-Lock
locally on the controller, setting flags to modify subsequent output and
sending the code to control the keyboard LEDs.

IIRC the existing code is only about 200 bytes, there would be lots of room
left in a 4k 8051 to implement a scan-code -> ASCII translate table and added
functions. To modify the code for a parallel interface, all you would need to do is:
  - On the key-down code, check for special keys (CapsLock, NumLock) and
    set appropriate flags/Leds, otherwise use the table to convert to ASCII, write it
    to the parallel port and assert strobe.
  - On key up, deassert strobe.

If you want to implement auto-repeat, just start inital timer on keydown, and
if it expires before key-up, pulse strobe and reset timer to repeat rate.

If you are able to wait a couple of weeks, I could do it for you, I just have
another project I need to get finished first.

Regards,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 08:24:16 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:24:16 -0400
Subject: PDP8 parts
In-Reply-To: <624966d60607252040m4e817104u6736fff6f240314e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <624966d60607252040m4e817104u6736fff6f240314e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: 

> If anyone is interested in these or any other PDP8 boards or options please
> contact me off list.

I would be interested in the list of R, S, B and other small, first
generation Flip Chips. I have a machine that has had nearly all the
boards stripped out of it, and I would like to start repopulating the
backplane.

--
Will


From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 08:24:50 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:24:50 -0400
Subject: PDP8 parts
In-Reply-To: <624966d60607252040m4e817104u6736fff6f240314e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <624966d60607252040m4e817104u6736fff6f240314e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: 

Sorry, meant to go off list...

--
Will


From RMeenaks at olf.com  Wed Jul 26 08:23:55 2006
From: RMeenaks at olf.com (Ram Meenakshisundaram)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:23:55 -0400
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
Message-ID: <9A6FF2537AEA484296A3EE4990D1855753259D@cpexchange.olf.com>

BTW, it is also missing the interface card between the box and the Sun Sparc station that would be connected to it.  So, for $8000 he is off his rocker...


Ram

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of Ram Meenakshisundaram
Sent: Wed 7/26/2006 9:03 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts; cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: RE: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
 

I can get that same "SuperComputer" for about $200.  But its a bit useless without the software and drivers.  The person who was willing to sell it to me got a formatted hard-drive with nothing in there.  Kind of hard to get this running without the drivers.  I do have trollius, but it requires the drivers from Alexis for it to run on that machine.  I have talked to the original developers of Trollius to see if they had any of the software, but alas no luck...


Ram



From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Wed Jul 26 08:44:04 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:44:04 -0300
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
	<44C76B37.4090308@dsl.pipex.com>
Message-ID: <010101c6b0b9$aa192210$02fea8c0@alpha>

> If you're in the market for an EPROM programmer, take a look at some of
the
> stuff Elnec (www.elnec.com) are offering. I picked up a Preprom-02ALV
> EPROM/Flash programmer a few years back for ?160. IIRC the Preprom has
been
> discontinued, but there is a replacement for it at around the same price.

    This is too expensive if you consider the willem eprom programmer
(www.willem.org) which has all the schematics on the net and programs almost
everything you can think of.



From jim.isbell at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 09:13:24 2006
From: jim.isbell at gmail.com (Jim Isbell, W5JAI)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:13:24 -0500
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
Message-ID: 

The worst printer of all came before the computer.  The Datafax.  It
used paper sensitive to an electric discharge (spark) and could send
signatures by wire.  The paper was held to a metal drum with tensioned
springs and a stylus hovered just above the paper and an electrical
discharge jumped from the stylus to the drum through the paper. I have
a stack of them in my garage.

On 7/26/06, Doc Shipley  wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:
> >
> >
> >>A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
> >>toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
> >>useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
> >>they develop pick problems!
> >
> >
> > Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
> > it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?
>
>    In general, no.  But I needed a medium-high-volume duplex printer
> that speaks AppleTalk and LPD.  :-)
>
>
>         Doc
>


-- 
Jim Isbell
"If you are not living on the edge, well then,
you are just taking up too much space."


From jbmcb1 at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 09:13:35 2006
From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:13:35 -0400
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0607260713q49126b07i9779b941ef6f3210@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/25/06, Roger Merchberger  wrote:
>
>
> Or for you transputer(28each)/i860(24each) and at least 192 Meg RAM
> "supercomputer" hunters with $8K burnin' a hole in yer pocket and want to
> score the "Mother Lode":
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220007046405


Wow, around 1.6 GFLOPS for $8000! For $1000 you can get a P4 that pushes 2
GFLOPS, with a nice big flatscreen monitor.

Oh, but it's rare, I see. My Banyan VNS100 server must be worth a fortune :)


From philpem at dsl.pipex.com  Wed Jul 26 09:18:15 2006
From: philpem at dsl.pipex.com (Philip Pemberton)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:18:15 +0100
Subject: ciro100: Re: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <20060726022029.6185.qmail@seefried.com>
References: <200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<20060726022029.6185.qmail@seefried.com>
Message-ID: <44C779A7.30101@dsl.pipex.com>

Ken Seefried wrote:
> Ciro100 is definately one to avoid.
> I won an auction from him, and he demanded that I leave positive 
> feedback for him before he would complete the deal.  I finally agreed to 
> cancel the transaction to avoid him leaving a retaliatory negative.

Yikes, that's nasty..

When I'm buying, I usually leave feedback when the item arrives, then if I've 
left a positive, I expect a positive in return.

When I'm selling, I tell the buyer to leave feedback if/when the item arrives, 
or contact me if it doesn't arrive or arrives damaged. Once I get feedback 
from the buyer, I leave feedback for them.

IMHO that's the best way to do it. To date I haven't had cause to leave 
negative feedback for a seller, and I've had no problems with most of the 
buyers I've dealt with. Had one moron decide to bid on one of my items then 
disappeared - I started the "Payment Not Received" proceedings a week after 
the auction ended, then NPB'd him after I hadn't heard back a week after that. 
Sold the item to the next highest bidder, who paid about two hours after I 
sent the second-chance offer through.

And I had one seller decide not to email me back when I bought his item - I 
didn't bother leaving him any feedback at all (at the time, neutral feedback 
wasn't an option). Oh, and one buyer who ignored the "I broke the item while 
packing it, so I've refunded your payment" messages I sent him, and proceeded 
to send payment a total of six times. Then after I refunded him for the sixth 
time he left negative feedback for "not sending the item and refusing to 
refund". I ended up contacting him with the dates and IDs of the transactions 
I'd refunded, along with another note to ask why he'd negged me, then a couple 
of hours later he retracted the neg...

-- 
Phil.                         | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder
philpem at dsl.pipex.com         | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G
http://www.philpem.me.uk/     | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G


From jcwren at jcwren.com  Wed Jul 26 09:31:41 2006
From: jcwren at jcwren.com (J.C. Wren)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:31:41 -0400
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <200607261321.k6QDLGWL013099@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607261321.k6QDLGWL013099@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C77CCD.6060703@jcwren.com>

    I produced a board a while back that takes a PC keyboard and has 
parallel output, in a number of formats.  One of the members on this 
list has two of them, and seemed quite pleased.  I had intended to 
productize it, but never got around to it. 

    A few of it's features are that it has is that PF keys are 
programmable, any keyboard key can be mapped to any keycode, /RESET 
output, several built-in keymaps (Apple II, SOL, Otrona, etc), serial 
port (PS/2 keyboard can be mapped to serial port, serial port is used 
for configuration also), keyboard LEDs track caps/numlock/scroll lock 
state, key data and strobe polarity programmable, all through-hole, 
readily available parts.

    Here's a picture of the finished board: 
http://tinymicros.com/gallery/keymapper/dscn1565

    Since this was intended to be productized, I've never released the 
source code.  However, if there's interest in a device like this, I 
would be willing to release it to anyone who bought a board with the 
agreement that the source would not be redistributed, nor used in any 
derivative products.  I guess that's basically like a hobbyist license.

    Currently, I have no boards, as I only made 3 prototypes of the 
final version.  If there's enough interest in raw boards, I could turn a 
batch.  I'd have to do a little research to get the final price per 
board, but I'm *guessing* it would be less than $10/ea.

    --jc

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>>> Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
>>> on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
>>> a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.
>>>       
>> Hmm, most of the ones (internal keyboards) I've seen are dumb - the large 
>> number of lines exiting the keyboard are just connected direct to the matrix 
>> and the decoding is done by something on the main CPU board (often the CPU 
>> itself), so not easily transferrable to another system :(
>>     
>
> Agreed on the "all in one" boards, I was thinking specifically about older non-
> comsumer equipment which often has a separate parallel keyboard inside.
> Many of the "all in one" boards also have a keyboard decoder and basically
> contain a complete parallel keyboard (but it would be tough to get at) - a lot
> of the cheaper stuff does keyboard scanning via the CPU.
>
>
>   
>> Agreed on the external keyboards with a ribbon cable - but I'm struggling to 
>> think of that many systems which used them to be honest. Most micros had 
>> integrated keyboards, whilst workstation-class stuff was often pretty 
>> proprietary and usually serial. Machines laying somewhere inbetween often seem 
>> to just use a serial port and rely on a separate terminal for their input.
>>     
>
> I've got some old Volker Craig terminals with parallel keyboards on ribbon cables.
> I'm know I've seen many others over the years ...
>
>
>   
>>> It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
>>> into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
>>> extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
>>>       
>> I was pondering that. More than likely someone on this list has already done 
>> exactly that. Speak now. ;-)
>>
>>     
>>> Somewhere around here I've got 8051 source code to a little project I did to convert
>>> a PC keyboard to an RS-232 serial interface - It would be very little work to turn that
>>> into a parallel interface.
>>>       
>> Quite by chance I found such a thing this morning at:
>>
>>    http://www.beyondlogic.org/keyboard/keybrd.htm#1
>>
>> ... the HC705 IC (not a chip I'm familiar with) used may not have enough ports 
>> though if port A needs to be used exclusively by the keyboard (due to high 
>> impedance requirements) and port B is only 8 bits and tied up with the ASCII 
>> interface (plus the strobe line to the machine needs to go somewhere)
>>
>> I'm sure it'd be dead easy for someone who knows about programming PICs and 
>> the like - as I say, I'm sure someone on here's done it even :-)
>>     
>
> HC705 is a single-chip microcontroller. This project is very similar to the
> one I did, except that I used an 8051, and mine worked on raw scancodes
> (both ways, so that you could control the keyboard over the serial port as
> well using the standard keyboard control codes).
>
> For a parallel keyboard interface, you would translate the scancode to
> ASCII. Most likely you would also implement Caps-Lock and Num-Lock
> locally on the controller, setting flags to modify subsequent output and
> sending the code to control the keyboard LEDs.
>
> IIRC the existing code is only about 200 bytes, there would be lots of room
> left in a 4k 8051 to implement a scan-code -> ASCII translate table and added
> functions. To modify the code for a parallel interface, all you would need to do is:
>   - On the key-down code, check for special keys (CapsLock, NumLock) and
>     set appropriate flags/Leds, otherwise use the table to convert to ASCII, write it
>     to the parallel port and assert strobe.
>   - On key up, deassert strobe.
>
> If you want to implement auto-repeat, just start inital timer on keydown, and
> if it expires before key-up, pulse strobe and reset timer to repeat rate.
>
> If you are able to wait a couple of weeks, I could do it for you, I just have
> another project I need to get finished first.
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>
> --
> dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
> dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
> com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
>                 http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
>   


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Wed Jul 26 10:01:51 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:01:51 -0700
Subject: XP1000 problems
In-Reply-To: <44C745AD.8030808@mdrconsult.com>
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<32946.24.90.249.225.1153794003.squirrel@vorbis.demon.co.uk>
	
	<44C745AD.8030808@mdrconsult.com>
Message-ID: 

At 6:36 AM -0400 7/26/06, Doc Shipley wrote:
>Zane H. Healy wrote:
>>>>  powers on, and all 8 diagnostic LED's light up.  There are no beeps, and
>>>>  there is no video.  I've tried to connect a VT420 to the serial ports
>
>   Zane, did you check the internal fans?  Some of the AXP boxen 
>won't even POST if the CPU fan isn't reporting.  On my 164LX, even a 
>good fan with "standard" RPM signal isn't what it wants.

Yep, that was one of the first things I checked.  After having read 
up more on the XP1000, it shows that if the fan is out (at least the 
CPU fan), it will power off after 1 second.

MONK has been an XP1000 for about 10 hours.

I must say that it has been interesting how many Layered products 
seem to put the disk name in their startup procedures (DKA0 vs. DKC0 
I'm now using).  I setup logicals to handle this for my own stuff 
years ago, but didn't have all the layered products installed that I 
now use.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Wed Jul 26 10:04:19 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:04:19 -0700
Subject: XP1000 problems - Resolved
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	
	
Message-ID: 

>On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
>>Someone on comp.os.vms suggested playing with the DIP switches that
>>control the 500/667Mhz settings on the mainboard and daughterboard.
>>Guess what, I had a 500Mhz CPU in a 667Mhz system.  Obviously someone
>>swapped the board out prior to my buying it.  Another reason screen
>>shots are good when buying a system on eBay.
>
>Is it acceptable if you were to share who this unethical seller is so
>that we may all avoid him?

I want to see what kind of a response I get from them first.  I 
realized this morning I sent the email about the system to the wrong 
address.

		Zane
-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From uban at ubanproductions.com  Wed Jul 26 10:10:37 2006
From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:10:37 -0500
Subject: NeXT Computer (cube) available
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060726100241.044bdc98@mail.ubanproductions.com>

I have a NeXT Computer (cube) with the 68040 processor board,
1Gb hard drive, 16Mb RAM, nice monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
The machine works and has NEXTSTEP 3.0 installed. The optical
drive does the spin up/down cycle when you try to load a
disk, so it minimally needs a cleaning to be useable.

I was given this machine a few years back and recently
dusted it off to take it to VCF Midwest 2.0. I've decided
that someone else would probably get more enjoyment/use
out of the box than I am and so I am offering it up to anyone
who would either like to pick it up or pay for shipping...

--tom



From cclist at sydex.com  Wed Jul 26 10:16:29 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:16:29 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
	
Message-ID: <200607260816290421.271C18DD@10.0.0.252>


On 7/26/2006 at 9:13 AM Jim Isbell, W5JAI wrote:

>The worst printer of all came before the computer.  The Datafax.  It
>used paper sensitive to an electric discharge (spark) and could send
>signatures by wire.  The paper was held to a metal drum with tensioned
>springs and a stylus hovered just above the paper and an electrical
>discharge jumped from the stylus to the drum through the paper. I have
>a stack of them in my garage.

I believe the Sinclair ZX-81 had an option for a "spark printer".  I recall
that kymographs and the like used to use that same paper for recording.
One aspect was that with an AC power supply, you coiuld get a pretty good
estimate of the pen speed by looking at the length and spacing of the dots
created by this process.

Cheers,
Chuck




From drb at msu.edu  Wed Jul 26 10:18:45 2006
From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:18:45 -0400
Subject: NeXT Computer (cube) available 
In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:10:37 CDT.)
	<5.2.0.9.0.20060726100241.044bdc98@mail.ubanproductions.com> 
References: <5.2.0.9.0.20060726100241.044bdc98@mail.ubanproductions.com>  
Message-ID: <200607261518.k6QFIjOl007113@yagi.h-net.msu.edu>

 > I have a NeXT Computer (cube) with the 68040 processor board, 1Gb
 > hard drive, 16Mb RAM, nice monitor, mouse, and keyboard.  The machine
 > works and has NEXTSTEP 3.0 installed. The optical drive does the spin
 > up/down cycle when you try to load a disk, so it minimally needs a
 > cleaning to be useable.
 > 
 > I was given this machine a few years back and recently dusted it off
 > to take it to VCF Midwest 2.0. I've decided that someone else would
 > probably get more enjoyment/use out of the box than I am and so I am
 > offering it up to anyone who would either like to pick it up or pay
 > for shipping...

I'd be interested.  (So why didn't I talk to you at VCF?  I'm a dolt?)

Where are you located?

De


From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Wed Jul 26 11:30:12 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:30:12 -0700
Subject: ciro100: Re: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725223512.03c62068@mail.30below.com>
References: <200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>	<200607260000.k6Q00BuE027574@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20060725223512.03c62068@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <44C79894.9010903@msm.umr.edu>

Roger Merchberger wrote:

> Rumor has it that Ken Seefried may have mentioned these words:
>
>> From: jim stephens 
>>
>
> For the record: I knew nothing of the seller - only of the "kewl" 
> piece of equipment that was overpriced...
>
I hope no one got the idea that I was implying you had an ax to grind.  
I have
seen some stuff with this same "recycler" before, and it looks like he does
get nice stuff, sadly.  again thanks for the note on that.

Jim


From asweinbe at alumni.uchicago.edu  Wed Jul 26 12:34:21 2006
From: asweinbe at alumni.uchicago.edu (Ariel Weinberg)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:34:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: good home for a DEC VT-180
Message-ID: 

My employer has a DEC VT-180 with keyboard, disk drives, printer, 
software, cables, and manuals, all in original boxes with original packing 
slips, sitting unused on a shelf.  Where should I look or who should I 
contact who would be interested in it?  Several local and national 
computer history museums and centers have politely declined our offer 
already.  Ideally the recipient would have some use, either practical 
(data recovery?) or educational, for it; my employer would prefer it to go 
to a home where it would be used and/or publicly displayed, rather than 
sitting idle in a private collection.

This is in the Greater Boston area, and we are unlikely to be able to 
package and ship it.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Ariel


From pechter at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 13:17:33 2006
From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:17:33 -0400
Subject: XP1000 problems - Resolved
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607250008.k6P08gqv031512@onyx.spiritone.com>
	
	
	
Message-ID: 

Well, there's always sell off the extra to someone on the list who'd like an
Alpha.
OpenVMS on Alpha would be kool 8-)

On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
>
> >On 7/26/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
> >>Someone on comp.os.vms suggested playing with the DIP switches that
> >>control the 500/667Mhz settings on the mainboard and daughterboard.
> >>Guess what, I had a 500Mhz CPU in a 667Mhz system.  Obviously someone
> >>swapped the board out prior to my buying it.  Another reason screen
> >>shots are good when buying a system on eBay.
> >
> >Is it acceptable if you were to share who this unethical seller is so
> >that we may all avoid him?
>
> I want to see what kind of a response I get from them first.  I
> realized this morning I sent the email about the system to the wrong
> address.
>
>                 Zane
> --
> | Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
> | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
> | MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+
> |     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
> |          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
> |                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |
>


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 13:22:52 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:22:52 -0700
Subject: OT-ish?  McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule"
In-Reply-To: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com>
References: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com>
Message-ID: <44C7B2FC.6000805@DakotaCom.Net>

Greetings!

Graham Toal wrote:

> You know about the old post on net.sources?
> 
> Have a look at some of the stuff in here:
> 
> http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/text2speech/
> 
> It's the same vintage, may be of interest.
> 
> Also, I hacked the navy code around a bit to make it more
> accurate and to assist with using a large phonetic
> word list.  And to parameterize the tables from an editable
> data file rather than being hard coded in the C source.

I finally got a chance to dig through most of this code
(though some of your tables/wordlists are puzzling...
maybe "work in progress"?).

Did you derive the rulesets *directly* from the NRL
code or was it something you "inherited"?  I find
several discrepancies between your rules and mine
and wonder if they are typographical errors *or*
improvements/enhancements you derived (my rules
mimic the NRL rules exactly).

The problem with this sort of algorithm is you're never
sure when it's "right" -- unlike an algorithm that
adds a column of numbers and prints a total!  :>

> The algorithm is considerably improved if you subject the words
> to TeX's hyphenation algorithm before applying the grapheme->phoneme
> rewrite rules.  Hyphenation points roughly correspond to phoneme
> boundaries, and stop words like haphazard from sounding half-assed.

This makes perfect sense!  Treat the word as "word-lets"
since sounds can't span a hyphen.

Where do I find this algorithm?

(sigh)  Amazingly complicated for such a "simple" task...  :>

Thanks!
--don


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 13:24:59 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:24:59 -0700
Subject: OT-ish?  McIlroy's "Synthetic English Speech by Rule"
In-Reply-To: <44C7B2FC.6000805@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <44BFCDFE.mail8RH11PR5Y@gtoal.com> <44C7B2FC.6000805@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <44C7B37B.3070107@DakotaCom.Net>

Don Y wrote:



Who's got the pointy hat??  :-(


From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Wed Jul 26 13:37:27 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:37:27 -0500
Subject: good home for a DEC VT-180
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 

I'd be interested, especially if you're actually at university of chicago as
I can pick it up.  I'm a big time DECie and would love to add this to my
collection. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org 
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ariel Weinberg
> Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 12:34 PM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: good home for a DEC VT-180
> 
> My employer has a DEC VT-180 with keyboard, disk drives, 
> printer, software, cables, and manuals, all in original boxes 
> with original packing slips, sitting unused on a shelf.  
> Where should I look or who should I contact who would be 
> interested in it?  Several local and national computer 
> history museums and centers have politely declined our offer 
> already.  Ideally the recipient would have some use, either 
> practical (data recovery?) or educational, for it; my 
> employer would prefer it to go to a home where it would be 
> used and/or publicly displayed, rather than sitting idle in a 
> private collection.
> 
> This is in the Greater Boston area, and we are unlikely to be 
> able to package and ship it.
> 
> Thanks for any suggestions!
> 
> Ariel
> 




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 15:04:33 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:04:33 -0700
Subject: Keycaps
Message-ID: <44C7CAD1.1020802@DakotaCom.Net>

When did keycaps start getting "cheap"?  (i.e. crappy
quality).

Is this just a consequence of the lower profile
inherent in laptops, etc.?  Or, are other keyboards
no longer molding the legends into the caps (instead
of printing it on)?  (i.e. quality keyboards used
to employ two shots of plastic -- one that filled in
the legend and the second that filled in the body).


From ploopster at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 15:08:31 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:08:31 -0400
Subject: Keycaps
In-Reply-To: <44C7CAD1.1020802@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <44C7CAD1.1020802@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <44C7CBBF.9090008@gmail.com>

Don Y wrote:
> When did keycaps start getting "cheap"?  (i.e. crappy
> quality).
> 
> Is this just a consequence of the lower profile
> inherent in laptops, etc.?  Or, are other keyboards
> no longer molding the legends into the caps (instead
> of printing it on)?  (i.e. quality keyboards used
> to employ two shots of plastic -- one that filled in
> the legend and the second that filled in the body).

If you're talking about desktops, then http://www.pckeyboard.com/ is 
your friend.  Laptops are a different matter altogether.

Peace...  Sridhar


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Wed Jul 26 15:23:48 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:23:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <20060726132119.C65354@shell.lmi.net>

> > It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
> > into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
> > extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
On Wed, 26 Jul 2006, Jules Richardson wrote:
> I was pondering that. More than likely someone on this list has already done
> exactly that. Speak now. ;-)

I did it with an XT.  Read a character and print it to LPT, in a loop.

Dave's mention of building a circuit would certainly be a smaller, more
"elegant" solution.



From cisin at xenosoft.com  Wed Jul 26 15:29:20 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:29:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607260816290421.271C18DD@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
	
	<200607260816290421.271C18DD@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <20060726132756.W65354@shell.lmi.net>

> >The worst printer of all came before the computer.  The Datafax.  It
> >used paper sensitive to an electric discharge (spark) and could send

On Wed, 26 Jul 2006, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I believe the Sinclair ZX-81 had an option for a "spark printer".  I recall
> that kymographs and the like used to use that same paper for recording.
> One aspect was that with an AC power supply, you coiuld get a pretty good
> estimate of the pen speed by looking at the length and spacing of the dots
> created by this process.

Radio Shack [briefly] sold an electrostatic printer for the TRS-80.
Nice black image on silvery paper.  Until you crumple it and unfold it.




From dave06a at dunfield.com  Wed Jul 26 16:48:20 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:48:20 -0500
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <20060726132119.C65354@shell.lmi.net>
References: <44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607262051.k6QKpE25003416@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> > > It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
> > > into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
> > > extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
:
> > I was pondering that. More than likely someone on this list has already done
> > exactly that. Speak now. ;-)

> I did it with an XT.  Read a character and print it to LPT, in a loop.
> 
> Dave's mention of building a circuit would certainly be a smaller, more
> "elegant" solution.

Yeah, but an old PC is cheaper (ie: free), much faster to build (all you need
to make is the LPT->keyboard interface cable), already in a box and better
looking (at least compared to MY that my homebrew creations).

It's not such a bad idea.

Yes, it will draw more power than a itty-bitty dedicated controller, but for
the application we are discussing, it's unlikely to see high duty-cycle use.
You could write the program to run under DOS and autoexec it from a
floppy, no need for hard drive or monitor. Tuck the PC under the bench,
and just turn it on when you need it.

Dave


--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Wed Jul 26 16:27:56 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:27:56 -0500
Subject: Are M9312 boot prom images compatible with M9301?
Message-ID: 

Just as the subject says, I'd really like to know, are M9312 boot prom
images compatible with M9301?

Thanks!
Julian




From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 16:34:47 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:34:47 +1200
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	 <44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
	
Message-ID: 

On 7/27/06, Jim Isbell, W5JAI  wrote:
> The worst printer of all came before the computer.  The Datafax.  It
> used paper sensitive to an electric discharge (spark) and could send
> signatures by wire.  The paper was held to a metal drum with tensioned
> springs and a stylus hovered just above the paper and an electrical
> discharge jumped from the stylus to the drum through the paper. I have
> a stack of them in my garage.

I worked with a shades-of-grey spak printer attached to a PDP-11,
circa 1986 - the paper was multi-layered, and the intensity of the
spark ablated the paper to different depths, revealing darker and
darker shades.

It was fussy and, while it _did_ give visibly different shades, didn't
seem like it was worth all the effort.  I think the design was
originally used as a SONAR hardcopy device (we were using it to
display ultrasound scan data for industrial parts inspection).

-ethan


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Wed Jul 26 16:43:16 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:43:16 +1200
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C76CF2.1020905@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

On 7/27/06, Jules Richardson  wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> >> Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
> >
> > Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
> > on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
> > a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.
>
> Hmm, most of the ones (internal keyboards) I've seen are dumb - the large
> number of lines exiting the keyboard are just connected direct to the matrix
> and the decoding is done by something on the main CPU board (often the CPU
> itself), so not easily transferrable to another system :(

That was certainly the case for Commodore equipment (PET, VIC-20, C-64...)

> Agreed on the external keyboards with a ribbon cable - but I'm struggling to
> think of that many systems which used them to be honest. Most micros had
> integrated keyboards, whilst workstation-class stuff was often pretty
> proprietary and usually serial. Machines laying somewhere inbetween often seem
> to just use a serial port and rely on a separate terminal for their input.

My recollection is that the mid-1970s were the heyday of ASCII
keyboards (AIM-65 and similar machines).  By the early 80s, small
machines tended to have matrix scanned (proprietary) raw keyboards or
some serial interface, as you mention, in both cases for cost.

> Quite by chance I found such a thing this morning at:
>
>    http://www.beyondlogic.org/keyboard/keybrd.htm#1
>
> ... the HC705 IC (not a chip I'm familiar with) used may not have enough ports
> though if port A needs to be used exclusively by the keyboard (due to high
> impedance requirements) and port B is only 8 bits and tied up with the ASCII
> interface (plus the strobe line to the machine needs to go somewhere)

Could that be a Motorola 68HC705?

-ethan


From coredump at gifford.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 16:53:45 2006
From: coredump at gifford.co.uk (John Honniball)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 22:53:45 +0100
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C749EE.7080505@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <44C749EE.7080505@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <44C7E469.2090900@gifford.co.uk>

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
> 
> I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard 
> based around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.

I have a spare parallel ASCII keyboard in the loft.  Would
that help, if I could get it to you?

-- 
John Honniball
coredump at gifford.co.uk


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Wed Jul 26 17:15:17 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:15:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: XP1000 problems - Resolved
In-Reply-To: 
	from "Bill Pechter" at Jul 26, 2006 02:17:33 PM
Message-ID: <200607262215.k6QMFHZI014957@onyx.spiritone.com>

> Well, there's always sell off the extra to someone on the list who'd like an
> Alpha.
> OpenVMS on Alpha would be kool 8-)

Actually I don't mind ending up with 2 XP1000's.  For me my VMS box is a
"critical" system (even if it is just a Hobbyist/Home machine), so a spare
is very desirable.  However, it does make some of my existing hardware 
redundant.

The only system at home that I use more than my VMS system is my Mac, and
a fair amount of time it is just being used to access the VMS box.  Now that
I have a PowerStorm 300, I'm trying to figure out how I can get my VMS
system hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and Montor (space and cabling
issues).

		Zane



From rtellason at verizon.net  Wed Jul 26 18:20:41 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:20:41 -0400
Subject: Just in case you have *way too much money*...
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725190012.03d48a10@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <200607261920.41798.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Tuesday 25 July 2006 07:07 pm, Roger Merchberger wrote:
> IMHO, not worth it, but maybe they'll take a decent offer???
>
> =-=-=
>
> MCA-based NCR box w/386SX20... $386.20 (ain't that funny... not!) - but
> it's a nice box if yer into that sorta thing - coprocessor & SCSI built-in.
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320002549109

Gee,  I have a couple of Dell 386sx20 boxes over there on the shelf.  No SCSI 
nor are they MCA,  but that should make things easier!  I'll be happy if 
somebody would offer me anything at all for those...    :-)

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 18:22:32 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:22:32 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060725214248.0549efb0@mail.30below.com> from "Roger
	Merchberger" at Jul 25, 6 10:13:33 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> Rumor has it that Chuck Guzis may have mentioned these words:
> 
> >I've never owned an inkjet printer.  The whole idea smacks too much of 
> >King Gillette.
> 
> OK, Tony.

Is that aimed at me?

I do have and use an inkjet printer. An original 2225B Thinkjet. The 
only reason I use it is because it has an HPIL interface and is rather 
handy on the HP71. Mind you, there's one design wart in it. Although it's 
portable, and battery powered, there's no way to fix the paper supply to 
it. I guess you're supposed to take it to where you want to use it, put 
it on a desk, take out a stack of fanfold paper and feed it in. Hmmm...

And yes, before you ask, I have a Thinkjet service manual, and have 
repaired sections that the manual claims are not feild repairable (mostly 
replating to the carriage drive mechanism).

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 18:33:28 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:33:28 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <200607261142.k6QBgbEo026274@monisys.caonisys.ca> from "Dave
	Dunfield" at Jul 26, 6 07:39:45 am
Message-ID: 

> 
> > Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
> 
> Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
> on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
> a  ribbon cable are likely parallel.

Are they? Raw matrix keyboards seem very common too, possibly scanned in 
software by the rest of the machine. And I've got a couple of terminals 
with separate keyboards linked up be ribbon cable where the keyboard is 
just a matrix of swtiches, the scanning electronics is on the terminal's 
main PCB.

> 
> > I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard based 
> > around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.


As a real kludge to get things working, how about an old PC laptop, and 
link the parallel port of said machine to the keyboard input on your 
classic system. The necessary software shouldn't be hard to write.

> > Knowing which systems to look out for would be a start. Nascom, maybe? I think 
> > RML 380Z's are probably parallel ASCII too, but their keyboards are already 
> > rare as hen's teeth so I wouldn't be happy with that...

Ditto PERQ 1/1a

> 
> It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
> into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
> extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.

I was going to suggest something like that. In fact one day I must get 
round to designing such and interface.

-tony



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Wed Jul 26 18:10:13 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:10:13 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 25, 6 04:39:11 pm
Message-ID: 

> Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, does
> it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?  (As I said, I've got a couple

I think I'd rather have an old, solid, one, than much of the fragile junk 
made today.

-tony



From cclist at sydex.com  Wed Jul 26 18:56:33 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:56:33 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200607261656330217.28F83A5A@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 12:10 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:

>I think I'd rather have an old, solid, one, than much of the fragile junk 
>made today.

As I mentioned, I've got a couple of big heavy built-like-a-brick-outhouse
Panasonics.  But on my desk, I've also got a cheap Brother that I purchased
new for less than the cost of a new toner cartridge.  I'm all for "reuse,
repair, recycle", but this one when it runs out of toner is going to give
me serious pause if I can't find a cheap toner refill that produces
readable print.

My problem with most modern inkjets is that the super-low-prices are
nothing more than an effort to get you to spend lots of money on ink
refills.  King Camp Gillette marketed the disposable-blade safety razor; he
could almost afford to give the razor away because customers would keep
coming back for new blades.  Hence my reference.

Cheers,
Chuck




From chd_1 at nktelco.net  Wed Jul 26 19:12:05 2006
From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C H Dickman)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:12:05 -0400
Subject: Are M9312 boot prom images compatible with M9301?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C804D5.4010200@nktelco.net>

Julian Wolfe wrote:
> Just as the subject says, I'd really like to know, are M9312 boot prom
> images compatible with M9301?
Not directly. The way the image is partitioned between proms is 
different: M9301 spreads a word across 4 proms, M9312 places a word in 4 
successive nibbles of the same prom. Another issue is the way that the 
boot switch is handled. Both boards place an address on the UNIBUS when 
they detect a power fail restart vector fetch caused by the boot switch, 
but the way this address is stored in the proms is different and the 
allowable addresses are different.

I built an adapter for the M9301 that lets me use two 8 bit eproms in 
place of the four 4 bit proms. I have some random notes about it here:

http://www.chd.dyndns.org/pdp11/Notes/M9301.shtml
http://www.chd.dyndns.org/pdp11/Notes/boot_board.shtml

-chuck



From jwest at classiccmp.org  Wed Jul 26 19:37:32 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:37:32 -0500
Subject: Over 1,500 new messages in one block?!
References: <200607252008180050.244155E9@192.168.42.129><1153892737.16111.16.camel@ljw.me.uk>
	<200607252336240365.24FFDD8B@192.168.42.129>
Message-ID: <00e201c6b114$db175700$6500a8c0@HPLAPTOP>

Large moderation block....

Well, to be honest, no one wants to put in the huge amount of effort 
required to moderate all the posts. Often in the past I've asked for 
volunteers and few take me up on it - those that do often quit after a short 
time. It's a hassle. That's why it keeps getting backed up.

As I've posted several times (and gotten no response), my plan is to cancel 
the cctech list and move everyone to cctalk. PLEASE before you complain 
about this, remember they are the SAME LIST (and thus subscribing to both 
lists is silly, you'll just get posts twice). If I cancel cctech, you will 
still see all the same posts. The only difference is there will (possibly) 
be some (from a strict point of view) off-topic posts.

However, I'm trying to watch the cctalk list and keep off-topic threads to a 
minimum, so hopefully cctech'ers won't mind the switch. I believe the cctalk 
view has gotten much better about this than in the past (probably because 
I've been more dictatorial ;) ).

Now if I'm wrong and there's plenty of volunteers willing to spend a good 30 
minutes a day every day to moderate posts for cctech (and when it backs up, 
well over an hour), then I'll consider holding off on the recombination of 
the two views of the list. But there's a long history justifying my current 
stance....

Jay West 



From mikeford at socal.rr.com  Wed Jul 26 21:00:36 2006
From: mikeford at socal.rr.com (Mike Ford)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:00:36 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>
	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
Message-ID: <44C81E44.2020303@socal.rr.com>

Doc Shipley wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
> 
>> On 7/25/2006 at 4:17 PM Don Y wrote:
>>
>>
>>> A pair of LJ5L's (?) will join the pile as soon as their
>>> toner cartridges run out (they're really "toy" printers only
>>> useful for one-off printing) -- which will hopefully be BEFORE
>>> they develop pick problems!
>>
>>
>>
>> Unless it's a high-volume duplex printer or something really special, 
>> does
>> it makes sense to buy a used laser printer?
> 
> 
>   In general, no.  But I needed a medium-high-volume duplex printer that 
> speaks AppleTalk and LPD.  :-)
> 
> 
>     Doc

For about $25 locally I can pick up an old HP with a decent toner 
cartridge, I stick with the HPLJ 4/5 series since I have a couple full 
toner carts. What competes with that? I also have a 10/100 appletalk 
card that I can move between them.

My only thought is power usage since I tend to just leave it on 24/7, 
which may migrate me to a newer low power model.



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Wed Jul 26 21:08:54 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:08:54 -0700
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C81E44.2020303@socal.rr.com>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
	<44C81E44.2020303@socal.rr.com>
Message-ID: <44C82036.4000300@DakotaCom.Net>

Mike Ford wrote:
> For about $25 locally I can pick up an old HP with a decent toner 
> cartridge, I stick with the HPLJ 4/5 series since I have a couple full 
> toner carts. What competes with that? I also have a 10/100 appletalk 
> card that I can move between them.
> 
> My only thought is power usage since I tend to just leave it on 24/7, 
> which may migrate me to a newer low power model.

The 4 isn't very efficient -- even in power-save mode
(I think it draws about 100W in standby and ~700W printing).

The 5L is a much better bet if power is your concern.
But, the low temperature toner really isn't as good as
the LJ4's.   I would NOT recommend the 5/6L unless you
really are interested in power consumption, have very low
print needs, can tolerate the lower print quality AND
are ready to deal with the inevitable pick problems!  :>

The LJ3 is the biggest pig since it doesn't even try to
save power.  That was my reason for tossing mine out
(despite the fact that toner was only $16 vs. 2 or 3
times that for the LJ4).

I print infrequent enough that I can just remember to
power up the printer (LJ4M+) before I need it and power
it off when done.


From doc at mdrconsult.com  Wed Jul 26 20:25:39 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 21:25:39 -0400
Subject: Laser printing
In-Reply-To: <44C81E44.2020303@socal.rr.com>
References: <200607251408.k6PE8JOu071153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<44C6A670.9090700@DakotaCom.Net>	<200607251639110741.23C1FDCF@10.0.0.252>	<44C74714.2040401@mdrconsult.com>
	<44C81E44.2020303@socal.rr.com>
Message-ID: <44C81613.30804@mdrconsult.com>

Mike Ford wrote:

> My only thought is power usage since I tend to just leave it on 24/7, 
> which may migrate me to a newer low power model.

   That's exactly why I gave way my IBM 4039 and picked up an HP 
4100N**.  It looks like it's going to pay for itself in about 18 months. 
  Not to mention the teeny-tiny footprint.


	Doc

** Well, and the fact that the HP had a page count of < 7000....


From marvin at rain.org  Wed Jul 26 22:08:39 2006
From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:08:39 -0700
Subject: For Sale
Message-ID: <44C82E37.B879A87D@rain.org>


I've put a few classic computer related items up on (ugh) ebay since I am
rapidly reaching the point where money is more than just a concept :). A seller
search for KE6HTS will find me. Of interest to the classic computer community is
a SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays (used in the AIM 65),
and a Poly 88. I am also putting stuff up on the VCM at
http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ and probably will be until I run out
of stuff in the year 2074 :).


From dkelvey at hotmail.com  Thu Jul 27 01:23:44 2006
From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey)
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:23:44 -0700
Subject: For Sale
In-Reply-To: <44C82E37.B879A87D@rain.org>
Message-ID: 

Hi Marvin
Please note that I have many of the cassette tape copied to image files
on the PC. I also have a simple way to download them to the Poly88 with
a serial card. You'd still need to find a cassette board or make one. The
manchester decoder chip might be hard to find but this could be constructed
from descreet parts or programmable logic.
A simple serial card can be easily made.
Dwight



>From: Marvin Johnston 
>Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic 
>Posts"
>To: ClassicCmp 
>Subject: For Sale
>Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:08:39 -0700
>
>
>I've put a few classic computer related items up on (ugh) ebay since I am
>rapidly reaching the point where money is more than just a concept :). A 
>seller
>search for KE6HTS will find me. Of interest to the classic computer 
>community is
>a SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
>motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays (used in the AIM 
>65),
>and a Poly 88. I am also putting stuff up on the VCM at
>http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ and probably will be until I run 
>out
>of stuff in the year 2074 :).




From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Thu Jul 27 02:42:49 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:42:49 -0700
Subject: Source of "goal post" BNC-tees
Message-ID: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>

Hi,

Several of my older machines run on 10Base2 networks, here.
I have found that traditional BNC tee's make cable dressing
problematic.  But, "goal post shaped" tee's seem to be kinder
to the cables.  (I haven't yet tried "F"-shaped tee's but I
suspect they wouldn't be as good as the goal posts).

Problem is, I don't find these sold many places.  Seems
like regular tee's are the norm.

Pointers?

Thanks!
--don


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 27 07:13:26 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:13:26 +0000
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
Message-ID: <44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>

Antonio Carlini wrote:
> There's a few words about the Apple I, some basic info on Apple II
> stuff, some Lisa stuff and plenty of mac stuff. 

Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.

I'm just skimming through it at the moment. There's a few oddities like the 
above, plus a few typos - which always makes me less than certain about 
factual accuracy too...


-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From dave06a at dunfield.com  Thu Jul 27 08:38:05 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:38:05 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
Message-ID: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>


> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.

This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
your experience is :-)

Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.

Cheers,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From bpope at wordstock.com  Thu Jul 27 07:57:58 2006
From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:57:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <20060727125758.3D02A584F4@mail.wordstock.com>

And thusly were the wise words spake by Dave Dunfield
> 
> 
> > Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
> 
> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).

Dave,

	I hate to be a picker of nits, but you forgot byte 0...  
So there is actually 65536 bytes of memory but the last byte is 
at address 65535 or $FFFF.

> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
> your experience is :-)
> 
> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
> 

	I really think this is a very silly practice...  Imagine 
what would happen if they did that with RAM sticks?!

Cheers,

Bryan



From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de  Thu Jul 27 07:19:12 2006
From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:19:12 +0200
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C8AF40.4090108@iais.fraunhofer.de>

Tony Duell schrieb:
>>> Looking for thoughts on which machines used parallel ASCII keyboards...
>>>       
>> It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
>> into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
>> extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
>>     
>
> I was going to suggest something like that. In fact one day I must get 
> round to designing such and interface.
>
>   
This has been already done, and is available on the Net. Look at the 
schematics for the Apple I replica at www.applefritter.com;
this contains an ATMEL controller to convert a PC keyboard to the 
7bit+strobe required for the Apple I. It is probably just a matter
of changing the translation table in the code to adapt to any encoding. 
An ATMEGA8515 is maybe overkill for such a converter, as
it has 2 unused 8 bit ports , but it is a little bit less powerconsuming 
as a PC with a parallel port.

-- 
Holger Veit




From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Thu Jul 27 08:19:12 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:19:12 -0300
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
References:  <44C8AF40.4090108@iais.fraunhofer.de>
Message-ID: <00b101c6b17f$51d69c60$0602a8c0@xandinho>

> This has been already done, and is available on the Net. Look at the
> schematics for the Apple I replica at www.applefritter.com;
> this contains an ATMEL controller to convert a PC keyboard to the
> 7bit+strobe required for the Apple I. It is probably just a matter
> of changing the translation table in the code to adapt to any encoding.
> An ATMEGA8515 is maybe overkill for such a converter, as
> it has 2 unused 8 bit ports , but it is a little bit less powerconsuming
> as a PC with a parallel port.

    I'm a bit out of time, but this can be easily done with an atmega 2313
(18 pin, 15 I/O ports). Look for BASCOM in www.mcselec.com - this is a easy
way to program that, you just need to capture the PS/2 data and use data
lines and lookup to convert to your 7-bit desired value.



From dave06a at dunfield.com  Thu Jul 27 09:31:40 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:31:40 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727125758.3D02A584F4@mail.wordstock.com>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>


> > > Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
> > 
> > This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
> > 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
> 
> Dave,
> 
>  I hate to be a picker of nits, but you forgot byte 0...  
> So there is actually 65536 bytes of memory but the last byte is 
> at address 65535 or $FFFF.

Of course
I actually intended to type 65536, but my fingers automatically rounded
this down to  valid 16-bit number :-)


> > I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
> > material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
> > your experience is :-)
> > 
> > Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
> > for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
> > than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.

>  I really think this is a very silly practice...  Imagine 
> what would happen if they did that with RAM sticks?!

In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else
I find myself counting non-computer related things in hex all the time
 (If you are doing it out loud, people nearby look at you strangely
  and move slightly further away)

Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net  Thu Jul 27 08:31:13 2006
From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:31:13 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
> 
> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
> your experience is :-)
> 
> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dave

For engineers and techs in electronics K=1000 as in 10k resistor (nominally 
10,000 ohms) and Meg=1,000,000  we also have the 10-n value of milli, micro,
nano and pico to name a few and they are all powers of 10.  In 
programming/computer context only do K=1024 and M=1048576.  This leads to
much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a result
in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as K_bytes_ or
Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.

Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!


Allison



From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 27 09:39:29 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:39:29 +0000
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C8D021.90203@yahoo.co.uk>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
> 
> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).

This is in a technical work though, with no reason to decimalise things for 
the purpose of marketing statistics. I can't see what the justification is - 
it just leaves the casual user unsure as to whether the author means 64K (as 
in 65536), 65K (as in 65000, and therefore wrong), or 65K (as in slang for 64K :-)

> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
> your experience is :-)

For those of us who know hardware, yes the assumption is that the author's 
lying and they really mean 64KB. To a casual user though they may be left 
thinking that the 6502 was somehow different to other contemporary 8-bitters 
that could only address 64KB.

> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.

Sure, but they're idiots and that's for marketing reasons to sell more product 
;-) In an article such as the Apple one there's simply no good reason that I 
can think of for the author doing it other than them being lazy or a poor 
documenter of the facts.

Actually, elsewhere in the doc they do seem to prefer 'proper' KB - makes me 
wonder if they lifted the 6502 summary from somewhere else rather than writing 
it themselves.

cheers

Jules

-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From doc at mdrconsult.com  Thu Jul 27 08:51:34 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:51:34 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>

Allison wrote:

> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!

   We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap instead 
of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source literature or docs, 
that spec is becoming disturbingly common.

http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

   Can you tell I'm not thrilled?


	Doc


From ikvsabre at comcast.net  Thu Jul 27 08:57:51 2006
From: ikvsabre at comcast.net (Joseph Stevenson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:57:51 -0400
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>

Hi all,

What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?

Joe



From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Thu Jul 27 08:59:03 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:59:03 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8D021.90203@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8D021.90203@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607271359.JAA03762@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> Actually, elsewhere in the doc they do seem to prefer 'proper' KB -
> makes me wonder if they lifted the 6502 summary from somewhere else
> rather than writing it themselves.

Also possible is that it could just be an honest typo; 4 and 5 are next
to one another on most keyboards, after all.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us  Thu Jul 27 09:02:07 2006
From: mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us (Mike Loewen)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:02:07 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
Message-ID: 

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Joseph Stevenson wrote:

> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?

50 ohms.

Mike Loewen				mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology	http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/


From jwest at classiccmp.org  Thu Jul 27 09:03:39 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:03:39 -0500
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
Message-ID: <000601c6b185$764a8600$6700a8c0@BILLING>

50-ohm I believe.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Stevenson" 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" 
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 8:57 AM
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?


> Hi all,
> 
> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?
> 
> Joe
> 
>


From ploopster at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 09:06:31 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:06:31 -0400
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
Message-ID: <44C8C867.3070703@gmail.com>

Joseph Stevenson wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?

50ohm.

Peace...  Sridhar


From James at jdfogg.com  Thu Jul 27 09:09:48 2006
From: James at jdfogg.com (James Fogg)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:09:48 -0400
Subject: Source of "goal post" BNC-tees
Message-ID: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2567FB@sbs.jdfogg.com>

> Several of my older machines run on 10Base2 networks, here.
> I have found that traditional BNC tee's make cable dressing 
> problematic.  But, "goal post shaped" tee's seem to be kinder 
> to the cables.  (I haven't yet tried "F"-shaped tee's but I 
> suspect they wouldn't be as good as the goal posts).

If memory serves me right, Ethernet isn't tolerant of the "leg" of the T
being anything more than incredibly short, and the standards mention
something about that.

I've had success using 90 degree elbows (2 per connection). Radio Shack
should still carry them. It would make your "goal post" configuration.




From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com  Thu Jul 27 09:17:43 2006
From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 10:17:43 -0400
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <44C8AF40.4090108@iais.fraunhofer.de>
References: 
 
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060727093730.03bdef20@mail.30below.com>

Rumor has it that Holger Veit may have mentioned these words:

>This has been already done, and is available on the Net. Look at the 
>schematics for the Apple I replica at www.applefritter.com;
>this contains an ATMEL controller to convert a PC keyboard to the 
>7bit+strobe required for the Apple I. It is probably just a matter
>of changing the translation table in the code to adapt to any encoding. An 
>ATMEGA8515 is maybe overkill for such a converter,

For that *exact* use, it may be overkill - but I've been wanting to build 
an PS/2 -> CoCo adapter for quite some time out of one of my currently 
unused 90S8515's I have collecting dust... The CoCo needs 2 8-bit ports for 
the keyboard matrix interface; and you could still have an 8-bit port 
configured as a straight ascii backup.

I've wandered around that site for quite a while, and I found the 
schematics, but no source code for the 90S8515/ATMEGA8515. Do you know if 
it's available, or is it closed-source?

Thanks!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com

Hi! I am a .signature virus.  Copy me into your .signature to join in!



From RLAAG at PACBELL.NET  Thu Jul 27 10:30:31 2006
From: RLAAG at PACBELL.NET (ROBERT LAAG)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:30:31 -0700
Subject: rack assembly to hold sun pizza box computer
Message-ID: <44C8DC17.6030003@PACBELL.NET>

I have available a 19" rack mounting unit that holds a sun 'pizza box' 
computer...  Please contact if interested,  RLAAG at PACBELL.NET



From marvin at rain.org  Thu Jul 27 10:42:56 2006
From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:42:56 -0700
Subject: Poly 88, was RE: For Sale
Message-ID: <44C8DF00.D8356FC9@rain.org>


Hi Dwight,

I would be very interested in the cassette tape images! In looking through the
file cabinets of information, I did not find any information on the cassette
board, but I did find a copy of the assembly manual and schematics in one of the
Poly procedures books. It has a picture of the cassette board, and I am somewhat
doubtful that I have one. But, from what I could see, it wouldn't be hard to
relayout the board since I can see the traces on the component side. IIRC, I
probably have six - ten of the parallel boards installed in a burnin unit they
had, and those appear to be the same size. There is still one file cabinet I
can't get to right now that has some engineering drawings, ROMs, etc. so I'm
going to make an effort to get to it :),

BTW, I still have two more Poly 88 units, and a couple of chassis. So I am not
by any means leaving the Poly area :).


> From: "dwight elvey" 
> 
> Hi Marvin
> Please note that I have many of the cassette tape copied to image files
> on the PC. I also have a simple way to download them to the Poly88 with
> a serial card. You'd still need to find a cassette board or make one. The
> manchester decoder chip might be hard to find but this could be constructed
> from descreet parts or programmable logic.
> A simple serial card can be easily made.
> Dwight
>  -0700
> >
> >
> >I've put a few classic computer related items up on (ugh) ebay since I am
> >rapidly reaching the point where money is more than just a concept :). A 
> >seller
> >search for KE6HTS will find me. Of interest to the classic computer 
> >community is
> >a SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
> >motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays (used in the AIM 
> >65),
> >and a Poly 88. I am also putting stuff up on the VCM at
> >http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com/ and probably will be until I run 
> >out
> >of stuff in the year 2074 :).
> 
>


From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 10:56:48 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:56:48 -0700
Subject: Source of "goal post" BNC-tees
In-Reply-To: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607270856480748.2C675C58@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 12:42 AM Don Y wrote:

>Problem is, I don't find these sold many places.  Seems
>like regular tee's are the norm.

Jameco stock 100597CK, page 145 in catalogue 262.  $5.99 the each.  They
also offer BNC tees in the "F" shape and the "90 degree T shape".

I haven't checked the usual surplus sources yet.

Cheers,
Chuck




From rtellason at verizon.net  Thu Jul 27 10:58:43 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:58:43 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net> <44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
Message-ID: <200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 09:51 am, Doc Shipley wrote:
>    We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap instead
> of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source literature or docs,
> that spec is becoming disturbingly common.

Euw.

> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
>
>    Can you tell I'm not thrilled?

I don't like those much either.  :-(

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From segin2005 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 11:14:42 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:14:42 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <44C8E672.4050804@gmail.com>

Allison wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
>>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
>>
>>
>> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
>> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
>> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
>> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
>> your experience is :-)
>>
>> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
>> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
>> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave
> 
> 
> For engineers and techs in electronics K=1000 as in 10k resistor 
> (nominally 10,000 ohms) and Meg=1,000,000  we also have the 10-n value 
> of milli, micro,
> nano and pico to name a few and they are all powers of 10.  In 
> programming/computer context only do K=1024 and M=1048576.  This leads to
> much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a 
> result
> in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as 
> K_bytes_ or
> Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.
> 
> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!
> 
> 
> Allison
> 
> 
Most of the confugion is by idiot's that don't know what the fuck S.I. 
means.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 11:14:42 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:14:42 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <44C8E672.4050804@gmail.com>

Allison wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
>>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
>>
>>
>> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
>> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
>> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
>> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
>> your experience is :-)
>>
>> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
>> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
>> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave
> 
> 
> For engineers and techs in electronics K=1000 as in 10k resistor 
> (nominally 10,000 ohms) and Meg=1,000,000  we also have the 10-n value 
> of milli, micro,
> nano and pico to name a few and they are all powers of 10.  In 
> programming/computer context only do K=1024 and M=1048576.  This leads to
> much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a 
> result
> in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as 
> K_bytes_ or
> Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.
> 
> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!
> 
> 
> Allison
> 
> 
Most of the confugion is by idiot's that don't know what the fuck S.I. 
means.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 11:14:55 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:14:55 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <44C8E67F.80002@gmail.com>

Allison wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
>>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
>>
>>
>> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
>> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
>> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
>> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
>> your experience is :-)
>>
>> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
>> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
>> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave
> 
> 
> For engineers and techs in electronics K=1000 as in 10k resistor 
> (nominally 10,000 ohms) and Meg=1,000,000  we also have the 10-n value 
> of milli, micro,
> nano and pico to name a few and they are all powers of 10.  In 
> programming/computer context only do K=1024 and M=1048576.  This leads to
> much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a 
> result
> in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as 
> K_bytes_ or
> Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.
> 
> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!
> 
> 
> Allison
> 
> 
Most of the confusion is by idiots that don't know what the fuck S.I. means.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 11:14:55 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:14:55 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <44C8E67F.80002@gmail.com>

Allison wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
>>> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.
>>
>>
>> This is very common, and is based on an assumption of 'k' meaning
>> 1000 (decimal), not 1024 - 16 bit bus - 65535 bytes (65 thousand).
>> I've seen it in data sheets and other reasonably technically accurate
>> material - I guess it depends on your point of view (and how low-level
>> your experience is :-)
>>
>> Hard drive manufacturers have been doing the same thing with "meg"
>> for years - specing in decimal 1,000,000 makes the drive sound bigger
>> than specing in 2**20 sized blocks.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Dave
> 
> 
> For engineers and techs in electronics K=1000 as in 10k resistor 
> (nominally 10,000 ohms) and Meg=1,000,000  we also have the 10-n value 
> of milli, micro,
> nano and pico to name a few and they are all powers of 10.  In 
> programming/computer context only do K=1024 and M=1048576.  This leads to
> much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a 
> result
> in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as 
> K_bytes_ or
> Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.
> 
> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!
> 
> 
> Allison
> 
> 
Most of the confusion is by idiots that don't know what the fuck S.I. means.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From dm561 at torfree.net  Thu Jul 27 11:16:36 2006
From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:16:36 -0400
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
Message-ID: <01C6B176.B9820100@mse-d03>

--------------Original Message:
From: "Ethan Dicks" 
Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards


My recollection is that the mid-1970s were the heyday of ASCII
keyboards (AIM-65 and similar machines).  

---------------Reply:
ASCII keyboard on an AIM65??? Not on any of mine...

m



From dm561 at torfree.net  Thu Jul 27 11:17:20 2006
From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:17:20 -0400
Subject: For Sale
Message-ID: <01C6B176.BA963020@mse-d03>

--------------------Original Message:
From: Marvin Johnston 
Subject: For Sale
To: ClassicCmp 


>Of interest to the classic computer community is a SWTPC PR-40 
>Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
>motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays 
>(used in the AIM 65),

---------------------Reply:
Are you sure about those HP2416s being used in an AIM65?
Wouldn't want you falsely advertising on eBay...

mike




From jwest at classiccmp.org  Thu Jul 27 11:19:26 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:19:26 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca><44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
	<44C8E67F.80002@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <006301c6b198$6f804360$6700a8c0@BILLING>

huh?

Why on earth would someone cc a message from cctech to cctalk or vice versa? 
They are the same list!

J 



From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 11:22:21 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:22:21 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
	<44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
	<200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607270922210361.2C7EBF1D@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 11:58 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote:

>> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html

Yech!

Maybe someone's not addressing the right problem.  One of the problems with
verbalizing scientific notation is the clumsiness of saying "itimes 10 to
the". or "times 2 to the".    I hereby propose a new pair of words, "tep"
and "bip" for "times 10 to the" and "times 2 to the".  So instead of saying
"sixty-five k", you can now say "sixty-five tep three" with absolutely no
abiguity.   If you want the base-2 version, you could say "sixty-four bip
ten".

Just kidding,
Chuck





From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Thu Jul 27 11:25:24 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:25:24 -0700
Subject: Source of "goal post" BNC-tees
In-Reply-To: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2567FB@sbs.jdfogg.com>
References: <4EE5D8CA323707439EF291AC9244BD9A2567FB@sbs.jdfogg.com>
Message-ID: <44C8E8F4.9040707@DakotaCom.Net>

James Fogg wrote:
>> Several of my older machines run on 10Base2 networks, here.
>> I have found that traditional BNC tee's make cable dressing 
>> problematic.  But, "goal post shaped" tee's seem to be kinder 
>> to the cables.  (I haven't yet tried "F"-shaped tee's but I 
>> suspect they wouldn't be as good as the goal posts).
> 
> If memory serves me right, Ethernet isn't tolerant of the "leg" of the T
> being anything more than incredibly short, and the standards mention
> something about that.

These are the same size as a regular T.  Except, the females
are bent at right angles to the normal T (i.e. so they are
parallel to the center tap).

The 'F' style that I have seen is similarly sized.

Their main advantage is that the cables dress *away* from the
equipment instead of *alongside* it.

> I've had success using 90 degree elbows (2 per connection). Radio Shack
> should still carry them. It would make your "goal post" configuration.

I assume you mean add them to a regular tee?  :-(


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Thu Jul 27 11:27:57 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:27:57 -0700
Subject: Source of "goal post" BNC-tees
In-Reply-To: <200607270856480748.2C675C58@10.0.0.252>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607270856480748.2C675C58@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C8E98D.5030804@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/27/2006 at 12:42 AM Don Y wrote:
> 
>> Problem is, I don't find these sold many places.  Seems
>> like regular tee's are the norm.
> 
> Jameco stock 100597CK, page 145 in catalogue 262.  $5.99 the each.  They
> also offer BNC tees in the "F" shape and the "90 degree T shape".
> 
> I haven't checked the usual surplus sources yet.

Thanks!
--don


From buseyl at yahoo.com  Thu Jul 27 11:59:12 2006
From: buseyl at yahoo.com (Liam Busey)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:59:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: cctalk Digest, Vol 35, Issue 44
In-Reply-To: <200607271315.k6RDFH6J053946@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20060727165912.55893.qmail@web53204.mail.yahoo.com>



--- Dave Dunfield wrote:

-snip- 

> > I did it with an XT.  Read a character and print
> it to LPT, in a loop.
> > 
> > Dave's mention of building a circuit would
> certainly be a smaller, more
> > "elegant" solution.
> 
> Yeah, but an old PC is cheaper (ie: free), much
> faster to build (all you need
> to make is the LPT->keyboard interface cable),
> already in a box and better
> looking (at least compared to MY that my homebrew
> creations).

Huh? Your D6809 portable is one of the most impressive
homebrew cases I've ever seen. It's certainly more
interesting than some forgettable pile of sheet metal
and plastic.


Liam Busey

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From arcarlini at iee.org  Thu Jul 27 12:08:06 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:08:06 +0100
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
Message-ID: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Doc Shipley wrote:
> Allison wrote:
> 
>> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!
> 
>    We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap instead
> of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source literature or
> docs, that spec is becoming disturbingly common.
> 
> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> 
>    Can you tell I'm not thrilled?

The SI prefixes (k) kilo and (M) mega have always meant 10**3 and 10**6.
The computer industry decided that K should mean 1024 (which is
fine if somewhat confusing) but trying to bend mega into something
that it should never have been was just lazy ...

Antonio



From ploopster at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 12:11:34 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:11:34 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <006301c6b198$6f804360$6700a8c0@BILLING>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca><44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>	<44C8E67F.80002@gmail.com>
	<006301c6b198$6f804360$6700a8c0@BILLING>
Message-ID: <44C8F3C6.50007@gmail.com>

Jay West wrote:
> huh?
> 
> Why on earth would someone cc a message from cctech to cctalk or vice 
> versa? They are the same list!

Because people don't know what they're doing.

Peace...  Sridhar


From doc at mdrconsult.com  Thu Jul 27 12:49:08 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:49:08 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607270922210361.2C7EBF1D@10.0.0.252>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>	<44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>	<200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
	<200607270922210361.2C7EBF1D@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44C8FC94.8070408@mdrconsult.com>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/27/2006 at 11:58 AM Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> 
>>> http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> 
> Yech!
> 
> Maybe someone's not addressing the right problem.  One of the problems with
> verbalizing scientific notation is the clumsiness of saying "itimes 10 to
> the". or "times 2 to the".    I hereby propose a new pair of words, "tep"
> and "bip" for "times 10 to the" and "times 2 to the".  So instead of saying
> "sixty-five k", you can now say "sixty-five tep three" with absolutely no
> abiguity.   If you want the base-2 version, you could say "sixty-four bip
> ten".
> 
> Just kidding,

   Standards are great, aren't they?

   Everyone hould have their own!


	Doc


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Thu Jul 27 12:51:07 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:51:07 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net> <44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
	<200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607271753.NAA06039@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>> We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, [...]
> Euw.

Yeah.  "Mebibytes" has always felt like "maybe-bytes" to me, and
"kibibytes" smacks more of James Parry than anything else.

But...whatevah.  After what happened to ISO networking stacks you'd
think standards bodies would know better than to try to impose
standards from on high, but I guess not.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net  Thu Jul 27 13:13:16 2006
From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:13:16 -0400
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <44C9023C.3000501@sbcglobal.net>

Scott Quinn wrote:
> 
>  Just heard of a good deal from HP: they seem to be cleaning out the PA-RISC HP-UX B11.11 CD sets:
> 
> you can get one free at : http://h20293.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=T1321AA
> 
> Not classic yet, although I suppose it will run on a few ontopic machines.

	Would you believe that my order for this just arrived... Much quicker 
than I thought. Of course, it was coming from NH, and I'm in CT...
	Now to decide what to put in on...;-)

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes


From stanb at dial.pipex.com  Thu Jul 27 02:57:58 2006
From: stanb at dial.pipex.com (Stan Barr)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 08:57:58 +0100
Subject: Laser printing 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:56:33 PDT."
	<200607261656330217.28F83A5A@10.0.0.252> 
Message-ID: <200607270757.IAA25099@citadel.metropolis.local>

Hi,

Chuck Guzis said:

> 
> My problem with most modern inkjets is that the super-low-prices are
> nothing more than an effort to get you to spend lots of money on ink
> refills.  King Camp Gillette marketed the disposable-blade safety razor; he
> could almost afford to give the razor away because customers would keep
> coming back for new blades.  Hence my reference.

There are alternatives: Feed the ink from bottles...

See http://www.fotospeed.com/   for example.

-- 
Cheers,
Stan Barr  stanb at dial.pipex.com

The future was never like this!




From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 27 14:37:02 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:37:02 +0000
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
Message-ID: <44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>

Antonio Carlini wrote:
> The SI prefixes (k) kilo and (M) mega have always meant 10**3 and 10**6.
> The computer industry decided that K should mean 1024 (which is
> fine if somewhat confusing) 

It's not confusing - or at least it never used to be. In a computing context K 
was always a power of 2 because in that environment that's what's more 
convenient, and in any other context it meant a power of 10. The only 
confusion arose when some total muppet [1] decided that *also* using powers of 
ten in a computer context was a brilliant idea.

[1] Anyone know who it was, anyway? I first saw it in the hard disk industry 
somewhere around 1997 or so, purely as a marketing tool to make one 
manufacturer's drives look bigger than their competitors.

-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From jwest at classiccmp.org  Thu Jul 27 13:38:43 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:38:43 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
	<44C9023C.3000501@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <008201c6b1ab$e362ba20$6700a8c0@BILLING>

David wrote...
> Would you believe that my order for this just arrived... Much quicker than 
> I thought. Of course, it was coming from NH, and I'm in CT...
> Now to decide what to put in on...;-)

Yeah, mine arrived 3 days after I placed the order.

Not sure what I'll put it on... I'll see if it'll run on my D220 with FWD 
hotswap option :)

Say... who STILL has my HP-UX 10.20 media and layered product tapes???

Jay West 



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Thu Jul 27 13:39:19 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:39:19 -0700
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
Message-ID: <44C90857.7060604@DakotaCom.Net>

Joseph Stevenson wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?

The same as the characteristic impedance of the cable -- 50 ohms.


From teoz at neo.rr.com  Thu Jul 27 13:44:41 2006
From: teoz at neo.rr.com (Teo Zenios)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:44:41 -0400
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>
	<44C9023C.3000501@sbcglobal.net>
	<008201c6b1ab$e362ba20$6700a8c0@BILLING>
Message-ID: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jay West" 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"

Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 2:38 PM
Subject: Re: Not classic, but free: HP-UX


> David wrote...
> > Would you believe that my order for this just arrived... Much quicker
than
> > I thought. Of course, it was coming from NH, and I'm in CT...
> > Now to decide what to put in on...;-)
>
> Yeah, mine arrived 3 days after I placed the order.
>
>
> Jay West

What was in the package just a CD in a jewel case?

Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?




From tpeters at mixcom.com  Thu Jul 27 13:53:23 2006
From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:53:23 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: 
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>
	
Message-ID: <20611.144.160.5.25.1154026403.squirrel@mail.athenet.net>

> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Joseph Stevenson wrote:
>
>> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?
>
> 50 ohms.
52 ohms was also used. I think maybe 50 ohms is a non-standard value for a
resistor, and 52 ohms was available. I only saw one batch of 52 ohms-- the
color stripes said 52 ohms, not just my ohmmeter.



From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net  Thu Jul 27 13:58:07 2006
From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:58:07 -0400
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>
References: <20cb5a1a3da04c759bbbe28ded33d478@valleyimplants.com>	<44C9023C.3000501@sbcglobal.net>	<008201c6b1ab$e362ba20$6700a8c0@BILLING>
	<007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>
Message-ID: <44C90CBF.8010501@sbcglobal.net>

Teo Zenios wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jay West" 
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> 
> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 2:38 PM
> Subject: Re: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
> 
> 
>> David wrote...
>>> Would you believe that my order for this just arrived... Much quicker
> than
>>> I thought. Of course, it was coming from NH, and I'm in CT...
>>> Now to decide what to put in on...;-)
>> Yeah, mine arrived 3 days after I placed the order.
>>
>>
>> Jay West
> 
> What was in the package just a CD in a jewel case?
> 
> Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?
> 
> 
> 
4 CDs of the core OS - Install & recovery
5 CDs of application software, & a DVD of same.
Oh yeah, they were in 2 clear vinyl (?) "wallets"

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Thu Jul 27 14:12:11 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:12:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game> from "Teo Zenios" at Jul 27,
	2006 02:44:41 PM
Message-ID: <200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>

> Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?

Good question, is there a supported HW list somewhere?  I ordered mine for a
B180L.

Zane



From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Thu Jul 27 14:22:50 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:22:50 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: 

As of when my uncle worked for HP in 2000, he said that a 712/100 would run
HPUX 11.  I'm pretty sure a B180L will. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org 
> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy
> Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 2:12 PM
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
> 
> > Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?
> 
> Good question, is there a supported HW list somewhere?  I 
> ordered mine for a B180L.
> 
> Zane
> 
> 




From glen.slick at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 14:36:04 2006
From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:36:04 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>
	<200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/27/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
> > Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?
>
> Good question, is there a supported HW list somewhere?  I ordered mine for a
> B180L.
>
> Zane
>

http://docs.hp.com/en/5971-2229/ch03s01.html#d0e2032

Copied from the above doc.

Systems That Are Fully Supported (new at 11i original release)

Table 3-3 Workstations

Model(s) 32-bit Support 64-bit Support Comments
Series 700: PA-7xxx Yes   All 712, 715/64/80/100/100XC, 725/100

B-Class: PA-7300LC Yes   B132L, B160L, B180L

B-Class: PA-8500 and forward   Yes Bx000

B-Class: PA-8600

 Yes
 B2600

C-Class: PA-7xxx  Yes   C100, C110, C160L

C-Class: PA-8xxx  Yes Yes C160, C180, C180-XP,C200, C240, C360

C-Class: PA-8500 and forward   Yes C3x00

C-Class: PA-8700

 Yes
 C3700, C3750

J-Class: PA-7xxx  Yes   J200, J210, J210XC

J-Class: PA-8000/8200  Yes Yes J280, J282, J2240

J-Class: PA-8500 and forward   Yes J5x00, J6000, J7000

J-Class: PA-8700

 Yes
 J6700, J6750


The following servers, workstations, and graphics adapters are no
longer supported:

Servers: E-, F-, G-, H-, and I-Class

Workstations: 705, 710, 715/33, 715/50, 715/75, 720, 725/50, 725/75,
730, 735, 750, 755

Graphics adapters: GRX, CRX, CRX-24, CRX-48Z


From brad at heeltoe.com  Thu Jul 27 14:48:07 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:48:07 -0400
Subject: RGB & LCD...
Message-ID: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>


(sounds like a stevie wonder song, "r-g-b...and l-c-d..." (ugg, clearly I've
had too much coffee).

I have an old computer from the '80s and it has a frame buffer with
RGB+S (sync) output on classic BNC connectors.

Back in the day I'd go find a suitable (unbearably heavy) RGB monitor and
4 coax cables and connect the two.

But I find myself without any RBG monitors these days.  But I do have a
bunch of new-ish LCD monitors which seem quite happy to sync up to
pretty much anything.

So, can I just (somehow) connect the RBG+S signals to a mondern LCD?
Has anyone tried this?

I haven't even thought about it electrically so this may be thinking out
loud.  Most of these lcd monitors seem to have VGA signals.  I did once
have a DW13 to RBG/BNC connector.  And I think I have a DW13 to VGA
adapter...  Is that the right way to go?

I don't know anything about the frame buffer in this thing.  I suspect
it's some sort of 640x480x8 device.  I can do some digging.  (it's a
Symbolics 3630 lisp machine in case you are wondering, a so called
"g-machine", where they put the original 3600 into a small number of
FPGAs).

Any advise appreciated...

-brad



From cisin at xenosoft.com  Thu Jul 27 14:54:43 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:54:43 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <20060727125246.O30083@shell.lmi.net>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Jules Richardson wrote:
> [1] Anyone know who it was, anyway? I first saw it in the hard disk industry
> somewhere around 1997 or so, purely as a marketing tool to make one
> manufacturer's drives look bigger than their competitors.

Late 1970's, early 1980's.  Or BEFORE.
There were a few marketing types bragging that their microcomputers had
65.536K of memory (v the competition at only 64K?)




From dave06a at dunfield.com  Thu Jul 27 16:05:14 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:05:14 -0500
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>
Message-ID: <200607272008.k6RK89bI002349@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> 
> (sounds like a stevie wonder song, "r-g-b...and l-c-d..." (ugg, clearly I've
> had too much coffee).
> 
> I have an old computer from the '80s and it has a frame buffer with
> RGB+S (sync) output on classic BNC connectors.
> 
> Back in the day I'd go find a suitable (unbearably heavy) RGB monitor and
> 4 coax cables and connect the two.
> 
> But I find myself without any RBG monitors these days.  But I do have a
> bunch of new-ish LCD monitors which seem quite happy to sync up to
> pretty much anything.
> 
> So, can I just (somehow) connect the RBG+S signals to a mondern LCD?
> Has anyone tried this?
> 
> I haven't even thought about it electrically so this may be thinking out
> loud.  Most of these lcd monitors seem to have VGA signals.  I did once
> have a DW13 to RBG/BNC connector.  And I think I have a DW13 to VGA
> adapter...  Is that the right way to go?
> 
> I don't know anything about the frame buffer in this thing.  I suspect
> it's some sort of 640x480x8 device.  I can do some digging.  (it's a
> Symbolics 3630 lisp machine in case you are wondering, a so called
> "g-machine", where they put the original 3600 into a small number of
> FPGAs).

Not rgb+s, but I hooked up my ATW800 with Sync-on-Green to my NEC
LCD ... The ATW800 has BNC connectors, and I just hacked a VGA cable
and put connectors on it ....

The result: It has a gorgeous picture, looks great and would be perfetly usable
except for the large white box covering the middle of the screen that you can't
get rid of no-how which says "OUT OF RANGE".

Regards,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net  Thu Jul 27 15:13:56 2006
From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:13:56 -0400
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>
References: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>	<200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
	<1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <44C91E84.2050201@sbcglobal.net>

Glen Slick wrote:
> On 7/27/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
>> > Also what range of machines can run that version of HP-UX?
>>
>> Good question, is there a supported HW list somewhere?  I ordered mine 
>> for a
>> B180L.
>>
>> Zane
>>
> 
> http://docs.hp.com/en/5971-2229/ch03s01.html#d0e2032
> 

	Hmmm... So, unless I have an HP workstation, I can't use this, right?

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 27 16:24:42 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:24:42 +0000
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>
References: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>
Message-ID: <44C92F1A.9060906@yahoo.co.uk>

Brad Parker wrote:
> (sounds like a stevie wonder song, "r-g-b...and l-c-d..." (ugg, clearly I've
> had too much coffee).
> 
> I have an old computer from the '80s and it has a frame buffer with
> RGB+S (sync) output on classic BNC connectors.

Couple of things:

1) I expect any modern LCD is going to want analogue colour signals

2) Some LCDs will probably only work with separate H/V sync lines - some will 
be good enough to accept composite sync (such as your machine is outputting), 
and some will probably work with sync on green too.

I don't think I've ever seen a machine with separate RGB BNC outputs that 
presents a digital (TTL or otherwise) signal at the outputs - they've always 
been analogue. Doesn't mean to say it can't happen, though.

If you've got a 'scope, put it on one of the outputs of your system and check 
the peak voltage. If your LCDs have a VGA connector (as I suspect they have!) 
then you can look up VGA signal levels on the 'net and just check that you're 
not going to toast the LCD because the voltage at the BNCs is too high.

Other than that though, it probably stands a good chance of working, and you 
won't cook anything by trying.

cheers

Jules

-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From healyzh at aracnet.com  Thu Jul 27 15:30:46 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:30:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>
	from "Glen Slick" at Jul 27, 2006 12:36:04 PM
Message-ID: <200607272030.k6RKUktl005227@onyx.spiritone.com>


I just recieved FedEx notification that my set has shipped, it's going
"Priority Overnight"!  I would have thought it would be just a normal slow
shipment!  Looks like I should hopefully have my set tomorrow.

		Zane



From williams.dan at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 15:35:07 2006
From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:35:07 +0100
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607272030.k6RKUktl005227@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>
	<200607272030.k6RKUktl005227@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <26c11a640607271335v7fbca4cal37ce25010e32dbce@mail.gmail.com>

On 27/07/06, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
>
> I just recieved FedEx notification that my set has shipped, it's going
> "Priority Overnight"!  I would have thought it would be just a normal slow
> shipment!  Looks like I should hopefully have my set tomorrow.
>
>                 Zane
>
>
Me too, mine is going with DHL all the way across the water. Can't
complain about that. Shame SGI and HP don't do the same thing. I would
of paid around ?20 for the service.


Dan



From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Thu Jul 27 15:38:25 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:38:25 -0500
Subject: Laser Printing
Message-ID: <23901be09e664a488658c32fdcd3e468@valleyimplants.com>



 Depends greatly on how much you pay for the used laser, also (Boeing had LaserJet 5s for $1 a month ago).
It seems like there was a sweet spot where you could get solidly built high-resolution printers (LJ4/5 -> LJ 4100 era about),
that had PostScript (4100 is a clone, but . . .) and use cheap toner cartridges.

My school district IT swapped out some of our old printers (Lexmarks, they were dying anyway) for new HP LaserJets.
I am not impressed. Short cartridge life, cheesy plastic construction, pricy cartridges with no 3rd party alternatives.
What's not to like about a 4100? Quality is nice - isn't that one reason we like the computers we do?





From jwest at classiccmp.org  Thu Jul 27 15:39:18 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:39:18 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
References: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>	<200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com><1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>
	<44C91E84.2050201@sbcglobal.net>
Message-ID: <010c01c6b1bc$bd3bf8f0$6700a8c0@BILLING>

David wrote....
> Hmmm... So, unless I have an HP workstation, I can't use this, right?

Scroll up on that link, there's plenty of servers (ie. non-workstations) 
that support 11i. D, K, N, T,... both 32bit and 64bit.

Jay 



From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Thu Jul 27 15:36:24 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:36:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> It's not confusing - or at least it never used to be.  In a computing
> context K was always a power of 2 because in that environment that's
> what's more convenient,

Not *always*.  For example, 10Mbit Ethernet is 10000000 bits/sec, not
10485760 bits/sec.  9600 baud is 9.6 kilobaud, not 9.375 kilobaud.

But communications speeds are the only computer context I can think of
where the decimal meanings are standard (aside of course from storage
makers trying to make their storage sound bigger than it is).

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Thu Jul 27 15:41:34 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:41:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727125758.3D02A584F4@mail.wordstock.com>
References: <20060727125758.3D02A584F4@mail.wordstock.com>
Message-ID: <20060727134027.V31622@shell.lmi.net>

2**x v 10**x

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Bryan Pope wrote:
> 	I really think this is a very silly practice...  Imagine
> what would happen if they did that with RAM sticks?!

It is especially silly that a meg of disk space is not the same size as a
meg of RAM.





From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 15:46:32 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:46:32 -0700
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607272008.k6RK89bI002349@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607272008.k6RK89bI002349@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607271346320194.2D709C6E@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 4:05 PM Dave Dunfield wrote:

>Not rgb+s, but I hooked up my ATW800 with Sync-on-Green to my NEC
>LCD ... The ATW800 has BNC connectors, and I just hacked a VGA cable
>and put connectors on it ....
>
>The result: It has a gorgeous picture, looks great and would be perfetly
>usable except for the large white box covering the middle of the screen
that you
>can't get rid of no-how which says "OUT OF RANGE".

Sounds as if a sync separator would come in handy.  There's the
veneered-and-generated LM1881 or you can just set up a couple of one-shots
and some support logic to do the job.

Cheers,
Chuck





From cisin at xenosoft.com  Thu Jul 27 15:46:36 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:46:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <20060727134526.K31622@shell.lmi.net>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Dave Dunfield wrote:
> In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
> better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
> give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
> would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else
> I find myself counting non-computer related things in hex all the time
>  (If you are doing it out loud, people nearby look at you strangely
>   and move slightly further away)

and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.





From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Thu Jul 27 15:52:00 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:52:00 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <010c01c6b1bc$bd3bf8f0$6700a8c0@BILLING>
References: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>	<200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com><1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>	<44C91E84.2050201@sbcglobal.net>
	<010c01c6b1bc$bd3bf8f0$6700a8c0@BILLING>
Message-ID: <44C92770.2070505@msm.umr.edu>

Jay West wrote:

> David wrote....
>
>> Hmmm... So, unless I have an HP workstation, I can't use this, right?
>
>
> Scroll up on that link, there's plenty of servers (ie. 
> non-workstations) that support 11i. D, K, N, T,... both 32bit and 64bit.
>
> Jay
>
if you want to run it on a nice box, here is a current ebay auction for 
a c240

170011886082   

I just got this and have several c-110's as well.

only down side of this box and others like it is that the boot disk 
generally
has to be a HVD Scsi drive.  Most of these have narrow single ended
scsi interfaces, but they won't boot.

Jim


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Thu Jul 27 15:55:17 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:55:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Decimal v binary units (was: A Technical History of Apple's 
In-Reply-To: <44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C8C021.2030507@bellatlantic.net>
Message-ID: <20060727134706.W31622@shell.lmi.net>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Allison wrote:
> much confusion as a result for those that a marginally technical.  As a result
> in documentation I tend to insist that some context help such as K_bytes_ or
> Meg_ohms_ be there to keep some sense of If it's powers of 10 or 2.
> Whats a millibyte? Saw that once!

That would have to be one one thousandth of a byte (or 1/125th of a bit)
It would probably require special circuitry to access it.


There once was a Bureau of Standards attempt (too little too late) to deal
with the problem, that led to the development of:
Kibibyte (binary K) 1024
Mebibyte (pronounce "maybe byte", binary meg) 1048576
Gibibyte (binary gig) 1073741824
If it were to have been done BEFORE "computer science" standardized on
Kilobyte being 1024, it could have prevented the confusion.


But then again, not everybody agrees on the number of bits in a byte, and
many use their computer's word size, not 8, for "byte".


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com


From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 15:58:17 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 13:58:17 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 4:36 PM der Mouse wrote:


>Not *always*.  For example, 10Mbit Ethernet is 10000000 bits/sec, not
>10485760 bits/sec.  9600 baud is 9.6 kilobaud, not 9.375 kilobaud.

Of course, there's the whole topic of what "baud" really means...

Cheers,
Chuck




From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Thu Jul 27 16:03:17 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:03:17 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>> 9600 baud is 9.6 kilobaud, not 9.375 kilobaud.
> Of course, there's the whole topic of what "baud" really means...

That, at least, *is* standardized.  (While far too many people don't
seem to know it, that's nothing new.)  (Even a "2400 baud" modem really
is 2400 baud if you measure it at the correct place, namely, the serial
line interfacing it to the host.  This is what you more or less have to
do to make higher-speed modem speeds make any sense anyway.)

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From bpope at wordstock.com  Thu Jul 27 16:14:30 2006
From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:14:30 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727134027.V31622@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <20060727211430.08E2E583AE@mail.wordstock.com>

And thusly were the wise words spake by Fred Cisin
> 
> 2**x v 10**x
> 
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Bryan Pope wrote:
> > 	I really think this is a very silly practice...  Imagine
> > what would happen if they did that with RAM sticks?!
> 
> It is especially silly that a meg of disk space is not the same size as a
> meg of RAM.
> 

Until you format the drive...  :)  Mebi that is why they make 320Gb 
drives - they format down to 'bout 300 Gibi ...   

Cheers,

Bryan



From bpope at wordstock.com  Thu Jul 27 16:18:23 2006
From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:18:23 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727134526.K31622@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <20060727211823.E9DAA57F29@mail.wordstock.com>

And thusly were the wise words spake by Fred Cisin
> 
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Dave Dunfield wrote:
> > In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
> > better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
> > give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
> > would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else
> > I find myself counting non-computer related things in hex all the time
> >  (If you are doing it out loud, people nearby look at you strangely
> >   and move slightly further away)
> 
> and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
> binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.
> 

That could take awhile.. :)  Now do you do it by saying the single 
numbers or the decimal representaion of the number?

Cheers,

Bryan



From pat at computer-refuge.org  Thu Jul 27 16:23:42 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:23:42 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8C4E6.9010905@mdrconsult.com>
	<200607271158.43049.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607271723.42938.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 11:58, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> On Thursday 27 July 2006 09:51 am, Doc Shipley wrote:
> >    We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap
> > instead of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source
> > literature or docs, that spec is becoming disturbingly common.
>
> Euw.
>
> > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> >
> >    Can you tell I'm not thrilled?
>
> I don't like those much either.  :-(

Yeah, who'd ever want simple clarity?  It's SOO much more fun to have no 
idea whether someone means 300,000,000 or 314,572,800 when they 
say "300MB".

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From bpope at wordstock.com  Thu Jul 27 16:27:58 2006
From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:27:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271723.42938.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>

And thusly were the wise words spake by Patrick Finnegan
> 
> On Thursday 27 July 2006 11:58, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > On Thursday 27 July 2006 09:51 am, Doc Shipley wrote:
> > >    We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap
> > > instead of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source
> > > literature or docs, that spec is becoming disturbingly common.
> >
> > Euw.
> >
> > > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> > >
> > >    Can you tell I'm not thrilled?
> >
> > I don't like those much either.  :-(
> 
> Yeah, who'd ever want simple clarity?  It's SOO much more fun to have no 
> idea whether someone means 300,000,000 or 314,572,800 when they 
> say "300MB".
>

Yes but 300MB is usually attached to something and then you know 
what it means...  "Context" :)

Cheers,

Bryan
 


From marvin at rain.org  Thu Jul 27 16:30:46 2006
From: marvin at rain.org (Marvin Johnston)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:30:46 -0700
Subject: For Sale
Message-ID: <44C93086.69FE17E6@rain.org>

> From: M H Stein 
> 
> 
> >Of interest to the classic computer community is a SWTPC PR-40 
> >Alphanumeric printer, an incomplete Rockewell R6500 (AIM 65)
> >motherboard, HP Demo Board for the HP 2416 smart displays 
> >(used in the AIM 65),
> 
> ---------------------Reply:
> Are you sure about those HP2416s being used in an AIM65?
> Wouldn't want you falsely advertising on eBay...

Thanks Mike, you are right. The AIM 65 uses the 1416 displays and I
misread/misremembered it as 2416 :(. Thanks for pointing that out! A quick
glance at the datasheets seems to show they are the same except for the size. If
so, an adapter would be needed to convert the 2416 smart displays to fit into
the AIM 65.


From arcarlini at iee.org  Thu Jul 27 16:33:25 2006
From: arcarlini at iee.org (Antonio Carlini)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:33:25 +0100
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <00e701c6b1c4$4c4451d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>

Jules Richardson wrote:

> [1] Anyone know who it was, anyway? I first saw it in the hard disk
> industry somewhere around 1997 or so, purely as a marketing tool to
> make one manufacturer's drives look bigger than their competitors.

My recollection is that that was well after the formatted vs
unformatted capacity stuff :-)

At least that seems to have died a death.

Antonio




From pat at computer-refuge.org  Thu Jul 27 16:33:21 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:33:21 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>
References: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>
Message-ID: <200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 17:27, Bryan Pope wrote:
> And thusly were the wise words spake by Patrick Finnegan
>
> > On Thursday 27 July 2006 11:58, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > > On Thursday 27 July 2006 09:51 am, Doc Shipley wrote:
> > > >    We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap
> > > > instead of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source
> > > > literature or docs, that spec is becoming disturbingly common.
> > >
> > > Euw.
> > >
> > > > http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
> > > >
> > > >    Can you tell I'm not thrilled?
> > >
> > > I don't like those much either.  :-(
> >
> > Yeah, who'd ever want simple clarity?  It's SOO much more fun to
> > have no idea whether someone means 300,000,000 or 314,572,800 when
> > they say "300MB".
>
> Yes but 300MB is usually attached to something and then you know
> what it means...  "Context" :)

A "300MB" file takes up how much space in memory, and how much space on 
disk?

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From pat at computer-refuge.org  Thu Jul 27 16:33:48 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:33:48 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607271733.48683.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 15:37, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Antonio Carlini wrote:
> > The SI prefixes (k) kilo and (M) mega have always meant 10**3 and
> > 10**6. The computer industry decided that K should mean 1024 (which
> > is fine if somewhat confusing)
>
> It's not confusing - or at least it never used to be. In a computing
> context K was always a power of 2 because in that environment that's
> what's more convenient, and in any other context it meant a power of
> 10. The only confusion arose when some total muppet [1] decided that
> *also* using powers of ten in a computer context was a brilliant
> idea.

IBM has been rating hard drives in millions (or thousands perhaps) of 
characters since they started making them.  "MB" meaning "Million 
bytes" for magnetic storage media is hardly a new thing, from what I 
can determine.

Not that they've been consistent either... "360kB" through "1.44MB" 
floppies, for instance.

And, as Mouse, has pointed out, communications speeds are almost always 
listed by thousands/millions of bits/bytes per second, not KiB/MiB.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Thu Jul 27 16:42:26 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:42:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271733.48683.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607271733.48683.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <20060727143850.P31622@shell.lmi.net>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> IBM has been rating hard drives in millions (or thousands perhaps) of
> characters since they started making them.  "MB" meaning "Million
> bytes" for magnetic storage media is hardly a new thing, from what I
> can determine.
> Not that they've been consistent either... "360kB" through "1.44MB"
> floppies, for instance.

IBM does not use 2**20, NOR 10**6 for meg of disk space!
For a meg of memory, they use 1048576, Mebi, 2**20, but
for a meg of disk space, they use 1024000, 1000Kibi, 2**10 * 10**3




From pat at computer-refuge.org  Thu Jul 27 16:50:55 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:50:55 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727143850.P31622@shell.lmi.net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271733.48683.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<20060727143850.P31622@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <200607271750.55674.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 17:42, Fred Cisin wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> > IBM has been rating hard drives in millions (or thousands perhaps)
> > of characters since they started making them.  "MB" meaning
> > "Million bytes" for magnetic storage media is hardly a new thing,
> > from what I can determine.
> > Not that they've been consistent either... "360kB" through "1.44MB"
> > floppies, for instance.
>
> IBM does not use 2**20, NOR 10**6 for meg of disk space!
> For a meg of memory, they use 1048576, Mebi, 2**20, but
> for a meg of disk space, they use 1024000, 1000Kibi, 2**10 * 10**3

That was my point, though for anything but "1.2MB", "1.44MB", 
"2.4MB" and "2.88MB" floppies, they don't call 1024000 bytes 1 MB.

A "300MB" IBM hard disk drive does contain (approximately) 300 million 
bytes, not 307.2 million bytes.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University Research Computing ---  http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge                  ---  http://computer-refuge.org


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Thu Jul 27 18:12:01 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:12:01 +0000
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>

Dave Dunfield wrote:
> In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
> better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
> give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
> would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else

No we don't. We've just taken the trouble to learn something about the tools 
that we use.

At some point it has to be accepted that people need a little education to use 
a computer - so I don't see why a rudimentary understanding of how computers 
operate shouldn't be one of them.

Heck, it's not even as difficult as that - I expect the average user who just 
does a bit of email, surfing and word processing doesn't even need to know - 
providing they know the *rough* relationships between the units that's enough. 
But it's no excuse for the people bringing the computers to those people to go 
around trying to redefine fundamental principles of how they work in order to 
somehow make them more warm and fuzzy.


-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Thu Jul 27 17:12:34 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:12:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>
	<200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <200607272218.SAA08172@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> A "300MB" file takes up how much space in memory,

If you load the whole thing?  300MB.  Plus whatever overhead the OS
imposes (eg, page table entries to map the space).

> and how much space on disk?

Assuming it's not sparse?  300MB.  Plus whatever overhead the
filesystem imposes (eg, inode and indirect blocks).

Time to send it over a 100Mbit line?  25.165824 seconds, plus comm
overhead - probably more like 30 seconds.  (This is where metric
measurement for line speeds versus binary measurement for aggregate
data storage needs care.  Perhaps fortunately, you rarely get raw data
rate out of real protocols; my rule of thumb is to expect 1MB/sec out
of a nominally 10Mbit/sec line.)

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 18:08:38 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:08:38 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727125246.O30083@shell.lmi.net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<20060727125246.O30083@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <200607271608380981.2DF2B794@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 12:54 PM Fred Cisin wrote:

>Late 1970's, early 1980's.  Or BEFORE.
>There were a few marketing types bragging that their microcomputers had
>65.536K of memory (v the competition at only 64K?)

I can recall back in the 60's seeing the term "131K" for a CDC system.  At
the same time, IBM was pretty clear about 64K = 65,536.  Now, back then, it
was even more confusing.  The "K" that IBM was talking about on its S/360
machines was 8-bit bytes; the CDC was talking about 60-bit words.
Apples-to-apples comparison was a lot more difficult.  If you were a DP
type and were concerned about "characters", then the CDC machine at 131K
words could hold 1,310,720 6-bit characters.





From doc at mdrconsult.com  Thu Jul 27 17:13:52 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:13:52 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>
	<200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <44C93AA0.5030203@mdrconsult.com>

Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> On Thursday 27 July 2006 17:27, Bryan Pope wrote:
> 
>>And thusly were the wise words spake by Patrick Finnegan
>>
>>
>>>On Thursday 27 July 2006 11:58, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Thursday 27 July 2006 09:51 am, Doc Shipley wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>   We now have mebibytes, kibibytes, and other associated crap
>>>>>instead of proper terminology.  If you read much open-source
>>>>>literature or docs, that spec is becoming disturbingly common.
>>>>
>>>>Euw.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
>>>>>
>>>>>   Can you tell I'm not thrilled?
>>>>
>>>>I don't like those much either.  :-(
>>>
>>>Yeah, who'd ever want simple clarity?  It's SOO much more fun to
>>>have no idea whether someone means 300,000,000 or 314,572,800 when
>>>they say "300MB".
>>
>>Yes but 300MB is usually attached to something and then you know
>>what it means...  "Context" :)
> 
> 
> A "300MB" file takes up how much space in memory, and how much space on 
> disk?

   300MB.  Western Digital et al are just wrong.  :)

   As far as I'm concerned, any unit of measurement ending in "byte" is 
in powers of 2 anyhow.


	Doc


From cclist at sydex.com  Thu Jul 27 18:20:55 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:20:55 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>

On 7/27/2006 at 5:03 PM der Mouse wrote:

>That, at least, *is* standardized.  (While far too many people don't
>seem to know it, that's nothing new.)  (Even a "2400 baud" modem really
>is 2400 baud if you measure it at the correct place, namely, the serial
>line interfacing it to the host.  This is what you more or less have to
>do to make higher-speed modem speeds make any sense anyway.)

(You can count on me to be a good-natured contrarian!)

But is it really?  Assuming that we're talking about an asynchronous
connection, there is a grand total of 256 possible valid symbols
transmitted in 10 bit-times (at 8N1, 2400 bits/second).  So a modem that
transmits at a 2400 bps rate to its DTE or DCE is really only working at
0.8*2400 or 1920 baud; the start and stop bits convey no information, nor
are they independent symbols.

Sync is a different matter entirelly.

:)

Cheers,
Chuck




From kth at srv.net  Thu Jul 27 18:51:24 2006
From: kth at srv.net (Kevin Handy)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:51:24 -0600
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <20611.144.160.5.25.1154026403.squirrel@mail.athenet.net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>	<001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net>	
	<20611.144.160.5.25.1154026403.squirrel@mail.athenet.net>
Message-ID: <44C9517C.5070007@srv.net>

Tom Peters wrote:

>>On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Joseph Stevenson wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?
>>>      
>>>
>>50 ohms.
>>    
>>
>52 ohms was also used. I think maybe 50 ohms is a non-standard value for a
>resistor, and 52 ohms was available. I only saw one batch of 52 ohms-- the
>color stripes said 52 ohms, not just my ohmmeter.
>  
>
52 OHMS is within 5% of the correct value. If they were 5% resisters,
they would easily be within 10% of 50 ohms. They are probably close
enough to do their job.

This table

50 ohms * 1.10 = 55 ohms for the high +10%
52 ohms * 1.05 = 54.6 ohms for the high +5%
52 ohms * .95 = 49.4 ohms for the low -5%
50 ohms * 0.9 = 45 ohms for the low -10%

shows that a 52 ohm +/-5% is easily within the range of a
+/-10% 50 ohm resister.



From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Thu Jul 27 18:36:09 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:36:09 -0500
Subject: HP-UX and HP9000s WAS Re: Not classic but free- HP-UX
Message-ID: 


>only down side of this box (C240) and others like it is that the boot disk 
>generally
>has to be a HVD Scsi drive.  Most of these have narrow single ended
>scsi interfaces, but they won't boot
 
HP reved the SCSI at C200 - it's now Ultra-Wide-SE (confusing moniker- sounds like it should be 32-bit datapath
or something. Ultra narrow also brings up interesting mental pictures). All dual-bus HP9ks will boot off of a narrow CD-ROM,
seems likely some at least will boot from narrow HDDs.

Regarding the Nova series (FGHI 40,50,60,70) Not "supported" but workable.
I have a G70 2xPA7100 box happily crunching away with HP-UX 11i [9/2003] (well, not now - it's too hot to run the big beasts)
Auto-install crashed, but manual install worked O.K.
I have heard that the ASP chipset and CRX graphics have been definitely done away with, but could be worth a try - it's not like you're
out big $$. Try the manual install - auto install seems more likely to break with unsupported equipment..





From jclang at notms.net  Thu Jul 27 18:51:23 2006
From: jclang at notms.net (joseph c lang)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:51:23 -0400
Subject: intel multibus ram documents needed
In-Reply-To: <44C6B142.4010903@mich.com>
References: <06072519362900.02220@bell> <44C6B142.4010903@mich.com>
Message-ID: <06072719512300.03283@bell>

On Tuesday 25 July 2006 20:03, you wrote:
> joseph c lang wrote:
> >I have a couple of multibus RAM boards I'm looking for
> >jumper info or schematics.
> >
> >There's not much on the boards to identify the model
> >the first board:
> >
> >62KB dram board
> >multibus 1
> >16 bit data path
> >the only marking (other than "INTEL") is PWA142779-006
> >
> >The second board:
> >256KB dram board
> >multibus 1
> >16 bit data path
> >the original marking was PWA143156-045
> >this is struck out with black marker and
> >the number 133292-002 is written over it.
> >(this board may have been upgraded some time in its life)
> >
> >I suspect both boards were part of an Intel MDS.
> >(there was an ICE in the pile that I wasn't able to save)
> >
> >joe lang
>
> Any chance of some photos?  I may have some info on them.

I don't have any place to put the pictures. However I found pictures of the 
boards on classiccmp.org

I now know the 256K  board is isbc-056 and the 64K board is from the mds2XX 
system and doesn't have a isbc number.

So now my search is reduced to: Anyone have documents for them?

joe
 


From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Thu Jul 27 18:56:31 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:56:31 -0700
Subject: HP-UX and HP9000s WAS Re: Not classic but free- HP-UX
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44C952AF.5010100@msm.umr.edu>

Scott Quinn wrote:

> 
>
>HP reved the SCSI at C200 - it's now Ultra-Wide-SE (confusing moniker- sounds like it should be 32-bit datapath
>or something. Ultra narrow also brings up interesting mental pictures). All dual-bus HP9ks will boot off of a narrow CD-ROM,
>seems likely some at least will boot from narrow HDDs.
>
>  
>
Thanks Scott.  I only had to go on the C110's that I and several of us 
have, and some
other Visualize boxes.  I have several of the HVD to single ended wide 
converter
boxes I bought some time ago, and can use any wide drive with it, but I have
not tried to fit a converter and a drive into the box at the same time.  
Should be
doable with the space, but just not enough time to try it.

Thanks for the tip on the C240.   I have not powered it up yet, so it may
be a doorstop anyaway.

I forgot to mention in the last posting thanks to Billy Pettit who was with
me at TRW and helped lug the C240, a C110, and some 713 box back
to the car that we got for $50 at the TRW swap meet.  It was $40 for
each box, or take all for $50, so ended up filling the trunk.

Jim


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 20:09:35 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:09:35 +1200
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: 

On 7/28/06, Jules Richardson  wrote:
> Antonio Carlini wrote:
> > There's a few words about the Apple I...
>
> Although according to the author the 6502 can address 65K, not 64K.

He's just quoting from the Apple I manual.  Gotta blame The Apple
Computer Company for that one.  I remember seeing 65K appear now and
again in various vendor's literature of the time, even, IIRC,
Synertek.

> I'm just skimming through it at the moment. There's a few oddities like the
> above, plus a few typos - which always makes me less than certain about
> factual accuracy too...

I wrote him about the part about Apple I memory refresh, wait-states,
etc.  That part seems to be a liberal interpretation of the Apple I
docs as well.  I can see how it's ambiguous if you don't _know_ what
the 6502 can and can't do.

-ethan


From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 20:16:25 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:16:25 +1200
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <01C6B176.B9820100@mse-d03>
References: <01C6B176.B9820100@mse-d03>
Message-ID: 

On 7/28/06, M H Stein  wrote:
> --------------Original Message:
> From: "Ethan Dicks" 
> Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards
>
> 
> My recollection is that the mid-1970s were the heyday of ASCII
> keyboards (AIM-65 and similar machines).
> 
> ---------------Reply:
> ASCII keyboard on an AIM65??? Not on any of mine...

I have to admit that I've never dug into the AIM-65 ROMs, so if not
ASCII, then just scan codes that get converted in software?

-ethan


From ken at seefried.com  Thu Jul 27 20:55:10 2006
From: ken at seefried.com (Ken Seefried)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:55:10 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607272123.k6RLMrGj064181@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607272123.k6RLMrGj064181@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20060728015510.3749.qmail@seefried.com>

From: Fred Cisin 
> and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
> binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.

By extention of this method, I should be able to count to 2097151.  My wife, 
unfortunately for her, can count only to 1048575. 

:-) 

Ken 



From glen.slick at gmail.com  Thu Jul 27 23:42:54 2006
From: glen.slick at gmail.com (Glen Slick)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 21:42:54 -0700
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: 
References: <01C6B176.B9820100@mse-d03>
	
Message-ID: <1e1fc3e90607272142k19718feev12833be92bbba936@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/27/06, Ethan Dicks  wrote:
>
> I have to admit that I've never dug into the AIM-65 ROMs, so if not
> ASCII, then just scan codes that get converted in software?
>
> -ethan
>

AIM 65 USER'S GUIDE

7.2.8 Keyboard Interface

The interface to the AIM 65 keyboard is through the R6532
RIOT (see Figure 7-10).  Z33 R6532 peripheral I/O lines
PA0 through PA7 are assigned to keyboard input lines KI1
through KI8, respectively.  R6532 lines PB0 through PB7 are
wired to the keyboard output lines KO1 through KO8, respec-
tively.

When scanning for key depression, a logic 0 is placed
in the R6532 Output Register A (ORA) in one bit posi-
tion at a time corresponding to one KI line.  The logic
0 provides a low output to the KI line key switches.
Each key depressed of the switches connected to selected
KI line will present a closed circuit output from KO1-KO8
causing a logic 0 to be present in the respective bit
position of R6532 Output Register B (ORB).  Each unpressed
key presents an open input circuit to PB0-PB7 causing a
logic 1 to be present in the respective R6532 ORB bit
position.


From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Fri Jul 28 00:12:44 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:12:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: transcribing old docs
Message-ID: 


I'm transcribing the docs for a Radio Shack PT-210 printing terminal
because I don't see it online anywhere and I just recently acquired a
photocopy.  This manual has a fair number of typos and a peculiar
capitalization scheme which is typical of writing from the 1700s.  Here's
an example:

[begin quote]
If you set the PT-210 to Half Duplex and the Host is echoing the
character, you will see two of each character on the Paper -- one
character will be from the PT-210 and the other echoed from the Host.
[end quote]

So, is it a Good Idea to correct stuff like this?  Should I be concerned
about maintaining the page numbering?


-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From nico at farumdata.dk  Fri Jul 28 00:48:58 2006
From: nico at farumdata.dk (Nico de Jong)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:48:58 +0200
Subject: transcribing old docs
References: 
Message-ID: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Griffith"
> I'm transcribing the docs for a Radio Shack PT-210 printing terminal
> because I don't see it online anywhere and I just recently acquired a
> photocopy.  This manual has a fair number of typos and a peculiar
> capitalization scheme which is typical of writing from the 1700s.  Here's
> an example:
>
> So, is it a Good Idea to correct stuff like this?  Should I be concerned
> about maintaining the page numbering?
>
I would say, that you want to preserve the style, but not the typos and the
page numbering.
If I saw e.g. a DOS/VS RPG II User's Guide with right-adjusted text, or Spec
Syntax made up with full lines instead of hyphens, it wouldnt feel right.

Just my 2c

Nico



From holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de  Thu Jul 27 10:42:05 2006
From: holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de (Holger Veit)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 17:42:05 +0200
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060727093730.03bdef20@mail.30below.com>
References:  
	<5.1.0.14.2.20060727093730.03bdef20@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <44C8DECD.6000605@iais.fraunhofer.de>

Roger Merchberger schrieb:
> Rumor has it that Holger Veit may have mentioned these words:
>
>> This has been already done, and is available on the Net. Look at the 
>> schematics for the Apple I replica at www.applefritter.com;
>> this contains an ATMEL controller to convert a PC keyboard to the 
>> 7bit+strobe required for the Apple I. It is probably just a matter
>> of changing the translation table in the code to adapt to any 
>> encoding. An ATMEGA8515 is maybe overkill for such a converter,
>
> For that *exact* use, it may be overkill - but I've been wanting to 
> build an PS/2 -> CoCo adapter for quite some time out of one of my 
> currently unused 90S8515's I have collecting dust... The CoCo needs 2 
> 8-bit ports for the keyboard matrix interface; and you could still 
> have an 8-bit port configured as a straight ascii backup.
>
> I've wandered around that site for quite a while, and I found the 
> schematics, but no source code for the 90S8515/ATMEGA8515. Do you know 
> if it's available, or is it closed-source?
It's well hidden: download the "Replica 1 Firmware" firmware.zip file at 
http://www.applefritter.com/taxonomy/term/229,131 (search path: the 
Apple I owners Club page, from there to File Library / Drivers).

-- 
Holger Veit




From AdminAsst at MiCom.net  Thu Jul 27 14:21:41 2006
From: AdminAsst at MiCom.net (AdminAsst)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:21:41 -0400
Subject: DD disks and HD drives (was: Where can I find...)
Message-ID: <000801c6b1b1$e492ee00$6901a8c0@twmi.rr.com>

Hi,

We have 11 pulled and in working condition TEAC FD55 360 K Floppy Drives.  Are you interested and what would you pay for them?  We also have Mini Flexible Disc Drives #M4853, 10 in stock. If interested in those also name your price?

From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net  Thu Jul 27 21:06:21 2006
From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 22:06:21 -0400
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
Message-ID: <0J3300GR3CGRFO3D@vms040.mailsrvcs.net>

>
>Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards
>   From: "Ethan Dicks" 
>   Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:16:25 +1200
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
>
>On 7/28/06, M H Stein  wrote:
>> --------------Original Message:
>> From: "Ethan Dicks" 
>> Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards
>>
>> 
>> My recollection is that the mid-1970s were the heyday of ASCII
>> keyboards (AIM-65 and similar machines).
>> 
>> ---------------Reply:
>> ASCII keyboard on an AIM65??? Not on any of mine...
>
>I have to admit that I've never dug into the AIM-65 ROMs, so if not
>ASCII, then just scan codes that get converted in software?
>
>-ethan

A lot of the keyboards were laid out such that the row column values were
ASCII 1:1 corospondence for the the non shifted condition.  Those that
use the Ay, KRO chips this was the rule and also those chips had a ~2500
bit rom to sort out things like shift and alt-chars.  Scan codes are 
a mostly PC invention. Some of the simpler designs like that sold by RS
and SWTP did it all with a few peices of TTL and some diodes. 

Building a parallel interface ASCII keyboard is not that hard.  The only
hard part is finding a suitable keyboard (keyswitches).

I happen to have to keyboards that are not parallel but the serial format
is like that of the PCxt with one variation, the keycodes are direct ASCII.
The onboard 8035 with 2716 did all the work (key scan, encode and serialize).
the same chip with a minor code change could easily do parallel. 

Out on the net there are PIC based code to translate PS2 keyboard to 
ASCII serial and even parallel. 


Allison


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Fri Jul 28 01:42:39 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:42:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727134526.K31622@shell.lmi.net>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<20060727134526.K31622@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <200607280647.CAA20706@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers
> in binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.

I wonder why. :-)

A fellow sysadmin and I play pool approximately every two weeks, and
for the last two or three sessions we have developed a system of
calling most shots[%] entirely by hand, no voice.  This is relevant
here because it is binary-based, with the four fingers of one hand
being the four bits necessary to identify a ball number 1-15.

[%] We play that all shots must be called in detail - though if there
    is a really obvious choice of shot and you line up for it without
    saying anything, the call is taken to be "the shot I'm obviously
    lining up for".

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Fri Jul 28 01:49:53 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 02:49:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>>> ["what's a baud?"]
>> That, at least, *is* standardized.
> But is it really?  Assuming that we're talking about an asynchronous
> connection, there is a grand total of 256 possible valid symbols
> transmitted in 10 bit-times (at 8N1, 2400 bits/second).  So a modem
> that transmits at a 2400 bps rate to its DTE or DCE is really only
> working at 0.8*2400 or 1920 baud;

No, the line - the DTE data line, that is - is potentially changing
state 2400 times a second; ergo, 2400 baud.  20% of those bit times
convey almost no information when viewed at a higher level, but that is
irrelevant.  ("Almost" because they do convey a little information,
namely, where character boundaries fall in the data stream - though
even that they convey imperfectly if characters are sent back-to-back.)

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 28 01:56:55 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 23:56:55 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727211823.E9DAA57F29@mail.wordstock.com>
References: <20060727211823.E9DAA57F29@mail.wordstock.com>
Message-ID: <44C9B537.9000209@DakotaCom.Net>

Bryan Pope wrote:
> And thusly were the wise words spake by Fred Cisin
>> On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Dave Dunfield wrote:
>>> In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
>>> better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
>>> give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
>>> would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else
>>> I find myself counting non-computer related things in hex all the time
>>>  (If you are doing it out loud, people nearby look at you strangely
>>>   and move slightly further away)
>> and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
>> binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.
> 
> That could take awhile.. :)  Now do you do it by saying the single 
> numbers or the decimal representaion of the number?

I always enjoyed radix-4:

one [1], couple, few, many;
couple-one, couple-couple, ...

... many-many,
many-many-one

It's really easy to tie your tongue in knots!

[1] some folks prefer 'a'.


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Fri Jul 28 03:51:08 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:51:08 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <44C9CFFC.4070203@gmail.com>

Jules Richardson wrote:
> At some point it has to be accepted that people need a little education 
> to use a computer - so I don't see why a rudimentary understanding of 
> how computers operate shouldn't be one of them.

That won't happen as long as Microsoft exists.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Fri Jul 28 04:02:49 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:02:49 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C9D2B9.9000304@gmail.com>

der Mouse wrote:
>>It's not confusing - or at least it never used to be.  In a computing
>>context K was always a power of 2 because in that environment that's
>>what's more convenient,
> 
> 
> Not *always*.  For example, 10Mbit Ethernet is 10000000 bits/sec, not
> 10485760 bits/sec.  9600 baud is 9.6 kilobaud, not 9.375 kilobaud.
> 
> But communications speeds are the only computer context I can think of
> where the decimal meanings are standard (aside of course from storage
> makers trying to make their storage sound bigger than it is).

It seems that's not the only thing they are trying to make seem bigger 
than it really is...
> 
> /~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
>  X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
> / \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
> 



-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds


From segin2005 at gmail.com  Fri Jul 28 04:02:01 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:02:01 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607272218.SAA08172@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>	<200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607272218.SAA08172@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <44C9D289.905@gmail.com>

der Mouse wrote:
>>A "300MB" file takes up how much space in memory,
> 
> 
> If you load the whole thing?  300MB.  Plus whatever overhead the OS
> imposes (eg, page table entries to map the space).
> 
> 
>>and how much space on disk?
> 
> 
> Assuming it's not sparse?  300MB.  Plus whatever overhead the
> filesystem imposes (eg, inode and indirect blocks).
> 
> Time to send it over a 100Mbit line?  25.165824 seconds, plus comm
> overhead - probably more like 30 seconds.  (This is where metric
> measurement for line speeds versus binary measurement for aggregate
> data storage needs care.  Perhaps fortunately, you rarely get raw data
> rate out of real protocols; my rule of thumb is to expect 1MB/sec out
> of a nominally 10Mbit/sec line.)

Concidering that 1MB (Now, I assume you mean byte, or don't know what SI 
means) is very close to the 10Mbit limit of 1.2Mbytes/s, that gives the 
view that there'a approx 12.5% protocol overhead on network transmissions.

Please correct me if I am wrong, thx.

> 
> /~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
> \ / Ribbon Campaign
>  X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
> / \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
> 


-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds



From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 06:13:15 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:13:15 +0000
Subject: transcribing old docs
In-Reply-To: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>
References: 
	<000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>
Message-ID: <44C9F14B.9080808@yahoo.co.uk>

Nico de Jong wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Griffith"
>> I'm transcribing the docs for a Radio Shack PT-210 printing terminal
>> because I don't see it online anywhere and I just recently acquired a
>> photocopy.  This manual has a fair number of typos and a peculiar
>> capitalization scheme which is typical of writing from the 1700s.  Here's
>> an example:
>>
>> So, is it a Good Idea to correct stuff like this?  Should I be concerned
>> about maintaining the page numbering?
>>
> I would say, that you want to preserve the style, but not the typos and the
> page numbering.

Storage availability and data transfer rates are so much better than they once 
were. I can't help but feel that at some point the best formats are going to 
encapsulate both scanned images and raw text - the images will be as faithful 
reproductions of the original as possible (greyscale, and including full 
colour where necessary) whilst each page also has a plain-text transcribed 
version attached.

That way you get something that's as close to the original 'look and feel' of 
the document as possible (and allows you to cross-reference between the 
electronic version and a real copy), but you also get modern abilities that 
come with having text that can be searched, copied electronically etc.

Lots of historians seem concerned about preserving the raw content - which is 
fantastic. But pulling that data out of its original context feels a little 
like running an emulator versus the real hardware.

cheers

J.


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 06:22:54 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:22:54 +0000
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C9CFFC.4070203@gmail.com>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>	<44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>
	<44C9CFFC.4070203@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <44C9F38E.2050505@yahoo.co.uk>

Segin wrote:
> Jules Richardson wrote:
>> At some point it has to be accepted that people need a little 
>> education to use a computer - so I don't see why a rudimentary 
>> understanding of how computers operate shouldn't be one of them.
> 
> That won't happen as long as Microsoft exists.

I suspect it won't happen as long as people exist :-)  Companies do it to make 
more profit based on the assumption that most people are just too darn lazy to 
bother learning anything about their surroundings. If a company produces a 
product that makes it possible for a consumer to somehow muddle through in 80% 
of cases without any basic knowledge then they'll sell more of that product. 
Never mind that the consumer is tearing their hair out for the other 20% of 
the time - it's their own fault, after all.

Problem then lies in that those of us who *want* to use the product to its 
maximum potential are left with something compromised because it's been dumbed 
down for mass appeal.

Microsoft are certainly one of the worst culprits, if not the worst. But there 
are plenty of others who are equally guilty.

Luckily there are still a few companies around who take pride in what they 
offer and do produce goods that need a few braincells to operate but result 
longer-term in higher efficiency or greater savings. Unfortunately they're 
becoming increasingly rare :-(

Hmm OK, rant over :)




From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Fri Jul 28 05:33:02 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:33:02 -0300
Subject: transcribing old docs
References: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>
	<44C9F14B.9080808@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <00a501c6b231$3d6e2c90$02fea8c0@alpha>

> Storage availability and data transfer rates are so much better than they
once
> were. I can't help but feel that at some point the best formats are going
to
> encapsulate both scanned images and raw text - the images will be as
faithful
> reproductions of the original as possible (greyscale, and including full
> colour where necessary) whilst each page also has a plain-text transcribed
> version attached.

    Adobe Acrobat does that for ages...



From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 06:48:22 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:48:22 +0000
Subject: transcribing old docs
In-Reply-To: <00a501c6b231$3d6e2c90$02fea8c0@alpha>
References: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>	<44C9F14B.9080808@yahoo.co.uk>
	<00a501c6b231$3d6e2c90$02fea8c0@alpha>
Message-ID: <44C9F986.2010108@yahoo.co.uk>

Alexandre Souza wrote:
>> Storage availability and data transfer rates are so much better than they
> once
>> were. I can't help but feel that at some point the best formats are going
> to
>> encapsulate both scanned images and raw text - the images will be as
> faithful
>> reproductions of the original as possible (greyscale, and including full
>> colour where necessary) whilst each page also has a plain-text transcribed
>> version attached.
> 
>     Adobe Acrobat does that for ages...

It does, but hardly anybody makes use of it - you either get a document 
containing only scanned pages (and possibly some form of contents menu), or a 
document containing "plain text" where the original scans have been thrown 
away. It's very rare that the two are seen combined, presumably because 
outside of the context of historical preservation there's no real 
justification to do so; in those cases the raw content itself is more 
important than how it's actually arranged.


-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br  Fri Jul 28 06:57:42 2006
From: alexandre-listas at e-secure.com.br (Alexandre Souza)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:57:42 -0300
Subject: transcribing old docs
References: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>	<44C9F14B.9080808@yahoo.co.uk><00a501c6b231$3d6e2c90$02fea8c0@alpha>
	<44C9F986.2010108@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <001701c6b23d$0dbc20e0$0602a8c0@xandinho>

> It does, but hardly anybody makes use of it - you either get a document
> containing only scanned pages (and possibly some form of contents menu),
or a
> document containing "plain text" where the original scans have been thrown
> away. It's very rare that the two are seen combined, presumably because
> outside of the context of historical preservation there's no real
> justification to do so; in those cases the raw content itself is more
> important than how it's actually arranged.

    It depends of who uses it. I use the adobe acrobat suite and try to scan
AND ocr every document, to preserve formatting and text search abilities.
Most (well?) scanned books I see on the net uses this feature, it is just a
matter of standarization. Just like rippers try to rip tv shows into a
standard format/resolution/bitrate, there should be any way of creating a
standard for scanning docs and books. There are many things that needs to be
shared on the net and still are in paper.




From jbmcb1 at gmail.com  Fri Jul 28 07:54:05 2006
From: jbmcb1 at gmail.com (Jason McBrien)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:54:05 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <005401c6b01f$a42794d0$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C8ADE6.4090408@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <5f7d1b0e0607280554p49c55ff2v893b350de2322b4d@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/27/06, Jules Richardson  wrote:
>
>
> I'm just skimming through it at the moment. There's a few oddities like
> the
> above, plus a few typos - which always makes me less than certain about
> factual accuracy too...



It's an expergated chapter from a book, I'd imagine it hasn't been gone
through with a fine tooth comb editing-wise. Also, it's meant to be an
overview for background of the current MacOS X operating system, not a
comprehensive history (that's what the technical manuals are for, though
those are sometimes wrong, too.)

I still think it's an interesting read especially, since, when the earlier
OSes were popular, I was using them to learn how to read :)


From uban at ubanproductions.com  Fri Jul 28 08:50:08 2006
From: uban at ubanproductions.com (Tom Uban)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:50:08 -0500
Subject: NeXT Computer (cube) available
In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20060726100241.044bdc98@mail.ubanproductions.com
 >
Message-ID: <5.2.0.9.0.20060728084903.02563d10@mail.ubanproductions.com>

Thanks for everyone's interest, but the NeXT cube has been spoken for...

--tom



From trag at io.com  Fri Jul 28 09:13:04 2006
From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:13:04 -0500
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607280929.k6S9TRgg071920@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607280929.k6S9TRgg071920@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: 

>Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 16:05:14 -0500
>From: Brad Parker 


>  I have an old computer from the '80s and it has a frame buffer with
>  RGB+S (sync) output on classic BNC connectors.
>
>  But I do have a
>  bunch of new-ish LCD monitors which seem quite happy to sync up to
>  pretty much anything.
>>
>  So, can I just (somehow) connect the RBG+S signals to a mondern LCD?
>  Has anyone tried this?

At some point I had a VGA to BNC cable.  I bought it at Altex 
Computers here in Austin, TX when I received some old CRT monitors 
with BNC connections.   They have a web presence so, if they still 
carry them, you may be able to mail order one.

Of course, I don't know if such cables work in the other direction 
but I can't see why they wouldn't.   One list member's suggestion 
about checking the peak voltages sounds prudent.

>  I did once have a DW13 to RBG/BNC connector.

Is DW13 the connector often used by Sun which is frequently called 13W3?

If you get an IBM 9519 (T85A) LCD panel (18.1", 1280 X 1024 native 
resolution, ca 2000 - 2001) it has VGA & 13W3 connectors.  So your 
BNC to DW13 cable might be able to connect your machine to an IBM 
T85A LCD panel.

Jeff Walther


From ohh at drizzle.com  Fri Jul 28 09:28:41 2006
From: ohh at drizzle.com (O. Sharp)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 07:28:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Data General/ASR-33 TTY Interface Signals?
Message-ID: 


This may look familiar. I'm reposting (once), in hopes that somebody may 
know the answer but missed the post last time.

I've got a DEC PDP-8/I with the typical current-loop TTY interface. I also 
have an ASR-33 teletype. The teletype, though, isn't a DEC-modified 
version; it's got a Data General card in it instead of the 4915 card DEC 
installed in their teletypes.

I'm Data General ignorant, I'm afraid.  :/  So here's my questions:

-Do your typical Data General systems use a 20ma current-loop to talk with 
ASR-33s?

-What's the pinout for DG/Teletype connections? Is it something that can 
be made DEC-friendly by simply wiring a different connector to the DG 
TTY's cables, or are the differences in signals more extensive?

-If the solution isn't that simple, does somebody have a DEC 4915 teletype 
modification card they wanted to part with (or a schematic of one) (or a 
DEC-outfitted ASR33 they wanted to trade for a DG-outfitted ASR33 )?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

                             -O.-



From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 28 10:31:09 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 08:31:09 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
	<200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Message-ID: <200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>

On 7/28/2006 at 2:49 AM der Mouse wrote:

>No, the line - the DTE data line, that is - is potentially changing
>state 2400 times a second; ergo, 2400 baud.  20% of those bit times
>convey almost no information when viewed at a higher level, but that is
>irrelevant.  ("Almost" because they do convey a little information,
>namely, where character boundaries fall in the data stream - though
>even that they convey imperfectly if characters are sent back-to-back.)

One could perhaps make a case for the start bit, as it signals the start of
a character and so conveys some information.  But the stop bit isn't even a
bit; it's an empty, information-less time, doing nothing but demarcating
the beginning of the start bit.  As long as the signal returned to a
spacing level sometime, I suspect the actual content of the "stop bit" time
is immaterial.  Although I've not tried it, I suspect that 1/2 stop bits
would work fine with most modern UARTs.  Maybe someone with a bit-banger
program at hand could verify this.

Cheers,
Chuck






From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Fri Jul 28 10:34:11 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:34:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C9D289.905@gmail.com>
References: <20060727212758.6B57B58087@mail.wordstock.com>	<200607271733.21890.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607272218.SAA08172@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<44C9D289.905@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200607281534.LAA22755@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

>> my rule of thumb is to expect 1MB/sec out of a nominally 10Mbit/sec
>> line.

> Concidering that 1MB ([...]) is very close to the 10Mbit limit of
> 1.2Mbytes/s, that gives the view that there'a approx 12.5% protocol
> overhead on network transmissions.

I've been juggling numbers and I can't see where you got 12.5%.  1MB is
16.666...% less than 1.2MB, regardless of whether your MB is metric or
binary, as long as it's the same MB for both figures.  If the 10Mb is
metric and the 1MB is binary (which is how I'd measure it), 1MB is
16.11392% less than 10Mb.  Using binary 10Mb and metric 1MB gives
23.706+%.  I've been unable to find a combination that gets below 16%.

Those are measuring the difference as a percentage of the larger value
(which seems appropriate for saying "A is X% less than B").  Measuring
as percentage of the smaller value gives even larger percentages (20%,
19.2+%, 31+%, respectively).

Could you elucidate?

But yes, what I am saying is that, in practice, at least in my
experience, the various levels of overhead eat up approximately 16% of
the raw bandwidth.  This is not a carefully measured figure; the
uncertainty is high enough that it's more scientifically accurate to
say "between 10% and 20%".  And, of course, this is best-case.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Fri Jul 28 10:34:38 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:34:38 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
	<200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607281540.LAA22801@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> One could perhaps make a case for the start bit, as it signals the
> start of a character and so conveys some information.  But the stop
> bit isn't even a bit; it's an empty, information-less time, doing
> nothing but demarcating the beginning of the start bit.

Not quite.  The time it takes up is important for allowing small
differences in oscillator frequency between sender and receiver to be
tolerated.  And having a spacing time there at all is important to
guarantee at least two edges per character.

> As long as the signal returned to a spacing level sometime, I suspect
> the actual content of the "stop bit" time is immaterial.

Perhaps theoretically.  In practice, if it's not spacing, you'll get
framing errors.

> Although I've not tried it, I suspect that 1/2 stop bits would work
> fine with most modern UARTs.

I've not tried it either, but I think most UARTs try to sample in the
middle of a bit, so using half a stop bit would risk framing errors if
the receiver is using a slightly slower clock than the sender - or if
the receiver's sampling of the line state takes a significant fraction
of the bit time (which seems not implausible at higher speeds).

You might be able to get away with 2/3 of a stop bit.  I wouldn't want
to try it; it seems an awfully small gain (maybe 3% more speed) for a
good deal of complexity and nonstandardization.

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From dm561 at torfree.net  Fri Jul 28 10:55:05 2006
From: dm561 at torfree.net (M H Stein)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 11:55:05 -0400
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
Message-ID: <01C6B23C.E110E300@mse-d03>

------------Original Message:
>From: "Ethan Dicks" 
>Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards
>On 7/28/06, M H Stein  wrote:
>> --------------Original Message:
>> From: "Ethan Dicks" 
>> Subject: Re: Parallel ASCII keyboards
>>
>> 
>> My recollection is that the mid-1970s were the heyday of ASCII
>> keyboards (AIM-65 and similar machines).
>> 
>> ---------------Reply:
>> ASCII keyboard on an AIM65??? Not on any of mine...

>I have to admit that I've never dug into the AIM-65 ROMs, so if not
>ASCII, then just scan codes that get converted in software?

>-ethan
-----------Reply:
Just a scanned matrix, as mentioned elsewhere, nothing on the
keyboard except the switches; guess your AIMs aren't exactly handy
at the moment :).

The -40 did have a parallel ASCII display unit and a Centronics-interface
printer, but its keyboard was still a scanned matrix.

mike



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Fri Jul 28 11:01:11 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:01:11 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: 

It just showed up a couple minutes ago, that was speedy delivery, I 
didn't expect it to arrive till after I'd left for work!  I see the 
CD's are a set for the DSPP program.  The OS is September 2005 and 
the Apps June 2006.

	Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Fri Jul 28 11:55:10 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:55:10 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>	<200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44CA416E.6030800@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/28/2006 at 2:49 AM der Mouse wrote:
> 
>> No, the line - the DTE data line, that is - is potentially changing
>> state 2400 times a second; ergo, 2400 baud.  20% of those bit times
>> convey almost no information when viewed at a higher level, but that is
>> irrelevant.  ("Almost" because they do convey a little information,
>> namely, where character boundaries fall in the data stream - though
>> even that they convey imperfectly if characters are sent back-to-back.)
> 
> One could perhaps make a case for the start bit, as it signals the start of
> a character and so conveys some information.  But the stop bit isn't even a
> bit; it's an empty, information-less time, doing nothing but demarcating
> the beginning of the start bit.  As long as the signal returned to a
> spacing level sometime, I suspect the actual content of the "stop bit" time
> is immaterial.  Although I've not tried it, I suspect that 1/2 stop bits
> would work fine with most modern UARTs.  Maybe someone with a bit-banger
> program at hand could verify this.

Most UARTs only *check* one stop bit -- regardless of the
actual setting of the "number of stop bits" parameter.
And, most (modern) UARTs try to sample near the center of
the bit-time (usually within 5% thereof).  So, conceivably,
something O(0.5) would work.

But, you also need to allow for relative deviations in
bit-rate clocks between sender and receiver.  So, the UART
should start hunting for the next start bit AS SOON AS
it has determined the STOP bit's presence.

Conceivably, it could begin hunting as soon as the last
*DATA* bit was detected (since a UART can obviously count
bit-times  :> ).  But, you'd need to ensure *some*
marking states were present in the data stream before
the clock deviations exceeded half a bit-time in order
to safely recover the data stream.

And, of course, there's a lot more logic involved in
doing this than was present in early UARTs.  So, the
stop bit was a convenient place to "fix things up"
in the data stream.

Of course, today's EIA232 implementations bring their
own slew of "issues"... run at higher bit-rates than
the standard was intended to address, less capable of
driving reactive loads, etc.


From spectre at floodgap.com  Fri Jul 28 12:57:57 2006
From: spectre at floodgap.com (Cameron Kaiser)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 10:57:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: buying an Alpha Micro
Message-ID: <200607281757.k6SHvv6M017628@floodgap.com>

Today I was feeling nostalic for the old Alpha Micro I used to use, the first
computer I actually hacked into manually (much to the dismay of the system
administrator who then demanded to know how I did it). In particular I know
it was a 68K AlphaMicro, probably an AM-1200. Is anyone getting rid of one of
these, or knows someone who is?

I found an Alpha Micro emulator and it's even Mac friendly but it just
isn't the same as being in front of one of those amber terminals with an
AMOS prompt.

-- 
--------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ ---
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled already. -------------


From mamcfadden at cmh.edu  Fri Jul 28 13:10:09 2006
From: mamcfadden at cmh.edu (McFadden, Mike, A)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 13:10:09 -0500
Subject: XP1000 problems 
Message-ID: 

I just picked up 3 XP1000 boxes, then I found there were no CPU boards in them.  I'm in Kansas City.
 
2 have disks, 1 has display card, they have PSU and CR-ROM drives
 
Large power sink on motherboard made me think that was the CPU.  I thought memory was under PSU.  Imagine my suprise
 
If anybody wants them they are yours for shipping.
 
Thanks
Mike



From woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net  Fri Jul 28 14:06:13 2006
From: woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net (David Woyciesjes)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:06:13 -0400
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <010c01c6b1bc$bd3bf8f0$6700a8c0@BILLING>
References: <007001c6b1ac$b949f180$0b01a8c0@game>	<200607271912.k6RJCCEi002912@onyx.spiritone.com><1e1fc3e90607271236m31fc5835p600d3983563de739@mail.gmail.com>	<44C91E84.2050201@sbcglobal.net>
	<010c01c6b1bc$bd3bf8f0$6700a8c0@BILLING>
Message-ID: <44CA6025.2040907@sbcglobal.net>

Jay West wrote:
> David wrote....
>> Hmmm... So, unless I have an HP workstation, I can't use this, right?
> 
> Scroll up on that link, there's plenty of servers (ie. non-workstations) 
> that support 11i. D, K, N, T,... both 32bit and 64bit.
> 
> Jay

	Actually, my realization was more like "Duh, I can't just use it to 
replace Windows XP on this box..."
	Shows how much I know about HP gear...

-- 
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- AIM - woyciesjes


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 28 14:03:25 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:03:25 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
Message-ID: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>

They don't skimp, either - I was expecting HP-UX 11i base, but they send out the
Mission Critical OE.

I've got it going for a trial install in the G70. It's clicking along just fine so far.
I think when I'm done I'll investigate HP-UX 10.20 for 800s (if I can find it), perhaps
a bit faster on the old hardware. Other option would be the base 11i. For now, I'm throwing
the kitchen sink at it to see what happens (other than running out of disk space - 4GB (binary) isn't
quite enough for everything...

Question for the HP 9000/800 people - what is the eqivalent of the VAX "break to console" function (either
terminal-break or panel halt+halt)? (or the Sun L1-A) on these old beasts?
It takes quite a long time to bring up the PDC console from power-on.





From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 28 14:10:58 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:10:58 -0500
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
Message-ID: <74f80cc205ed42bd922e40cf7d12e025@valleyimplants.com>


It makes much more sense to talk base-2 about computer things, since computers operate base-2.

Trying to force computer things to base-10 would be similar to walking around spouting base-7 numbers to
people and expecting them to make sense of it.

Although, base-2 counting of paces is useful. Once your "counter" rolls around to zero you've gone about
a mile (2^10=1024 paces)





From mcwood at nefkom.net  Fri Jul 28 14:37:04 2006
From: mcwood at nefkom.net (Marc Holz)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:37:04 +0200
Subject: Apple Tape Backup 40SC
Message-ID: <000e01c6b27d$368f3990$d702a8c0@ballala>

Good day,

I would like to backup up some old Apple 1/4" qic tapes. I do have an "Apple
Tape Backup 40SC" drive
but the drive's rubber became soft. I already damaged 2 tapes so I would
like to find someone who could 
borrow or sale his drive or read these tapes for me. 
What's on them ? Software for TI Microexplorer Lispmachines !

Greetings,
Marc

P.S.:

I'm located in the south of Germany.



From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 28 14:50:16 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 12:50:16 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <74f80cc205ed42bd922e40cf7d12e025@valleyimplants.com>
References: <74f80cc205ed42bd922e40cf7d12e025@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <200607281250160787.3263698E@10.0.0.252>

On 7/28/2006 at 2:10 PM Scott Quinn wrote:

>It makes much more sense to talk base-2 about computer things, since
>computers operate base-2.

Yes, but talking about "binary" to user of an IBM 650 or 7080 or 1620 is
meaningless, unless you want to be able to read the "blinkenlights".  To
the programmer they were purely decimal.  And not all used the conventional
8421 representation either.  4421 was not unknown, neither was 4221.  (If
you sit down and think about it some, representing the numbers from 0-9 can
be done lots of ways).  Binary bit-level manipulation was not possible with
the instruction set.

 As far as the programmer was concerned, the internal radix of the system
could have been balanced ternary or sexagesimal.

Cheers,
Chuck





From aek at bitsavers.org  Fri Jul 28 16:04:07 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:04:07 -0700
Subject: Apple Tape Backup 40SC
Message-ID: 


>  I would
> like to find someone who could
> borrow or sale his drive or read these tapes for me.

Every drive I have been able to find has a bad roller. It is not very likely
that you will find a working drive.

Which version of the Microexplorer software do you have? There is at least
one version which has been recovered.






From cisin at xenosoft.com  Fri Jul 28 17:07:57 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:07:57 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: DD disks and HD drives (was: Where can I find...)
In-Reply-To: <000801c6b1b1$e492ee00$6901a8c0@twmi.rr.com>
References: <000801c6b1b1$e492ee00$6901a8c0@twmi.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20060728150532.T1164@shell.lmi.net>

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, AdminAsst wrote:
> We have 11 pulled and in working condition TEAC FD55 360 K Floppy
> Drives.  Are you interested and what would you pay for them?  We also
> have Mini Flexible Disc Drives #M4853, 10 in stock. If interested in
> those also name your price?

A Teac 360K would presumably be a FD55B

"Mini Flexible Disc Drives #M4853"??
Mitsubishi 4853 is a 96tpi DD drive (5.25" 720K)
Mitsubishi 4854 is a 96tpi HD drive (5.25" 1.2M)



From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 28 17:21:55 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:21:55 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44CA416E.6030800@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<44C915DE.1070600@yahoo.co.uk>
	<200607272039.QAA07427@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271358170368.2D7B5F04@10.0.0.252>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
	<200607280654.CAA20758@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607280831090443.31762E48@10.0.0.252>
	<44CA416E.6030800@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607281521550113.32EE3C1E@10.0.0.252>

On 7/28/2006 at 9:55 AM Don Y wrote:

>Of course, today's EIA232 implementations bring their
>own slew of "issues"... run at higher bit-rates than
>the standard was intended to address, less capable of
>driving reactive loads, etc.

Well, consider that the probable reason for the "stop bit" was to allow the
printing mechanism in a TTY to complete its cycle.  If I remember my old
Model 14 innards right, a start bit caused a clutch to engage and, as a
rotor made its cycle, receipt of a mark pulse would cause one of several
selector bars to move.  At the terminus of the revolution, only a single
typewriter-style typebar would be selected by the bars and it would print.
The clutch then disengaged and the unit wated for the next start pulse.

If you think about it, TTY-style async was a strange thing to keep around
when the main application of the protocol was in more-or-less permanently
connected setups.   NRZ data would have made more sense in this
situation--and one could have at least done away with stop bits--they're
not really necessary for today's crystal-controlled bit rate clocks.

But gosh darn it, we're still playing like we're moving those old selector
bars when we have our equipment speak async.

Cheers,
Chuck
.







From jwest at classiccmp.org  Fri Jul 28 17:30:50 2006
From: jwest at classiccmp.org (Jay West)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:30:50 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
References: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <004701c6b295$7ad5c8e0$6700a8c0@BILLING>

Scott wrote....
> I think when I'm done I'll investigate HP-UX 10.20 for 800s (if I can find 
> it), perhaps
> a bit faster on the old hardware.

I  have a 10.20 cd set for 800 boxes, with some layered products media such 
as glanceplus pak, C ansi C, PRM, Mirrordisk/UX, serviceguard, etc. etc.

However, I loaned them eons ago to someone on the list to copy and they have 
never returned. I need to go back through old emails and find who it was :)

Once I get them back you're welcome to a copy!

Jay West 



From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 17:21:57 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:21:57 +0100 (BST)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060727134526.K31622@shell.lmi.net> from "Fred Cisin" at Jul 27,
	6 01:46:36 pm
Message-ID: 

> and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
> binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.

Over here we get as far as 6 before that happens :-)

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 17:32:25 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:32:25 +0100 (BST)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <20060728015510.3749.qmail@seefried.com> from "Ken Seefried" at
	Jul 27, 6 09:55:10 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> From: Fred Cisin 
> > and people get especially weirded out when you count on your fingers in
> > binary (up to 1023).  Just reaching the number 4 upsets them.
> 
> By extention of this method, I should be able to count to 2097151.  My wife, 
> unfortunately for her, can count only to 1048575. 

But setting your MSB could be hard (!), at least if you don't want to 
lose the states of the 10 lowest bits.

-tony


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Fri Jul 28 17:09:15 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 23:09:15 +0100 (BST)
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <001d01c6b184$a72902c0$d4013c0a@aseco.net> from "Joseph
	Stevenson" at Jul 27, 6 09:57:51 am
Message-ID: 

> 
> Hi all,
> 
> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?

Officially 50 Ohms, but that's not a prefered value. 51 Ohms is, and 
works fine. I am pretty sure 47 Ohms would be OK too.

Note that the resistors serve 2 purposes -- they terminate the cable (to 
remove reflections) and that act as a load for the transmitters, which 
are actually current sources. The fact that 2 transmitters transmitting 
at the same time will produce double the voltage on the cable is used to 
detect colisions, so the resistor value has to be somewhat near right. 

Don't fall into the trap of 'Oh,  it's a short cable, reflections aren't 
a problem, I can use anything'. The collision dections stuff will moan at 
you :-)

-tony


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Fri Jul 28 17:52:16 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 15:52:16 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <20060728154809.B1164@shell.lmi.net>

> By extention of this method, I should be able to count to 2097151.  My wife,
>  unfortunately for her, can count only to 1048575.

only in a benign climate.

The primary reason why we use base 10 instead of base 20 is because the
most agressively dominant of our ancestors came from climates where feet
stunk too much to be revealed in public.


From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 28 18:49:40 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:49:40 -0700
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200607281649400347.333E9268@10.0.0.252>

On 7/28/2006 at 11:09 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:

>Don't fall into the trap of 'Oh,  it's a short cable, reflections aren't 
>a problem, I can use anything'. The collision dections stuff will moan at 
>you :-)

If the network works at all.  Mine won't work without terminators, period.
I still have a couple of old 10base2/T 6 port hubs that are coupled with
coax--everything else is 10BaseT cat 5.

At one time, I picked up a load of 75 ohm male BNC connectors (the screw-on
type) for next to nothing at a "going out of business" sale.  Since I was
using 50 ohm coax, I wasn't able to use them without some pretty severe
modification*, so I stuck a 47 ohm resistor inside of each--they worked
just fine as terminators.

* the severe modification turned out slipping the 50 ohm coax into and
soldering it to a small length of thinwall copper tubing, which was then
the right size for the connector.

Cheers,
Chuck




From ethan.dicks at gmail.com  Fri Jul 28 19:52:29 2006
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com (Ethan Dicks)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 12:52:29 +1200
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <200607281649400347.333E9268@10.0.0.252>
References:  <200607281649400347.333E9268@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: 

On 7/29/06, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> On 7/28/2006 at 11:09 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >Don't fall into the trap of 'Oh,  it's a short cable, reflections aren't
> >a problem, I can use anything'. The collision dections stuff will moan at
> >you :-)
>
> If the network works at all.  Mine won't work without terminators, period.

I found that out at a demo at a computer club meeting - I _had_
terminators, but they were uber-cheap... the resistor connection to
ground was the lead folded over and a plastic cap pressing it to the
side of the connector body.  After a bit of time, handling, oxidation,
etc., it wasn't an effective connection.  Sure worked well after
soldering, though.

-ethan


From rtellason at verizon.net  Fri Jul 28 20:00:02 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:00:02 -0400
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <20611.144.160.5.25.1154026403.squirrel@mail.athenet.net>
References: <44C86E79.9090404@DakotaCom.Net>
	
	<20611.144.160.5.25.1154026403.squirrel@mail.athenet.net>
Message-ID: <200607282100.02754.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 02:53 pm, Tom Peters wrote:
> > On Thu, 27 Jul 2006, Joseph Stevenson wrote:
> >> What is the resistance of a 10Base-2 terminating resistor?
> >
> > 50 ohms.
>
> 52 ohms was also used. I think maybe 50 ohms is a non-standard value for a
> resistor, and 52 ohms was available. I only saw one batch of 52 ohms-- the
> color stripes said 52 ohms, not just my ohmmeter.

First I've heard of that one being a standard value, but my perception of 
those is a little skewed anyways,  since when I started messing with this 
stuff 20% parts were still common.

In the whatever-the-heck series it is that gives you 5% values 51 ohms is in 
there.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From rtellason at verizon.net  Fri Jul 28 20:12:02 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:12:02 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <200607282112.02579.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:12 pm, Jules Richardson wrote:
> Dave Dunfield wrote:
> > In a way it makes sense ... The general public understands "thousand"
> > better than "k", so giving them the number of bytes in thousands will
> > give them a better idea of the actual number than a true "k" value
> > would - we computer geeks just think differently than everyone else
>
> No we don't. We've just taken the trouble to learn something about the
> tools that we use.

Yeah we do,  or a lot of this stuff wouldn't come so naturally...

> At some point it has to be accepted that people need a little education to
> use a computer - so I don't see why a rudimentary understanding of how
> computers operate shouldn't be one of them.

OTOH there seem to be an awful lot of people out there who will quite 
willingly accept somebody's idea of how it *should* work and take that as 
being the only way it *does* work which leads to all sorts of awful stuff. 
Like HTML email for example...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From rtellason at verizon.net  Fri Jul 28 20:14:59 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:14:59 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271608380981.2DF2B794@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<20060727125246.O30083@shell.lmi.net>
	<200607271608380981.2DF2B794@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607282114.59868.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:08 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Now, back then, it was even more confusing.  The "K" that IBM was talking
> about on its S/360 machines was 8-bit bytes; the CDC was talking about
> 60-bit words.

I just bumped into that one in an email conversation with somebody, who said 
that an LSI-11 would only handle 56K of ram.  And my recollection (?) is that 
this referred to 56K _words_ as opposed to bytes.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From rtellason at verizon.net  Fri Jul 28 20:16:26 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:16:26 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607282116.26288.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:20 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Sync is a different matter entirelly.
>
> :)

It sure is!  :-)

What little reading I've done about that stuff has explained some of it,  and 
I've seen some references in the chips info to various sync modes and such, 
but when and where is that sort of thing used?  What's it good for?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From pat at computer-refuge.org  Fri Jul 28 20:22:30 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:22:30 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607282114.59868.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607271608380981.2DF2B794@10.0.0.252>
	<200607282114.59868.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607282122.30188.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Friday 28 July 2006 21:14, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:08 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > Now, back then, it was even more confusing.  The "K" that IBM was talking
> > about on its S/360 machines was 8-bit bytes; the CDC was talking about
> > 60-bit words.
>
> I just bumped into that one in an email conversation with somebody, who
> said that an LSI-11 would only handle 56K of ram.  And my recollection (?)
> is that this referred to 56K _words_ as opposed to bytes.

Nope. 64kB address space - 8kB I/O page (32kW - 4kW = 28kW).

Unlike some other things of the era (like the HP 1000 series), the address 
gives you what byte location of memory something is at, not which word 
location in memory.

Note that things after the LSI-11/2 which includes an MMU (or any Unibus/11 
that has an MMU) can physically address more ram, but cannot logically 
address more than 32kW...

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


From rtellason at verizon.net  Fri Jul 28 20:42:24 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:42:24 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607282122.30188.pat@computer-refuge.org>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607282114.59868.rtellason@verizon.net>
	<200607282122.30188.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <200607282142.24986.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Friday 28 July 2006 09:22 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> On Friday 28 July 2006 21:14, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:08 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > > Now, back then, it was even more confusing.  The "K" that IBM was
> > > talking about on its S/360 machines was 8-bit bytes; the CDC was
> > > talking about 60-bit words.
> >
> > I just bumped into that one in an email conversation with somebody, who
> > said that an LSI-11 would only handle 56K of ram.  And my recollection
> > (?) is that this referred to 56K _words_ as opposed to bytes.
>
> Nope. 64kB address space - 8kB I/O page (32kW - 4kW = 28kW).
>
> Unlike some other things of the era (like the HP 1000 series), the address
> gives you what byte location of memory something is at, not which word
> location in memory.
>
> Note that things after the LSI-11/2 which includes an MMU (or any Unibus/11
> that has an MMU) can physically address more ram, but cannot logically
> address more than 32kW...

It may be that I'm mis-remembering,  this _was_ thirty years ago or so I was 
last messing with that machine.  Wasn't there a line on that bus to indicate 
one or the other byte,  though?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From pat at computer-refuge.org  Fri Jul 28 21:25:17 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 22:25:17 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607282142.24986.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607282122.30188.pat@computer-refuge.org>
	<200607282142.24986.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607282225.17813.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Friday 28 July 2006 21:42, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> On Friday 28 July 2006 09:22 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> > On Friday 28 July 2006 21:14, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > > On Thursday 27 July 2006 07:08 pm, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > > > Now, back then, it was even more confusing.  The "K" that IBM was
> > > > talking about on its S/360 machines was 8-bit bytes; the CDC was
> > > > talking about 60-bit words.
> > >
> > > I just bumped into that one in an email conversation with somebody, who
> > > said that an LSI-11 would only handle 56K of ram.  And my recollection
> > > (?) is that this referred to 56K _words_ as opposed to bytes.
> >
> > Nope. 64kB address space - 8kB I/O page (32kW - 4kW = 28kW).
> >
> > Unlike some other things of the era (like the HP 1000 series), the
> > address gives you what byte location of memory something is at, not which
> > word location in memory.
> >
> > Note that things after the LSI-11/2 which includes an MMU (or any
> > Unibus/11 that has an MMU) can physically address more ram, but cannot
> > logically address more than 32kW...
>
> It may be that I'm mis-remembering,  this _was_ thirty years ago or so I
> was last messing with that machine.  Wasn't there a line on that bus to
> indicate one or the other byte,  though?

Yeah, BDAL00.  From looking at a QBUS pinout, I don't see any other signals to 
indicate even/odd.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Fri Jul 28 22:57:32 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 22:57:32 -0500
Subject: HP 9000 G70
Message-ID: <4b75a30e7e1c4368afe2798e8f0d539b@valleyimplants.com>



Several specific 9000 server questions:

(1) is there any way to figure out how to turn off the "Remote:    locked    inactive   multiple   ACCESS FAULT:" messages that come up when you go into 
the CM? It seems (per newer HP hardware guides) to be looking for non-present hardware. Not sure how to trim it, though.

(2) is there any way to speed up the self tests that happen when you go "CO" ? it takes about 5 minutes to get to the PDC . . . 





From Jason.Armistead at otis.com  Fri Jul 28 18:45:20 2006
From: Jason.Armistead at otis.com (Armistead, Jason)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 19:45:20 -0400
Subject: Anyone need Intel iPDS schematics / brochures ?
Message-ID: 

All

Came across some schematics for our Intel iPDS units while doing a clean-up.
Also, by a bit of a fluke, came across the Intel patent which actually
explains what is going on inside the iPDS.  They give an especially nice
piece on the way the multi-processing works, and apart from a few typos
where chip functions don't agree with the schematics, it's pretty useful.

Also found some colour glossy brochures for the iPDS, in case anyone is
interested.

Cheers

Jason


From cclist at sydex.com  Fri Jul 28 23:54:04 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 21:54:04 -0700
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <200607282116.26288.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname>
	<200607272106.RAA07651@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
	<200607271620550504.2DFDF491@10.0.0.252>
	<200607282116.26288.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607282154040863.345541BD@10.0.0.252>

On 7/28/2006 at 9:16 PM Roy J. Tellason wrote:

>It sure is!  :-)
>
>What little reading I've done about that stuff has explained some of it, 
>and I've seen some references in the chips info to various sync modes and
>such, but when and where is that sort of thing used?  What's it good for?

In a nutshell, sync is great for pushing large blocks of data at nearly the
maximum speed of a comm link.  Messages are very formalized and there are
no start, stop or parity bits.  The clock is recovered from the data stream
by the modem, not the USART, so when a transmitter has the line it's always
transmitting (the SYN 1/6 character is the "filler" character).  

When it works, it's great.

Cheers,
Chuck









From dave06a at dunfield.com  Sat Jul 29 06:09:04 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:09:04 -0500
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607271346320194.2D709C6E@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607272008.k6RK89bI002349@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607291012.k6TAC7xS023554@monisys.caonisys.ca>

> On 7/27/2006 at 4:05 PM Dave Dunfield wrote:
> 
> >Not rgb+s, but I hooked up my ATW800 with Sync-on-Green to my NEC
> >LCD ... The ATW800 has BNC connectors, and I just hacked a VGA cable
> >and put connectors on it ....
> >
> >The result: It has a gorgeous picture, looks great and would be perfetly
> >usable except for the large white box covering the middle of the screen
> that you
> >can't get rid of no-how which says "OUT OF RANGE".
> 
> Sounds as if a sync separator would come in handy.  There's the
> veneered-and-generated LM1881 or you can just set up a couple of one-shots
> and some support logic to do the job.

Curious as to why a Sync Seperator would be useful - the monitor I was using
does handle sync-on-green, and the picture was nicely stable - I interpreted the
"out of range" message to indicate that the micro in the monitor had decided that
the sync was not within the frequency specifications of the monitor (although the
monitor itself appeared to be handling it perfectly).

Regards,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From pete at dunnington.plus.com  Sat Jul 29 05:10:30 2006
From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 11:10:30 +0100 (BST)
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: Patrick Finnegan 
	"Re: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems" (Jul 28, 22:25)
References: <00e201c6b19f$3b757e30$5b01a8c0@uatempname> 
	<200607282122.30188.pat@computer-refuge.org> 
	<200607282142.24986.rtellason@verizon.net> 
	<200607282225.17813.pat@computer-refuge.org>
Message-ID: <10607291110.ZM11979@mindy.dunnington.plus.com>

On Jul 28 2006, 22:25, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> On Friday 28 July 2006 21:42, Roy J. Tellason wrote:

> > It may be that I'm mis-remembering,  this _was_ thirty years ago or
> > so I was last messing with that machine.  Wasn't there a line on
> > that bus to indicate one or the other byte,  though?
>
> Yeah, BDAL00.  From looking at a QBUS pinout, I don't see any other
> signals to indicate even/odd.

There is one, for writing.  For reading bytes, the CPU just reads a
word and discards the upper byte.  For writing, it asserts BWTBT and
only the lower byte is written.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York


From bbrown at harpercollege.edu  Sat Jul 29 05:32:09 2006
From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 05:32:09 -0500
Subject: HP 9000 G70
In-Reply-To: <4b75a30e7e1c4368afe2798e8f0d539b@valleyimplants.com>
References: <4b75a30e7e1c4368afe2798e8f0d539b@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: 



>Several specific 9000 server questions:
>
>(1) is there any way to figure out how to turn off the "Remote: 
>locked    inactive   multiple   ACCESS FAULT:" messages that come up 
>when you go into
>the CM? It seems (per newer HP hardware guides) to be looking for 
>non-present hardware. Not sure how to trim it, though.


I don't think so...what you are likely seeing is the status of 
different h/w testing that is being done.  The tests at this level of 
box take a LONG time.


>(2) is there any way to speed up the self tests that happen when you 
>go "CO" ? it takes about 5 minutes to get to the PDC . . .


Not that I am aware of.

-Bob
-- 
bbrown at harpercollege.edu   ####  ####    Bob Brown - KB9LFR
Harper Community College   ##  ##  ##    Systems Administrator
Palatine IL USA            ####  ####    Saved by grace


From jim at g1jbg.co.uk  Sat Jul 29 05:49:46 2006
From: jim at g1jbg.co.uk (Jim Beacon)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 11:49:46 +0100
Subject: Data General Books available
Message-ID: <001901c6b2fc$b542e280$0200a8c0@p2deskto>

Hi,

I have the following DG books available, they appear to relate to an early
medical scanner:

Interface Designers Manual for Nova and Eclipse line computers
I/O Tester for Eclipse Processor, Part A
I/O Tester for Eclipse Processor, Part B
Nova 3 Exerciser Test
Eclipse Microword Flow Chart
Nova 3 Multi-Programming Rel
Eclipse Basic Instruction ROMS and Decoding
Scintron 3 Diagnostic Software
Scinticamera Detector Head
Scintron 3 Service Manual Appendix

The whole lot weighs 3.5KG, and is available for the cost of postage, or
collect from Chesham, Bucks, UK, or Heathrow Airport area.

Jim.

Please see our website: www.g1jbg.co.uk




From dave06a at dunfield.com  Sat Jul 29 08:50:14 2006
From: dave06a at dunfield.com (Dave Dunfield)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:50:14 -0500
Subject: ImageDisk Source Code
Message-ID: <200607291253.k6TCr8rq013158@monisys.caonisys.ca>

Hi Guys,

ImageDisk has reached the point where I haven't had to make any changes
for quite a while, so I have decided it is time to make the first public release
of the source code.

Thanks for waiting - the sources are available on a "Source Code" link by
the ImageDisk entry in the "Disks/Software Images" page of my site:

   www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

Regards,
Dave

--
dave06a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Collector of vintage computing equipment:
                http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html


From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 29 10:29:50 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:29:50 -0700
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607291012.k6TAC7xS023554@monisys.caonisys.ca>
References: <200607272008.k6RK89bI002349@monisys.caonisys.ca>
	<200607291012.k6TAC7xS023554@monisys.caonisys.ca>
Message-ID: <200607290829500779.369B54AF@10.0.0.252>

On 7/29/2006 at 6:09 AM Dave Dunfield wrote:

>Curious as to why a Sync Seperator would be useful - the monitor I was
>using does handle sync-on-green, and the picture was nicely stable - I
>interpreted the "out of range" message to indicate that the micro in the
monitor had
>decided that the sync was not within the frequency specifications of the
monitor
>(although the monitor itself appeared to be handling it perfectly).

It wasn't clear to me that your monitor was handling the SOG signal
correctly.  I suspected that perhaps the combined sync might be confusing
it causing to display the "Out of Range" message.  Perhaps this isn't the
case and you really do have a signal that really does lie outside the range
of permissable sync frequencies for your monitor.

Just a thought, at any rate.

Cheers,
Chuck




From bkr at WildHareComputers.com  Sat Jul 29 11:13:06 2006
From: bkr at WildHareComputers.com (Bruce Ray)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:13:06 -0600
Subject: Data General/ASR-33 TTY Interface Signals?
References: 
Message-ID: <04d601c6b329$e1909da0$a584b044@newhare>

G'day 'O' -

DG's original TTY interface was indeed 20 ma current loop and they did 
create and use a separate small relay card in the TTY chassis to allow 
remote control of the tape reader.  Conversion to RS-232 was done by simple 
removal of two resistors on DG 4010 controller card.

I have sent you DG relay card information off-list to help your effort...


Bruce

Bruce Ray
Wild Hare Computer Systems, Inc.

...preserving the DG legacy:  www.NovasAreForever.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "O. Sharp" 
To: 
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 8:28 AM
Subject: Data General/ASR-33 TTY Interface Signals?


>
> This may look familiar. I'm reposting (once), in hopes that somebody may
> know the answer but missed the post last time.
>
> I've got a DEC PDP-8/I with the typical current-loop TTY interface. I also
> have an ASR-33 teletype. The teletype, though, isn't a DEC-modified
> version; it's got a Data General card in it instead of the 4915 card DEC
> installed in their teletypes.
>
> I'm Data General ignorant, I'm afraid.  :/  So here's my questions:
>
> -Do your typical Data General systems use a 20ma current-loop to talk with
> ASR-33s?
>
> -What's the pinout for DG/Teletype connections? Is it something that can
> be made DEC-friendly by simply wiring a different connector to the DG
> TTY's cables, or are the differences in signals more extensive?
>
> -If the solution isn't that simple, does somebody have a DEC 4915 teletype
> modification card they wanted to part with (or a schematic of one) (or a
> DEC-outfitted ASR33 they wanted to trade for a DG-outfitted ASR33 )?
>
> Any help appreciated. Thanks!
>
>                             -O.- 



From hanakj at comcast.net  Sat Jul 29 10:01:43 2006
From: hanakj at comcast.net (Jim H.)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:01:43 -0500
Subject: Tic Tac Toe Game on Minivac 601
Message-ID: <000401c6b31f$e79f1b40$6501a8c0@desktopjim>

Hi!

	Would you have scans of the whole Minivac manual?  I am particularly
interested to see if there is a schematic of the whole thing.  Thanks!

Sincerely,

Jim Hanak

"Make a difference in life - Subtract!"


-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/403 - Release Date: 7/28/2006
 


From dkelvey at hotmail.com  Sat Jul 29 12:15:54 2006
From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:15:54 -0700
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: <01C6B23C.E110E300@mse-d03>
Message-ID: 

Hi
Intel series II used a parallel keyboard.
I use a keyboard on my Poly8813 that came from a Franklin. It
was purchase as new-old-stock from ebay. I'd gotten two but passed
one on to another. It is nice because it runs on a 8048 controller
and all is in an eprom that can have the tables changed. I needed
a character that wasn't in the table as a control key. I just editied
the table and changed the eprom.
Dwight




From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 29 12:42:20 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:42:20 -0700
Subject: Parallel ASCII keyboards
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <200607291042200440.3714A1BC@10.0.0.252>

When I first used my SWTP TV Typewriter, I adapted a keyboard from a piece
of (IIRC) RCA gear (it may have been Spectra 70 related).  The original TVT
keyboard was a piece of junk.

Output was EBCDIC and encoding was done with a diode matrix and some DTL.
I was able to rework the encoding matrix so that the keyboard produced
mostly ASCII.  It was a wonderful keyboard--made by George Risk and had
individual pressure-calibrated sealed reed switches for the keys (function
keys were set to have a higher activation pressure than alphanumerics).  It
was enclosed in a diecast housing.

I wish I would have hung onto it--it was a great keyboard.  They don't
build 'em like that anymore.

Cheers,
Chuck




From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sat Jul 29 15:48:03 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 21:48:03 +0100 (BST)
Subject: 10Base-2 : Terminating resistor rating?
In-Reply-To: <200607281649400347.333E9268@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 28, 6 04:49:40 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> On 7/28/2006 at 11:09 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >Don't fall into the trap of 'Oh,  it's a short cable, reflections aren't 
> >a problem, I can use anything'. The collision dections stuff will moan at 
> >you :-)
> 
> If the network works at all.  Mine won't work without terminators, period.

Of course it won't work if it detects collisions all the time (if the 
resistor is too high -- say just a terminator at one end of the cable, 
then any transmission will look like a collision). But it can help to 
know why it's not working.

-tony



From Steve at OceanRobots.net  Sat Jul 29 18:19:09 2006
From: Steve at OceanRobots.net (Steve Stutman)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 19:19:09 -0400
Subject: Anyone need Intel iPDS schematics / brochures ?
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44CBECED.3090903@OceanRobots.net>

Hi Jason.

I would be interested in copies. Happy to pay repro costs etc.

Thanks,

Steve Stutman
Boston


Armistead, Jason wrote:

>All
>
>Came across some schematics for our Intel iPDS units while doing a clean-up.
>Also, by a bit of a fluke, came across the Intel patent which actually
>explains what is going on inside the iPDS.  They give an especially nice
>piece on the way the multi-processing works, and apart from a few typos
>where chip functions don't agree with the schematics, it's pretty useful.
>
>Also found some colour glossy brochures for the iPDS, in case anyone is
>interested.
>
>Cheers
>
>Jason
>  
>




From tpeters at mixcom.com  Sat Jul 29 20:06:24 2006
From: tpeters at mixcom.com (Tom Peters)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:06:24 -0500
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060729200403.0b844e68@localhost>

Classic computers sighting: on the TechRepublic web site:

http://nl.com.com/view_online_newsletter.jsp?list_id=e101

Dinosaur sightings: Vintage computers from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s

Whether it was a Honeywell 400, Altair 8800, Timex Sinclair, Radio Shack 
TRS-80, or Commodore 64, IT pros usually remember their first computer. But 
nothing lasts forever. State-of-the-art hardware eventually becomes 
obsolete and fades into computer history. The following galleries contain 
photos of the outdated computers that fill museums, supply closets, storage 
lockers, and techie basements everywhere. See the machines that defined the 
information age and the hardware that made them run.

Featured galleries

Inside the first personal computer: Kenbak-1

The Kenbak-1 is considered by many to be the world's first "Personal 
Computer." Erik Klein, vintage computer collector and Webmaster of 
Vintage-Computer.com, takes you inside his Kenbak-1.

Inside the Altair 8800 vintage computer

If not the first home computer, Ed Roberts' Altair 8800 was definitely the 
first successful one. Watch as Erik Klein, vintage computer collector and 
Webmaster of Vintage-Computer.com, restores one of these classic machines.

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1980-1983

The 1980s was a decade when cool cops patrolled the streets of Miami and 
Reaganomics drove US fiscal policy. It was also the decade when PCs went 
mainstream. This gallery showcases several 1980-1983 machines from Steven 
Stengel's vintage computer collection.

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from 1984-1989

As the year of George Orwell's totalitarian future passed us by, PC 
technology took tremendous steps forward-including the first GUI. This 
gallery showcases several 1984-1989 machines from Steven Stengel's collection.

Dinosaur Sightings: Computers from the 1970s

During the disco days of the 1970s, personal computers moved out of the 
electronic hobbyist's garage or basement and into the office, classroom, 
and family den. This gallery showcases several 1970-era machines from 
Steven Stengel's vintage computer collection.

Inside the Commodore Pet 2001 vintage computer

The Commodore PET 2001 was the first fully integrated computer from 
Commodore. Erik Klein, vintage computer collector and Webmaster of 
Vintage-Computer.com, shows you the hardware that makes the Commodore PET 
2001 run.

Dinosaur sightings: Old-school computer hardware

As giant lizards once roamed our planet, so did mammoth machines once 
balance our checkbooks. From ENIAC to RadioShack's TRS-80, this gallery 
contains photos of the outdated computer hardware.

Dinosaur Sightings 2

 From a Honeywell 400 to an Atari 800, TechRepublic members share their 
favorite photos of old-school computer equipment is this second edition of 
our Dinosaur Sightings photo gallery.

Dinosaur Sightings 3

 From an IBM 5251 Display Station to a Commodore SX-64, TechRepublic 
members share 16 new photos of old-school computer equipment in this third 
edition of our Dinosaur Sightings photo gallery.

Dinosaur Sightings: SPARCstation Collection

Take a walk down Sun's memory lane, with John Dunn's collection of 17 
different SPARCstation machines.

More galleries

More creative uses for dead computer equipment
IT departments and end users often donate, recycle, or trash obsolete 
computer equipment. But more often than ever before, individuals are using 
dead computer hardware in creative and interesting ways.

Worst tech in Q2 2006
Like with a bad movie that achieves cult status because it's just that bad, 
we love to hate something about these unlucky 13 products and downloadable 
duds from the past three months.

A trip down HP's memory lane
In 1960, when Hewlett-Packard built offices, the facility was state of the 
art and evoked the new frontier. Now, it's a nostalgic reminder of a time 
when people smoked in their offices and nearly every available surface was 
covered with simulated wood paneling.






[Commentary] Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes
from bad judgement.
--... ...--  -.. .  -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com   (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting)  WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W,  Elevation 815',  Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531






From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 29 21:38:06 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 19:38:06 -0700
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
Message-ID: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>

Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:

http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875

Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?

:)

Cheers,
Chuck




From josefcub at gmail.com  Sat Jul 29 22:20:18 2006
From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:20:18 -0500
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <9e2403920607292020s562e52fatef000527c385917b@mail.gmail.com>

> Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
>

Maybe it uses some form of proprietary current "loop" technology? ;-)


From pat at computer-refuge.org  Sat Jul 29 22:27:14 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 23:27:14 -0400
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607292327.14352.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Saturday 29 July 2006 22:38, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
>
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
>
> Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?

Wow, I didn't realize that Atari sold CHAIN printers.

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


From cclist at sydex.com  Sat Jul 29 22:52:38 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 20:52:38 -0700
Subject: Slightly OT:  HP5307A Counter help
Message-ID: <200607292052380482.39435B37@10.0.0.252>

Well, it's vintage, anyway.

I took out my HP 5307A counter yesterday and discovered that it has decided
to go insane.  While the CHECK function correctly registers a display of
1's as it should, external frequency measurements are complete nonsense.
60 Hz, for example, shows up as 112 Hz.  A quick check of power supply
voltages shows they're all within about 5% of nominal value; there doesn't
seem to be more than a couple of mv. of ripple.  The 10 MHz oscillator is
right at 10 MHz.

Any ideas or suggestions?  It'd be nice to have "old reliable" back again.

Cheers,
Chuck



From rtellason at verizon.net  Sat Jul 29 23:50:21 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:50:21 -0400
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060729200403.0b844e68@localhost>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060729200403.0b844e68@localhost>
Message-ID: <200607300050.21355.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Saturday 29 July 2006 09:06 pm, Tom Peters wrote:
> Classic computers sighting: on the TechRepublic web site:
>
> http://nl.com.com/view_online_newsletter.jsp?list_id=e101

Oh,  boy,  does THAT stuff ever bring back some memories...!	:-)

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From sieler at allegro.com  Sat Jul 29 20:30:45 2006
From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 18:30:45 -0700
Subject: Datarecovery from overwritten tapes was Re: Reading DC100a tapes
In-Reply-To: <002a01c6aa8e$935fe0d0$2101a8c0@finans>
Message-ID: <44CBA955.17448.1004FA86@localhost>

Re:
> Would this principle work for recovery of 4mm (DAT) and 8 mm (Exabyte)
> tapes? It happens regularly that customers ask if I can read "behind" a
> small file they "happened" to write. I have no problems with 9 track and

I know that a few data recovery companies have specialized DDS
drives that can read past the (new) end of such an overwritten DDS tape,
but they tend to be very expensive.

The basic problem is that at the end of any "session" of writing to a DDS,
a "logical EOT (end-of-tape)" marker is written to the tape, and the 
drive firmware won't let you read or seek past it.

Here's a technique I've used successfully in the past ... be aware that
it overwrites (loses) a bit more data :(

Put the DDS tape in drive, write-enabled.  Write a enough data to it
to positition the tape just beyond the EOT that was written by
the accidental overwrite. (Thus, new data has overwritten the EOT marker.)
(You could first determine the number of kilobytes of data on the tape
prior to the new EOT, and write that many plus a few more KB.)

Now, unplug the power to the DDS drive, and plug it back in.

The drive should power up as normal, rewinding the tape to the start.

This leaves a "gray" area on the tape, at the end of your last record
and the start/middle of the first remaining old data record.  Attempting
to read over this area may or may not result in an error!  (That's 
important to remember!)

Now...

Method 1 

   Simply try reading the data you wrote, and then the rest of the data.
   If you get it with no errors, great, you're done!

Otherwise...

The rest depends upon the firmware of your drive ... most drives I've tried
won't let you continue reading past an error (sigh).

Method 2 (smart/nice firmware)

   Read the data you wrote, until you encounter an error.
   Try a few times to read, ignoring any error that comes in.
   When you successfully read a record, it's old user data...save it
   and continue with reading/saving until you hit EOT (end-of-tape).

Method 3 (dumb firmware...every DDS drive I've tried)

   Do a "seek to EOF" to find the first end-of-file marker on the tape.
   This should skip over the gray area with no problem.
   (I assume you didn't write any EOFs in your new data.)
   Now, read and save the data until EOT.

   The drawback with method 3 is that some tapes are written with software
   that's brain-dead with respect to performance and data recovery.
   E.g., tar ... which writes no EOFs during its work.  
   (A backup program that writes an EOF after every file will produce a DDS
   tape that's MUCH more recoverable than a standard tar tape.)
   Said differently, if the original tape was a tar tape, method 3 won't work 
   for you.  You could try skipping records instead of EOFs, but I have never
   had success in this.

Good luck!

Stan
sieler at allegro.com

-- 
Stan Sieler
sieler at allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html 



From sieler at allegro.com  Sat Jul 29 20:44:32 2006
From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 18:44:32 -0700
Subject: HP 9000 G70
In-Reply-To: <4b75a30e7e1c4368afe2798e8f0d539b@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <44CBAC90.27578.10119AA4@localhost>

Re:
> (1) is there any way to figure out how to turn off the
>  "Remote:    locked    inactive   multiple   ACCESS FAULT:" 
> messages that come up when you go into the CM? 

No, sorry.

BTW, the text is supposed to get displayed on the 25th line
(the "status line").  If you don't have an HP compatible terminal,
or emulator, you can get a free one for Windows at 
http://www.aics-research.com/qcterm/index.html


> (2) is there any way to speed up the self tests that happen when you go "CO" ? it takes about 5 minutes to get to the PDC . . . 

Possibly.  The time scales with the amount of memory.  If you're not
really using the machine for much, pull some or most of the memory out.
I had one machine of that family do a 30 minute selftest when I loaded it
to the (way-past-HP-spec) maximum memory.  (I thought the machine was dead,
got distracted and went away...came back later and found the selftest had
finally completed :)
 
(The selftest time scaling isn't as bad on newer machines, BTW)

You could also turn off memory self-test, but I don't recommend that.

Stan
sieler at allegro.com

 
 


-- 
Stan Sieler
sieler at allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html 



From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 02:38:29 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:38:29 -0700
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <200607300050.21355.rtellason@verizon.net>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060729200403.0b844e68@localhost>
	<200607300050.21355.rtellason@verizon.net>
Message-ID: <200607300038290009.3A121D4F@10.0.0.252>

Okay, these folks are claiming that the Kenbak is the earliest personal
computer, but wouldn't that honor go to the Viatron from about 1968?  Or
maybe the Honeywell "Kitchen Computer", the H-316 of about the same time?
Both were marketed to the home user.

What are the rules in this competition?

Cheers,
Chuck




From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Sun Jul 30 02:45:10 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:45:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
Message-ID: 


If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?

-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 30 03:01:35 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 01:01:35 -0700
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>

David Griffith wrote:
> If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
> through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
> to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?

Is there a reason *why* you don't want to switch it the
same (original?) way?

Do you have a source of "standby" power available to drive
a relay coil?

How much do you really *want* to do this?


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Sun Jul 30 04:26:10 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:26:10 +0000
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <200607300038290009.3A121D4F@10.0.0.252>
References: <5.1.0.14.2.20060729200403.0b844e68@localhost>	<200607300050.21355.rtellason@verizon.net>
	<200607300038290009.3A121D4F@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44CC7B32.2030905@yahoo.co.uk>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Okay, these folks are claiming that the Kenbak is the earliest personal
> computer, but wouldn't that honor go to the Viatron from about 1968?  Or
> maybe the Honeywell "Kitchen Computer", the H-316 of about the same time?
> Both were marketed to the home user.
> 
> What are the rules in this competition?

I wondered that, too. Surely price doesn't come into it as who's to say what 
was affordable and what wasn't by an individual? (e.g. something like a Zonda 
is still a car even though it's only accessible to a handful of people)

And surely the 'personal' aspect should reflect the nature of the interaction 
between the user and the machine and nothing more?

The only real qualifiers that I could be certain of are size (i.e. desk-sized 
or less), a 1:1 nature between the user and the computer, and the ability to 
load custom programs from storage and run them (thus ruling out a terminal 
hooked to a printer being called a word processor :-)

By those categories though, worldwide there must have been several contenders 
around the late 1960's.



-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.


From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Sun Jul 30 04:32:59 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:32:59 +0000
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44CC7CCB.9070500@yahoo.co.uk>

David Griffith wrote:
> If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
> through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
> to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?

How much is "so much" ?  If it's the sort of DT switch I normally see on old 
equipment then it'll be rated for at least 5A at input voltage, possibly 10A.

I doubt an Imsai would be drawing much more than half the rated value at most, 
to be honest; better candidates for things to be worrying about are probably 
things like kettles, driers and washing machines where they're still 
power-hungry but can run in a far more disagreeable environment (e.g. you're 
not likely to be running an Imsai if it's wet :-)

cheers

Jules



From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 03:36:20 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 01:36:20 -0700
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: <44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>
References: 
	<44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607300136200245.3A4714B1@10.0.0.252>

On 7/30/2006 at 1:01 AM Don Y wrote:

>David Griffith wrote:
>> If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
>> through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay
>circuit
>> to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?
>
>Is there a reason *why* you don't want to switch it the
>same (original?) way?

The Altair MITS 8800 also has an AC switch set up this way, which made for
"interesting" times when probing.  A compromise might be just to cover the
traces with something that will avoid  any bare conductors "zinging" you,
such as PCB resist.  Althernatively, one could simply bypass the switch on
the front panel and switch the mains power externally--that's a change that
can be easily reversed.

Just some food for thought.

Cheers,
Chuck




From rcini at optonline.net  Sun Jul 30 06:57:03 2006
From: rcini at optonline.net (Richard A. Cini)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 07:57:03 -0400
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: <44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <007501c6b3cf$57421ab0$6401a8c0@bbrrooqpbzx6tz>

I actually did this modification on my IMSAI a few months back. I found an
old 5v wall wart and a small 5v relay. I cracked open the wall wart so I
could direct-wire things and then I potted it with the cover off and with
just the wires coming out (I bought potting compound at Mouser). I wired the
primary to the power switch/fuse on the back panel (which may or may not
have been original) and put the front panel switch in series with the
secondary and the relay coil. The relay contacts "replaced" the switch that
was on the back panel, which switched everything else.

My IMSAI did not have a fuse holder on the power supply PCB (there was one
on the back panel), so I removed the jumper that was in that spot and
replaced it with a Molex connector that matched the one I put in the relay
contact loop. Therefore, I could un-do the mod with little effort and just
put a jumper connector on the Molex if I had to.

The switch on the back panel is now a master power switch while the front
panel switch only switches low voltage. It actually works pretty well and
was made with a bunch of junk box parts. 

Rich
 
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Lead engineer, Altair32 Emulator
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
Web site: http://www.altair32.com/ 

/***************************************************/


-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Don Y
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 4:02 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: imsai 8080 power switch

David Griffith wrote:
> If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
> through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
> to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?

Is there a reason *why* you don't want to switch it the
same (original?) way?

Do you have a source of "standby" power available to drive
a relay coil?

How much do you really *want* to do this?



From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com  Sun Jul 30 08:14:16 2006
From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:14:16 -0400
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: <44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>
References: 
	<44CC675F.5040905@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <20060730131416.B249484801E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>

Don Y  wrote:
> David Griffith wrote:
> > If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
> > through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
> > to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?
>
> Is there a reason *why* you don't want to switch it the
> same (original?) way?

It is a good idea because everybody who ever had a IMSAI has reached
inside to tinker with something nearby on the front panel when
"YOWZAA, That's Live" becomes the only thought in the head!

> How much do you really *want* to do this?

One very common (and even mentioned in the IMSAI manual) modification
is to not use this switch for 120VAC, but to use it as a write-protect
toggle for a bank of RAM. With the original low-density (1K, 2K, 3K,
4K) memory boards this is reasonable, and some higher density boards
even supported this kind of option. In this case an external
switch or a switch on the back panel (one would hope with some kind of
insulation on exposed terminals!) is used for AC power.

The concept of an "original virgin" IMSAI 8080A is quite odd anyway. These
were heavy-duty hacking machines owned by the heavy duty micro hackers,
and if someone had a good idea that required a hole or two in the back
or some rewiring on the front they didn't let anyone dictate whether
they should do it or not. For
a while in the 90's I "restored" hacked-up IMSAI 8080A's back 
to "original" condition but in retrospect the hacked-up versions 
are MORE authentic of how they were used.

Tim.


From pm.boyer at wanadoo.fr  Sun Jul 30 08:28:05 2006
From: pm.boyer at wanadoo.fr (Pierre-Marie BOYER)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:28:05 +0200
Subject: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
Message-ID: <200607301528.05296.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>

Hi !
I am new in electronic.
I want to make an analog acquisition board with an ARM microcontroler (
Samsung S3C44B0x 66MHz) with
a 8Mbytes SDRAM and an A/D converter( Analog AD775 ).
The sampling rate of the A/D converter is at 30Mhz, and i would like to
connect its digital output to the S3c44b0x
data bus by using the DMA of the uC.
Data sent by the ADC will be wrote to the SDRAM by using the DMA of uC.
But the number of sampling can be very large, and the
acquisition/transfert occur at a fixed rate (30 Mhz).
The acquisition time and transfert to SDRAM can be more than 64ms
(refresh time cycle of SDRAM).

So, my question is : ?is the internal refresh cycle of SDRAM can
disturb the data writing by the DMA to the SDRAM ?
The ADC send data to the SDRAM through the DMA at a fixed rate during
may be 1 or 2 second, and is this process
can be stopped/disturbed by the internal refresh process of SDRAM ?

If yes, is there a solution, to manage the two process ( fixed
acquisition and SDRAM refresh cycle) ?

Thank you very much.

-- 
------------------------------
M. BOYER Pierre-Marie
Hameau de Biranques
34380 Notre Dame de Londres
Tel : 04.67.55.09.17
------------------------------



From miller.blair at gmail.com  Sun Jul 30 10:14:22 2006
From: miller.blair at gmail.com (Blair Miller)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:14:22 -0400
Subject: Available: Procom CDT14-T8X-ETP
Message-ID: <44CCCCCE.7040907@gmail.com>

All,

I've done this before with good results (I'm not much of a classic 
computer buff, but sometimes I run across stuff that folks on this list 
are interested in) so here goes.

I've got a Procom CDT14-T8X-ETP networked CD-ROM tower, in pristine 
working condition, that I've no use for. Not exactly *classic*, but old 
enough that it's -- as far as I can tell -- not worth selling on eBay 
(unless someone here informs me otherwise). I thought the case, which is 
up on casters, would be cool for a project of some sort, but I honestly 
can't think of anything to do with it. And as far as I can tell, there's 
no way to get it up and running under Linux, so... One man's garbage, 
and whatnot.

In any event, if anyone's interested, they're welcome to it. First come, 
first serve -- just email me saying that you want it and when you'll be 
able to pick it up (I live in Vermontville, MI). Comes with the CD-ROM 
tower itself, all 14 8X SCSI CD-ROM drives, manual, software (realize 
this is Netware only hardware), and even the key for the doors. You'll 
just need to supply two standard power cords. The case has no dents, 
dings, scratches -- just a couple of very minor scuff marks.

If need be, I also might be willing to drop it off...

Thanks,
Blair


From dkelvey at hotmail.com  Sun Jul 30 10:32:00 2006
From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 08:32:00 -0700
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: <20060730131416.B249484801E@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>
Message-ID: 




>From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
---snip---
>a while in the 90's I "restored" hacked-up IMSAI 8080A's back
>to "original" condition but in retrospect the hacked-up versions
>are MORE authentic of how they were used.
>
>Tim.

I restored mine but that was mainly because the switch they'd
used was a too small for the load.
The switch came in handy as a format/mormal switch for my
floppy controller :)
There are many places in an IMSAI that I can get zapped. I
don't consider that particular location on the front panel even
easy to get to.
Dwight

Dwight




From jwstephens at msm.umr.edu  Sun Jul 30 11:19:17 2006
From: jwstephens at msm.umr.edu (jim stephens)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:19:17 -0700
Subject: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
In-Reply-To: <200607301528.05296.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
References: <200607301528.05296.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
Message-ID: <44CCDC05.1040501@msm.umr.edu>

Pierre-Marie BOYER wrote:

>Hi !
>
>The ADC send data to the SDRAM through the DMA at a fixed rate during
>may be 1 or 2 second, and is this process
>can be stopped/disturbed by the internal refresh process of SDRAM ?
>
>If yes, is there a solution, to manage the two process ( fixed
>acquisition and SDRAM refresh cycle) ?
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>  
>
If you are only collecting ADC data at that rate, can you use an I/O mapped
device instead of DMA, and just poll and read the data?  Or are you saying
that the ADC data will start up and run at some rate approaching the memory
cycle time for 1 to 2 seconds?

Take discussion offline if too many object to ARM as too off topic.
Jim


From wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu  Sun Jul 30 11:32:38 2006
From: wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu (Martin Scott Goldberg)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:32:38 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: IMSAI CPU (MPU) card?
In-Reply-To: <200607300136200245.3A4714B1@10.0.0.252> from "Chuck Guzis" at
	Jul 30, 2006 01:36:20 AM
Message-ID: <200607301632.k6UGWd9n029042@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu>

Heya all, I'm still looking for anyone that has an extra or not needed cpu
card for the IMSAI 8080.  I rescued one with the processor card removed,
and I'd like to get this up and running some time in the future.

Thanks!



Marty


From evan at snarc.net  Sun Jul 30 11:48:32 2006
From: evan at snarc.net (Evan Koblentz)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 12:48:32 -0400
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <44CC7B32.2030905@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>

You guys ever see Doug Salot's web page on this topic?

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jules Richardson [mailto:julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk] 
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 5:26 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Classic computers sighting (article)

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Okay, these folks are claiming that the Kenbak is the earliest 
> personal computer, but wouldn't that honor go to the Viatron from 
> about 1968?  Or maybe the Honeywell "Kitchen Computer", the H-316 of about
the same time?
> Both were marketed to the home user.
> 
> What are the rules in this competition?

I wondered that, too. Surely price doesn't come into it as who's to say what
was affordable and what wasn't by an individual? (e.g. something like a
Zonda is still a car even though it's only accessible to a handful of
people)

And surely the 'personal' aspect should reflect the nature of the
interaction between the user and the machine and nothing more?

The only real qualifiers that I could be certain of are size (i.e.
desk-sized or less), a 1:1 nature between the user and the computer, and the
ability to load custom programs from storage and run them (thus ruling out a
terminal hooked to a printer being called a word processor :-)

By those categories though, worldwide there must have been several
contenders around the late 1960's.



-- 
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.




From rtellason at verizon.net  Sun Jul 30 12:00:14 2006
From: rtellason at verizon.net (Roy J. Tellason)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:00:14 -0400
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
References: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
Message-ID: <200607301300.14456.rtellason@verizon.net>

On Sunday 30 July 2006 12:48 pm, Evan Koblentz wrote:
> You guys ever see Doug Salot's web page on this topic?
>
> http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

Nifty!  It's been a really long time since I've seen a "Minivac 601",  I 
forget where but I remember seeing those ads quite often back when and 
thinking that one of those would be a nice thing to have,  though it was well 
out of my reach at the time...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin



From segin2005 at gmail.com  Sat Jul 29 04:07:26 2006
From: segin2005 at gmail.com (Segin)
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 05:07:26 -0400
Subject: A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems
In-Reply-To: <44C9F38E.2050505@yahoo.co.uk>
References: <200607271240.k6RCewQD031948@monisys.caonisys.ca>	<200607271334.k6RDYYUb005530@monisys.caonisys.ca>	<44C94841.7070707@yahoo.co.uk>	<44C9CFFC.4070203@gmail.com>
	<44C9F38E.2050505@yahoo.co.uk>
Message-ID: <44CB254E.60502@gmail.com>

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Segin wrote:
> 
>> Jules Richardson wrote:
>>
>>> At some point it has to be accepted that people need a little 
>>> education to use a computer - so I don't see why a rudimentary 
>>> understanding of how computers operate shouldn't be one of them.
>>
>>
>> That won't happen as long as Microsoft exists.
> 
> 
> I suspect it won't happen as long as people exist :-)  Companies do it 
> to make more profit based on the assumption that most people are just 
> too darn lazy to bother learning anything about their surroundings. If a 
> company produces a product that makes it possible for a consumer to 
> somehow muddle through in 80% of cases without any basic knowledge then 
> they'll sell more of that product. Never mind that the consumer is 
> tearing their hair out for the other 20% of the time - it's their own 
> fault, after all.
> 
> Problem then lies in that those of us who *want* to use the product to 
> its maximum potential are left with something compromised because it's 
> been dumbed down for mass appeal.
> 
> Microsoft are certainly one of the worst culprits, if not the worst. But 
> there are plenty of others who are equally guilty.
> 
> Luckily there are still a few companies around who take pride in what 
> they offer and do produce goods that need a few braincells to operate 
> but result longer-term in higher efficiency or greater savings. 
> Unfortunately they're becoming increasingly rare :-(
> 
> Hmm OK, rant over :)
> 
> 
> 
Not exactly true on the "rare" bit -- More and more people are switching 
to UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems to escape the tyrany of 
Microsoft. I would LOVE to see someone use  UNIX box like Windows and 
have their machine survive.

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds



From Steve at OceanRobots.net  Sun Jul 30 12:16:39 2006
From: Steve at OceanRobots.net (Steve Stutman)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:16:39 -0400
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <44CCE977.5090106@OceanRobots.net>

Hi,

If you don't want to just use external switched outlet or "AC power 
strip", consider using a Crydom SSR (Solid State Relay), These are 
blocks which switch electronically at zero crossing; require various low 
DC voltages at input to turn on; some take logic levels IIRC. You can 
use power switch on panel to control a small supply which generates the 
SSR control voltage.

Should be possible to use a decent wall wart for this; maybe placed back 
near the IMSAI xfmr. It's been 26 years since I last saw mine. YDMV.

Steve



David Griffith wrote:

>If I'm reading things right, the Imsai 8080 directly switches AC power
>through the front panel power switch.  Can someone suggest a relay circuit
>to remove the need to run so much power through the front panel?
>
>  
>




From julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk  Sun Jul 30 13:35:28 2006
From: julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk (Jules Richardson)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:35:28 +0000
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
References: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
Message-ID: <44CCFBF0.9040000@yahoo.co.uk>

Evan Koblentz wrote:
> You guys ever see Doug Salot's web page on this topic?
> 
> http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml 

Interesting. Trouble is with this kind of thing, it's hard to come up with a 
firm set of rules I suppose. There are all sorts of ways of interpreting 
things, so giving the criteria is vital.

I must say I hadn't realised that the Simon was quite so early.

cheers

Jules


From chrism3667 at yahoo.com  Sun Jul 30 13:13:46 2006
From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
Message-ID: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>

by any chance does anyone use this method, and would
be willing to small *even* number of sheets? The one
place I know of that sells it has a $50 minimum order
(Halted). Or maybe someone knows of a place with fewer restrictions.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 13:26:57 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:26:57 -0700
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
References: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP>
Message-ID: <200607301126570141.3C63CDAC@10.0.0.252>

On 7/30/2006 at 12:48 PM Evan Koblentz wrote:

>You guys ever see Doug Salot's web page on this topic?
>
>http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml 

Just visited it.  I don't see a lot of uniformity in the application of the
rules.  Discounting the HP 9100A as a "personal computer" because it didn't
have alphanumeric input, but then allowing Simon seems to be a bit
inconsistent.

By the way, I had the pleasure of actually programming an Arkay (or
something very like it)  at a local high school.  It was a computer only in
the rudest sense of the word.  But the date doesn't work--the one I saw was
about 1965-66.  But I recognize the drum and switches.  Maybe someone could
fill me in on what this was--the box looks right--very long, with a drum in
the middle.  Things were color-coded, by the way.

I don't see much difference between Simon and the mechanical calculators
(Monroe, Marchant, Victor,  etc.) of the day.  I'll bet that one could find
a programmable consumer-level device of the time with more complexity than
this, say a Seeburg jukebox?

And the qualification "It must be simple enough to use that it requires no
special training beyond an instruction manual." decidedly lets out most of
the crop, even the MITS Altair.  If you knew nothing about computers, the
Altair represented a very steep learning curve, not really satisfied by a
single "instruction manual".   

Cheers,
Chuck




From shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com  Sun Jul 30 14:28:22 2006
From: shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:28:22 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20060730192822.E15D1BA4980@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>

Chris M  wrote:
> by any chance does anyone use this method, and would
> be willing to small *even* number of sheets? The one
> place I know of that sells it has a $50 minimum order
> (Halted). Or maybe someone knows of a place with fewer restrictions.

Toner transfer photoresist or even the rub on Dataks or just a etch-resist pen
are all methods that I've used. They're all passable for single-sided
PCB's (but actually toner transfer is the least reliable in my
experience). They all really really suck for double-sided PCB's, especially
if you expect any luxury like plated through holes.

For me, far higher yield for double-sided PCB's
comes from ordering boards over the
internet. Generally you have to use (gasp!) a modern PC with
Windows software, but other than that the experience is wonderful.

I use http://www.expresspcb.com/

Keep in mind that I have nothing intrinsically against messy
chemicals etc. (I like darkroom stuff too). But ordering boards
from a professional etching house is so easy these days, and
their yield is so high (never once on many dozens of boards has
there been a flaw).

If you really want to do the toner transfer stuff despite all that
I said, you can get 10 sheets of 8.5x11 from Circuit Specialists
( http://webtronics.stores.yahoo.net ) for $14.95, part number
PCB-TTP.

Tim.


From paul0926 at comcast.net  Sun Jul 30 14:28:32 2006
From: paul0926 at comcast.net (Paul Heller)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:28:32 -0600
Subject: Double emails
Message-ID: <6E983A4F-7B12-4ECA-B971-F6087931BF71@comcast.net>

Is anyone else receiving double emails? I'm not sure when it started,  
but I get two of everything now.

Paul


From chrism3667 at yahoo.com  Sun Jul 30 15:09:18 2006
From: chrism3667 at yahoo.com (Chris M)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:09:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
Message-ID: <20060730200918.91800.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>

what if you drill your holes first? Would that at all
alleviate the problems experienced with a double sided
etch? I figure I could lay out a copy of the artwork,
dimple each hole with an awl or whatever, then drill ,
which will hopefully facilitate accurate placement of
the transfer sheets. Farming out is likely to be
expensive I guess on a very small quantity. The board
is about 7.5 inches square (Radio Electronics 80188
robot brain).

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Sun Jul 30 15:41:26 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:41:26 -0500
Subject: 11i on NOVA hardware
Message-ID: 


Good news is in- HP-UX 11i v1 (Sept 2005 version, the one that currently ships)
will run on NOVA class PA-RISC hardware (9000/887 G70).
Do yourself a favor and don't try to install using the factory shipped (2x) CD-ROM, though.
You need to do the manual install, and you need huge quantities of disk space (I had to trim the
default install to fit it on 4GB). Speed is acceptable with dual CPUs and 768 MB RAM, don't know
what it would be like on other systems.





From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Sun Jul 30 15:52:14 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:52:14 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <20060730200918.91800.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20060730200918.91800.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <44CD1BFE.8040400@DakotaCom.Net>

Chris M wrote:
> what if you drill your holes first? Would that at all
> alleviate the problems experienced with a double sided
> etch? I figure I could lay out a copy of the artwork,
> dimple each hole with an awl or whatever, then drill ,
> which will hopefully facilitate accurate placement of
> the transfer sheets. Farming out is likely to be
> expensive I guess on a very small quantity. The board
> is about 7.5 inches square (Radio Electronics 80188
> robot brain).

Look into 4pcb.com (?) and other houses that offer
discounts on your first order (usually -$500).
Then, do your design so that the whole design
falls below that threshold -- i.e. free.

You only get one shot at this, though...  and, you
need a *real* layout (gerber photoplots, drill drawing,
etc.) -- thoug I would skip the silk screen and maybe
even the solder resist if it helps bring you down to the
< $500 point (assuming you aren't doing anything with
fine-line rules, etc.)


From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 16:10:51 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:10:51 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <44CD1BFE.8040400@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <20060730200918.91800.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
	<44CD1BFE.8040400@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607301410510210.3CF9DB9F@10.0.0.252>

On 7/30/2006 at 1:52 PM Don Y wrote:

>Look into 4pcb.com (?) and other houses that offer
>discounts on your first order (usually -$500).
>Then, do your design so that the whole design
>falls below that threshold -- i.e. free.

Has anyone tried these folks?  Looks interesting:

http://www.pcb123.com/

Cheers,
Chuck




From bbrown at harpercollege.edu  Sun Jul 30 16:16:14 2006
From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 16:16:14 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
References: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: 

a control-B will get you into the mode where you can do a reset or 
various other things at the h/w level.

Is that what you are looking for?

-Bob

>They don't skimp, either - I was expecting HP-UX 11i base, but they 
>send out the
>Mission Critical OE.
>
>I've got it going for a trial install in the G70. It's clicking 
>along just fine so far.
>I think when I'm done I'll investigate HP-UX 10.20 for 800s (if I 
>can find it), perhaps
>a bit faster on the old hardware. Other option would be the base 
>11i. For now, I'm throwing
>the kitchen sink at it to see what happens (other than running out 
>of disk space - 4GB (binary) isn't
>quite enough for everything...
>
>Question for the HP 9000/800 people - what is the eqivalent of the 
>VAX "break to console" function (either
>terminal-break or panel halt+halt)? (or the Sun L1-A) on these old beasts?
>It takes quite a long time to bring up the PDC console from power-on.


-- 
bbrown at harpercollege.edu   ####  ####    Bob Brown - KB9LFR
Harper Community College   ##  ##  ##    Systems Administrator
Palatine IL USA            ####  ####    Saved by grace


From Steve at OceanRobots.net  Sun Jul 30 16:16:56 2006
From: Steve at OceanRobots.net (Steve Stutman)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:16:56 -0400
Subject: Early RAID history; circa 1987
Message-ID: <44CD21C8.7000802@OceanRobots.net>

Hi,

I'm researching early RAID, circa 1987.

Interested in applications beyond RAID 0.

Have heard that Polymorphic Systems had RAID boxes; perhaps model 88XX 
or similar?

Any information is appreciated.


Steve





From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 16:19:55 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:19:55 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607301410510210.3CF9DB9F@10.0.0.252>
References: <20060730200918.91800.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
	<44CD1BFE.8040400@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607301410510210.3CF9DB9F@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <200607301419550488.3D0229AF@10.0.0.252>

If you're on the cheap and can provide the necessary files, here's a place
in Thailand that has some attractive rates:

http://www.futurlec.com/PCBService.shtml

Cheers,
Chuck




From paul0926 at comcast.net  Sun Jul 30 16:21:12 2006
From: paul0926 at comcast.net (Paul Heller)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:21:12 -0600
Subject: Double emails
In-Reply-To: <6E983A4F-7B12-4ECA-B971-F6087931BF71@comcast.net>
References: <6E983A4F-7B12-4ECA-B971-F6087931BF71@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <8B235BD6-1F65-4F3F-B343-42188F849989@comcast.net>

Am I perhaps getting one for cctalk and one for cctech? Are these two  
linked in such a way that some items are duplicated?

Thanks.
Paul
On Jul 30, 2006, at 1:28 PM, Paul Heller wrote:

> Is anyone else receiving double emails? I'm not sure when it  
> started, but I get two of everything now.
>
> Paul



From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Sun Jul 30 16:40:50 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:40:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: IMSAI CPU (MPU) card?
In-Reply-To: <200607301632.k6UGWd9n029042@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu>
References: <200607301632.k6UGWd9n029042@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu>
Message-ID: 

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Martin Scott Goldberg wrote:

> Heya all, I'm still looking for anyone that has an extra or not needed cpu
> card for the IMSAI 8080.  I rescued one with the processor card removed,
> and I'd like to get this up and running some time in the future.

I have a couple in the storage unit.  Next time I go there (tomorrow?)
I'll dig one out.  Please email me privately.

-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Sun Jul 30 16:39:48 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:39:48 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Classic computers sighting (article)
In-Reply-To: <000601c6b3f7$fe590a20$6401a8c0@DESKTOP> from "Evan Koblentz" at
	Jul 30, 6 12:48:32 pm
Message-ID: 

> 
> You guys ever see Doug Salot's web page on this topic?
> 
> http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml 

Hmm... It's odd... He discounts the HP9100 for not having an alphanumeric 
display, but then a little later on considers a machine consisting of 
half-a-dozen relays (which presumably had no display at all).

FWIW, my vote goes to the HP9830. I believe this was the first all-in-one 
machine that you plugged into the mains and typed in BASIC programs. No 
BASIC interprter to load (it's in ROM), no terminal or mass storage 
devices that uou had to connect up (you _could_ add external devices, but 
a keyboard, display, and digital cassette drive are all built in)

-tony


From williams.dan at gmail.com  Sun Jul 30 17:14:14 2006
From: williams.dan at gmail.com (Dan Williams)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:14:14 +0100
Subject: Double emails
In-Reply-To: <8B235BD6-1F65-4F3F-B343-42188F849989@comcast.net>
References: <6E983A4F-7B12-4ECA-B971-F6087931BF71@comcast.net>
	<8B235BD6-1F65-4F3F-B343-42188F849989@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <26c11a640607301514n7e1c6406h2fa58d6bfaf57706@mail.gmail.com>

On 30/07/06, Paul Heller  wrote:
> Am I perhaps getting one for cctalk and one for cctech? Are these two
> linked in such a way that some items are duplicated?
>
> Thanks.
> Paul
> On Jul 30, 2006, at 1:28 PM, Paul Heller wrote:
>
> > Is anyone else receiving double emails? I'm not sure when it
> > started, but I get two of everything now.
> >
> > Paul
>
>
cctech is a moderated version of cctalk. Any off-topic banter is not
forwarded to cctech.

Dan


From mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA  Sun Jul 30 17:14:18 2006
From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:14:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Double emails
In-Reply-To: <8B235BD6-1F65-4F3F-B343-42188F849989@comcast.net>
References: <6E983A4F-7B12-4ECA-B971-F6087931BF71@comcast.net>
	<8B235BD6-1F65-4F3F-B343-42188F849989@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <200607302216.SAA01120@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>

> Am I perhaps getting one for cctalk and one for cctech?  Are these
> two linked in such a way that some items are duplicated?

Yes.  cctalk and cctech are the same list, except that moderators
filter out not-sufficiently-on-topic messages before the cctech view of
the list sees them.

There is no point subscribing to both, unless you are doing something
bizarre with multiple mailboxes.

Jay, I know you've been considering this for moderator-time reasons,
but maybe it's time to kill one list, or at least decouple them, just
to reduce user confusion?

/~\ The ASCII				der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTML	       mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email!	     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Sun Jul 30 17:29:53 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:29:53 -0500
Subject: HP 9000 G70
Message-ID: <5d9ec5c45a564fc89ef2b3ad45c8973e@valleyimplants.com>



 >BTW, the text is supposed to get displayed on the 25th line
 >(the "status line").  If you don't have an HP compatible terminal,
 >or emulator, you can get a free one for Windows at 
 
 Aha! that explains all the garbage characters and why it doesn't seem to put in  when I'm in CM.
 Currently running on a WY-150+.  Seems to work O.K. once it's bootstrapped.
 Guess I'll keep my eye out for a HP 700 terminal (or maybe not, I have the Wyse
 doubling for my VAX). Perhaps I'll try the HP emulator (if it runs under WINE) first 
 to see if it's "worth it" to have a HP terminal. 






From mcguire at neurotica.com  Sun Jul 30 18:07:00 2006
From: mcguire at neurotica.com (Dave McGuire)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:07:00 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <20060730192822.E15D1BA4980@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>
References: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
	<20060730192822.E15D1BA4980@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>
Message-ID: <44CD3B94.8000402@neurotica.com>

Tim Shoppa wrote:
> For me, far higher yield for double-sided PCB's
> comes from ordering boards over the
> internet. Generally you have to use (gasp!) a modern PC with
> Windows software, but other than that the experience is wonderful.

   GASP...I'm sorry to say this Tim, but this is SO untrue.  The 
majority of the Internet-based PCB fab houses accept Gerber-format 
files...and while you *can* generate those with a legacy Windows PC, I 
can't come up with any good reason why someone would want to.  I do it 
with Solaris on UltraSPARC all the time, for both commercial and hobby 
projects.  Commercial EDA software for modern platforms is hellatiously 
expensive, but even that is unnecessary nowadays.  I use two free 
packages: gEDA for schematic capture and PCB for circuit board layout. 
They also work nicely under MacOS X.  I regularly do fine-pitch surface 
mount designs with this software.

   Oh yeah...Hi folks, long time no see. :)

            -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL



From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 18:11:25 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 16:11:25 -0700
Subject: Early RAID history; circa 1987
In-Reply-To: <44CD21C8.7000802@OceanRobots.net>
References: <44CD21C8.7000802@OceanRobots.net>
Message-ID: <200607301611250812.3D683ECF@10.0.0.252>

On 7/30/2006 at 5:16 PM Steve Stutman wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I'm researching early RAID, circa 1987.
>
>Interested in applications beyond RAID 0.
>
>Have heard that Polymorphic Systems had RAID boxes; perhaps model 88XX 
>or similar?

Boy, howdy, I'd be interested in hearing what you've discovered.  Not
simple mirroring (pretty common) either, but genuine RAID?  Around 1987, I
wouldn't have thought what was left of Polymorphic could do much of
anything. 

But you never know...

Cheers,
Chuck




From recycler at swbell.net  Sun Jul 30 18:27:10 2006
From: recycler at swbell.net (Patrick J. Jankowiak)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 18:27:10 -0500
Subject: TI 990 with disks, manuals, software
Message-ID: <44CD404E.6050401@swbell.net>

Is there any interest in a TI 990 system complete, this has the CPU in 
cabinet with switches and lights, complete, manuals, software, and 
disk drives including removable disk packs, extras, is exceptionally 
clean as in computer room, and was running recently until the business 
changed software. Certainly bound to me in much nicer and less-used 
condition than what is showing up lately.

Please reply off-list.


From walkerpa at ihug.co.nz  Sun Jul 30 19:00:17 2006
From: walkerpa at ihug.co.nz (Anna & Peter Walker)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:00:17 +1200
Subject: HP 9000 Pascal 3.2 : HFS on HP9133L
Message-ID: <001101c6b434$4eb40ec0$0201010a@phatboy>

Hi Joe,
First of all, I am enjoying the discussions coming from cctech.  It's
encouraging to know that there are others out there with the collecting and
preserving attitude.

In answer to Bernd Kopriva's comments:
>Another issue : is it possible to boot from the floppy within the 9133 ?
I can only boot from another
>9122 that is connected, but not with the 9133 build in drive, later it's
possible to use it normally

My understanding is that with bootrom 3, or later, it should be possible to
boot from any HP-IB attached storage device.  That's probably provided the
system booted then provides support for additional drive types which can be
loaded as required.  This is the situation with Basic 3.0, and later, where
the system file SYSTEM_BA3 doesn't know about Amigo or CS80 devices, but the
necessary BIN files can be loaded immediately after booting (by the
bootrom).  Pascal has to have the support available, but should boot I
think.

Your comment about checking the disk format is also very valid.  It took me
a while to realise that the floppy in my 9153C drive was HD floppy
compatible!  That's after having it in storage for many years.

I am getting back into this stuff which is where I started all those years
ago.  Two questions:
1.  You refer to sending all of your HP docs to Al for scanning.  I don't
know who Al is; please can you provide the link to his site.

2.  Did you find your pascal install version?  I have version 2.0 and 3.0.
Unfortunately, I've lost the 'IO' file from the 3.0 version (disk read
error), which leaves me unable to compile.  So I'm looking for that.  Did I
have a backup?  No.  Have I learnt a lesson???????  Have I now made copies
of the other disks (640k format)?

Regards,
Peter
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/403 - Release Date: 28-07-2006



From aek at bitsavers.org  Sun Jul 30 19:26:25 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:26:25 -0700
Subject: TI 990 with disks, manuals, software
Message-ID: 


> Is there any interest in a TI 990 system complete

I'd like to, but it's too far away.

Keys should probably get it for the museum in Houston.






From aek at bitsavers.org  Sun Jul 30 19:29:25 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:29:25 -0700
Subject: HP 9000 Pascal 3.2 : HFS on HP9133L
Message-ID: 



> You refer to sending all of your HP docs to Al for scanning.  I don't
> know who Al is; please can you provide the link to his site.

That would be me. I've been completely consumed for the past three months
putting the Computer History Museum's software collection together. What I
have pdf'ed is at bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/

I need to get this stuff back to Joe ASAP.







From cannings at earthlink.net  Sun Jul 30 21:26:22 2006
From: cannings at earthlink.net (Steven Canning)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:26:22 -0700
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>

Quoting from the Atari Museum:

" Atari introduced with its Atari 400 and 800 series computers its first 80
Column printer.   The Atari 825 which actually a repackaged Centronics 737
printer.   Earlier models had limited capabilities, the later 825 models
with the extended basic character set had the capability of producing the
Atari ATASCII graphics character set.  The Atari 825 required the use of the
Atari 850 interface module to allow it to communicate with the Atari 400 and
800 computer because it had a Centronic parallel interface on it instead of
the Atari SIO interface which the Atari 820 and Atari 822 printers had built
in. "

Best regards, SACanning



Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:38 PM
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer


> Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
>
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
>
> Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
>
> :)
>
> Cheers,
> Chuck



From recycler at swbell.net  Sun Jul 30 21:28:47 2006
From: recycler at swbell.net (Patrick J. Jankowiak)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:28:47 -0500
Subject: TI 990 with disks, manuals, software
In-Reply-To: <44CD404E.6050401@swbell.net>
References: <44CD404E.6050401@swbell.net>
Message-ID: <44CD6ADF.8010107@swbell.net>

Wow too many replies. But I am glad of the interest since this is too 
good for the scrapper.

Please await me to post picture(s) and the contact information. I have 
nothing to do with the deal, merely discovered it.

I will post notice right here soon as I get image(s) and contact info.

Thank you,
Patrick





From pat at computer-refuge.org  Sun Jul 30 21:29:41 2006
From: pat at computer-refuge.org (Patrick Finnegan)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:29:41 -0400
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
Message-ID: <200607302229.41708.pat@computer-refuge.org>

On Sunday 30 July 2006 22:26, Steven Canning wrote:
> Quoting from the Atari Museum:
>
> " Atari introduced with its Atari 400 and 800 series computers its first 80
> Column printer.   The Atari 825 which actually a repackaged Centronics 737
> printer.   Earlier models had limited capabilities, the later 825 models
> with the extended basic character set had the capability of producing the
> Atari ATASCII graphics character set.  The Atari 825 required the use of
> the Atari 850 interface module to allow it to communicate with the Atari
> 400 and 800 computer because it had a Centronic parallel interface on it
> instead of the Atari SIO interface which the Atari 820 and Atari 822
> printers had built in. "

Umm, go take a look at the URL he posted first.

Pat

> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:38 PM
> Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
>
> > Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
> >
> > http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
> >
> > Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
> >
> > :)
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Chuck

-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC       --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


From trixter at oldskool.org  Sun Jul 30 22:10:07 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:10:07 -0500
Subject: RGB & LCD...
In-Reply-To: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>
References: <200607271948.k6RJm7oA009012@mwave.heeltoe.com>
Message-ID: <44CD748F.2090501@oldskool.org>

Brad Parker wrote:
> I haven't even thought about it electrically so this may be thinking out
> loud.  Most of these lcd monitors seem to have VGA signals.  I did once
> have a DW13 to RBG/BNC connector.  And I think I have a DW13 to VGA
> adapter...  Is that the right way to go?

Any decent scan converter will take the R/G/B/S and convert it to 
something else, although "decent" means "expensive" in most cases.  The 
Sony DSC-1024 series do this, as do RGB Spectrum units.  Both show up on 
ebay occaisonally.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From trixter at oldskool.org  Sun Jul 30 22:11:49 2006
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:11:49 -0500
Subject: transcribing old docs
In-Reply-To: <001701c6b23d$0dbc20e0$0602a8c0@xandinho>
References: <000801c6b209$85697a90$2101a8c0@finans>	<44C9F14B.9080808@yahoo.co.uk><00a501c6b231$3d6e2c90$02fea8c0@alpha>	<44C9F986.2010108@yahoo.co.uk>
	<001701c6b23d$0dbc20e0$0602a8c0@xandinho>
Message-ID: <44CD74F5.6080705@oldskool.org>

Alexandre Souza wrote:
> Just like rippers try to rip tv shows into a
> standard format/resolution/bitrate, there should be any way of creating a

Bad example, BTW; most ripped TV shows have thrown away resolution, 
framerate, or both.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/


From jrkeys at concentric.net  Sun Jul 30 22:16:08 2006
From: jrkeys at concentric.net (Keys)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:16:08 -0500
Subject: TI 990 with disks, manuals, software
References: <44CD404E.6050401@swbell.net>
Message-ID: <003e01c6b44f$cb3fcd10$43406b43@66067007>

Where are these items located?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick J. Jankowiak" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2006 6:27 PM
Subject: TI 990 with disks, manuals, software


> Is there any interest in a TI 990 system complete, this has the CPU in 
> cabinet with switches and lights, complete, manuals, software, and 
> disk drives including removable disk packs, extras, is exceptionally 
> clean as in computer room, and was running recently until the business 
> changed software. Certainly bound to me in much nicer and less-used 
> condition than what is showing up lately.
> 
> Please reply off-list.
>


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Sun Jul 30 22:23:04 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:23:04 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
Message-ID: <20060730202037.V21302@shell.lmi.net>

> > Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
> > http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
> > Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
> > :)
On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Steven Canning wrote:
> Quoting from the Atari Museum:
> " Atari introduced with its Atari 400 and 800 series computers its first 80
> Column printer.   The Atari 825 which actually a repackaged Centronics 737

The one in that auction does NOT look like a Centronics 737, and does NOT
have a Centronics interface, nor any obvious way to connect one.






From ploopster at gmail.com  Sun Jul 30 22:33:40 2006
From: ploopster at gmail.com (Sridhar Ayengar)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:33:40 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <44CD3B94.8000402@neurotica.com>
References: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>	<20060730192822.E15D1BA4980@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>
	<44CD3B94.8000402@neurotica.com>
Message-ID: <44CD7A14.8040407@gmail.com>

Dave McGuire wrote:
>   Oh yeah...Hi folks, long time no see. :)

Hey, Dave!  Welcome back!  Good to see you!

Peace...  Sridhar


From cclist at sydex.com  Sun Jul 30 22:43:18 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:43:18 -0700
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <20060730202037.V21302@shell.lmi.net>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
	<20060730202037.V21302@shell.lmi.net>
Message-ID: <200607302043180064.3E61247C@10.0.0.252>

On 7/30/2006 at 8:23 PM Fred Cisin wrote:

>The one in that auction does NOT look like a Centronics 737, and does NOT
>have a Centronics interface, nor any obvious way to connect one.

Maybe the seller means "printer" in an allegorical sense.

Cheers,
Chuck






From wdonzelli at gmail.com  Sun Jul 30 22:50:48 2006
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com (William Donzelli)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:50:48 -0400
Subject: Mac 128K board
Message-ID: 

Anyone here have a working Mac 128K motherboard available? I have an
old machine here with some strange memory problems that I really do
not want to invest any more time into.

--
Will


From josefcub at gmail.com  Sun Jul 30 22:53:10 2006
From: josefcub at gmail.com (Josef Chessor)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:53:10 -0500
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <200607302043180064.3E61247C@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
	<20060730202037.V21302@shell.lmi.net>
	<200607302043180064.3E61247C@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <9e2403920607302053l16a9c6e4kd24eec0ab6cf8338@mail.gmail.com>

On 7/30/06, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> Maybe the seller means "printer" in an allegorical sense.
>
Maybe it gives "impact printer" a whole new meaning?

Josef ;-)


From dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu  Mon Jul 31 00:38:52 2006
From: dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu (David Griffith)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:38:52 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <9e2403920607302053l16a9c6e4kd24eec0ab6cf8338@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
	<20060730202037.V21302@shell.lmi.net>
	<200607302043180064.3E61247C@10.0.0.252>
	<9e2403920607302053l16a9c6e4kd24eec0ab6cf8338@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: 

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Josef Chessor wrote:

> On 7/30/06, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> > Maybe the seller means "printer" in an allegorical sense.
> >
> Maybe it gives "impact printer" a whole new meaning?

 I guess it might be of interest to the gold scrappers.

-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?


From curt at atarimuseum.com  Mon Jul 31 01:22:35 2006
From: curt at atarimuseum.com (Curt - Atari Museum)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:22:35 -0400
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
Message-ID: <44CDA1AB.3060702@atarimuseum.com>

Just to add to what was quoted below -

The 825 used an edge connector and not todays Centronics styled parallel 
printer connector, remember, this printer was released in 1980 and 
standards still didn't exist across the board for many devices.

If you decide to use the printer on your Atari 400/800, XL/XE computer 
system and use an 850 interface, the needed cable can be purchased from 
B&C Computervisions - www.myatari.com or from Best Electronics - 
www.best-electronics-ca.com


Curt



Steven Canning wrote:
> Quoting from the Atari Museum:
>
> " Atari introduced with its Atari 400 and 800 series computers its first 80
> Column printer.   The Atari 825 which actually a repackaged Centronics 737
> printer.   Earlier models had limited capabilities, the later 825 models
> with the extended basic character set had the capability of producing the
> Atari ATASCII graphics character set.  The Atari 825 required the use of the
> Atari 850 interface module to allow it to communicate with the Atari 400 and
> 800 computer because it had a Centronic parallel interface on it instead of
> the Atari SIO interface which the Atari 820 and Atari 822 printers had built
> in. "
>
> Best regards, SACanning
>
>
>
> Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 7:38 PM
> Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
>
>
>   
>> Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
>>
>> http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
>>
>> Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
>>
>> :)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Chuck
>>     
>
>
>
>   


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 31 01:43:39 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 23:43:39 -0700
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <44CDA1AB.3060702@atarimuseum.com>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
	<44CDA1AB.3060702@atarimuseum.com>
Message-ID: <200607302343390567.3F0642FE@10.0.0.252>

On 7/31/2006 at 2:22 AM Curt - Atari Museum wrote:

>Just to add to what was quoted below -
>
>The 825 used an edge connector and not todays Centronics styled parallel 
>printer connector...

Must be a bunch of folks using Lynx...

--Chuck



From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Mon Jul 31 01:59:43 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 01:59:43 -0500
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <200607302343390567.3F0642FE@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <000801c6b46e$e6e7f000$6401a8c0@dementium>

...or just not bothering to look at the URL so they don't get the reason why
the printer is so strange :/

So to those who replied with technical answers, LOOK AT THE PICTURE IN THE
AUCTION.

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 1:44 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Very strange Atari Printer

On 7/31/2006 at 2:22 AM Curt - Atari Museum wrote:

>Just to add to what was quoted below -
>
>The 825 used an edge connector and not todays Centronics styled parallel 
>printer connector...

Must be a bunch of folks using Lynx...

--Chuck





From fireflyst at earthlink.net  Mon Jul 31 02:06:51 2006
From: fireflyst at earthlink.net (Julian Wolfe)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:06:51 -0500
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <000801c6b46e$e6e7f000$6401a8c0@dementium>
Message-ID: <000901c6b46f$e6974280$6401a8c0@dementium>

Okay, yahoo auctions officially sucks ass.  I tried to bid on a 1010 program
recorder for an Atari and I was below some stupid minimum feedback.  I swear
to god I hate feedback.

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Julian Wolfe
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 2:00 AM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: Very strange Atari Printer

...or just not bothering to look at the URL so they don't get the reason why
the printer is so strange :/

So to those who replied with technical answers, LOOK AT THE PICTURE IN THE
AUCTION.

-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org]
On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 1:44 AM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Very strange Atari Printer

On 7/31/2006 at 2:22 AM Curt - Atari Museum wrote:

>Just to add to what was quoted below -
>
>The 825 used an edge connector and not todays Centronics styled parallel 
>printer connector...

Must be a bunch of folks using Lynx...

--Chuck







From dj.taylor at starpower.net  Mon Jul 31 06:31:13 2006
From: dj.taylor at starpower.net (Douglas Taylor)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:31:13 -0400
Subject: Software needed for Nicolet FTIR
Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20060731070726.01c15828@pop.starpower.net>


Like the majority of you who participate here I love to tinker with old 
stuff.

I have managed to buy a used Nicolet model 210 FTIR system complete with 
PCI interface card and cable.  These instruments fascinate me because they 
depend on a combination of computers, electronics, optics, lasers and 
precision mechanical movement to perform their function.

  When I got it home it didn't work because the laser power supply was not 
getting the 12V needed to power it up, when I corrected that and plugged it 
back in the instrument went into a 'maintenance' type of mode with the 
moving mirror scanning in a free run mode.   The internal infrared source 
appeared to be working also since it put out a soft orange glow.

This instrument and the software for it are not supported by Nicolet - now 
Thermo Electron - because it is so old.  It is from 1993, and I am looking 
for someone who has the G-Series bench driver and OMNIC version 6.0 or below.

I'm asking the classicmp group for help since I think someone out there 
might help me along.  When I spoke to the Nicolet rep he told me that he 
also had a machine at home [what a hobby!] so he could identify with me, 
however my machine was retired and I needed to get an old version of Omnic 
and the g-series bench driver, and it would have to run on Windows 98 or 
earlier, but Nicolet wouldn't sell it to me.

So, if anyone out there knows of some laboratory/chemistry type who may 
have old versions of OMNIC laying around and no longer need them have them 
get in touch with me.

Thanks

Doug


From shirsch at adelphia.net  Mon Jul 31 07:03:19 2006
From: shirsch at adelphia.net (Steven N. Hirsch)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:03:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
References: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: 

On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Scott Quinn wrote:

> They don't skimp, either - I was expecting HP-UX 11i base, but they send out the
> Mission Critical OE.
> 
> I've got it going for a trial install in the G70. It's clicking along just fine so far.
> I think when I'm done I'll investigate HP-UX 10.20 for 800s (if I can find it), perhaps
> a bit faster on the old hardware. Other option would be the base 11i. For now, I'm throwing
> the kitchen sink at it to see what happens (other than running out of disk space - 4GB (binary) isn't
> quite enough for everything...

I'm looking at the HP package and have a B2000 on the way to me (completes 
my workstation collection with the last missing major brand).  Can someone 
elaborate on what (if any) development tools are included?  

Also, what are others' experiences with 3rd-party IDE CD-ROM drives, 
keyboards and mice on these beasties?  I have a sneaking suspicion that 
most standard components will work, but would appreciate knowing what to 
stay away from.

Steve



From bpope at wordstock.com  Mon Jul 31 07:12:29 2006
From: bpope at wordstock.com (Bryan Pope)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:12:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
Message-ID: <20060731121229.A594758065@mail.wordstock.com>


> Whilst browing Yahoo! auctions, I came across this Atari 825 printer:
> 
> http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875
> 
> Problem is, I can't figure out how it works.  Where do you plug it in?
> 
> :)

Well, it does have gold umm... connectors so that has to be good! 

Cheers,

Bryan



From pm.boyer at wanadoo.fr  Mon Jul 31 07:45:27 2006
From: pm.boyer at wanadoo.fr (Pierre-Marie BOYER)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:45:27 +0200
Subject: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
In-Reply-To: <44CCDC05.1040501@msm.umr.edu>
References: <200607301528.05296.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
	<44CCDC05.1040501@msm.umr.edu>
Message-ID: <200607311445.27971.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>

Le Dimanche 30 Juillet 2006 18:19, jim stephens a ?crit?:
> Pierre-Marie BOYER wrote:
> 
> >Hi !
> >
> >The ADC send data to the SDRAM through the DMA at a fixed rate during
> >may be 1 or 2 second, and is this process
> >can be stopped/disturbed by the internal refresh process of SDRAM ?
> >
> >If yes, is there a solution, to manage the two process ( fixed
> >acquisition and SDRAM refresh cycle) ?
> >
> >Thank you very much.
> >
> >  
> >
> If you are only collecting ADC data at that rate, can you use an I/O mapped
> device instead of DMA, and just poll and read the data?  Or are you saying
> that the ADC data will start up and run at some rate approaching the memory
> cycle time for 1 to 2 seconds?
> 
 No, ADC data run at a fixed frequency (30 MHz) during several seconds,
so data, from the ADC, must be writen to the sdram at rate one byte every 0,03 usec,
during several seconds.
( ADC hasn't buffer).
But what happend when the SDRAM enter in its refresh cycle, which occurs every 64ms ?

Tanks 

P.M.B.




From ajp166 at bellatlantic.net  Mon Jul 31 08:46:36 2006
From: ajp166 at bellatlantic.net (Allison)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 09:46:36 -0400
Subject: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
Message-ID: <0J3900101SW1UKYC@vms042.mailsrvcs.net>

>
>Subject: Re: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
>   From: Pierre-Marie BOYER 
>   Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:45:27 +0200
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
>
>Le Dimanche 30 Juillet 2006 18:19, jim stephens a ?crit?:
>> Pierre-Marie BOYER wrote:
>> 
>> >Hi !
>> >
>> >The ADC send data to the SDRAM through the DMA at a fixed rate during
>> >may be 1 or 2 second, and is this process
>> >can be stopped/disturbed by the internal refresh process of SDRAM ?
>> >
>> >If yes, is there a solution, to manage the two process ( fixed
>> >acquisition and SDRAM refresh cycle) ?
>> >
>> >Thank you very much.
>> >
>> >  
>> >
>> If you are only collecting ADC data at that rate, can you use an I/O mapped
>> device instead of DMA, and just poll and read the data?  Or are you saying
>> that the ADC data will start up and run at some rate approaching the memory
>> cycle time for 1 to 2 seconds?
>> 
> No, ADC data run at a fixed frequency (30 MHz) during several seconds,
>so data, from the ADC, must be writen to the sdram at rate one byte every 0,03 usec,
>during several seconds.
>( ADC hasn't buffer).
>But what happend when the SDRAM enter in its refresh cycle, which occurs every 64ms ?
>
>Tanks 
>
>P.M.B.
>
Maybe this will help...  Refresh is the periodic reading of all rows of a Dram.
If you were to do a bulk write and the number of bytes written exceed the number 
of rows in the DRAM then refresh or not you will have refreshed the ram.

Nominally refresh is handled in two ways bulk, doing all the rows in one long
pass every so many mS as required by the devices.  The better and more common 
technique is to interleave refresh in between accesses such that you will have 
accomplished refresh of all rows in the required time.

My, $.02 is if your running an ADC at 30mhz and the system has SDRAM you still
only using a fraction of the bandwidth and refresh is not an issue.  Since your
writing nearly (30mhz*2sec-60Mbytes) 60mbytes of data you will refresh the ram
nearly 31.25 times in two seconds, likely more than enough to satisfy refresh.



Allison


From pcw at mesanet.com  Mon Jul 31 09:01:42 2006
From: pcw at mesanet.com (Peter C. Wallace)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:01:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: OT: large data transfert (write) to SDRAM at fixed frequency
In-Reply-To: <200607311445.27971.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
References: <200607301528.05296.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
	<44CCDC05.1040501@msm.umr.edu>
	<200607311445.27971.pm.boyer@wanadoo.fr>
Message-ID: 

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, Pierre-Marie BOYER wrote:

> Le Dimanche 30 Juillet 2006 18:19, jim stephens a ?crit?:
>> Pierre-Marie BOYER wrote:
>>
>>> Hi !
>>>
>>> The ADC send data to the SDRAM through the DMA at a fixed rate during
>>> may be 1 or 2 second, and is this process
>>> can be stopped/disturbed by the internal refresh process of SDRAM ?
>>>
>>> If yes, is there a solution, to manage the two process ( fixed
>>> acquisition and SDRAM refresh cycle) ?
>>>
>>> Thank you very much.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> If you are only collecting ADC data at that rate, can you use an I/O mapped
>> device instead of DMA, and just poll and read the data?  Or are you saying
>> that the ADC data will start up and run at some rate approaching the memory
>> cycle time for 1 to 2 seconds?
>>
> No, ADC data run at a fixed frequency (30 MHz) during several seconds,
> so data, from the ADC, must be writen to the sdram at rate one byte every 0,03 usec,
> during several seconds.
> ( ADC hasn't buffer).
> But what happend when the SDRAM enter in its refresh cycle, which occurs every 64ms ?
>
> Tanks
>
> P.M.B.
>
>

If your ADC runs at 30 MHz, could DRAM refresh could be turned off for the 
duration of the data aquisition cycle? (30 MHz ought to be fast enough to do 
all the rows in the refresh period)

Probably requires some perusal of the SDRAM/SDRAM controller data sheet to see 
if this is feasble. Also may not work if you have multiple physical RAM banks 
(got to refresh the other banks somehow)



Peter Wallace

From dkelvey at hotmail.com  Mon Jul 31 09:54:05 2006
From: dkelvey at hotmail.com (dwight elvey)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:54:05 -0700
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
In-Reply-To: <44CCE977.5090106@OceanRobots.net>
Message-ID: 



>From: Steve Stutman 
>
>Hi,
>
>If you don't want to just use external switched outlet or "AC power strip", 
>consider using a Crydom SSR (Solid State Relay), These are blocks which 
>switch electronically at zero crossing; require various low DC voltages at 
>input to turn on; some take logic levels IIRC. You can use power switch on 
>panel to control a small supply which generates the SSR control voltage.
>
>Should be possible to use a decent wall wart for this; maybe placed back 
>near the IMSAI xfmr. It's been 26 years since I last saw mine. YDMV.
>
>Steve
>
>

Hi
One thing you should know about zero crossing. You don't want to use
a zero cross relay on a highly inductuve load( the IMSAI might qualify
as highly inductive because of the large core used ). You want a peak
switching. Zero cross is the worst place to turn on an inductive load
and results in the highest current surge. This may even saturate the
core and cause a peak several times the normal running current.
Dwight




From wbblair3 at yahoo.com  Mon Jul 31 11:32:06 2006
From: wbblair3 at yahoo.com (William Blair)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 09:32:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607310332.k6V3Vj90006715@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20060731163207.40494.qmail@web50507.mail.yahoo.com>

> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Chris M 
> Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
> To: talk 
> Message-ID: <20060730181346.50833.qmail at web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> 
> by any chance does anyone use this method, and would
> be willing to small *even* number of sheets? The one
> place I know of that sells it has a $50 minimum order
> (Halted). Or maybe someone knows of a place with fewer restrictions.

Here's an excellent news group that'll tell you everything you need to
know about homebrew PCBs:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Homebrew_PCBs/

It really is a fantastic resource on this topic because it has so many
active members who are experts on the subject and highly experienced.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com  Mon Jul 31 11:46:17 2006
From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:46:17 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <20060730192822.E15D1BA4980@mini-me.trailing-edge.com>
References: <20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
	<20060730181346.50833.qmail@web61021.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060731120428.03c10810@mail.30below.com>

Rumor has it that Tim Shoppa may have mentioned these words:

>If you really want to do the toner transfer stuff despite all that
>I said, you can get 10 sheets of 8.5x11 from Circuit Specialists
>( http://webtronics.stores.yahoo.net ) for $14.95, part number
>PCB-TTP.

However, most of their own literature & info states that the photo-resist 
system works *much* better, and they don't "support" the toner-transfer 
system, they only sell it...

However, I'd found some sites that will help "improve your chances" should 
you wish to continue on this particular endeavor:

http://www.pulsar.gs/PCB/a_Pages/4_Products/4e_Starter_Kit/Starter_Kit.html

for a kit that includes a small laminator, which seems to help with the 
even heating necessary to make the TTS work,

http://www.pulsar.gs/PCB/a_Pages/3_Direct_Etch/3b_The_15min_PCB/The_15min_PCB.html

A bit more on the technique (but be sure to check out their "Toner Transfer 
Applicator" - i.e. - a GBC laminator system. ;-)

This guy seems to have the Toner Transfer System down to a science:

http://www.fullnet.com/u/tomg/gooteepc.htm  [[ As Seen on TV! ;-) ]]

=-=-= and =-=-=

Rumor has it that Don Y may have mentioned these words:

>Look into 4pcb.com (?) and other houses that offer
>discounts on your first order (usually -$500).
>Then, do your design so that the whole design
>falls below that threshold -- i.e. free.

This place claims to offer $5/sq.in. circuit boards, because they batch 'em 
all up & do 'em all at once. If you're not looking for *fast* service, it's 
certainly affordable.

http://www.batchpcb.com/index.php

Dunno about their quality of service, but they do have a forum that they 
respond to pretty quickly (I had a question about a particular type of 
board manufacture).

They're affiliated with "Spark Fun Electronics" - very hobbyist based 
kit/parts website.

http://www.sparkfun.com/

HTH,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger  --  SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com

Hi! I am a .signature virus.  Copy me into your .signature to join in!



From alexeyt at freeshell.org  Mon Jul 31 11:52:05 2006
From: alexeyt at freeshell.org (Alexey Toptygin)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:52:05 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: DEC Alpha equipment in DFW
Message-ID: 


I'm reposting this with the permission of the author. Please contact 
cseiler at sdf.lonestar.org directly.

===

I've got a handful of DEC/Alpha equipment as part of an estate.  I need to 
get rid of it, and I'd hate to see this stuff just get disposed of.

I'd like to sell it cheap to an SDFer in the DFW area. Or anyone knows 
dealers in the area who work with this stuff and might be interested in 
buying, I'd appreciate a referral in their direction.

  First up is a DEC Digital VRCX1-WA 21-inch monitor.  This is a great 
monitor.  I'd even use it myself, but it's a huge CRT monitor that I just 
don't have the deskspace for.  Manufactured 1997.  Bought used in 2002 for 
$145.  Works good.  Would like to get $50 for it.

  Also have Digital Server 3000 50mhz Alpha 128MB.  Unknown hard drive. 
He bought it with 4.5Gb SCSI, but I think he may have upgraded it.  I 
don't know enough about the monitor this thing boots up into, but an Alpha 
person can contact me if they're interested and tell me how to figure it 
out, maybe.

  DEC Alphastation 400 4/233 with 256MB RAM.  Have not even started this 
one up.

  DEC Personal Workstatioin 433au.  Unknown RAM, appears to have no hard 
drive.  HP SureStore DAT24 tape drive.

  I installed NetBSD on the Digital Server 3000 and got it to work just 
fine several months ago, but now can't remember how I did it.  Need room, 
and don't have the time to fiddle anymore.  The estate needs the money. 
So, if I could get $45 a piece for the computers and $50.00 for the 
monitor, I'd be really happy.  It would be great if someone could take 
them all off my hands.

  I live in Denton, so I could meet someone halfway in Dallas, Ft Worth, or 
McKinney, etc.

Money is not the huge priority, but I'd prefer not to have to ship them as 
it would involve a lot of boxing up and packaging and whatnot.  So I'd 
rather sell them to someone in driving distance, even if it's for a small 
amount.  The amounts aren't hard and fast, and I'd definitely consider a 
considerable discount if someone took it all of my hands in one batch.


From lee at geekdot.com  Mon Jul 31 12:47:32 2006
From: lee at geekdot.com (Lee Davison)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 19:47:32 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: imsai 8080 power switch
Message-ID: <4005.86.139.195.23.1154368052.squirrel@webmail.geekdot.com>

> One thing you should know about zero crossing. You don't want to use
> a zero cross relay on a highly inductuve load( the IMSAI might qualify
> as highly inductive because of the large core used ). You want a peak
> switching. Zero cross is the worst place to turn on an inductive load
> and results in the highest current surge. This may even saturate the
> core and cause a peak several times the normal running current.

That's just wrong.

A loaded transformer isn't an inductive load, it's mostly the same type
of load as what is loading the secondary.

Zero crossing is the best place to turn on nearly any load, it may not
be the best place to turn off some loads but for on it is usually best.

If you turn on an inductive load at the zero crossing zero current will
flow. There will be no surge.

Unless there is a serious fault, and even then it is unlikely, you won't
saturate the core of a transformer regardless of how you switch it on.

Lee.





From trag at io.com  Mon Jul 31 12:53:18 2006
From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:53:18 -0500
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: 

>Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:13:46 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Chris M 

>by any chance does anyone use this method, and would
>be willing to small *even* number of sheets? The one
>place I know of that sells it has a $50 minimum order
>(Halted). Or maybe someone knows of a place with fewer restrictions.

Digi-Key has it for $14.95 for ten sheets,but they have a $25 
minimum.  However, if you order the GreenTRF at the same time, it 
should push you pretty close to the $25.

For those folks who've had poor results with TT, did you seal the 
toner with TRF before etching?  And did you use a laminator or an 
iron to transfer the toner image?

I'm slowly working my way up to trying this method myself, and am 
really hoping for better results than I've read about here.   But 
don't expect them, unless I'm doing something different than others 
who have tried it.

The attraction is, that while the circuit board houses just don't get 
much cheaper than $4 - $5 per board for small boards, the TT can get 
down to $.50 - $.75 each by my calculations.   Of course, if 75% of 
them must be discarded...

Jeff Walther


From trag at io.com  Mon Jul 31 13:02:19 2006
From: trag at io.com (Jeff Walther)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:02:19 -0500
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
References: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: 

>Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:07:00 -0400
>From: Dave McGuire 
>
>Tim Shoppa wrote:
>>  For me, far higher yield for double-sided PCB's
>>  comes from ordering boards over the
>>  internet. Generally you have to use (gasp!) a modern PC with
>>  Windows software, but other than that the experience is wonderful.
>
>    GASP...I'm sorry to say this Tim, but this is SO untrue.  The
>majority of the Internet-based PCB fab houses accept Gerber-format
>files...and while you *can* generate those with a legacy Windows PC, I
>can't come up with any good reason why someone would want to.  I do it
>with Solaris on UltraSPARC all the time, for both commercial and hobby
>projects.  Commercial EDA software for modern platforms is hellatiously
>expensive, but even that is unnecessary nowadays.  I use two free
>packages: gEDA for schematic capture and PCB for circuit board layout.
>They also work nicely under MacOS X.  I regularly do fine-pitch surface
>mount designs with this software.

For $200 one can get Osmond PCB for the Mac.  It runs on 68K, PPC 
Classic, and OSX.   Until earlier this year it was in beta and 
available free for testing.  I completed two designs while Osmond was 
in beta which were exported to Gerber and sent out for production. 
It worked great.   I'd do it again, but for my current designs, I 
just don't want to spend as much per board.

Anyway, to avoid digressing too much, the point is, I agree.  PCB 
design can be done affordably on platforms other than a Windows based 
machine.

*Most* (virtually all) PCB fabs expect gerber files, not a 
proprietary file format generated by their in house software.

However, perhaps what Tim meant is that to get some of the great 
deals available, one goes to the PCB fab which provides in-house 
software, and to run that software you need a reasonably up to date 
windows machine.   This is certainly true for PCB Express or 4PCB or 
whatever they're called.

Jeff Walther


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 31 13:23:39 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:23:39 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
Message-ID: <44CE4AAB.5030505@DakotaCom.Net>

Jeff Walther wrote:
> However, perhaps what Tim meant is that to get some of the great deals 
> available, one goes to the PCB fab which provides in-house software, and 
> to run that software you need a reasonably up to date windows machine.   
> This is certainly true for PCB Express or 4PCB or whatever they're called.

IIRC, their software was just a glorified set of DRC's?
(though perhaps it was also "needed" to get a detailed
production quote?)


From bbrown at harpercollege.edu  Mon Jul 31 13:25:39 2006
From: bbrown at harpercollege.edu (Bob Brown)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:25:39 -0500
Subject: HP3000/922
Message-ID: 

I just acquired an HP3000/922 (thanks Rob!)  Is there anywhere that I 
can find documentation on the h/w?

Is it possible to get MPE install media that would install on this 
system (in case I want to do a fresh-install)?

thanks!

-Bob
-- 
bbrown at harpercollege.edu   ####  ####    Bob Brown - KB9LFR
Harper Community College   ##  ##  ##    Systems Administrator
Palatine IL USA            ####  ####    Saved by grace


From compoobah at valleyimplants.com  Mon Jul 31 13:43:27 2006
From: compoobah at valleyimplants.com (Scott Quinn)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:43:27 -0500
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX (and the B2000)
Message-ID: 


www.openpa.net is your friend.

Don't have anything that new; a C180 will run standard kbd/mouse and perepherals just fine.
What graphics do you have? HP jumped on the next big thing, the EVC connector, really fast.
I don't think anybody else did. Finding an adaptor can be fun-. The newer FX5/FX10s I believe have
DVI, though.

The apps disk does appear to contain cc and cxx. Don't know if they have fixed license policies in place or if you just
are asked nicely to get a license from HP. To do that, you either (a) get a commercial software product for HP-UX developed or
(b) you send them a check for about $900. HP-UX does have all headers, so GCC is an option if you have cycles to burn
(don't even think of using anything less than GCC 3.3 - it seems to, um, "pessimize" programs on RISC architectures)
I'll play around with the C180 and check out the apps- I have more disk space there (wohoo! 6GB!)






From healyzh at aracnet.com  Mon Jul 31 14:06:08 2006
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:06:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX (and the B2000)
In-Reply-To:  from "Scott
	Quinn" at Jul 31, 2006 01:43:27 PM
Message-ID: <200607311906.k6VJ68pr005463@onyx.spiritone.com>

> Don't have anything that new; a C180 will run standard kbd/mouse and
> perepherals just fine. 

So does my B180L, though my first attempt to install failed as it didn't
want to unmount the first CD.  Haven't had time to even consider a second
try, or a non-automatic one.

> What graphics do you have? HP jumped on the next
> big thing, the EVC connector, really fast. I don't think anybody else did.
> Finding an adaptor can be fun-. The newer FX5/FX10s I believe have DVI,
> though.

The FX10 sitting here on my Desk is both DVI and VGA out.

> um, "pessimize" programs on RISC architectures) I'll play around with the
> C180 and check out the apps- I have more disk space there (wohoo! 6GB!)

I think I have 8 or 9GB :^)  I might also be able to get my system above
256MB RAM *if* I'm lucky.

		Zane




From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 31 14:28:03 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:28:03 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: 
References: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
Message-ID: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>

On 7/31/2006 at 12:53 PM Jeff Walther wrote:

>The attraction is, that while the circuit board houses just don't get 
>much cheaper than $4 - $5 per board for small boards, the TT can get 
>down to $.50 - $.75 each by my calculations.   Of course, if 75% of 
>them must be discarded...

>From the presentations of this technique on the web, I'm not convinced that
this technique is usable for anything much finer than DIP spacing; e.g.
PQFP.  Does anyone have experience to the contrary?

Cheers,
Chuck




From rborsuk at colourfull.com  Mon Jul 31 14:36:17 2006
From: rborsuk at colourfull.com (Robert Borsuk)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:36:17 -0400
Subject: HP3000/922
In-Reply-To: 
References: 
Message-ID: <82792020-840D-4A64-935E-AEFD30860952@colourfull.com>

Bob,
	Here's a couple of places I started.
http://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=3&cat=32
(I always start at the HP Museum)

http://www.robelle.com/library/smugbook/classic.html

http://www.3k.com/index_papers_hp3000_history.html

Glad you made it home okay.  It's nice to hear your already tackling  
the system.

Hope this little helps, if you haven't already found it yourself.


Rob


On Jul 31, 2006, at 2:25 PM, Bob Brown wrote:

> I just acquired an HP3000/922 (thanks Rob!)  Is there anywhere that  
> I can find documentation on the h/w?
>
> Is it possible to get MPE install media that would install on this  
> system (in case I want to do a fresh-install)?
>
> thanks!
>
> -Bob
> -- 
> bbrown at harpercollege.edu   ####  ####    Bob Brown - KB9LFR
> Harper Community College   ##  ##  ##    Systems Administrator
> Palatine IL USA            ####  ####    Saved by grace



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 31 14:39:41 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:39:41 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>	
	<200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44CE5C7D.1070307@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/31/2006 at 12:53 PM Jeff Walther wrote:
> 
>> The attraction is, that while the circuit board houses just don't get 
>> much cheaper than $4 - $5 per board for small boards, the TT can get 
>> down to $.50 - $.75 each by my calculations.   Of course, if 75% of 
>> them must be discarded...
> 
> From the presentations of this technique on the web, I'm not convinced that
> this technique is usable for anything much finer than DIP spacing; e.g.
> PQFP.  Does anyone have experience to the contrary?

Registration becomes the issue.  In my experience, it's just not
worth it, nowadays, unless you're making a HiFi amplifier or
something equally "non-dense".  Saving a couple of dollars on
a bare board just doesn't justify the cost (in time)

E.g., why not make your own memory SIMM/DIMMs too?  :>

Years ago we had our own etch tank, wave, etc. and *still* ended
up pushing board fab to outside vendors (messy process).


From cisin at xenosoft.com  Mon Jul 31 14:46:39 2006
From: cisin at xenosoft.com (Fred Cisin)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:46:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <44CDA1AB.3060702@atarimuseum.com>
References: <200607291938060439.38FF1EE5@10.0.0.252>
	<000501c6b448$ba5ed560$6401a8c0@hal9000>
	<44CDA1AB.3060702@atarimuseum.com>
Message-ID: <20060731124400.B64286@shell.lmi.net>

On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, Curt - Atari Museum wrote:
> Just to add to what was quoted below -
> The 825 used an edge connector and not todays Centronics styled parallel
> printer connector, remember, this printer was released in 1980 and
> standards still didn't exist across the board for many devices.
> If you decide to use the printer on your Atari 400/800, XL/XE computer
> system and use an 850 interface, the needed cable can be purchased from
> B&C Computervisions - www.myatari.com or from Best Electronics -
> www.best-electronics-ca.com

That's good information.  But, while they might have cables for every
other variety of 825, NO, they do NOT have the cable to connect
with THAT particular printer.

> >> http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:Atari%20825%20printer:5025875


From zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com  Mon Jul 31 15:52:42 2006
From: zmerch-cctalk at 30below.com (Roger Merchberger)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:52:42 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <44CE5C7D.1070307@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
	<200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20060731164301.03b2c3d8@mail.30below.com>

Rumor has it that Don Y may have mentioned these words:

>Registration becomes the issue.

Are you speaking of registering 2-sided boards, or of problems that can 
come from non-linearity of media for even single-sided boards?

>   In my experience, it's just not
>worth it, nowadays, unless you're making a HiFi amplifier or
>something equally "non-dense".  Saving a couple of dollars on
>a bare board just doesn't justify the cost (in time)

1) experience of doing it yourself?
2) bragging rights?
3) need quick turnaround?
4) 1-off prototypes?

Granted, depending on the application, none of these may apply... and the 
costs of a hobby (time & $$) are *never* justifiable, unless "Because I 
wanted to" is a valid justification. ;-)

>E.g., why not make your own memory SIMM/DIMMs too?  :>

Someone was trying to make their own, but the board thickness might not be 
a standard thickness for what's available in the hobbyist market, IIRC... 
not to mention cutting the boards with the little notches & whatnot may not 
be very easy in a hobbyist setting. Lasers good, Dremels bad... ;-)

>Years ago we had our own etch tank, wave, etc. and *still* ended
>up pushing board fab to outside vendors (messy process).

Yes, but was that for 1-off prototype stuff, or for a run of boards? 
Prototype boards are a lot more expensive compared to a run of 1000, or 
even 100.

But what do I know - I'm just the Village Idiot when it comes to board 
manufacture... ;-)  [[ Done a lot of reading on it, have a couple of kit 
systems, but never taken the time to do enough with it to get used to it... ]]

Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | "Bugs of a feather flock together."
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers |           Russell Nelson
zmerch at 30below.com          |



From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 31 16:11:43 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:11:43 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20060731164301.03b2c3d8@mail.30below.com>
References: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>	<200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20060731164301.03b2c3d8@mail.30below.com>
Message-ID: <44CE720F.4030607@DakotaCom.Net>

Roger Merchberger wrote:
> Rumor has it that Don Y may have mentioned these words:
> 
>> Registration becomes the issue.
> 
> Are you speaking of registering 2-sided boards, or of problems that can 
> come from non-linearity of media for even single-sided boards?

Top to bottom.

>>   In my experience, it's just not
>> worth it, nowadays, unless you're making a HiFi amplifier or
>> something equally "non-dense".  Saving a couple of dollars on
>> a bare board just doesn't justify the cost (in time)
> 
> 1) experience of doing it yourself?
> 2) bragging rights?
> 3) need quick turnaround?
> 4) 1-off prototypes?
>
> Granted, depending on the application, none of these may apply... and 
> the costs of a hobby (time & $$) are *never* justifiable, unless 
> "Because I wanted to" is a valid justification. ;-)

Sure!  But, if you aren't prepared to take up MAKING BOARDS AS
A HOBBY (i.e. if you're just going to try it once or twice),
you'll probably be dissatisfied with the results.

And, if you take THAT up as a hobby, you may end up being
discouraged with how it forces you to approach projects
(e.g., having to avoid using certain packaging technologies).

I know that when a client "forces" ("strongly encourages"?)
me to use only certain technologies (e.g., for a board that
will have to be repaired in the field by folks who may
not be particularly skilled with a soldering iron  :> ),
it has a noticeable impact on the quality of the design
that I can produce.  Certain parts just aren't available
in thruhole technologies.  Certain other parts require
(very) expensive sockets (e.g., don't even try to do a BGA
design!).  Board size increases (this can also have mechanical
implications -- e.g., a tiny board rarely needs a stiffener
or other support).  Etc.

As I said, if you are making a HiFi amplifier or something
with reasonably low density parts (e.g., 1 DIP per sq in)
it's "doable".  But, if you are using this as a *tool* so
that you can make things that you want to *use* (i.e. the
"hobby" is the design and/or USE of the item and not it's
FABRICATION), then it just seems like a big timesink for
very little return.

>> E.g., why not make your own memory SIMM/DIMMs too?  :>
> 
> Someone was trying to make their own, but the board thickness might not 
> be a standard thickness for what's available in the hobbyist market, 
> IIRC... not to mention cutting the boards with the little notches & 
> whatnot may not be very easy in a hobbyist setting. Lasers good, Dremels 
> bad... ;-)

It's not even that... it just doesn't make sense to build
things like these (commodity parts) unless someone GIVES
you a small sh*tload of *chips* that you could otherwise
not use.  I went this route building 4MB memory "modules"
for an old Compaq 386 I had 15 years ago (compaq was charging
$150/MB).  It just wasn't worth the effort in the long run  :<

>> Years ago we had our own etch tank, wave, etc. and *still* ended
>> up pushing board fab to outside vendors (messy process).
> 
> Yes, but was that for 1-off prototype stuff, or for a run of boards? 
> Prototype boards are a lot more expensive compared to a run of 1000, or 
> even 100.

The etch tank was for prototypes.  For production, it didn't
make sense to do boards in house (the chemicals involved are
really nasty!).  But, we found that the time required to
make even small lots of prototype boards didn't justify the
hassle.  If you left the board in the etch tank too long,
you ended up with gaps in traces.  If you didn't leave it
in long enough, you ended up with solder bridges between them.

We even tried using metallic *tape* for some designs (a 2KV, 2KW
switcher) and found it didn't save you anything.

Nowadays, with 3 day boards (order *one*... they'll probably
make 3 - 6 and GIVE you the others!  :> ) it's easier to get
the design out of the way early and spend those few days
getting together the components you'll need, etc.

> But what do I know - I'm just the Village Idiot when it comes to board 
> manufacture... ;-)  [[ Done a lot of reading on it, have a couple of kit 
> systems, but never taken the time to do enough with it to get used to 
> it... ]]

If you want to do it to say you've *done* it, by all means, try it!
Just don't think of it as a way to save any real time/money.
Better to spend your time finding others that want a similar
design and go in together on a "lot".

--don


From walkerpa at ihug.co.nz  Mon Jul 31 16:18:52 2006
From: walkerpa at ihug.co.nz (Anna & Peter Walker)
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 09:18:52 +1200
Subject: HP 9000 Pascal 3.2 : HFS on HP9133L
In-Reply-To: <200607310442.k6V4fgFL008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <001701c6b4e6$ec6fde70$0201010a@phatboy>

> That would be me. I've been completely consumed for the past three months
> putting the Computer History Museum's software collection together. What I
> have pdf'ed is at bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/
>
> I need to get this stuff back to Joe ASAP.

Hi Al,
Thanks for the heads-up!  And a fanstastic reference site.

A clarification regarding the pascal 3.0 / 3.1 / 3.2 software which I'm
looking for, it is HP Pascal for HP 9000 Series 200/300 machines.  And is
anyone able to clarify whether the latest version was 3.5, as queried by
Bernd Kopriva in an earlier post?

Regards,
Peter
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/404 - Release Date: 31-07-2006



From doc at mdrconsult.com  Mon Jul 31 16:20:48 2006
From: doc at mdrconsult.com (Doc Shipley)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:20:48 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX (and the B2000)
In-Reply-To: <200607311906.k6VJ68pr005463@onyx.spiritone.com>
References: <200607311906.k6VJ68pr005463@onyx.spiritone.com>
Message-ID: <44CE7430.3000007@mdrconsult.com>

Zane H. Healy wrote:
>>Don't have anything that new; a C180 will run standard kbd/mouse and
>>perepherals just fine. 
> 
> 
> So does my B180L, though my first attempt to install failed as it didn't
> want to unmount the first CD.  Haven't had time to even consider a second
> try, or a non-automatic one.
> 
> 
> I think I have 8 or 9GB :^)  I might also be able to get my system above
> 256MB RAM *if* I'm lucky.

   Dunno why I didn't remember this before....

   Mel, at MC Howard in Austin, has a crapload of 32MB and 64MB memory 
modules for the C160 systems.  That's compatible with quite a few of the 
Cxxx and Bxxx systems.

   The URL is www.mchoward.com, they have an 800 number, and he ships 
internationally.

   Ask for Mel and tell him "Doc says you're selling that HP memory cheap."


	Doc


From brad at heeltoe.com  Mon Jul 31 16:27:03 2006
From: brad at heeltoe.com (Brad Parker)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:27:03 -0400
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:11:43 PDT."
	<44CE720F.4030607@DakotaCom.Net> 
Message-ID: <200607312127.k6VLR3Gt009402@mwave.heeltoe.com>


Don Y wrote:
>
>Nowadays, with 3 day boards (order *one*... they'll probably
>make 3 - 6 and GIVE you the others!  :> ) it's easier to get
>the design out of the way early and spend those few days
>getting together the components you'll need, etc.

I have to agree.  I used to make boards (long ago) with a light
sensitive resist, negatives and a tank, and I'd drill the holes and cut
the boards, etc...  it was a huge pain and a huge mess.  And mind you I
enjoyed it at the time (but it was still a huge pain).  The results were
ok, sometimes even nice, but not as good as what I can get today.

I use pcbexpress and 4pcb (advanced) and others and you just can't beat
the price.

I do little 2 layer boards all the time for customers and they cost $99
for 4-6 boards depending on the size.  I don't think I could buy the raw
boards and the chemicals for less than that.  And the time... well.

And, I just don't have time to live without plated vias anymore, to be
honest :-) maybe I've just gone soft, but I could never get the press on
letters to look as good as they do now with CAD.

it is possible I just love the magic of emailing a file and having the
UPS man deliver finished boards.  it's just so nice and clean.

-brad


From cclist at sydex.com  Mon Jul 31 16:30:46 2006
From: cclist at sydex.com (Chuck Guzis)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:30:46 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <44CE720F.4030607@DakotaCom.Net>
References: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
	<200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>
	
	<200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>
	<5.1.0.14.2.20060731164301.03b2c3d8@mail.30below.com>
	<44CE720F.4030607@DakotaCom.Net>
Message-ID: <200607311430460303.423277B7@10.0.0.252>

On 7/31/2006 at 2:11 PM Don Y wrote:

>If you want to do it to say you've *done* it, by all means, try it!
>Just don't think of it as a way to save any real time/money.
>Better to spend your time finding others that want a similar
>design and go in together on a "lot".

...one benefit that's not been mentioned is the advantage of having an
outside-produced board returned to you tinned with solder mask and
plated-through holes (and possibly silkscreen).  I couldn't imagine what it
takes to do a one-off of one as a "hobby".




From ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk  Mon Jul 31 16:43:32 2006
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:43:32 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Very strange Atari Printer
In-Reply-To: <000801c6b46e$e6e7f000$6401a8c0@dementium> from "Julian Wolfe" at
	Jul 31, 6 01:59:43 am
Message-ID: 

> 
> ...or just not bothering to look at the URL so they don't get the reason why
> the printer is so strange :/
> 
> So to those who replied with technical answers, LOOK AT THE PICTURE IN THE
> AUCTION.

Please rememebr that at least one of us reads mail off-line (so can't 
instantly look at a URL) and at least one of us has a text-only display 
on his home box (so can't display pictures).

On the other hand, I have realised what's going on, fortunately before I 
posted.

-tony


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 31 17:02:29 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:02:29 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607311430460303.423277B7@10.0.0.252>
References: <200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>	<200607310441.k6V4fgFD008153@dewey.classiccmp.org>		<200607311228030456.41C21E98@10.0.0.252>	<5.1.0.14.2.20060731164301.03b2c3d8@mail.30below.com>	<44CE720F.4030607@DakotaCom.Net>
	<200607311430460303.423277B7@10.0.0.252>
Message-ID: <44CE7DF5.8060904@DakotaCom.Net>

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 7/31/2006 at 2:11 PM Don Y wrote:
> 
>> If you want to do it to say you've *done* it, by all means, try it!
>> Just don't think of it as a way to save any real time/money.
>> Better to spend your time finding others that want a similar
>> design and go in together on a "lot".
> 
> ...one benefit that's not been mentioned is the advantage of having an
> outside-produced board returned to you tinned with solder mask and
> plated-through holes (and possibly silkscreen).  I couldn't imagine what it
> takes to do a one-off of one as a "hobby".

I had assumed it was "understood" that hobbyists max out at
two foil layers and nothing more  ;-)

I just like the fact that I can get "professional" boards
that are so much *smaller* and *tighter* than anything I could
reliably make myself.  Even the thru-hole boards are nice
and tight -- my last such design was 540 components (3700 holes)
in just about 70 sq in.  Doing that "by hand" stands very
little chance of happening  :>


From dgy at DakotaCom.Net  Mon Jul 31 17:07:18 2006
From: dgy at DakotaCom.Net (Don Y)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:07:18 -0700
Subject: toner transfer circuit board etching
In-Reply-To: <200607312127.k6VLR3Gt009402@mwave.heeltoe.com>
References: <200607312127.k6VLR3Gt009402@mwave.heeltoe.com>
Message-ID: <44CE7F16.5060609@DakotaCom.Net>

Brad Parker wrote:
> Don Y wrote:
>> Nowadays, with 3 day boards (order *one*... they'll probably
>> make 3 - 6 and GIVE you the others!  :> ) it's easier to get
>> the design out of the way early and spend those few days
>> getting together the components you'll need, etc.
> 
> I have to agree.  I used to make boards (long ago) with a light
> sensitive resist, negatives and a tank, and I'd drill the holes and cut
> the boards, etc...  it was a huge pain and a huge mess.  And mind you I
> enjoyed it at the time (but it was still a huge pain).  The results were

Sure.  "Therapeutic" to some degree.

> ok, sometimes even nice, but not as good as what I can get today.
> 
> I use pcbexpress and 4pcb (advanced) and others and you just can't beat
> the price.
> 
> I do little 2 layer boards all the time for customers and they cost $99
> for 4-6 boards depending on the size.  I don't think I could buy the raw
> boards and the chemicals for less than that.  And the time... well.

If you want "bragging rights" (i.e. to say you've done it), then
rational arguments are useless.  ;-)  But, it's sort of like
mowing the lawn when you are a kid; the first time is *cool*.
After that, you quickly understand why they call them CHORES!  :>

> And, I just don't have time to live without plated vias anymore, to be
> honest :-) maybe I've just gone soft, but I could never get the press on
> letters to look as good as they do now with CAD.
> 
> it is possible I just love the magic of emailing a file and having the
> UPS man deliver finished boards.  it's just so nice and clean.

I'd just rather spend my time doing something *creative* instead
of mundane!  :-/  I've got *really* nice wirewrap tools -- sitting
in a box in the garage!  :>


From aek at bitsavers.org  Mon Jul 31 18:24:31 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:24:31 -0700
Subject: Last version of HP Pascal for the 200
Message-ID: 


I don't think I've seen anything later than 3.2. The 3.2 ref manual was from
1989.

http://www.techsoft.de/htbasic/products.htm

Still sells it, their part number is 98617R. I suppose if someone were
curious enough, they could ask what rev that is.





From aek at bitsavers.org  Mon Jul 31 18:25:27 2006
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:25:27 -0700
Subject: Last version of HP Pascal for the 200
In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 




> From: Al Kossow 
> Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:24:31 -0700
> To: "classiccmp at classiccmp.org" 
> Conversation: Last version of HP Pascal for the 200
> Subject: Last version of HP Pascal for the 200
> 
> 
> I don't think I've seen anything later than 3.2. The 3.2 ref manual was from
> 1989.
> 
> http://www.techsoft.de/htbasic/products.htm
> 
> Still sells it, their part number is 98617R. I suppose if someone were curious
> enough, they could ask what rev that is.


http://www.tamsinc.com/pascal/index.htm

Claims 98617R is 3.2





From sieler at allegro.com  Mon Jul 31 18:11:19 2006
From: sieler at allegro.com (Stan Sieler)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 16:11:19 -0700
Subject: Not classic, but free: HP-UX
In-Reply-To: 
References: <16c342d7a7b4491a92d8dff561a0de18@valleyimplants.com>
Message-ID: <44CE2BA7.7915.110C151@localhost>

Re:

> Also, what are others' experiences with 3rd-party IDE CD-ROM drives, 

SCSI CD-ROM drives?  I've never tried an IDE one, and have not seen an
HP-UX system with one.

As for SCSI CD-ROM drives, I seem to recall that HP-UX seems to require a
particular block size (512 bytes?) to boot correctly ... and that early
Texel (renamed Plextor) SCSI drives didn't work with it.  I've booted
with a couple of non-HP SCSI external CD-ROM drives successfully.  (Sorry,
can't recall the name/model# ... will open a box up and look if needed.)

-- 
Stan Sieler
sieler at allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html